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Jon Turk
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Ust Komenogorsk
- Older in Altai Bike Expedition, 2006: VISA revenge - Newer in Altai Bike Expedition, 2006: Zyryanovsk
OK,... so we were shaken down by petty railroad officials and a Kazak horde of ragtag bandito baggage handlers on the train to Novosibirsk. But considering the past raping and pillaging of Kazak hordes and the Gulag history of trains to Novosibirsk, we didn't come out too bad at all.
We rode 1000 kilometers across the vast and very empty steppe of central Asia and arrived twenty hours later at the platform in Zhanghyztobe. There we met our 40 year old guide, Stas, who is actually 14, with a minor translation error.
We drove to the office of the "Empire of Tourism" and the woman asked if we'd ever been camping before. Then she suggested a low-key introductry ride with jeep support. Noey tells me that I just about lost it. After I calmed down, and they got the idea of what we were intending to do, Stas's father got worried and arranged to have Guide/Interpreter II, Pavil, join us. Pavil speaks no English and announced that he will ride with us for five days and then wants nothing more to do with us.
Stas gets the idea and silently is determined to go on a big adventure with these Americans.
We could get grumpy and put our bicycles and bobs back on the train and fly home in a huff, but clearly we aren't going to do that.
Actually, Noey and I are thinking that this is all pretty funny and we are giggling a lot. Tomorrow we head into the mountains.
We won't be at a computer until we are in Xingjiang Province in China over a month away. So we'll call in our stories by satellite phone to Nina Maclean and she'll do the postings from Darby, Montana.
Dated: 07/05/2006
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