The Stans 2026

 Good evening from Almaty International Airport (ALA). We've quite liked Almaty. To be honest, that might be partly because it's quite modern and this makes it much more like the cities we're used to. Though the traffic and car horns could be improved.  This is despite it still having an authoritarian regime - the lack of freedom etc is not apparent at a tourist level. It has been a pretty quiet day with little to report, so you might want to skip over today. We (Lynn) spent the morning organising and re-packing for the flights home. Eventually we checked out and wandered about the town for as long as we could. Lynn had looked forward to visiting the Marks & Spencer but was very disappointed with the contents, so we walked up the pedestrian mall and around the town generally.     When we ran out of things to do we read in the hotel until we were picked up and taken to the airport where, as already explained, I am writing this. Our flight out on Air Astana, KC 909...

 Back to another inefficient travel day. Today being more inefficient than most. At least it started well - tghe hotel has a particularly good buffet breakfast and we didn't have to assemble until 11am, so we had a leasurely start. It's only 20 minutes or so to the airport. But after arriving we discovered that our 1.40pm flight to Bishkek ion Kyrgyzstan had been rescheduled until 4pm and then further delatyed to 6.30pm. The initial rescheduling had occurred prior to today but it's not clear whether the guide should have been aware of that as the airline seems to have a record of rescheduling (or cancelling) without notifying people. Either way - after some indecision most of us went back to the Hyatt where there were sufficient seats, food and drink and wifi. Actually that's where I am now, writing this as a way to pass the time until we head back to the airport and the usual rigmarole. I'm picking up again at the end of the day... after a quiet afternoon reading i...

 Well we'd been in Uzbekistan for quite a long time and this is meant to be a trip to the 'Five Stans'. So I expect you were wondering when we'd move on. The answer would have been 'today'. Admittedly this is a short excursion, only 3-4 days, so the implication is that there is less to see in Tajikistan, or at least that it has fewer tourist facilities.. That means today was a transit day. However we also spent time sightseeing. I thought those things were generally separate, and today I found out why. Doing both is too much. We left the hotel at 8am and went to the airport, which wasn't far and wasn't too big. All the usual hassles of international travel - multiple checks and scans, but we were pretty much through by 9am and our flight wasn't until 11.10, so there was a fair bit of sitting around and waiting, which is now comfortable in its familiarity. They have some decent shops in the airport, including one that sold a carry-on bag which was als...

 Another long night. More so than I expected, seeing the flight was earlier and shorter than some others. It was a little chaotic, just because the Turkish flight attendants were nice but always seemed intense and rushed, clanging about. We landed about 1.30am local time to a big, but deserted, airport. ASB There are a lot of huge airports now. Are they the modern churches? That's an essay I don't have time for now. This one is designed to look like a falcon. It looks great, but doesn't work well. It took about an hour and a half to get through the rigmarole - first the sham covid test (they 'swab' you but don't label the specimens and it is just a justification for part of the entry fee) then you queue for the visa, they take your passport, then you queue to pay the entry fee ($US130 in new notes, no change given), then you go back to the visa queue to get your passport back, then you go to the e-passport machines that work erratically, then go to the immigrati...

 It feels like we've had a full holiday, and we're still on the way there. After a long sleep we felt a bit better, more so after starting the day with a good Turkish breakfast - mainly meze type things. It's been another fine day, clear and in the high 20s. The people in the hotel were very mixed and there was at least one guest in Turkiye for medical tourism - a hair transplant, judging by the banadaged and shaved scalp. We walked around the local area a bit. Mostly shops selling spices and turkish delight to tourists but also rug shops, street vendors selling grilled sweetcorn and chestnuts (we got some nuts yesterday, quite good). Well cared-for cats (there are occasional machines that dispense food for homeless cats) but few dogs. We reached the grand bazaar and wandered for a while, rebuffing shop owners and not buying anything. Eventually we walked back to Sultanahmet square, had a coffee and too the HOHO bus that wound past multiple palaces and mosques, eventually o...

 I am writing early-ish on Thursday evening, sittin in Changi Airport. Our flight isn't until 2am, so typing is a good way to pass a little time. Perhaps I'll update this in a few hours, should something unxepectedly interesting happen. Flying this route is not very efficient - we have a similar issue in Istanbul, with two days and one night to fill before our next flight. Luckily the flight out of Istanbul is not so ridiculously late, but we still have to check out of the hotel and then fill another day. Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself. These blogs are generally abouit the recent past, not the near future. Though I must mention that Lynn noted this morning that there is more disruption in the middle east and flights through the UAE are delayed, so it was good that we made the change a few weeks ago. So today we got up and had the standard hotel buffet breakfast. Decent but not exceptional. Then we got organised and checked out. We could have got a slightly later checko...

 Aargh. Trying to work out how to explain the day qwith my flight- and alcohol- addled brain. So I suppose we're in transit. The route we're taking, through Singapore and Istanbul, is a bit slow and it will take us some time to reach Central Asia. Perhaps it's a reflection of modern life that I expect things to happen instantly an not to wait for them? Whatever the reason we're both on the holiday and still on the way to it. We have just one flight under our belts so far. We are travelling with Lynn's friend, Lee-Anne, and she was at our place shortly after 6am for our 6.30 flight to the airport. Things were delayed almost immediately. These days you go through those body scanners, which scan you with radiowaves. Lynn had a number of suspicious spots on her scan. Don't ask me why. So they patted her and swabbed her, and she can back positive for nitro glycerin. Twice. Fortunately they didn't seem too fazed by this, it may happen frequently, and took her to t...