Crossing into the Kazakhstan side, hoards of people were milling around. There was a long line of people waiting to get processed behind a barrier. I noticed that other people were walking along a road on the other side of the fence and being let in by soldiers so we took our chances and backtracked through the queue, followed them and we were let in. There were half a dozen kiosks in a room with heaving lines of people, about a dozen per queue, but the processing was too slow for the numbers coming in. When one official saw us enter, he virtually pulled us into a queue and ahead of others. We were stamped out in minutes with no forms to fill out. This was very untypical of Kaz customs. It was so fast getting through the Kazakhstan immigration, that when we reached our minibus that was waiting for everyone, we were virtually the first people there. I had time to find a stall that sold ice cold beer and we stood and drank some while waiting for the others to arrive. Trev, feeling the effects of the beers we had been drinking said “It’s not often I cross countries completely pissed.”

Once everyone had arrived and piled in, the minibus headed for Almaty along a straight flat road. I think we had driven on this road in 2008, turning north just before the outskirts of town. The familiar line of mountains lay to our right. In Almaty, we were dropped at a bus station/transport hub. We weren’t sure where we were or how to get into town. Since we were near a busy crossroads, we didn’t even know which road led to the centre. Buses kept arriving, but nothing on their fronts indicated a familiar name in the centre. There were taxis, but I always preferred to try and use public transport. In the end, we were ushered on a bus by someone. When we sat down, a couple of inquisitive Kazakhstani men tried to ask us where we were going, I had reserved a hotel for the final night and one of them indicated that he was going near there and would tell us where to get off. The journey took us through the centre of Almaty with lots of restaurants and shops lit up in the darkness.

The man eventually told us to get off and pointed down one of the roads at an intersection. We walked to the Zelyony Bazar along a dark street. No one could understand us when we asked for the Turkestan hotel. Someone then said we were close. Checking in, we had a moderately comfortable en suite room with a view over the market across the road. We went looking for somewhere to eat and found a pizzeria, which was nearly empty apart from a couple of drunks waiting for a takeaway and some men sharing a hookah pipe. We ordered the two biggest pizzas on the menu and struggled to finish them. Our stomachs must have shrunk on this trip. On the way back, we could find no shops open. There was a small store up some steps with a hole in the door through which you could pass money and ask for stuff. So I attempted to buy some cans of beer and eventually succeeded despite the shop assistant not speaking English. I had never tried doing this other than an all night garage in the UK.

Friday September 2nd

Almaty (pop 1.3 million) meaning ‘Father if Apples’ (the original apple came from this area and was the size of a melon) is Kazakhstan’s largest city and until Astana was built as a new capital up north, it was the capital. It’s still the most important city in the country with a proper infrastructure and is very westernised (in a Kazakhstan kind of way). It is also the main transport hub which is why we had got a cheap flight home from here. This leafy city has a backdrop of the snow capped Zailiysky Alatau.

Our flight would not be leaving until 4am on the Saturday morning, so we took it easy in the morning, taking advantage of the midday check out and doing a final pack and having a look around the Bazar. We also went to find the bus stop near an attractive local mosque with golden domes, where we would get a bus to the airport later. Leaving our packs in the hotel storage, we left to explore the major sights (and there aren’t many).

Almaty is a vast city and the sights were all over the place, so there was a lot of walking around the grid-pattern of roads where each block seemed to be the length of a football field. There are load of parks in this town and the most important one is Panfilov Park. Here we found the imposing and fearsome war memorial which represents the 28 soldiers/heroes of the Almaty ‘Panfilov’ infantry unit who died in 1941 fighting off Nazi tanks in a village outside Moscow. An eternal flame commemorating the fallen of 1917-20 (the Civil war) and 1941-45 (World War Two) flickers in front of the giant black monument of soldiers from all 15 Soviet republics bursting out of a map of the USSR. It was strange but very impressive.

The candy-coloured Zenkov Cathedral was nearby in the same park. This is Almaty’s rival to St Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow. Designed by an architect called Zenkov in 1904, the cathedral is one of Almaty’s few surviving tsarist-era buildings (most were destroyed by an earthquake here in 1911). The Cathedral is built entirely of wood, including the nails. After the Soviets left, the cathedral was returned to the Russian Orthodox Church in 1995 and the interior is full of colourful icons and murals and a massive golden altar. Locals, especially women would drop in to walk around and kiss the saints and knee and pray. Externally, this was one of the most impressive buildings we saw on our entire trip with a lovely yellow base and multicoloured diamond shapes on the domes. Standing outside were beautiful white horses pulling people on buggies around the large park.

Miles away, so it seemed, was the Respublika Alanghy which was a broad ceremonial square at the high southern end of Almaty, created in Soviet times. A couple of large white buildings with aqua blue trimmings overlooked various fountains which were on timers to produce wonderful displays of water. On this hot day, it was lovely to get a cool breeze from the water. The focal point was the Monument to Independence. The stone column is topped by a Golden Man standing on a winged snow leopard. At the base was a large brass open book with a well worn hand print on the right hand page. The left hand page said ‘Choose and be in bliss’. It was a place where everyone placed their hand in the hand print and made a wish. I guess it was their national wishing well. The square also had bundles of yellow and blue flags which were part of their independence celebrations.

The final sight was the pale turquoise Nikolsky Sobor (St Nicholas Cathedral) with its gold onion domes. Built in 1909, it was later used as a stable for Bolshevik cavalry, before reopening in 1980. Inside were icons, candles and restored frescoes. It was very impressive and complimented the Zenkov Cathedral in colour and atmosphere.

Feeling as if we had been walking all day, we returned to the hotel in the early evening, picked up our packs and walked to the bus stop. Boarding a packed bus, it took us to the outskirts of Almaty airport 10km from the centre. Arriving before 8pm, we had a bag of cold beers, some snacks and a book each to keep us going through the night.

Saturday September 3rd

I think I lay across some seats around midnight and managed to sleep until 3pm. We were flying back to London Gatwick on the modest Ukraine Airways via Kiev. Our flight left at 4.20am. There was no flight entertainment and just a coffee and roll as a meal. I slept through the flight until Kiev, where we had a 3 hour stop over, then a short flight to London arriving around 11.30am local time, having caught up all those hours we had lost getting to Almaty. It had been our fourth visit to Kazakhstan and we still hadn’t seen the capital Astana.

The trip was over. Trev and I had survived a second visit to Central Asia. It had been different from the first in that we had had to rely on other people to get us around but we had managed to see the three missing countries and get around pretty much on schedule. It had been another adventure. We wondered what had happened to my old car ‘Monty’. Left in the desert, maybe someone had broken in and taken the fuel tanks, books and food and it was still there as a crumpled rusting piece of metal. Maybe someone had towed it away and tried to get the engine going. Who knows? But there will always be a little piece of Kazakhstan forever in my heart (no matter how much I hate the officials). It lies 509km from Atyrau, about three hours south west of Beynau, and is in the middle of nowhere. But I don’t intend to visit Kazakhstan a 5th time.