Arriving at his farm, we were immediately greeted by the high pitched loud shrieking and calling of these eagles. These eagles were baby’s he explained to us, only 9kg, their claws(around 3 inches long) and beaks however looked large and sharp enough to easily rip a human too shreds. He said that even these baby eagles were used for hunting wolves, due to their ferocity and strength. The Kazakh nomads had a fearsom reputation as eagle hunters, their large eagles (much like you would image a gryphon to look like) allowing them to hunt otherwise uncatchable animals that roamed the vast steppe, and thus these eagles, were very much bound up in the culture and heritage.

Baltibi (the owners name) put on a brief demonstration for us, bringing his eagle out on the arm of another of the eagle trainers, the eagle perched upon a very thick leather and felt glove to protect the trainer. Next a young apprentice (he looked around 13 years old) unfurled a skin of an animal, attached to a long rope, and proceeded to run as fast as he could to the edge of the property. The trainer throwing the eagle up in to their, it sped off dive bombing straight into the animal skin in a powerful display of its efficiency as a killing machine, clutching it in its huge claws until the trainer arrived to bring it back. These eagles are like nothing else, efficiently honed killing machines of immense speed, strength, and with huge razor sharp claws and beaks.

On a sad note, we have lamentably had to come to the end of our trip now, due to some unforeseen financial difficulties, but have vowed to return to complete the rest of our journey when we have managed to secure some more funding. The director of the Eco museum here has kindly offered to hang Quikey up as a display in the museum (hung from the roof, out of reach of fiddling hands) like a large dinosaur skeleton, already preassembled for when we return back for part 2 of the journey. Right now we're knuckling down to work on our documentary and book, trying to raise funds for our schools project, and trying to raise some more money to return for part 2 of our journey.

We had many pieces of equipment broken, stolen, lost or damaged on our travels. However, the story of the Watch is the one that makes us most upset. This Watch had been with Roger on his previous expeditions in Southwest Tasmania and Greenland, saving his life many a time. You see, it is not just any ordinary watch. It's an expedition-specific Watch with solar panel charge, altimeter, all world times, barometer, thermometer, compass, waterproof to 30 m, plus many other features. So when we refer to the Watch, we're actually referring to also our expedition altimeter, weather predictor, and compass.

The first time the Watch was stolen was in Pakhtakor, Uzbekistan (refer to old news update for more details about our time in that town). When we first arrived in town we'd been invited to dinner by the local restauranteur, who cooked us some fine shashliks. He had insisted to us that it would be safe to leave our quike, with all lights and computer and Watch still attached and in clear view (we tried to remove and hide these items and lock the quike better but he refused to let us), out the front of his restaurant while we went inside to eat. The quike, he said, would be under the eyes of his staff at all times. Unfortunately he overestimated the integrity of one other townsperson, and by the time we were back outside after our meal, the Watch had disappeared. From then, the police search begun and continued on for several days, only to turn up empty-handed by the time we had to leave town. The head of the investigative unit of the Jizzakh Oblast police was sincerely and extremely apologetic for our misfortune, and assured us the search would continue despite our departure. We didn't have our hopes up too high though - we expected that we would never see the Watch again.

However, just on the evening before the Samarkand police forcibly (and illegally) deported us to Tajikistan (another long story :) ), we heard back from our good friend (Dilnoza) back in Pakhtakor giving us the good news that the head of the police unit had located the watch and would personally drive with her to Samarkand immediately to deliver it back to us. Within a few hours Roger was wearing his watch again, although we were quite surprised at how shiny and new the Watch was, despite its rough journey through crime. As it turned out, the perpetrator had obviously felt bad about his/her wrongdoing, and had left the Watch in a location for the police to discover and return to us. Then, the police had hired a watch "master" (term to describe a trade professional) to clean and polish the Watch, to have it in best condition for our reunion. Yay!

Sound unbelievable? Well, that's probably for good reason. Another thing we should mention is that the Pakhtakor police also confirmed and re-confirmed with us a number of times the model code and colours of the Watch, and we overheard a phone conversation between the head of the unit and his son in Tashkent, where they were repeatedly calling out the model number and city names such as Dubai and Almaty (other big city locations that would be likely to stock this Watch model). So we figure that it was probably a brand new watch. It's quite nice of them to go to such trouble for us, but we can't help but wonder, where'd they get the money to pay for it?

The next time the Watch (well, its identical twin brother anyway) was stolen was late in our journey through Kyrgyzstan. We'd been riding out from Osh toward Sary-Tash when Megan's knee got a bit too bad to continue riding on. However, we did still need to push forward in order to make it into China before our visa entry date expired. So once again, very regrettably, we found ourselves sitting on the side of the road, hailing down a truck to pick up us and the quike. That day we'd hailed down a few but without success as the drivers were all demanding a price far higher than we would or could give (side note on this - the trucks were going there with an empty load anyway, and once we covered a bit of petrol expenses, our cash would be all profit for them... why were they so greedy and trying to bleed us dry?). Just as the sun was ducking behind the surrounding mountains, we got on board a truck heading to Sary Tash, albeit due for arrival the following day. But it was a reasonable price and we were getting cold so we shook on it. The reason it would be an overnight journey was that we were to stop in at his family's house by the road for the night, about halfway there.

That evening we shared a meal with the truck driver and his big family, and then after dinner he and his two sons came outside with us to adjust the rope system for tying down the quike. We weren't to be gone for long or very far, so we left our purple handbag (containing easy access essentials such as phrasebooks, a few medicines, toilet paper, pen and paper, leatherman, headtorch, and of course the Watch) in by the eating area. It was not until early the next morning, when Roger went to check the time, that we discovered that the Watch was missing again. We did a quick search of all the rooms we'd been in the previous night, but deduced that the only time it was left alone was when we went outside to tie down the quike. The only people that could have possibly taken it were members of this truck driver's family, and most likely one of his other two sons that had remained outside at that time.

However, even when there are only two possible suspects, and you have both their names and faces, it is not that simple to recover a stolen item. After explaining ourselves over and over, and re-iterating that no, we did not accidentally drop the watch down the long-drop dunny, and that the watch must be in the possession of some member of his family, he finally called his youngest (about 10 years old) son back home from school to help with the search. But of course, he swore he never saw it. The other suspect (the other son) was at work already, and no he never saw the thing either. After seeing how distressed we were, and hearing what it actually meant to us, the father was clearly going to be quite angry at whomever had done this to us, so we figured this would be burying the Watch further underground, if it wasn't there already. No-one would own up to it now, and they'd most likely get rid of the evidence too, so we could see that hanging around waiting for it to magically reappear, for the second time, would be a waste of our precious time.

Thus we jumped in the truck and decided to just continue on toward China without it. The truck driver, feeling sorry for us, gave back the money we'd paid for the ride. Nice gesture, but little consolation for what our trip with him had actually cost us.

Since then we've been in a bit of bother when it comes to telling the time. This trouble is compounded by the fact that we're in China now (which is, in general, a lot more punctual) and specifically, in Xinjiang which appears to concurrently run on two official time zones, two hours apart (Xinjiang vs. Beijing time). Our speedometer had been quite handy for this as a backup, but that broke long ago so we didn't even have that option to carry around either.

Within the first 24 hours after arriving in Kashgar we'd obtained a new, plain, basic cheap watch. Within the next 12 h, it had failed us miserably and within the following 12 h, it had no display. Within the next 24 h, we'd bought a new, better, more expensive (but still cheap) watch. Within the next 24 h after that, it had failed us miserably and within 24 h following that, it had no display. We then went on to buy the better watch a new battery, but the trend carried on and we were left out of time yet again. We now know not to buy watches or batteries here in China as it will only lead to heartache.

Now we have a few less than ideal methods of performing the simple task of telling the time. One option is to carry around our satellite phone, but the problem is that flashing that thing around in public in Xinjiang is not a good idea, for reasons beyond the pickpockets. For those of you that are unaware, there's been a block on all internet and international phone calls in Xinjiang since July. Our other (though not much better) option is to use the clock on the camera because that seems to hold its time well. But again, the problem is that we can't go flashing that thing around willy nilly either. Let's just say that we're lucky that all the PSB offices here have big clocks at the entrance, otherwise we might soon be arrested for checking the time!

