Day 90: Bones of a butchered sea

The train dropped me off in  Aralsk near midnight.  I knew town was only a kilometre away, but I felt a little nervous so I took a taxi.  The destination was easy: there was only one hotel in town and the other accommodation choices I knew of were all near it.

Friends, if you go to Aralsk, try not to stay in the hotel there.  My room cost me KZT 4000 per night - about AUD 32 at the then current exchange rate - and might have been acceptable at half that.  It had an ancient and ineffectual aircon unit (at least it moved the air - until my second night there, when the fan quit and could not be persuaded to continue) and its own bathroom with a trickle of cold water but the decor was Ancient Ruin.  The window curtain was a doona cover.

Day 89: Active in Aktau

Fleeing Baku, which had become hateful to me, I flew across the Caspian Sea and landed in Kazakhstan. I was excited. Three years ago I had planned to visit Central Asia. Alas, the difficulty of getting the first couple of visas defeated me then – I was coming from Iran and my first country would be Turkmenistan, whose visas are possibly hardest to acquire of all the 'stans; then Uzbekistan, almost as bad.

Day 88: Alrighty in Almaty

I have been remiss again.

When last I ranted, I was in Dilijan, Armenia. I'm now on the other side of the Caspian Sea in Almaty, Kazakhstan, and much has happened.