Bayangobi 27.08.12

Five hours in a seatbelt free van, rattling around avoiding massive pot holes we zig zagged all over the road through the steppe and finally arrived at our destination.....Bayangobi Ger camp, a peaceful little Ger village with amazingly electricity and running water, though not always hot.
Sitting in my little pagola looking out over the seemingly endless steppe........ complete silence.........all I can hear is the distant bleeting of sheep and goats as well as the occasional motorbike hum.
It's beautiful here, I feel nothing but complete contentment in this moment...absolutely beautiful.
I'm sharing with Talida tonight as per our schedule and lucked out with the most gorgeous view from our little door....

It's so peaceful, the cool breeze is moving the long grass aside me and it's completely silent.......just my watch ticking, that's all I can hear.

Later we went for a horse ride out on the steppe after meeting a nomadic family and visiting their Ger. It was so homey inside with photographs and a tiny kitchen and table, we tried some more fermented mares milk...the Mongolian version this time 'Airag' a lot more alcoholic and not so foul tasting. We had some hardened goat curd which was interesting to say the least, a really strong flavour and really tough. Also some yummy pastry home made which was nice. The ladies in the family showed us how they milk the mare, they sort of trick her into thinking the foal is feeding but letting it stand next to it's mum and have a tiny bit of milk then pulling it off the teat but keeping it's head out of mum's sight so she thins it's still feeding and they do this with each female 5 or 6 times a day and retrieve half a bucket of milk which is a LOT of milk every day. They had two beautiful kids and twins on the way which we learned is quite uncommon in Mongolia but we seem to find twins everywhere!

We got a very quick lesson in riding which consisted only of the word 'Chu' which means go basically. We donned our chapps and off we rode to the top of a mountain overlooking the landscape....absolutely gorgeous. On the way back we assisted the father in the family to round up his huge flock of sheep, goats, cattle and a few horses which was a lot of fun, practically a jillaroo now :) We rode back into the now setting sun and back to the families camp, where we remembered how painful riding can be on your backside, we unhinged or locked knees to get off the horses. Completely worth it.......,
I learnt some really interesting facts about Mongolia today, though this country is massive they only have a population of 3 million people and 1 million of them live in Ulaanbaator their capital.

The entire steppe is not owned land, there are no fences and no boundaries. The nomadic people move as they need to which really only depends on the seasons, they move underneath the mountains in winter to protect themselves from the extreme cold.

The animals they own are tagged however they are allowed to run free, wherever they wish to roam and graze as they please. When it's getting close to sun down the male of the family will go and collect them on horseback or motorbike, round them up and bring them closer to home but they are never fenced in. Aagy said they never go too far because they know that the family are their home.
It is such a beautiful concept...complete freedom for the animals and they are all fat and healthy. They don't really have any vet services they just let nature take it's course which is fair enough I guess as that is what was intended, even the dogs that roam the steppe are not desexed or anything, they seem to be few and far between. Families don't own a dog, one will come and they will feed it and it stays close by. The dog in turn protects the family and the livestock but Aagy said rarely do they if ever attack the animals or chase them, their job is to protect if they choose to stay.

The temperature has dropped tonight and my bag just got a lot lighter, our Ger is cozy and warm and the mosquitoes have backed off with the temperature drop...time for bed.

Taking it all in...

Nice Photo Bomb :)

A beautiful moment this Mongol man happily let me capture.......

Out in the cuds with the sheep...Baaaaaaa

Ulaanbator 26.08.12

Digging in my backpack attempting to fish out the long forgotten about jumpers and long sleeve clothing. Ulaanbator is a little chilly today we had met up with two young guys from Germany at a random stop yesterday who were heading in the opposite direction on the train back to Beijing they had said Mongolia was between 0-10 degrees at night and probably similar to Sydney winter during the day, though I admit I'm enjoying the change.
There's a half half feeling here some high rise in the city and backing onto fenced off Gers and then the city sort of spills onto the landscape as you could kind of see in the below photo.
We met with Agy our honcho, loaded up on Turgriks and had a nice shower in our lovely little hostel. Agy took us to the Mongolian History Museum which was really interesting as we had a guide to explain and give us a tour. We also visited a humongous souvenir store and then made our way back for some relaxing before dinner...pizza.

After dinner we met up with another Honcho and her group to go out we ended up at an underground nightclub called 'Dorgio'. Such an awesome experience mixing with the locals and our Honchos Ana and Agy danced along with us most of the night, when we decided to leave around 2am as soon as we had left the club one of the guys from the other group tripped on a bike rack and immediately our Honcho Agy tried to help and tripped on the exact same thing...quite a good laugh.

Bottle of water and bed....Ger camps tomorrow!!!!!!

Hohhot - Mongolia 25.08.12 - 26.08.12

The sun set on our exit from China and we settled in for a very long night, we passed through the border of Mongolia and immediately I could sense the change in landscape. Even in the moonlight I could see the outline of the rolling hills and steppe. But my favourite part was the stars.....just lying back and watching a sparkling blanket through the window above the ever changing outline of Mongolia's landscape. I drifted off to sleep watching the stars and listening to Eddie Vedder's 'Society' .
At 4:30am like clockwork I snapped awake and just sat up and watched the sky, in that moment I felt an amazing connection to where I was and what I was doing, completely at peace with myself knowing that finally after many years of dreaming I was finally here. I had a little smile to myself and lay back down to sleep.