However, the troubles began as soon as we stepped foot on Kazakhtani soil. When we crossed the border at Korgas (14/1/2010) we received only one stamp, and seeing that this was different to what we received last year, we insisted that we should have two stamps.  The customs officer then enquired with her senior officer and then confirmed that we could only get the one stamp there at the border. We have since learned that only at the International airports in Astana and Almaty, or at the sea port on the Caspian Sea an you obtain the second stamp on arrival, which completes the necessary registration process. When crossing into Kazakhstan by land, you must register at a migration office within 5 days of entry.

Thus, when we first arrived in Jarkent, on 15/1/2010, we went to the police and tried to register.  The officer in charge of migration there called through to Taldiqhorgan to check the rules, and then told us to go to Taldiqhorgan or Almaty to register, as they could not handle us Australians there in Jarkent.  After our Uzbekistan debarcle, we knew not to take this as fact.  So first of all, we stressed to the officer the fact that we needed to register within 5 days, and we would not be able to reach neither Almaty nor Taldiqhorgan in this time.  He called again to check with Taldiqhorgan and then told us that this would not be a problem, just ride as fast as possible, and even if it took 10 days to ride there it would not be a problem and they would not enforce the fine.  The officer then disappeared and wouldn't talk to us anymore so we had to give up for the day.

The next day we came back with a translator we had met in the street, who had a friend who worked at the police station and a sister that does some work with passports etc. in Almaty, so she knew the importance of registration.  We told her how worried we were that it would not be OK and she tried to help.  However, after several hours of asking around we still came back with the same answer - ride on to Taldiqhorgan and register there, and it would not be a problem and there would not be a fine even if it took 10 days to ride there. We requested that this information be written up officially and stamped, but unfortunately the message was not transmitted correctly and we ended up with a typed letter written by our translator.

At our first internet connection out of China we spoke to our friend in Astana about China police problems, and when he spoke to the journalists they got a bit excited and published a press release that we’d been deported from China for being suspected of being spies for the Uyghurs. So for all those that might have heard this information, we must stress that in fact we were NOT deported from China.

We were later told that this type of misrepresentation is unfortunately commonplace in the Kazakhstan media, and the only action that can plausibly be taken is to issue a correction as a press release.

Early the next morning we loaded up the Quike and left Jarkent for Taldiqhorgan. However, we had quite a few unexpected setbacks on the way. Firstly, that very afternoon a big storm started and gave us a foot of snow, making the going a little more tricky on the road from then on. That night, our sleeping mattresses BOTH failed, in that the baffle stitching popped and after that one needed to be pumped again after every 4 hours, whereas the other one needed re-pumping every 40 minutes! This made it even dangerous for us to camp out in these temperatures. 

Hearing all our problems (and fearing the wolves) all the townsfolk along the way helped us out with places to stay, even calling ahead to their friends to make sure they'd be able to take us in for the night. More often than not, this involved stopping for the day earlier than we normally would, just to ensure we’d have a place to stay that night and wouldn’t have to camp. When we arrived at the start of the climb on the Altin-Emel pass, the road through was actually closed that day, so we stayed in that last small village with the owner of the shashlik stand. The next morning there was a huge, chilly headwind on the road, so although the pass opened to cars that day, us trying to ride anywhere would’ve been futile!

When we finally arrivedin Sariozek we went straight to the Akimat (mayor’s office) and told them our registration problem.  They said they could help us and get us the stamp.  Representatives from the office then took us out for the day to see local traditions and then at the end of the day they stamped our passports.  However, when we got the passports back we saw they'd stamped it with the Akimat stamp, the completely wrong stamp. Clearly they had no idea what we needed!

When we arrived in Taldiqhorgan we had a bit of trouble finding accommodation, or somewhere safe to leave our Quike, and it wasn’t until after our second night in town that we made it to the Migration desk. Unfortunately, the Migration office was closed that day and on February 5 we had to return to the office, when it was open. We have since learned that this is typical of Migration Offices outside of Astana and Almaty – they are usually open only two days, or even just two mornings, per week!

However, when we got there the next day, there were dozens of people ahead of us awaiting service. It is not so bad to have to wait, but many times before we had waited in similar queues before only to be told at the counter that we were in the wrong queue. We’d seen this type of situation successfully negotiated by locals before, so we used our newfound skills. We went the end of the counter, stuck our heads around the security glass at the gap with the window, caught someone’s attention by speaking English and bad Russian, and then we got served.

The Migration Officer took our passports, got a copy, and was gone a while, and she said we needed a letter from the inviting party. We said we could bring it back, and we showed her a photocopy of a stamped letter we had from Avalon HGS (our inviting organisation), but she said she needed a different, and specific letter. We tried to ask her whether she had been notified that we were coming so that we could explain to her why we were late, but of course, she’d never been notified about any Aussies arriving late to that office.

So we went outside and called Vitaliy for advice. He wanted to make sure he got the details correct, so he wanted to speak to the migration officer directly, so we went back in and put her on the phone to Vitaliy. Confronted with this, her story gradually changed. First she said she needed the original, not a fax or copy. Then she told Vitaliy that we needed a representative to register with us, and only in Karaganda, and there would be a fine of about 14000 Tenge for Roger, Megan, and Avalon, each. Plus, as we were now illegal, a police officer could arrest us on the spot should he catch us before we manage to get ourselves registered.

After hearing this we decided we had only one option – go to Karaganda. Plus, we couldn’t go without the Quike because we had no idea what might happen to us, and if we’d be allowed to remain in the country. As it was Friday that day, and Vitaliy wouldn’t be in Karaganda himself until Tuesday, we decided to remain in Taldiqhorgan until Sunday, and then start the long bus ride down to Almaty and then back up to Karaganda – a 1250 km journey. We couldn’t take the slightly shorter road up north to Karaganda because due to the bad winter that was settling in, that less-used road would probably close often and we might be stranded.

The next morning (Saturday) we had an appointment with the local TV news at Jetsu TV. We did a quick interview and a demonstration of Quike riding and repairs, and while we were there we met a very kind man named Valeriy. He was the President of the region’s Velosport Federation, and trainer of Olympic and internationally competitive Kazakhstani cyclists. So of course he was very interested in us and our contraption. He took us to his house that evening to feed us up on a high-protein diet, and while we were there he begun calling around to his friends to try to pull some Migration Office strings for us. But unfortunately he really couldn’t do much for us, and the best he could do was to help us get to Almaty and then Karaganda safely.

It took us a 4-hour taxi and then a 24-hour bus ride, and on Tuesday afternoon we arrived in Karaganda. The next day, we spent the whole day at police offices, trying to fix our problem. At the first office, we were just told to sit and await further instruction - about two hours. Then we were driven to a different office, and we sat in a room for another hour. Then we were taken to a third office where we waited in the foyer for them to finish lunch. But then we only got in to talk to the guy after 3 pm. It wasn’t fun when we did, because he handed down the fine and accepted no excuses, because we were so late. Vitaliy tried to explain to them that we had tried to register in time, but were misinformed, and then we tried to register so many times since too. But he wouldn’t have a bar of it – according to him, the fact that we were by now “almost a month” (18 days) late with our registration was so inexcusable that he was not going to let up on this fine. The decision was – 14132 Tenge (about AUD $120) each for Roger, Megan, and Avalon HGS.

But then there was another spanner in the works, because we didn’t have enough cash on us, so we had to get to an ATM, withdraw the money, and then go to a different bank to do a moneygram transfer to the police. This was all done very hurriedly because following that we had to return to the police office, before close of business, and hand in the receipt of payment. At that point we were told that we could return to the office in two days to collect our registered passports. Why they need to take two days to put a stamp on a piece of paper, nobody knows.

After all that, the only consolation was that we had a big story in one of Karaganda’s leading newspapers, telling all about the bad treatment we’d received at the hands of the migration police. It might not have been the best move for us, politically, but it is probably a good thing that these problems with the police can and are reported publicly.

We entered Tajikistan on Thursday, the 23rd of July. We arrived in style – police escort via an illegaly commandeered private taxi with the Quike on the roof and our passports confiscated. At the exit gate from Uzbekistan, and entry into no man's land, an officer ordered us to follow him quickly to the Tajikistan side. We had no choice but to oblige because he did, afterall, still hold our passports.

