Our Silk Road Train Journey, Pt. 2: Let The Official Tour Begin!
In Part One of this trip we had been doing a bit of sightseeing and a ton of shopping by ourselves in Almaty, the largest city in Kazakhstan. We had also been sweating profusely at night due to a nationwide ban on air-conditioners until a certain date in the future. Now it was time to join our tour group and begin the programme.
Wednesday, April 9, 2025
After a night of having weird dreams and perpetually sweating to the point that Anna had to open the balcony door in the middle of the night in an attempt to let some air in we would get to meet our fellow travelers, but the train tour wouldn’t begin until the following evening, so we still had another night in this sweatbox. The previous evening we had been guessing relatively accurately on who would be joining us, because we’re usually the youngest couple on these type of trips and although there would be 90+ people on the train we would be separated into different tour groups, our consisting most importantly of our local guide, Rustam Nazarow, as well as two Americans, two Czechs, four Australians, four Brits, and a woman from one of our neighbouring countries whom to keep anonymous I will refer to only as Ms. P. Don’t worry, you’ll be hearing a lot about her over the course this journey, trust me!
You would’ve seen in the background of a few of the photos that there are some snowy peaks around the outskirts of Almaty so our first outing as a group would be exploring those mountains. We all got into our minibus, driving through other areas of the city that we hadn’t seen, up some steep slopes, and pulled up at a point where we would be taking three separate cable cars that make up the Medeu-Shymbulak gondola line further up into the mountains to the Shymbulak Ski Area. We would be sharing our cars with Brian and Kim, a couple from Tasmania, Brian being a doctor with a penchant for dad jokes. It was also clear he was from Tasmania, because he had no qualms whatsoever about traveling up into the mountains in a t-shirt.
On the first cable car we passed Medeu, one of the world’s highest elevation ice rinks, and two more changes later we were further up at an area of mostly shops and restaurants. We were given about an hour to walk around and explore, taking in the stunning mountain scenery while avoiding all of the people trying to exploit tourists by taking random photos of people in the hope of selling the pictures back to them, charging extortionate prices to pose with a golden eagle, and promo girls hawking cigarettes. The view up there was even better when the sun finally broke through the clouds over the mountains before heading back down to the bus:
When we had finished up in Shymbulak we caught the cable cars back down, returned to the bus, and were driven to Kök Töbe, a hilltop recreation area with a petting zoo, playground, a nearby primary school that had a missile in the grounds for some apparent reason, and inexplicably a statue of the Beatles where their songs play constantly in the background:
A bronze statue of The Beatles by sculptor Eduard Kazaryan was placed on Köktöbe hill on 15 May 2007. The monument was inaugurated as part of the launch of the National Award “Music feature – 2007”. This is the first monument to depict the band members in full.
Soon it was time for dinner in a restaurant on Kök Töbe where we ate while a traditional band played on stage and Ms. P felt the need to smother large areas of her body in Tiger Balm, taking away from the fragrance of the food somewhat, all the while reaching across people, almost knocking their drinks over in the process, to grab food off serving plates with her hands. All of the guests of the train were present, but the groups were seated at their own tables where they would get to meet their guides and travel companions properly for the first time and ours seemed like a group with whom we’d be having a lot of fun. Okay, there was probably one exception. We finished dinner and in order to get back to our hotel we all took a cable car down the hill to our waiting busses.
A look around Kök Töbe:
Thursday, April 10, 2025
Sleeping with the balcony doors open and wearing an eye mask made the heat and humidity in our room a little easier to deal with, however, the traffic got a bit noisy at times, but we still slept better than the previous night. I wrapped the sleeve of my jacket around my hand to avoid an electric shock while opening the door again, and we took our bags down to the lobby and joined the rest of our group, who were just finishing up breakfast.
There were several items on the itinerary, the first of which was returning to the Ascension Cathedral that Anna and myself had visited two days prior, but this time we would be able to look around and take photos of the inside as well so we all boarded the bus once again. Upon entry of the cathedral all women were required to cover their heads with a shawl, communal ones available if necessary, but fortunately Anna was aware that this would be the case and had brought her own scarf along, while Ms. P took off the mask that made her resemble a beekeeper in order to protect her from the slightest hint of sunlight and donned her headscarf, along with the other women in the group. When we entered, the inside was absolutely stunning, probably more so than we had expected, and the design was a stark contrast to the exterior, the walls’ iconostasis, pulpit, and some columns surrounded and coated in gold, something one wouldn’t expect in a wooden building that didn’t contain a single nail.
What Anna and I hadn’t realised was that in a park to one side of the cathedral was the Memorial of Glory, a complex commemorating the lives lost in World War II. Besides the sculptures and plaques that are present at most memorials, this one also contains the Eternal Flame and it is a tradition for the city’s youth to visit, something we would also witness that day, the children resplendent in military-themed uniforms.
