Episode 11

I've ridden on crowded busses and walked miles over the last couple of days, all to see the sights of Almati. Thank goodness there are plenty of large shady trees along all the streets otherwise I would be a very wilted stuffed toy. I did enjoy sitting of busses and I even made a friend today, his name is Bugsy,( a purple blow up bugs bunny), we sat next to each other on the long journey back to our hotel. I’m mighty glad I don’t have his front teeth:

I rode on a cable car up to a view point where we got a great view over the city. It was my first trip on a cable car and I enjoyed the experience. L says it’s about the most expensive one they have ever been on and they didn’t pay extra for me either. As much as I don’t like the sound of it I’m really just part of the baggage. It’s not very long and doesn’t go very high either, the cable car that is.

We looked at some monuments and I got my photo taken under at least one of them, also beside one of the Chinese zodiac statues around a fountain that wasn’t working. Walked up this street and down that one, saw a couple of theatres, one a very modern one and the other built during Soviet times, they are both massive places. In a very shady park we came to an Orthodox church and were invited in to have a look inside. There was enough gold in that Iconostases to pay for a few overland trips. Churches here are never deserted, there is always a great many people coming and going all the time while little old ladies who can barely stand keep the floor swept and polish anything within reach. Many icons have a great many lighted candles in front of them. L keeps reminding me not to get too close or I’ll find out what instantaneous combustion really is.

We came to the '’green market’’ which is described in the LP guide book as being ‘the city’s most colourful market with a true flavour of Central Asia’. Whatever my humans were expecting that wasn’t it. They were most disappointed: Outside there were a great many stalls selling cloths, jewellery, and all sorts of junk and it was quite vibrant, but inside it was like a great many little shops, plenty of stall holders and not much in the way of customers and absolutely no atmosphere at all. It was predominately clothing and shoes. There were no household goods, fruit, vegies, spices (that give a lovely aroma to any market), carpets, (this is central Asia after all) and any one of a thousand other things that would give it some character. It was spotlessly clean:

When we reached the white marble mosque with gold domes we headed back towards our bus stop. D’s foot was quite sore again, we had to cut short our excursion yesterday when it started to pain badly.

Also today I have had to oversee another windscreen repair job, as D had suspected the job in Yekaterinburg wasn’t all that good and a few cracks had started to travel so after a bit of asking about we eventually found a place to do the job. D’s not really sure it’s any better than the last one but maybe it will stop them traveling further across the screen. It’s in L’s field of vision fortunately not the drivers’ or mine.

This relentless heat is getting too much for all of us, L had hoped that Almati might be a bit cooler but that doesn’t seem to be the case so we will head into the mountains and see what happens.

Our two motorbike people who had disappeared into the wilds of Tajikistan and we didn’t hear from for weeks have surfaced again none the worse for the experience apparently. Lorraine, who is another one of the bikers has had all sorts of problems in Russia. Her bike is dead and will be left in Irkutsk, because the bike broke down she overstayed her visa, got arrested, had to appear in court, was given 9 days to sort her problems and leave the country. She is flying into Almati tomorrow night and is going to look for a second-hand bike to do the rest of the trip, otherwise she will squeeze into the car with us so I’ve been told. To get to here from Irkutsk she first has to fly to Moscow then catch another flight from there to here. She’s probably flying about 10,000k’s or more to actually end up 3000k’s from Irkutsk. Apparently it’s not much more expensive than the 3 or 4 day train ride to here: Work that out:

L tells me I need a bath, but she fears I will never be the same again if she washes me so I will just have to stay dirty, at least for now. I’ve put on weight too it seems, all this Russian and Kazakh dust:

© Lynette Regan August 9th 2012