Man – setting off was quite an act: despite a carefully devised plan with a one day buffer we ended up packing the last items in our house while the taxi to bring us to the airport was already waiting. Pooh. We travelled with 15 bags: four ski bags, four ski boot bags, one enormous ice hockey bag, four backpacks that we plan to use for the trip into warmer areas, the ubiquitous rice bag containing our ABS backpacks and another bag. Now, thanks to Air Canada’s generous baggage policy we ended up paying for only two excess pieces of luggage. Easy to imagine that – upon boarding – we fell asleep and didn’t wake up until we were over New Foundland:
Icy beauty. Apparently people live in New Foundland.
After a monster plane journey with a stopover in Toronto (on this trip we really valued the services of the airport porters who both in Munich and Toronto helped us with our excessive baggage) we eventually arrived in Vancouver – some of us rather exhausted:
Little Molly is quite exhausted upon arrival in Vancouver after a 21 hour journey door to door.
December 5th 2015 – we had a farewell party with our friends to get a good send-off for our family adventure. Skiing in Canada, standing on the Panama canal, following Hemingway in Cuba, watching turtles in the Galapagos, seeing a football match in the Maracana, swimming in Lake Michigan, watching surfers in Jaws, doing Tokyo/Fuji/Kyoto in 3 days, crossing the bridge over the Ben Hai at the 17th parallel and returning right in time for the Oktoberfest – that’s the plan. Leaving has been made just a little bit harder after the party – but we’re set and ready to roll now.
Before the partyLet’s get this party started.Old friends from school and universityGetting into the swing.Have a good trip!Going strong.
Finally! Ski opening in Shymbulak close to Almaty. It’s a mere 25 min ride from Almaty to the ski resort or less even if you get into the cablecar at Medeo. Unfortunately there wan’t an awful lot of snow, but the snow which I could sample was promising: nice and soft, in the same league as the Rockies’ champaign powder, I would say. The bottom section of the ressort was still closed, so there were only two slopes open on top of the ressort. Too little snow to go offpiste – I got a couple of good scratches on my skis now which illustrate this. That said, it’s a great place to be: season opening day, Saturday, the 29th Nov 2014, was a gorgeous bluebird day at initially -16 Celsius – phantastic views into the mountains and over smoggy Almaty.
Excellent fun! And I might have introduced telemarking to Shymbulak. Which wasn’t as spectacular as my Georgian skibuddy crashing onto the slope:
Generally I find myself disliking Lufthansa more often than liking it: lousy food, intransparent bogus pseudo-tax/surcharge pricing, crap service in case of problems, seat allocation for travellers with toddlers in the noisiest area of the plane – the list is long! Having said that it is only fair to also mention the occasional pleasant surprise with Germany’s carrier no 1 – in this case a much liked bump-up into business class. Thank you, Lufthansa.
Back in Almaty – work again! But this time I didn’t come alone but was accompanied by my wife Anna, who I met travelling and we are still travelling well together. Anna, all keen to explore the secrets of Kazakhstan, arranged a three day hike through the Northern Tian Shan Mountains. We were picked up at the hotel on Friday morning, punctual at 7am, to be driven into a small valley just East of Medeo. At around 1800m the ride ended and the hike started. We went straight up to the Butakovsky Pass at almost 2900m. Not a walk in the park exactly, but a beautiful hike rewarded by a spectacular view over snow capped peaks over 5000m:
View from Butakovsky Pass over some peaks towering above 5000m. Slightly boring, thinks our guide Alexander, who made attempts on Everest and Lhotse and stood on the summit of Makalu. Alexander, it has been a pleasure to hike with a man who climbed an 8000 without oxygen!
The walk down Butakovsky valley through fields of wild raspberries was another highlight until we reached the Talgar river, a rather wild mountain creek. We found a beautiful campsite right at the river – the instant noodles from the gas stove were a highly deserved dinner after a long (after all, we are desk bound city dwellers) hike.
Nothing nicer than a camp fire after a day of hiking. Good company and a bottle of whisky helps, too.
The next day Anna and Alexander set off to another exciting hike, while I had to watch the campsite to shoo off wolves, bears, snow leopards and mind my sore knee. It seems that rolling back and forth in an office chair is rather insufficient preparation for a hike like that. I shall roll faster in the future to be better prepared. Anyway, Anna and Alex had a wonderful hike with great views and some interesting little observations on the way: looking at a glacier our guide couldn’t quite remember whether this particular glacier had merely a number or an actual name – quite a different approach to the alps where every semi-persistent snowfield has a well known name. Here in the Tian Shan a glacier gets interesting when it stretches over 10 km. Some impressions from the hike:
Edelweiss not restricted to the Alps, but also found in the Tian Shan Mountains.Constitution peak seen from the Talgar Valley.A nameless little glacier seen from the Talgar Valley.
