The diary of a Scot in Amsterdam

During the earlier part of our travels in Kazakhstan, we had not planned to visit Almaty at all, intending instead to head straight for the Chinese border after getting visas in Astana. People generally reacted with some surprise when they heard that we were not doing so, leaving me with the nagging suspicion that we were missing out on something important.

Well, as I have explained earlier, events beyond our control put paid to our earlier plans and set us on the road south after all. I must say that on reflection, I am quite glad about this; Almaty is a fine place to spend some time, and is much nicer in many ways than Astana.

Firstly, it is much larger and feels much more like a real capital than the northern upstart which has usurped it in this role. Secondly, it much more international. We met absolutely no-one from beyond the former USSR in Astana, whereas on the very day we arrived in Almaty, we ran into a German couple who are also cycling to China – and quite surprisingly, on a tandem.

Not only this, but we spent an evening earlier in the week with a group of Dutch expats. We had been in contact with one of them as she had earlier worked at the same farmers’ market in Amsterdam as Astrid. We ate in a Korean restaurant, and drank Heineken; I could almost imagine we were somewhere on the Zeedijk in Amsterdam.

Through the German pair who we met earlier, we got into contact with some more Germans (and one Swiss) with whom we are now sharing a very strange flat in a микрорайон (“meekro-rayon”) – something like a Scottish housing scheme, but with better weather than the Gorbals.

Talking of weather, this has been quite strange, and certainly different from what we have otherwise experienced in Kazakhstan. It is usually very warm and sunny, but every few days there come sudden light showers of rain which can go on for ages without really turning into a downpour. And now and then there has even been thunder and lightning. I suppose this might all be due to the range of enormous mountains to the south of the city, the Tian-Sian, which tower into the sky quite dramatically. Even now, in August, they are white with snow.

And most surprisingly of all, it is now chucking it down buckets outside, all of a sudden. I had just stepped out of an Internet café where I had spent several tedious and headache-inducing hours trying to sort out our never-ending visa problems, when I realised that I would not be able to walk more than a few metres without being soaked to the skin. Thankfully, there happened to be a posh and swanky European-style beer bar next door, to which I immediately made a frantic dash. The reward for this is a half litre of their own home-brewed unfiltered beer, with jazz playing on the stereo and German football on the television.

The apartment is much cheaper than a hotel, and feels much more like a home from home. It has been decorated in a very interesting way, with home-made cloud-pattern wallpaper in the kitchen, plastic chandeliers, mismatched Soviet furniture, curious paint effects on the ceiling, sticky-backed-plastic cut-outs of fruit and vegetables on the fridge, and indeed a different decorative effect on just about every exposed surface. It is quite an assault on the eyes, but it is comfortable and quiet, aside from the pigeons which keep scrambling around on the plastic roof above the balcony next to our room. As long as they don’t make a mess on the washing which I have drying there, that is okay with me.

A few days ago, something very unfortunate happened – I got robbed. I had very stupidly cycled off without my bag after stopping outside a café for something to drink, and when I returned less than five minutes later it was gone. Also gone was the toothless woman with child who had been begging on the other side of the pavement, immediately raising my suspicions.

I asked for some help from the staff at the café, and very soon two guys were walking around the block with me. We came across the beggar woman, who of course denied having anything to do with it.

One of the guys soon had some policemen on the scene, who then drove away the woman. Around twenty minutes later they returned minus the woman, but with my bag. My immediate joy at this was very quickly dampened when it became clear that my camera, mobile phone, and about 15000 Tenge (around €75) was gone. There was little I could do but thank the policemen and the guys from the café, and accept that I would not get the rest back.

Of course I have no idea if the woman has my stuff, or if the police took it or even made a deal with her, but in the end it doesn’t make any difference to me – I have lost a lot of money and expensive stuff, and worst of all, almost all of my photos from Kazakhstan besides the low-resolution ones on this website (which is better than nothing). I am naturally very upset about all this, but it could have been much worse.