As he was luring us along, a panicked young British lad approached us. He had mixed up his dates and had arranged visas with the final exit day for Uzbekistan one day prior to the first possible entry date for Tajikistan. Oops. Now, he and his girlfriend were bound to camp the night out there in no man's land. He was asking us for a loan of our tent for the night, and he'd return it the next day to us in Penjikent. We really wanted to help him, but if he could only hear out our story he'd have understood why we were frantic to get onto Tajikistani soil. We didn't want to leave a single piece of equipment on the other side. Instead, we tried to call the British embassy for him on our satellite phone but Thuraya service was, yet again, temporarily unavailable (grrrr).

After our woes in Uzbekistan we were anxious about getting all our information and documents correct from the very start in Tajikistan. Upon entry at the border, the guards were very nice to us and didn't care to check through our bags at all. They even wanted to help us fill in our migration cards, but we could see that they were writing in the wrong information, so we had to cut in and correct them. They wanted to write we had Tourist visas but we had to cross it out and write in that we had Business visas. We also asked them about registration and they said we didn’t need to for 30 days. We again re-iterated that we have Business visas and then they told us to register at Penjikent, but they did not sound at all confident when they said this.

The next day we went with our English-speaking host into Penjikent town to register at the police station. On the way we spotted a tourist information office and decided to just quickly ask their advice before we went to the migration desk. There we received confirmation that with our Business visas, we would need registration within 3 days of entering Tajikistan.

We went to Penjikent police station but they refused to register us, but not in the same sinister manner that had occurred in Gagarin, Uzbekistan. Just recently in March (2009) there had been a law change allowing tourists to travel in Tajikistan without registration for 30 days. These police officers knew of this law change and were proudly exclaiming this new good news to us. We corrected them and told them we had Business visas, and they seemed a bit puzzled by this information. They then asked us for what purpose we were in Tajikistan, and we replied “tourists” and so they again gave us the good news that we needn't register there and then.

With a sense of deja vu we tried to nip this problem in the bud and demand registration. However, the officer became increasingly irritated. It was very hot in there, and there were many other people waiting in the queue. Our host was also puzzled as to why we also were not happy at the news that we needn't register, and he too was getting restless and wanted to leave. So we decided to just leave the problem for the time being, and just try again on Monday. Our understanding of the 3-day rule for Tajikistan was that it didn't include Sundays or public holidays (although maybe it does now... who knows?!), so we could still register until Monday.

On Monday we went back to the tourism office to tell them what had transpired on Friday, and it was again confirmed that we needed to register that day, according to the law. We then went back to the police station, the officer this time called his superior and got the news that actually, we needed to register by that day, but in Khojand or Dushanbe only. By that time it was almost midday, and the fastest we could possibly get to either of those cities was via an 8-hour taxi. Therefore, we were bound to our fate of becoming illegal by close of business that day.

We then went back to the tourism office and they gave a few suggestions for our course of action, but in the end decided to palm us off to the local “fixer”, Niyoskol Nematov. At Niyoskol's place we spoke at length with him and his business partner (Saudullo) and they confirmed that we did need that registration that very day in Dushanbe or Khojand, and without it we would be facing a USD 100 fine, each. At this news our faces sunk, and they could tell we'd been through an ordeal. We told them the whole story of all our troubles in Uzbekistan, and they took pity on us. After a bit of deliberation amongst themselves, they came up with a solution. They said we could work for their tourist agency while they fixed our visas. The pay, they said, would be quite bad, compared to what we'd be used to in Australia, but really it was an extraordinary amount to us then. We were prepared to trust in these strangers because without them, we were in big fine territory, and constantly fearing who’d pick us up, and how much they'd fine us.

By that very evening we had returned to the village, packed up all our things, and ridden the Quike back to Niyoskol's place in Penjikent town. We shared dinner with him and some other tourists and then went off to sleep. With no other option, we tried to just relax and have faith that our troubles would be solved by these kind men. Our first day on the job would be the very next day, but we'd have time to pack our things in the morning because Saudullo said the earliest we'd be heading off would be midday. As for our visa problem, Saudullo lined us up to have our passports sent to his son in Dushanbe, who would go and represent us at the OVIR office in the capital.

At 9 am, after wandering out of the room bleary-eyed, we were told that we'd be leaving on an overnight trip up to the 3000+ m mountains within 30 minutes, because the other Australian (a tourist) wanted to leave early. So we had to turn around and very hurriedly pack up our things, safety equipment and all. When we were walking out to the bus we spoke to the other Aussie and apologised for keeping him waiting, and he looked confused. He'd been told the same thing as us – that it was us that wanted to go early, and we were waiting on him! We had a laugh about it this strange joke that had been played on us as we jumped in a big, old, four wheel drive beastily bus, and headed for the hills with our compatriot.

On the way to the Fann mountains we came across a similar beastily old bus that had broken down. Our bus pulled over nearby and then a big group of Czech and Slovakian mountaineers disembarked and climbed aboard our bus. So that's the real reason we'd left early – to pick up the other tour group that had been stranded when their bus had broken down.

From Penjikent, the bus had headed east along the Zerafshan valley toward Ayni, but then about 50 km down the road we turned south onto a side road. This gravel road deteriorated over the next few kilometres and heading deeper into the mountains it became a definitely 4wd only track. We were still passing villages along the way, beautiful old towns with mud-brick houses and eroded steep streets.

The road came to an end at a small village called Artush, and we could see that that site was often used as a base camp for those venturing into the mountains. There we had tea with the local family and then started walking. Our task was to walk up the gully, without any idea of direction since we'd never seen a map, and then at the top in the big two km-wide bowl of lakes, find a man named Askar. We would recognise him as the Tajik guide of a big group of French tourists. When we found him we were to give him a hand-written note from Saudullo. We had no idea what the note said because it was in Tajik, but we knew it was something about us.

The walk up there was amazing, with snow-capped mountains in the distance, a clean blue sky, the temperature gradually dropping to be perfect walking conditions, a rippling stream alongside, pine trees sprouting from the most impossible rockfaces. Occassionaly we would have to step aside to let a loaded group of donkeys past – these animals were employed to haul equipment up for almost all the tour groups there. The track itself was becoming very steep and loose underfoot, and many people cannot walk it whilst carrying a big overnight hiking pack too, so they give it to the donkeys to carry. Along the way we would often stop while a trickles of stones fell across the track into the river gully and we could imagine an unexperienced walker slipping down the same path. We were very surprised when we came across a very old Tajik Babushka coming down from the mountain – complete with traditional robe dress and walking stick!

At the top, first we came across a big bunch of Tajik women of all ages. We had a quick chat with them and found out they were locals who lived up at that camp every summer. They pointed off to the other side of the bowl to where we might find Askar and his group of French tourists.

After a few more misses (turns out that the Fann mountains is a very popular destination for big groups of French tourists), we finally found Askar and gave him the note. He led us to a nice spot to set up our tent and then we went to help out with the food preparations. It was very difficult to get them to let us help, because they could only see us as guests, not workers. But we really needed to learn, and fast, if we were to be hired as mountain guides for the next trip. And we really didn't want to disappoint the man looking after our passports.

The next morning we walked back down with the group, trying to walk alongside Askar and learn the names of the surrounding peaks and any other information that might be useful for a mountain guide to know. By the time we returned to the base camp and drop-off point, we felt confident that we'd be OK guiding a group on that hike. We jumped back in the beasty bus for the ride back to Niyoskol's place, dreaming of our first showers since Uzbekistan.

However when we returned we were in for another surprise. We had hardly the time to sit down before we were told that one of us would be heading back out to the mountains for a 7 day hike, and we had one hour to get ready. Seeing that the group of tourists was just four French girls, who spoke English quite well, we decided that Megan should go. The next day, Roger headed off with a Belgian family of four. We arrived back in Penjikent on August 4. But our passports still had not arrived back from Dushanbe.

While we sat and waited for our passports we met several tourists at Niyoskol's place – another Aussie, some Spanishes, Frenches, Norwegians, some Brits doing the Mongol Rally, and some mountaineers from Lake Baikal in Siberia.

