Day 25 - My first Good Morning in Vietnam!

My day started of course with the free breakfast buffet that was provided by the Grand Saigon. Before I even left for Southeast Asia, I had decided that I wanted to try and avoid western food and try to stick to local cuisine. However, this proved to be difficult for breakfast. They had a few Vietnamese options with some noodles and rice, but there was a lot of eggs, potatoes, and other American breakfast items. Oh well, I'll just have to wait for my first real Vietnamese meal.

I only waited in the lobby for a short while when I was met by Chuong, my tour guide for the day. He and our driver would be taking me on a trip out to the Mekong Delta. So when I booked this tour, I had made the assumption that this would be a group tour. I wanted to participate in a group tour so I could meet some people while I travelled. Well it ended up just being the three of us for most of the day, no big deal. The tour only cost me about $35. After about an hour and a half of driving, we end up at a visitor rest stop where I get my first taste of how beautiful a place Vietnam can be.

After a short rest, we're back on the road and only about 30 minutes later, we arrive at the dock for the river where we board our first boat of the day. It's an interesting long tail boat that is captained by a nice little local woman, who if you look closely is wearing an old Dodgers jacket. Definitely a good sign for the day! Once we get to the other side of the river, we tour a small coconut candy making facility. Now when I say 'small' I really mean small. It's basically an open air kitchen with tools to cut up the coconut, wood fired stoves to cook the meat of the coconut, and long tables to cut the candy into bite sized pieces. Now for those of you that know me well, you know that I am not a fan of coconut, but of course with my fearless attitude, I decide to try some. And to my surprise, I actually enjoy it. You actually can't taste too much of the coconut flavor, probably because of all the additional sugar. So I ended up buying a bag of it.

Once I was done at the candy shop, we took a short trip over to meet a gentleman who had some interesting pets. The coolest of these pets of course being his Burmese python that I got to hold! For those of you that have never held a snake of this size, let me just tell you that guy is really heavy! Lucky for me the python was not hungry so it didn't start giving me the squeeze. But just little bit that he wrapped his body around my arm, I can see how he can easily squeeze the life out of something. Once I was done at the reptile petting zoo, I headed out on a little tuk-tuk (that's at least what they called them here) ride through some of the villages in the area.

At the end of the line was a small little market are that a number of small little restaurants to eat at. So Chuong has the two of us stop at a little place for some food. Finally some local food! I'm very excited for this. He speaks to our waitress and she brings us this platter of local fruit. It wasn't what I was expecting, but I'm more than willing to try anything. After I survey all of the choices I dive in trying one at a time in the order Chuong recommends because it will take me from sweet to bitter. I'm absolutely blown away by how good and fresh it is! And surprisingly, the one that I like the best is probably the one that looks the most peculiar. It's the one that looks like it has a spinney shell of an exterior. It tastes very much like a peach and in fact it has a very hard pit in the middle. Unfortunately Chuong forgot to mention that to me the first time and I totally bit down hard onto it. Lucky for me there were plenty to go around. In addition to the great food that we got to try, there was also this local group of musicians that came by to play for us. They had some very interesting instruments that I was able to get on video and I'd be more than happy to show people on my iPad sometime!

After this little snack, we took a very relaxing boat ride through some of the canals of the Mekong Delta. When I initially signed up for this tour, this is exactly what I had in mind. We were gently rowed through narrow canals that weaved through homes of the local people. Fish traps lined all of the canals in hopes of catching dinner for that evening. Floating lotus flowers were spread out sporadically through the canals. It was a very peaceful segment of my tour and a very nice contrast to Ho Chi Minh city.

The end of the line after the boat ride was lunch. The fruit was a nice snack, but definitely did not fill me up enough to keep me going through the rest of the day. The restaurant that we stop is set up on a dock that is literally right over the delta. So since we have water directly underneath us, we manage to stay relatively cool despite the humidity. Immediately we are taken to our table where the food is already set up for us. After I sit down a get a better look at what I'm about to eat and I'm very intrigued. It is a whole fish that has been completely fried. At first I thought I would need to eat it right off the bone, but that doesn't turn out to be the case. A waitress comes over and begins to peel the fish off of the bone and wraps it with rice, some kind of leaf and a sauce all rolled up in rice paper. In addition to that I had a soup, and some shrimp. To wash it all down I decide to have a Tiger beer with lunch. I originally thought it was a local Vietnamese beer, but I later learned that it's made in Singapore. It was a wonderful way to start my Vietnamese cuisine!

