Crossing the border from Kazakstan into Uzbekistan

So I took the bus from Almaty to Tashkent, Uzbekistan. By Tashkent, the bus operators meant the border on the way to Tashkent.

At the long distance bus station in Almaty I was waiting outside before the bus left when an intrepid young Kazakh officer came to me and asked to see my documents. He checked out my passport and claimed that since I entered the country on the 18th of June I had to leave by the 23th (it was the 24th). This was complete bullshit anyway since I had a visa for 30 days. I told the guy that I only knew English and explained I had a 30 day tourist visa. The bum kept insisting and then he handed my passport to some random guy and that's when I got pissed. The guy waved at me to walk with him. I started yelling at him to give my passport back. Then he put it in his pocket and I grabbed him and got in his face and told him to take it out and give it back to me. By this time we were out of eyesight from anyone and I think the guy thought I could speak Russian and that we'd work out a monetary solution, but since I was about to clock him and no one was there to see he immediately gave back my passport. The bus operator told me not to get out of the bus until we leave.

There was one thing wrong with my passport that the officer didn't realize. I was missing a stamp which the passport officer in Aktau forgot to give me.

Then came time for the border crossing. The bus dropped us off about 200 meters from the border and we have to walk the rest of the way. Immediately upon descending the bus, local immigration "facilitators" approached me. I went to the bus operator and she told me to stay with an Uzbek family that was on our bus and go through with them.

The family was a mother, two young sons and an older aunt who knew a few words of English. I gave my passport to the mother (a little badass of a woman) and we were off. There were at least 1,000 people clamoring to get through. There was no line, no organization, no nothing. All the Uzbeks were just crawling under a gate and bypassing the first passport control window. My family did this too. I followed. Apparently if you're an American it's illegal to leave Kazakhstan without having your passport checked out. I got caught, but my Uzbek mother took care of the situation. In the end, we pushed people, climbed under and over gates, bypassed x-ray machines and eventually made it to Uzbekistan in 90 minutes, though I was about $42 lighter after various bribes. My Uzbek mom's strategy was to keep me as far away from my passport as possible so the "authorities" couldn't extort me. They would just salivate at the sight of me. The Uzbek family ended up giving me a ride all the way to my hostel as well. There's more to the story, but I don't have time to include it all here, so if you want to hear more about it just remind me the next time you see me.