A Market in Chudshand, Tajikistan

First I will admit that I had never heard of Chudshand, Tajikistan even though I am fairly competent with geography!  After a night rocking and rolling on our 22 inch wide train beds we added a new country to our count!  And started the day at one of my favorite parts of any city!  The Market!!! I love markets, especially authentic non-tourist ones.  This one definitely qualified! 

It was obvious that this is where the locals shop.   

To be totally honest not a lot of tourists come to Chudshand so we were the only non-locals there.  And yep, we stood out like sore thumbs but the people seemed to love posing for us! 

I bought some delicious bananas from this very nice lady. 

I didn't buy any of this...whatever it is!  Cream cheese, butter, goat cheese......I never figured it out.  Maybe I should have used my finger to take a taste, although that would have messed up their very precise design!!!! 

I thought about buying a piece of cake!

Or maybe I should buy one of these ever so popular brooms! 

Love the photo of this interesting saleswoman! 

Not so thrilled with the meat section.

Again I don't know exactly what all this is, but then I don't think I want to know and I certainly don't want to eat any of it! 

As I was surreptitiously snapping away in the butcher department, I heard a cry of "English, English" and looked up to see this guy posing for me.  This may be one of my favorite photos of the trip!

The many, many candy stands could explain the gold teeth on lots of older adults in this part of the world. 

 Our guides told us that older people just consider it very beautiful to have a mouthful of gold and they work towards getting enough money to get gold crowns.   

This enterprising woman was the mobile bag saleswoman! 

And George found the dairy department.  Any available bottle can become the 'milk bottle' even a coke bottle!
 Interesting morning exploring this authentic taste of life in Tajikistan.

Kyrgyzstan

The itinerary for our day in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan said, "If Mother Nature cooperates we may have a chance to enjoy the leaves as they change into their fall foliage'.  Mother Nature did do a bang up job of making our leisurely walk in the Ala Archa National Park spectacular...but it wasn't just with fall foliage but a beautiful snow storm! 

The people of Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan were traditionally nomadic people who did live in yurts.  During the Soviet times the nomadic lifestyle was forbidden and people were forced to move into towns.  The Soviets thought it was too difficult to control a nomadic people.

 See that little green building in the corner.  That was the only available toilet.  It was a pretty chilly 'long drop' but sometimes you do what you have to do! 

The national animal of the country is a snow leopard.  Unfortunately this is the only one we saw. 

The whole area was absolutely stunningly beautiful!  I love snow! 

Certainly different from the days we had just experienced in the Gobi Desert.  I'm more of a mountain person anyway! 

Double Hump Camels

No trip on the Silk Road would be complete without riding a Bactrian camel -  a two hump camel! 

These guys are seriously cute....the camels I mean!  I couldn't resist touching this fellow's cute head tuft! 

The camel in the back seemed to want to snap at me.   I am still not sure what he was doing but it doesn't look friendly. 

The orange boots were required to keep the very fine sand out of our shoes.

That stick through his nose looks so painful.  It guess it is like a bit in a horse's mouth.

There were over 1000 camels at this particular place.  Locals bring their camels every day to be a part of the tourist attraction. 

It was very fun and made me extremely glad NOT to be going for 1000's of miles on a camel.

George and Marilyn 1 and 2

For the first time on any of our trips we were traveling with another couple named, George and Marilyn!  They were super fun!    The other Marilyn, who actually goes by Mimi, has a tradition of finding a private place every morning and singing at the top of her lungs, "Oh what a beautiful morning" while dancing!  Don't you love positive people like that? Meeting new people is one of my very favorite things about Fun For Less Trips.

The Big Apple

Nope I'm not talking about New York but Almaty, Kazakhstan the birthplace of the apple.  The name "Alma-Ata" literally means 'father of apples' and genetic testing has shown the apples that grow wild on the slopes of the Tien Shan mountains in Kazakhstan and China are the apple's true ancestor. 

And speaking of the 'big apple' my massage therapist who grew up in Almaty told me that she remembers the apples that grew wild on her grandparents farm as being as big as a small melon, super sweet and  juicy.  Our guides confirmed this and said that no one knows why the apples stopped growing to this large size.  

There were many people selling apples at the train station.  

Plus some cute girls in traditional dress giving us apples. 

A salesman sampling the wares! 