30 hours and many passport checks later after one 10 hour stop in the middle of nowhere from 6am until 5pm the day before and one 2 hour stop in the middle of nowhere in the early evening....I woke up to a Mongolian sunrise and to the beautiful rolling green, dreamy hills and sights that I had always imagined, finally seeing it with my own eyes and not through someone else's.......I cannot explain the euphoria of just being right here right now on this train watching a dream come true outside my window.
In this exact second Eddie Vedder's 'Hard Sun' just came through my headphones and I could not be happier...I'm here with my two very best friends in this moment, in this place......just a moment I will never forget.

Hohhot 24.08.12

Aimee and I woke up pretty early and fussed around avoiding the Chinese breakfast and instead went with the much needed oats and honey for breakfast with Bec something that we actually bought in Beijing before getting on the train, our bowels are thankful today I think.
We went down to meet with Tom but instead Frank arrived as Tom had an emergency so Frank would be our guide for the day.
He took us to shopping complex for a quick lunch and headed off to the Government Building for the General overseeing the civil war era an ancient complex designed for the officers of the Qing Dynasty. Quite interesting but many many tourists, after that we headed off to the Inner Mongolian Museum where we saw the most beautiful art works from the age of Inner Mongolia's alliance with the Huns and some historical pieces from ancient times. I was really impressed with their display of prehistoric dinosaur bones and animals, they had mammoths, ancient elephants and horses quite incredible. They had all those dinosaurs that you see in Jurassic Park but never actually see the bones for because they are from different countries.
Today was definitely a lazy day but I really think we needed it, we just enjoyed Hohhot for the city that it was and prepared ourselves for a long train ride.......Mongolia awaits.

Hohhot-23.08.12

We arrived in Hohhot at around 7am and were met by Tom our honcho for our stay there. We got to the Jinye Sunny Hotel and our rooms weren't ready given that it was 8am I wasn't surprised. We waited and went down to have breakfast for 10 yuan Chinese brekkie.....not to my taste having random pancakes fried rice, weird chicken soup and noodles with green tea is not my idea of breakfast......massive cravings for just a ham, cheese, tomato toastie. It's almost taboo to talk about it because the cravings are that bad now.
After breakfast our rooms were 'ready' as in housekeeping were not even close to touching them and we sat in the hallway and waited, it didn't take too long and we were able to relax before heading out to a temple in the afternoon and a do spot of shopping.
At around 10:30am we met up with Tom in the lobby and headed out, plenty of stares awaited us however I certainly feel like Hohhot was a LOT different to Beijing just in the way I felt about it. I feel like Beijing made me claustrophobic after a while sometimes mainly because people there are always staring and making you uncomfortable, you just get over it after a while. Though even in Hohhot sitting in McDonalds all eyes are on you, I was over it by the end of the day. Though the temple that we visited was the oldest Buddhist temple in Hohhot and quite beautiful with all of it's intricate detailing. After the temple we went to old town and shopped around,  I love those tiny streets and the history they hold, it's like a different world where you jump back to a different era just a few paces away from the modern conveniences.
Once we were back in the early afternoon just about everyone had a nice nap apart from me, I pottered around doing my laundry and organising my bag and trying to catch up on blogging. The girls woke up late afternoon and we decided to have a look around that night, funnily enough it was Chinese Valentines Day and we could hear blasts of fireworks going off and suddenly lanterns started floating up past our bedroom window and so we decided to investigate. The whole city was out in this plaza across the road from where we were a completely random event we were so pleased to be a part of, everywhere lanterns were going up in the air, some more successful than others. There were people everywhere soon dancing and kids rollerblading and practising tricks (everyone roller blades in China so no one can laugh at me anymore ).
Of course we had to light a lantern and make a wish Bec, Aimee, Alison and I bought one and attempted to light it and of course a huge crowd of onlookers wanted to see if the Aussies went down in flames or succeeded. Pfft of course we succeeded for about 150 metres :) We faired better than others though coming down in flames of love.
We just stayed around and lit sparklers and enjoyed the joyous atmosphere in Hohhot following the festival of love we grabbed some much craved McDonalds and headed back through the crowds for a late start.....a much needed late start.

Beijing-The Forbidden City 22.08.12

Typical me I woke up at 6am plugged in my laptop lay back down and slept in :/ Woken again by a 9:15am wake up call saying where are you? Luckily I had packed up all my things the night before and quickly changed while Aimee came up and helped me collect my things. We checked our bags in at reception and headed out for a full day of exploring. Boarding the dreaded Metro to Tiananmen Square where we found half of China's population we squeezed on and held onto whatever was closest be it person or object. When we arrived the square was filled with Chinese tourists we only visited the square itself for a few minutes and then continued across the way to the Forbidden City....where the other half of the Chinese population was. I'm not even half joking this place was filled to the brim with 1000's of Chinese tourists and not the polite kind there was pushing and shoving and forcing of children in front to find a good reason to push forward, all of which to see the rather unimpressive emperors throne room. There was less shoving involved for the empress's throne room however when we left that area just standing around talking as usual someone would take a sneaky photo of us like we were the attraction, less surprising was one mother's sly attempt to get her son in a photo with us. This poor boy had no idea what was going on and neither did we, she grabbed him and pushed him in front of us, took her photo and then he finally got to turn around and see what the heck he was supposed to be smiling for....he looked terrified and confused and made  hasty retreat to catch up with his mum.
The size of the Forbidden city is something that cannot be described, you honestly have to see it for yourself, it was beautiful though, the amount of thought and dedication that went into creating this royal retreat was breathtaking right down to the last corner stone of the buildings and roof detailing. This place was certainly built to almost rival the gods which is what was intended for, to be just one step down from the gods in beauty and majesty.
The colours.....green, red, blue, yellow and gold, amazing. I absolutely love every photo I took in the forbidden city for that reason, eye popping colours and every building had something different about it. Snow told us about the past emperors and their many concubines, one had 3000 or more concubines and in his lifetime maybe saw 5 of them. The reason for having so many of them was just because he could, to show how powerful he was. The other 2995 concubines once chosen could never leave the Forbidden City and in their lifetimes some never actually knew who the emperor was or what he looked like, they lived together in rooms of 2 or 3 and never saw their families again. The Dragon Lady who chose the concubines at one time was in complete control of the youngest emperors who were 5 and 3 years old. Each one during their time of ruling were told what they could and could not do and who their empress would be, usually one of 5 concubines the Dragon Lady would choose however even though she told them they could pick which one when they selected one and walked towards the girl of their choosing the Dragon Lady would cough and the emperor would choose another girl until the Dragon Lady was silent upon choosing her.

