Astana, Kazakhstan

We found a guest house online that had great reviews for being clean and well organised so we settled in there for a shower and rest before heading out to explore the neighbourhood. We knew about the  Expo 2017 "Future Energy" that was on in Astana but had not really been keen on visiting it as we thought prices would be sky high like they usually are when cities host such affairs. It was a pleasant surprise to find it was not so here. On the train many of the locals asked us if we were off to the Expo as they were so proud to be hosting it.

We are able to see the Sphere from our bedroom so are pretty near the Expo site. The Sphere looks like a giant marble and is the centre for the exhibition with several pavilions  surrounding it. It is the largest spherical building in the world - eight storeys high. We were told the site will be used to extend the university that is nearby once the Expo has ended. We were able to walk to the venue and get a map so we would be ready in the next couple of days to have a visit.

In the surrounding area there are about a dozen cranes working on high rise apartments. Contractors are flat out from sunrise to sunset building places and finishing off footpaths, roads and parking places.

The area with the guesthouse is an older established area surrounded by new apartments. The neighbours here are growing vegetables, playing in their gardens and looking after noisy dogs.

A neighbourhood house.

A closer look at some of the construction methods would put a NZ'er off living in any of these buildings. There is a lot of steel partitioning and tiles are screwed on to them with no mortar or insulation behind. Pillars of tiles are hollow inside! Businesses operate on the ground floor and the apartments are set out in communities with parks and playgrounds in the centre and supermarkets underground.

The President's palace

Astana became the capital of Kazakhstan only in 1997 and before that it was steppe. It was moved from Almaty to be further from China, closer to Russia and away from the earthquake zone. As a result it is a planned city with some amazing building designed by architects from all over the world.

We made contact with a local Couchsurfer who offered to show us around the city with her daughter. Aliya is a doctor with a PhD and studied in Moscow. Both her parents and grandparents were also doctors and it is what she sees her daughter doing too. Aliya now heads a team in the ministry of health and lives in an apartment across the road from the kilometre long ministry of health building. She said she earns the equivalent of $1000 US per month. She loves to travel and is off to Istanbul soon where a Couchsurfer has offered to host her.

We visited the Kazak History Museum and it was really wonderful. In the entry was a huge model of a golden eagle that lit up and flapped up and down.

The exhibits were a mix of old and new. The model of the development of the city was well done as it showed the different parts of the city rising up out of the steppe.

Aliya explained that the city was designed along an east -  west axis  that went from the President's Palace through the city taking in several significant buildings along the way. On another day we walked the line which is also a pedestrian route lined with fountains, seating, stalls, gardens and fountains.

We visited the oldest part of the original city where we walked beside the river and ate Kazak food at an outdoor restaurant even though Aliya was fasting for Ramadan.

We walked through the Arbat area where arts and crafts of felt were for sale.

This was a chance for Mageena to get on her e-scooter and whizz around.

Aliya and Mageena left us to explore the city and headed home to get ready for a few days away at an international gymnastics competition. They had to eat at 5am before taking a train and Aliya had to wait until 9.30pm before she could have dinner as the sun is up really late here.

 Some of the amazing buildings

Entrance to the Expo was cheaper on a week day than a weekend and it will run until September. We had to go through metal detectors to get into the site and it cost about $20NZ each. We saw contractors fitting toilet doors as we arrived and others sawing up decking planks. The Sphere was covered with a mesh that illuminated different patterns and it looked like a giant marble. There were very few people when we arrived but still only one of the 8 lifts was working to get everyone to the 8th floor to checkout the exhibits. 

Taken from inside the Sphere.

Each floor was dedicated to a form of energy with displays of each, or interactive games and videos or information screens, including kinetic, wind, solar, biomass, water,and space. All were well laid out really informative.

After the Sphere we chose a couple of pavilions hoping to learn more from the different countries displays. The Chinese one was a disappointment as we were lead to believe we would learn more about the planned beltway. 

The only mention of NZ in a section about different countries myths about wind. 

We did not have a pavilion.

 Making a plant grow through movement-one of the interactive displays.

We have an American couple staying in the guest house with us and they travel to the Expos each year and like us were disappointed with the USA pavilion which had a place for selfies with the Hollywood sign and a theme that said energy was within us all! And not much else.

