2025 Central Asia Adventure – Beyneu to Shymkent Trip
Hello from Shymkent, the sixteenth stop on the trip. I’m hoping to quickly relieve the tension I built up from the last post to say I ended up taking the train across Kazakhstan to Shymkent, rather than going south into Uzbekistan. But what was the shitfuckery that went into this decision and what is the impact? I’m glad you asked! I’ll make this a short post to show you the kinds of things travelers are up against and how our resilience gets us to where we need to be.
Full of hope for the long-distance taxi plan to the border with Uzbekistan, I packed up. The front desk lady says she has a room for me tonight if everything falls apart. I rolled down the dirt road back to the center of town – a wide dirt spot in the dirt road in front of the train station. I looked around for likely taxi-looking vehicles and saw nothing likely. Ruh-roh.
I asked two young local people standing there if they speak English and the man said “Yes a little bit”. Whew! I said I want to get a long-distance taxi ride to Kungrad. He said walk with me so I followed him to the train station office and he pointed to the same ticket window I tried last night. I told him this lady said there are no trains – he checked with her and said yes, no tickets until next month. I said yes, that’s why I want a taxi and he replied “There are no taxis either BECAUSE THE BORDER IS CLOSED.” Why? He doesn’t know! Exasperated I said “OK – I can either go back to Aktau or forward to Tashkent the long way across Kazakhstan.” He checked with the lady and she said I can get a ticket to Shymkent and then over the border to Tashkent on a ticket from the train station there. OK, that gets me along my path, I’ll take it! I indicate that I want 1 ticket, she says “Today”? Fuck yes! These trains don’t run every day so I got lucky with a train and an empty bunk, I didn’t even ask what time it pulls out. I paid her 27,000 and she gave me the ticket for 4:45pm. Problem solved! So I now have 7 hours to chill out in this little dirt town.
I rolled the small area around the train station, past shops and a bazaar but no sit-down restaurants. I finally found one called Doner Time, the door is open but it appears deserted inside. I walked inside and said “Hello?”. A little man came out and pointed to the menu on the wall. I can see pictures of food but no words. I looked around and found his Wifi code and logged in. I did a Google image translate and there it was – pepperoni pizza, or at least the local equivalent. So I have food, a table to sit at and Wifi – for 7 hours. I spotted a power jack on the wall and carefully took that table. The window looks out to the busy main street and dirt parking area for the train station so there’s lots to see, and lots of people come and go for food, peaking as trains come through. Multiple people coming in shake my hand and ask me where I’m from – I’m the local excitement in town today! My liter of Fanta Orange has been sitting for years apparently, had to give it a robust shake to mix up the flavour layers and generate some CO2.
Now I have to see if I can cancel my hotel and train tickets in Uzbekistan, or I’ll just walk away from the payments and call it an Adventure Tax. Yay, both allowed me to cancel, but it cost me about 4 Euros in cancellation fees.
With my adrenaline spike calming down, I looked more closely at my train ticket and see it arrives at 00:38, just after midnight. But for THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW. That’s 32 hours on the train! Yikes! Looking ahead, I need to book a hotel in Shymkent for the night of the 13th even though I’m arriving at 1am on the 14th and got a superb looking place for 4 nights – Mikey need some luxury! I put in the booking that I’m arriving at 1am on the train, keep my room for me please.
I told Grok it was wrong about the long-distance taxis and Uzbek border crossing and to think deeply and give me a definitive answer why the border is closed. It replied:
“The Tazhen-Daut Ata crossing (the Beyneu-Kungrad route) has been shut for passenger traffic since February 1, 2025, with extensions due to major infrastructure upgrades. Key reasons from official sources:
Construction and Reconstruction: Kazakhstan is rebuilding border facilities, including a new road in the neutral zone (via KazAvtoZhol) and checkpoint expansions to handle more trade and reduce queues. Uzbekistan is mirroring on their side. The project started as a 4-month closure but got extended twice: first to September 1, 2025, and again to December 31, 2025, per Kazakhstan’s State Revenue Committee and Uzbek agreements.
Scope: Affects pedestrians, cars, buses, and light cargo (<3.5 tons)âfreight trucks get limited access, but no one else. It’s part of broader Central Asia connectivity pushes (e.g., Silk Road upgrades), but the scale (new facilities, roads) means no quick fix.
Impact on Travel: This kills the short Beyneu-Kungrad hop (normally 2-3 hours), forcing the ~1,000 km northern detour via Shymkent-Tashkent. Trains like 651Ф/647/648 (Beyneu-Nukus) are suspended or rerouted, explaining the 45-day blackout. Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan advise flying Aktau-Nukus as another option, but your train plan is cheaper and scenic.
