The road

I made my last trip to the city today and on my way up, I realized that I have never really talked about this road here before, and now seems like as good a time as any to explain. This road between my village and the city is about 110 kilometers long. By American standards, this road would take about an hour to drive. It is covered in potholes and swerves and is extremely uneven, so it takes anywhere from an hour to 4 hours depending on the vehicle and the weather.

Fun Facts:

- It is a horrible road
- It is one of the better roads in Kazakhstan
- I feel safer on this road in the winter when the snow and ice level it out.
- There are two small settlements between my village and the city. (The first time I passed the middle one I thought, wow I'm glad I don't live there. Perspective is a great thing.)
- There are no rest-stops. But your driver will gladly stop by some bushes for you. (This is mostly true of all of Kazakhstan. Even long-distance bus trips will sometimes stop on the side of the road and tell the men to go to the bushes on one side of the road, and women to go to the bushes on the other. Say what you will about American rest-stops, but they exist and that in itself is amazing.)
- There is one police check-point. (The only time I've been stopped at a check point was leaving Astana just after Swine Flu broke out. The officer looked at my visa entry date and sighed with relief, "So you don't have swine flu then!" I said no, I don't, and I was allowed to go my merry way.)
- There are three Islamic cemeteries between my village and the city.

This last fact might seem weird, but it is significant because every time they pass the cemeteries (just the Islamic ones, the Russian Orthodox ones don't count) every Muslim in the car will say a prayer, which involves cupping your hands in front of your face and then symbolically washing your face after you're finished. "Every person" includes the driver, so oddly enough, even if you are not Muslim, you wind up praying that the car's alignment is good enough to stay straight when the driver isn't holding on to the steering wheel.

If you can't get a bus, taxis are almost always available. Taxi service is a lot like hitch-hiking. You just stick out your hand and a car will pull over and you get in. I realize that this sounds dangerous, but it's what everyone does. One day I was walking to the bus station when a car pulled up. "Are you going to the city?" I said yes, and the driver offered a price to go, and I jumped in. In America I will have to get used to not getting rides from strangers again.