Asia Tour 2026 - Day 18/25 - 27th August - Almaty, Kazakhstan - City 11/15 - Country 6/9
This was a bit of a purgatorial day as we needed to get to the railway station. We grabbed a nice breakfast at "crave" nice cappuccino and shakshuka, Stanislav had eggs and porridge. We wanted to hang around until it was check out time at 12:00 but our cleaner arrived at 11:30 to kick us out. It was around a 30 minute walk to the station, it was heavy work as my suitcase was loaded with wines and beers, and the wheels became damaged.
We deposited the bags in the left luggage and we walked outside taking Turkish tea and visiting a supermarket for supplies for the train journey.
We returned to the station and a local guy came up to use to practise his English. A bit later his mother came over and joined us and we had a conversation which was Russian, Kazakh, Serbian and English all together.
His mother's train was earlier than our one, he waived off his mother then returned to chat again. When it was time to board he helped us get on the train, wagon 13 it was. I thought we had a luxury cabin but it turned out that it was basic but clean and very modern. At least it wasn't like the Gulag train. we took to Dushanbe.
Some girl got on with a dog in a plastic cage, she let him out when she boarded and the train guard went crazy, "dog back in box!!'.
The train was interesting, the railway track just ran alongside regular footpaths and roads, through parks and beside houses with no fence or other protection. As I was filming the scenery the narky train guard came up and asked me to take his picture and send it to him by WhatsApp. He stopped me a second time again. He even came into our compartment and scolded me for drinking.
I caught the sunset just as we arrived in the dining car. I had varenyky and salad, Stanislav had salad with tea and I had vodka.
It was getting dark as I tried to drink the 2000 tenge (4 euros) Kazakh sweet wine which was awful. It was lights out and try to sleep.
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