Day 451 - A missing market

With Adam feeling marginally better, thanks to a miracle drug, we ventured out in search of the only site of interest in Shymkent: the Grand Bazaar. After walking around in circles for a good hour or so we gave up the search - later on we were to find out via the internet that the bazaar has been closed down!! During our search we came across an outdoor pond with children and adults alike happily taking a dip to escape the heat. The only other photo of interest we took today was an ironic photo of religion and war coexisting side by side. At night we managed to get a pretty good meal (Adam even managed to eat solids tonight - an improvement!) in an outside cafe surrounded by trees.

Back at the hotel we heard prayers echoing out from the Mosque across the road - it's melody sending us dreamily off to sleep.

Adlibing it out of bed.

Day 450 - A day in bed

Unfortunately Adam is feeling extremely under the weather, which resulted in a day of doing not much at all. Liv did venture out for food and internet a few times, but otherwise the day for Liv was spent reading her book, while for Adam it was spent curled up in bed or otherwise 'occupied'.

Adlibing it very unwell.

Day 449 - Shymkent and pizza

After checking out of our hotel we caught a marshrutka to the bus station. On the way we asked a guy named Babal where to get off, and he accompanied us to the ticket office, helped us buy our ticket, got us on our bus, and then happily wandered back to the street to continue what he had originally planned to do. It's such helpful people like Babal who make travelling such a joy.

On the bus to Shymkent we both managed to get some sleep and 3 hours later woke up in a new city - a very dusty city at that!! Through some luck (and help from a friendly bus conductor) we managed to catch 2 buses to drop us outside the hotel Sian and Jack had recommended for us, and soon we were settled into our (expensive) hotel!

Delighted by the fact we had English news on TV we lazily spent a couple of hours watching TV before venturing out for dinner. Liv hasn't had much luck at all lately with her food, so was extremely pleased to find vegetarian pizza on the menu at a Turkish restaurant - ahh, the small things in life!

After some internet time we headed 'home' to our air-con(!) room for sleep.

Adlibing some English news!

Day 448 - A 25 year pilgrammage

Today we spent the day exploring Kazakhstan's most famous site: Yasaui Mausoleum - some say 3 visits to this place is the equivalent of a visit to Mecca. Kozha Akhmed Yasaui was a Turkish Muslim who is highly revered in Kazakhstan, praised because he could convey his Muslim understandings through poems and sermons. The area has a number of things to look at including a semi-underground Mosque with awesome wooden pillars inside and an ancient bathhouse.

The main tomb itself is huge and absolutely stunning - it echoes with the sounds of chanting of the faithful inside. You can wander around looking at some artifacts inside, and also go into several different rooms with different purposes (we're not entirely sure what). Women wear white head scarves inside so Liv borrowed one from outside. It's possible to see the tomb through intricately carved wooden panels. Outside we ambled around the grounds, but it was hard to take out attention away from the domed roofs and the phenomenal variety of tiled patterns. It's quite cool because the mausoleum was never fully finished so you can see how original brick structure was turned into a tiled masterpiece. After a good few hours taking in the magnificent monument we finally headed off in search of lunch. Once again Liv had major trouble getting a vege meal - after asserting many times that she was vegetarian and wanted something without meat, you can imagine her surprise when her meal was an entire grilled chicken! Excellent. When the waitress spotted Liv not eating her chicken, she asked if everything was ok and to Liv saying again "I don't eat meat" the helpful waitress replied "this isn't meat, it's chicken"! So to Adam's delight (or dismay) for his birthday lunch he got treated to an entire Chicken and some meat kebabs. Liv got "vegetarian" meat soup.

In the afternoon we made our way again to the huge bazaar with renewed hope of finding a Kazakh souvenir, but after an hour or so of wandering through the bustling market we came away empty handed. We did manage to find a cute stray dog to give some of our left over bread and meat from lunch to though!

We also went back to the Mausoleum to get a view of it at sunset. While Adam was taking photos of the now golden beauty Liv chatted with some local cops, who ahd already nick-named Adam "Bin Laden" after seeing him minutes before!

When we returned to the hotel we noticed the room next door was occupied and when Adam went to find out if it was a fellow traveller we found Sian and Jack who we had met at Almaty train station last week! What a small world. We decided to go down the road for some beer and snacks, and it turned out to be quite a celebration for Adam's 25th birthday! Adlibing a birthday with new friends.

