The Road to Turkestan

Our adventure wasn't quite like the old Bob Hope and Bing Crosby "Road" movies but we did have a fun day.

Friday night we had a traditional Kazakh meal at our hotel. We had vegetable platters and carrot salad for appetizers. The carrots seem to be pickled and shredded. It was very good.

Our main course was a large plate of noodles, mutton and horsemeat. The majority of the table preferred the horse over the mutton. The noodles were large flat noodles that were boiled in broth and chopped vegetables. There was a lot of food and we probably ate half of it.

We then had a fresh fruit plate for dessert.

So far, I have not found any Kazakh wines that I enjoy. There are two local beers that are pretty good though.

Saturday morning we took off for Turkestan. By "we", I mean the Philly couple, our driver, our translator and me. We had a nice VW minivan that could comfortably seat 7 people.

It was a four hour drive to Turkestan and it was very interesting. The first part consisted of driving near the mountains. The road was flat and straight and there weren't the scary drop-offs or hairpin turns like Switzerland. Unfortunately, the road wasn't paved in parts so there were large potholes that the driver would swerve to avoid. On our return trip we saw 2 cars that were disabled by the potholes. One car lost its front wheel.

Approximately half-way through the trip we arrived in Shymkent Kazakhstan. At this point we were in an area that reminded me a lot of parts of South Africa, Randy and I had visited years ago. The landscape was pretty flat with brush for the animals to consume. I did a quick google and the area is not considered part of the Kazakh Steppe. We did see herds of cows and sheep. In the distance we saw a group of camels. Many animals would graze near the road and often cross the road.

We also saw people on horseback herding animals and people with mule-drawn carts to move things. Most of the houses were situated off of dirt roads so this time of year there was a lot of mud.

Our destination was the Hodja Akhmed Yassawi Mausoleum. This is considered the ancient city portion of Turkestan. Turkestan recently celebtrated its 1500 year anniversary. We spent several hours touring the mausoleum and the grounds with an English-speaking guide. We saw the kitchen, crypt, bathhouse, library, archeological and historical museums. I will not detail all the history as I can't even spell all the names of the people and places we learned about. We all agreed it was a great tour.

We checked out the souvenir shops near the Masoleum and found very little of interest. I didn't buy anything but took a lot of photos which I will upload a few tomorrow.

On our way out of town we stopped by the Turkestan University as they built a beautiful new building that we wanted a better look at.

It took a bit longer to get home as in addition to the darkness we encountered a heavy fog when we were 60 miles from Taraz.

Overall, it was a nice day out for all of us. I hadn't been out of Taraz since we arrived here and all my car trips have been related to the adoption so it was nice to get away even for just a day.

Marcia

P.S. I was able to load the photos from Winkflash to the blog