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Day 107 Wednesday 4th May 2016 – Tashkent to Turkestan Last day in Uzbekistan, and we both have mixed feelings about leaving. Had a few more days left on our visa and was going to travel to some more regions but in the end decided to head off. Today we are once again crossing a land border and as usual we are apprehensive about what we might get. Hotel staff weren’t really a lot of help in giving us advice but they organised a taxi to take us to the border for 35,000 Som ($7 AUD). Tashkent almost sits on the border so it was only a 25 minute ride from our hotel to where the taxi dropped us off. Had to walk about 200 metres down the road to the Uzbekistan border control being hounded most of the way by people offering to “help us”. There were huge crowds at the Uzbek border controls and somehow we got stuck in the middle of a massive crush and the Uzbek authorities waded in screaming at everyone, rescued us and pushed us through as VIP’s. Have mixed feelings about being pushed to the head of the line
as foreigners especially when you go ahead of old women, but maybe because of our huge backpacks they wanted us out of the way.
Got through the Uzbek border controls without a hitch and then another 200 metres walk and we were being put through the Kazakh Inquisition. Had been really worried about getting through this one as the regulations had only been changed about 9 months ago and from past experience we know that news can travel slow on the diplomatic front. Previously we needed to get a visa before getting to the border but Australians, Americans and a host of other countries can now get a 15 day visa at the border, really wanted 30 days but that was way too complex so we have to make do with 15 days, our plans halved. Being processed through the Kazakhstan Border control went like clockwork with none of the screaming shoving and pushing that went on just down the road. As we were exiting the border building we got a “welcome to Kazakhstan” which is a good start.
As we went through the final gates a huge scrum of taxi drivers and money
The overnight train
Shelley dreaming that she is on a beach in Rioexchange people were waiting for us, pushed through them to see the road outside was completely ripped up and utter chaos. After negotiating and checking every which way that the price was agreed upon, we jumped into a taxi to sit for 25 minutes before the traffic started to move, basically there was only one lane coming in and going out of the area through a dust bowl of shops, people and cars. We paid the driver in US dollars so he needed to change the money before we left so he could buy petrol, cigarettes and an energy drink for the four hour drive. At the petrol station he pointed to the toilets and I (Shelley) took him up on the offer only to walk in the door and straight back out, now I have seen and used some pretty bad toilets but this one may have got first prize “as the worst ever” even over India. The toilet door did not close properly that is OK, inside was a large room with two concrete squat toilets no porcelain cover over a huge pit, a million flies and a lovely fragrance – so inviting. Halfway through the trip he
stopped again and the toilets were better as the concrete was tiled but the pit was still very deep, you would not want to make a wrong step or have bad balance.
Arrived at the Hotel Edem about 4pm got settled in and went for a walk to a bank for some local money and to check the area out. In a new country with a new currency and once again have to get our heads around what a dollar is worth – for the records $1 AUD is worth approximately 250 Kazakhstani Tenge. The town is rundown with the weeds up to your knees which is a first in Central Asia. The room here is OK with a balcony over a courtyard/dance floor (more of that later), the café has good food and a great setting so had a late lunch/early dinner. Back at our room quietly reading and about 8.00pm the small round courtyard started to pump and the area was packed with dancers. This went onto midnight, we knew that there was a restaurant/nightclub but being midweek we had hoped that it maybe quieter, how wrong were we, from the balcony we watched the
Almaty
Crowds at the War Memorial dancers taking continuous selfies of themselves, the people in Central Asia are obsessed with themselves, damn those Kardashians.
Day 108 Thursday 5th May 2016 – Turkestan Still no internet, we get a signal and it asks for a password but the staff will not give it to us, very annoying. This is a great place to eat and for a night out with the restaurant staff being helpful but the hotel part is dated and the staff are so rude and apathetic. We both actually felt that they resented us being there as if we were a problem, which is sort of funny because although having a lot to complain about we didn’t, but maybe we should have. We need to get washing done so put in a large bag hoping it will come back.
After breakfast we walked down to Turkestan’s main attraction the Yasaui Mausoleum which was built in 1390’s under orders from Timur but unfortunately he died before it was finished so the front portal has not been finished. The portal is bare bricks without the usual tiles which are only on the other
walls around the building. Inside the mausoleum and mosque is a huge 2000kg kazan (cauldron) that was gifted by Timur, this is the highlight of the interior as even the dome is plain white. We were the only international tourists here but there were many locals who come here to pray at the burial sight of Yasaui the founder of the Yasaui Sufi order which is still popular. Whilst on the site we saw two really nasty “stumbles” by locals, one fell down a water drain and another tripped over a manhole cover, both should have resulted in a broken limb but thankfully didn’t.