We also got to drive up into the mountains after a recent snowfall to see a beautiful ice skating rink and enjoy all the views.  Didn't see any apple trees that day! 

I also got to make a wish by putting my hand on this special, magical book.  I won't tell what my wish was....I think it is universal that if you tell a wish it won't come true! 

And FINALLY we got to get on the train!  We were all pretty excited about that! 

We Interrupt the Silk Road

I've been so intent on posting about our trip that I totally forgot three important events that have recently happened.

First - George and I celebrated our 42nd anniversary.  Here we are two kids about to start our life together.  October 29, 1975! 

Second - George's Dad - Walter Lewis would have turned 100 year old on October 30th...or maybe he did get a 100th birthday celebration.  I'm not sure how it works in heaven!  Here he is enjoying one of his favorite past times - hunting with his sweet dog Meg! 

And third -  this little monster thoroughly enjoyed Halloween!  She's just the cutest little monster ever. Isabella is talking and learning so much every day.  I love this age and can hardly wait to spend time with her in a few weeks. 

Life is so good!

Chinese Statues

I was impressed with Chinese Gardens this trip to China but I also thoroughly enjoyed these Chinese Statues.

 Behind our hotel in Xi'an we discovered a whole series of statues. I particularly liked this one depicting a family.  So much life is depicted here....Mom and Dad admiring their little baby, the grandpa with the little boy talking to him, one child up on someone's shoulders. 

And with this one I almost expected to hear the sound of the drum. 

In the visitor's center by the ancient city of Gaochang, they had a whole series of statues of famous individuals from the city.  Most of them were generals like this one.  He is Ban Yong from 123 AD, a general and a politician who secured the western region of China for the Han Dynasty. 

Most interesting to me were these statue of women.  I had always been under the impression that girls were not particularly valued by the Chinese but this woman was honored because she was 'a clever wife and a wise mother'.   She died in 688 AD.  That was long before there were any women's rights groups.  I am happy they realized and recognized the contribution of a clever wife and a wise mother. 

This is Xuanzang.  He is the monk wrote the book about his 17 year journey to the 'Western Regions'..

Didn't the sculptor do a great job capturing his long strides as he followed what he felt like was his special calling in life? 

The other woman honored with a statue is Yeliyiheimishibieji.  How's that for a name?  She was the daughter of the king of Gaochang.  The city was besieged by a Mongol group led by a man named Duwa.  The city was completely without food so Yeliyiheimishibieji asked her father to let her go to the city gate and give herself up to Duwa.  He agreed and Duwa and his army left and took Yeliyiheimishibieji with him.  Kind of a strange story but she did sacrifice herself to save the city.  This was in 1275 AD

 There is a famous story about Xuanzang, a Buddhist monk who traveled to the 'Western Regions', that is Central Asia and India, to obtain sacred Buddhist text.  He returned after many trials and much suffering and wrote an account of his journey.    He was worried that Buddhism was being corrupted as it spread by word of mouth throughout China.   Having copies of the sacred writings would prevent this.  Sounds a bit like a story in the Book of Mormon huh?  Xuanzang lived 602-664 AD and did write a book about his 17 year journey.  In the 16th century Wu Cheng'en decided to write a fictional novel based loosely on Xuanzang's book.  Our educator, Michael Wilcox, calls this book the 'Chinese Harry Potter'.  The original story is embellished with folk tales and a clever imagination.  There is the monk, a monkey king, a pig,  and a dragon prince who acts as a white horse.  The Monkey king can lift 17,550 lbs, is extremely fast, in fact he can summersault 1/2 way around the world.  And he can transform himself into 72 different beings and can control wind, part water, make protective circles against demons and freeze his enemies.   The pig, called Pigsy, often gets himself and his companions into trouble because he is lazy, a glutton, and has a liking for pretty women.  Plus he is jealous of the Monkey King and plots his downfall.  It does sound like Harry Potter a bit huh?

Here is a statue immortalizing  the book. Our guide said that every Chinese child knows this story as it has been made into movies and cartoons and children's books  and video and arcade games.  When I thoughtlessly mentioned to him that it was too bad Disney didn't make it into a movie, he looked at me like I had committed sacrilege.  I guess I had.

  Just for you info....you can read an unabridged, translation of the  Journey to the West.  It has 100 chapters and comes in several volumes totaling almost 2000 pages.

And on a different note

I hope you have few days that make you look like this 

And many days that make you look like this...