The Tien-Shan Mountains The rest of our train journey to Almaty was tedious. Long flat plains are okay if you have a comfortable seat where you can read and play cards, occasionally staring out of the window and spotting a camel chewing belligerently in the distance. Then, an air of romance might be kept in […]
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In search of a camel We boarded our next sleeper train at Atyrau in Kazakhstan, bound for Almaty in the east, and I had just got comfortable in my window seat when I noticed something crawling on my leg. A small brown praying mantis, instantly named ‘Manti’ – we have no idea of gender but
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Stroking a bat and shaking hands with a bear – Theo’s blog It’s not surprising that when we first arrived, without a hitch, in Southern Russia, we wondered for a moment if we were in some kind of artificial “Truman Show” set designed to enchant and deceive gullible western visitors with its loveliness. But it
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Brief encounters in Georgia – Theo’s blog I’m writing this in the little apartment we’ve rented in Atyrau for our first night in Kazakhstan, reflecting how nice it is to have a space of our own (even if the intermittent water from the kitchen tap is a toxic brownish yellow, unsafe to drink). But I
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The Tale of Kaz & Stan – by Rosa After the rough night on a sleeper train crossing the border between Russia and Kazakhstan (where it seemed like there was no end to the intimidating border guards who needed to check our passports or our phones), we arrived in Atyrau at 5:45am, sufficiently exhausted. And,
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From Russia, with love (…and if I’m honest a little bit of fear!) Halfway through the train journey that took us out of Russia and into Kazakhstan, I had to delete this post. At that point Theo had been being interrogated for nearly an hour by Russian security forces. Theo spoke quickly and
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Being Here Now – Theo I haven’t been travelling as lightly as I’d like. Our rucksacks seem pretty sorted, and I’m proud of us for that, but I’ve still been bringing a load of expectations and assumptions with me over each border we’ve crossed, and I hope I’m beginning to shed some of that as
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Tbilisi Georgia is not how I thought it would be. I had visions of Tbilisi being a quaint market garden town/small city (perhaps a little like Wells) with cobbled streets and a picturesque river running through it. I was hoping to go on little trips to the mountains to see beautiful scenery and maybe hear
Theo’s blog: “Welcome to your personalised Sauna Spa and Wellness experience…” ….was not what the thick-set taciturn man at the dark entrance to the men’s Hammam in Kadikoy said to me, as he wordlessly ushered me in from the street. “English” I say, “Turkish” says he, and hands me a pair of crocks, a towel
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‘Soften, and use little water.’ Before we left Konya we went to Rumi’s shrine…I wondered if it would be a meaningful experience, looking at a dead poets grave (one of the sacred sites of the world because he was after all a great Sufi poet and his Turkish name, Mevlana, means Master, but nevertheless a
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