CNX → UZ → CNX 2026

Category: Kazakhstan

  • 22. August 2026, back on the road again

    Today was the first day on my long way back home to Thailand.

    After two weeks back home with the family, I got up at 4am on Thursday, to get to the airport in Chiang Mai to get on the first flight to Bangkok airport and to catch the flight to Almaty where I arrived around 4 pm local time. Stayed at the same hotel close to the workshop where I stored my bike, decided to change the brake pads, even when they are still good, mainly to get rid of the extra weight for the spare brake pads I had in my luggage. For all three brakes, it sums up and I’m happy to have 300 g less to carry and brake pads which will easily be good for the next 11,000 km, the approximate distance to get home through Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, China with Tibet, Laos and then Thailand. Maybe less.

    Yesterday I picked up my bike, to repack and prepare everything,only to realize this morning I forgot my boots in the workshop shed, so I had to wait till 10 to get over (driving in full gear but with flipflops) and to change into my boots. Another great chitchat with Roman, one of the owners and off I went into the expressway to get out of Almaty, well, it took me approximately 1 1/2 hours to reach the free flowing express way, including a tankstop to fill up the tank and a quick bottle of ice tea.

    Once out of town and leaving the suburbs behind, it’s back to the wide steppe and driving along the mountains range to the south, still within some snow at the tops.

    After another two hours or so I arrived at the exit to turn south towards Bishkek and the border. Unfortunately, the expressway was closed after that exit, so all traffic was redirected along that road and it got a bit busy on the two lane sections, when all the trucks had to slow down in the steeper slopes down the pass.

    Anyway, I made it to the border, overtook slowly the long queue of cars waiting to get through the gate, squeezed myself in Just as the gate opened and got my passport stamped after it was my turn, maybe 15 minutes later, what is record time, comparing it with last time at the same border. Luggage check was a 5 second affair, and a lot of questions of where I’m from and where I go and so on.

    Got my two stamps, got over to Kyrgystan, same procedure, same questions, same check, all good, 15 minutes later I was through the gate and stopped at the booth where I got my insurance and SIM card last time. The guy remembered me, all quick and friendly, with one unexpected hiccup, my phone was blocked in Kyrgystan, after I have been here before, but did not register the phone with whatever authority, and after the grace period of 1 months is over it gets blocked.

    No big problem really, my main phone has an E-sim, which is working and I connect the second navigation phone via hotspot. Works for me.

    Getting into and through Bishkek is the typical bigger city traffic, maybe a bit less because it is Saturday, and a bit after 6 pm local time, I arrived at the guest house, with nobody at home. Well with a bit of WhatsApp I was directed to my room all good, waiting for the boiler to heat up the water to take a shower and to write this update of my first day on the bike of my long way home.

    Tomorrow to Toktogul, what will be a great ride as it goes through those mountain planes and passes with all the yurts, the horses, cows and all kinds of livestock that nomads keep.

    Will update more tomorrow.

    At the guest house in Bishkek.

    Street food dinner

  • 6. August, taking a break and fly

    I’m writing this while waiting for the plane to Bangkok from Almaty, in a modern and fresh airport and a well stocked lounge.

    Well, in fact this is my second attempt to write this post, after somehow my earlier lengthy writing of this post somehow disappeared when I posted it. Yup, saving and posting it every few minutes will hopefully help to end this second version.

    I’m slowly at the end of my Central Asia loop after I exited China over one month ago and looped through Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and back to Kazakhstan, following the Pamir Highway and visiting the Silkroad towns of Samarkand and Bukhara. In general, you can split these four central Asian countries in mountainous Kyrgystan and Tajikistan and the flat steppe nations of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

    For those who want to get an impression of what flat steppe means, here is a quick summary of the last six driving days from Bukhara to Samarkand, Tashkent, Shymkent, Taraz, Merki and Almaty. It is flat, very flat

    https://youtu.be/NOACxeFBOK0?si=aqZ6EDk4JRwfovIS

    Six days, flat nothingness.

    As my start to the second leg through China starts only on 1. September, I have some time to fly home to be around when our son starts his Year 9 at school and I can pamper myself a bit with being home with family.

