...Kazakhstan - Amazing Homestay...

..Dusty, dry & exhausted..

It’s 8 AM and I am slowly cycling over the sandy, 5 km long gravel track towards the main road which will take me another 90 kilometers through dry, barren desert landscapes to Beyneu where I am planning to have a rest day before taking the train to Nukus in Uzbekistan.

I am trying to comprehend and put into perspective how the last 15 hours unfolded, how lucky I am and how many nice people I have met so far on my trip! I am feeling enriched…

15 hours ago, I cycled the opposite way up the same sandy gravel track. After doing over 100 km on mostly straight, smooth tarmac roads, it was time to find a place to stay overnight. I felt exhausted. Not because of the distance I’ve cycled but more so because of the heavy heat which starts around 11 AM and doesn’t seem to leave until dusk.

50 km without finding any shade to rest under seems to be the norm here. After all, I am in the desert…

My longer refueling breaks usually mean I am sitting on the small camping chair in the baking sun at 40+dC, gazing out over the dry, inhospitable shrubland, chewing some dry biscuits (no fresh fruit available) and washing them down with 30dC warm water. It is as appealing as it sounds… and drinking this warm water makes me feel nauseous, day after day.

..Aiming for the good life..

My hope is always to find some place to stay overnight. After a day in the very hot desert, I do crave for a shower, some type of a bed and a nutritional, filling meal. If all fails, I do have a tent, some dehydrated meal options and hopefully enough water left to spare 1 litre to have a ‘good wash’.

..Arriving in Tolep..

Google maps shows a guesthouse called Kenzhebai House in this small, dusty village called Tolep which is part of the Mangystau Region in Western Kazakhstan. A couple of recent reviews keep my hopes up, this guesthouse still exists. The village must have some significance in the regions as it has one of the very few train stations on the nearly 500 km long stretch from Aktau to Beyneu.

There is even an address of the guesthouse on google maps which is not much help though, as there are next to no road name signs in town.   

It didn’t take long to create some interest in my arrival and a young lad on his 125cc motorbike comes speeding from behind, slows down, smiles and says ‘hello!’.

I also say ‘hello’ and give him a hand sign indicating that I would like to drink something. He gestures to follow him and speeds off, showing off his ability to ride his bike at speed over the bumpy track. I can’t keep up with him but it’s not hard to see where I need to go as I just have to follow the cloud of dust he leaves behind!

I arrive at the small concrete house which is really more a hut with a closed, small door. The young lad comes out of it and departs without any expectation for getting a tip from myself. He obviously announced my arrival (and business) to the shop owner and probably has other arrangements in place…

I buy an energy drink (I must be exhausted, it’s the first one since leaving Oxfordshire..) and ask the lady behind the counter “hotel”? 

She gets google translate out and writes “no hotel here”.

I pay for the drink, step outside and sit down in some shade on the steps leading up to the shop, thinking about other options to stay for the night.

A few minutes later, the shop lady comes outside showing me her phone. “Wait, a man will come and show you where you can lay down”.

Indeed, 10 minutes later an old, Russian UAZ-452 ambulance (called 'Tabletka’ which means 'pill' due to its shape) arrives and a friendly man and his son invite me to follow them down another dusty road.

We arrive at their house and I am introduced to his wife, 7 children, grandmother and 4 men working on the property. Ginshubai appears to be a farmer (goats & donkeys), a shop owner, guesthouse host, local ambulance driver and business man.

There are at least four buildings. One long building along the front containing storage facilities, a small shop (not visible from the outside), and an events rooms. Another long building is leading into the property and has a large garage at the front, a kitchen, a bedroom and more storage facilities.

The waterwell in the kitchen. All water is handled very carefully and scarcely

What I would call the ‘main house’ is square and pretty large. It is under renovation on the outside. The rooms inside are pretty big. My room is at least 9 x 8 meters with carpets on the floor, a small, round table in the middle and some stacked up sleeping ‘carpets’ and pillows in one corner. The room next to me had carpet on the floor and a pretty large TV screen on the wall, nothing else. Furnitures are not trending here...

I am shown around the property. A small, blue shack with a drum on the roof is the shower. I can’t wait to get in-there… another small building next to a compound full of sheep is the toilet block. The sheep can gaze through the small window whilst you are doing your business.

The blue shower shack next to the washhouse

..Afternoon Tea..

Soon after, çay is served with some bread. Here, the çay is on offer with or without milk. Bread is served with every meal and almost has a sacred place in Kazakhstan. It should never be wasted or thrown away and when served, it has to be served with the top side facing up. With the çay and bread, come some fresh cucumbers, tomatoes, fried aubergine, curd, roasted pepper and fried eggs. A very substantial late afternoon snack, making me feel alive again!

