2013.08.03 — Saturday – Pulled over 4 times, two in Kazakhstan, two in Uzbekistan. Spent 7hrs searching for a border crossing. 20 hrs on the road in all. We made it to Uzbekistan, where we slept on hotel lobby couches.

Shortly after leaving camp we had our first run-in with the police on the day. They pulled us over for not having our lights on, which was indeed an oversight; we knew the rules. It was 9 AM and we’d just hit the road. Two packs of cigarettes (which we carry for bribes/gifts) were in plain sight, so we lost those and were sent on our way. Made decent progress to Uzbek border from Camp Kazakh IV.  The roads alternated between paved and not-paved at high frequency. However, the main border crossing was closed to car traffic for some reason.  We were pulled over again as we set out in search of an alternative route. This time the officer just asked us where we were going. He then handed the reigns over to his friend who was trying to sell us Uzbek currency. Pretty shady business operation.  We spent the rest of the day scouring the border for an entry point, which we eventually found thanks to a fellow customer at a gas station; he was passing near the one suitable border crossing and let us follow him for 60km. Searching for the border put Jon Hay over the 7,000 mile mark. It took 7hrs to find what we were looking for.

The border itself was very unpleasant. The very first gate operator tried to get us to pay him in exchange for opening the gate — we were constantly harassed for money and gifts. The Kazakh side of the process was very loose and unofficial, in stark contrast to the Kazakh-Russia border we crossed a few days earlier. The customs building into which we were directed was in disrepair. We navigated a path illuminated by flickering lights, stepping over hoses and ducking under coords as we passed border agents watching TV and listening to music. The surplus of unused furniture was stacked in the hallways. We were led into an office and offered a seat on a couch which was must have been purchased second hand from a frat house. We had to do a little paperwork, but spent most of the time pretending not to understand that they were asking for money. One agent snatched Ian’s phone from his shirt pocket and took his time looking through all of the pictures, asking for the occasional explanation in Russian. “Yep, I took that picture” seemed to be a satisfactory response. They rifled through our car a bit. But they were in search of things they wanted as opposed to things we weren’t allowed to take out of the country. The agent conducting the search tried to get us to give him one of our video cameras. It seemed at one point that he was just going to take it. Not much we could have done about that. But we escaped with all of our belongings. In between the borders two truck drivers entering from Uzbekistan got out of their trucks and started to fight; presumably there was dispute in the line order. A couple other truckers got involved, and eventually a border agent entered the scuffle. Issue was not resolved by the time we were passed on to the Uzbeks. The Uzbek side was not much better. Lots of paper work. We had to take everything out of the car and send it through an x-ray machine. They did a poor job communicating to us the border procedure, and we tried to leave before completing all of the steps. Back we went. And when it seemed we’d finally made it through we encountered some cops with a gate who wanted us to give them “souvenirs”. They wanted, in particular, a Manchester United jersey, which we most certainly did not have. They preferred Rooney. After much feigned ignorance they let us pass.

We drove through the night to Samarkand. Ian handed the wheel to Matt when his wits took a nose dive. Signs were few and far between, but we managed to follow the main road the entire way. Passed through a number of police checkpoints. We were pulled over at two of them — the only two with unoccupied police officers. The first of these was a particular hassle for Matt. Ian was ordered to wait in the car. Luckily Matt had no dollars or euros on his person when they led him into their silly little checkpoint hut. They took some Kazakh money from his wallet only to return it later. They were very interest in his ten-pound watch which was/is held together with duct tape. But once again we escaped with all of our belongings. We were in no condition to sniff out an address in a new city, so when we decided we had found the city center of Samarkand, we flagged down a taxi to lead us to said address. Ideal Hotel. And we parked right next to a Swedish rally car, which was the first car we’d seen since the road between Volgograd and Astrakahn. Good group of guys. We had missed our reservation by a few days, but the fine folks at Ideal (mostly children under 12 who learned English in school) were willing to accommodate us. However there were no vacancies when we arrived at 4:30 AM, so they let us sleep in the lobby for a few hours until a room freed up. We stored our bags in the kitchenette. It was all pretty weird, given the layout.

