Charging in Taraz, Kazakhstan

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Running currents in Shymkent

The resort hotel Alma Tau is not far from Shymkent. The city is described as Southern Kazakhstan’s most vibrant city. Good for us, since we needed to do some “business” there. In an extremely efficient manor, we first bought a Kazakh SIM-card and later a car insurance. We were absolutely impressed on how little time (and money) we spend on organizing both of it. Something that is not to imagine in many countries we passed. In the late afternoon, we continued our drive to Taraz.

Finding a hotel and three-phase electricity in Taraz

Situated on the route from Shymkent to Bishkek, Taraz is one of Kazakhstan oldest cities. In the 11th and 12th century it was a wealthy silk road stop. It got destroyed by Genghis Khan and only had a Russian rebirth in the 19th century. The current appearance has still a soviet charm that we did not further inspect.

It took us a while to find a hotel that also allowed us to charge on three-phase electricity (this was necessary to have a fully charged car for the way from Taraz to Bishkek, about 320 km). We ended up staying at a modern hotel that offered us a room for 12 hours (for a reduced price – something that seems to be common in Kazakhstan). The set up for the charging took Benedikt quite long, since about 8 people thought they knew better what to do. In the end, our open adapter was connected to a fuse-box. We left in the morning before nine to drive to the border between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

Border Kazakhstan – Kyrgyzstan

The border close to Chaldovar was probably one of the easiest of the last weeks. They quickly checked the car on the Kazakh side. Afterwards I drove to the Kyrgyz side, did a little small-talk, got the new stamp and left with the car. I think the whole border process only took us 30 minutes. Incomparable to some other borders we had before… (see this post).

 outlet/socket  Volt  Ampere  kW  kWh
connection to fuse-box 220 volt 3 *  13 amperes  8 kW  40 kWh

Charging in Tashkent, Uzbekistan

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Letter of Invitation

To get our visa to Uzbekistan faster, we “bought” a letter of invitation (LOI) from a hostel in Tashkent. With this LOI we could easily and quickly get our visa from the Uzbek embassy in Istanbul (see this post). One condition of that LOI was that we stay at least a night in the hostel in Tashkent.

Topchan hostel

It was our first hostel since the awful hostel in Naien (see this post). Throughout the journey we didn’t stay in a “normal” hostel yet. Therefore, it was nice to have the feeling of a hostel-community. We enjoyed the company of many other travelers. There was, for example, a cyclist from Switzerland (checkout his blog, picture of/from him on the right), a German/Uzbek couple that are working on prolonging visa and many others.

Charging at a factory

Opposite of the hostel was a factory. We arranged to charge on their property. Benedikt found, together with the security kid, a terribly old main fuse box at first. This fuse box would have been hard to access, since the fuses don’t really have screws and seem to not have been opened since at least 30 years. Strong wires led to other fuse boxes that we ended up accessing. The connection was strong. After 2 hours, the car was charged again at 90%.

 

 

 

 outlet/socket  Volt  Ampere  kW  kWh
connection to fuse-box 220 volt 3 *  32 amperes  22 kW  40 kWh

Charging in Samarkand, Uzbekistan

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Like Bukhara, Samarkand used to be an important city for traders between Europe and China. Different rulers build remarkable buildings during different centuries in Samarkand. Thanks to a continues renovation since the Russians came to Uzbekistan, tourists in Samarkand can now marvel at impressive buildings.

Did our charging cause a electricity outlet?

We stayed at a small, family owned hotel, a bit outside of the main attraction area. The car was parked in their garage and at first, we tried charging on a Schuko. The electricity fluctuation was, again, too large, so charging stopped shortly after it started. After this happened the second time, Benedikt found the fuse box of the house. Of course, they had three-phase electricity ;-). He connected the cables of our “open adapter” and we started to charge with 16 amperes. After setting everything up, he returned to me in the hotel-room and then it made “click” and there was a power outage. Uuuuups, was it us?!? We were already expecting to have a major discussion to explain that we can also charge with less amperes and so on. But, the blackout wasn’t our fault. The whole city was out of power. Since the generator was turned on only few minutes after the outage started, this seems to happen quite frequently in Samarkand. We continued charging the following day (only with 10 amperes, to be on the safe side), when power was back.

