Aktau

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Chenkui!

We finally arrived into Aktau on the Caspian shore of Kazakhstan at 15:00 and after a 3 hour wait to get through passport control, we headed into Aktau. We hoped to get away immediately but soon found that we had missed the one train a day. we ended up in the Atai Hotel, a series of refurbished apartments which overlook a huge scale model of a MIG warplane in the central square. We spent the evening in our air-conditioned rooms, trying to escape the heat and preparing ourselves for the forthcoming journey to Aralsk.

In the morning we took a taxi to the local station 15km away at Maggeshlak. Our Russian driver spoke litle english but obliged when we asked him to help us buy our tickets. The train pulled in at 12:30 and in the blistering midday sun, the cariage had turned into some kind of sauna. By pure coincidence, we ended up in the same compartment as a sweet Kazakh couple, Carla and Mina who had also been on the boat from Baku.

The train departed and people crammed round the small windows which only let in minimal amounts of air. All the men on board went bare-chested and some even chose to walk around in just their Y-fronts! Whilst standing by the window, I got talknig to Akkiran, a young Kazakh guy who works in the oil industry in Aktobe. We cahtted for a good few hours about everything from oil to politics and from what the hell two British guys are doing on holiday in Kazakhstan to football. The time passed fairly quickly and I even managed a few hours sleep in our sweaty compartment. Outside, we were rolling through the immense Kazakh steppes. Grassy plains as far as the eye can see on all sides with the occasional cammel or flock of goats. About 13:00 the following day, we pulled into Kandyagash station, where we had a 5 hour wait for our connecting train to Aralsk.

Whilst waiting on the platform, we were stopped by the police who asked to search our documents. Akkiran, my friend from last night had warned me to try and avoid teh Kazakh police at all costs due to their apparently corrupt nature, and we were caught pretty much unawares. Adam stayed with the bags while I followed two of the boys in blue to a small office inside the station building. They checked our tickets, leafed through every page of our passports, then the commanding officer slammed the passports down on the table with great might and gestured for me to leave. So I did and that was that. Our first brush with the Kazakh authorities but surely not our last?

We boarded our second train at 17:00 and this time the windows in our compartment actually opened. We set an alarm for 2:30am and then managed a few hours shut eye before the alarm went off, shortly before we arrived into Aralsk.

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Photos

MIG Statue, Aktau
MIG Statue, Aktau

Camels, Aktau - Aktobe
Camels, Aktau - Aktobe

Sunset from the train, Aktau - Aktobe
Sunset from the train, Aktau - Aktobe

With Akkiran - my first Kazakh friend
With Akkiran - my first Kazakh friend