After our trip to Nubra we had a couple of days lazing around in Leh. We ate pizza again at the lovely cafe where everyone takes their shoes off and sits in carpets around low tables…a decision that would have consequences for Tim at a later date….

We visited the small museum in the centre of Leh. It is a new building but was built using traditional methods. There are interesting old photographs dating from the 1920s and earlier, including those showing the original mosque which has since been rebuilt in a much grander style. Some of the photos were bequeathed by the family of an English soldier/ official who fell in love with the town and spent a lot of time here from the 1939s -50s. The history of Leh’s connection with the silk road is documented.

We wandered the backstreets feasting on cake and coffee. The area that we were staying in was fields twenty years ago, according to the Sikh proprietor of the cafe near the Shanti Stupa. We discovered short cuts through back alleys where we got glimpses of how life used to be – women carrying hay on their heads (or ‘cow salad’ as Tim called it to one woman’s amusement), gardens/vegetable patches (including the one at our guesthouse) and many irrigation channels that used to water the fields and now carry water to guest houses. Cows wandered lazily along the roads and dogs rested in the shade. The ever present mountains loomed over us, at once beautiful, awe inspiring and frightening.

We discussed our next move – booking a trek in Leh, returning to India or starting a new journey through Central Asia. In the end we decided on this last option. It would head us in the vague direction of home and we could jump from city to city, eventually reaching Samarkand and Istanbul, both cities that I have wanted to visit for many years.

If we were to travel through Central Asia and have time for a two or three week complete chill out before returning home we probably didn’t have time for a trek in Leh as well. The weather forecast for India was looking grim. It wouldn’t be possible to return to Himachel Pradesh – the risk of floods and landslides was very high. The monsoon had been unusually fierce in a number of regions in India this year. Indian judges had recently made a ruling stating that further development in Himachal Pradesh risked totally destroying it. But the state is in debt, people are greedy for tourist revenue and there are corruption issues.

It was too dangerous to travel back overland so we booked a flight to Delhi where we spent an uneventful and expensive night in Aerocity. I have written about that odd area in a previous blog (December 2024).

At a very civilised hour we boarded an Air Astana flight. I recommend this airline – it is efficient, the seats were roomy, there was loads of movie choice and we were served a meal and alcohol on a three hour flight!

We had read numerous blogs about taxi scams at Almaty airport so we were determined to get the bus. The taxi drivers offering us rides weren’t too persistent, although like taxi drivers all over the world, when we told them we were getting the bus they assured us that it wasn’t running. Once we crossed over the road outside the airport and started asking people we soon found our stop. People were more reserved and less smiley than in India, but were very friendly once we got chatting to them.

It was a culture shock realising that traffic would actually stop for us at road crossings! The bus we boarded for the town centre was just like the ones in Hastings. There must be a factory somewhere that churns them out to towns across the world. It took us about 45 minutes to get into town – the bus stopped only five minutes from our hotel.

We had originally booked a hostel a bit further outside town, but changed to this place when I realised how far away from the main sights it was. In fact it would have been fine as it is very easy to get round Almaty using the bus and metro systems. The place we were now booked into was a Russian style hotel with dark wooden furniture and large rooms, atmospheric of a bygone era.

We freshened up and wandered out in the cooler evening air to explore. Almaty is a city of wide boulevards, trees and parks. Only about ten minutes from our hotel we came across Ascension Cathedral, one of two Russian orthodox cathedrals in Almaty. This first day we viewed it from the outside but the next day when we spent some time inside it we met a Russian man who told us a bit about its history. Following an earthquake that destroyed a lot of the city, the Cathedral was built of wood to an earthquake proof design. The architect was seen dancing for joy outside it after an earthquake struck the city and it survived.

Near the cathedral were a number of Soviet monuments celebrating comrades who fell in the Second World War, including an eternal flame. Kazaksthan has plenty of oil and gas and this has made a proportion of the population wealthy and driven economic development. Like the other ‘Stans Kazaksthan seems to be walking a tightrope between maintaining good relations with Russia and asserting its independence.

We found a cafe where we ate a delicious noodle dish before walking back to our hotel, ready for bed after our busy first day in Almaty.