Just being tourists

Our current rhythm of stopping at a city for 2 days, feels good to us. That way, we also had in Samarkand a whole day to wonder from sight to sight. We hated the terrible price discrimination in Iran for touristic sights (tourists pay about 8-times more than Iranians), but in Samarkand it was even higher. As a tourist, you are supposed to pay 13-times the prices an Uzbek is paying. At least, that price is still almost half of the entry fees one needed to pay in Iran (Iran: 5 USD for every sight – Uzbekistan: 3 USD for largest sight in town). The sight we payed it for (Registan) was absolutely stunning and definitely worth that money.

Last thing to mention is that we were one more time extremely lucky with finding an excellent restaurant in Samarkand. We were guests at a beautiful and delicious restaurant in Bukhara. At both restaurants, we didn’t pay much more than 10€ (for a three-course dinner). Going to restaurants in Uzbekistan has been a blast so far 😉.

 outlet/socket  Volt  Ampere  kW  kWh
connection to fuse-box 220 volt 3 * 10 amperes  7 kW  50 kWh

Charging in Chimgan, Uzbekistan

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Our excursion to the mountains close to Tashkent

Tashkent itself seems to be a modern/soviet city. From its past as a Silk Road city, not much is left. We didn’t even bother going into the city center, but drove right east, towards the mountains. We spend a whole afternoon looking for a hotel. The concept of summer vacation in the mountains seems to play a strange (or no?) role in Uzbek culture. The road up the mountains is busy, probably of people swimming in the lake. But as soon as we started looking for hotels, it got difficult. Some hotels were closed, prices for others were outrageously high (almost twice as expensive as Bukhara), the rest was to disgusting or strange to stay at. After several attempts, we finally found a nice-looking hotel. The price of 60 USD was still too high for an average country hotel with small rooms (we stayed for less in both Samarkand and Bukhara). Considering these circumstances, we only stayed for one night, did a beautiful early morning hike and left in the late morning for the border to Kazakhstan.

Charging connection on hotel fuse box

We were lucky that the hotel was very cooperative to let us charge. They had 3 fuse boxes and only the last, where the key was lost, had “normal” fuses. They found the key after an hour and Benedikt set up a connection with open wires on this fuse box. Since he couldn’t clearly see what was going on in the fuse, it took him quite a while until both wires, the one from the fuse and the other one from our adapter connected in the fuse. In the end it worked out and we charged the car to 95%.

 outlet/socket  Volt  Ampere  kW  kWh
connection to fuse box 380 volt 3 * 16 amperes 11 kW 30 kWh

Charging in Bukhara, Uzkebistan

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Great hotel in a former madrasa

We had no wi-fi in our last hotel in Turkmenistan. Internet accessibility is still very low in Turkmenistan. The amount of sides that are not accessible, is on the other side extremely high. Due to no internet, we couldn’t check out any hotel ahead, before we arrived in Bukhara.

Sometimes one needs to be lucky. We were extremely lucky with the hotel we found in Bukhara. It was in a former madrasa that was beautifully renovated. In this nice surrounding, we enjoyed an extremely comfortably bed… since almost three months, we are sleeping every to every second night in a new bed. Some of them are extremely uncomfortable and make it hard (literally 😉) to sleep on them. Besides extremely hard mattresses, old mattresses with springs sticking out, are uncomfortable. I noticed that my sleep quality just depends on mattress quality and in that bed in Bukhara I slept like a baby.

Challenging charging due to heavy electricity fluctuation

We parked the Tesla behind a gate leading to the office of the hotel. There was a Schuko outlet that we could use for charging the car. Unfortunately, the electricity was very shaky. If the voltage is fluctuating too much, the Tesla stops charging. The cause of the fluctuation was probably that the transformer of the neighborhood wasn’t well adjusted to the electricity need of the people. We had similar problems in Turkey. During night, fewer people (and their machinery) are using electricity. The fluctuation is therefore lower and we were able to charge the car during the two subsequent nights that we were in Bukhara.

