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The Kazakstan pavilion is 8 floors of interactive and educational fun. There was a crazy circus act too.
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4426/...5c14fecf_b.jpgAstana-22 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4353/...c67c65ae_b.jpgAstana-23 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4402/...94e467aa_b.jpgAstana-24 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4354/...cacbe490_b.jpgAstana-25 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4399/...08e9a4f9_b.jpgKazakstan_-15 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4389/...96cc3fea_b.jpgAstana-21 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4426/...cbf59c3c_b.jpgAstana-27 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4343/...fe35cfe8_b.jpgAstana-28 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr Leaving the park we set out for the taxi stand. There are very few real taxi’s here as most are regular people with a “uber-like” app. The guys at the stand told us the price was 3 times what we paid to get there and we only planned to go 1/2 way back. A local women overheard our conversation with the drivers and she came over to us. She said she would book us a cab on her app and even walked 200 m over to the main road to make sure we got the right car. She took quite a bit of verbal abuse from the drivers, but shook it off. We were headed to the “famous” (not sure why it is just a mall) Khan Shatyr mall. Lots of high end shops and not much else. There is a beach on the top floor with sand from the Maldives. Now back to the hotel for Monday night Game of Thrones fix! |
It is August 1 today and we can enter Russia on the second. We are headed to Omsk, but we have to make a detour to Petropavl since the border south of Omsk is open only to Nationals of Russia and Kazakhstan.
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4334/...44936e2f_z.jpgScreen Shot 2017-08-01 at 20.25.32 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr So we want to get as far north as possible today. It is 497 km to Petropavl, but if the road is terrible we will get as far as Kokshetau in 310 km. https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4426/...de1104a5_z.jpgScreen Shot 2017-08-01 at 20.25.03 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr It turns out the first 200 km are on a perfect 6 lane toll (not for bikes) highway. Just before Kokshetau is turns to 4 lanes, but after it is a good 2 lane road. |
As usual we did draw a bit of attention when we stopped for lunch!
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4390/...43384bf3_b.jpgKazakstan_-19 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr It was stating to get a bit warm at 29 again and about 70 km from Petropavl Sara noted her voltage meter (always at 14.2-14.3) was at 13.4 and dropping steadily. Finally the stator has had it. Well we managed to get to the city, drive around for 45 minutes trying to find a non by the hours hotel, and not have the bike die. I did wait in one spot while 2 of the guys rode about and finally found a nice place with a good spot to work on the bike and I managed to get there without the fan turning on and killing the bike. We let the bike cool off and then hooked up the GS 911 to confirm the issue. Dan is an expert now #7 for stator changes and 2 in the last month. It all went smoothly luckily and on start up charge is 14.2! https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4403/...a767d9a5_b.jpgPetrpavl-2 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4360/...077256eb_b.jpgPetrpavl by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr |
We found a surprisingly good Chinese place for dinner and then walked the pedestrian zone. It was packed with people on a Tuesday night.
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4420/...97f17358_b.jpgKazakstan_ by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4432/...d9cddc11_b.jpgKazakstan_-20 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4363/...fd03e804_b.jpgPetrpavl-3 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4407/...7642dfd5_b.jpgPetrpavl-5 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr Tomorrow we leave Kazakhstan and again despite everyone telling us we would be pulled over constantly and hassled by police we did not get pulled over even once and in fact the police we saw never gave us a second look. That said we did follow the posted signs to the letter just like the locals. When it says 30 km/h they ARE going 30. WE were never stopped in Kyrgyzstan either. |
Today we want to get half way to Novosibirsk as Orvar has arranged service at BMW there in 2 days time. This means at least 450 km and the border. Our objective was Tatarsk in 461 km as we knew there were a few hotels listed here.
