Korday border crossing reports (Almaty-Bishkek)

[steven]

Please read and post reports on the Kordai border crossing between Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan below.

We summarize all info on the Kazakhstan border crossings and Kyrgyzstan border crossings pages.

[Leelicious]

Crossed the border 3 days ago and it went smooth as always.
What is worth mentioning is that there was a Polish guy in front of me who talked his way into the country without a visa.
Polish citizens need a visa for Kazakhstan. But he just told the immigration that he gets 15 days on arrival.
Immigration officer didn't bother discussing it and gave him the stamp with 2 stamps on the registration card.
Mister Poland hopes he gets the same treatment when he leaves the country.

[irishmcbride]

Crossed yesterday going south into Kyrgyzstan, no problem at all for the other three in my group but my own Kazakh border guard had never seen a UK passport before and didn't know we don't need a visa! Cue 10 minutes of discussion before she went off to ask her boss, then stamped my passport with no questions.

On the Kyrgyz side of the river they barely glanced, but Top Tip: knock on the shiny door immediately before the booths on the left, they deal with your passport in there.

Bonus, the guy at the little desk on the Kazakh side of the bridge wants to see your passport because he likes looking at passport stamps, he's a friendly guy. I think he's only there to control the porters.

[Kit.law.70]

Crossed Kordai several days ago and experienced some issue when entering Ak-zhol border checkpoint in Kyrgyzstan.

I am a HKSAR passport holder and holding an single entry electronic visa. Officers in Ak-zhol insisted that they do not process E-visa in Ak-zhol, and asked me to go to another border checkpoint in Ak-Tilek(Karasu in Kazakh side), 20km East of Ak-zhol.

I was deported back to Kordai and found a taxi towards Karasu, crossed border in Ak-Tilek and everything works fine.

Yesterday I left Kyrgyzstan in Ak-zhol with the same e-visa and I am allowed to cross the border again. Not sure what was happening.

[babel]

I crossed from Kazakhstan to Kyrgyzstan Monday 6th of August. Overall the crossing including checks on both side took 5 minutes as the border was almost empty. By far the smoothest border-crossing I ever had in the former Soviet Union - apart from Schengen-borders between the Baltic states. On the Kyrgyz side two young ladies sell SIM-cards for Beeline.kg company for about 2 USD without registration, valuable a week. But I guess that can be prolonged once in Bischkek.

[CianoH]

Travelling by car it was a very simple border crossing as we did not need a visa for either countries. Border guards in Kazakhstan hesitated with my passport as there is a rip on certain pages but no problem in the end. Easy crossing in the end with no big car search

[Robinosaurus!]

Very easy with a bicycle - On the Kazakh side you can pretend you're a pedestrian to avoid the car queue, then pretend you're a car to avoid the (massive) pedestrian queue. Same on the Kyrgyzstan side.

[shvedsky]

Crossed the border today and it was easy luckily. Just want to mention that when we arrived, a family of 5 with the youngest in fever, this sketchy looking fellow came over with his friend and offered to carry my bags over. Luckily he didn’t cheat on us even if he could have run away with our luggage pretty easily so I’m happy. We agreed on 300 som which was probably way too high but we didn’t really care. The border is like five stages:
1. Walk from the cab to the Kyrgyz border check.
2. Walk over the bridge (50 meters?)
3. Stand in line in the Kazakh border control
4. Get your luggage through the x-ray scan to show them there’s no kalashnikovs in there
5. Get overwhelmed by the eager taxi drivers

All these steps they will do, even lift it in the cab you decide on, which is actually quite a service. The problem is really that you don’t really know what they do with the luggage since they move faster through the border control than they do, but nothing happened, so I’m happy.

[Romed]

Does anybody now if there are shared taxis from Korday to Shu?

Or what I should expect when we two very white people have to arrange a private taxi?

[Julia]

Hi.

Couple of years ago there were shared taxis from the crossroads (so called Boogor or Bugor, Бугор in Russian).
Cost about 1500 tenge per person to go to Shu. Mostly during the day before 6 pm.
Boogor (Бугор) is the crossroads in Korday village where local taxis to other towns were waiting. It's about 5 km away from the border check point. So need to take a taxi or bus to get there.
I don't know if there are taxis to Shu right near the border crossing. Maybe there are but anyway locals took taxis from Boogor and prices were much better there.
I hope those taxis are still there. But better ask locals when you get to Korday. And better don't ask other taxi drivers, ask someone indifferent like shop assistants or so.
Prices should have increased since then. Maybe about 2000 - 2500 tenge for a seat in shared car.
I'm not sure if it's easy to find a taxi after 6 pm.

What to expect. The border crossing can be very messy and crowded sometimes.
Taxi drivers can try to scam you. If you don't speak Russian or Kazakh be careful with them.
When you negotiate a price for the car than at the end of a trip a driver can tell you that you misunderstood the number and it's not 5000 but 15000 or 50000, for instance.
Or it was per person, not for the whole car. Or something else.
So better write the price on a piece of paper including details. And before the trip can show them that you have only agreed amount of money and don't have any more money at all.
I don't say that scams are often there but possible. Heard about them from other travellers who took taxis at Korday.