Arriving in Almaty was the easiest part of Kazakhstan so far.....even if we got completely ripped off by a taxi driver who wanted US$160 for a 20 km ride. Not even trying to be remotely fair in ripping us off. We managed to haggle the price down multifold, but it was hard work. We spent the next few days shellshocked by being almost illiterate and unable to communicate even the simplest things. Even though we managed to decipher the russian cyrillic alphabet we had no idea what it meant. And then there was the Kazakh alphabet to confuse matters even more! Another realisation was that the infrastructure for tourists like us was non-existant and all the places the lonely planet book mentioned had closed down (not a good sign). At this point we realized that the book we bought was from 2007 and not much information was current (big thank you to Borders in San Francisco!).
We looked for more useful information on the internet and managed to find a like-minded french tourist who was as lost as us! (he was the first tourist we had seen in 3 days). We decided that 3 lost tourists were even better than 2 and joined up...
After a few rivetting days in Almaty sorting out visas we had to get out of the place so we caught the next train to Shymkent. As soon as we arrived we ventured to what was supposedly a tourist information place that turned out to be an english language school. We ended up teaching english during the day and then we were invited to a party were we would spend the night.
As a good tourist and a representative of your country you always want to leave a good impression and follow local customs. Tonight we would find that this is not always that easy to do! We were asked if we wanted to taste a local delicacy, which consisted of fermented horse milk. Being lactose intolerant I was a bit apprehensive, but didn't want to offend our new friend. The milk was warmish, incredibly salty and sour, with mystery bits at the bottom... not the best combination!!! We ended up taking a few sips before giving up with my stomach still intact. I guess fermented milk doesn't have much lactose? Next stop was the party- someone's apartment. Our hosts were a not-so-happily married couple (apparently the Kazakh book of 'how to be a good wife' wasn't that useful!). The hostess prepared a meal ('5 fingers', beshbarmak sp?) consisting of flat pasta, potato, carrot and horse-meat. It was absolutely delicious! We all ate from a central dish and we were seated on the floor eating away and having a good time. After the meal it was Karaoke time- pity it was all in Kazakh so we couldn't partake! (that's our excuse anyway...). Everything was going well until Dan walked across the 'table'- a plastic sheet on the ground where the food had been served several hours earlier. He was told off ('why are you walking on our table?!?!'). hmmmmm.... a moment of awkward silence ensued and an embarrassed Dan apologised profusely. oooops! After singing it was time to go to bed (it was 3AM). We laid down matresses and got ready for bed. To make it easier for our hosts we decided to use our sleeping bags instead of using their nice clean blankets. Bad move! They looked at us in disbelief as if we had pulled out infectious disease suits! 'we have antibiotics in this country!' was their response (!?!!?). After 5 mins of aimless discussion we realised that this was considered to be very strange behaviour and was incredibly offensive and the sleeping bags went back into the packs... Oooops #2! The next morning our hosts wanted to exchange gifts- we really had nothing to offer apart from a toy fish from cambodia which we swapped for some prayer beads. The husband for some reason wanted to swap watches and since I was quite attached to mine Dan offered to exchange his smelly timex for a dusty, fake citizen ecodrive. Not sure who won on this deal, but it certainly wasn't Dan! He also got a small perfume from the husband maybe because he had a whiff of the watch strap! (5 days later Dan's 'new' watch stopped working and the strap broke off!). Despite all the major blunders and misunderstandings we all had a great time and believe that we left on good terms!
We looked for more useful information on the internet and managed to find a like-minded french tourist who was as lost as us! (he was the first tourist we had seen in 3 days). We decided that 3 lost tourists were even better than 2 and joined up...
After a few rivetting days in Almaty sorting out visas we had to get out of the place so we caught the next train to Shymkent. As soon as we arrived we ventured to what was supposedly a tourist information place that turned out to be an english language school. We ended up teaching english during the day and then we were invited to a party were we would spend the night.
As a good tourist and a representative of your country you always want to leave a good impression and follow local customs. Tonight we would find that this is not always that easy to do! We were asked if we wanted to taste a local delicacy, which consisted of fermented horse milk. Being lactose intolerant I was a bit apprehensive, but didn't want to offend our new friend. The milk was warmish, incredibly salty and sour, with mystery bits at the bottom... not the best combination!!! We ended up taking a few sips before giving up with my stomach still intact. I guess fermented milk doesn't have much lactose? Next stop was the party- someone's apartment. Our hosts were a not-so-happily married couple (apparently the Kazakh book of 'how to be a good wife' wasn't that useful!). The hostess prepared a meal ('5 fingers', beshbarmak sp?) consisting of flat pasta, potato, carrot and horse-meat. It was absolutely delicious! We all ate from a central dish and we were seated on the floor eating away and having a good time. After the meal it was Karaoke time- pity it was all in Kazakh so we couldn't partake! (that's our excuse anyway...). Everything was going well until Dan walked across the 'table'- a plastic sheet on the ground where the food had been served several hours earlier. He was told off ('why are you walking on our table?!?!'). hmmmmm.... a moment of awkward silence ensued and an embarrassed Dan apologised profusely. oooops! After singing it was time to go to bed (it was 3AM). We laid down matresses and got ready for bed. To make it easier for our hosts we decided to use our sleeping bags instead of using their nice clean blankets. Bad move! They looked at us in disbelief as if we had pulled out infectious disease suits! 'we have antibiotics in this country!' was their response (!?!!?). After 5 mins of aimless discussion we realised that this was considered to be very strange behaviour and was incredibly offensive and the sleeping bags went back into the packs... Oooops #2! The next morning our hosts wanted to exchange gifts- we really had nothing to offer apart from a toy fish from cambodia which we swapped for some prayer beads. The husband for some reason wanted to swap watches and since I was quite attached to mine Dan offered to exchange his smelly timex for a dusty, fake citizen ecodrive. Not sure who won on this deal, but it certainly wasn't Dan! He also got a small perfume from the husband maybe because he had a whiff of the watch strap! (5 days later Dan's 'new' watch stopped working and the strap broke off!). Despite all the major blunders and misunderstandings we all had a great time and believe that we left on good terms!
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