Canyons, lakes and a narrow escape

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.

August 8, 2023 2

FAQs

We get asked SO many questions whenever we tell people what we’re doing so we thought it would be fun to include a selection:

What are you doing about jobs?

I am taking a career break, and am due back on 1 July 2024; Joey was working a Fixed Term Contract which is due to finish on 31st March, so will just look for another job when we get back.

But you’ve just bought a house! What are you doing about that?

We’re letting it out – this will cover our mortgage and the majority of the storage costs.

So what are you doing with all your belongings?

Some things will be stored at Joey’s parents. Some bulky furniture and kitchen stuff is being put into storage and we’re giving some bulky furniture to charity.

How much is this costing you and how are funding it?

We’re planning on a budget of £50 each per day. Obviously some days we will spend less and some more. We have spent over 3 years saving for this trip – we were mortgage free for most of that time and we saved every penny we could. Our mortgage costs will be paid for by letting our house out.

How do you keep to your budget?

We use a travel budget app which we use to track all our expenses. We will cook ourselves where we can, choose reasonably priced accommodation, limit the alcohol we drink 😦 use public transport, taking overnight options where we can and they don’t arrive at 3am. We try and eat and travel like a local so we don’t eat out in swanky restaurants or every night. We’re happy to eat on the street and flag local buses down. We will walk for 30 minutes plus in 30 degree heat with our backpacks on rather than pay £2 for a tuk tuk!

How are you travelling around?

The majority of time will be overland and we want to travel as much as we can overland using public transport but we will take flights where necessary.

What happens if you need to come home?

Then we will come home! See Covid 2020 for an example of this 🙂

How much luggage are you taking with you?

I’m taking a 40 litre bag and Joey has 60 litres. This is all we have! We’re taking enough clothes for 5/6 days. Other countries have washing machines so we will use them or do hand washing.

Are you taking disposable underwear?

ACTUAL QUESTION.

NO. As above – washing machines are not exclusive to the UK.

What happens if it’s cold where you are?

Layers are your friend – a pair of leggings under a pair of trousers will be fine and I’m taking a shirt. We’ll be fine. They also have shops abroad.

Are you staying in hostels?

Yes- hostels will be part of our accommodation options. Even dorms! We’ll stay in a mix of hostels (some private rooms, some dorms), guesthouses, apartments, air bnbs, hotels etc. We’ll aim to get the most for our money but we’ll not stay in complete dives (hopefully).

How do you decide where you’re going?

We read a lot of travel books, watch vlogs, read blogs but our main source of information is probably Lonely Planet! Once we’re away we’ll talk to people and find out about places along the way. We generally have an idea of a rough route but often change as we’re going along.

Where are you flying to first?

We’re not flying! At the moment we don’t have any flights booked. We’re catching the Eurostar and our first stop is Bruges.

Are you working whilst you’re away?

No. We want to enjoy the experience as much as we can. Our work will be this blog 🙂

How will you keep connected?

Back in the dark ages of 2014 we solely relied on wifi and books. These days it’s very easy to pick up local SIM cards very cheaply, for example a month’s SIM card with unlimited data in Thailand costs less than £10.

What about Christmas?!

We actually have our plans for Christmas sorted! Joey’s birthday is 2 days before Christmas and we usually end up travelling on his birthday. Not this time though! We will be in Thailand, on our favourite beach. We have booked 10 days there and all being well Joey’s parents will be there and his brother and family will also join us for a few days.

Do you have any questions for us? Stick them in the comments below!

March 19, 2023 1

Voyage 3.0 – the prelude

We have just over 3 weeks to go so time for an update!

For those new here we are Joey and Becca, we have been together for nine years and married for five years. Very shortly after we met (four months) we were on a plane to Buenos Aires and travelling around South America for 5 months, before we headed to South East Asia for three months. That started our love of long term travel and three and half years ago we set off for India for the start of what we had planned to be a 18 month trip. We managed six months and covered two countries (India and Sri Lanka) before we had to fly back thanks to Covid! This means that we’ve pretty much spent the last three years talking about and planning for when we could go again.

So what’s the plan?

We’re starting in Europe, catching a Eurostar to Bruges, and we’re planning to canter (rather than meander) through Western Europe for the first three weeks until we reach the top of the Balkans. We’re planning on spending a bit of time meandering through the Balkans and into Turkey and onwards to Georgia and Armenia, maybe Azerbaijan if the land border’s open. Then it’s into the the Stans (Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan before catching a flight to somewhere in South East Asia. We’ll spend a few months hopping round South East Asia with the plan being to make it to Central America and down to a bit of South America,

When we were away in India we came up with the idea of visiting 40 countries before we were 40, Covid stopped that and the new plan is 44 before we are 44 – we should make this easily but subscribe below to find out how it’s going!

March 18, 2023 3

99 Days to go

We’re back! We kind of left you hanging when we left India in a hurry at the start of the pandemic. At the time we hoped we’d only be back for 3 months, and yet here we are, almost 3 years later making the commitment to travel long term again.

So here it is, we’re putting it out there – in 99 days time we will be hitting the road again for what we’re hoping and planning will be our longest travels yet. Before we tell you more of that, let’s take a step back.

We raced back from India, leaving our last destination of Khajuraho on 16th March, we took an overnight train back to Delhi where we were due to arrive in at 5.25am and at 5am we booked a flight back to the UK leaving at 9am that day so we had a dash to the airport! We grabbed the first taxi driver we saw and made it clear that we were in a hurry so we piled the bags into the cab, hopped in and were ready to yell ‘go go go’ like we were in Race Across the World. Only the driver was outside, casually taking his time blessing his taxi. We’d spent 4 months in India and this was first time we’d seen this happen and we definitely could have done without it then!

We’d rented our flat out so Joey’s parents kindly took us in! Eventually it became clear that we weren’t going anywhere anytime soon, so we got jobs and saved saved saved. We also sold the flat and bought a bungalow!

I think every single day since we got back we have talked about when we would go travelling again and where we would go. At one point we thought about leaving in September last year but decided with what we wanted to do it might be better to wait til Spring, that and wanting to get through one more winter to make sure covid doesn’t do anything stupid…

So what’s the plan?

Well we have a ticket booked…. To Bruges! Our plan is to travel through Europe overland, to Turkey, Georgia, Azerbaijan and through the Stans. After that (in an ideal world) we would continue overland through China but if that can’t happen then we’ll take a flight and continue overland through South East Asia. We’d also then love to do Central America and we have the funds to be away for at least a year. So yeah, in 99 days time if all is well we will be on the road again.

99 days isn’t that long and we have a lot to do before then, there’s jobs to be done around the bungalow to get it ready to be let and lots of planning and preparation to do. We have fitness and health goals to aim for as well. We want to keep this blog up to date and to share some tips for preparing for long term travel so we will be working on this blog as well. We also have full time jobs so the next few months are going to be jam packed but let the fun begin!

January 2, 2023 1