G – Reporting
Border day, always a little nervous on borders and today was no different so after a quick hotel breakfast and pack up we hit the road for the 300km drive to the border, it was an easy and sunny drive with the only notable thing being that this part of Russia looked a lot like Kent in England!
Arrived at the border at 1pm fully expecting it to be closed till 2pm like the last one but surprisingly it wasn’t and with only one car in front of us we where into the compound and into exit passport control in minutes. That done there was a quick check of the car and we were out of Russia!
Next the Kazakhstan border 1st we were given a small form to fill in then though a gate and onto passport control, where I was meet by an official with the best hat yet and by best I mean the most ridiculous, I was liking Kazakhstan already. A few quick questions and I was done followed quickly by B then a guy dressed in an army uniform had a quick look at the car and that was it, less than 45 minutes end to end I have spent more time trying to get into America!
After a quick stop for something to eat where I noticed my front tire was wearing on one side something that would need to be looked at ASAP it was on to Semey - a town mainly known for the fact the USSR used to test nuclear bombs just down the road from, not the sign of a nice place!
But just to show how wrong you can be as we arrived in a pretty town with tree lined streets, with a random driver seeing our Canadian license plates and shouting 'Vancouver Canucks'! So after quickly booking into the hotel Semey, there was plenty of time to see if we could sort out the tire problem, so heading over to the Toyota center we found on our GPS and some creative sign language we ended up following a car across to another garage where to cut a long story short we got out car sorted on the spot for $7!
After that it was time for food a bit of internet and then we crashed after a great 1st day in Kazakhstan, oh and almost forgot the temperature was about 20c higher than Russia - result :)
Border day, always a little nervous on borders and today was no different so after a quick hotel breakfast and pack up we hit the road for the 300km drive to the border, it was an easy and sunny drive with the only notable thing being that this part of Russia looked a lot like Kent in England!
Arrived at the border at 1pm fully expecting it to be closed till 2pm like the last one but surprisingly it wasn’t and with only one car in front of us we where into the compound and into exit passport control in minutes. That done there was a quick check of the car and we were out of Russia!
Next the Kazakhstan border 1st we were given a small form to fill in then though a gate and onto passport control, where I was meet by an official with the best hat yet and by best I mean the most ridiculous, I was liking Kazakhstan already. A few quick questions and I was done followed quickly by B then a guy dressed in an army uniform had a quick look at the car and that was it, less than 45 minutes end to end I have spent more time trying to get into America!
After a quick stop for something to eat where I noticed my front tire was wearing on one side something that would need to be looked at ASAP it was on to Semey - a town mainly known for the fact the USSR used to test nuclear bombs just down the road from, not the sign of a nice place!
But just to show how wrong you can be as we arrived in a pretty town with tree lined streets, with a random driver seeing our Canadian license plates and shouting 'Vancouver Canucks'! So after quickly booking into the hotel Semey, there was plenty of time to see if we could sort out the tire problem, so heading over to the Toyota center we found on our GPS and some creative sign language we ended up following a car across to another garage where to cut a long story short we got out car sorted on the spot for $7!
After that it was time for food a bit of internet and then we crashed after a great 1st day in Kazakhstan, oh and almost forgot the temperature was about 20c higher than Russia - result :)
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| Swiss out side the flash entrance |
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| Our not so flash room. |
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