A motorbike trip Siberia → Mongolia → Altai → Kazakhstan → Moscow: Part 2. Altai, Kazakhstan and Moscow

Russia. The Altai Republic. Day 14.
In the morning we had to say goodbye to the guys. Within these two weeks we had become a real team and it was a little bit sad to part. Now Oleg and I are going to continue our journey together, just the two of us.

All the stuff was repacked and loaded onto the motorbikes. We left at 10 a.m. and headed north along the Chuya Highway.
As we were proceeding, the nature was changing. The mountains gradually acquired vegetation and soon the slopes were covered with dense forest.

The Chuya river, along which the highway winds repeating its bends, was becoming fuller and faster.At the village called Aktash we turned off the federal highway and went along the road, which was leading to Lake Teletskoye. This is one of the most interesting places in Altai. The lake is situated 175 km from Aktash. First, you are going 50 km up to the Ulagan village along an asphalt road, where you can come round to the last petrol station. Then you will be proceeding along a gravel coating. There are rocks and dust.

A lot of dust! We climbed to an altitude of 2000 m, which offered such gorgeous views! We were making frequent stops to admire the landscape and take pictures. Altai differs from Mongolia a lot. There is a riot of greenery, mountains, rivers, waterfalls…

We descended along the rocky, steep serpentine into the gorge. The road leaded us through a canyon along a bubbling river. We had to go around the huge boulders that once had fallen from steep cliffs, between which the river winded. What a beauty!

We reached Lake Teletskoye when it had already got dark and settled in a separate wooden house in one of the camp sites.

Russia. The Altai Republic. Day 16.
Lake Teletskoye looks like it was squeezed into a gorge and stretched for several dozens kilometers. What's more, it is surrounded by mountains.

The lake has got clean cold water and sandy beaches nearby. There are several camp sites offering accommodation, meals and various excursions. This is just a very beautiful place!
After having a walk along the shore in the morning, we left and headed back. We experienced 125 km of stones and dust again, had lunch in Ulagan and went on the Chuya highway.

It is a very picturesque road! On the left you see the Chuya river bubbling whereas on the right there are mountains. The asphalt coating is excellent and the weather is fine! What else does a motorbike traveler may wish to be happy? The Chuya highway is a federal track, which was built at the beginning of the last century. It originates in Novosibirsk and goes to the border with Mongolia.

Its length is 960 km. Having walked about 200 km, we saw an interesting monument at the left roadside. It was dedicated to the builders of this highway. The idea of the monument was taken from a song about a chauffeur and his girlfriend and its lyrics were stamped on the pedestal. The poem is great!

Here you can also see and even drive along the old section of Chuya track, which was built in the 1920s by GULAG prisoners.
That day we did not reach Gorno-Altaysk, as had been expected, because after it had got dark the temperature dropped sharply and it became very cold. We stayed overnight at a roadside hotel that was 120 km from the city.

Russia → Kazakhstan. Day 18.
At 11 a.m. we left Barnaul and went towards the border with Kazakhstan. It was about 350 km away. The traffic was quite dense until we went for 50 km away from the city. The landscape was monotonous. Combine harvesters were plowing the fields, raising dust storms and KAMAZ trucks loaded with grain were rushing by. The weather was hot. We went 200 km non-stop. Then we made a stop at a petrol station. We refueled our vehicles and decided to clean the air filters, since fuel consumption increased significantly because of taking a speed of 150...160 km/h. After those Mongolian roads it was a good idea to do! I have never seen such terribly dirty filters! It seemed I could even plant potatoes in them.
It took us an hour to cross the border. We had no problem with it. And now we are in another country! Let's head for some new adventures!
"Hello, Kazakhstan! We've arrived!"

"Hello, Andrey Nikolaevich!" was the Kazakhstan's reply pronounced by a narrow-eyed traffic officer, who examined my documents. "Where did you come from? And why are you breaking the rules? Here you have exceeded the speed limit... by 16 km/h... Actually, here the fines are quite significant," the inspector's strict and at the same time pleased face expression did not bode well (for me and my wallet). Well, and then the painfully familiar phrases proceeded "Where are you from? Where are going to? Why were you so inattentive? Can you have failed to see the sign there? Yes... Shall we file a protocol?", etc. I said that I didn't have the local currency, as I hadn't had time to exchange it yet. The officer answered me that it was okay and I could pay the fine with roubles. It resulted into two thousand roubles per a person! And this sum is a half of the official fine. Everything was quite fair... Oleg was penalised as well.

