A nervous day of travel lay ahead of us for the unknown that was the Kazakh-Russian border at Rubotsovsk. Typically though, having been wrapped up in a Kazakh birthday bash the night before it was a bleary eyed Holly and Martyn that boarded the bus at 8am. Needless to say by the time we reached the border our hangovers were peaking. Fortunatley things moved swiftly and before we knew it we were back on the bus waving our Russian Migration cards and visa stamps.
So here we are 5 hours later pulling up at Barnaul bus station - looking decidedly run down and Soviet scratching our heads for what to do next. Our spoken Russian had now reached an understandable level for the listener so we were none to worried, though getting to grips with the change of currency was the first hurdle. At this point I remembered a contact e had been given from Jens - our German friend in Almaty. After some confusion with the lady at the phone centre I dialled Christian - another German - and was greeted in broken English with a message to hold tight as he would come and collect us! Result.
What followed was nothing short of a miracle. Chris & Sasha took us to a cheap hotel got us booked in and more importantly got our visas registered - an arcane hangover from the soviet system - and then whisked us off round Barnaul on a sight-seeing jolly. Barnaul is a fairly average Siberian city with nowt to do but hang on street corners drinking beer. Big and fairly ugly in appearance the city and it's people opened up to us like a box of lucky charms. For three days we swanned around like virtual celebrities with all of Chris' Russian friends desperate to talk to real live English people. In our first night we met the entire representative of the Siberian Drum n Bass Crew: Barnaul Chapter, and randomly two Brits who were recreating Ewan & Charlie's 'Long Way Round' motorcycle odyssey.
Chris was an absolute legend, speaking excellent Russian, and helping us fact find for the border crossing into Mongolia and our entry into the Altai Republic for the Khan Altay festival we were en route to. He was backed up by all of his Russian buddies who on top of street corner drinking, home cooked meals, boat trips down the River Ob and even a live drum n bass jam from the 'Liquid Crystal Faith' made Holly and I feel so welcome it was really sad to leave. One last night of fun though at a Drum n Bass club saw us up till all hours and bumping into fellow festival goers. And on the fourth day Chris helped us to the bus station with our heavy loads and slung us on a bus full of nutters headed to Khan Altay and the eclipse....
Thursday, 24 July 2008
Saturday, 19 July 2008
People here are just damn nice!
It's our penultimate day in the Stan of Kazakh today. Leaving a country always leads to over-indulgant bouts of reflection and scrutiny and this is no different. I think things would have been hopeless here given the lack of Russki spoken by Mart-o and yours truly but peoples' insistance on persevering in understanding our often bizarre notions of holidaying has made this leg of the trip one of the easiest. Example: On the train from Almaty to Semey, we got chatting to Zarina, fellow passenger in our carriage, who lived in Ust Kamenogorsk (the next city along from Semey) she was having a great time practicing her school girl English and we were happy to talk with someone who didn't think we were mental for being in a country where we didn't know a soul. We swapped numbers and with big kisses and hugs all round said we must contact her if we came to Ust Kamenogorsk. Just as well! Marty and I did indeed end up coming to Ust and turned up at a hotel we thought would be in our budget to find out it was 10 times the price. A bit stuck with no other options, we sent our new friend a text message and she immediately got the ball rolling, had her English spekaing daughter give us a ring back with directions to a great hotel on the edge of town and what we needed to do to get there. When you're in a new town, with no idea of the geography, you don't speak the language and you're carting round a couple of unweildy rucksacks that wipe out half the passengers whenever you're on a bus, Zarina's help was nothing short of miraculous for Marty and I. The next day as Marty and I were about to head into the city for a mooch about, Zarina's smiling face peeped around the door with her husband and daughter and ushered us into a waiting car to give us a tour of their city. And then they took us out for a slap up lunch of local treats, plied beer on us (we're now developing beer bellies) and gave us the opportunity to sit down and shoot the breeze for a while.
Like I say this is just one of the brilliant things that's happened to us since we've been here. With the Russian improving by the day, and the capacity for booze back up to an non-embarrasing level after the tee-totalism of India, we reckon we might be just about ready for Russia... Siberia here we come.
Like I say this is just one of the brilliant things that's happened to us since we've been here. With the Russian improving by the day, and the capacity for booze back up to an non-embarrasing level after the tee-totalism of India, we reckon we might be just about ready for Russia... Siberia here we come.
Thursday, 17 July 2008
Marty and the babushkas
Older women in Kazakhstan LOVE Martyn!
