Kazakhstan …….. I like it!

So we were meant to have Kazakhstan as a transit county into Kyrgystan and be there one or two nights, but the Chinese  have stuffed us around and wont let us enter until 5 days after the original entry date of our visas and also have closed the border we wanted to enter. So we have to go through another border which means we may not be able to get to Everest base camp but we are hoping we can sort something out and still get to go.

Anyway our Kazakhstan stay was increased to 6 days. Its is a much more modern country than expected. Good roads which equals a less bumpy truck ride, nice cafes and restaurants and people are friendly. We have bush camped in some very picturesque settings here. Fields of rolling hills with an occasional sheep herder, Arid landscapes with horses wandering nearby and mountainous terrain in the National parks.

We visited Turkstan, Shimkent, Aksu Zhubagly Nature Reserve and Almaty.

We went for a hike in the Nature reserve and I had a 1 litre water bottle in a bag over my shoulder and when we stopped for lunch I went to take it off. The top of the bottle smacked me in the face right under my left eye. I now have a black eye! In Almaty we were in a shopping centre so my sunglasses were off and people would look at me and my eye and then straight to Glen where  he would get a very obvious filthy look. I have to try and cover it up with make up  if we go out now so Glen doesn't look bad haha

Unfortunately we have not seen any mankinis while being here…….very disappointing.

 

                                                                                   

Uzbekistan….Uber pretty, but Uber hot.

Uzbekistan was a beautiful country and we had a break from camping here, staying in hotels.

We first visited the town of Khiva which was very cool and authentic in terms of the old town being surrounded by the protective walls. Old mosques, minarets and madras's.

 

 

 

 

The money here though is ridiculous. We exchanged 50 US Dollars and literally got a wad of cash back. One night a group of us had dinner together and it came to 200 000 Uzbek sum. The table was covered in piles of money. Ridiculous! Pictures below = Terry with his wad on his head and the bill being worked out.

We then visited the town of Bukhara a small town it was nice but so so so hot that it was difficult to be motivated to explore. It somewhere in the 40’s and the heat was so draining.

We then visited Samarkand which has many highly decorated mosques, madras’ and minarets.The pictures really give you a better idea of what I mean. Glen was not well here so spent the first day here sleeping in our air conditioned hotel room. The hotel also had a pool which we were all very pleased about. 

 

 

 

                                                                                      

We also visited the capital Tashkent, but is mainly a business city and not a whole lot of touristy things to do. We were only here for one night and we went for a nice steak dinner here before making our way to Kazakhstan.

 

 

Kieran

The weirdest place we have ever been.

Seeing we had been delayed by so much we drove straight from the port to the capital of Turkmenistan, Ashgabat. This was a 12hour drive through the arid countryside passing the occasional small town, made up of simple homes no bigger than what we would have as a garage in Australia. We arrived in the capital city at about 9:30pm and we were astonished at what we saw. Great huge white buildings dripping with gold and surrounded by fountains, all lit up like Las Vegas. It was insane.   

We stayed in a hotel here and the next day (again very very hot being somewhere in the 40’s) we went exploring. What we found was something like I can only compare to a film set or maybe like the movie the Truman show, where every thing is made out to be real but its all a facade. The streets had no people. There was no small mini markets or corner stores. There were no service stations or just normal stuff. Guards protected the large marble white monstrosities and we were not allowed to photograph any of them. We went to the largest shopping mall where we had lunch, used the internet and had a game of 10 pin bowling. We spent most of the day here because this soulless city had nothing else to do. The amusement park which uprooted 100’s of families to be built is rarely open. Some of the group tried to get in to a small museum and was asked to leave for no apparent reason, it is very strange.

Turkmenistan is said to be the worlds 2nd most secretive country after North Korea. The lonely planet warned of hotel rooms and public places being bugged.Internet access is few and far between and is said to be monitored by the government. None of the hotels had internet and when we used it at the shopping centre they took ID from us. Face book and news websites were blocked. None of us had mobile phone reception either.