What is most upsetting is that is partly my own fault for going off without the bag in the first place. Throughout my whole life I have been doing stupid things like this – it is just something I am very bad at, a sort of behavioural handicap. I am aware of this and have been very paranoid the whole trip, always checking everything multiple times in an almost obsessive-compulsive manner, and yet it only needs one slip up to happen and this occurs. Of course if I had left my bag next to the road in the steppe, it would probably still be there a week later. But this is not the steppe.

I was determined not to spend any time sulking about this, and so the very same afternoon we set off to do some very touristy things. We took the cable-car which runs to the the top of the Kök-Töbe hill, giving spectacular views over the city, passed the wooden cathedral (which actually looks like stone) in Panfilov park, before heading for the Arasan baths. This spectacular piece of Soviet architecture houses Russian, Turkish, and Finnish saunas. Of course it is segregated, meaning I found myself surrounded by countless naked and semi-naked Kazakh and Russian blokes. All very comradely. The Russian sauna was, well, refreshing, in an extreme sort of way. It is much hotter than a European sauna, in fact so hot that I could not stand more than a few minutes at a time. For a bit extra you can get yourself beaten all over with birch leaves, the idea being presumably to beat all the toxins out of the body. After all this, it was thankfully possible to dive into a pool of mercifully-cold water, and recover ready for the next round. After all this you can retire to the common area, order a beer, and come to your senses.

I must say I thoroughly enjoyed all this, and did indeed feel very refreshed afterwards. I can even see the point of the segregation – when relaxing in the pool, lost in a reverie, it would be quite distracting to have a naked lassie walk right past you. I do get the feeling that all the blokes get the chance loosen up a bit in such an all-male environment. Except if you’re gay, I suppose (but then there’s a different kind of sauna).

Earlier in the week, I paid a visit to the State Museum of Arts, the first proper art museum I have come across on the whole trip. Unlike in Kiev, this one was not only where it was supposed to be, and open, but actually contained what it was supposed to contain.

It has a very interesting collection, all from artists I had never heard of, and features work from the beginning of the Soviet era (mostly Socialist Realist) up to the present day. It was very satisfying to see painted scenes of Kazakh life and landscapes, and to be able to relate this to the experience of our travels in this country. Certain cultural symbols recur again and again – the yurt (nomadic tent), kumyz (fermented horses’ milk), herders, and kokpar (a ferocious sport resembling polo but with a dead goat instead of ball and sticks). I do feel that I have learned a lot about Kazakhstan in these past few months, which is not too hard given that I previously knew next to nothing. I am quite fascinated by this country, for reasons that I have probably already mentioned – for whilst it sits surrounded by Russia, Europe, China, and the Islamic world, and has clearly been influenced strongly and in equal measure by all four, it retains its own distinct identity, quite unique and independent of anyone else.

Being robbed is unfortunately not the only piece of bad news. We discovered yesterday morning that the company we had earlier contacted were not able to secure us a visa for China, for some nonsense reason related to Swine Flu or suchlike.

This has put us in a very difficult position, given that we are running out of options. We are also running out of time on our Kazakh visa; we have to leave the country by the end of the month. What we have done as a first step is to apply for a 1-month visa for Kyrgyzstan, the little mountainous country just to the south of where we currently are. This will give us a bit of breathing space time wise, one more embassy to try, and of course a whole load of interesting adventures along the way, I would hope. It also gives us the chance to arrange an invitation for a business visa, which should make things a lot easier when the time comes.

But while we are waiting for the Kyrgyz visa, we have about another week and a half to spend in Almaty. There is nothing to be done about this except to try to forget China for the moment, relax, and hope that our luck will change soon. Meanwhile, I have bought a new digital camera to cheer myself up a bit.

And one other thing. On Friday, I will turn thirty. I had really hoped that we would be in China by then, but that was not to be. If all our visa problems get sorted soon, that would be a very nice birthday present indeed. Better late than never.