Our body clocks were on 3am and we were standing in a narrow alleyway surrounded by rundown buildings in the pitch dark.  I found myself arguing with our taxi driver who was in the process of scamming us for some big bucks on the ride from the airport to the apartment we had booked for the night.  Language was definitely a barrier because we didn’t speak very good Russian or Kazakh.  Yes, we were in Almaty, the largest city of the Central Asian country of Kazakhstan.  Not off to a great start on our adventure through the Stans.

Pedal backwards for a second.  Where is Tramp, our beloved truck/camper which we have used to explore five continents of the world?  Sadly, he is still resting in California.  So yes, we’re doing things differently this time, very differently, including travelling with four other friends, all seasoned travellers, as we spend the next six weeks exploring Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, otherwise known as the Stans.

Central Asia, as it’s more broadly referred to, is the missing link in our Follow the Sun journey around the world.  In 2023 we set off with Tramp from Europe, visas in hand, to cross Türkiye, Georgia and the Caspian Sea by ferry and explore this mysterious part of the world.  But the remnants of Covid and the growing conflict of the Ukraine meant borders were either closed to vehicles or countries were no-go zones so we couldn’t complete this leg of our journey.  But now we are back, travelling a different way but keen as mustard to finally see this part of the world.

Our journey starts in Seoul, South Korea, of all places, where the six of us spent the night in transit on the way to Almaty.  We had time that morning to take one of the free walking tours of this fascinating and vibrant city before our evening flights.  Seoul was at it’s sparkling best, sunny blue skies, clean and modern but ample speckles of a rich history scattered throughout. 

Our walking tour gave us a great introduction to this city and primed us for our three day stop here at the very end of our travels this northern summer.  We normally don’t hang out in big cities but we loved the vibe of Seoul.

The morning after enriching our taxi driver in Almaty we had a chance to get some fresh air and walk around the gritty light industrial neighbourhood we found ourselves.  And we immediately recognised the scenes, signs in the Cyrillic alphabet, tired Russian-built factories, old battered cars, grim-faced people going about their business without taking much notice of these wide-eyed visitors. 

Julie and I found a couple little shops to buy yummy savoury pastries for brekkie and two different places to have coffees while we watch the Kazak world go by.  We loved this stuff.

But exploring Almaty in more detail will have to wait because we were on a mission which involves another flight.  More background is needed here.  Our great friend Dave, a fellow traveller without par, has organised almost all aspects of this trip and he knows how to pack a punch. 

But Central Asia is huge, absolutely massive, and the only way to see every corner is to take a few domestic or short haul flights.  So back to the airport it was where Dave, Julie and I plus our fellow intrepid travellers Warren and Nichole and Jan all jumped on the not-so-well known domestic carrier SCAT Airlines to catch a flight to the far western Kazak city of Aktau on the shores of the Caspian Sea. It was a little disconcerting after we landed when our fellow passengers all applauded the pilot as if perhaps they weren’t expecting this outcome.

Aktau plays a significant part in our Follow the Sun journey even though we had never been there.  In 2023 our plan was to drive Tramp across Türkiye, Georgia and Azerbaijan to catch a ferry across the Caspian Sea which would have dropped us off in Aktau.  From there we would have started our exploration of the Stans in style, the way we like to travel.  But Azerbaijan was still closed to visitors crossing by land and we were not prepared to drive around the Caspian Sea via Russia or Iran so we never made it to Aktau.

But when we woke up in our hotel in downtown Aktau, a sprawling if somewhat bland city with a mix of rundown Soviet buildings and shiny new structures built with post-petro dollars, we knew we had to head down to the shores of the sea. 

After checking out the impressive World War II memorial we walked along the main wide boulevard to the shoreline and took in the ambiance, if you could call it that, of this vast briny sea, the largest true lake in the world. We hadn’t crossed the Caspian Sea as we had originally hoped but this was a major milestone for us nevertheless and our exploration of the Stans was about to begin in earnest. Bring it on!