Sunday 19th
August 2018, 7.00 am
From not being emotionally prepared to attend a fieldwork for the previous few days, I was surprised
for an unexpected flip of mood I got that morning. Over-excited might be the most accurate word to describe it. I was
anxious and curious at the same time, for not knowing what to expect for the
upcoming 3 weeks.
Asked a few officers
when I passed by the immigration checks in KLIA.
“Ha ah sorang je.” Even though this is my fourth solo flight overseas,
but it’s my first solo flight to a non-English speaking country huhu
“Eh bukan study sana, ada fieldwork” I answered frankly and left another curious
officer who might have guessed that I am a student as he scanned my bag pack
and laptop as well.
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| Almaty Airport |
The 8 hours flight was
fine. I actually fell asleep throughout most of the journey. The flight landed
around 6.00 pm Kazakhstan time. After I got my check-in luggage, a driver took
me to a hotel in the city of Almaty. That was actually my first time seeing a
driver on the left side of the car, and of course, driving at the right side of
the road hahaha
After having our
dinner at a local restaurant (I had a Kazakhs traditional lagman) and drink at
another café for supper, I finally fell asleep at almost 2.00 am in the morning
(was actually having a long chat with a friend afterwards hoho). Time to get
some rest as a long day awaits.
It’s time for Almaty’s
one-day visit! Almaty used to be the capital city of Kazakhstan before Astana took its place. We spent most of our time in The Central State Museum of
Republic Kazakhstan. This museum used to be the national museum of the country,
but a new state museum was built in Astana after it had become the new capital
city. Being a multi-racial country, archaeology and heritage play significant
roles for its nation-building. This museum tells us everything about the history of Kazakhstan from the prehistoric era up until now. The museum has an archaeology section on the first floor, an ethnography and an anthropology section on the second floor, an exhibition floor on the third floor and an exhibition on the culture of people in Kazakhstan and World War II as well as Sovereign Kazakhstan on the top floor. There are also some temporary exhibition that requires you to pay for extra ticket to enter.
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| Central State Museum of Republic of Kazakhstan |
I have always loved visiting museums and it is a 'must-visit' place wherever I go travelling. For me, the most important thing while travelling to new places is to get to know about the place, the people, and their culture. Hence, museum is the best and perfect place to explore about them :)
After having our
lunch, Saltanat, a lady from Almaty who is also from UCL took us for a tour
around Almaty. We visited a few places in the city so now I shall let the
pictures speak for themselves. We visited Almaty Park, a huge park with sprinklers all around. There is a cathedral in the park too but it was under renovation work while we were there.
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| Trees planted in the park by presidents of countries all over the world (with the cathedral at the back) |
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| A memorial dedicated to soldiers who fought for the country during World War II |
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| Museum of Musical Instruments; I love its exterior architecture but we didn't enter the museum, a friend of ours said it's not recommended as all of the descriptions are in Russian (but do pay a visit if Russian is one of the languages you have learnt!) |
We left the park and started walking around the city. After a while, we started looking for ice cream hence Saltanat led our way to a cafe with delicious gelato! On our way there, we bumped into a few significant buildings.
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| Opera House |
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| A university in Almaty; used to be a government building (fairly new building, less that 100 years old) |
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| Umami Cafe, located close to the Opera House, where we had our gelatos. |
In Almaty, we either traveled on foot or took the Metro that costs only 80 Kazakh Tenge for any one-way trip. Since it is a very hot country, we have always had a big bottle of water with us. After a very long day, it's time for a 10-hour overnight train journey to Shymkent so, see you again Almaty!
We arrived at Shymkent
Train Station at around 9 o’clock in the morning. After having our breakfast in
a café in the city, we started heading to our campsite, which took us around 2
hours on the van to get there. Surprisingly, we actually arrived in Shymkent on
the day of Eidul Adha itself. I wasn’t aware because it was still 9 Zulhijjah
on that day.
Shymkent is a city
located in South Kazakhstan, where majority of the community are Muslims. There are mosques nearby, I can even hear 'azan' from our campsite, which my friend referred to as 'the announcement'. Almost everyone that we met in the town only speak Kazakhs. Very occasional
Russian. No English unfortunately.
While we were in the room, my friend asked me, "What is the day called again?" When she asked, 'the day', she was referring to 'Qurban Night' that my lecturer mentioned when we gathered at the dining table for lunch. In Malaysia we call it 'Hari Raya Haji' or 'Hari Raya Qurban'. I took quite some time to figure out how to explain to her what the celebration is for. I told her it's another Eid that Muslims celebrate every year. I wish I had more time to explain about it; if only I wasn't too upset that I actually missed another Eid of the year for the second time isk isk
Nothing seems more appealing to me than the bed in my room hahaha XD We’re just too exhausted
after a very long journey. Time to get a good rest and
be prepared for site work!
Wednesday 22nd
August 2018
The site in Otrar as well as the mausoleum are opened to public so feel free to pay a visit if you're in Shymkent!
Thursday-Saturday,
23rd – 25th August 2018
Excavation starts. We set up the grid for our site and start digging on the same day. Our new routine was to wake up and have breakfast at half past five and leave our campsite at 6, so we usually arrive before the sun rises. It gets really hot as the day passes hence we need to start our day early and go back to our campsite before midday. As the depth of our trench increases, our collection of pots and bones increases day by day too.
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| Our mode of transport from the campsite to the excavation site. We call it 'the cool bus' hahaha |
Sunday 26th
August 2018
It's our day-off and our supervisor brought us to visit a nearby city named Turkistan (not to be confused with Turkmenistan, which is a neighbouring country). We visited the remains of Sauran settlement that dated back to the 13th century. Once again, this site is also opened to the public.
