Our 6:30 arrival into the town of Aral was the start of a very busy day. A quick trip to the hotel and checkin followed by breakfast at 8:00 got things off to a quick start. We got a little break after that as the days activities started at 10:00 with a walking tour of the town. Just down the street from the hotel we visited a park with memorabilia and memorials to the towns fishing days, then a WWII memorial park with an astoundingly long list of the names of those from this region that died in the war.

Before getting on to the activities of the day I wanted to introduce the young man that was our guide in Turkistan. He is pictured with me in the first photograph. His name is NurSultan and to our surprise he does not live in the town of Turkistan but in the town of Shymkent which is about 170km away. I wanted to say thankyou to NurSultan for being our guide and helping all of us get a better understanding of the history of this part of Kazakhstan.

Again this morning the scene from the train window was grass land as far as the eye could see. Our destination was the town of Turkistan, it has a history dating back to at least the 4th century and in 2021, it was proclaimed by the Organization of Turkic States as the "Spiritual Capital of the Turkic World".

From the train this morning we could see a vaste grass plain, almost treeless and extending flat to the horizon in every direction; at least every direction we could see from the various train windows. The plain is dotted with occassioal herds of horses and every now and then a village passed by; they looked poor and very soviet in style with blue framed windows and the ever present yellow above ground gas lines.

Tonight at 23:00 we boarded an over night train to the Kazakh city of Taraz so the days activities were intended to entertain us until that happened. First up was a visit to some of the cities iconic tourist attractions, starting with the Ascention Cathedral. This is a magnificent all wood building that during soviet times was used for a variety of public purposes, being returned to the Russian Orthodix Church in 1995. Its current good condition is a result of extensive renovations during the period 2017 to 2020. Near the Cathedral is Panfilov Park and The Statue of Panfilov's Heroes. The somewhat intimidating statue celebrates the 28 Almaty soldiers under a General named Panfilov who resisted attack by German tanks during the battle of Moscow.