We have just arrived in Bishkek, having ridden our motorcycles from Taraz & Merke in Kazakhstan through to Kayyngdy & Kara-Balta in Kyrgyzstan. Our map (Reise know how) didn't show Chaldybar (about 80-90kms directly west of Bishkek) as a border crossing and our gps wanted to take us on the new M39 road loop to Korday but we took a chance. It was the easiest and quickest border crossing!! The whole process took about 45 minutes.

It seems that the majority of the 'traffic' entering Kyrgyzstan at this border crossing is on foot - we saw one truck come in after us, that's all. Not a single car.

On the Kazakhstan side, you need your Eurasian Customs Union document for temporary import of vehicles and other valuable goods (which we got when entering Russia and to which they have stuck a summary sticker and QRcode with all your information). They give you a customs exit form to complete with all the same information as you originally wrote when entering the Union. They stamp both and keep both forms and required sight of our passports and vehicle ownership documents.

We were then taken by a customs officer to the exit of the Kazakhstan immigration queue to leapfrog the queue, inside a building. It appears that this is the standard procedure as the truck driver did the same. Once done, customs went through one of our bags, asked if we carried a gun, and waived us away.


The Kyrgystan border is a few metres away. Once you have shown your passport (they look for the Kazak exit stamp - in our case, it confused them that we left Kazakhstan on an EU passport but wanted to come into Kyrgyzstan on Australian passports - that was for consistency across the Stans - but they decided to stamp our EU passports :-(. That process took less than 5 minutes and we were welcomed into kyrgyzstan. There was no paperwork or forms to fill in. Too easy.