Kazakhstan - Plans Goes Pear-Shaped in Almaty - Part One

52 minutes ago
10 min read

We had a smooth quick border crossing, purchased motor insurance, then we were on our way towards the Charyn Canyon which is a highlight in the Almaty region.

We had wondered if the scenery in East Kazakhstan would be totally different to what we had experienced in the West, but we were straight into wide open landscapes with the road stretching out into the distance. We pulled in at a viewpoint and were immediately reminded how friendly Kazakh people are. A young guy came over to say hello and we were introduced to his family and welcomed to their country.

Charyn Canyon is often called the “Grand Canyon of Central Asia,” it stretches for roughly 154 km and was carved over millions of years by the Charyn River through the striking red sedimentary rock.

The canyon’s most famous section is the Valley of Castles, where the rock formations resemble ancient fortresses. There is a hiking trail along the Valley of Castles (about 2–3 km one way) through the canyon.

The visitor centre and car park were very busy when we pulled up. We had a walk down through the valley in the heat of the afternoon. At the end of the trail we sat in the shade by the river and Colin had a paddle. Russian minivans shuttled people up and down the canyon, but the trail isn’t steep so we walked back up it.

We were hot and sweaty by the time we reached the visitor centre again so had an ice cream in preparation for walking along the upper trail with viewpoints down into the canyon - we think giving even nicer views. There were still tourist coaches arriving late in the afternoon. We saw a German couple we had met several times on the Pamir Highway (Helmut & Silke) who were staying the night in their campervan so we eventually moved nearer to them in the main car park. Helmut had been very poorly last time we saw them in Osh and said this day was the first time he felt he had any strength.

As we were settling down for the evening we got a knock on the door and a Chinese tourist in a hire car asked if we could pump up his flat tyre. When Colin looked he could see it was a puncture and said he’d need to change the wheel. The tourist looked terrified and said he didn’t know how to, so Colin jumped into action and eventually got it replaced. It was going dark when they left, and they gave us a gift of the most ridiculously big watermelon ever. We left it on the front seat for the night.

We got ourselves up early the next morning to walk down the upper trail to see it in the morning light. The tourist coaches were already arriving en masse when we returned. We persuaded Helmut to take some of the melon, then I walked around offering slices to tourists and coach drivers who gave me puzzled looks.

We drove into Almaty on a Wednesday evening. It was scorching hot - over 40 degrees in the shade. We had booked a slightly weird hotel opposite the garage where Lolly was having her service on the Friday. We were glad of the air con if nothing else. We caught a Yandex taxi into the centre. We had been looking forward to having a few days in Almaty, Kazakhstan’s largest city. The name Almaty means ‘place of apples’ and it was Kazakhstan’s capital from 1929 until 1997, when the capital moved to Astana. Even so, Almaty remains the country’s financial, cultural and commercial centre. The city sits at the foot of the Tian Shan mountains, between about 700 and 900 metres above sea level, giving it spectacular scenery and easy access to hiking, skiing and mountain lakes.

We were expecting a nice modern city with lots of bars and restaurants and cultural things to visit. Our hotel was near the airport so, although not far in kilometres, the dreadful traffic congestion meant the journey took up to 45 minutes. The city centre is modern, but very spread out making it not very walking friendly, particularly when it’s in the 40’s.

We went straight to an English pub called The Shakespeare. It was the night of the England v Argentina match, but we weren’t planning to stay up for that, but thought we’d check it out as a place to watch the final - misplaced optimism as it turned out ! We sat outside with a cold beer and a glass of white wine - a rare treat - and got a curry fix - good old English food……

The following day Colin arranged to meet the Iveco mechanic, Michael, at his offices to run through what Colin expected on the service and check he had ordered all the parts Colin had requested. Iveco surprisingly don't have a service centre in Almaty. Their small office housed 3 salesmen and Michael, who carries out warranty inspections on the trucks they supply, which are largely bin wagons and tipper trucks. Lolly was having her service carried out at a Kamaz (a Russian heavy truck brand) service centre where Michael would oversee the work. Michael came across as a really nice guy and seemed to have everything in hand. His English was OK, but we needed a bit of help with Google translate.

It was too hot to do much else during the day, but we booked a free walking tour in the centre for the early evening. The tour didn't cover much ground, but we wanted to get a better insight into the history and culture of the city.

We met our guide, Karakoz, and the rest of the group (a couple from India and Dutch and Italian ladies who were remote working while travelling) in the city centre. Our first place to visit was the Green Bazaar, the city's most famous bazaar for both locals and tourists. Our guide took us around some of the food stalls and gave us samples to taste. This included dried fruits and nuts, kazy (horse sausage - surprisingly tasty), and kurt (dried cheese balls which we have had in several of the other Stans). We also sampled camels milk and horse milk again, which we still cannot get a liking for. We then had a stroll around the souvenir stalls so the guide could tell us about traditional dress in Kazakhstan.

Next we visited the Lotte Rakhat Confectionery Factory shop, Kazakhstan's best known confectionery brand, who have been making chocolate and sweets in Almaty since 1942. We have been given the iconic blue and gold wrapped chocolate bars several times in Kazakhstan. There was no point buying any while we were there as it would have melted before we got it back to the hotel.