The next day we decided to push the issue of our passports a bit more and we called Saudullo in Dushanbe ourselves. He said that Megan's visa was fine and would be registered for USD 40. But unfortunately, he gave us the news that Roger had a tourist visa and did not need registration so he was not going to try to register it. We tried to explain to him again the situation, but he would hear none of it.

Later we went through the same process with Niyoskol and eventually we convinced him that Roger did need registration. At realising this, Niyoskol became very sorry because by then the registration was VERY late, and even his pulling of strings could not do anything about it. The next day the passports arrived back in Penjikent - Megan's registered, but Roger's not.

Out of luck and out of ideas, we went back to the Penjikent tourism office to ask them for advice. A man there gave us the unofficial advice that we just go on our travels as per usual, and then if anyone picked us up we say that we didn't know it was a Business visa, that we thought it was a Tourist visa. If need be, we could then bribe a registration office or border official near the border, which should be only about USD 30. Then it occurred to us that no police officer had yet correctly read Roger's visa, and they all believe it to be a tourist visa. We decided that we would take advantage of this and try to register Roger's as a tourist visa. However, the problem there was that no-one would register it this far in advance of the 30 day limit.

Unless...

After a bit of scheming we came up with the plan to tell the Penjikent passport office that we were about to go trekking in the Fann mountains for the next 30 days, so this was the only opportunity to register Roger's “tourist” visa. A man at the office wrote this down for us in a note in Tajik. With this bogus note in hand we marched back to the passport office.

It all went surprisingly smoothly. Although there were a few instances when their eyes were wandering over to the correction stamp that would prove Roger to be illegal, we managed to prevent them actually reading it by momentarily diverting their attention to something else in the room, or asking another question about their family, town, or the mountains. The officers even took a good look at the stamp on the handwritten correction note, noting its detail and which embassy had stamped it, but they appeared to not actually read the note underneath the stamp. They did pick up something fishy when they found that Megan's visa was already registered but Roger's was not. To this, we said that we were independent travellers (not travelling together) and we had met at Niyoskol's guesthouse. We told them that a few days prior Megan had gone to Dushanbe on her own to visit a friend and done her registration there. Now Roger needed to also get his visa registered, and Megan was coming along to help. And so within about half an hour, we managed to get them to fill in all the registration forms without them ever realising that Roger's visa was a Business visa.

The next problem was payment. We took the walk, with police escort, to the local bank branch, but it was closed. We certainly didn't want to have to come back the next day to seal the deal, because perhaps it fall through if they had too much time to think about it. To tackle this we came up with two solutions. First, we said that we needed the registration that very day, as the bus went up to the Fann mountains very early the next morning. Next, we offered them a little extra payment to take the money then and there, and process it themselves at the bank the next morning without us. They were asking for USD 25, but we only had USD 20 plus 28 Tajik Somani (which is about USD 7).

With some smooth talking, a USD 2 bribe, we triumphantly returned to Niyoskol to tell him the good news. He could hardly believe that we'd managed to overcome this problem by ourselves and with such a small bribe. We told him that we'd learned from the best - him. We could tell that he was very relieved to hear that despite him not being able to help us as much as he thought, our encounter with him had worked out alright in the end.

After all that, we ended up successfully negotiating our Tajikistan visa registration. And since all these registration forms are on paper only, and not in networked computers, the guards at the exit border had no way of telling that Roger's visa was incorrectly registered as a tourist visa. It may have cost us an extra USD 17 in bribes, but at least we didn't have to shuttle to Khojand or Dushanbe to get it done! So apart from the extra stress and time spent on the process, we believe we actually came out on top for this one!

In February and early March we went to the schools of Rostovka (near Temirtau), and Terekty, Kingir, and Malshibai (near Zhezkazgan).  On Thursday, March 11, we took the trip south to the low mountains of the central Kazakhstan range, to the villages of Shabanbai-Bi and Kyzyl-Arai.  What was planned as an overnight visit turned into a week-long lesson on to how harsh life can be for those living out in the steppe.

We had already delayed this journey for over a week due to the large snowfalls which had made the area totally inaccessible.  Due to the road conditions we knew that riding Quikey there would be near impossible now, due to the deep snow after Aktogai. So sadly, in a choice between seeing and helping the schools and riding Quikey, the schools won out - poor Quikey had to stay behind. The regional mayor's office had offered to take us there in a car, but for safety, we would have to wait until most of the ice had cleared off the road before we could go with them.  The only other option was the daily (when possible) minibus – bigger buses and trucks were apparently a safer option on icy roads.  But that would only take us as far as the regional centre of Aktogay, still 47 km from Shabanbai-Bi.  So when a small window of good weather finally presented itself we jumped at the opportunity and headed to Aktogay on the minibus.

Arriving in Aktogai we were greeted by the director of the school in Kyzyl-Arai (Kanat), who soon ushered us into the safety and warmth of his car, to begin the long slow drive out to the village on 69 km of hard snow-pack. Kyzylarai is arguably one of the most scenic areas in Kazakhstan, with natural rock towers enshrouded in lush mountain greenery (in summer of course), this however comes with a price of remoteness and difficulty of access. The village itself depends on herding animals for a living (mainly horses and sheep), which graze the mountains in summer, fattening up to survive the long harsh winter ahead. Arriving at the village school we were given a tour of the school's facilities, interviewed a few students and teachers, and documented our findings. After this it was back to Kanat's house for the obligatory horse intestine stuffed with horse fat – beshbarmak - a winter specialty full of high calorific wintery goodness to keep you warm on a cold winter's night. After the meal they showed us how they made their butter, in a  sheeps stomach, where it would keep for years. When you wanted to eat it, you simply cut the stomach of the sheep open. Another delicacy they made here was black Kurt, these are black, rock hard, dried salty and sour lumps of cheeze, they look, feel, and taste just like stones.

While we were sitting inside enjoying our meal, the weather was turning sour outside.  Fearing what the winds might build into, the school director asked us to quickly finish our horse fat so we could head back toward Shabanbai-Bi.  We jumped in the car and noted that he threw a big shovel in the back of the car before we drove off.   Taking the 22 km ride back to Shabanbai-Bi we could see that the road was already disappearing fast.

When we arrived at the Shabanbai-Bi school it was already closed for the day, with only the director inside awaiting our arrival.  We met with him and this is where we learned of a new word – buran (pronounced boo-RAHN), meaning blizzard.  Living in Australia we hadn't heard so many different classifications of snowy weather – to us, for it to be “snowing” is novelty enough!  Here they have many different classes of cold weather, which is not surprising because half their year is spent below zero.  The people here innately understand which sequences of meterological events will be good or bad for them.  One of the worst combinations is a big dump of fluffy snow in freezing conditions that is quickly followed by a big wind that redistributes the snow unevenly across the landscape.  During these burans, some areas get cleared of snow, whereas other areas, sometimes houses and herds of animals, get completely buried.  At the base of the mountains, Shabanbai-Bi unfortunately lies at the bottom of a bowl where all the snow collects in the wind, and they fear these big winds – the buran – the most.

The deal was that if we really wanted to see the Shabanbai-Bi school, we would have to stay the night in town and see the school in the morning.  This, however, came with a big risk.  The big recent snowfall was predicted to be followed that evening and next day by a buran, and all the roads out of town would be impassable by the next morning.  Kanat was driving through to Aktogay right then, and that would probably be our last opportunity to get out before Saturday, at the earliest.  So, they reasoned, if we needed to get back to Karaganda fast, we'd have to turn back without seeing the school.  However, if we turned back then it would have defeated the purpose of us coming out there in the first place, we decided to take the risk and stay on. 

One of the senior school teachers (Tendik), then took us back to his home to spend the night out there.  At his house he showed us hundreds of photos of the stunning landscape of the region – all summer photos of course!  Just like Kyzlarai, Shabanbai-bi is surrounded with a fascinating landscape of caves, streams, mountains, and rivers, virtually untouched and untainted. We also discussed with him the various options for getting internet access to the school.  Shabanbai bi, like Kyzlarai, has no mobile phone reception at all, and the landline system is used only to call other houses in the village. Thus making any form of communication with the outside world (let alone communication in an emergency) near impossible. Bearing this in mind, we were quite puzzled as to how to best provide this school with an internet connection (considering they barely had a phone connection).

