June 4th 2011

Early departure as usual. The road seems awful from the very beginning. We are riding our bikes through an immense “steppa” with a light rain following us all the way. In the middle of nowhere we notice a man with his old Soviet Ural sidecar. We decide to stop to see if he needed some help but we realize he was there to sell some fish he had cough just a little earlier. The road is still terrible: full of potholes that look more like little craters. The concentration is at 100%. A little distraction could mean the end of the trip. Exhausted we finally arrive in Semey, a town famous for the numerous atomic experiments that were conducted during the Socialistic era. The next morning we are heading toward the Russian border that is only 20 KM away.