Kazakhstan options and thoughts
I've been convinced by Tiffany NOT to go with the original plan ie go right up to the Uzbekistan border crossing 400km from Aktau / Aqtau in Kazakhstan skirt the Aral sea of whats left of it to get to Aralask.

I have some options in my mind:

I have completely lost ALL my tools including tyre repair ones and thus need to wait for a parcel via DHL in Baku (is this reliable?)

I am 5-6 days out of Baku , apply for the LOI from David Bergoff (if he ever answers my emails) , get the Uzbek visa from Baku and ride in convoy with various other riders to the Uzbek border and into Smarkaland and onto Almaty to apply for the Kryg and the Tajik visas reapplying for the Kazakh visa in Toshkent. Hopefully my parcel will arrive in this time also. I just dont want to be stuck in Baku for 2 weeks waiting on this and from the Lonely planet guide Baku is both expensive and depressing , sights to see listed as the baby cemetary where you get to see the ecological damage and birth defects caused by the pollution.


OR

Get to Aktau and attempt to put my XT600 on a train to get to Almaty saving the need to get the LOI and the uzbekistan visa (lowest risk but dont know if this is even possible and do not know about the costs). does anybody know if this is possible?

Option 3 is different

Turn back into Turkey , get the ferry into Sochi and skip the stans out completely I only have a double entry visa for Russia and thus if I do this I miss out on the stans opting purely for Mongolia instead.


What do you reckon? , my off roading experience is limited and there is talk of soft sand for 100s if not 1000s of km.

Sorry this trip was poorly planned from the outset...


Thanks


Apologies for the repost I replied instead of new threaded.

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