There are only 660 000 people that live in this city, a city that is constantly building huge hotels yet their seems to be no people staying in them. There are pictures of the president everywhere and apparently they keep pulling down monuments and buildings so often that the lonely planet which was a 2010 edition warned people that maps and information in their book could be completely irrelevant and a lot of it was. Even when we found a bazaar with people selling fruit and food we were told not to take photos by the locals and store owners.

Ashgabat is weird!

We then travelled into the dessert where we camped one night and the next day on our way to the border saw some ruins of a town that Genghis Khan had destroyed once upon a time. The best thing about this is that we stopped in a small town not far from the border where we had lunch. This town was wonderful, we went to the local bazaar and we were obviously a novelty to them all. We ate the best food and had great service in a simple cafe. The local store owners smiled and waved at us. I had store owners running after me to ask to have there photo taken. When I showed them the digital image on the camera screen it was such a novelty to them. It was such a great experience and we all found that we had found the real Turkmenistan, with real people and real friendliness. 

I can safely say that I will never ever go back to Turkmenistan in my life, but I am very glad I have been there. One of those places that makes you appreciate your home country.

 

The Eurovision winners are Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan the first of our central Asia countries. Our first stop was a bush camp where unfortunately we found ourselves in a weird predicament. We set up our tents. Had dinner then some locals pulled up in a car and pulled out a generator, keyboard and speakers from the boot. Of course we were like what the hell……! They then set up their stuff and proceeded to blare out dance music from their equipment. We didn't want to be rude and a few people got up and sort of danced around with them. After the second song we asked them to turn it off so we could go to sleep. Long story short- the next two hours we were pestered by the 4 of them coming up to our tents and harassing us all for money. It actually got a bit scary at one point but they eventually left. Not a great start.

Next stop was Sheki. An old little town on the ancient Silk Route.  Here we stayed in a wonderful old caravanserai. We visited Khan Palace which was beautifully decorated with stained glass windows and hand painted decorations. Unfortunately we were not allowed to take photos inside. It was again very hot and so any air conditioned area was a sanctuary, which brought us to the local cinema. I asked the guy if there were any English speaking movies being played. He said there was not but if there were many people he could put one on. So we had  our own private screening of Million dollar baby, popcorn and juice in hand. There was about 14 of us and it ended up costing each of us about £2.00 a definite bargain!

I celebrated my 29th birthday in Azerbaijan. It began with a midnight rendition from some of the group of Happy birthday. We didn’t have to leave the next day till Midday so a sleep in and a shower was a great start to the day. We drove on then from Sheki to the mud volcanoes where one of them kindly splattered my back with sprayed mud. I had to adorn the birthday attire that evening. A birthday ritual has started in the group where we buy the birthday person a piece of clothing and they wear it on the night of their birthday. The next birthday comes along and that person wears their own piece as well as the pieces from previous birthdays. So I wore a pink belly dancing skirt from Istanbul, Evil eye bangles from Cappadocia (Turkey) and my addition of a yellow Arabian style hat.

We then moved on to Baku the capital of the country. Surrounded by oil fields the city reminded me somewhat of Dubai (even though I am yet to visit there). Sky scraping glass buildings, designer stores on every corner. Mixed in with ancient watch towers and mosques. A lot of building is going on and I imagine a lot is due to the fact that they will be hosting next years Eurovision song contest.

We stayed in a nice hotel here as they don't seem to have grasped the concept of hostels yet. Baku is also quite expensive in accommodation as well as food. In Baku it was our mission (or more so Lou our leader) to find out about the elusive details regarding the ferry from  Azerbaijan to Turkmenistan, over the Caspian Sea. It is an unscheduled ferry, that comes when it comes and it leaves when its full. Whether it takes 1 day to fill the boat or 3 days time can only tell. So we were meant to leave on the Sunday and was told due to weather conditions it would not come till Monday. So this gave us another night in our hotel rooms.

