Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Beijing to Kyregestan

"Beijing, once the center of the universe" is showing signs of once again
becoming a world leader. It was fun to stay in a Hutong in the 800+ year
old center. Small courtyards have been renovated into small hostels and
ours with only 8 rooms was run by 3 cute girls. The Hutong Ren Creative
Cultural hotel was very clean, friendly and our bathroom opened out into
the courtyard. Fortunatly there was a full time running fountain to
masquerade the bathroom noises. We found terrific restaurants nearby and
enjoyed nice spicy Szchuan food. The Metro makes getting around easy and
the streets are clean and public toilets, while holes in the floor,
flushed and were conveniently located so whenever the nature called, I was
happy.

Our flight to Almaty took us over the soaring Tian Shan mountains. We had
good views of towering peaks covered with ice and snow. As we neared
Urumchi we could see the Flaming Mountains-well named because even from
20,000+ feet, they glowed red in the setting sun. Fortunately the stop in
this direction was short. We could see the sandy desert and hear that the
temperatures were around +35, but a dry heat.

Almaty struck us a bit Russified but busy, modern city. Bishkek is small
and we could see burned out buildings, evidence of the riots and protests.
Yesterday we drove from Almaty around Lake IssyKol in the rain to Karakol.
We are just going in for breakfast and then plan to start our trek. The
next 4 days will be fun and we hope that the rains will abate.

It seems that access to Google is blocked across China and in most of
Central Asia. We are able to email only 1 person at a time and will ask
our friend Mark to post this blog.

So far, have eaten well, slept well, and other functions are working
normally. Love from Kyrgestan to all.
Corine and Stefan

1 comment:

  1. Thank you Mark for keeping us posted on C and F's travels. So glad they saw the Tian Shan mountains. We took our boys there in 2004 - across the Taklamakan desert to Kashi by rail and road, and a wee bit of camel. Eager to see their next posting. Thanks again, Roger (C's wee bro), Shelley, Chris and Pete in Canmore

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