Kazakhstan: the country of wanderers (part 1)

 Slowly, slowly. From the North to the South.

Kazakhstan is for us a country of movement, of traveling, of wandering. Maybe it is not random: kazakh comes from the turkish verb qaz “to wander”, because Kazakhs were wandering steppemen. Wanderers, we passed through the country of wanderers. 

Itineraries, maps, cities, calculation, compass. Like an orientation course. Hitchhiking. During some days, during some time. In this incredibly huge land. Did you know that the horizon could be so long and the sky so vast?

More than never: it is an unsettled life. 

[Here is our Kazakh small travel book. Transportation, timing, meetings, food, anecdotes, sleep… All the information are present. If you want to have a look: it is an overview of our route. Take it as an invitation to travel along with us.]

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Novosibirk - Semey

- transportation: train

- timing: 10 hours (Moscow time, Novosibirsk time, Semey time: we had some problems in Russia with the timings because all the trains are in Moscow time… which is 3 hours of difference with Novosibirsk (rf. Russia through a moving window) ! Finally, we got it and we didn't miss our train in the afternoon)

- arrival: Semey, the non-touristic city

- people on the way:

• crew of the train: not like in the Transsiberian, people were very friendly with us from Novosibirsk to Semey. They talked with us, gave us some information about Kazakhstan, wondered why we wouyd go to Semey and not to Astana or Almaty (good question) and advised us as much as possible!

But why do you go to Semey?

• nuclear bombs:  Semey is famous for... the nuclear tests during the Cold War. That's why every one was wondering why we wanted to go there. And people gave us nice mimes and sign explanations about the history of the city ("pwoah!"). 

"Semey has suffered serious environmental and health effects from the time of its atomic prosperity: nuclear fallout from the atmospheric tests and uncontrolled exposure of the workers, most of whom lived in the city, have given Semey and neighboring villages high rates of cancer, childhood leukemia, impotence and birth defects" - Wikipedia

• a student in the train: we had some difficulties to communicate with the policemen at the border crossing. That's why a young english-speaking guy came and helped us with the translation. Afterwards we talked with him: he is studying medicine but he is from the South of Kazakhstan and he enjoys a lot to speak in English!

- food:

• noodles: in the trains of Central Asia, there is always hot water avalaible – very practical for our noodles soup!
•  disappointing restaurant (because of a random order) and veg-kebab in Semy

Julie still hopping finding a horse somewhere - Semey

- anecdotes:

• 5am… We woke up super early in the train because everybody was going outside with their luggage. “Are we at the border? Should we go out off the train?”. We were sleepy and very confused. Quickly, we went outside and asked people but it was way before the border! Just a random station where a lot of people had to get off… Some hours left of sleep!
• visa or not visa? Apparently, there are never a lot of tourists crossing the border at this point. Indeed the policemen didn't now what to do with German and French citizens! “No visa, no visa!”, we said. Only after asking everywhere and checking some others documents they agreed to put a Kazakh stamp in our passport. 

Alina, our hotel in Semey

- sleep:

• in the train (quite practical and comfortable)
• hostel: in Semey, we didn't find any couchsurfer. Second time in our trip! So we booked a room through booking.com but it was kind of a wrong announce. We had to change our plans and went to the closest hostel, “Alina”… and it was a fancy one and way cheaper than the room we wanted to book before! After walking around in the city all the afternoon, we had a nice night in a cozy bed so as to get ready for hitchhiking the next day! 

Statue in Semey: let's go for the adventure!

Semey – Ayagoz

- transportation: hitchhiking

- timing: 9:30 hours (9:30am – 7pm)

After Kalbatay

- arrival: Ayagoz, a town in the middle of nowhere

- people on the way:

• hh1 (hh like hitchhiking): we started quite late and apparently not at a good spot – there were  lots of taxi drivers! But finally, a nice guy stopped and brought us 10 km away from our starting point to a good location for hitchhiking!
• hh2: in Kazakhstan, a lot of people are asking for money for hitchhiking. But we were always saying studenka, studenka! (student, student!). After few minutes, someone stopped but when he understood that we wanted to go for free, he drove away… and stopped again 10 meters futher ahead! Davai davai! Hh2 was super nice: all of us were happy trying to communicate and we learned quite a lot about his life (his family, his work, his friends), we ate some chocolates from the wedding where he went in Semey and after few hours, we reached Kalbatay. Efficient! He left us with half a watermelon and we were more than satisfied.
• hh3: after waiting more than one hour in the sun (no watermelon and no chocolates anymore), we started to be a bit desperate: we were in the middle of nowhere and the road was incredibly empty. But suddenly, a very (very) old car stopped: a Kazakh (and non Russian-speaking) man and his little daughter took us to Ayagoz (which was not very closed at all)… with a lot of difficulties (cf. anecdotes)!

