The Silk Road (Sort Of) Overland
Saturday 30 July 2011

I slept well on the train but not for as long as I had anticipated. I arrived at my stop, Tulkubas, already at 3.45 AM! Not a problem. Russim’s planning for my stay in the Zhabagly village worked impeccably and a person from the Ruslan Guesthouse was there to meet me at the station and take me to my room. I even managed to catch a couple of hours of sleep before breakfast was served (it’s full board at this guesthouse).

The Ruslan Home-Stay/Guesthouse in Zhabagly is on the very edge of the Aksu-Zhabagly Nature Reserve (established in 1926), which was my destination for today. The guesthouse arranged for me to join a hiking tour through the nature reserve and just after 9.00 o’clock I was on my way, with an elaborate packed lunch and water bottle handed to me just like that. I really love it when you are on the receiving end if something that is well organised!

I know I’ve used the word “stunning” a lot on my blog lately, but the Aksu-Zhabagly Nature Reserve was truly stunning – in a different way the Bolshoe Almatinskoe Lake and surroundings were stunning. It was more wild and untouched, with a mix of soft rolling green hills, towering snow-capped mountains and dramatic ravines. As this was a nature reserve, there were no buildings, no power lines to disturb the scenery, no roads. It was nature pure and simple.

We were a group of four and a local guide (Canada, Holland and Kazakhstan if I got it right – and me from Sweden). We had to have special permission to enter the reserve, and camping is prohibited. Very few tourists seem to know about this place and for a long time we didn’t see anybody else at all.

It was uphill for a lot of the time, but it was a relatively gentle walk – good for me after my short night on the train! It was interesting to me that the wild flowers growing all around us were completely different from the mountains outside Almaty. No “Swedish” feel here at all. The highlights of the walk were the ravine overlooking a narrow river and a walk along the river itself, with its green, leafy foliage.

We were back by 4.00 PM so it wasn’t a heavy-duty hike; just right in my opinion.

Tomorrow, I’m visiting the Silk Road stops of Turkestan and Sayram in a tailor-made tour just for me. It’s time for an early night I think.

The Silk Road (Sort Of) Overland
Friday 29 July 2011

I went back to the Eco-Tourism office to see Russim this morning and check the final details of my weekend travel plans. He had everything under control, including the name of the person that will meet me at the train station tomorrow morning when I arrive in Tulkubas around 5.30 AM. That is A+ customer service!

I spent the rest of the morning chilling in Almaty. I’ve really grown to like this green, leafy city over the last few days. My favourite hangout is Coffeedelia, a trendy cafe with excellent food, great service and free WiFi.

One thing that is different in Kazakhstan from the previous countries I have visited this summer is that there are four million Russians living here (27% of the population) and they all look like me. The consequence is that I don’t stand out as a tourist here at all – which is nice. In fact, again and again people have walked up to me, speaking to me in Russian, seeming quite surprised by my “Sorry, I don’t speak Russian.”

My train towards Shymkent left on time at 4.18 PM (I’m actually getting off at a village called Tulkubas, but nobody seems to know what time we’re arriving there). What I had not anticipated was that the train would have 24 carriages! I think I have to retract my earlier comments that Kazakh Railways is not utilising all their assets and meeting the demand for rail tickets! I doubt you can have many more carriages than that for a normal train.

The train is OK and I’ve got great company in my four-birth sleeper compartment. A Kazakh Sales Manager called Jandos, fluent in English, his sister-in-law, and a Russian who made himself invisible more or less immediately by going to the restaurant car. It turned out that Jandos had worked as a freelance translator – just like me – and we had a very long and interesting discussion about language and culture.

I love train travel. I’m chatting with the people in my compartment, I’m writing my blog, I’m reading, or just looking at the passing landscape – still grassy but not as green as Almaty. I feel happy when I travel by train. I wind down. The actual physical travelling from A to B becomes enjoyable and relaxing, part of the holiday mood. Personally, I find it difficult to get that feeling on a coach. There, it’s just the functionality of it all. I need to get from A to B and the only thing that counts is the place I’m going to visit, not the actual travelling there.

I’m sure I’ll be sleeping like a baby tonight.