Babushkas experience number 1:
Unbeknownst to Marty and I who were having a beer and a kebab in the local bar near our apartment, Astana, the Kazakhstan capital had it's 10th birthday. As we were about to pay the bill, in bowled a harem of giggling mildly inebriated older women out to celebrate the occasion. One of them clocked us immediately as being not from round these parts and pulled up a chair and began furiously babbling to us in Kazakh, Russian, and German, whilst her friends settled down at a nearby table and began slinging back shots of vodka and pints of beer. Mildly inebriated turned into rip-roaring drunk and with sinister glances between our table and the dancefloor they charged Marty, pulling him out of his chair, encircling him and pretty much flinging him around between each other, until they'd worked up enough of a thirst to set him back down and return to their fishtails and vodka (both of which were liberally plied on us).
Babushka experience number 2:
In a small town called Lenger near Ugam national park, we stopped to get some camping supplies for a further camping trip. The wife of the local eco-tourism officer took a shine to Martyn and before we knew what had happened had bundled him into the bazaar and was chasing him around the place, calling over her shoulder "Marteeena, Marteeeena" whilst throwing tomatoes into bags and inspecting potatoes for us. The spectacle of a 6"1 red headed man being chased around the market was too much to bear, before long all the babushkas were cooing "Marteena, Marteeeena" and waving their wares at him, as Martyn tried to figure out what the hell was going on, having money shoved in and out of his pockets and bags of produce forced upon him, I'm afraid to say all I could do was look on from a distance and laugh!
Babushka experience number 3:
Now in Semey in the North of Kazakhstan, I left Marty in town to get some lunch and I headed back to the hotel. Six hours later, I was getting a bit concerned that Marty still hadn't turned up, when the door opened and Marty came bowling in looking a bit flustered, "Holly, you won't believe what just happened to me, you have to come downstairs to the lobby, I've got a couple of surprises for you", so off I went and found yet another a couple of babushkas Marty had picked up on his way home, or rather they had picked Marty up and put him down again at the hotel.
How had this come about I asked, why does this keep happening to my boyfriend?! Over lunch Marty had been acosted by a couple of incredibly drunk men, who were talking to him in Russian something about money, things seemed to be turning a bit nasty, when one of the men finally dragged the other one away. Once they'd left a bunch of women who were sat on the table opposite immediately came over to Marty very concerned. Two of them insisted on escorting him back to the hotel (a good 3 kilometers away) and so flanked by babushkas on either side Marty was frogmarched back to me. Not quite understanding why they were so concerned for Marty, after all he's a big boy and can look after himself, the ladies then went on to explain they were sure that the two drunk men were waiting around the corner to jump Marty as he left the bar and rob him. So we sat down and toasted their success in averting a major catastrophe over a bottle of vodka. Thank you to Goolia and Natacha returning my beau unscathed!
Babushkas experience number 1:
Unbeknownst to Marty and I who were having a beer and a kebab in the local bar near our apartment, Astana, the Kazakhstan capital had it's 10th birthday. As we were about to pay the bill, in bowled a harem of giggling mildly inebriated older women out to celebrate the occasion. One of them clocked us immediately as being not from round these parts and pulled up a chair and began furiously babbling to us in Kazakh, Russian, and German, whilst her friends settled down at a nearby table and began slinging back shots of vodka and pints of beer. Mildly inebriated turned into rip-roaring drunk and with sinister glances between our table and the dancefloor they charged Marty, pulling him out of his chair, encircling him and pretty much flinging him around between each other, until they'd worked up enough of a thirst to set him back down and return to their fishtails and vodka (both of which were liberally plied on us).
Babushka experience number 2:
In a small town called Lenger near Ugam national park, we stopped to get some camping supplies for a further camping trip. The wife of the local eco-tourism officer took a shine to Martyn and before we knew what had happened had bundled him into the bazaar and was chasing him around the place, calling over her shoulder "Marteeena, Marteeeena" whilst throwing tomatoes into bags and inspecting potatoes for us. The spectacle of a 6"1 red headed man being chased around the market was too much to bear, before long all the babushkas were cooing "Marteena, Marteeeena" and waving their wares at him, as Martyn tried to figure out what the hell was going on, having money shoved in and out of his pockets and bags of produce forced upon him, I'm afraid to say all I could do was look on from a distance and laugh!
