Road from Nukus (Uzbekistan) to Atyrau (Kazakhstan)
 

Hi,

I am planning on travelling from Nukus in Uzbekistan to Aktau on the Caspian Sea in Kazakhstan so that I can get the ferry from Aktau down to Baku in Azerbijan and from there into Iran. I was originally planning on travelling through Turkmenistan to Iran, but Turkmenistan (for reasons know only to Turkmenbashi himself!) have decided to close their doors to foreigners for all of the month of October and so I now have to re-plan my route.

I have been told that there is a road (of sorts) which follows the railway line from Nukus to Aktau and while I have heard that it is just about do'able I wondered whether anyone had taken that route or had any knowledge of it first hand.

Cheers,

Peter

(www.motorbiketrip.com)

Sorry - that should of course by Aktau in the title to my question and not Atyrau - please ignore my confusion over Kazak Caspian sea ports!

no good...
 

Tomorrow morning I'm leaving to Pamirs and can tell you that being very interested in news from 'Stans I never heard of anyone taking the route you're thinking about. Also, I saw a question like yours already asked on HUBB without _any_ reply.

I have an atlas of former Soviet Union published 2003 by Trivium, Belarus and it does show a border crossing on that road. I would recommend that you call some Uzbek embassy and ask if there really is a border crossing AND if it is a multinational one! Without such crossing, road conditions do not matter... If there is railway-only border crossing, check an option to load your bike on a train.

If all this fails, to get south of Caucasus would require driving to a Russian port on the Black Sea and taking a ferry to Georgia or Turkey... You probably know that the road between Aralsk and Aktiubinsk (Aqtobe) and from Aktiubinsk to Astrakhan is pretty poor, see pictures at: http://www.cologne-shanghai.de/

Good luck!
Kris

Thanks for that. It was actually David Berghof at Stantours here in Almaty who receommended that we take that route. I have just spoken with him again this afternoon and he tells me that he knows of a lot of people (in cars only!) who have done that route and he tells me that although there is no where to get petrol en-route (!!) he thinks that it is more or less do'able by bike and that in any event it is a fairly (relatively speaking) well travelled road and so you are bound to come accross people should anything happen!

As for the border issue David tells me that he does not think that there is any formal border point as such, but that you need to find the customs guy (there is just one guy by all accounts) in the last Kazakh town you pass through (I can't remember its name) and ask him to stamp you out of Kazakhastan. You then pass through a couple of hundred kilometres of no-man's land before you get to the first Uzbek town (again I don't know its name) and there you need to find the one Uzbek customs guy in that town who will stamp you into Uzbekekistan, but only once he has checked with his Kazakh counterpart that you really do come from Kazakh - this is bascially done by him calling the Kazakh guy sho stamped you out of the country and asking him whether you're genuine. It all sounds pretty hit and miss and so as I type we are currently looking into other alternatives - watch this space!

Enjoy the Pamirs - we are heading there from Krgystan once we get out of Almaty - maybe see you up there.

Peter

Hi there,
we're here in Semey, leaving tomorrow for Almaty. If you'll still be around maybe we can meet. Where are you staying ? we'll spent a few days fixing our visas for the rest of the Stans.

Laurent - riding Asia on an '84 Tenere

so it can be done...
 

Very detailed info! I used to think to take this road because it would be very cool to drive the very same E40 from Krakow to Pamirs, wouldn't it??? but never heard about anyone doing it and decided it must undoable.

There will be quite a meeting Sept. 14th in Bishkek. I will come from Poland on a motorcycle and 6 machines more will arrive on a trailer to speed up things for those in a hurry. Then we will wander around Kiryzstan, then take The Pamir Highway, then Samarqand and Bukhara and back home about Oct. 1st. We will not visit Almaty.

Our itinerary is pretty fixed, see if it fits to meet you and let me know.

Kris

Hello

go to www.motodreamers.com. My wife and I met Greg Natasha and Jacek 2005 in Mongolia.
Greg and Natasha did this road 2 up in 2002.

Hope this helps

Goetz

Anyone still there?
 

i'm in ulan bator where i've met some people who did the london-ub rally. mainly cars but a couple of motorbikes too. rules are they must be 125cc or less! met tommy who just got his license a couple of days before leaving the uk and made it all the way here on some korean p.o.s. he took the ferry from baku to aktau, then rode down thru uzbekistan. he said he put his bike in a truck for a few hundred kms, but that it is doable. he also said there is no gas for a long time, but they got through. i will probably give that route a go myself next month.