The Silk Road (Sort Of) Overland
Thursday 28 July 2011

This morning, there was still no news about my Uzbek visa! Yesterday’s mountain walk was absolutely fantastic, but these continuous visa and travel hassles quickly bring me back to earth.

I’m doing all this travelling independently, and this summer I feel like I constantly have to push HARD to move forward (compared to my train travels in Europe last summer – they were a breeze). Sometimes very small things can make a difference between me feeling this is great and I want to move on, and me feeling like I just want to give up and go to a really easy destination, like Thailand or something. Like when a bus driver smiles and cracks a joke and a fellow-passenger translates it and then he takes me directly to my hotel door (energising) or when a rail station attendant starts imitating me speaking in English and making fun of me when I try to understand how to get a queuing ticket out of the ticket machine (disheartening and draining).

Today, is one of those days when I feel I’m ready to give up. After the Azerbaijani visa not working out, and not being able to travel through Turkmenistan either, and all trains across Kazakhstan being fully booked for three weeks solid, and me not being able to book any train tickets anywhere from Almaty – I don’t know if I can cope with not being able to get an Uzbek visa either! What would be left of my Silk Road trip then? Maybe it would be better just to interrupt my travels and do a Silk Road journey more properly another year? The reality is, I can’t stay here forever, and I’ve decided that tomorrow, Friday, is my cut-off point for waiting for the Uzbek visa as I’m running out of time. My mind starts wondering whether I should start looking at which flights go straight to Dubai from Almaty. Or to Hong Kong.

In the early afternoon I contacted David at StanTours again (the agency dealing with my visa). David suggested that I go to the Uzbek Consulate anyway. He says that sometimes the Letter of Invitation is recorded on their internal system before it’s issued to the person travelling. OK, I’ve got nothing to lose.

I waited in a fenced off wooden structure (it looks like a dilapidated terrace) in front of the consulate for about 90 minutes. The guard in charge took my passport and read out my name aloud while other people around congregated really close to see my passport. Funny! Where’s their sense of privacy?

Then the miracle happened. I was allowed into the consulate. A member of staff took my application and my passport, barked, “Seventy-five dollars!” and came back with my passport and visa within a few minutes!

So, suddenly my Silk Road trip is a very real and happening event, and I’ve got sparkling and shiny Uzbek visa in my passport!!!

I’m galvanised into action. I go to the Eco-Tourism Information Centre (which I managed to locate a couple of days ago; it has moved) and here I meet Russim. Now, Russim is a fount of information. He KNOWS things. He has CONTACTS. He gets things DONE. Why haven’t I met anybody like Russim in Kazakhstan up until now??!

So, Russim has helped me book train tickets to Shymkent and then on to Tashkent (real train tickets! I’ve got them!) and he’s arranging a home stay in the village Zhabaghly, in a nature reserve near Shymkent, plus hotel and a personalised guided tour of Sayram and Turkistan – the two main Silk Road stops in Kazakhstan.

What a total transformation from this morning! I’ll be in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, on Monday afternoon, and over this weekend I’ll do a home-stay/whirlwind Silk Road tour combo.

Hip hooray for people like Russim!

The Silk Road (Sort Of) Overland
Wednesday 27 July 2011

I set out this morning to go for a walk up into the mountains to see the Bolshoe Almatinskoe Lake (2,500m). This is DIY tourism in that it is basically me and my Lonely Planet guide book. I’ve now stayed at four hotels in Kazakhstan and overall I can say that hotel receptionists know very little about what there is to see or what you can do in their country and city as a visitor (there are no government tourist offices here that I know of). This is a huge contrast to my travels in eastern Europe last summer, where hotel receptionists seemed to know EVERYTHING.

The Lonely Planet is excellent. It even tells you which bus to take, where to get off and what to look for when you get there. In this case, I was supposed to look for a “broad water pipe rising sharply up the gorge” and follow this for the most direct route to the lake. And sure enough, there it was.

