Astana and Almaty, Kazakhstan

I am currently in Dubai, 'present' at my usual work activity (sorry for being cagey but it's a secret - right, T&M ;-) ... ) I have no clients at the moment so instead I'm writing and letting you know how Kazakhstan was (over a week ago now)...

Before I start though, for those who think I have such a glamorous travelling job, last night I was flying from Kathmandu to Dubai (via Delhi) and guess what... a bit of a flight delay... Instead of landing at 9pm we landed at 2am. Whatever the reason for the delay was, I don't know but by the time I arrived I was tired, dirty and sick of India!

Anyway, a different day as I continue. I just flew into Muscat. I so wanted to check out the Muttrah Souq here (silver jewellery) but it's closed 1-5pm and I arrived here at 1pm and start work at 5pm... Grrrr!

So back to Kazakhstan and writing about life rather than living it! ;-)

First was Astana.

This is the new capital of Kazakhstan and all new buildings with quirky architecture.

And despite the loads of new buildings and wide roads, there were hardly any people there. Maybe they all went to Sydney for the weekend? (Canberra joke...)I'm going to be pretentious here but it looks like a cross between Canberra and Doha...

Almaty which came second, was the old capital and from the time I landed I was Impressed (with capital 'I')!

The main reason for my amazement were the mountains surrounding the valley where Almaty is placed. I'm a sucker for snow capped mountains and Almaty had them - as the photos from my hotel window show. I fell asleep and woke up with their view (well it was too dark to see when I fell asleep but I knew they were there).

After Russia, Kazakh people turned out to be very friendly and nice. And they all spoke Russian as well as Kazakh so I could still understand them. The city was green and leafy and so clean and cosmopolitan. Very much like a European capital and when I saw the Eiffel Tower I was thoroughly confused!

The horse, a national symbol, was everywhere, including the menu (no I didn't try).

As much as I whinged about going to Kazakhstan, I was very pleasantly surprised and would love to come back here in the future!