The next thing on the list for today had us concerned as no one we have met so far speaks English other than a word or two and charades is not their forte; it is off to the train station to get tickets out of here. Saw two taxi drivers having a chat and through a translating program on our tablet the message got a cross with one of the drivers doing the choo choo dance - a man after my own heart. At the station we got the translator out and after
waiting 10 minutes in line were very lucky the ticket seller spoke enough English that we got our tickets for tomorrow no problems asked how many to a cabin and were told 4, no need to worry???
Spent some time in an internet café around the corner to check on the world much to the annoyance to the local boys who were all playing multiplayer war games and as more arrived they obliviously had their favourite computers.
After dinner we got our bag of laundry back as we passed reception one tick for the hotel as our room had not been cleaned, just put the laundry bag down no need to pack tonight as we have an afternoon train. We got our books out to read to the sounds of “Bang bang” a cover of the Nancy Sinatra song which must be a hit here because we keep hearing it, and in fact heard it 5 times tonight. While grooving to the music I noticed my cargo pants were scrunched into the laundry bag so I thought I should pull them out and to my horror all the clothes ranged from very damp to
wet – the idiots. As we had no coathangers the room including bedhead and lamps were covered with clothes in an effort to dry them for tomorrow.
The courtyard disco raged till 12.00am and then they turned the music down slightly till 1am.
Day 109 Friday 6th May 2016 – Turkestan to Almaty Still no internet and just a stupid shrug from the staff, also asked via a translating program if there was a chance of paying for a half day and checking out at 5.00pm and we got yet another stupid shrug and then they pointed we could leave our bags at reception, well that is something I guess. Took it easy and hung out at the nice café in the hotel courtyard and got a late lunch, picked some supplies and grabbed the bags. Got a taxi down the road (could not bother asking the hotel to get us one) and were soon at the train station. This station is clean and good toilets and a nice waiting room so it is looking good so far.
The train arrived at 5.45pm and
it looked a bit old, found our carriage and were a little concerned but got on. Well this is where it went downhill – now I should say we have travelled second class no sleeper for 15 hours in India which yes is worse. It consisted of an open plan compartments with six beds in each and we both got the top bunks that have luggage storage above giving us less than 55cm from our mattress to ceiling. People already had their beds made on the bottom and the temperature was over 30 degrees and to top it off the window would not open and in fact had masking tape over all the gaps to seal it all in. In India at least the conductor insists that the bottom bunk is used as a seat during the day, but not here. What happened to our 4 berth cabin?? It was now we were considering jumping off and flying but knew the earliest flight would be tomorrow if we are lucky, so decided to see how we would go till the next larger town Shymkent which has an International airport. Eventually the man who had one of the bottom bunks returned
and offered for us to sit down so it improved a bit. The Conductor came around and basically asked us “what are you doing here?” to which we really didn’t have an answer. From his basic English he really couldn’t understand why us tourists were stuck back in “cattle class”. Took off with our tickets and we thought maybe he would come back and tell us we could shift but there was no fairy tale ending for us today.
We stopped at a smaller town some people got off so we snuck to an empty area and could open a window and get some fresh air but this only lasted an hour before the Shymkent stop and it filled up again with not even one spare bunk. As you can imagine the smell was getting a bit overwhelming and I dare not take a whiff of my underarm and we will not discuss the smells from the toilet. We pushed our way through the crowd back to our designated seats and soon discovered that the teenagers in the opposite seats were part of a wrestling group and soon we had 6 teenagers joining us in our small
Turkistan
Disco dance floor outside our window area asking a million questions in varying degrees of English including “why didn’t you fly” - a very smart boy. They were getting very wound up, till finally the older boy asked if we wanted to go to sleep which was a relief for us and the surrounding people as it was near midnight. They all got off at the next stop and one of them came and said goodbye.
It was now time for us to get into our bunks well this was going to be interesting and thankfully no one was videoing me as Scott tried to push my arse up into the bunk. There were foot holds at the end of the bed but then you have to maneuver to get in between without falling onto someone else’s bed, at least Indian rail had ladders (who would think I would say “at least Indian Rail had”). It was good to see other people were getting a hand up as well so it did not make me feel so bad. I put my Ipod on and pretended to be elsewhere. All through the night people got on and off the train but it was always
full when we left the stations.
Day 110 Saturday 7th May 2016 – Somewhere to Almaty Napped on and off during the night and finally were fully awake at 5.30am, during the night two women with two children had moved into the bottom bunks and they continued to sleep till 9.00am before getting up and giving us a chance to sit down the bottom. Sort of weird being stuck in a top bunk looking down at people sleeping on a seat you wished you could be sitting on – “wake up damn you”. The train finally pulled into Almaty at 11.30am and we had survived, pushed through the crowds and got a taxi. We are staying in a really nice hotel so we were very happy to get there and for me to use a toilet that was not moving.
Late in the afternoon went for a walk to check the area out and find some food, quickly discovered this city is more expensive but lots of nice places to eat and drink. After 17 hours on a moving train we both kept getting that weird motion
thing happening when you sit still, very annoying. We have found out that Monday is Victory Day here and it is a public holiday (Monday and Tuesday) so that is probably why the trains were all full and we only got tickets for these carriages (third class called Platskartny) instead of the better 2nd class kupyny carriages.