We continued right through the city until we reached the imperial garden where there was a beautiful man made mountain. This mountain looked towards the actual mountains surrounding Beijing and as they could never visit them represented a place for the concubines to visit and think of their homes and families which they would never see.
After that we found a little place to have lunch and visited the old Beijing, original streets and buildings maybe 400 years old which was amazing and had a nice little shop around, and found a lovely little tea shop where we stopped and had some beautiful lychee black tea and green tea which was really nice. We bought some of the black tea for our train trip in the next few days.

We bought a few bits and pieces for the train trip to Hohhot that night and grabbed a quick bite before we headed to the station. We met three beautiful little girls in the waiting room of the station who were from Hohhot and spoke such good english, they had an Australian teacher in Hohhot. One of them had run up and said, "where you from?", their names were Mary, Annie and Betty and they were so sweet they spoke with us for about an hour and took photos. I gave them a little Koala each which they loved and they ran off and came back with a little squishy orange pig thing that stuck to walls and ceilings. It was so nice of them, they even came and found us after we boarded the train and had some chips with Bec and Aimee before heading back to sleep for the morning arrival into Hohhot.

Beijing-The Great Wall 21.08.12

Awake at 6:30am to leave by 7:30am we got ourselves organised and headed downstairs Echo the guide for the day met us and we jumped on the bus. Clearly the driver had no idea how to drive a manual car as we jerked forward and back, we bunny hopped I think for a lot of the way there.

We arrived at the Great Wall three hours later. It was one of those surreal moments where you think about the amount of times you had seen it in a book or travel magazine or on TV but I'd never actually imagined myself being there, it was quite incredible. Aimee, Bec and I caught the cable car up to the top instead of the 40 minute stair climb, being at the top for the first time I said to myself "now I feel like I'm in China". We'd spent the last couple of days pottering around as if we were in Sydney city at least that's what it felt like to us. No, this moment was something entirely different.
The view from the top was beautiful completely surrounded by mountains under a clear blue sky which we were told is not very common, we have definitely been quite lucky in that sense everyday apart from one has been gorgeous.
We strolled along the wall though it was hard to look at the view while walking because you could potentially go flying on an uneven ancient paver or step. You had to admire the ingenuity of construction, how on earth did they get all that stone up there? The easy answer is it was all hauled up there but how exactly? 6000km of stone........200 years to build, definitely a wonder of the world.
Each guard tower we reached was incredibly cool inside and a nice short break from the blazing heat and humidity outside. We reached number 13 and had to call it a day, we were all quite dehydrated even though we were guzzling down water every minute. We decided to take the toboggan back down  which was awesome fun we 'fanged' it all the way until we caught up with a rather large lady in purple who was on her toboggan learners.....brake, crawl, brake, crawl.
When we got to the bottom we put our bartering skills to good use, Aimee bought a copper horse and she and I both bought a scroll water colour painting, mine was Panda and hers was a Tiger. All three of us bought a 'year of the snake' stamp made of malachite with our names in chinese etched on the bottom not bad for around $7 each. We headed down grabbed lunch with the group with was quite nice then jumped on the bus back where we got chatting with three Scottish girls who lived in Beijing teaching English.
Once we had got back we had a quick noodle dinner with Snow before going to see a Chinese Acrobats show which was pretty impressive, sort of like a small scale Circ de Soleis which only went for an hour and half.
We braved the sardine filled metro back to the hostel and settled in for a 9am checkout.

Beijing 20.08.12

Aimee woke up to Tupperware being put in her lap at 8am, little Madeline tapping Aimee and handing her a container, she thanked her and nodded back off before being woken up again shortly after to hold another one. Axle and Madeline are the cutest kids just adorable, even when teething :)
Mel had called the airline the night before to get an update on our bags and hopefully they would be on the flight arriving at 10am today.