Day 447 - From metropolis to a mini-town

The first half of our day was spent on the train travelling though the desert-like part of Southern Kazakhstan. We met some great people on the train who spoke some English and chatted away with them. When we rolled into Turkestan around 2pm, one of our new friends found us a marshrutka (mini-bus) to take us to the hotel we wanted, and when we were dropped off 2 guys sitting on the side of the road spotted us and called out the hotel across the road that we were obviously looking for - well given that it's dirt cheap, we think they're used to seeing backpackers looking for this place!

Inside the hotel we were greeted by a really lovely lady who we communicated with in sign language with the occasional English word she knew and the few Russian ones we know.

We went to a cafe across the road for lunch where Liv's vegetarian salad came with meat (awesome) and the table service was colder than icy - at places like this they don't deserve the service charge that's automatically added to the bill!Afterwards we wandered towards the bazaar, making our way through the residential area with speeding Ladas passing us all the way. We stopped and befriended a wee puppy, who we enticed out of the gate with the left over cone of Liv's icecream. At the bazaar we walked down a few of the streets checking out fruit, spices and the general goings on that people were involved in - the most common being consuming the bright yellow carbonated drinks on offer all over town. For dinner we went to a Turkish cafe in a very cool setting - we sat outside on comfy couches in the garden bar, while dance/pop music played and flashing lights flashed. Just as we talked about how nice it was to hear some Central Asian music, the Backstreet Boys came blaring out the speakers ... Murphy's Law!

With our successful vege meal finished we headed home for some sleep we missed out on on the train the night before.

Adlibing Turkestan.

Day 446 - Visas in hand

After taking it easy this morning, we checked out of our hotel and spent the rest of the day lugging out packs around town - not the best way to stay hidden from the police! Our first hide out was in an internet cafe, where after an hour of wasted energy we made the executive decision to spend more time in Kyrgyzstan than go to Uzbekistan at all. Maybe we'll make it there in the future when they make it easier on tourists.

We stocked up on supplies at the supermarket, which cost us a fortune compared to our usual huge stock-up we used to do in China. We have to keep reminding ourselves that we have to compare prices to NZ, not China - and when we do we don't feel too bad because on the whole things are just slightly cheaper here than back home.

We made our way to a park around the corner from the Kyrgyz Embassy where we spent a few hours lazing under the shade of the trees reading our books and lying on our packs instead of them lying on us!!At the Kyrgyz Embassy we were given our visas (hooray!) and after another hour of reading in the park we made our way to the train station. On the bus we met a translator who upon finding out we were from NZ said "ah, kiwis, no worries mate" in a primo kiwi accent. Nice to know we're represented all the way over here! We had a quick bite to eat at the train station before wandering along the platform trying to figure out where to go!

On the train we were greeted with the familiar hard sleepers like in China, but surprisingly at an even cheaper price - the only thing cheap here is the transport. We paid $13 for an 18 hour sleeper train ride. The day dragged on as the lights were kept on until midnight, at which point we went to sleep!

Adlibing it out of Almaty.

Day 445 - Doing nothing much in Almaty

With Adam not feeling too well and us still trying to figure out our Uzbek visa, today ended up being a day where we didn't do much! We did manage to print out our Kyrgyzstan Chapter guide (good on Lonely Planet allowing people to download by chapter!), so now we can start planning our Kyrgyzstan trip!!

We finished the day with a lavish dinner after not eating much the last few days - we went to Namaste an Indian restaurant, which was delicious and got us excited about our trip to India in a few months time. It was also good because Adam managed to keep this meal down ...

Adlibing Indian food.

Day 444 - The info stall continues

Once again, a large proportion of our day was spent trying to pay for our stupid letter of invitation we need to get our Uzbekistan visa - and once again the day ended without success!! Though with all the help we're getting from Mumbles, Dad Denton, and Mindy it's a nice reminder than we have such great family back home willing to help out. It even helps to decrease the anger at Moneybookers who have a silly verification system which doesn't work!!

After trying for a few hours to sort the problem out, we gave up and made our way to the train station to buy tickets for out of Almaty! We were a little worried about buying tickets because we can't speak any of the language - but we wrote the destination and date we wanted, and soon enough we had our 3rd class tickets to Turkistan on Tuesday! Perfect!

While at the station we met a couple of Brits who have been travelling the world for 8 months - they had initially planned to stay longer in Kazakhstan but found the same thing we and many others have found: it's too expensive to stay! While they waited for their train to Shymkent we hung out in the train station bar and had a few beers. It's always nice to meet fellow travellers - and believe it or not they had heavier packs than us and were less organised than us! Is than even possible??!!

