Striking South

During the last two weeks, Drew and I logged over 60 hours of travel time on trains and buses in a big loop through southern Kazakhstan. The occasion was a confluence of two events. Nauryz, a major Kazakh holiday, was immediately followed by a Peace Corps conference in Almaty. For years, volunteers in Kazakhstan have taken advantage of this and organized big gatherings in Shymkent, the hub of southern green belt. Shymkent, Kazakhstan's third city, is considered to be the most Kazakh city in the country. Since it lacks both the cosmopolitan nature of Almaty and Astana and the Soviet feel of places like Karaganda, I am apt to agree.

Unsurprisingly, the journey itself was just as interesting as the destination. In order to save time, we decided to take the vaunted Zhezkazgan-Kyzylorda bus. If you look at a detailed map of Kazakhstan, you will see a road spanning the 450 km between these two cities. To be clear, this is a "road" and not a road. In addition to the horrified warnings issued by locals about this bus, I had plenty of other evidence to know what awaited us. The ride itself didn't disappoint.

(The guys on the bus while the girls were using the "bathroom". By that I mean they were going behind the bus for privacy and peeing on the road. Sometimes, it's good to be a guy.)

As we left at 8am on a Wednesday morning, a light snow was falling in Zhezkazgan. Since I chose not to bring my heavy coat to the sunny south despite the desperate pleas of my host family, this was a little unpleasant, although the bus itself was warm enough. This bus was not a regular charter bus, but a 70s-era Soviet claptrap that looked more or less like a miniature grey schoolbus that was held together with duct tape, string, and prayers. We were very concerned by the fact that we could only buy tickets on the day of departure, but fortunately this was not a problem as there were only 12 passengers out of a possible 16-18.

(The view was pretty consistent the whole way)

There is nothing between Zhezkazgan and Kyzylorda. For about 450km, there are no cities, no towns, and no villages. There are only a handful of what can only be described as homesteads. It must be a bleak existence, so far from anything; these dwellings must be among the most isolated in the world. There is little traffic on the road and by my judgment we passed only about 10 vehicles going in the other direction. However, that's not to say that the few residents in the area can't create a commercial opportunity from the road. About three hours before we arrived in Kyzylorda, we stopped at "the cafe". It's a hell of a place -- five or six outbuildings with goats wandering here, there, and everywhere.

(The "cafe". It's a lot nicer inside than it looks, seriously. I also highly recommend their goat lagman soup; additionally, the vodka that they served was honestly the smoothest I have ever tasted. Go figure.)

For almost the entire 10 hours we were on the bus, we were bouncing around like pingpong balls. For the first few hours the bumpiness was curbed by the fact that the road was frozen solid, but as we progressed south, the ice gave way to mud and the conditions worsened. For a few hours the driver was literally weaving back and forth across the road, avoiding lumps of mud, in what had essentially become an obstacle course of dangerous ruts. Right about halfway through the trip, we had a small problem:

(An unfortunate situation when you are about 200 miles from the nearest town)

The bus got stuck in a rut and went over the embankment into the snow. Fortunately, the ditch wasn't deep enough for us to flip, which would have made the story significantly less funny. In all, it took us about 30 minutes to get the bus back on the road. The process involved shoveling snow out from under the bus, ripping up shrub brush to use as traction under the tires, and then pushing. We pushed the bus away from the road to flatter ground, where it could slowly turn around and pick up enough speed to get over the embankment. Thankfully, it was simpler than we initially anticipated -- the guys on the bus worked with an efficiency that suggested that it wasn't the first time they've dealt with such a problem.


Upon our evening arrival in Kyzylorda snow was falling once again, which I found disconcerting, but fortunately it was the last snow I saw. We had planned to spend the night in the city with other volunteers, but we had made friends with a Kazakh guy and a Russian girl on the bus who were also continuing on to Shymkent, so we took a late train. In classic Kazakhstan style, the train was sold out, but the Kazakh guy "knew people" in Kyzylorda and we somehow managed to procure tickets.

By 9am the next morning, our motley crew pulled into the station -- 25 hours after departure from Zhezkazgan. For the record, that's making great time.