City-museum Bukhara

The old city of Bukhara is Unesco World Heritage. There is one architectural monument next to each other in the city. One wonders around old mosques, baths, madrasas and mausoleums. Most of them are decorated with beautiful tile-work in bright blue, turquoise and golden colors. We enjoyed this travel back in time.

Drive from Bukhara to Samarkand

The surface of the roads to Samarkand, the city we drove to after Bukhara, was only slightly better than the road leading to Bukhara from the border. We adjust our driving that way that we only go 50 to 70 km/h so we can avoid the potholes in the road.

We got stopped two times by the police on our way. Similar to toll collection booths in other countries, the police in Uzbekistan blocks in average every 100km the road. Either they ignore you or they point a stick at you and you need to stop. We started to only give copies of our documents to them, since we heard that some police could be corrupt and wants money to return you your documents. During the first police stop, they wrote our data us in a big book (the country isn’t very digital yet…). The officer at the second police stop insisted to see our original documents, but eventually he let us go. I have no idea what the aim of their controls is, so I continue to see no reason for them to flip through out passports as if they were picture books for children. I hope all the other police controls that will follow will be as smooth as the last were.

 outlet/socket  Volt  Ampere  kW  kWh
Schuko 220 volt 6 amperes 2 kW 40 kWh

Charging in Turkmenabat, Turkmenistan

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Turkmenabat

We had to have a guide with us anytime during our stay in Turkmenistan, except for our day in Ashgabat (there is enough police present in the city that guides aren’t necessary – that is at least my theory). We chose to travel with a tourist visa (and not a transit visa that wouldn’t require a guide), since this allowed us to plan better ahead. Many transit visa get rejected (this year roughly half of them). Further on, we wanted more than the minimum amount of 3 days of the transit visa to cross the country.

On our last evening in Turkmenabat, our second guide returned to Ashgabat and Bac, a local tourist guide, started accompanying us. He arranged that we could charge the car (three phases connected to fuses) at a car workshop opposite of his home. He invited us in the evening to join him to visit some friends. Turkmen people are just as hospitable and welcoming as we know that Iranians are. We enjoyed pelmeni, barbecue, Ukrainian Vodka, Turkmen tea as well as bread, baked in a clay oven in the back of the first family we visited. We feel very privileged that we could enjoy this fun evening with Bac and his friends.

Leaving Turkmenistan and entering to Uzbekistan

The next morning, Bac brought us to the border and helped us exit Turkmenistan. His help made this border-exit to one of the easiest. Unlike expected, the border crossing into Uzbekistan wasn’t bad at all. It took a while to fill out the customs forms and to get our medications checked (Uzbekistan is very restrictive on what kind of medications can be imported). All border guards were very interested in our car. We showed them some of the features of our Tesla and distracted them from their routine. That way, the car control was quite superficial. It took us only about 2 hours until we were in Uzbekistan. Compared with our last border crossing that took about 8 hours (see this post), this felt almost like nothing.

 outlet/socket  Volt  Ampere  kW  kWh
 connection to fuse box  240 Volt  3 * 16 amperes  12 kW  35 kWh

Charging in Mary and visiting ancient Merv, Turkmenistan

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Mary

It was possible to charge the Tesla at the hotel in Mary. There was a three-phase connection outside the building and we just had to connect our open wires to the fuses.

 

Merv

Mary is an oasis city in the Karakum Desert. It was an important place of shelter and trade on the historical Silk Road. The city followed the streams of the Murghab river. The current city Mary exits only since about 150 years. 5 older cities with traces of village life as far back as the 3rd millennium BC. Not much is left of the older cities. The area where they used to be is now known as Merv. One can still visit the city walls and some buildings today. The areal is huge and one can imagine that Merv was in the 12th century for a short time the largest city of the world.

