Believe it or not, time seems to fly by pretty quickly on the World by Road. Even though we were hiking through the sweltering heat and humidity of the jungles of Endau Rompin Malaysia over five months ago, it basically seems like yesterday. The scenery did not change much and the temperature essentially remained the same throughout most of SE Asia and coupled with having to wait to get into China, it felt like we were in a time warp. When we reached higher elevations outside of Kunming, it was the first time in quite a while that we actually could and needed to wear long pants and shirts. According to the calendar in Mongolia, it was fall, but a lack of trees throughout most of the country still did not provide any visual indication of what time of year it was. Moving northwest into Russia, the leaves on the trees were starting to change, but the sub zero temperatures we experienced nearly every night in Mongolia gave way to milder ones as we lost elevation. In Kazakhstan, the vibrant orange, yellow and red leaves suddenly reminded us that we were getting late into fall, but it was still shorts and t-shirt weather there, so it still felt like we were in a bit of a time warp.
It really did not start to hit us that winter was approaching until crossing into Kyrgyzstan, and hit us it did… literally. About 10 kilometers from the Kyrgyz border, it started to snow and it was obvious that the rain we had experienced in Kazakhstan the previous night had been a full-fledged blizzard just across the border. It was difficult to follow the road in spots and for some people, even more difficult to stay on it. At the border, not much was going on and a few of the guards seemed more concerned about the snowman they were constructing than what was in our trucks. Clearing customs in Kyrgyzstan was a snap, but I was worried they were not going to let us in because of the amount of snow on the road ahead of us. In fact, there were at least two or three cars that had gone off the road at the border itself. Luckily for us, and some other stranded motorists, we had our Toyotas. Whether we used manpower or horsepower, we helped quite a few people who had gotten stuck in the snow. We actually managed to get stuck once ourselves… trying in vain to assist a car that had skidded down an embankment. Fortunately, with the aid of some helpful Kyrgyz locals and border guards with assault rifles still slung over their shoulders, we were not stuck for long. Once we got back on the road, I reminisced about getting stuck in the mud in Cambodia and how it did not seem that long ago. In the grand scheme of things, I guess driving down that Cambodian road was not that long ago. However, once I looked out the window, the hot, steamy jungles of Cambodia could not have been any farther away.
The remote Kyrgyz border outside of Kegen
The snow was no problem for the Thundra
Don’t blame the Toyota… it was user error
Soon though, everyone was all smiles