I have no info on this road, but David Berghof usually has his finger on the pulse. I rode the main track west from Aktubinsk in November 2004 and it was atrocious, i think the condition of the roads in that region are largely dependent on the weather, if it's dry you shouldn't have a problem, but if it rains the dirt turns to slippery, sticky clay, very difficult to ride on (especially on an R65 with street tyres).
Check out www.hotkey.net.au/~howmans for a story and photos of this.
Sean

I was in the region at '01 and rode from KIZILORDA - ATYRAU ...

It was at that time quite isolated and fuel free area ... hundreds of km's with no vehicle, house or people... it was little frightening ....

Hi Goetz, you crazy German.
I am curious how you guys managed to enjoy Mongolia with your hightech GPS, you know what I mean...:thumbup1:

Do you have a website so we can watch you in action?

Greetings, Greg.

PS. It was nice meeting you in that beautiful valley. You know, you were the only bikers we met in Mongolia.

go to www.motodreamers.com. My wife and I met Greg Natasha and Jacek 2005 in Mongolia.
Greg and Natasha did this road 2 up in 2002.

Hope this helps

Goetz[/quote]

going back europe
 

I m gonna try this route. Has anyone done it recently?

yes
 

2 months ago ... its fine ... the direction you are coming from will be about 80 km of unsealed road just before the border, then about the same amount to Beyneu in KZ.

There is no petrol after Kungrad ('Qonghirat' on some maps) in UZ ... so you need about 350km range to get from Kungrad to Akjigit in KZ ... where they have 80 octane, or about 400 km to get to Beyneu where there is 93 and sometimes 96.

Fuel in north-west UZ is tricky after Nukus ... most stations are gas only. Uzbekistan has loads of gas but no oil ... so many cars in the northwest are converted to LP gas and getting proper fuel is tough. Best bet is to ask around for blue Turkmen benzin.

In Beyneu there is a good guy who welcomes bike travellers ... he has a guesthouse / service station on the edge of Beyneu. The guys name is 'Alyosha' and he is a former soviet enduro champion. His place is a regular stop off point for Russian and Kazakh bikers travelling the road to UZ. To find him, from the direction you are coming ... the road in from the border takes you past an old railway yard with abandoned steam trains ... eventually you cross the railway tracks on the northern edge of town and immediately there is a roundabout with a police post. If you go straight ahead you are going towards Aktau, if you turn left you head in to Beyneu itself and if you turn right at the roundabout (towards Atyrau), about 100-150 metres down the road there is a dusty old stoyanka (parking lot) full of old buses and GAZelles (like a russian ford transit van) ... thats the spot. Drive in there and ask for Alyosha.

:thumbup1:

Thanks a lot. Useful information. And even more, Alyosha is also one of the Karamazov Brothers from the Tolstoy novel. It sounds promising. I have a good friend and we use to call each other (specially when drunk) "Alyosha, my brother", remembering his usual phrase on the story.

But how about the border? I read here that one should look for the customs guys in the last Uzbk town and in the first one in Kaz.

Anyway, I probably go to Turkmenistan and trying to get ferry at Turkmenbashi, but you never know till the end what is gonna happen.

Finally, I did not take the Turkmenistan way because I had to pay a guide and I preferred to ride from Nukus to Aktau, much cheaper and less easy. Bad road but really funny. The shocks of my bike are over stressed but they survived. Uzbekistan part is Ok, and after the Kazakhstan border (regular check point nowadays) is a good gravel road till Beyneu, but from there to Aktau starts a nightmare of stones, sand, holes and bumps. 300 Km of riding the Moon. Then, 200 km to Aktau, the asphalt is Ok again and lasts till the city. Should fill the tank with 91 in Nukus and take some containers because in Kungrad there is only 80. No 91 or 93 till Beyneu, about 500 km far, but in case of really need, there is 80 in the Station, 25 km into Kazakshtan. Aktau is good place to have a rest waiting for ferry. I hope sail soon to Baku.

So, if I understood correctly from this topic and from other reports I found over the web... From Atyrau to Beyneu we are talking about good asphalt road, but from Beyneu to Nukus it becomes a dirt road.
Is this right? Are we talking about a terrible road or is it rideable enough well? (which is the case, I suppose).

I'm planning to ride next year from my town in Italy to Samarkand just taking this direction, that's why I'm asking infos about.
I'll ride a XR600 that an office workmate of mine will borrow me purposely (otherwise my Harley will get disassembled piece by piece on the roads of KAZ, I suppose... :frown:).