Babushka experience number 3:
Now in Semey in the North of Kazakhstan, I left Marty in town to get some lunch and I headed back to the hotel. Six hours later, I was getting a bit concerned that Marty still hadn't turned up, when the door opened and Marty came bowling in looking a bit flustered, "Holly, you won't believe what just happened to me, you have to come downstairs to the lobby, I've got a couple of surprises for you", so off I went and found yet another a couple of babushkas Marty had picked up on his way home, or rather they had picked Marty up and put him down again at the hotel.
How had this come about I asked, why does this keep happening to my boyfriend?! Over lunch Marty had been acosted by a couple of incredibly drunk men, who were talking to him in Russian something about money, things seemed to be turning a bit nasty, when one of the men finally dragged the other one away. Once they'd left a bunch of women who were sat on the table opposite immediately came over to Marty very concerned. Two of them insisted on escorting him back to the hotel (a good 3 kilometers away) and so flanked by babushkas on either side Marty was frogmarched back to me. Not quite understanding why they were so concerned for Marty, after all he's a big boy and can look after himself, the ladies then went on to explain they were sure that the two drunk men were waiting around the corner to jump Marty as he left the bar and rob him. So we sat down and toasted their success in averting a major catastrophe over a bottle of vodka. Thank you to Goolia and Natacha returning my beau unscathed!
Thursday, 10 July 2008
escape from the valley of death
Two days in the relative lap of luxury in a ex-soviet apartment block saw Holls and I searching for some adventure and wide open spaces. As haphazardly as ever we jumped on a bus heading in the rough direction of UGAM National Park. An hour later we were standing in a dusty, grimey little bus station in the town of Lenger with not a mountian peak, or the steppe in sight. Had we made a grave error...? Our usual course of action now in these situations is to find a cafe, chow down on some more tasty shashlik and a couple of ales. Emboldened with a little dutch (or kazakh) courage I headed off around the town waving a piece of paper with a Kazkah man's name on we heard could be of some use getting us out to the National Park. After a couple of hours I returned to the cafe to find Holly chatting with a couple of Russian security guards who seemed to at least know the street that this guy lived on.
They bunded us into a taxi and we all four set off, Holly and I saying a prayer and gripping the seat backs of the ageing Lada. Amazingly after asking a few people we rocked up to quite a fancy house and were ushered inside by a young girl who suggested we wait for her father, Alixhan, our contact.
When he finally arrived an hour later, Alixhan was midly surprised to see us, and was more interested in how on earth we had tracked him down having been given an incorrect phone number and address. We shrugged, and intimated that a higher force must be at work.
Alixhan, then proceed to sort us out, with firstly a slap up afternoon tea, then a ride out to Kaskasu, the jumping off point for the park. Not before his wife bargained her way around the bazar for us - see previous post.
Now we could actually see the Tian Shan mountain range and having been introduced to Dalibhay the park ranger we saddled our gear onto one of his horses and he led us out of the village and off into the park. After an hour or so we had entered a small canyon. The going was relatively slow, as we often had to ford the river, taking turns on the horse until we were all across. Dalibhay then pointed to a rock and thorntree infested patch of land and gestured that we pitch camp. Something akin to Brer Rabbit's briar patch, Holly and I looked dumfounded but pitched in as Dalibhay started to clear a patch of ground. This was to be base camp, with Dalibhay riding off after a quick toast of Kazakh vodka, promising to return the next day to shift us to a better camp and give us a days guided walk around the park.
We were fairly beat after a heavy days slog and curled up on the hard ground with little trouble drifitng off to the sound of silence, save the babbling of the adjacent brook.
At 10am the next day we had broken our fast and broken camp when we saw a lone head bobbing up and down through the thorn bushes. We were a little surprised to see Dalibhay's teenage son approach on the horse, but he seemed to know what he was doing as we loaded up the pack horse with our gear. He then pointed up the canyon and off we went on a merry trek. Now I'm all for adventure and Holly certainly isn't know to shy away from a challenge but a couple of hours later as the canyon walls rose 200m or so above us it was clear that our guide's was in the somewhat rudimentary stages of his career development. We were constantly forced to ford the river and battle our way through more thorny bushes, often climbing huge boulders, struggling with ALL (25-30kgs) of our baggage. It also became obvious that the Kazakh definition of campsite, was wildly at odds with the English one. Where was the flat, grassy areas, with toliet block and showers?? He did eventually point out a spot that could best be described as a landslide of boulders squeezed between a raging torrent and a cliff face. We cursed ourselves now for losing in translation the point of our trip, and decided that pro-action was the only way forward. It was agreed that we could go no further forward up the canyon, and I suggested it would take at least three hours to back track and that perhaps we should climb out of the canyon as, high above us it obviously flattened out to meadow. Our guide was to say the least, perplexed by my request, saying the canyon was too steep for the horse to climb but agreed to unload the bags and help us carry them out. This was a long, arduous, and at times down right fool hardy exercise which saw us clinging to the steep canyon as we scrabbled about on the loosed rocks and earth. Victoriously however after an hour or so the terrain changed as the canyon opened up to meadow. Our guide returned to the bottom of the canyon to fetch the horse and take the long way round to meet us at the top.
