Well I thought it would be my last post but I'm sitting in the Hotel Kazakhstan lobby with blisteringly fast wi-fi so now I can bore you some more.
Our train was leaving at midnight and we we're told to get there at ten so like the obedient English folk we are we arrived on time and were told by some Chinese guards to wait outside the station until we were called, it was probably about -6 degrees. So we joined the gang of Kazakhs with their overstuffed shoppers and oversized tv sets for about 20 minutes until we were all herded into the waiting room.
We boarded the train and had two cabins which slept four each between five of us, even still space was at a premium, let's call it cosy. We set off and I couldn't have been happier; nothing to do for 36 hours except read, chat and sleep —
hot water on tap at one end of the carriage and a little section to go and smoke in at the other. Then it got hotter and we realised there was no way to open any windows so the obvious solution was to drink the bottle of orange flavoured vodka that we bought at the Urumqi Carrefour earlier in the day. By midnight we were drunk and sweaty and possibly a touch rowdy but we were happy, especially at the prospect of the first lie-in for about 2 weeks. So we went to bed — and it got hotter. In the middle of the night I dreamt that I was trapped in the back of a Land Cruiser and woke up to find myself feeling the cabin walls trying to get out. I managed to calm myself down and after a trip to the
toilet that looked like the electric chair I went straight back to sleep.
At 8am the train guard started banging on the cabin doors. Cheesed off and mighty crumpled I opened the door to find the Chinese border officials demanding our passports which they promptly whisked away in a handbag. After two hours of questions, bag searches and waiting they returned our passports and sent us on our way — about a mile down the track to the Kazak border officials for another two hours of questions, bag searches and waiting. The Kazak customs lady was very cool though, high heels and a pencil skirt. She was concerned about Chinese milk products and new electronic products (God help the TV toting passengers). She told me that my flash drives were "forbidden" but "is OK, next time" and then laughed at my bag of Chinese mushrooms and Snickers bars.
Another mile down the track we turned our watches back two hours and pulled into a station where we had been told by others who have taken the train before that we'd be able to get off for a couple of hours while they changed the gauge. Apparently the window for getting off was about 30 seconds wide and probably involved hurling yourself onto the tracks as there didn't seem to be a platform in sight. Needless to say we missed our opportunity and were shunted another mile down the track where they decoupled the carriages, jacked us up into the air, rolled out the wheels and rolled new ones in. All bloody fascinating but it had been about six hours since the toilet door had last been open and the only thing I was likely to be eating for the next 24 hours would be Snickers and dried mushrooms. With fresh wheels, some more enormous TV sets and a couple of tractor wheels got on and we set off across the Kazak steppe which went from bloody grim and windswept to pretty darn beautiful after an hour or so; mountains, lakes and a great sunset which I just couldn't quite manage to stay awake for.
After a nap Abby gave me her spare pot of spicy beef noodles which went down a treat and we cracked open our meagre beer supply, settling in for our second sweltering and by now almost oxygen free night. The only way to cool down was to go and stand in the 'smoking compartment' and open the door to the next carriage so you could see the track flying by below. The Kazaks were doing much fearless carriage hopping but I didn't fancy it in my hotel slippers. Just as we were beginning to lament not having bought the bottle of apple flavoured vodka too we pulled into a tiny station where the locals had set up stalls of preserved fish, soft drinks, cigarettes and booze, we reckon we could see a Twix. So Alastair lept off and procured us a bottle of
ice cold vodka but even with our best efforts we were too tired and hot to finish it.
I slept well the second night despite the heat and at 5am, an hour before we were due to arrive, the guard gave us our wake up call and repossessed our sheets. By now the atmosphere was akin to Mars and because you could only get two drops of water out of the tap at once with one hand I was reeking like a heavyweight boxer. After the customary Nescafe and Snickers breakfast we arrived at Almaty. To get from the train to the station hall you had to lug your bags across a couple of train tracks, I was so glad we didn't have to carry a telly. Then we had to negotiate with a hoard of taxi touts before selecting the two who looked least likely to sell us to their cousins. We got to the hotel and paid the drivers, when I pessimistically asked one of them if he had a receipt he pulled out his wallet and found a bona fide looking blank receipt and told me I could fill in the amount myself, then he shook my hand and kissed me.
It was 7am and the hotel staff said that we couldn't check in until 12 but could have our rooms at 9??? They took our luggage and we overdosed on breakfast. By now none of us could lift our arms up without making ourselves gag so we set off for the local baths. The prospect of seeing your colleagues in the nud was worrying some of our party but not me, I just needed to get clean.
The baths were fab. There were three sauna rooms, each one hotter than the next but I think I went in the hottest first; you had to leave your flip-flops outside the room and the floor nearly burnt your feet. Then there was a cold plunge pool which really did take your breath away when you first got in but was lovely once you got going and in between each section there were showers with jets that felt as if you were being hit with a big stick. I passed on the opportunity to have a massage, buy a myrtle branch to whip myself with or throw a bucket of cold over my head but "is OK, next time". I had my final hose down to wash away the last of the sand from my ears and helped a lady back into the shower who had soap in her eyes. Then I forgot which locker I'd put my clothes in and had to get the attendant to open half a dozen before I found my steaming heap — I probably could have sniffed them out faster and realised I had missed the chance to go away with a blonde wig and some D&G sparkles. But packed like the holy grail I had clean underwear and a T-shirt but no socks, Abby to the rescue again with a choice of black or pink and white striped. A quick zap under the hair roaster and I was ready to go feeling tickety-boo (a phrase we decided to teach our Chinese colleagues with the assurance that it would come in very handy when they visit London next year).
Hamburgers for lunch and then I cut loose from the group to have a wander on my own. When we came through Almaty on the way out I thought it was a god-forsaken dump but it was Sunday, we were jet-lagged, it was snowing and my room was a Soviet era hole that would be perfect to come to if you wanted to end it all, I felt like Barton Finkovsky. But this time the weather is mild and the sun is out. If you leave the main drag it seems like quite a pleasant, peaceful place and people haven't stared at me as much as they have in the past two weeks. We're staying at the same hotel as before but I've got a brighter room with a great view of the mountains. I'm not sure what we're going to do tomorrow but I'll be sure to let you know, I was going to have a nap but it's taken me all afternoon to write this drivel so I'm off to check out something dubbed on the telly for an hour before we venture out for some cabbagey stodge.
After one of the longest days ever listening to lectures in Chinese and watching the local kids perform we were taken out for dumplings and beer. It was the first informal meal we've had since we arrived and as always it starts out all nice and polite until the toasting starts. If someone raises their glass to you personally and says "Gambei" it means 'dry glass' and you have to drain your glass or in this case bowl.
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