Visited the Aliya museum in Aktobe this morning; left the city atthat noon. We rode all day for about 500 kms, reaching Uralsk by dark. The road conditions were excitingly varied, met lots of interested ppl on the way, shook a lot of hands. Scenery wasmostly desert this time. Saw islamic cemeteries which look like miniature cities. It took us what seemed like hours to find our mediocre hotel “Ural” in dense traffic. No hotel internet, wroting this on phone. Shocks did not get worse despite my failure to avoid some massive potholes. Teeth still hurt. Tomorrow we plan to continue to Samara.
Good that you arrived safely in Uralsk. But there is a direct road between Chelyabinsk and Samara (Kuybishev), I don’t understand the reason of the detour across Kazakhstan if there is nothing memorable to see there. It does not make much sense to see dozens of pictures of a tank (or Coke bottles) while not one noteworthy photograph was taken of the landscapes you are crossing this far. Try a bit harder to see and to photograph!
I hope your toothache will be gone by tomorrow. Probably you can find in a Kuybishev supermarket a toothpaste labeled “professional” or “sensitive”, many companies make them today, and they are really effective against toothache. Don’t take painkillers that might effect your driving – Aspirin and similar stuff is OK.
In Kuybishev a very famous dam was built during the Soviet period, with enormous locks.
Kazakhstan was definitely worth it. Primarily because of the people here, and in second place the landscapes. Its hard to take photographs while we’re riding through the landscapes, but I do have a gopro video taken while riding (will post these once I am home), so there is some material. Even if there were no photographs, it would not imply that the scenery is not interesting or the detour without benefit. In fact the Kazakh landscapes were the most impressive that we have encountered so far, the sky seems enormous and one can see in every direction it seems to infinity. This feeling really cannot be captured with a normal camera at all. Nor the feeling one gets in the rear end after driving for eight hours a day on the most terrible roads one can imagine.
Yes, I am only taking Aspirin and similar. The tanks are from Chelyabinsk.