16 Nov 06
At the reception I meet the family in whose apartment I shall spend the night, there being insufficient hotels in Balkhash. Mother Batima is a chemical engineer, 17-year-old Leila is studying English and German and is our communication conduit. She's been practising for weeks: 'Who is your favourite author? What is the last film you saw? Where do you live?' and so on, eagerly trying to piece together what life must be like in the affluent West (and blissfully unaware of Borat). They are nominally Muslim but there's no sign of this in their apartment, crumbling on the outside but neat on the inside. It has a flat-screen TV and a laptop computer but, as was the Soviet provincial norm, no wash basin. It's all done in the bath.
Our ride back up the hill to the apartment is in an old Volga taxi. What were distant disturbances in the E320 are major incidents in the Volga, which crashes and bangs and shudders as if the dampers are empty of oil and all rubber bushes have long turned to dust. Slipping the clutch is the only way to coax it over the bigger bumps, and the headlights have no more glow than a candle. The zebra-print seat covers are quite cool, though. Clearly, cars here are kept going long after they would have gone to the crusher in the West. I wonder what the taxi driver would make of our E-class?
The final drive in this Paris-to-Beijing leg is to Almaty, 403 miles away and the previous capital. The route heads south-east now as we follow the lake's edge, before turning south-west towards Kazakhstan's largest city, after which the next crew will cross into China. The lake is rich in fish, and fish-sellers are displaying their dried merchandise every couple of miles. Strangely, the display cabinet of choice is usually a Zaphorozhets, a small, square-cut, rear-engined, air-cooled car a little like a 1960s NSU. Some look as if they still run, some are static in their new role.
The road is fast, straight and a little bumpy, so the E-class's ESP light flashes occasionally as we briefly give chase to the Italians at around 125mph. As Almaty - its name alludes to the abundance of apples grown there - approaches, the scrubby steppe grows greener and soon we see our first proper roadside, out-of-town trees for two days.
