5th of August - Camels milk and vodka

We started the day with a beautiful sunrise over the graveyard of rusting ships in the sand. We both knew that it was going to be a very hard day's riding as our destination was Kazakhstan, 255 miles away through desert terrain and desert temperatures.

The first 100 miles were just sand and off road tracks, taking us across the dry and dead Aral sea bed. We had a few near misses, one of which I was totally dislodged from the bike and we had a frantic struggle to get it upright in deep sand.
Half way along the track we found an abandoned runway and airfield, which was clearly another relic from before the Aral sea disaster. We also rode alongside a stampeed of horses (I think that we caused the stampeed).
We loosely following a set of gps coordinates across the sandy plains, there was no specific track to follow. The sun was at its hottest and we were roasting alive in the bike gear and helmets. There was no point in us taking of the bike gear as we would have been burned alive by the rays of the sun instead. It was unreasonably hot and all we had to drink was hot water. Whenthe water is hotter than your body heat it is really tough to stomach!

The boarder crossing from Uzbekistan to Kazakhstan was fairly ordinary. We deployed our standard routine; ride straight to the front of the long que of cars and lorries, Andy gets in line with the bike and the locals, I take off helmet jacket etc and go directly to the official at the front and smile/ use female charm to fast track us in through the gates. Unfortunately once inside we we directed toa long que of lorry drivers. One of them said to us in broken English that it was a 2 hour process. I soon became bored, and wandered back to the bike lingering outside and open office window whilst Andy queued with the lorry drivers. Bingo!  An official popped his head out of the window and asked where I was travelling to. After showing him the map and smiling a lot. He gestured for me to follow him. He then processed our exit documents, taking just minutes! The entry to Kazakhstan was easy and we were back on the road again.
The road between the boarder and Beyneu was truly horrible. It was hours of hot, dusty, pot holed, wash board, sandy gravel dirt road. It shoock me so hard that my teeth hurt and felt like they were going to fall out.

To reduce my boredom on the bone shaker road I started to count camels. I counted 81.

when we arrived in Beyneu the only accommodation with washing facilities was a rancid hostel that serviced the nearby gas plant. The 'bathroom' turned out to be two shared broken showers and two disgusting squat toilets. The smell was horrific.

We tried to order some food from the canteen but after trial and error found that there were only 3 items left on the menu. The food was as nasty as the rest of the place.
On the plus side what was to come was one of the best evenings yet. We were invited to share vodka with some really nice Kazakh gas engineers. Conscious of a 5am start the next day, we carried on anyway and had a fabulous time. We were given and tried the local delicacy; sour camels milk and lashings of luke warm vodka. Our Kazakh friends told us in fairly graphic English quite how much they "f*****g hate Borat".
Once again we were surprised by the warmth and generosity of the local people, as we were presented with gifts! Andy was given a cowboy hat and I was given a camping penknife! All that we were able to offer in return was stickers of London :-).