- food: chocolate and watermelon with hh2, fresh ayran with hh3

- anecdotes:

• dictionary and translaters: in the cars, we did our best to communicate with people. We tried with the help of some words in Russian and the suppport of the phone translaters to get some Kazakh and some more Russian words. Hh2 even knew some words in German! It was a lot of fun, even if at the end of the day we were super exhausted.
• the Muslim cemetery: the way from Semey to Almaty is sprinkled with Muslim cemetery in the middle of the landscape. Before Kalbatay, we made a break at a one of them, where the father of hh2 is buried. Hh2 showed us the tomb, explained us some Muslim costumes and talked to us about his father's life. It was very interesting!
• a funny phone call: hh2 was so proud of the English of his daughter that he insisted to call her. He wanted us to talk to her! We didn't have so much to talk about but he was very happy – and it was communicating! 

• the broken car: five minutes after hh3 took us, the car stopped on the side of the road: the engine was too hot! We waited a bit, hh3 put some water to cool it down and we started again… for 20 minutes. During hours and hours, it was the same: driving very slow during 10 minutes, stopping, putting water, waiting 20 minutes, trying again, driving 10 minutes etc. And even more: the starter was broken as well, so every time we had to push the car to start it! We were very hopeless - hh3 as well (and we couldn't help him some much)... we thought we would never reach Ayagoz. But at some point, a guy came to help him to fix something inside the engine (we didn't really get how but it doesn't really matter) and, after half an hour.. it worked! It was late and he drove super fast to Ayagoz. Such a relief! And finally, in Ayagoz, the clutch gave up in the middle of a street! Hh3 looked very desperate. But he only wanted us to reach our place, and we only wanted him to fix his car! A woman on the street helped us for the translation and he told us that everything will be ok for him. We left him after saying a lot of “raxmet”. Such an adventure!

In the car during the fixing...

- sleep: Ayagoz – Martka, the young woman we met on the street, offered to help us to find a place to sleep. We accepted! She brought us to a cheap hotel, we rested a bit and then she invited us at her place for dinner. Indeed Ayagoz is a very small town and moreover it was Sunday so shops where closed.

Traditionnal cheese we tasted with Martka

With Martka, it was like an unexpected couchsurfing: we cooked together, we talked about our stories, she talked about her studies, her family and the place where she comes from (north of Kazakhstan – that's why her mother tong was Russian and not Kazakh) and after dinner we went to the “center” of Ayagoz with her and her cousin. It was a really nice evening and we were so grateful! We came back to sleep with all the quiet and the happiness we needed.

Martka, her cousin and us in Ayagoz's "center" !

Ayagoz – Almaty

- transportation: hitchhiking

- timing: 13 hours (7am – 8pm)

- arrival: Almaty, the place to be

Kilometers and kilometers with one straight and single road

- people on the way:

• hh1: we were walking on the main road of Ayagoz at 7am when hh1 took us with some other people. He brought us to a better spot some kilometers away . We talked with the people in the car: almost all of them were working in the army. It was quite interesting.
• hh2: at the good spot, we didn't have to wait a long time. Indeed, ten minutes after we arrived, a white truck stopped… and the guy said he was going to Almaty – 800 km from there! Amazing: we couldn't believe our chance. So we spent a lot of time with him in the car: we talk about his job (he was working at the Expo of Astana!), about his family and about Kazakhstan, we listened to music (French songs on the radio!) and… we slept. It was a really nice and comfortable drive! Unfortunately, we didn't go to Almaty with him: he had to stop earlier because he was tired we guessed (he left Semey in the early morning!) and left us in Taldykorgan. 

Selfy with hh2

• hh3: two young people took us some minutes after to another place – because we were waiting at the entrance of the town. That's why they brought us to the exit of the city, where we would have a better chance to find someone to go to Almaty, even if it was getting late!
• hh4: for ten minutes, a nice guy took us to the next village… but the spot was not really good.
• “hh5”: it was a bad time (late afternoon), a bad place (there were severals mini bus to Almaty) and all the people wanted us to pay a lot for hitchhiking. We couldn't find anybody so, after bargaining with the driver of one of the mini-vans, we chose to finish our crazy route wisely and peacefully in a bus for the last two hundreds kilometers. Indeed, we wanted to be sure to reach Almaty the same day! And we did.

 - food:

• bread and cheese
• apples bought on the way by hh3 (and we had to keep all the package after the drive!)
• coffee with the nice invitation of hh3

- anecdotes:

• karma, keep going! We were incredibly lucky to find hh2. It was an unexpected chance! Thanks to him, we drove hundreds and hundreds kilometers in one shot. And even more: he was a very calm, helpful and friendly person! A lot of people were asking us if we were not scared about hitchhiking. Of course, we were very careful but when you see the kind benevolent person like hh3 you can meet, you realize that sometimes you can be trustful without any risk!
• Russian, Russian: in Kazakhstan, radio and movies are always in Russian. We discover it for the first time in the coffee-shop where we stopped with hh3: indeed there was a TV and we could watch Russian news in the middle of nowhere in Kazakhstan! It was apparently something absolutely normal. We know now how much Russian language and Russian influence is omnipresent… the memory of the Soviet Union is still fresh in the minds of the people!
• You are in the picture: during all the trip, we didn't see a lot of cities and buildings Not at all. The landscape was incredibly vast! As in Mongolia, we could drive for hours without seeing anything except grass around us. However, at some point, we noticed some mountains at the horizon. They were very far away, like the frame of the landscape. But because we drove so much, we started to enter into the picture: the mountains became bigger and bigger and, suddenly, we were inside! 

