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Day 15 - Pushing through Kazakhstan

 Following on from yesterday's blog...

 It's so nice waking up in a bed. I know, I say that a lot, every time we get a hotel for the night, but it really is a great feeling - although the first few seconds when you wake up, you feel like you're at home, and the first fleeting moments of the day are consumed by you wondering whether it's a weekday and therefore have work to go to, or a weekend and to lie in just a little. That fall back down to reality, the reality that we're 5,000 miles away from home and have traversed 13 countries, is a bit of a strange one.

 Mackey was up first again - this is becoming weird now. There you go Chuter, there might be something good about Mackey going on this trip, and now he'll be nice and early every day! As per usual, he'd go all Continental with his breakfast, Will and I again preferring cereal and watermelon (even if it was the most tasteless muesli you'd ever tried, ever more so than regular muesli).

 Last night was a very good night - a few drinks and dinner with some other teams, lots of stories swapped, generally awesome. We had a plan where we'd continue with the convoy towards Aral, perhaps look at the dried up sea, and then diagonally negotiate the rest of the enormous country. We discussed set off times over the beers, probably deciding on something entirely unrealistic like 9am (as you do when discussing anything after beer) - we got to breakfast at 9.40am and there was no sign of them. We packed up, checked out, this time ensuring passports were with us, and went out to the cars parked right in front of the hotel.

 As I mentioned before, the hotel was on a main roundabout in the city, with parking directly out the front for about 10 cars. Pete the Saxo was one of them, along with the Danish ambulance and a handful of other teams. We had asked the receptionist if there was a better place we could park, perhaps the car park we'd spotted behind the hotel. Her answer, in very limited english, was "DANGEROUS."; we left if out the front.

 As it transpires though, even directly outside the hotel wasn't overly safe - the passenger door lock had been tampered with and slightly damaged, no doubt trying to get to our bags of dirty washing or the spare air filters in the back. No entry was gained though. I like to think of this as similar to Knight Rider - but Pete the Saxo taking Kitt's place. The Kazakh intruders were probably trying to jimmy the lock when Pete the Saxo opened his doors, throwing them onto the road. They then tried to throw a brick through Pete the Saxo's window, but it just bounced back and hit them square in the face. Pete the Saxo is awesome.

 Strangely enough though, one small piece of anti-vandalism had taken place. I'm sure many of you have seen our photos of our friends and family we have on the back of the car - well, someone had ripped Nick Shiles's off the roofbox, and stuck it very securely onto the Danish ambulance.. Very strange! We couldn't get it off and back where it belonged without ripping it. Instead, I took a permanent black marker and wrote on the ambulance, explaining who the man was. Mr Shiles, you might not be with us, but you'll definitely get to Mongolia.

 The Danish team didn't show up, and no answer from their door. Looking at the amount these boys drink, they wouldn't be getting up for a long time. In true rally style, Mackey used the permanent marker and wrote a message on their ambulance driver's door, to let them know we'd pushed on and they'd no doubt catch us up.

We headed out of Atyrau, changing up our last remaining Roubles for Tenge, the local currency. On the way out, we saw some crazy local writing above a shed and a big stack of tyres outside, reminding us we needed to get ours fixed before we moved further away from civilisation and further into the Kazakhstan steppe. We pulled in, a few points and gestures later, and the chap knew exactly what we wanted.

 I filled up with fuel whilst the boys were waiting for the wheel; 95 octane petrol has now dropped to 45 pence a litre, while the dirtier 90 octane is 35 pence. Not that we'd risk putting it in, but 80 octane fuel is 25 pence a litre. Crazy stuff..

 Tyre man successfully fixed our damaged wheel, and I asked for the price. Drawing it in the dust, whether on the floor or on Pete's windscreen (trust me, there is no point in washing the car, it gets filthy after a few minutes in the desert like conditions). He wrote 250 down, which then needs to be converted into our great British pound to ensure no ripping off was underway. It usually takes a minute, especially first thing in the morning, as we've done half a dozen currencies (if not more). The first figure that came to me couldn't be right, so I checked a bureau de change receipt, and in fact it was - to fix the tyre as good as new cost us Ј1.

 I love this place. I'm am actually rich here. I paid him Ј2, and told him to get a beer with the rest. He was very grateful, overly so, but it didn't seem right. How can I waste Ј2 on something as trivial as a magazine when that's his morning wages? I know, comparative pricing and everything, but it's still feels wrong somehow.