At the border I was warned that the regulations differed there. And indeed there was a huge number of traffic officers! They stood at every turn and hid behind every bush with a radar!
In the evening we arrived in Ust-Kamenogorsk. That day we had overcome 500 km. And there were still 1100 km to Almaty left...

Kazakhstan. Day 19.
The federal highway from Ust-Kamenogorsk to Taldykurgan turned out to be a complete shit! Some sections looked like as if after having been bombed. It wasn't always possible to slip between the pits even by motorbike. In Mongolia some ground roads in the field were better, without any exaggeration!

We are heading for Almaty. The landscape is rather monotonous and dull. It is a steppe with no beginning and no ending, which is crossed with straight line of a broken road going to the horizon. If there weren't pits and bumps (and the traffic cops weren't popping up out of nowhere with radars), I think, we could even fall asleep.

In the evening we arrived in the small town called Sarkand. There were about 150 km left to Taldykorgan, a centre of a region, but it would be quite risky to continue our way along such a road. So we managed to find the only hotel in this area and stayed overnight in it. Today's mileage was 670 km.

Kazakhstan. Day 20.
After Taldykorgan the highway turned into a four-lane highway.However, a new asphalt was still being laid in some sections, therefore, there were signs of speed limits (50 km/h and 30 km/h). We were facing them literally at every kilometre!

And, of course, the valiant Kazakh traffic officers were on duty tirelessly. We had never met that arrogant and greedy cops in any country before!
Almaty greeted us with a very dense traffic and narrow lanes, which did not allow us to move quickly. Even the Moscow traffic congestions are not that bad. Having ridden through a huge city, I met only one biker on a Harley motorbike. Two-wheeled vehicles are not popular here and what's more, motorbikes are even prohibited in the city centre! What a discrimination! Almaty is quite a modern city with luxury hotels, restaurants, casinos… You can often see expensive foreign cars on the roads, so all these Bentley and Porsche Cayennes won't be a surprise for anyone! And this fact makes a huge contrast between the province and the capital! Actually, the same situation you experience in Russia. :( We came up to a pompous Royal Tulip Hotel, where my mate Dimka Marov was already waiting for us. Our meeting was warm: hugs, patting each other's backs, pictures with motorbikes. Finally we did it!

And then we checked in, went to the sauna with a swimming pool, enjoyed a massage of the whole body and had wonderful dinner in a restaurant, where we tried beshbarmak (a national Kazakh dish prepared from mutton). It was very tasty!

Frankly speaking, already after sauna my body began to give me warning signals. Peep... peep... peep... low battery! The energy has run out! The fatigue, which had been accumulated within three weeks of riding a motorbike, exceeded the critical mark and began to turn off all the energy-consuming systems of my body and mind. I barely crawled to the bed and... the screen went out.

 

Kazakhstan. Days 21 and 22
One relaxing day was absolutely necessary.The thing is, three weeks of constant tension made a certain impact on my body and I already felt that the accumulated fatigue slowed down my reactions, so it took me more time to make the decisions. And I got tired physically as well. To sum up, 3000 km passed along the Mongolian and Altai cross-country are far from the leisure rides...
We had been sleeping until lunchtime and then Dima took us on an excursion to Chembulak, which is a local ski resort. We went to an altitude of 3200 m with the help of the cable cars.The weather was quite cool but the views were stunning!

Even the top was still covered with the snow.
The following morning took us more than an hour to get out of Almaty. The thing is, we were squeezing through a dense traffic of the crawling cars. The night before we had changed our plans for the trip back. The experienced warned us that the road to Astana across Balkhash was in very poor condition and recommended to go across Shymkent and then proceed further to Aktobe and Orenburg.

Indeed, the four-lane highway to Shymkent turned out to be in excellent condition, therefore we managed to cover a 875 km distance and get to Turkestan before sunset. All the way long we were enjoying the view of the Tian Shan mountain range on the left. The highest peaks were covered with snow. And on the right there was the steppe with no beginning and no ending.

To our surprise, this time we weren't seized by the traffic cops' sticky and greedy hands. We were quite lucky! Either they were busy with other "clients", or the oncoming drivers would warn us...

Kazakhstan. Day 23.
The motorway from Turkestan to Aralsk is absolutely gorgeous! It is as straight as a line, has almost perfect coverage and there's minimal traffic. Also there are few stupid restriction signs and traffic officers, so we we're able to go at a high speed. 140...160 km/h does make a difference!

