Soviet Trains — Post #7
Train from Almaty to Shymkent Journal
I boarded the train at almost midnight and settled into my cabin. There were two people already settled into the bottom bunks, I had the top bunk. I greeted them with a smile and translated through my phone that it was nice to stay with them. They were very curious to learn more about me and what this strange foreigner was doing in their country.
My train cabin mates did not speak a lick of English and I did not speak Russian. We still managed to converse through google translate. Needless to say, it made for an interesting conversation.
The train was absolutely fascinating — exactly like the trains described in Paul Theroux’s “Riding the Iron Rooster Through China.” While China had replaced all of these trains with bullet trains, Kazakhstan had preserved these in their original condition.
I managed to sleep for ~6 hours waking up every 30 minutes or so during stops.
The next morning, I woke up to the lady below me yelling at me in Russian.
Anyways, I decided one day on this old soviet train was enough. Two days of travel still lay between me and Aktau. Realizing that this may be my only chance to get off the train between now and the Aral sea, I made a quick decision to get off at the next spot. What was the next stop anyways? I looked up Shymkent on the map and decided to stay the night here and assess my plans in the morning.
The train itself was one of the most incredible experiences of my life. It was an old soviet train that was beaten and tarnished, worn and painted over again and again. Each cabin had a wood burning stove that was used to boil the water and heat the cabins. I kept a small thermos of hot coffee of cocoa close by at all times and felt very cool every time I filled it up with water from the old wood fired boiler.
The train would stop every 30 minutes to pick up and drop off passengers. Compared to the bullet trains in China this was like stepping back into the stone age.
In the morning, I explored the cabins up and down, and gazed out the windows upon the Tien Shan mountains which teased me from a distance. I would never have a chance to visit them on this trip but made a mental note that if I ever made it back that I would do my best to hike the trails in Tajikistan. When I was in Almaty, a Swiss hitchhiker told me they were even more incredible than the Swiss Alps.
As much as I enjoyed the authenticity of the train experience, I was ready to move on.
Before I left the old soviet train, my cabin mate shared a translated message for me on her phone, “be careful in Shymkent. Many tourists get robbed here.” And then added “They get beaten violently.
Sweet.