Day 1/Day 2 - The Road Less Travelled

Today we’re off to explore the road less travelled. We’re heading for Central Asia specifically Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan colloquially known as “The Stans” – well three of them at least. There’s a few more ‘stans we’re not visiting and a couple we’re giving a wide berth to namely Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Once again, as was the case on our previous trip, these are countries that for all of our lives have been largely “off limits” to western tourists. But since the breakup of the Soviet Union countries like these are becoming more accessible and tourist-friendly. Indeed, being the wonderful, friendly people that Australian are we don’t even need a visa for any of them. Furthermore, the Australian SmartTraveller service categorises Kazakhstan as “Exercise normal safety precautions” which is better than most countries in Europe which are largely categorised as “Exercise a high degree of caution”.

I don’t really have a fascination with the post-Soviet parts of the world it’s just the way it’s turned out. I am intrigued by the ancient Silk Road which ran right through this part of the northern hemisphere and the part it played in the transformation of the world just as I’ve always been intrigued by the way in which the Roman Empire transformed the world. The Silk Road was the path that facilitated the beginning of the “globalisation” of the world we live in today.

Our journey to the heart of the Silk Road will begin on an Emirates flight out of Melbourne to Dubai. We’ll spend a few hours there waiting for the connecting Air Astana flight to Astana, the northern capital of Kazakhstan. With the best part of two days left to our own devices we’ll then join an Intrepid Travel tour called, un-romantically, “Astana to Tashkent”. Over the next 25 days we’ll travel on planes, trains and automobiles to the southern parts of the country, across to Almaty (the forrner capital) then across the border into Kyrgyzstan and up into the Tein Shen mountains. Up there we expect to see some pretty spectacular scenery, sleep in yurts and hike a little. Then back down to the Verdana valley and across the border into the flat, desert lands of Uzbekistan and some of that classic architecture of the region – well, that’s my expectations, at least.

There’s lots of towns and cities along this journey whose name I’m familiar with – Astana, Almaty, Osh, Bishkek, Tashkent and Samarkand to name a few so it’ll be good to “put a face to the name”.

Our flight out of Melbourne left late on Saturday night, about bed time, which I reckon may prove to be a good time to do the long “kangaroo flight” to the other side of the world. After a really good dinner it wasn’t hard to fall asleep and stay asleep waking only for a middle of the night snack and breakfast just 90 minutes out of Dubai. Our 5.5hr layover here means we’ll get to Astana at 5:00pm local time. A quick dinner and we’ll be on track for a normal night’s sleep ready to take on Astana in the morning.