Onward to Kazakhstan

As I write this I’m sitting on the InterCityExpress Premium to Warsaw. Feels a bit like I am heading to a familiar destination, yet the reality is it will very likely be a completely new and different experience. Perhaps it is because this will be my first time in Central Asia, yet at the same time, not the first former Soviet Republic I am visiting. It might bear some communist resemblance to Georgia, Armenia or Belarus, yet with a very Asian flavour.

It’s 10.43 pm EET right now. A pretty uneventful stopover at Riga International Airport. My fight to Almaty departs at 11.30pm and I arrive at 7.50am Kazakh time. Seems like a pretty long flight but it’s only 5.5 hours.

After a flight that seemed much longer than 5.5 hours, I finally arrived to a morning much warmer than I anticipated. Much warmer than Warsaw had been in fact! Standard passport control protocol, except here I did also get a paper with 2 stamps on it that I am not to misplace!!

As in former Soviet republics and The East in general, taxi drivers were floating around outside the departure hall looking for an easy morsel. I didn’t give in however and figured I’m going for the foreigner using public transport experience. After getting about 13,000 tenge for $US40, I bought a transport card and was set.

I did hop on the wrong bus however after speaking to a curious local, who told me this isn't the right bus. So I hopped out and waited for the 29. While waiting at this stop somewhere in the outskirts of the city, I noticed something interesting. Hitchhiking is pretty big over here. A person simply hangs out onto the street and waves there hand at a passing car, the drivers pull over, the passenger says the destination, and the driver nods either yes or no and drives off. Eventually, the 29 arrives and I hop on. Standard bus ride. I was initially surprised by the number of Russian and/or European people on board, being in a Central Asian country. Really nice for the former Soviet Republic to have different ethnic groups living side by side.

I got off pretty close to the hostel and after getting a bite to eat at the bakery, I crossed this small makeshift river and after a few more minutes waling up the road I arrive. The hostel itself is this big house with a shed and a Landcruiser camper with Dutch number plates. Once I left my stuff in the room I went out to chat to a few of the varied other guests including a German who lives in Astana and a Dutch couple who drove a camper-van all the way here from the Netherlands. Turns out they left home March last year and have been travelling and European-Asian continents since.

After a while, I go for a stroll to the shops, buy a sim card, and check out the local supermarket.

Prices are pretty strange over here. Things like alcohol and baked goods are dirt cheap (a cake being like .20c), but cheese and sausages being considerably more expensive than Eastern Europe, about 3 euro for a ham. I buy typical traveller food, pastries, instant noodles, interesting beer, and a few big bottles of water.

By this point, I am pretty stuffed so I return to the hostel and drop like a hat on the couch. After a nap, I'm ready to head out and check out the city.

I hop in the metro which is standard looking soviet metro and train. The extra-long and sloe elevators, grand hall stations and so on. After a brief minute rode I get off at Zhibek Zholy, the main strip in the city. It is packed full of people, families, teenagers, quite western appearing actually. I had an awesome ice-cream for only 250 tenge, a decent bargain. I buy 2 more to cool off in the scorching weather.

Afterwards, I go to the loo and actually realise that the military music I have been hearing for a while now is actually due to today being Soviet Victory Day. And what a celebration it was. Old Kazakh men in military attire, young kids with Soviet berets and wooden rifles hanging off their shoulders, there was even an old man with an Islamic cap and robe walking by while blaring out Soviet Victory music out of a portable speaker.

I ventured over to the supermarket for a couple of supplies and went to the hostel, showered, and called it a night.