Kazakhstan: no sign of Borat

For those of you who have been unlucky enough to see the movie "Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan", be advised that this has absolutely nothing to do with the Kazakhstan of 2008: it is a modern and quite prosperous country. Almaty, the main city in the south, is a European-style city with broad boulevards and Western shopping malls. There are more mercedeses and BMW's than Lada Nivas; the only Lada we've seen so far being a police car...

Crossing the border between Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan was as easy as it gets around here: we rushed out Kyrgyzstan through a brand new EU-financed Kyrgyz border post, and after some pushing and "Kazakh-style" queueing, we found ourselves in the land of the endless steppes.

Finding accomodation in Almaty proved somewhat of a headache: budget options are scarce, the available ones being terribly overpriced ex-soviet apartment blocks with bare rooms without bathrooms, beds with dirty sheets and security as loose as an untamed horse. Paying over 20 EUR for a hole like that is a complete rip-off, so we decided to upscale our accomodation a bit: we found a comfortable homestay for about 40 EUR per night (still very expensive), but with all facilities: clean sheets on a good bed, tidy bathroom with hot water, fully-equipped kitchen, TV and DVD and washing machine. After a month in cheap dormitories, we thought we deserved a bit of comfort.

But it's a nice city, with friendly and helpful people (opening your guidebook prompts the locals to offer assistance), quite a few nice sights (Russian-Orthodox cathedrals, parks, museums,...), so we're having a good time here.