Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan

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Details: Written by: Richard_McKie; Parent Category: Travel; Category: Central Asia; Published: 21 September 2025; Hits: 3637

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In August 2025, after a seven-year absence, Wendy and I returned to Central Asia. This time, we would visit the less well travelled 'stans' Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. In part, our choice of Central Asia was governed by a desire to be away during the worst of Sydney's winter. As we don't speak Russian, nor either of the local languages, we looked for a guided tour. As it turns out we were the only two who booked the package, so we had a personal guide and driver, together with a large Toyota 4-wheel drive for most of the trip.

From Sydney we flew to Doha followed by a flight to Almaty in Kazakhstan from there we took a short flight to Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan where we spent a day exploring, before changing hotels and meeting our guide, Chynara, to begin a pre-planned tour. As we don't speak Russian, a guide is strongly advised when travelling in most ex-Soviet countries.

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Travel

Romania

In October 2016 we flew from southern England to Romania.

Romania is a big country by European standards and not one to see by public transport if time is limited. So to travel beyond Bucharest we hired a car and drove northwest to Brașov and on to Sighisiora, before looping southwest to Sibiu (European capital of culture 2007) and southeast through the Transylvanian Alps to Curtea de Arges on our way back to Bucharest.

Driving in Romania was interesting. There are some quite good motorways once out of the suburbs of Bucharest, where traffic lights are interminable trams rumble noisily, trolley-busses stop and start and progress can be slow. In the countryside road surfaces are variable and the roads mostly narrow. This does not slow the locals who seem to ignore speed limits making it necessary to keep up to avoid holding up traffic.

Fiction, Recollections & News

Now I am seventy

On the occasion of an afternoon tea to mark this significant milestone...

When I was one, I was just begun;
When I was two, I was nearly new;
When I was Three, I was hardly me;
*
*
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But then I was sixty, and as clever as clever;
Wouldn't it be nice to stay sixty for ever and ever?

(With apologies to AA Milne)

Hang on! Now I'm seventy? How did that happen?

Opinions and Philosophy

Australia and Empire

The recent Australia Day verses Invasion Day dispute made me recall yet again the late, sometimes lamented, British Empire.

Because, after all, the Empire was the genesis of Australia Day.

For a brief history of that institution I can recommend Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World by Scottish historian Niall Campbell Ferguson.

My choice of this book was serendipitous, unless I was subconsciously aware that Australia Day was approaching. I was cutting through our local bookshop on my way to catch a bus and wanted something to read. I noticed this thick tomb, a new addition to the $10 Penguin Books (actually $13).

On the bus I began to read and very soon I was hooked when I discovered references to places I'd been and written of myself. Several of these 'potted histories' can be found in my various travel writings on this website (follow the links): India and the Raj; Malaya; Burma (Myanmar); Hong Kong; China; Taiwan; Egypt and the Middle East; Israel; and Europe (a number).

Over the next ten days I made time to read the remainder of the book, finishing it on the morning of Australia Day, January the 26th, with a sense that Ferguson's Empire had been more about the sub-continent than the Empire I remembered.

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