Friday, 26 April 2013

The Mountain


The snow


Tas, our host and guide


We climbed to the snow line

A mosque in Almaty


A church in Almaty


On the move again, waiting to go to Almaty

Alma

The Drum Tower, Beijing


The Bird Nest


Beijing Museum


Confucsious Temple - two old wise men


A shop in the old quarter of Beijing


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.