The landscape was gradually changing and began to resemble the northern Gobi desert: steppe going over the horizon, sand, rare bushes and thorns. And soon we saw camels! We passed by Kyzylorda but decided to make a stop in Baikonur. However, we weren't allowed to pass the checkpoint, which was no wonder.

You can't see the launch pads, since they are located several dozens of kilometers from the checkpoint. But the guard allowed me to take a photo and even joined it. The thought that we could try to get there across the steppe came in a flash, however, reason of mind won and we decided not to search for new adventures... We have already experienced quite a lot of them... :)
We arrived in Aralsk before dark and the odometer showed 750 km of today's mileage. Aralsk used to be a fishing town. Once there had been many fishing boats at the pier, but then the sea left (far away, for dozens of kilometers). The government program aimed at agricultural progress, which was being conducted in the last decades of the USSR, resulted into the shallowing of the Syr Darya and Amu Darya rivers. And since they had been feeding the Aral Sea, after such process the sea itself began to disappear.

But now it is gradually reviving and even the fish processing plants have started functioning in the town again. Aralsk is a small town consisting of one-storey houses. Everything here looks like it was stuck in the 80...90s of the last century. So it took us an effort to find quite a decent place to stay overnight! The central hotel Aral appeared to be such a sad sight that I would rather spend the night in a tent! The fact that all the renovations had last been done in it at the USSR time was beyond question. That's why we stayed in a small private hotel near the railway station.

Kazakhstan → Russia. Day 24.
Today we're going to get to Russia. Well, Kazakhstan turned out to be very big! We have been going across it for three days already! This country can be described in a few words: the endless steppe, herds of camels and horses, rare villages, a gorgeous highway and a lack of petrol stations.

We had a certain problem with fuel. The first petrol station was only 300 km away from Aralsk. And it wasn't functioning! I was okay with it, since I had to refuel my motorbike every 500 km, but Oleg was quite nervous. He shallowed the tank completely twice! The locals from the nearest villages helped us by selling a little gasoline, which wasn't that good, for quite a high price. Anyway, we were very happy to have such a chance.

Several times we rode off the highway to chase the camels and race along the dried-up lakes that had turned into salt marshes.

The sight was beautiful but insidious! Under the white sheet of crystal salt there was viscous swamp hidden... And getting into it by motorbike could end badly.

There are 770 km from Aralsk to the border with Russia. It took us seven and a half hours to overcome this distance. Another 40 minutes to cross the border and... here we are in Russia! Our motherland greeted us with rain, broken roads and an air temperature of +10°C. The last 170 km up to Orenburg we went in complete darkness, frozen and soaked. As a result of the day, we overcame 940 km, crossed the border and stayed in Orenburg, at a luxury hotel of the same name. When we were approaching the town, I tried to recall something about it, but unfortunately, all my knowledge was limited to a song about a downy shawl... :( Well, I'll take a chance to fill in this gap!

 

Russia. Day 25.
A morning walk around the centre of Orenburg turned out to be quite interesting and educative. A wide, well-groomed Sovetskaya Street stretched along several quarters and led us to the monument to Chkalov and the Ural river embankment. Yeah, exactly, the one that Chapaev hadn't managed to swim across. It also divides the two "parts of the world". We crossed the suspended pedestrian bridge (went from Europe to Asia) and returned back by the cableway. This one is unique, because you can make such a trip only here. :)

There are many monuments to Pushkin in this town. The writer appeared to come here to collect historical material about the Pugachev's rebellion and then wrote a book named "The Captain's Daughter".
After crossing the bridge we found ourselves in a park with merry-go-rounds and a boat station. Everything was functioning, but there were no people yet. All because it was quite an early morning and everyone was still sleeping after Friday.

The whole town is full of hoardings and posters depicting a bit overweight and not candidates for the election. They say all you need to live happily ever after is to come and vote for... well, for example, for that guy with a smiling and shining face! Apparently, the Communist Party is quite popular with the residents. Eh, "election polls mean deputies are ass...", so to say.

A wonderful cappuccino with a piece of "Napoleon" cake while reading a "Morning star" newspaper completed our promenade. In fact, the newspaper was called "Аргументы и факты" (Arguments and facts), but the coffee was really fine.

At lunchtime we left for Samara. About 1500 km were left to home...