Ms. P before donning her scarf prior to our entry, inside the Ascension Cathedral, and the Memorial of Glory:
Following the cathedral we had a look through a local museum, before passing a military parade while cutting through a park back to the bus and onward to the Green Bazar, a large nearby market that Anna and I figured was the one we had already visited. Luckily for us it was situated next to a chocolate factory so instead of the market, we initially went to the large chocolate shop at the factory and stocked up before joining the others back at the market. I guess we had made a slight error in judgement, because this wasn’t any old market, let alone the one we had previously been to, this was the Green Bazar, an enormous market established in 1875 that sold textiles, furniture, and antiques, but mostly had a giant food hall that sold almost every cut of meat imaginable! We still had a little time to quickly wind our way through the viscera and decapitated animal heads and then it was time for lunch. We arrived at the restaurant and I had still retained my appetite despite having seen blood dripping from the snout of a pig’s head just minutes ago, but that was all about to change when we were halfway through our meal; Anna and I had been chatting with a British couple from our group seated near us who began telling us about their dogs so I showed them a picture of our two fur-kids, which was music to the ears of Ms. P, who raced over from the other side of the table with food still hanging out of her mouth to join the conversation. Of course we love chatting with people about their pets and it turns out she has five rescue dogs and four rescue cats so despite her quirks she must be a decent human being. However, all of us lost our collective appetites when she showed us mid-meal a photo of one of the dogs’ maggot-filled wounds from when she had first adopted it, before telling us that she doesn’t believe in vets and is going to use frankincense to heal the broken leg of another pet. Yep, she’s nuts and this was only the beginning.
Inside the market. Sure, there’s a lot of blood and carnage, but at least there are no maggots that I know of. You probably should just scroll on if you’re squeamish:
It was now mid-afternoon and it was time to move on to the last couple of stops so we waited under a cherry blossom tree, our dog-rescuing, vet-skeptic companion asking Rustam if the flowers had been stuck onto the branches, insinuating they were plastic despite being blown away lightly in the breeze, and we were soon back on the bus.
You can be both bludgeoned and bitten at once. Genius!
We were now at the Central State Museum of Kazakhstan, another large museum focusing on Kazakh culture with costumes and replicas of mosques and monuments, but we’d encounter our fair share of those over the coming weeks, although it was cool seeing a club embedded with teeth to use as a weapon (right). When we had finished in the museum we started driving again in the general direction of where we wanted to be, however, there was one final, but important site for us, the Golden Warrior Monument, also known as the Independence Monument:
The Golden Warrior Monument (also known as the Golden Man Statue, Statue of the Golden Warrior and Independence Monument) stands on Republic Square in the former capital of Kazakhstan, Almaty. The monument celebrates the independence of Kazakhstan, the identity of its people, and the role of the city of Almaty as capital of Kazakhstan until 1997 when the capital moved to Astana. The statue, a Saka warrior and a barys, stands atop a 91 feet (28 m) tall column.
The design of the monument was inspired by Kazakh folklore and the 1969 archaeological discovery of an 18 year old Second or Third century BC Saka or Scythian noble buried in a golden suit of armor with a sizable hoard of gold, earning him the moniker “Golden Man”.
The column is framed with artistic casting crate, which describes the historical events of Kazakhstan.
The monument with surrounding sculptures and bas-reliefs embedded in a surrounding fence depicting the country’s history:
We only spent about 10 minutes at the monument, because we were all too excited for the main reason we had come here — The Orient Silk Road Express! Over the next 11 days we would be traveling to places I couldn’t really pronounce, definitely couldn’t spell, and knew absolutely nothing about. We entered a renovated, Soviet-era train station, something else that would be a common theme, received our tickets, passed through the extremely lax security, were handed an apple by women in traditional dress, found carriage number six, and soon we were aboard our home for almost the next two weeks. Anna and myself would be staying in what was called an ‘Aladdin Cabin’, described in our itinerary thusly:
This category features two lower beds (27.5 × 74.8 in/67 × 184 cm each), a small table and storage space. Each car has eight compartments and a shower, together with washroom facilities at both ends. Guests in this category also receive one bathrobe per compartment.
Those measurements meant it was going to be a tad cramped for me, plus after a little research we had most likely overpacked for our train journey, but we would only be spending one or two nights on the train at a time, followed by staying in hotel rooms, hopefully with air-conditioning, before returning to the train.
Here’s the station and how we would be getting around for the foreseeable future:
There was no turning back now! We settled in, had dinner with the rest of our group while Rustam made a welcome speech, followed by a few drinks and some mingling, but besides our guide, we were the youngest on this train by at least a decade, maybe more, so most turned in early. This wasn’t a bad idea to be honest, because we knew in advance that we weren’t going to be having an uninterrupted night’s sleep and that wouldn’t just be because of the size of the cabin.
Stay tuned for the next instalment when we cross over into Kyrgistan to do vodka shots on a lake cruise, play with golden eagles, and peruse the hills in the hope of catching a glimpse of a snow leopard among other adventures.
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