Altyn-Emel means golden saddle, and when the evening sun hits the ridge it is easy to see why. This national park, in the south-east of Kazakhstan, sits in a bend of the Ili river, in the dry country between the Dzungarian Alatau and the Chu-Ili mountains, and it is a place of enormous quiet. Colourful badlands, white chalk hills, a field of wild flowers in spring and an expanse of dry steppe fall away to the horizon. The park's most famous feature is the Singing Dune, a sandy hill a hundred and fifty metres high and several kilometres long that hums or booms when the sand slides in dry weather, a sound that has been compared to an organ or a distant aeroplane.
The park protects the kulan, the Asian wild ass, and the goitered gazelle, and you may see them if you are lucky. Raptors circle above the ridges, and in the Ili valley, dense riverside forest grows against the desert. The park also has human history: Saka burial mounds, such as the great kurgans at Besshatyr, date from the first millennium before our era, and rock carvings, left by hunters and herders over thousands of years, show up in the gorges. The wider region is part of the Cold Winter Deserts of Turan listing.
Reaching it is an adventure. From Almaty the road runs east past the Kapchagai reservoir, then through low steppe to the area of Basshi, where the park begins. The tarmac is generally good on the main road but turns to gravel and corrugated track inside the park, so a bike with some ground clearance and a sensible pace are best. Permits and a small fee are required at the park entrance, and the rangers can help with directions. Summer heat can reach forty degrees, and the wind rises in the afternoon, so go in May, June, September or early October. In winter it is cold and the tracks can be icy.
Nights are cool, and the sky is full of stars, with no lights for many kilometres. Local guesthouses in the villages serve plain, filling food: fried fish from the Ili, hot bread and strong tea.