Once we were done with lunch (it was a late lunch, we were done around 2:00), Our tour was coming to a close. We headed back across the river, with the same captain that we had before. And then we set out for the drive back to Ho Chi Minh. Along the way, we picked up another person who was a participant on another tour. Her name was Tracy and she did the two day tour of the Delta with an overnight stay. It was nice to have another traveller to talk to about things. She was headed in the opposite direction as I was and she had already been to a number of places in Northern Vietnam. She gave me recommendations about a number of things including a travel agent for Halong Bay as well as advice to go to Hoi An since I wasn't originally planning to stop there.

After the drive back to Ho Chi Minh, we dropped Tracy off at her hotel, but Chuong said that he would take me to other places in the City if I'd like. I jumped on this opportunity of having free transportation and had him take me to a place called the Jade Pagoda. It was my first temple that I got a chance to visit in Southeast Asia (first of many!). It was a great introduction to these temples as it was relatively small, so it wasn't too overwhelming. It had a number of statues as well as some amazing recessed sculptures. In addition to taking me to the Jade Pagoda, Chuong was also nice enough to help me run a couple of errands. First, I needed to get a train ticket for an overnight ride to Nha Trang for the following night. Chuong helped me purchase my ticket since the lady behind the ticket booth didn't speak any English. After that, they took me to a cell phone shop to get a new iPad charger since mine had already blown out in the hotel! After these errands, it brought my time with Chuong to a close. I was very grateful for him being a great tour guide and then going above my expectations and helping me out with my errands! Needless to say he definitely earned his tip.

Once I was back at my hotel room, I took it easy for a little while. I took a shower, and then I started mapping out what I wanted to walk around and see the next day. Once I got all of that planned out, I need to focus on finding a place to get some dinner! I thumbed through my Frommer's Guide and found a restaurant to try out that was within walking distance. I found it on my map and set out to find it. However once I got to where the restaurant was supposed to be, I quickly learned that a laundromat currently operates out of that shop. Fail 1 for Frommer's! So instead of walking all the way back to my hotel, I decide to just walk around until I find something that looks good. Most of the restaurants have their menus out on the sidewalk so you can look beforehand. In not too long I find one that peaks my interest. It's a nice small restaurant that actually has a live pianist playing. After I settle in to the restaurant, I order some spring rolls to start as an appetizer, not realizing that I probably could have made a meal out of just those! I learned that I'm supposed to wrap them in the lettuce and dip it in the sauce (stupid American!). Either way you eat them, they were absolutely delicious. My meal continued with my first crack at authentic Vietnamese Pho. Let's just say, I was not let down. It was all that it lived up to be! I definitely left that restaurant a happy camper!

After dinner, I decide to try and find a place to have a couple of beers. As I'm walking back towards my hotel, I come across a small place that describes themselves as a Beer House. Well this immediately draws me in! It's filled with a good mix of locals as travellers, but apparently I'm in a bit of a shy mood tonight and I don't really strike up a conversation with anyone. However I do try two local Vietnamese beers; Saigon and "333". The Saigon is good, but not as good as the Tiger I had with lunch, and the "333" is better left behind the bar! By now it's closing in on midnight and it has been a very long first day in Vietnam, but in my book, a very successful day.

Day 24 – My Long Day of Travel

So today was an extremely long day of travelling. It all started after I finished saying goodbye to everyone at the restaurant just outside of the Atyrau airport. I made the extremely long 500 foot walk over to the lone terminal and I was immediately reminded of how awesome business travel is. There was a long line of customers trying to check in and I was able to use the Business Class line which consisted of just one person ahead of me. After that, I passed through the Business Class Security check point in a matter of minutes. A guy could sure get used to this! After that, I had a short wait and I was ready to board my plane. At this point is about 11 pm and I have a 4 hour flight ahead of me. I settled in and tried to get comfortable so I can try and sleep on this red eye flight. Unfortunately even with all of the comforts of Business Class, I can only muster about an hour of broken sleep. This is truly going to be a long day!

