September 15 - 16, Days 25 -26 Almaty then off to Turkistan, Kazakhstan

If I remember correctly, our guide claimed to be of Mongolian descent.  Be that as it may,  she did explain the breakdown of the population. There are three tribal regions each with many sub-tribes  and they are not allowed to intermarry. The population of Kazakhstan is made up predominantly of Kazakhs (~70%), 15 % Russian and a number of other small ethnic groups including Uzbeks and Ukrainians.  The country, and its history, is vast so this is just a tiny snippet.

Ascension Cathedral 

Today we embarked on a whirl-wind walking tour of Almay. First stop Panfilov Park which was cool and shaded by a variety of trees - elm, chestnut, spruce, mulberry and oak to name a few. The park is home to the spectacular Ascension Cathedral (locally called Zenkov), one of the world’s tallest wooden buildings. It was built with wood using some pretty amazing engineering technology to protect it from earthquakes – a huge earthquake occurred in 1910 destroyed most of Almaty’s buildings. The cathedral is crowned by four golden ‘onion domes’ and inside it glitters and gleams – quite glorious. 

Monument of the national hero Bauyrzhan Momyshuly 

From the sublime to the darkness of war memorialised in the ‘Park of 28 Panfilov Guardsmen’.  The park honours not only these 28 men who defended Moscow in WWII but soldiers who fought in other wars. It was very sobering and was topped off by a special visit to the war museum (closed to the public) before we were taken to inspect a line of historic war machines - cars, trucks, tanks, cannon-carriers and rocket launchers. We breathed a sigh of incomprehension at the suffering experienced by the Kazakh people over too many decades (and usually fighting someone else’s wars). It is worth remembering that for seven decades or more Kazakhstan was part of the USSR.

This monument honors Kazakh soldiers who died in Afghanistan and other conflicts

Glory Memorial depicting the heroic defense of the city during World War II

Honouring the soldiers of the Guards Rifle Regiment who died in the Battle of Stalingrad in WW II

The defence building

A monument to the 'Golden Man"

After lunch we had a fleeting visit to the National Museum. We had visited this in 2016 but today we saw new exhibits. It houses wonderful displays showing the life of the nomadic people as well as the Golden Man (or ‘Golden Warrior’). He was an ancient Scythian nomad who lived around 400 to 300 BCE. He and a load of golden treasure were found in burial mounds 30-odd km east of Almaty.  

Not ready to rest – huh! we boarded a cable car which took us up Kok Tobe, the highest hill in Almaty, with a recreation park on top which allowed panoramic views over the city and out to the surrounding Alatau mountains. The park had expanded considerably since our visit nine years earlier.

Part of the cable car superstructure - I love cable cars!

A view over Almaty from Kok Tobe

April, one of our group, holding a Golden Eagle - very big birds

That evening we were to board a train which would take us west overnight to Turkistan both a city and region of Kazakhstan.  The evening started with another large meal and then a mad dash to the train station. It was raining heavily so the traffic was horrendous.  We finally got to the station, tumbled out of the bus, grabbed our luggage and made a mad dash to the train through ankle-deep water and pelting rain. No one knew what carriage we were supposed to be in, but the train was waiting to leave so we all piled in with our luggage and then had to drag our stuff through six carriages under the scowing  looks of passengers already on board. We were the cause of the delay it seems - they had held the train for us. In the end, we sat for another half hour or so before the train left the station. We were rather sodden and had to lay our clothes out to dry. But in the end, we were finally enroute to Turkestan on a very bumpy overnight train ride.

We were treated to the best Kazakhstan could offer

The sun finally dawned after a dreadfully rough night. On the positive side, our clothes and shoes were pretty much dry and the sun was shining. We breakfasted on an egg and bacon sandwich which I’d cobbled together from the breakfast table the morning before, plus yogurt and some wasabi broad beans - self-catering on the road can produce some interesting combinations (fortunately most of our meals were provided and usually we only had to cover one, or just occasionally two, meals ourselves). Along the way we would just get our head around interpreting what the food items were in the shops before we are whisked off to another country and new food ID challenges.  All part of the adventure.

We rushed through a deluge

Horse meat pate which I longed to taste but didn't but the shelves were quite an adventure

September 14, Day 24 Arriving in Kazakhstan and Charyn Canyon

 

Sheep and cattle still in their night pens

Still in China and passing fertile land

Wheat crop almost ready to be harvested

After a long night through the mountain passes from Urumqi in the westernmost province of China, we arrived on the eastern edge of Kazakhstan.  In the train arrival lounge, I met a group of young students just returning to study after the holidays. One lovely young woman latched on to me. Her English wasn’t good but 200% better than my Chinese or Kazakh! We chatted as best we could and did the photo thing and finished with hugs.  I think I remind the youngsters of their grandmothers and Australia seems to fascinate many of them. I ran into my young pilot again and it was like we were long lost friends. People have been so friendly and welcoming.

