Saturday 12 May
We find a little bakery in the road opposite our hotel that has a small cafe inside, and serves tea and a type of croissant. After breakfast we wander through the market, and Reg takes a photo of a woman sitting at a table on the pavement, selling sheeps heads. A reminder of the township in Cape Town, where sheeps heads were a delicacy.
Reg buys more credit for his phone, a bit extra as we hope to phone Elaine today, The same helpful young lad as yesterday assists Reg to put the credit on. We go down a different street, and find another nice looking terraced cafe that has wifi. We drink a few cups of black tea while we post another blog and check our emails. The wifi signal is really faint and slow; having inspected the menu, we decide we'll return this evening for our meal, and sit inside to get a better signal.
We make our way once again back through the vibrant, colourful market, which sells everything and anything. Stupidly I've slipped my purse in my shoulderbag, as we need it shortly to do some shopping. When we arrive back at the hotel, my bag zip is undone, and my purse has been stolen. After searching everywhere as you do, we realise it really has gone. Fortunately we only had only taken one visa card out with us, my Caxton Global Traveller and the equivalent of about £24 in local money.
We phone Caxton, who to our relief tell us that our second user card is still ok to use. They can send us another primary card free to our home address, but if we want it sent to where we'll be in China in a fortnight's time, it has to come by courier, and will cost £50. Presumably they'd have to send the pin number separately, We'll have a think about whether to do that.
Reg is very good about it all, probably since I'm cross enough with myself for being so careless, especially as we have 2 brilliant leather moneybelts with us. I guess it was bound to happen at some stage on our trip - we'll both be extra vigilant from now on.
They do have ATM cash machines here, but we are restricted to drawing out the equivalent of £80 on each Caxton card - that is the Kazakhstan's limit, not Caxton's - normally you can draw out £300 a day. Perhaps it's just as well there's a smaller withdrawal limit here.
We draw out another 15000 tehre (about £60), and pop into a store down the road and buy a travel steam iron (£10)and a travel kettle (£6). And some hair dye!!
We phone our daughter Elaine, it really is thrilling to hear her voice and have a chat. I confess about my carelessness in allowing my purse to be stolen, and in particular that the beautiful purple leather purse she & Jake gave me for my birthday is gone. So sorry Elaine! After a while we have to say our goodbyes.
We make a cuppa in our new kettle, I sort out my hair, and we return to the restaurant with wifi to write a couple of emails and post this blog.
Then we'll go back to the hotel to sort ourselves out to catch the midnight train to Urumqi, China! We'll be travelling for 2 nights and a day, arriving in Urumqi early Monday morning. We're hoping still to be able to post the blog in China, but may have difficulties there, as we are told that google is banned.
This will be our last 2 nights on Uzbekistan/Kazakhstan trains. We are travelling 2nd class again, so will be sharing a cabin.
After that it'll be "soft sleepers" (4 to a cabin) throughout China, all the way to Vietnam. But in China the trains will be a lot faster.
We find a little bakery in the road opposite our hotel that has a small cafe inside, and serves tea and a type of croissant. After breakfast we wander through the market, and Reg takes a photo of a woman sitting at a table on the pavement, selling sheeps heads. A reminder of the township in Cape Town, where sheeps heads were a delicacy.
Reg buys more credit for his phone, a bit extra as we hope to phone Elaine today, The same helpful young lad as yesterday assists Reg to put the credit on. We go down a different street, and find another nice looking terraced cafe that has wifi. We drink a few cups of black tea while we post another blog and check our emails. The wifi signal is really faint and slow; having inspected the menu, we decide we'll return this evening for our meal, and sit inside to get a better signal.
We make our way once again back through the vibrant, colourful market, which sells everything and anything. Stupidly I've slipped my purse in my shoulderbag, as we need it shortly to do some shopping. When we arrive back at the hotel, my bag zip is undone, and my purse has been stolen. After searching everywhere as you do, we realise it really has gone. Fortunately we only had only taken one visa card out with us, my Caxton Global Traveller and the equivalent of about £24 in local money.
We phone Caxton, who to our relief tell us that our second user card is still ok to use. They can send us another primary card free to our home address, but if we want it sent to where we'll be in China in a fortnight's time, it has to come by courier, and will cost £50. Presumably they'd have to send the pin number separately, We'll have a think about whether to do that.
Reg is very good about it all, probably since I'm cross enough with myself for being so careless, especially as we have 2 brilliant leather moneybelts with us. I guess it was bound to happen at some stage on our trip - we'll both be extra vigilant from now on.
They do have ATM cash machines here, but we are restricted to drawing out the equivalent of £80 on each Caxton card - that is the Kazakhstan's limit, not Caxton's - normally you can draw out £300 a day. Perhaps it's just as well there's a smaller withdrawal limit here.
We draw out another 15000 tehre (about £60), and pop into a store down the road and buy a travel steam iron (£10)and a travel kettle (£6). And some hair dye!!
We phone our daughter Elaine, it really is thrilling to hear her voice and have a chat. I confess about my carelessness in allowing my purse to be stolen, and in particular that the beautiful purple leather purse she & Jake gave me for my birthday is gone. So sorry Elaine! After a while we have to say our goodbyes.
We make a cuppa in our new kettle, I sort out my hair, and we return to the restaurant with wifi to write a couple of emails and post this blog.
Then we'll go back to the hotel to sort ourselves out to catch the midnight train to Urumqi, China! We'll be travelling for 2 nights and a day, arriving in Urumqi early Monday morning. We're hoping still to be able to post the blog in China, but may have difficulties there, as we are told that google is banned.
This will be our last 2 nights on Uzbekistan/Kazakhstan trains. We are travelling 2nd class again, so will be sharing a cabin.
After that it'll be "soft sleepers" (4 to a cabin) throughout China, all the way to Vietnam. But in China the trains will be a lot faster.
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