We had come bacon and eggs for brekkie and called up again to find out about our bags....hoorah they were here!!!!! But they wouldn't be here until 3pm we had to meet our guide at 5pm and we still had to organise and post a whole heap of stuff home.
At around 12 when the kids were napping Mel, Aimee, Bec and I went for a little shop and some lunch = the BEST fish and chips I have ever had in my life!!!!! Melted in my mouth just so good!!!!! We bought some completely legal and dirt cheap DVD series and headed back because our bags had arrived by 2:30pm, we raced back and found our three beautiful backpacks waiting for us....mine minus one chest strap, ah well easily fixed. I've never been so happy to see that Kathmandu scuffed up bright blue beauty in my life. We immediately took over the lounge room and tore everything out, shouts of "that's going and that's going, that's staying, that's going" were flying around repeatedly. It took us a good hour but we sorted it all out sending a grand total of *drum roll* 20kg between us home to Sydney via shipping for AUD60, see you in two months camel mug.....hoping the chocolate we all sent will survive :/
It was already around 4:45pm when we were at the post office so Mel called the guide when we arrived back at the apartment to pick up our bags and we jumped in a taxi to the Xihua Jade Youth Hostel, finally we got there and got set up in a room on my own!! Shock, Horror!!! Honestly I was a little bit out of sorts not having the girls with me but I'm glad we had a little bit of space I suppose.
We met up with our first Honcho, Snow  and the two other girls in our group, Alison and Talitha. Snow told us all about what we would be doing and how everything worked. Aimee, Bec and I decided the next day we would go to the Great Wall of China on a full day tour for about AUD50.00 each including lunch, transfers and three hours on the wall.
We grabbed a quick bite for dinner, we had a surprise dish which was supposed to be beef but instead was goat......I really enjoyed the goat actually and of course duck pancakes again :) We all strolled around Wangfujin street where the shops were and some of the night market before heading back, sheep testicles on a stick anyone? Don't worry you get three so it's a decent meal if your hungry *vomit*

Note: Beijing at first was not what we expected, I suppose we all thought of Paddy's markets and China town and at first it almost felt like no one was around.

Time for bed......

Dasvidanya Kazakhstan............ Ni Hao Beijing!!!! 19.08.12

Wow, what a fun day this was....we woke up, had breakfast packed our bags as tight as possible and went downstairs and waited for our driver. He came at 2:30pm and we headed out to the airport, when we arrived our flight had been pushed back an hour which meant that we wouldn't be able to make our connecting flight from Abu Dhabi to Beijing. The supervisor talked to us and gave us the alternative to hang around Almaty airport until 11pm and catch a direct flight to Beijing that only took 4 hours, we were fine with that and went to check in. Once at the check in desk guest the supervisor suddenly changed his mind and said that we could catch our original flight and make the connection as the times had changed. He tagged our bags as priority connecting flight and off they went leaving us with 30min before the plane took off. We skimmed through duty free getting a couple of bits and pieces using our last Tenghe as we couldn't use it anywhere else.
We got to Abu Dhabi and raced through the airport until we reached our second flight, last call was announced and we were the last ones on the plane. Seven hours later we reached Beijing to find......no bags......crap.
I already had the feeling that their was no way the bags could have made it from one plane to the other if we had to sprint not to miss it. One random note Beijing airport is HUUUGE!!!! We had to take a train from the arrivals to the baggage collection point and it was not a short trip, a good 5 minutes by train inside an airport is a long time.
The lovely Mel met us at the airport once we had finished filling in the details of our missing bags and we headed to their place to freshen up after a yelling match with a 'farm boy' taxi driver and headed to the markets to buy some fresh undies and other essentials to last us at least a day.
Mel made up this feast for lunch and I had not slept a wink on the overnight flight from hell so I was just about to keel over, I was in the mindset of deal with it now sleep later, I'm definately glad I didn't nap or I would have not been a happy camper for the next part.
Mel and Scott have twins a boy and a girl, now the chinese love twins double happines double luck or something like that. Imagine walking into a market with two sets of twins with people poking and proding and taking photos and crowding around whilst we were attempting to quickly buy the essentials and of course some non esssentials before 7pm for dinner.
We finished up close to 7pm and rushed back to change and re-freshen up due to the humidity,  and headed to dinner at a nice little place which had the most amazing duck pancakes.......yummy!!!!
After we finished eating we stayed and chatted, Scott joined us and the twins were fast asleep in the double pram. We headed back and put on House of Flying Daggers before pretty much passing out to sleep.

Goodbye Astana 17.08.12

A very sad day indeed leaving Astana. Our lovely driver took us past the Palace of Peace the big pyramid in Astana which at night would have been changing in bright colours but unfortunately was a bit too far to walk at 10pm, we happy snapped and jumped back into the car to the airport. We trudged around souvenir shops on blistered toes, Aimee being the worst off "you're running again!!" as in slightly faster that strolling.
We found a little place to have brunch burgers and grilled vegetables...much needed and jumped back on the plane. I am now apparently a Kazakh citizen as I bought a beautiful soft leather passport cover for 1500Tenge which says 'Kazakhstan passport' on the front.

We arrived back in the blistering heat of Almaty to a balmy 33 degrees no humidity, Aussie summer style. Got back to our little Turkistan hotel and found alas the air conditioner did not work..........it stared at us teasingly all afternoon and all night. On a happier note the hot water worked this time around however the taps were backwards and I with my godzilla like strength kept flipping the stupid faucet head off the tap every time I used it.
We walked down to 'TsUm' an out of nowhere shopping centre with a large selection of souvenir shops (cheers guide book!) found a Kazakhstan shirt similar to Aimee's that I had regretted not buying in Kok-Tobe and a Kazakh camel hair hat with cotton on the inside and beautiful embroidery perfect for winter. We went back to the room did some touristy happy snaps in our three matching t-shirts on the balcony and had our last dinner in Kazakhstan a Doner kebab and hot corn from the lovely street vendors washed down with some ice tea...YUMMY!

Aimee and I people watched from the balcony for a while and a lovely girl in a white dress walked past looked up and smiled. Aimee waved back and a little boy she was with maybe 3 years old with his Ben10 hat on intrigued by what the girl was doing looked up and waved, he continued waving and we waved back to this gorgeous little boy all dressed up in white. When they were nearly out of sight he turned around and blew a kiss, to which of course we returned, he smiled and proceeded to nearly trip himself over, the girl waved again and they disappeared around the corner. Just a really beautiful moment that Aimee and I will cherish forever. I love it here.

