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.

Coming from the Caucasus put me in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan instead, two of the easiest visas in Central Asia.

My landfall was Aktau, a strange, isolated place on the eastern shore of the Caspian. Aktau was a place of huge, blocky buildings set far apart. It was an oil boom town, so prices, already inflated by distance, were boosted again by fat wallets. But I had the address of a cheap guesthouse, and in the end it was one of the cheaper cities I have stayed in. I liked it and only my itchy feet, legacy of ten irritating days trapped in Baku, could force me to move on within a couple of days instead of lingering.

I nearly couldn't move on. The trains were full. I finally purchased an unreserved place – a seat in carriage "00". This got me aboard the train, where bribery and corruption allowed me to upgrade it to a sleeper berth.

I nearly didn't even get aboard the train. The bastards ran me from one end to the other and back again, seeking that mythical carriage number 0. Only as the train was pulling out did they relent and drag me aboard. I was within twenty seconds of being, as Paul Theroux dubbed the experience, "Duffilled". I am quite sure this was deliberate – they were trying to soften me up for the negotiations that would follow. But all they achieved was make me angry and determined to pay them as little as possible. (I still paid too much.)

I ended up in 3rd class, Platskartny. Berths were stacked three high in the doorless compartments, and three high along the aisle. The carriage was indeed very nearly full. However, some people were transporting a huge baby stroller (but no baby). It occupied the top two berths in their compartment, and they had colonised the aisle berths rather than try to fit themselves around the monster. Wages and prices being what they are in Kazakhstan, they had probably paid only for as many berths as they had people in their group, so they were actually occupying two more berths than they were entitled to. There was a heated discussion with the steward – the "Provodnik" – before they reluctantly ceded a lower berth to me, two of them doubling up in the aisle.

The train was old.  The aircon didn't work and in consequence most of the windows were open to catch the breeze.  It turned out to be quite a fun passage, with plenty of opportunities for people-watching and trying to talk to each other.

At Atyrau I stayed in the station hostel or "gostinitsa" because due to the way the timetables worked out, my next train was departing Atyrau early the next morning.  But I took a bus into town and walked across the bridge that has monuments at each end announcing that here you are in Europe, there in Asia.  And so farewell to Europe.  Technically I had been in Europe while I was in the Caucasus, a geographical curiosity that depends on where you draw the limits of each "continent".  Russia as far east as the Urals is in Europe.  The mountains of the Cauсasus form the southern boundary (so in fact crossing from Turkey to Georgia represents going from Asia to Europe) although arguably, Georgia is south of that border.  The Ural River, which is the river that runs through Atyrau, forms the south-eastern border.

Aralsk.  The first personal "must do" of the trip.  I arrived near midnight and took a taxi to town.

To be continued ...