Days 45, 46, & 47

Day 45

Thursday was an eventful day. We were up at 7:30 am, thanks to the orphanage schedule. Erlan is so happy when he wakes up. He gave us big smiles. He had a much more restful night of sleep. We put him on a pallet on the floor, and he pretty much stayed on it all night. We think he moved so much on the first night b/c he probably had a fever. Poor kid.

We spent most of Day 45 preparing to leave Aktobe. There were phone calls to our interpreter making sure our paperwork would be ready. There were phone calls to our interpreter to get help buying train tickets. There was the last minute meeting with our coordinator to get our paperwork and make the final payments. There was the cleaning of the apartment and packing of our stuff. Ben had to buy food for our trip, since we would be on the train for two days.

The best part of the day was a visit from our friends Agnes and Sacha. Agnes’ parents came from Belgium to Aktobe. They also came to visit us. It was such a treat to meet her parents and to see Agnes and Sacha before we left. Erlan was a bit afraid of Agnes’ parents at first, but he slowly warmed up. By the end of the visit, he was throwing stacking cups with Agnes’ father. Hopefully we will see them again in Almaty.

At 6:30 pm, Bayana and Cerik came to pick us up for our train trip. Bayana and her sisters made us some fried bread for the trip and gave us a jar of honey to go with the bread. They were so tasty. They were perfect for the train trip.

We made many friends in Aktobe, almost all were from other parts of the globe. Bayana and Cerik were the two people from Aktobe that we came to consider to be a friend. Bayana always went above and beyond by taking us out for dinner or to the market. She was friendly and positive. She is so confident for a person who is 21 years old. She graduates from University this Spring. I know that she will be very successful in whatever endeavor she decides to pursue.

Cerik was our driver. He was always friendly. He and Ben always managed to share a laugh despite the language differences. They also managed to talk quite a lot about cars. Like his daughter (Bayana), Cerik always had a ready smile. We will miss Cerik and Bayana.


This is Zhuma, one of the conductors. Bayana told him the cities where we could depart if we wanted, and Zhuma told us when we got there.

By 7:30 pm, we were aboard the train and in our cabin with bags stored. We ate a quick meal of soup, and we were in bed by 9:00 pm. We slept soundly.

Day 46

Erlan slept on the floor between the bunks. He awoke, stretched himself, sat up, looked at us, and smiled. I looked at his cute little face and noticed some red dots. I checked his belly—more red dots. Yep, he has chicken pox. We were about ¼ of the way through our trip and discovered he definitely has chicken pox. We had medicine with us, so we were able to keep him comfortable and keep his fever down. The only real difference in his behavior was that he let me hold him like a baby. Under normal circumstances, he does not allow this. After all, a 2-year old boy has way more interesting things to do than to be cuddled by Mama all the time.

Erlan really enjoyed looking out the window. The most interesting architecture that we’ve observed thus far in Kazakhstan has to be the cemeteries. Here is a picture of one. We saw several on our train journey.

We also saw farms. Being farm kids, this was naturally very interesting to us. From what we could see, the men do not use plows to break the ground. They use shovels. While we saw plenty of hay, we didn’t see any hay bales. We either saw stacked hay or hay bundles--I can't think of the name now. In some cases, they must have trucked in the hay b/c we didn’t see ground that would grow grass.

I thought the coolest thing that we saw were the camels. Camels have always fascinated me. On one farm, we saw a guy tell his camel to sit down so he could climb on. Here is a picture of camels that we saw grazing.

We saw sheep (goat) herders with flocks of sheeps (or goats). We saw cows. We saw horses. Erlan loved watching the animals.


Here's a picture of another train getting a thorough inspection by Kazakh police.

The only stop where we really wanted to get off was Turkistan. The stop looked interesting, it had signs up celebrating 1500 years. We didn’t get off of the train. We didn’t want to accidentally miss it, b/c we were busy looking at souvenirs. At most stops, we only saw people selling food. At Turkistan, we even saw a guy selling dombras (a Kazakh two stringed guitar).

After Turkistan, we slept. I think the most scenic part of our train ride occurred while we slept. I could feel the train climbing at one point in the night. At another point, Ben woke me up so I could see a very pretty river.

Day 47

We finished our train ride. Erlan was a great train traveler. He managed to burn off energy by climbing up and down on our bunks. He and Dad made a few trips up and down the aisle. Even though he was sick, he was a happy traveler. I think he's just very happy to be with us, so he takes everything in stride. Since Tuesday, Erlan has lived in our Aqtobe apartment for two days, a train for two days, and now our Almaty apartment. He has not missed a meal, a nap, or a bed time.

In terms of our train ride, I cannot say that it was the most scenic train ride I have ever taken, but I am very happy we did it. Much of the country on the first day looked a lot like the desert Southwest in the U.S. On the second day, the views kind of reminded me of eastern Colorado, with distant huge mountains awaiting.

While we didn’t see spectacular views, we did see parts of Kazakhstan that we would have missed by flying. We saw scenes of daily life in rural Kazakhstan that were interesting to us even if we couldn’t stop and ask questions about why a particular building was deserted or why a factory was shut down.

Best of all, the train afforded us with an economical way of seeing the country and gave Ben the chance to take an overnight train (I, being the more worldly of the two of us, had traveled by overnight train before). The train cost us $200 for the three of us—that’s right, only $200. We would have spent about $600 to $800 for the three of us to fly to Almaty. We had a private 7’ by 8’ room that was very nice and comfortable. It also had a restaurant that we didn’t go to but sampled by way of the walking waitresses.

We arrived in Almaty right on schedule. We were greeted by our coordinator Marina and our driver Sam. They took us to our apartment, which is in an awesome part of the city. We are within walking distance of many tourist sites. Marina gave us a list and description of the sites, along with a map of where to find them. She also took us to the pharmacy so we could get more meds for Erlan, and she showed us where to buy internet cards, souvenirs, and groceries. Best of all, Marina has a pug!!! Hopefully we’ll get to meet him before we leave.

Our apartment is 20 degrees cooler than our apartment in Aqtobe, which is wonderful. It is so nice not to swelter all the time. Also, there is no dust (beyond the normal amounts you expect in life). Finally, it is a two-bdrm apartment! Erlan has his own room! Ok, he didn’t sleep in it last night b/c we were worried that he’d be scared if he woke up in the night. Yes, he did sleep with us b/c we were also worried that he was too cold—we were actually cold last night.

Last night, we hung out and watched TV. The three of us were tired from our journey. We were watching swimming. Erlan really liked watching the competition, especially the awards ceremonies. Whenever the victors would wave to the crowd, Erlan waved back. If they did a two-hand wave, Erlan gave a two-hand wave back. When the crowd was shown clapping, Erlan clapped too. It was very funny.

We are very happy to be in Almaty.

Today's video is of a video of our train compartment and a quick shot of the scenery. You'll even see me in the video. I carefully selected pictures that didn't include me, b/c no one looks their best after two days without a shower. :-)