No geopolitical drama hereâjust bureaucratic infrastructure headaches, common in the region (e.g., similar delays on Zhibek Zholy crossing earlier this year)”
Well damn. Construction! I wouldn’t have guessed that in a million years. And why shut down the road and border, just building new one next to it? If only it had been this forthcoming all of the previous times I asked it to give me all possible information about this border crossing. Big red X for AIs!
I filled in my e-Visa application for Tajikistan. I won’t be there for a while but better to get it out of the way. Their payment system failed so I’ll have to try again later.
I heard the whistle blowing on my incoming train, right on time. I packed up and paid my bill for food and drinks. I gave him a bunch more, thanking him for the Wifi and power while I waited.
I was preparing to board when a young backpacker couple called Kristine and Jonas from Denmark walked up and asked if I speak English. They just got off the train and want to go to Kungrad! I told them I had just been through this problem and they were shocked as they said ChatGPT told them nothing about this issue either! I gave them the full story and told them to run and buy tickets on the same train and take it as far as they can go. 10 minutes later they were back, they could only get about halfway down the line due to no room left for men on the train. We agreed to meet up in the dining car later.
I found my car & cabin and it’s an upper bunk of course! Two Uzbek guys already here closed the window vent and curtain, turned all of the lights off and closed the hallway door so it’s pitch dark, at only 5pm. And it’s going to get hotter and stuffier and I’m sweating already. No wifi but I have power. I changed into shorts and my thin Pink Floyd t-shirt to stay cool. I found Kristine and Jonas in the dining car, along with two French sisters who are going from Aktau straight to Almaty – the full 60 hours! The Danes were offered a full ride all the way to Shymkent for 50 Euros cash by one of the conductors – he’s running a side business knowing which bunks are empty. In the end they accepted the offer. We stopped at 10 pm for a 15 minute smoke break at a deserted station in the middle of nowhere. I stayed outside until the whistle, pressing my skin against the cold railings to cool my body down. I can’t even get a GPS lock out here to find out where we are, I can only go by how many hours since we left Beyneu. We stopped at 12:30 AM in Zhalagash, looks about halfway between Beyneu and Shymkent.
A woman just walked through the dining car selling 3 foot long gutted and dried fish out of a bucket – yikes! The dining car lady tried to overcharge me for bread she never brought. Then she added 10% service charge, then complained that I gave her a 10K note, then tried to keep my 80 change. After a lot of back and forth, she brought me a 100 coin. I thought she overcharged me for my dinner last night, this confirms it. The French girls say she overcharged them too. Had a great sleep, up at 9am.
We stopped in Kyzylorda at 2pm and seem to be on schedule. It’s a large station with dozens of people selling food. I picked up a large pastry thing with chicken inside for dinner. A guy went through the platform selling an electric razor kit and earrings – weird. We arrived at Shieli at 5pm. I realized both bottom bunks are now empty, so I set myself up on the one under me – I’m going to chill here until somebody forces me out of it! We arrived in Zhanakorgan at 7pm, maybe 140 miles from Shymkent. At 8:40pm we’re in Turkistan. I spotted the Danish kids on the platform, they said they met some guys on the train who arranged for their friends to pick them up in Shymkent and take them to their hotel and they offered for me to come along, I said OK if there is enough room. We Arrived in Shymkent right on time about 12:30 am, impressive! The Kazakhstan train system has the best on-time performance of anything I’ve tried in the world, except Japan. We found our driver, the story is the guys run an MMA-style fighting league in Kazakhstan and the driver is one of their fighters. He was bringing a package to put on the train so it wasn’t difficult for him to pick us up.
We got in the car and went through town, he dropped us all off at the Danes place and we both gave him a tip for his effort at 1am. Seriously – their hostel looks right out of a horror movie where backpackers get their skin peeled off and organs harvested. They’re booked for 2 nights, they will decide if they like it. I got directions on my phone and rolled 2 blocks to my hotel. And wow – the nicest corporate-style hotel I’ve been to on the whole trip. Up to the room, fantastic, fell asleep instantly.
Bottom line: Getting here was a major shitshow of typical governmental bad decisions and delays, omission of critical information by train ticket clerks and the Internet as a whole. Luckily I had two backup scenarios and one worked to get me further along my path. The train was a very long but overall happy ride. It’s not Buyer Beware – Caveat Emptor today, it’s Traveler Beware – Caveat viator. I think this is my new life slogan.
Next stop: Explore Shymkent
