Korday border crossing reports (Almaty-Bishkek)

[Romed]

Thanks for the accurate advice, the whole trip was almost too easy.

We took a Yandex taxi from Bishkek to Korday, it was less than 500 KGS for the car. Exchanged money before the crossing after comparing of rates, the differences where significant.

Kyrgyz checkpoint was no hassle, but on the Kazakh side all hell broke lose. A lot of shoving and pushing to get to the counters, it was closer to a fistfight than a queue. Prepare to take it with humor and fascination, it is crazy.

Immediately after leaving the border area we found someone standing there and announcing "Shu/Tshu", he was the driver of a shared taxi where we paid 2000 KZT per seat. The other passengers paid 400 KGS, which was slightly more and he did not have change in KGS.

The crossing took about half an hour and we left there by 14:00, plenty of time left. Our train to Tashkent left from Shu at 00:01, there was a decent barbecue to the right of the hospital opposite of the train station, and also a okay hotel with hourly rates of 200 KZT per person inside the station.

[steven]

The Korday border will be closed for reconstruction from January 2020 onwards. No end date has been proposed. Everyone will have to detour to nearby Ak-Tilek.

https://economist.kg/2019/12/20/v-yanva ... ka-kordaj/

[steven]

The Korday border remains open for foot passengers. Here's what we got from the border guards:

The PR and Media Relations Department of the State Border Service of the Kyrgyz Republic reports that due to the reconstruction from 00:00 a.m. on February 20, 2020, the passage of vehicles and goods at the Akzhol-Road (KR) checkpoint will be suspended - “ Kordai-road ”(RK) on the Kyrgyz-Kazakh state border.

Citizens will be able to cross the state border at this checkpoint on foot without carrying dimensional baggage for commercial purposes and without bulk carry-on luggage. At the same time, construction work will be conducted at the checkpoint.

The Akzhol-road checkpoint will be open from 6 a.m. until 24 h. 00 min. by local time

Update: it's only open for foot passengers from Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.

[creativecheif]

Came on marshuka from Almaty to Bishkek yesterday. No one warned me, the Korday border is now closed for foreigners, they were only allowing Kazakh and Kyrgz citizens through. Got scammed by taxi driver the border patrol gestured over for me to he charged 5000 tenge to drive me to the At-Tilek border. I wasn’t prepared (my fault) so I had to pay... drive took like 15-20 mins. Border crossing was easy only 2 people at counter so took a bit longer. But not too bad.

[TravelHorse]

We read that no PCR test is necessary to enter Kyrgyzstan. We will fly to Kyrgyzstan by plane. After one week in the country we want to switch to Kazakhstan. Does anyone have recent experience to go as German / EU citizen from Bishkek to Almaty via Minibus/Taxi? Is there a fresh PCR test necessary at the border crossing from Kyrgyzstan to Kazakhstan?

[jvjjjvvv]

I didn't have the experience yet myself, but in a different post someone replied that vaccination certificates are good enough as long as your country is on a list they work with. Weirdly, Germany appears not to be on that list: https://new.wpk.kz/covid-19_kz_eng

The original comment is on this thread: viewtopic.php?f=13&t=12644&start=70

[TravelHorse]

Thanks jvjjjvvv!

[Tennessine]

Hello, next week I will be in Almaty looking to get across to Bishkek. Does anybody know if buses have restarted this route? The information I can find online says no, but it's hard to be sure how up to date it is. What are my options if there are no buses? Many thanks.

[Burton]

Hey,

I think a train is running from these two cities. At least, my plan is to go from Almaty to Bishkek by train. I guess you probably have to change at Taraz or Merke. I will do some research and let you know if I find anything.

[Kasia]

The train Almaty-Taraz takes 8 hours, from there it is 8 more hours to Bishkek, but this train does not run every day.

The better alternative will be by (shared) taxi from Almaty to the border, then marshrutka to Bishkek. This is secondhand info, but I will try this next week (June 15th) and will post my experience here.