Ustyurt Plateu

[The 314559]

Does anyone have information or experience about crossing the Ustyurt Plateu?

Wiki Says:
"The Ustyurt Plateau, Ustyurt also spelled Ust-Urt and Usturt (Kazakh: Üstirt, Turkmen: Üstyurt), is a central Asian plateau in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, between the Aral Sea and the Caspian Sea. It extends roughly 200,000 km², with an average elevation of 150 meters, and consists primarily of stony desert. The plateau’s semi-nomadic population raises sheep, goats, and camels."

It seems like my Turkmen visa can be a problem to obtain in Baku. So I may have to cross into Kazakhstan and cross this weird piece of landscape into Uzbekistan.

I'm curious about the "road" conditions, border crossing points and any known threats.

[Nath]

I think plenty of overlanders take the route into Uzbekistan from Aktau.

I got the ferry from Baku to Aktau recently. It cost $220 for me and the bike. Getting on the ferry was quite a bit of hassle and stress for me. On the same ferry were a couple of Brits in a Landrover and a couple of French 1950s Citroens, who took the route into Uzbekistan. The previous week a British biker on a bmw gs took the same route. I think at least 50% of the route untill you hit the first big Uzbek town is going to be a poor broken up/hardpac/gravel surface.

I didn't have an Uzbek visa so I rode on the Kazakh side of the border towards Aralsk - This route was very remote with no track marked on the maps, and through areas of very deep and soft sand with the steppe taking on some of the features of a desert with sand dunes etc.

The last town/village before the Uzbek border is Benou, which is a pretty big place with a supermarket, plus a Bazar where you'd be able to buy 18" inner tubes and maybe a few other bike parts such as would be used by locals on their small two-strokes and sidevalve boxers.

[The 314559]

Thanks Nath!

I kept looking for roads and border posts on the southern areas. Bejneu seems to be the right place to do the crossing. And it looks like the road surfaces are somewhat treated. It's not just tire marks on the sand. I think I can do it.

I expect the ferry would move whenever it's full so I may have to wait for a few days. What was your experience? Do you have a recommendation on where to stay or what to do for the crossing? Any contacts?

[Nath]

The only cheap place in town seems to be the 1000camels hostel. There is another hostel slightly more expensive in the same building. You can find it in lonely planet and on hostelworld.com It's like $20 a night though which ain't my idea of cheap! Baku isn't a cheap place in general.

I arrived in town the same day a ferry to Aktau left but couldn't get on it because I had to first get a Kazakh visa ($20 next day). The next ferry was 6days later. You simply ring or visit the ticketoffice/port every morning to find out if the boat will sail that day. Some guys who got the same ferry had the people at the ticket office ring them that morning to tell them the boat would be leaving, though I think you'd need to speak reasonable Russian to achieve that yourself as the staff were pretty unhelpful.

Beware, our ferry took 3 or 4 days - If there's a storm over the Caspian it wont sail, and storms are common, but because there's only one space in the dock the boat will load then sail out of the port and anchor up in the harbour. So if you don't want to live from the onboard restaurant (not cheap, no english spoken), assuming the boat has one that is because not all of them do, then you might want to take a fair amount of supplies with you.


Hope that's enough info for you. The port is marked in lonely planet and there are one or two copies knocking around at the 1000 camels hostel if you don't have your own. But it's easy to find, just along the coast/main road then first turn towards the sea (very unlikely looking) after the railtracks.

[colebatch]

its a common route for russian and kazakh adventure bikers, via Beyneu KZ to Kungrad in UZ. I went that way 2 months ago and its all fine.

You need to cross the railway track at the roundabout on the north side of Beyneu, then take the dirt road to Akjigit, fill up again there, and continue to border. First fuel on uzbek side is at Kungrad.

can recommend a chaikhana run by a korean woman on the uzbek side of the border. She serves a good meal and will change money at a better rate than the touts. Its on the rhs, about 3 doors down and looks a bit like this.


More detail on the beyneu ustyurt crossing on my blog. From memory the post is titled 'The Karakalpaks'

Recommend a good place to stay in beyneu too if interested. A former soviet enduro champion lives there and is a regular stop off point for the russian and kazakh bikers

[mystic]

Originally Posted by colebatch

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Recommend a good place to stay in beyneu too if interested. A former soviet enduro champion lives there and is a regular stop off point for the russian and kazakh bikers

314559 - apologies for hi-jacking your thread!

Walter - would be very interested in location / name of stop off place in Beyneu you stayed at. May well be going that way fairly soon.

BTW - really enjoying the blog - safe riding.