and then on to Kazakhstan

Well it would have been nice to go ‘on to Kazakhstan’, but actually I had to fly all the way back to Istanbul, transit for 14 hours in the airport (and despite what they advertise, Turkish Airlines did not provide hotel accommodation, merely two vouchers for the cheapest dishes on the menu at the cheapest eating establishments in the airport), and then fly back over Turkmenistan to get to Almaty, Kazakhstan’s largest city and former capital.  There my friend and I met our tour group, were given a tour of the city’s highlights, and finally were able to get some much-needed sleep.

The next few days mostly focused on what for me were the highlights of this country – the spectacular mountains and canyons of its natural scenery.  We visited several different sites within the 4,600 km2 Altyn-Emel National Park, walking for several hours in both the stunning Charyn Canyon and the almost-as-stunning Katutau Coloured Mountains, and also visited the Black Canyon, a couple of lakes, and the Ak-Tau mountains.  

During these walks we discovered that several members of our tour group did not actually meet the ‘Low-Moderate’ fitness requirements for the tour … I felt sorry for the tour leader having to deal with them when they could not make the ascents/descents and could not keep up with the rest of the group. Two of them even had difficulties getting in and out of the minivan, difficulties in carrying their luggage, and one very large lady (are we allowed to call someone ‘fat’ these days??) didn’t even fit properly on the seats and so had a very uncomfortable time.  Thankfully the tour leader was able to somehow cope with all this, and kept up a continual light-hearted banter with the group, but I did overhear a few words of some of his calls home where he spoke of his exhaustion.

We also visited the ‘Singing Dune’ – so-called because of the deep, musical throbbing sound that the grains of sand make if you slide down the dune rapidly.  I admit that I was a bit sceptical as to whether there would be any sound, but in fact it was loud, deep and very impressive.  Not that the less-fit members of the group got to hear it, as of course they could not make it up the dune!  Near the dune was Tamgaly Tas, a rocky escarpment with numerous petroglyphs of Tibetan iconography and inscriptions dated to the second half of the 17th century.  We also enjoyed getting quite close to a group of ground squirrels.

But it was then time to take the overnight train to Turkestan, where we visited the UNESCO-listed Mausoleum of Khoja Ahmed Yasawi (commissioned by Timur in 1839) and the remains of the ancient city of Sauran, which we just managed to get to in time for a beautiful desert sunset.  There are plenty of camel statues in the this part of the country, but I was very pleased to see a real life camel train going past one of the monuments, even though my photograph of it was not very good.

After this came a flight to the current, rather impressive, capital of Astana, and also for what was for many (not me) the main reason for coming on the trip – a couple of days at the World Nomad Games.  Some 3,000 athletes from 89 countries, competing in 21 different sports … like horseback archery, horseback wrestling, eagle hunting and the game locally known as kokpar (perhaps better known internationally as buzkashi), where the two competing teams of horse riders score points by picking up the headless goat carcass and depositing it into their small goal.  We watched the kokpar final and saw Kazakhstan beat their neighbours Kyrgyzstan, with plenty of displays at half time of athletic manoeuvres on horseback (eg headstands, or riding two horses, with one foot on the back of each).  We also saw a horse race, and a few rounds of the falcon hunting.

Plus I bumped into two people I knew – a lady who was on my Pacific Islands tour at the start of the year, and the guide from my Syria trip!  & I wandered around the Ethnographic Village set up next to the stadiums, with its many very good displays (inside yurts) of various aspects of Kazakhstan’s culture, such as artefacts loaned from museums, traditional clothes, foods, and musical instruments, some being played.  There were also various people walking around with their eagles or hunting dogs, all very happy to be admired and photographed, and I was at one point stopped by two Kazakh ladies who were eager to sing traditional English and Irish songs to me and a fellow English lady, songs they had apparently learnt during their school English lessons!  It was most bizarre, and a little embarrassing when we succumbed to the subtle pressure to join in with them, to the amusement of passers-by!!  Whilst not the reason I’d come to the country, the two days there were certainly very entertaining.

Like much of this part of the world, some of the sights we visited had been victims of Genghis Khan and ‘Mongol hordes’, and a comment by a local guide at one of these places has stayed with me; she said that some tourists had asked how come she and some others speak about Genghis Khan with apparent respect, when he was actually such a destructive man, and her response was that many of them are probably descended from him and his warriors and so they are aware that they are talking about their own ancestors!