The bustling railway station at Khorgos in far west Xinjiang, China

A little bleak but the rain had stopped as we waited for the bus

Once we unloaded ourselves off the train at Khorgos (Huo'erguosi) near the Kazakh border and were bussed to the border where we spent the next 4-5 hours negotiating our way through two sets of immigration controls points to get out of China and into Kazakhstan. It was extremely slow but incident-free. Then we were finally in Kazakhstan. Callooh callay!

Our local guide met us after we had navigated through the border palaver and took us off to lunch about 2pm (some hadn’t even had breakfast at this stage!). Once fed and watered, we were bundling us into a small sleek bus for a 5-hour journey that would take us to Almaty via the Charyn Canyon  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charyn_Canyon . From the border, we travelled further westward to the eye-popping Charyn Canyon, Kazakhstan. (And importantly once we left China we were able to reconnect with the rest of the world!) We were ultimately bound for Almaty, once the capital of Kazakhstan where we spent a short couple of days.

Approaching the canyon 

After almost 7 hours we arrived at the canyon

Finally we arrived at Charyn Canyon. We were pretty bushed after a long rattly ‘sleep’ so Lindsay and I decided against tackling the 200-odd steps down into the canyon but walked instead along part of the canyon rim - 5 km. After 4 hours ‘sleep’ and hours dealing with border control, we figured we didn’t do too badly!

You can google Charyn Canyon but just briefly. According to our guide ‘Charyn’ means ‘crack’ - formed by an earthquake. It is located close to the current Kazakh–Chinese border and is an ancient land feature with rocks dating back up to 100 million years. There are a number of canyons formed by the Charyn River as well as eroded by wind and ‘atmospheric’ erosion; we were visiting one of them - the ‘Valley of Castles’. The rim walk was really interesting. We saw a Great Gerbil and some of its burrow entrances and a Golden Eagle, but the area is teaming with wildlife – river otters, weasels, foxes, hares, wild boars, Long-horned Ibex, ermine, falcons. Persian gazelles, manuls (a small wild cat). And not far from the canyon is a relic forest of ‘Sogdian Ash’ (Ash Tree). This species is said to have survived since the last ice age.

Far below you can see most of our group in the canyon floor

There were no barriers so woe betide anyone getting too close to the edge

We walked as far as we could on the rim - to a shelter not visible (indicated by the red arrow)

The end of the rim walking track

There are yurts and cabins to stay in overnight

People go out to the canyon to camp and raft through part of the canyon 

The sun had slipped below the horizon before we left the canyon so didn’t get to our hotel in Almaty until 10pm. It had been a long tiring day particularly after our overnight train journey and poor sleep. Nevertheless, we sat down and did justice to quite a banquet at our hotel.

Kazakhstan promised to be a big experience! The next day we were to explore Almaty, Kazakhstan’s former capital. Incidentally Kazakhstan is basically a tribal land with three historic ‘tribes’ which are not distinct ethnic groups but rather three large confederations of Kazakh clans. The history of this region is long, complex and to me almost bordering on mythical.

September 12-13, Days 22-23 Jaiyuguan to Urumqi

 Our last morning in Jaiyuguan was leisurely spent before we were to board a train to take us northwest along the fringes of the Taklamakan desert to reach China’s most northwestern province, the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and its capital city, Urumqi. The Taklamakan Desert is the largest desert in China and the world’s second-largest shifting sand desert (by way of comparison Australia’s Simpson Desert of parallel dunes in half this size – awesome nonetheless!).  The Taklamakan Desert is nicknamed the ‘Sea of Death’ because of its temperature extremes and moving dunes. Oh, to be 20-30 years younger so we could explore this hostile place of wonder. However …….

This morning we were taken to an extensive garden, Donghu Lake Park, and let loose to wander as we chose which was perfect for us. The garden was quite a surprise particularly as we were in the Gobi Desert. The main water supply for the city – and these gardens – is from a river sustained by glacial meltwater and precipitation from the Qilian Mountains. It was lovely and obviously something the people are very proud of.  

This tower was designed to resemble a fish, symbolizing prosperity and abundance

Vibrant colour contrasted with the shady paths

We came across a circle of bronze figures representing the Chinese zodiac - Lindsay beside his sign

Of course, we had our eyes on the plants and birds, but it was quite a pleasant place to while away the hours before another banquet lunch! All the food was interesting if not delicious, but it was all becoming a bit of a blur. Many places we have had our own dining room - some expansive others a bit of a tight squeeze like today’s. Some of us may have preferred a simple sandwich, but the local people were eager to show off their local culinary specials – westernised for us of course.

