Rixos President Hotel Astana

... and splendour, is the small street where the workshop is and co-incidentally Nikolai lives. The workshop looks locked up for the weekend but there is a small door slightly open so I test it and open it does. Inside is Dmitri and a friend, Nikolai (no, another Nikolai) and they are having a small celebration to mark the opening of the workshop. <br> I am dragged in, a beer is poured and I am told to help myself to the pile of smoked salt fish on the table. The afternoon passes ...

... and a presentation to me of a baseball cap and polo shirt. More photographs. There are only two slight problems. A battery has not been located so Sasha is trying Almaty and there is no explanation as to why the battery failed.<br><br>Nikolai, Sasha, Assel and I head off to Dmitri's workshop. Yes, he has solved the problem but I still cannot find out the WHY. He can ...

... Art gallery is enjoyable if you like modern art. I fall in love with the paintings of A. Hoda, born 1962 but I cannot trace hime on the internet.<br><br>Astana itself is a mixture of old and very modern architecture, colouful and brash. Anything goes. It is strange to find this completely modern city rising out of the steppes after passing by so many dreary Soviet style towns over the last ...

... there has a bed three and half to four feet high and no ramp, no tie downs, nyet, nada. There are two sheets of plywood which give us an unsteady 90 degree angled ramp. No way!. Serge, the driver and Vladimir his young friend scratch their heads. I don't know what they were expecting but a fully laden BMW R1200GS had not come into their reckoning. Serge wonders if it would go in on its side but did not pursue that line of enquiry when he saw the look ...

... English road signs reverted to Chinese/Uighur. After the border it was Kazakh/Russian. Nearer Almaty it was Kazakh/Russian/English so we have known roughly where to go. The problem is that the signs assume a degree of local knowledge and a lot of uncertainty creeps in at times. We are lucky that we have made only one wrong turn en-route and ended up in a rural bus terminal leaving Almaty. A 5k detour that could have been a lot worse, if ...

... natürlich auch mit we***** Schlaf v**bunden war. Dafür habe ich russisches Billard kennen gel**nt, größ**** Tisch, größ**e Kugeln, dafür klein**e Taschen und ganz and**e Regeln. Am Ende hat Team Astana Team Moskau in drei Sätzen geschlagen, so dass ich auch ohne Vodka gut schlafen konnte.<br><br>Das Wochenende wurde wie fast schon üblich teilweise in den B**gen v**bracht. Ein** Wand**ung steil b**gauf zum Almatin ...

... Es lohnt sich wirklich sich mal ein paar Minuten davon zu gönnen. http://www.youtube.com/members?ytsessio n=_BPmymS66UPVpD5v1_2RSzJU4MPWVTI0cBPoe pXLLnWjJw8fI7u4pOrzNq2CjJLQYzaZ9vgB2qiv Db3_ZcCx_XmmAfxku25tpQoSKGyBM5jdBgj-fuX dEO9ITsMx7ilhhVni5o7jY6fKQ683bpZ6LkSzs2 q6h9xWxkxcaGHKbPHNFF1T7eyDr4poRq6uxT6jv 08ZsAYTf-SmeJc4iHBHhdE6W-biSHG54YNHMBj2 NhDNgpcMVjF3hHhH6g09033YzAUOjt_bJo7DiJz YNVTQSCE8yWa7nYOr

... auch einen Abschied zu fei**n. Dazu v**sammelten sich die Kollegen in d** Teeküche, es gab den teu**sten Champagn**, den d** zu V**abschiedende irgendwo **stehen konnte, dazu ein bisschen Obst und Kuchen und dann durfte jed** im Kreis stehende einen Trinkspruch zum Besten geben. Für mich machte sich das natürlich besond**s gut; d** Kollege wurde mir g**ade am Anfang sein** Abschiedv**anstaltung vorgestellt. Ab** nutzt ja nichts. Und da ich heute offensichtlich pr ...

... book, but alas, that did not make our passports suddenly appear. We were dragged to the "Official's Car" at the front of the train. But right behind us followed the two women that were sitting in the seats under us. We might be getting hauled off, but not without their help. From the minute they realized we were not from Kazakhstan and speaking in a foreign tongue, we were under their care. Unfortunately, their care did little to help our situation except make the man ...

I have been getting replies from people saying that they sometimes have trouble opening this website. If that is the case just do an Internet search (ex. Yahoo, MSN, Google, etc...) for "Johnny Nomad" and you should be able to access the site that way! Hope that helps! ~The Jonald