Steve travels #34: To the games
I can’t think of anything better to do with my morning in Shymkent than to wander back to the same cafe as yesterday. The staff are very concerned at my selection of a chocolate macaroon, and go to great lengths to try to explain to me what it is, to warn me of some impending disappointment. It’s delicious. And the flat white is served my favourite way: no saucer, no spoon.
Suddenly I’m being asked to pay. But they have no change. At all. They take my note anyway. Eventually it transpires that they have, in fact, negative change. They needed my note in order to provide change for a previous customer. Still, they’re really nice, and it’s so good to have a decent coffee I’m not bothered.
Boarding the train is the usual unnecessary fluster. I’m an hour early, but there are long announcements about my train, which I can’t understand. And there is never an information board for confirmation, so all I can do is wait impatiently to show my ticket to someone that confirms that everything is fine.
My two bed cabin is nice, but no more spacious than the 2nd class sleeper I had in Uzbekistan. The big change is the somewhat baffling addition of a private bathroom. Really. Every single first class cabin with its own toilet and shower. For now, I have the cabin to myself. There’s lots of space to stash my stuff and get settled in, but my top bunk is not comfortable for sitting, so I go and explore.
Fortunately, I’m very close to the dining car, which is comfortable and a nice, peaceful place to hang out for about five minutes until a very rowdy group of locals arrives. Suddenly the whole carriage is transformed with the energy of a drunken student party. Everyone is trying to outdo each other with their one-liners and everybody is cracking up. Even the staff can’t keep straight faces.
I’m not sure if it’s better or worse that I can’t understand, but even with earbuds in it’s a lot. They are all straight into the beer, of course, served in half full pint glasses and…straws. It keeps up for a couple of hours, until the life of the party gets off at a station and things simmer down a bit.
Meanwhile the scenery is pretty pleasant. Gentle hills and brown grass remind me a lot of home - they just need a few more gum trees.
My bunkmate has also arrived: a mother and a boy maybe 3 or 4. My attempts at a pre-dinner nap are interrupted by his watching stuff on a phone, and his random yelling.
By now the dining car is packed and the staff are rushed off their feet. There are two waiters: a young woman who seems to be doing all the work, and an older lady whose job seems to be mostly looking around disapprovingly and poking at bits of paper. It’s a while before I get a seat, and even longer before I can get an order in.
A group of friendly Kazakhs opposite strike up a conversation. There’s Aynor, a woman who speaks excellent English and works for an American resources company, her husband Kana, and their extremely drunk friend Ka…something. While I’m trying to talk to Aynor, he’s constantly interrupting to demand that I drink with him (I refuse, stone-cold, it’s the only way), to yell “I love you” at me, or to try to say things beyond his level of English and/or current level of sobriety. Suddenly his face brightens like he has had a flash of inspiration, and he gets up and wanders off.
After a minute of peace and quiet, and then he returns, bearing…a bag of melon. He hands one to me proudly. I’m groaning on the inside, but I accept - it’s better than a beer. Kazakh melons are not my favourite: they are similar to a canteloupe, but stretched out like a football, and pale inside. The flavour is generally pleasant but unexciting. And a whole melon is an awful lot for one person. What on earth am I going to do with it?
In all the chaos, my dinner order has been forgotten, a situation my new friends help resolve. Beef stroganoff while bouncing through the Kazakh steppes is a pretty fun experience. Before the crew heads to bed, I get them to double check that the dining car definitely opens at 8am, and of course they share their contact details with me.
I eventually toddle off to bed, where fortunately bottom bunk kiddo is already asleep. In the end, it’s a pretty good night’s sleep, despite the very bumpy train tracks.
Keen to beat the breakfast rush and get a seat, I’m up well before 8. But first, the novel experience of a shower on a moving train - temperature is great, but pressure is risible. But even well past the appointed time, the dining car remains deserted, apart from two staff slumbering away. At the bar next door, I give my impassioned “but you promised you’d be open at 8” mime performance, and get a withering “you can’t possibly expect us to run a dining service at 8 when we’re arriving at Astana at 9:15” look in return. Alas, there will be no romantic rolling coffee this morning. Somehow, everybody else on the train already knew this, and there are no other disappointed guests.
When we arrive in due course, I bid last night’s gifted melon a fond farewell and leave it on my bunk. I tried, but there’s no practical way to carry it. As I’m sneaking out, a conductor checks my room and notices it. Magnanimously I gift it to him, which he accepts uncertainly.
Now let’s see if Astana is as bad as everyone says.