About Me
Friday 26 April 2013
Beijing to Almaty
Almaty
It was very sad to farewell the
family once again and return to Beijing.
Beijing was very different to when we left it ten months ago, then it
was hot and the streets filled with women wearing short shorts and very high
heels, now it is cold, no leaves on the trees and the girls are rugged up in
their coats and boots. The hustle and bustle of Beijing streets does not change
and we were soon able to fit into dodging cars even while on a pedestrian
crossing and eating noodles. The hostel
has kept our luggage all this time and it was just as we left it.
Because we could not get a
permit to go by train we now have to fly to Almaty and our luggage is once
again a concern for us, so we have had to send it by post so we boxed it up and
spent two hours at the post office getting it sent off.
We spent two weeks seeing things
in Beijing that we did not do last time we were here. Tiananmen Square is easily accessed by the
subway and we visited there a number of times as there are things of interest
close by, including the railway museum, Mao’s tomb and the brand new museum which was wonderful, the
ancient China exhibit was our favourite.
The Chinese have had written language very early so a lot of their
history is recorded and preserved here. Some days we walked around and during
one walk we found a lake to walk around and on other days it was parks,
everything is on a large scale here including the olympic park in which stands
the bird nest and the swimming centre. One evening we attended an acrobatic
show which was of a high standard finishing off with a motor bike display which
was amazing. The historic Drum and Bell Towers were interesting as was the temple
of Confucious.
We ate in little alley way
restaurants and wandered the large mall and shopping centres.
Then it was off to Almaty, Kazakhstan which
was a bit of a cultural shock after Beijing, we have left Asia now and Almaty
could be a city anywhere in Europe, with wide clean streets people from
different ethnic backgrounds though mainly ethnic Kazaks, there are Russian,
Urumpqi refugees seeking religious freedom and people here working on the large
gas and oil fields. There are
supermarkets with a large array of food, though we can’t read the labels.
Spring has arrived and there are mass planting of tulips in the city parks.
We are staying with a warm
showers host, an Australian pilot working here for Astana Air, sharing space
with a French couple who are also cycling across the region. When we got off
the plane only bike came on the flight, the missing bike was traced back to Urumpqi
where we had a stopover and much to our relief it was sent the next day. The
luggage which was sent from Beijing by air two weeks ago has not yet arrived
yet and we are concerned about where it might be.
Almaty is surrounded by
snowcapped mountains and our host took us to climb one nearby. We do not have hiking boots with us so we
walked up to the snow line and then turned back. We were so fortunate to have the opportunity
to do this as the scenery was beautiful.
We have not done such a strenuous walk for a long time so it was a bit
of an effort to get as far as we did but it was enjoyable and the sighting of a
squirrel capped off a great day.
We are waiting here for our
luggage to arrive and then we will be off.
Thursday 4 April 2013
We will soon be off again
We have had a lot of trouble getting our visa for China. We had planned to return to Beijing, collect our luggage and go to Almaty by train. The train has a stop over in northern China at Urumpqi which has been declared as off limits to foreigners so we are now flying from Beijing to Almaty, Kazakhstan. We are leaving home on Sunday 7th April and will be in Almaty on 21st April. Because of the ban on blogs in China this blog will not be updated until we reach Kazakhstan.
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