Kazakhstan: The wild card country that surprised us

And the paved descent that nearly croaked us

Our time in Kashmir ended in a flurry. We located two cardboard bike boxes, packed up the bikes, and went through four rounds of security at the Srinagar airport before taking off.

Our original plan was to fly into Bishkek and cycle the Tian Shan Traverse, a world-renowned bikepacking route across Kyrgyzstan. The internet told us Kyrgyzstan was experiencing an unusually rainy summer and that flights to nearby Almaty, Kazakhstan were in fact quite a bit cheaper.

“How do you feel about Kazakhstan?” I asked Isobel, who has more experience with Central Asia than me. “I don’t know," came the reply. “I’m intrigued”. I found a potential route called the Kazakh Corner and we agreed it would be fun to go to a country that neither of us had been to before, so we pulled the trigger on some flights.

All of my preconceived notions of Kazakhstan came from the film Borat, a “mockumentary black comedy” which follows a Kazakh journalist’s journey across the USA. He’s portrayed as a sexist moron, quick to offend unsuspecting members of the American public. It's an incredibly divisive film, you either love it (teenage me) or hate it (like Kazakhstan). Borat is banned in nearly all Arab countries. I was excited to experience the real Kazakhstan.

Our lack of Kazakh knowledge immediately stung us, arriving in Almaty at 4am, groggy as all hell with NO clue of the value of the local currency. We paid ₸30,000 KZT ($85 CAD or $100NZD) for a taxi ride which we later discovered, with the use of the hotel WIFI, was worth ₸5,000 KZT.

Determined to not have our first impressions of Almaty spoiled, we set off the next morning to get a lay of the land. I recently read Sovietistan, my favourite book this year, which gives an in-depth travel account and brief history of all five Central Asian countries. Sovietistan paints Almaty as the “cosmopolitan centre” of Central Asia with all the touristic amenities we were missing in Kashmir.

Almaty was the perfect first experience of a post-Soviet country, with beautifully maintained capital buildings, huge public parks, hundreds of water fountains, cycle paths and public art. At nearly every corner, Isobel and I scratched our heads in wonder and praised the beauty of the city.

Almaty is also ideally located for our bike ambitions, tucked into the northern edge of the Trans-Ili Alatau mountain range. We studied the map, looking for a route into the heart of the mountains - a taste test before embarking on the Kazakh Corner. Hungry for a challenge, I plotted a route up to the T1 Glacier Observation Centre, a gruelling 2000m climb over 27km. We did a grocery run, filled our cooking fuel bottle and set off early the next morning to beat the heat.

Shymbulak, Almaty’s closest ski resort, is enroute to T1 and we saw hundreds of families flocking there for a gondola ride up to the alpine wildflower meadows. Determined to prove our metal, Isobel and I passed up the gondola ride and continued the upward slog. Before long, the steep road forced us from our seats, and we resorted to pushing our heavily laden bikes up the mountain in the full afternoon sun.

One of my favourite public art pieces in Kazakhstan - on the way up to Shymbulak

At one point, we witnessed a woman descending backwards as you would a ladder, clearly overwhelmed by the gradient. Sheepishly looking at Isobel, I admitted my route planning may have downplayed the intensity of our ascent.

Isobel pushing up a hairpin corner which nearly gawked me on the descent

Arriving to swarms of tourists at the top of the gondola, we plunked down for a well deserved feast, which included a cat-nap in the restaurant chair for Isobel. Determined to push beyond the punters, we re-commenced our climb into the wilderness beyond the resort. We counted every step of the final three kilometres as the paved road turned to dirt and finally eroded into a washboard of fist-sized rocks.

We made it to a beautiful campsite framed on either side of the valley by huge granite cliffs. We fired up the cooker, made a pasta dinner and tucked into bed by 7:30PM, relieved by the sharp chill of the mountain air.

