Results tagged “Kazakhstan”

While waiting for the ferry to depart for Baku, I meet an American (Charlie) who’s travelling around the world by bicycle. We take in ALL of the sights of Aktau within a few hours, museum, WWII memorial (eternal flame), MIG jet (just like Shymkent), mosque and a swim in the Caspian Sea (much cleaner than the Baku side since there’s no oil refining happening close to the coast).

Aktau WWII memorial (eternal flame)

MIG Jet

Mosque in Aktau.

There’s a park containing some of the weirdest statues I’ve ever seen.

For those looking to catch the ferry from Aktau, Kazakhstan to Baku, Azerbaijan, the only place you can get tickets from is Tagu, a travel agent located right next to the WWII memorial (eternal flame) in Aktau microrayon 7.

I arrived on a Sunday to find that the ferry left on the previous Friday and tends to leave roughly once a week. After checking with Alyona at Tagu every day, I eventually left on the following Friday on a cargo ship by the name of Dagestan. The cheapest ticket cost me 14,100 Tenge ($111AUD, $94USD). The cheapest plane ticket was 23,500 Tenge. Factoring in five nights accommodation and living expenses, the plane would be cheaper.

If you want a private cabin, rather than paying the extra 3,000 Tenge to Tagu, simply upgrade when you get on the ship, you can negotiate for 1,000 Tenge or you can just go into one of the unlocked cabins at night like the girl on the ship told us because she took a liking to us. I ended up sleeping in the shared seating area because it was comfortable enough.

The ship did have a cafe on board, though the choices weren’t magnificent. Though I’d brought enough food and water for two-three days like the lonely planet suggested, there were no delays in the trip. Speaking with a passenger that’s made the journey five times, he’s never experienced delays.

Alyona told us to get to the port at 6pm which we did, though it was 9pm before we started going through customs/immigration. There is an unsecured wireless access point in the terminal. Just after midnight, we boarded the ship but didn’t leave until close to 4am.

If you entered Kazakhstan by train from Uzbekistan (Kungrad-Beyneu), you should have two stamps on your migration card which will let you stay for thirty days without registering. If you’re from the SNG countries, former USSR, you need to register within five days (not five business days like in Almaty), the migration/OVIR office is in microrayon 3 right next to the hotel kerimet (the cheapest one in Aktau, shared room 1500 Tenge, single room 2000 Tenge).

After missing the lunch time train to Aktau; apparently it’s my responsibility to know that the train comes to the station one hour before it says so on the ticket; I catch the midnight train.

Since I’m riding plaskart (shared wagon with no assigned seats), when the train pulls up, a mob forms at both doors to my wagon. One of the guards selectively lets people onto the train with their bags, and tells others to go away, I’m in the group that has to go away and so end up joining the group at the other door where we all take turns to push and shove our way on.

I walk down the carriage to find that every bunk either has someone sleeping on it, or is being saved for someone with another person’s luggage. Likewise with every seat. Soon I’m at the very end of the wagon.

People are still pushing and shoving around me, so I just stand there and wait until someone finally moves over so I can settle into the worst seat on the entire train. The spot right next to the door for the toilet and smoking area.

It’s a fun game playing contortionist in order to get some sleep, any time I stretch out in my sleep, I’m woken up by someone opening the door , into my kneecap.

At a quiet point in the middle of the night, when everyone is too tired to go to the toilet or smoke, I finally pass out for much needed kip.

“F*CKING, SH!T, CVNT F*CK” I’m woken up from my sleep by the sound of my own voice, shouting loud enough to wake the entire wagon. The intense pain in my foot sends shockwaves up my body. I slowly piece together what happened based on the person still lying on my foot and everyone nearby looking up.

The guy lying on the third level bunk rolled over in his sleep and fell off, deciding that my right foot would be his point of impact. Eleven of his family members sitting around us, could not care less, grandma laughs openly.

When the man finally gets up, someone finally translates that he’s sorry. I accept the feigned apology, in too much pain to do anything but nurse my foot. Someone in a rush to get to the bathroom walks past me, opening the door into my throbbing foot, sending new waves of pain into my foot and cursing into my words. Grandma laughs again.

Not a single person offers to swap seats with me. Not a single person asks if I’m ok. Not a single person fetches the guard to apply ice. The pain is too intense to do anything.

I finally contort myself into a position where I can shield my foot from the toilet door and people walking past, but it’s far too uncomfortable to sleep in, not that it matters given the pain I’m feeling.

Everyone very quickly goes back to the sleep that I’ve deprived them of, and I’m left with my pain, my body breaking out in a sweat from it.

It’s still another seven hours until Aktau, I have nothing to do but think. At one point, I almost laugh, thinking about all the stupid things I’ve done (Tibet with no permit, climbing mountains without supplies, hitchhiking on the back of a tractor with a raging yak) and find it funny that the one thing that could cancel my trip is a broken foot thanks to some idiot falling out of bed.

I decide that if this pain continues, the following day I’ll get an X-ray and if it’s broken a cast and call it a premature end to the trip. This hurts far more than the pain in my leg.

