It was 7:00 in the morning when I started to prepare everything to be ready to leave, and had breakfast with Alexey. Despite wanting to leave at 8:00, I waited for Tatiana to return from dropping Irina and Ivan at school. It was the first day I saw Ivan in uniform. Alexey tells me that he is a student at the Training College for Train Drivers, the same profession Anton has.

I left at 8:30 and Alexey accompanied me to the border. We arrived at 9:00 and stopped for a few minutes to farewell each other before I started the hard border process.

Everything seems to be going well on the Russian side.

Even though they asked me to open everything, once I had my passport stamped and approved, another officer appeared and asked for my passport again. After a short check, he motions me to follow him. I followed him to a room where he left me alone for ten minutes without handing back my documentation.

When he came back to the room he asked for my phone and started reviewing my photos. Thank goodness that I was taking most of the pictures with the handheld camera, so there wasn’t much to see.

Not happy with that, he started checking my call list.

The only thing he found was one Russian number, the one from Volodya, from Novosibirsk, and asked about who that person was. ‘The mechanic’, that was my answer. He then enters a code and takes a photo of the barcodes that appear on the phone screen, my Russian number and my Spanish number.

With the passport in hand, he asked me for my name, my age, and a lot of other information. Who knows what was he looking for, but in the end, he let me continue. I repacked all the documents and when I was about to leave I realized the passport had not been returned to me.

I had to run after the officer to get it.

On the Kazakh side, the only ‘thing’ that happened was they asked me to remove the camera that I had on the engine guard. They made me open everything, even my leg bag. Despite all that, they let me pass without further inconvenience. At 10:30 a.m., 9:30 a.m. local time, I was officially back on Kazakh territory.

I drove about sixty kilometers before stopping at a gas station to refuel. Alexey had already told me that gasoline was a little cheaper on this side of the border. I left the staff filling the tank and went to the counter.

I think they stood the motorcycle up to fill it to the top while I was at it.

When I came back, I saw the tank dripping, and when I opened the lid a gush of gasoline came out. I continued to Pavlodar where I bought a telephone SIM card as soon as I arrived. There are a hundred kilometers of toll highway, not for motorcycles, and then the road becomes a single lane again.

In general, the asphalt was in perfect condition, but it was difficult to maintain speed with the throttle grip I had installed. It’s the one Maria got me so I could continue traveling when I was in Chelyabinsk in 2018. It was a solution back then, but it has now become a problem. My gloves can’t keep the grip as it is a bit slippery.

Therefore, I had to stop every hour or hour and a half.

I arrived in Karaganda just before sunset and went straight to the headquarters of Chingiz Khan MC, a local club that I contacted thanks to Margaux. Almas, the coordinator, greets me and a few minutes later Volodya, the president, arrives. We left the motorcycle at the clubhouse and set off in search of a hotel. Unfortunately, there were no single rooms left and I ended up paying in full for a triple.

From there, we went to have something to eat and then we returned to the clubhouse. They invited me to a few drinks while the rest of the members arrived: Dimitri, sergeant-at-arms; Sergei; Acelbiek, Vice President; Alexander, Alexey, Yacik x2; Valera; Shujray and Sabit, road captain. Dimitri cooked some ‘pilimini’, similar to ravioli, so we were all dining again together. This was quite helpful if you keep on drinking.

By midnight, the group starts to dissipate.

Just before we left, Dimitri noticed I had a different grip on both sides of the handlebar. I explained how it happened and I told him I had a spare, and that I didn’t change it because I didn’t want to manipulate things that were ‘working’. However, he insisted on changing it so we did it with the help of Sergey. Finally, it is Dimitri who brings me to the hotel around 12:40 a.m.

I get up and have breakfast while I wait for Volodya to come get me. The motorcycle was left in the clubhouse and I have to go get it back.

These are the things I sometimes regret.

Hospitality sometimes comes along with becoming dependent on other people’s schedules. I left at 8:30 a.m. While we were in the clubhouse, I took the chance to put Margaux’s sticker on their refrigerator. She was here before me but didn’t leave any because she hadn’t had them made yet.

Until Balkhash, the road was under construction and I had to go off the route from time to time, traveling on alternate sides with one lane in each direction. Despite this, I managed to maintain an almost constant speed of 120 km/h because the sections were in good condition.

I stopped every 130-150 kilometers so that it didn’t get too heavy for me.

The layout is quite flat and very monotonous. I noticed the change in the throttle grip considerably. It makes driving smoother and my wrist suffers less. Once past Balkhash, I joined a completely new stretch of a hundred kilometers of double lane. The driving flows normally until I reach Saryshagan and it starts to sputter a little. While I refuel I put on my rain gear.

