Community: Real Life

Kind Kazhaks


Ants and Jo

Taxi for two from Bangkok to Brighton? Ants Bolingbroke-Kent and Jo Huxter aim to cross 12 countries by tuk-tuk, and raise £50,000 for Mind.
Entry: 12
Date: 13/07/2006

Tukking ever closer to the West, our tuk-tukkers discover Kazakh generosity and culinary 'delights'.

Almaty, Kazakhstan

Jo writes...

We woke up at 6.45am yesterday morning and packed up Ting Tong (TT) before leaving Saryam Lake and heading to the border. Well, that was the plan anyway. It was about 5C and bloody freezing. Our fingers went numb and we had problems undoing TT's dressing gown (pink rain covers). Once everything was loaded Ants turned the key in the ignition. Can you guess what happened next? Nothing! As I have previously said, TT is a tropical tuk tuk and doesn't like the cold. We tried to start her on and off for about 20 minutes, pausing so we didn't flood the engine. She did start three times, but cut out straight away.

Jack, Ants and myself tried to haul her backwards up a slope, but she was too heavy. Eventually, some locals turned up and we pushed her up onto the road, before bump starting her successfully. Drama over and it was only about 8am. Ants found the whole experience quite stressful, while I chose to laugh and use the opportunity to kick start my nicotine fix. I would have started to get stressed if the bump start hadn't worked, but in these situations you either laugh or cry and I chose the former.

Finally we set off towards the border, all of us shivering violently against temperatures we were not dressed for and hadn't experienced in a few months. We stopped briefly for breakfast and then tukked the last 30km to the border. It was totally packed with Kazakh families who had just been visiting China for the weekend. Unlike the other border crossings, this one was packed with people and vehicles. What's more, all our luggage had to go through an airport scanner. The whole process of scurrying around to sort out passports and to check vehicle documents took the best part of two hours, but thanks to Jack we were processed more quickly than many others. We were fretting about getting to the Kazakh side before their lunch break, because we still had nearly 400km of driving before reaching Almaty.

We hugged Jack and said goodbye. I burst into tears and felt incredibly sad to be leaving both him and China. The moment of truth arrived and we entered the Kazakh side. A soldier dressed in khaki and spitting sunflower husks onto the floor greeted us and hopped into TT with his rifle slung from his shoulder. So far so good. We drove past all of the other vehicles and went straight into the compound where we needed to get ourselves and TT processed. We smiled nervously at the border staff and Ants used her Russian skills to find out what we needed to do next. It seemed that we needed to get all of our luggage scanned again - what a pain. A man approached with a trolley and asked for $10 to take our luggage through. I got a bit stroppy with him and said no, took the trolley from his hands and loaded our luggage myself, with Ants helping.

Ants had handed the guards our Russian press release, which they read. Then, our Guardian Angel arrived. We both think that he was an important border official and he took us under his wing. After asking if we had any contraband, he told us not to bother getting our luggage scanned again. We were then pushed to the front of the queue with our passports, which were quickly stamped. Then, we drove a few yards to get TT processed. The paperwork was all organised within quarter of an hour and we were told to get vehicle insurance in Almaty. Finally, the kind officer (who was quite handsome and early middle aged) gave me a plastic bag. In this bag were litres of cold drink, a box of chocolates and two Russian dolls. We asked about changing money, but they did not know what to do with our traveller's cheques and so the border official then gave us about $40 of local money. Ants and I were both speechless at the generosity of this man we had never met.

The drive to Almaty was over 350km and we had heard mixed reports about the state of the tarmac. Some people had said the drive would take us six hours, others eight hours and one even estimated 12 hours. The road had a few potholes, but we could still travel a good 40mph. The scenery was quite stunning. Initially flat with mountains on either side, then becoming grass covered sand dunes, then through some mountains and then flat again with mountains on either side. At one point it was so windy we were reduced to 30mph, with Ants gripping the handle bars with all her might so we didn't get blown back to China.

We stopped to fill up with petrol and I was pleased that I could fill TT up myself. However, the nozzle lever got jammed and I squirted petrol all over the petrol station and myself at a great velocity. A man then came and did the job for me, but he wouldn't listen to me about putting the nozzle in to TT too far. I smugly watched as the petrol squirted out back at him - why will nobody listen to us about TT's anatomy? I guess they just like to learn the hard way.

"I got attacked by a Bride of Frankenstein dentist with facial hair and inch-thick kohl eyeliner"

The roads were fine and the potholes did not slow us down much. We drove into Almaty at just after 8pm and got a tiny bit lost trying to find the apartment we were renting. We finally located Ants's mum and the apartment and unloaded TT. The fears have been banished and Kazazhstan looks to be a whole new and wonderful experience, although I desperately miss China still.

Ants writes...

Jo has gone off to collect Ting Tong's insurance and left me to start writing an article for the Mail on Sunday, so I thought I'd do a very quick blog.

We've been in Almaty for almost three days now and it's been crazy. Almaty is so expensive, statistically more so than Washington DC and Boston and with more Porsche Cayenne's per capita than anywhere else in the world. Jo and I are both finding it very odd being in the Western world again; being bereft of chopsticks and Jack (not in that order) and are looking forward to hitting the road again. 

We'll write more tomorrow as its been a very funny few days. I got attacked by a Bride of Frankenstein dentist with facial hair and inch-thick kohl eyeliner, we've been hanging out with the Kazakhstan Feminist League (long story), I found a huge maggot in my salad at a 'snazzy' restaurant, we've drunk fermented mare's and camel's milk and today we had a press conference organised by the British Embassy with a scary amount of TV crews and newspapers! More soon and love from us both...

 

 

 


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