Road trip from Denmark to Kazakhstan
| One of our many trips
between Denmark and Kazakhstan in 1994 was made in our poor, little Golf all the way from
Aarhus to Almaty near the Chinese border. It was a 7000 km long trip and it took 12 days.
We drove continuously with only very short breaks during the night when both of us were
too tired to drive. During
the trip we were stopped around 100 times by the police, the military, or other officials
who thought we might have something interesting on board that they could get from us by
either being kind or threatening. We were prepared for that, and had brought a lot of
lighters, pens, cans of beer, etc., but by the end of the trip we were completely stripped
for any loose items, except two bottles of wine, that I refused to let go of, because they
were graduation gifts. |
| The roads were
generally bad and required a very special driving technique. Especially at night, it was a
good trick to drive 50 meters behind a local car, because they would show how to avoid the
biggest holes and bumps. Here, in the middle of the Kazakh dessert, on the main road to
Aralsk, the road was so bad, that it was preferable to drive in the sand next to the road.
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| When we rolled into
Aralsk, our wheels were just about falling off. The locals were eager to help us fasten
them again, though. Here is one person working on the bolts, and eight others looking and
giving advice. For that job, they required 9 bottles of vodka, and took the rest of the
day of. |
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| Gasoline was generally
difficult to get hold of, and we could forget about finding the lead-free type that was
recommended by the car manufacturer. We tried to keep all our gasoline tanks filled with
the best quality we could get, but at one point we were out of even the lousiest quality,
and the whole city that we were in was also out of gasoline. So there was nothing to do
but wait until a gasoline truck came by. This meant that we got a full nights sleep in the
car at a gasoline station. |
| The two Business
Communication Centres in Almaty and Tashkent (Jesper and Anders) had organized a study
tour to Europe during the summer of 1994 for a bus full of Kazakh and Uzbek business men
and women. After a highly successful trip, where a lot of connections were made, the
participants arranged a re-union at a mountain resort outside Tashkent. Here we are
enjoying a nice dinner in the garden, and that night was the only time during the trip,
that Jesper and I slept in a bed, rather than sitting in the car. We also had our first
shower. |
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| After 12 days and 7000
kilometers we arrived to our humble apartment in Almaty and started unpacking. Looking and
feeling surprisingly fresh. Everybody had warned us about the danger in making such a trip
across the former Soviet Union, but we had a fascinating trip. We didn't encounter any bad
guys at all, except all the annoying policemen that stopped us all the time with less and
less good reasons. |
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