Liv spent the evening with a pack of chips and a book, and Adam spent it with his head in the toilet ...

Adlibing it with tickets!

Day 443 - Another day in the mountains

Walking down the streets of Almaty at first light we jumped on the right bus and headed towards the outskirts of town where we jumped on another bus headed for the mountains. Our destination for today is Big Almaty Lake (Bolshoe Almatinskoe Lake), and when we arrived at GES 2 (where the bus stops) our friend Victor was waiting. So without any mucking around we started the 6km walk along the deteriorating road that winds it way through the Bolshya Almatinka Valley and eventually ends at GES 1. It's here that the steep, tortuous pipe climb began!!

We had the choice of walking up the winding road for another 6km or taking the straight 600m pipeline route up - and we opted for the shorter but more strenuous option. It wasn't as bad as it looked and after an hour and a half we were at the lake. The lake was a light turquoise colour and was surrounded by mountains on all sides - in the background loomed two 4000m peaks with their tips covered in snow. We walked half way around the lake to where Victor's friends live, where we chatted and had some Kazakh snacks including pancakes dipped in cocoa and some sweet pastry. We also drank fresh herb tea made with herbs collected by Victor and generally enjoyed relaxing in the rustic cottage surrounded by mountains.
Just as we left the cottage it began to rain and the temperature plummeted from around 30 to about 10 in a matter of minutes - but only last 15 minutes and soon the temperature was sweltering. We ambled through a forest on the rocky edge of the lake savouring the stunning scenery before Adam succumbed to temptation and jumped into the icy lake (we are 2500m high and the water comes straight from the snow...)!The walk back down the pipe was much easier and quicker than the upward journey, but it was somewhat slowed by some more raspberry picking and eating. We also filled up our water bottles with spring water spurting from the river running down the side of the mountains.

The 6km trek along the road back to the bus stop took forever and was less than enjoyable with dust coating us and weary legs complaining. However once on the bus we managed to rest and after making a hasty transfer to another bus we were on our way back to our hotel. We finally arrived back at 9pm and snacked on sandwiches before yet again collapsing into a deep sleep.

Adlibing Big Almaty Lake

Day 442 - Stalled on information

Our main objectives for today were relatively simple, and yet as the day comes to an end they are still not achieved...

The first thing we set out to do was find a tour agency willing to provide us with a "Letter of Invitation", which we need to get a visa for Uzbekistan. The first company we tried would only help if we booked accommodation or a tour through them, which would have been way out of our minuscule budget. We have been trying to go through a company online, but keep hitting problem after problem mainly to do with how we transfer money from our NZ bank account to one in Latvia - we've never heard of this IBAN code thingy before!! How we have managed to travel halfway across the world, but can't make a $100 transfer is beyond us!

We wandered through the park and through a pedestrian street full of markets to the internet where we spent 2 hours trying to get the info we needed and failing dismally. Slightly disappointed we headed out for lunch - Liv had something new, while Adam stuck to the tried and true doner kebab!

Later on we went to an Ecotourism agency hoping to get some information and book a hiking tour with them in a National Park a days travel away from Almaty. Here we were met with half answers, huge prices and left with little more information than we arrived with ... What happened to public buses leading everywhere like they do in China!??!
This evening we made it to the famous Zelony Bazaar (half-closed nonetheless!), where we found it stocked with items we had just left in China, and couldn't find something "Kazakh" that we could buy as a momento - oh well, we've still got at least another week in the country. In the bazaar we happened to come across Muhammad, who offered to help us buy some train tickets within the next few days though he's not always the most reliable.

Here we are now, thinking about dinner, on the computer again trying to find more information, but still getting absolutely F'n nowhere!!!

Adlibing it info-less.

