Driving from Almaty to the Charyn Canyon

Visiting or living in Almaty and looking for a short excursion from the city life? Charyn canyon, the second biggest canyon in the world next to the Grand Canyon, makes for a fantastic day trip being only 200km and a 3 hour drive away. The canyon itself offers stunning views of Kazakhstan’s picturesque landscape and the drive there offers a “real” taste of the Kazak people and their lifestyle, away from the hustle and bustle of the city.

Quick Guide

• Bring enough food and water to last you the whole day, there aren’t many “quality” options on the way there or back.
• Bring toilet paper, I’ll just leave it at that 🙂
• It’s at least 6 hours of driving and a good visit at the canyon will take 3-4 hours, so plan accordingly.
• Leave your wallet and passport in a separate compartment in your car and only a small amount of cash on you (1500-2000 tenge). This way you can claim that’s all you have and they can’t confiscate your most important document.
• Don’t cave right away to the officers. If you know you are in the right, stand up for yourself. If you did commit a violation, keep calm and have your cash ready.
• Bring your camera and have fun!

Getting There

It’s a fairly easy drive as you stay on one highway (A351) for the majority of the trip. Leaving Almaty, take Al-Farabi east through the tunnel and head northeast towards the airport. You will reach a roundabout after 10-15km, take the second exit which will keep you going straight on the A351. There are three points on the A351 where the road splits and you will need to continue going right. The first is around 125km into the trip and right after the following gas station and near the post with a green diamond shape on top.

After another 25km, the second turn is near this blue sign and circular shaped outpost. Stay to the right. After this turn you will be heading towards the mountains.

After another 25km, the third and last right is less identifiable, but has a red and white guard rail seperating the two directions. Stay to the right.

After the third right, you will reach a sign stating you have reached the Kokpek Gorge. From here you will a nice drive through the mountain pass.

You will reach a sign stating Charyn Canyon 10km, shown below. From here, you will take a dirt road 10km until you reach the National Park entrance.

Speed limit and the Police

If you haven’t heard already, the police are quite corrupt in Kazakhstan and like taking money from tourists and expats. This is especially true when driving through small towns on the way to the canyon. The speed limit is only 40 km/h, and nearly every small town had police camping at the beginning, some of them having speed cameras and others not. Unfortunately, I had several encounters with the police on the trip, but it added to the adventure and now I can share some insight with all of you.

1st Stop: I was definitely driving too fast, going 60 in a 40 zone. There were 3 officers, one running the camera, one waving people down with a bright orange baton, and the third sitting in the car “writing people tickets” a.k.a., collecting the cash. I was waved down by the officer with the baton so I pulled over the side. He asked for my papers and told me to get out of the car, speaking no English, so we were communicating through gestures and intuition. He took me to the camera and showed that indeed I was going too fast, then directing me to the police car to visit with “the boss”. My friend Paul had stepped out of the car to join in the experience, and “the boss” was not very happy about this, and started yelling for him to go back to the car. I luckily received some intel from a colleague before the trip to keep only small amounts of money in your pocket and no passport, leaving them in the car. This came in handy for sure. I didn’t want to deal with a ticket and I’m sure the officer didn’t either, so I pulled out 2000 Tenge ($13) and showed it to the officer. He directed me to set it in the section between our seats, then gave me my papers back and I was on my way.

2nd “Stop”: I put this one in parentheses, because I didn’t actually stop although I was directed to 🙂 About 20 minutes after the first stop, a red Audi was cruising ahead of me. I realized that we were approaching the entrance of a town so I slowed down. As expected, there were officers waiting and flagged down the Audi. It appeared that he was trying to wave down me as well, but I wasn’t exactly sure. We made a split second decision to keep driving and if someone came after us we could chalk it up to being ignorant tourists. The decisions paid off because we continued on our way with follow up from the officers.

3rd Stop: On the way back from the canyon, after being stopped once and nearly again, I was well prepared to drive slow in each town. However, this didn’t stop the police from trying to get some Tenge off me. About midway through the trip, I entered a town going exactly 40 and began approaching the camped out police. The officer standing outside starting waving me down. I was really confused as I was going the limit, and thought about continuing on, but something told me to stop. He approached the car and motioned for me to get out of the car. I knew he didn’t have anything on me so I started arguing with him that I was only going 40, showing on my hands and pointing to the speedometer. He pointed that I was going 60, which was outrageous so we kept arguing. I wasn’t sure how this was going to turn out, but luckily they had pulled over a local Kazak woman while this was happening. He couldn’t deal with us and her at the same time so he threw up his hands and waved us off. Persistence paid off.

On the road

Some things you may encounter along the way.

Lots of donkey carts.

Roadside animals.

Roadside markets with plently of shaslyk…buyer beware.

 

Lots of 20 year old Audi’s.

At the canyon

I’ll let the pictures do the talking.

 

Missing my train in Tashkent and finding the real Borat

State of panic

It was a lot more difficult to get to Bukhara than I originally expected due to some complications at the train station, which turned out to be the most panic stricken event I’ve had travelling the world.

After arriving plenty early to catch my train, one of the security guards guided me to the wrong track.  Once the wrong train arrived, I headed to my carriage expecting to begin my overnight journey to Bukhara, when the new guard told me I had to go to original track I was at…and the train was leaving NOW.  So I immediately bolted back to track 3.  Somehow in the process of scrambling, I dropped my passport and didn’t realize it until I got right in front of the train.  Knowing I couldn’t get on that train without it, I sprinted back to track 6 frantically asking all the guards if they picked up a passport, realizing the train to Bukhara was going to depart any second.   After five minutes with no luck, I was depressingly brining myself to the realization that I missed my train AND lost my passport.  The only thoughts going through my head were all the Visa’s and stamps I had collected, now gone, and the major hassle it would be to get back to Kazakhstan and then to Germany, without my passport and visas.   Damn not a great way to start my Uzbekistan adventure 😦

I headed back to track 3 and to my surprise the guard had my passport…whew.  It still didn’t make up for the fact that he guided me to the wrong track, but a small consolation.  At least I wasn’t going to be an unidentifiable foreigner a long way from home.   Now I just needed to figure out how I was going to get to Bukhara.

