We need several days for the logistical preparations of our Inylchek tour. We have to buy and to pack provisions for 14 days in the town of Karakol. Three days for our outward journey by bicycle to the Inylchek Base Camp, seven days of trekking to Merzbacher Lake and over Tjuz pass, another four cycle days to the Kazakh border. Additionally, we have to find a reliable mountain guide and to get the special permission for this sensitive border region. In the end everything is done. The guide is at the right time on the right place, the bikes are picked up on time and taken seven days later into the neighbor valley, the military stamps are set and our provisions work even without freeze-dried outdoor food. Only the central Asian "salami" was probably no hard sausage.‭

The first Probusk control takes place in the middle of the road. A rusty truck stops, a Military jumps eagerly out. It begins to dawn already. Fortunately, we've obtained information in advance about the exact checkpoints. A bribe story, as we have seen during the Pamir trekking, we want to avoid if possible. We agree: The guy gets here neither our passports nor our documents. The border zone is still far away. The military man borders around, slavers on our map, wags his red ID, finally leaves with his stinking monster.

Inylchek, the world congeals. Snow and ice, rock and sky. A landscape from prehistoric times. Thundering rock avalanches, dusting ice falls, sky-high mountains. We reach the Merzbacher Lake after three exhausting days of walking along the right moraine. It is empty. Every August breaks the accumulated water the dam and floods the whole valley. Now the place is a wall of ice. A silver full moon rises over the Merzbacher Camp, the glacier bangs in the cold.

We reach the Kazakh border two days too early. The bike route from Eskilitash to Karkara was only half as long as expected. What should we do? Give a bribe and appear two days too early on the border control? Impudence might work. And if the Kyrgyz let us out and the Kazakhs not in? We would hang in the steppe as Viktor Navorski in the movie The Terminal. Pedal one hundred kilometers in the wrong direction and perhaps find a hotel? Knocking on the door of the house at the last intersection and explain, that we would like to stay here for two days and nights? We try it with the hospitality. The farmers look quite puzzled, but ten minutes later we have our stay. A yellow, discarded bus. We have already spent the night in the most unusual places, but this stay is a unique one. The bus even has a TV. It is raining for two days. The bus is leaking, we have to put some cups under the biggest holes, so the sleeping bags don't get wet, but otherwise it's comfortable. A little Magic Bus. A piece of everyday life at the end of Kyrgyzstan.

Karkara: border between steppe riders and mountain nomads, between Kazakhs and Kyrgyz. Two nations differed until a few decades only by preference of a different landscape, now separated on the paper. Two huts and a barrier on a perforated asphalt road. A small river. Chingiz Aitmatow let pass the Turkic Horsemen in his books here, in Gulsary he let compete the two peoples as today in an annual Friendship Tournament against each other. In summer yurts are scattered over this wide plain. Are there living Kazakh, Kyrgyz? The 10 October we can cross to the other side of the river. The wind is welcoming us in the width.

The ride in a big city is always the same. First, it changes only slightly. The asphalt is better. In the street shops, suddenly we can find Lipton Ice tea again. Then the cars come. At the beginning only tentatively, then numerous and fast. You drive like in a hoover tube. An invisible airflow seems to tear everything to the centre. The road becomes wider, the houses bigger, the overtaking more uncontrolled. Everything strives for superlatives. On the way to Almaty the “tube feeling” is perfect. For kilometers trees block the view left and right of the road to the outside world. There's only the road and the destination. After the cars come the miles. The veg mile, the fruit mile, the meat mile. Here the merchants are providing the agricultural products for the city. Piles of potatoes, tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, grapes, apples, everything disappears in the cars, is racing to the center. In Central Asia, you cross even the cement and coffee mile. In the end the hitch-hikers are waiting. Then the cars jam, the air gets stuffy, pedaling become a torment. Why are we drawn to the cities? Why should we expose ourselves to this hassle? Why do we leave lonely roads and friendly people, replace the sparkling starry sky against constraining ceilings? Road stress for luxury dreams. A hot shower, a soft bed. Street canyons surround us. Dinner at Pizza Hut.‭