jack-in-a-box

yawrp. nawrp.

It was a bloody windy and overcast 7°C when we returned to Turdmenistan. We finally got off our asses calling the HR Ogre and acquired the things (new locks, extra heaters) we needed ourselves via somewhat dishonest-ish means. All I have to say regarding the somewhat dishonest-ish-y is that at least we’re warm enough now and we no longer need to spend 5 minutes in the relentless cold, paying tribute to the entrance door by performing a complex ritual involving both hands, a key, the keyhole, door knob and door handle.

Monsieur Le Petit Chat has developed a love for the outdoors which,is  unfortunate as he is supposed to be an indoor cat. He takes it out on us, his captors, by launching surprise attacks from under the dining table.  He has also taken to dashing about the house in a distinctly un-cat-like manner, jumping on tables in search of small objects to play with, terrorizing plastic bags and carton boxes…wreaking destruction all around, really. We don’t really snuggle with him anymore as he’s either all teeth and claws, or unconscious in front of the heater.

We’ve splurged on the data sim card and now have a kinda handicapped sort of internet at home as I’m blocked from facebook, twitter, livejournal and possibly other forms of social media, as well as unable to download  and install the compulsory updated version of MSN messenger. Also, the speed is extremely slow and unstable.

In other news, we’re heading back to civilization of the French kind on the 21st and returning on the 30th. Thank god(dess) we’ve a baggage allowance of 40kg each as I am in dire need of some serious winter clothes and as many litres of Knorr’s  instant liquid soups as we can possibly carry back because the chopper/souper unit of our mini food processor is kaput.

Photos from all the sightseeing we’ve done around and in Ashgabat to be posted when I get to France as logging into Facebook is impossible at home and posting photos is impossible from the base camp.

reconnecting – a facebook guilt trip

2 months on, I feel like I’ve aged a million years and the wrinkled, dry, flaky eczematic skin on my knuckles didn’t help assuage that dreadful feeling of being old.

I’ve taken to calling the country, Turdmenistan – a shitty pun, I know. It’s difficult for me to speak objectively about the country and to give me some other perspectives, I’ve taken to reading about Turkmenistan online now that I’m back in Singapore with 24/7 internet access. I’ve yet to read Turkmenistan’s most famous book but if you’ve an interest, it’s available online here in 22 languages. Strangely enough, it’s not (yet) available in Mandarin.

I’m wondering if the inhabitants of Ashgabat are of a different breed of those in the other regions. I’ve read about genuine smiles and curiosity but those are extremely unfamiliar to me. All I see on a daily basis are hostile stares and wary looks, people slowing down their cars to gawk. Maybe we need to travel out of Ashgabat and I know that we should but right now, I’m simply uninterested in this country.

little man goes to…

I just saw the whole travel plan entry from Chels and thought I’d do one of my own.

01 – 04 Sept ‘09 – Muscat, Oman (confirmed and boarding the plane in about 9 hours)
Business for Tanguy and leisure for me. I just received an email from him saying that the sub-contractor he’ll be visiting there has booked us a room at Barr Al Jissah Resort & Spa, part of the Shangri-la group. I’m a lucky, lucky girl!

16 – 20 Oct ‘09 – Bangkok, Thailand (hope this can be confirmed soon-ish)
A “weekend” in Bangkok for us.

21 – 31 Oct ‘09 – Singapore (as above)
Going home, alone, to eat. I miss prawns, avocados, sashimi, ayam penyet among a million other things.  Oh, and to shop at Cold Storage, Fairprice and Giant. I’m not kidding about that last bit.

Christmas  ’09 /New Year ‘10 – France (tentative)
Hello, Plouys!

Lunar New Year ‘10 – Singapore (tentative)
Hello, pineapple tarts and family!

March ‘10 – Dominican Republic (cancelled)

sprinkles

Yay,  my first rain in Ashgabat and it’s surprisingly cool at around 20 degrees. It’s a nice respite from the merciless heat. The two Thai wives, Jum and Wae found it too cold and had to wear jackets for warmth =)

yes i’m alive

10 full days and 3 power cuts later, I’ve stopped worrying about my frozen produce melting and bacteria having a pool party in my freezer. One never knows when the next power cut is coming so I’m really happy that we’ve not had any in the last 4 days or so.

On the subject of grocery shopping, we have a variety of places to go for that activity. There are 2 supermarkets in Yimpaş and Paytagt. The former is larger but the latter seem to have a larger variety of imported stuff. Something unnerving is how quick the sales assistants manage to restock items. There I am, picking up a bottle of something which I can’t read and while I’ve just managed to take out of Russian-English dictionary from my hand bag to translate the bottle’s label, I would find that the empty space, formerly taken up by the bottle in my hand, has been filled; my bottle has been replaced. Yes, they are super dilligent and industrious but this poses a problem when one does not want that bottle that’s in one’s hand anymore, after translating the label to “Crimean Nibbles” and not pasta sauce as one had expected it to be. This poor unwanted bottle is then hastily shoved into a space, any space, where it can’t be with its other Crimean Nibble friends.

There are of course numerous bazaars, all with names I can barely spell. We’ve got completely ripped off at the Russian bazaar, where I am sure the man charged us the price of a full kilo of aubergines when we only bought 2. I’m trying to avoid shopping at the bazaars right now. Unfortunately, one can’t find everything at one place so we’ll have to explore the different bazaars.

Currency is ever-so-slightly confusing and they have just redenominated their currency on New Year’s Day 2009. Bazaars and smaller shops hasn’t really updated their price tags so we still need to deal with the old currency. So, 5000 old manats (TMM) = 1 new manat (TMT).  As far as things are concerned, one usually withdraws USD from the banks and changes it into TMT. 1 USD is roughly 2.85 TMT. Unfortunately for our multinational household of 2 (European and Singaporean), we tend to recalculate the cost of items based on our local currencies. So for convenience’s sake , we usually calculate things with the following formula:  1 TMT = 0.50 SGD = 0.25 EUR

PS: Thank you, Captain Carrot for that lovely piece.

cumi bali

Carrot asked Anne who asked me in return if I were ready to move. I don’t think I’ll ever be ready for Turkmenistan, a country with a suspiciously little amount of available information and dodgy internet connection. Lol.

estimation

I’m currently shifting around giant blobs of files from Ellie’s harddisk to L’ours Noir to make space for CSI New York.

(from xkcd.com via LW on Facebook)

rachel goes to penang

I’m still recovering from that infernal alarm clock which we used to wake ourselves up for breakfast. Dia showed amazingly rapid reflexes for someone who is an extremely heavy sleeper and she managed to turn it off within 15s of it ringing every morning.

fingers crossed

It seems like my application would be approved a fortnight after being submitted so if everything goes according to plan, I should receive my letter of invitation in the week I return from Penang.  I guess I can start thinking about the exact date in August I will leave.