We were wrong

We were wrong - oh so wrong about Kazakhstan.

All of us were ready to leave Russia yesterday afternoon. The people we had met along the way were super helpful and and nice but the scenery and towns left something to be desired. We attempted to buy some tires before leaving Saratov but opted to wait for (hopefully lower prices) in Kazakhstan. After driving for a few hours, the landscape drastically changed. We were in no man's land. For miles and miles there was barren land - only an occasional gas station to break up the drive. Along the way we were pulled over twice by the Russian police. I don't know if just got lucky or if all Russian policeman are super nice but these guys were incredible. They were all smiles once we showed them the letter and they especially liked our snorkel - the Ka is a hit over here! We thought we were going to have to pay a bribe or a fine - not the case at all. In fact, two of the cops even let us take a picture with them. Awesome!

We rolled up to the Russian-Kazakhstan border at around 6pm. There was not another car in sight. Quite a drastic change from our last border crossing. Similar to the Russian police officers, these border guards could not have been nicer. They were all smiles when they saw the car and laughed at the idea of us driving it to Mongolia. One o

f the guards even agreed to sign our car - very cool.

We weren't really sure where we were going to spend the night - we figured we would probably have to camp on the side of the road since it was getting late. It was about 100km to the nearest town - so we decided to try to make it there in case there were some accommodations. We were told that the roads were really bad - but minus a few potholes, it wasn't much different from the roads we had been driving in Russia and Ukraine. Around 10pm we rolled into Uralsk (Oral) and all I can say is that we were blown away. There were twinkle lights strung all along the bridges and light posts, there were people walking the streets enjoying the warm weather. This place was nothing like we had expected. The buildings were modern - it almost felt like we were pulling into a city like Philadelphia. We pulled up to a hotel and Matt went in to see if they had a room available. While Kass, Simon and I waited outside we drew the attention of some locals who were admiring our car. The Kazak people are extremely friendly and gorgeous! Our new friends signed the car and wished us luck. We weren't able to stay at the hotel because there was a huge oil conference in town so it was all booked up. We ended up meeting a couple of the British Oil Execs who gave us their business card in case we needed rescuing along the way - so cool! A taxi driver named Max offered to show us to another hotel so we followed him a ways down the road. Matt ended up negotiating a great price for the rooms - charming the receptionist with his quick wit and the magic letter. Max was one of the nicest people we've met along the way - he even left us with some key chain souvenirs!

We dropped our bags and headed out to get some food and drinks. Not too far from the hotel was a place called Cum Cum (we're not kidding) - it was packed with locals so we ventured in. As the beers arrived, a bear of a man named, Morat, marched over and put his hand on Matt's chest and started speaking in Russian. None of us could understand him but he kept saying something that sounded like "Uma Thurman". After a while we were finally able to figure out that Morat thought that Matt was a famous Russian rock star. After that he pulled up a chair and kept calling Matt, Vladimir Kristofski. The whole restaurant was in on the joke and before long we were the new hit of the town - these crazy kids that were driving to Mongolia.

None of us thought that we would ever be so happy to be in Kazakhstan. The people here are super friendly, the towns are developed and clean. We had all underestimated this place. Please disregard our previous post about being off the grid. Apparently we were wrong. Very wrong. And so was Borat.