Astana... just the beginning!

Well here I am in the Kazakhstan capital, Astana. The slogan is 'much more to come'. Which means this is going to be one hell of a city one day. If it isn't already!

So I arrived here yesterday. One of the blessings (arguably) of Kazakhstan is it's size. However, it makes the train and bus journies seriously long. It was another overnight train from Semey to Astana, and with one back to Almaty I decided to split the journey. I took a bus to Pavlodar, in the north of Kazakhstan. It was one hell of a bad and bumpy road. Pot holes galore, through what they call the steppe here - basically, miles and miles of mostly flat land and short grass. Ie - nothing!

Palace of Peace and Accord.

Then a rather warm train journey to Astana. There seems to be a custom to heat the trains up to around the high 20s, and when I opened the window the conductor came along and promptly shut it for me!

Arriving in Astana I took a bus and then a long walk to a hotel. Hotels are a bit expensive here, the room is nice, good shower, but noise is a big issue. I travelled to the main sight area last night where I visit a sparkling and peaceful mosque, then a mall and finally the Byaterek. This is a giant ball 97 metres in the air (to signify 1997 when Atsana became the capital). I took a lift up to the top for views of Astana, where building is going along at quite a pace. Yes everywhere it is non-stop progress here.

Painting of Nazabaev with Heads of state, in the Palace of Independence.

President Nazabaev has molded the country in his own vision. And Astana is the centre piece. Perhaps it is ego, I don't know, but all the money coming in from the incredible mineral and oil wealth this country has, has been pumped into Astana. Clearly parts of the country are missing out. Today I visited the President's museum, full of gifts he has recieved and many recreated rooms such as his office and important conference rooms. 

Lights in one Astana's many many fountains.

 Then there is the President's Cultural Centre, everything revolves around this man. The centre is interesting with history of Kazakhstan, traditional dress, history of Kazkahstan since independence in 1991.

Mosque.

 Finally today I visited the Palace of Independence. Not really a palace, but a huge conference hall with paintings and ethnographic displays closed to public at the moment. Here I saw the plan for Astana, a model of the final vision to be completed around 2030. The grandiose nature of present Astana is something to behold. The buildings are huge, they sparkle, it is nothing like the reast of the country. It is Dubai in central Asia. However, when it is finished.....

The Bayterek.

So the question is - is this a good thing? I don't honestly know. It gives the people pride in their city, a lot have demonstrated this to me. But this resource wealth... will it go somewhere that will sustain Kazakhstan once the resources are done? This is the question on my lips....
And of Nazabaev... more next time!

Staying in Semey

During Soviet times, the town of Semeypalatinsk was close to a place called the Polygon, where the USSR tested some 460 nuclear bombs. Today as I write to you from the town now known as Semey, nuclear weapons are banned from Kazakhstan. The town is an interesting little place. I am staying in a Soviet style hotel, cheap but nice.  I have BBC World which is always a good thing, although I don't really care so much that Barack Obama met the Queen and Miss Kate, which they talked about for two days.

 

Semey-ites are proud of the above bridge, calling it their answer to the golden gate bridge. I am noticing a very annoying smudge on my lens now that started in Vietnam but appears to be getting worse. Maybe it's a crack. Not too happy about that! Semey is full of parks, and is a pretty quiet place all told. 

Kazakh in chain mail, Abay Museum.

Today I visited the Museum of Fine Arts. My guidebook does not do it justice! It is a large museum with 21 rooms of paintings from Russia, Kazakhstan, Semey and elsewhere. It also proudly displays a Rembrandt etching. It costs a dollar to get in, and a couple more for a tour in English. Bravo!

Then there was the Abay museum - Abay is Kazakhstan's greatest poet, and pretty much their number one cultural hero. The museum was interesting but lacked any information in English, and I followed the tour in Russian but understood little. There were some sections on life in 19th century and other people such as Abay's biographers, and in one room they set up a tradition Kazakh tent - a yurt.

Park in Central Semey.

Yesterday I visited a home where one of my favourite writers, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, lived for a two and a half years 1857-1859. It was small, but interesting. Another guide was really helpful - I made some new friends here who have really helped me by translating at times and showing me round a bit!

Statues of Lenin in another Semey Park.

Also behind my hotel is a park full of Soviet statues - Stalin, Marx, but mostly Lenin. Maybe ten Lenins in total. Something about Eastern Europe dictates that grass is rarely cut, and with the long grass and the old apartment buildings it made for an eerie scene, especially as some of Lenin's statues were minuses their noses! The wind today was seriously fierce! It's Spring with a vengeance at the moment, dust and spores are floating around everywhere. 

