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Great start to your TR and looking forward to reading more. :)

Very interesting start to your report. Looking forward to reading the rest of it.

Ashgabat, Turkmenistan (Day 2)

Quote:

Originally Posted by 757 (Post 31050696)

Great photos and report so far! I had a friend that was in the peace corps in Azerbaijan for 2 years, and I've been interested in seeing photos of Baku. Looking forward to the rest of your report!

Thanks! Baku was interesting.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bambinomartino (Post 31050975)

Laziji is one of my top 5 favourite dishes. Those are red chilies, though. While trying to order it in Sichuan once I got something very similar, with green fresh ones. Just as spicy (and numbing - "ma la") as laziji, but slightly more saucy/moist.

Same here. I've only ever had it made with dried red chilies. This was the first time I've gotten it with big chunks of fried fresh chilies (orange-red color). It was a lot hotter than normal. The funny thing is, I had laziji from this same restaurant last year and it had only dried chilies. Alas, my ordering system in China is top point at a photo on the menu.

Quote:

Originally Posted by camsean (Post 31051170)

Great TR so far. I'm looking forward to the rest.

Those food prices in the hotel are insane! How much was the hotel and food in other places?

Thanks! It was all bundled in the tour, but I believe Yyldyz cost $200 per night. The tour was $790 (USD paid in cash only), which included two nights hotel, breakfasts, dinner, car, driver, airport transfers, letter of invitation, entrance fees, etc. My only out of pockets were the visa ($99), airfare, lunches and camera fees at Nisa and Museum.

Lunch at a nice sit down restaurant (like those I went to) was around 50-100 manat per person (if ordering several courses), which works out to $3-6 USD at a black market exchange rate of 15:1. Incredibly cheap. If memory serves, a 1 liter bottle of local sparkling water costs around 2 manat at a supermarket. A can of Red Bull is 40 manat.

Note: The official exchange rate is 3.5 TMT to 1 USD, which makes things very pricey. Best to exchange money on the black market, never at banks. Shoot for 20:1 on the black market, but I accepted 15:1 happily. I exchanged a total of $30 USD to TMT and still left with at least half of my manat to keep as a souvenir.

Quote:

Originally Posted by nequine (Post 31051458)

Great start to your TR and looking forward to reading more. :)

Thanks!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fredrik74 (Post 31051702)

Very interesting start to your report. Looking forward to reading the rest of it.

Thanks! If nothing else, the stans are definitely interesting places to visit.

Big difference between the old and the new. I have to say, I prefer the new buildings myself!

Turkmenistan Airlines Business Class: Ashgabat - Almaty

Turkmenistan Airlines
Business Class
T5 Business Class Ticket (H1 Plated)
T5715: ASB-ALA (Ashgabat to Almaty)
21 April 2019
Boeing 737-800 (Two Class Configuration)
EZ-A020
Seat 3D
Departure: 8:35PM
Arrival: 12:20AM +1

Back to the airport. It's one of the few buildings in Ashgabat that's actually quite beautiful. I really love the falcon motif. The interior is also quite nice.

Ashgabat Airport
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Ashgabat Airport Departures
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Ashgabat Airport Landside
Check-in counters and security off to the right (out of frame)
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I arrived at the airport around 3 hours early, just to avoid any issues. The check-in agent proceeded to ask me for my visa to Kazakhstan. US passport holders don't need a visa, so clearly they don't use TIMATIC. She didn't push the issue and gave up when I told her I didn't need one. Boarding pass in hand, I was through immigration, customs and security fairly quickly. It was all efficient and not crowded in the least. I also had the same immigration officer as I'd had when I arrived. Not sure if he remembered me or not...

Once airside, I headed for the lounge. While fairly large, it was pretty empty when I arrived. The food offerings were pretty dismal, so it was good I'd just eaten lunch.

Departures Board
Not exactly a lot of traffic here. This is 24 hours worth of flights.
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Apron View from Lounge
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Empty Lounge
With loud Russian new playing on the TV (out of frame)
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Eventually, it was nearing time to board. I planned to get to the gate 5-10 minutes before the scheduled boarding time. My gate was a long walk away and the moving walkways mostly didn't work. When I arrived at the gate, boarding was almost complete. Slightly annoying.

I was originally assigned seat 4C, which was occupied when I boarded. So I switched to 3C first then switched again to 3D once it became clear that 3D and 3F were both empty. Boarding completed some 20 minutes before our scheduled departure, at which time two mechanics boarded and took their seats in 1A/1C. I always feel nervous when mechanics fly with us. Not really sure why there were there, given the plane was fairly new.

Business Class Cabin
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In Flight Magazine
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In Flight Magazine
Thankfully, we weren't in a 737 MAX.
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We took off 20 minutes early. The takeoff roll felt very slow (not full throttle) and seemed to use far more runway than normal. The ascent from ASB was also very steep, roughly a 45 degree incline, which felt far steeper than is typical. Not sure what was going on with the pilots, but their flying didn't instill a lot of confidence. In the air, the flight was normal with no turbulence or any issues of note. However, the landing was weird. The landing speed felt a lot higher than normal and the plane took a very long time to come to a stop. Much longer than a 737 should take. The flight also ended with applause, which is another bad sign.

The cabin service was good, with a single Russian FA taking care of us. She was friendly and prompt. The meal was actually pretty good. There was a choice of chicken or beef, so I went with the chicken.