I land in the city of Almaty, Kazakhstan at around 4 am. Needless to say, I’m exhausted. At this point, I have a 5 hour lay-over before my next flight. And of course I couldn’t sleep on at this terminal because it has the world’s most uncomfortable chairs. After I entertain myself for 4 and a half hours with a combination of movies, books, and my Sudoku book, I finally board my next flight bound for Bangkok, Thailand. Unfortunately I won’t be staying long in Bangkok (this time) as I have just a short lay-over there of just under two hours. The last leg of my travels for the day takes me from Bangkok to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam and I get to travel on Thai Airlines, which I must say are very worthy of all of the praise that they get. Even on just a two hour flight, all of the flight attendants were very attentive, the entertainment options were wonderful, and the cabin was extremely clean.

Success!! I have landed in Vietnam! Now I just need to de-board and see if I can actually get my visa. I’m a little nervous about it at this point because the US Postal Service decided to take way too long in having my visa delivered to me in Kazakhstan. So I had to go through a third party website that made arrangement for me to get my visa on arrival and got me a letter of invitation to enter the country. After quite a bit of chaos, filling out a number of forms, and a lot of waiting, I finally get my passport back with crispy new Vietnam Visa inside! So exciting!

I make it through passport control and customs with no problem, but then I get to baggage claim and…my luggage is nowhere in sight. Great! I went over to the lost luggage section, luckily found someone who spoke enough English, and directed me over to an area where they take luggage that has not been picked up for more than an hour (it took me more than an hour to get my visa). So now I’m ready to go, luggage and visa in hand. I manage to get some money from an ATM and believe it or not, they call their currency Vietnam Dong (I’m not making this up people). After that I find a taxi service and show him the address of my hotel and find out that it will only cost me $10 to get there. So much cheaper than the US!

In the weeks leading up to my departure for Kazakhstan, I learned that June through September is the Monsoon season in Southeast Asia. While it definitely helped to keep a lot of my travel costs down, I must admit I was a little worried that it was going to be raining the entire time I was in Southeast Asia. As I walked out of the Ho Chi Minh Airport, I was greeted by the gentle drizzle of rain in Vietnam. Well this was a good start.

As we leave the airport, I get my first dose of what Vietnam traffic is like. Needless to say, I’m really glad that I’m not allowed to drive in this country!  I quickly learn that the preferred way to travel in the cities of Vietnam is by motor-bike. They are everywhere! They almost move through the city streets like schools of fish, moving in unison to avoid cars, buses, and pedestrians. The incessant beeping of their horns quickly becomes white noise that is just a part of life in the city. My driver speaks very little English, but he tried hard to hold a conversation. It should be an interesting trip if this is how I will be communicating the whole time. It ends up taking about half an hour to get to my hotel, which makes the $10 for the cab all the more impressive.

The hotel staff at the Grand Saigon were great and they spoke wonderful English. Now to get some sleep and hopefully wake up to a rain free morning as I head off to explore the Mekong Delta!

Day 23 - My Next Adventure

So today is my last day in Kazakhstan for this rotation. I honestly can't believe that I have been here for three weeks already. It's hard to believe that time can fly by that quickly, but I suppose when you work 12 hour days 7 days a week, it's hard not to. I must say that I really enjoyed my time here. Outside of the language barrier, the Kazakh people are really great. They have a wonderful sense of humor much like we do, they are a very hard working group of people, and surprisingly enjoy very similar movies and music that we do back in the United States. This has left me looking forward to my next rotation when I come back in August.

With all of my training and turnaround preparation behind me now, I can use my last day to tie up a few loose ends before I leave. I did one last walk of all of my engineering jobs in my area so I can remember where they all are and what they all entail. I was also able to witness the delivery of the material for my largest job. I feel pretty confident that there isn't too much more preparation I can do before I leave.

  

After our shuttle back to the village, we all check out of our rooms and check in for our flight on the little Dash 8 plane that goes from Tengiz to Atyrau. I got a window seat this time and I was able to get some great views of both the plant and of the Caspian Sea.

And now I get to start my first big international vacation! And of course I have to start it with a red-eye flight out of Atyrau to Almaty that leaves at 11 pm and arrives at 4 am! Fun times for me! After that I fly into Bangkok, and then into Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) where I will land around 8 pm. Needless to say it is going to be a long day of travel. So to cap off my first rotation in Kazakhstan, I decide to grab a few beers with a couple of my fellow expats, Bill and Mark, from our Richmond Refinery. After a little while, we are actually joined by some more expats that had just flown in from the US from Richmond, Pascagoula, and finally from El Segundo. It was really nice to see a few more familiar faces before I left. My departure time arrived far too quickly. So now I'm off to explore Southeast Asia on my first solo trip. Here goes nothing!!