The seven hours pass by at snail’s pace, I pass them by counting the number of people that bump into the foot, or simply brush past it as they walk past (I give up after thirty). When it comes time to go to the toilet, I almost pass out in the toilet from the pain.

As the train pulls into the station, the entire family, still oblivious to my pain goes into a frenzy to collect their bags so they can be the first ones out of the train. When one of them bumps into my foot, grandma laughs again. I burn an image of her face into my mind so that should I see her again, I’ll punch her, unashamedly.

The train stops and I manage to get my bag on and slowly limp off the train. It takes twenty minutes to walk from the train, 200m to the taxi stand where I can get a taxi to a hotel.

I reach my bed, drop the bag and pass out from the pain. Six hours later I wake up, force myself to hobble next door to the cafe, eat, hobble back and pass out until the following morning.

After a bit too much partying the previous night at Sabit’s house (our taxi driver form Kungrad to Moynaq), we get to the train station two minutes before my train takes off, talk about cutting it close.

I have a ten hour train trip, and have run out of cym, and as such am faced with a long day with no lunch. My plan is to walk down the carriage until I find a group of people to befriend and hope their natural Uzbek hospitality kicks in when it comes to lunch time and they notice I’m not eating anything.

I find a good group, a couple, a mother and daughter, and a husband and wife and spend the first few hours showing them photos and telling them about my trip. They reward me with tea, lunch and a bunk bed to sleep on.

I decide to wander up and down the train to see if I can find some foreigners to travel with. Big mistake. As I reach the guard for the next carriage, he asks me where I’m going, I give him some story about looking for my friends and do this for the next few guards also. Coming back, I stumble upon some of Uzbekistan’s finest (most crooked) cops (менты – slang term, pronounced Mentee).

Cops: Documents.

Me: *Giving them passport* Here you go.

Cops: Where are you sitting?

Me: The fifth carriage.

Cops: What, you think you can just wander around the train, where’s your registration?

Me: Here it is for the last night, the rest are in my bag. – Foreigners are supposed to have an OVIR registration slip from their hotel for every night they’re in Uzbekistan. I start to get the feeling that the rules are different for Russians and former USSR republics, similar to how it was in Kazakhstan, and start to think I could be in some trouble.

Cops: This isn’t the registration, you’re going to have problems at the border, the fine at the border is 1.5million cym ($1000AUD), you should come with us and answer some questions *cough* bribe us *cough*, and we’ll take care of the registration for you.

At this point their boss shows up:

Head cop: Ivan Alexandrovich ey, where’s your registration?

Me: I have all of the registration slips from my hotels in my bag, I can show them now. – I’m lying, I’ve gone close to five days unregistered.

Head cop: Where’s your OVIR registration that all former USSR citizens need to have?

Me: No one mentioned that to me, they just said hotel registration will be fine.

Head cop: Your Russian is strongly accented, where are you from?

Me: Australia.

Head cop *cracking a smile*: Get out of here son. *to the other cops* his registration is fine.

I head back to my seat and spend the rest of the trip to the border thinking about how to talk my way out of this fine.

We reach the Uzbekistan side of the border and everyone’s passports are collected. After an hour or so of waiting, we’re allowed to go outside for a smoke/stretch. After a few minutes, I hear my name called, turn to find a couple of border police, the guards from my carriage and a couple of other guys. I start to recite my story, I was told that a registration from hotel would do… BLAH BLAH.

Immigration Officer: It says in your passport that you’re from Australia, is that right?

Me: Yeah.

Immigration Officer: You live there?

Me: No, I’m homeless.

Everyone laughs, I notice that they’re all a tad drunk. We talk about seeing the world, and they keep telling me how cool I am. Happy to have befriended the Immigration Officers, I now stop worrying about the fine and as we chat, I don’t notice that everyone from the other carriages has hopped back onto our train. Our guards don’t notice it either.

The whistle blows and the train starts to leave, the guard realises and swears, back on the train he shouts and runs in front of the other passengers to get back on the train. We run alongside the train jumping on the train before it takes off, thankfully leaving no-one behind.

As I walk past the guards cabin, the guard comes out, Ivan, we need to talk. You will sit with us and eat melon and tell us about your trip. I sit down with them as they cut up a melon and the guard leaves presumably to do work. When he comes back, one of his friends turns to me.

Friend: Have you ever tried heroin?

Me: No.

Friend: Why not?

Me: It can do some scary things to you.

I shoot at a glance at the guard who’s just returned, eyes wide open, with an expression as if he’s not altogether with us. He doesn’t react. We go back to eating melon and chatting, when the friend excuses himself to the bathroom.

A minute later, the guard excuses himself and the friend returns, syringe visible in his shirt pocket, same expression as the guard. He pulls out a small bag with a couple of grams of heroin.

Friend: Man you want to try some of this heroin, it’s unreal.

Me: No thanks, but you might want to put away the syringe in your pocket before we reach the Kazak border.