After that things went a little sour across the road, a bit of local drama with some official and his group of friends who did not appreciate the non-legitimate street vendors. I'll leave it at that as it was not pretty and really not something to blog about, let's just say everyone in our building was looking as was half the locals around the area.

Packing was a bit more difficult today.....I don't want to leave this country :'(

The lights of Astana 16.08.12

Hmm bit of  rough night last night everyone was a bit tired and cranky, Aimee thought she had lost her Swiss Army Knife from Switzerland.....and Bec was tired cranky and craving. I kept to myself and we went to bed, woke up much happier after a good long nap and many thanks to Norma for her words of motherly wisdom :)
Today we explored city park and visited the memorial hill dedicated to the victims of the soviet repression era. City park is beautiful just like the rest of Astana it had been thought out so well and planned to impress.
Astana seems to have been built on the celebration of freedom and the opportunity to design and choose how they wanted their new capital to be presented. It's the most beautiful city I have ever seen, every single detail has been thought of right down to the floral design of EVERY single garden in the city.
City park also had a huge map of Kazakhstan in miniature, literally every main tourist attraction or important icon in Kazakhstan has been covered there's so much to look at that it does take a while to get around it, a little bit run down though it would be spectacular if it was restored. The Astana city section was particularly good much newer and under cover do less sun damage. It gave us a pretty good indication of where we had walked the day prior and how much further we had to walk....a bit daunting to look at if it was at all to scale. Which we later found out it was :/

We did a big loop around the opposite end of the city closer to where we were staying we continued past city park over a huge footbridge, not sure of the name but it was a very modern design. At the other side there was a good find, an old english pub called The Guns and Roses. We decided to have lunch there I had lamb chops, Bec had a burger and Aimee had a chicken schnitzel which was not a schnitzel rather a chicken breast with giant croutons on it all dishes came with a giant puff of something bread with a stalk of rosemary in it.

We went on after lunch to visit the largest souvenir shop in Astana 'Tumar and Talisman' quite large with a lot of desirable and not so desirable souvenirs such as Lynx furs and Grizzly Bear heads,cool to know what a bear felt like though I don't agree with shooting them, stuffing them and selling them. Others may feel different but that's just me. We eventually decided to splurge on three identical eagle pendants, as these represented the beauty of Kazakhstan and our memories of driving through the steppe and seeing golden eagles soaring high above us. However they were a bit on the expensive side as usual we justified all the reasons for buying them and paid our 43200 Tenge total. No guilt there still well under budget :)
After emptying our pockets we explored the nearby parks and saw some old men playing chess with one of those giant chess sets, and some kids riding battery powered 4wd toy cars around a fountain chasing pigeons.

We made our way back to the guest house and took some time out before we went to see the lights of Astana at night.

At around 8pm (still broad daylight) we made the trek back to Astana city to see Bayterek at night and singing fountains. Every night at 9pm the fountain behind Bayterek is lit up with classical music in the background and a beautiful fountain display. It was so much fun to watch and there were so many people around enjoying the night air, maybe not so much the blood thirsty mosquitoes!!!!!! They were out in force!!!!

We strolled down past Bayterek which was spectacular at night changing colours every minute or so absolutely gorgeous. The atmosphere in Astana after dark is peaceful and romantic, we walk all the way to the presidents palace which was stunning, the area around the main strip is spacious and again well though out. After we reached as far as we could go we made our way back to the guest house to pack....again :(

Gobsmacked in Astana

First day in Astana and we are home by 3pm?!?! Probably due to the amount of walking we did today....twins complaining about my antelope legs forging ahead most of the time...completely unintentional obviously, they're just longer I can't help it.

This morning we left around 9am and came across what on the map said Astana Circus which we weren't too excited about. Low and behold a completely random fountain with a golden clown on a unicycle!!! Not only that but surrounded by a beautiful garden filled with circus animals and performers. The edges of the fountain were lined with bears, donkeys, camels, elephants, clowns and acrobats. Hedges cut into elephants and giraffes near by, quite amazing but completely unexpected. We treid to find out what it was there for but to no avail.

We followed the neverending straight street to Khan Shantyr the oddly shaped shopping centre in Astana only a year or so old it was quite interesting just to look at almost  following the circus theme it looked like a lopsided circus tent. We and half of the city so it seemed had arrived early so we waited until it opened. Once we were inside it was incredible and confusing, rows of shops lined the outskirts of the inner building and then two floors up an arcade level and with rides and a full size merry go round. On the next level was a water park, slides and a lagoon area to relax. Definately something Sydney should think about investing in.....it's pretty awesome. We shopped a bit bodught some much needed 16gb memory cards for our cameras and continued down the 'strip' to Bayterek tower dedicated to ancient Kazakh legend the Bayterek was 'the tree of life'. 

The roots of this tree lay in the subterranean world, it's trunk in the earthly one and it's crown in the heavens. Each year the sacred bird Samruk laid a golden egg in the crown of this tree, only for it to be consumed by the dragon Aidakhar, which lived at the base of it. The annual routine of egg laying and destruction symbolised the switch between summer and winter, day and night, good and evil.

Quite a beautiful legend I'd say, Bayterek is impressive similar to the likes of the eiffel tower in design and individuality. You will not see this anywhere else in the world, anyone can see the care and consideration that was taken in selecting the location and the planning of the entire plaza and the many kms of planned path, floral gardens, fountains and with statues and sculptures lining the path up to the tower, continuing in all four directions beneath the tower for kms.

