ChrisMerriman.com

Wow, the gap between spending in time in Australia and writing about it is starting to show. I’ll have to try and get myself in the same frame of mind to recall what happened.
First evening and next morning spent recovering from the long and mildly stressful journey. Got down to looking into a few IT based problems, and then meeting a couple of Alex and Mat’s friends.
More lovely cooking from Mat on the balcony, kangaroo steaks, and ameal or two out.
With Mat’s work schedule, I wasn’t going to have a lot of time in Brisbane (we had originally planned a chilled out road trip to get up to Brisbane, where the majority of our friends live), so I booked a flight for the Friday of next week, and then wandered around Alex’s local area, meeting more friends and popping down to a beach and a couple of beauty spots.

We also decided I should try and fit in the stereotypical tourist sights in Sydney, so caught a ferry from Manly to Sydney proper. Along the way, we saw Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. Being so close, and not wanting to miss out on the iconic building, we walked on over and took a few photos, before moving on into the city. After grabbing a few souvenirs for people in Astana, we grabbed a drink and headed home.

It didn’t take long for me to see why Alex was happy staying in Australia, but Irina had already warned me that any attempts to see Australia as a “compromise” between staying in Astana and moving back to Britain would fall on deaf ears. Whilst enjoying my time in Sydney, I was also looking forward to Brisbane, where the rest of the British friends lived. To be continued…

So, where was I? Arriving in Abu Dhabi, having left Astana on Monday 22nd of October, early morning, to Almaty. See the last post for details on why the flight to China that night, didn’t have me on board. Anyway, the next day I was on an Etihad plane, very happy to finally be getting closer to Australia. Except Abu Dhabi is actually a bit East of Almaty, so I was going in the wrong direction, and the ticket price bought a tear to my eye. I just have to hope my earnings are enough this year to pay off Irina’s credit card quickly. I think I had about 10 hours to kill in Abu Dhabi airport, which wasn’t as boring or sleep inducing as I’d feared it would be. I had not been to the airport since 2005, when it was a just a few duty free shops and nothing to occupy your mind. After a McDonalds on arrival (it had been a long time since I had been in one 🙂 ), walking around the different terminals and eventually a Burger King (no bacon available, strangely enough), I found a bar next to a smoking room, so spent the rest of my time having some chips with a few Long Island Iced Teas, whilst reading another book. On to the next flight with no problems, barring some mid-air engine problems, I was now a mere 14 or so hours from meeting up with Alex and Mat!

Once the plane landed in Sydney, it was somehow the 25th of October, and once I convinced the Customs official that I wasn’t bringing in any food, drink or plant matter (they had my mini-suitcase on a table, I was sure they would open it up and I would have to explain I thought the limit was still 200 cigarettes (the limit is 50!), but I must have looked like I wasn’t the sort of person to bring in alien plants, so I walked out into the public area of the airport. Knowing that I would be getting twitchy from the lack of internet soon, I headed over to Vodafone’s counter and purchased an Australian Pay As You Go SIM card, re-jiggled the placement of SIMs in three different phones and grabbed a quick drink. In no time at all, Mat and Alex arrived, and after squealing and hugs (we’ll just pretend that was only Alex and not me as well 😉 ) we jumped in their Ute (an Australian term (meaning a utility vehicle with a flat tray at the back) I quickly grew to love) and even managed to get out of the airport grounds before the slightly obscene parking charges kicked in.

After so many months in Central Asia, it was great to be in a more friendly environment, where the driving wasn’t manic, people smiled at complete strangers, and I was going to finally get to catch up with friends I hadn’t seen in years. We got back to Mat and Alex’s flat, and after a Kangaroo burger cooked on the barbecue sitting on the balcony, I finally started to unwind after four days of travelling and not much sleep. I’ll leave the details of Sydney, and Brisbane (I arrived there November 2nd I think?) for another post.

Today is three months since I set out from Astana to see friends in Almaty and Australia. Given that four pages of this blog are currently taken up with random and short tweets, I’ve decided to finally get this site back in order.