Friend: Oh f*ck man I can’t believe I forgot about it.

He puts the syringe into his jeans pocket and thanks me for telling him, offering to give me the heroin as a present. I politely decline, thinking there’s no way I want to be accepting drugs as I’m crossing borders between two of the countries with the most corrupt police forces and worst laws against drug crimes. He tries to insist by putting it into my pants pocket. I firmly grab his hand before he’s able to put it in my pocket and shake it and sternly tell him that I don’t want any now, maybe later.

Shortly after, I find an excuse to leave the group and return to my seat, where the other passengers thought I’d been arrested and taken off at the Uzbek border. The friend walks past me, clearly high, winks to me and goes to his carriage.

An hour later, after we’ve passed through the Kazakh border, a group of soldiers come onto the train and make their way for me ignoring the other passengers. They look through my passport, and tell me to open my bag. They search through my bag and have me empty my pockets. I look to the end of the carriage to see the train guard talking with the head of the soldiers. I realise that he’d purposely had his friend offer me narcotics in order to be caught by the military, presumably to get a portion of the very big bribe they’d demand. Convinced that I’m not carrying any heroin, they let me pack my bags, and to show that they weren’t targeting me, they casually look into the bags of two other passengers nearby.

The soldiers leave the train shortly after and a few hours later we arrive in Beyneu with no further dramas.

Having seen all that Shymkent has to offer, I decide to head to Tashkent, Uzbekistan. There’s a sign for Tashkent next to the Bejan bazaar, conveniently located next to the Avtovokzal (bus, marshrutka and shared taxi stop) and so I aim to get there.

I hop on the first bus with a sign for the bazaar and after some time the attendant on the bus asks me where I plan to get off. Bejan bazaar I reply only to have her inform me that the bus won’t be going there. So much for trusting signs indicating where the bus is going.

Conveniently though, where I do get off also happens to be an Avtovokzal. Shymkent has close to a dozen of these, a real nightmare for travellers, especially those not familiar with the language. Since there are no marshrutkas standing in the Tashkent stand, I walk up to the first one I see and ask them about getting to Uzbekistan.

Within five minutes I’m on a marshrutka bound for somewhere close to the border from where I should be able to find another car. One of the older motherly types takes pity on me, speaks with all the passengers and says that we’re making a detour to the border. Woohoo!

Sitting next to me for the trip is an interesting character aka MBG (Misinformed Bus Guy). Our conversation goes like this:

MBG: Where are you from?

Me: Australia.

MBG: The country with the kangaroos.

Me: Yeah, great food.

MBG: Do you drink their milk?

???

Me: It’s winter in Australia.

MBG: Interesting… What year is it in Australia?

???

MBG: What’s the military service like in Australia?

Me: There is no compulsory service.

MBG: Then if you have no army, won’t your neighbours invade?

Me: We have an army. We’re neighboured by oceans. The only dangers there are sharks and beached whales.

MBG: I’d be careful, if the sharks know you’re country is undefended, they could invade.

???

MBG: Have you been to the USA?

Me: No, not yet.

MBG: Did you know there’s a state where it’s completely illegal to drive cars? Everyone rides on bicycles and horses and cows.

Me: I highly doubt this.

MBG: It’s true, my friend went there last year. He also told me there’s a state where everyone has to wear a sash indicating their ethnicity.

???

MBG: Can I get a job in Australia?

Me: What are your skills and qualifications?

MBG: I almost finished school.

Me: Do you speak English?

MBG: No.

Me: You can work in a call centre. :D

At this point we reach the border and everyone on the bus wishes me a safe trip. I’m swarmed by a small mob who offer to get me across the border hassle free for a small price. I ignore them and approach the border guard, who promptly tells me that the border is for Kazakh and Uzbek citizens only. I tell him I’m a Russian citizen and that we’re all friends. He tells me that the foreigner crossing is 80km away at Yallama. I tell him that if Stalin was still in power, this man would be sent to the gulags for his insolence.

The taxi drivers offer me ridiculous rates of 8,000 Tenge (60 AUD) for the taxi and think I’ll negotiate from there. I tell them to f*ck off, scam someone else and that I’ll walk. One of the guys kindly offers me to exchange money, saying that I’ll get 180 Cym to the USD instead of the 160 he claims I’ll get in Uzbekistan. The official rate is 1,500 Cym to the USD, again I tell him to f*ck off.

I ask a bus driver headed for Almaty if there are any cars to the border, he tells me that I should take a taxi and points to the drivers who are still waiting around like sharks. They take turns approaching me and offering ridiculous rates. I tell them I’ll walk, tossing up my options.

Eventually a driver tells me to hop in and that he’ll drive. I ask how much and he tells me that we can negotiate along the way, I tell him upfront or it’s a no go. He tells me that he’ll drive me to the main road from where I can get a lift to the border for around 200tenge. I hop in and thank the man for his generosity. Unfortunately at the borders, you’re swarmed by the sharks and don’t notice the good drivers.

