Report Card

Kazakhstan’s Report Card

For our short stay in Kazakhstan this report cover the 14 days we stayed there.

Kazakhstan received a TCP/IP score of ★★★☆☆

Important Pointers

People & Culture (PC)

  • Friendly and smiley towards tourists
  • Personal space is very small so when lining up don’t leave a big gap or they’ll fill in front of you
  • Fusion of food from Europe and Asia — from beautiful cakes, dried whole fish, to fermented horse milk
  • Everyone follows the road rules here!
  • Common to see people hailing passing cars for a cheaper ride

Infrastructure, Safety and Politics (ISP)

  • Roads in the towns and villages are very under maintained
  • Our Malaysian companion got asked for money once, and after refusing they became physically threatening. Nothing serious happened in the end, but very distressing
  • Police posed no trouble for us, in fact they were exceptionally friendly

Landscape & Nature (LAN)

  • Our route consisted mostly of desert one side, and the Tienshan ranges on the other
  • The road up to the Big Almaty Lake was very beautiful, but steep (12%)
  • Littering problem here too
  • The water holes along the highway were very helpful during the hot days

Value for Money (VM)

  • The entire 14 days we essentially paid nothing for accommodation
  • Fruit and vegetables slightly more expensive than China
  • Ice-block and cold drinks cost between 50¢-$2
  • Western food are much cheaper, such as cakes, croissants or cheese

Camping & Outdoor Living (COL)

  • Camping and outdoor living is part of the culture here, so it was very easy for us
  • Safe to drink town water! No need to separate drinking and cooking water like we had in China

Return for a Retour?

The part of Kazakhstan we cycled though is apparently more beautiful than the rest of the country. Known as the Kazakh Steppe, the vast open grassland north of our route is considered boring by some tour cyclists.

We definitely like to return to Almaty and visit the natural attractions we missed.

Leave a comment