Silk Route | Almaty | Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan on The Silk Route

Since our last post we have travelled 4,448 km overland following the Silk Route to Almaty, Kazakhstan. We left Moscow on Saturday 21st, and with a quick change in Astana (Kazakhstan's capital), we arrived in Almaty on the morning of Wednesday 25th.

Moscow to Almaty via Train

The train was by no means the fastest option but certainly the most beautiful. As we travelled South and West we were able to watch the landscape around us transform from coniferous forest to the open snowy abyss of the Kazakh steppe.

Post Author Hattie

We were accompanied on our route by a variety of characters. Our first cabin companion was Dennis, a Russian pilot. We warmed to him immediately, and spent our evening playing cards, and practicing our Russian. The following day we crossed the Kazakh border and were joined by a Kazakh couple and their adorable two year old daughter. Our 'pop-up' travel mugs provided hours of entertainment for the exciteable toddler, whos English vocabulary was paramount to our Russian.

There is free boiling water in each train carriage, which was great for rounds of tea, noodles and smash. The atmosphere on the train was very hospitable, with people socialising between cabins and food being shared all round. There was also a restaurant carriage which proved a good retreat from the cabin when it got busy.

It was hard to believe the temperature outside was -30 whilst we were sitting sweltering in the well heated cabins. However, a trip between carriages would soon bring reality home when your hand would stick to the frozen door handles in the vestibules between carriages. The doors were thick with ice and the floor would shift under your feet exposing the rails beneath.

Arriving in Almaty we were ready for a shower, some 'proper' food and our own space to get settled.

Almaty

Almaty is a bustling, modern city lying in the shadow of the Tian Shan mountains. People are friendly, streets lay thick with snow, and whilst its Soviet buildings dominate the grid street system they are softened by the many trees and city parks.

Our hotel, the rather basic but completely adequate (if they get the heating fixed today...) Hotel Turkistan is right opposite the city's main market. The market is a lively place offering an array of delights including lambs heads, 'Organic Dog', and also some quite delicious cakes amongst other things.

We spent the first half of the week strolling round, exploring the city, and sampling some of the many coffee shops. Coffee shops are obviously taking off in a big way in Almaty; they know how to make a good cappucino. It's nice to see that the likes of Starbucks etc have not yet invaded the market.

One of our days was spent taking an unintentional 'tour' of the city in order to find the Ecotourism Information Resource Centre (EIRC). The location in Lonely Planet's Central Asia guide is out of date, but we managed to track down the correct address and so made our way across town to find it. We were hoping to be greeted with information on the 'diverse nature of Kazakhstan' as promoted on their useful website.

We were eager to hear about what we could do in and around Almaty. Unfortunately however they were less than helpful. The general response was that 'no you can't do anything it's out of season'. We were still eager to hear about anything we could do around the city, find out about heading up to the mountains for skiing etc.

The guy behind the desk seemed extremely reluctant to provide any information and left Christina having to pull a 'nice-nasty-nice sandwich' on him concerning the hand out map that we were unexpectidly charged 200 tenge for upon leaving (that definitely should have been free)...

We left rather baffled with our small city map with a few scribbles of notes on, but generally little more information than when we had entered.

Kazakhstan is not necessarily set up for tourism or the 'backpacker' trade. However, this isn't a bad thing, it can just make things a little more time consuming.

One thing which we were prepared for was the 'scrum' to get registered with the migration police described again in Lonely Planet. Our experience however was far more positive. We were in and out within 15 minutes and not charged for registration.

After a few days of exploring the city we felt we had seen most of what Almaty has to offer, so it was time to head up into the mountains. The number 6 bus takes us from the centre of town up to Medeu in about half an hour.

Medeu is home to the highest altitude ice rink in the world, which is currently hosting the ice hockey world championships. A gondola lift takes you from Medeu up to the slopes of Shymbuluk and offers great views of the ice hockey matches being battled out below (which we could also later catch up with on TV at the hotel). The mountains at Shymbuluk are stunning, and it was great to get some fresh mountain air and some amazing photos - hopefully to upload soon.

Our couple of days skiing have been absolutely brilliant. We had a few runs on the 'baby' slopes on the first day to get our 'ski legs' and then headed straight up the mountain for a pretty steep and exhilarating run down (well, steep for us anyway).

Shymbuluk has been completely modernised since Lonely Planet's review and offers all the mod cons you'd expect from a European resort (and the price tag to go with it).

We've really enjoyed our time in Almaty, and skiing really made it special. We have learnt to ignore anything Lonely Planet has to say, and will certainly miss the mountains, but now heading off to Turkistan, another 'Zhebek Zholly' (silk route in Kazakh) town.