I wait at the intersection for a car and am offered a taxi for 4,000 Tenge, he tells me the border will close in one hour and that it’s a half hour drive. I tell him I’ll take my time and sleep at the border if I have to.

The first lift I get is with an off-duty police man who tells me that he used to work at the checkpoint and that it closes at 9pm (in four hours, not the half an hour that every driver claimed). Price 200 Tenge.

The officer drops me off at the town closest to the border from where a shared taxi is 200 Tenge. Given the short distance involved, I try to haggle, they tell me to f*ck off. I give up trying to flag down a lift after five minutes and hop in the taxi. 200 Tenge, total price from local only border, 400 Tenge, total price from Shymkent, 700 Tenge.

I reach the officer just outside the border and show him my passport. He says that it’s $10 to cross here. I tell him it’s free for everyone to cross. He tells me the foreigner crossing is 70km away and that this isn’t Yallama. Playing along, I thank him, turn to start walking only to have him laugh and say I can come in.

Between the gate and the Kazakh side of the border, I bump into an Uzbek who offers me to change currency at 1,800 Cym to the USD (the official rate is 1,500 and the current black market rate is between 1,800 and 1,900). I tell him I’ll change $50 but he says he doesn’t have enough money, but will see to it that I’m taken care of.

I leave the man and walk to the Kazakh side of immigration and show my passport.

Officer 1: Where are you going?

Me: Tashkent.

Officer 1: Why?

Me: I hear it’s beautiful.

Officer 1: You heard wrong.

The next officer I reach.

Officer 2: Where did you come from?

Me: Shymkent.

Officer 2: Where are you going?

Me: Tashkent.

Officer 2: Why?

Me: People told me it’s nice there.

Officer 2: They lied. Open your bag.

Having expected this, I’d taken the precaution of hiding all my money on myself as there was a chance the bag would be swarmed by immigration officers who would steal my things. Unfortunately I couldn’t hide my laptop and the officer asks me to take it out and turn it on. As it’s turning on, he says I can be fast tracked for $20. I tell him I’ll wait.

Officer 2: Have you got any movies?

Me: No, it’s for work.

Officer 2: How about porn?

Me: No, it’s for work.

Officer 2: You have a program for music, put on some music

I turn on the program and the music starts, he calls his buddies, who, as predicted swarm my bag.

Officers: Where do you keep your money?

Me: I don’t have any.

One of the officers picks up a T-shirt and smells it.

Officer 3: Smells like narcotics.

Me: You need a new dealer, that’s the smell of sweat buddy, while you’re at it, do you mind washing it?

Pissed off that there’s no money, the officer swarm leaves, however I’m stuck with bored officer listening to music. While I wait, several men with suspicious packages or large sums of money walk past, pay a small bribe and keep going. After half an hour the officer lets me through. Note to self, hide laptop and make sure it has very little charge when exiting Uzbekistan.

I proceed to the final Kazakh officer.

Officer 4: Where did you come from?

Me: Shymkent.

Officer 4: Where are you going?

Me: Tashkent.

Officer 4: Why are you going to Tashkent?

Me: I heard the girls are pretty.

Officer 4: Good answer.

Me: I’m going to be returning to Kazakhstan, your girls are nice too, I don’t want to go through the hassle of re-registering, I need my registration card.

Officer 4: Sure I can help you with that. I help you, you help me. How much are you going to give me?

Me: As soon as you give me the card I’ll be out of your sights.

The officer, seeing that I won’t be giving him any money gives me the registration card and tells me to go away. Cheers to corrupt Kazakh hospitality.

I walk between the Kazakh and Uzbek sides of the border and just as I cross into the Uzbek side (passing a Kazakh officer who doesn’t demand a bribe), one of the guys who was talking with the officer says he received a call about a guy with a backpack looking to change currency. Looking at the Kazakh officer, I say we should walk a few steps away from him.

The guy says to not worry, that he can’t enter Uzbek territory (highly unlikely since he could easily rat on me and split the bribe money with his buddies on the Uzbek side) and walks a couple of steps with me to put me at ease. At 1,800 Cym to the USD, I offer to change $50 USD and am faced with a dilemma, verifying that I did in fact receive 90,000 Cym when the largest note is worth 1,000 Cym.

The guy takes out a pack in a rubber band and says it’s one hundred thousand in notes, quickly thumbs off ten thousand Cym notes, leaving them in the rubber band and puts them in his right jacket pocket. He gives me the stack and I tell him I’ll count them. I count them out slowly, reach 89 and tell him he’s wrong. He tells me I’m mistaken and we count them out together. The stack consists of 500s and 1000s interspersed (in order to confuse myself) and I catch him trying to double count notes and count a 500 as a 1000 when he speeds up. I tell him to stop, sort the pack into 1000s and 500s and tell him to count again slowly. Watching intently, I see him try to double count again and correct him. He finds that I’m watching so intently that he doesn’t try a third time and counts all the way to 89. He looks confused, pulls out a small pack in a rubber band from his left jacket pocket and surprise surprise, it contains eleven thousand Cym bills, conveniently explaining away that he tried to rip me off. I tell him it’s good that he remembers which pocket to take which stack from, exchange money and walk away, noting the smirk on the Kazakh officers face.