Day 12 - My Trip to the Market

So every time we walk between our village and the TCO village next to us we technically have to badge out and leave TCO premises. Whenever we do this we always see this small group of run down cars where a group of older women are selling various items. Through conversations with our co-workers who have been in Tengiz fora while, they are called the "Babushka Market" and you can get various kinds of alcohol, fruits, vegetables and other goods from them.

So since today is Sunday and we only work a half day, we decided to go and check it out. We also brought along our friend Andrey who is fluent in Russian to help us negotiate. As we get out there we immediately notice the wide variety of beer and vodka choice that we have and we wonder how we are going to be able to decide. Not to mention that they have a variety of American items as well including Jack Daniels and Captain Morgan, but I want to try something I can't get back home.  So naturally we decided that we would get the largest beers we could find which turned out to be these cans that are about three times larger than cans in the states. My second purchase was a bottle of Russian vodka. I had no reason for buying this bottle other than the babushka lady telling me that is "very very good vodka". So I thought I would give it a try. When it was all said and done, this whole purchase cost me less than $10. And that is what I would call a successful trip to the market!

Day 11 - A night out...in the Dome

This past week has not been the most exciting week to blog about. My days have mostly consisted of waking up at 4:15, getting ready for the day (which includes applying mosquito repellant from head to toe), and then heading off to breakfast. I've managed to find things at breakfast each morning to give me fuel for the day. Some of the items that are served are a little strange to me for breakfast, like chicken and dumplings, but to each their own. I'm mostly sticking to a rotation of hard boiled eggs, toast, potatoes, cereal, and oatmeal. After breakfast, we head to the shuttle which leaves at 5:30 promptly! While at the plant, my days have consisted of walking out jobs, reviewing them for engineering merit and asking a lot of questions. I've also figured out that my area has the most work going on than any other, so I'll be pretty busy come August. After work, we head back on the shuttle and I pretty much head straight to the gym to get in a quick work out. Then a shower, grab some dinner, read a little on my iPad and then off to sleep. Believe it or not, this kind of schedule actually flies on by. It's hard to believe that we have already been gone for a week and a half.

So today, was a little break from the normal routine that I have developed for myself. Well the work day was the same and so was the gym, shower and dinner, but my friends here in Tengiz decided to check out the Disco. So all of the domes here have a small bar in them that are open from 7-9 PM everyday, but once a week on Saturdays, the bar and canteen area of Dome 2 is turned into a Disco from 10-12. Now when I say "Disco", I'm not talking about John Travolta, polyesterd suits, or the Bee Gee's. From what I can gather, it seems that the Kazakh culture calls a disco, what we in american call a dance club.

We all got there a little early just to hang out a little bit and enjoy a beer together, but promptly at 10 PM the music started thumping. So first off their music is a very interesting mix of American music from the 90's-present mixed in with some Kazakh and Russian music dance music as well. It probably wasn't until 11 PM that the dance floor actually got a little filled up. So Let's face it, this is a living compound to support an oil producing facility, and needless to say the men far out number the women here. With that said, the Disco actually reminded me of a mix between a modern bar and a 7th grade Jr. High School Dance. As you looked around on the dance floor you could see a perimiter of mostly guys just kind of standing around drinking. The people that were actually dancing seemed to have quite a bit of distance between eachother. And a strange thing to me was that when peopel took drinks onto the dance floor, they would put them on the ground and proceed to dance around them without knocking them over.

I have been reassured by a copule of Kazakh nationals that work in our group that most discos in the rest of the country aren't like that and they sound a lot more like bars and clubs down in Hermosa Beach. Needless to say, it was a fun interesting night of cultural development.

Day 5 - On the Job...

Today we finally made our way out to the plant here in Tengiz. Surprisingly, it is about a 25 minute bus ride to get there from the living compound. So since my 12-hr shift starts at 6 am, that means I need to be on the shuttle ready to go b 5:30. Needless to say that makes for a very early morning if I want to get some breakfast, which as all of you probably know, I love me some breakfast!

For the sake of my friends and family that don’t work in a refinery, I’ll refrain from ‘geeking’ out about everything that this plant does and providing endless details about the sheer size and massiveness of the equipment. I’m sure that when I get back to El Segundo, we’ll be doing a presentation for all of the engineers about our experiences out here and we’ll go into much more ‘nerdy’ detail! But needless to say, this plant is gigantic!