Tomorrow a brief stop in Pavlodar to break my journey to the Kazakh capital, Astana. Watch this space!

Almaty Times.

Hello to all! Here I am in the former capital of Kazakhstan, Almaty. I have had a bit of a rest this week which has been well needed (and well earned I must point out). I suddenly realise that moving on every few days for eleven weeks in a row can take it out of you. In Kyoto I had seven days in one place, here in Almaty I will be here six days, these are the longest stretches in one place I have had since leaving Australia. And there aren't more this long on the horizon.

But I want to write about where I am. For starters, When I told people I was going to Kazakhstan people were often confused, wondering where it was or if it was even a real place - wasn't it fictional created by Sacha Baron Cohen? No, it's a real place, the ninth largest country in the world, in a part of the world that people in Australia generally are not very familiar with.

Central Asia lies between China and Europe, below Russia and above India. There are five countries which used to be members of the Sovet Union, the others are Kyrgystan, Uzbekistan (both to be visited soon) Tajikistan and the rather mysterious Turkmenistan.

Kazakhstan is in the middle of a mining boon, not unlike my home of Australia. So things are moving along here. The President has been in power ever since Kazakhstan gained its independence from the Soviet Union. So I am in an interesting and often overlooked part of the world. Almaty has a stunning setting with a backdrop of some serious mountains. There are monuments aplenty. Last night I visited the Abay Theatre (named after Kazakhstan's most popular poet) and saw some ballet/modern dance fusion in a stunning theatre. 

I have really liked Almarty. I also journied to Kok Tobe, a mountain overlooking the city by cable car. I had adventures at the Kyrgystan Consulate where I was led to believe (before going) that it would be a week long wait for my visa. It was processed in an hour, so I confess this sort of started things off on a positive note. The Zenkov Cathedral was nice, and I visited the Museum of Traditional Musical Instruments yesterday which was ok, but highlighted by a performance on the dombra - a traditional Kazakh guitar - and other instruments for peanuts in an amazing auditorium inside the museum. Great weather last three days too. 

Tomorrow evening I head north to Semey, then Pavlodar and the capital Astana. So far so good, although I have been warned on my personal safety. We will see, I will sleep with one eye open!

The mountains provide a supurb backdrop to the city of Almaty.

Musical Performance - lady strums the dombra!

Dancers at the Abay Theatre.

Independence Monument.

Photos from Yangshuo & Shanghai

As promised I have a collection of photos from areas in China where I was unable to blog or upload photos. I have now landed in Kazakhstan where the old blogger and facebook are once again permitted! Enjoy... more from Kazakhstan in a few days!\

A couple get their wedding photos taken on the Li River, near Yangshuo.

  

The area around amazing Yangshuo.

People stand for photos in front of the same spot on the 20 Yuan note - Li River, near Yangshuo.

Colonial Era building, Shanghai.

Tourist frenzy - sounvenir area, Shanghai

East Nanjing rd - the chief shopping area, Shanghai.

Chinglish Signs

China is full of very interesting signs which didn't get translated quite right. Some are just more bizarre. Here are three I snapped - just today!

Xi'an & The Warriors - Photos

Here they area, please enjoy - it was not easy to put them up!

A mere small portion of the Terra Cotta Army awaits commands!

Encased in glass - was this how he saw his future?

Dance/Perfomance at Qin's tomb.

Xi'an City Walls

The Big Wild Goose Pagoda.

Xian, Warriors, Horses and a big Goose

Howdy all! Sorry, but photo uploading doesnt't seem to be working right now, looks like I will have to wait until I am out of China. Which should, touch wood, be tomorrow. I have a flight to Urumqi, a six hour wait in that airport (guaranteed to be the highlight of the whole trip!) and then off to Almaty, Kazakhstan.