In total we spent fifteen minutes counting money between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan customs and I smile at the fact that I’ve committed my first felony (black market currency exchange) prior to even being let into the country.

Outside the Uzbek side of the border, I chat with an Italian trio doing the Mongol Rally and make a note to one day also take part in it. After a short chat, I head in to the Uzbek immigration office, show the officer my passport and am told to speak with the doctor.

Doctor: Are you sick?

Me: No.

The doctor gives me the all clear and says I can keep going. The officer decides he’ll escort me personally. Uzbek officer 1 takes me to the immigration booth where they handle cars and the three officers inside talk about not letting me in due to the state of my passport – it suffered some damage when I came into Laos and was drenched in water as part of their new years celebrations (March 14th-16th).

Uzbek officer 1 pulls me aside and asks me how much I’m willing to pay to be let into the country. I say nothing and that if there are any problems he should call the Russian consulate in Tashkent to explain that he thinks the passport does not belong to me.

The officer makes me stand and wait while he goes off to speak to his boss (have a tea and see if I’ll get nervous and want to pay his bribe). In the mean time, one of the other guys, having completely taken apart everything in one of the cars headed towards Uzbekistan turns to the guy next in line with Russian plates and asks if he’s carrying any forbidden materials like narcotics or guns. The guy replies that he has nothing illegal, except for the car bomb which will go off as soon as someone opens the trunk. I laugh.

Uzbek officer 1 decides he’ll parade me in front of some of the other officers hoping I’ll want to pay a bribe. I meet a French couple (Deviane and Mark) and have a short with them while I wait, telling them to not pay any bribes.

After finally being let into the country, I walk along with the French couple and find out they were at the other border shortly after me and paid $20USD for a taxi to this one. I cringe.

They ask me to help find them a lift to Bukhara. Given that I know Russian (but not the prices of taxis here), I accept thinking I’ll save them at least some money. As we pass a group of women with prams full of goods to take into Kazakhstan, I chat with them and find that the cheapest way to Tashkent is to take a taxi to the intersection with the highway (500cym) and a bus to Tashkent (1000cym).

We reach the taxi sharks and I enquire about a taxi to Bukhara, the price is outrageous so the pair decide to try catch a bus from Tashkent. We negotiate a taxi to the intersection and after 20 minutes agree to 1000cym, they weren’t willing to take us for the 500cym. We’re followed by another taxi, the driver of which asks how much we’re offering to get to Tashkent. At this point, I’m pissed off that they lied to us about the distance involved and wouldn’t take us for the going rate and tell him to go away while we wait for the bus.

Eventually I agree to take the three of us for 2,000 Cym each, thinking it’ll be quicker than taking the bus. We get in the car, and at one point do an illegal U-turn and head in the wrong direction on the highway as the driver tries to find some guy that owes him money. I enquire about seat belt laws and am told that no one bothers since the fine is only 2,000 Cym. Our car has no headlights so the driver leaves his indicators on.

We reach Tashkent and are told that no buses or marshrutkas run after 9pm between cities since there was a bad accident two months ago and many people died. Not trusting the taxi drivers, we walk to a marshrutka to find that it is indeed true. We eventually settle on 30,000 Cym for the couple to go Samarkand (down from 40,000 after half an hour’s negotiation). I tell the couple to not pay any money until they arrive at their hotel and work on getting my own lift into the city.

The taxi mafia tell me that the only way into the city is by car since the buses don’t run. A bus goes past one minute later. I ask them where the bus stop is. One of the guys tells me he’ll take me for 500 Cym. I agree and put my bag in the car. He resets his odometer as we’re about to leave and I ask him why, saying he offered 500 Cym. He tells me it’s 500 Cym per kilometre. I laugh and tell him to piss off, open the boot and take my bag. I walk away from the taxi mafia and ask one of the shopkeepers where the bus stop is since I want to go to the centre.

The shopkeeper tells me I should take the metro and points to the stairs right next to where' I’d been negotiating with the taxi mafia the whole time. I go to the metro and ask one guy where there’s a cheap hotel in the city. He speaks with someone else on the metro and this other guy (Rustam) says he’ll tell me where to get off.

Rustam gets off at the same stop as I do and we walk together towards the bus stop. He has a Tony Montana swagger to his walk and even resembles the man somewhat. We hop on the bus and Tony Montana shows some card which entitles him to free travel. I ponder whether he works for the SNG (internal spying organisation). Turns out he’s an Afghan vet and swaggers because he was shot in the leg during his service, go figure.

We reach the hotel (Al-Hocilot - Ал-Хосилот), a derelict building from the soviet times and Rustam bids me farewell as I check in. Showing my registration slip to the attendant on my floor, she informs me that I have to pay for soap, shampoo and toilet paper. Also, if I want a “little sex” she can arrange it. I thank her for the offer, tell her (over fifty and overweight) that she couldn’t handle a little sex with me and head to my room for much needed rest.

