Almaty – A Fond Farewell

Kazakhstan is an enormous country that straddles the Asian and European spheres of influence, creating a diverse and fascinating place to get to know, even if we only explored the one city. With the Chaps reuniting in Bishkek for one final outing, we crossed into Kazakhstan heading towards Almaty, the old capital and largest city in the country. 

Food

Green Bazaar

Learning from our previous mistake of going to bazaars such as Murghab with Jeroen (see this post for details), we went alone this time. It was a multilevel, indoor complex of food stalls and among the baskets of apricots and tanks of fish, it was almost impossible to navigate your way around. Was that the same spice stand as before? No way to know. However, no matter the corridor you go down you’re sure to find something interesting. As previously mentioned, our lack of food (other than pure unseasoned cholesterol) for the last two months was slowly causing our bodies to ebb away from this mortal plane and to a slow, deficiency riddled death. This being the case, we threw hopeful glances at the fruit and vegetables on sale, hoping that we could absorb nutrients through nothing more than proximity and our sense of smell. Instead of considering buying some life-saving goodness, we opted instead to look ahead to the morning, we were in need of bread to accompany our eggs and there in the Green Bazaar we got a whole loaf for less than 5p.

On another trip to the bazaar, we happened to walk into the meat hall. ‘Hall’ doesn’t quite do it justice. Meat palace. Flesh atrium. Yep, that’s the one. Gazing upon what was really an exhibition of deconstructed animals, we imagined cooking up a storm with some of the tastier, non organy parts of animals that didn’t previously go ‘neigh’. We were hungry by this point and no number of pig heads on hooks, or goat’s heads with slowly contracting skin could change that. We sat down in a tiny local cantina within the “flesh atrium” and ordered a plov each. Big portions, we were off to a good start. But as we worked our way through the mountain of rice and meat, we shovelled into more and more oil. Neither of us could fathom how that much glistening grease could be on this dish. By the end, our plates were a shimmering, oil choked disaster, but there were no drowning sea birds or multinational corporations making empty promises, instead it was just us and a smiley potbellied Kazakh man.

Restaurants

Other than the Green Bazaar there were plenty of places to get food inside you. Whether you want to follow in our footsteps and start multiple shashlik parties, where all your food comes on a myriad of helpful skewers so that you never lose it. Or maybe you want to shovel unfathomably hot broth into your unsuspecting and sensitive mouth? Then, thinking you’ll avoid the broth, you eat the dumplings bobbing around in there only to discover they contain even more bloody broth which is somehow at 300 degrees. My advice would be to try it all, eat a horse, run riot with shashliks and incinerate every taste bud in your mouth. Why not?

Sights

Having been indulgent to the point of gluttony for the last week and a half in Bishkek and Issyk-Kul, Brendan and I decided we needed to get our bodies moving again. We walked from our hostel in the centre of Almaty, along tree lined avenues, steadily uphill and towards the outer part of town, where we caught the cable car to Kok-Tobe. We didn’t have expectations for this mountain beyond some nice views and perhaps a gander at a Beatles statue but that was about it. We arrived and were shocked to find it was home to a weird amusement park, a zoo and indeed the horrifically malformed bronze immortalisation of some Scouse blokes. We had a wander, went on a rodelbahn and then accidentally saw Drazen and Jeroen who had cycled up. 

Feeling inadequate in the face of the Europeans’ physical efforts, we decided a nice long walk all the way back to the hostel would make us feel less like two dustbins full of custard. Straight off the bat we were fighting through spiky plants and slippery slopes, but after that it was smooth sailing through quaint neighbourhoods with friendly people. We were nearly home and yet our bodies were just starting to reach their peak, starting to purr with a giddy anticipation of more. Never being ones to ignore the alignment of the stars, the almost indiscernible will of the universe, we gave in and obliged our bodies’ desires. We kind of did a work out in a children’s play area in the centre of Almaty between some high-rise flats. Now, I must clarify that it started as an ironic workout session, solely for our own amusement. However, as the minutes rolled by and our photographic directing of each other became more intense, so did the workout. 

