21 replies to this topic

[Matt.P]

wow, sounds like a proper road trip.
got to say though, don't fancy breaking down all that way from home, what happened to those who did?

[Elfie]

wow, sounds like a proper road trip.
got to say though, don't fancy breaking down all that way from home, what happened to those who did?

This is to come!

We set off the next morning towards Makat. As we had been told, the roads were fine untill then, when bizarrely they suddenly ran out. Literally took a junction and the roads were none existant. We basically had to pick the route which would not rip our diff of.

Looking back towards Makat... Thats the road there.
The next two days were some of the most exciting and amazing of the trip. We would find odd 20mile stretches of beautifully laid roads, with roads so bad that the only option was to drive on the desert beside the road.
It's hard to comprehend how roads can get this bad. Pot holes feet deep, surfaces made of big stones, massive piles of various building materials tipped in the middle of the road.


Dip in the road


Good road!!!


We had the best fun ever on these sand off road roads. Several tracks ran parralell to each other, all intertwining and crossing. Absolutley awesome


This was GREAT fun!!!!!


I was just waiting to say bye bye to the diff/bottom of car

[Elfie]

Anyhow, this night we camped out in the desert. We set up camp and decided to make petrol bombs with bottles, petrol and old rag. Very entertaining. I will upload the video later.
We stopped off at a village and bought supplies and played football with the kids. The roads too and from the village were none existant. We just drove across the grass. The whole village turned out to see us. I thought how amazing it was that these people probably are born, live and die all in this tiny village in the middle of tundra. Quite an eye opener

Kids saying bye.

The next day the roads got worse. We nearly tipped over several times having one set of wheels on the 'tarmac' and one on the grass as that is the only section of road with no potholes

This is from Russia but my mate has just put all his photos up and it's pretty funny

I pooed!

We entered a town call Aqtobe around 5ish, handled a security guards gun at a petrol station...


That night we went out to a doner kebab shop and had a hilarious sit down meal being served huge platters of suspect meat, got frisked by an SAS man dressed all in black carrying a very very big gun and then inspected the damage that had been caused by the last two days. I found with shock that there was a reason that my seat was lifting every time we went over a bump. The suspension was coming up through the wheel arch and the seat was taking the force of bumps. So the next day we took the van to a small garage where they charged us way too much money to get the whole thing welded, then told us that they had welded through the throttle cable. They fitted a very very bodged one, which promptly broke the next morning when we set off.
It is from this time that things started going wrong... In the very heart of Kazakhstan, about 50 miles out of Aqtobe, the van began to splutter. After about half an hour of driving it would begin to splutter, then backfire so badly we had to stop. The rest of the convoy apart from Jim and Dave and Tom and Higgs, in their fiat panda, left on to go ahead. I toyed with ideas of removing the carb as i suspected a blockage which moved to block the jets after the half hour driving, then drifted back down in the time we were stopped.
I had the worst night sleep ever that night, I was sleeping in the driving seat, and kept waking up terrified that I'd fallen asleep at the wheel, jamming my foot on the brake pedal. It was awful. The next morning we tried to fix the van but it was having none of it, so the panda towed us all that day. We called in at a tiny remote garage and paid some blokes £30 to mess around with it for a while. One of them cut the end of his finger off and we left, hoping they had fixed it. They hadn't.
We suspected a dodgy lot of fuel, so I took the pipe off the fuel filter and poured the whole lot away. We got towed for another couple of hundred miles, which was very tiring, untill just on the off chance, when we had to drive off road and couldn't get towed, the van was working. i found that keeping it in 4th gear meant the problem didn't occur, so we carried on through the night, coming across swarms of huge locust/grasshopper type things, which happened to be when a tyre had to be changed. When we set off again there were hundreds of them in the car, it was awful.
We arrived in Kostonoi the next day and found a small garage where we got some bits and bobs fixed. We got this done for free, but setting back off, out of the city, the problem re occured. We tried setting off numerous times to no avail. I seriously considered packing it all in.

[Jammy]

Argghhh, leaving us on a cliff hanger! I want to know more!

[Elfie]

Well... Next installment...

That night we went and got rather jolly at a nice bar by a lake, with a large ship front being the main bar bit, sticking out into the water. We negotiated with security that we could sleep in the vans in the bar compound. There was dancing and lots and lots of Kazakh vodka...

The next morning we got woken early and ushered out of the bar. We set off again in the direction of Astana. We found that keeping the van in 4th gear, going at around 45mph, the problem with our van did not occur, so making slow but fun progress we carried on into more amazing countryside, which looked more like flat southern France than Kazakhstan, it was very very green and lush, the roads were excellent and people we met were friendly.
We came across closed roads...

And stopped at what looked like a glorious blue lake with white sands. We drove down this road...

Put on our swimming shorts and sprinted down to the lake, only to find that the golden sands were a stinking gungy mire with a thin yellow crust on them, and the water was covered with a strange greeny blue slime. The place stank.
We drove back out and decided to press on to Astana, an estimated 400 miles. At around 4 in the morning, still driving, and me falling asleep at the wheel we came across another road closure, again, a big pile of rubble across the road. This was the main road into Astana. We found an alternative road into the capital, which was obviously in the middle of road works, so was unpaved, with rubble strewn across it. We got told off by police for crossing a white line again, but just said we didnt have a clue what they were talking about so parked up in the carpark and got a room. Slept so so well.
The next morning, we went into new Astana. This place was weird, the new part of the city is being built to boost the economy and image of Kazakhstan but it was deserted.

This was the city centre of the capital of Kazakhstan at around 10am on a saturday morning.... spooky!
Anyway, by this big obilisk which is a symbol for the new Kazakhstan,

which had loads and loads of wedding parties around it having photos taken, we were stopped by a policeman asking to see our passports.
I had left mine and my mates back at the hotel, and all of us, bar one, had not got a stamp in our passports which said we had notified the authorities of our presence in the country.
The policeman was asking for around £90 in way of a fine, we refused so he called over some men in military fatigues carrying guns who basically said to us that we should ignore what the guy was saying as he only wanted money. Those guys were obviously paid more than him.
After an hour or so of negotiating, we eventually got over the concept of EMBASSY, and he let us go. We went to a gorgeous restaraunt, again deserted apart from the staff, but as upmarket as any in this country and had some much welcome luxury, and very cheap, food.
This was my ice cream...

The place was weird, the chairs had never been sat on, the cutlery was new, the tables were unmarked, and there was no-one there.
Kazakhstan is a weird place...

Edited by Elfie, 02 February 2009 - 10:44 PM.

[Jammy]

Are we nearly there yet?!

Do you mind if we use this write up on the TMF front site when it's all complete?!

[Elfie]

Are we nearly there yet?!

Do you mind if we use this write up on the TMF front site when it's all complete?!

Haha there is quite abit to go yet, I'll do some more this afternoon!
Please use it wherever you like!