    On 20. August I will fly back to Almaty to drive to Bishkek, Kirgisistan the next day and further south to Osh again to change tires and oil again at Zoro Moto, before getting back to the small settlement of Sari Tash latest on 31 August, to get from there to the Border with China early morning on 1. September to join a group of 18 other motorcycles and crossing into China again. The main reason why I’m joining this group is, that it routes to Laos via Tibet, which means, you need a mandatory Tibetan Tourguide and special permits, etc, and makes only sense if you join a group. It will be interesting to see how this will work out, especially as this is a wildly mixed group in terms of bikes, age and language spoken. I also know, that we do not need to drive all together, but everybody on his own, as long as we come all together against the hotel in the evening. A service car is the sweeper and will make sure nobody stays behind. Will report how this works out on the long desert runs along the Taklamakan and Gobi deserts and on the high altitude sections in Tibet. So far, my Africa Twin had no problem with the high altitudes (4,600 m) on the Pamir Highway, however, Tibet is 1,000 m higher, but I expect no dramas, except some power loss.

    Reflecting on the last few weeks, I can only summarise, there is not one destination I would skip next time. I also understand how lucky I was to have found a loose group of great new friends from Indonesia and we simply had the best weather one can wish for, to cross the Pamir Highway together, so none of us had to do it alone. From talks to some bikers who made it a few days earlier, we understand, only four days earlier it was snowing very badly (mid of July) on the Pamir Highway, when it was all clear blue sky and dry when we passed four days later. While we had some drops and crashes, all of us made it without bigger injuries, however, some bikes suffered badly and needed some repairs.

    I can only praise the engineers at Honda who designed and built such a great bike, which took all what the road was throwing at it with a certain easiness which is hard to explain, even when it was the heaviest of all the bikes in the group and what we came across over the 10 days (except one loud swearing, not very happy Russian on a BMW 1250 GS) along the complete loop. The majority of bikes have been the Tenere 700 (majority), CRF 300 , DL 650s and so on plus another Africa Twin, two up. They have my full respect.

  • 1. August 2026, a lot of not so interesting very hot days

    Since driving east from Bukhara, there is nothing really to write about. It is mainly to get back to Almaty, driving on badly cracked roads with not so good traffic and drivers who have a lot of ego or driving with a lot of fear. I made it from Bukhara to Samarkand, walked to another monument I had not visited earlier and had a good sleep in the same hotel. Next day back on the road towards Tashkent where I planned a rest day. The road was again badly cracked, only with more traffic, more cars and trucks and with a mix of hilly yellow straw fields or flat brown steppe left and right. Tashkent, as expected is the more modern capital of Uzbekistan and I had a good hotel where I was mainly chilling out in the room as it was simply too hot outside and with very few touristic highlights except the markets. As I had no intention to buy anything I skipped them and simply relaxed at the hotel and managed to wash the bike and did the routine maintenance for the chain and checked all the bolts and nuts. Again, a hail to the mechanics back in Chiang Mai, not a single bolt or screw was loose.

    Yesterday was another B-day to exit Uzbekistan and to enter Kazakhstan again. Took together four hours, which was not the big problem, but standing most of the time under the burning sun with all the others to get the passport stamped and the custom paper cleared for the bike, plus putting everything through the x-ray scanner and sniffed by dogs. I finally made it through the last gate and went off to leave that part behind with all the hustlers and money changers and street kids who want to sell you insurance and drinks. Made to a bigger junction where at least I could buy some cold drinks to top up my liquid levels again. I finally made it to Shymkent, found the hotel, walked in the evening along some bigger boulevard and settled finally for a pizza joint for a not so bad pizza and salad. Quite good in fact.

    Today I made it to Taraz, another surprisingly interesting town somewhere along this part of the silk road. I didn’t expect too much, but was surprised about the parks and overall green areas including some cozy looking apartment blocks from the soviet times. Similar to Bishkek, it looks like, Taraz was also designed with some good ideas behind and it worked out quite well. Found the hotel, had a nap and went for a walk to find some dinner. I ended up following a suggestion from a café and had an interesting dinner with some creative french and Italian food completed with a lot of questions from the waiters about Germany and the idea to go to the USA for four months to work there. I was not sure how to answer all the questions, especially flying to the US for a four month work stay. Not even sure there is something like this. I know it is possible now in Germany and around, especially during vacation time, not sure if this is the same for the US.

