The Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan!!!
Trip Start
May 23, 2007
1
26
33
Trip End
Aug 16, 2007
Almaty, Kazakhstan
Thursday, July 26, 2007
It's Billy here with my first blog entry of the entire trip. The crew and I took a bus from Bishkek to Almaty last Wednesday and were dropped off at some God-forsaken bus station that didn't make it onto Lonely Planet's Almaty map. After wandering around the city aimlessly for a couple hours looking for our hotel, we all finally caved in and paid for a taxi. We were all thankful to reach our overpriced hotel...until nightfall, when the mosquitos came. We woke up early this morning to apply for our Chinese visas only to find the Chinese embassy abandoned with broken windows (later we learned that the Chinese embassy changed locations 2 years ago). After finding the real Chinese embassy, we discovered that we can only apply for visas on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Tomorrow the group will try again, sending us back on our way to Xinjiang. Despite our difficulties here in Kazakhstan, we have had some experiences worth remembering. Driving around in our taxi today, we noticed that our driver boasts the longest ear hair in Kazakhstan-I was honored.
