A straw for the lady

 We have now been in Kazakhstan, a country where kidnapping is still a form of courtship, for just over 2 weeks and its been a very weird experiance.

We went trekking in the mountains after we'd both recovered from the squits where we were interviewed for TV talking about ecotourism in Kazakhstan. Roz talked about the ecology of Kazakhstan and I talked about how to better advertise tourism in Kazakhstan to the outside world. We managed to maximise our screen time by saying exactly what the interviewer wanted to hear; Waxing lyrical about how wonderful a country Kazakhstan is ect. My comment about 'Borat' hit the cutting room floor though. We whatched the resulting program (with our interviews translated into Kazakh)  two days ago in Almaty which was cool. (Roz has discovered how to do photos and put one on her blog- see the link to the right).

Following the mountains we left on an expedition to visit the Aral sea- it took about 2 days to get there. Hardly anyone speaks anything but Russian here but luckily everytime things become really frustrating a helpful english speaker miraculously appears or someone calls someone on their mobiles who can help translate. So, through the kindness of strangers, We were taken to soemones house for lunch, discovered a bus station and the right bus and at the other end stayed in a pilgrims rest place in Turkistan (where theres a mausoleam- the slightly lazy muslims here have worked out 3 trips to here is equivalent to one to Mecca and you dont have to take the plane).

Someone then helped us bribe our way onto a train where we spent 12 hours playing cards and talking to the most of the carrage through the 2 guys who spoke broken English. Our answers where then relayed through the carrage around the piles of contraband and luaggage to the other passengers promoting much debate.

In Aralsk we stayed in the home of Gulmira a local teacher that a nice Russian ecotourism person had called for us. We ended up sleeping in her garden and she got two of her friends to drive us (in their 4X4 lada) out to whats left of the sea (remember the Aral sea- GCSE geography?). Enroute we saw camels picking at the scrubby desert around the rusting carcuses of ships. Lunch was in someones house in a tiny village (camel meat and potatoes followed by camels milk). Our photos of home where passed around reverently and all the local men popped round to see the foreigners.

This was followed by swimming. Our little lada raced accross salt flats and bounced enthusiasticly across dunes to the sea shore and our guides stripped off and raced to the water (gold teath flashing in the sun), waded out and splashed about. We followed rather more gingerly, but it was the first time we'd had a good soak since Tiblisi and rather welcome.

On the 30 hour train Journey to Almaty I met a guy called Jon who spoke great English and tried to sell me oil (they have lots in Kazakhstan) at the equivalent of $100 a barrel but I declined as we already have too much luggage as it is.

Almaty is like Europe, at least to our eyes, they have western shops, western restaurants and western prices. It also has greenery (after the dessert its amzing how much you miss greenery). When you order a couple of beers the one for Roz always comes with a straw. We are just typing this out before skipping to the border and the high mountains of Kyrgistan.

 hope everyone is good at home- I owe lots of people emails, internet is not so hot here so will try in Bishkek.