Something happened during our recent trip to Kazakhstan (in Central Asia) that will forever alter my decision to ride a cable car or gondola in the future. Obviously, I am okay since I'm writing this, and in spite of this scary event, we had a great visit to Kazakhstan and hope to go back again some day.
Bear with me folks to the end of this post.
We went to visit Harold and Julie, friends of ours on the Member Care team. They live in Almaty, located in southern Kazakhstan, a mountainous area. While Almaty is the largest city in terms of square kilometers, has the largest population, and is the major commercial and cultural center, it lost it's status as the capital in 1997 to Astana.
Upon arriving, I was surprised to find Almaty a very modern city with many, many glass and futuristic skyscrapers. Much more modern looking than Budapest!
I had expected shepherds herding their flocks across rocky hills and men wearing long vests over tan tunics, scarves around their necks and round, wool hats perched sideways on their heads. My mental pictures were totally wrong!
Business men wore suits and women were comfortable in assorted pants and tops, and teenage boys wore faded, baggy jeans while teenage girls wore those very revealing, very short shorts. Evidently, short shorts are very much in style here in Europe because in Hungary, at the Istanbul International Airport where we had our lay-over, and in Kazakhstan, ALL the teenage girls (and sometimes older women who definitely shouldn't be wearing them) were wearing those short shorts.
Even though Almaty is a very modern city in most ways, there are still many, many squatty potties to be used! Fortunately, their sewage system is up-to-date and able to handle the flushing of toilet paper, unlike Greece and a few other countries we've visited!
When visiting different countries, I always look to see if there is a trash can sitting next to the toilet, because if there is, that often means that toilet paper goes in the can, not the toilet.
Not ALL the buildings are modern. Some had a very definite "communistic" look about them, a throwback from when Kazakhstan was part of the former Soviet Union.
Almaty has trash pick-up two days a week. People hang their trash bags outside their yard on the wall around their property for the city to collect on specific days. They are supposed to hang the bags only on pick-up days, but some people put them out on the wall whenever they get a full bag.
I got to meet one of Harold and Julie's neighbors who lives a few houses down the street. Kazakhs generally look mildly Asian with their olive skin, dark hair and small, folded eyes. Most Kazaks are Muslim. For many years, under the rule of the Soviet Union, the Kazakh language was repressed and people were forced to learn Russian. Today, while most people still speak Russian, there is a growing popularity in speaking Kazakh.
Grocery stores are available but I love shopping for fruits and vegetables in the "green" markets, as they are called.
Watermelons are in season and found every where, as were several other delicious types of melons. This HUGE melon is very sweet, and tastes like a cross between cantaloupe and honeydew melons. These do not exist in Hungary as far as I know but I sure wish they did!
The last time I had one of these melons, though much smaller, was in 2008 when I went to Russia. At that time I (mistakenly) paid $7 for a melon the size of our cantaloupes because I didn't calculate correctly the amount of Russian roubles to the American dollar. Ouch! I don't know how much the above melon cost in Kazakhstan, but when I asked Julie the price, she said they are "cheap". Good thing, because we ate two of them in the four days we were there!
In addition to the "green" market, we went to another market that was large and seemed to go on forever. Hats, make-up, leggings, pants, tops, underwear, books, plastic toys, hardware, tools, fabric, towels, sheets and so on ... You could find anything you could possibly want if you were willing to wander forever among the hundreds of stalls, which I was willing to do. :-)
The meat section was large and smelly. The meat on the counter between the woman on the phone and the man in the stripped shirt is horse meat. :-(
Anyone need a pigs head for their next holiday celebration?
Even though the meat market was pretty disgusting to our American sensitivities, it didn't stop me from eating!
Harold and Julie wanted us to eat a typical Kazakh meal called Lagman. It is made with long, thick, chewy, hand-made noodles, and topped with chopped lamb (most often), chicken or beef and various stir fried vegetables. It was delicious! Supposedly at this place, one serving consists of TWO long noodles. Very long noodles. If that is true, I'd guess each noodle was at least a meter long. (A little over a yard ... for those of you who live in America.)