Our next stop was in Panfilov Park which dates back to the 1870's and within its nice green space it houses memorials of remembrance and an eternal flame. The guide sat us down to give us a more detailed talk about Kazakh history and current culture. She mentioned the practice of 'bride kidnapping' which we had read still occurs in rural areas in Kyrgyzstan, but we hadn't realised it had also been practiced in Kazakhstan. She stressed it is illegal in Kazakhstan today, and is strongly condemned in big cities like Almaty and Astana, but can still be happening in rural areas. There are two situations - the first being consensual elopement, where a couple agree to stage a kidnapping to avoid family objections to the marriage or the cost of a big wedding. The second is non-consensual abduction where the woman is taken against her will and forced into marriage. The guide said often in these cases the parents may be aware of it beforehand and want to see their daughter married and having children.

Within the park is the colourful Russian Orthodox Ascension Cathedral which is built almost entirely from wood without nails and is said to be one of the tallest wooden churches in the world.

With the light fading, we walked past the Arasan Baths, which were built in 1984 in a very Soviet modernist style. If you enjoy a traditional bathhouse experience (which we don't particularly) it is a must. We walked into a lively restaurant area where the guide made some recommendations and said our goodbyes. It had been an enjoyable three hours.

At last it was the big day, where hopefully all our worries with Lolly would be resolved. Colin hung around at the service centre keeping an eye on what was being done. Michael had organised a diagnostics mechanic to run a check on our engine error messages, and he confirmed all was OK and he had cleared the error messages. Colin and Michael had to go off to the car bazaar to find new coolant hoses. After not finding any the right size, they had to have some made (i.e. butchered together). Colin said Michael had been brilliant and had been running around all day - he was dripping head to toe in sweat when I caught up with them. It was late in the day when they had everything put back together and the service centre guys were clearly itching to get away for the weekend. They agreed we could leave Lolly on their premises for the night, and we would collect her over the weekend to take her away to test everything properly.

To thank Michael we offered to take him for a cold beer, but with drink driving laws very strict, he said he'd prefer us to go to his district to his local shashlik restaurant. He asked his wife Lola along, who he said was very nervous to meet us as she spoke little English. She did join us, as well as two of their children - Sophia (aged 12) and their 10 year old son.

We had a lovely evening. The food was delicious and beer plentiful. Sophia, who had been so painfully shy when she arrived, started to show us some of her sketches and artwork, and as we showed interest and told her how amazing they were, her confidence grew and she started showing me a game she plays on her phone, with fantasy characters (totally over my head). She was using the most incredible English descriptive words. Her parents were both sat with their jaws open saying 'Wow, who is this girl? We never knew she could speak English beyond 'hello, what is you name?' She went and fetched one of her Japanese paintings and gave it to us, which we have safely stored in the truck to bring back to the UK.

The following day Colin went to have a closer look at the work done on Lolly. He wasn't convinced that the new hoses were fitted properly, but other than that he felt reasonably happy. I had booked a haircut and colour at a swanky hair salon the other side of the city. It was in a very upmarket area, which made us realise the side where we were staying wasn't that great. The hairdresser was meticulous in her work, but it took her nearly 3 hours, meaning the Green Bazaar which we wanted to revisit was closed by the time we went back into the centre. We ended up having some very tasty Korean Street Food.

The following day we were desperate to escape the heat of the city. Even the locals were saying it was unusually hot for them. We decided to drive 30 km out of the city to the Big Almaty Lake, supposedly a turquoise alpine lake sitting in the Ile-Alatau National Park. Once on the road we realised that half the population of Almaty had the same idea, and the 30 km journey took us nearly three hours, the last section queuing to get through the ticket barriers. Even worse was several engine warning lights were back on and we were pumping out black smoke despite the garage saying they had cleaned out the exhaust system. Back to square one.....

We drove as far as permitted into the park. There were cars parked and abandoned all over the place, so we were lucky we managed to wedge Lolly into a space by the river just off the road. It was still a roasting hot day and the thought of an 8 km walk up the paved road or a 4 1/2 km shortcut hike up a steep pipeline to the reservoir wasn’t that appealing, so we decided to get our bikes out and hope it wasn’t too steep on the way up and look forward to a pedal free return. At the start we had to fight our way past cars all blocking the road as well as hikers, horses, and electric scooters. The road started climbing immediately up to a 12% gradient and there were switchbacks to negotiate with the odd car thrown in to add to the excitement. It was slow going. We stopped at a stream to splash cold water on us and top up our water bottles. The last section was tortuous until finally the lake came into view. It wasn’t quite the turquoise blue vision the photos had promised us - more of a murky grey. We sat in a shaded area trying to appreciate the view. A hiker joined us and asked if we had any water - he said his girlfriend was suffering with the heat and pointed up the hill. We gave him some water and he went off to rescue her. When she appeared she was carrying a hefty backpack and looked exhausted - we felt like wimps. Colin offered the rest of his water saying we shouldn’t need much going down hill.

When we set off back it was a bit of a shock realising how steep it had been coming up. I am not a downhill lover and was clinging on to my brakes as hard as I could and still felt out of control on the sharp bends. I nearly came a cropper as I went off the tarmac in a desperate attempt to slow down and after it happened a second time I decided I’d rather walk. Colin had sailed off into the distance and had been sat outside Lolly chatting to our camping neighbours and accepting beers and watermelon while I huffed my way back on foot cursing my downhill phobia.

It took me a while to recover from the trauma when I got back, but thankfully being next to the river and being at a higher altitude the temperature at night got more comfortable.