I got a chance to visit the plants that I’ll be working in with a couple of the national engineers that work out here full time; Mikhail and Vladimir. They are both very sharp young engineers who speak a decent amount of English, but I can already tell that some things are going to be lost in translation. I’m learning to use a lot of hand gestures and quick sketches to communicate better. I found out that I will be working in the Sulfur Recovery and Tail Gas Unit and for those of you in El Segundo, you know that my days in DPD will be paying off for this turnaround!

Other than the plant, the most notable thing out here is the mountain of sulfur. Now when I say mountain, I’m not kidding at all! It’s probably about 35-40 feet tall but probably about 300-400 feet square. It is really rather interesting to see. It’s not just a mound like a sand dune, it’s very square like the base of a pyramid. Oh and there’s about 3 or 4 of these things! And to answer the question that you all are probably thinking, no, it actually doesn’t smell like rotten eggs at all.

So that consumed most of my morning, the rest of my day was filled with just reviewing work packages and asking a lot of questions. I’m learning more and more everyday. Names are probably going to be the hardest thing for me to pick up, but I’ll keep at it. You all are probably wondering why I didn’t post any pictures. I have some that I have taken, but I really don’t like posting pictures of our operating facilities to the internet. I don’t know what our company policy is on it and I really don’t want to risk my job over it. So needless to say, they’ll be in my presentation in El Segundo and they will be on my iPad when I get home for all to see, they just won’t be on here unfortunately.

Day 4

Coming into this assignment, I was under the impression that I would be working 12 hour days, 7 days a week, which really didn’t concern myself that much. But recently I learned that on Sundays we only work 6 hour days! This was a nice realization. While it is almost a full work day back home, only working half a day makes all the difference in the world out here. So today I was able to sleep in all the way until 7 am!! Woo hoo! I went and had some breakfast and then we all went to the admin office and we were able to pick up our TCO badges and get our Chevron SmartBadges activated for use here at the facility. So now we are full fledged TCO employees. We’re able to get into and out of facilities without a special form and we’re able to get our meals now with just a swipe of our badges. It’s quite exciting!

The first half of my day was spent trying to take care of my travel expenses so I could get reimbursed for my flights. I know what you’re thinking; ‘they made you pay for your travel out of pocket?’ Well yes they did, but there’s a good reason for that. I was advised that I should open up a Delta Skymiles American Express Credit card (because most of our flights are with KLM, a partner of Delta). So I got 30,000 miles for opening the card and now I get to add all of the miles from the expenses of my tickets as well that I charge to the card and I merely get reimbursed by the company. So I’ll have plenty of miles to fly all over the place once this assignment is done!

The rest of my short day was spent just looking around the TCO website trying to familiarize myself with where I can find certain things like drawings, piping specifications and weld procedures. Pretty boring stuff so I won’t bother you all with the details.

Instead, I’ll tell you about my softball game that I got to be a part of in the afternoon. One of my other ex-pat engineers from our Mississippi refinery, David, has been out here for over a week now and he has made some excellent contacts, including one gentle from the States that organizes a periodic softball game that comes complete with a BBQ and few cold beers, all for the low-low price of 2,000 Tenge (about $13). So of course I’m excited for this opportunity to play a little ball and have some BBQ. I head out to the ‘field’ to check it out. Now I’ve played on some rough fields in my day, but this was a whole new experience. Yes it does have a turf infield (old school Astro-turf, almost like outdoor carpeting), but the outfield is filled with tons of brush, dirt mounds and ant hills. Game day conditions were a little rough as well. It was a nice, balmy 105 degrees, but at least we had some wind, of course that wind was so strong that no one could hit the ball any deeper than about 20 feet into left field.

Playing in many different softball leagues over the years has given me the appreciation that some people don’t really care about the score and about being competitive and are just going out to have fun. This game gave me a whole new definition of “just having fun”. About half of the guys that were out there were British. So needless to say, most of them really didn’t have a clue how to play the game correctly. But we all had a good time laughing a little at their expense.