We paid our 500Tenge and ascended in the lift to the tippy top of the tower for a 360 degree gobsmack!!!! Honestly I have never seen something so perfect, a beautiful modern city planned to the T and as you look over you can see where the city stops and the endless wonderment that is the steppe begins.......I have never seen anything like it a city in the middle of nowhere. 

At the very top is the highest platform within the golden dome. Here stands a green malachite plinth, on top of which is a disc made of 5kg of solid silver. Resting on this in turn is a triangular-shaped 2kg lump of gold , into which is pressed the hand of President Nazarbaev. Visitors are encouraged to place their hands in that of the president and make a wish, which of course we did along with countlless others.

On another note I cannot stress enough how beautiful and lovely the people are here......kind and patient and always smiling.

Once we left the tower we made our way back stopping at the Nur Astana Mosque which was quite stunning with its pure white walls and golden dome. I could have probably stayed there and just looked for a while, not just because my feet were in some serious pain, as were Bec and Aimee's.

We made the seemingly endless walk back to our guest house were the lovely girl at the desk was waiting to welcome us back......time for a cuppa.

Astana Intro

Just a quick post to catch up, we arrived in Astana at around 2:30pm yesterday and met our driver who spoke some english ...hoorah!!!!!!! 

Flying in you can't even see the city literally it's in the middle of nowhere, completely surrounded by steppe. 

Driving through it's beautiful the architechure is so modern and every building is designed in a different way, a different shape......incredible.

There were huge bilboards of the gold medalists from the olympics lining the main street driving in. There's an obvious difference between Almaty and Astana and I for one am glad we went to Almaty first because it would have been a let down doing it the other way around. 

Up this morning to explore the city and so far we are well under budget at $180 total roughly each so $60 a day. Our budget was around $100 or 15000Tenge or there abouts, were well under and that means we may splurge on a couple of gorgeous bracelets towards the end :)

The sun started setting last night at around 9pm!!! Definately a weird feeling and then we went to sleep at around 9:30pm, so weird. I'm always the first up though usually around 6:30am pottering around waiting for the girls to wake up half and hour later.

Today we shall explore and most likely shop with our limited space......posting it all from Beijing along with other non-necessities that we ALL packed and are now regretting like a 

2nd pair of jeans, who would have thought I would have so much hatred towards a pair of jeans and a jumper.

Charyn Canyon with Alfiya :)

We were picked up at 9am by our guide and driver and headed out for Charyn Canyon. Our guides name was Alfiya and she was quite lovely she taught us more about Kazakhstan in a three hour drive than most guide books would tell you. Alfiya was Russian and moved to Kazakhstan when she was young, she spoke so passionately about the country and it's history you would think she was born here.
Driving out of Almaty and through the outskirts of the main city was quite interesting the scenery kept changing from tree lined streets to markets and farmlands then finally to what we had expected to see from all that Googling prior......the steppe and the endless stretching border of the Tian shen mountains bordering us with China and Kyrgyzstan.
I did ask about why there were so many Mitsubishi Galants around (my poor car that had been scrapped 24hrs prior to leaving) and Alfiya said they were cheap to run and it was easy to get parts........hmmm maybe I should have kept it then and sent parts home ;)
I never see them in Sydney maybe two or three if i'm lucky but here they are EVERYWHERE!!!!! Every second or third car is a Galant all different year models and the first one I saw when we arrived was identical to mine 94 model white but in much better condition :/
As we drove through the winding landscape Alfiya told us about why the apple was a symbol of Kazakhstan and Almaty in particular, there is a special tree that in endemic to Kazakhstan, one that grows wild up in the mountains. On these trees you will find wild apples just like the ones you buy at the markets they are pink on the outside with the typical white flesh inside speckled with pink dots, quite delicious. Scientists believe that as they were found nowhere else in the world growing wild that they were unique to Kazakhstan and became a national symbol, they were then exported throughout Europe and around the world and modified to the apples we have today.
She also told said that it was a little known secret of Kazakhstan that the Cathedral of Ascention in Panfilov park did in fact have nails and that it was a local legend that had spread because it had survived the soviet period and a huge earthquake. During the soviet period the pictures in the catherdral were painted white and covered. Currently it is now partly restored and the public are once again welcome there.
Truly the landscape here is a marvel, unbelievable beauty and it just keeps going! We continued winding through the mountains onto the steppe, we could see the heat rippling off the earth and dancing causing mirage like figures on the horizon.
When I say winded we only winded once really the way that Almatys design during soviet rule was similar to this symbol # straight lines everywhere this was so that should they be invaded or attacked this would be a better defence.....hmmm maybe Sydney should take some pointers. Another note for the parents reading in the lack of interest in seatbelts or more like they exist though there's nothing to clip them into.....our driver and Bec had one up front and Aimee had one sitting in the back middle so she didn't fly through the window, Alfiya and I had none though that appreared to be the norm really, it's like they just took the buckles out.......safety first!!!
We continued through the endless landscape past the Tian Shen mountains that bordered us with Uzbekistan and China. Apparently Uzbekistan's prices were three to five times less than what you would pay in Kazakhstan.....I don't understand how on earth they would make any money though.
As we drove there was one man on horseback rounding up stallions churning up dust, was quite beautiful to see. Alfiya told us that there were not many people still living the nomadic lifestyle however they still existed up near the mountains. As there is no water available for hundreds of kilometres on the steppe it's a hardly liveable place even for animals which is why it appears so desolate so isolated. All this landscape was only 100km from Almaty city, quite incredible that the landscape just continued to change from tree lined streets to forests and farms then onto the mountains and finally just steppe as far as the eye could see.
We reached the 10km road to Charyn canon........RUTTS RUTTS RUTTS!!!!!! Oh the poor driver's Camry being shaken to pieces slowly, break accelerate break accelerate. We did see a family of five with montrous packs on WALKING to Charyn Canyon in the searing heat in midday, mum and dad with two young girls probably aged 10 maybe twins and grandma bringing up the rear....CRAZY PEOPLE!!!!!!!
We reached the canyon finally and because we were feeling like an intrepid trio of explorers we decided to attempt the 2nd hardest descent......mistake. Slowly we crept down on the loose stones, I had had enough of the hard stuff by the second point and slid down like a surfer on my converse with my butt low to the ground.......much quicker!!!! The girls crept down slowly and we finally reached the bottom.
Charyn Canyon is approximately 14km long a baby compared to the grand canyon though I'm glad we saw this one first. Absolutely beautiful with rock formations millions of years old, we trekked down the path admiring the colours and the constant changing scenery. Alfiya told us that there was also a section of the canyon that was known as the white and yellow parts due to their colour.
We reached the river about half an hour later and desperate I used a free standing drop hole shed.....*vomit* .....I have used outhouses in my time but that one was something else entirely!!!!!
Alfiya led us to a pagola where we ate our little packed lunches and listened to the sound of the river rushing past below. After lunch we had to brave the trek back up the canyon....I used my powers of mind of matter and burned through the pain whilst behind me I could here Bec having a winge about sore legs and chopping them off, with some muttered profanities from Aimee :) It was not an easy trek up we clambered back up the steepest part where we had descended and 'Kooeed' as triumphant Aussies when we reached the top. Worth it? Absolutely!!!!
On the way back up the bumpy road we passed that same family again three hours later still a good few kms to go  :/ We took a few steppe happy snaps and made the long journey back, the girls fell asleep and I chatted to Alfiya the whole way back. Once we arrived I dashed upstairs and retrieve a little clip on Koala with a boomerang for Alfiya which she really liked....Alfiya if you ever come to Australia please let us know!!! :)
We said our goodbyes and Aimee ad I ventured out to find dinner.....mmmmmm Doner Kebab!!!!!
Then we settled for a night of attempting to repack our bags for Astana the next morning.

