Kazakhstan

Hello from Kazakhstan.

I've been here for almost a week and I'm comming home soon. The trip hasn't been pleasant and I miss my wife and my dog. They failed to mention that the rigs we had to meaure, are a 5 hour car ride from the city of Aktau. Not only is it a 5 hour dirve, but 4 of those hours are on an unpaved road that is easily the bumpiest road I've ever seen. When we got there, we got to stay in a camp. Two of us in a 12' x 4' room and three meals a day of 'camp food'. There was nothing else to do besides get up, go to the rigs (another 15 ride), work and then come back to camp. The landscape is completely barren...nothing but little desart plants and endless miles of dust. The wind is relentless and being outside is like being sandblasted. At least the wind keeps you somewhat cool becuase it had to be close to 35-40 degrees celcius. We were there for 4 days or so, and I didn't see one cloud the whole time...besides the clouds of dust that get blown into your eyes, ears, mouth and nose.

I'm back from the camp and in the city of Aktau. We were supposed to fly home today but our passports are still at a government office. The company sent them in becuase we needed to be registered to stay here longer than a week. It takes time for the paper work and it's not done yet. We should be able to leave tomorrow...I hope. I've written many pages about this trip, and I plan to put something together with photos etc...so anyone who is interested can read all about it.

Talk to you all later...I just want to go home :(
 
have a good one!!! take many thousands of pictures.

Hey over there your gonna be the star in a new movie called "Big Mike"

and yes that title is equally funny as Borat is to us !!! lolol
 
Sorry the trip isn't going well :( Hope you have a safe journey home!
 
haha, Im ` a bit late... but i wanted to tell you that its NOT a place to come.... its something like a big villige

Wel... I `m happy that you didnt pay for it.... =)
 
Have a safe trip home. You'll have tons of stories, anyway, even if the trip was nothing like you anticipated. I'll bet it was "an experience", as they euphemistically say.
 
Thanks for all the kind words...I'm now home, safe and sound.

Since I had a chance to post here, we got stuck in Aktau another day, then made it back to Almaty and spent about two days there before we finally flew out. The good news is that the things were much better for us, after getting back from camp. We stuck our toes in the Caspian Sea, we visited a WWII memorial, we went for beers with some of the guys, we did some shopping, we went up into the mountains, we even got to spend half a day walking around Frankfurt. I kept a journal and I think I have 28 pages or so of notes etc. I will eventually post it up in blog form with photos.

I'm very glad to be home...I don't want to go back but I'm glad for the experience. The company that requested us, really wants someone to come and supervise the installation but I don't think that I, or anyone at my company will be going...this is our busy season.
 
I am glad to hear you are back safe and feel for you and your camp experience there, but at least your forced stay in more civilized surroundings gave you the opportunity to see some less barren parts of Kazakhstan - and you will have had plenty of photo ops later. Good for us :D - so we will get so see some!

My husband's been to Kazakhstan once, 12 years ago, on business, too, but he never had to go that far out into the country, I think he stayed in a city all the time, so he did not think it too bad at the time. (Sorry to say so, Nukacola, but he actually liked his stay in Kazakhstan better than his stays in Russia because he wasn't forced to drink so much there!).
 

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