Day 36: Unfairness
The Silk Road is acutally made up of several different routes that links Europe and China (the West and the East). From Urmumqi, there are several routes to get into Europe overland. Well, I chose the one that goes through Central Asia. Why? It is because this is a piece of land that not many people know about and I like going to places that not many went before. So here I am, on a train towards Kazakhstan. A country which one of the Silk Roads lies on, a country which used be to USSR, an ex Soviet country, a country which is so little known to many people out there.
It will take 2 nights on the train before I reach Almaty, the former capital of Kazakhstan. All of us were soundly asleep when the train conductor came and wake us up. Why? Because we had arrived at the border of China and Kazakhstan.
I thought things would be difficult here but to my surprise, crossing the Chinese custom was relatively painless. It only took 2 hours to clear the whole train before we were on our way again.
This is the cabin that I sleep in.
The narrow common corridor.
I am now entering Kazakhstan and I am really excited about it. First few sights of Kazakhstan. Flat and empty. For your information, Kazakhstan is the 9th biggest country is the world.
Life on the train is quite simple. There is nothing much that you can do. In the morning you will see people brushing teeth.
Then we will all eat together and will usually share our food with one another.
One good thing about travelling by train is that it is a good chance to meet many people and talk to the locals.
And you will see many interesting things. One guy showed me his cigaratte which has an interesting filter.
Then after travelling for another half an hour, we arrived at the Kazakhstan customs.
Date: 7 OCT 2008. I am finally in KAZAKHSTAN!!
Like on the Chinese side, The Kazakh customs and border guards came onboard the train and check our belongings one by one. They then took away our passports and came back later with the visa stamps. Simple and easy. Although so, there was a long and normal delay here as they need to change all the wheels of the whole train. Apparently, the rails of the Chinese and those of the Kazakh are of different size. One is wider then the other and so they have to change the wheels so that they will fit onto the rails everytime they cross the border. Amazingly strange to me as I thought there should be a standard diamension or a international standard to follow.
Can you see how big the difference is between the sizes of the two rails?
So while waiting for the wheels to be changed, my cabinmates and I went for breakfast together. It was well known that the Russians love Vohka and so it was not surprising that the Kazakhs were being influenced by them as they were all part of the ex Soviets. But never did I expect that they drink vohka even at breakfast.
Petr, the Kazakh guy.
Petr offered us some and so we accepted it.
Takashi (the Japanese guy) and me.
We had quite an interesting conversation during breakfast. Why do I say so? Check this out. The Kazakh only speaks Russian and Kazakh, the Chinese speaks Chinese and Russian, I speak Chinese and English, and the Japanese speaks English and Japanese. So, when the Kazakh wants to tell the Japanese something, he will pass the message to the Chinese in Russian, then the Chinese will tell me in Chinese, and I will translate it to English for the Japanese. And the whole process reversed when the Japanese replied to the Kazakh. One conversation, 4 different languages. Isnt that interesting? HAHA...
After breakfast, random photo taken inside a yurt.
Kazakhs. Notice that the guy on the right has gold teeth. Later in my Kazakh travel I also noticed that many of them have good teeth. I think it is part of their culture or it could be a in thing.
The train station.
Kazakhstan logo.
Back on the train, we went back to sleep and were once again being woke up, this time, by the Kazakh immigrations. Now they picked out only foreigners to go into a cabin one by one. Hmm... I smell something fishy. Then the first guy came out of the room, a Chinese. Heard from him that they wanted money. I knew it, Corruptions!!!
Then it was my turn. I was still thinking how much would they demand but the moment they saw my passport, they said, " Singapore? ok. FREE!! GO!!" The same goes for Takashi who holds a Japan passport and another traveller who is an American. But our poor Chinese friend paid them a certain amount before he was allowed to go out of that cabin.
Later we found out that they were targeting the Chinese only. All the Chinese onboard paid. This is so unfair to them. But think again. Since when life was fair? It has always been unfair. So like I said before, we just need to look at the bright side of life.
This was what the Chinese told us when we told him that it was very unfair to him, "I just take it as my money were being eaten up by some dogs."
Life goes on. Then they came and checked all our passports again. Dont ask me why they keep doing it. I also dont know.