Kok-Tobe and Panfilov Park, Almaty

So one thing we were discussing this morning was how quiet the Kazakh people are, they seem to just go about their day they don't argue or yell, they're very reserved from what we have seen so far.
Yesterday we went for a walk to Panfilov park a few streets from us and it was stunning manicured beautifully and so green with flower accents lighting it with colour. We walked to the centre which is the Cathedral of Holy Ascension an inspirational building built of wood though with not one single nail. Pastel colours from top to bottom and all the way around it was truly beautiful. We did not go in though as we were not really appropriately dressed.
We followed the path to the WW2 war memorial a gigantic sculpture of some soldiers in action, some 600,000 or more Kazakhs died in the 2nd world war and this structure and the eternal flame behind was to commemorate their lives lost.
We then continued onto Kok-Tobe much more of a tourist destination here in Almaty. A rickety cable car took on it's sardines and up we went. The view from the top breathtaking, it's one of those places that you stop and realise where you are in that moment. A city surrounded by snowcapped mountains, we could also see where the city ended and the steppe begins......
Wandering around Kok-Tobe was interesting, almost like a carnival setting there were people selling little arcade games like test your strength and guess your weight, there was also a little zoo.
Now two very notable things about Kok-Tobe was the Apple fountain and the completely random Beatles memorial, bronzed statues that were frequented by many travellers.....just try getting a photo of it on it's own without people climbing all over it or getting a photo just on your own with it.....but with patience I succeeded and was quite please with myself. The statues were worn on Ringo's knee, John lennon's guitar and Paul's shoulder from constant hands and bottoms posing with them.
Lunchtime- we found a restaurant on the top of the mountain a bit pricey but we decided we would splurge and this would be my birthday lunch...first thing on the menu....cold horse meat platter....well I knew exactly what that was, sliced horse member.....I'm all for trying but no thanks.
We had some of the most delicious breads and some assorted traditional Kazakh soups of mini doughnuts, potato and the most gorgeous lamb (still on the bone) YUM!!!!! and some schazlychs and chicken.
We all attempted fermented mares milk which was just awful cold with floaties and stayed in your throat like a fizzy off yoghurt.........we were shocked by the waitress's truly shocked reaction to us leaving it with three sips missing, she couldn't understand why we didn't like it....certainly an aquired taste.
Bec's final hurrah was taking the taboggan ride down the bottom of the hill following the no one's left alone rule I stayed with Aimee and waited at the top while Bec flogged it down at ludicrous speed.
We tired tootsies we trekked back to the hotel miraculously finding an actual supermarket on the way back......noodles for dinner that night, we tended to our shoe related wounds and readied ourselves for the next days adventure....Charyn Canyon.

