(Kazahkstan-Aksu Zhabagly Nature reserve) Hold your horses!

Perhaps the main thing associated with central asian countries are great horsemen and mongol hordes gallopping across the steppes. Not surprisingly, a major tourist activity for foreigners is horse trekking. We were no different and all of us (Dan, I and the French guy= Thomas) had plans on doing exactly this. None of us had very much experience and Dan had never even sat on a horse (only camels and an elephant). Despite this we were all cocky and set to do a 4-day horse trek in the Aksu-Zhabagly nature reserve.

We managed to organise horse trekking through a guy (Yevgeny) who spoke English.  The plan was to horse trek during the day and then camp at night. Unfortunately it was not allowed to camp within the park so we would have to make our way just outside of the reserve boundaries every evening usually in close proximity to the ranger's house. Even if we wanted to do 4 days Yevgeny had first organized permits for two days and then "we'll see" he said. He mentioned something about the weather, but I think we were too excited to register that bit of information.
The next day we were ready to go and our instructions were drrrr = stop and choo= go, commands that we noticed didn't always work. A bit wobbly to get onto the horse but then it was OK. We all looked quite comfortable in the saddles.We took off at a slow pace to kind of get the feel for it and to try and take photos...little did we know how hard it was to take photos while riding, even at a slow pace. I thought we were doing OK, even though the guide kept telling us we were the slowest tourist he had ever ridden with. In our defence he had only been working at the reserve for 2 weeks.  We rode for almost 7 hours the first day through spectacular mountains. Needless to say, that long on a horse left us looking like a sorry bunch at the end of the day. Thomas was red and sunburnt, my knees for some reason hurt (bad technique???) and Dan's ass was sore unlike ever before (including his last visit to the hospital emergency room hehehe! For further information ask Dan about it!). Exhausted and in pain we were dropped off by horse 2 km outside of the main village where we would camp for the night. After a dinner of canned meat and barely-cooked rice/glue (issues getting the water boiling properly after 2 hours on the campfire makes you less picky about how well-cooked the rice is) we crawled into the tent. Next morning we were all stiff and  in pain and I was dreading getting back onto the horse. Surprisingly, once I was in the saddle it was like my limbs got numb and I couldn't actually feel that much.

Back in the village we met up with Yevgeny to organize the remaining days of our horse trekking combining it with a bit of hiking as well. We had completely forgotten about the warning of bad weather and took off again the next day. Towards the afternoon it was clear that it was going to rain and Dan was the only smart one who had prepared with rain jacket AND rain pants (I only had a rain jacket)! We rode in the pouring rain with the wind blowing in our faces. Not the best conditions for horse riding. The horses slid in the mud and it didn't help that my horse definitely had an eating disorder. Midstride he would stop cause he saw something to eat causing further delays for everyone. Finally we came to the Viktor the ranger's house pretty much soaked through and cold to the bones. Viktor was not exactly the warm type. He had a rugged looking face with ice cold blue eyes. He looked a bit like Ed Gein, the inspiration for Texas chainsaw massacre. At this point we still hoped that maybe Viktor would take pity on us and let us stay in the house even if the arrangement was that we were supposed to stay in the tent. Not very likely.Without a word he showed us where to set up the tent beside a frog-filled lake. The rain kept falling and the wind picked up. Wet and cold we jumped into our sleepingbags and tried to sleep. We heard the wind roaring outside and the rain was continuously hitting the tent. Suddenly there was a strange noise. It was Viktor splashing around in the lake outside trying to start some kind of pump system. The whole situation was a bit creepy and it didn't help that Dan had mentioned that he had seen a fine collection of axes and hacksaws in Viktor's shed. I thought " Shit, no one knows where we are...we don't even know where the hell we are!!!!" In my exhausted state I was convinced that he was going to chop us up and dump us into the lake! The other two were too tired to care. Obviously that night didn't bring much sleep as I stayed awake in preparation for the end....The next day arrived without any further dramas. Viktor even greeted us with an offer of hot tea and told us to bring some vodka to share next time we visited. He was a nice guy after all!!!

Kazakhstan (Almaty-Shymkent) blunders in the night....

Arriving in Almaty was the easiest part of Kazakhstan so far.....even if we got completely ripped off by a taxi driver who wanted US$160 for a 20 km ride. Not even trying to be remotely fair in ripping us off. We managed to haggle the price down multifold, but it was hard work. We spent the next few days shellshocked by being almost illiterate and unable to communicate even the simplest things. Even though we managed to decipher the russian cyrillic alphabet we had no idea what it meant. And then there was the Kazakh alphabet to confuse matters even more! Another realisation was that the infrastructure for tourists like us was non-existant and all the places the lonely planet book mentioned had closed down (not a good sign). At this point we realized that the book we bought was from 2007 and not much information was current (big thank you to Borders in San Francisco!).