On our third and final day we hiked up to the Small Talgar Pass at 2800m and continued to the Big Talgar Pass at 3180m. That is also the top of the Shymbulak ski resort and accessible by cable car, so there were quite a few people from the city enjoying the beautiful weather and nice views from there. It has been a wonderful hike with a great guide – thanks Alexander and the guys from Tour Asia Travel Agency – it was not cheap, but very well organised and worth the bucks. And the promise to work with professional guides was certainly kept with Alex, who had climbed Makalu at 8,463 meters (27,765 feet).
Näset, a little peninsula sticking out into the Baltic just South of Malmö, is a beautiful place. The beach close to Skanör’s little port is one of the most beautiful beaches on Näset. Which puts it up quite high on the list of beautiful beaches worldwide. And there we are having a picnic on a mild evening at the end of July with a few friends.
Picnic on the beach of Skanör not far away from Skanör’s harbor.
Our food for the picnic came from Skanör’s excellent Fiskrögeriet: warm smoked salmon with lemon salt, salmon glaced in champaign, various sorts of pickled sill (hering) – highlight being the sill in curry. A very nice way of killing an evening!
So I am back. I’ve actually been here for a week already, but the week was dedicated to my project here (90%) and watching the World Cup (football a.k.a. soccer. – 10%). You do the math what that means in terms of work hours. That said, I still enjoy Almaty – I have the pleasure of working with a great team here – and here is another reason why: my view out of the hotel room on Saturday afternoon.
During my trip to Sweden/Denmark I’ve developed a severe dental problem: before I left I had a root canal treatment at my usual dentist. She had already warned me that there was a infection present and I would have to expect some unpleasant symptoms in the first few days. Me, being a man with a body, that under normal circumstances functions well without giving any unpleasant symptoms, would have preferred to isolate myself from humanity during this period of expecting suffering (I suppose find a dark corner in my cave where the wild animals would not smell my apparent vulnerability) – but 70th birthday of my mother in law as a fixed milestone event did not permit such flexibility. The day after the root canal procedure and the flight to Copenhagen I had some, albeit manageable pain. The following day, however, my face turned into a half sided chipmunk and, despite generous application of Ibuprofen, a rather noticeable pain was prevalent. This went on for another day (Friday!) and when I sat down for dinner on Friday evening I felt that NOW would be the right time to have my tooth ripped out, stomp on it a few times and throw it into the sea. So, I called a Danish emergency number, who referred me to an emergency dental practice in Copenhagen (Tandlægevagten, Oslo Plads 14, 2100 Copenhagen Ø. Tel.: (+45) 1813) – and it turned out to be great: the dentist spoke perfect English, so communication was no problem, he showed sufficient signs of compassion so I felt taken care off and, most importantly, he described exactly what he was going to do so I felt under control. Excellent. He relieved the pressure, wrote me a prescription for antibiotics and bingo – I was a whole person again. He also recommended a slightly more drastic approach to pain management and suggested 800mg of Ibuprofen combined with 1000mg of Paracetamol. That was news to me (I checked whether liver transplants were on offer in Copenhagen, too), but, having been more than slightly desperate, I followed the advice and Bingo! – no pain.
So, while I was more than reluctant to try out a dentist in a country as remote and foreign as Denmark I was pleasantly surprised about the competent and friendly treatment I had received. Excellent. One thing, though: they only accept payment by Dankort (usually not available to travelling foreigners) or cash. So bring some cash.
This is a top golf destination: Näset, a Swedish peninsula close to Malmö, is home of three of Sweden’s top golf courses: Ljunghusen, an 18-hole heather course and a short 9-hole links – top golf and very friendly staff. Then Falsterbo, a stunning links course with holes 16, 17 and 18 at the Southern tip of the peninsula and incredibly snotty staff who mimic the behaviour of some (the locals tell me Stockholmian summer) members, where apparently purple haired ladies simply tee off without bothering to secure a tee-off time. Smashing. The course is beautiful, though. And eventually Flommen, founded by Falsterbo caddies almost 80 years ago: a gem of a course with links character and loads and loads of water. Easy to play if there is no wind, but that rarely is the case. On my round yesterday were occasions where we were pleased that the approach shot had found the green, just to see it roll over the green into the water. It is a beauty of a golf course:
Hole 8 – Tee: typical Swedish bath huts, where the locals store their beach stuff during summer, line the fairway of quite a few holes at Flommen. You cannot see this on the picture, but one aims at the Falsterbo lighthouse when teeing off. A dream.
Who's been here? 