End of the Road

On Day 24, the final day of our journey, we followed the Silk Road as far as we could to the Tian Shan mountains on the border of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan overlooking Almaty. 

A 4 km gondola ride took us to the Chimbulak ski resort, over 9,000 feet above sea level. From there, two more gondola rides brought us to the Talgar Pass, elevation about 10,000 feet, twice  the height of Mt. Marcy. 

We hiked up a trail that led to the base of a glacier but had to turn back 45 minutes in or risk missing the final gondola back down a thousand feet to the mountain hotel.

Almaty is one of the finalists for the Winter Olympics in 2022. Based on the infrastructure we saw, they could definitely pull it off. Being rich in oil and gas helps. 

 

The view from our balcony below. Good night mountains. Good night Almaty. Good night path that leads to China. Good night Silk Road. 

Our final Silk Road stop - Almaty

You can see in Almaty the quite remarkable reach Soviet culture, architecture and city design had from Central Europe to Central Asia. 

The ice cream is the same style that I could find in a village in Slovakia - lemon, strawberry, pistachio, stracietella (chocolate chip), plus vanilla and chocolate - in tiny scoops that don't leave you full for two days. 

Concrete, square, utilitarian blocks of flats, store fronts, houses of culture, oddly shaped fountains and war memorials all could be found in Warsaw as well as Almaty thousands of miles apart. 

And a broad grid of wide streets, convenient for tanks to roll down if needed, interlock with pedestrian underpasses that have been divied up to sell every conceivable consumer good - toys, school supplies, clothes, beauty products, food, etc. at each intersection near the center of town. 

Almaty is a fun clash of cultures with Russian overtaking Kazakh as the main language and people you see, Uzbeks and Chinese dominate the bazaar, and Koreans own swanky coffee shops, bars and trendy restaurants in the pedestrian zone. 

Here are some Images from Almaty :

McDoner - a clever rip off of McDonald's for Turkish kebabs. 

The city is full of fountains though this is one of the more modern ones. 

The national dish in Kazakhstan is horse meat. Here in the Green Bazaar line the prime cuts of my little pony. Dad and I tried some horse steak when we were in Aktau, Kazakhstan. Not bad, similar texture to beef, but needed a lot of sauce. 

This Uzbek seller, Hajaveer (how I sounded out his name) when he found out I was from New York, showed me a Ferrari on his phone. Not sure why. I bought some dates and pistachios from him. 

One of the most intimidating Soviet World War II monuments I've ever seen. Depicting faces from many ethnic groups, these soldiers look ready to march to the ends of the earth. 

This onion dome cathedral was made entirely of wood in 1907. While it's taller than Hronsek, the wooden church where Reni and I were married in Slovakia, it can seat half the number of people. The path to the church linked directly with the mammoth war memorial. 

There were over 20 high-intense games going on at once. The only sound was the swiping of chess pieces off the boards. 

Corn on Pizza

There is nothing quite like corn on pizza. Really. We've been enjoying this style of pizza once in a while across the Caucuses and Central Asia. When will pizza in the US wise up?

Uzbek Som

Traveling around with Som, Uzbekistan's currency, is a pain. $1 USD = 2,300 Som (official rate), but the black market rate is 3,000 Som for $1 USD. The biggest denomination is a 1,000 Som note. So 20 bucks is 60,000 Som. Try fitting that into your wallet. Bank cards are not accepted anywhere nor are there ATMs. Annoying. Changing money isn't difficult as every bazaar has a spot and it's surprisingly not shady. 

A shared taxi ride around town costs 3,000 to 6,000 Som, to the train station 20,000 Som. A Coca-Cola costs 7,000 Som or over 2 bucks while their national orange soda or super sweet tea costs 1,000 Som. Local Uzbek beer called Pulsar, which is a light lager and pretty good, costs 3,500 Som. The Danish beer Tuborg is the only western brew available and it costs the same as a Coke. 

We have been using Mark's school backpack to lug around the thousands of Som needed for commerce in the country. Every Uzbek carries a kind of purse or murse. Counting a 90,000 Som meal takes about 10 minutes after both parties have shuffled through the stack. 

Road to Samarkand

We had to be on the move a lot in Uzbekistan because our visa expired Wednesday July 30 and our train into Kungrad arrived the evening of Friday July 25. That gave us 5 days to get to and see the Uzbek Silk Road cities of Khiva, Bukhara, Samarkand, and Tashkent. All far away from Kungrad, a forgetful Soviet army construction, and Nukus, the regional capital of Karakalpakstan, the northwest state in Uzbekistan that also encompasses the dying Aral Sea, where we managed to find a place to crash after our 28-hour no sleep train experience. 