Day 441 - Mountainous Medeu

Bright and early this morning we made our way to catch the public bus to Medeu. In winter Medeu is a skiing/ice-skating/snowboarding paradise, and in summer it provides some great hiking. We decided to only undertake a day trip, as we hope to do some bigger hikes in a National Park next week sometime, and relied on the very small map in the LP. We had an uphill start in the completely wrong direction, but after asking for directions we were soon on our way - well in the way that we thought we should be going. We made our way up the Malaya Almatinka Valley where after an hour or so we met up with some other hikers. It was here we were informed that we were not on our way to the 2060m Kimissarov Pass like we though, but rather going up a valley to one side of it. Not to worry though as one of the other hikers spoke English and it we had found ourselves a free guide for the day.
Victor is a naturalist by hobby and was spending the day collecting wild herbs, fruit, and mushrooms - so we joined in the hunt and got some education in return. Victor was also great at pointing out where we were hiking and at what huge mountains we were staring at - our favourites were the aptly named Mt Panorama, Mt Hunchback, and Mt Furry.
After a few hours of hiking uphill and the frequent stops for mushroom and raspberry picking - we managed to gobble at least a punnet or so of raspberries fresh from the wild - we made it to 2600m where we had a deserved rest and fresh bread, tomato, cheese and cucumber for lunch. Adam made a run for a vantage point to look over the almost 2900m Butakovka Pass, where he was rewarded with snowy peaks biting at the sky above - Victor would later tell us that the highest mountain in this range is over 5000m. From our lunch spot we could also look over the sprawling Almaty city in the valley below - but being already after 2pm it was time to start making our way down. We followed a ridge line that descended steeply into a forest where we lucked upon pear and apple trees to climb and enjoy.Victor took us to a fresh water spring where we saved ourselves a few dollars by filling our bottles with the ice cold snow-fed water. While here a local herd of horses came along for their daily drink. On our way back to the bus stop Victor pointed out the path we should have taken this morning, and soon we were on the bus back to Almaty. We stopped in at the supermarket for some refreshments, popped in for yet another doner from across the road, and flopped our weary bodies into bed.

Adlibing it high over Almaty.

Day 440 - Getting lost in the Almaty suburbs

This morning we made our way to the Kyrgyz Consulate by our first Kazakh public bus - the difference from China is that you're not jammed in like sardines, and you usually get a seat!! At the Consulate we were surprised with the lack of any line, but were immediately told we had to go to a bank a kilometre or so away to pay for our visa!! An hour later we returned to the consulate and handed our passports over, which we'll get back on Tuesday hopefully with a Kyrgyz visa in it.

From here we headed down to the Kok Tobe cable car, unfortunately the ticket price had gone up from about $4 to $10, and on our already stretched budget we decided we'd just walk up. So we followed Adam's nose and went zig-zagging through the back suburbs of Almaty, eventually finding ourselves in a tight overgrown path leading to, well, nowhere. Along the way we did we great views of the mountains surrounding Almaty, as well as making it about half way up the hill, but we were unable to find the path leading to the top.

With tummies rumbling we sat down outside the Palace of the Republic with a statue of the famous writer Kunanbaev looking down upon us while we searched through the guide for somewhere close by to eat. In the end we bused back to our hotel and got another yummy doner kebab from our (now) friends across the road!!

After relaxing the afternoon away we went to Panfilov Park where we saw the amazing Zenkov Cathedral designed in 1904. While Liv read her book Adam people-watched - mainly enjoying people of all ages skate-boarding, rollerblading, and biking around.

Also in the park is a war memorial with an eternal flame commemorating soldiers from the civil war and World War II.

Adlibing dodgy back roads.

Day 439 - A successful registration

We woke up today, watched Docherty take bronze in the triathlon, and then headed across the road to be charged NZ$3 and hour for the internet - we think our blogs will be a bit shorter for a while, and the emails not so frequent!!

Afterwards we grabbed a doner kebab for lunch from across the road (Liv utilising her full Russian vocabulary to ask for one without meat) and made our way to the Migration Police Station. Since arriving here whenever we see a police officer we walk in the opposite direction (so some of our walks have been longer than needed), so it felt a bit foolish walking into the station - but it was a requirement for being in the country. Foreigners staying for longer than 5 days in the country must register and although lots of foreigners we met were registered immediately on arrival, we weren't!! Travel agencies can register for you but charge about US$50 each, so we thought we'd try doing it ourselves - which we successfully did, with no Russian, for the price of only around US$5 each!

We had to wait until 4pm to pick up our passports after registration, so we made use of this time to wander around town. First we headed to Respublika Alanghy, where there is a huge Monument to Independence of the Golden Man on top of a winged snow-leopard.From here we got amazing views of the snow-capped mountains just outside Almaty - making Adam long for snowboarding even more than he already does!

From here we went to one of the biggest bookstores to try and find a Central Asia Lonely Planet, which we didn't end up finding, before making our way to relax in one of the many many parks that are all over Almaty.