The next morning, as scheduled, we took a tour of the school and met many of the teachers and students.  The community itself is very enthusiastic about their Kazakh traditions, especially the felt-making handicrafts.  The school did have a classroom of quite good computers, which we were surprised to see.  However, as Tendik had told us, the internet is barely worth attempting, as the maximum speed is 12 KB/sec (and it rarely performs that well!) and it is only accessible on one computer!  After speaking to many of the students and teachers, we were very moved to provide them with an internet connection to enhance their educational prospects.

Walking back to Tendik's house at midday was a struggle.  The buran was still raging and the icy wind would sting any skin it came in contact with.  The snow was piling up and we'd occassionally fall in above the knees.  We knew without asking that we'd be there at Shabanbai-Bi for at least another night.     Outside Tendik's house we noted that the longdrop toilet was now completely inaccessible, because the snow was now piled up to shoulder-height against the door! Even the Lenin statue was completely buried in the snow.

That  night about 70 cm of snow fell, making Tendik's cow barn, the school, and anything else beyond that inaccessible. Our toilet for the next few days was just to pick a wall of the house which sheltered you from the ever-direction-changing wind, and do your business in the snow there.

The next morning, an attempt to leave was made (the school director had a meeting in another town, and another boy had to go to school in another town), in a raised up 4wd. The technique was to have two men up the front walking along and shoveling snow to create a path, which then the car would follow behind. In effect this meant that simply walking to Aktogai would have been quicker, since we were only moving as fast as two men could clear a path large enough for a car in deep snow.

In the first one and a half hours we made about 400 m. After this time we decided to turn back to the village, there was no way would we safely make it to Akotogai, and we didn't want to get stuck out there for the night. About three hours later we received words that the other men and car had also returned, not having got much further than when we had left them.  The rest of the day we spent learning about the traditional felt-making in the villages, most famous of which are the thick felt boots that the shepherds wore in the winter.

That afternoon we were relieved to hear that the tractor from Aktogay would be coming through to clear the road.  However the next morning we learned that the tractor had broken down, and therefore the road could not be cleared.  Knowing that we needed to get back in time to ride out to Karkaralinsk for Nauvryz (we estimated we would only be able to ride 30 km/day in this weather) we decided to make another attempt at escaping the village along with the school director, the boy who was missing school, and a few other men who needed to get to Aktogai.

This time they pulled out all the stops.  Now we had a big four wheel drive truck, even bigger shovels, and stronger men, in which to make an assault on the snow.  The truck carried in its tray four strong young men(who had to get back to Aktogai) with four shovels, who would jump out and dig away whenever the truck got bogged.  Then, behind it our small sedan would follow in the tracks, and be towed where necessary.  Sometimes this got very tedious as the truck would have to go over the same small section of track four or five times before the car could be towed through.  After we'd made the first 10 km (in 3 hours) beyond the first few hills, the road cleared up a little and we started making faster progress.  But this too had its dangers – driving along in the sedan we got a scare when we watched the truck ahead do a slow-motion 360 degree spin on the icy road!

Between the beefed up soviet brute, and the men shoveling away, we finally made it to Aktogai.  From there the five of us in the small sedan would be on our own to continue on the road to Karaganda.    However, after only about 50 km the weather rapidly closed in on us in a blizzard and whiteout.  The driver lost visibility, traction and control all at once and slid to a halt in the deep snow on the side of the road.  We had to quickly get out of the car and try to shovel out snow from around the wheels so we could get back on the road, but to no avail, it was just too deep.  However, the car behind us had the same problem and followed our tracks to where it crashed into the rear of our car.  This was now getting quite dangerous as with visibility down to only 20 m, none of the cars to follow would see the hazard ahead and we'd soon end up with a long chain of rear-end collisions.

In the next few minutes some cars came from the opposite direction, all turning back to escape the severe buran ahead.  Thankfully, a tractor also appeared through the fog and helped to tow us out of the snow.  The long convoy of vehicles all turned around and headed back to Aktogay to wait out the weather.

The buran just got worse from there and extended to Aktogay itself.  While we were walking dejectedly along the streets in town we had a brief interview by the local KNB (the post-soviet KGB), who couldn't believe that foreigners would be there for any innocent reason in winter.  As it got late we resigned to our fate of spending the night there and found the rarely-used small guesthouse.  There the owner took pity on us and allowed us to stay as long as we liked for a very small price.  We sadly took this option, with the hope that tomorrow would be a new day, and that we would be able to leave. 

The Buran again had other ideas though, howling non-stop for the next three days, bringing the whole town to a standstill, since no food, supplies, or people could enter, or leave town.  On Tuesday morning we made our second attempt to get back to Karaganda, but unfortunately another big snnowstorm hit as we were leaving town, and quickly covered over the road.  Visibility was again down to less than 100 m, and the whiteout meant that we could hardly tell where the road was supposed to be.  After witnessing a similar small sedan slide off the road and halfway down the embankment, we decided that again we would have to turn back and try again another day. 

However, we did not waste our time in Aktogay.  Our days there were filled with vising old grandmothers to record their handicrafts, seeing ancient petroglyphs and Balbals(rock carvings), visiting a wolf hunter, and the best traditional musicians and dancers of the village. A pleasant surprise here, was visiting a traditional carver (who worked at the local school, teaching the children these traditional techniques so as to preserve this knowledge) who made horse saddles, giant mortar and pestles (to grind flour), besiks, kumus bowls, and kumus spoons. Unfortunately knowledge of how to make many of the old musical instruments they showed us has been lost.  One of the more intriguing instruments we saw was a percussion instrument like a castenet, made from two horses hooves that you bang together.

On Wednesday, the 4^th day in Aktogai (the 7^th day of our excursion), the weather was holding out just enough for us to make the big push home.  About 5 km out of town the driver's side windscreen wiper flew off, and after stopping to recollect it, the driver did some makeshift repairs with a shoelace and we could see ahead again, somewhat.  About 20 km out of town we saw a Mercedes that had skidded off the road and down the embankment, and then a further 20 km along we saw a big semi-trailer whose cabin was sitting on the edge of the road facing perpendicular to the traffic, and its big container was off the road headed down the ditch.

About 100 km from Aktogay we turned onto the main Karaganda-Almaty highway, which had received a lot more attention from the tractors overnight and was thus cleared down to the asphalt.  However, this didn't mean it was any safer, since there was quite a lot more traffic on the road.  Also, by this time it was approaching midday and warming up considerably, so the snow that remained on the road was wet, slushy and slippery.  It was most worrying when a long line of trucks would pass us from the other direction.  The first truck would make a big splash of dirty wet slushy snow on our windscreen, which would completely block out vision until the broken wiper could clear the glass.  But less than a second after it cleared, the next truck would pass starting the process again.

We watched anxiously as the kilometre markers counted down to 50 km from Karaganda, but just when we thought we were through the weather changed for the worse.  Yet another whiteout closed in on us, dropping our visibilty back down to about 100 m.  We had to stop for some time at a traffic jam where another truck had slid off the road.  We were so close to Karaganda – we could almost reach out and touch it! - but we still feared we might be stuck out for yet another night.

At last however we arrived back, safe at home, with the buran howling on outside. This whole trip would have been impossible on Quikey, so in hindsight it wasn't so bad being forced to take a car, a small sacrifice, in order to improve the educational prospects of the children in remote villages.  In Karaganda we saw on the news that the government had employed helicopters, tanks and monster trucks to rescue cars stranded along the roads in the surrounding region.  One of the helicopters had crashed.  There had also been severe flooding with the rain and snow-melt down in the warmer Almaty region, with an entire village being washed away and the loss of many lives.  It really is a fragile existence for those living isolated out in the steppe of Kazakhstan.

Learning from our experiences of the past week we have decided that it would be important first and foremost to get reliable phone access to both these villages, both for safety, economic development, and education. Following on from this (and only after this) will it be possible to get internet access in these remote areas. Thus our plan now is to install GSM repeater stations (perhaps solar or wind powered) at the highest point in both these villages to give them some mobile phone coverage, and to use this then to acquire internet via USB modems. The remoteness of these villages necessitates these measures.

