Heading west again, finally!
Flight #1, train #16, distance travelled from Shanghai 13,500 km - I travel from Astana to Almaty and on to Taraz. Another great soup discovered.
My departure from Astana marks something of a turning point - I left Tashkent on 22 August, and have been east of there ever since, despite my journey is essentially to take me west. Now I start heading west again. After the long train trip north from Almaty, I have decided to treat myself and fly back. Getting to the airport involves a trip on the #10 bus - because it ducks and dives into residential areas to collect passengers, it is at least 25 km.
Doing this takes me further into the new part of the city than my walks have, and I see more of its design. I wish I had had the time to explore further because it does look impressive. At the southern extremes of the city, shiny, tall skyscrapers are quite prevalent. As a monument to mark the transfer of power from Almaty to Astana in 1997, they built a tower - it’s 107 metres tall, with a 22 metre observation sphere. There’s an elevator which takes people up into it and, for a special treat, they can put their hand in the gold mould of the former President’s (Nursultan Nazarbayev) hand. This is as close as I get to it.
I am quite early to the airport - I did not know how frequently the bus would run, so left at around 9:30, and the bus arrived at its stop as I did. This gave me plenty of time to have a couple of coffees. The airport is very busy, and a lot more colourful than normal, because the World Nomad Games are starting, and teams are flying in in their colours. These games are claimed to be even bigger than the Olympics - the idea is that nomadic people of central Asia get together and play their traditional games, but the invitation is open to the whole world. They expect 2,500 participants from 89 countries in 21 games. The list is in Kazakh so I don’t know what they are, but I have seen posters for archery, archery from a horse, wrestling and the powerful nomad strong man competition. There are also scientific and cultural elements.
The flight down on SCAT Airlines is pretty standard - I fall asleep soon after take off and miss quite a bit. I do know that the flight time is so short that the meal trolley didn’t quite get to me in the near back row - no biggie, as I would have had to pay for anything anyway. Instead, I have a chicken and potato late lunch in Astana airport before working out how to get into town. I make a poor decision and catch a bus which takes me a long way from my hostel, but at least it terminates at a metro station.
I am back in the hostel I stayed in before - the Gagarin Capsule Hotel. Although there are no sights to see here, I really like the area. The metro being right under the hostel is great for connecting, and I think I mentioned the craft beer place across the road and the Seventy coffee shop around the corner. Walking a bit further around, I think there’s everything here to make it a comfortable place to live. I discover a second branch of the Seventy coffee shop (they only have two, and they are within 500 metres of each other), and a great Georgian restaurant where I have more kharcho and a great version of Ojakhuri with tender lamb.
I delay checkout from the hostel as long as I can, because my train leaves after midnight. After dropping my bags at the railway station, I head back to the centre of the city. One of the things I had missed in previous visits was seeing the mosaic murals on the walls of the Almaty Hotel - one is from 1965, the Soviet era, telling the story of two star crossed lovers, and the other is from 2004, depicting the Silk Road.
There’s one other area I didn’t see before - the so-called Walking Street: many towns in SE Asia have them, they tend to be quite long, with lots of stalls and buzz. The one in Almaty is just a single block with a few shops and restaurants, but it is pedestrianized. I have a Russian APA and some sausages (I have been obsessed with finding the perfect sausage since I found it in Dushanbe) before heading to the library to work through the rest of the evening.
I make return visits to the Original Coffee Shop, the Hopers Craft Beer place and the burger shop I had my first meal in Almaty before finally making my way to the railway station, where I find I have the compartment all to myself. I don’t think there are many in the entire carriage.
This is an older train than the one I look to Astana, and the design is better. There are fixed steps on each side of the door for access to the upstairs bunks, there are good lights for each bed, and lots of spaces to store things. Best of all, the bed is even more comfortable - as you can see in the photo, even for the lower bunk, you don’t sleep directly on the seat - instead there’s a mattress in a holder you pull down. I have a great night’s sleep in splendid isolation.
My destination is Taraz - the above picture sums up my attitude to the place quite well. It’s quite a large city, around 450,000 people, which celebrated its 2000’th anniversary in 2001. This makes it one of the oldest settlements in the area, a big deal back in the days of the Silk Road, although its present form was really imposed on it by the Russians in the 19th century. Apart from one part - that will be in the next post - I don’t see anything particularly old. One claim to fame is that thanks to fighting here in 751 between the Chinese and an Arab Caliphate, the West became aware of paper. That’s actually a big deal!
Walking in from the railway station, I have to confess, there’s not much to see, and I’m wondering why I came here. But then as I approach the modern centre, I find a lot to like. For a start, there are a LOT of coffee shops, some better than others. I like the stark whiteness of this one, and have a great morning coffee there - the other two customers do their best to have a chat with me.
The public buildings are quite graceful - my hotel (yes, a hotel, not a hostel) is essentially at the end of this line of three buildings - Amanat is the major political party here, the building next to it is a newspaper publisher (very convenient) and I don’t know what the third building is. The building below them is the city hall.
The main thing however is the vibe - it strikes me as a peaceful, prosperous and quite happy town, very pleasant to walk around in of an evening. In one of my visits to a coffee shop, I read a Jay Rayner review in the Observer of a kebab shop which created a sudden need for one - luckily the Istanbul Cafe was on hand to supply some. I started with Ezogelin - a Turkish soup - it has red lentils, rice, bulgur, pepper paste and (allegedly) spices: this version was very mild, but delicious. The lamb was quite crisp from its exposure to the charcoal fire and also delicious. The waitress, well she was just lovely.
I have actually booked a flight back to Auckland, so I need to gain some momentum - it is still quite some time away, but there’s a lot of ground to cover between now and then. Here’s what I’ll be doing until 24 September.
Cheers!
Enjoyable read as usual. These places are virtually unknown to us in the West. it's good to get a glimpse of them.