The distances are great in Uzbekistan, unfortunately the transportation options not so much. So Khiva had to be missed since it took 8 hours by shared Taxi to get to Bukhara from Nukus. As the sun set and the driver blasted melodic Arabic chanting during the final day of Ramadan, the same desert landscape passed by. But then the stars appeared. 

I was sitting in the back right side awe struck by the thousands of southern stars and luminous Milky Way. The Sky Guide app on the iPhone identified the jumpingly bright Scorpio constellation and the star Antares, one of only a few stars bright enough for Mark and I to see in Jersey City. 

The front seat passenger, a sugar trader named Javahir, was captivated by the Sky Guide app and we soon bonded - again without speaking each other's languages, only the joy of the stars in common. 

We made it to Bukhara after midnight. I already wrote about Bukhara so moving to Monday morning July 28 - this time we were happy to take the last 2 tickets available for a high speed TGV-like express train three hours to Samarkand. The regular train takes 8 hours. 

Samarkand! The fabled Silk Road city. Home of the Registan (see photos below), the name for three mammoth Madresses (schools) with intricate mosaic facades, domes, minaret towers, mausoleums, mosques and courtyards. All three similar in design but built hundreds of years apart. The oldest in 1420, the newest in 1660. Samarkand has been rocked by violent earthquakes over the centuries destroying the city numerous times, yet these three buildings still stand. 

We visited other famous Samarkand sites including Shah-i-Zinda, an eerie row of about 40-50 tall, artistic mausoleums, and Gur-e-Amir, another mausoleum housing the remains of Timur, the ruthless Khan who with a lame leg nonetheless conquered Samarkand and bankrolled the Registan. 

To see all in one day was exhausting and honestly the buildings started to blur into one. It is forbidden to depicit any human form in Islamic art and architecture to prevent the false adulation of people over Allah. So complex patterns and colors must be woven into the mosaics placed on the structures. 

Bukhara - Ancient Crossroads

Dad and I absolutely loved Bukhara, the ancient crossroads of the Silk Road. The architecture is stunning - a mixture of Maddresses, Mosques, and battlements. 

The Shashlik (BBQ meat) is so good with raw onions soaked in vinegar and spices. Yes, that's me eating onions below. 

There are over 140 Maddresses (Islamic schools) in Bukhara. Many of the kids would shout out to us "Hello! Where are you from?" Then run away when we said "America!" Then run back when we shouted "New York!"

Below Dad sits on the throne of the Emir in the Ark, which was originally a 4th Century fort that was taken over at least seven times and rebuilt bigger each time but to little avail - conquers include Alexander the Great, Ghengis Kahn, Timur (Tsmerlane), the Persians, the Turks, the Czar, and the Bolsheviks - all sat on this throne. 

The Emir's B&B

To look at a distance on a map versus actually traversing that space is quite humbling. We assume by our US sensibilities that traveling 1,500 miles should take about 24 hours of determined driving or 30 hours by Amtrak. But of course Aktau to Bukhara is not I-95 nor the Northeast Corridor. It has roads from the age of Marco Polo and Soviet-era tracks. It took 72 hours of determined shared taxi driving (4-5 people crammed into a Korean-made "machina") over roads that sometimes disappeared into craters and lumbering, sitting, lumbering, sitting...KAZ trains (in the desert). 

This is how people move in this part of the world. No one is comfortable. No one is relaxed. But if there is beauty in this shared experience, it is born from the kinship and genuine affection that is formed with the people around you. Communicating only by experimental Slovak/Russian, hand gestures, context, and your eyes, you can still all laugh, eat together, learn about each other's families and jobs, and look out for each other. 

When it was time to depart, we were surprised by the hugs, long handshakes, and hand over the heart waves we exchanged. 

Now we are in Bukhara! The legendary Silk Road oasis. We are staying at a bed & breakfast that used to be one of the Emir's homes in the 18th and 19th centuries. We arrived at 1 AM excited and in awe. 

Below is the courtyard garden. 

Aziz, the B&B manager gave us a tour of the Emir's dining room. The small height of the door is to remind people and especially the Emir that any greatness you achieve can never match the awesomeness of Allah so you must always be humble and bow to Allah (or suffer a blow to the head!). 

Below: the view at breakfast where I am writing. Bread, honey , beef salami, salty cheese, hard- boiled egg, grapes and Nescafé with cinnamon-spiced milk. A group of French tourists share petite dejune. 

Ghengis Kahn Castle

In shared taxi on way to  Urgench from Nukus. We passed a castle built to defend against Ghengis Khan (picture 2 below). Behind it is the Amu Darya river otherwise known as Oxus River, immortalized by Robert Byron's classic book "The Road to Oxiana" which recounts his travels through the Middle East in 1937-1938. The green in the first picture is where the river is - the Amu Darya eventually becomes the border with Afghanistan. 

