Central Asia - Part 2 - Almaty

Here is the second part of my trip, Almaty, Kazakhstan. At the airport I got my bag really fast (my friend was travelling with just hand luggage), and we took a bus to the city. The bus ticket cost about 35 cents… Our plan was to take the bus to city centre and then get a taxi. Good plan again. Except we didn't realise what is the city centre stop, bus was completely full and we were in the backseat with our backpacks. Then we got off, no idea where we were but that was not in the city centre. The bus to city centre was supposed to be 45 mins but it was rush hour, so we got off after 1,5 hours. So, went to a cafe, had some food and tried to get the waitress to call us a taxi. She kept calling somewhere because she didn't know how to call a taxi (!!!). She also did not speak English. Then she told us it is not possible to call a taxi there, and we just have to stop a taxi by the street (that is what locals do). So we went out, it was completely dark already. My friend noticed the chef of that place outside having a smoke, so he asked him too if he could help. He knew a few words of English even. At the same time some guy brought some stuff there, so the chef asked if he could take us to our hotel. We agreed the price would be 2000 KZT, about 5 €. I thought we must be close because he didn't ask more, but we were actually quite far from the hotel. Best five euros I have ever spent. It was late so we just walked around the hotel a couple of blocks, and had a couple of drinks. I also checked how to call a taxi here, I found right away 20 taxi companies with phone numbers, and instruction for foreigners that if you don't speak the language (Kazakh or Russian) ask a local to call a taxi and negotiate the price 😂. Oh well, we tried… Later I found out they also have an app for ordering a taxi, so that waitress was just completely clueless.

A liquor store near our hotel sold Finlandia Vodka

 

Tuesday after breakfast it was a bit cloudy and rainy so we waited at the hotel for a while if the sky would clear up. Well, it didn't, so we went out anyway. We asked the hotel receptionist, who doesn't speak one word of English (and the hotel name Altai Business Hotel is in English…), which bus goes to city centre. She told us, but at the bus stop there were different numbers. Luckily there was a man who spoke good English, and he told us the correct bus numbers. We had looked (somehow, not too clearly of course) where to get off. So we got off when we thought we were at the city centre, next to a big park, and many others got off at the same stop. Walked around, and not really finding the centre… So we found a nice looking cafe/restaurant (with lots of books there), had some food and they had wi-fi! I downloaded offline map, it even seemed to work sometimes, but quite often it didn't update the location and just froze.

Almaty is very green and beautiful city, clearly it has a lot of history and culture, and so many interesting places to visit. A few days really was not enough, and I would love to go back there, and see the city and its surroundings more.

Since it was still raining, we planned on going to archeological museum, that I found on Google Maps. Except it wasn't there :D. We asked a couple of girls and the other one spoke a bit English, and they told us where to go. We went there, no sign of museum, so we walked around the building, still nothing. We asked a doorman on the other side of the building and he told us to go round the building. Still nothing! So we entered the front door, nothing, and the doorman took us to a small room to pay the entrance fee. That was the museum! It was actually 4 museum, but not one single sign anywhere. There was one museum about the fossils, one exhibition about archeology, and my favorite; The Museum of Rare Books! The building was beautiful, and big, and we just entered every room that had an open door. If they want people to visit, maybe putting signs somewhere would help… some texts were in English but many were not.

After museum we went to tourist information, got good information from a lovely helpful young lady there! Bought postcards and booked a trip for the next day to Big Almaty Lake. After that, food in a very nice restaurant called Olivier. We also realised that in Kazakhstan everywhere toilets are VERY clean, every cafe and restaurant has 5/5 on cleanliness of toilets. The same thing applied to Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan as well, except the places on the road. We walked back to the hotel, checked a few shops on the way, and went to the post office near the hotel to send my cards. That was a bit of an operation since my friend wanted just the stamps because he hadn't written his cards yet, and the lady there had a hard time understanding it. But we managed, I got my cards on the way and hopefully they will find their way. Card from Belfast to Finland took a month to arrive… At least for now none of my cards have arrived, and I sent postcards from Almaty, Bishkek and Dushanbe.
 