2013.08.02 — Friday

We awoke in a very active cow pasture. This was also grasshopper country. We set out to Aralsk at a great pace. The fabled roads indeed persisted to Aralsk. But we didn’t pass a single gas station ‘tween pasture and our destination. We lost Jon Hay within sight of the city (town?) and her bounty of fuel. Fate would have it that we had a shake of gas in one of our jerry cans due to a slight overestimate in Jon Hay’s capacity at a gas station days earlier near the Russia-Kazakh border. It was just enough to get her up and running again. We topped her off and filled our two ten-litre cans.

After Aralsk the road situation took an unwelcome turn. Dust. We were driving through inches of soft, loose, dry, dirt, which did little to dampen the blows dealt to Jon Hay by the underlying substructure of not-a-real-road. Towards the end of the day, as we neared Turkestan, the roads were once again mostly paved. The Kazakhs are undertaking massive efforts to improve their infrastructure, and a proper four-lane highway (two lanes in each direction separated by a guard rail) is materializing between Aralsk and Shymkent. But, rather hilariously, such a highway is hard for the locals to wrap their heads around. In practice, both sides of the guard rail support cars in BOTH directions. Despite obvious efforts, the highway operates more like two, parallel, two-lane highways. It’s fascinating to see cars enter from on-ramps the wrong way. The problem is actually exacerbated by the guard rail, as so many unofficial exits exist in the form of intersecting dirt roads.

We pulled off the highway at dusk to set up Camp Kazakh IV, the final installment of the Camp Kazakh series. We camped near a quarry or gravel pit of some kind, which provided only limited concealment from the road. When full darkness set in a police officer on the main road, which was some distance away, hit us with a spotlight and activated his lights and siren. Unclear what they wanted us to do, so we did nothing. They eventually got bored and drove away. We deployed our folding chairs and took in another astonishing night sky before heading off to sleep.

Camp Kazakh IV.

2013.08.01 — Tracksuit Thursday

Matt adhering strictly to Tracksuit Thursday. At least one other teammate didn’t get the memo.

We set out from camp Kazakh II and lost our bumper driving through a field back to the main road. Queue the duct tape. As of press time, Jon Hay’s bumper remains attached. This day featured a lot of driving and little stopping. The roads were paved the entire way, just as we had hoped. The strap holding Jon Hay’s spares to her roof snapped at the high speeds, so we had to pull over and re-fix them with the broken strap. We hit some pretty crazy storms, which slowed us down a bit.

Storm brewing.

We lost the main road at dusk near the town of Karabutek. Roads just fizzle out sometimes, making it clear that an unintuitive maneuver was required at an earlier juncture. We turned into Karabutek and followed it’s only paved road, which took a chaotic path through town. The streets were filled with people and cattle. The paved road ended at a “T” with a crater-packed dirt road. This was not right. We could see a car in the distance traveling on a road which appeared to run in a northish-southish direction. We took our dirt road North to see if it might intersect, but our road soon became impassable. We headed back to our “T” and noticed a similar phenomenon in the opposite direction. We tried again and this time we found our lost road. We setup camp shortly thereafter and went straight to sleep.

Camp Kazakh III

2013.07.31 — Wednesday

Bit of a late start. We were awoken by sirens which sounded briefly by passing police cars. We do not know what they were trying to communicate. Perhaps they knew it was time for us get back on the road. We headed toward Atyrau at a slow pace, though navigating the terrain was simplified by daylight. It was Camel country, and we stopped to show them our Kazakh pride.

Kazakh camels are unsure of Jon Hay.

Kazakh pride.

Atyrau was not at all as we imagined. Once we crossed into the city, all of the roads were perfectly paved. It was a very clean, open, and well-manicured city. Cars drove relatively slowly and respected pedestrians. Parking was ample. Freshly painted lines clearly marked the spacious lanes.

