Asia Tour 2026 - Day 13/25 - 22nd August - Shymkent, Kazakhstan - City 9/15 - Country 6/9
Updated: 1 day ago
I was pretty much over my "Dushanbelly" episode but I decided a modest breakfast. We were to meet our driver at 08:30 at the entrance of the hotel, it was 08:25 and as I was messaging him he texted "I am here" in English, he was right in front of us. He immediately picked up our bags and loaded them into the car. He was a gentle and humble soul.
It was about an hour and we had left behind the parched brown landscape of Tajikistan, it was kind of strange that the landscape changed abruptly at the border. We had to do several checks, bags, exit stamp, check bags again, entry stamp into Uzbekistan. The entire process took about an hour. On the other side we quickly agreed to a taxi to Shymkent. We actually passed through Tashkent all over again and we even passed by our previous hotel. To my surprise, well I should not have been surprised he dumped us at the Kazakh border, same procedure exit stamp, x-ray, entry stamp, x-ray and then the usual "haha Conor McGregor" comment.
On the other side a driver took us to Shymkent for 50 USD. He was busy with his nose the whole time and kept sniffing the whole journey.
We arrived at Grand Hotel in Shymkent, again it was very beautiful and very Bling-Bling but alas just for one night. We went for as short walk, and found a general restaurant where the menus were in Russian, no problem.
I ordered khachapuri, Stanislav ordered salad and soup. We also had plenty of bread and I ordered "Kazakh wine" which ended up being Georgian khvanchkara, Jugashvili's favourite wine, the waiters had a lot of trouble trying to open the bottle, and I saw two of them walk back and forth with one of those openers with the arms. The khacahpuri was not so amazing, but edible but I couldn't finish it due to all the bread we consumed.
This time I was completely full having had food pass through my system for 2 days. I had this enormous food dip, so I asked the waiter to cork the wine and I took it back to the hotel. It was already getting dark and we took a walk in the park before retiring to the hotel.
Meanwhile at the hotel I placed an offer to bring us to Bishkek for way too much money. My phone never stopped ringing and we had no trouble finding a driver you could say. I decided that was time to finish the wine.
Comments