thomas Check-Ins

We had a great time staying with Igor and his wife. Igor speaks perfect english and german and his wife is an amazing cook. Don't miss out on the opportunity to get introduced to a real russian banja! If possible contact him beforehand via Facebook - either through his Facebook page "Transsib-baikal-transit" or just search for Igor shalygin (it shows transsib-baikal-transit underneath his name)

Yurt Camp with a bit of luxury. Our beds had real mattresses and were extremely comfortable, the bathrooms were spotless. You get a really nice homemade breakfast made from all local ingredients. Tynch speaks perfect english, knows the area very well and was happy to help with any questions we came up with. He even found us a good car mechanic and came along to help with translations.
We were able to park our car inside the locked gate.

Small shop for your special electronics needs. We bought a fuse for our cooler box that we couldn't find anywhere else in Osh.

Bridge is destroyed and you need to take a stony detour through the river. Not much water at the moment but 4x4 definitely required.

Guesthouse hosted by very nice and friendly family. We felt extremely welcome. Even though fully booked we were offered beds in their own house. Very nice home cooked dinner. Price was extremely fair

Tap with natural spring water. Locals use it and pipes look new.

New very cheap guest house. Absolutely clean bathroom and comfy big beds. The second floor is still under construction so they don't have a kitchen yet but it is possible to just cook outside on the veranda with an amazing view to the Afghan mountains if you have your own cooking gear.
Akobirsho, who is running the place, speaks good English, is very knowledgeable in history and great to talk to. If he is not there when you arrive you will find his phone number in the window. When we arrived the friendly neighbour called him and he was there within 5 minutes.

They checked passports, visa and the car registration. Very friendly, no problems.

Still works. Paid 128 TJS for one year Lada Niva. No idea what this insurance will do for us and hope we will never find out...

Having done a few guided tours before, the tour with Sergey really was the best we did so far. He knows the region extremely well and the best thing is, he is still completely passionate about it. For us the tour was far from just ticking of one tourist spot after the other but it felt like Sergey was showing us his favourite places and seemed to always find a way to put a personal touch even to the big tourist spots. What made it even better for us is that he is also a passionate photographer and took a lot of time to show us spots and angles to get the best possible shots from each place – thanks to him we got some pretty cool photos which we would  not have gotten otherwise.

Generally to us it seemed like he was very flexible and that there are heaps of options regarding the places to go, the length of the trip, whether you have your own vehicle or not and we're sure he would be able to coordinate it if someone wanted to be part of a group of people. We actually didn't plan on going on a tour but in the end were very glad we contacted Sergey especially since we found it quite hard (and for remote areas also not safe) to explore the region on our own even though we had a 4x4 and think we missed quite a few great places so we might have to come back.

Sergey has an awesome sense of humor and really is one of the most open and kind people we met on the way.

At the end of the day he found us the best camping spot we had so far for the night and we were quite sad we didn't go on a longer tour with him. 

We can fully confirm the previous post. We met Sergey after we just arrived by ferry to Aktau and went to his shop pretty unannounced as we expected to arrive a couple of days later. Even though it seemed like he was quite busy he completely went out of his way to help us out and get our car checked by his friend as soon as possible. We had no major issues but were very glad his friend had a thorough look at our car and took care of what the last service overlooked.

Sergey really is one of the most open and kind people we met on the way - he took a lot of time to answer any of our questions we had and thanks to him we had awesome first days in Kasachstan.

As mentioned he also is a tour guide and we very strongly recommend his services as a guide as well.

Perfect spot! Stayed here for two nights and enjoyed the view. In the morning some balloons were flying directly over my head just a few meters above.

I met a nice shephard when I arrived who didn't bother at all that I wanted to camp there. Totally quiet at night and well hidden from the roads nearby.