Since last i wrote I've spent mot of my time in cities. Took a rather swish train from Shymkent to Almaty (second city of Kazakhstan) and looked around that for a day then took a share taxi to Bishkek, capital of Kyrgyzstan.
Now in cities you do the normal city things, visit museums and galleries, churches and what-not, maybe a bit of shopping
. And that's exactly what I did in Almaty and Bishkek.
Almaty is a thriving, wealthy town (rich on oil money) and they flaunt it through their flash Bentleys and Mercedes - but they don't spend it on their museums and art galleries. The churches had also been closed and turned into museums during the Soviet period but they have now been returned to the Orthodox Church and, as always, money has been forthcoming to restore them. But the National Museum and National Art Gallerys in Almaty were disappointing and the equivalent in Bishkek (not such a wealthy country) were even worse. The lack of English language didn't help - though that's a selfish interest. But having most of the lights turned off to save money was clearly depressing. I commented on this in an e-mail to Tim Mason, who knows about these things, and he says that sadly the curators are so badly paid they can't afford to travel and see what is done in the good museums.
So I won't say much more about them, except that my hotel in Bishkek was somewhat flash with a lovely swimming pool!
Other snippets, my share taxi from Almaty to Bishkek was shared with a lady university lecturer(who had some English) who had taken a two day train ride from the north of Kazakhstan to Almaty, then the share taxi, to spend one day applying for a further course and the following day would embark on the return journey
. She probably got a discount on the railway ticket - she told me her husband is a train driver.
So yesterday morning (Saturday) I picked up a hire car (a 12 year old Subaru 4WD) for my 4 day expedition into the mountains and around the lakes. I changed the order of this trip because the weather forecast for Monday, which was going to be my day at the lake called Song Kul - So I decided to go there first.
About 5 hours driving, the last 60 kms on unmade road over a mountain pass got me to the shore of the lake which is 3600 metres above sea level and ringed by distant mountains. Herders take their animals (cows, sheep, goats, horses - maybe turkeys but maybe they were wild) up there for summer pasture and erect and live in their yurt. So there are single and groups of yurts scattered far and wide, a single yurt is the families own home, if it is a group of two or three it is their home plus yurts they have put up for tourists. Larger groups mean tourists only. So I stayed in the middle sort with the family which seemed to consist of the old man, a middle aged couple, a daughter in her teens who did the looking after the tourists and some young children
. Couldn't fathom the relationships.It being the end of the season I was the only tourist there and had a yurt to muself.
Now it's easy to get romantic about yurts, but at the end of the day they are just big felt tents with some lino and carpet on the floor and some nice decoration. The bed is a mat on the floor. This yurt being at 3600 metres it was absolutely freezing at night and I only survived by snuggling under two thick quilts. There was frost on the ground in the morning. There are photos of most of the food - it wasn't inspiring. Lots of bread and jam. One thing not photographed was the bowl of warm milk (she assured me it came from an animal that went moo, so possibly not horse but I saw them milking the horses too) which was good and stirring butter/cream and jam into it seemed quite acceptable.
The washing facilities were almost non-existent (it was clear the old man hadn't washed all summer) and the toilet was unspeakable.
But it was the most beautiful setting, I drove round more of the lake this morning before taking the southern pass out and along the southern shore of Issyk Kul (the second largest alpine lake after Titicaca) The World Nomad Games have been taking place here over the last 5 days, just missed them sadly. They all seem to involve doing stuff while mounted on horseback, like grabbing girls - oh and shooting arrows!
Tomorrow off the explore the northern shore of Issyk Kul.
Karakol is as far east as this trip takes me - it's just about due north of Delhi and Kashmir, further east than Afghanistan. The next country eastward, and not very far, is China
Cities can be boring
Sunday, September 14, 2014
Karakol, Ysyk-Köl, Kyrgyzstan
Other Entries
-
1Still betrays its trading past
Sep 077 days priorShymkent, Kazakhstanphoto_camera10videocam 0comment 0 -
28 hours of train for 1 building
Sep 086 days priorTurkestan, Kazakhstanphoto_camera8videocam 0comment 3 -
3Cities can be boring
Sep 14Karakol, Kyrgyzstanphoto_camera22videocam 0comment 4 -
4Dashing over the mountains
Sep 173 days laterOsh, Kyrgyzstanphoto_camera17videocam 0comment 3 -
5I climbed Sulamain-Too
Sep 195 days laterOsh, Kyrgyzstanphoto_camera22videocam 0comment 1 -
6Land of the Daewoo
Sep 206 days laterTashkent, Uzbekistanphoto_camera7videocam 0comment 1 -
7Samarkand, In the footsteps of Timur
Sep 228 days laterSamarkand, Uzbekistanphoto_camera19videocam 0comment 0 -
8The Holy City of Bokhara
Sep 2612 days laterBukhara, Uzbekistanphoto_camera23videocam 0comment 1 -
9Khiva - Disneyland of the Silk Road
Sep 2915 days laterKhiva, Uzbekistanphoto_camera12videocam 0comment 0 -
10A night in the desert by a big gas fire
Oct 0218 days laterKonye-Urgench, Turkmenistanphoto_camera16videocam 0comment 4 -
11Ashqabat - the empty city
Oct 0319 days laterAshgabat, Turkmenistanphoto_camera9videocam 0comment 1 -
12The Desolation that was Merv
Oct 0420 days laterMerv, Turkmenistanphoto_camera7videocam 0comment 1 -
13The Holiest City in Iran
Oct 0521 days laterMashad, Iranphoto_camera7videocam 0comment 0 -
14Traces of Persian Empires
Oct 0723 days laterShiraz, Iranphoto_camera11videocam 0comment 0 -
15Shiraz - of poets and gardeners
Oct 0824 days laterShiraz, Iranphoto_camera14videocam 0comment 0 -
16People - including me
Oct 0925 days laterEsfahan, Iranphoto_camera17videocam 0comment 1 -
17Esfehan - Half the World
Oct 1026 days laterEsfehan, Iranphoto_camera10videocam 0comment 3 -
18Tehran, city of 11 million, or is it 14
Oct 1329 days laterTehran, Iranphoto_camera11videocam 0comment 0 -
19A long train ride
Oct 1834 days laterAnkara, Turkeyphoto_camera6videocam 0comment 1
Comments

2025-02-10
Comment code: Ask author if the code is blank
Tim Mason
2014-09-15
Peter, this is fabulous - I really am enjoying this blog - brilliant.
Tim