Landscape, landscape...

• Walking to Almaty? Meeting hh3 was quite confusing. The car stopped and when we said “Almaty” to the guy and the girl inside, they started laughing and they even wanted to take a picture with us! We didn't know how to react. Then they left and stopped again telling us to come with them. They explained us that it seemed to them that we were walking to Almaty – therefore it was funny. Maybe we looked crazy to them (even if they said: “no, you are great!”) but anyway, apparently they had a nice time!

Almaty's mountains through Eva's window: amazing!

- sleep:

• a lot in hh3's car
• Almaty – in Almaty, we stayed at Eva's place two nights. She was a very helpful couchsurfer, even if she was very busy with her three children. She picked us up in the center when we reached and we had two nice days with her in Almaty!

In the mountains

Almaty – Almaty

- transportation: walk, subway

- timing: 4 hours (9am – 1pm)

Waiting in the metro station

- arrival: Almaty, Askar's place! [we decided to change our couchsurfer because we didn't wanted to disturb Eva one day more with a new person: indeed Yaël, one of Julie's friends, was supposed to arrive by train on the 18th of July!]

- people on the way: catching Yaël close to the green Bazar

- food: from the Green Bazar

• watermelon
• rasperyberries

Green Bazar

- anecdotes:

• but where is he? We left Eva's place around 9am to take the subway close to the Green Bazar (but we still had to walk a lot). There, we had some difficulties to find Yaël. He was not staying at the meeting point we said! We searched for him around it, tried unsuccessfully to have some wifi and finally he showed up by himself… he was sleeping close by on the grass!
• the watermelon's walk: we went into the Green Bazar to buy some fruits including a big watermelon! Of course, we had to carry it around which is quite heavy and unpractical. We went afterwards to a park and to a church, because it was on the way to the metro station and we tried slowly to reach our new place! 

Orthodox Church

• from two to three: our team started to be bigger: it was funny to welcome Yaël – it was like the beginning of holidays!

- sleep:

•  Askar's place: we meet Askar after our afternoon in Almaty (we went to Kok tobe, a famous place on the top of a hill) and we had a pleasant long evening: Uzbek dinner, beers at his friend's garden and walk in the night to come back to his place! We were super tired and we slept very well!

Almaty – Bishkek

- transportation: mashrutka (mini-van)

- timing: 6 hours (11am – 5pm)

- arrival: Bishkek, “Kyrgyzstan!”

On the way to the bus station

- food:

• buying some food for the trip in a mini-market on the way to the bus station
• surprising (and very strange) drinks in the streets of Bishkek based on fermentation
• kyrgyz restaurant in Bishkek

- anecdotes:

•  “Sairan”: it is the name of the main bus station in Almaty… but also of a big lake inside the city and of another metro station! That's why we took a lot of time to reach the bus stop: we stopped at “Sairan” with the subway and had to walk all around the lake to get there! Furthermore, we stopped quite a while to buy food (which was a very very important task for us). Therefore it seemed to us if we would never leave Almaty! 

Sairan lake

• passing the border: the mashrutka brought us to the border where it was very easy to get our new stamp in our passports: here was Kyrgyzstan! The three of us were very happy and satisfied that the process was so easy (no visa was needed). 

Border crossed!

• a princess somewhere in Bishkek: when we reached Bishkek, we figured out that we were not so far away from the place where we had to go. We decided to walk in the green streets of the Kyrgyz Capital (there is not so much to see, but at least they have a lot of parks with trees there!). On the way, we tried to call Diana, Hannah's friend, asking randomly people to use their phones and finally we could reach her: she was waiting for us! 

New team chilling in Bishkek!

• veg try: At night, we went to a restaurant all together and we spent half an hour to order a meal without meat which was super complicated. The lady finally understood it: we were satisfied! But our plates came with meat and with bowls to put the meat outside of the dishes...

- sleep:  Clara's place – we stayed two nights all together in the flat of Diana's friends (two of them  were gone for a small trip). We met Clara, a German girl who knows a lot about the country because she comes regularly back since five years. We had beers, cooked together, broke and fixed the very old soviet toilet of the place, enjoyed Bishkek and it's ice creams and… got ready for our tour through Kyrgyzstan! Diana was apparently waiting for that since a year…

Davai!