We had business in Atyrau. One reason the Kazakh crossing was so painless is that they make you register your presence at a police station within the country. Failure to do this in a timely fashion results in a hefty fine upon exit. Hotels also claim the ability to register you, so we walked over to one of the biggest. There we learned that hotels were only authorized to do this for their guests. The hotel directed us to a police station, which directed us to another police station, which directed us to yet another police station on the other side of town. We parked near station three and were directed to walk around to the other side of the building. Down an alley and through a playground we went. All we could find was a half-open rusty door in a high concrete wall. Peaking through, we saw some steps leading up a back entrance. This could not be right, but it was the only other way in. We encountered two cigarette-smoking men in a small room at the top of the stairs. We showed them our passports. They talked amongst themselves jovially and finally sent us through to a little waiting room, where we spent much of the afternoon. The police said we needed a hotel reservation in Atyrau in order for them to complete the registration. Of course we did not have this. A woman in line knew a few words of English and managed to communicate to the police that we were driving to Almaty, where we hold our required hotel reservation. It was hot and frustrating, but we eventually got our passports stamped.

Next we needed auto insurance, which we’d been driving without since our EU insurance expired in Romania. We figured out the name of the company we needed, “Nomad”, but could not find their office. We approached a travel agency in order to find some English speakers. They explained that we could get insurance next-door, so we tried this. English was not among the next-door amenities, so two gentleman who appeared to be nurses called an English speaking friend to translate. This was not a place where auto insurance could be purchased, but they were able to name the street we needed for Nomad Insurance. They suggested we follow a taxi there, but the price for the taxi was insanely high, so we declined. We found the street and then found Nomad, just before closing time. The next part was easy. They asked for our registration, our passports, and our US drivers licenses. Boom, they produced an insurance document, rendering us legal drivers in Kazakhstan for the next month. And what does a month of auto insurance cost in Kazakhstan? $10.

We decided to find better driving conditions in the North when we learned that this less direct route would be quicker than our intended route on account of the deteriorating roads. The roads definitely improved just North as Atyrau. We exhausted our remaining daylight and set up camp at dusk. From our folding chairs beneath the stars, we polished off a little wine before retiring to the tent.

Camp Kazakh II.

2013.07.30 — Tuesday  – There were no windows in our room, so it was impossible to gauge the hour in the usual way. We were happy when 8AM rolled around. Made a very weak effort to shower in the sink/tub. There was no hot water. We found our car in one piece.  Sam appeared at 9AM as scheduled and we followed him around Astrakhan for a while to find used, rally-appropriate tires. Sam was very committed to saving us money, and went to great lengths to try to find things second hand. We probably visited twelve used tire shops before deciding to just buy four new tires. But before we finished tire shopping, Sam took us to a restaurant where we could have cheap, “real Russian food”. I think it delivered on both fronts. Borsch, bread, chicken, and meatballs.

We swapped out tires, and then set out to find new rims for the two best old tires so we could use them as spares. Once again, we drove around forever looking for a deal, but no candidates fit our Almera. So we bought them new again. We now had four new tires on old rims and two old tires on new rims. On average every wheel was about the same age.

Following Sam in Astrakhan was a chore,  but we didn’t stand a chance without him. He’d pull off and wait for us whenever we fell too far behind. We did have to make guesses as to his route a couple times, but we guessed correctly.

We headed off to Sam’s shop where he added a couple screws to our bumper to hold it in place. He then gathered up whatever scrap metal was laying around his shop and started cutting it up. We were hoping to get skid plates to cover our engine, fuel line, and fuel tank, but he simply did not have enough material. We covered our entire fuel line and half of the fuel tank. Better than nothing. We’ll see how it works when we hit the mountains.

Our new friend Sam Longbase with our old friend Jon Hay.

Rush hour set in, so Sam advised that we not leave the city until traffic died down. So we went to a grocery store and bought tons of food, mostly ramen; we’d be camping almost exclusively from here on out. Sam escorted and served as our translator. With our car all packed full of food, he escorted us out of the city and put us on the road to the Kazakh border. He bid us farewell on the roadside and honked as he turned away. We tried to honk back, but realized that our horn no longer worked. Trying to honk goodbye to the one guy who could fix it.

So we got a lot done in Astrakhan. Sam Longbase gave us an entire day. He found the broken down ambulance of a rally team las year, and helped get them back on the road. He now tries to help any team that goes through Astrakhan. We’d have been lost without him.

