Kathmandu - Heritage hotel

This post will be mainly photos. It's the hotel I stayed in in Kathmandu, Nepal. It's the most beautiful place I have ever stayed in. Stunning. I will write about Kathmandu later. :-)

Dwarika's Hotel

(it rained most days...)

Metal

Clay

Wood

Astana and Almaty, Kazakhstan

I am currently in Dubai, 'present' at my usual work activity (sorry for being cagey but it's a secret - right, T&M ;-) ... ) I have no clients at the moment so instead I'm writing and letting you know how Kazakhstan was (over a week ago now)...

Before I start though, for those who think I have such a glamorous travelling job, last night I was flying from Kathmandu to Dubai (via Delhi) and guess what... a bit of a flight delay... Instead of landing at 9pm we landed at 2am. Whatever the reason for the delay was, I don't know but by the time I arrived I was tired, dirty and sick of India!

Anyway, a different day as I continue. I just flew into Muscat. I so wanted to check out the Muttrah Souq here (silver jewellery) but it's closed 1-5pm and I arrived here at 1pm and start work at 5pm... Grrrr!

So back to Kazakhstan and writing about life rather than living it! ;-)

First was Astana.

This is the new capital of Kazakhstan and all new buildings with quirky architecture.

And despite the loads of new buildings and wide roads, there were hardly any people there. Maybe they all went to Sydney for the weekend? (Canberra joke...)I'm going to be pretentious here but it looks like a cross between Canberra and Doha...

Almaty which came second, was the old capital and from the time I landed I was Impressed (with capital 'I')!

The main reason for my amazement were the mountains surrounding the valley where Almaty is placed. I'm a sucker for snow capped mountains and Almaty had them - as the photos from my hotel window show. I fell asleep and woke up with their view (well it was too dark to see when I fell asleep but I knew they were there).

After Russia, Kazakh people turned out to be very friendly and nice. And they all spoke Russian as well as Kazakh so I could still understand them. The city was green and leafy and so clean and cosmopolitan. Very much like a European capital and when I saw the Eiffel Tower I was thoroughly confused!

The horse, a national symbol, was everywhere, including the menu (no I didn't try).

As much as I whinged about going to Kazakhstan, I was very pleasantly surprised and would love to come back here in the future!

UPDATED: Saint Petersburg and Kazan (Tatarstan)

Today I'll update the few days spent in St Petersburg and Kazan.

And just in case anyone is wondering... I'm alive, I wasn't on the plane that crashed in Nepal. But I am in Nepal and it's raining (and raining and raining)... Which in a city like Kathmandu means it's muddy and I have soaked all my shoes... What better excuse to feed my shoe habit some might say, but this also means getting to the shoe shop and finding a good one... Ohh such problems... ;-)

So Saint Petersburg!

WOW - a beautiful city!!! It really is Venice of the North as I hope my 'inferior phone photos' will show.

I've been told today to start using a real camera again and this time the logic was that taking photos with my phone made me look like a Russian spy... Hmmm (that was supposed to push my anti-Russian button). But if you stand far back enough all the photos are clear and focused! :-)

But if you complain about my photos, take a look at the ones Nat took of me! :-P

I was a perfect subject - photogenic, beautiful and thin and yet she managed to make me look like this!! Sorry Nat! ;-)

So for those who don't know, Nat and D. were my housemates in Oxford and better parents to Frankie and Pushkin than I ever was. And Nat and D. are Russian and taught me all the Russian I know. My favourite Russian word being "zaja" (I was always away for the Cyrillic writing lessons), which I think means something like Schatzi in German - we're an international, poligot crowd here!). So Nat was the only human the half feral Frankie ever loved and Frankie even tolerated D. as long as he fed her dried Russian fish (no, I never qualified, I was the slave and pill

giver). And D. was the person that understood Pushkin though Pushkin never understood why D. kept asking: "In or out Pushkin, in or out?", when all Pushkin wanted to do was be

in between in and out... Pushkin's name was unintentionally Russian, for those who wonder. And to the current cat in whose house I'm living - Sasha is short for Alexander - coincidentally, the real Pushkin's first name... ;-)

Anyway, Nat is a St Pet local and so I met up with her on my free day. In a typical Russian style we had 3 or so bottles of alcohol - Russian Champagne of course. I realised (again) that I'm old(er) and cannot drink and recover as quickly as I used to. Nat is still young and she has lots of practice, especially being back in St Pet! ;-)

And on the photo, Nat turned out red - she must have been to a tanning salon recently... Which by the way, she tried to convince me (the ultimate sun hater and sun block user) that it was good for me to tan a little... Yeah right! :-P

More photos for those photo hungry...

We went on a boat trip (drinking champagne all along), had a dinner on a different boat and talked to D. who was somewhere else.

The boat where we had dinner was amazing! A little fairy tale land with star constellations painted on the ceiling. We sat under Hercules.

We both had an incredible wild mushroom soup. And I have to admit that every place since then, I ordered mushroom soup hoping I will get a similar one... But no.