For dessert, we stopped by a grocery store and picked up BAGS of chocolate and vanilla ice cream. Why don't we sell ice cream in bags in America? Or Hungary? It's so easy to open the bag and slice off a piece, and it would lay very nicely over a slice of cake!
One day we went out into the countryside for a picnic and to the Shymbulak ski resort to ride a gondola to the top of one of the mountains.
On our way, we saw a yurt (sounds like a Dr. Suess word, doesn't it???), which is one of the oldest and greatest inventions of nomadic Eurasians! With the help of one camel and two horses, the portable house and all of it's decorations could be moved from one location to another. Yurts are circular, domed, and made of heavy felt. Yurts do not have interior rooms; it was common to have one yurt as a bedroom, another yurt as the kitchen, and if wealthy, a third yurt for guests.
Because the walls are so thick, the air stays cool inside during the hot summer days and warm in the winter, protected from the cold winds, falling snow or pouring rains.
Today, it is not unusual to see local restaurants in yurts, as in the photo above. Customers sit around the low table on the colorful rugs to enjoy one of the many flavorful dishes of the country. Some yurts are also used as places of lodging for tourists who are adventuresome and wanting a taste of the culture.
Fifteen miles south of Almaty is the Shymbulak ski resort, one of the venues of the 2011 Asian Games that was hosted by Almaty. The resort has 3 successive ski lifts, which rise 10,500 feet above sea level to Talgar Pass.
In order to get to the ski resort, we took a 20 minute ride up in a gondola (cable car) that holds 6 people. The ride up was smooth and the views were breathtaking. It was quite warm as we rose to the top because of the sun pouring in through the glass walls.
Off in the distance (if your eyesight is good) you can see the city of Almaty. Closer in, we could see hillsides covered with colorful flowers and blue-green trees.
We saw from the gondola several places where young people professed their love for someone else by laying rocks in the shape of a heart and writing their names.
After an hour or so at the ski resort we decided it was time to leave. We are so THANKFUL that we did not leave a minute later! Our ride down was just as smooth and warm as the ride up, but just as we approached and were about 6 inches from the deck where we were to exit the gondola, the entire machinery ground to a halt. Slowly, screechingly, and with great effort, the gondola finally moved- inch by inch- to the deck and our door would open.
With haste, we exited the gondola, relieved that we didn't get stuck on board! I'm slightly claustrophobic so I'm relatively sure I would have had a major freak-out if I was stuck in the gondola with only two small windows! As we were walking back to our car, we noticed that none of the gondolas were moving! There was a problem and all the people on the gondolas were stuck in the air! Literally, we were the last people off the gondola before it broke down. We got off JUST IN THE NICK OF TIME!
Several of us were curious about how long the folks would be stuck in the air and most of us were thirsty, so we decided to go to a cafe' at the world famous Medeu* ice skating rink where we had parked our car to watch. We bought drinks at the Trader Vic's* restaurant/cafe and watched for an hour and a half to see if the cable cars would start moving, which, unfortunately, they did not!
After praying for those poor, confined folks who were stuck in the air for who know how long, we decided to leave. Honestly, all evening I kept thinking about those folks and how closely that could have been us; how miserable it would be to be stuck in one of those boxes for an indefinite amount of time. We were 6 inches and 10 seconds away from a major freak-out!
*Medeu ice skating rink is located at 5,550 feet above sea level and is world-famous because of the more than 120 world records set there! It was built in 1972 and is almost the size of two football fields.
*Trader Vic's is an American restaurant chain known for it's Polynesian-theme restaurants and their Mai Tai drink. As of 2012, there are 4 Trader Vic's restaurants in the U.S., 3 in Europe, 8 in the Middle East, and 3 in Asia. If you could read the menu above, you'd see that one of the 8 in the U.S. is located in Atlanta, Georgia. We just happened to get a drink from one of the 3 in Asia!
Hopefully this week will be less "exciting" than our gondola experience!
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