The BBQ afterwards consisted of beef sandwiches on rolls. The beef itself had some good flavor to it, but it was a little too well done for my taste and I’m pretty sure the rolls were hard enough that we could have used them as pucks and played ice hockey with them. Of course I’m sure that the food was supplied to use from one of the cateens, so it’s not like we can just go down to the local grocery store and get some prime cut beef and fresh bread. We make do with what we have. All in all, it was a really nice day, and a little taste of home.

Day 3

For the most part, today has not been full of events to blog about. From 7 AM until about 4 PM we have been in various training classes. Completely necessary for us and we get our official TCO badges at the end, but it’s quite repetitive from all of my many years of safety orientation and training that we have all been through.

However, after all of our many hours of trying to understand what our instructors were saying (the poor things didn’t speak the best English in the world, but they tried their best to keep us engaged), I decided it was about time that I finally worked out! In the weeks leading up to departing, I was unable to work out even a little bit, so I knew that I needed to get back on track in the worst way. What I learned is that each Dome has its own gym which is nice because that means I don’t have to venture out into the mosquito infested hot air in order to go work out!

I was able to find the gym in my Dome relatively easily as it is very close to my room. As I walked in I surveyed the gym to see what it had to offer: Cardio equipment? Check. Free weights? Check. Dumbells? Check. Dip Bar? Check. Pull-up bar? Check. Well you’re beginning to get the picture at this point. Needless to say, they have pretty much all of the basics that I need to get a good work out. Unfortunately they don’t have any classes so I will have to wait until I get back to El Segundo to experience some good spin (Carrie), RIPPED (Rachel), or yoga (Michelle). See girls…it’s not easy to replace you!

As I’m finishing a very shoddy work out of chest, back and legs, I come across some interesting Soviet style instruction diagrams. I’ll let you all be the judge, but I’m tempted to make some photo copies and bring a few back to the states. I think they would be good motivational posters for the gym…especially the gym-wear that this guy is sporting! (By the way, there are a ton more of these, include a few riske ones!)

Day 2 - The Journey Continues

After I looked at the bed at ATH for just a minute or two, I thought I would be getting just as good a night of sleep as if I would slept on a friend’s run down futon in college! However I woke up on Day 2 of my travels feeling very refreshed and not sore at all. We dropped our bags off at the luggage office. We found out that our bags will actually travel out to Tengiz on a train while we fly out on a little Jet (more on that later). After the luggage office, we decided to go on over to the kitchen to get some breakfast before it closed, plus we wanted to try some local Kazakh food for the first time (we really didn’t count the sandwich from the night before as local food).  As we arrive, we see that it is very much “cafeteria” style where you tell a nice lady behind a counter which food items you would like on your plate. It’s a little difficult with the language barrier so our communication basically became us pointing to an item and her repeating it in Russian as we try to learn the language somewhat. So Kazakh meal number one consisted of scrambled eggs (that were very thin and rolled up like a crepe), potatoes (which we have come to find out is a staple in most meals), bacon (which looks more like un-trimmed ham), and something that resembles French toast. Everything was pretty good, but there was a strange flavor in the eggs, that I just can’t pinpoint. Also, they don’t have maple syrup here, but they do have honey that they put on their French toast, which is actually quite tasty. I may have to try that when I get back to the US.

After breakfast we make our way back to the ATH Lounge to relax and wait for the shuttle to pick us up and take us back to the Atyrau Airport. As we wait, more and more Ex-Pats start showing up that are taking the same flight that we are. As I sit there and people watch, I begin to realize just how culturally diverse of an experience this is going to be. I can hear accents from the UK, Australia, the deep south, and many many other languages that I can’t even recognize. This is already shaping up to be a fun experience.

Right on schedule at 8:15 the shuttle arrives and we all cram into it like sardines. From what I can tell, there are probably about 50-60 people all making this same trek. We get back to the Atyrau Airport and we can very easily get checked in and through security since this looks to be the only flight leaving from that airport all morning. We only wait a couple of minutes and we start walking out to our “Jet”. The reason for the quotation marks is because that is how it was described to me. As you can see in the photo, “Jet” doesn’t quite properly capture it. It’s a cozy fit with only two seats on either side of the aisle and maybe only 15-20 rows. So the flight is pretty full. As we take off we fly up and over the Caspian Sea, which is a wonderful view. As I came to find out later, that flight took me from the eastern part of Europe in to the western part of Asia. So I have now been on three continents in three days. Amazingly enough, the flight out to Tengiz fairly smooth with only very limited turbulence. It’s amazing for two reasons; 1. The size of the plane, and 2. The amount of wind that was blowing that day!

