We go up a mountain to see what we can see. Just like the bear did.
We are only halfway through our stay in Almaty and I think I can already give you the most important tip. It’s a huge city, you simply can’t do all the major sites of interest in one walking tour. It’s like going to London and thinking you can see The Cutty Sark, Tower of London and Camden Market on foot.
There are several tours by car available, which would be my reccomendation, but so far we seem to have ended up walking everywhere, just not all on the same day.
Air-conditioning can be a mixed blessing. It gives a false sense of the temperature outside. Today we hung around the apartment all morning and headed out into the great wide open at two of the PMs. Just as the sun was at it’s cruelest. Trust me, you can work up a sweat sitting down in this heat.
It’s beyond me why people choose to go to hot places on holiday. I suppose this brings me to tip number two. If your trip is not dictated by EUEFA football fixtures, come in spring or autumn. Despite the baking heat now, winter temperatures can drop to -11C in January.
Talking of winter, anyone who has been following this trip from day one will know that we have been threatening to go skiing. Anyone that has been following my life for more than a few weeks will know I have no intention of going skiing. Anywhere. Ever. My references to skiing have been based on the fact that there is a ski resort here, which can be accessed by cable car. During the summer it doubles up as a walking resort with restaurants and shit. Posh had been banging on about a cable car since we got here. However, it turns out there are not one, but two cable cars in the city. Today we chose to go to the one that is a half an hour walk away, rather than four and a half hours. And it’s not a ski resort.
‘Kazakhstan? Ooooh that sounds wild and exotic’. It probably is out in the sticks which is most of this vast country. But certainly not in Almaty. Well, they eat horses and … erm … drink horse milk. Actually, I’m struggling to think of many exotic things about culture here. As you walk around you could be in any modern European city. The cars are very modern (albeit mostly Chinese), the traffic lights are like anywhere else, there are electronic billboards everywhere, and the buildings are reasonably modern. It is incredibly clean and tidy.
The biggest difference is that very few people speak English, and everyone – and I mean everyone – is friendly. Really friendly. Ooh, and the signs. Signs in a foreign language are a challenge, but not a major one. Signs written in the Cyrillic alphabet are another thing again though.
After taking forty-five minutes to walk half an hour, we finally find ourselves at the bottom of Kok-Tobe mountain. There’s a thoroughly modern ticket office where we purchase our tickets without any hassle. I say we, I mean Megan and I. Becks, who is now sixty years and one day old, has to have a conversation with someone who doesn’t speak English about OAP discounts.
There are no queues. Anyone with any sense is tucked up with their air-conditioning or in the pub. There’s no-one to oversee safe boarding of the cable car. You just have to have your wits about you and jump in as it goes past. Five minutes later, you have to do the reverse. You have to have your wits about you or you will end up going back down again.
Once at the top you are presented with magnificent views over the city, albeit mostly obscured by trees. The whole point of this complex is the views, so you would think they would trim the trees a bit. It’s not impossible to see the city, you just have to work for it. On the other side you can see the famed mountains that surround the city. If you can find a gap in the trees you can see snow capped mountains in the distance. Yep, 33C in the city, but a few miles away – and a few thousand feet up – there’s still snow hanging around.
There’s a big lake nearby that we hope to visit before we leave the city. Despite the intense heat and lack of rain, August is when the lake is at it’s highest. Presumably when the snow is at it’s meltiest.
‘What else is at the top of the mountain Clint?’ I hear you cry. Well, at this stunningly beautiful location, there’s several cafes, an upside down house, a ferris wheel, several rollercoasters, a hall of mirrors, an open air cinema, a zoo, several stalls where you can don a traditional nomad outfit and hold a big fuck-off eagle on your arm and a bench where you can sit next to statues of The Beatles. Apparently it’s the only statue in the world that features all four of the Beatles together.
I can’t help thinking they’ve missed a trick here. The trick being to not build a funfair on the top of a mountain and let the views do the talking. But hey, I suppose there are other mountains around for that sort of experience. You just have to walk up them. Where’s the fun in that?
Megan and I decide to start off our stay by hitting a restaurant overlooking the city. A charming old lady wearing traditional Kazakh costume tells us to bugger off and never darken their doors again. Or something like that. She might have been complimenting me on my sunglasses, for all I know. But we weren’t getting access to the posh restaurant. She pointed us in the direction of the cheaper looking cafe next door.
We sit at a cliffside table, eat pizza and drink cocktails for a while. In the distance we can see a cluster of pointy skyscrapers, resembling Canary Wharf. It really is a vast modern city.
I don’t really think we are seeing the ‘real’ Kazakhstan. All the lists of top ten things to do in Kazakhstan list things like lakes, canyons and vast national parks. A complete contrast to this modern cosmopolitan metropolis. In the city everyone is smartly dressed in all the latest gear. Everyone is connected, online and mobile phoned up to the eyeballs.
It’s frustrating. I want to get out and see the rest of the country but it is so vast you have to drive for huge distances to get to most of the ‘attractions’. And in this heat? We shall see. Early days yet.
We go for a walk. We walk past the zoo, but through the aviary. We ignore the hall of mirrors, the shooting range and the ghost train. We get a tantalising peek at the famous TV mast that can be seen all over the city, but there’s a new restaurant being built so we can’t go up to get decent photographs – although Megan managed to capture this half decent one.
We wander back down and have ice cream next to the open-air cinema.
Posh and Becks rejoin us. The had been sat on a bench eating sandwiches out of a paper bag and drinking a flask of tea. Like pensioners do.
The sun is low in the sky so we decide to go back to the cafe to watch it set. Gins are drunk, photographs are taken.
Eventually we head back down on the cable car. This time there is a queue and it’s a bit of a free for all to jump on each car as it comes past. We share the car with a young Kazakh family, the father speaks good English and studied in Cardiff university. Small world eh?
Once back down in the city we contemplate modes of transport and eventually opt for shanks’ pony. We come across a Metro station and descend into the bowels of the earth. There’s a big fuss about the art in these stations. Sheriff had described them as museums. They all have one work of art in the area between the up train and the down train. They are more pleasant than the London underground and the trains are modern, but if you visit I wouldn’t bother going down just to see the art. Pleasant distraction during commute? Yes. Spectacular? To be honest, no.
We only travel one stop. When you factor in the escalators, security (you have to go through airport style scanners) and the wait for the train, we probably added five minutes to the journey. But at least we had s break from walking.
Soon we are back in our local, the Munchen Restaurant. Our usual seat is taken but there’s plenty of room. The waiter’s love bite has healed up. We order food and talk behind people’s backs. The whole pub stands up and claps when the guy playing guitar along with backing tracks sings Happy Birthday to Becks.
As usual, we sit for ages thinking of plans for tomorrow but don’t really come to a decision.
On the way back to the apartment we stop off for essentials. Like bread and toilet paper. I buy something with a picture of a cow on it to put in our coffee. Tune in to the next instalment of this blog to find out if it is milk, cream, or yogurt. Oh, the suspense.