What stunning scenery, all the way up the mountain! I was walking over grassy slopes and everywhere there were buttercups, red clover and what we in Sweden call midsummer blossoms (midsommarblomster). It was incredibly beautiful. And was it busy? No, quite the contrary. I only saw one other hiker all the up to the lake, an Israeli guy called Segev, who was travelling across Asia for (I think) nine months, He overtook me just as I started walking up along the water pipe and even though he was carrying this huge backpack with a tent and a sleeping bag, I really had to struggle to keep up with him.
Segev had just come from Kashgar in China, via Kyrgyzstan, so he was able to give me vital first-hand information as I’m going the other way. He told me that Osh in Kyrgyzstan is now safe – after the riots last year – and that it’s much better to cross into China from Kyrgyzstan than Kazakhstan if I’m going to Kashgar.

Amazing. I didn’t have to search online forever for the kind of detailed travel information I needed; I just happened to bump into somebody on a mountain hike who happened to know.

The turquoise lake was absolutely worth the effort. A Kazakh police officer came up to us as soon as we arrived at the lake and he wanted to see our passports. He seemed unsure of where Sweden was but left after a few minutes. Apparently, the Bolshoe Almatinskoe Lake is close to the Kyrgyzstan border.

After a lunch break in the most scenic environment I’ve found myself in for a long time, we carried on our walk up to the Tian Shan Astronomical Observatory (2,750m). I was trailing behind Segev with his large backpack at every juncture. I’m obviously not as fit as I would like to think I am. This observatory has what used to be the second-largest telescope in the former USSR. The whole compound looked very intriguing but as I walked through it, I hardly saw a single soul – though I seemed to hear voices everywhere. Extraterrestrials perhaps.

It this point, I turned back and started my descent while Segev kept climbing. He was going to pitch his tent further up the mountain.

When I finally reached the bus back down in the valley, I had walked about 24 kilometres. I think my legs will be quite sore tomorrow.

I’ve checked my email and there is still no news about my Uzbek visa! I can’t stay in Almaty forever, waiting for this visa. This is so frustrating. I think if I haven’t got the visa by Friday, I’ll have to just move on and skip Uzbekistan, which would be a shame since both Samarkand and Bukhara are there – two major Silk Road stops.

The Silk Road (Sort Of) Overland
Tuesday 26 July 2011

Today has been as unproductive as yesterday. The only thing I managed to do was to change hotel (I’ve moved to A Club Hotel – slightly cheaper, and with a pool/sauna). I was checking my email every few minutes for any news on my Uzbek visa – up until 1.30 PM, when the queuing starts at the Uzbek Consulate. No news on my visa.

Tried again to book a train ticket somewhere – ANYWHERE! – but everything is fully booked.

So, this is another day when I feel like my holiday is “off”. Though, in the afternoon, as I was walking down the street with heavy steps, I kind of thought that holiday is an attitude. I just decided there and then that today I’m on holiday – regardless – and I went to a nice restaurant and had a very nice meal. It helped, at least a bit.

One very good thing about my new hotel is that they have created this indoor garden with lots and lots of plants. Really funky. I sat there this evening, reading the latest Bond novel (Carte Blanche).

Tomorrow, the Uzbek Consulate is closed so I can go somewhere for the day, without being interrupted by emails and visits to booking offices.

I’ve decided that tomorrow is the perfect day to go for a hike up to the Bolshoe Almatinskoe Lake, just outside Almaty.

The Silk Road (Sort Of) Overland
Monday 25 July 2011

The info on my Uzbek visa was that it will be ready “any day now”. If I could just book train tickets for same-day travel within Kazakhstan, I could make use of this waiting time and see the other places I want to see (e.g. Turkistan). However, the trains are as full as ever.

Basically, the only thing I managed to do today was to book another night at the hotel I’m staying at – after failing to find an overnight train ticket to Astana (the receptionist said there was a ticket, but it was gone when I went to the train station) or to Shymkent/Turkistan.

I went up the Kök-Töbe Cable Car (nice view) in the evening, but I still can’t help feeling that spending most of the day running from booking office to booking office is a waste of a day. Compared to yesterday, I feel like today, my holiday is “off”.