After we land, we all get off the plane and we meet Gaukhar, our admin in the DE organization in Tengiz that has really helped us set up a lot of our travel details. She welcomes us to Tengiz and to Shanyrak Village (that’s the name of the living compound in Tengiz). Gaukhar then takes us over to the Admin building at the Village, where we get our room assignment and keys. The living accommodations here are hard to describe. I added a Google Earth view of what the building look like. They are called “Domes” here, but look like stars or sunbursts to me. In the middle is the “Dome” where the Canteen (cafeteria), bar, gym, shop, and other amenities are located. All of the arms (we call them blocks) are where all of the living quarters are located. The rooms themselves are very similar to the rooms at ATH. They are small, with a bed, a bathroom, closet, TV (with very few English channels), a mini-fridge and a desk. Of course when you work 12 hours a day, you don’t exactly need the nicest place to live in the world.

Once we are all done getting settled in, Gaukhar takes us to meet our supervisor while we are over here. Alex is a country boy from the south that used to work in our Pascagoula Mississippi refinery. We sat down and talked with him for a while and he explained to us that our role in the T/A will be as consultants to the engineers out here answering questions and overseeing work. We won’t be creating any paperwork, which will be nice. He also gives us a rundown of what our day to day lives will be like and some expectations both about our work and what we can expect while we are living here.

At this point in the day, we’re all pretty hungry, so Alex takes us all over to the Canteen for some lunch. There is some local Kazakh food that is available, but interestingly enough, there is also something called “Wok at Work”. Well needless to say, I’m intrigued and the line is short, so I go over there to check it out. Sure enough you have your choice of vegetables, meat, sauces and spices and they grill it on a skillet right there in front of you. For my friends from El Segundo, think Big Wok! This meal has significantly raised my expectations about food while I’m living out here. This may be alright after all!

The rest of the afternoon is relatively short for us. We’re allowed to get on some computers to check our work emails and finalize some of our more important documents like linking our bank accounts and travel expense reports. One of the nice things about this whole trip is that our Chevron Badges will allow us to use the computers out here. We only work until about 4 or 5 in the afternoon and then we head back over to the admin building to pick up our luggage.

The evening rolls around and all of us Ex Pats decide to have dinner together despite being in different domes. I finally decide to try the local fare for this meal. I got something that looked liked some dumplings, some potatoes, bread, and some kind of cake for dessert. I immediately dig into the dumplings. I quickly learn that they are filled with a certain kind of ground beef that has a decent amount of onions mixed in. It’s actually quite tasty, but with the amount of oil that was in them, I’m pretty sure I could hear myself getting fatter. The potatoes were a little underwhelming as they were fairly under-cooked. The bread was quite tasty, a little on the dry side, but good. The cake however took dryness to a new level. After a delicious lunch, the bar has successfully been lowered back down.

The rest of the evening was very low key. I unpacked my things, read a little bit, unsuccessfully tried to find something to watch on TV and then called it a night. This is has got to be one of the earliest bed-times I’ve had in a while. I was probably out cold by 8:30.

Day 1 - The Journey Begins

Well the day has finally come for me to begin my adventure full of working in a desert and traveling to all corners of the world. It was a morning filled with doing last minute things like laundry, packing, mailing visa applications, getting maps, and teary ‘goodbyes’. Once all of that was out of the way, I could finally begin my travels.

My journey began of course at LAX. Normally this would not be a pleasant experience, through waiting in all of the lines, paying for luggage fees, TSA, etc. But this was a new experience for me…business class! As I walked into the terminal, I was immediately shuffled to the Business Passenger express check-in line, where I had no wait what-so-ever. Next, I found out that two checked bags were included with the cost of my boarding pass. Bonus! Especially since I’m leaving the country for four months and needless to say, I had a lot of luggage! After a quick check-in and then dropping my bags off with TSA, I walked up to the passenger identification line where again, I was allowed to go into the “Business Passenger Express” line and was allowed to move ahead of all of the others that were waiting. As I moved past that, I realized that there was no Business class perk for the TSA security line. Fortunate for me, it was relatively short and I was able to breeze through with no trouble.

