In Kazakhstan ? Where’s Borat? Kazakhstan wasn’t in the plan, was it? No, it wasn’t, but the border between Uzbekistan and Kirgizstan is closed in the uzbek side. There are elections in a few days (this has been written later, the elections have been held already) and in case there are problems the border has been closed. In June of this year there was an uprising with deaths, villages on fire and 200.000 refugees trying to cross to Uzbekistan.

So I could cross by Tajikistan or Kazakhstan and the way by Kazakhstan was much faster. I applied for a transit vista in Tashkent and I got it next day. I could have taken a bus and cross in one day , but going through a country seeing nothing I thought was a pity. I’ve chosen the village of Taraz to make a stop, sleep here a night, talk with someone a little bit and have at least a meal. It’s not much, but I don’t expect to see the nineth biggest country in the world in one day.

After leaving Uzbekistan I can throw away all this papers. They are hotel registrations compulsory by the government. They can ask about them when you leave the country to be sure you haven’t… done anything suspicious against the government i guess…

The transit visa is for these things, to cross a country or something similar. In this case the duration was up to five days and the only requirement was having a visa of the country I was going to cross to, Kyrgyzstan.

With just a little amount of time I make the coin collection for my sister in a record time and I need to get money twice as I spend a lot. Kazakhstan has a lot of petrol. From what they say we cannot imagine it, and after letting you imagine it, they say they have more than that. Maybe this is why I’m spending four times more than in Uzbekistan.

A little happy thing. The plug remains the same, two rounded plugs. I’ve been using the same plug from Spain with no adapter.

There were a lot of Halal places in the street with un-sugesting places like Fast Halal, Halal You or this Halal Burger. Halal is the way the animals are sacrified so Muslims can eat it (a way permitted by the Quran).

While waiting for the visa in Tashkent a woman spoke to me and told me that she wanted to change husband’s, that she didn’t like hers… I didn’t know what to answer… “Hi, I want to change husband.” one day if I’m bored I’ll go to someone and tell this annihilating sentence, to see the face.

Taraz has some of the oldest buildings in the country, they are not a big thing but beautiful. If you are getting tired of mosques and Muslim art in Kyrgyzstan we’ll rest as it’s all landscapes.

The keeper of one of them gives me a oil pancake that becomes my breakfast.

A little noria with the same operational way as the Hama water norias in Syria (here you have the link if you want to see it).

I glue the passport again, this time much more. There are only two more border til the end of the trip, hope it lasts.

Leaving Kazakhstan becomes a horror, I wait two hours for the bus, when it comes people run and push each others in the doors, and of course, the foreigner has no seat with a stupid face. The next bus arrives three hours later, one hour late and instead of going to Bishkek it’s just going to the border only. This bus does not depart at the end so I have to share a taxi with some other young guys. I’d taken the shared taxi not waiting five hours!. At least, as I imagined something like this I devour my Kyrgyzstan guide book.

I arrive to the border at night. A soldier with huge hands mistreat’s my feeble passport, he goes throught all the pages twice not finding the visa of his own country, it’s a bit difficult because there are three faces of pages left, but I think he does not find it because each finger blocks three quarters of each page. I end up looking for the visa page myself and giving him the passport with care. He stamps it and let’s me go. My passport and me get relieved.

Crossing a border at night is unpleasant because it’s usually not well indicated, there’s no light and you don’t know when you are across and where to get the transport to wherever you want to go.

I was lucky and one of the guys in the shared taxi became my “protector” and helped me to change transport another three times to arrive to my hostel in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan. We have next to us two drunks that in a sudden break of the car have fallen to the ground and have not even woken up… At midnight I read the name of my hostel on a wall. Good!

I’m exhausted!

Fernando