Tomorrow I will start my journey back home...a long journey. In one week alone I have traveled more than 50hrs, by every transport available. Trucks, Trains and Planes. Will be heading out of Zhannajol camp to Aktobe and spending a night there, the next day I will be flying to Almaty and spending a night there too.
20hr Super Star Express
I just got to Aktobe this morning, the 20hr train ride wasn't so bad actually. It was quite fun. It is an old train with lots of cabin which has 4 bunk beds. It was kinda cramp but quite comfortable. Although there was problem with storing my luggage.
I was accompanied by a Kompani GIS office girl, Svetlana, cos it's hard to travel through Kazakhstan alone if you don't speak any russian. So the company sent her with me. She doesn't speak English too. But we use a little translation book she had. Haha.
The journey started at 3:30PM from the town of Kyzlorda. It made many stops along the way...some short and some long. Enough time to run down to get some food or just to stretch your legs...but I hardly recommend the latter. As you travel up north, it gets colder.
The cabin was OK, depends on your standards. But I am used to it because of the condition of my camp in Kumkol. The toilet is terrible though. Dirty and smelly. Ugh! And they have this weird little water heater. So unique in design that I thought it was a distiller from the olden days. Got a picture but sadly I don't have the cable to upload the pics.
In our cabin was other 2 men, both heading to Aktobe. One of them is a university student traveling a camp nearby Zhannajol for practical before graduating. The other is for work. The student speaks little english, but good enough to communicate. Kazakshtan are a friendly bunch. They offered to share their food and even bought me some beer. Cool eh? We ate and drank and talk...sorta. At first I was wondering about what am I going to do for 20hrs in a train. Guess time flew by if you enjoying yourself eh?
A few stops I went down to stretch my legs and saw lots of doggies running about, all searching for food or hoping for passengers alighting from the train to throw some scraps. Peddlers are walking about to sell you things, mostly food. Even dried salty fish....it's the custom to drink beer and eat salty fish. Weird but kinda nice.
Slept rather well in the night. Quite warm in the cabin, and thank goodness none of the people snored. Woke up and coffee was made by Svetlana. Ate some bread, hard boiled eggs and cold sausage. After 20hrs, we arrived at Aktobe. Grabbed my luggage and waited for the driver to come.
Another Adventure
Tomorrow I'll be taking another adventure through this country, traveling from Kyzlorda to Aktobe via train. My butt is gonna get sores from this trip...20hrs of chugging. This is normal for the people who works here. They usually live in towns far away from the oil fields. Like Karaganda. Some 26hr train ride away.
And by train I don't mean those nice cushy ones we have back at home...wait...I take it back...our trains are crap! Beyond crap! I guess anything is still better than our stinky trains back home eh? Anyway, trains here are the old kinds where I remember taking them from KL to Singapore. Sways sideways the whole journey.
The reason I'm heading up north is for my breakout exam! Yay! Finally after more than a year of waiting I am finally "graduating". I have already prepared my 120 slide presentation...Yup...long and gruesome. Reckon it will take about 8hrs. Nice. After my breakout, I will head back to my ol' camp in Libya. Funny, once you have been to the worse kind of camps...I find the camp in Libya is like Hilton compared to here.
Lord of the Snow
It snowed again yesterday.....a full day till 3AM this morning. It started light in the morning and during the evening, strong winds started to join in the fun. Hard to move around the camp, even to the mess hall. Strong winds + heavy snow = Slapped with hundreds of ice. LOL.
In the nite, the snow was already 1 feet high. I can barely walk with the boots I have on. Worse is that I was locked in my room....the snow barricaded my door from the outside. Haha. Had to use force to push open the door. And had to shovel the snow away. Then this morning I had to do it all over again. In Malaysia we have to deal with flood and here I have to deal with frozen water. Although I never have to deal with flood at my house.
Frozen in Time
I've been here for almost 3 weeks now and only been to 3 jobs. All short ones. Apparently the weather here isn't helping to the drilling, everything tends to freeze under -35. I guess the steamers didn't help much.