We are currently researching the best placement for these repeater stations, so hope to have some infrastructure in place for these by the end of the year. Aktogai (which has mobile phone coverage) is 69km from Kyzlarai and 47km from Shabanbai-bi, so we hope that this plan will be possible. If anyone has any advice concerning the feasibility or logistics of this, please let us know, we are open to all ideas/suggestions, we just want to get internet and phone reception to these schools/villages!

Our excursion out to these villages being over for now, our plans now turn to finding somewhere to spend Nauvryz, the traditional spring (end of winter) festival, which for Kazakhstan is a big 4 day long celebration, full of traditional sports, music, customs, and food, the epitome of Kazakh culture and heritage.. It is also not long now before leave to continue riding in Mongolia, hopeful that the Zud there will have subsided enough by then to make it slightly more appealing, with only a few more weeks till we depart for Mongolia, we hope to make the best of our remaining time, in Kazakhstan.

And finally, a big thank you to all those people who have kindly donated to us via our website over the past month, greatly appreciated!

The Oblast Akimat in Karaganda was slightly suspicious of us at first, why would anyone want to give free computers to people in Kazakhstan, were they missionaries trying to convert them to some cult, and further more why were the people who were only a few days before held up and fined $300 by the police, trying to help the Kazkhstani people, shouldn’t they hate them instead of trying to help them? Finally however we got to see some of the schools in their region – this time with their blessing as well.

The first school we visited was in the Karaganda region –  a school in Rostovka, which was a resource centre for all the other rural schools in the area. Teachers from all the other rural schools would come here 4 times a year to study English, and had access to their small library collection also. Rostovka itself had quite good facilities (because it was the local resource centre), as well as 2 very good English teachers who very enthusiastic about setting up a system of communication; not just so the students of Australia and Kazakhstan could correspond with each other, but so the teachers of Australia and Kazakhstan could talk to each other to learn new teaching techniques from each other as well. They were very keen on acquiring some new English learning aids also, since they were the sole teaching resource centre in the region, where all the local schools came to get English learning/teaching resources. This school taught in both Kazakh and Russian.

After this it was off to towards Zhezkhezgan, and from here out into the steppe. Leaving Zhezkezgan and heading out towards to the Ulytau region to some remote schools, we shocked at some of the facilities we encountered. Our first stop was Kinggir. Kinggir itself is also quite well resourced school, with a very enthusiastic man as director. Understanding the role and computers and information technology in the future of education, he was very glad to here of our plan. He was also very enthusiastic about setting up a partnership with an Australian school, so that both countries could benefit from learning about another culture.

Next stop was Terekty. Terekty is also a small little village with a single school of 197 students (ranging from 4 year old pre-school to grade 9). Previously we had written our bike out here in summer and spent some 5 days in the village, so weren’t strangers to it. The sole English teacher here was a 20 year old 2^nd year student teacher (studying English at a college) coming out to teach English two days a week. She was very enthusiastic about our project however, as were the students, some of which we had met the year before. They were very excited about the prospects of having online penpals, to learn more about the Australian way of life, and to share their culture and traditions with the schools in Australia. Being a very new Teacher, and having only learnt English for a few years, both she and her students were looking forward to practicing their English by conversing with students in Australia

Our last stop in our tour of the least developed schools in the Zhezkezgan region was Malshybai. Malshybai is a very remote village of some 400 people, but the population is rapidly declining as people move away. The main industry here is herding animals in a semi-subsistence lifestyle, the horses here outnumbering the people themselves. When it snows here, the village is cut off from the rest of the world, due to lack of access. The school itself has 57 pupils and no science labs to do experiments. A lot of this is due to the lack of infrastructure in the region – where there are equal numbers of hours when there is electricity and where there is not, where there is no mobile phone reception, and where there is no telephone lines connecting to the village (they communicate with radio telegram, which again spends more time out of action than working due to the sporadic electricity). The school here only goes up to grade 9, since they do not have any pupils wanting to continue studying beyond that, since most pupils just want to get into the workforce ASAP. The education system in Kazakhstan however, provides for education in years 10 and 11. In year 9 there are 8 students, in year 8 there are 8 students, in year 7 there were 7, and in the remaining years it alternates between 4 and 5 students.

Interestingly enough there were more students in the higher grades than in the lower grades, again showing how the village population is decreasing. By the time most students finish year 9, most have never done a science experiment, sent an email or learnt more than a few basic words in English. Some people had left this village to go to the further away(a few hours drive) big towns since the school was so ill equipped, so it is hoped that by providing them with better resources/infrastructure, this does not need to occur so much. The School director here is also the most recent ex-Akim of the village. This school is in dire need of adequate English learning resources, as well as infrastructure to be able to connect to the outside world. Currently we are working with a few people to see what we can come up with in terms of electricity and telephone lines, before progressing onto the issue of computers and internet, as well as providing them with better English learning resources.

Keep up to date with our progress at www.steppebysteppe.com.au/schools.

We have also posted up 100 (yes 100!!!) new videos on Youtube today, documenting our travels in Central Asia so far. Only a fraction of these are up for display on our website, so if you want to see all of them, please check them out at www.youtube.com/steppebysteppe

Throughout our travels, we have visited many schools in very remote rural areas, these schools are often very under resourced, lacking sporting equipment, proper toilets, libraries and many other facilities that we ourselves take for granted today. The adequate phone lines/reception is often non-existent in these areas also – let alone the internet. Most people in these remote villages have never even seen a computer, let alone used the internet.

In these rural areas (where hardly anyone has seen a computer), there are very limited prospects for further education. We hope that by providing a few laptops, internet access (along with a teacher trained in IT) and software, to a school, we can increase their chances of continued higher education. Access to global information will greatly enhance their awareness, understanding, and knowledge of the larger community that we are all apart of, resulting in greater empowerment at both a communal and personal level, thus greatly increasing their developmental prospects.

Our other goal is to partner each participating school in Kazakhstan to a sister school in Australia, it will allow students in these distant regions of the world to learn and grow together with open minds. 

Learning about and appreciating the complexity and diversity of other cultures is key to reducing conflicts around the globe. Furthering our knowledge and understanding of the world we live in can only enhance our connections to this global community we are all a part of. It is only by connecting to and understanding the rest of the world that we can begin to solve the greatest problems that plague mankind today. It is only by working together as a united global community that these ills that confront the world can be eradicated and the goals that we so dearly want can be achieved. Inter-cultural connectiveness is the key to this, our children are the key to our future, let us open both these doors, for only once new doorways are opened, can new insights be gained.  This new project will fittingly also be called “Steppe by Steppe – Side by Side”, as the two schools grow and learn together and from each other.

Thus, we have decided to stay put in one place for a while, to startup our very own NGO based in Australia. We hope that by the time we return to Australia, most of our research into setting up this NGO in Kazakhstan will have been done, and be ready to implement.

At the moment, we have about 5 different schools in Karaganda Oblast in mind, but we hope that this number will soon grow. We have a NGO partner over here in Kazakhstan who is willing to help us also; we just need some schools in Australia who are interested in buddying up with a sister/brother school in rural Kazakhstan, as well as anyone interested in helping us fund the laptops, internet training, support, logistics and monitoring. If anyone has any ideas/suggestions or offers of help, please give us a shout! When it comes to setting up an NGO/charity in Australia, we have no experience either, so any tips/suggestions/advice in this matter would be greatly appreciated to!

We believe that education is the greatest possible tool for development, and that every child should have the right and ability to receive the best possible education. In the 21st century, computers are playing an increasingly important role in the ability to access educational resources and as educational tools themselves. On top of this, access to the internet is vital to learning more about the world we live in, and communicating with the rest of the world. It is only by staying connected to the rest of the world, by utilizing the most up to date and technologically advanced teaching and educational resources, that this goal of providing our children with the best educational resources available possible can be achieved. Our children are our future, and our very future depends on providing them with the best education possible. 

Please checkout www.steppebysteppe.com.au/schools.html for more details, as this will be the new home for this project, so you can watch it’s continual evolution there.