The Silk Road (Sort Of) Overland
Sunday 24 July 2011

This morning I decided it was time to see a bit of Kazakhstan’s great outdoors. The Bolshaya Almatinka Valley west of Almaty looked like a good option. However, I didn’t reach my starting point in the valley until 3.00 PM. Why? Because the bus I was told by the receptionist would go there didn’t seem to exist and it took forever to find out from people around me how to get there. Also, I’m starting to realise how few people in this country actually know any English at all. Russian is the all pervasive lingua franca and since all TV channels are dubbed, the locals probably never hear a word of English spoken. Even numbers are unknown to people. If I want to know how much something costs, people write it down or show me the relevant bank note.

Anyway, once there, the Bolshaya Almatinka Valley turned out to be the most stunning place, and all my frustrations were quickly forgotten. I walked along the road following the Bolshaya Almatinka River.There were lots of people about and I walked past several “hotels” consisting of individual yurts, a kind of hut made of woollen felt over a wooden frame, a bit like a semi-permanent tent (or a Sami kåta from northern Sweden). The mountains around me were stunning and after six kilometres or so, I sat down by the river to cool off my feet a bit. Well, that was a quick affair. After about three seconds, my feet were ice cold in the freeing water!

I managed to walk around eight kilometres and be back in town before sundown. If I get another full day in Almaty (not interrupted by visa matters or booking train tickets etc.), I would like to go back to this valley and walk all the way up to the Bolshaya Almatinskoe Lake (2,500 metres above sea level).

Tomorrow, I will (hopefully!) get some good news about my Uzbek visa (which has been severely delayed because I couldn’t pick it up in Baku, Azerbaijan, as was originally planned).

[Ever since I left Istanbul, it has been difficult to find Internet cafes. I need a proper Internet cafe to be able to upload pictures onto my blog - my iPad can't cope. In Aktau, I couldn't find a single Internet cafe for example, and here in Almaty, it's also difficult. From my iPad I can't even comment on other people's comments, but for some reason I can upload new blogs, no problem.]

The Silk Road Overland
Friday 22 July 2011

This has been an excellent day. My taxi driver arrived on time in a sturdy-looking minivan with 4×4-type tyres. We reached Shakpak Ata after about two and a half hours of driving. For the last hour we drove across the steppe on a pretty challenging gravel road. I arrived well shaken but this did not diminish the impact of seeing this incredibly interesting archaeological site.

Shakpak Ata is this underground/cliff mosque constructed in the ninth or tenth century. It’s quite large and designed in the shape of a cross (as seen from above) – and I’ve seen information that some people think it originally was a church.

This underground mosque is set in incredibly interesting surroundings, where the cliff face looks a bit like Swiss cheese. The cave mosque is incredibly beautiful, with Arabic inscriptions on the walls, along with graffiti of different origins and the most gorgeous wall etchings of horses I’ve ever seen. There was nobody there and the serenity of this place was mesmerising. I just couldn’t stop looking at these incredible – even funky! – wall etchings of horses. I will never forget this place.

The journey back was equally bumpy, and I can report that for the two hours of driving over the Kazakh steppe (one hour in each direction) we met one (1) vehicle in total. I feel it’s a privilege to have been able to see such a remote and seldom visited archaeological site.

In the afternoon I found a great Chinese restaurant and I also managed to squeeze in a 20-minute visit at the Aktau Museum. Not a single sign in English. I had no idea what I was looking at.

Tomorrow, I’m flying to Almaty – and my overland journey will cease being overland.

The Silk Road (Sort Of) Overland
Saturday 23 July 2011

My Air Astana flight took off from Aktau Airport at 10.45 AM this morning, and at that moment, my summer travels following the Silk Road definitely ceased being an overland trip. And quite decisively so: the Aktau to Almaty flight covers over 2,000 km. Anyway, what I anticipated being a 67 hour train journey across Central Asia shrunk to a three hour flight and with that, my overland ambitions are gone.

In Almaty, I checked in at a three-star hotel called Astra Hotel, near one of the two train stations in town. At USD80, it’s definitely overpriced compared to what you can get in Dubai. However, the hotel room is quite big and there is free WiFi throughout the hotel.

I was immediately struck by how green Almaty is. It’s a leafy, pleasant city with trees absolutely everywhere and snow-capped mountains in the distance.

