Note: events from 16th September
After resting a day and a night in Aktau, the plan was to get to a place called Nukus across the border in Uzbekistan a mere 1000km away. We were all planning to link up with the Silk Road and the first proper bit of civilisation in Uzbekistan was Nukus. We had planned to take a sleeper train from Aktau all the way to Nukus which would take around 26 hours. We did some research however and worked out that it was actually cheaper for the four of us to take a taxi the whole way! It seemed insane. A helpful man who worked at the hotel and who spoke a little English got a quote for us and it came back as $50 to go the all the way to Nukus! It did seem to good to be true but he insisted it was all legit. I had read how cheap the petrol was in this part of the world.
We rose early the next morning and waited for the taxi, but alas it never arrived. And worse still, our man in the hotel who spoke English was nowhere to be seen. We wanted to get going as it was a heck of a long journey ahead and so I volunteered to go and speak with the fierce looking old lady behind the front desk. She spoke not a lick of English but quickly produced her mobile phone with google translate on it and began speaking into it.
Central Asia was really the first place where I discovered how good google translate is. Whilst it can be a rough instrument you can almost always make yourself understood with a little perseverance. Plus some of the translations can be hilarious. You can type in the text or if there’s an internet connection you can speak straight into your phone and it directly translates it.
After the lady produced her phone what ensued was an epic 30 minute back and forth trying to explain and resolve the taxi situation. I was trying to make her understand that we had booked one and that it had not shown up. Sometimes you have to try several different ways of saying something before it’s understood. When she spoke into her phone she would turn away and speak into it as if it was a person. Her tone was harsh and aggressive and she would wag her finger at the screen when talking. I had to work hard not to laugh.
Eventually after much back and forth I thought we may have arranged another taxi. At that point the man from before arrived, much to our relief and before long we had another taxi on the way. It cost more and would only take us up to the border but was still very cheap. We didn’t know it at the time but this turned out to be a blessing.
Off we went. Our driver drove like an a absolute maniac. Careering along at hair raising speeds, he would tail get lorries in their blind spot just a couple of inches from their bumper and then swing out to overtake regardless of whether there were oncoming vehicles. I think it’s fair to say we were all pretty terrified. As Nick put it ‘my arse hole was twitching like a rabbits nose’ (I may have paraphrased that slightly).
After a while, thankfully there was no traffic for us to weave in and out of and we just hit endless empty road. The surroundings were incredible. I’d not seen landscapes like this before. The scale of it was most impressive. Just never ending desert and the occasional herd of camels or horses. And that was it for the five hour drive to the border.
The journey was fairly hard going as the seat quickly became uncomfortable and I slowly lost the feeling in my left side. There was a brief moment of excitement when we passed a dead camel on the side of the road that had been beheaded, we assumed in a collision. But later came genuine elation as we saw something on the horizon that we had all been hoping we for. A lone cyclist. We got the taxi driver to pullover a little way ahead at the top of a hill. It was Niklas, who we’d met on the boat a few days earlier. We waited for him to approach and gave him some cheers as he reached the top of the hill. He looked abolsutey scorched from the sun using only a t-shirt wrapped around his head for protection.
After a fairly brief encounter and having loaded him up with biscuits and chocolate we said our farewells and off we went. He was on the same route as us and still had thousands of kilometres to go through Central Asia. Absolutely in awe of this guy!
It’s a strange thing, having driven for hours through absolute nothingness to suddenly come upon the border crossing out of nowhere. We’d made it though. There was still a big unknown in that we had no idea whether we’d be able to get transport the other side! It was hundreds of kilometres in either direction to the nearest civilisation so we’d be in a bit of a pickle if there wasn’t. I felt confident however, even if others in the group were less so.
We walked past all the vehicles up to the check point where a Kazakh soldier ushered us through. It could not have been easier and despite carrying heavy weaponry all the border guards on both sides were very friendly which was a surprise. After leaving Kazakhstan, the Uzbek border guards treated us like VIP’s and even led us to the front of the queue of locals, much to their dismay and our discomfort. It could not have been easier.