Almaty has some lovely street art, so I took a few pics of those
 

The rest of the evening was just relaxing at the hotel. Wednesday was Labour Day but in Kazakhstan it is Unity Day, or Day of Solidarity or Day of the people, I have seen all of those. It is a public holiday, and the day for Big Almaty Lake for us, departing at 9 a.m. The lady at the tourist information told us that the driver does not speak English and it is just transportation. Lucky for us she was wrong, the driver did speak some English! Even the receptionist in the morning spoke English, first time is that hotel. The day was gorgeous, sunny and warm. It took about an hour to drive to Big Almaty Lake, the road was a typical narrow serpentine road as are the mountain roads anywhere. There was no snow on the road anymore, even though the day before it had snowed there. We stopped there for about an hour. We went down the hill, and I noticed my sneakers are fucking slippery! Seriously, they did not hold at all, I was just sliding down the hill, and was on my ass or on my knees all the time in that snowy icy muddy hill.  My friend helped me about half way down, but then I had to give up, and I hate that I had to do that. It was not easy getting up either I can tell you that. A couple of times some local helped me out a little bit, but then it was time for the steepest and most slippery part. Me and one local girl with very good English did that together. We kept falling down, we were laughing, and kept saying "we can do this together", and finally we did it! At some point she said "this is fun". I know you can't feel the sarcasm in the text, but I can assure you it was there. :D

I took some amazing pics, and even got a good pic of me! The lake was still frozen, just starting to melt, so I didn't see it's natural turquoise colour. Google it to see that.
 

 

 

My friend went down to the lake, and took some pics





Then we started to drive back, and stopped at this lookout for a few more pics. The driver told us he is actually a financial banker, so I guess that tells you what the salaries are like, and his wife is an English teacher.

We went back to the hotel for a quick rest, and then went to city centre again, because we wanted to go up Kok-Tobe mountain for a great view. We took the cable car up, and the view from there is gorgeous, you can see around Almaty. What I didn't like was the kids amusement park up there. The saddest place was the mini-zoo :(. Animals in small cages with nothing to do, or even grass or lawn, just wooden floor, or dirt. I don't go to zoos, they make me so sad.

 

 For some reason they have this upside down house there :D

 

The Beatles!

  

After that we had some food (nice chinese), and walked to the Park of 28 Panfilov Guardsmen, that is dedicated to and named after the Panfilov Heroes, 28 soldiers of an Almaty infantry unit who died fighting Nazi German invaders outside of Moscow in WW2. An eternal flame commemorating the fallen of the Russian Civil War and the Great Patriotic War burns in front of the giant monument of soldiers from all 15 Soviet republics. Thank you once again Wikipedia!

 

In Central Asia still many people live the semi-nomadic lifestyle, outside the cities you could see "cowboys" on their horses minding their herd. They also have a lot of companies with the name Nomad, for example this one.

 

I guess only nomads can park here



Long day, and I got sunburn on my nose! The rest of the evening we stayed in the hotel room, a lot of writing to do for both of us. The next morning we were off to Bishkek, and that will be part 3.

From Bishkek we returned to Almaty for one night. We took a taxi to the hotel from the bus station, but due to technical problems couldn't check in. Hotel (Renion Park) had a restaurant so went to eat first, and my friend had to rush to the stadium to see football game. Still no check in, so they offered me a cup of tea. Drank that, still internet not working. I get that there are technical problems, but shouldn't the hotels have some sort of back up plan. I am actually writing this while waiting the check in, and I have been here 1h 15 mins now. I am not the only one waiting here… there's wifi every now and then for a few seconds but that's it. I needed a shower! And a glass of wine! In that order! After 1,5 hours of waiting the system was finally up and running again, and I got a BIG beautiful plate of fresh fruits.

 

Technical problems happen, it is how you deal with the problems. I was tired and wanted to get the room for shower and just relax all evening and waiting 1,5 hours in the lobby was not what I was looking for. But I will give this hotel full points for handling the situation perfectly, they even carried the bags to the room (2 backpacks) and informed about all the services thr hotel offers, in good English.

 

So the rest of the evening I was just relaxing, and eating a bit of fruits, my friend arrived after the game (local team lost), and we were watching ice hockey and football from 3 screens (tablet, laptop, tv), just like true nomads again :D. This hotel had excellent breakfast, finally I got scrambled eggs! I know one friend of mine who just bursted out laughing (inside joke, sorry). On Monday we had our flight to Dushanbe in the evening so we had all day in Almaty. We had lunch with the lovely lady from the tourist info, my friend had kept in touch with her, and she told us where to take the bus to the airport. We also went to Arba wine, to taste some local wines.  
 

 

So the next post will be part 3, Kyrgyzstan.