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.
I love arriving at new places and experience the exciting difference in smells and sounds! Although Almaty at 4 o’clock in the morning didn’t greet me with all of those new sensations, I knew I wasn’t in England when I was faced with Kazakhstan queueing technique at the airport; the locals were all trying to cram themselves into the “queue” for Residents and if your mind and elbows weren’t sharp as razors, you quickly found a whole family of locals miraculously appearing in front of you. At that godawful time of the morning I should have known better and chosen the “German queue”, a nice and orderly formed line with lots of personal space – and as it turned out, just as fast (or slow).
After a few hours of sleep I was ready for Almaty. First stop Green Market (Zelyony Bazar) where I stepped into an explosion of smells! Meat, vegetables, fruit, Hello Kitty backpacks, metal spare parts who knows what they were for, bras the size of babyhats – you name it they had it!
Remembering the absolutely wonderful pickled cucumbers from my Moscow days in the 80’s, I decided to buy my lunch here and bring it out into the warm sunshine. Three words of Russian and the use of fingers was enough to complete the transaction.
Travelling is fantastic, if you allow yourself the time to enjoy the day as it comes, just around the corner there is another unexpected highlight! Crossing the park back to the hotel in the last warm rays of sunshine, I came across some kids practicing martial arts on the grass. Kids and mothers are the same all over the world – the kids were larking about and the mothers were proudly taking pictures of them with their mobile phones!
The next day I decided to warm up my hiking legs before our Three-Day-Trek and took a driver to Aksay Valley. At a remote spot, monks built a small monastery in 1917 to avoid repercussions for their faith. The monastery was closed in 1921 but in 1993 some monks returned to live a secured life in the mountains. It’s a lovely walk up through fruit orchards where the monks have painstakingly laid stones to form stairs up to the monastery. A little further up the hill, passed the church, you get a wonderful view of the mountains, valleys – and the spreading city of Almaty. I ate my lunch in the shade of a tree overlooking Almaty on one side and the towering Tian Shan mountains on the other – remembering how wonderful life can be!
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:
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.
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:
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.
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:
Another trip with my family, this time to Skanör, Skåne, Sweden. Hometown of my wife, pleasant beach village in the Baltic, dream golf location with three of Sweden’s best golf courses within a few kilometers/a couple of miles.
However, before arriving the gods have set travelling. In this case a plane journey with our home airline Lufthansa. Not the worst of all carriers, certainly when I look at their safety record and rating. Still a good choice when you look at the drinks being served. But bugger me, the shite they try to pass as food is encroyable: even the flight attendant showed signs of surprise when a passengers wanted one of those sad excuses of a sandwich. I’d say: leave it. Keep serving free drinks and just forget about the rest. Enough rambling: I am looking forward to a few days with the family, a round of golf and the 70th birthday of my mother in law. Party! On the way into Kastrup, Copenhagen’s prime shopping center doubling as airport, we had a great view of the Öresund bridge, which connects Denmark and Sweden:
Having arrived back in Munich from Kazakhstan the whole family got into the car to enjoy the Pentecost school holidays at the Adriatic Sea in Lido di Jesolo, Italy. Quite an experience to board a plane at 3.50am (the true red eye clipper) and, only 20 hours later, sit in a Pizzeria in Northern Italy led by an Indian family who serve quite good pizzas but rather lousy currys – as it turned out. So, if you ever happen to pass Mori on the way from Rivereto to Lake Garda: have a pizza at the local pizzeria Terra Nera (which claims to serve Italian and Indian cuisine), but don’t go for a curry. The Chicken Tikka Masala was god awful.
The journey was horrible: it turned out that we were not the only family who had the idea to spend the first week of the Pentecost school holiday at the sea in Italy, so it was slow going. Eventually, though, we arrived. Arrived at a very nice flat in a new development done by Richard Meier, some NYC based architect, excellent! That’s how the old man introduces the project – so check this out.
The next day we hung around and relaxed at the sea, the pool, a pleasant beach restaurant and enjoyed ourselves thoroughly until we found this:
This is so sick. Italy has its fair share of clowns, Beppo Grillo and Berlusconi leading the pack by far, but I fail to see any fun in that. Caribinieri – shut this down!
Who's been here? 