Awoke to the sounds of train vendors hawking their wares (and what crap they do sell!). Got in line for the washroom, which by the time I entered was a delightful cesspool of urine and body odor (to which I added my four-day-showerless fumes).
Feeling better after a bit of a splashbath, I found a wagon full of Petroleum Engineers heading to China to bone up on their Chinese skills.
(Their town, Aktau, had been recently invaded by a cadre of Chinese engineers and workers, and Chinese is becoming indispensible to Kazakh workers.) Also ran met a professional musician who pulled out his traditional two-string dombra and plucked away at some Kazakh Greatest Hits of centuries past.
Finally arrived in Shymkent and disembarked from the train, exchanged a little bit of money and found my hotel fairly easily. I splurged for a slightly larger room for $30/night. Grabbed my book and netbook and headed to the cafe across the way, had a little bit of shashlik and a few pivos and then headed to bed early, tired from the few days in the desert and the long train ride. Sadly, mosquito season (and massive grasshopper) started in Shymkent a few days ago, and my room had a few looking for a generation's worth of blood. (I hate to think what the cheap option would have been...)
No comments:
Post a Comment