Landing in Kazakhstan this morning felt like this trip had truly begun despite this being day 3 already.
Our plane touched down in Almaty at just after 4am this morning.
After a long travel day yesterday, all I was looking forward to was getting to our accommodation and putting my head down on a pillow.
With an official stamp in my new shiny passport, we exited the airport to the expected swarm of touts offering taxis into the city.
No, no thank you.
Instead, I hopped on the Yandex app (their version of Uber in Central Asia), and booked us a car to the Airbnb I had booked for us for the next few days.
It was only a 15 minute drive which was probably helped by the fact that it was still the wee hours of the morning.
And at 5:30 this morning we had finally reached our destination – home sweet home.
I had smartly booked the Airbnb to include the day before so we’d be able to checkin right when we arrived and get some much needed sleep this morning.
And, sure enough, it wasn’t long after we settled in that we were nodding off to sleep.
As for today, there really was no plan – just get some sleep this morning and figure out what we’re doing when we wake up mid-afternoon.
Sleep? Nah! Time to Explore!
You’d think with all the travel we did over the last couple of days to get here and the general lack of sleep involved with it that we’d just sleep like zoomies until the late afternoon.
Nope.
Instead we were up again at 10:30 this morning.
Just five hours sleep.
Oh well, guess it’s time to explore.
There are a handful of free walking tours taking place later in the afternoon so we decided to just walk into town and explore on our own.
It took about 15 minutes to walk from the residential area where we’re staying into the main part of the city.
The main road we took to get there I’d affectionately call the “Flower Street” because literally every shop aligning the street was selling one and only one thing – flowers.
It reminded me of my time in Hanoi in Vietnam where there were multiple streets just sold the same product in every store.
It’s one of the fun things I like about traveling is that stuff you see or do reminds you past trips and you kind of reminisce.
A Kazak breakfast
Beyond the flower street, we turned onto a main road and found what we were looking for.
Breakfast.
The place we stopped at is a Kazak fast food chain called Degirmen and it had exactly what we were looking for.
Basic tables, locals, and a food display showing everything they had to offer.
It was basically a picture menu come to life.
Without speaking a word, we walked past the food display case and pointed at the items we’d like to order.
There were a bunch of individual items and then a pre-prepared plate of rice, meat, tomato, cucumber, and egg.
Yup, one of those please.
I believe it was the national dish of plov but, honestly, I just don’t know.
This wouldn’t be last time today where I would point at something to order having no idea what it was.
Part of the fun, right?
Anyway, it tasted amazing and was exactly what I was looking for.
A big redemption for the burgers for had for dinner the last two nights in London and at the Istanbul airport.
A subway ride
After our late breakfast we had one errand to run.
A month or so ago I had booked a tour for tomorrow but they only accepted cash payments. They told me to just visit their office when we arrived in town so off we went.
We could have just grabbed a Yandex (their version of Uber) because it was certainly cheap enough and very convenient but I noticed the office was just outside a subway station.
And wouldn’t you know it, there was a subway station a couple of blocks away from where we were.
Off we went to ride the Almaty subway system.
The system isn’t vast with only one line and 10 stops but, man, their stations are magnificent.
Clearly designed with a huge Soviet influence, the stations were deep down underground with long escalators to take you.
That along with the marble and the arches just made me feel like I was back in Moscow.
Like I said earlier, little things just make you reminisce.
For a whopping 40 cents we rode the metro a few stops.
Funnily enough, I actually got a text from the company asking about the payment as we were literally exiting the subway station and a few minutes later I was talking to the girl who sent it.
And, we’re booked for tomorrow!
I can’t wait for you to see what we have planned!
Free walking tour
After another subway ride, we joined a walking tour at 2pm.
Along the way we actually saw a vending machine selling different flower arangements.
Now I’ve seen everything!
It’s crazy to think that we had just arrived in the wee hours this morning as it felt like this was our second day here.
Nathan, myself, a guy from Perth, and a girl from Berlin all toured the city over the next 3 hours.
There is definately a Soviet style to most of the buildings here as they are old, grey, and pretty drab but there also surprisingly a lot of green space around the city as well.
Stops included the Green Bazaar, a chocolate factory and of course the memorial park for the fallen soldiers and heroes from past wars.
By 5pm we were saying our goodbyes and Nathan and I headed to dinner.
Gluttonous dinner
We stopped in a literally the first restaurant we saw and, wouldn’t you know it, it had another display case of everything we could order.
Sounds good to me!
This time I got a potato and ham salad, a plate of plov (rice, veggies, and meat), and a third item that looked cool.
It turned out to be a chicken breast topped with potato, tomato, and cheese.
And it was so scrumptious!
Actually, everything we ate today was perfect.
By 7:30 we were back at our accommodation for the night.
We played cards for a bit and by 8:30 I was conked out.
It’s been a long few days with alot of travel and very little sleep.
And with that, our first official day in Kazakhstan had come to close.
Tomorrow, like I said, we have a cool tour booked for the day so I’m really looking forward to that and then in a couple days we’ll be crossing the border into Kyrgyzstan.
The Five Stans Trip of 2026 is in full swing!
