After a long travel day yesterday, it was time for another one.

In fact, the entire day was just us in airports and airplanes.

We had two flights to catch today as first we made our way from London to Istanbul followed by a second flight tonight onwards to Almaty in Kazakhstan.

Riveting stuff, right?

Well, turns out that there were a couple of adventures mixed in there too including an awesome chat with a new friend on one of the flights.

An early morning

After crashing out around 7:30 last night, I was up bright and early this morning at 3:30am.

Way too early to get up so naturally I spent the next hour and a half conjuring up yesterday’s blog.

It’s funny, even after being away from blogging for a few months, the whole process just comes back to me naturally as the words flow onto the screen.

Anyway, I did manage a couple more hours sleep after that and finally got out of bed at 7:00 this morning.

Our flight out of London wasn’t until noon so I had a good hour and a half to grab something for breakfast.

And there was only one place I wanted to go…

Joe & The Juice!

I first came across this restaurant chain in Amsterdam when I was there a few years ago and I’ve since visited it in a handful of cities.

They make amazing panini style sandwiches and the best part is that I can get them gluten free.

Today I had their steak sandwich with a coffee shake.

Was it pricy at £21 ($40)?

Ah, yeah, way too expensive!

Was it worth it?

Well, yeah, kinda.

I really enjoyed that meal and it was a great way to start the day.

On the way back to the hostel I couldn’t help but notice all the morning commuters walking and biking the streets in the opposite direction on their way to work.

And that’s when it set in on me.

I’m on vacation.   I’m on another adventure and while those poor suckers were on their way to their 9-5s, I was about to explore another part of the world again.

How lucky am I?

The answer – very lucky.

Anyway, by 8:15 I was back at the hostel and by 8:40 Nathan and I were out the door on our way to the Underground.

A bus stop adventure

Our journey to Stansted Airport involved two Underground lines followed by a half hour Flibco bus ride.

The transportation was fairly lackluster and, aside from it being a sauna in the metro cars, the journey was pretty non-eventful.

However, there was that 10 minute period where we were waiting for our bus outside the Underground station where something quite eventful took place.

The cigarette police!

Nah, that’s not their official name but they may as well be.

Nathan was enjoying one of his last smokes before heading on planes for the day and stomped out his cigarette butt on the ground.

Immediately a man dressed in black complete with ID lanyard and bodycam came racing across the street.

Turns out these guys are hired by the local councils to “police” littering and various other “earth friendly” offences.

Of course I immediately Googled the company displayed on his name tag to make sure this wasn’t just a scam as I’ve read about something similar with “tourist police” in various European countries.

There was plenty of discussion on the internet about how these guys were a money hungry, cash grabbing company using aggressive tactics to earn their money, but it did appear to be a legit company.

The fine, by the way, was £200 ($400) but if you’re a good boy and pay them within 10 days, it’s dropped down to £150 ($300).

Wow, what a deal!

Obviously because Nathan is a tourist visiting from overseas, they’re never going to see a penny from him but I feel bad for locals who get nabbed in this as that’s a ton of money to be paid for something so silly.

By the way, the karma of it all was that as the inspector was issuing the ticket, he stepped in gum that someone had littered and had a big string of it stuck to his shoe.

Well, turned out to be a good story and now Nathan has a cool souvenir.

By 10am we had arrived at the airport and, despite having my bag go through secondary inspection, we were at our gate a half hour later.

A new Kazak friend

Since Nathan likes window seats while I prefer the aisle, there’s going to be someone in the middle of us on most of these flights.

The middle seat sat empty for quite awhile but, finally, a man walked up to us and pointed at the seat to indicate it was his.

I got up, let him in, and uttered the best conversation starter – “so, where are you from?”

When he said Kazakhstan, I couldn’t believe it.

I mean what were the odds that the person next to me would be from the very country we would be in tomorrow.

And it wasn’t like this flight was going to Kazakhstan either.   This one was going to Istanbul while the flight later tonight was the one going to Kazakhstan.

Obviously I told him about our future journey to both his country and then the rest of Central Asia.