The blue dot and arrow indicate Jaiyuguan

Then we waddled to the station to catch our train to Urumqi in China’s far northwest. After a very noisy, completely packed, 1300km fast train ride from Jiayuguan, we arrived late that night and were greeted by our local guide bearing gifts - ‘silk’ scarves for the women and traditional Muslim caps for the men - before being whisked away to our hotel and a very welcome bed. The hotel is very new and comfortable - and, like a number of Chinese hotels we’ve stayed in, much was automated - lights, curtains, flushing toilet, they even have a robot to deliver ‘Uber Eats’ to your room. What more could you ask for?! 

A quite desoltae landscape but fascinating

Oases of productive land in this desert - fed by snow-melt from the mountains

The Uber person placing an order in the robot who whisked it up to the appropriate room

Next morning, our last day in China we woke to the exotic promises of remote Urumqi the capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. It is rather an ‘oasis in the desert’ cradled between the Taklamakan Desert in the south and the Tien Shan and Altai mountains in the north. After a week of altitudes from 3000-5000m, and suffering mildly debilitating altitude sickness, today I feel back to ‘normal’ and able to walk (rather than stagger) even lugging all my luggage and assorted other ‘stuff’! A blessed relief I can tell you.

This morning we visited the Xinjiang Regional Museum. How different it was to what we saw 7 years ago in 2018! It is now a much larger building, everything refurbished, more signage (although not enough in English for ‘need-to-know-everything’ me), and a wonderful and extensive collection of new exhibits including more ancient mummies and artefacts from desert archaeological sites. The exhibits traced forward in time from Palaeolithic to Neolithic periods, around 1000 BC. There was even a small replicate of the Mogao Caves, also known as the Thousand Buddha Grottoes or Caves of the Thousand Buddhas, which form a system of 500 temples 25 km southeast of the centre of Dunhuang, an oasis located at a religious and cultural crossroads on the Silk Road.

The entrace to the Thousand Buddha Grottoes display

Xuanzang a C7 Chinese Buddhist monk, scholar, traveller, and translator.

What was of particular interest to me was what archaeologists had discovered in 1980s when excavating in the desert. They found some significant graves, significant in that they revealed the mummified remains of people of ancient ‘Europoid’ origins (AKA not Chinese or Mongolian) dating back 4000 years. In particular I wanted to see the 'Loulan Beauty', the most famous of the Tarim Basin mummies. Aged 40-45 years old, she was 152 cm tall with long hair. She wore a pinted felt cap and leather shows ans was wrapped in a dark brown woollen cloak. She was a naturally preserved, roughly 3,800-year-old Bronze Age woman discovered in a tomb near the ancient Silk Road.  She was one of many amazing discoveries.

A figure from an ancient Buddhist kingdom located in Taklamakan desert in the Tarim basin

Mummified remains were found perectly preserved in the dessicating dryness of the desert

This mummy of quite a tall man shows evidence of face tattoes

The mummified body of a young infant

Wonderfully preseverd string shoes

Xinjiang is a region where various ethnic groups have coexisted (not always harmoniously), together with their different religions, since ancient times. Around the C1 BC, Buddhism was introduced into Xinjiang and thrived as a culture during a period of great prosperity from C4 to C10. Xinjiang and the surrounding region contains some very early grottoes and Buddhist temples. The Central Plains grottoes such as Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang and Yungang Grottoes in Datong are quite famous. The morning flew by too quickly for me - it was all fascinating and we were fortunate to have a terrific guide (unlike our last visit). There were too many exhibits to show and describe here - and many we had no idea about as the signage was only in Chinese - so I have included only a  handful.

An ancient religious figurine unearthed from Astana Cemetery in Turpen City

Burial pillow in the shape of a two-headed bird

A Tang dynasty clay figurine - the head of a pig and the body of a man 

Our group outside the museum

Our last supper in China before boarding the train to Kazakhstan was a very Porky dinner - pork and vegetable broth, pork belly, pork meatballs, pigs tail yes that’s right! plus chicken and chestnuts, prawns, and loads of vegetables.  A feast to sustain us on our long journey east. 

A blurry pork dish!

Lindsay tried all the local beers!

Travel can be a little tedious at times with border delays, etc, but it has so many unexpected and delightful moments. Tonight for instance, we were finally on our way to Kazakhstan and while waiting to board the train, we got talking to a young man who turned out to be a pilot with a regional airline in the Xinjiang region. He had trained in Canada but many of his colleagues trained in Australia so I think he felt a connection to us Aussies. We learnt a lot about living in the Xinjiang region from this friendly young man who was so keen to talk to us. As luck would have it, I ran into him again at the station in Khorgos next morning (after our overnight train ride) and it was like we were long lost friends. Such friendly people!

Urumqi in red, just an overnight train ride to Khorgos which is close to the border with Kazakhstan