More thoughts from the road......

August 13
I was told once that music is the international language - and I’m sure I heard or read somewhere that math is universal regardless of language or culture. Well, I have one more to add. An activity practiced and enjoyed by everyone, no matter where or when, and that’s fishing.

Yesterday was a full and busy day. We reviewed endless financial statements and offered our insight and advice on a broad range subjects. It’s interesting and rewarding work but exhausting because everything has to be done through an interpreter and things have to be confirmed and reconfirmed in order to ensure the message isn’t lost somewhere in between. But at the end of the day our Kazak host’s surprised us with an impromptu fishing trip along the banks of the most amazing river I’ve ever seen. Not for its swift running current or any real claim to fame but for just being. It was the most idyllic, peaceful setting I’ve experienced in a long time and could have been pulled directly from the pages of a Mongolian tourist brochure. And as I was sitting there with my new Kazak friends, eating freshly caught pan-fried fish and drinking vodka halfway around the world almost on the Kazak/Chinese/Russian border, it was more than a little surreal. Sometimes the world is a very interesting place indeed and the path we travel takes is in places we would never imagine.

Next stop..... Bayan Uglii – where I REALLY hope there’s running water!

Cheers!