Back to The Future

Kazakhastan! Certainly a land of surprises.

We headed west from Omsk into Kazakhastan and for the first 100 miles the scenery was the same, flat, grass/crops and lined with trees, but then we turned south and went across 1,000 miles of flat, brown, empty scrub land, with Astana plonked in the middle and is the most amazing city I have seen (images below). We then skirted round a lake for about 200 miles and on to Almaty. 60 miles before Almaty the ground started to undulate slightly and crops and trees returned. 50 miles from Almaty the mountains appeared in front of us like a vision across the horizon, the smog of Almaty obscurring all but the snow capped peaks that seemed unreally high.

Almaty is a huge contrast to Astana and is a huge bustling, vibrant city that basically never stops. We struck lucky with a low cost Hotel with secure parking and a restaurant next door that has excellent food and always something going on. First night, at 10pm the curtains opened on the stage and a rather attractive young lady started cavourting about, eventually down to her G string! Closely followed by a rather muscular bloke that did the same! They then went on to involve some of the audience and the bloke ended up with a young lady (?) clinging round his waist by her legs, stripped to the waist and skirt up round her waist! and this is kazakhstan!

As expected, we did get hassled by the police!

This was at a service station just outside of Astana, difficult to show on a picture but basically a time trial where 2 cars go off at intervals round a course laid out in the lorry parking area.

Some of the amazing structures in the centre of Astana

And this 'tent' is designed to stay at +30 degrees even when it is -30 outside, is a shopping centre inside with a beach resort and water park in the top, a mono rail running round inside and all sorts of rides and simulators, including a full F1 car with screens for front and mirrorr views and do 3 laps of an F1 circuit.