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4335/...32646d77_b.jpgScreen Shot 2017-08-02 at 22.37.43 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr We are not sure what to expect for the border crossing as we have heard it can take up to 4 hours. Our friend Wolfgang crossed from Latvia yesterday and he said it was 2 1/2 hours. We do not have to do customs clearance since we did it when we entered the “customs” zone in Kyrgyzstan and this covers us to the Mongolian border. It is 126 km from Petropavl to the border of Kazakhstan on a mostly good paved road. When you arrive at the gate you pass the line of vehicles and go to the front. Here there is an officer in a booth who wants to see your passport, Kazakhstan tourist card, and customs form. They give you a small piece of paper to get stamped to give to the gate guard on exit. They then let 5-6 vehicles thru the gate at a time to drive 200 m to the border station. Here you park and go inside to get the passport exit stamp. Back outside the officers have dogs and very briefly look in the boxes. Interestingly they have never at any border asked to look in Trevor’s top box or Dan’s Tank bag. Then you are free to go, but first they wanted a photo of us and so we got one too. Now you ride 200 m to the gate and hand over the small scrap with the stamp. https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4387/...27132d5e_b.jpgIMG_9399 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr |
You then pass the “you have crossed the border of the Russian federation” sign and you ride a km to the next gate. Here again you pass the line of vehicles and ride up to the gate. Here the officer wants to see your passport and Russian visa and hands over a tourist card to fill out. (ours was in English, but Wolfgang yesterday had only Russian…Much easier to fill in all the boxes for us). He even helped us to answer a few items that did not translate well. After he checks your work he also hands you the usual small scrap of paper for the exit. We had to wait a few minutes before we got thru the gate to ride 300 m to the border station. Here you go in and hand over your passport, tourist card, and vehicle registration and get an entry stamp. Outside the officers wanted to look thru the luggage and even wanted to look under Dan’s seat ( a first). They asked me if I had a gun or narcotics….UH no. They were all very friendly, warm, and nice…. not as advertised at all. All done in under an hour. You ride 300 m to the exit gate and the young officer was very smiley and friendly taking our small stamped paper and welcoming us to Russia.
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4364/...f9328d15_b.jpgTatarsk-2 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4400/...96b470c5_b.jpgTatarsk by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr Just outside the gate are several trailers where you can buy your vehicle insurance. This is 15 USD for a month and the 3 of us all had it done in 20 min. Orvar has a green card and it is valid in Russia. https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4353/...bb30a8da_b.jpgTatarsk-4 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4408/...28a1e16b_b.jpgTatarsk-3 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr |
Now to make some miles as we have 335 km to go and it is 12 noon. The road is very good and 2 lanes, but there is a lot of truck traffic. We stopped in Marjanowka 110 km from the border and drove 5 km to the town centre as there was a bank there to get Rubles so we could get some lunch.
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4363/...126954cf_b.jpgTatarsk2 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr Gas stations take visa, but sometimes the cashier will not let you use it unless you pray the exact number of liters and so you always have to have cash as back up. You hand them your biggest bill and say full and they usually will turn on the pump. Making friends at the gas station as usual. https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4433/...e1f274c9_b.jpgRussia Novosibirsk-2 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4411/...16358af1_b.jpgRussia Novosibirsk-3 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr From here there is several sections with construction stoppages but we managed to time them pretty well to get to the front of the line when it was our directions turn to go. We had to stop for break from the droning monotony about 100 km from Tatarsk and picked ourselves up with an ice cream. The town is off the highway about 8 km and we headed for one of the places listed in the GPS. It had enclosed parking and was clean and pretty cheap. 11$ each with breakfast. https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4335/...f11a35ba_b.jpgFILE3722 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr We had a very comfortable night actually and after adjusting all our devices we are all on the correct time now. |
Today we have another long, straight, and boring 475 km to Novosibirsk.
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4412/...91208e07_b.jpgScreen Shot 2017-08-05 at 18.25.05 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4436/...502923e1_b.jpgNovosibirsk by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr There is a lot of truck traffic and a 2 lane road. There are several stoppages for construction, but we got lucky all day with minimal waits. We found a good truck stop about 2 for a cafeteria lunch. https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4442/...06f4c1c2_b.jpgRussia Novosibirsk by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr |
The ride into the city was remarkably painless even at 5 pm on a Thursday night we only had bad congestion for a very short time. Orvar had booked us a hotel on a quiet dead end street and the parking was a private locked garage inside the underground parking with a locked door. So double secure as requested!! Now to toast with some Vodka of course.