Before I went on my Lonely Planet city walk to orientate myself, I tried to book train tickets for Astana for Monday night, coming back on Tuesday evening. Fully booked. I then checked Shymkent and Turkistan, the two other cities I also want to see. Also sold out. Nothing available for a week, give or take. What a hopeless, frustrating situation! I know trains in Europe also can be crowded in summer, but normally you can still get first class seats if you are willing to pay for them. There seems to be a systemic issue with trains in Kazakhstan – any destination within the country is always fully booked. Kazakhs must be a very forward-looking and organised lot, always managing to book their local train travels well in advance,

Anyway, my city walk went according to plan. Except for the fact that I had forgotten the one-hour time difference between Aktau and Almaty. The result was that I saw the last two or three sights after sunset.

My favourite was the colourful Zenkov Cathedral in the centre of Panfilov Park. It looked audaciously colourful, and apparently it’s made if wood throughout, even the nails!

A sight that could have been dropped from the city walk was the Zelyony Bazaar. It seemed like an incomprehensible monstrosity to me.

I’ve got a 32 inch flat panel TV in my hotel room. Good. It has 65 channels. Nice. Sixty channels are in Russian and five in Kazakh. Zero channels in English. Hmm, Almaty is definitely not a global hub. Not yet.

The Silk Road Overland
Thursday 21 July 2011

This morning I used the gym at the Chagala Hotel. Excellent gym with all equipment state-of-the-art. However, there was no remote for the plasma TV so I went down quickly to the reception to ask for help.

Character sketch:

The receptionist rests her head on her hands and looks at me from below for a few seconds. “But it’s open”, she says. “Yes, the gym is open”, I reply, “but I can’t turn on the TV because there is no remote control.” Silence. I look at her quizzically. More silence. “Maybe I can call maintenance”, she says. Silence. “Should I go back up to the gym?” I ask. Silence. She lifts her walkie talkie and speaks into it. “Should I go upstairs?” I ask again. No reply. She speaks into the walkie talkie again. I quietly walk back to the lift. A maintenance man appears a few minutes later and fixes the problem.

I have breakfast before changing hotels this morning. The breakfast at Chagala is absolutely excellent: sausages, bacon, scrambled eggs, mushrooms, tomatoes, baked beans. The chef doesn’t look British but the breakfast does (and tastes it as well).

After moving to the new hotel, Aktau Hotel, I go to the in-hotel travel agent Kazakhstan Tours to find out what I can about getting transport and guide for some of the Silk Road remains in the area. I now come to understand that there are two main underground mosques people visit in the region: Beket Ata and Shakpak Ata (Beket Ata is a well-known place for pilgrimage, while Shakpak Ata is the oldest site in the region and is nearer to Aktau). I also find out that Caspian Tours has closed because the owner has hanged herself. There’s a brief interlude at this stage as this is news to some in the office and they have to ring their mum. Slightly surreal situation as I’m having tea and munching on biscuits while the travel agent I’m taking to is on the phone with her mum. Apparently I’ve only got two options for an organised tour: Turist or TaGu. The friendly agent I’m talking to offers to ring TaGu. Which site do I want? Well, Shakpak Ata sounds interesting. TaGu would charge USD350 for A/C transport, Russian guide and an English translator for the guide. “I can fly to Istanbul for 350 dollars”, I say and the agents in the office laugh.

As I won’t pay USD350 for a six-hour tour, this leaves Turist, and the promise of being able to talk to Christina, the English-speaker. After 3.00 PM, I finally get to speak to Christina. “We only have Russian-speaking guides”, she tells me. Turist charges USD300 for a trip to Shakpak Ata with a Russian guide. “There are no English-speaking guides in Aktau”, Christina informs me.

So, I’m getting nowhere. I give up the idea of having a guide and ask the hotel receptionist to ring and ask how much a regular taxi is. The central taxi company says it’s USD500 if I want a two-hour wait at the site. What?! How can it be more expensive to get a taxi without a guide than get an organised tour? Suggesting to the receptionist that perhaps they have added a zero by mistake gets me nowhere. It’s 500, take it or leave it. I leave it.

At this stage I start feeling really despondent. I’ve spent a day and a half trying to organise a tour and I’m getting absolutely nowhere. Is this Silk Road project just a big mistake? Also, when I tried to book a train between Almaty and Astana this morning (for Saturday evening), I found out that there is not a single seat available, night train or going by day. Is NOTHING possible in Kazakhstan??