We picked up our newly registered passports with no problems and headed to St Nicholas' Cathedral. This Cathedral was built in 1909 and was used as a stable for the Bolshevik Calvary. Now it is in full use and as we arrived worshippers were also arriving for daily prayers. The atmosphere was different than many temples we've been to that are used to tourists, and we were thoroughly relaxed in its surroundings.

We wandered through a small market while making our way back to the hotel where we expected to meet Muhammad, but he didn't show so we headed off to dinner ourselves. Funnily enough the first restaurant we walked into turned out to be a Chinese restaurant!! At least Liv could read the menu!

Adlibing it with the police.

Day 438 - A rainy welcome in Almaty

While stopped at Almaty I train station for a 20 minute wait before leaving for Almaty II station in the city centre, Mohammad burst into our cabin saying "come with me, my father is here and will take you to a hotel". This was an offer we could hardly refuse as we had been worried about finding accommodation and now we had not only an interpreter but a car to drive us there too!

Mohammad's father Ali was a friendly guy who drove us around multiple hotels (calling his friends for help too) before we found a clean-ish, safe-ish, and cheap-ish one in the middle of town. This hotel is costing us over NZ$50, for which price in China we could be staying in luxury, but for Almaty it is cheap.

Once parted from our friends we fell asleep exhausted. We had planned to meet up with Muhammad at lunch time but he got delayed so we headed out in search of food and a money exchange office. We successfully got our first meal, managed to exchange our RMB, posted that damn letter (without any language skills, but much quicker and easier than any of our visits to China Post) and found a supermarket! During our wander we couldn't help but notice all the expensive designer stores around town (and genuine too, not genuine-fake like in China)!

When we arrived back at our hotel Mohammad was chilling out front, so we headed out in the rain (again), where we were shown around a huge mall and taken out for dinner and beer.

All in all, a very successful and enjoyable first day in a new country.

Adlibing Almaty.

Day 437 - Hello Kazakhstan

At about 10am we officially left China and entered no-man's land, until arriving at Kazakh Customs. Here soldiers and officials boarded the train and greeted us with enthusiasm. Luggage searches took place, and while we barely had to open our bags our Chinese room mate had all her bags thoroughly searched all the while the Kazakh soldier was making comments to us along the lines of "you'll like Kazakhstan better than China", "the people are nicer here", "our students are smarter here" etc. While we enjoyed the friendly welcome to the country, the bias towards western travellers was blatantly obvious, and our previously smiling Chinese room mate, slowly developed a sulk at the discrepancy in treatment.
Throughout the day we got great glimpses of the beautiful Kazakh countryside including a massive Turquoise lake with shadowy mountains in the distance.
At one station stop Adam was admiring the snacks on offer on the platform (huge smoked fish, bread and kebabs) and struck up a conversation with Mohammad a fellow traveller. Later on we chatted the evening away with our room mate and Mohammad, while enjoying our first Kazakh sunset and finally went to sleep with rising anticipation of arriving in Almaty in the morning.

Adlibing it into friendly Kazakhstan.

Day 436 - Goodbye China

Today was our last day in China, after arriving 14 months and one week ago. There was no real celebration / commiseration today, but it was a typical Chinese day! Hanging at the hostel we met a French traveller who joined us for lunch and a wander around town. We also popped into the post office where the recurring theme of the year and the Chinese post office bureaucracy continued - we were trying to send home our work permits which together are about 4mm thick, but because it was not just a letter inside the envelope we had to pay for parcel post! Stuff that, we thought, we'll just send them from Kazakhstan!

After managing somehow to kill time until midnight, we jumped on our last local bus in China and headed to the train station. On the bus we had another typical Chinese experience when the conductor went around the bus picking up all the rubbish an unceremoniously chucked it all out the window for someone else to deal with!

At the station we cleared through security and waited nervously to head to Kazakhstan.

Adlibing it away from China.

Day 435 - Hot, Turpan, Hot!

We rose bright and early this morning and made our way to the bus station where we were on the first bus out to Turpan. Turpan is famous for several things including it's grapes, but it is most famous for being the second lowest place on earth and therefore one of the hottest! Later on in the day we were to question why we decided to come to the hottest place in China in the middle of summer!!
When we arrived we bartered very hard for a taxi out to the Flaming Mountains, and we ended up paying 60 kuai for the 70km return trip and an hour at the mountains. We made a very lazy, slow walk out to the base of the mountains, and up them a short way before retreating back to the air-con car. The Uighur legend surrounding the mountains is that a hero killed a child-eating dragon, creating the red colour of the mountains and the flame-like patterns. Initially our driver took us to the proper ticket office, where rather stupid tourists paid to enter a gate, have some photos with captive camels and monkeys, and get the mountains in the background with modern statues. Instead we drove 100 metres where we got unobstructed views of the mountains, all to ourselves!