Headed on to the Kazakh border. It was night, but the border was not far. We drove through the Volga delta which featured a rickety floating bridge and way too many frogs. The bridge placed us on the delta’s largest island. The ethnicity change was stark. This was unexpected. The vast majority of people now were clearly of east asian descent. We waited with the frogs for a while on the russian side of the border. People in line (mostly Kazakhs, it seemed) were very social, chatting with one another outside of their cars. The russians searched our car as well as anyone thus far, so we had to spend a little time putting things back together. Once our car was cleared, an english-speaking border agent asked us if we were with the rally and wanted to hear bout our route, etc. He was extremely excited and friendly. Our attempts to convince him to join us fell short. Having a russian-speaking teammate (Greg), would have been extremely helpful.

Many miles separated the Russian and Kazakh borders. So much land doesn’t seem to belong to any country. This is where a rally team was famously trapped for five days on a previous rally. They left Russia five days before the start of their Kazakh visa, and the Kazakhs would not let them pass. To re-enter Russia would mean burning the second of their two entries, which would have forced them to stay in Russia until Mongolia. So they set up their own country and tried to inspect passports.

The Kazakh border, when we finally got there, was the easiest yet. It was late and the agent inspecting cars had little interest in ours. We were soon released onto the worst roads yet. The roads were a disaster. We didn’t last long in the dark and pulled off to camp on the sand. Exhausted, we were straight to bed.

2013.07.29 — Monday — We awoke to learn the layout of our campsite. Actually wasn’t quite as hidden from the road as we guessed in the dark of the night. We camped across the road from an expansive sunflower field, but we’ve become completely acclimated to these. Ukraine is packed with such fields. A very happy, laughing gentleman came skipping up the dirt road as we were gathering ourselves. It was clear we didn’t speak Ukrainian, but it didn’t stop him from doing a lot of talking. He knew were on a big trip and pointed to over to Russia — we were close to the border, so our next move was obvious. He proceeded to draw a map of Europe in the dirt with his finger and we proceeded to draw our route. His placement of the UK was interesting. It looked like we started in Scandinavia. After he skipped off we packed up our tent and made for the Russian border. We hit the line at 8:15 local time (9:15 across in Russia). The border was pretty painless. They did the minimal amount of searching our car. We did have to fill out lots of forms which was annoying. Proceeded on the road to Astrakahn for some vehicle modification in advance of the Stans. We drove for a while on a road which was literally being built. And there were no directions as to how cars were expected to handle the situation. Oncoming traffic had it worse as they were weaving in and out of stream rollers through a fresh, tarry road. One dude just steered his van down the embankment into a field and started driving parallel the road.

On the whole we followed decent roads to Volgograd. That ended abruptly as we neared the city. And this is a theme.: Entering/exiting cities/countries feature absolutely insane roads. Matt had the pleasure of driving in Volgograd, which was hands down the worst city we have driven in. First the approach. The road basically just ended. What laid ahead for many kilometers was the surface of a well-cratered planet. Cars started driving down off the surface to find better, parallel ones. So what was a two-lane highway became lawless, multi-lane road over and through natural and manmade obstacles. Per usual, it was 100% unclear how to get through/around the city. The roads were horrible throughout, there were no signs or lane boundaries. And so many inefficient stop lights. A major bridge was closed in town, so we were barely moving for a very long time. Side streets were overgrown with weeds. It is not clear to us how we managed to escape the city. We made many arbitrary decisions at forks and “T”s. We found ourselves in a small lane following some tracks which were leaving town in approximately the right direction (our ailing compass remains crucial to our navigation). We were pulled over, but the Russian cops were great. Very excited to learn Matt was from California and started singing “Hotel California”. They wished us  luck and sent us on our way. We stayed the course for way to long before we finally saw a sign for Astrakhan. Straight ahead. Was that really the way out of town? Amazing.

The layout of villages now was interesting, and it would continue into Kazakhstan. Towns are situated such that the highway passes through. Homes are arranged approximately in a grid. But every little house is like a city block. One can drive anywhere in town that is not a house. No yards. It’s all structure and dirty/muddy roads. You can exit into one of these towns by dropping off a steep embankment between any two homes. Conditions, especially in Russia ‘tween Volgograd and Astrakhan appeared very depressed. Though an impressive, little, well-polished church towered above most towns.

Jon Hay and Matt on the road to Astrakhan.

