Today was petroglyph day: a petroglyph being a rock carving, as opposed to a petrograph/pictograph which is a rock painting. Mr M collected us and headed west towards Tambaly where the UNESCO designated Tamgaly petroglyphs are. It was a 170 km drive so we had plenty of time to hear more of Mr M's views.
We stopped briefly for melon - it reminded us of our melon stop in Kiva the other year. 
Once out of Almaty, the road was fast and we even got up to 120 kph at one stretch (our driver not being a speed merchant by any means). The dual carriageways here have slip roads off which only allow you to join/leave in the direction of travel. If you wish to head the other way at any stage, you have to join the carriageway then do a U-turn through one of the designated gaps in the central reservation. If does mean, as you speed along, that you have to watch out for stationary cars in the fast lane. There are also sometimes pedestrian crossings which are a precarious risk for the walkers who have to hope that both lanes’ drivers spot them and stop.
Cattle are transported in the back of trucks like this one. We once saw a horse standing on the back of a pick up just tied to a bar behind the drivers cab. Sadly no photo of that one. 
On the journey, Mr M continued a near constant monologue on the history of Kazakhstan (which only existed from 1924) which I didn't fully catch, except the word propaganda appeared an awful lot. That and corruption. It was hard to tell if he was pro or anti Russian. Whenever he spoke of Europeans and Russia he appeared pro - perhaps trying to balance to western opinion that Russia are bad. But when talking of Kazakhstan’s evolution it was a mixed narrative. He was born a Russian (Kazakstan only became independent from the USSR in 1991) so it's kind of in his blood. And there are strong economic ties - for example, despite having numerous oil fields, Kazakhstan has no refineries, so all its oil is sent via Russia. It was interesting and painful in equal measure. If he asked us a question, no sooner had we said a few words in response, he’d jump in continue his constant stream of words. And the more he spoke and waved his hands, the slower he went.
Before we got to Tambaly he stopped to show us a Soviet bus stop with a wolf proof roof. Apparently they are designed so you can climb onto the roof and sit there whilst waiting for your bus and keep away from passing wolves. He stopped the car and attempted to show me how he used to leap up, but his 60 year old physic, full of "too much food and beer" (his words) didn't play ball. And other Soviet reminder whilst I remember - the ubiquitous lada.
Anyway, the petroglyphs were amazing - sorry if my Kazakh blog is over using that word! Most of them date from the Bronze Age and its more recent additions in the Iron Age. The old stuff is mainly animals and sun Gods, whereas the newer carvings tend to be more focused on hunting than worship. Everywhere you look there are carvings, hundreds of them.
A little dancing.
A pregnant horse (see the horse inside the horse?) and a sun god.
The views were pretty cool - a long vista across the steppe.
And a scary snake sign. But we saw none this day (the best way).
We spent 3 hours there then drove back to Almaty, enjoying the mountain views.
As our hotel had been storing our luggage for us, we plonked ourselves in their restaurant again. I am only finding vegetables and rice to eat, in the main, and we knew there weren’t Ruth friendly restaurants nearby from our investigations the previous Friday. So we pretty much ordered the same as before and stayed there nearly 3 hours doing crosswords, playing cards and enjoying their wifi.
At 2215 we headed to Almaty 2 train station for our 2345 train. We were able to board 45 minutes early. It took us a few minutes to work out his to get to platform 2. As Almaty is a terminus each train sits in a single track so has a platform each side. So to get to platform 2, instead of using the stairs, we were told to walk through the train on platform 1. Never done that before.
We had a first class en-suite double cabin which sounds a lot posher than it was. But we managed to find a shelf to put our luggage on and tucked ourselves in for the night, but not before the guard checked our tickets and ID. Just as he left our cabin he paused, looked at JC and said “no smoking”. Then he wagged his finger and added with a smile “and no whiskey!”
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