 On the way out of the city, which includes as always our compulsory tour of the inner workings of the city by accident, we found the road we wanted and sped out of the city limits. Too fast though it seems, and I was pulled over by a stationary police car, hovering just past our roundabout exit and about 30 feet away from the city end sign.

 I came up with a rather good idea yesterday, even if I do say so myself. Whether it's for speeding, crossing white lines, the fact we drive on the wrong side of the car or whatever rubbish excuse they make up, they'll always end up asking for a large amount of money. Even if you bargain them down, you still have to get the money from your wallet and there's still more we could have haggled it down. So now, whoever is driving, gets their wallet emptied - leaving about 2000 Tenge (about Ј8 or Ј9).

 The lone policeman came up to my window, and straight away asked for our documents. Standard procedure of course, and we learnt from the Mackey incident never to give our real driving license. Instead give them the International Driving Permit, an almost disposable but legal alternative. He told me to follow him back to his car - another bribe for another made up rule break no doubt, but I did as instructed and walked the short distance along the hard shoulder to his waiting car (which was a Lada. All police in Russia and Kazakhstan drive Ladas. How on earth are you supposed to keep up with a fleeing villain in a Lada?!).

 Once in the car, he had a small TV with a recording of me leaving the roundabout, and accelerating to 76kph. Apparently, according to him writing on his notepad, the limit was 60kph. Ooops. In my defence, there were no signs, and I waited for him to make his next move. Back on the notepad, he wrote the fine; 18,790 Tenge. Buggar. I'm thinking this was the official fine though, if we went and did it properly and actually got a receipt for the money, something that's certainly never happened before.

 I took my preprepared wallet from my pocket, and showed him how very little I had, about Ј7 in his currency. Taking it from the wallet and holding it below the dash level of the car, away from the prying eyes of the motorists whizzing (albeit at 60kph) past, he happily took it and told me i'm free to go.

 Now, I know I shouldn't have gone fast, but if i'd paid the huge fine, I bet none of it would have gone through the correct channels. But it is quite cool doing under the counter dealings with the local police, I won't deny it. Feel free to laugh at me when I do that with a UK constable (perhaps PC Kirkham) and get thrown in jail, all without thinking.

 We had a bit of a team meeting. We were over half way through our time, but only just over our milage target. Usually this would be a good thing, apart from we've done the luxury of European roads; from here on out is thousands of miles of questionable road (if any) through deserts and steppe. We decided to cut a small portion out of our Kazakh route, the Aral Sea. That's the big sea that dried up when the selfish Russian's diverted it's source rivers to increase their cotton production, and now the old port and fishing towns lay 50 miles away from the remaining salty water. We thought it would be cool to go and visit, but we all agreed we'd much rather crack on and definitely do the 28 challenge. Even if we do end up to be a few days early as we enter Mongolia, we could spend it in the Altai Mountains. Therefore, from Atrayau, we'd head north east to Oral and west from there.

 It's quite a good thing we discussed this almost in front of tyre man, as he caught the gist of what we were doing, and grabbed our map. He pointed to the road we had planned to take, a "yellow" road (similar to a British A road) as being very very bad and would destroy Pete the Saxo. Who are we to argue with a local? We thanked him for the advice, and decided to use a different road moving directly north to get to Oral, a road that would add on 400km to our trip. (With hindsight, the man obviously saved us some trouble. Other teams didn't have the local insight we were graced with, and even a Land Rover had to turn back after 160km).

 The road was fantastic, the complete opposite of what we'd expected to find. Newly laid tarmac, as straight as an arrow for dozens of kilometres before a slight bend and returning to another long stretch undeviating road. We cruised at 100km an hour (60mph), a speed that would get us where we aimed to be without taking an age, and looking after the car somewhat.

 We got to Oral in a half decent time, having stopped for lunch at a roadside canteen, used by the working class. Lunch was a delicious combination of noodles and meat stew/soup (unidentifiable meat), fried pastry with meat inside, and some chai. We met some Italians and Americans, all doing the rally as well, and set off once again. Will got pulled over by the police on quite a busy road, no idea this time what we had done but already preplanned and emptied the wallet of those colourful 5000 Tenge bills.

 Lights were an issue this time - we had dipped headlights on, following the lead from our fellow road users, but apparently this was wrong - full lights were to be used wherever and whenever we went. Will got escorted to the police hut next to the road, where he was shown video evidence of his fine. The bill? 7000 Tenge. Preplanning and an emptied wallet meant Will only had 2000. Great success.

