After almost two months of being awake at 0430 I’m finding it increasingly difficult to sleep in as late as I would like to on rest days – this morning I only managed to sleep through till just after eight – which I guess is an additional three and a half hours of sleep on the ‘usual’.
After a leisurely hotel breakfast which was better than most, and even included really good coffee which was a pleasant surprise, I headed out to wander round another quarter of Almaty.
Almaty’s a big city, and it’s been built big as well – the streets are all really wide, with wide tree-lined footpaths and long blocks so what doesn’t look too far on a map ends up being rather a long way. It’s also on the foothills of the Zailiysky mountains to the south, so ends up being on something of a slope – so much so that in places there are steps in the footpaths to make things easier.
First stop was Zenkov’s cathedral.
Selfie with the cathedral behind – not such a great morning for photos, the light’s all wrong!
Inside Zenkov’s cathedral
Next up was the war memorial which has an impressive and imposing bronze sculpture
War memorial sculpture – it’s at least 10m high
And then the Green Market – I’m not entirely clear on the ‘green’ but it’s a pretty good market.
Fresh produce piled precariously at the market
Then on to take a look at the central mosque. I knew I wasn’t appropriately dressed for going in (shorts, t-shirt and jandals don’t cut it) but as Michael was pointing out yesterday there are a lot more mosques in our future! There are surprisingly few mosques in a country which is reported to be 75% muslim – it seems that this may be because Kazakhstan is a muslim country in much the way that England is a christian one – more in theory than in practice on a day-to-day basis.
Outside Almaty central mosque
From there it was on to a couple more bike stores to get a few more things which I need – replacement handlebar tape (I’ve worn through what’s currently there in the last 5000km), a new drink bottle (one of the ones I had split) and some over-shoes (the ones I bought on the way to LHR have somehow vanished along the way).
All of this involved a couple of rides on the metro, but a heck of a lot of walking as well, particularly given how spread out the city is, so it was time for some lunch.
As I was dropping off purchases at the hotel I ran into (Australian Jackie) who had been making purchases at an art gallery and was on her way back to collect them. I tagged along, and there were some pretty cool paintings and ceramic items at the gallery, but there was no way that anything I liked was going to fit in my bag, and it was going to be far too expensive to ship anything from here. I’m not entirely sure how Jackie’s going to get on with the larger of the two pieces she’s purchased frankly (though she’s only got a few more weeks before she heads home so it may work out).
Leaving there I ran into Grant and Michael on their way to the market. Grant mentioned that he’d had a very nice lunch at an outdoor cafe opposite the hotel, including a very good mojito. And that sounded like a fine plan to me, so I collected my laptop from the hotel and have been writing blog posts ever since.
Almaty’s certainly the most western city we’ve been in since this journey started – I think the mountains, wide streets and mature trees have a lot to do with that particularly when coupled with very nice cafes and restaurants, and ‘real’ shops, including all of the top brands from round the world.
It does make for a substantial difference to the north of the country which still has a very third-world feel to it, with many people still subsistence farming. The construction work that we’ve seen on the highway over the last few riding days is evidence that things are changing, but so far the oil money which Kazakhstan has hasn’t flowed too far beyond Almaty (though I believe that Astana, the current capital, is much like Almaty only newer-built).
Oh – and if you’re wondering where your postcards are, they simply don’t exist – even here in Almaty where there are actual souvenir shops they don’t seem to have them, so sorry if you’ve been waiting for one to pop into your letterbox.
As I’ve just finished my third cocktail, and am feeling somewhat peckish I’m going to post this, head back to the hotel to drop my laptop off and head out in search of some dinner – I’ve seen a Thai restaurant in my wanderings so think that’s going to be my destination!
Riding data
No riding today
View from my tent
The Soviet-era Alma-ata hotel – substantially better than the Usharal Soviet-era hotel we were in last rest day.
You might also like to check out Jackie’s blog – she tells a very amusing story most of the time 🙂