We visited the ancient town after a night in Mary. It was impressive, even though the sun burned down and it was terribly hot. After this visit we drove 200 km on bad roads from Mary to Turkmenabat. Benedikt had to pay close attention to the road to not drive into one of the many, deep potholes.

 outlet/socket  Volt  Ampere  kW  kWh
 connection to fuse box  220 volt  3 * 12 amperes  7 kW  45 kWh

Charging in resort hotel “Alma Tau”, Kazakhstan

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Border crossing Uzbekistan – Kazakhstan

We drove to the closest border coming from the mountains. After the border official checked our passport, he told us, the border is closed for vehicles (couldn’t he just said that right away? Or why didn’t they put up a sign somewhere?). We had no choice than to drive to the next border checkpoint that was supposed to be bigger.

To exit the country, the Uzbek border control let us unpack the entire car. Of course, such a procedure is annoying. We tried to keep always an eye on our valuables, since it wouldn’t be the first time, that somebody “lost” something at the border.

To enter Kazakhstan, Benedikt and I had to split up (again). He went through the passenger control and I imported the car into Kazakhstan. Since I am the official car owner (my name is in the car documents), it seems to be easier, if I do the entire bureaucratic procedure. After about 2 hours I drove the car through the border gate.

A Kazakh resort hotel

Our destination was a resort hotel east of Shymkent. Shymkent isn’t known as a very attractive city. Therefore, we had no precise ambition to go there. It sounded good to us to have nature around us and a pool in front of us. We found a resort hotel in the middle of nowhere. The hotel was nicely maintained and for what it offered good value for money.

We got extremely well taken care of by a receptionist (the only person speaking a few words of English in this hotel), who even drove us in a golf cart around the grounds of the hotel. When we sat down in the golf cart he said, “this is an electric vehicle!” – you can believe that we started laughing and replied that we also have an electric vehicle. He helped us find a Schuko, where we fully charged the car during the 1.5 days that we stayed at Alma Tau.

The only real downturn for us was, that the hotel was playing club music with the strongest beats the whole day long. We had a room facing the pool and could feel the vibration of the bass while laying on the bed. Kazakhs seem to have a different definition of relaxation ambiance than we do ;-).

 outlet/socket  Volt  Ampere  kW  kWh
Schuko 220 volt 6 amperes 2 kW 40 kWh

Charging outside of Ashgabat, Turkmenistan and having a crazy border-crossing

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Exiting Iran

It was a few minutes past 9 a.m. when we arrived in Bajgiran at the border between Iran and Turkmenistan. We were supposed to meet an agent of Hossein (Hossein was the one bringing us into Iran at the first place – see this post). We only found him after already having passed through the first police checkpoint. A confusing process to export our car from Iran started right away. I had expected a short wait and quick-and-easy process (we just wanted to leave the country…), but I got proven wrong (again). Benedikt and I criss-crossed the border buildings, always following that agent (who only spoke Farsi). We waited and waited, went downstairs after a while and finally got exit stamps in our passports. After that was done, we couldn’t find the agent anymore.

It was probably over 1.5 hours later that I finally found him. He was at a very particular clerks desk. A guy there started to explain to me that we have a big problem. Our customs paper indicate that we would leave Iran at the Nordooz border to Armenia and not to Turkmenistan, where we are right now. The paper also stated the car is grey, even though its main color is black. The people from the Bajgeran border already contacted the customs officials in Nordooz. Everyone is waiting for a letter of the border boss in Nordooz that indicates that we can leave Iran towards Turkmenistan. I was told that this can take 1, 2 or 3 hours or a day. A day?!? I started to be really concerned. We had to get to Turkmenistan that day. Our whole trip, including guides, hotels and visa, was planned that way that we should enter Turkmenistan on the 17th of June (it is obligatory to have a planned trip with a guide in Turkmenistan if you enter the country with a tourist visa).

At around 1 p.m. we got informed that the letter of the border in Nordooz arrived! Ufff…. Because every border official had to type our customs form in their computer with a slow two finger method, it took another hour till we could leave the building. At 2:30, after about 5 hours at the Iranian side of the border, we finally left Iran.

