Friday, 11 September 2026

 

Start: Hotel Almaty (KZ) 16:30

Arrival: Hotel Almaty (KZ) 19:30

 

Total: maybe 3 km on foot

 

 

What's the superlative of "sick as a dog"? Maybe there is none. The day before yesterday, I'd been a bit under the weather, with an achy throat. Yesterday in Charyn Canyon, my nose had been running almost nonstop. I know the progression of this: mucus mania. A toilet as clogged up as me, you'd just throw it out and build a new bathroom. Back home, this state of affairs is called "d'Freckecht hunn". No idea how you would say this in English. Maybe it's a uniquely Luxembourgish affliction.

 

I woke up, not knowing how to face the day, let alone Almaty. At 9 o'clock, it was already 30 degrees in the shade outside and probably just as many up in our room on the last floor. With a "you need to eat something", Sonia coaxed me into getting up for breakfast, and after lots of fruit, milk and coffee, I felt at least able to contemplate the prospect of living another day.

 

Rest until 5, then go for a walk and some food. That was the plan. Gentle and easy. While Sonia flipped through hundreds of dubious guesthouses in the Issyk Kul area, I took a long shower that must have lowered Big Almaty Lake's water level by at least 1 mm.

 

 

When the sun had toned its radiance down from "brilliant" to "soft", we set out to explore the vicinity of our hotel. Panfilov Park was shady and pleasantly cool. The reason for this were the numerous sprinklers watering the lawn. Well, in some cases they were playing "drench the bench" as well. This over-eager sprinkler had created a veritable inundation!

 

 

In the middle of the park, there is a large Orthodox church. We were prepared: scarves and long skirts, as befits the gracious visitor. Some other tourists had no such qualms: a girl had draped her jacket over her head, a middle aged blonde defiantly trampled in bareheaded and in shorts, a just-try-and-stop-me look on her face. But there was no one there to enforce the posted "please be considerate of the worshippers' feelings" plea. Inside, a mass was celebrated. The faithful filed past a priest in impressive robes. The chants were interesting too. I tried to film a short video (not considerate either, I know) but a woman walked right into my line of sight. Ah well, a few seconds are better than nothing.

 

"They should close the door for tourists during church service", I said, while resting on a bench inside, profiting from the fact that they did not. We left shortly after though. The church was beautiful, but there was a bit too much to and fro for comfort. As I've said elsewhere, I easily feel like an intruder during religious ceremonies. I wouldn't want people to film me at it either.

 

 

Behind the church, the name-givers of the park are celebrated in grandiose Soviet manner: a huge block depicting the bravery of Ivan Panfilov and his troups, who had famously defended Moscow from the approaching German aggressors in the 1940s. Behind us, a group of American tourists strolled by, listening (or not) to their guide extolling the guardsmen's bravery.

 

 

We moved on, towards the Ykhlas Museum of traditional instruments, housed in a beautiful wooden building that looked stunningly like a Norwegian stavkirke. I turned around to let Sonia take a shot of me. Some of the Americans had caught up with us. "Maybe a horizontal shot is better", Sonia wondered and slightly altered her angle. Meanwhile, the Americans were happily filming and photographing the museum, and me, too. "I'll try from up here", Sonia said. "Just get on with it", I told her, feeling more than a bit tense. "I'm in dozens of holiday pics already. They'll reminisce about Almaty as "that city with the girl with the runny nose in our pics".

 

 

I'm a fan of bite-size museums so we decided to explore it. It turned out to be chiefly a dombyra exhibition, an instrument I had never heard of before. It looks a bit like a violin or small guitar with only two strings, but it comes in a great number of varieties: yellow, dark or red wood, straight or round, single- or double-bodied. Many instruments had been donated by local musicians whose names were on display too. There was a movie in Kazakh showing a builder of these instruments at work.

 

 

The most interesting instrument however was a two-in-one deal called an orteke. These Kazakh drums, equipped with wooden goat figurines, are actually activated by a dombyra player. Strings are attached both to the figurines and to his fingers, so when he moves them to play his dombyra, the strings pull at the figurines who beat the drums in sync. Cool invention for a one-man-band!

 

Such ingeniousness leaves one feeling hungry. As it was our last evening in Kazakhstan, I decided (I was sick, so I got to decide) that I wanted to have a yummy Iced Coffee Boom one last time. We found one close by and I ordered Thai chicken and rice, a green smoothie and a big Iced Coffee Boom. I had overlooked the fact that the smoothie came in a one litre pot. At least I wouldn't die of dehydration.

 

Sitting on the terrace enjoying the cool evening air, we talked about one thing that we had NOT encountered so far on our trip: cigarette smoke. In Russia as well as in Kazakhstan all public indoor places had been smoke free, and even here on the terrace was a "Kurit zapresheno" sign. And people did not disregard it! Almaty might have a slight smog problem, but here on this terrace, I could enjoy my lush iced coffee in sweet, smoke-free bliss. Let's hope that the same will hold true for Kyrgyzstan tomorrow.