Off to Aksu-Zhabagly Nature Reserve

Aksu-Zhabagly is fun to say. Aksu-Zhabagly! I may even be pronouncing it correctly, but I don't think it's very likely. Aksu-Zhabagly! Ten points for Griffindor!

My train ticket is actually for Shymkent, near the Uzbek border, but once I started reading about the city, the surrounding countryside seemed much more interesting. I'm arranging to get picked up by some people from a guesthouse in a village in the nature reserve. They do ecotourism, which, honestly, I'm not really sure what that is, but it looks like I give them some money and they give me a place to sleep and a couple of tours to places that are difficult to get to without a car. It works for me.

Almaty's been a good place to rest and get used to this part of the world. I have eaten a lot of plov, a lot of kebabs and and a lot of what I call "street-meat surprise": you point at the pie you want and later you find out what's in it. Greasy mutton is the most popular choice, but sometimes it's potatoes. I also tried horsemeat sausages but they weren't very good. I managed to pull together enough Russian to say "please, what is good for breakfast in Kazakhstan?" and the woman in the cafe laughed at me in a nice way and gave me some blini, which are pancakes which come with sour cream. It's all a bit stodgy, but it's good stodge.

I spent a very pleasant morning at the Arasan baths, where you move between Turkish, Finnish and Russian steam rooms, "refreshing" yourself in between by pulling a rope that dumps a bucket of freezing water on your head. Wowee. The Russian rooms were painfully hot, which was interesting, but not as interesting as the  lobster-red Russian women beating themselves with birch leaves. Apparently it's good for your circulation. (I'm not commenting on whether I tried it.). The bathhouse itself is spectacular; when you swim in the pool, it's under a huge dome.

Almaty looks a bit like this, but with more trees: http://whereistanya.smugmug.com/Kazakhstan/Almaty/

Spending the day at the Uzbek embassy

This city has one coffee shop with free wifi. It's at least a mile from my hotel, but somehow I keep ending up here, heh. I do like the internet. And coffee, of course.

Everything I've read about the Uzbek embassy tells me that I'm not going to enjoy today. If it's unusually quiet and I'm enough of a bully, I might get away with only queuing (outside in the rain, obviously) from 1pm to 4pm. A couple of hours later is more likely though, and then they'll try to find some reason to say come back in a week. They like to discourage people from casually coming to spend money in their country. These ancient cities had better be worth it.[1]

So, a fun and exciting day ahead. I'm fortifying myself with cake for second-breakfast.

[1] People I've met who've been there say they mostly aren't, but you can't really come to Almaty and not make a best effort to see Samarkand.

In Almaty

Almaty is covered in trees, like they built a park first and then decided to run some streets through it. There are tons of parks too, but it's often not clear where the park ends and the city streets begin. Autumn looks beautiful here. All of the trees are changing colour and everywhere you look there are yellow leaves falling constantly. I saw a few wheelbarrows and people raking, but mostly there are just streets and streets of crunchy yellow leaves. It's brilliant. Yesterday also had that lovely sun you sometimes get in early Autumn where everyone's face is glowing and everything looks calm and seriously pretty. (Today is raining, which is less attractive.)

So far, being in Almaty is relaxing and easy. Nobody bothers you and nobody stares. It's a relief to not be interesting. There's very little English, but it's easy to make yourself understood here. When I try to say things in Russian, people figure out what I mean and speak slowly in response. Nobody looks at me like I just fell out of the sky, which is the default response in China when a foreigner makes mouth-sounds. It'll probably be different outside the big city, but Almaty at least is much, much easier to be in than China.

I will eventually go look at the things tourists are supposed to look at here, but so far I've just been walking around and dealing with bureaucratic nonsense. Kazakhstan is, by all accounts, the sanest country in the region, but one of their odd ex-Soviet habits is that all visitors have to register with the migration police. When you eventually find the building and the right counter and fight your way to the front of the line, they give you two forms to fill out. These are only available in Russian, which is tricky. A woman in a nearby shop did them for me and refused payment. The kindness of strangers, eh? It never lets you down :-)