Adventures in Kazakhstan for Make Benefit Glorious Middle Class Westerners

                        

29 May 2009

And so into Kazakhstan, where we did not plan to venture, and well may die. The hotel in Aktau was hysterically awful (see below re: world's worst shower), but we were so tired that no one minded. And there's an Irish bar called Shamrock, which was really rather acceptable. Aktau was built in 1958 by the Soviets to access the local uranium
and doubly to serve as an elite beach resort. Uh-huh. There's a MiG fighter jet memorial (Maverick! Ice Man!), a WWII memorial, and a ship memorial. Also very good shaslyk—chicken kabab.

From Aktau we are driving the main road to Beynau, a non-entity so exciting it doesn't appear in the Lonely Planet, and about which we know very little. Adventure and exploration, bring it on.

The main road is dirt/mud (see above re: world's worst road), traversed mainly by propane tankers. It is supposed to take about 9 hours, but we're two and-a-half days in and nowhere near it yet. Some diesel issues, water in the fuel, have held us up. The first night's bush camp on the Kazakh plain was notable mainly for the powerful thunderstorms that raged all night; at least one tent collapsed, and lots of us lost tent pegs in the wind. Our little blue tent stayed down and mostly waterproof, just a few drops seeping at the edges. Poor Debbie and Amy, of the above collapsed unit, got soaked and ended up sleeping in the truck. Remarkably cheeful about it though. They may be on drugs.

                    

Yesterday we drove on and stopped at about 3, to deal with said truck problems. No go, this morning we've been stopping a lot, about every 7 minutes the last few hours. Good morale, and Tim and Cheryl have been brilliant about all of this. It's just that, to be blunt, Kazakhstan is boring. There is absolutely nothing to look at. It's akin to Nebraska, without the excitement of the corn. Occasional camels, but the novelty has gone...sigh. Life is hard for the unemployed and homeless in Kazakhstan.

Jobs on the truck have swapped over after the first journey segment. David is off the roof and onto setting up when we get to a camp site. I'm off luggage, and now in charge of the bar. This means I get to buy the drinks for it and collect the cash. Not great, as I'm not so good with money or responsibility or buying things for other people. Am inclined to buy Diet Coke and forget the rest, but suspect will not make me popular. Sigh.