Later in the evening I ask the receptionist to ring on some of the private taxi ads in the local paper. Eventually, we find a guy who is willing to take me go Shakpak Ata for KZT 15,000 (=USD100). I accept.

What have I accomplished today? To book a taxi for Shakpak Ata for tomorrow. That’s all. This better be worth it.

The Silk Road Overland
Wednesday 20 July 2011

The arrival at Aktau Airport was very smooth. I had my passport stamped, collected my suitcase, had it scanned and that was it. After having been warned that border crossings in the Stans can be difficult, this was a positive surprise.

The guy picking me up at the airport played Russian radio on the way in to town and tried to teach me how to say hello in Kazakh, but I could not get it right. Six or seven syllables for a simple hello was too much for me at 3.30 AM I think.

I only slept a few hours and then I tried to book a train ticket for Almaty – my number one priority today. Over the day, I found three separate outlets for train tickets and they all said the same: all trains for Almaty are fully booked until 11 August. So, with 67 hours to Almaty by train, demand still heavily outstrips supply. Interesting. You would have thought the supply/demand thing would have worked itself out 22 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Anyway, I’ve booked a flight to Almaty for Saturday. I’ve got no other choice – as Jack Bauer would say – and my vision of an overland trip along the Silk Road is now definitely dead. Dead as a doornail.

Reality check: you can’t do a Eurail-style train journey across Central Asia. You have to book every single train journey in advance, nail down every single date a month or two in advance. In other words, a six-seven week overland journey with zero spontaneity. Doesn’t sound like much fun. It was the spontaneity of my train travels in Europe and South-East Asia over the past twelve months that made them fun. How can I decide in the middle of May, “Oh, I think I’ll need to book the Aktau-Almaty leg of my journey for the evening of 21 July”? In the middle of May, I didn’t even know I was going to Aktau. Last week, in fact, I didn’t know Aktau even EXISTED!

Anyway, I have to re-label my travel blog entries, removing the “overland” as of this Saturday. I’ll think of something.

The price of my hotel here in Aktau – Chagala – is double that of most three-star hotels in Dubai (it’s USD140). It’s nice, and the breakfast was excellent, but I hadn’t really expected these kind of prices in this part of the world. The reception staff try to be helpful, but they don’t seem to know anything about all the archaeological remains in the Mangistau desert region – underground mosques, ancient necropolises, caravanserais – many with Sufic associations and also strong links to the Silk Road. They don’t know where these sights are, how much a taxi there would be, or where I can get hold of an English-speaking guide. Am I really the first English-speaking tourist asking about this?

Anyway, I won’t give up. I did the mini town walk described for Aktau in the Lonely Planet guide. It took about 30 minutes, walking between the WWII memorial and the MIG memorial next to the beach and then walk around the beach for a while. For the rest of the day I tried to get some more information about transport and guides to the most famous archaeological remains in the area. I couldn’t find Caspian Tours recommended by the Lonely Planet (after two taxi rides), nor could I find the other tour operator mentioned in the Lonely Planet: Turist. However, for the latter I was told that a girl called Christina would be at the Turist office tomorrow from 3.00PM and that she spoke English. The cheerful reception girls at Aktau Hotel actually knew quite a lot about where the archaeological remains were located and prices for taxis. I also noticed that the price for a room at Aktau Hotel was nearly half of Chagala. I’ll probably move there tomorrow. OK, my hope is now that Christina can help me tomorrow.

Taking a taxi in Aktau is kind of fun. Every car is a potential taxi – there are no “real” taxis. You wave you hand at the passing cars and if someone wants to give you a ride, they’ll stop. All journeys in town are KTZ200 (about USD1.30) and it took me on average 30 seconds to get a ride.

Oh, and I forgot. Don’t ask for the same information twice at the reception just to double check. If you do, the reception girl will say: “But I already told you that…”

Checked a bit online before going to bed about the places to visit here in the region. Apparently Beket Ata is the most famous of the underground mosques, though it’s quite far away. I hope that Christina, the English-speaking tour operator, can tell me more about Beket Ata tomorrow.