We proceeded south, up into the Tian Shan mountains this morning. We passed the high altitude speed skating complex of Medeo on our way up to the Shymbuluk mountain resort. We took cable cars to the top and walked around viewing the mountains, then had a coffee. I’m sure it’s very busy up here during ski season. We were at 2260m and it was 13C so we bundled up. It’s a pity it was an overcast day, a blue sky would have made the mountains look better.
After that we made our way back down into the city and stopped to view the Golden Man (Warrior) statue at Republic Square, he is on top of a winged snow leopard (apparently snow leopards are in the mountains around here). Towards the back of the statue there are pictorials depicting periods of the history of Kazakhstan.
We then went to a self service restaurant for lunch, we were the only Westerners in the place, loads of cheap food options but not many were familiar.
Next we went to the excellent Central State Museum, where a guide explained the main exhibits, then had some time on our own. A quick visit to the large, spotless, unisex bathroom before we left 😀
We are having dinner at a Georgian restaurant tonight.
We’ve noticed Almaty is a modern city, the financial district had western looking tall buildings. There are more International chains here than we’ve seen before, KFC, Burger King, Starbucks, Pepsi, Coke, Kristy Kareem donuts, Gucci to name a few.
We’ve seen lots of manual labourers, men and women, sweeping streets and working with shovels - they’re all working, not watching!
Lots of electric cars, public buses and taxis in the last two countries.
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