Whilst we were in the no man’s land, I saw figure out of the corner of my eye shifting around by a hanger. I immediately recognise them. It was Matt who we had left at the ferry port. He was still wearing the same clothes and looked rather disheveled. They had waited 6 hours at the port in the end for their ride and then driven through the night to the border. They had been waiting at the border since 4am (it was early afternoon at this point) and by all accounts would be waiting a while longer. I’d never been happier about a decision. We’d been to Aktau, explored, ate well, refreshed and had a good night’s sleep in the same time. I’d love to say I didn’t feel a little smug, but I did. I felt bad for him and Anvita though. They were seeking an ‘authentic experience’ and they certainly got one! We wished them well and off we went.
On the other side of the border it was chaos. Luckily, it seemed getting a car wasn’t going to be a problem but we were mobbed by people all trying to negotiate a taxi ride or change money. It was a little overwhelming. We walked off for a bit before taking a deep breath and heading back into the mele to barter for a ride. This was hard work as they were asking for a lot more than we were willing to pay. We initially agreed a price but then saw the state of the car and thought better of it. After much drama we negotiated a driver to take us the 400-500km to Nukus for $50 and off we went.
The next leg on this journey was tough, really tough. The road, well you could hardly even call it a road. It was just a series of interconnecting pot holes, some of which were the size of bath tubs. It was painfully slow and we had to weave in and out of these all the while being smashed around. Often the best bit of road was actually off the road entirely in the ditch beside it. This went on for hours. How the driver kept his concentration I’ve no idea.
We were driving though Karakalpakstan, one the most desolate places on the planet. It was just empty, flat, shrubby desert for as far as the eye can see. Impressive at first but it soon got tiring. My mind started playing tricks on me as distant camels on the horizon looked like cars whizzing along a road amidst a mirage. It was bizarre.
We did see some small desert rodents by the road sides, the occasional eagle and I even saw a desert fox trotting along.
Because of the abominable road the journey took far longer than anticipated. We kept on going, the sun eventually disappeared over the horizon and it was nightfall by the time we started to get close to civilisation.
By our estimations we were about 45 minutes from Nukus when we pulled over into a lay-by in the highway. The driver gestured for us to get out. We were all a little confused and as we got out we were quickly surrounded by men and another car had pulled up. When the taxi driver switched the engine off, and in the absence of headlights we were plunged into darkness, I confess I was quite worried.
A man approached and produced his mobile phone and google translate. He started speaking into but it was a while before anything sensical came out. It was along the lines of you need to pay the money now. We were still a long way from our destination so that wasn’t an option. It then appeared they wanted us to get in another car but kept saying we must pay all the money now. This situation seemed pretty dodgy. I was the one doing the google translating with the guy and couple of quite sinister translations came through. One which said ‘you must stand there with the bodies!’ Another however said we must ‘bring the mascot out onto the pitch’. I made a conscious decision to remain calm and preserver. I suggested we pay half the money now and the rest on arrival but they wouldn’t accept that. I didn’t want to outright say that they were trying to screw us over, in part because we were surrounded by a crowd of men and also if things went wrong we could be stranded on a roadside in the middle of nowhere, in the dark.
I eventually chose to say that this arrangement was ‘unusual’ for us and that was the turning point in the conversation. Immediately the whole tone and body language of the men changed and he translated back ‘please don’t worry, we mean no harm’. A bit more back and forth and finally I cracked it! Our driver who’d been going for about five hours at this point was near his home, was tired and he wanted to transfer the taxi to a friend. We had to pay him the whole fare and then he’d arranged for this other guy to take us the remaining distance. There were sighs of relief all round as we paid up, got in the new taxi and were driven to our hostel in Nukus. Definite case of lost in translation!! Twelve hour and two taxis over about 1000km had cost us $100 so $25 each! And one hell of an adventure.
And that was the end of this epic journey. Having left Tbilisi I’d travelled 2000km almost non-stop over 4 days by train, boat and car.
Wandering Henry 