Entering Turkmenistan

The Tesla had to wait in no-man’s land, while Benedikt and I got our Turkmen visa in the police building (we only had letter of invitations from a tour company). I was taking the passenger way, while Benedikt got the car registered (btw: we had to pay petrol-tax even though we tried to explain that we will not use petrol – it wasn’t understandable for them). We met our first tour guide and driver, Mr. Zadar, who was already patiently waiting since 11:00 a.m.

Compared to the Iranian side of the border, the border process on the Turkmen side went extremely smooth – until the final step… We waited and waited and nothing happened. Only afterwards, the tour guide told us that the color of our car (black), tinted windows and colorful stickers of our Tesla were too much for Turkmenistan. The border officials weren’t sure if it is allowed in the country (their president has a strong preference for white cars…). After many discussions, some official decided that the car should not enter Ashagabat, but would be allowed to transit Turkmenistan. In Ashgabat, everything is marble white, and so have to be the cars. It was probably the strangest city I have ever been to.

Ashgabat and a long drive to Mary

Our guide found a parking spot for the Tesla outside the city. We charged at a Schuko in a small car wash in that parking lot. Unfortunately, the tour operator arranged a price for the electricity that was way too high (electricity is in most occasions free of charge to the people in Turkmenistan; petrol only costs USD 0,30 and gas is free as well).

We spent two nights in Ashgabat in the most luxurious hotel of our journey. On our third day in Turkmenistan, we left Ashgabat and continued a long journey to Mary (380 km). Benedikt and I were a little worried about this leg of the trip, since it really depended on the weather conditions how easily we could make it (the distance was quite far). Luckily, there was almost no wind. We drove slowly (around 70 km/h) and sometimes behind trucks. With 24% left we reached Mary. Way more than expected!

 outlet/socket  Volt  Ampere  kW  kWh
Schuko 220 10 amperes 2 kW 35 kWh

Charging in Shirvan, Iran

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Why we went to Shirvan

The city of Shirvan is only 60 km away from Bojnurd. We found in Shirvan a hotel that had good reviews and offered rooms for a fair price. Since we didn’t really like the hotel in Bojnurd, we didn’t mind moving on. We planned to spend two days in Shirvan only to relax and get the car and electronic equipment ready for the upcoming border crossings. We read online that border controls in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan will be quite intense. Having a good structure in the car and knowing where what item is, seemed essential for us to cross somehow smoothly these borders.

The hotel in Shirvan

The hotel we stayed at was quite ok. We had a large room, didn’t get distracted and the owner/manager of the hotel was nice. He even spoke a bit of German. Besides the fact, that we felt as guests welcomed, the hotel was strange. On the first floor, there was a women and men reception hall for weddings. I couldn’t really figure out, if that is a thing here, to celebrate sex-separated weddings. It wouldn’t surprise me though. For the festivities, they had a large kitchen that was probably the most disgusting kitchen I saw so far. It was greasy, somehow dirty and smelled awfully. We saw the kitchen, since we used a socket in the kitchen to charge the car. The socket was only a normal Schuko, but since the car was still well charged it was enough to recharge. The next charging will be in Turkmenistan.

A surprise-visit from the local newspaper

As I mentioned above, we wanted to use our days in Shirvan only to relax and reorganize. On a day, where we didn’t really wanted to see anybody, the local newspaper appeared at the hotel in the evening. The reporter didn’t speak any English, but the hotel manager served as a translator. Every second question was on what we think about Iran and Iranians. We just said what the reporter wanted to hear. In the end, it was mainly the hotel manager and the reporter who talked to each other. I would be really curious what the content of that article will be.

 

Bye-bye Iran, welcome new adventurous

After 4 weeks in Iran, both, Benedikt and I, are really excited to move on. Iran was a major goal to reach and now the most challenging part of the journey starts. We don’t really know what to expect from the upcoming countries. But we are looking forward to drinking a cool beer in Ashgabat and to not having to wear hijab anymore. Let’s hope everything goes well, meaning we continue to find three-phase electricity and the quality of the roads stays decent.

 outlet/socket  Volt  Ampere  kW  kWh
Schuko 220 10 amperes 2kW 15kWh