The road to Astrakhan was generally fine. We arrived in the dark and contacted our guide-mechanic, Sam. He actually met us in the center of town, at the ever-popular McDonalds, so that we could follow him to some lodging for the night. He said he knew of a very cheap place to stay, and we took him at his word.

He took us very far out of the city center and into one of the more terrifying parts of a city I have ever been to. We went down dark ally ways, rusted gates, and weaved through abandoned warehouse. We were pretty certain that were about to be robbed, and had no idea how we might escape this llabyrinth. We crossed our fingers and continued to follow. Hard to describe the place at which we eventually arrived. There was a lot of yelling between Sam, the woman who ran operations at the….lodging establishment, and also some third gentleman next door. who decided to join the conversation. Maybe this is just how russians speak. Sam told us to park under the only street light (we were no longer on what might be called a street). He added not go near any of the many dogs patrolling the area. They are very aggressive and dangerous. We were led into a building and up some stairs into a room. There were no windows. Painting of a naked lady sat to the side on a mantle next to an unplugged TV. The room was illuminated by a neon green rope light. Were we in a brothel? There was one bed and no sink. No toilet seat. Obviously no internet. We laid down and tried to sleep, clutching our passports and credit cards.

2013.07..28 — Sunday — Hit the road out of Odessa at 8:30 AM. Per usual we lost ourselves a bit leaving the city, but ended up taking a pretty direct route. There were lots of game-time decisions when we encountered unexpected one-ways. A large, loud pack of dogs viciously attacked Jon Hay, who barely escaped with her life. We drove all day and hit every type of road imaginable. Including a stretch which was perhaps the nicest of the entire trip. But mostly the roads were much poorer. We moved West-to-East through Ukraine at a pretty reasonable pace. The roads were driving at 60+ mph, but the ride was bumpy as hell. Lots of patchwork on the asphalt, and it was impossible to gauge how fast to take the approaching patterns on the road. But the road was extremely straight, and you could see forever in every direction. Passing was a breeze (though we were usually the ones being passed). Endless fields of sunflowers. Just fields everywhere. We stopped for gas in Eastern Ukraine to discover that we did not have our rear bumper or our front-left hubcap. These were casualties of the road, and it had been rough for so long that we weren’t going to go back and look. Everybody we encountered working the gas pumps in the Ukraine was super friendly and full of smiles. This one was very amused by the state of our car. Jon Hay looks so weird without her bumper.

We stopped for lunch at a restaurant nearby. We were the only ones there. The food we ordered took a very long time to make its way out to us. Portions pretty small per usual. A man entered the establishment while we were eating and eventually pieced together enough English to get through to us: He had Jon Hay’s bumper! I followed him outside and across the road to a  semi truck. His trailer was open on the top and he climbed up and in and reemerged with a piece of Jon Hay. Lots of the pins had broken, so we did what any good mechanic would do — duct tape. As of press time the bumper is still intact.

Jon Hay with and her recovered bumper. Matt was also there.

We decided to turn North and stay in the Ukraine as long as possible in order to optimize daylight driving — thought it would be a waste to spend our remaining hours waiting at Russian border. We spent the first bit on some winding two-lane road stuck behind a long line of slow moving vehicles. Despite the solid line, Ian effected a 10-car pass, getting to that 10th car right at the point where the cops flagged us down. All wasted. Little nervous that we failed to acquire auto insurance at the border. But the officers couldn’t speak any english and released us almost immediately. They briefly examined Ian’s passport and Washington State driver’s license and we were off again. We got onto some faster roads, and then some much slower roads. During this transition we found a huge grocery store and tried to turn in for supplies. But as we drove down the road we encountered two cars stopped in the road, their former inhabitants brawling on the roadside. One found a large stick and was using it without reservation. So we threw Jon Hay in reverse; this was not the supermarket for us.

For most of the rest of the night our drive west of was on poorly-marked roads in disrepair. In the dark. And with way more road options than indicated on our maps we were not always sure of our route. But we knew the overall directions, and compass in-hand we made all the right moves. There were some stretches of potholes that we had to take in first gear. Similar to the Ukrainian roads near the Moldova border. At one point a probably-intoxicated man came out of the dark while we were basically stopped. He was pretending to throw his bottles at us. He went through the motions but held fast to the bottles, spraying Jon Hay with their contents. We soon made it back to a real town and roads improved. We stopped at a gas station and for some food and water and set out to find a campsite nearer the Russian border. It was time to sleep. We pulled off down a little farm road and tucked Jon Hay into the weeds. We set our tent up right next her and ate our victuals.