For the rest of the day, the only activities that we carried out were eat and sleep. Nothing much to do. Rabbit meat, anyone?
*Click HERE to return to the Main Page of The Cold Journey.*
It will take 2 nights on the train before I reach Almaty, the former capital of Kazakhstan. All of us were soundly asleep when the train conductor came and wake us up. Why? Because we had arrived at the border of China and Kazakhstan.
I thought things would be difficult here but to my surprise, crossing the Chinese custom was relatively painless. It only took 2 hours to clear the whole train before we were on our way again.
This is the cabin that I sleep in.
The narrow common corridor.
I am now entering Kazakhstan and I am really excited about it. First few sights of Kazakhstan. Flat and empty. For your information, Kazakhstan is the 9th biggest country is the world.
Life on the train is quite simple. There is nothing much that you can do. In the morning you will see people brushing teeth.
Then we will all eat together and will usually share our food with one another.
One good thing about travelling by train is that it is a good chance to meet many people and talk to the locals.
And you will see many interesting things. One guy showed me his cigaratte which has an interesting filter.
Then after travelling for another half an hour, we arrived at the Kazakhstan customs.
Date: 7 OCT 2008. I am finally in KAZAKHSTAN!!
Like on the Chinese side, The Kazakh customs and border guards came onboard the train and check our belongings one by one. They then took away our passports and came back later with the visa stamps. Simple and easy. Although so, there was a long and normal delay here as they need to change all the wheels of the whole train. Apparently, the rails of the Chinese and those of the Kazakh are of different size. One is wider then the other and so they have to change the wheels so that they will fit onto the rails everytime they cross the border. Amazingly strange to me as I thought there should be a standard diamension or a international standard to follow.
Can you see how big the difference is between the sizes of the two rails?
So while waiting for the wheels to be changed, my cabinmates and I went for breakfast together. It was well known that the Russians love Vohka and so it was not surprising that the Kazakhs were being influenced by them as they were all part of the ex Soviets. But never did I expect that they drink vohka even at breakfast.
Petr, the Kazakh guy.
Petr offered us some and so we accepted it.
Takashi (the Japanese guy) and me.
We had quite an interesting conversation during breakfast. Why do I say so? Check this out. The Kazakh only speaks Russian and Kazakh, the Chinese speaks Chinese and Russian, I speak Chinese and English, and the Japanese speaks English and Japanese. So, when the Kazakh wants to tell the Japanese something, he will pass the message to the Chinese in Russian, then the Chinese will tell me in Chinese, and I will translate it to English for the Japanese. And the whole process reversed when the Japanese replied to the Kazakh. One conversation, 4 different languages. Isnt that interesting? HAHA...
After breakfast, random photo taken inside a yurt.
Kazakhs. Notice that the guy on the right has gold teeth. Later in my Kazakh travel I also noticed that many of them have good teeth. I think it is part of their culture or it could be a in thing.
The train station.
Kazakhstan logo.
Back on the train, we went back to sleep and were once again being woke up, this time, by the Kazakh immigrations. Now they picked out only foreigners to go into a cabin one by one. Hmm... I smell something fishy. Then the first guy came out of the room, a Chinese. Heard from him that they wanted money. I knew it, Corruptions!!!
Then it was my turn. I was still thinking how much would they demand but the moment they saw my passport, they said, " Singapore? ok. FREE!! GO!!" The same goes for Takashi who holds a Japan passport and another traveller who is an American. But our poor Chinese friend paid them a certain amount before he was allowed to go out of that cabin.
Later we found out that they were targeting the Chinese only. All the Chinese onboard paid. This is so unfair to them. But think again. Since when life was fair? It has always been unfair. So like I said before, we just need to look at the bright side of life.
This was what the Chinese told us when we told him that it was very unfair to him, "I just take it as my money were being eaten up by some dogs."
Life goes on. Then they came and checked all our passports again. Dont ask me why they keep doing it. I also dont know.
For the rest of the day, the only activities that we carried out were eat and sleep. Nothing much to do. Rabbit meat, anyone?
*Click HERE to return to the Main Page of The Cold Journey.*
posted by ZeeVinCeZ at 8:41 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home