Now that I’m through all of the lines, I realize that I showed up 3 hours early for an international flight and now I’ve made it to the gate with more than 2 hours to spare. Have no fear, I can just mosey on up to the Business Lounge. Once I find the KLM Business Lounge, my mind is immediately blown to learn how the other half travels. Free wifi, drinks (including alcohol), snacks, newspapers, plush seats to relax on. I’m quickly learning that I am getting spoiled and I am now ruined for traveling on any other Southwest budget flight. In the lounge, I find my friend Ted, who is the other Designs Engineer that is traveling to Tengiz with me. We get caught up on what we’ve been working on, talk about our excitement for this assignment and just generally relax before our flight.

As the departure time approaches for our flight, we begin to head down to our gate. Once again, our Business class perks pay off and we’re allowed to board the plane first. As we board and we are shown our seats, I am once again blown away at how nice these accommodations are. I’m somewhat of a tall person at just under six feet tall. When I can lean back and fully extend my legs out and still not touch the chair in front of me, then I can finally say that I have been comfortable on a plane ride! Soon after I sit down, I’m greeted by one of the flight attendants with a glass of champagne. After about half an hour of “oooo”-ing and “ahhh”-ing over everything in Business Class, we are finally airborne, making our way to Amsterdam.  I begin to enjoy the in-flight entertainment which consists of individual LCD screens that come out of the arm rests and have a plethora of On-Demand programs for me to enjoy including TV-shows, movies, news, sports, games, and more. On a 10-hour flight, entertainment is a must! I watched a few movies including “Man on a Ledge” and “Contraband," while I enjoyed one of my three course meals that was included with my ticket. Oh and I almost forgot to mention that all drinks (including alcoholic) are complimentary in Business Class. Needless to say, I had a few glasses of wine with my meal.

After the first meal, I tried to sleep, but just couldn’t. Based on Pacific time, my body still thought it was only 4 in the afternoon which was way too early for me to go to sleep. So I read, watched some more programs and enjoyed the view over Greenland from 30,000 feet. I must say it was very impressive to see all of the ice and watch the sun set for what seemed like 2 hours. I was hoping to see some Northern Lights, but the sun was only down for about 20 minutes before it came right back up again as we began our descent into AMS. As we broke through the clouds, I saw one of the most peculiar things in the ocean. We saw a whole field of wind mills in the ocean. I had never seen such a thing before in my life, but of course the engineer in me found it really interesting and really wondered how the heck they got those things installed.

We finally land (a very smooth one at that) and of course we are privileged to be the first ones to de-board the plane. My buddy Ted and I are starting to feel like jerks though because the flight attendants are holding all of the other passengers back for us to go first.

The Amsterdam airport is very clean with a lot of blue and white themed decorations everywhere, which is much more inviting than the dingy gray of LAX. As we are walking to the transfer desk, we meet up with our counterparts that are coming in from our Richmond Refinery. This all begins to make sense as we realize there is only one flight a day from Amsterdam to Atyrau, Kazakhstan. After we get our new tickets, we make our way to the Business Lounge once again. It’s a nice opportunity to try some dutch food and get a fresh pint of Heineken!

Our trip from Amsterdam to Atyrau was aboard Air Astana. The business accommodations weren’t as nice as KLM, but they had many of the same perks including food and drinks. This was only a 5 hour flight, much more manageable, but again, I’m hardly able to sleep. By the time we land in Atyrau, it’s about 7 pm local time which means that it’s 7 am the morning after I left back home. This has basically just felt like one really long day for me.

It takes a little while for us newbies to make it through customs because we have to get our visas finalized, but the process goes fairly smoothly. Before we know it, we are getting shuttled over to what we call the Atyrau Transit Hotel. It is a set of buildings that are owned by TCO (Tengizchevroil) for Ex-pats to stay in while they transition in and out. After we check in to ATH, we get a look at our rooms. For the most part they are very much like dorm style living. There is just enough room for a couple of beds, a bathroom and a closet. It’s simple, but it’ll get the job done for one night. By this point, we’re all pretty hungry so we make our way over to the kitchen where we learn all they really have is sandwiches, which by the way aren’t quite the same as sandwiches in the US. They don’t have luxury items like lettuce, or mayo, or mustard. My sandwich basically consisted of chicken (very little), tomato, cheese, and cucumber. Again, nothing fancy, but it got the job done. We ate our dinner in the common area of the hotel and enjoyed some Kazakh soap operas. I found a computer to write a few emails home, took a shower (which felt amazing!), and basically finally got some sleep!