Best Eastern Comfort Hotel Astana

Wieder mal ein Besuch in Astana: Immer wieder faszinierend wie klein das Büro ist, wie anders die Kollegen sind, wenn man sie in ihrem Heimatort trifft und wie unaufregend die Stadt ist. Man kann es sich kaum vorstellen, wie langweilig eine künstliche Stadt ist, aber sie ist sehr langweilig. Sogar das Wetter war langweilig, einfach das gleiche wie in Almaty. Dafür hat aber mein Autoradio auf den ...

... monument with its golden orb on top of a lattice structure.

Passing a more traditional monument I ask Assel what it commemorates? She is about to explain when Nikolai says "It's to mothers who come to the police station opposite to plead for their children!" Definitely not a totalitarian regime now.

We get to Nikolai's house and garage where an immaculate Harley and a pristine electronicless BMW R100GS Dakar are housed ...

What do I do on a rainy day in Astana? Well, the first thing is to see if there has been any progress with the bike. I text Sasha. No response. Unusual. I text Assel and get an immediate response. They want the diagnostic programme! How am I supposed to know? I take the bus to the workshop. Well this hotel is costing a bomb so I'd better save wherever I can and 65 tenge as opposed to 600 tenge is not to be sneezed at!

I find a distraught Sasha ...

... It is not." Comes the stony reply.

"Well, how come there is a visa in my passport issued with their LOI." Not really hoping I am going to get anywhere.

"It is not authorised, no discussion, go."

That's the one thing I love about bureaucracy, its willingness to discuss and be flexible.

I take a taxi to the BMW dealership and introduce myself to Sasha. We go to the bike and he asks me for the key. "I left it ...

... slalom course varying from unlined six laned carriageways to piste that seems to wander, unsigned, around the country. A nightmare for Serge in the dark. His lights were worse that my bike's. The dark! Why in the dark? We left at 1400 and it's 5 hours to Astana. Well your right but you need a fanbelt to do that and after a few miles of our brand new motorway the worn and very thin strip of rubber that had been masquerading as a fanbelt called it a day. A ...

... around Belarus if we can avoid it, although we don't need visas to do that. We now know we can get a transit visa in Moscow, and we are just hoping that we can do it without having to get an 'invitation' from a tour firm. We will drive it non-stop if necessary just to cut the corner and the paper work. We'd rather spend the extra couple of days in Poland because we don't have much info on Belarus. So after that, it was another of those real ...

... Variante aber ungemein komplizierter, abgesehen davon, dass so gut wie kein Gast seine privaten Dokumente freigibt und man dann noch zusätzliche Strafsteuern zahlen muss. Und dazu kommen in Astana von den Kollegen dann hin und wieder Fragen wie "Ach, wir müssen uns an die Gesetze halten?! Das haben wir doch nie gemacht, na dann aber erst ab Juli, okay?" Da macht es doch immer wieder Spaß nach Astana zu fliegen und zu diskutieren.

... bis vi** Wohnblöcke benannt; den Rest d** Beschreibung muss man dann noch dazu **klären. Wenn man dann noch in einem Wohnkomplex bestehend aus ca. sieben Hochhäus**n wohnt, d** dazu noch drei von v**schiedenen Straßen zu befahrende Zufahrten hat, ist es um so schw**** sich zu finden. Ab** wir haben es gleich beim **sten Anlauf geschafft. Und um es vorneweg zu nehmen: Ich habe ihm auch **folgreich mit Händen und Füßen **klären können, dass ** mich bitte um 23 Uhr ...

... you move, there are a hundred eyes staring at you, looking at what you are reading, watching in amazement that you can use chopsticks, wanting to take photos of you when they think you don't notice. Kazakhstan, 85% of everyone is white, so they don't realize that you are a foreigner. So I was able to go about my morning business of using the bathroom and filling my cup with hot water unnoticed. UNTIL. The great passport fiasco of 2007 occurred. Well, the first one so ...

... this maybe be in your head?" ~Hansel Facts about Everest: Number of people to attempt to climb Mt. Everest: approximately 4,000. Number of people to successfully climb Mt. Everest: 660. Number of people who have died trying to climb Mt. Everest: 142. Corpses remaining on Everest: about 120 Height: 29,028 feet, or 5 and a half miles above sea level. This is equivalent to the size of almost 20 Empire State ...