Heehee! One more, I couldn’t resist!
The Kazakh-Uzbek border opens at 8am, and because only 11 of us were in Shymkent while the remaining 5 were in Almaty, we had to meet each other at the Kazakhstan-Uzbekistan border. We were scheduled to meet at 8am when the border opens so that we can spend as much daytime as possible sightseeing.
Our group of 11 was there on time. The border officials noticed us straightaway. This could be attributed to the fact that
1. We were a really big group
2. We looked foreign
3. The minute our bus arrived at the border and we all got off, Kate the Hungarian girl and the bus driver were shouting loudly at each other in Russian because the driver insisted we owed him more money while we (through Kate) insisted that this was the agreed price.
I think it was the last factor that really made our presence known. What do you think?
Anyway, the bus driver left (we didn’t have to pay more) and the officials came over to talk to us. They told us that foreigners did not need to queue like the rest of the locals, which made us much happier after that sorry episode with the bus driver.
One thing though – the group of 5 that was scheduled to meet us at 8am was not there yet.
We waited and waited. Reception at the border was very bad, Myung Rae had to try different means to get enough reception to call the group of 5 to find out where they were. He stood on chairs, ran all around the village trying to find reception. The group of 5 apologised via SMS for being late, but they were still 1, 2 hours away when we managed to finally reach them.
Myung Rae trying to get reception
We were getting really annoyed because if not for the group of 5, we could have been in Uzbekistan already. Well, the group of 5 finally made it, several hours late and when they arrived, they did not even have the decency to look sorry or even apologise in person. I really don’t think one small sorry over SMS is that sincere when they were not a few minutes, not one hour, not two hours but SEVERAL HOURS late. We were honestly not very happy at that point.
We walk to the Kazakhstan side of customs and find a huge crowd of people. We speak to the officer there and he says no, foreigners line up like everyone else. That only served to make the 11 of us even angrier, because if we had not needed to wait for the group of 5, we would not have had to line up because we were there before the border even opened!
We lined up while Kate went to get the guy who had said we could cut. Thankfully, he was of a higher rank than the officer who said we couldn’t, and we breezed right to the front of the queue. There were 16 of us, and we did not know if we could also cut the queue on the Uzbekistan side, so the minute anyone was through the Kazakhstan side, they would walk over to the Uzbekistan side and line up.
It’s quite exciting walking over the border on foot. I was also in two places at once like Mandy Moore and Shane West in A Walk To Remember. Coolio? =) If you didn’t get the reference, it’s okay, go watch that movie, it’s nice.
We made it to the other side and Kate asked and yes we could go to the front because we had a group visa. The group visa is also the reason why we had to wait for the group of 5, if we went through first without them, they would not be able to get into Uzbekistan without us as we had the visa.
But we had to wait for everyone to be at the Uzbekistan side before going through the Uzbekistan customs. We still lined up, because pushing your way through a crowd of people when you’re already halfway through them is easier than if you’re waiting outside the group.
Oh yeah, most people crossing the border on foot were men. It was not very nice when you are surrounded on all sides by men who are pushing and shoving and are just a tad close. They closed in even tighter when our entire group finally arrived and we were inching our way through the crowd to the front. But that is of course, why would they want us to go before them? There were 16 of us, no mean feat. I clung on for dear life to Jingzhong’s bag because he was in front of me.. I did not want to be left behind in this sea of shoving, pushing men!
We finally made our way to the front and they closed the gate behind us so that nobody else would shove through. We filled up forms and went through customs one by one. Once again, we had to fight off queue-cutters. It’s a good thing we had a group visa, so the customs officer had to process every single one of us before he could attend to other people. Yeah!
I cannot tell you the relief we experienced when we FINALLY made it past the Uzbekistan customs.
WE WERE IN UZBEKISTAN!!! After all the craziness of planning and putting the trip together we would finally get to enjoy everything.
YES YES YES!
We had to walk a bit before we found the bus we had hired to pick us up. Before we got on it, these are our first sights of Uzbekistan.
Two young boys with their little herd of sheep.
They had a tiny brown lamb and were sweet enough to pose for a picture for us.
Check out this totally awesome car.
After that we got onto our bus and rode for an hour or so to the capital, Tashkent. And so our Uzbekistan adventure was about to begin!!! =)
Oh and of course I don’t have any pictures of the border, you want me to be shot and killed ah?!
Photos: Chan Jingzhong
Tags: Life In Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan
