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.