Blogs from Kazakhstan, Asia - page 2

I came to Almaty with three very specific and intricately important goals for my trip: 1. Wander aimlessly, 2. Gorge myself shamelessly, and 3. Search for camels relentlessly. These lofty goals took me all over the city, into countless cafes and even into the countryside and I am proud to say, I was pretty productive during my time in Almaty. I spent much of my time on foot exploring the pedestrian friendly streets of Almaty in search of anything that interested me and in search of nothing at all. This unstructured quiet time allotted me the brain space to really observe the city around me and the people who call it home. Here are some of my very random and often insignificant observations: 1. The people of Almaty have a high expectation of cleanliness. I was ... read more

Atyrau, Aktau, Aralsk, Aktobe, Almaty, Astana e chissa' quante altre: il Kazakistan sembra proprio avere una passione per le grandi citta' il cui nome inizia per la prima lettera dell'alfabeto; per il momento mi limitero' alle prime tre, come breve introduzione a questo vasto paese, lasciando le due piu' famose ad un secondo momento. Ognuna di queste citta' ha un diverso motivo che giustifica una passaggio dalle loro parti, e per la precisione un fiume, un mare ed un (ex) lago. Atyrau sorge sulle due sponde del fiume Ural che, scendendo dai monti Urali fino alla costa Mar Caspio, segna il confine geografico tra Europa ed Asia, regalando al Kazakistan quella sua effimera appartenenza anche al continente europeo; ecco perche' quest'anno troviamo l'F.C. Astana qualificato per i 32esimi di finale dell'Europa League. Grazie all'Ural, Atyrau puo' ... read more

Our original idea was to take a night train from Almaty to Astana, but just before we left NZ we read more about Turkistan and changed our plans. From the 16th to 18th centuries Turkistan was the capital of the Kazakh khans. It is home to the mausoleum of Turkic Muslim holy man, Kozha Akhmed Yasaui, and was built by Timur in the late 14th century. It is Kazakhstan’s greatest architectural monument and most important pilgrimage site. The guidebook claims that it rivals Timor's creations in Uzbekistan such as the Registran in Samarkand, and says it has no rivals in Kazakhstan for man-made beauty. We figured that it would likely be the last chance (and only time on this trip) that we get to see the stunning blue tile work so quintessentially Central Asia. At only ... read more

Our night train to Shymkent left at just gone 10pm. The people at the hostel told us to get there 2 hours before and that had been the drill in Uzbekistan, but after collecting our bags from the hostel and getting a taxi there it turned out we could have arrived 30 minutes before and been in plenty of time. We were a bit disappointed to be leaving on a Friday night as the nightlife in Almaty was just beginning to stir (though not that anywhere remotely decent would have let us in with the outfits we have anyway). For the first time we were travelling first class. It was a big modern train, we couldn't see either end from our carriage and a sign on the side suggested it had a top speed of 200kmh. ... read more

Now that's a strange name for a blog you might say, and I actually agree with you! I have just set out for a 3 week tour of the '5 Stans' and as preliminary reading, I found this great book on Kazakhstan, and this was the title of the first chapter. Now whether their claim is true that apples were first found here, and whether Adam and Eve were in fact Kazakhs, is not really important, but I can assure you that Kazakhstan has myriads of apple orchards and the product tastes great. A couple of us from the tour arrived first in Almaty as the advance party, to get acclimatised and adjust to the local time. Fortunately the flight over from Sydney via Abu Dhabi with Etihad was pretty uneventful, but a strange thing happened ... read more