camp as a row of tents

As often happens when you have no job or regular timetable, once in a while one forgets what day of the week it is. Awaking to the sound of Russian shouted out across the lake we quickly realise that we had awoken to Saturday morning and a fair number of Almataa-ites arriving for a weekend in the countryside. This initially shattered our idyllic break, but turned into a blinder of a weekend. Around lunchtime a group of about 8 young Kazakhs turned up at out little camp soit armed to the teeth with strong booze and a bucket of shashlik*. They very politely apologised for disturbing our camping spot but promised to make it up to us by innebriating us and stuffing us to the gills. Sasha, Jamilla, and Staz all spoke excellent English and it unfolded that they were all Air Astana employees on a bit of weekend getaway. They had come seriously prepared. A shashlik grill appeared, as did 8 kilos of meat, 3 bottles of whisky, tequilla, beer, salad, bread etc. which was forced upon us - obvioulsy that took some convincing. We both awoke in our tent unaware as to how we had got there, feeling a little bit sketchy. I do remember the guitar coming out at some point and songs being sung in English, Russian and Kazakh. Fortunatley more shashlik and whiskey was at hand to take the sting out of our hangovers.

It was so good to speak with people our own age and get an idea of how people live here. Not so differently to us in Europe if you're from Almaty anyway.

It was genuinely sad to see them go the next day so I helped them back to their cars with their mountain of gear and sent them off with warm hugs and high fives all round. At least though we had our tranquil spot back. Holls nad I spent the next few days doing basically bugger all but the odd walk and eating the mountain of food our new friends had left behind for us. We arranged a young lad to come and collect us on a horse when it was time to go which saved our bodies any more punishing walks.

In typical Kazakh style we waited 2 hours until someone agreed to give us a ride back to Saty. We then flukily happened upon a homestay which was really reasonsable. Our host cranked up the Banya(sauna) which was just the answer to 5 days of unwashed grime accumulated by the lake. We then sat to a sumptious meal and chatted - attempted to anyway - with the family for a few hours toasting regularly to everything under the sun with a bottle of Kazakh vodka.

As luck would have it our hosts neighbour was off to Almaty the next day so we brokered a deal which had me and Holly dropped back off in Almaty centre the next lunch time. Result.


*quite possibly the tastiest creation available throughout Kazakhstan, shashlik is basically skewers of meat (usually mutton, though chicken and pork too) grilled on a bbq and then doused in vineager and eaten with slices of raw onion. all washed down of course with ice cold beer:)

We're on the road to nowhere...

So, here we are in Kazakhstan and it's a little ripper of a country. Almaty has been a massive relief of civilised clean order after the Delhi mayhem. Not entirely knowing what to expect before we got here, Almaty has turned out to be a very European city in feel, big broad aveues, leafy green parks, fountains everywhere and then the odd soviet block poking its head through the skyline just to remind us we are still in the former soviet union. Having lodged our Russian visa applications, we had a few days to kill before we could pick up the completed documents, so we bought ourselves a tent and a camp stove and headed for the hills, or rather Tien Shan mountain range to the South East of Almaty 20km from the Kyrgystan border. This is how we got there:

Leave for Kolsay Lakes 8am Almaty bus station. No bus directly to the village we were going to, so we get on the one nearest there. Four hours later we are told to get off the bus in the middle of there desert where the road forks - this was as close as this bus was going. There was nothing for 100's of miles in any direction - what to do? Stick out your thumb of course...



30 minutes later a giant articulated lorry pulled over and a dude with sunglasses and gold teeth waved us up into his cab. Simon was his name and driving cross-continent was his game (formerly a tank driver in the Russian army, so we were in good hands). Another 2 hours and a minibus out of nowhere speeds past us, we were averaging about 15km/hour in the truck and still had another 60 to go. So off the truck and into the minibus for another hour to the village Saty, the jumping off point to the lakes (still another 20Km) Next up an inquisition by the local military - "where are your passports?" "get in the car!" expecting a fine for some undeterminable offence, instead, Morat, our friendly captain of the Kazakh home guard gave us a lift up to the park entrance and over a beer organised our next lift to the lakes themselves. It is also here we buy supplies for the camping trip out of the back of a car, the closest thing to a shop we could find.



And so we arrive at the lakes and have a 2km trek around the mountain surrounding the lake. 1 hour later, it's getting late and a fairly fierce hail storm sets in, cold, and with no obvious place to set up camp Marty and I begin to wonder what will become of us when a ranger comes careering down the mountain on a horse and without a word leads us under some trees just next to the lake and helps us out up the tent. We, finally, have arrived.

Delhi...the final countdown

We have been in Delhi just shy of two weeks now, and it depresses me to say that we have spent more time in this stinking city than anywhere else in India! Out of necessity, obviously. So now visas for Kazakhstan and Mongolia in hand - the Russians aren't sure about us yet - we have been pacing the streets of Paharganj looking things to do and ways to spend the rest of our rupees.

It's not actually that bad, there is the odd moment in a day where there is a twinge of sadness as we think about leaving the country that on the whole has been fairly good to us. The incessant sales pitches of rickshaw drivers, touts, shop keeps however is enough to drive a man/woman to physical violence. I was told this morning as a courier nonchalantly tossed my brand new, tailored suit into a cardboard box to 'be positive' and that in India:'everything is possible'. We've heard this phrase more than a thousand times and despite on this occasion wanting to snap his neck, he was right I think. This country can be incredibly rewarding if you think positively and try not to cram it into your western mould.

the Dalai Lama and I

Bikes sold, I boarded a local bus to Dharmsala - home of the tibetan government in exile - to rendezvous with the Dalai Lama himself! OK not really but I did meet up with Holly who arrived swiftly from London then Delhi. It was really good to see each other, not least as Holly had smuggled some red wine and stinky cheese across international borders. HUZAH! So with that in mind we sat back, joined and amazed by a few other travelers, and smashed the lot.

It was about time for a holiday within a holiday so for the next week we did a lot of bugger all in the little village of Dharamkot. Kind of a halfway house between 'real' India and a traveler village, the locals are friendly and the tourist traffic was fairly light - Compared with that down the hill in Mcleodganj. It hasn't been completely trashed yet. There are also quite a few meditation/yoga retreats so there are more than a few wide eyed folk wandering around with cowshit on their shoes from all the star gazing.

We ate well, drank even better, had a crash course in Indian cooking and even managed the odd walk in the hills, being after all, resigned to the life of pedestrians. Since riding bikes in India we can't help but stare, poke, prod each and every Enfield we see, more so now we had lost ours. Outside our favorite cafe I saw a Bullet for sale and went over to have a gander. I was blown away when I recognised the sellers email address as that of a Swiss guy I met in NZ 7 years before. I called him up in the vain hope that Mathieu actually remembered who I was , he did, and then spent a really funny evening catching up on 7 years of goings on. The world ain't such a big place after all.

In the mean time Holls talked about going to Thailand - our next planned stop - and agreed that neither of us were immediately excited about the prospect. After the turmoil of the last few weeks we figured we should treat ourselves to something a little more adventurous. So, in a moment of carefully judged (ahem!) madness we booked flights to Kazakhstan instead. Plan B involves over landing from Kazakhstan to Mongolia (through Russia), but also involves at least three visas. Panicking a little we decided to head back to Delhi earlier to sort out the red tape.

We had become quite settled and once again bade farewell to a bunch of really sound people and headed down the mountain toward the plains.