    Back to the hotel and preparing for tomorrow’s drive to Merke.

  • 1., 2., 3., 4. July, leaving China and chilling and organising things in Almaty

    Finally we reached the end of the first China leg on 1. June. Exiting China was less dramatic but also lengthy as we were asked where we have been in China and it looked like the one immigration officer for the drivers of the busses was a bit overwhelmed to process two Indonesians and one German on motorcycles. Finally we left China and 100 meters further down Kazakhstan officers were greeting us friendly, telling us we needed to bring the top bags to the x-ray, going through immigration and customs again. All very friendly, but also a bit confusing. When we finally reached the final gate, we were told, we missed one stamp on the process paper and we had to go back to customs where we realised we missed the one room where we get the TIP (temporary Import Permit). The officer even spoke German to my surprise, all friendly all good. 6 hours later we crossed the last gate and off we went on another dessert highway, dunes left and right. While we started in sunshine from the hotel, in the meantime it became cloudy and light rain started, still within the range of not needing the rain jacket. We stopped at the first petrol station, and to our positive surprise, our credit cards worked, I filled the tank and we had some cookies for lunch before we went back on the highway after also saying good bye, as I planned to reach Almaty and the Indonesians planned to reach a famous canyon somewhere between. The rain kicked in shortly after, I just had enough time to stop and get the rain jacket out to keep dry and warm, when the rain came down and the road got flooded with a sad looking dessert around. I reached the tail end of another Chinese (BMW) motorcycles group who crossed to Kazakhstan shortly before us and were also on the way to Almaty. So we went on, keeping a reasonable speed, with very little traffic on the highway. They finally stopped and I kept going alone. After a while I could see the horizon got brighter and some 30 minutes later the rain turned into a drizzle and then stopped all together and the sun came out through a cloudy sky. By that time, I also got closer to Almaty, was sent through some connecting roads onto another highway and traffic got thicker and then stopped. Took me another 45 minutes to get to the road where the hotel was located, only to realize, the road was closer for roadrepair works and I could not get to the hotel. As it was a narrow street, I kept driving until I found’ a place to stop and to check on alternative hotels in the area, when a big M class Mercedes stopped behind me and a young man jumped out and asked if I needed help. I explained the situation and told him that I was already hours on the road and simply nerd a hotel. He immediately offered his help to arrange things and I should follow him. 10 minutes later we turned into the car park of a nice hotel and after he spoke with the receptionist I had a nice room. The hospitality of the Kazak people have no limits I can say. We exchanged WhatsApp contacts and while we had not a chance for dinner, we stayed and will stay in contact. He himself is driving two Ducati Sport Bikes and we exchanged the typical biker Pictures and stories. What a great start to experience Almaty, an absolute first class city, green , orderly, chic, extremely friendly and helpful. So many people and drivers greeted and asked where I’m from and where I’m going on the bike. The last two days I drove the bike to a recommended workshop for an inspection and computer read out, all as expected and it should be. The guys had been so friendly to invite me for lunch and we exchanged WhatsApp again. They also helped me to store a bag with my drone, which I will keep here as Uzbekistan is strictly not allowing drones and some other small gear I will not need for the next weeks, before I’m coming back to Almaty to park the bike here and to fly home for a short family vacation at home and then back to get on my last leg through my second China leg driving back home. I also received confirmation that the new set of Heidenau tires are in Osh with Zorro Moto and my seat on the China group is also confirmed.

    Unfortunately, the two Indonesians had a hard time to reach the canyon on muddy dirt roads and yesterday they messaged me, that one of them needed new clutch disks, which also means a longer delay in Almaty and we need to see if we can start the Pamir Highway together as planned.

    Today I’m off to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Another 5 hour trip on desert/steppe highway and a B-day (border day).

    Will report

    Border arc
    View from my room
    Great motorcycle workshop
    Stunning views at sunset

    Chic cafés and restaurants, Almaty is an absolute first class city.