At 11am Monday morning we got a urgent text message from Lou telling us all to get down to our beloved truck at the port in Baku as the Boat was going soon. Our mad rush took place and we got to the truck for the overnight ferry journey. We waited for about 2hours, then passport control took over 1.5hours to stamp us all out of the country then it was all aboard the Hell ship.

Its difficult to put in to words the condition of this ship. We had cabins of four people. We were with the Lovely Irish couple, Laura and Martin. The cabin beds had mattresses which were covered with a cover that had physical dirt all over it. Glens mattress didn't even have a cover so you could see the lovely stains and hole in it. The fixtures were all broken or ripped off the wall. We were informed by the angry lady we named ‘big ma ma’ that if we accumulated any rubbish to just throw it out the cabin porthole into the sea!

We were also sharing our experience with many Americans and English people doing the UK to Mongolia road rally. So there was about 50 passengers  on the boat. It was one toilet for the boys and one toilet for the girls. These toilets did not flush, they didn't even have a chain or button. The boat set of finally at 7:30pm (8.5hrs after Lou’s text message) once the train carriages had been loaded on and all cars and truck and been well wedged in. The toilet about 2 hours in to the journey became indescribably disgusting. The contents of each sat there lapping at the rim. Despite our efforts to explain to the crew (big mama and son) that disaster was lingering and that an alternative toilet was needed. The reply we got was to just pee over the side of the ship. That is okay if you are a boy. Sleep soon allowed us all to escape to some degree from our conditions.

At 11am we docked and we were yelled at by big mama and son to evacuate our rooms. We did so and then waited till 2:30pm to be allowed off the Hell ship.

Next step was to get through the next passport control and into Turkmenistan. Easier said then done. Once off the boat we stood in the sun for about 1.5hours. We finally had passports stamped and approval to enter the country by 4pm. But we needed our truck! We sat in the lounge or rather a big tiled room with a few steel chairs whilst waiting for the train carriages to be unloaded from Hell ship so that our tuck could go free. We waited and waited and waited. By 11pm we surrounded to the fact that us and the rally drivers would be staying the night where we sat. Apparently it was found that the train carriages contained cigarettes which were illegal to come into Turkmenistan and they didn't want to unload them.

The tiles became our beds and we tried to sleep as best as possible in this situation. The next morning was bordering on breaking point for most. Especially when the border control military officers locked the toilets. People were tired, frustrated and were sick of being treated like crap. finally at 11am someone woke up to themselves and the train was unloaded allowing our truck to be free. 11:30am 48hours after getting the call to get on the ship, we were able to drive into Turkmenistan……would it be worth it?

Georgia – Part 2

  30 July – 3 August

 

Having crossed back into Georgia we were now heading for the capital of Tbilisi. On our return to Georgia we didn’t do a whole lot of tourist things in the capital. Being amazing at how good we found Yerevan we were not sure if Tbilisi would be the same. It was still pretty good I thought. our main reason for not doing much was due to the heat. Every day it was around 40 degrees and you can’t do much in that heat. We had a little bit of a walk around and saw the sights. I even went on a walking tour one day nice and early and got the history of some of the sights and what certain buildings were.  The girls went out on a girls night out while the boys just went to a rugby bar and had a quiet one.

We spent most of our time in Tbilisi in bars or pubs or generally just sitting around.

 

Our hostel was brand new and still had some teething problems.  Our newest member of our team who we met in Tbilisi had his camera stolen, a group of other guests had a punch up and one rooms air-conditioner broke down. There were a few blackouts so I ate one night in the hostel by candle light, it was a very romantic pot noodle dinner for 1. Kieran was at the pub.

Next stop Azerbaijan.