I’ve seen a few police cars along the road. Margaux had already warned me of the high police presence and to be careful of committing any infractions. Just before the gas station, at the town’s entrance, there was a group of police officers carrying out checks. I saw another car at the top of a hill a few kilometers out of the urban area. I have mixed feelings in these situations because no one respects the speed limits and I never know if they are going to stop me or not.

However, my story ends differently.

I left the police car behind and continued my path following a tow truck. In front of me, I have a van that cannot overtake due to the traffic coming in the opposite direction and the number of no-overtaking signs on the road. The signs are mere decoration in this country, but you have to be very careful when there is a patrol nearby.

When we finally managed to overtake the truck, it was hiding a no-overtaking sign that we didn’t see. We overtook quickly and got back on our side of the road without realizing the police were behind us.

They stop us almost immediately.

They asked me for my papers and then they told me to get in the car. One of the agents stays with me, he is the driver, and the other approaches the other vehicle. Part of their speech is to inform me that their task is to pursue serious infractions. Then, they showed me a video in which I was caught on camera committing the infraction.

It seems I changed lanes before the sign appeared on the camera, but that doesn’t matter as the quality of the video is quite bad. Just good enough to see it was me. While they are showing me the video I see that the car that they had stopped continues on its way.

The officer explains to me that he has to open a file.

Additionally, he wants to keep my driving license. Since I am not interested in losing the circulation permit for Spanish territory, I gave him the international permit. It is a paper that I had been rarely asked for around this area. Furthermore, he told me I wouldn’t be allowed to drive in the country after ten days.

I am confused. This isn’t a sanction serious enough for them to withdraw my driving license. As he insisted, I asked if I would be able to leave the country during the next ten days.

His answer suggests I’ll be able to get out, but I won’t be allowed back in.

After a while of trying to figure out how to solve the problem, he suggested that I pay the fine. However, instead of paying the fine that corresponds to the violation, he told me I must pay the highest one on their table: 690,000 Tugriks, around € 1,400.

It seemed excessive to me and I told him that I didn’t have that much cash. This led to a cyclical conversation in which he asked me over and over again what currency I had and how much. I didn’t think much about it and told him that I had € 100 and some loose rubles. He replied that the amount was not enough and that I should go check how much I had with me. Despite being afraid of being caught, I managed to hide everything else without them noticing. I showed him two € 50 bills and one 5.000 ruble bill.

In total, the amount was approximately € 150.

Not happy with this, he checked my wallet and insisted it was not enough. He even asked me to look in my pockets. Meanwhile, I tried to understand why the other car left and asked several times about it. The officer tells me that he took his permit, but I don’t believe it.

After a while of showing him that I had nothing more, he calls me to the car again and he tells me: ‘Keep this between us.’ He kept the € 150 and let me go. As with the border officer the previous day, I had to ask him for my driving license before he left. He had no intention of giving it back to me.

As I get out of the car they spin and disappear quickly.

In total, I’ve wasted an hour with the police. I continued my way towards Burubaimal, the last gas station where I could refuel before night falls. Just before leaving, the zip of the tank bag, which has given me so much trouble since I started the trip, ends up breaking completely.

I still have a hundred and eighty kilometers to travel and I hope the road is good. Otherwise, it will be very tedious and long. I managed to get behind a car and took advantage of it to light the way, driving the stretch at 120 km/h.

Fukrat, a contact I got in Karaganda, was waiting for me in Shu.

Due to the delay I had, I arrived around 9:30 p.m. and went directly to the hotel which, unfortunately, was full. While Fukrat helped me locate another hotel, other bikers, Oleg and Ulan, came to the meeting point so I could explain what happened to me and try to sort something out.

With all the stress, I didn’t think about taking photos or calling the embassy, ​​so I gave them all the details I could: a Skoda car, and the time-based GPS location thanks to ‘Polar Steps’, an app Margaux had told me about a few days ago. Ulan, who is very active in the Central Asian Motorcycle Association, asked me to file a report at the local police station. He also insisted on doing the same at the Kazakh embassy in Bishkek, where I was heading the next day. In this way, not only would an investigation be opened in Kazakhstan, but Kyrgyzstan would also put pressure on the matter. Since the search for the hotel was taking too long, we decided to go to the police station in the meantime.

At the station, they showed me pictures of the officers in the area.

I chose one of them almost instantly because of his skin color. Unfortunately, this agent was in Taraz that day. The police chief told me their cars had GPS, and I extracted the coordinates and passed them to him. Finally, about three hours after I arrived in Shu, where two of them were at the police station, they found the corrupt police officers. They belong to another region and had followed me for a long time outside their jurisdiction to the point where I committed the offense.

We received the happy news just when we were about to start formalizing the claim. The matter was settled with a transfer to Ulan, which will give me the money tomorrow morning, and with the chief officer asking me not to make the claim.

We all farewelled at the police station parking and Fukrat took me to the hotel he had found. When I finally get to bed it is later than 12:30 p.m.