Easy journey made difficult

Today I make my journey from Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan back to Almaty, Kazakhstan.  The guide suggests it is a 4h journey but it turned out to be a little hellish.  With the late sunrise, I woke at 0700 and had breakfast around 0800 before heading to the station at 0900.  With a short stop to check out exchange rates for getting rid of my last Kyrgyz soms, I was on the mashrutka waiting for it to fill at 0915.

Even though it was nearly full, it took another 45 minutes to fill and for us to push off.  It was only a 40 minute drive to Korday border where I was stamped out of Kyrgyzstan very swiftly.  But the Kazakh side wasn’t as easy.

There was a queue to get into the CIQ complex and the authorities only let a limited number of people through at a time.  They do allow the aged and infirm jump the queue but anyone who doesn’t quite get the public sympathy vote would be jeered at by the queue.

The queue extended from the Kazakh side of the river bank to the Kyrgyz side and it took me 1h20 to get into the CIQ complex.  In there, the immigration officers weren’t that busy due to the drip-fed nature of their traffic.  They could have let a larger group in and also more often.  The customs scanner was probably the bottleneck.

I saved a few minutes by having my arrival card pre-filled because I obtained it from a flight few days back when I didn’t need it.  When my passport was stamped, my arrival card was stamped twice (the second one as a sign of registration supposedly) and then I was given yet another stamp on a small slip of paper.  That last one allowed me to exit onto the road around 1200.  I had to surrender that one.

The mashrutka load of passengers waited and waited.  It was like a bad dream. The vehicle had been held up by Kazakh checks and it finally showed up 2h45 after I had entered Kazakhstan on foot.  If I had known that, I would have taken a vehicle from Bishkek to the border, walked across and change to a different vehicle immediately bound for Almaty.

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The issues came up only recently with Kyrgyzstan accusing Kazakhstan of meddling in its internal affairs by trying to influence the people’s choice in the Kyrgyz presidential election.  However Kazakhstan claim it’s purely on health and food quality issues (infected fruit).  I had seen trucks backed up for kilometres in previous day on the way to/from Karakol.

What could have been a five hour trip turned into over eight hours.  We were queueing in no man’s land in the cold morning air and were on the Kazakh side still waiting for the van when our shadows were getting long in the golden glow of the afternoon sun.  What an arse of a day!

The road to Almaty was largely straight and quite good.  Approaching the city the traffic mounted.  Including a meal break, the drive on the Kazakh side took 3h45 and we arrived at Sayran station at 1830.

I had run out of water.  I bought a bottle and paid KGT300 (USD0.90) which was horrendously expensive for Central Asia.  I knew Kazakhstan was more expensive but being thirsty and tired, I didn’t challenge it.

Here in Almaty, taxis are rare.  You can just hail anyone for a ride.  First car wanted KGT2000 (USD6) for the 30 minute ride to the hotel.  The second wanted KGT1500 (USD4.50) but I knew the correct price was KGT1000 (USD3).  Being cold, hungry and tired after the long day I took the ride.

On the way, the driver picked up another guest.  I thought I had a private taxi not a shared taxi.  But I didn’t protest.  Then he showed me this ID and told me he was an immigration officer and wanted to see my passport and visa.  I pretended not to understand and just told him to get me to the hotel “pazhalusta” (please).

Almaty was completely different from my first stopover 3 weeks ago.  It seemed like a quiet village near the Kazzhol Hotel.  This time (or this area) the traffic was standstill and there were a few tall building.

Arriving at the Hotel Kazakhstan around 1930, I had KGT2000 in one note for the dubious driver.  He told me he had no change of KGT500.  It was just a ploy to get more money from me.  I could have just walked out and gave him a smaller amount than the agreed KGT1500 which would still have been fair.  But I didn’t.  In anger (rare for me), I threw the KGT2000 at him, opened the door, spat in his car and left (making sure I had all my belongings).

The lobby of the hotel was gorgeous with a big chandelier and high ceiling.  I wanted to pay my bill in cash as I had some Tenges to finish.  But I didn’t quite have enough and had to get some money from the ATM.  The first ATM died on me at the end of the transaction but the second ATM was fine.  I checked my online banking, I was relieved to see that the first hadn’t been charged to my account, but the second had a KGT1000 fee (USD3) which I don’t recall being warned about … the first ATM on the other hand clearly explained that they did NOT charge a fee.

The room at the hotel were nothing like the lobby.  It was a little worn.  Attention to detail was poor.  Eg. they had carpeted the rooms without underlay directly onto the parquet floor!  The shower pan was cracked and had been repaired.  It was 2.5 star and not 4 star as claimed by some booking sites.  But I didn’t pay top dollar for it, so it was still nice enough for the money.

I took dinner in a hostel-like chain cafeteria called Kaganat.  The food was nice enough but it was great to have a salad and vegetables again.  There had been too many dumplings, noodles and kebabs lately.