I arrive at Shymkent and make the mistake of asking a teenager for directions to a cheap hotel. When I reach the four star Shymkent hotel, I don’t even bother to enquire about rates.

Another local informs me that there are people renting apartments around the corner next to the pizza shop. When I tell them my budget, most people stop offering me their place, except for one guy (Nurbek), who takes me to a centrally located dump of an apartment. I decide it’s good enough for one night, pay him the money and proceed to have dinner in the most deadbeat way possible.

Imagine sitting on a couch in your undies, watching TV in black and white, eating pelmenyi (ravioli) with a matchstick out of a chipped bowl (there were no knives, forks or spoons available), chasing it down with beer and tea, out of yet another chipped bowl. Good times.

I sleep in past check out time and after a 20 minute long wake up call, Nurbek banging on the door telling me to wake up, I let him in and he politely waits (sleeps on the bed), while I shower (using cold water under a tap) and eat breakfast, instant noodles with a screwdriver I found next to a tin of paint.

I head out in search of Shymkent’s sights and experience something amazing.

Me: What’s there to see in Shymkent?

Local: Well there’s uh… a fountain (saw it on my way in)… some parks (boring)… mostly we just drink, a lot… oh I know, there’s supposed to be a MiG somewhere, you could see that.

Me: That’ll do.

Fountain at sunset.

Fountain, in a park, at sunset.

I take a car to find this MiG and overpay for the short drive.

I arrive to find a park almost entirely torn apart. The grass has died, weeds are growing everywhere and all of the concrete has been smashed up prior to it being removed.

I start chatting with one of the guys (Sergei) standing around the jet and find out that it’s in the process of being removed and either relocated or recycled. Shymkent’s Tourist Information office will have to think hard to find a replacement. Sergei tells me that there’s nothing to see in Shymkent, but tells me that there are close to a dozen Avtovokzals (intercity bus stations). After some thinking, he mentions that there’s a Russian Orthodox church and a mosque. Good enough I decide and head to the church.

Shymkent’s biggest mosque.

Shymkent’s biggest Russian Orthodox church.

It doesn’t take long for me to decide to leave Shymkent and Kazakhstan to head for Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

I arrive at the train station to find that all the tickets for the train to Turkistan are sold out, except for a sitting seat at 5pm for a 22 hour journey. I decide to bribe my way onto the train and proceed to walk to the train and start negotiating with the conductors.

I reach the end of the train and am offered a lift for five times the going rate. I decline and head back towards the front of the train. One guy offers a lift for twice the price but says I probably won’t fit in the hiding spot and so doesn’t let me on.

The train leaves and I decide to give up on the trains and head to the bus station to go by bus. The twelve hour bus trip, seated next to a crying baby takes only 12 hours by bus and costs half the ticket price of the train. I arrive at Turkistan just after sunrise to begin the grand tour of the city’s sights.

Mosque.

Shrine.

The female groundskeeper at the shrine of Timur’s daughter gives me a tour, tells me that Muslim is the one true faith, that only the Chinese and Kazakh are beautiful women, that negroes are too dark and ugly and that the Vietnamese smell bad. I thank her for the tour and tell her to travel more to open her eyes.

I finish my sightseeing of Turkistan and head to Shymkent within hours.

Conveniently continuing with the wedding theme, Halim, one of the guys I’d met at the Almaty couch surfing meet-up invites me to a wedding. Given that I don’t carry a suit with me, I make a quick call to my mate Ilya and borrow some clothes, get changed and bring Diana and Daniel along.

Given that we’re last minute fill-ins for some guests that didn’t show up, we enter towards the end of the wedding party and proceed to be seated next to the parents of the bride who’s name we still don’t know.

Left to right: Halim, Daniel, Diana, myself and mother of the bride.

So you’ve been invited to a wedding where you don’t know either the bride or the groom, or their parents. The father of the bride asks you to make a toast. What do you do?

You get up, go to the centre of the dance floor, take the microphone from the host and proceed to wing it, mentioning love, friendship, two souls living and breathing as one. A real tear jerker that brings rousing applause from the guests.

Yerkin, the bride’s father sings a beautiful song in Kazakh.

Bonding with the bride’s parents.

When Kazakh music comes on, you get jiggy and freestyle some moves.

We end the night by taking a photo with the beautiful bride and groom. A great experience and a great night.

If you’re in Almaty, Kazakhstan on a Saturday, situated opposite the circus on Abai street (the main East-West street) is Kazakhstan’s wedding factory.

Almaty’s Vegas-style wedding factory.

At both ends of the parking lot stand police officers, ensuring traffic can flow *cough* collect bribes for limousine parking *cough*.

The main parking lot can handle between four and eight limousines. Those that can’t afford a limousine also can’t afford to park their white car in front of the factory and need to walk one block.

As one bride leaves the factory…

… a new one enters …

… another gets the chance to start taking photos …

… cannons are fired …

…while yet another releases some balloons …

… a cute girl releases a couple of doves …

… a guy collects more petals from the rose garden …

… while another bride takes a photo next to her limousine as she waits …

… for traffic to clear.

