Getting back into Kazakhstan was easier than I anticipated. After horror stories of checking through laptops, phones, cameras and hotel registration slips, the Uzbek lads just didn’t seem bothered by me.

So, after half an hour of standing behind a bloke with six bundles of sticks, then having to update the Uzbek border control on the current visa situation in Kazakhstan for UK citizens, I was through. The Kazakhs didn’t even want a root through my panniers, not even a quick x-ray. At this point I think I could’ve carried a kilo of coke from the UK in my seat pack. Would’ve made camping a bit more interesting.

The last time I camped solo was on some sand dunes near some nudists after a days riding from Thessaloniki in Greece. My first foray back into solo camping was, quite frankly, a shit effort. I biked into the night, and camped ten meters away from the road, behind a wall. Not the most glamorous of spots, although I did wake up to snow capped mountains and a load of ice on my tent.

Looks decent on first inspection…

…except there was a nice grey wall in the way.

Riding in Kazakhstan made me realise how shit the drivers are there. I’ve mentioned Uzbek weirdness, and perhaps the most mental thing is, in Uzbekistan, everyone drives extremely safely. It’s weird. Until you realise why — there isn’t much petrol in Uzbekistan, so everyone runs on gas. These aren’t properly converted machines though, cars fly around with tanks strapped on the top, underneath, in the boot, anywhere, which essentially converts their car into a high-speed bomb. In this part of Kazakhstan they just fly past you in their flash cars with millimetres to spare, they just don’t give a shit.

The wall blocking me from Kyrgyzstan

This stretch of Kazakhstan skirted around Kyrgyzstan, which seemed like an impenetrable wall of white mountains. My original plan was to head up through Kyrgyzstan to Bishkek, score a Chinese visa (which by the sounds of it, had turned into a difficult process this summer), then back down through the Irkesham Pass into China. I’d called time on that idea, I was too late. Nuts to freezing my nuts off on top of a mountain.

I finally figured out the timer on my camera, and realised I need a haircut.

Now I was heading to Bishkek, attempting to procure a Chinese visa, then all being well, riding to Almaty, towards the Chinese border then onto Urumqi. Piece of piss. Except it was getting cold. Really cold.

Cold, misty morning part one

Cold, misty morning part two

On the way to Bishkek I passed through Shimkent and Taraz, fairly unremarkable Kazakh cities. Despite it getting damn cold, I managed to recover my ability to spot a campsite, one of which was a solid 8/10 on the Flo scale; real grass, next to a river, with a bit of foliage and a backdrop of mountains. I even had a chat with a Kazakh cowboy at dusk, as he reared his horse and rode off through the river. It was a bit surreal really.

Camping in Kazakhstan is pretty damn good.

Just before the cowboy trotted over for a chat.

At least the clear skies made for some decent sunsets

I want to go riding in Kyrgyzstan.

After the Kazakh/Kyrgyz border, which was easiest in a long while, I had 80km of what turned out to be horrible, industrial road, which kind of soured arriving into Bishkek.

Kyrgyzstan before the grey industrial run-up to Bishkek

Bishkek turned out to be quite nice, and the most westernised city I’d been to since Baku.

As anticipated, the visa process was a bit ridiculous. I originally went to one agency as I wanted to avoid going to Miss Liu having heard a fair few horror stories, I wasn’t going to be so lucky. This agency got me to get my bits of paper together, and then drove me to Miss Liu herself, maybe they just couldn’t be arsed with me.

Miss Liu turned out to be pretty helpful, she helped me put together ‘the plan’, booking various hotels, buses and trains on my ‘trip’, and made sure under no circumstances I mentioned anything about cycling. I had to go to an ‘interview’ the next morning at the Chinese embassy, in which they only asked what my job was. After that, I was done, and providing my letter of invitation came through I’d be the proud owner of a Chinese visa by Wednesday.

I had five days to kill.

Fortunately, this is where Matt turned up at my hostel. Matt’s a fellow English lad who was on his way back to England after travelling to Australia then working for a bit and taking the long way back. He luckily had the same taste for liqueur as I do, so the next few days involved a lot of (incredibly good, and most importantly, cheap) vodka and beer.

We met up with Tangalu, Alina and Ainura, who Matt had been put in touch with from a Couchsurfing host who couldn’t actually host him and over the next few days we went out, were introduced to a great bunch of people, hiked in some unbelievable canyons, drank far too much on Halloween, met Ed – a 19 year old lad who’s unicycling around the world (for everyone who thinks I’m mental — that’s proper mental), and watched a bloke salsa dance with paint on his feet in a fried chicken shop.

The Red Canyons

Matt and his trusty plastic bag

It was decent doing something not on a bike

It was a decent wander around

Conclusive evidence that it was Matt who drank all of the vodka.

Ringing Miss Liu to check up on my visa was hard work, partly due to the fact it sounded like she was running through bushes, but I managed to figure out she had my visa and arranged to meet her in a nearby coffee shop in a less-dodgy-than-it-sounds encounter. After handing over some crisp US dollar, I had it. My passport with a nice new sticker in it. My ticket to the cold.

I also managed to meet up with Phil who I’d met in Tashkent in the same coffee shop, he’d managed to find his passport (it was in another room in the hostel), and was about to start the same process, but it’d take him around ten days, and I was now in a race against winter.