Back in town we struggled to find food, especially for Liv as there is an abundance of meat around here. Eventually we settled for snacks consisting of fresh bread, fruit, and samosas.

We were quoted prices of around 50 kuai to go to a village only 7kms away that seemed ridiculous, so we searched for other options. We ended up catching the 101 public bus from outside the bus station that took us west where we changed to a minivan. We thought the van was taking us all the way to the Jiaohe Ruins, but it dropped us 2km away - usually this would have been nothing, but it the 47 degree heat it was very hard work!!The ruins themselves date from over 1600 years ago, and is one of the world's largest and oldest desert cities, boasting a population of 6500 residents at one point - why anyone would settle here beats us! We spent a sweaty hour wandering around the ruins, which now are just a maze of crumbling mud/brick buildings, but the size of it all was impressive. On a cooler day we might have lingered for a bit longer, however we were well and truly ready to be taken out of the oven! We were happily surprised to see a 3-wheel tuk-tuk at the gate which we caught back to the bus, and then the bus to the bus station! All in all or return trip cost us 13 kuai!

By 6pm we were on the bus heading back to Urumqi with ice cold waters in hand - on the way back we caught glimpses of beautiful snow-capped mountains and wondered why we went into the furnace when we could have gone to snowy mountains!

In Urumqi we got dinner and pretty much crashed into bed!!

Adlibing 47 degrees.

Day 434 - Returning to our Xinjiang home

As the train rolled into Urumqi station 20 minutes late (after sitting just out of town for 20 minutes!) we were waiting anxiously by the exit to be one of the first travellers out. Usually we sit in our seats and laugh at the Chinese people so keen to get off the train that they line up for 10 minutes before the train gets in, but today we were first off! The reason we were in such a hurry was that we had to buy our Saturday tickets to Kazakhstan (now that it's a Thursday, this is permitted) - so we ran, drawing even more attention to ourselves, and made it just in time to stop the curtain closing at the ticket office. The guard at the hotel entrance wasn't even concerned when Adam dropped the bags at the entrance to run to the office window - lately we have had to open our bags everywhere we go, but today Adam didn't have time to stop while they search for something (we're not sure what, and we're not sure they even know what)!

Tickets in hand (whoop! whoop!), the butterflies increased upon the realisation that we are leaving China in 2 days time and going to a place where we can't speak the language, where everything is 5-times as expensive as China, the cops are corrupt, but at least we can write anything on the blog with out fear of being completely blocked and censored.

We made it back to the Maitian Hostel, whose welcoming sign inside proclaims it as 'your home in Xinjiang', and considering we'll stay here for over a week in total, it kinda does feel like that! We had left our huge packs here and only taken a day bag to Kashgar, so it was almost like walking into your bedroom and seeing all your things there.

We spent another hour of our lives at the always incredibly slowly-serviced China Post, but were lucky to get a friendly worker helping us out. Another box sent home, a little more room in our packs ...

After lunch / dinner of noodle and chuanr, we chilled out on the net, and hung at our hostel home doing what most of China is doing at the moment - watching the Olympics. We have been shocked at the behaviour of many Chinese spectators on the tv who are clearly boo-ing any non-Chinese athlete - it kind of surprised us that the usually welcoming and friendly Chinese could act in such a non-sportsman-like way.

Adlibing it at Maitian.

Day 433 - A 24-hour return

Once again there is not much to say about our day today - we stocked up on food and made our way by local bus to the train station, repeated the x-ray dramas with our knives, and settled in on our sleeper train feeling more at home back in hard sleepers! Once on the train we had the usual conversations with our fellow passengers about where we were from, what we were doing, yes Liv speaks Chinese, and no the other one doesn't ....

Adlibing the rails.

