Feeling Local!
Blijf op de hoogte en volg Pauline Pearl
22 September 2015 | Kazachstan, Bayankol
After finally knowing my way around the city a bit, speaking some Russian words, not buying the entirely wrong products in the supermarket anymore and overall just feeling like I'm settling in, it was time to start exploring some Kazakh culture outside of Almaty.
With a bunch of other internationals we went on a trip to a small town called Баянкол (Bayankol), right next to the Chinese border. After driving for 8 hours in a tiny, slightly overloaded marshrutka, we reached the village and the camp where we would sleep, situated in the middle of the mountains. Its amazing to see how undisturbed nature still is in these kinds of places. For the entire weekend we were there, we didn't see anyone outside of the family that owned the camping place. Btw, the girl that took us there (Symbat) was related to the ones owning the summer camp where we stayed, and organised everything for us!(together with her friend, conveniently also called Symbat) In case you are reading this: thank you girls again so much for letting us have a taste of the Kazakh countryside!
The first day was spend with exploring the area by hiking around and horse-riding, and mostly enjoy the nature around us (the air in Almaty is quite dirty, so the fresh mountain air was very welcome!). At the end of the day we came around a family living there, and they offered us a very interesting insight in their house and how they lived (they lived in a jurte, and made a living off the horses they owned).
We were also offered a taste of fresh horse milk which actually tasted really good! Next day we got the same kind of horse milk at breakfast, but it had been shaken to ferment overnight (called Kumis), which was very interesting to taste, but will most definitely not be my favorite drink. Over the entire weekend we tasted all kinds of local foods, including; plov (veeeeeeery nice rice-dish, and the one we had this weekend definitely was the best one I've tried so far), Baursak (which are actually just dutch oliebolllen without the raisins and powdered sugar), Borsch (Russian soup) and Kurt (a sort of dried sour cream, we (dad & I in this case) tried this on our trip before already a couple of times, but it keeps on being quite disgusting. Just imaging the taste of over-date milk with a lot of salt in it, and then in a lollipop kind of texture so it should take you a few minutes to eat. Yummy!)
Sunday we tried to go to a goldmine, but the roads were so bad we ended up just hiking around the area when the minivan got stuck. Being next to the river, surrounded by mountains and with a beautiful view on the impressive mountain Khan Tengri (7010 meters high!), every direction you looked at just offered a perfect postcard view. After taking a refreshing dive into the river (a little bit to refreshing to be honest) we went on our way back home.
The weekend thereafter, feeling local continued with first going to the Almaty day celebrations which consisted of a huge apple festival (for those who have not yet googled Alma-Ata yet, it literally means Father of Apples, and I do have to confirm they have a loooooot of apples here). This was again a mix of Asian and Western culture. Asian culture was present in the different stands selling all kinds of local foods, and the huge karaoke stage where people gladly would go sing a song despite the fact that a thousand people could hear them. Western culture was present in hip-hop dance battles and multiple red bull sponsored activities such as motor crossing and parkour.
After that, I rushed to the Eurasian Music Awards with my buddy Assiya and her friend Elnara. Seeing all the local pop stars was really nice, although I didn't understand a word of what was being said (it was not even in Russian, but in Kazakh! Really glad I had the two girls translating and explaining everything to me :D thanks for that girls! )
Overall, I had two really nice weeks, feeling a little less like a lost tourist, and a little more like someone fitting in.
With a bunch of other internationals we went on a trip to a small town called Баянкол (Bayankol), right next to the Chinese border. After driving for 8 hours in a tiny, slightly overloaded marshrutka, we reached the village and the camp where we would sleep, situated in the middle of the mountains. Its amazing to see how undisturbed nature still is in these kinds of places. For the entire weekend we were there, we didn't see anyone outside of the family that owned the camping place. Btw, the girl that took us there (Symbat) was related to the ones owning the summer camp where we stayed, and organised everything for us!(together with her friend, conveniently also called Symbat) In case you are reading this: thank you girls again so much for letting us have a taste of the Kazakh countryside!
The first day was spend with exploring the area by hiking around and horse-riding, and mostly enjoy the nature around us (the air in Almaty is quite dirty, so the fresh mountain air was very welcome!). At the end of the day we came around a family living there, and they offered us a very interesting insight in their house and how they lived (they lived in a jurte, and made a living off the horses they owned).
We were also offered a taste of fresh horse milk which actually tasted really good! Next day we got the same kind of horse milk at breakfast, but it had been shaken to ferment overnight (called Kumis), which was very interesting to taste, but will most definitely not be my favorite drink. Over the entire weekend we tasted all kinds of local foods, including; plov (veeeeeeery nice rice-dish, and the one we had this weekend definitely was the best one I've tried so far), Baursak (which are actually just dutch oliebolllen without the raisins and powdered sugar), Borsch (Russian soup) and Kurt (a sort of dried sour cream, we (dad & I in this case) tried this on our trip before already a couple of times, but it keeps on being quite disgusting. Just imaging the taste of over-date milk with a lot of salt in it, and then in a lollipop kind of texture so it should take you a few minutes to eat. Yummy!)
Sunday we tried to go to a goldmine, but the roads were so bad we ended up just hiking around the area when the minivan got stuck. Being next to the river, surrounded by mountains and with a beautiful view on the impressive mountain Khan Tengri (7010 meters high!), every direction you looked at just offered a perfect postcard view. After taking a refreshing dive into the river (a little bit to refreshing to be honest) we went on our way back home.
The weekend thereafter, feeling local continued with first going to the Almaty day celebrations which consisted of a huge apple festival (for those who have not yet googled Alma-Ata yet, it literally means Father of Apples, and I do have to confirm they have a loooooot of apples here). This was again a mix of Asian and Western culture. Asian culture was present in the different stands selling all kinds of local foods, and the huge karaoke stage where people gladly would go sing a song despite the fact that a thousand people could hear them. Western culture was present in hip-hop dance battles and multiple red bull sponsored activities such as motor crossing and parkour.
After that, I rushed to the Eurasian Music Awards with my buddy Assiya and her friend Elnara. Seeing all the local pop stars was really nice, although I didn't understand a word of what was being said (it was not even in Russian, but in Kazakh! Really glad I had the two girls translating and explaining everything to me :D thanks for that girls! )
Overall, I had two really nice weeks, feeling a little less like a lost tourist, and a little more like someone fitting in.
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Je kunt nu ook Smileys gebruiken. Via de toolbar, toetsenbord of door eerst : te typen en dan een woord bijvoorbeeld :smiley
