🇰🇿 Kazakhstan Part 2 – Comfort City
13 days and 1,617km (Total: 125 days and 24,240km)
“But he found that a traveller’s life is one that includes much pain amidst its enjoyments. His feelings are forever on the stretch; and when he begins to sink into repose, he finds himself obliged to quit that on which he rests in pleasure for something new, which again engages his attention, and which also he forsakes other novelties.” – Frankenstein
It was serendipitous to read this on the morning we left Almaty, after ten days of beautiful repose. We had arrived into the city after the trials and tribulations — and pure adventure — of riding the Silk Roads of Central Asia, and were ready for a break. Our home was a family-oriented apartment complex called Comfort City, and the polar opposite of a Tajik hostel at four thousand meters above sea level. For the first time in months, packing up our gear in the morning was replaced with making the bed. Navigating a muddy track was now navigating aisles of a supermarket. And plotting the next day’s route was traded for a book and an early night.
The extended shift gave me a newfound appreciation for the mundane-yet-blissful routines of everyday life. We’d spent our days doing very little, savouring the simple pleasures of it all.
Our original plan was to stay in the city for four days while the bike was serviced. But that was extended, twice, as we fought with Kazakh customs over the delivery of new bike parts. By the time they finally arrived from Italy, I had acquired a Kazakh identity number, a registration with the tax authorities, and mastered the ability to maintain my place in a chaotic immigration queue using only Google Translate and universal hand gestures for “what the fuck are you doing.”
Despite these new strengths, we had also grown a soft spot for Almaty. Set in the foothills of the Trans-Ili mountains, the air was cooler — a mild thirty degrees compared to the forty-plus elsewhere in Central Asia — and the sound of running water from the mountains was a lush replacement for the constant onslaught of sand and dust.
The best part, although a bit awkward to admit, was that people paid us absolutely no attention. Everywhere else in Central Asia, kids and adults approached us whenever we stopped, which is lovely, but it gets tiring. You always feel like a tourist unable to blend in and flow with the everyday lives of the locals. But in Almaty — and Kazakhstan as a whole, for reasons I can’t explain — we were almost entirely ignored everywhere we went. The most attention we got was from some people that kindly welcomed us to Kazakhstan and asked if we needed any help.
As we watched the leaves begin to fall from the trees, it dawned on us that Autumn was approaching and we still had a long way to Japan. On our tenth day, we finally picked up K, fitted with new tires, brake pads, air filters, and a new chain (which came in gold, really helping us blend in…).
We enjoyed our final day in Comfort City, eating our last Plov of the Stans (for breakfast and dinner), and set off. The “pleasure for something new” was calling and, as we rode north through the peaceful vastness, we reminisced over the intercoms about the incredible memories from our journey through Central Asia.
Next stop: Russia Part 2 of 3.