15 miles south east of Kegen via Narynkol to Almaty, Kazakhstan

Distance: 306 miles
Time on bikes: 8.5 hours

We both have a great nights sleep in the tent. Even though we’re at about 2,000 metres the temperature was perfect and the long grass that we’d set the tent on made a lovely soft mattress for us to sleep on.

We’re up at about 8 am and have a light breakfast of Ovaltine before getting on our way just after 9 am. First we need to retrace our steps back to the main road and we’re able to navigate our way through a few of the muddy sections of the track with no problems.

We begin by continuing down the road in an easterly direction heading for the town of Narynkol. We’d been recommended to see this place by one of the ladies in the thermal spa a couple of days before. The road there has great surrounding scenery and we’re heading towards some huge mountains that form the natural border with China. The views are very spectacular and the land formations are quite different to what we’d seen anywhere else in Kazakhstan.

We get to the town of Narynkol, two miles from the Chinese border at about 10.30 am – it has a lovely location set on a river and at the foot of snow covered mountains towering up to 4,500 metres. The town is surprisingly big with quite a few shops, but we settle for a ride through and around before heading back out. I’m not sure what we were expecting; maybe for it to be set in a mountain location or on a lake, but we decide to get back on our way and aim for what looked like a cafe on the outskirts of town.

We manage to find the cafe, or what we thought was a cafe, and park the bikes outside. It’s set in a layby and the signs would seem to indicate that it sells food so we wander over to a yurt which has a few tables and chairs outside. There are a few people around but none seem to be giving any indication that they’re open for business. The guy invites us to look inside the yurt, but there’s no mention of whether there’s anything to eat or drink. We’re beginning to think that we’ve just turned up at their house and feel a bit awkward about whether they serve any food.

We decide to meander back to the bikes and are just getting ready to go when one of the ladies offers us a tea. We’re still not sure they’re doing this because they are actually a cafe, or just offering us tea. We decide to say thanks, but get on our way.

We stop next to a river to have a light lunch from some provisions we’d bought in the morning in the first town we’d passed through. We also stopped to buy what we think is horse cheese from a family on the side of the road. We’re on the outskirts of another village and the bridge we’re sat next to is quite a busy thoroughfare with locals walking by and young lads on horses returning from herding cattle in the nearby fields.

One thing we’re trying to find this morning is the valley of castles, but despite giving it our best efforts we can’t see any turn offs the main road. The only description we have for the location is that a 12 km track takes us there from the main road. Of course there are quite a few tracks leaving the road, but we’re not too inclined to keep trying them until we have success.

We decide to focus on finding some more parts of the Sharyn Canyon and take a circular route to join the canyon further south from the part we’d seen the other day. Thankfully we have success on this venture and stop in the canyon to have a little picnic before getting on our way. We manage to find a smaller road heading off in the direction the canyon follows and this turns out to be a good decision as there are plenty more opportunities to see the route of the canyon and get close to the edge.

After feeling like we’ve ticked all the boxes, we get back on our way to Almaty. We’ve heard that Fabian, the Spanish chap we’re crossing China with, has arrived in town and it would be good to meet up. It’s about 5 pm and we’ve got about 120 miles to get back to the city. The road isn’t very even and we’re both feeling very tired for some reason. The road gets very busy again as we approach the city and we arrive at just after 8 pm outside the hotel we’d recommended to Fabian.

After parking the bikes up, it’s only a few minutes before Fabian turns up and we have a sit down in a nearby cafe for a couple of hours chatting about our trips and what to do about the China and Pakistan legs of our trips. It seems like there are problems in Pakistan which may cause us problems and we need to think about how we can get around this. We’ve not been able to catch up on any news recently so we feel a bit out of the picture.

Late in the evening we grab some food in the local shop before returning to our usual hotel for the 12 hour check in. We’ve still not heard any news about Bene’s tyre arriving and we have everything crossed that it’ll come in the delivery scheduled for Friday.

Jour 108 – Mercredi 4 Aout 2010. Almaty, Kazakhstan

De 23 km au Sud-est de Kegen a Almaty en passant par Narynkol, Kazakhstan

Distance: 490 km – Temps a moto: 8.5 heures

Nous dormons tres bien, la température pendant la nuit était agréable et le matelas d’herbe était très confortable; nous nous levons vers 8 heures comme il commence à faire chaud dans la tente et après un petit déjeuner léger d’Ovomaltine nous plions la tente et prenons la route.

Le sentier est un peu boueux, mais en faisant attention nous sortons sans problème. La route vers Narynkol est superbe mais nous ne trouvons pas l’entrée de la vallee des châteaux, c’est le problème ici, si nous n’avons pas de location exacte il est difficile de trouver les lieux touristiques qui ne sont pas indiques du tout et nous passons souvent sans les trouver.

Narynkol est au bord de la frontière avec la Chine, nous faisons donc demi-tour et retournons vers le Canyon de Sharyn.

Nous nous arrêtons a une yourte qui semble être un café dans l’espoir d’y prendre un petit déjeuner, mais l’homme nous propose d’y entrer pour visiter et disparait, nous retournons donc vers les motos pensant que c’est peut être juste leur maison, et que les quelques tables et chaises ne sont la un café…une femme nous propose un the, mais nous n’osons pas l’accepter. Nous faisons une pause un peu plus loin au bord de la rivière et y mangeons quelques biscuits.

Nous reprenons la route vers Sharyn canyon, un peu plus au sud qu’a l’aller et sommes très content de trouver un canyon bien plus impressionnant, c’est comme une grande crevasse dans la pleine avec une rivière bordée d’arbres au fond. Après un piquenique de beignets a la viande et de pain avec du fromage de cheval (un peu trop fort a notre gout) nous prenons une route qui suit le canyon vers le sud, les vues sont impressionnantes. Nous sommes bien contents d’être venu par ici, c’est bien différent du reste du Kazakhstan et ca vaut les détours. Nous reprenons ensuite la route vers Almaty ou nous sommes sensés retrouver Fabien, un Espagnol qui fait partie du groupe avec qui nous devons traverse la Chine.

Nous arrivons un peu plus tard que prévu a Almaty, vers 8h30, et y trouvons Fabien, nous discutons de nos voyages et des options que nous avons pour la suite de notre route comme il y a des inondations au Pakistan et ca risqué de nous poser des problèmes.

Apres une petite soirée de discutions nous décidons de nous retrouver pour le repas de midi le lendemain, et avec Carl nous retournons vers notre hôtel habituel.