Global Village
Driving with Alikhan and his chauffeur we were crossing a Lord of the Rings-esk landscape. This feeling amplified by us coming from Gallandia, at least according to the Kazakh. We were driving away from urban life, the towns became ever smaller and sparser. In between we saw herds of sheep and cattle roaming the green landscape. Until the point where our cellphone lost coverage and the high quality tarmac road suddenly turned into a potholed gravel one. At this point we could see the end of the valley and the foothills of the Ugam mountains behind it. Here in a tiny farmers village we stopped at the house of Mills. Not hindered by any knowledge of English he bid us a hearty welcome to his house. He showed us the yurt that would become our residence for the coming two nights.
His farm and in fact the entire village had striking similarities with other farms and villages I’ve visited when I was younger. For me it was easy to recognize the different aspects of the farm and the purpose of the different tools. With the aid of his phonetic English phrasebook and our phonetic Russian phrasebook we managed to talk a bit about his farm while he showed us the farm and hinterland. After lunch he brought us on top of the hills on the other side of the valley. From here we had an unobstructed view of the nothingness that is the Kazakh steppe. Everywhere we could spot small and larger herds of sheep, cattle and horses, often unaccompanied by humans.
Horses in Tolkien-land
In the evening we went down the road to visit the other foreigners in town. They turned out to be 2 women and one man from New Zealand. They were traveling from Beijing to London by train. They told us about the very interesting twilight ritual that happened in the village. Apparently the sheep herding and the herding of the younger cows was a communal effort. A few herdsmen took all the sheep and the younger cattle to the pastures uphill. In the evening they would return over the main road and the animals would branch of to their respective stables. Also, at least as interesting, they told us that everyone leaving China is being searched for subversive pictures on Tibet. They also had met travelers who attempted the same trip as we originally had planned. They all were stopped and turned back before they could reach Tibet. This made our ‘loss’ of Tibet slightly more bearable.
The next day we set out for a 20 km hike to the mountains. According to our Kazakh guide it would involve some extreme climbing. We walked into a valley and at the point where it turned into a gorge with almost vertical sides our guide decided that this was a good point to do the ‘extreme’ climbing to the top. From there the mountains seemed to be no further then an hours walk. They did so for the rest of the trip. The valley and especially the gorge had a raw nature feeling to it. However on the highlands above it cattle and horses grazed. We past several herds of animals until the guide stopped at one and carefully counted them and send them to a different direction in the end. He explained us later that there were his horses.
Sierk having a ball with balance
We had lunch in the herdsmens hideout in the hills. One of the herdsmen we had met had taken our food and prepared a nice warm lunch. This surely was communitybased tourism. Once back home we had some quality time with our beds before dinner and discussed possible Dutch-Kazakh trading oppertunities with our guide and host before turning in.