Day 37 - Bubble Tea Tourism
That was a good sleep and long enough for the first time this week! And a great shower too. Not bad for a cheap hotel we chose to be close. Breakfast wasn't actually a buffet but ordering from a set menu, so we couldn't do as much damage as we'd have liked, but the tea and coffee was very good and was refilled so we'll take it.
Askar from the bubble tea yesterday was super pysched to meet, so although we were keen to get going and it was already quite late after our 8am alarm, we decided to meet him - it's what it's about after all!
We met at another, bigger location of the bubble tea chain (Tapioca). It turns out there are a good number across Kazakhstan and Askar works as a manager in the head office in Aktau. He sorted us out with tea (like good tea), coffee (also good) and Japanese pancakes which were delicious!
Google translate worked really well to allow us to chat for over an hour and he was super helpful in helping us plan where to go and what to see! It's both remote and with lots of hidden cool places out there, so we were very grateful for the advice. He suggested taking us on a whistle-stop tour of Aktau and we gladly accepted as he drove us around the best sights, while entertaining us with his broad knowledge of local history and culture. Did you know the only lighthouse built into a building is in Aktau? We actually cycled right past it while looking for it yesterday!
We also learned it reaches 50 degrees Celsius in the summer and -40 in the winter. PLUS 50, MINUS 40! Turns out we timed our visit perfectly on this 20 degree day! Askar also pointed out a massive mural and explained it was a Kazak pop singer. When he played a gig in Aktau it was to a crowd of 120,000 people - the population of the city is only 240,000!
We went via a souvenir shop so Emma could get her Kazakhstan patch and of course an accessory for Tigre. Askar insisted on treating us - so kind!
We arrived back to our bikes at the shop and had a bubble tea of course! I chose a kiwi and mango smoothie and Emma a coffee and chocolate milkshake. So good! Sufficiently hydrated and sugared it was sadly time to say goodbye and head off into the steppe, but not before Askar had pinched some of their tea bags so we could try the other flavours on our own. See you and/or your professional Ju Jitsu brother in Europe soon we hope!
Bicycle touring is such a magical tool for meeting people, it's a shame "real life" often doesn't work like that. Next time you see someone pondering a menu at your local place go over and say hi! If you've got time to show them around or give them a tip all the better. Whether they're from the next village or the other side of the world I doubt you'll regret it! And language isn't an excuse anymore, not with voice dictation and instant translations.
We stopped on the way out of town to grab some lunch from a supermarket, as, surprise surprise, we'd got hungry again! We caused the usual carnage by asking for something from the fresh counter with no meat and no fish, which roughly translated to "please can I have something without food in it?" and started a fair bit of bemused laughter before the team (random customer, three employees and me) identified four vegetarian foods we could have, including some very tasty aubergine rolls.
The road out of town slowly deteriorated from reasonable, to very broken tarmac to gravel as we got away from the city and the scenery changed from skyrise to buildings to power lines to the occasional camel!
Speaking of, a very excitable man with family in tow stopped to say hi on the road. He was full of energy and trying to insist we take 5 litres of what we thought was water, but turned out to be camel's milk! It's actually pretty good - much more sour than cow's milk, but we still didn't want 5 litres so we managed to accept just the 1 litre while he mimed a camel being milked to great hilarity of his family and us. For anyone interested he had about 40 litres in the boot so there's plenty to go around!
Side note: we've seen a lot of Georgian cars around, perhaps as much as 20% of cars on the road. This family was driving one, but said they were Kazak and the car was Georgian, so it's not so much full of Georgians on holiday, but the cars being brought in and not changing the plates.
The gravel was bumpy, and definitely made us wish for wider tires, but was mercifully free of braking bumps (close ruts which bounce bike and rider to bits) so we made decent progress before pulling over to camp when the sun when down. I did have the first proper crash of the tour when my front wheel went and I landed hard on the sandy concrete. Bashed my leg, shoulder and foot but otherwise was fine. Luckily hadn't been wearing my new jersey, or changed to my new bar tape beforehand, but that will hurt in the morning!
Finding a suitable flat camping spot was like trying to find hay in a haystack i.e. very easy indeed! We enjoyed a simple night with no signal after our hectic hotel and travelling days; eating, reading a bit and then sleeping early!
What we were listening to today (a young Kazak singer all over the radio):
Food spend today: 11.28 euros