Where are Ron and Ellen?
Central Asia, 17 September - 18 November 2009
Ron and Ellen and Amir Timur (Tamerlane), Tashkent, Uzbekistan, September 2009
Almaty, Kazakhstan, September 2009
Exploring Almaty
To see photos of Almaty, click on the thumbnail at the left.
19 September 2009
Almaty, KazakhstanDear Family and Friends,
This is just a short message to let everyone know we arrived safely at our hotel in Almaty, 31 hours after we walked out of our front door in Afton. Our 7 hour flight from Dulles to Frankfurt was very uncomfortable: we agreed that we have never in all our travels been on a plane that was so tight on space. Out knees were rammed up against the seats in front of us (and we aren't very tall) and any time the people in the seats in front of us tilted their seats back, you couldn't even put anything on the tray table because there was no room, and you couldn't get in or out of the seat. We made up for this on the 6 hour flight from Frankfurt to Almaty, on an even bigger plane where there were so few people on the flight that everyone spread out and many of us stretched out and slept in the long middle row of seats.
Today we have done a lot of walking around Almaty, taking care of the basics like the ATM machine, buying water, and finding out where the bus station is for Monday morning when we go on to Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan. We wandered through several parks, watching some kind of league soccor tournament (high school age boys) for a while. This evening we went to the Russian Orthodox service in the Cathedral. Quite spectacular, with wonderful music, although most of the time we didn't have a clue as to what was going on.
Now we are splitting an hour of Internet to keep ourselves awake before going back to our hotel to collapse!
Love to all,
Ellen and Ron
25 September 2009
Bishkek, KyrgyzstanDear Family and Friends,
When we last wrote, we were in Almaty, Kazakhstan. We had one more day in Almaty, last Sunday, in which we wandered through two different festivals being held in two different big squares (music and dance performances, booths selling food, balloons, etc, carnival-type games, gymnasts performing on trampolines). Then we took the cable car up to the top of a big hill on the edge of the city, something our guide book said was one of the things not to be missed. We didn't agree with the guidebook, but it was interesting in that we watched local folks in the park (again, carnival-type games) on a Sunday afternoon. And the views of the nearby snow-capped mountains, the foothills, and the city itself were quite nice, although we also had a fine view of the mountains from our hotel room.
Love to all,
Ellen and Ron
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Last updated: 30 October 2009
