Almaty or Alma-Ata

I had this cool but cheesy Kazakh cereal from the shops the other day for brekkie today. This morning I set out to look for the travel agent that Mark the German had recommended. Eventually, I found it. A google search says there are two but as it turns out, the one closest to the hostel on Nazerbayou street is a completely different agency that only organises holidays abroad, so I walked a couple of kilometres to the one on Zheltoksan 117. The dude there didn’t speak any English so it was a challenge booking this tour, using bad Russian spliced with English here and there, eventually to get there. Tomorrow I’m going to Charyn canyon for the whole day. I did, however, have to cancel the train I was meant to be catching to Astana tomorrow (received a 90% refund) and extended my stay at the hostel.

I went for a further stroll downtown until I got to the green bazaar. Today is an absolute scorcher, 32 degrees but much more intense due to the very inland location. A very dry heat, a bit like Lviv.

I walked through the fresh market. I tried to be careful not to make eye contact or look at any of the fresh produce otherwise I'd be pushed into trying it and would then need to explain why I don't want to buy it. I had some mixed pickled food as a sample, no real idea what most of it actually was. I did like the look of this chicken-looking food, however, it was not chicken apparently.

This bazaar is not the only one in Almaty, however, it is by far the largest and the most well known. Indeed there are at least 2 or 3 large dedicated just to fruit & veg. Feeling silly, after sampling a lot of stuff and not buying I eventually purchased cottage cheese for some reason. I said in Russian I’ll pay no more than 200 tenge, so she gave me a kilo! something I didn’t expect at all.

Later I decided to check out the mosque, walked up at the road behind people heading to prayers with their prayer carpets. Felt a bit like being in Istanbul on a Friday. I took some photos of the great golden-domed mosque but didn’t enter inside and bother those praying.

I walked further down the road towards the nearest metro station but decided to have ice-cream, baklava, and a kebab on the way. The kebab price was a bit higher than expected though. I have a feeling the shop owner ripped me off. Feeling overcome by the heat, I caught the metro back to Abay and caught the bus back to the hostel for a brief rest. At about 5 pm, I decided to experience some scenic views and caught the cable car up to Kok Tobe hill. While the view was nice, I was swimming in sweat upon leaving the car. It was like a 10 minute sauna with scenic views. Having some time to kill till sunset I ventured around the hill, saw the random Beatles monument, which even had a nearby speaker playing the same Beatles song, running on repeat of course. Had a look at the nice souvenir shops, and had some great char-grilled shashlik, pretty cheap too.

Eventually sunset came. The mountains made for a better photos as the city doesn’t really have any landmarks that stand out prominently from a viewpoint like this. Darkness took a while to fill the sky but it eventually came, together with a group of Russians in matching dresses and suits.