John has been working on our visas for upcoming countries and some of them need a LOI-letter of introduction. That actually means you have to prepay for accommodation and tours before they will let you in.

Quite a few Kazaks have told us that their food is not as tasty as Uzbekistan food so we went to a local Uzbek restaurant a short walk from us. Mutton and beef were the most popular dishes with noodles and rice but horse was also an option.

Like Almaty, the buses are great for getting around and very cheap. One of the map apps I have has the bus numbers and routes on it so that is helpful.

Some of the buildings on 'the line'.

Lots of sculptures in the streets.

Khan Shatyr shopping centre which looks like it is going to fall over when viewed from one side.

But looks straight up and down from another angle.

Inside, there was a water slide, a sandy beach with palm trees and a monorail on the top floor. A drop tower ride went up and down in the centre with screaming participants. There were all the big brand stores here too. The material on the outside of the building was made from ethylene tetrafluoroethylene, a heat absorbing material that produces summer temperatures inside even though it is minus 30 outside.

Next stop Shymkent in the south of Kazakhstan - back to the ancient Silk Road.

Almaty to Astana, Kazakhstan

Although there are three online sites to book train tickets we still had problems doing it. For some reason the site was unable to identify our passport numbers so we had to book tickets with an agency and have them couriered to the hostel. There were not many sleepers left on the train and I did not want to sit for twenty hours in an upright seat. We later heard that scalpers buy up tickets and then sell them to travellers who arrive at the station to buy tickets. Expo 2017 is on in Astana so travel agents may also have bought up blocks of tickets but there were no return tickets available so we managed to find a reasonably priced air ticket with Air Astana and decided to head for Shymkent in the south of the country after our visit to Astana .

Almaty station of which there are two.

We had to go through metal detectors at the station before entering the platform so luckily we had left in plenty of time as there were also police attending an incident on our way but the taxi driver managed to notice it in time and chose another route.

Staff meeting before the train left.

Fruit sellers on the platform had dishes of strawberries,apples and cherries. We expected a lot more sellers than there were as stations are great places for rushed travellers to buy food.

John gave the coach attendant some sweets when she took our tickets and she later brought us some sweet tea in  a railway teapot with fancy tea glasses in holders.

               

                                                     

On her next visit she dropped off freshly starched, monogrammed bed linen and towels.. They even matched the curtains. Thick duvets and pillows were already waiting for us in the bunks.

No one joined us on the trip so we enjoyed having the four bunk compartment to ourselves. We did have a visit from a 42 year old father and his 13 year old daughter who could speak a few words of English. We mostly conversed using Google translator and they had already been told that the only westerners on the train were from NZ.

The journey took us through the steppes where there were not many villages and lots of sky and grass. We saw very few animals and people. Some of the plantations of what looked like birch and beech trees were thick with black crows.The small settlements we passed looked quite basic and the residents would have a lonely hard life especially in the winter trying to make an income. 

Outside the small towns were cemeteries where the Muslim graves were separated from non-Muslim ones.

In the morning we passed a few towns that had trucks loaded up with earth or minerals. Kazakhstan has 99 of all the elements on the periodic table. Lots of trains carrying cement products thundered past us in the night.

The snow drift fences were a reminder of the harsh winters they get here.

We rolled into Astana on time to be greeted by hordes of unofficial taxi drivers and lines of official ones.

Shymbulak, Almaty, Kazakhstan

The hostel in Almaty offers tours to lakes and canyons in the area but we have been unable to join a group of three to keep the costs down so we have given it a miss.

We caught a local bus to the winter sports centre of Medeu at 1700m above sea level. The Asian Winter games were held here in 2011.

 The ice skating rink and stadiu

                               The Tien Shan mountains.

 The restaurants at the top of the cable car with their sheep skin covered seats.













We caught a bus from outside the hostel to the the cable car station near the ice skating rink and stadium, rode to the top, then walked down  for two hours back to the bus stop.

 Some of the wooden lodges near the ski field.

 On the side of the road was a thermal area. This older woman is warming up in the thermal pool on the right after cooling off in the cold water pool to her left. Quite a few people came to soak here where there were change rooms and it was all free.

 This shelter was covered with broken cups, bowls and teapot lids.
A sculpture of speed skaters in the national colours.