On my last day in Bishkek I almost managed to get in my second fight of the tour, the first time being the mental Serbian orthodox priest. This time no religion was involved. The entire time I’d been seeing this homeless bloke around. He was alright, he smiled, he waved, he was a damn sight better than most, if not all people asking for cash. This time, though, I was walking past and he held his arms outstretched as if he was asking for a hug. I tried to scoot around him, as nice as he was, hugging a stinking hobo wasn’t on my to-do list. Apparently I had no choice in the matter, he set about squeezing and lifting me into the air multiple times whilst I condescendingly patted him on the head and looked at the nearby bread seller bloke as if to say — ‘Come on mate, help me out.’

It all turned a bit sour then. He pulled back a closed fist ready to punch me in the gut, and I braced myself for it.

I’ve discussed this moment with my brother Ben, as my thought process at the time was — ‘He has to hit me first, then I can reciprocate.’ Which Ben found hilarious and very British of me. Always representing.

It didn’t happen though, a bloke came over, grabbed him, threatened to punch him in the face a bit and it was over. I gave him a nod and a thumbs up for his work. Top bloke. Probably a decent time to leave Bishkek.

Two days cycling to Almaty then. It’s worth mentioning that whilst I’d been in Bishkek it’d managed to snow a fair bit, and hearing reports from people who had been to Almaty, there was plenty of snow there too. Nice one. Have I mentioned I fucking hate the cold?

I’d already camped in minus ten, and despite finally being very thankful for my high-power sleeping bag, I wasn’t too enthused about this arrangement for the next two months. The thing is about camping in extreme cold isn’t sleeping (when you’ve got the gear to cope with it), it’s packing it away. Your fingers become incapable of moving. You have to pack things in short bursts in between driving your hands into your armpits or crotch. You know when you wake up on a Monday morning faced with work after a particularly heavy weekend? Well, it’s not that bad…

So, onto my third entry into Kazakhstan. There was a 1200 meter pass on the way I wanted to get over before the day was out. I bust a gut in increasingly shit weather trying to get up it, getting hit with sleet and wind sideways whilst the sweat from the base of the climb got colder.

A bloke stopped me near the top and asked the usual questions, along with one that stuck in my mind —

‘Why don’t you get a Marshutka?’

That’s a Transit Van masquerading as a bus if you’re wondering, and the answer to his question, whilst half frozen, was —

‘I don’t know.’

He gave me three apples, and I carried on towards the peak, before taking a break at a bus shelter.

This was it.

The moment I truly decided to fly somewhere warmer.

I’d been wearing two sets of gloves and the sweat had begun to freeze, along with the shirt on my back as I’d had to don the waterproof jacket to shield from the sleet.

I even had a ‘Lieutenant Dan’ moment. I couldn’t feel my legs. Goretex boots are all well and good, but wind can cut straight through them. A quick look at my thermometer told me it was about minus ten.

But worst of all, the final straw, was that those apples that bloke had given me were shit, pathetic mushy excuses for fruit. I lobbed them as far as I could down the pass in anger and started thumbing for a lift.

I’m awful at remembering names. If there’s one name I should remember, I feel it should be the name of the guy who picked me up, helped be hoist The Tangerine Dream into the back of his truck, and gave me a tab whilst I slowly regained feeling in my legs and hands. Unfortunately, I can’t, but wherever he is, he gets a huge slice of gratitude for getting me out of a tight spot.

Decision made then, I was either flying or taking a train. I didn’t know where to though. I mean, I had a Chinese visa, so somewhere in China, but at least I definitely knew I couldn’t be arsed with cycling through another month of freezing weather. Nuts to that.

I narrowed down my choices to either fly to Chengdu or Xian, or take the train to Urumqi and another to Chengdu in what I imagined would be two days in a cramped carriage with enough boredom to turn my brain to mush and dribble out my nose. Flight then, to Xian, which would leave me about 2500km to Vietnam.

At this point I’d put in about 6000km on my chain and cassette since Istanbul through the Causacus mountains and the Silk Road, about time for a change. Eventually I managed to track down an XT cassette and decent SRAM chain at Elite Sports. It was no mean feat, even when you do find decent parts they seem confused why you’re prepared to spend big on good quality gear instead of a cheaper equivalent.

The next task turned out to be much harder than I thought — a bike box. Nowhere had one. It was off season. Shit out of luck. Fortunately I remembered cycling Frenchman Alex Duaurin was flying from Almaty to Beijing on the 11th of November, the same flight I could catch and connect to Xian. It turns out he’d got in touch with a CouchSurfing host, Azamet, who owned a shipping company that would pack our bikes and give us a lift to the airport. An absolute lifesaver.

Just about to leave to go stick our bikes in boxes

Those Kazakh boys know how to box a bike

Five man job

The finished article

It was too easy. I was waiting for the catch, which turned out to be at check in, twenty minutes before departure when they took one look at our boxes, weighed them and told us to shed some weight. Cue a massive fuckabout, ripping boxes open, hauling stuff out, shrink-wrapping stuff together to check in as additional baggage to the tune of 70 bucks. Seeing as though we had five minutes before the plane left we couldn’t really argue and coughed up.

Me, Alex and the Nomadex boys at Almaty airport complete with two big ugly boxes.

I never really anticipated being in Beijing. I never really anticipated flying. We managed to find our boxes in a special area for idiots who want to fly with massive luggage. So, for the fifth time, I said goodbye to Monsieur Duaurin, hopefully I’ll catch him in South East Asia with his new Iranian fiancé. That’s right ladies, he’s off the market, he sure moves fast that kid.

I had enough time in Beijing to see the smog, eat something, and be forced into repacking my bike to fit through the scanners before being charged for additional baggage again because the lovely lady in Almaty had only written to Beijing on my receipt.

Nice one. I hope China gets better.

The Tangerine Dream, fully reassembled.