Two broken English soldiers emerged from the relatively dark confines of the canyon to a gloriously sunny day and the most jaw dropping canvas of colourful wildflowers rolling away to steppe which met the mighty Tian Shan a few kilometres away. After a lunch stop and a well earned rest we heard a whistle and on the next ridge we sae our guide galloping along no-handed waving my guitar and cheering! Reunited he led us to what was to date our best camp spot. Grassy it was, and water supply there was, and it was only on an incline of 1 in 12, so we might at least a sleep a wink or two. We relieved our guide of his duties for the day, again to a perplexed shrug of the shoulders, and sat back to feast on the 10 kilos of suppiles we had been forced to buy at the bazar the day before.
For the next 48 hours we wandered up and down this spectacular landscape seeing no-one but a couple of cow boys riding past on the second evening, waving hello as they cantered on. Stunning isn't the word for this corner of Kazakhstan, and hopefully given the time we'll get some pictures up.
They bunded us into a taxi and we all four set off, Holly and I saying a prayer and gripping the seat backs of the ageing Lada. Amazingly after asking a few people we rocked up to quite a fancy house and were ushered inside by a young girl who suggested we wait for her father, Alixhan, our contact.
When he finally arrived an hour later, Alixhan was midly surprised to see us, and was more interested in how on earth we had tracked him down having been given an incorrect phone number and address. We shrugged, and intimated that a higher force must be at work.
Alixhan, then proceed to sort us out, with firstly a slap up afternoon tea, then a ride out to Kaskasu, the jumping off point for the park. Not before his wife bargained her way around the bazar for us - see previous post.
Now we could actually see the Tian Shan mountain range and having been introduced to Dalibhay the park ranger we saddled our gear onto one of his horses and he led us out of the village and off into the park. After an hour or so we had entered a small canyon. The going was relatively slow, as we often had to ford the river, taking turns on the horse until we were all across. Dalibhay then pointed to a rock and thorntree infested patch of land and gestured that we pitch camp. Something akin to Brer Rabbit's briar patch, Holly and I looked dumfounded but pitched in as Dalibhay started to clear a patch of ground. This was to be base camp, with Dalibhay riding off after a quick toast of Kazakh vodka, promising to return the next day to shift us to a better camp and give us a days guided walk around the park.
We were fairly beat after a heavy days slog and curled up on the hard ground with little trouble drifitng off to the sound of silence, save the babbling of the adjacent brook.
At 10am the next day we had broken our fast and broken camp when we saw a lone head bobbing up and down through the thorn bushes. We were a little surprised to see Dalibhay's teenage son approach on the horse, but he seemed to know what he was doing as we loaded up the pack horse with our gear. He then pointed up the canyon and off we went on a merry trek. Now I'm all for adventure and Holly certainly isn't know to shy away from a challenge but a couple of hours later as the canyon walls rose 200m or so above us it was clear that our guide's was in the somewhat rudimentary stages of his career development. We were constantly forced to ford the river and battle our way through more thorny bushes, often climbing huge boulders, struggling with ALL (25-30kgs) of our baggage. It also became obvious that the Kazakh definition of campsite, was wildly at odds with the English one. Where was the flat, grassy areas, with toliet block and showers?? He did eventually point out a spot that could best be described as a landslide of boulders squeezed between a raging torrent and a cliff face. We cursed ourselves now for losing in translation the point of our trip, and decided that pro-action was the only way forward. It was agreed that we could go no further forward up the canyon, and I suggested it would take at least three hours to back track and that perhaps we should climb out of the canyon as, high above us it obviously flattened out to meadow. Our guide was to say the least, perplexed by my request, saying the canyon was too steep for the horse to climb but agreed to unload the bags and help us carry them out. This was a long, arduous, and at times down right fool hardy exercise which saw us clinging to the steep canyon as we scrabbled about on the loosed rocks and earth. Victoriously however after an hour or so the terrain changed as the canyon opened up to meadow. Our guide returned to the bottom of the canyon to fetch the horse and take the long way round to meet us at the top.