We looked for more useful information on the internet and managed to find a like-minded french tourist who was as lost as us! (he was the first tourist we had seen in 3 days). We decided that 3 lost tourists were even better than 2 and joined up...
After a few rivetting days in Almaty sorting out visas we had to get out of the place so we caught the next train to Shymkent. As soon as we arrived we ventured to what was supposedly a tourist information place that turned out to be an english language school. We ended up teaching english during the day and then we were invited to a party were we would spend the night.
As a good tourist and a representative of your country you always want to leave a good impression and follow local customs. Tonight we would find that this is not always that easy to do! We were asked if we wanted to taste a local delicacy, which consisted of fermented horse milk. Being lactose intolerant I was a bit apprehensive, but didn't want to offend our new friend. The milk was warmish, incredibly salty and sour, with mystery bits at the bottom... not the best combination!!!  We ended up taking a few sips before giving up with my stomach still intact. I guess fermented milk doesn't have much lactose? Next stop was the party- someone's apartment. Our hosts were a not-so-happily married couple (apparently the Kazakh book of 'how to be a good wife' wasn't that useful!). The hostess prepared a meal ('5 fingers', beshbarmak sp?) consisting of flat pasta, potato, carrot and horse-meat. It was absolutely delicious! We all ate from a central dish and we were seated on the floor eating away and having a good time. After the meal it was Karaoke time- pity it was all in Kazakh so we couldn't partake! (that's our excuse anyway...). Everything was going well until Dan walked across the 'table'- a plastic sheet on the ground where the food had been served several hours earlier. He was told off ('why are you walking on our table?!?!'). hmmmmm.... a moment of awkward silence ensued and an embarrassed Dan apologised profusely. oooops! After singing it was time to go to bed (it was 3AM). We laid down matresses and got ready for bed. To make it easier for our hosts we decided to use our sleeping bags instead of using their nice clean blankets. Bad move! They looked at us in disbelief as if we had pulled out infectious disease suits! 'we have antibiotics in this country!' was their response (!?!!?). After 5 mins of aimless discussion we realised that this was considered to be very strange behaviour and was incredibly offensive and the sleeping bags went back into the packs... Oooops #2! The next morning our hosts wanted to exchange gifts- we really had nothing to offer apart from a toy fish from cambodia which we swapped for some prayer beads. The husband for some reason wanted to swap watches and since I was quite attached to mine Dan offered to exchange his smelly timex for a dusty, fake citizen ecodrive. Not sure who won on this deal, but it certainly wasn't Dan! He also got a small perfume from the husband maybe because he had a whiff of the watch strap! (5 days later Dan's 'new' watch stopped working and the strap broke off!). Despite all the major blunders and misunderstandings we all had a great time and believe that we left on good terms!

Oman (Muscat-Nizwa-Sur) Arabian nights

Oman has been on the list of "Countries to visit" for awhile. People we met along the way all seem to ask the same thing "why Oman?". Can't say that I knew much about Oman in particular, but it was different and my father visited some time ago and described it as something from the book "Arabian nights". The crossing from UAE to Oman was pleasantly easy and apart for a search through our bags by the customs officers there was no hassle at all. The bustrip was also ridiculously easy for being us and we were in Muscat in no time. Muscat is a pretty strange place in terms of layout. There is no real city centre. Instead there are "city parts" spread out over a distance of 50 km which is collectively called Muscat. We opted to stay in Mutrah which felt more like a fishing village. It was blissfully quiet and relaxing and people were amazingly polite and helpful!

As usual Dan and I had not even opened our guidebook until arrival. Now that we were here in this wonderful country maybe it was time to start thinking about what we wanted to see other than the inside of shawarma restaurants!! Most people probably are a bit more prepared, but in our defence we had moved between countries just before the trip and had shipped the guidebooks straight to NZ to avoid having to carry bulky books. We soon found out that for this country being prepared would've been beneficial. There were very little public transport of any kind to sites of interest and apparently this was a country for almost exclusive driving. Either one of us had brought our driver's license since we thought international driver's license was required, which turned out to not be the case. Merde as the french would say!! We discussed the best way of doing this and soon came to the conclusion that it was best to get hold of a driver and a car. We shopped around for potential drivers+cars. It was heartbreakingly expensive, but we decided to go on the road for 3 days with a driver or we would not see anything at all. We had said that since this outing was so expensive there would be no sleeping in the car to make the most of every second. I am notorious for falling asleep in cars so that would be a challenge on its own. We were meet by our driver Hamad, who was a friendly guy that spoke good English. We liked him at once and me even more when it turned out that he also trained Muay Thai (although only in Thailand since it is not allowed in Oman). Our roadtrip covered incredible landscapes, sand dune bashing (scary but fun), sea turtle nesting and swimming in amazingly turquoise water in Wadis. Although we decided to go back to UAE after our road trip (a day or two earlier than initially planned), Oman was everything I had expected and we will definitely go back there again.....with our driver's licenses.