Karkara valley (Kegen – Tup/Kensu) border

[IberianMadman]

I will try to cross from Karakol to Kegen next aug-03.
It is saturday...is the border open on weekends?

[OWNER]

I will try to cross from Karakol to Kegen next aug-03.
It is saturday...is the border open on weekends?

The checkpoint is open seven days a week

[Scandrino]

Hello all,
Thank you for your precious reports.

We crossed the border a few days ago from kg to kz. If you are in any hurry like us you can find easily a taxi that takes you at the border from karakol (it's expensive though, we paid around 6000 kirgiz som but were 4 to share the taxi).

We also called via whatsapp a hotel in kegen who sent us a taxi to leave the crossing point.

There were a few cars in both side, probably enough to hitchhike but i guess it can take a long time if you're not lucky.

All in all, easy border crossing and rather beautiful.

You can easily hitchhike or find other taxis to go to shonzhy then jarkent as we did.

[Indianaglobe]

Important : Border is open from 7am to 5pm 7 days a week, Kazak time (1h behind Kyrgyz time)

We arrived at 5:10pm and got denied, had to camp just in front of the border.

You can cross the border walking, no vehicle needed. We hitchhiked both sides.

[Ukkie]

Report on today's crossing, 21 August 2024, Kyrgyzstan -> Kazakhstan.
Rental car, 2 adults, Dutch nationals

We left from Jyrgalan (east of Karakol) around 9 am, took the shortcut from Kyzyl-Kyya (КЫЗЫЛ-КЫЯ) along the A364 to the main road from Tup to Karkara border. Lovely drive along the river with lots of horses, cows and people. Road conditions are okay mostly, good gravel roads but a steep descent at the very end with some rough driving. We appreciated the high clearance!

Final stretch to the border had a lot of construction but overall easy driving.

At the border, both Kyrgyz and Kazakh staff were friendly and spoke basic English. The on unexpected thing was that the passenger had to walk to the relevant offices, couldn't stay oin the car with the driver. At the Kyrgyz side they just did a passport check, on the Kazakh side visa were issued quickly, we had to take our main luggage through a scanner (similar to airport hand luggage procedure), they did a visual check of the car (including underneath, glove box etc) and sent us through. Overall about 15 mins I would say. Very pleasant surprise, I am used to African borders which can be a nightmare (as I am sure will be the case elsewhere in the Stands as well).

We drove to Charyn visitor center, smooth run and good spot for the night.

[madgwickkatie]

Hi if anyone else is looking to pass this border on 14/15th September we’d be keen to join up!

[Amarouny]

I can confirm that the border is open from 7am to 17pm on the Kazakh side. I walked through very easily, took about 5 minutes

[Meshedpotato]

Hello,

we crossed this border on September 14, 2024, going from Almaty to Karakol. Here's how things went for us:

We headed to "Saiakhat bus station" and arrived at 6:20am or so. The bus station doesn't exist anymore, but there are shared taxis and their respective drivers hanging around there. The exact location where we found a driver for Kegen is the street corner at 43.2730072, 76.9530363
(https://maps.app.goo.gl/3aJnEXE2tZoRwJT57). There were already two Kazakh ladies wanting to go to Kegen, plus a couple we found on the travel sharing board here, plus me and my wife. So within minutes of arrival, the six of us left Almaty at 6:30am.
We paid 4000 Tenge per person, and knowing that Kegen was not going to be our final destination, the driver immediately offered to take us four tourists to the border crossing for an extra 10000 Tenge (total, not per person).
After dropping off the two Kazakh ladies in Kegen, the driver drove us to the border crossing as promised, where we arrived about 25-30 minutes later, just after 10am. The actual border crossing with both checks (Kazakh + Kyrgyz) took another 15 minutes and went very smoothly. On the other side we were picked up by our hostel's driver (Snow Leopard Hostel), which cost 60$ and took about 1h45m. It couldn't have worked out better.

I don't know how quickly the shared taxi to Kegen normally fills up, but I was astonished that we left as early as 6:30am. I also don't know if there are more taxis going later, but my main suggestion would be to get there early!

I hope this may help any future travellers.

[Mylesk]

We crossed KG-KZ from Jyrgalan to Almaty today. Was interesting.
Booked a taxi from Jyrgalan yurt camp (which I would recommend) for 3000.
Got to border that was empty and very quick. We were only people there. No cars etc other side.
Asked the guards and (I'm guessing ) a customs guard charged us 5000t each (2 people) to kegen. Steep but he was not budging and little option.
He not only had a car full of stuff (presumably "confiscated" ) but stopped on the way to stop lorries for a customs check!
Dropped us in Kegan and several shared taxis. We paid 25000t to almaty but suspect if we weren't knackered could have got down more.
On plus side v comfortable car, and after minor faffing filling car on our way.

TLDR: very easy crossing, but be prepared to be rinsed of cash

[bekker]

We used this border crossing to go from Almaty to Karakol on 23 Oct. Found a driver early in the morning at the exact maps location shared 2 posts earlier (thanks for the tip!). First the driver quoted us 4000 kzt per seat to Kegen + 2000 kzt total to Karkara (closest town to the border). We waited for an hour to see if anyone else would turn up and then decided to buy off the rest of the seats. He didn't want to take us all the way to the border in the end and dropped us off at a taxi in Karkara that charged us 3000 kzt extra for the last 10 min to the border. We should have negotiated better with the first driver to take us all the way. On the Kyrgyz side we had a driver waiting that Snow Leopard Hostel arranged for us for 6000 kgz (even though we weren't staying there).

The border crossing was pretty empty and probably difficult to hitch hike at this time of year (and cold). We only saw one bus of Chinese tourists one way and one full car with guide going the other way. The landscape was very cool on both sides of the drive.