This plan, from the start, proved some difficulty.  As you may be aware, CIS visas sometimes require a Letter of Invitation (LOI; or Letter of Support, or Visa Support Letter) to be obtained by a local firm at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) of the given country.  For Uzbekistan, we had a travel firm in Tashkent (we will not name the firm here), personally apply for a Visa Support Letter (VSL) for a 3-month dual-entry Uzbekistan visa for us, however even they could not acquire anything beyond a 30-day single-entry VSL for us.  The MFA told them that we would have to get our second visa at the embassy in Dushanbe when we went to Tajikistan after our first visit into Uzbekistan.

The other point here is that unlike the China visa, the Uzbekistan visa gives you a 30 day window within which you can enter and exit.  Therefore if you enter later than your first validity date, you will get less than 30 days in the country.  Also, land border crossings often close without warning and sometimes for several days, so to be safe, you should make your first exit attempt a few days prior to the end of your visa.  In other words, be careful with which dates you choose for your visa, and don’t expect to be able to use all of the days.

After obtaining our LOI, the next challenge was the visa itself.  When doing slow cycle touring through CIS countries you also must factor in the earliest dates possible to apply for said visas, which will vary considerably between embassies.  There are no CIS embassies or consuls in Australia, so posting off to another country was always our only option.  After a lot of asking around, we found that the cluster of CIS embassies in London would be our best opportunity for obtaining the visas in the right time prior to our departure for Kazakhstan on April 21.  The Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan embassies were the tightest for visa processing, as they each could not issue a visa more than about (again, a vague law) 4-6 weeks prior to the first date of validity.  Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan were a bit more relaxed and we could get those about 3 months in advance.  So in March, we sent our passports and photos off to TravCour in London to handle all our applications.

With this we also emailed through the copy of our VSL for the Uzbekistan visa.  On it was clearly stated that the purpose of visit was Tourism. Then, when we received the visas from TravCour, they quoted us as having purchased Tourist visas for Uzbekistan, so we believed we had Tourist visas.  Later, at an inappropriate time, we learned that the Type B-2 code written on our visas indicated that we actually had Business visas.

Before we entered Uzbekistan we believed that Tourist visa regulations state that we must register within 3 days (or on the safe side, 72 hours) of entering the country, and then at that registration desk we would get the latest information about when we would next need to register.  We also understood that we would need to register at an address if we stayed 3 days or more at any one address.

After entering Uzbekistan at the Tselina post (on the now disused Tashkent-Samarkand highway, it is now a pedestrian-only border post, date 5/7/09) we went to the Gagarin passportny stol within 72 hours of entering to try to register there.  Accompanying us was the man whose house we were staying at (Tolik)

In the passportny stol office, the migration officer first told us that we must go to Jizzakh OVIR, 70 km away, to register, and that we could not register at that office.  He was very friendly, polite, and helpful at this stage.

There was then a series of events.  Firstly, the officer took a closer inspection of our visas.  Next, our friend threw in the word "journalist" (it's the same in Russian) when he was describing what we were doing in the country (we had told him that our pictures etc. would go in a magazine). As soon as the police officer heard this word, his demeanor changed.  Then, the officer called his superior to ask what to do with us, telling him we were journalists.  Unfortunately Tolik did not speak Uzbek and could not understand what the officer was saying on the phone.

After the officer got off the phone, his story changed.  He told us to go to Samarkand instead to register, and it wouldn't matter when we turned up, as long as it was before the end of the visa.  We clarified this with him over and over, and he kept saying that there would be no problem. He was very blunt and rude at this stage, not answering any of our questions at all.   He ordered us out of his office, refusing to talk to us anymore, and sending us to Samarkand.

We left the office a bit confused, but he refused to register us so we didn't know what else we could do.  We just took his word for it, since he was growing increasingly aggressive and adamant that he would not register us there, and that we had to leave.

Along the way to Samarkand we stopped in at Pakhtakor and had our good expedition watch stolen there.  We stayed there for 3 days while the police tried to locate it for us, but they had no luck.  During our stay there the Pakhtakor police also took down all the details of our passports and visas and it was translated to us that we had indeed been registered there, but since we had no extra stamp or slip in our passport afterward we didn't believe that we had been registered.

We explained to the police there that we needed to get to Samarkand several days before the end of our visa, which was approaching fast, so he ordered a truck to take us there fast as compensation for the time we had lost in Pakhtakor waiting for our watch to re-appear.  The officer we were in direct contact with was the head of the investigative unit of Jizzakh Oblast police.  (He was very nice to us!)

We arrived at the Samarkand Oblast border by truck late at night, and the Big-wig Jizzakh Oblast police officer had told us that we would be able to set up our tent there and camp the night before riding into the city the next morning, as it would be a safe place to set up camp with all the police around.  The policemen that were physically at the Oblast border were not at all compliant with this, and after holding us for a while (they also inspected our passports and visas several times over) and yelling at the Big-wig Jizzakh Oblast police officer over the phone, they instructed the truck to take us to a certain hotel in town.  As it turned out, we were forced to stay at the 3^rd most expensive hotel in Samarkand for the night.  But the upside of this was that we would at least be able to get them to register our passport for us.

Regal Palace hotel registered our passports without a problem (16^th-17^th July 2009).

The next afternoon we rode into town and met a man, Dima, a bike enthusiast.  He took us to his place to stay there, and he said we would need to register at his address the next day.  We didn't go that same day to register because he needed to work (at the hospital, he was a doctor). By the time we went to the passportny stol on Saturday afternoon it was closed for the day (nb. we later found out that we went to the wrong office at that time, so perhaps OVIR was actually open then).

On the Monday, 9am, we went to the correct OVIR office with an interpreter, Shamil.  (Shamil knew all the rules, knew which office to go to, and was an official English interpreter, but had been in Tajikistan the previous few days and that's why he hadn't helped us the few days earlier).  There, we met an officer named Dila who handled our case.

This is where we found out we had a business visa not a tourist visa, and there were even stricter regulations for registration of business visas.

First, the figure of $1500 USD each was quoted as the fine.  Then, thanks to some smooth talking by Shamil, they said we could simply move on to Tajikistan instead, without a fine.

We tried to explain our story of the Gagarin police officer to Dila.  She tried to tell us that Gagarin was actually in Kazakhstan and that's why we had wrong information from that officer.  We insisted that no, Gagarin is in Uzbekistan and the officers were all wearing green uniforms like her's, and we even showed her on our map that Gagarin is in Uzbekistan.

Next she suggested that we'd consulted the wrong person at the station, that perhaps we'd just spoken to someone in the hallway who was pretending to be police.  But again we insisted that we had been in his office at the desk and he was definitely the migration officer.

Next she suggested that it was a translation problem.  But again, we insisted it wasn't, because our friend Tolik spoke Russian and had read our documents and knew what we were doing (and we knew a bit of Russian ourselves too).  Also, the officer had said to us: Samarkand, 20 July, first registration, no problem.  This we can understand in Russian.

Next was the process of the paperwork.  The first document was one stating that we agreed to voluntarily leave Uzbekistan within 72 hours.  But we refused to sign this document, as we didn't have our passports back and didn't know when they'd give them to us, and if we signed it we'd be setting ourselves up for another fine.

The second document was a statement, hand-written by Shamil in Russian, of what had happened and how it eventuated that we were so many days late with our registration.  We signed this document.

The third document was a form, which we have the serial numbers for.  It said that all these problems were our fault and that we have read the law and now understand it.  We did not want to sign this form because we still had not been explained the law and we did not believe it was our fault.  Roger wanted to write in about how we had been misinformed by the Gagarin police but Dila didn't want anything bad written about the police so she threatened to deport us to Australia.  Roger then changed what he was writing to what she wanted us to write and then she said it was just a joke, and we would not be deported to Australia.

We were refused photocopies of all these forms.

We have a copy of the excerpt of the registration laws now, but it does not state the law clearly – it just says "place", not Oblast or country or any place with a defined border.  Dila said it meant Oblast, but who knows whether that is the law or not.  According to this interpretation, it is possible to travel throughout Uzbekistan indefinitely without registration, as long as you change Oblast very frequently.  We doubt that this interpretation of the law would hold up at the border.

Business visa registration required proper documentation sent through from the local Uzbekistan travel firm to the Gagarin police office, and yes we could've registered there if we'd had that form.  We had never seen this form before and had certainly not been told to take it with us to any migration office.