I am told, dinner will be around 9 PM. In the meantime, I realize that more and more men appear on the property. They are dressed in casual wear and look somewhat out of place. We communicate via google translate and I am able to establish that they all know each other and I started to think they just dropped in to meet the house owner on this Friday evening to have a chat and a bit of a social get-together. I am wrong.

..Surprise Invitation..

I wander around the property and look what the builders are doing when one of the casually dressed man comes and gestures to follow him.

He is taking me to the events room which belongs to my host and as I walk in, I can see all those men sitting around a square table with an abundance of food and drink on it. It was like stepping into another world, a land of plenty! After being deprived from fresh fruit and vegetables for the past four days, I hardly can believe where those guys got all that fresh produce from!

He sits me down, in front of a large plate full of syrne, stewed lambs meat served with raw onions and bread. It is delicious, very soft and the small pieces are served on the bone. There’s a lot of gnawing, bone sucking and finger licking going on around the table. There are also salads spread around the table, but they haven’t been touched by the men. Therefore I don’t have any either, As I am not too sure about the table etiquette I just do what they do.

 However, a bit unusual to me, they also eat some of the fresh fruit along their plates of meat. Not my favourite accompanying with meat, but certainly refreshing!

Kumis the fermented and slightly alcoholic horse milk, beer, vodka and coke are served with the meal. I am told they are all Muslims and don’t eat pork, but alcohol is fine.

..Kazakhstan Railway Workers' Day..

Finally, I am able to establish what the get-together is for. It’s Kazakhstan’s Railway Workers Day and they all work for the railways and are celebrating the occasion!

Everyone around the table has to have a short speech followed by a toast, including myself, thanking those men for the surprise invitation and showing my gratitude!  

As the night is getting on a bit, and the friendly discussions are getting louder and louder, I ask to leave the table and make my way back to my host family who said dinner will be ready around 9 PM…

..And it was..

Beshbarmak (five fingers) is served! A hearty dish consisting of boiled sheep (can also be done with horse, camel, beef or fish). It’s called ‘five fingers’ because it is a dish which traditionally is eaten by hand.

Two large round platters with cooked, homemade pasta sheets (a bit like lasagna sheets), whole boiled potatoes and onion rings are placed on the low table in the yard.

The meat is brought out and the host pulls it by hand into smaller pieces and spreads it evenly over the platters. Then the ‘piece de resistance’ comes on the table: THE SHEEPS HEAD…

It appears to be the hosts privilege and duty to pull the head apart. Methodically and by hand, he takes the skin and ears off and removes the meaty cheeks. But it doesn’t stop there, the two eyes are skillfully pulled out of their sockets before he breaks the head apart to scoop out the cooked brain on to a plate…The only thing I can't see, is the lower jaw of the head with the tongue. I guess they kept that for another time.

Everyone around the table is offered a bite of those delicacies to taste. But there are only two eyes. One for the host and the other one for… I had to refuse…

..Then we start feasting..

Equally as good as the first dinner I had with the railway men, this beshbarmak ticked all the boxes. We are all sitting around this low table on the floor, using our hands and a spoon to delve into those large platters of food. This is without a doubt, one of the most hearty and rich meals I’ve ever had!

The meat is succulent, robust and tasty, the potatoes are well cooked but still firm, the pasta is slippery to grab but tastes beautiful as they have taken on the flavours of the sheep broth where they were cooked in.

And all of a sudden, conversation is taken over by the same noises I heard two hours ago during my first dinner: grunting, bone sucking, finger licking…

And last but not least, the broth where everything was cooked in needs eating as well and we all get a small cup of the rather greasy, but very tasty and satisfying soup at the end of the meal.

Then, my host Ginshubai turns to me with his phone which says: "Are you going to tell the rest of the world how disgusting we eat?"

Far from it!

This is one of the best culinary evenings I had as a chef in 40 years! What an evening! I feel alive again after the rather exhausting days riding through the desert, and at the same time I am hopeful to find more such lovely people like you Ginshubai, your family and friends from the railway, inviting me in to their lives and giving me an authentic local experience and adventure on my way to Australia!  

This truly is the most memorable culinary evening so far on my trip!

Taken away by all those thoughts, I pedal up this gravel track, into my immediate adventure which is to cycle another 90 km on the pretty straight road through the boiling hot desert towards Beyneu.

Will there be any opportunities to get an ice cream, some fresh watermelon or an ice cold drink on route? We all know the answer…

Early morning picture. The kids are still fast asleep. Where the dinner table was the night before became the sleeping area for the family.

The neighbours pet on the loose...

 The below I've found on the www, describing some Kazakh traditions:

Sheep’s Head

In rural settings it is a sign of respect to offer the most honoured guest a boiled sheep's head on a beautiful plate. The guest then divides the food among the guests in the following fashion:

The ear is given to the smallest child so that he or she will listen to and obey the elders.

The eyes are given to the two closest friends so that they will take care of the guest.

The upper palate is given to the daughter-in-law and the tongue to the host’s daughter so both women will hold their tongues.