The next morning we left the bikes behind, intent to reach T1 Glacier Observation Centre and try to summit the Molodezhny peak (4127m). Quickly clipping up the old Soviet road, we emerged from the tight valley into a massive mountain bowl, surrounded by jagged peaks and glaciers on all sides. We passed through the T1 Glacier Observation Centre, remarking at the old janky remains of the alpine huts.

The path all but disappeared as we continued up an even steeper slope, using all limbs to keep traction among the precariously loose boulders. Continually stunned by the ever-expanding view, we eventually arrived at the shoulder of the mountain peak. We watched the clouds thicken, darken and then rain upon us. Well aware of the danger of alpine weather, we called off the ascent just one kilometre from the peak.

It's difficult to capture the majesty of these massive glaciers in a few hundred pixels

Back at our campsite, we crushed another pasta dinner and tucked in for the night. The weather intensified as we lie snug in out tent, climaxing with rolling thunder and lightning flashes bright enough to sear the strike into our eyelids. Nature is the grandest entertainer of all.

Content with our exploits, we packed up (breaking the tent pole in the process, which lead to some unexpected friendships) and began our descent back to Almaty, acutely aware of the steep descent ahead. I, for one, was excited to rip down the mountain after so much climbing in the last two days.

We carefully rode down the nugget road, Isobel testing her mtb skills on a fully laden (35kg) bicycle. I could also feel my mechanical disc brakes were reaching their limits, heating up under my heavy load (35kg + 85kg).

We did a quick water stop at the top of the gondola and I did another check of my brakes. I handed Isobel my filled water bottles to minimise my weight, more confident in her hydraulic disc brakes than my own.

The 'Krampus' fully loaded

Isobel went ahead as I strapped on the GoPro. I started down the mountainside, feathering my brakes in a pulsing manner to minimise the build-up of heat. As I came up behind Isobel I reached for the brakes, hoping to slow down behind her and do a ‘follow cam’. I squeezed the brake levers and felt absolutely no response, flying past Isobel. My heart simultaneously dropped from my chest and pounded up to 200bmp.

Barreling towards a hairpin corner, I knew I had to do something quick or else I’d smash into the concrete barrier and sail off the cliff beyond. A school group was scattered across my half of the road, eliminating my chances of taking the corner at its widest. Forced straight into the centre point of the hairpin corner, I knew I had to come to a dead stop.

Using my BMX instinct from my teenage years, I peeled my right foot from the pedal and jammed it between the rear tire and the frame of the bike. The rear wheel sucked my shoe in without hesitation and locked up immediately. For 20 meters I fishtailed, barely managing to stay on the bike, eventually skidding to a sideways halt as I slammed up against the concrete barrier.

Isobel, witness to the whole event, arrived a moment later to find me with full body tremors. “Wow, I can smell them”, she exclaims.

“You dangerous!” One of the passing school kids announces.

Looking down at my rear brake rotor, I can see it’s heated to the point of melting and is now unsalvageable.

Nervously, Isobel continued cycling down and I pushed back up to download in the gondola.

Reunited at the bottom, Isobel reveals she crashed in my absence. While dismounting her bike, someone yelled in her direction and her handlebars twisted in an unfortunate manner, taking her down and crunching her leg up against the searing hot brake rotor. The skin on Isobel’s leg was peeled back and fragments remained cooked onto the brake rotor. Her oozing flesh demanded medical attention.

Neither of us anticipated the hazard of this simple paved descent.

We endured another 800 meters of gradual descent to the city. I rode side-saddle with both feet on the same side, giving a quick exit strategy in case I needed to enact any evasive manoeuvres.

Lucky for us, Almaty is a city of MANY amenities. We found a pharmacy with burn bandages for Isobel and a bike shop with new hydraulic disc brakes for me. We shrugged off the dramas of the day with a few beers and shashlik meat skewers, finalising plans for the real deal - Kazakh Corner.

We inhaled a few of the shashlik skewers before stopping to take a photo