Thinking (wrongly) that Russian Jesus could help our bodies recover from such fervent physical exertion, we made the short trip to the Russian Orthodox Cathedral. However, either Russian Jesus had better things to do than cure our aches or I really don’t know enough about what religion really entails. I was disappointed but we had a wander about the place anyway. The colourful 56m tall cathedral was completed in 1907, is made entirely out of wood and was built without the use of one nail. The inside of the cathedral was almost entirely covered in scaffold (maybe if they weren’t so uptight about nails they wouldn’t have needed it) so we had a little look at a nicely painted wall and a few chandeliers before leaving. It wasn’t quite the experience we had at Tashkent’s Russian Orthodox Cathedral, nevertheless it still held us in a state of reverence that the architecture and religious significance of the structure demanded.

Friday

Our final day in Central Asia just happened to be on a Friday. Whoops. 

During the day, we did some things. At night we did more things, but it all began at the Georgian restaurant. We had tried this place out after a little bowling trip with a German lad called Jonas who showcased his annoying German efficiency on the lanes. Knowing now that it served a variety of tasty meals in a really nice setting we made tracks for our second visit, this time without the feverish hatred for the royal family making itself known over dinner. Oh Jonas, you didn’t need to sour our dinner with your hatred of old people. On our return on the Friday night, we were joined by two English girls, Ella and Ako who we had met at the hostel. The Chaps +2 ate tonnes of amazing Georgian food, my favourite thing being the most incredible baklava for dessert. We also may have indulged in a few drinks, Brendan and I finding rum for the first time in two months. 

After filling ourselves up we wanted to keep the evening going, so all of us, minus Drazen, went to a karaoke place. Drazen told us that he was off to find a Russian man to whom he had promised to give a haircut (as you do) but apparently they ended up just drinking vodka together all night. Having lost the oldest member of our crew to an evening of Russian vodka and possible haircuts, we entered our private karaoke room. Over the next few hours we exhausted not only ourselves but also the song catalogue, blasting out duets and solos like our lives depended on it. Soothing our raw throats between songs with a few drinks, we were all feeling merry after our two hours in the booth. Therefore, it was a good job we were only a few minutes from the only place to be in Almaty on a Friday night, Skybar. 

We pushed our way into the enormous queue with the help of some extremely friendly Kazakh people. We made our way upstairs and so began the night. This open-air bar was spread out over the whole rooftop of an enormous building, with different levels being themed around different cities and containing multiple bars. The music was always brilliant, we met tonnes of really friendly local people, everyone was dancing, singing and generally having a great time. The only negative was the price of drinks but the fact we had done a number on ourselves in the karaoke booth meant that we weren’t in need of too many more. Skybar is without a doubt one of the best bars/clubs I’ve been to, so save up a small fortune so you can afford a beer and I’ll see you there.

Final Thoughts

This is my final post of Central Asia, maybe in years to come Brendan will write his still hotly anticipated post about the Silk and Spices Festival in Bukhara, but for now this is the end. Central Asia has been without a doubt the biggest adventure of my life. The captivating history, the vast landscapes and the faultlessly kind local people all combined to make this diverse region of the world somewhere I will treasure the memory of forever. 

As well as being my final post about Central Asia, this is also my 50^th post on this blog. This blog started out as poorly thought out, collection of almost incomprehensible travel-related drivel, pulled erratically from my brain. I needed a way to haul myself back from the brink of geology-derived lunacy and this provided that rope to safety. However, writing on here is no longer an escape but a relaxing and fun way to express my passion for travel. With every post, I like to try and make the world, and all it has to offer, more accessible and entertaining. I genuinely appreciate everyone who reads anything on this blog, it does take a fair amount of effort to write posts now that I try to make them more than just garbled nonsense, so it means a lot that anyone would invest time into reading something I’ve written. 

Stay tuned for the beginning of a new adventure on the island of Taiwan.