Russia. Day 26 and 27.
We arrived in Samara at around 6 p.m. I should have taken a bypass route, as it turned out to be very difficult to go through this big city located on the banks of the Volga. The narrow streets of its old part led me to the square with the monument to Lenin in the centre, where I had lunch in a wonderful Georgian cuisine restaurant. The endless embankment of the Volga with its berths and cruise ships nearby made an amazing impression on me! And when I crossed the river by the bridge from Tolyatti to Zhigulevsk, I realised how huge it is! As huge as a sea! After Samara there began a terrible road that lasted for dozens or even hundreds of kilometers. Some repair works were underway and in one lane the traffic was being regulated by traffic lights, so hundreds of trucks either barely crawled or just stood still waiting for passage. It was very difficult to overtake them even by motorbike since there was no roadside: everything was dug up. I had thought that I would reach Penza that day. But no way!

And at night it is even dangerous to continue the way, because it is dark and the continuous flow of oncoming cars' headlights blinds you, so it is almost impossible to overtake any of them. After the incident, when I didn't notice a 30-cm cut of the ground with asphalt and fell right in front of the truck, which luckily managed to slow down being 2 m away, I realized that I had to look for a place to stay overnight. Fortunately, there are quite a lot of motels and inns along the M5 highway.
After the journey across the boundless Mongolian and Kazakh steppes my perception of distances has changed. I caught myself thinking alternatively. "How far is Penza from Samara? 400 km? Oh, it's very close… And how far is Ryazan? 850 km? Okay, that will take one day in a slowly pace along a good road. And if earlier the journey from Moscow to Vladivostok, for example, seemed to be something incredible, then now I understand that it is just an ordinary trip, which would last 10 days.
Syzran, Kuznetsk, Penza, Mordovia… These are already the native landscapes of central Russia, quite familiar to me. Fields, forests, rivers, hills, villages, churches… In small settlements old women were sitting along the roads, selling buckets of potatoes and apples. And here is Ryazan, which is just 200 km from Moscow. I am almost at home, so to say.

Well, Mongolia is a good country but Russia is the best!
My longest and most interesting motorbike trip has come to an end! Four weeks and 10480 km (3,500 km of which were off-road) are behind! This incredible journey turned out to be full of vivid impressions, adventures and unexpected encounters. It was just insanely interesting! As a result, I have lost 5 kg of fat and gained thousands of beautiful photos (and pictures captured in my memory). All this still needs to be digested and summarised.

It seems that my motorbikey's engine hasn't cooled down yet, but the ideas of new routes are already coming to my head! Where am I going next? I don't know yet... Maybe to Central Asia, the Pamir mountains... or across Iran, around the Caspian Sea, to the Caucasus... or to Africa… There are actually so many roads and directions, which you can take and then follow – towards the wind and new adventures together with friends and by a wonderful BMW R1200GS motorbike!

If you are going on a trip to Mongolia, take a risk to get off the beaten track, otherwise you may not see the most exciting and interesting things! Certainly, you can cross Mongolia from west to east (up to Ulaanbaatar) and then follow the asphalt road up to Ulan-Ude, like the vast majority of travelers from all over the world.

But this is just a part of this amazing country (and this part is not the most interesting one)! So it is like to visit a zoo, seeing cages with birds, goats and sheep but missing the aviaries with white lions and pink elephants!
Mongolia is miraculous, unusual and quite diverse! The north of it is the terrain covered with forest; the purest lakes, from which you can drink water; and mountain rivers with rocky shores.

The central part is presented by steppes; vast spaces stretching beyond the horizon, over which eagles soar; huge herds of sheep and horses; dusty roads running across the plain in different directions; small villages that consist of several yurts; small towns and Buddhist temples…

And the southern part is a desert. Gobi is exactly that aviary with white lions that you should see with your own eyes. And you can even pat them, although at first glance it might seem terrible!
Terribly interesting!

The huge, almost lifeless plains; incredibly bright orange sands; landscapes that look like alien ones; rare oases and wells with cold water; herds of camels chewing some thorns; rocks and dunes; gnawed skeletons of animals lying on hot sand... Those all are the reasons why everyone should visit Mongolia! By motorbike, car, bicycle, on foot... whatever!
Although... any coach potato could see all this beauty shown by the Discovery channel, while enjoying a mug of beer with some dried roach and scratching his flab that fell out from under a short wifebeater T-shirt!
Everyone chooses their own way...

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