I can see liquids freezes before my very eyes. That is how cold it is here. Well, nothing much to do except sittin in my room watchin movies and playing some games. Also reading up on my job related stuff. Preparing for my breakout, hopefully it can be done this trip. So I won't have to return to this depressing place. My boss needs me back in the desert, apparently I'm the most "senior" once I return there. I will have to lead everything for the Compact tools. Greatt......
At least I get to have a short holiday in States after my training course in Houston in April. Randi will be coming over and we will travel from Texas to New York. Gonna be a short 2weeks excursion. Since my frequent flyer account has enough points to redeem a ticket for her.
Anyways, still waiting for my laundry. Haih. Get paid to sit around eh?
Heaven's Swarovski
As the title says, fresh snow on the ground with the sun shining on it makes it look heaven peppered the earth with swarovski crystals. Everything just sparkles. Get to be a "Sua Ku", was so excited when checking out snow flakes that fell on my black jacket, I can see each of the unique design of the flake. Such beauty.
Last night was out on a rush job. Kinda came last minute, was ready for bed and suddenly got a call for a job at 3AM. So I packed and made sure I took extra clothes for layering. Since it gets pretty cold at during dead hours in the night...I mean really really cold. Say -35 degrees. So we got there and unloading the equipment from the truck and it started to snow. Little at first then it got heavy. The snow lasted till 10AM.
With 6inches of snow, my shoe was covered to the top. Luckily I bought myself a ski pants...and it kept my legs dry from the snow. Money well spent. Apparently last night it wasn't that cold, it was perfect to work in. It was around 5 to 10 degrees and it was great. Kinda gotten used to the cold temperature except when it drops below zero, that is a different story altogether.
A Sex Scandal...but....Ewwww!
I was shocked to see the headlines in thestar.com.my this morning. It was about a sex DVD...hmmm...so they changed it from sex tape eh? keeping up with the trend I see. Anyways, it was about the Health minister Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek. His "endeavor" with a personal friend has hit the Malaysian box office and has led to a press conference to apologise for it.
Read more at thestar.com.my
As I was looking for more news inside thestar, I stumbled upon something really funny. The headlines at the "Most Viewed" section.
The first title is 'Chua says sorry over sex DVD', if you scanned through the topics and come to the fourth topic which is 'Chua - Highly experienced'. If you read them together like that it seems like the the 4th article is telling that Chua is highly experienced in bed as shown on the DVD? Haha.
That article just explains how successful and experience he is as a minister for his past work. What a relief.
Happy New Year 2008...Let's Party!
Yea....bye bye 2007, hellooooo 2008. It has been a great year! And this is a New Year to start anew! I have plenty of New Year's Resolution liao. Gonna be lots of changes in this new year.
Anyways, last nite was a blast. I was invited to the guy's hut for an early session of yamseng...and I mean real early....5PM. Cos they wanna celebrate Fanil's 50th birthday early too. His birthday's on January 1st, how cool is that. They only drink neat Vodka, and that did not go too well with me. I took a break at around 8PM to sleep it off and was dragged out again at 10PM. Haha.
At 11:30PM, we were called over the workshop for a New Year countdown. Everyone was there. Some trucks we moved outside to make room for a dance floor....yup....dance floor. Russian and English music was playing. I had the honor of opening a bottle of champagne too. Was cheering and I was asked to give a speech in my own language and Vitaly will translate it to them. Since I was half drunk, I say why the hell not eh?
And then everyone was groovin' at the dance floor. Man, these russian guys and gals are sporting. Young and old alike just dancing away. And I was dragged in too. Haha. I even won a prize for being the best dancer I think. It was quite a good New Year celebration. I mean apart from spending time with my loved ones. Especially with Randi. Da Best!
Well, more drinking and dancing. This old man called Yuri, he grabs and made me his drinking buddy last night. Really nice fellas. Everyone is friendly and hospitable. Will post up some pics and videos later.
A BLESSED NEW YEAR TO EVERYONE!!
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