There are two reasons why I am writing this blog. One of them deserves a blog of its own and the other one is that Monisha asked me to... So let's talk about The Kazak Experience

The agreement

This trip actually started before we landed in Almaty. It started back in Jan when I was coming home from my football match. I play football every second sunday and that's one of my fav things I get to do on a weekend. Anyways I was in the metro and on call with Mon when she sent me a pdf of some travel group itenary to Baku, Azerbaijan. And as you'd expect from me the first thing I did was to check the prices (which was around ~70K including flights). We did talk about potentially going on an international trip together at some point but there was no real plan and I didn't commit right away either...

It took me a good few weeks of talking to people and doing internet research to decide if I can afford to take this trip and once I was confident, I pitched the idea to her about doing the trip on her bday (in April). She took a few weeks and agreed and that was it... Now we had around 2 months to plan for our 7 day trip to either Almaty or Baku (yes we didn't even decide the place).

The planning

Both of us are big time planners and so naturally this part we enjoyed a lot. It quickly became our fav night time activity to sit down and plan for our trip. The first two things that we figured were super easy -- like where to go and when to go.

Where to go?? - We decided on Almaty over Baku after talking to a few frens who had been there. Our single most decisive factor was the hikes and nature and Almaty seemed to be a better option among the two.

When to go?? - This was also very easy and actually pre determined because we wanted to be there during Mon's bday week.

Now to focus on the most important part -- what to do?

Here's the thing when you're going on a trip that matters so much to both of you... You would want to have a good balance of activities that both of you enjoy so that it doesn't feel like a one person trip. In our case we had a huge overlap in the type of activities we enjoy doing but it's better to be safe than sorry and so we did super cool thing where we both took an hour separately and noted down our fav places/activities that we wanna do in Almaty and then we both together picked some of them and made our itenary.

Once we had the activities listed down, we did what I consider as the smartest planning move ever! We mapped them on Almaty City Map and decided where we'll stay and planned the rest of our itenary using that.

The Actual Trip

Day 1

Now the actual trip starts. We arrived in Almaty early morning and the first thing that I was surprised with was how bright it was for 5AM lol. Took a cab to our hotel and then clicked a bunch of photos of the Almaty streets in the morning cause the sunrise was beautiful.

Another major shocker for day 1 was how well civilised people were compared to India. I saw lane driving, cars stopping before the pedestrian crossing, clean streets etc. for the first time in my life. We spent the rest of our day walking around the streets and just exploring the shops and parks of Almaty until evening and then we called it a day.

Day 2

Second day in almaty and we woke up early again cause this was day we did a half marathon. Yuh!! Our itenary included one entire day to just run around the city. No we're not totally stupid, its actually a great way to explore a new place.

After our run, we were super tired so we had brunch outside and then hit the hay until the evening. Then in the evening we went out and it started raining. This led to one of my fav moments from the trip.

A Scooter and the rain

Almaty has these yandex scooters that you can use to roam around the city and so we took one scooter for both of us and were roaming around until it started raining heavily out of nowhere and then it was us + the scooter against the rain for the next 30mins. Major W. 10/10 would recommend you to do that.

There wasn't a lot we could do after that so we waited until 12 and then went out to a nearby cafe to cut the cake for Monisha's bday. We had Cake and Mocha and it was actually very interesting to see how most of the shops were either about to close or already closed by the midnight. Only a few people could be seen on the streets at the time and those too were just some tourists from INDIA lol.

Day 3

This is the day when started doing touristy activities cause until then we didn't go to any specific location or do any specific thing. We just ran, walked or ride the scooter for 2 days lol. So on 3rd day we planned to go to the Shymbulak Ski Resort. And even though its in the name of the resort... we didn't Ski because A. It was too expensive for us and B. My ankle was half broken.

We didn't actually know how to reach the place (other than to use the taxi ofcs) so we went a tourist center and met the local guide. He was super helpful and he even took us to get our Onay Cards (u use them to travel using public transport in almaty) and helped us plan our rest of the day and DIDN'T ASK FOR MONEY!!

Tried Gondola for the first time and the views from the top were amazing!!!! I didn't click photos though... Yuh I only recorded videos and a lot of them but no photos so you have to make do with the blurry broken images for the most part hehe.

Day 4

Now we're full on doing the touristy things. And for this day we went to Kok Tobe hills and took a gondola ride over the city once again. They were playing Indian Songs on the hills and that was a clear sign of what country's tourists visit the Almaty most. The gondola ride to the top was the highlight of this day for me cause the city views from this height were amazing.

Day 5

For our 5th day we had booked a full day tour to see the black canyon, kaindy and the kolsai lake. This tour we booked while we were in Almaty and it was quite cheap for a full day trip. Though most of the time we were in the bus, the couple of hours we got to spend hiking to the lake and then sitting near those lakes were totally worth it.

Day 6

I know I keep saying shit about loving the nature, running, hiking, trekking and how I can do anything but this was the day that made me hate stairs for a good while. It was the day of the Big Almaty Lake Trek.

3 hours uphill and then 2 hours downhill. Still can't believe we did that. And the prize?

** WE SAW A FROZEN LAKE FOR THE FIRST TIME IN OUR LIVES **

This was my fav view of the entire trip. Totally worth all the pain and sufferings to reach there.

Day 7

Last day of the trip. We were super tired and so we just went to a cafe in the morning, had coffee and then went to the airport.

Final Thoughts

Overall, it was a very new new experience for me as I had never been outside of India before. Starting from immigration, to actually landing in a different country, to figuring out the public transport,language and the food, it was all new.

I'd say we did a good job at planning the trip and we were able to make the most out of the days we had.

And now I'll randomly end this blog. Bye!