And so began a full 3 hour conversation over the course of our entire flight to Istanbul.

Cherali is a 36 year old man who lives in a small town west of Almaty but spends 6 months every year working on a farm in the UK.

I found out while he is officially Kazak and has their passport, he considers himself an Uzbek because his father and grandfathers before him were all Uzbeks.

Back before Central Asia became a collection of independent countries, they used to be part of the former Soviet Union.

The area that now forms Kazakhstan had different regions of ethnicities including both Kazak and Uzbek.

When the Soviet Union fell, both Kazaks and Uzbeks suddenly found themselves citizens of the newly formed country of Kazakhstan and, of course, the Uzbeks still considered themselves as such.

And now, more than 30 years later, while the ethnic tensions have been dampened, the heritage and pride of being an Uzbek despite being a Kazak citizen still preside.

It was quite a fascinating conversation as while he found my life of travels fascinating, I was even more fascinated by his life.

I mentioned he works 6 months a year in the UK – well, he works quality control at a farm about 2 hours south of London.

The rest of the year, he comes back home to his hometown of Shymkent where he works at a Russian owed rubber factory.

And then, after a 6 month reset period, he applies for a new visa to return to the UK.

I found out that he can make 3 times as much money in the UK than he does back home.

It’s his way of making a better life for his two boys aged 12 and 15, and isn’t that the goal of every father?

To have their kids do better than them as they did better than their father before them?

Even his grasp of the English language was top notch.   He kept saying how his English wasn’t that great but I understood every word he said.

We talked about his wife, his brother and sisters, his sons and life in Kazakhstan.

Like I said, it was a fascinating conversation and, to me, that’s what traveling the world is about.

Meeting people and connecting with them while learning their cultures and histories.

And, to think, it all started by asking “where are you from”.

3 hour layover

Before I knew it, we were on our final approach into Istanbul.

With the clocks moved forward another 2 hours, it was 5:30 when we arrived.

Cherali and I said our goodbyes and Nathan and I headed to the International Transfer line.

We scanned our border passes and, for some obscure reason, went through another xray machine despite being on the airside the entire time of our layover.

I think it’s just one big conspiracy to make me dump out my damn water bottle every time but I digress.

Thankfully there were free water filling stations by the washrooms so, haha, conspiracy defeated this time.

I was craving some juice though but I couldn’t believe the $12 price tag for a small bottle of orange juice.

I mean, damn, I know prices are more inside airports but this is Turkey for crying out loud.

So, I went juiceless.

Just me and my free water.

Of course, there was still the matter of dinner and I really didn’t want to look at those prices.

Eventually we did make our way to the food court.

All I wanted was to find some authentic Turkish food amongst the collection of chain Americanized restaurants that encompassed the food court.

Sadly I finally gave up.

And when I say I gave up, I mean I really gave up as we stopped in, gasp, McDonalds.

Yes, I’m well aware that our first two dinners on our trip have been burgers and, yes, I’m also well aware that eating American fast food is kinda sacrilege when you’re traveling.

But here we were, eating overpriced McDonalds at an airport in Istanbul.

Please don’t shame me, I already feel ashamed enough for both of us.

Country number 66!

The second flight today from Istanbul to Almaty, unlike the earlier flight, was quite uneventful.

In fact I spent a good chunk of it writing the first part of this blog.

We took off just after 9pm and, with another two hour time zone jump, we landed at just after 4am in the morning.

I know we’ve been on this trip for a couple of days already but when we stepped onto Kazakhstan soil, it felt like trip had officially begun.

This is country number 66 crossed off my list and, over the next month, another four new countries will be added to the list.

Obviously that’s an insane amount of countries to have been fortunate enough to have visited and days like today really make me appreciate how lucky I am to be able to.

I’m also very thankful to have Nathan by my side for this journey as his excitement makes me excited.

We’ll be spending the next few days here in Almaty before crossing the border into Kyrgyzstan where we’ll be attending the World Nomad Games next week.

It’s the start of an incredible journey and I can’t wait to see what unfolds over the coming days…