Nachttrein naar Shymkent
We managed to get the correct ticket for the night train to Shymkent. My parents dropped us off at Almaty II and we immediately ran into a few locals who spoke English. They explained that they were three brothers, but only one was actually going, the others merely were there to say goodbye. We were more then an hour early so there was ample time to do so.
Our four bunk coupe got filled up with an elderly man and a young woman. The gentleman was very talkative but he had not yet mastered the English language, nor did we do so for either the Russian or the Kazakh language. Fortunately the young woman was learning English by herself so she functioned as an interpreter. The old guy told us a short history of nearly everything involving Kazakhstan, Russia and the former USSR.He was very firm in his believe that the fall of the USSR was a good thing. He called that era and everything related to it ‘blogga’ meaning something like bad or evil. Since he had to wake up at 5 to get off at Taraz he retired early and the three of us continued our conversation on the top bunks.
Our neatly made beds
The one-of-three-brothers and the the woman both offered their services to help us find our way in Shymkent. This was not necessary since our eco-tourism coordinator was supposed to waitt the station with a sign saying ‘Steven’. His sign ‘Steifan’ was close enough for us to recognise. He took us to a car and after overcoming the language barrier he understood that we had not yet had breakfast. We had bought breakfast, but left it in the fridge in Almaty. He then took us to a small restaurant in Sayram where we had Shashlyk for breakfast(!).
After breakfast the car went further into the endless steppe ever closer to the looming mountains.