Meal
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Obligatory Portrait of the Dear Leader
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Due to the early departure, we landed at Almaty at least 30 minutes ahead of schedule. Despite the fact that we landed at a remote gate (ALA has only 4 jet bridges), I was landside 15 minutes prior to the scheduled arrival time.

Hotel Mercure Almaty City Center

Hotel Mercure Almaty City Center

This is a standard Mercure, just like others I've been to in Europe. Clean, new and fairly cheap. The location was fine for my purposes. Not much to say about it. I arrived late and left at 9AM.

Room
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Room
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Room
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Room
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Room
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Almaty, Kazakhstan

Air Astana Economy Class: Almaty - Bishkek

Air Astana
Economy Class
KC Economy Class Ticket
KC109: ALA-FRU (Almaty to Bishkek)
22 April 2019
Airbus A320 (Two Class Configuration)
P4-KBF
Seat 12C
Departure: 6:00PM
Arrival: 6:55PM

This is a very short flight covering a distance of perhaps 150 miles. There were two reasons why I decided to fly instead of drive. It's cheaper and perhaps somewhat less of a hassle. The overall time is similar, though flying is a little faster.

Getting a boarding pass and then passing immigration and security was very quick. I could have easily arrived at the airport a bit later. As is often the case here, we boarded from a remote stand.

Old Terminal Building
http://farm66.staticflickr.com/65535...42559d26_b.jpg

Naturally it started to rain right when we pulled up to the plane.

P4-KBF
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P4-KBF
http://farm66.staticflickr.com/65535...de6ef8f3_b.jpg

MySEAT
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Empty Row to Myself
Definitely worth the $7 cost to sit here
http://farm66.staticflickr.com/65535...8575f753_b.jpg

Good Pitch
http://farm66.staticflickr.com/65535...f118af0d_b.jpg

The flight took 30 minutes and was uneventful. The inflight service was a small bottle of water, distributed prior to take off.

Our Plane on the Ground at Bishkek
http://farm66.staticflickr.com/65535...0da4b176_b.jpg

Bishkek immigration was quick. Finding an ATM in the terminal took more time. Once I had cash, I went outside and found a taxi driver. Unfortunately, Yandex.Taxi was unable to find me a ride, so I had no choice but to risk a taxi. We agreed on a price (500 KGS, approx $7 US) in advance and he had me at my hotel within 25 minutes. Easy peasy.

Hyatt Regency Bishkek

Hyatt Regency Bishkek

Check-in was quick and uneventful. The property was built in Soviet times and was formerly a hotel. It was renovated and converted to a Hyatt, but it still retained very low ceilings. The room retained an aroma of somewhat greasy food, which wasn't altogether appealing. Other than that, no complaints at all. I believe this was an upgraded room because of my Explorist status, but I didn't bother to confirm (as I didn't really care very much).

Room
http://farm66.staticflickr.com/65535...6738a727_b.jpg

Room
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Room
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Room
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Room
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Room
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Weird Luggage Closet Open to Both Entryway and Bathroom
Photo taken from entryway, that's not a mirror in the back of the closet.
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View
http://farm66.staticflickr.com/65535...e039e6ca_b.jpg

Welcome Gift
http://farm66.staticflickr.com/65535...cc608094_b.jpg

I hadn't yet had dinner, so I ordered some chicken. The chicken had an off taste, but everything else was good. I didn't get sick, so it was clearly fine to eat.

Dinner
http://farm66.staticflickr.com/65535...50a99be0_b.jpg

After a nice sleep, I awoke to a much improved view from my window.

View
http://farm66.staticflickr.com/65535...9faf8931_b.jpg

View
http://farm66.staticflickr.com/65535...44555c05_b.jpg

Did you consider Astana rather than Almaty for the visit to Kaz?

Quote:

Originally Posted by nequine (Post 31053258)

Big difference between the old and the new. I have to say, I prefer the new buildings myself!

If nothing else, they're certainly more interesting than the old buildings.

Quote:

Originally Posted by nequine (Post 31055111)

Did you consider Astana rather than Almaty for the visit to Kaz?

Ah, you mean Nur-Sultan. Fun fact: Kazakhstan just renamed their capital city in honor of their first president, a change expected to cost $125M.

Yes, I did consider it, but it would have likely required stops in Almaty regardless. Almaty has far better connectivity within the region, so I would have had to connect there anyway. I could have done a day trip to Astana for my day in Kazakhstan, which would have meant a 6AM or 7AM flight on ALA-TSE, then an afternoon return to ALA followed by a 3-4hr drive to Bishkek. There's no TSE-FRU flight on Tuesdays. Given the amount of extra time I would've had to spend flying/driving, it didn't seem like a worthwhile tradeoff.

I went through dozens of permutations of this itinerary to get a workable schedule with minimal backtracking, which was fairly challenging due to the fact that many of these countries (Turkmen, Tajik and Kyrgyz) have fairly minimal/infrequent air links with one other. Further complicating matters is the fact that I don't have a Russian visa, so I couldn't transit Russia en route to/from Kazakh or Kyrgyz.

I even looked at doing some sectors overland. For instance, flying Bishkek to Osh, then overland to Khujand. Overnight Khujand and onward to Tashkent, skipping Dushanbe altogether. Or Dushanbe to Samarkand overland via Panjakent by 4x4, a potentially risky route during the spring thaw (rockfalls, flooding, washed out roads, etc), though certainly more scenic than flying.

Swingaling good TR and photos of areas less travelled.

I recommend you add "Hindustan" for an extended trip.

Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan (Part One)

Hey, Great report!! Quick question for you, where do you find the local tour guides to hire in these different countries?