Nat Geo? BBC?

Cassie:
A few times on this trip we've been asked if we're with National Geographic or the BBC which is hilarious. That would be awesome, but alas no, we are not adventure journalists. Just adventure wannabes.

Thanks for the info on Semey, Denise. I had read that somewhere but totally forgot while we were there that it was the place they tested nuclear bombs. Well, we definitely didn't eat any of the dirt at our campsite so I'm sure we'll be right. Looking back, I wonder if it was some kind of old gravel pit for roadworks. Still not sure, but would be interesting to see it on Google Earth.

Today has been great. It's only lunch time but we've stopped for a bit of a rest. It's been a more interesting day today. The scenery hasn't really changed which is weird because we're so used to the scenery changing hourly as we drive, but it hasn't changed for the past few days since we've been in Kazakhstan. We did see snow-capped mountains in the distance. Can you believe that!? I obviously have no idea about this country because I did not expect to see snow-capped mountains. Our altitude is ~600m but we're not sure how high those mountains are in the distance.

There's a bit of farming going on in this part of the country. Cattle, goats, sunflowers, wheat and some other type of crop farm but I can't figure out what they're growing. MumC you would love all the fields of sunflowers! We got some pictures for you.

We've stopped outside a town where we had lunch at a cafe. We're now resting in the shade of the car with doors and windows open to let the breeze through. It's pretty hot out there in the sun and again, with no trees to stop under, we're very thankful for the shade of the car. Graeme's having a nap and I'm obviously typing up this edition of the blog.

Late this morning we stopped at a little town to have a break. We decided just to get a tea or something at a cafe, because it's a good excuse to stop. We pulled up at a small, glaringly pink building with a blue roof. There were lovely flowers out the front and it looked quite cute. We walked in and it was very apparent that cleanliness wasn't high on their list but catching the multitude of flies was. There was old fashion fly paper full of flies on the table we were to sit at and the sugar bowls had quite a few flies having a great ol' time in them. Oh well. We ordered tea and sat down to await what would come out. First of all, the young girl brought out two cups, two teaspoons, a little jug of warm milk, a bowl of cream (what the!?), a small plate of biscuits and lollies (sure, ok), and a box - yes a box - of bread. Hmmmm, we were wondering what the hell do we do with all of this, and ummm, where's the tea? We thought, oh well, this must be how they have their tea, just
milk and whatever cream stuff this is in the bowl. We put a teaspoon of the cream into the cups and poured in the warm milk. Was a bit gross but we thought we really should drink it so we're not being impolite. Five minutes through struggling with this dilemma, out comes the girl again with a pot of tea and a pot of boiling water. We both burst out laughing after she walked away. What a couple of western tools we were in this place! So, we ended up with tea afterall and we're assuming the cream was for dipping the biscuits and bread into? Still not sure, and we still sound like we have no idea what happened. We couldn't stop giggling the whole time. It was a great stop, thoroughly enjoyed it!

Due to the distinct lack of trees and decent shrubbery in this country, it's very difficult to do a bush pee. So unfortunately I often have to use the public latrines. "Latrine" is polite for "poo splattered hut". When we stopped to get fuel this morning I went to use the "latrine" outside (no indoor toilets round these parts). The human crap and urine dotted along the path leading to it like land mines was my first clue that the "latrine" must be horrible. How bad must it be that I'm dodging crap along the path TO the toilet!? Not even the locals want to use this one. Yikes. Curiosity got the better of me, I just had to know what was so terrible that people were crapping on the path. Woah nelly! It was horrible. Thankfully the door was wide open so I didn't have to touch it to observe it. There was literally poo splattered up the walls and covering the floor. What are they eating!? Aw it was horrid. I dodged my way through the land mine path again back to the car and Graeme
said, alright then, I had better go too. Ummm, no you don't want to. We laughed and laughed. Everyone loves a bit of toilet humour. Needless to say, there's a small tree up the road from that place with my name under it.

I also realised today that a lot of the town names in the road atlas we bought in Semey don't match the spelling on the signs. That makes it a bit difficult. It's almost as if the road atlas is in Kazakh and the road signs are in Russian, or vice versa.


Graeme:
Heaps of Mazda's in this country. I can't figure out why!? Maybe the vintage of the cars is somehow related to the end of the soviet era? The distribution of cars would be:
10% Ladas
40% Mazdas (626, 626 v2, 626v3, the one that the eunos was. Hatch back, sedan, wagon and family mover. No new Mazda 1/2/3/6's though!? Every variant you can imagine, but it's gotta be mazda)
20% Audis (Weirdly only the 20 year old models)
20% Mercedees
10% All Others

Yes - the cafe was a laugh. It's so funny how quick we tried to look normal by combining the seemingly incompatible ingredients and how quick we were content with the results. Thankfully there was no one around, we would have looked mighty weird.
Sorry to disapoint, but we've hardly taken any photos and videos. Hopefully the ones we have took will give a fair indicator of why. It's just that there's not been anything to take photos of! I've been playing with the camera of a night, shooting stars, roads etc while it's cool and still. I've taken some more 360's (my totally favorite new thing) which will bore the socks off you, but oh well. They do give an amazing perspective of time and place. No longer do you look at a static photo any more, you see the ground beneath you, the sky above, and the tumbleweeds in the behind you. I can't wait to upload some to get your feedback.

I changed the fuel filter a couple of nights ago. It was pretty dirty I guess. I drained most of the contents I could into a clear cup. About the top 2mm looked purplish like water (that's if diesel isn't as dense as water, I can't remember!?), followed by a cup of dirty brown diesel, then half a teaspoon of silty rust. Naturally my first reaction is 'Oh the car is going great now' but in reality nothing would have changed :)

I guess I underestimated how much digital media we would collect because the laptop is now close to full. In Vladivostok I bought an 500GB external hard disk purely to backup the laptop, figuring that the laptop's hard disk is 500GB, so why would I need more space? The backup hard disk stays in my back pack, whereas the laptop stays in the car or at hotels. I suppose I've got to buy another external HDD and store stuff on there and hope it doesn't fail or get stolen? They are not expensive, but it means putting the second half of our holiday's eggs (digital media) in only one basket which I don't like the sound of. I might start uploading the better photos in higher quality photos to picasaweb as a rudimentary online backup. The video's are way too large to backup online, but then again the best bits are likely to be in our Youtube videos anyway. Anything else would just be a waste of space... like today's example: Busting out to 'I said I loved you but I lied' by Michael Bol
ton

Today's been darn hot which is cool (lol @ english language), but a decent wind cools you down real fast provided you're out of the sun. We've got ~250K to Almatay which we will probably knock over tomorrow. We'd done 200KM by lunch time today. As a bit of fun, I googled the existance of a McDonalds in Almatay - evidently not, but there is KFC and Pizzahut. Immediately I didn't feel like either of them, but I suspect I could be swayed by salty chips.

Tonight's camp (pictured) is atop beautiful 'fields of gold'. Kazakhstan is looking much more interesting today. Not so flat, dry and dead. Today's driving has passed numerous mountains, blue fast flowing creeks with aquaducts, towns and generally more life. The roads have been much better too. We dropped a bit of tyre pressure which is making a positive difference.
The other picture is me dunking biscuits in cream - I'm not sure if that was what the locals do?