Almaty

After leaving Dushanbe I headed back to Uzbekistan for a few days so that I could get a night train from Tashkent to Almaty in Kazakhstan. The train was pretty comfortable and I met a couple of other solo female travellers that were fun to hang out with while in Almaty. Almaty is yet another soviet city, probably my favourite so far. There were loads of tree lined avenues that were nice to walk around, and there are lots of interesting things to see including museums, opera houses, parks, cathedrals, bazaars, mosques, cool architecture and monuments. After spending quite a bit of time in the mountains I loved being back in a cosmopolitan city, so I spent most of the time wandering the streets and parks, visiting the cool buildings and monuments, drinking the fruit teas and eating the good noodle soups! I also made the most of the russian connection and had some good Russian food. Apples originally came from Kazakhstan and they are very proud of it, you see monuments to apples all over the city. Almaty even means "full of apples", so there are lots of good food and drink containing apples that we also tried as much of as possible!

One must do thing in Almaty is to visit the Arasan spa, a huge complex built in 1982. The spa has many types of saunas including a Moroccan hammam, a Finnish sauna, a Turkish steam bath, and a russian banya, where you're supposed to wack yourself with birch leaves and then douse yourself in freezing water from a bucket. I only did that the once! There is also a nice pool and lots of areas to relax, plus an area for treatments. I had a back massage as I'd cricked it and I was in agony the whole time and couldn't wait for it to finish! It did fix my neck though. Everything is gender separated and you have to be nude while using the facilities, with just a towel for sitting on.

While I was trying to endure the sauna one local lady called Aliya started chatting to me and asked if I'd like to go to hers for dinner one evening as she'd like to continue to practice her English, which I did. I was interested to go inside one of the Soviet blocks where she lived. The building stairwell was original but the inside of the apartment was very modern. She lived alone as her husband had died of COVID, and her children all lived abroad. She very kindly made me mushroom pancakes with salad, and she bought me some Kazakh chocolate, which was great! She then showed me around the local area a bit which was nice of her.

Just 20 minutes outside of Almaty is the ski resort Shymbulak and the highest Ice skating rink in the world. Even if like me you're not a skiing fan, you can still get the cable car to the top to see the views. Unfortunately the ice rink hadn't opened for the winter yet, which is probably for the best considering my coordination!Read more