So, hoping that my memory from October is still vaguely functioning, this is what happened…

I left Astana, which felt very strange, as this would be the longest I had ever been away from Anna and Tim since they were born. Although just under three weeks in Australia meeting friends (some I’d not seen in more than five years!) definitely put a smile on my face, being apart from Ira and the kids for so long was not something I relished. Arriving in Almaty, I met up with DaveG first, discovered that the hotels there over-charge for beers just as much as Astana’s do, then moved on into Almaty’s centre (? I think… my geographical knowledge of Kazakhstan’s old capital is transcribable onto a stamp) where we met with Paulo. After bidding farewell to Paulo, Dave and I eventually headed to the airport. He happened to flying elsewhere around the same time, so it gave us a chance to catch up a bit more.
I should probably point out that I had (as far as I was concerned) planned this whole journey (I left myself in our friends’ hands once in Australia) down to a tee. Memories of my first ever solo trip abroad in 2001 (to get married), which resulted in missed flights, nowhere to sleep and nervous breakdown-nearing goof-ups meant that I ensured that every stage of the long journey to Sydney was double checked, with spare batteries, phones, SIM cards, books and procedures (Australian visa etc) followed. Or so I thought…
Anyway, to skip back a little first, my route from Kazakhstan to Australia involved two stops in China. Although I have not been there before, a search online allayed my initial fears that the two airports would be totally orientated to internal flights and Chinese citizens, and it even appeared that both (Guangzhou and Urumqi) had signs in English. My budget was really quite limited, and given that this route cost a good £150 – £200 less than other alternatives, I had jumped at it. Although I wouldn’t be able to save up the airfare and spending money in time to congratulate Seb and Jordie immediately following their wedding, it was at least feasible for me to get there in 2012! I had checked from forum posts and anything else Google threw my way that transit visas were a mere formality that were applied for and granted when you actually landed in China. So, returning to my trip, I rolled up to passport control (having checked in online, printed my boarding pass & no luggage to check (all clothing, leads and gadgets were crammed into hand luggage, a safari/photogapher style body warmer and the multitude of pockets in my “travelling” jeans)) with what turned out to be far too much confidence and general chilled-ness. After 5 minutes the army style uniformed officer enquired as to where my Chinese visa was. I attempted to explain to him that I didn’t require one before travel, and that the Chinese system processed travellers like me once we’d arrived. Another agonizing 10 minutes passed. I was sent to the check-in desk, but despite a little bit of WTF is going on, I felt sure that once I was dealing with a Southern China Airlines representative, this whole misunderstanding would be sorted out and I’d be on my way once more…
No. Not at all. It turns out that if you are British or American (though other “Westerners” apparently wouldn’t have this issue, some sort of tit for tat type politics?), and travelling through two airports in China, one of which is NOT Beijing, that you should indeed apply to a Chinese consulate beforehand to be allowed to travel! My plans were falling apart in front of me, and after the troubles I had with Fly24 and their appalling communication processes, I knew there would be 0% chance of a refund (on a non-refundable ticket), after what was after all, a fault on my part entirely. With two hours before my flight, and a Chinese consulate that was understandably shut at that time in the evening, I was left with one last ditch attempt to get to Australia that day… attempt to smooth over any potential regulation issues in a local manner. Much to my surprise, one of the few times where I really hoped a donation to the airport workers’ tea and biscuit fund was turned down!
So, I’m now just about ready to smack myself in the face for not checking what was required in my exact circumstances, fall to the floor and start wailing or, TBH, deck the next person who gave me any trouble. After demolishing a third of a pack of Parliament, I phoned Paulo and asked if I might be able to crash at his over night, while I try and sort replacement tickets and contact various people expecting me to leave/arrive from their country soon. Very kindly he and Mika said it would be no problem, so I walked out to the taxi rank. Having already checked (I was planning to stop overnight with Paulo on the way back from Australia to split the journey a little) what a fair price was, and not being in the mood for any crap, I spurned the first dozen or so offers of a taxi ride that were quoted at six times the normal price. One driver was particularly persistent, so when he asked what I was actually prepared to pay, I told him. He only asked for another £1.50 on top of that, so I jumped in his car, and I was very grateful that he didn’t object to nicotine addicts sparking up in his car.
Made it to Paulo’s place (I’d not visited his home since he moved from Astana), and was met with surprise that $100 fee didn’t manage to get me to China and then my internet searching began in earnest. I was constrained by my original travel dates, as once returned from Australia, I only had a couple of days before our whole family moved to Britain for six weeks, with the flights long since booked. The cheapest option I could find was via Abu Dhabi, an airport I had vague memories of, from a Dubai trip about ten years ago. Having checked with Irina that I could use her credit card and pay back this second air fare to her in 2013, I booked everything, and told AlexC when I would actually make it to Sydney.