The Real Borat

After things settled down, the guard introduced me to the train station manager, an extremely nice Uzbek man named Ghulam.  He wanted to know what had happened and do anything possible to help.  He did everything from correspond with my travel agent over the phone, get me to cashier’s office to get money back for the ticket, book me a room at the train station hotel, and lead me through the many security checkpoints (this is a former Soviet country after all) in a breeze.   We were each other’s company over the course of an hour and he was super friendly, telling me about his life, his family, asking questions about America and my travels.  In one of the most surreal moments since being in Central Asia, I couldn’t help but thinking that the real Borat was not from Kazakhstan, but from Uzbekistan, and his name was Ghulam.  Here are three things that made me think of this

• His look.  There is a lot more Mongolian influence in Kazakhstan, while people in Uzbek look more Russian or Caucus.  While he wasn’t a spitting image of Borat, he could at least pass.
• His speech.  The way Ghulam phrased certain things like, “I love my wife”, or “Listen to me, my friend” made me think that Sasha Baren Cohen spent serious time in Tashkent when honing in his accent from the role.
• The last one and the real kicker, was when we started talking about international women.  And could you guess what he kept referencing for attractive American women???? PAMELA freaking ANDERSON.  No joke.

With all that said, Ghulam was very different from the Real Borat in a variety of ways, not limited to:

• He wasn’t an idiot or culturally unaware.
• He studied in Europe and has a great job as a manager.
• He speaks 7 languages.

I do not want to disrespect Ghulam or the Uzbek people in any way, but I thought the story was pretty funny and had to share it.

A lesson on stereotyping and the hospitality of the Uzbekistan people

We’ve all done it and most people do it very often: stereotype.  In fact, our brains are programmed to stereotype because they are fast and efficient cognitive shortcuts that save us a lot of time and energy.  However, most of us know that creating stereotypes can lead to negative outcomes, with things like sexism, racism, and lots more “isms”.   I was taught a good lesson on stereotyping during my trip to Uzbekistan.

A couple weeks before my trip, I read about an Uzbek man living in Idaho who was arrested and charged in a terrorism plot.  I originally brushed it off as a rogue extremist.  A few days passed and I saw the article again.  This time I started to worry about my trip.  What were the people going to be like? Was I going to be in danger? I started reading articles online and found that more and more jihadists were moving towards the Afghanistan/Uzbekistan border.   I would be staying in Samarkand on my journey, which is less than 400km from Afghanistan.  I started to worry more.  Then I read about the tragic event in Andijan in 2005.  I won’t discuss too many details, but in short, the Uzbek Interior Ministry and National Security Service killed between 200 and 1000 protesters.   The relations between Uzbekistan and the US were fairly good until that point, as Uzbekistangranted the US access to its military base, which was quite strategic for the US given its proximity to Afghanistan.   The relationship took a serious hit after Andijan, to say the least.  The US pulled out of the air base.  Major international companies left Uzbekistan.   What would this mean for me on my trip?  What were the people going to think of Americans?  Well good or bad, I was going to find out.

My worries were quickly calmed.  The Uzbek people are some of the nicest and most hospitable people I’ve encountered.  On top of that, they are fascinated, almost fanatical, about America and American people.  Every time I told someone I was from America, they responded, “Whooooa, America.  America, horosho!”  Which essentially means America is good.  Some examples that come to mind:

• After my first choice for Plov in Tashkent was closed, my taxi driver took me to his favorite spot and we shared a great meal together.  He then took me on a mini tour of the city, even walking me through Amir Timur Square.  He spoke very little English, but tried his best to be a guide.

• The hospitality of the manager at the Tashkent train station (see linked post for more details)
• I had a night out in Bukhara at the local chillim (hookah) spot called City Lights.  The place was relatively empty, but a group of guys welcomed me to their table and introduced me to the “American Boy”.  He couldn’t have older than 22 and was decked out in an America shirt, America belt, some red white and blue Chuck Taylors, and around Bukhara was known as “American boy”.  We had a fun evening smoking chillim and learning about each other’s cultures.

• On my last night in Uzbekistan, I went to the only bar in town that stayed open to televise the Champions League Final (Go FC Bayern!).  After watching the first part of the game on my own, three guys around my age invited me to join them.  I came to find out that it was one of their birthdays and ended up taking shots of Russian vodka chased with various slices of meat throughout the game.  The next day, Alisher, the birthday guy, met me for lunch at this amazing open market restaurant that goes by the simple name of National Food.

 

All of this made for a wonderful trip.  The cities I visited were spectacular in their own right, but the people made the trip even more special.

It’s a fundamental lesson of life we learn at very young age.  “Don’t judge a book by its cover.”  Give people a chance and leave your preconceived notions behind.  But’s this way of thinking can be very difficult in practice.  And sometimes it takes a trip to Uzbekistan for the message to hit home.  I could have easily cancelled my trip and been left with this stereotype of the Uzbekistan people.  But I am so happy that I didn’t because I would have missed out on a great trip as well as dismissed a fascinating culture and group of people.

Give people a chance.  You owe it to yourself and the other 7 billion people on the planet.