Welcome to Almaty Kazakhstan

I can't even begin to explain how beautiful it was flying into this city...at the bed of the Altai mountain range huge snow capped mountains rise up and completely surround the city, absolutely stunning. The whole flight we were getting smacked constantly in the arm by Bec as she alerted us to the changing landscape beneath us, desolate plains, sandy cliffs, huge rivers, then mountain ranges as far as we could see.
Even the stuard on the plane was asking us why we Aussies were travelling to Kazakhstan and our reason was pretty basic.......we had seen it somewhere in a magazine or on TV and wanted to know more so we came to see it.
With our stamps and VISAS sorted we ventured forth, claimed our bags, literally strolled through customs (there was noone there) and out to meet our driver who was waiting. So glad we organised transfers so many random people asking us if we wanted a taxi. Driving through the city every tom, dick and harry was pulling up on the road side as citizens waved to them getting a lift....definately not on our list of things to do.
So we got to our hotel the lovely Hotel Turkistan to realise....CRAP we didn't exchange any money!!! Luckily there was a place down the road so we made a quick dash and exchanged some for the hotel with a 'lovely' lady that spoke some english...HOORAY!! Squeezed into our ity bity lift and up we went. Our room is quite big with a seperate lounge and bedroom with a king and a single, a litte bathroom and two balconys overlooking the Altai mountain ranges.....perfection! No kettle though but a fridge so our little element heaters are a life saver!!!!!! Cheers mummy!!!

First night we roamed around a bit and used our limited Russian to buy bread, water, bananas, milk, a couple of beers and some meat pastries for dinner which did fine. After all that I imagine it must have been around 1500T or roughly $10 Aussie for the three of us.
Finally the jet lag caught up at 10pm so off to bed we went and here I am at around 6:30am though I've been awake since 5:30am watching the sunrise above the Altai over a cup of tea.

What will today's adventure be?

Meeting People

We haven't even officially landed in our first country and we are already meeting people....sitting in the terminal in Abu Dhabi across from a gentleman who just starting chatting with us in french and we attempted to chat back using the translator on Aimee's phone.......don't think we would have gotten far without it even with a combined 14 years of french language lessons we struggled. I'm ashamed that after 2 'linguistic' cultural trips to france with school I've forgotten alot but it's amazing how much springs to mind when you have to use it :)

Meet Francis our first friend....we sat for a couple of hours chatting back and forth attempting to resurrect ancient phrases long forgotten from french classes.

What would we do with without Iphones.........really...........already made life much easier.

Touch Down Abu Dhabi!!!!!!

After a pretty pleasant flight with Etihad (wow 1.5 uncomfortable hours sleep) we are sitting in a lounge taking full advantage of their free wifi :) trying to work out the finer points of using skype to call home. 12 midnight currently and 34 degrees and we have lounge access until 4am with our flight leaving at 9am roughly. Seeing as its midnight and pitch black I haven't adjusted to my location as yet so I think this will take some getting used to....I'm preparing for some severe culture shock when we do arrive in Almaty.

No duty free purchases for me as yet though Aimee couldn't leave Sydney Airport without buying a swatch watch......and now I want one ;)

Will endeavour to find somewhere to nap before boarding the next flight though the bathrooms in the lounge on their own were worth the US39.00 its like a bathroom at home.

definately hasn't hit me yet where I am and I'll let you know when it does....

Miss you all already xxxxxxxx

P.S below in one of those photos is one of the lovely lounge attendants from Al Rheem T1 Airport Lounge :)

Sick Feeling.......

Ok so,

Finally here we are, with one week left until take off. This time next week we are 35,000ft up and cruising.

So what's left to do but pack and go through everything page by page securing documents and finalising what to take and what not to take....painful.

Securing a backpack is a nightmare let me tell you after having so many attempts at covering, locking, mesh netting FINALLY much to many people's relief I have given up and decided to forgo the extras and attempt to lock using a padlock and cable ties. I just hope my bag comes out at the other end, this is the dream.

Shoes......ah yes another nightmare to deal with, no heels (no brainer for me), and no walking shoes (this was a struggle), I'm not that keen on looking like a typical tourist everyday and they took up a huge amount of space, for practicalities sake they would have come out on top however I know I really won't need them as much as I'd like and so the converse won :) highly comfortable, match absolutely everything and less bulk.

I know that people tell you to halve your clothing but I don't think I can, I have a compression sac from Kathmandu which I got on a good sale, only buy it if it's on sale people.
Also a couple of travel space bags for the cold weather gear later on.

As of right now the feeling is....a sick feeling as in spending 8 hours at work everyday is driving me around the bend and I just feel like I need to be at home with my family and my friends. This trip has pretty much been on the back burner since year 11 at school 2006 ..... wow..... thinking about it all this time...over and over wondering when the hell am i going to be able to even consider doing this. Then I met probably the two most amazing girls who just happen to be twins (VERY different twins), who share the dream that I had almost identically.
This trip for me isn't just going on a holiday relaxing and enjoying time off....this journey even though a somewhat small one is something that I have been dreaming about for years fuelled by the words of Ewan and Charley I already feel very consumed by it, I wake up everyday thinking about it and it's the last thing I think about before I go to sleep, I'm constantly talking about it, researching it and preparing for it.

On the other hand leaving my family, my partner even my pets is hard to think about right now....there's a sick feeling in my stomach and I just can't shake it. I think constantly contemplating what to pack is definately helping it focuses my brain else where.
I feel as though this journey is something I have to do...on my own (sort of) but not having someone there as your partner, your second brain, your other half is something I'm not used to and so this is a huge step for me though some may not see it that way. I definately feel as though this blog will show a different side of myself probably because it's so easy to express things when your typing.
I want to share it with people and I want to make sure that the places we visit are brought to light in every aspect .
Like only now that the olympics are on are people interested in the fact that we are visiting Kazakhstan and that does somewhat irritate me I guess for some reason. I feel like I have gotten to know what Kazakhstan is about through reading countless blogs, forums, books articles and so on.

Not long until I get to share my own experiences as well.

until next post......