Kazakhstan has 17 million people with 63% being Kazaks, Russians are 24%, Uzbeks 4% and Ukrainians 2%. 100 nationalities make up the rest.

We walked about the city visiting some of the local sights. This is a replica of the Golden Man standing on top of a snow leopard in Republica Alany Square. It is Kazakhstan's favourite national symbol.

We visited the Central State Museum for a couple of hours viewing dinosaur bones and relics from diggings around Kazakhstan showing life from the stone ages and the bronze ages as well as life in traditional villages today. Sadly the only signs in English were 'Do not touch'.

 

The Golden Man (or woman) costume from around 5th century BC was discovered in 1969 in a Saka tomb 60 kilometres from Almaty. It is made from 4000 gold pieces.

One of the buildings in the city centre with a glittering golden dome and surrounded by spruce trees.

The gas pipeline in the garden of the hostel.

The streets of Almaty are lined with birch, beech and fir trees making it a very leafy green city.

We have organised a train ticket to the capital Asana. It was delivered to our hostel as the online site had trouble identifying our passport numbers.

Most of the time we have walked to a huge shopping mall nearby to buy food from the delicatessen to reheat at the hostel but one rainy night we headed off to a nearby Chinese restaurant for some tasty vegetables.

We have spent a day researching our next move, buying train tickets and flights to get around the country.  There is an international energy Expo on in Kazakhstan at present and with the increased number of visitors it is more difficult than usual to make travel arrangements.

Next stop Astana, the capital city.

Almaty, Kazakhstan - Searching for Borat.

The Air Astana flight went smoothly after our 90 minute wait on the tarmac.We looked to be the only foreigners  from a western country on the flight.

We were met at the airport by a taxi driver who was organised through the hostel. He was kind enough to wait for us as we used the ATM machine to withdraw the local currency, tenge. The car park was bustling with Lada cars and old heavy Russian trucks as well as a whole range of European cars from Mercedes and BMW's. There were also the Japanese and Korean cars we are used to seeing at home as well.

The drive to the hostel was a good introduction to how they drive here. The two lane roads soon turn into 4 lanes as drivers thunder past with door mirrors almost touching. However he drivers are very good at stopping for pedestrians on the crossings.

The hostel was pretty full with 20 gymnasts aged from 5 to 10 years old and their chaperones. There was a group of young Germans on a 6 month education and cultural programme for UNESCO. They were being debriefed after their initial stay in different parts of Kazakhstan and then were heading back to their communities. We had a nice big room to ourselves but the rest of the hostel was filled with bunk rooms.

The entry to the hostel is lined with shoe racks and plastic slippers as it is the custom to remove your shoes. It is located near a busy road and supermarkets so we were able to get food easily.

 The city from the Kok Tobe Hill

Almaty means apple and the area is famous for them.

Our first excursion was to the Kok Tobe hill and amusement park at 1114 metres high. We were able to take a bus which costs about 40 NZ cents to go any number of stops making it cheap and convenient to get about the city of about 2 million people.

A group of Beatles fans had this sculpture of the Fab Four erected in the park and it is a popular place for families to pose for photos.

Families at the park enjoyed the climbing wall, trampolining, ferris wheel, cafes and other amusement park activities as well as the great view over the city.

A cable car took us down the hill to the city and we were able to walk a main street back to our hostel and orientate ourselves to the neighbourhood. From the gondola we could see these yellow pipes meandering across roofs, balconies, and over and through fences. They contain the natural gas for cooking and heating.

One day we took a walking tour of the city with a local guide who was a Muslim woman. She took us on the metro which was built 13 years ago. Some of the platforms were very ornately decorated ceramic frescos showing the places of the Silk Road.

The city is surrounded by high mountains ( Tien Shan range ) which still have some snow on them.

The pedestrian street was surprisingly quiet when we visited with stall holders displaying their paintings.

Our guide Mika took us to the Russian Orthodox Church, the Holy Ascension Cathedral. In 1911 there was a 11 magnitude earthquake that flattened the city but this wooden cathedral remained intact as it is constructed of wood and is sitting on a sandy base. At the time it was a surrounded by a cemetery and it too was destroyed and now it is a park with a memorial to the Kazak soldiers who defended Moscow in 1945. Inside the church women donned headscarves and left flowers on the altars. We were not allowed to take photos but the room was filled with branches from the birch trees. A small group of elderly women in front of a religious icon were singing praises and it was really beautiful to listen to.