Taking a quick photo the next morning (see just below), I spent some time walking around Almaty with Paulo as he didn’t have any work until the afternoon. Strangely enough, I hadn’t slept brilliantly, so had already finished one of the books purchased for consumption during the journey (see below again).

I’ll leave this post now, as it seems quite text heavy, so let’s just jump to me getting to Abu Dhabi, and I’ll try and write some more soon!

Seb and Joanne got married last week. A few readers might be asking “who” or “yawn!” already, but for reasons about to become apparent, this happy event is very important to me. You could not ask for a better friend than Seb. We met many moons ago and quickly discovered not only a shared enjoyment of clubbing until you drop, but also quite a few similar philosophies on life.
Oh before I forget, I still don’t know whether Joanne prefers to be called Joanne, Jo Jo, Jordie or even Joanna, as we haven’t yet met in real life, and her facebook timeline has all four used!
Anyway, back to Seb for now… Through the years we stayed pretty close, even when I moved to Kazakhstan, and we tried to meet up in real life (vs online) whenever we were in the same country. Seb eventually moved out to Australia, following in the footsteps of his brother (Con), AlexC and George. Later on Pip also escaped Britain to spend some time over there. All this time I have wanted to go and visit them, but never had the budget or justification for going solo. Well now I have both. This blog has been a better income source than the last couple of years (all the other sites pay a few digital bills, but have become too neglected to do much else), and Seb getting married obviously means there is a new major player in his life that I have yet to meet. So, if all goes well (Australian tourist visa approval), I should be heading to Sydney (to see AlexC and “her” Mat) and Brisbane (to see Seb, Joanne, Con and Pip) this October.
Although I wanted to get over there as soon as possible, attempting to fit in with Kazakh commitments, friend’s free-time and (pretty steep!) budget constraints mean that 25th of October to 14th November I will be away from Astana. The actual trip will be an experience in itself, as the cheapest (by about £300 !) route is to hop around a couple of Chinese airports (via Almaty) before arriving in Sydney. The route starts from Almaty, meaning I am looking at about 44 hours between leaving our flat here in Astana, and arriving at Alex and Mat’s place. Irina and I have made sure my passport has enough months left in it (just) to satisfy any picky immigration officials, that I will be in Astana for Tim’s first birthday, and there is even a (small) chance we will be able to get to Britain (as a family) for our winter trip before Dad’s birthday in mid-November. It depends on which days the cheapest Kazakhstan>UK flights are, and might mean just one or two days between me arriving in Kazakhstan and returning to the airport, but fingers crossed!
Right, on to the photos. The last three are taken from facebook, however please note that the first six are all subject to copyright. I have deliberately used low resolutions of the originals, and linked each image to the company that took the wedding photos. Please click any of these six photos to be taken to the proper page containing a lot more photos of the event. It took place in a rain forest, with the bare minimum of participants, meaning the day was all about just the happy couples’ feelings for each other, and didn’t require years of planning, or months of wages!

That last photo has Mat, AlexC, Con, Seb and Joanne in it. If for any reason one of them would prefer not to be out in general public in this post, leave a comment/msg me and I’ll obscure your face 🙂