A varied and interesting day

We've had a really great day. After a leisurely breakfast of interesting unknown food, we explored Karakol in the morning. First we saw the beautiful wooden Russian Orthodox Church, pictured. The outside reminded me of the Dr Zhivago film. During Soviet times it was used as a students' gym, when most of the icons disappeared, then in 1991 it became a church again. The interior was pretty lurid, with the modern wall paintings and icons.

Next we went to see an even more unusual building - a Dungan mosque built in 1910 in the style of a Buddhist pagoda by refugees from China. It is also wooden, but no nails were used in construction.

After that we saw the museum, dedicated to the great Russian explorer Prjevalsky who died here before attempting an expedition to Tibet, his dream being to reach Llasa, where he'd previously be denied entry. He explored all over Asia, from 1867 till 1888, making maps with the use of an old brass instrument, and writing detailed reports. The museum was in pretty woodland with stunning autumn colours.

We picked up some food for a picnic, and got a bottle of best vodka for under £2. It's almost as cheap as bottled water! The shop used a Morrisons poly bag, made in China, for our shopping.

The minibus took us to the Valley of the Seven Bulls - a red sandstone rock formation. We drove up the Djety Oguz Gorge where we had our picnic in a lovely Alpine meadow - shame about the litter left by previous visitors. It was a lovely walk at around 7.000 feet, in a pleasant temperature, as we were mostly in the shade. During the Soviet area this area was a health retreat, and Yuri Gagarin came here to recuperate after his first flight into space.

From tomorrow we'll be staying in family homestsys or yurts in quite remote areas, so we have no access to wifi till Tashkent in 9 days.

Apologies for lack of comments - there is just barely time to get a blip,done.