Day 111 Sunday 8th May 2016 – Almaty The hotel we are staying in is very flashy and chose it because we got a good deal on booking.com and it also had good WiFi. Because we were finally reconnected to the world, today was wasted sorting out what is left of our 15 days in Kazakhstan only to discover none of the travel agencies are opened and may not open till Wednesday because of public holidays so after much consideration we have booked a flight to Aktau and then out of the country. Sort of bad timing for us, to only have limited time in this country and hit it on an extra long public holiday weekend, meaning nothing is open and everyone is on the move and transport tickets are hard to
get. We ended up truncating our time in Kazakhstan further than we wanted as the country is huge and the best way to see in a short time is flying, and we just couldn’t get the flights we wanted. Thank God for skyscanner where we could actually check out all our options, but it took us nearly all day to figure out what we were doing. In the afternoon we hit the streets before ending up back at a Scandinavian restaurant for a great (and expensive) feed.
Day 112 Monday 9th May 2016 – Almaty Yesterday was spent mainly in the hotel pulling our hair out over trying to plan what we were doing in Kazakhstan, didn’t worry us too much as we knew we had today to look over Almaty. Come today though and we woke to pouring rain – damn. Today is also Victory Day, a celebration of the end of the European war that the Russians call “The Great Patriotic War”. We had seen stages being put up yesterday in preparation and wanted to get out and see it but really didn’t want to be standing in
torrential rain. Sat in our room all morning but it at least gave us a chance to do some blogging, aren’t you guys lucky.
Finally in the afternoon the rain stopped and we got out to have a look. Walked down to Panfilov Park in the centre of town to check out the Zenkov Cathedral and discovered that this was where all the crowds were. The Cathedral was built in 1904 and is entirely made of wood, including the nails and is a colourful sight. Next to the park is the towns War Memorial so it was no wonder this was where everyone was. The Second World War/ Great Patriotic War consumed 20 million Soviet lives, which is just such a huge loss of life and affected every corner of the Soviet Union. Read that large numbers of male farmers were rounded up from the “stans” to become cannon fodder on the front line and you can understand that impact would still be felt today. The First World War devastated Australia and I have the feeling that the second one had a similar or larger impact on Central Asia. The thing that annoys me the most is
Turkistan - Yasaui Mausoleum
Front portal from the rose garden that Stalin had huge purges on the locals before and after the war as if they were dirt yet expected them to defend him and his “mother Russia” in between. There was certainly a mixed crowd in the park today and we came across a few old veterans covered in medals selling carnations and having their photos taken. There was also a lot of people dressed up in army uniforms with guns having their photos taken. A lot of people were also walking around holding photos of relatives who were lost in the war. The atmosphere was more celebration than commiserations, but then it is to celebrate that the war ended and the Nazis were defeated. It was great to walk around with all the sights and sounds but late in the afternoon everything started to be packed up and the crowds thinned out so we headed home. Contemplated trying to see a few more things but before we could the rain hit again.
Almaty is a funny sort of town, really beautiful sitting beneath snow peaked mountains and having wide tree lined streets. The people seem more Russian than Central Asian and it feels modern, but
The overnight train
The bunks before the train was swamped with people then it has some weird quirks. There are lots of concrete animals throughout the parks here and across from the hotel is a small park that has 3 concrete horses standing in it – just a bit weird. Not too many shops here, and the bars and restaurants are expensive, and hardly anyone speaks English or have English menus. Help from waiters is as rare as a Putin smile, and you do get the feeling that they would rather not have you around than have your money. A Kazakhstan person warned us that Kazakh people can be rude and arrogant but if you take the time to get to know them they are the warmest people in the world. Maybe we just haven’t had enough time to warm them up or perhaps we need a flame thrower. Because we wasted yesterday planning and today it rained we really haven’t seen much of this town which is a real pity as I am sure it has a lot to offer.
Decided that because it was raining we would eat at the hotel restaurant for dinner but when we went down we discovered that the place was booked for
a first birthday party with lots of screaming children and opted to look elsewhere. We ran down through the rain to a restaurant/karaoke bar down the road where we got a massive feed and a few drinks. Most places we have ate at have sent us small overpriced plates of food but here we got an embarrassingly huge amount of food. When we left the restaurant it was absolutely pouring and the streets and footpaths were overflowing with water. Got drenched running the two blocks back home and then concluded our packing.
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D MJ Binkley
Dave and Merry Jo Binkley
Border Crossings and more
So many borders and so little time....you do it with ease now. Sometimes it is better to go behind the public toilet and squat. I can't imagine them washing the clothes and not drying them. What's up with that? I freely admit the older we get we are the less tolerant we are of the low end public transportation. We now spend the extra money for more comfortable transportation. I applaud your efforts. I'm glad you found some internet so you could make a plan.