Thanks to whoever can give some infos on a biker that has never ridden on dirt roads for more than 5 km. maximum... :helpsmilie:

Atyrau to Beyneu is asphalt (some good asphalt, some not so good), except for about 30 km .. but they are working on it now. By next year its probably all asphalt to Beyneu

Beyneu to Nukus ... the first 150 km is dirt road, and the rest is asphalt.

There are no terrible roads here ... its all rideable.

Thanks Colebatch! Your updates are like gold to me!! :clap:

Hi, Knight. You should distinguish two parts in that way we are talking about.

From Aktau (port at the Caspian Sea) to Beyneu the road is very bad, as I said. From Beyneu (still Kazakhstan) to Kungrad (Uzbekistan) the road is more or less half good dirt road and half asphalt, as Colebatch said.

So, If you take ferry from Baku (acerbaijan) to Aktau, you should ride a very bad road, but of course ridable (I think that kind of roads is what we are looking for in the Stans), but if you go from Astrakhan (Russia) to Atyrau (Kaz) you will not ride the worst part, and arrive Beyneu on asphalt (I didn´t ride that way so I couldn´t say how it is).

I did both worst parts: Atyrau to Aral (hell 1), then I went to Almaty and going back by Tashkent, Samarcand, Bukhara, Nukus, Kungrad, Beyneu and Aktau (hell 2). So I ate the Aral shit twice, but I really enjoyed it. My bike is a GS 1200 and everything Ok, so yours, much lighter, shouldn´t have any problem.

Check the blog about that part in my blog.

Blog de Miquel Silvestre

Have fun on hell.

Hey, Miguel!

I will do as you stated here above (Atyrau from Russia, then Beyneu-Nukus-Khiva-Bukhara-Samarkan), so I'll be pretty lucky, I think...

I'll check out your blog as soonest!


Thanks and take care while :scooter:

Miquel,

I read your blog.
From where did your friends put their bikes on the train to Aktau?
If you have any info on putting bikes on trains in the stans, please post it for us. Sometimes it may be necessary even when we want to ride the rough road...

Hi, Chris. They finally put the bikes in a truck. They were able to put them in the train after a very hard negotiation (first railway people said not allowed) and paying 10.000 tenges each, but then the guy at the Station asked them 10.000 tenges more ( 60 $) just to lift the bikes into the wagon. So they said not and started to argue. Then a soldier aproached to them and suggested to hire a truck. Through that guy they contacted to a lituanian lorry driver and for about 7000 tenges they sent the bikes to Aktau in his truck while they were traveling in the train. I know the whole story because they told me it in Aktau, but I can not say how to get the train or hire a truck in Benyeu. But everything is possible in Central Asia (the worst and the best), so if you have the need, ask and get it.

I forgot to say that it was in Beyneu. They asked in Nukus (Uzbek) and the answer was "Not", but in Beyneu (Kaz) they allowed bikes on train. I hope it could be useful.

Knight, I been thinking about your planned trip. It is clear your going to way, but how about your going back one. Do you think to do the same way two times? This is really boring and no interesting at all. So you have to go back from Uzbekistan by Turkmenistan or by Kazakhstan and after Russia. By Turkmenistan you have to take the ferry to Baku or going through Iran (easier way but expensive in case of tourist visa and long proccedure in case of transit one), but if you want to go by Kaz and Russia you have to cross the west part of the Kaz country from Aral, and there is a real, real bad road. Much worse than from Akatau to Beyneu. Think about in advance if you do not want to ride rough gravel roads.

I did this exact route 3 months ago - details in my Sibirsky Extreme blog below as well ... just a few variations ... from Beyneu to Nukus I went via Muynaq to check out the Aral sea boats in the desert, and from Bukhara to Samarkand I went via Shakhrisabz as the main highway is utterly boring.

Yes, Colebatch, in fact I took a look to your report a couple of weeks ago (which has been really interesting), but I wrote this post just to be sure about every detail.

:thumbup1:

Yes, I already checked out many reports and I saw that the stretch Aralsk-Aqtobe is terrible, and I don't wanna ride that section, given the fact I have ZERO experience in off-roading (I always been riding big touring bikes).

I'll come back to Italy thru IR, TM, TR and the Balcans: just is another excuse to pass thru Turkey, a Country that I learned to love last year when I rode from home to Petra in Jordan (and I loved it because of Turkish people, really fantastic...).