But that is still the future, I am here to fill avid readers such as myself and a couple of my relatives in on the events since I arrived, battered, bruised but not broken, in Xi'an.
Saturday saw me ride the bus out to the Army of the Terra Cotta Warriors, and horses (some signs actually add 'and horses'). Saturday, by the way, is not the best day to see busy tourists sites in many countries - China is no exception. The throngs were out en masse which was a bit overwhelming. But hey, for every tourist there were probably two soldiers.
There are three pits full of soldiers all there to protect Emporer Qin in his sleep, 1.5km away. I think the total number unearthed is around 10,000 but I am not sure. Pit One has 6,000, Pit Three has 85 and they didn't give a number on Pit Two as they are still excavating, but the pit is nearly the size of Pit One (I am guessing) although there aren't a lot of soldiers there (or indeed horses) but they could be off being cleaned, repaired or touring the world.
Yes it's very impressive, and indeed amazing. The crowds, as is the tradition in China, give you very little room to breath and getting through the gate I felt distinctly like one cow in a herd of cattle. But this is with out a doubt a don't miss for anyone's trip to China.
A shuttle bus runs you to Emporer Qin's tomb, however there is not much to see there except for a very nice garden and a dance performance that was rather good. It's extensive grounds, pleasant to stroll around in.

Xi'an itself has many cites worth the visitor's time. The Great Mosque is a tranquil little spot in the city's intriguing Muslim Quarter, and I took a bike ride along the restored city walls, probably around 12-15km in total. Very impressive stuff, although I think if ine chose to walk it you'd be bored rather quickly, and the whole circuit takes around four hours to walk, according to the book.
Today I arrived at the Shaanxi Museum to find it shut on a Monday - a trap I have fallen into at a few museums this trip. But I did visit the towering Big Wild Goose Pagoda. The grounds are large and very interesting, with plenty to keep one interested for an hour or two. The weather has really warmed up over the last couple of days too, well into the 30s today.

So it's a pity there are no photos for you to look at, but this just about does my time in China. I do want to post briefly about some 'Chinglish' signs I took photos of though! Need the photos for that. Tomorrow a completely new region of the world for me - Central Asia. Stay tuned!

Shanghai & Spring Airlines

China is quite the enigma. I am only writing today because I was able to get past the government's firewall (some call it the Great Firewall of China. A little obvious? Yes.) through fooling them into thinking I was accessing this website from the UK.
But where there's a wall there's a way under, over or around it I guess. Apparently anyone who's tech savy can do it. Since my last blog, proxied to you the reader from Yangshuo to Melbourne to your screens I have taken a long train journey to Shanghai, seen the sights and then taken Spring Airlines to Xi'an here, where today I saw the amazing Terra Cotta Warriors.
Really, if I could have worked this out sooner I probably would have been blogging every day. China is a world of its own, it throws things at your senses non-stop and I am well aware of where I am all the time. It's hard to forget.
Unlike India, China has a lot more structure and many more places to put it's 1.4 billion people. They just don't build 1-2 storey buildings here, it would serve no practical purpose. Even here in Xi'an there are more apartment buildings than in all of Australia. Well, we like 1-2 storeys. The younger people, say under 40, are living and riding this economic change and I am not sure they were quite prepared for it. It's a mad consumer market, the streets are not easy to walk. Everyone is out most times of every day with their shopping bags spending their hard earnt Yuan on stuff! Navigating through the throngs is not easy. Cities are big and getting bigger. I think there are like 12-15 MEGA cities in China - cities over 10 million people. It comes as no surprise.

Shanghai has a colonial past, and many of the buildings along the 'Bund' (a one mile stretch along the river) are from those times. There is a 'tourist tunnel' under the river which is more... Chinese in taste. A bizarre light show as you ride a 5 minute cable car to the other side both under and overwhelmed me. Flashing lights, loud music, commentary...

The museum is great, lots to see including some of the oldest coins in existence. China's history puts it ahead of the game in many achievements, including the first country to use money, mint coins, create paper money. Caligraphy, paitings in incredible condition for their age, jade creations 4000 years old. China has had quite the history.

Then there was the Poster Propaganda Art Exhibition, located in the basement of an apartment building. Well. Let's say it was a little Anti-American, visually inteteresting and showed quite the history of China since the cultural revolution. Better seen than spoken about, one of the quirkier yet interesting sites in China.
Oh and there were some temples and the main pedestrian shopping strip in Shanghai too. I quite liked Shanghai to be honest.