And... My mum told me not to eat mushrooms in Russia since they absorb radiation more than other plants (is mushroom a plant?) but mum, I couldn't resist! I lived through Chernobyl and already absorbed too much. :-)

And last photo before I go for my massage here in Kathmandu... It's of the Orthodox cathedral in St Petersburg, taken by me from the boat. When I was looking at it later, I noticed how much the person on the bridge looks like me. No wonder people think I'm Russian! ;-)

Kazan, Tatarstan

(updating whenever I have time and there are no power cuts in Kathmandu).

Kazan is a very old city and so much nicer than Moscow was. My hotel was just across from the Kremlin, which is where the blue domed mosque was and some very old looking wood and stone towers (I did go looking around there early in the morning, but didn't hire an English speaking guide so can't tell you much about history).

Mushrooms in Kazan were good too! In the evening one other Aussie and myself went out to a restaurant which beat all records in how long it took them to bring us food. I only ordered mushroom plate and a typical Russian salad (Tatar salad to be precise - Nat never made that one but she made lots of other salads with beetroot and herrings!). But my dinner comrade decided to try horse steak and we thought they needed to catch the horse... When they eventually brought our food, they forgot the cutlery, so that was another 15min. Luckily my food was already cold so it couldn't get any colder... But apparently horse steak gets tough as its temperature drops. I even took a photo of my radioactive mushrooms - there were 5 types - but I can't find that photo!!!

I think we found out the reason for the food delay though...

After 10pm the waitress came in with a note explaining that after 10pm live music would be played and additional 100 roubles would be charged per person for that reason. So a band came and sang some 1980s covers and they were surprisingly good, though LOUD (but that's just me getting old...). And the best thing was: in a room that could have easily fit 200-300 people, there were about 10 people present (including us) and this one dancing couple on the massive dance floor, dancing, kissing and groping like the world didn't exist! That's what I call courage! ;-)

As almost a Russian speaker, I was also the group communicator and was given the task of ordering food, buying souvenirs, asking for directions, talking to scary looking officials like the airport x-ray machine operators - I was indispensable... Until my bubble was burst when one of the other Australians who also spoke Turkish, discovered that he could understand Tatar!! And Kazakh, Uzbek, Armenian... blah blah blah...

Moscow to Kathmandu updating... (SORRY!)

Maybe because it's raining and maybe because I got lost so bad and then drenched by the rain on my way back, I don't like Moscow. The only look I had has really been from the back of a taxi and I wasn't going to take photos of the Kremlin and Red Square standing in the rain or from inside the car (besides the windows were wet and fogged) so no pictures for you, sorry. I'm also either suffering the effects of pollution or the rain, with a cough and a cold developing. Vodka would probably help... or any alcohol really... But no! No vodka in Moscow for me!

The first taste of the Russian drinkers I had on the plane over here. Nice British Airways flight, everyone so proper, so British, so 'just a drop of milk in my tea please', well except the Russian lady I was sitting next to. She had 4 shiny gold teeth, right at the front, and so many gold rings I didn't think she'd be able to move her hands. She disliked being buckled in the seat and kept unbuckling with a flourish and getting up to stand in the aisle whenever she felt like it - take off, landing (that was fun for the British flight staff - none of them spoke Russian). She also kept asking for drinks (using that well known gesture of downing a shot glass) and bless them they kept bringing her water. Until the food service and drinks started and this is where you could tell the wolves from the sheep or the Russians from the Brits... (Let me remind you that the flight was a morning one, 8am, breakfast was served...) The gold tooth lady took 3 little whiskey bottles and said no to the coke the offered to water them down with. The man in front, Russian as well, asked for 2 and then buzzed the flight attendants twice for more, until the told him 'no more'. Then the gold tooth lady (GTL) buzzed as well and when the flight attendant said 'niet!' the GTL asked for a big whiskey and kept gesturing until they understood she wanted to buy it duty free. Well she got her litre of whiskey bought with US dollars the GTL rolled up and stashed in her light silvery-blue leather jacket (of course!). When the staff left her, she unbuckled her seat belt, opened the bottle, took a swig and smiled a golden smile at me!

It is also so expensive here! I'm glad I'm not paying my way here. It is the city of billionaires, certainly, and these billionaires are also a lot younger than American ones I have heard (19 years younger on average). There are shiny and glittery things everywhere, not always tasteful, but they do shine, like golden teeth!!

I tried to find my Russian barbie doll (I started a collection of them in India last time) and I found her - Verushka - but for 435 dollars AU, she's staying in Russia!! But how cool does she look!!

I don't know who the guy is, but he was expensive too...

I also found out that I can still remember some Russian (but cannot speak it at all). I understood the first thing when the taxi driver that was waiting to pick me up at the airport described me to his fellow waiting taxi drivers (I passed). I understood the hotel staff didn't care whether they put me in a smoking or non smoking room, it's all the same anyway (it isn't..). Then later when I went to collect my passport after registration, the hotel receptionist asked me what language they speak in Australia? 'Australian' I answered. There!