Hope to see you there, can’t wait until they install a conveyor belt to save on walking.

Medeo (медео), the suburb for Almaty’s ultra rich, situated on the outskirts of Almaty in the mountains contains Kazakhstan’s largest ice skating rink and is currently closed for renovations for the upcoming 2011 Asian Winter games.

Medeo ice skating rink.

From the ice skating rink it’s a short stroll up some eight hundred steps to the lookout point. There are annual races up these steps, both amateur and professional races, for portions of steps and for all 800. Bet that’d be fun to watch.

From there it’s another few kilometres to the base of Chimbulak (чимбулак), Almaty’s premier (and only) ski destination.

It takes a real Top Gun to take the highway to the danger zone.

Base of Chimbulak ski resort.

Translation: Don’t mess with the Danger Zone.

There’s a series of three chairlifts to the top of Chimbulak, each of which you need to pay for. The view is nice but the weather’s cold.

I crossed the border into Kazakhstan at 11:45pm on a Thursday evening and didn’t arrive in Almaty until 3:30am on a Friday. The registration office is closed on Thursdays and weekends. I need to register at the OVIR office within five days of entering the country. When Monday comes around, it’s day five.

First I have to find the office, I copy down the address but then as the day pans out, I end up taking the address from the security guard at the Canadian embassy. He’s a nice guy, but I end up out in the suburbs at the wrong office.

Arriving at the office at 4pm there’s a notice saying they accept documents for registration between 10am and 12:30pm and return the registration between 5pm and 6:30pm. Since it’s my fifth day, I decide to stick around and see if I can plead my case. After an hour of waiting in queue, the officer in charge (Leonid Borisovich) shows up and sends us into another queue. We reach the front of it only to be sent back. Back and forth, Leonid decides he’s not accepting documents. The answering machine for the OVIR office says they accept documents between 10am and 6pm. Two foreigners are waiting in line and aren’t getting any help.

Leonid, despite the fact that he knows English, finds someone else in the queue that speaks English to help the girls organise their paperwork. Finally he relents and lets me give my passport to register. I pay the money, fill out the forms only to find I need to be registered at the house of a Kazakh citizen. Thankfully, Sveta is able to help me out with this. I hand in the forms only to be told that I need to show up to the office in Sveta’s suburb, with her present, between 10 and 12:30. Whether or not she can get time off work at such short notice is of no concern to him. Total time wasted, 2.5hrs.

The following day, Sveta and I head to her local OVIR office, are scolded, but not fined and finally register. Two days wasted for pointless Kazakh bureaucracy, legalised extortion.

Sveta (Diana and Joanne’s friend from couch surfing), Dilya (Sveta’s friend), Diana and Joanne (my couchsurfing hosts) and myself all head out for some hiking towards Big Almaty Lake, the reservoir from where all of Almaty gets its water supply.

Left to Right: Dilya, Sveta, myself, Joanne and Diana.

As Sveta explains, we drive to the bottom and then walk up a pipe until we’ve reached the lake.

The infamous pipe.

Entry Forbidden! Regime zone for water collection for supply of drinking water to the city of Almaty.

Within a few minutes we’re approached by police who ask to see our documents. Sveta jokes about living in a passport regime. The police tell us that we are forbidden from touching the water and lighting camp fires. Too many locals come to the lake and litter, ruining the town’s water supply. We don’t ask about whether we can swim.

We walk some distance away and have a picnic.

Some swimming may or may not have taken place, all I can say is that the water was incredibly cold. As we do or don’t finish drying off and getting changed, the police approach. We’ve done nothing wrong but we prepare our stories anyway. The police walk past us and go to scold a nearby family for lighting a fire to cook shashlyk. I have a feeling the police might be fed while the family goes hungry.

Another soviet icon bites the dust.

Panorama of Big Almaty Lake.

I arrive at my couch surfing hosts’ house at 6:30am on a Friday morning and proceed to crash out on their couch for the next few hours.

My first day in Almaty starts with a quick walk to buy a sim card for my phone and ends in wandering around taking in the sights and seeing the second annual world no rules fighting contest. Go figure.

Almaty, the former political and current economic capital of Kazakhstan has imported a lot of western culture in its bid to shake off its soviet roots. Imports include:

• Western designer stores – Prada, Gucci, DKNY etc.
• American ideals of luxury cars – European cars are popular, but SUVs are king; the Hummer is the ultimate status symbol of Kazakhstan’s new rich elite.
• Cafe culture – cafes are found on just about every street corner. Coffeedelia is the name for Almaty’s Starbucks experience, complete with ambient music, wifi internet and average tasting, expensive coffee. It’s also a great palace to meet girls on a Friday night before hitting up the clubs.
• Western prices – you want to pay $100USD for a hotel? It can be arranged. How about $10USD for a coffee? No worries. Got a craving for eating out at the same prices you pay back home? Have a $20USD meal.

