Almaty Travel Blogs

People i met here who contributed to and improved my trip: Julia (Russia)   We said goodbye to Valentina at the station and accompanied a little old lady to her apartment. She had agreed to rent us a room for 2500 Tenge ($21), which was as cheap as we had found in the city. I felt a little b…

Almaty is the city where I live.

Kazakhstan 2006

From Beijing I flew across China, changed planes in Urumqi and then continued on to Almaty.  I arrived quite late so was glad I had pre-arranged a hotel and transfer to meet me at the airport.  I was taken to Hotel Kazoo which was about what I expected, in a more residential are…

Mountains surrounding Almaty were beautiful

The last day of November was also my last day in Almaty, so I had to check out of the hotel and find a place for my luggage until my evening train. Luckily Hamid came to the rescue again. Pernille had other plans, so Hamid met me around 11am and we drove to the Central Park, which is still called G…

Only stopped in Almaty, a huge, dusty kinda town, but a beacon of civilization after the desert. Hey, any town that has an “American embassy” (as a bus driver in New Zealand calls McDonald’s) can’t be all bad. As some of you may remember, I was in potato withdrawal at the time. {see end}

beautiful nature

photos

My decision about going to Kazakhstan was very strange and i didn’t really think much about it. I end up changing my 1 year plans to South America and bought myself a one-way ticket to Almaty… In the other day on travel channel i was watching a show on Kazakhstan and they reported this city…

In het Gorki-park kun je nog op ouderwetse wijze genieten van uitgaan en ontspannen in Sovjetstijl: een roeivijver, een dierentuintje en een speelgoedtreintje. Een ritje met de kabelbaan naar de heuvel Köktjube geeft je een leuk uitzicht over de stad en de bergen aan de zuidkant. De vroeger be…

Almaty is a big place and much more of an established city compard to Atyrau. It's built on a grid system and the trafic is real bad, like the driving. I found the people great, even the ones that try and rip you off. Beautiful women are everywhere.  I also like the mountains just to the s…

We have been in Almaty for 6 days and hope to get our passports back from the OVIR.  OVIR is the internal checking mechanism left over from the Soviet days of rule as a sort of check and balance to double check who you are, where you are and what you are doing in the country.  This also t…

I'm on the 3 day train to Almaty.  The bunk next to mine is occupied by a Chinese businessman.  It's good to be speaking Chinese again.   The exchange rate has worsened for the Russians since winter.  It's now 550 rubles to the dollar.  With Rick's assistance, I b…

Not really doing justice to such a Glorious nation... but it looks like the path of least resistance into/out of China (fewer mountains)