Jon Hay posted up next to some sunflowers.

Uploading some notes we’ve taken since our last update. Will try to edit/correct/elaborate/add pictures/fill-in the blanks if ever the opportunity presents itself. Posting in reverse order.

2013.07.27 — Saurday — We woke up shortly after noon to explore Odessa. Made our way to the beach. Lots of clubs. The place really looks like a poorer version of Miami. Encountered surprisingly little English. We spent the early evening back a the hotel arranging some vehicle modifications in Astrakahn, which we hoped to hit in two days. Also made a little progress setting up a caravan with a rallier who’d lost his teammates and was traveling alone. Headed out again for the night where we found dinner and post-dinner activities. We were not really dressed appropriately for the night scene in Odessa, but we made do.

Matt in Odessa.

2013.07..26 — Friday — Document retrieval. Made it to DHL around noon, though the document was not to arrive until 2PM. Ate lunch at a cafe nearby and returned at 2PM as directed. The eagle had landed. We retrieved our registration. Due the standard lack-of-signs situation, we could not find our way out of Bucharest. Managed to get on track after an hour or two. Drove into a pretty cool storm in Northeast Romania. Then hit some major traffic, which set us back even more. A truck had managed to tip over in the road. Not sure if was wind-related. Finally got around it and found the Molodova border once again. We arrived close to 6PM. Our experience with Moldova is a fire in between two borders. There was a very large fire burning along our road, and it was a little interesting as we got closer to it. The road passed at a safe distance in the end. It was night now, so we really don’t know what the country looks like. After a short, fiery nighttime drive we arrived at the Ukraine border. The Moldovans didn’t want to let us leave because we didn’t have valid vehicle insurance. They suggested that we might have to return from whence we came yet again. But alas, a very beautiful Moldovan woman did us a favor and let us head onto the Ukraine border. This was a common theme — whenever communication broke down at a border, they found an attractive, young, friendly, English-speaking woman to translate. The Moldovan version advised that we would encounter the same problem in the Ukraine, and that we would have to find pretty girls to help us out. The Ukraine border was some distance — very large buffer zone this time. Ukrainians were fantastic. No English? Queue beautiful Ukrainian woman. She said that a few days earlier 60 ralliers had come through within the span of an hour or two. She also gave us advice on what to do in the Ukraine, none of which we could take, being low on time.

The first half of our drive to Odessa featured horrible roads. Huge potholes. And every time a reasonable stretch of road coaxed us into third gear, we were surprised by a ridiculous road failure. Driving these roads at night is a bad idea. Especially since our headlights are terrible. Oncoming headlights leave us completely blind. Signs of the day to come on the horizon when we found Odessa. Without any map of the city yet, it was impossible to orient ourselves. Found a map at a gas station which allowed to navigate to our hotel pretty easily. It was full on morning when we got to our room. Slept until past 1PM. 2:14 as I write this. Headed out to salvage a day in Odessa. Food first (hadn’t eaten in over 24 hrs) and then made our way down to the water.

2013.07.25 — Thursday — We woke and checked in with London. Around noon we learned that the royal mail had delivered our letter, and we would have it in Bucharest the next morning. At long last! Set out for a long lunch featuring 1-litre beers. The restaurant was recommended as another great place for Romanian fare. The dish Matt ordered was apparently meant for two, so he had more food than he could have possible eaten.  We did a little more exploring and returned to load video off of our cameras and some other internet-based activities. Went out for dinner and followed up with a bar. Then returned to our hotel bar and had a pretty late night. Lots of people there, including the same people from the previous night. Word got out, I guess. So fun times were head. Especially with the two girls whose names I have in my phone.

2013.07.24 — Wednesday — Arrived in Bucharest from Galati. Found our hostel. Went on walking tour. Ate traditional romanian (sour soup and cabbage-rapped sausages). Played foosball. and hung out at the hostel bar, which is very popular among locals.