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| The view from inside the settlement towards its entrance (the bridge) |
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| The remains of a madrasah (some parts are reconstructed) |
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| One of the arches in the remains of a mosque (also part of it is reconstructed) |
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| A well on the remains of the mosque |
After visiting the archaeological site, we had our lunch in one of the local restaurants in Turkistan.
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| I had lagman with soup again! |
After lunch, we visited the Mausoleum of Khoja Ahmed Yasawi, another influential Sufi imam in the region. To be honest, I had never known anything about Sufism until I came to London last year and visited Brunei Gallery in SOAS. They were having a temporary exhibition on Sufism when I went there. Only after the visit to the gallery that I found out Sunni and Syiah weren't the only 'divisions' of Islam, as well as Wahabi and Salafi. I am not the best person to explain this for now, especially without reliable sources, but I'll try to read and explore more about it later, insya Allah. There is a small mosque (or I would prefer to say prayer room) in the mausoleum, and also a few exhibition rooms. If you're planning to bring your non-Muslim friends here, don't forget to tell them to bring some head coverings!
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| The view of the back part of the mausoleum |
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| The view of the mausoleum's entrance |
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| Other attractions around the mausoleum |
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| You can ride a camel here! (but I'm pretty sure it's not for free) |
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| The entrance to a reconstructed Medieval town next to the mausoleum |
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| Part of the reconstruction of a Medieval town that is still in progress |
WEEK 2: 27th August
– 2nd September 2018
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| Sunrise in the desert (view from Kuik-Mardan, our excavation site) |
Excavation continues…
Days of digging and recording and finds processing passed by very quickly, without us realising that we're already approaching the month of September.
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| Sunset on 30th August 2018, view from our campsite |
It started to get really windy on Friday 31st August, and the weather had not become any more helpful for the excavation work. We stayed at the campsite for the next couple of days, since we got a warning on heavy sandstorm and it is not possible to work at the site. Therefore, on the third week, we focused on processing and recording the artefacts at our campsite and sometimes do museum work such as translating texts in the Otrar museum into other languages or create objects description in English.
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| Otrar Museum |
Wednesday 5th September 2018
We're finally leaving Shauldir, the town we have been living in for 2 weeks. It's time to return to Almaty but before that, we got a chance to have a one-day visit in Shymkent.
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| Spent a few hours in South Kazakhstan Regional History and Local Lore Museum |
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| Went to Abdullah Kattani Mosque |
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| A square in front of the mosque (mosque is not seen in the picture, but it is located at further right of this image) |
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| Entrance to the Independence Park |
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| Nice scenery at the park! Love the green views! |
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| Lots of flowers reminding me of spring~ |
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| Had the chance to watch sunset in Shymkent as we were waiting to perform Maghrib prayers :) |
After having some horse meat for dinner, we went to Shymkent Airport and took a one-hour flight to Almaty that departed at midnight (which is much better than the 10-hour train journey T.T)
Thursday 6th September 2018
Another site visit in Almaty on a very hot and sunny day.
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| Site visit in Almaty, burial mounds (Prehistoric Kurgan) |
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| Just have to get an ice cream (with salted caramel and cheese flavour) in Umami Cafe again XD after spending a day under the sun hehe |
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| Chicken, lamb and liver sasylik for dinner! |
Friday 7th September 2018
Since it's our last day in Kazakhstan, we were given a day off to freely explore Almaty. My friends and I chose to visit the Big Almaty Lake. We went out at 7.30 in the morning, took a bus from our hotel to the President Park and then took a taxi to go up the mountain. The entrance fee to go up and visit the lake is around 450 Kazakh Tenge. The view was splendid! Definitely one of my favourite places on this earth T.T
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| A panorama shot of the lake |
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| A view of the lake at the side of the dam |
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| The scenery as we hike down the mountain |
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| In love with the blue sky anywhere in Kazakhstan ❤️ |
We had our lunch nearby the lake before hiking down for 15 kilometers in 3.5 hours T.T
We took a bus from the foot of the mountain to the President Park and took another bus from the park to a Georgian restaurant to have our dinner with our supervisors and other friends. It was our last dinner together. Then, we all went back to the hotel, started packing our stuffs and get prepared for a long journey on our flights on the next day.
When Gai, my fieldwork supervisor told me that it's going to be a great trip, he's definitely not lying. Instead, that sounds like an understatement; it's more than just great, it was truly incredible! I'm so glad I was able to learn a lot, more than just archaeology or even anthropology. It was a trip about life, nature, friendship, travel, history and maybe a lot more things that I can't recall at the moment. Apart from learning about other places and people, I actually learn more about myself (and also my own religion).
It's quite surprising that this country doesn't get the attention as much as what it actually deserves. Definitely underrated. The only time I saw postcards being sold was in the museum in Almaty, and that's it. Saltanat told us there are postcards being sold at a bookshop in Almaty but we didn't have time to check it out. I got myself some souvenirs in Turkistan, which is way cheaper than the ones in Almaty, for example, I got something costs 300 Kazakh Tenge in Turkistan, but its price in Almaty is Almaty is 800 Tenge and 1500 Tenge at the airport! (and they sold more handcrafts as souvenirs tbh). Anyway, I hope their tourism continues to flourish as time flies.
There are so many things to explore in this world and of course, no amount of time would be enough. So let's keep on travelling, before we run out of time to fill our soul with amazing adventures ;)
It's great to see you have a great time there! :)
ReplyDeleteSome things happened not the way it is planned but it was still an amazing experience!
DeleteIt's always interesting to read about your travel journey :D
ReplyDeleteGlad to know you enjoy reading it :D
Delete