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4419/...9e2f550f_b.jpgNovosibirsk-6 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4383/...1bd5632f_b.jpgNovosibirsk-8 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4348/...9f58beb8_b.jpgNovosibirsk-7 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr The other nice thing is there is a very trendy and hip restaurant 1 block away with live music. https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4370/...ab0c3989_b.jpgNovosibirsk-9 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4349/...e14fb39f_b.jpgRussia Novosibirsk-4 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4367/...8b443560_b.jpgNovosibirsk-10 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr |
Today is errand day. Orvar’s 800 was in for “20,000 km BMW Certified service” and the 650 to check out why the new speed sensor is on the fritz. (They said they reset the sensor, but the light was back on 4 blocks later and still is). Yesterday the dash was a Christmas tree with the red Sensor warning, the yellow bulb warning, and the blue high beam warning. The bulb went today, but we got a Bosch one at the gas station to replace it today. There is no way they did anything but change the oil. The plastics were not off for sure. This is the air filter they said they replaced when we took it out 3 days later in Barnaul.
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4384/...77f971dd_b.jpgRussia Barnaul-16 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr |
For a bit of sight seeing today we took a taxi across the river about 13 km for 3$ to the Glory Memorial to WW2.
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4441/...f3a11dd7_b.jpgRussia Novosibirsk-11 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4388/...856dc4e1_b.jpgNovosibirsk-14 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4442/...a2d51b5b_b.jpgNovosibirsk-15 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4363/...d2fa4474_b.jpgRussia Novosibirsk-7 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4348/...7367c14e_b.jpgRussia Novosibirsk-8 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4337/...18c180bc_b.jpgRussia Novosibirsk-6 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4413/...310853ba_b.jpgRussia Novosibirsk-9 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4345/...6b567a3b_b.jpgRussia Novosibirsk-10 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4420/...2856d4f8_b.jpgNovosibirsk-16 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4335/...9c224fd9_b.jpgNovosibirsk-17 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4331/...b8e14973_b.jpgNovosibirsk-23 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4418/...75c6f902_b.jpgNovosibirsk-22 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4342/...556e346a_b.jpgRussia Novosibirsk-12 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4340/...b9ceb780_b.jpgRussia Novosibirsk-13 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr |
Then we sorted the metro out for the ride back. This meant we could make a second trip to the mall as Dan had not found anything yesterday.
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4390/...84a77919_b.jpgRussia Novosibirsk-16 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4436/...08e560a7_b.jpgNovosibirsk-25 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4364/...0b5ea46a_b.jpgRussia Novosibirsk-17 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr Another memorial near the hotel. https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4441/...732578ee_b.jpgNovosibirsk-26 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4435/...b3951ab4_b.jpgRussia Novosibirsk-2 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4407/...5b9797dd_b.jpgRussia Novosibirsk-5 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4383/...d12b6a9e_b.jpgRussia Novosibirsk-3 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr We had an amazingly good Japanese meal also very near the hotel. https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4339/...793a4d1e_b.jpgRussia Novosibirsk by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr |
Today we have a relaxing 230 km due south to Barnaul. This is where we had our tires and oil shipped from Moscow and where we will meet of with Wolfgang. He left Hamburg 7 days ago and will have come 6000 km in 8 days to catch up with us.
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4388/...269bf570_z.jpgScreen Shot 2017-08-05 at 17.14.46 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr It is as predicted another straight pretty boring ride thru Siberia. We had slightly cooler weather at 28 degrees. https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4364/...fd53c812_b.jpgBarnual by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4431/...9057be0e_b.jpgBarnual-2 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4359/...9ef221f8_b.jpgBarnual-4 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr |
We got a late start at 11 and so rolled into the hotel in Barnaul at about 3. It is Sunday and almost everything is closed.
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4403/...c25fa779_b.jpgBarnual-6 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr We had to walk 40 minutes to find a restaurant that was open. We managed to get back in time to meet Wolle as he rolled into town. We would have missed him, but he had his first flat ever an hour before Novosibirsk. He has stayed in the same hotel in Tatarsk last night as we had. Small world. https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4350/...682e853c_b.jpgRussia Barnaul by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4428/...098eb7ae_b.jpgRussia Barnaul-2 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4361/...2655f81d_b.jpgBarnual-13 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr |
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