Hi, Knight, in Stans you should do some off road riding anyway, wanted or not, because little parts on your way are unsealed (and there, road changes easily) If they are doing works on the road, you must ride the gravel path. Do not worry, you know how to ride asphalt and off road is more or less the same but riding slowly. You will love it and then you will want to ride more and more off road. Sand is the only problem. The skill takes time to learn and they say go fast to make the bike go through on the sand, but if you do that you will sure make some mistakes and they mean you will kiss the ground. So my suggestion is go slow in sand and keep your bike safe.

Anyway, I am in Istambul right now ready to ride to Israel. I would apreciate any suggestion about the trip yo did last year. Places worth to see and betther to avoid, best road, etc.

Keep safe.

Well, since you are southbound, don't miss Cappadocia for any reason. You'll love the place (especially the Fairy Chimneys), and I can tell you that roads were in good conditions in August 2008.
If it comes to lodging, I remember I stood at Tan Pension in Goreme: cheap and with a really freindly owner (it's not a 3-stars hotel but it was OK for my needs).
Turkish people are fantastic, but I think you are experiencing this just now...

Then, I moved to Syria and I entered the Country at Kilis border line: only 10 minutes to get out of Turkey but almost 90 minutes to enter Syria.
Syrian customs officers, nevertheless, were cool and friendly, the only hassle is filling the 100,000 forms they give you but there's much people there ready to assist you for a few dollars.
No need of a Carnet de Passage to enter.
Pay attention to how Syrians drive: THEY ARE CRAZY! You'll see many of them driving in "contrary direction" even on highways, but they do it very slowly on the right emergency lane, so there's not a real danger for you.
Aleppo is the first city I visited: don't miss it, it's really nice (only one day to visit). You can visit the old citadel (fantastic but terribly dirty), the Mosque and the suk, full of goods for any taste.
Don't miss also Damascus (one day for visiting), the marvellous Palmyra in the eastern part of the Country (you must NOT miss its sight at sunset) and the roman theater in Bosra, close to the Jordanian border.
Pay attention to traffic in bigger cities in Syria: there's almost no rules! They keep on honking, creating traffic jams everywhere (but nobody ever put me in danger, ever, I must say it).
I also visited the castle "Krak des Chevaliers" close to Homs.... really nice (even if much dirty)!
Police are friendly and helping in all of Syria, and you'll see how Syrians are lovely people, always ready to assist you and with very nice behaviour.


Border Syria/Jordan (on the side of Bosra) is slow and crowded, but nothing to be afraid of, since you already experienced the Stans! It'll be a walk in the park for you...

Jordan does not require a Carnet eiter, and is cleaner than Syria: you'll see they take care of their historical treasures much more than Syrians do. After leaving Syria, it'll be like entering Europe again, if you compare them!
Don't miss Jerash and of course Petra, that reunites tourists from all over the world.
Jordanians drive much better than Syrians, but you must remember that the main highway (the one that leads to Petra) crosses several villages: pay attention to the obstacles on the asphalt that force you to slow down (I don't know the name in Englih and I don't have a dictionay here where I am presently, but I think you understood): they are usually not warned by any road sign and they are quite tall, so you can easily hit them and see them at the last moment).

Talking about Jordanians, I must compare them to Syrians and Turkish and say the same thing: fantastic people, always ready to assist you and welcome you in their gorgeous Countrys!

Thanks. I think you should post it again in Middle East forum, it´s very interesting. I will visit most of the places you said, but probably I will cross from Syria to Lebanon and from there to Jordan. I will tell you here how it goes.

Keep safe.

Colebatch, do you think those dirt road stretches can be ridden astride a big dresser like the bike I currently own? (Ultra Classic Electra Glide)
If it does not deal with sand or potholes, maybe I could do it even with it...

What is your suggestion?

Its fine ... the dirt road is very dry but there is no sand. Because it is so dry and no rain there, there are no real potholes either. Just light gravel and corrugations.

Your bike will be fine ... you could even do it on road tyres ... it will be a bit slower for you for that 150km than for someone on a lightweight bike with dirt tyres, but no problem. :thumbup1:

To encourage you, Here is a picture of the lovely new road that goes from Kulsary to Beyneu! ...
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3402/...9ace94.jpg?v=0

A final note ... be careful on the uzbek asphalt ... there are a couple of long stretches where the bitumen has come up thru the asphalt and makes a slippery shiny surface on the road. Its actually very soft and slippery like oil. The Russian guys i was riding with immediately moved over and rode on the dirt shoulder of the road whenever we hit these slimy bitumen section.