It took a day and a night to cross the length of Kazakhstan to Almaty, in the south. The countryside appears poor, the train fairly stumbled along the ill kept tracks past slums, their lean-to corrugated roofs glinting tiredly in the sun. Every town we passed through gave an image of not being quite there, they looked overgrown and worn. Lulled into the belief that the technological age hadn't happened, an occasional anachronistic tell-tale sign of life would brazenly show itself; achingly new satellite dishes perched self conciously on the edge of crumbling eaves.
These grey villages peppered the yellow undulations of the Kazakhstan countryside and I prepared myself for the type of pseudo-modern capital cities I became accustomed to in Africa. Where proud two storey concrete buildings nudge past bungalow shacks. This, mostly because I'm an engineering snob, which is a failing I suppose.
This shameful prediction was gladly inaccurate. We pulled into Almaty II, home of possibly the world's most confusing platform system. Stepping off the train straight onto ground, you're immediately surrounded by hundreds of people shouldering massive packs, weathered taxi drivers advertising their availability and eagerness to ferry you loudly and in your face, porters shouldering past with trolleys and the ubiquitous old lady in a headscarf, carrying two too many carpet bags. The station is no where to be seen, the platform just petering out to nothingness either end. Grinning our goodbyes at our train guard who offered a smiley thumbs up in return, we decided to follow the general direction of the exodus.. it soon became clear that they were just walking off the edge of the platform onto the tracks to home. Trying to shake off the persistent and numerous taxi drivers, their growling "taxi taxi" call fascinating if only for the glimpse of a full set of gold teeth, we stepped off the platform and crossed the tracks like true Kazakhs. Although, unlike the old ladies touting their slippers and scarves, we opted to walk around the other trains as opposed to underneath them.
Almaty is a valley town, surrounded by a U of snowcapped mountains. Their quiet massiveness lending a beautiful backdrop to the surprisingly well kept and plentiful public gardens. This place couldn't be more different to Moscow- for every soldier and policeman brooding and scowling at you in Russia, there's a gardener or street sweeper ignoring you in Almaty.
Every street is a wide avenue filled with parklands and limed trees. With efficient subway crossings which double up as supermarkets. The only difficulty being that the cyrillic is slightly different so any potential pronunciation of street names is met with confusion. Saying that, everyone is very willing to help but hardly anyone speaks english or any other language we had to hand.
Almaty was a perfect place to spend my birthday. Sitting in the warm, dry evening eating lamb stew and drinking a surprisingly smooth Kazakh cabernet, I couldn't have thought of a better place to face the pain of turning 25.
Although Almaty was quite expensive, bafflingly so at times (drinks would be at london prices yet a bottle of alcohol in a shop would be only 4 pounds), it was such a pleasant and calm place that I wouldn't hesitate to go back and perhaps see the mountains. The only advice I can offer is if you choose to stay in the grubby hostel in the station, arrive well before the advertised closing time of midnight. We returned from my birthday meal happy and sleepy only to find that the train guard refused to let us in the station despite our explanations (in easily understandable Russian) that we were staying in the hostel. Panicking at the thought of sleeping rough in a country that neither of us knew, I spied an open ground floor window to the ladies' loo. Jumping in, I ran upstairs to the hostel with the guard screeching at me, presumably telling me to come back. Summoning the troops in the form of our landlady, I returned to the foyer and the guard had to concede bitterly that she was wrong.
A little too much adventure perhaps, but it made my birthday memorable!
