A postcard from Kazakhstan

So....Kazakstan. A big empty place. I believe the original inhabitants were nomads, travelling and living in Yurts. Then, fairly recently, oil was discovered in the Caspian sea. Now the country is coming into the 21st century..but slowly. As I found on my train journey down to Tengiz, the oil camp on the south-east shores of the Caspian sea, there's a whole lot of empty space.

View from a train - unchanging for 4 hours!

 When I got to the camp, there's also a lot of nothing, a desert with pipelines and refinery plonked in the middle of it.

Pipes sand and flowers!

Home sweet home ?

 The accommodation is pretty basic, but then we work 12 hour days, 7 days a week so there's not exactly a lot of free time.

Luxurious - no!!

 Any free time I got I spent playing with the local wildlife!

After a month in the camp I swore I wouldn't go back, but after a 4 week break I got asked to go back but stay in Atyrau, a city on the north bank of the sea. A lot more decent than the camp, I'm staying in a proper hotel this time and doing normal office work, so I can handle that for 4 weeks.

Renaissance hotel with mosque behind

 I actually get Sundays off, so make a point of getting some exercise by walking along the river bank. That's the Ural river, which (allegedly) marks the change from Europe to Asia - I have to say it all looks pretty much the same! There are the new prestige buildings built by the oil companies sitting alongside new 5 star hotels, just along from some pretty basic dwellings for the locals.

Europe on left bank, Asia to the right.

 As you can see, I've been lucky with the weather, its drifting through autumn now so the temperature is reasonable. They actually get extreme weather here, ranging from 35 degC (95F) in summer, to minus 35 degC (minus 31F) in winter, when this river freezes over two feet thick ice and the locals drive their cars along it!!

 My experience here has been reasonable, helped by living in comfort this time. I'm pretty sure the locals would be happy if we foreigners weren't here, but then that's the same in every oil town I've worked in - Aberdeen in Scotland being the worst!!!

Europe, allegedly

proud to be an oil town

 So only another 10 days and I'll be home to London. Then its a quick trip up to Hanover, Germany for a weeks' treatment, then home to start packing and organising my next trip. I've decided to blow half the money I've earned here on a nice long adventure to central America - the other half of the money is reserved for that new bike I promised myself! Happy days!

Ooh all excited! New Triumph Scrabler 1200 announced

Unfortunately I couldn't go to the preview at London's Excel centre as I've succumbed to greed and come back out to Kazakstan for another month - but this time I am definitely going to get a new bike when I get home, and I think this is it! Pictures off the internet today.

The Kop Hill climb, 108 years and still going strong

Early Sunday morning I wheeled the Tiger out of the garage for our first decent ride since I got back from Kazhakstan. A quick blast around the M25 motorway devoid of traffic, a stop for petrol and breakfast, within 2 hours I was riding around the picturesque Oxfordshire contry lanes heading for the Kop Hill climb.

The first year a race was held up the Kop Hill in pretty Princes Risborough was 1910, motorcycles only. The following year, cars joined in. The course record for a car was set by Count Zborowski in his 8-cylinder Bailot, climbing the narrow winding hill course in 26.8 seconds. Then in 1925, Freddie Dixon rode his highly-tuned Douglas motorcycle at 81mph from a standing start to smash the record. Unfortunately, at that same meeting, a spectator refused to move off the course and was hit & broke his leg. This resulted in the RAC removing the racing licence from the Hill Climb.

Nowdays the cars and bikes still run up the hill each year, but as a 'parade', no racing allowed. Mind you, this is the second time I've attended the event, and some of the participants definitely give it their all!

There is an excellent and eclectic mix of old & newer bikes, along with every make and model of old car you can imagine, with a few new supercars thrown in. Mix in with food and drink stalls, a fairground for the kids, and some car clubs & car manufacturers stands, and its a great day out for the mechanical enthusiast. I spent the whole day there, and just standing on the start line watching and listening to the mechanical mayhem as the cars and bikes blasted off the line (well, some of them!) brought a massive smile to my face!

Day over, I weaved back through the traffic on the now crowded motorway to get back home, feet up and read the Sunday paper. If only every day could be this good !! I'll post some photos below to give you an idea of the eclectic mix of vehicles there.

A mini-adventure ... to Kazakhstan

You know, sometimes I feel a little like a male prostitute ..... there I was, enjoying being back home after working in Belgium, and, having decided I'd made enough money not to work again this year, was determined to just enjoy the summer riding the Tiger. Then, out of the blue an old friend asked if I'd like a job in Kazakstan. I said no, definitely not. Then he said its just for 4 weeks to do a specific job... and I started thinking about that Z900RS I drooled over in my last post.

So, Tuesday morning I caught the 6.30am flight Heathrow to Amsterdam, then transferred to the Air Astana flight to Atyrau. The flight was as bad as I'd expected; old plane, no room between the seats, no on-board entertainment - but at least I got the vegan meal I'd ordered. Funny, but the plane was completely full - of oil workers! Not one Kazhak national to be seen.

Looking out of the window as we came in to land was fairly depressing, just a vast, flat brown desert all the way to the horizon, with a tiny little city, literally in the middle of nowhere. The airport is just a runway with a little hut on it, immigration and baggage reclaim took forever; it was all just as backward as I'd imagined it.

But, big surprise of the day was being dropped off at the hotel, which is a big modern chain hotel with all facilities (they even cater for vegetarian/vegans) - I was imagining some kind of shack based on the places we saw on the ride from the airport.

Then today I went in to the office, which is just across the road from the hotel, to get the next big surprise - I'm not going to be working here, I'm going to be on a camp on the edge of the Caspian sea. I have to take a 2 1/2 hr train ride, then a 1 1/2 hr bus transfer to a camp on a refinery, where I'll be working 12 hour days straight through for 4 weeks. Can't say I'm particularly happy about this, but it's too late now to change my mind.

So, you won't hear from me again until I get home in a month. Hopefully the next post will be me on my new bike :)

Leaving Belgium

The job finished, so I packed the Tiger and left Antwerp happy, ready for the next little adventure. It didn't take long to ride down into France and get the Eurotunnel train back to England; had a slight mis-hap when the battery went dead just as I was getting on the train. I pushed it on and had a little look around the bike during the journey, ah, I'd connected the sat-nav directly to the battery, must have left it on with the engine turned  off and run down the battery. Doh! Luckily, the train guard had radioded ahead and a breakdown truck was waiting when we pulled in to Folkestone; a quick jump start and we were off! Home in no time.

The next day I took the Tiger to the Triumph dealer for a check-over, that Belgian pave had shaken the hell out of it, they found some loose bolts plus changed the brake fluid for me. While I was waiting the salesman let me go out for a ride on the Explorer, thats the 1200-engined one, like mine but bigger (and heavier). I rode the top of the range model with full electronics. To be honest, it was as I'd expected, just like mine but faster in a straight line but more ponderous round the twisties. Got back to the dealer, asked how much - £16k you must be joking!!

While I was out and about, I thought I'd run down to the Kawasaki dealer and check out that lovely Z900RS. Well, the salesman let me take one out for a ride (it was a nasty-looking matt green colour). Oh man that made a lovely noise! I rode around in 2nd & 3rd just to hear the noise, loved it! And in the right colour, it looked beautiful. I was sorely tempted, but at £10k and only £3900 trade-in on the Tiger it was not to be (well not yet anyway ;)

Demo bike

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Green cafe racer version looks nice

The best colour!

Lovely rear end!