Crossing the Desert in Kazakhstan
Arriving in Kazakhstan
Our flight landed around 3am, and we’d taken the easy option of booking into the hotel airport 100m away. We went to sleep, and then spent the rest of the day building up our bikes. We counted ourselves lucky that the bikes and all our kit was unscathed from the journey.
We set off after breakfast the following day, with our first task to ride the 27 km from the airport to the city of Aktau. My gosh was it hot - it was 43C! This was heat like we’d never felt before. I honestly didn’t know how we were going to manage this part of the trip! There were also camels everywhere!
Once in Aktau, we ended up at a Hypermarket… and it was not at all what we expected. It was by far the biggest shop we’ve been in on the trip, it was more like a warehouse than a shop! We stocked up and then rode to a bike shop to buy Zach (yet another) water bottle.
Planning this part of the trip:
We’ve been using an app called ‘Rolling Around’ and it’s been invaluable, particularly when planning this desert section in Kazakhstan. Cycle tourers can add waypoints, so this stretch across the desert to Beyneu was scattered with water points, restaurants and grocery stores. The reason the app was so helpful, was because a lot of these shops and restaurants are just plain white buildings with covered up windows, you’d have no idea it was what you were looking for!
We both started wearing our sun hoodies when we arrived in Kazakhstan, and they’ve really been a game changer for us. With the temperature so high, we would have been sweating off the suncream on our arms and neck constantly, but wearing the sun hoodies meant that we were fully covered up, especially with the hood over our helmets.
Our daily routine:
Most days were very similar, we would wake up in the tent at about 6:30am, and by 7am it would be too warm to be in there. We would get riding for a few hours, and by lunchtime we would aim to get to a restaurant or cafe, where we would spend about 5 hours of the day hiding from the sun. This took some planning, as most days, there would just be one restaurant per day!
On our last full day, we reached the restaurant very early, around 10am, and decided to push on after eating some food. The shop we reached in the afternoon had no AC or anywhere to sit, so we had to spend the afternoon sweating in a bus shelter for shade.
We would then set off around 6pm, and ride until about 10/11pm, getting in most of our distance for the day!
It took us just over five days to ride the 525km stretch, and we arrived into Beyneu just after breakfast on our sixth day.
Riding conditions:
The wind on the first two days was an unfavourable crosswind, and it made for very slow progress. It tended to ease off in the evenings, and by day three, although it was still a crosswind, the wind had dropped and we were able to cycle easier.
Our bodies slowly started to adapt to the heat, and after a few days, riding felt much more manageable - our bodies are amazing!
The route is on the main road, but we only experienced this being busy every so often, which we think was linked to when the ferry would arrive into Aktau from Baku. The road condition was great.
There were dry toilets (a hole in the ground) every so often on the side of the road and also lots of rest areas, many with shady seats and bus shelters. I actually preferred this toilet set up to Georgia, because at least you knew there would be frequent options to use the bathroom (on our route in Georgia there were very few toilets).
I think our real low point of this section was the guesthouse we stayed at on our second night. Our room wasn’t clean and didn’t have AC, there were lots of mosquitoes (which we didn’t realise until the following day), and they charged us extra for the showers. We spent the rest of the night in our tent, not that there was any other options for places to stay. Let’s just say… we were very overdue a shower when we got to Beyneu.
Our highlight of the desert was cycling once the sun had set. We had a full moon, cooler air, and our wild camping spots were quiet and uninterrupted.
The train from hell between Beyneu to Nukus:
Whist in the airport in Tbilisi, we had booked our train from Beyneu (Kazakhstan) to Nukus (Uzbekistan). The border here is closed to all but trucks, and the train is the only way to get across the border. Luckily you can take your bikes on this train.
We’d heard that the train can sell out, and when we looked on the website, the tickets came with free cancellation, so booking in advance seemed low-risk. We ended up timing it perfectly, with arriving to Beyneu the day before our train.
The train would take around 12 hours, and it was a sleeper train. I was so excited to take my first ever sleeper train!
In reality, I would describe this train experience as 12 hours of hell. No AC, 40C heat, and the train would be in standstill for hours at a time, when we were at Beyneu, at the Uzbekistan border, and just outside of Nukus. Within 30 minutes of being on the train, we were soaked through with sweat.
We did enjoy chatting (and miming) to the other passengers on the train and it was lovely to pass round my watercolour journal of the trip so far to explain where we have been.
The icing on the cake was the a man getting on the train in the last few hours to walk up and down the train trying to sell smoked fish
Some practical advice to anyone taking this train:
- Book in advance, with free cancellation
- Try to book a carriage with AC (though not many trains on this journey have them), if not, try to book a second class or first class carriage - as these have beds long enough for your feet to not stick over the end.
- Arrive at the train station a good few hours in advance.
- Bring a fan
- Bring lots of water and some snacks you can eat in the heat
- Don’t expect to sleep much
