We haven’t been posting for a while. Last month was very busy for us – to get a visa to China we had to use all our power.

From Kyrgyzstan, full of great landscapes and natural beauty, but rather a rough place, we went to Kazakhstan – a much more developed and richer Central Asian country. We have learnt from the internet that it is possible to get a double entry visa in Astana for one third of the price you have to pay in Bishkek, and we decided to give it a try.

We left our bikes in Almaty, packed our backpacks and went by train to Astana – the new, futuristic capital of Kazakhstan.

The train was a nice surprise – it was much more modern and clean than we thought! More like the trains that we know from Europe – or even better!

Astana is indeed a very modern city, quite often futuristic and very impressive.

One of the most interesting structures is a shopping centre that looks like a huge tent – Khan Shatyr.

We were lucky again – two very friendly, young Kazakh businessman were kind enough to tolerate two Polish travellers for almost two weeks! Great time!

To kill some time waiting for the visa to China we went up North, close to the border with Russia and spent some time in the woods.

Unfortunately it was raining most of the time and we did not enjoy the nature as much as we planned, so we hitch-hiked back to Astana.

The winter was coming – look at the treasures we found on the side of the road!

We have got the visa with a bit of a hassle, but it is another story! More about that in the future.