Back to Europe

Back on the European continent that is. We crossed the Ural river in North West Kazakhstan and have left Central Asia.

The ride North from Taraz, across the steppe was long, hot and sticky. At first we kept the days short, starting early and finishing early. We aimed to be in an air conditioned hotel room and a cool shower by 1400 (this did not always go to plan). Thus avoiding camping on the arid, sandy plains.

There were some interesting stops and attractions along the way, but the best of them was our first ever encounter with corrupt police. When we considered the tens of thousands of miles we have traveled, across continents and around the world, it was left to Kazakhstan, the country that tries so hard to please, to give us this gift.

It is a pity that it was so half arsed.

The blue lights appeared in our mirrors and we were told to pull over.

The two officers came over, shook my hand and then asked  to see my passport, one escorted me to his car and shooed Jean away. Once there he showed me a camera still of a motorbike doing 134KPH in front of him.

At this point I knew a bribe was imminent as ;

A) It clearly was not my bike.
B) His car was at right angles when I passed it (at 78KPH). The camera was in a fixed position pointing forward.
C) They were not in the car when I passed it.

He asked me if I had any cameras on my jacket and patted it down. I showed him my standard camera but not my phone.

Next he started to look at forms, pulled his pen out to write but then made a gesture that indicated it would be a lot of work. He folded the the forms up, smiled and asked for a gift, while holding out his hand.

So I shook his hand. Then he rubbed his fingers together to indicate money. So I shook his hand again.

Finally he scribbled a dollar symbol.

I was curious, and asked how much (skolka).

He wrote $100. I shook my head and said "no" , arms crossed across my chest in a Russian "no means no" kind of way.

This went on for a while, him holding his hand out, me shaking it. At one point I showed him my muggers wallet (it contains out of date cards and a small sum of money, usually about 5 pounds worth. But I had forgotten to remove the Kyrgyzstan money and replace it with Kazakhstan tenge. He didn't notice).

Eventually I got fed up, took my passport back and got out of the car.

By now a van driver had pulled up and was sat in his cab watching proceedings. We presume to keep an eye on the police.

Jean had managed to take photos, we suspect he realised this as he looked cross, pointed at his camera phone and then his car. We smiled and agreed a selfie would be a good idea.

Making gestures he suggested that Jean should get in his car, we refused. I slammed his door, shook his hand, waved to his colleague (who had spent all this time trying to wave traffic past) , we put our helmets on and rode off.

The other attractions, along with the occasional herd of camels were;

Mosques

A mausoleum

An archaeological dig at an ancient fortified city, Sauran.

And some space launch site thing.