Shimkent & the next few days

Eventually dragged myself out of Almaty, having had a good rest from the moving on and on, form place to place that has dominated so much of my life recently. Not sure I if recovered much as I spent most of the time out and about exploring Almaty's cafes, restaurants and bars with Jon the cyclist I first met in Romania sometime ago. We found out we both arrived within a few days and the result was quite a few late nights out followed by early starts to take advantage of the hotel breakfast and often to go to queue up at consulates. But now I have my visas and have moved on to Shimkent.

My trip here was going to be a nice quiet sleep for me, but again my carriage companions wanted to talk more than I did. I thought I was well planned following the Russian way of bringing noodles, tea-bags and bread with you for these journeys, but it seems the Kazakhs make more of a deal of things. While I ate my noodles, they brought out pieces of roasted chicken, bags of fresh greek salad and fresh bourshak (made by Zhani's wife and it was very tasty I have to say). Later, while standing in the corridor, I was dragged into next door compartment by the lady in there and offered vodka and beer and introduced to her daughter. They had an even grander display of food with an entire roast chicken sitting on the table and sausages and bread all around, awaiting the arrival of here sister at a later station, at which point the feast would begin. After a beer I managed to escape, but the Kazakh hospitatility again was wonderful.

Shimkent is a bustling town with an even more bustling bazaar which seems to have absolutley anything and everything available. It is pretty large and is easy to get lost in, when you get out you find another similar area starts next door or across the road. Simplest thing was just to wander around and when I had enough, find a road and try work out where I had got to. Just like on the roads, the paths through the bazaar were full fo traffic jams of sellers moving products around on their trolleys and carts and when gridlock occurrs, they just stand and argue for ever about who should go first, while the situation gets worse and worse until noone can move at all... The roads are a little - but not much - better, mini-bus (mashrutnoes), busses and taxis are everywhere again, there is no shortage of public transport in this town. They block the roads, drive blindly and toot horns constantly all day long.



Left: Traffic jams all over Shimkent
Right: Kazakh costumes at the Shimkent bazar

There's not much else to see in Shimkent, the bazar is the highlight, but I will use it as starting point to visit:

• Turkestan, where stands Kazkhstan's greatest building; the mausoleum of the Kozha Akhmed Yasaui, the first great Turkic Muslim holy man.
• Aksu-Zhabaghly nature reserve, which for the 'cloggies' reading, is apparrently the real home of the tulip !!. It is located in the Tian Shan mountian range and has much beautiful natural scenery, I will find a homestay there for a couple of nights and enjoy the fresh countryside air again !

I visited The Shimkent bazar again the next day and got completely lost again in a totally new part i had not discovered yesterday. I had just bought some new sandals, thinking I already seen the 'shoes' section yesterday when I came across a whole new vast sprawling area containing rows and rows of tables selling just shoes, I have never seen so many shoes in one place ever and doubt I ever will again. It would be amazing for anyone interested in shoes, but I was just trying to find a way out of there. Adding photos would in now way even start to describe the enormity and atmosphere of the Shimkent bazar, so I won't.