Armenia

26-30 July

Armenia was a surprise in the way that we were not meant to go here. Having made up time in getting to Georgia and cutting short some other countries (we saw everything we needed to and never felt rushed) and the ability of our truck to travel fast. It was suggested by Will (Driver) that we could go to Armenia for 4 days. Everyone agree that this was a great idea so we headed there. Once at the border we needed to get a visa which took a whole page in our passports and we had to pay 3000 AMD each. The way we had to pay was interesting. They did not accept foreign currency at the visa office but right next to them was a money machine. Not a normal money machine but a foreign currency exchange machine. You selected you language and then the currency that you were going to exchange (USD in our case) then put your note in, accept the rate and then it gave you the money. It was much better than going to a person. Turns out that the 3000 AMD was a little less that $10USD. Money paid and visa in our passports we were free to enter Armenia! The truck made it through ok too.

The first night in Armenia we drove up a hill to see a Haghpat Monastery  which is UNESCO site. You will notice that a lot of our posts will involve churches. we arrived there just before closing time. We quickly walked around the sight took our pictures as we were being followed by and old man who worked there and he wanted to lock up for the night. We made it around and then back down for a bush camp. That night we pitched our house next to a river. It was a nice location for us, the others were on a rocky part near the road, we were next to the road too but the flowing river drowned out most of the traffic noise.  The next day we headed for the capital Yerevan.

We stayed in a hostel the next 3 nights. It was a great hostel  called Envoy and it had only just opened around a month ago. We were in an 8 bed  dorm but it felt like a 4 as it was separated by a wall from the other 4. we dropped our bag, went for a shower as we have grown accustom to do when we get any accommodation after bush camps. Then we went for a bit  of a walk around town. We had seen a few sights in our hour before getting the accommodation. so we had seen part of it and we got a map from a Spanish bloke we met in Georgia.  So we knew where we were and what to see. We headed out for some lunch, I had a dish names roysti which is a potato cake style base with strips of beef, cheese and onion on it. It was yummy and I totally recommend it to anyone who visits. We pretty much ate all our meals near the opera house. Reason being this appeared to be the food/ restaurant area and the prices were not too high for what we got. They were cheap when travelling on the £ is what I will say.

Our first night in Yerevan we went on a free walking tour of the city provided by the hostel. Most people took up the offer. It started at 21:30 so as  you do we went for some beers before hand. The walking tour took us around to all the main areas of the city. The city went off at night. It was a amazing. The city was rather dead in the day time, this could be owed to the 40+ degree heat. It went off more so this night as Armenia had just won chess champion of the world and so they put on a music concert outside the opera house. This was such a good party atmosphere and it was a Wednesday night. All the young people were out looking for dates it was just a really good fun vibe from the city. We finished the tour at the Fountain, every night at the fountain they put on a show with lights and music, much like in Las Vegas. Lots of people were watching this and it was a good show. The walking tour was wonderful to learn the history of the town and to see such a change in the main city as to the rest of the country.

The following day I went for a Brandy tasting/tour at the famous Ararat brandy factory. In Armenia they call brandy Cognac as they are allowed to as they have been making it the French way before the naming laws came into effect. However they cannot sell it to the world as cognac only to their local marked, so I went to a “brandy” tasting/tour. Upon walking into the factory you are overwhelmed with the smell of brandy and almost become instantly drunk. It was a good tour and the tasting was excellent, best part is some people on the tour didn’t like Brandy so others got to finish the glasses they haven’t touched :) Kieran shopped while I drank ahh the life of husband and wife!

On the night of the 29th July we bush camped again before heading on to cross back into Georgia. While here though we were surrounded by grass hoppers. So many grasshoppers and they were huge and annoying. All night they would through them selves onto the tent, sometimes they would even get stuck between the fly (outside tent part) and the inner sleeping section. They would just stay in there bouncing around trying to get out. Ahhh they suck big time. Even walking around in the day they would jump at you and bounce off and fall on the ground. They were weirdo kamikaze style grasshoppers.

All up our time in Armenia was interesting it was totally unexpected and we were pleasantly surprised by what the capital had to offer. I would recommend it as a location to visit if you are in the area and also a bandy tour. The city from what i have seen is always alive ever the bars a bit away from the centre still go off at night and they are always ready for a good night out. The food was excellent and the locals are friendly. Armenia and Yerevan is a country and city which will surprise you, in a great way.

 

Glen