Day 432 - Hitting the markets

The famous "Sunday Markets" (open everyday though) in Kashgar is one of the reasons we came all the way out here, so first thing this morning the markets is where we went! When we arrived we weren't quite sure where to start because the market is SO HUGE!! There are walls and walls of carpets, scarves, material, dried fruit, musical instruments, hats, shoes, bags .... it goes on and on!We spent a greater part of 3 hours here, even haggling at full force (the only way to survive here, as they are master sellers - the result of generations of trading) for some of our own purchases. With many stalls selling the same things, the buyer definitely has the advantage as there's always someone who will sell it cheaper!

We to buy a congratulations pressie for EJ who has just got an A for one of her design projects at Uni - and boy she deserved it, the photos were amazing!! Since we were buying for EJ, it wasn't hard to buy a few things for ourselves too! Our favourite purchases were a guitar and a drum - we might even start busking to get some extra cash for on the road!!

Out on the streets we indulged in some yummy Uighur breads and unlike Chinese bread, they taste like they should - salty!

From here we headed to the Abakh Hoja Tomb - which is just stunning! The tomb was erected in 1640 in memory of one of Kashgar's most famous leaders, and it is one of the largest domed buildings in Xinjiang. The architecture is so different than Chinese style, it was fascinating for us - too hard to describe, so just enjoy the photo!

We caught bus number 20 back to the centre of town (passing the Sunday Market again) where we ran into 4 travellers looking for accommodation. Liv then played translator to get them a cheap room in our hotel!

One of the best things to do in Kashgar is to make yourselves one with the old part of town, so once again we made our way via the back roads until we were mashed between hundreds of friendly Uighurs going about their night market business. We followed a smile into a restaurant where we dined on Uighur noodle dishes, Adam getting quite the mixture of liver, kidneys and other 'things', and Liv's vege dish was a safe mixture of veges and eggs.

On the way back to the hotel we picked up some yummy (if very very tough) bagels for our long train journey tomorrow, and we spent the rest of the night watching more Olympics and chilling one of our last nights in China away. We also found out that there was another attack on security guards about 30km south of Kashgar, which accounts for the addtion of these spikes outside the government office that weren't there yesterday. Adlibing it with the adlibed tiles.

Day 431 - Milling around Old Kashgar

Our train pulled into Kashgar and we immediately set about buying return tickets for in a few days time - we didn't want to have to leave so soon but we have to get back to buy our train tickets to Kazakhstan. Plus we didn't want to have to have another luxury trip in first class, that we can't really afford by leaving the ticket-buying to the last minute.

Kashgar was a major centre for silk rood trading for thousands of years, as it was a strategic point between many Central Asian countries. Here the population is overwhelmingly Uighur, and our Chinese language skills are virtually useless - good practice for us, as we'll be spending the next few months in Central Asia with no language abilities at all!

Finding accommodation here was a complete mission - thanks to the ever so un-Western friendly Chinese government. The first 5 hotels we went to turned us away merely because we're foreigners and pointed us in the direction of a hotel double our price range! After an infuriating 2 hours wandering the streets, we gave in and had a delicious Uighur lunch!

Revived we finally stumbled upon a pearler of a hotel just within our budget - by far the fanciest hotel we've ever stayed at in Asia, it even has an elevator! It does happen to be just down the road from where the bomb attack took place just over a week ago ...

We spent the rest of the afternoon ambling around the back roads of the old town - though we passed on paying to enter enter the renovated "Old Town". We're not sure why you would pay when there's so much to see outside of the Chinese Tourist Trap. We got a true Uighur experience making our way between stalls of breads, fruit, knives, brass ware and more.

We watched the craftsmen making their goods by hand, just as their father and grandfathers would have done over the years. We have been searching for cotton sleeping bag liners for our travels through Central Asia and India as we've heard they can be pretty dirty places to sleep, but it's too hot for sleeping bags. The cheapest we could find was about $20 each, which is crazy for a square piece of material - so when we found ourselves in the middle of the material part of town we bought some cotton and found a dress-making shop to sew us up some bags! $5 later we had 2 perfect liners and had spent an enjoyable half hour watching beautiful Uighur women happily sewing together stunning traditional clothing.Oh, and we also got the fright of our lives when the mother's young daughter ran away with our bag and Adam's sunnies on her face. She promptly returned them for hundreds of photos while the rest of her family worked.
After exhausting ourselves with sights, sounds, smells, and smiles we made our way back to our hotel via more backroads, tended to the necessities of food, then enjoyed watching some Olympics on tv. However we are getting sick of hearing shouts of "piaoliang" (beautiful) and it would be nice to see some other countries competing.

Adlibing it with the Uighurs.