Silk Road Landscape

The Silk Road landscape is not romantic. It is flat desert for as far as the eye can see. The Asian Steppe is barren, uninhabited, and void of any interesting characteristics save the occasional dust storm, herd of black and white sheep, and maybe horses or camels grazing, maybe. 

We have been on a train for 22 hours looking at the same landscape for a thousand miles. We have five hours left. 

Train life is challenging. All first class tickets were sold out weeks in advance. We had to wait three days just to catch the train we are on. Every conceivable space is filled. In our first stretch of train from Aktau to Benyu we shared the space with Islambed, who could speak a little English, Qotomid, a super nice Uzbek around 40, and Shafarid, a young Uzbek wearing an Adidas t-shirt. We thought they were family but they had only just met each other on the train that day. We all got along splendidly. 

You quickly realize that you have to adapt to each other, share water, food and brief respites from the other passengers by climbing into a flat space above the seats where you can half stretch out but not sit up. It's hard as a wood board so it's difficult to feel peace. But it is cooler and the sweat and smell of the train is whisked away in the window breeze, at least when the train is moving. 

We had to switch trains in Benyu (still in Kazakhstsn) arriving a little after 10 pm before our next train to Kungrad, Uzbekistan boarded at 1 am. The station platform is its own ecosystem with vendors stretched the whole length - fruit, candy, clothes, jewelry, vegatables, coca-cola and mineral water, SIM cards, mobile devices, electronics, etc. - each vying for business shouting and waving passengers over, all in the dark. 

Islambed took us over to an empty bufet where we ordered three black teas (chai) and devoured the bread, klobasa, cheddar, and pepper we had stuffed our backpacks with. 

Our trio had also befriended a babushka with four bags that weighed a ton. When the train arrived, we all helped carry these incredibly heavy bags for her. There must have been potatoes or iron blocks in these things. Of course it's not as simple as just bringing the bags on board for her and finding a seat. Every person/ticket is assigned a wagon number and that is where you must go. The babushka was in wagon 5, we had to get to wagon 10. The mad rush to the doors makes jumping on the Path on the weekend seem pleasurable. People knock each other over, push, body check just to get on the train for the priveledge of suffering for the next 15 hours. 

Wagon 10 meant that we would have to separate from our new friends. Door 10 slammed shut just as we arrived. Islambed talked our way on before the door was barred again. This time behind us. 

Silk Road Camels

It wouldn't be the Silk Road without camels, right? They herd camels and horses like sheep in Kazakhstan. Apparently camel meat tastes good.

They should rename the Silk Road the Petrol Road because in certain patches there are oil wells for as far the eye can see - 100s of kms. We saw "MobileEx" as the dominant operator. 

Path of Bekka-Ata.

Finding ourselves with a few days before the train would leave Aktau, Kazakhstan to go to Uzbekistan (tomorrow 7/24) we explored an old Sufi Moslem hermit cave with special powers in the Kazakh desert. 

Kazakh Muslim pilgrims flock to this sight named Bekka-Atta after the mystic and his followers settled literally in the middle of nowhere on the Asian Steppe in the 1700s. 

The Kazakhs were super friendly and curious that we were from America. We were in more of their photos than we took of them. 

At the holy cave a young Inman named Timur brought us in. He spoke a little English and more Russian, which I could understand a little. 

It was no small feat to get to the cave as we had to descend 2 km of stairs (and of course ascend later, which was much more difficult in temperatures approaching 110F). We passed "Marco Polo Sheep" (see pic below) which were essentially mountain goats or Kamzik in Slovak. 

Timur chanted with us and Dad and I had to go under a sacred tree limb in the cave three times. Dad almost broke the limb in half trying to bend enough to get under it much to the horror of the pilgrims. No one is supposed to touch it. Dad used it to keep from falling over. 

You have to back out of the cave entrance so that you are always facing towards the cave and Bekka-Atta's burial chamber to show respect which is tricky because the cave entrance is only 3 feet high. Timur was impressed that we both were able to navigate getting out without destroying the shrine. 

Just to put it in context - Timur was probably 20 if not younger, with "Gucci" across his t-shirt, and a cell phone ringtone that had a hip-hop song I didn't recognize. It went off when we're were putting our shoes back on. He made sure that we purified our eyes in sulphur water with the other pilgrims. 

Leaving Baku on Cargo Ship

July 20, 2014 - 3 AM on board the Azerbaijan cargo ship "BERDE" departing Baku Port.

