A Honeymoon to Remember

[anjum153]

We found another discarded bus shock on the road to Semey.

[anjum153]

Sam gets water out of a pump near the side of the road to Semey, Kazakhstan.

We found this pump by the side of the road. The woman who came out to help us work it assured us the water was safe to drink but a bit salty. We purified it and drank it, it tasted awful, but after another 40 miles with no water in sight we were grateful we had 4 water bottles each full of the saline stuff.

[anjum153]

Aug. 14: in Semey

Thursday August 14, 2008

There are basically three places for tourists to stay in Semey, all apparently built for the communist-era tourist crowd, i.e., comrades from the USSR. We picked the best of the lot, Hotel Semey, where a room with a bathroom is $35, but is on the sun-exposed side of the building (we woke up in smothering sweats every morning, and opening the window had no effect), and rooms with shared bathrooms on the cool side of the building - much preferred - run $12 per night.


This is our hotel in Semey - called "Hotel Semey"

[anjum153]

Breakfast is not included with the $12-per-night priced rooms as it was in the more expensive rooms. Breakfast consisted of instant "coffee" which really tasted like awful hot chocolate, and cutlets of minced meat that appeared to have been breaded and fried a day or two earlier, plus a flavorless cookie-like object.

The Kofeman cafe has the absolute best lattes this side of the Amu-Dar
Staying in the $12 per night rooms means that we can splurge at the local cafe on a breakfast that is more than edible - it is the best latte we have had for a long time. These lattes cost about $1.50 a piece, extravagant by Kazakh standards.

[anjum153]

Taken in our Semey internet place, with Andrei, a college student from Semey.

Andrei helped us circumvent blocks in the internet club that were preventing us from downloading much-needed photo processing programs. It is thanks to Andrei that many of these pictures made it to this website!

[anjum153]

Communist-era apartments are still the norm in Kazakhstan.

[anjum153]

Cocktails and hors d'oeuvres.

[anjum153]

After lattes and a while in the internet cafe, we hit the bazaar. It was great fun! Contrary to many markets in other countries we have been in, this one was surprisingly quiet and organized. No one accosted us to buy things, the price quoted was reasonable and we bargained for a new bicycle seat for Sam only a nominal amount, and I tried out some of my stealth photgraphing
Sam walking through the Semey bazaar.

[anjum153]

For pictures of locals, I tried holding the camera at hip-height and aiming in the general direction of someone and setting off the shutter. I'm not very pleased with the pics and recently tried a different way of getting shots, like asking a person if I can take their picture. Those shots will be posted soon... the shots below were taken by stealth hip-height means.

The curtain stall in the Semey bazaar.

[anjum153]

Saleswoman in the Semey bazaar.

[anjum153]

We have seen several of these cars, part of the Mongol Rally, a fund raising adventure in which the racers drive a jalopy with an engine displacement of one liter or less from London to Mongolia


The Mongol Rally :: fighting to make the world less boring

[shahid217]

Beautiful. I wish I could have a honeymoon like this...

[La010]

Wah je Wah, kia honeymoon hai...ALLAH bachay, thats retard

[anjum153]

Aug. 15: Dostoyevsky museum

Friday August 15, 2008

Semey has a Dostoyevsky museum, a nice museum adjoining the house that Dostoyevsky lived in when he served part of a commuted sentence term in Semey.
*
*
Dostoyevsky was a great man, he makes me feel really small

[anjum153]

Erin inside the Dostoyevsky museum in Semey, Kazakhstan.


The information in the museum was written in Kazakh and Russian, and we had our own personal tour guide as we were the only two people in the museum, but she only spoke Russian, so we got only the most basic information from our visit. Still, the original works, books and photos from the time are all very impressive.

[anjum153]

Sam in front of the house Dostoyevsky lived in from 1854 to 1859 when he was banished to Semipalatansk, at that time part of Siberia


Dostoyevsky was sentenced to death for being an intellectual, but luckily had his sentence commuted. He served 5 years of hard labor in Omsk, then was transferred to Semipalatansk and forced into military service here. He married Maria, and they lived in Semey under virtual house arrest for 5 years before moving back to St. Petersburg.

[anjum153]

Sam getting his daily dose of sheshlyk, bread and beer.

[anjum153]

Sam and a Semey sheshlyk sales lady

[SaUdI1]

LOol !

[anjum153]

Aug. 16: Kazakh cultural observations

Saturday August 16, 2008
*
Kazakh currency, the tenge. 120 tenge = $1
*