 Mackey takes the third shift of the day, and I navigate and DJ (late night love with James Druce has become a regular feature in the small, cramped car filled with 3 men.) Towards Actobe was our next destination, a city further west and closer still to Mongolia. The driving was pretty good, other than the monotony of a unbending road for hours at a time. Even though this was a great road, with minimal pot holes and areas where they just haven't laid tarmac for 6 ft (it does happen) driving it makes you very tired.

 The one thing that kept Mackey driving, and me keeping him company, was the first rain drops we'd seen in a week. As soon as the first landed, we could smell that smell - the rain smell so distinguishable, but a thousand times stronger in a desert road which rarely sees water. Up ahead, a big lightning storm battled in the clouds, periodically lighting up the night sky and keeping us in awe with fork lightning and brief milliseconds when night turned into day., We drove until midnight-ish, where we were all tired. We spotted a picnic sign (confused us too, as we were in the middle of no where) and headed into an open car park, handily deserted other than us.

 We drove to the far end, found a spot we could pitch our coffin tents without drawing too much attention to ourselves, and started unpacking the car to begin the dark night in a car park. After a couple of minutes, while the boot was open and things were being removed from the efficient packing (ha) system, we saw a torch begin to walk towards us. From the hint of moonlight, only just above to make out the tree tops, it looked like something from The Hills Have Eyes. Seconds later, we could make out the figure of a man walking towards us - were we not allowed to sleep here? Would we be robbed? Mackey and I already planned to offer Will in exchange for our own lives.

 Until the man got within car light, and realised it was a 50 year old Kazakh wearing nothing but underpants. He knew a few broken phrases of English, probably a case of repeating them from passing tourists rather than understand the meanings behind them, but was very smiley. We explained what we were doing with gestures and points to the car stickers, and he understood. He then said two words which were music to the ears - "Coffee chai?". Absolutely!

 We walked/took the car over to the far side of the car park, where we noticed a small house of typical Kazakh design - a single story, white boarded and in dire need of Symons Construction. He walked up to the door, and started banging loudly and shouting. This confused us a great deal. Lots of ringing the door bell, shouting and banging. If this wasn't his house, whose was it? And why is he roaming the plains of Kazakhstan with nothing but pants and a torch? Eventually we worked out he was waiting for his wife to answer the door, and invited us in.

 It was quite an empty room, apart from a raised area taking up half the space. Almost like a stage in a theatre, on it lay a bright red patterned carpet and a very low round table - a Kazakh chai (tea) table. He got on first and confirmed to us it was a cross your legs at the table affair, and we joined him - still bewildered at the whole situation.

 His wife came through some 5 minutes later with a fresh pot of chai and 4 bowls (they don't use cups or mugs), and it was delicious. ChaiGuy (I forget his real name) brought out an old school photo album, the photos fading into time, but half way through were some scraps of paper from other Western tourists who'd done the same as us - found a clearing of land off the main road, decided to camp and instead ended up drinking chai with ChaiGuy. We, of course, added our own contact details and a nice message to him and inserted it into the collection of messages i'm sure he's never been able to understand.

 After a couple of cups, he explained this was a cafe for the car park, and I asked how much our drinks were. He asked for 200 Tenge, about 80 pence, for 9 cups of much needed chai. Despite looking like it might fall down at any time, and the guilt of the wife who'd been rudely awoke to make us a hot drink (and actually went back to sleep on the sofa in the room as soon as we started to drink), that's a pretty good deal!

 After we left, and headed back to the car, ChaiGuy made the sleeping gesture. You know, two hands placed next to your head, eyes briefly closing. We nodded and did the universal tent image, a triangle (despite ours looking like sarcophaguses. He shook his head and led us to a… well, I don't know what you'd call it. Just outside the front door, was a raised floor about 3 ft from the ground. Corrugated board surrounded it unto about 4ft, and then plants grew across a wooden grid surrounding it. With a roof on top. See, I can't describe it let along name it. Basically a raised platform from the ground, with vines forming the walls. He told us to sleep there - it only had 3 walls, the 4th completely open to the elements and the bugs. Mosquitoes was one word he knew though, and told us there were none.

 Ah well, when in Rome - we grabbed our sleeping bags, and lay on the raised platform, the three of us watching the now distant lightning as we fell asleep in the warm Kazakh night. No spooning took place.