border crossing – Meandering Maxwells

It feels as though I open every blog with a dramatic border crossing, and today is no different! I was still feeling a bit poorly in Tashkent and it was 40 degrees so we decided that we’d treat ourselves to a taxi to the train station rather than sweat like pigs on the metro. We asked our hotel an hour in advance to arrange one, told him where we were going and which train we were getting so he had all the information to hand. We went downstairs about 10 minutes before we needed to to check out and get our registration slips (Uzbekistan takes foreigner registration very seriously and when you check out of somewhere you have to get a little slip of paper which states how long you stayed somewhere). We got our latest slip and I checked it and the dates were incorrect, I questioned him and he said it would be fine, everything was online etc, etc) this was the first clue that perhaps he wasn’t the best at attention to detail.

Then he ordered our taxi on the Yandex app (the soviet equivalent to Uber) and said it would be 3 minutes, 3 minutes came and went, then another 3 minutes, we kept checking with him and making sure he knew we needed to catch a train. After about 20 minutes I was starting to get a little bit anxious and was saying to Joey that we needed to leave NOW, and we said that to the guy. I then insisted that we go to the street to flag one down and even that took over 5 minutes! We were cutting it fairly fine at this point as Uzbek railways like you to be there to check in for your train 30 minutes in advance. Eventually a cab did stop and he said a price which we just agreed to straightaway, no time for messing and bartering at this point! We had a really nice guy who spoke a little bit of English and who’s sister lives in the UK. We were a way into our journey when Joey checked Google maps and realised we were heading in the wrong direction- the hotel receptionist had told him to go to the wrong train station! The taxi driver wasn’t convinced that we were right until we’d shown him our tickets and all he said was ‘good say’ before making a quick u-turn. He was great though and got us there just after the 30 minute slot and boy did we run with our rucksacks – I felt like we were on the BBC show ‘Race across the world’. It was really stressful thinking we might miss it if they didn’t let us on so we really tried to race through the security checks. Thankfully two very sweaty and stressed people made it!

That was not the end of the stress though! We still had a border crossing to do, and you may remember from the last blog that we were carrying illegal goods with us! Leaving Uzbekistan the train guards came and collected our passports so I thought that might be straightforward and we’d be ok, but then the border guards boarded the train with sniffer dogs and wanted everyone to open their bags. Thankfully Joey had hidden the drone in a packing cube of clothes! They checked the bags a few times and even asked us if we had a ‘helicopter’ before clarifying that they meant a drone and it’s not my proudest moment to admit that I lied to a border official and denied that we did indeed have a drone. Before too long thought the train guards were back with our passports and we were on a short journey to the Kazakhstan border. This time the border guards boarded with a small handheld computer and sat at a table seat with passengers taking it turn to sit opposite them and have their passports scanned, pictures taken and getting the vital stamp. Then the dogs and border guards were back on board for the luggage checks. I found the whole experience so stressful, knowing I’d lied earlier and having everyone in close proximity in the carriage watching the two foreigners was almost too much to bear! Thankfully everything was fine and before we knew it we were In Shymkent, a very narrow escape!

We spent a pleasant morning exploring Shymkent, there were a surprising number of green parks and a lot of WWII memorials. The next day we were catching a night train and so we decided to take ourselves to a town a couple of hours away called Turkestan, which is home to a mausoleum of Kozha Akhmed Yasaui, and is described as Kazakhstan’s most beautiful piece of architecture, the best piece of man-made beauty in the whole of the country! So with those words I was keen to go, and we were a little underwhelmed! Maybe if we’d visited before we went to Uzbekistan it would have been better but the place was half finished! There was wooden scaffolding in place and the tiling hadn’t been finished at the front! Ok, so the guy who commissioned it had died before it was finished but you can see what I mean, the rest of it was nice, but it just didn’t wow us in the same way all the buildings in Uzbekistan had. It was however a good way to spend a homeless day.

You can see the wooden scaffolding on the inside of the arch of this photo

I had pushed the boat out with the finances and booked us a first class cabin on the train, which meant it just had two beds in. This was great for us, it meant we could sleep in peace without well meaning people forcing us to eat meat. We locked the door and both slept fairly well. I got up around 4am to go to the toilet and all was well, a little later, when I wanted to go again I tried the door and it wouldn’t open, at first I thought I was being weak, but it soon became apparent that the door was stuck, possibly locked from the outside, we pressed the attendant’s bell but no one came! I was getting a little panicky at this point, definitely a new fear unlocked of getting stuck in a train carriage! At this point we decided to just hammer on the door and hope someone heard us! We were hammering for a good 5 minutes before someone came to our rescue and it took a little while before we were freed! At that point I decided the door was staying open!

We arrived into our hostel and were able to shower before heading out to explore. Almaty was again full of green parks which surprised us, we also visited a catholic cathedral, which was constructed from wood but you wouldn’t have known this if you hadn’t been told.