Then I flew here too Xi'an. Today I saw the Terracotta warriors - more about that in my next blog. I had one of the more harrowing plane flights of my life to get here.
Spring Airlines is one of the budget carriers here (yet not that cheap) so when I checked in and told I had to pay for baggage over 15kgs in total weight (carry on AND checked in)  I shouldn't have been surprised. We we bussed to the plane on time, and ready to go... and then informed there was a delay because we weren't cleared by air traffic control.
Nearly 2 hours, in a small cramped plane as we wait, there is not a free seat on the plane. The attendants have their work cut out for them - people are getting angry. People are yelling at the poor attendants, one got down on his knees to apologise. There is a lot of noise, it builds and builds. People chattering and people complaining. No, it is not helping the situation.
Finally we leave nearly 2 hours late. Not a big deal, just would have been better to be outside. The flight is bumpy to say the least. Plenty of turbulence. At one point the plane drops quite a few metres vertical with a 'thud'! We are fine but people start screaming and stressing. It all calms down. And then the attendant gives a 30 minute duty free speech and sells a lot of stuff. Touching down in Xi'an Airport was quite a relief...

So there we go. A little about China and what's been happening, more to come in a couple of days!

Yangshuo: Rain, mountains and more!

Hi folks, readers and avid followers.


No doubt you have all been waiting for my next blog, and here it ism via proxy and Australia. Why?

You may well know that Facebook is blocked in China. Well, that ain't all! Yes, apparently some blogging sites are as well. Including blogger/blogspot. So no pictures, This is a cut and paste job done through family.

So I left Hong Kong on Wednesday. I think... seems longer ago. Yes, the metro line takes you to China proper. You don't need a visa for Hong Kong, but you sure need one for mainland China. At the end of the metro line - Lo Wu - there are all the border formalities one would expect. And then into China proper. More formalities, you can even rate the performance of the immigration officers!

Then x-ray the x-ray the bags - everyone just goes for the machine, no waiting in line. In Japan people lined up on the platform to get on the train. In China people don't seem to care about others getting out, it's the 'every man, woman and child for themselves' policy!

Then there was a 14 hour train journey over night to Guilin. I booked into soft sleeper, so i was pretty comfortable.From Guilin there was a bus to here -Yanshuo.

Without photos it's hard to describe this amazing place. I have a great Guesthouse here with 3 meals a day. The countryside is punctuated with countless sharp mountains rising rather vertically from the ground. The roads and rivers wind around them, its a very rural setting here, stunning scenery. The first day here... well I slept. And today has been a total wash out! BUT - I rode a bike for around 25km on Friday, that was great. I visited the 'Assembly Dragon Cave' which you boat and walk through. Lots of colours, all the other tourists were locals/Chinese were very keen to be photographed there. Lots of rocks for sale as well. In the middle oft he walk all of a sudden - souvenirs!

Yesterday I did a combination of rafting (no not like it sounds, slow rafts made from pvc pipes) and hiking. I took the raft someway down the Li River, then hiked for around 8km or maybe a little more, then another raft down to the village of XingPing - famous in China because the view from a certain spot is the art on the 20 Yuan note. This spot is extremely popular!

So tomorrow I start another long train journey, this time to Shanghai, after that, Xian. I will try and update the same way again in a few days time.

Until then......



No that's just how I'm leaving it!

Lights, cameras, Hong Kong!

I thought Tokyo was big. I thought Tokyo was hard to get around, but now I am in Hong Kong. It's hard to imagine all the Skycrapers, lights, people. Okay, I arrived at the start of Golden Week which seems to run throughout north Asia, but wow. I am staying on the twelth floor of Mirador Mansions. It's quite warm and very humid. I took the Peak Tram - this goes almost vertically uphill - to see Hong Kong from Victoria Peak. Naturally it was covered in cloud and I saw nothing. The process of getting on board the tram took an hour and there was lots of pushing and shoving. Then many including myself had to stand inside the tram, at an almost vertical angle, that is seriously hard! Sardine life is not far removed from the life of the average Hong Konger it would seem!

Then I went back to Kowloon where I am staying to see the light show. Across the harbour dozens of buildings light up in time with some music pumped over the loud speakers. It's rather... boring after one minute.

The neon lights are bright on Broadway. but Hong Kong gives it a run for its money. Electricity must be cheap here, I mean businesses keep their doors open and left the air conditioning pump into the outside atmosphere. Who can afford to do that?

Tokyo, after the earthquake and Nuclear disaster, was rationing the power, and conserving it. Hong Kong wouldn't know how! Hmmm I think if you shut down Hong Kong, global warming would not be an issue anymore....

Medicine shop in Hong Kong, lights show the way.

So the trip rolls on, and soon (tomorrow) I will be in China proper. I take the train from Shenzen, just outside Hong Kong. The train takes me to Guilin, from there a bus to Yanshuo. Stay tuned!

Peak tram gets its victims squashed as is the custom.