Border crossing no problem, took 2 hours including insurance and SIM card directly after border.
Road after border post to Atyrau: First 35 km very rough, then a lot of potholes and some corrugation. No problem on a bike, less fun with a 22 ton truck (It took us 8 hours).
Atyrau to Beyneu: 400 km of good tar
Filling stations in Beyneu only accept cash, no credit cards
Beyneu to border: Broken tar, bad
Border to Uzbekistan: No problem, 2 hours, insurance and SIM card available after border post
Kazakhstan border to Nukus: First 100 km broken tar, road then improves but still a lot of potholes, after 200 km no more potholes

I will be on this path for next few days, today leaving Astrachan heading east , thanks for update

Wysłane z mojego FRD-L09 przy użyciu Tapatalka

How much did you pay for SIM card after border post to Atyrau, and for how many GB of data transfer?

Wysłane z mojego FRD-L09 przy użyciu Tapatalka

I don't remember, but it was cheap. Had to load more later in an official shop as not much was loaded at the border

Took the route astrachan-atyrau today. Border was done in something like one hour, with very friendly and helpful guards. Especially the kazakh officers and soldiers were extremely cheerful, helped me fill in my migration card and gave me my two stamps so i dont have to Go to the migration Office while i am staying in kazakhstand

The "road" to atyrau on the other hand....like it was said earlier in the thread, the first 35km are more of a Track than an actual road. Its bumpy, holes everywhere and sometimes Sandy areas. Nothing i couldnt handle with my ktm 950 and a little bit of Patience. The real exhausting part were the 200~ km that followed afterwards. There was a road, but it was really badly damaged. Holes as big as my bike, track grooves that reached up to my footrests and parts where there was no road at all. Just holes, waves and so on. I really dont mind offroad. I crossed iceland on this very ktm with as much luggage as i am now carrying. But this road was tough. And this condition goes on and on and on up unto atyrau. It took me in total 4,5 hours to cover these 250km and i am absolutely done for^^ i could have driven faster, but i didnt want to damage my bike. As of now i only lost some screws...hope i dont find any more missing parts:-) oh and keep an eye on the other drivers. They dont seem to care that you might want to go around a hole too and overtake you as close as possibly...

Cheers,
Patrick

If you are going further down to Usbekistan, you will have such nice parts again.
After Beyneu to the border and further bumpy dirtroad, and later very bad asphalt....

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Luckily i will be going down to turkmenistan via bekdash bordercrossing. So i dont have to go through usbekistan. But i think the road from aqtau to the border will probably be not much better... but we will see!