Back to the Kazakh Steppe – and Charyn Canyon

Yesterday evening became late once again, so naturally I got up quite late this morning as well — even though I actually wanted to slowly prepare myself for the upcoming time difference between Kazakhstan and China. The difference is a full three hours. That’s because China only has a single time zone. In other words: while tomorrow’s sunrise and sunset in Khorgos are at 07:01 and 22:10 respectively, the sun in Shanghai already rises at 04:52 and sets again at 18:50. (The difference in daylight length comes from Khorgos being much farther north.)

In any case, the sleep and recovery did me good. But that also meant I only started today’s stage shortly before eleven. I headed southeast, and right from the start there was headwind, including a few strong gusts. I already feared the worst, because another longer climb awaited me today, and during the last major climb the headwind had been notoriously brutal. But today it stayed limited to a few gusts, and afterwards I only felt a very light wind.

That made the climb much easier than last time. Once I reached the top, I took my only longer break of the day at the only bus stop far and wide — there was literally nothing else around except steppe and road.

Shortly before that break, I experienced for the first time a truck driver behaving in a truly annoying and dangerous way. At first he honked like many others who greeted me, but then he switched to continuously blasting the horn, and I immediately realized I should be careful. Even though there was no oncoming traffic, he overtook me absurdly close, so I moved onto the gravel shoulder just to be safe. Then the truck deliberately drove partly onto the gravel shoulder as well — no idea what he wanted to tell me with that, since he had the entire road available. I simply thought: I’m grateful that this is the first truly idiotic truck driver to overtake me during my journey — and that after nearly 8,000 kilometers already ridden. At this rate, hopefully no one else will overtake me that stupidly before Shanghai. (I also couldn’t resist a few swear words, though luckily nobody heard them ;-) )

The descent afterwards was wonderfully fast. Besides the slight downhill gradient, I probably also had a slight tailwind. The slope was so gentle that, apart from the high speed shown on my bike computer, I barely noticed I was descending at all. Except when the road dropped down into Charyn Canyon. There the road — fortunately in excellent condition — became so steep that I once again exceeded 70 km/h without much effort.

Of course, I also had to ride back out of the canyon. That was the final short climb of the day, and after that it wasn’t far to Chundzha anymore. According to my research, there was only a single accommodation option there. Luckily, they still had a room for me. I probably paid a bit too much, but those few extra francs certainly won’t ruin me.