Central Asia - Part 6 - Back to Nur-Sultan, and looking back

Finally the last part of my trip... Friday was again travel day, time to leave Tajikistan and return to our starting point Nur-Sultan. Again we got stamps to passport and our plane ticket (2 stamps), and you put your bags through x-ray 3 times, and your passport gets checked 4 times I think. We had a transfer in Almaty, and I got information from check-in that we have to do the immigration process and passport control in Almaty, and then transfer to domestic departures. So we filled the migration form for Kazakhstan for the third time and again we got stamp after stamp… after security check there is a desk, and the officials only job is to stamp the tickets! Passport gets checked about 5 times. I have 6 stamps in my passport just from Kazakhstan and of course 2 stamps fromTajikistan and 2 from Kyrgyzstan. Most of them are on one page.

It was very nice flight, just over an hour and we had our own screens (watched a couple of episodes of Big Bang Theory). In Nur-Sultan this time I got my bag really fast, the driver was waiting for us and took us to the hotel. For this last night we had booked a 4 star hotel, Aldana. Very beautiful hotel!

 

 

We had dinner at the hotel restaurant, a lovely place. One thing I noticed during this trip, that over there the restaurants are not full of tables, so there is lots of room to move.

The only problem in the restaurant was that they don't have a menu in English. That is something I didn't expect in a classy place like that, and our first waitress didn't speak a word of English. Using Google translate we managed, then we got a waiter who spoke English, except he didn't know what salmon is. But the food was good and so was the wine! That was the day when ice hockey world championships started, and we watched Finland beating Canada (suckers!!). My friend had an early flight but the hotel offered him early breakfast, and he left at 5 a.m. I didn't even wake up! I am a horrible friend… I woke up when it was daylight already (almost 8) and my first thought was he has slept in and missed his flight. It did not come to my mind that I didn't wake up :D. But he got to his flight, and so did I in the afternoon.

One very weird thing in the hotel happened... in the same building there seemed to be a clinic too. In the hotel elevator there was a screen, where they advertised the clinic as well, and they showed a woman having an ultra sound. Not exactly what you like to watch in a hotel elevator after breakfast. The only word coming to my mind is Why?

My flight was at 16.10, first to Frankfurt, 3 hour stop there and then to Dublin, that is 2 hours flight. Then I had to wait for my bus for 2 hours, and the last leg was 2,5 hours by bus. So it was about 3.30 at night when I arrived at home, I had notified my flatmate not to shoot me as burgler and she promised to unload her shotgun. Obviously she did that because I am still here. Time difference to Kazakhstan is 5 hours, so basically I stayed up all night, again. Why I keep doing these crazy schedules? I could afford and extra hotel night or the higher price for better flights, but I still rather spend my money on things to do, and not on the extra comfort on transportation. But the older I get, the more I appreciate that little extra comfort and these overnight travels just exhaust me, and the recovery takes more and more time. Which usually I don't have because I go to work the next day.

I got home almost two weeks ago, and I always have this weird feeling right after travelling, like was I ever even there? I know I was but the feeling is just funny. Now I have started to plan my next trips and I am getting very restless again. I have been pondering if I should stay here for another winter or should I move on after summer. I still don't know what I will do, so maybe I just check what is available and where. Here I have everything good, only the winter is horrible (I even missed Finnish winter). Maybe stay another winter, save as much money as possible, and then try to organise a few months off. I have many options in my head, and I already messaged my sister one evening because I had 6 o'clock existential crisis. Her reply "what crisis you have now again" probably tells you how often I ponder these things :D.

Anywyay, in July my sister and her hubby are coming for a visit, so I am also taking a couple of days off then. This weekend I am going to Dublin for one night, I just decided and booked it today. Just had to get somewhere. Right now I have no booked travel plans (empty feeling), so I have no idea what my next post will be about. I might post something about Dublin.

So that's it from my amazing trip to Central Asia. I absolutely loved it, and in that area there would be so much more to see.