I’m here in Astrakhan and I’m looking at the map. My planned point of re-entry to Russia is Saratov about 500 miles north of here. It would be so easy to just keep going north. Loop up to Latvia and home. From here everything is going to just get a bit harder. It’s going to be rough and hot and physical. I’m not as young as I was yesterday and it’s going to take more effort. But my eyes are very selfish and they want to go. They know there are delights that will leave their retinas reeling. They’re busy playing reruns in my head and they won’t stop nagging. The rest of my body isn’t so sure. My stomach would be happy to skip it. My lungs could do without the strain that altitude will put on them. My arse could do without being sat in a hot sweaty pair of pants all day long. So I leave it to my body to decide. Everyone has a vote. It’s the only fair way. And the result… the eyes have it. Of course they do.
I like Russia. I’m not afraid to admit that. It’s obviously struggling but that’s nothing new. The biggest country on the planet. A diverse cultural melting pot. It’s not surprising things kick off. But I like it and most the people are friendly and courteous if you show them the same.
At breakfast this morning I’ve had to send in the bum squad to install a fruit and fibre grenade in my colon. Now I’m going to spend the few days playing Russian Poolette hoping it doesn’t go off at some random roadside hole in the ground in the company of a million flies. Either way it’s going to be an epic event and I may well require stitches.
Out the city to the border. The roads are getting shitter by the mile. It’s always the same. I can feel my forks pumping like an adolescent rabbit’s hips at an orgy. And this is only the start.
I come to a floating bridge. It looks about 900 years old. Made of ribbed and linked metal sections. It’s fair to say there is a lot of play. As you ride, the bridge moves underneath you. If you have the misfortune to be crossing against a heavy vehicle coming the other way then you’ve got issues. The trucks create a wave in front of them and the water comes up through the gaps. As the wave comes towards you it bathes all the shiny metal plates with water. Riding on shiny, ribbed sheet metal is… challenging. Riding on wet shiny ribbed metal doing a wave motion is like riding over 1000, sweaty, hard bodied female athletes. I made it across with only a huge knot in my stomach to show for it.
In the name of science, I gathered together 1000 hard bodied female athletes, which took about 2 minutes round here BTW, and asked them all to strip naked and do 500 star jumps, which was pleasingly hypnotic, before lying in a row on the ground. I tried riding over them but fell off 58,256 times. Whoops. My bad
Russian border to Kazakhstan looks like a film set for The Apocalypse. But the people are friendly and don’t mind me pushing in.
I think I’m through the formalities when the young woman searching the bike says ‘follow me’. She takes me to a small room with a bloke at a desk, who hands me a questionnaire in English. A ‘conflict based’ questionnaire.
‘Do you have any connection with anyone serving in the Ukrainian military?’
No
‘What is your opinion on the Special operation by the Russian Federation?’
Errrrrr..
‘Do you consider the Crimean peninsula to be part of the Russian Federation?’
Awkward..
And various other death trap questions.
I switched my writing style to ‘doctors’ and scribbled some (hopefully unintelligible) platitudes, signed it, dated it, and scarpered. 
Kazakhstan boarder is a breeze by comparison, but no insurance booths anywhere. Commando I go across the plains.
Kazakhstan is vast, and flat, and hot, and windy. There are a few small towns close to the border of the usual style. Prefab houses thrown up along the road.
Then there is at least 150 miles of nothing at all. Kazakhstan. Famously not famous for its skiing.
The roads are being done but there are lots and lots of diversions into the desert. Sand. I hate sand. Confidence is the key apparently. I’m totally confident I’m going to bin The Bitch into a ditch. I often think she enjoys this more than I do.
Eventually humanity reappears and I can rejoin the human race for a moment.
As I approach Atyrau the roads just disintegrate completely. The holes are huge and they’re everywhere. I went down a few that I could only just see over the top of when I was at the bottom. They are premier league bastards and could stop your trip, or worse, in a second. Time to drop the speed from ‘cruise’ to ‘bruise’. The hotel is nice though. The Ritz (sans Carlton) flanked by a coffee shop on one side and a supermarket on the other. Perfect.
Go out for my evening sabbatical and I’m immediately struck by how Asian everyone looks. I’ve seen this before on the silk roads where so many cultures have passed through. This is very strong though. I could almost be in the far east.
With the internet free again of the Russian strangle hold, the populace here is all dead head down, slaves to the machines they can’t leave alone. It’s sad. Who’s to say what Russia is doing is actually benefitting their people? We all thought it was much better living in the 90s. Well Russia is still living more in the past and maybe it’s not a bad thing. It’s obviously not that simple but it’s also true that west isn’t always best.
Perhaps the biggest change I’ve seen across my journey so far in Turkey, Georgia, Russia and out here are the coffee shops. They are absolutely every bloody where. I’d say they are almost a plague. Think Turkish Barbers. So I tried one before I left but as seems to be common everywhere, they take this Bean to Cup thing literally. Literally one bean to one cup. All you get is beige milk. I’m not a fan of beige, unless it’s a 1970s Austin Princess.
I go and use my pocket money to fill up the bike. 21.5 litres. £6.54 It’s more per litre in than it is per gallon here.
Out on the road it’s lots and lots more of this
Stop for a bit of this.
Take a look off a bridge. Anything this way? Nope?
What about the other way? Nope. Kazakhstan is largely featureless. Like Italy it doesn’t have anything that grows above 2” 6’.
Remember the transparent aluminium from Star Trek? Well here it is. I wondered why Captain James T Kirk was here was graffiti’d on the wall outside.
The road today is mostly pretty good but for a while it gets very very bumpy so I stand up on the pegs to help the suspension. Let my legs take the hits. Get your timing wrong though and your bollocks fly down and bash into your ankles. A few hours of that and my balls look like a couple of bruised apricots in a pair of old carrier bags.
And still more nothing. But I really like nothing. Sometimes there’s nothing better.
Today’s town is a tiny dot on the map called Beyneu. It’s where the fun begins. It’s all sandy streets and chatting nanas. It’s all big skies and edge of the desert air. It’s cheap hotels with furniture from a skip. It’s my kind of town.
