1-3 June Barnaul to Pavlodar (Kazakhstan)

Before continuing our trip to the East we decided to make a small detour to the West and get a taster of Kazakhstan. We left Barnaul on Saturday afternoon and stopped for the night in Aleysk, a small town in an agricultural region of Altay Krai with vast fields that reminded me of the Argentinean Pampa. The decision to go to Aleysk was spontaneous and the purpose was to shorten our way to Kazakhstan the following day. We were planning to stay in Barnaul for two nights, but decided to leave it earlier. The hotel in Aleysk was on the fourth floor of a building shared with a supermarket, a restaurant, and a place where kids can pet pets. When we parked in front of the building we really didn't expect much, but we may have got the best hotel deal so far. The room was massive, build to modern standards and good quality, and it also was the cheapest room of the whole trip (if we disregard the houses without basic facilities in Koo and Multinsky Lakes).

On Sunday, June 2, we headed due West to Kazakhstan. Anna took the commands of the Patriot for about 300 Kms on a road of varying quality ranging from decent asphalt to quite uneven gravel and dry mud. Patriot's navigation system strongly insisted we take another road, but Google Maps showed it as the best option, so we went for it. The best part of it is that we were almost alone on the road with very few other cars and Anna felt quite comfortable as she did not have to share the road with others. It was a great practice for her and some rest from driving for me.

Crossing the border from Russia to Kazakhstan took a bit longer than normal (others were passing by as if there was nothing stopping them, unless they were in a truck or a bus) as both the Russian and Kazakh customs officials had never seen an Argentinean passport. The funny part of the story was after the Kazakh customs had worked out that Argentineans could go into the country without a visa he couldn't recognise me from the picture in my passport taken in 2012, when I was quite a bit younger and had a chubbier face. He called his colleague and we had to explain that I lost a lot of weight and the picture was old. Fortunately, they finally let us in. Then we spent almost an hour buying insurance for Kazakhstan in a small booth on the roadside attended by a lady. Her database kept crashing and what normally takes 15 minutes max, took us almost an hour. Finally, all formalities sorted and here we are in Pavlodar. We arrived at our hotel and went for dinner, which was very copious and ridiculously cheap for UK standards (but not by Kazakh standards - it cost us almost the same price as our room for one night). We decided to do some gastronomic tourism in Kazakhstan after it.

We decided to spend two nights in Pavlodar. It's just another town and one day is more than enough for a visit and we wanted that day to be relaxing, especially because we needed to do some laundry. We left the hotel after 1pm and headed straight to a restaurant. I found a Russian restaurant with good reviews and this is where we went. We should have probably looked for something Kazakh, but Anna had her horse meat already yesterday, so we decided not to stress ourselves about where we were going to eat. Again, we had a huge meal for even a cheaper price than yesterday. Even pubs and carveries in Reading won't give you such a deal. Then we went to see a mosque, which has a high reputation in the entire Kazakhstan for its beauty and size. After that we continued to the Irtish River embankment - the longest embankment in Kazakhstan, which is quite pretty and well maintained. There were a lot of youngsters exercising (skiers on rollers practicing their skiing techniques, judo school), so it was clear that sport has an important role in Pavlodar. We had a very pleasant walk. Anna could not find mare's milk (horse milk) that Kazakhstan is famous for. She wanted to try an interesting product made of soured cow's milk, but it would not scan at the till, so they would not sell it to her. Oh well. We are now at the same hotel restaurant as yesterday looking forward to a nice dinner (although smaller!).