Why go to Aktau? To catch a plane. Aktau is on the far west of Kazakhstan. It is only about 40 years old and was founded to house Uranium miners, so maybe it’s contaminated. It has a decent sized airport. I toured Uzbekistan from east to west, it seems that most people west to east. Either way, you start in Tashkent, which is east. To come and go from Tashkent (which most people do) requires a long train ride from either Nukus or Urgench to or from Tashkent. Instead, I opted for going back into Kazakhstan and flying from Aktau. To sum it up, I saved some money but wasted some time (Uzbekistan is expensive to fly to/from).

So, what is there to do in Aktau? Really, not much. I read a blog post by some people who spent three days in Aktau whining about how awful it was. I won’t link to it here, as it was poorly written and meanly critical. The most interesting part of Aktau was getting to Aktau. There are herds of wild camels and horses grazing along the highway. Once in Aktau, there is a World War II memorial that I thought was nice, a MIG fighter jet statue and what appears to be a beginning of a tourism industry on the Caspian coast. This means there are some hotels, restaurants that serve world cuisine and bars where I picture young Kazakhs dressed from Saturday Night Fever hanging out listening to techno music.

I took a 30 minute tour boat for about $3. There was no tour guide to tell us what we were seeing (which was nothing), walked along the shore (which is rocky not sandy) and killed two days. I’s not a terrible place, just boring fortwo days. I would minimize the time spent there.