Two broken English soldiers emerged from the relatively dark confines of the canyon to a gloriously sunny day and the most jaw dropping canvas of colourful wildflowers rolling away to steppe which met the mighty Tian Shan a few kilometres away. After a lunch stop and a well earned rest we heard a whistle and on the next ridge we sae our guide galloping along no-handed waving my guitar and cheering! Reunited he led us to what was to date our best camp spot. Grassy it was, and water supply there was, and it was only on an incline of 1 in 12, so we might at least a sleep a wink or two. We relieved our guide of his duties for the day, again to a perplexed shrug of the shoulders, and sat back to feast on the 10 kilos of suppiles we had been forced to buy at the bazar the day before.
For the next 48 hours we wandered up and down this spectacular landscape seeing no-one but a couple of cow boys riding past on the second evening, waving hello as they cantered on. Stunning isn't the word for this corner of Kazakhstan, and hopefully given the time we'll get some pictures up.
Sunday, 6 July 2008
one for the RSPCA
Shymkent, Kazakhstan
Today on a bus a gaggle of Uzbek girls boarded and caused something of a commotion. One of the lovely ladies pulled from a plastic bag a collection of live budgies. One of these hapless little fellows decided the confines of a plastic bag on a hot summers day was too much and took off down the bus. Recaptured 5 minutes later it was tossed idly back into said bag. Slightly funny but mostly disturbing...!
Today on a bus a gaggle of Uzbek girls boarded and caused something of a commotion. One of the lovely ladies pulled from a plastic bag a collection of live budgies. One of these hapless little fellows decided the confines of a plastic bag on a hot summers day was too much and took off down the bus. Recaptured 5 minutes later it was tossed idly back into said bag. Slightly funny but mostly disturbing...!
Saturday, 5 July 2008
Visas, Platzkart and the great Shymkhent meat bonanza
So now back in Almaty we finally collect our shiny, holographic Russian Visas. Sitting proudly in our passports we can't forget though these are the most expensive visas to date weighing in at just about a hundred pounds a piece what with agency fees, letters of invitation and numerous other red tape requirements that threatened causing dementia.
We spend another couple of days making the most of this most European of cities, sipping good coffee and at one point ending up with a German in a Kazakh Salsa club listening to a Cuban band. Bizarre.
And onto our first experience of Kazakh trains. We booked Platzkarta which is basically third class, reserved seats, with a fold down bed. It is a bit of a bun fight, but nothing compared to Indian trains. There are slightly less people to a seat on the Kazakh trains but even so people tend to wander around and perch themselves where they feel comfortable. It was a 12 hour ride to Shymkhent in the south of Kazakhstan, and this was plenty of time for us to become minor celebrities in our carriage with most of the kids on the train bombarding us with requests to have their pictures taken and forcing sweets, bread and boiled eggs upon us.
It's an awesome experience though seeing how people here make the effort to get on with strangers both domestic and international and amazing to see people sharing eveything they have with each other. Imagine that on the 9.53 to London Paddington?
Shymkhent is renowned for having ridiculously cheap Shashlik and is home to in our, and many other peoples opinions, Kazakhstan's best beer: Шымкентое!
We spend another couple of days making the most of this most European of cities, sipping good coffee and at one point ending up with a German in a Kazakh Salsa club listening to a Cuban band. Bizarre.
And onto our first experience of Kazakh trains. We booked Platzkarta which is basically third class, reserved seats, with a fold down bed. It is a bit of a bun fight, but nothing compared to Indian trains. There are slightly less people to a seat on the Kazakh trains but even so people tend to wander around and perch themselves where they feel comfortable. It was a 12 hour ride to Shymkhent in the south of Kazakhstan, and this was plenty of time for us to become minor celebrities in our carriage with most of the kids on the train bombarding us with requests to have their pictures taken and forcing sweets, bread and boiled eggs upon us.
It's an awesome experience though seeing how people here make the effort to get on with strangers both domestic and international and amazing to see people sharing eveything they have with each other. Imagine that on the 9.53 to London Paddington?
Shymkhent is renowned for having ridiculously cheap Shashlik and is home to in our, and many other peoples opinions, Kazakhstan's best beer: Шымкентое!
So obviously being in Rome we took full advantage of this spending 2 whole days forcing down lovely icey beer and hot skewers of mutton. It is easy to see why life expectancies here may be lower than in the west when beer, cigarettes and red meat seem to represent the full spectrum of nutrition for most people.
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