Caspian Swim

The Crescent Moon Resort beach in Sixov south of Baku. Beach goers were a mix of Russians and Azeris - sunbathing, playing soccer and volleyball, an aqua park with water slides next to the pier, Eurodisco music blasting through the air (hilarious when one of the dance songs started chanting "I want to F#%*!"), people would get inside those giant balls in the picture below and scramble on the water like a hamster, the sand was course full of tiny shells but not unpleasant to walk on. 

We were the first Americans they'd ever had swim there. The water was clear, warm, with no oil floating in sight - though you could see offshore oil wells on the horizon after swimming far out to the buoy. 

At the raucous beach bar, the bartender in an English national team jersey with Rooney on the back called Dad Al Pacino an me Brad Pitt. A dude with crazy eyes jumped over the bar to hug me around the neck and kept wanting to high five. More and more curious young Azeri men started congregating around us until we ducked into a wooden table shelter to order food. 

We received quite a few suspicious stares. Hussein, our friend and taxi driver, found us. He helped speed up the food (we had a cargo ship to catch) and fended off the unwelcome glares. 

Not quite the midnight swim, but mission accomplished - Caspian Sea!

Caspian Sea Selfie

We found time to hit the beach and dive into the Caspian Sea before securing passage on a cargo ship that would cross these very waters. The name of the town was Sixov beach a few kilometers south of Baku. Our taxi ride took us past the James Bond Oil Fields named for the opening sequence in the 007 World is Not Enough movie. Oil is still being pumped from these Soviet era iron pumps.

Caspian Sea

Made it to Baku on the Caspian Sea. Oil laps with the waves on shore. Baku is the shiniest, most well-manicured city I've ever seen. Expensive luxury brand store fronts line every city center avenue. 

All the big western fast food giants - McDs, BK, KFC, Pizza Hut, etc. - have built palace restaurants to their brand (but the food is still the same). 

Almost all of the expats work for big oil. According to a Russian owner named Katya of the popular expat bar Pivnushka Beer House, 70% of workers are Scots, 15% Americans, 15% English. We were the first American tourists she's seen. She offered us Budweiser, we drank EFES Turkish Pilsner.

Women wear western clothes and all seem to have thick dark eye makeup. No one wears shorts. The men are either pristine bureaucrats or sweaty workers. 

Outside the center however, living looks rougher, shabbier and sometimes desperate. 

Made it to Baku

Challenging night train ride from Tibilisi to Baku. We shared a sleeper car with Georgi from Georgia - a retired station master on his way to visit friends near Baku. Being able to speak and understand Slovak has proved so beneficial as it is close to Russian. It has been how we are communicating with people like Georgi. 

The sleeper car was nice enough until you actually try to lay down and sleep. We slept directly over the wheels of the wagon.  The train tracks in Azerbaijan make the Cyclone seem like silk. I counted 26 different types of sounds that metal make banging metal. Twice I startled myself from half sleep convinced the train was derailing. The AC froze the room until the train stopped - sometimes for over an hour - and it would shut off  bringing the room back to the desert temperatures. And there is a heat wave going on. 

I write this blog at a Gloria Jean's Coffee stand that has WiFi. That's right Gloria Jean's Coffee that you would find in an American mall. This mall is shiny, bright, air-conditioned and has KFC which Dad just brought a 3 piece meal over. 

Day 4 - Departing from Istanbul

So our time in Istanbul is done. We are in Attaturk International airport waiting for plane to Tibilisi at 13.10 (love the 24h clock). We watched the World Cup Final at a street cafe near our hotel in Lalali, the more upscale fashion district in Istanbul - though we found it funny that across from our hotel was a women's underwear store. Anyone watching the game knows how exciting and back forth the contest was. The Turks were decidedly pro-German but we found ourselves rooting for some Messi magic to happen. Not to be. 

The Caucuses are next as we approach the East. 

Istanbul

On a ferry riding up the Bosphorous Straight. 

Istanbul

Planning our next adventure on the rooftop terrace overlooking the Bosphorous Straights.

Saw Hagia Sofia and Blue Mosque. Middle of Ramadan so mosque was packed. 

Istanbul at 1:25 am

We are at Daphne restaurant and café. In Istanbul - it's 1:25 AM in the morning. We have been traveling for 24 hours straight without sleep. We love the Turkish beer EFES. Spent the day in Lisbon before taking Turkish Airlines to Istanbul. 

Lisbon

Arrived at 6 am. Found coffee in the center of town under this bridge. Some dude through his cig off a roof and landed on my shorts. Wars were started for lesser offenses.

Lisbon

Here in the massive 12th Century Cathedral. Organ is playing. The music rolls off the stone from above. 

Taking off.

Here we go. 

TAP airline. The national airline for Portugal.