Tuesday 30th July, 2019 – SHEMONAIKHA – BARNAUL- BIYSK- MAYMA
We have to go via Russia to enter Mongolia. There is a narrow strip of land belonging to Russia between Kazakhstan and Mongolia and this means having to do a 1,200 kms detour just to get to the Mongolian border. There are some border crossings on the eastern side of Kazakhstan, much closer, but they are bilateral only.
We arrived at the Kazakh border crossing before 8 am and the formalities went smoothly. Shemoinaikha is a small post and it was not busy. Russian border also went well and this worked in our favour, giving us most of the day to go as far as possible.
The road was surprisingly good and it was a relief. We were now in the Russian Altai region (southern Siberia). The landscape was also a nice surprise, initially we went through a fertile area with huge fields and as we passed Barnaul large forest covered the hills/ mountainside. It was nice to see trees and greenery after the desert like terrain in Kazakhstan.
This is a touristic region and there were lots of places offering camping facilities with small chalet type accommodation as well as hotels. Many people also did wild camping and we did just that along the banks of the river Katun, just after Mayma. That day we did 692 kms, meaning that we would be able to cross into Mongolia the next day. This is important for us as after Mongolia we have limited time to reach Vladivostok before our russian visa expires.
Wednesday 31st July, 2019 – TASHANTA – Tsagaannuur – Mongolian Border
We arrived at the border around 2 pm. We had to wait for a while as there were a couple of minibuses ahead of us in the line. The formalities took close to 2 hours in all which is average. We were in Mongolia !
