To Osh (Ош)
Saturday, June 28, 2014 We said goodbye to Nomad Hostel and Bishkek and started our drive towards Osh. Getting out of the city took some time, as it usually does, even here there was urban sprawl. Shortly after clearing most…
Uzbekistan: Border Crossing and Documentation
This post is about the government documentation we needed and obtained to bring our car and ourselves into Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan in General Getting our car into Uzbekistan was easy. Getting the visa for ourselves was not difficult, but did require…
Kygryzstan: Border Crossing and Documentation
This post is about the government documentation we needed and obtained to bring our car and ourselves into Kyrgyzstan. Kygryzstan in General Getting our car into Kygryzstan was straight forward and only required us to declare the car to customs…
Back in Bishkek (Бишкéк)
Thursday, June 26, 2014 We stayed at Nomad Hostel again, checking in just after lunch. In the afternoon we went for a long walk in search of three places, 1) A french style restaurant where we planned to have dinner,…
Around Lake Issyk Kul (Ысык-Көл)
Monday, June 23, 2014 We left Bishkek and headed east towards Issuk-Köl, the lake in the north-east of Kygryzstan. The lake is huge and we planned 4 days to drive around it, putting us back in Bishkek on Friday (June…
Bishkek (Бишкéк)
Saturday, June 21, 2014 We had pre-booked a guesthouse that is a favorite with overland travelers called Nomads and headed straight to it based on GPS coordinates kindly provided by Craig. We arrived to find they did not have our…
Across the Kazakhstan/Kyrgyzstan Border
Saturday, June 21, 2014 It is always good to start a border crossing day with a coffee. So we did. The 200-odd km drive to the border was on very good roads, but with the usual dangerous drivers, slow trucks,…
Kazakhstan: Border Crossing and Documentation
This post is about the government documentation we needed and obtained to bring our car and ourselves into Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan in General To quote our Lonely Planet guide book; “Visas and permits can be the single biggest headache associated with…
Almaty (Алматы)
Thursday, June 19, 2014 We loved Almaty. Unfortunately we would not be staying more than 2 nights here. On arrival in the city we looked for a coffee shop, with wifi, to enjoy a latte and to look for a place…
To Almaty (Алматы)
Wednesday, June 18, 2014 We decided to go with the ‘gun it to Almaty’ option which meant covering 1130km in 2 days. That way we’d arrive in Almaty on Thursday evening, have the Friday to sort the car and paper…
Semey (Семей)
Tuesday, June 17, 2014 Semey is twinned with Ypres in Belgium After checking into our spacious hotel and finding out we had a ‘small’ immigration issue – and discussing our options (see notes below), we headed out to do…
Across the Russian/Kazakhstan Border
Tuesday, June 17, 2014 After stopping at Coffee Art for a very nice latte we set off for the short 37 km drive to the border. We arrived at 10:32am to find 6 cars waiting in front of the border…
Rubtsovsk (Рубцо́вск)
Monday, June 16, 2014 Rubtsovsk is twined with Grants Pass in the United States. A place we have very fond memories of. Started the day for a coffee from Arabica Coffee. For some strange reason the coffees here in Russia…
Russia: Border Crossing and Documentation
This post is about the government documentation we needed and obtained to bring our car and ourselves into Russia. Russia in General The Russia government website has a pretty good description of the process to temporarily import a vehicle into…
Barnaul (Барнаул)
Saturday, June 14, 2014 Barnaul is twined with Flagstaff in the United States. And Flagstaff hosts overland expo each year. We don’t often pre-book accommodation, but we did for Barnaul. It is a bigger city and we didn’t want to…