There was also some mention that business visas require registration for every 3^rd day, no matter if you are changing Oblast every night.  Also, there was mention that business visa holders must ONLY stay in hotels, and must have every night accounted for at a hotel.

Throughout these three days that Samarkand OVIR held us at their office, they had confiscated our passports.  They said that they were being held for processing – getting stamped and such.  We asked about this stamp, and Dila explained to us many times that it was not a deport stamp.  She said that it indicated that we were leaving the country voluntarily due to breach of stay regulation.  She said that we were allowed to apply for and receive a new visa for Uzbekistan immediately after exiting, and that we could re-enter without a problem.  However, should we breach a single law in any way in the next 12 months, we would face much bigger fines and consequences.  Our friend in Tajikistan (who has a lot of experience with Uzb visas etc.) took one look at our stamp and said that we have very low chances of a successful visa application in Dushanbe, so for all intents and purposes, this was a deport stamp.  And from our experience, we knew that we had even lower chances of going through Uzbekistan without being picked up for doing something wrong (especially with this new stamp on the passport!) and so we didn't want to try to re-enter Uzbekistan.

Samarkand OVIR held our passports from Monday morning 20^th July and the passports were only handed back to us after we had officially left the country (with exit stamp) on 23^rd July.  We had avoided calling the embassy because we were advised that our removal to Tajikistan without fine was a good solution, and that worse solutions could involve deport to Australia or enforcement of this massive fine.  It appeared to us that Samarkand OVIR had completed its paperwork on July 22 and were now ready to get rid of us.  On the afternoon of 22^nd July we were at the Samarkand OVIR office and Dila was instructing us to leave right then.  We explained that it would take a while for us to pack up our things, load the bike onto a car safely, and then if we crossed the border that day we would arrive very late into Tajikistan and would not have enough time to find a safe place to spend the night.  Because we were arguing with her, Dila started saying that the armed soldiers would come and take us to the border in handcuffs.  So we decided that this was the point that we should involve the embassy.

We called the British embassy (Tashkent) and once we had them on the line, Dila backed off and changed her story about the soldiers.  The policemen then drove us from OVIR to Dima's house but on the way stopped to find a private taxi with a roof-rack that could drive us and our bike to the border.  It was not a police vehicle.  It was about 8.30pm when we arrived at Dima's house and we were ordered to pack up our things and leave NOW.  The Penjikent border closes at 10 pm and so we knew that we had not enough time to get to the border before then, and feared what they'd do to us if we arrived there and the border was closed.  We again called the embassy and they advised us that everything the Uzbekistan policemen were doing was illegal (passport confiscation, putting us in a private car).  The British embassy spoke to the Uzbekistan police officer then too, and then this officer called to his superior, and after this the Uzbekistan police backed off a bit.  Soon enough we were told that we did not need to leave that night and instead would go the next morning.

The next morning, we loaded up at 8 am, and drove to the border.  Our actual crossing was still a bit stressful since we never had any idea where our passports were, and who had them, until they were handed back to us in no man's land.  We had several of the border guards very confused as to what we were doing there at the border without a passport, and since we weren't really sure ourselves, we couldn't give them a good answer.  But we made it through virtually hassle-free, and were out of Uzbekistan and breathing a bit easier by late morning.

Each country we have visited, bar the Kyrgyz Republic, we have had visa trouble of some variety.  For China it was an ordeal to get the visa.  For Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kazakhstan, the trouble was dealing with the police and getting registered once in the country – these three tales are the basis of this trio of blogs.

We've been holding out on publishing this because we feared that speaking out about our bad experiences with the police might jeopardize our chances of getting other visas in the near or distant future.  Recently, however, (and beyond our own control) we have been all over the local Kazakhstan media with reports of our deportation from China (which we were not) and the mess made of our visa registration here.  So it seems that the damage has already been done – we may as well get the story straight.

Just a side note – in our experience, China Police enforce the law thoroughly and efficiently, with no exceptions.  They are several leagues above the CIS states in this regard.  We have no fear for our safety should we need to transit via Beijing on our way home to Australia.  And with browned-up noses, we continue...

It seems like these ex-Soviet states hold on to their rules and regulations for fear that if they let them go, all hell will break loose.  As we see it, the process of visa registration serves no purpose except to provide a bit more work for a bored policeman, and another vague law whose myriad of possible interpretations always provide scope for a fine.  Thankfully, governments are slowly coming to their senses and registration is gradually being done away with in Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.  Unsurprisingly, the insecure Uzbekistan government is sticking to its guns.

We have included a lot of detail here as to help other travellers.  We think we've seen it all.  But then again, we're not out yet...

We turned into the housing complex that we'd been instructed to, but were stopped at the strangely high security gate. The guards checked the name and address the man had written down and then opened the gate for us without question. Once inside the complex we were a bit lost, and started asking around for directions. A group of men encircled us and tried to help us. Unfortunately none of the men recognized the name or address, and so they tried to call the phone number for us instead. But strangely, when they called, it seemed that the number didn't work. Seeing that we were in a spot of bother and it was getting dark, one of the men (Daniar) invited us to eat and sleep at this apartment with his young family, and then we would continue our search in the morning. Being tired and cold, we readily agreed. We were a bit puzzled as to why there were so many soldiers at this housing complex, but didn't think too much of it at the time (we had just exited China, where this was the norm anyway!). However, when we got to Daniar's house we saw his army uniform hanging up and worked out that EVERYONE there was a soldier - it was an army base. We were OK though, because the guards had let us in the gate without hassle so we must be allowed in there.

The next morning we got a different story. One of Daniar's friend came over sounding a bit alarmed and out of breath, to tell him that we should not have been allowed in the army base, let alone sleep the night, and the senior officers were trying to track us down and find out where we'd stayed. So we had to quickly and quietly pack up our things and leave without being seen. All seemed to go smoothly until we got back to the base entry gate, where a carload of soldiers stopped us and escorted us to a different building so they could start their investigations.

They had many questions for us – who we were, how we'd gotten in the compound, where we'd slept the previous night, what was in our bags, etc. Subject to constant questioning outside in the cold (oh boy was it cold), and with our passports missing (they had taken them), we were somehow rescued by the man we were supposed to be staying with the other night (the man we couldn't find), a very high up man in the military, full of medals and decorations on his jacket. What a sigh of relief it was to be freed by him, as we had no idea what we would do, stuck in a secret army base, with no passports, and no one knowing where we were! When we looked back in our address book to check what had been written there for us to find the man, we slowly read it aloud for the first time and heard ourselves say "Veinniy Gorodok" (in Russian), two words that we already knew to translate to "Military City". So that's how we learned what these words look like when written down in Russian.

The next week or so we were luckily hit by some gloriously sunny blue skies (and warm temps of around -22/23c), which made our riding alot easier - we were lucky to have good weather, compared to the -47C and -50C temperatures that Semey was having - the place we would be heading to next!. Only a few km's out of a small down call Mukri, we met a man who showed us a picture of his house, practically buried under 2 meters of snow (up to the roof)! Only some 100km behind us, was where his house was - we were very lucky to have missed this big dump!. It was in this town, that yet another adventure was to eventuate. Riding past the mosque in the town, a bearded man in traditional Islamic garb invited us to stay with him.

He introduced us to his very nice and welcoming family - his many brothers and his parents who were both highly respected school teachers. But as the night wore on we saw another side to this nice man. That night he showed us countless pictures of him posing with machine guns, rocket launchers, grenades, and various other military paraphernalia, before making us watch footage of various people being killed by various means, saying that they, the infidel deserved to die and would all go to hell. He also showed us many pictures of his training, scaling buildings, jumping out of planes, and shooting various weapons. He then proceeded to ask us if we had any weapons with us, before bring out Tasers and an automatic knife, asking which one we wanted as a gift from him. Hopefully his weapons expertise is an independent aspect of his life from his religious practices. We also hope that after meeting us strange Westerners he will reconsider his position that such "infidels" deserve the natural disasters that might happen to fall upon them.

It was only a short ride from there into Taldykorgan where the next few days were nice and warm (only -23C, compared to the previous few days) before plunging to -36C near Karaganda (-44C with windchill) - even our nostrils and tears froze onto our faces at this temperature. We had successfully negotiated the wolves, cold, secret army bases, and another night with religious extremists.

 Next Previous