One week earlier, while in Karakol (Kyrgyzstan), I find out that one of the cooler people I’d met in my travels, way back in Saigon, Vietnam, has decided to live in Almaty and work as an English teacher. Five months and four countries later, I meet Daniel the Canadian once again (his brother having flown back home the previous evening) and we spend the next few days getting to know Almaty.

Random shop in Almaty.

I notice that there are a lot of fountains in Almaty.

One girl proudly tells me that there are 117 fountains in Almaty. I don’t know what’s more impressive, the number of fountains or the fact that she knew exactly how many there were. In the week that I spend in Almaty, they build another two.

I don’t have the slightest clue what this building is.

Russian cathedral in Panfilov park. Apparently, this is the second largest building in the world built entirely from wood, including the nails.

The fierce, superhuman warriors of the red army. These men looked so awesome that Daniel and I were ready to enlist and defend the USSR from any capitalist pigs should the need arise.

As I leave my guesthouse in Cholpon-Ata – Directions: From Cholpon Ata, head towards Blue Issyk-Kol Resort, there will be an АТФ – ATF bank on your left. The street just before it turn left and follow it up for 500m-1km. On your left you will see a house with a sign гостевой дом (Guest house). In there, in the 2009 peak season you could get a bed for 150som, ask for Rahat.

Guesthouse. Fun fact you won’t find in the lonely planet: all around the guest house there is a lot of wild marijuana growing, though if you’re looking to smoke, you’re better off asking around for something more potent.

I bid farewell to my friends in town, the girls and Aziz, an Azeri who’d taken a likening to me and said that Alina would make a great wife for me.

  Aziz marinating sheep meat prior to cooking shashlyck (shish-kebabs).

Aziz  tells me that if I stick around for the next three hours while the meat marinates and is cooked, I can have it all as a present and that I can live at his house when I return. He tells me that he has relatives in Baku but his wife won’t let him go back to see them, I must send word to them so that they can free him and let him visit Azerbaijan once again.

I unsuccessfully spend half an hour trying to hitch a lift to Kazakhstan from Cholpon Ata and so decide to buy a ticket from the bus station. The first of six buses for Almaty leaves at 8pm, the last at 9pm and they arrive between 5am and 6am the following morning.

I buy a ticket for the 8pm bus and make my way to the beach Ala-Too to spend the day sleeping and swimming.

Soviet bus that’s finally been retired, sitting in a parking garage on the way to the beach.

When it comes to catch the bus to Almaty, I spend the last of my som on food and have none left to pay for the toilet. I tell this to the attendant who says I can go in free of charge if I tell him a good story. I tell him a bit about my travels, the people I’ve had the pleasure of meeting and some of the misfortunes involved. After I finish the story about skipping the bill at the pirate cafe, he sighs and tells me that unfortunately in this country, a lot of people are out to scam you.

The bus leaves half an hour late and along the way I meet a Kazak Nurjan who introduces me to his wife as 2002 world champion kickboxer and invites me to stay with him in Koraganda (not far from the new Kazak capital Astana).

We arrive at the Kyrgyzstan/Kazakhstan border checkpost at 11:45pm and I’m surprised to not only find it open but to see a huge queue of people waiting in line.

When it comes to my turn to give my passport to the officer on the Kazakh side of the border, we have an exchange that goes like this:

Officer: Where do you live?

Me: I don’t live anywhere, I’m homeless.

Officer: What is your country of residence?

Me: I don’t have a country of residence, I’m between countries.

Officer: What is your nationality?

Me: Russian.

Officer: Then how do you explain your accent?

Me: I’m also Australian.

Officer: Are you messing around with me? (Said in more colourful language)

Me: No sir, I’m just travelling the world.

Officer: Interesting… tell me about your travels.

At this point I start telling the story of how I quit my job to travel and the places I’ve been, how I’ve found the importance of family and how happiness doesn’t tie in to how much money you have. I’m in the middle of one of these stories, while there’s a queue of close to 100 people waiting to their turn to get their passports stamped when the bus driver walks up to me and tells me that the whole bus is waiting for me to leave.

I ask the officer if he’d be kind enough to let me into his beautiful country. He stamps my passport, gives me the registration form and wishes me all the best in my future travels, One of the best border crossing experiences I’ve had to date.

As I hop on the bus, everyone at the back starts laughing as someone had told them of the exchange between myself and the immigration officer. They decide to give me a crash course on Kazakhstan.

1. Borat had it pretty much right, everyone is a backwards village person and rides a donkey.
2. The Kazak police are world famous for not accepting bribes, only 90% of them do.
3. Be careful of the girls in Almaty, they’re very pretty and you could find yourself accidentally marrying one. At this point one of the guys on the bus says that it happened to him, his wife playfully elbows him in the ribs.

Our bus arrives at the Avtovokzal (Bus station)  in Almaty at 3am in the morning and since I plan to couch surf with a couple of English teachers, I need to kill a few hours prior to going to their place. I walk inside the bus station and join the group of people who are asleep on the benches, only to be woken by security at 5am.