July 29, 2011
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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.
