Day 30: Tashkent to Turkistan

Today is another Border crossing day. We plan to cover 300 kms. distance from Tashkent to Turkistan.

We are leaving the country where we got lots of love and affection, being Indians. People here are very warm hearted. They all loved Mithun Chakraborthy, Shah Rukh Khan, Aamir Khan, Amitabh Bachchan, Raj Kapoor, Sridevi and other old-time movie stars. One of the comments heard was that they don’t like present day movies because it is more Western style. They liked old movies more.

We went to a border which was like an illegal border. We had reached there because the GPS took us to that place. It looked like a village having easy access to both sides. We returned from that border and enquired from local people and found that the regular border is away on the other side of the airport. We were at the regular border at about 9:30 am.

The people at the border were very co-operative and helpful. We got through the formalities smoothly. We reached Kazakhstan border. It took long time for the immigration formalities. The Immigration Officer who was checking the passports was completely at sea as he had no knowledge of English. He took help from fellow Officer. As a result, people in two queues were stranded. He could somehow check three passports. When the last two passports when given to him, he directed us to the other Officer who was helping him till now.

We took time to leave the Immigration and customs area. Immediately after the customs clearance, one person came and was enquiring something. We were not able to understand what he is talking. Ultimately, with the help of Translation app we could understand that he is an Insurance agent and was selling the Third Party Insurance. We wanted the insurance policy for Kazakhstan. It took more than 45 minutes to get the policy.

The drive to Turkistan was 300 kms. and would take more than 4 hours. We started after about 5 o’clock after completing the formalities. The roads were ok. The roads were uneven at places and sometimes there would be sudden bumps or change in level of the road.

The drive was devoid of any scenery. There were open spaces on both sides. These are called Steppe. A Steppe is an ecoregion, in the montane grasslands and shrublands and temperate grasslands, savannas and shrublands biomes, characterized by grassland plains without trees apart from those near rivers and lakes.

We drove up to Turkistan and reached late in the evening.