We had arranged for a private two day the next day to take us the Charyn Canyon and to the Kolsai lakes, it’s pretty hard to get there on public transport which is why we opted for a tour. We had a great tour guide named Sergey and a very comfy car which was just as well given some of the terrain we went over! We started off going to the main canyon where we walked for 2km down to a river, it was about 31 degrees at the top of the canyon but inside the canyon it felt about 45 degrees so it was hot! We had a little paddle in the river when we got there and then walked back which was hard going due to the heat. It was beautiful down amongst the rocks though, we then walked up to the top to view it from above.

After this we drove on to another canyon, the moon canyon, then stone shelf canyon, the Austrian view and the black canyon! There was a lot of very hot canyons and they were all quite different, we had to go off road across some really rugged terrain to get to these which meant there was no one else but us there. Driving along some of the main roads to get there meant that we encountered lots of animals in the road such as cows and donkeys! Seeing donkeys instantly made me sing the Christmas song ‘little donkey’ and I don’t think Sergey knew what to make of me singing this song and trying to explain that it was a Christmas song.

That evening we were staying in a guesthouse which was probably nicer that a lot of accommodation we’ve stayed in! The thing I liked the though was the dinner, or rather a peculiar element of dinner! We were served what Sergey kept referring to as ‘cookies’ but definitely looked and tasted more like crisps, which you were meant to dip into jam and honestly it was the tasty combination ever! I don’t know if I was just making up for not eating much over the past couple of weeks but I couldn’t get enough of these!

The next day we were headed to the main event, to Kolsoi lakes, the first lake was Kaindy lake, formed about a hundred years after an earthquake. The lake that formed flooded a forest and left lots of tree trunks to form a unique view known as the sunken forest and it was quite beautiful. We had a lovely walk around the lake and dipped our toes into the river again – it was freezing! To get to this lake we had to drive through a river to reach it!

After lunch we headed to Kolsai lakes, which is the most famous lake and has a beautiful view of it between the mountains. It was nice, but overcrowded and we preferred Kaindy lake.

We headed back for a night in Almaty before heading off early the next day to Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan. We had planned on one night in the capital before heading to Karakol in the mountains. The topography/ public transport system was slightly frustrating as we’d been almost parallel with Karakol when we were at Kolsai lakes but public transport limited us to going via Bishkek (unless you wanted to pay a fortune for a taxi) we were lucky upon arriving into Bishkek though as we met some of the nicest people we’d met so far. We met a Slovenian guy who we spent the evening with drinking beer and hopefully inspiring him to quit his job and travel longer term. We also met Ombi and Alex who we kept in touch with and who ended up in the same hostel as us in Karakol.

The journey to Karakol was pretty uneventful, just long, it we had great views of Lake Issyk-kul along the route. Issyk-Kul is actually the second largest alpine lake in the world, after Lake Titicaca in Bolivia /Peru. Kyrgyzstan is very accessible for many long treks, but we opted out of doing any! We instead had a day padding around the town, visiting the cathedral (again constructed of wood) as well as the Dungan mosque – the Dungans are an ethnic Muslim group originally from China and the Chinese influence was evident in the mosque which resembled more a Chinese temple.

We visited the lake beach two days in a row which was very pleasant. We also went to the hot springs which I’d been looking forward to going to. It was an effort to get to as not all the marshrutkas (local minibuses) went there and when we got the one we wanted it didn’t go to the hot springs so we ended up getting off, walking and waiting and bickering about the whole thing. Then when we made it there the springs were really tiny and the first pool which you had to walk through was SCALDING. It was almost impossible to walk through. Then when we did make it to the main pool there were loads of dead flies. It was such a disappointment! We ended up staying 20 minutes! The only thing that saved the day was when we were waiting for a bus back a car stopped and gave us a free lift back to Karakol. I’m not sure if we had a bad day or something as we heard from Ombi a few days after that they’d had a great time when they went.

We spent our evenings in Karakol strolling round a park, the temperature dropped to about 20 degrees and it felt like an English summer evening – it was so much more pleasant than the high 30s/ low 40s we’d been used to! We also went with Ombi and Alex to an evening at another hostel which put on traditional Kyrgyz music which consisted of low singing and playing an accordion. It was a little bizarre at times but good fun.

We left very early on a Tuesday morning to get back to Bishkek before heading back to Almaty to catch our flight to Thailand. We were on the 8am Marshrutka and us and the driver were the only sober passengers. The bus was full of extremely drunk men who were either passed out or who were bothering us. They kept trying to talk to us or to touch us. At one point one of the men got up and went to the front and ripped the driver’s sunglasses from his head! He was not happy about this but at no point did he threw him off the bus! After a short break he did make him sit in the front next to him, presumably thinking that he’d been able to keep an eye on him from there! We were very glad to reach Bishkek in one piece and we just wanted to make it to Almaty.

We took the first bus we reasonably could the next day and thankfully made it to Almaty without any drama. We had one night in a hotel close to the airport and spent the afternoon messing around in the pool, sauna and steam room to gear ourselves up for our flight to South East Asia.

Central Asia was different to anywhere we’d been and the language barrier made it hard going at times but I’m glad that we went. We had originally intended to visit Tajikistan on this trip but we changed our minds during the planning for a couple of reasons – mainly because we’d have to re-enter Uzbekistan to leave Tajikistan as the border with Kyrgyzstan is currently closed due to their war and we couldn’t face going through the drone drama again! I’m sure we will be back to visit Tajikistan in the not distant future though as we’d love to spend time driving the Pamir highway.

We hadn’t originally planned to go to Greece but with the change of route to visit Kosovo and North Macedonia earlier it made sense to cross from the south of Albania into mainland Greece. We opted for Thessaloniki as a good point between Albania and Bulgaria. There wasn’t a great deal of information about getting between the two countries (unless you wanted to get the ferry from Sarandë to Corfu). I thought we may end up having to cross the border to a small town and then try and find an onward connection. I spotted a travel agency next to where the bus dropped us in Gjirokastër and as luck would happen they ran one bus a day to Thessaloniki at 6am so we booked ourselves onto that.

There was a guy to greet us in the morning who kept us up to date with when the bus was expected and it was all very smooth. We arrived quickly to the border and had to take all our luggage out before crossing into Greece. The border officials were physically searching everyone’s bags and when we arrived to them they asked if we’d got our stamp, asked where we were from and then just waved us on. I later found out that this was a popular route for local drug smuggling hence the checks and probably why we, as ‘foreigners’ were waved on.

We arrived into Thessaloniki around 4pm, the bus had emptied out by this point and it was us and one other person left on it! We dropped our luggage at our apartment and went for an orientation walk to get some supplies and just check out the city.

We spent our time in Thessaloniki exploring the ruins, checking out the famous white tower, the fortress (we just can’t get enough of them) and many churches. We also spent more time than we should have sheltering from a torrential storm in a church porch! We did something In Thessaloniki that we wouldn’t usually do, and that was pay for a nights accommodation that we didn’t use! We’d booked a night bus to Bulgaria that didn’t leave until 00.30 and we couldn’t face being homeless until midnight so we kept our accommodation and honestly, it was the best thing we did! If we were leaving that late again I’d do the same.

We knew we were due to reach the border of Bulgaria around 2am so we didn’t think there was much point trying to get any sleep before then. This was a very efficient border crossing, with the exit and entry windows actually being next to each other! The Bulgarian border guards were pretty tough though and wanted to know where we were staying, how long for and where we were going after that.

We eventually got a couple of hours sleep at around 5am when most people got off the bus at Sofia and I stretched right out, legs across the aisle! We met a really nice Greek guy on the bus who was off to Istanbul and insisted on feeding us lots of snacks.

We had another unexpected bus change and eventually arrived into Burgas at 12noon. We stepped off the bus and we’re greeted by the sound of air raid sirens. This was a little concerning to us and everyone around us stopped and stood still. We had arrived on 2nd June which is the day of Botev, who died for the freedom and independence of Bulgaria.

We had to walk to another bus station to catch a bus to Sozopol and I think i experienced a bit of a culture shock as we walked between the two stations as we were greeted by a completely different alphabet.

We went to Sozopol purely for the beach and it was nice to hear from a few people who when they found out where we were, said that they loved Sozopol! The beaches were sandy and it was great to have a bit of relaxation time and not do anything. One of the days was overcast and very windy but we used that day to check out the old town and catch up on a few things.

We had booked a 12noon bus to Istanbul from the nearby town of Burgas and we’d been trying to get some Turkish Lira in Sozopol to no avail. We changed our leftover Lev into Euros with the plan of trying to get some lira in Burgas. We left our bags at the bus company office and headed off to the exchange office and got what we needed, we headed quickly back to the bus station when we were shouted out by a Public Officer. He motioned for us to come to him and in broken English said ‘red man, no’ it turns out we’d broken the law by crossing the road on a red man! We had checked before crossing and it was clear, but we were obviously in the wrong. He had a colleague with him and we apologised profusely. He then demanded to see our documents so we had to hand over our passports! I was getting worried at this point, would we have to pay a fine or worse, would we have to go to the police station and potentially miss our bus? He glanced at our passports we said sorry again and promised not to do it again and thankfully he let us off. Definitely a lesson learnt there!

We arrived to the Turkish border and I think we were there for over two hours. We were behind a huge bus which had come from Ukraine and was full of women and children. It was noticeable how many vehicles at that border crossing were from Ukraine. I tried not to mind the delay too much knowing what they were fleeing. We had to have our bags x-rayed and they insisted on putting ours through twice. Mine passed second time but they were very interested in Joey’s and gave his a thorough search. They seemed to think that he had two cameras so we had to open up packing cubes to show that we didn’t. Unpacking and repacking your backpack at the border isn’t ideal and we were conscious that we were holding up everyone else on the bus! I really felt for Joey having to repack his backpack under pressure, with the incident in Burgas we were not having a good travel day!

We thankfully arrived into Istanbul without further incident and I had ticked off my 44th country before I am 44! When we were in India we came up with the idea of visiting 40 countries before we were 40 but Covid put paid to that so we set a new goal and I reached that with a year and a bit to go! I need a new goal now, 50 before 50 is probably too easy, as maybe 60 before 60 so maybe I need to aim for 80 before 80?!

Tag: border crossing

Canyons, lakes and a narrow escape

The one where we nearly got arrested