Before we left NZ we ordered an international SIM card for our phone and it should have arrived a long time before we left but alas it arrived the day after. Mika helped us buy one in a local shop so we can talk to our daughter and family on Whatsapp. Our hostel has free wifi so that is handy. The local SIM card is really cheap and will last for 30 days and give us 8GB of data which we will never use up. - all for about NZ$7.00.

In the park were these boxes where people could leave books for others.

Camera shy Mika who likes to bake cakes and belly dance.

Bikes in the street for hire. Some of the footpaths are painted red for cycles but we have seen very few people cycling in the city.











We ended our tour at the Green Market where you could buy meat, fresh and dried fruit and any hardware or goods you may need.

In the hostel we met Miriam and Xavier from France. They had taken six months off from their jobs and cycled through Asia. Xavier worked as a design engineer on yachts and was very interested in how the teams were going in the America's Cup.

Lamma Island Hong Kong

Our friend Dagmar suggested we do a walk on Lamma Island. It is the closest island to Hong Kong Island. We were able to see huge chimneys on the island from Dagmar's apartment. Hong Kong uses so much electricity and the small power station on the island seemed inadequate to provide for all their needs. We discovered later that most electricity in HK comes from nuclear plants in China. Lights are on all the time and advertising billboards are lit up everywhere and not many obvious signs of solar panels.

We are getting expert at finding our way around the trains and find them very comfortable. Our hotel is not far from the ferry piers so we decided to walk the route today. Huge trucks from China park outside the hotel and dump boxes of goods on the street while men with metal trolleys wait for their assignments and load up heading off to different business to delivery their goods. So many people smoke here it is so noticeable after the diminishing numbers who do in NZ.

The streets are very clean and tidy in Hong Kong and there were signs to warn that bait had been laid for rodents. Rubbish bins are found on many street corners with smoking trays on top for butts.

Hong Kong is a great place for rules. There are so many signs telling you what to do and what not to do all the time. Then there are signs telling you not to challenge the rules! It seems to keep people in order.

We chose to take the boat to Sok Kwu Wan at the centre of the island as it had not as many sailings as the main community at Yung Shue Wan. It took 25 minutes and there were very few westerners. The island is popular for alternative lifestylers but it was not obvious to us during our walk.

At Sok Kwu Wan the path passed between the kitchen and restaurant tables. Fresh seafood was swimming in glass tanks waiting for the lunchtime crowd. Several places were shut up and others were being renovated. In no time we had walked through the six or seven eating areas and onto the Family Trail. A few dogs wandered along the beach front unaccompanied but luckily took no notice of us.There were a couple of dag latrines: brick edged sandpits along the trail but the grass growing in them seemed to show that they too were ignored.

The fish farms are joined together with blue barrels and colourful flags show the wind direction.

The trail was a well used concrete path and well signed. A few small communities were off the trail. A pineapple seller set up a stall at the peak of the trail. The gnarled and twisted roots of the fig (ficus) trees found small cracks in the concrete trail walls and managed to keep the huge trees growing. We passed a small honey farm but no one was about.We didn't see any bees but lots of butterflies. We could hear lots of birds but didn't see them either.

The power station looked very quiet too with piles of coal stacked nearby but no smoke in the chimneys. In the distance was a wind turbine towering at 71 metres above the ground.

The end community of Yung Shue Wang was buzzing with Asian tourists. The beach was looked over by paid life guards. A worker was moving sand from the beach front to the shade of the trees on the edge. A huge shark net attached to buoys bobbed up and down in the waves.

The town is pretty crowded and compact with lots of souvenir shops restaurants and bike hire places. Boats leave half hourly from here so it was not too long before we could head back to HK.

We had eaten a lot of fruit but were ready for some fresh salads so headed to Marks and Spencers for a ready made chicken salad to take back to the hotel to eat on our last night in HK.

The next day we were early for breakfast and onto the train. The trains had hardly any people as many businesses open around 9 while others open at 11 and shut at 11. We went to the airport express terminal where we were able to cash in our Octopus card and buy a discounted ticket to the airport. HK airport must be the easiest airport to get to and go through any where in the world. Efficiency plus as you travel by driverless trains between places.

Next stop Almaty Kazakhstan.