The Normal Life of a Traveler from Shymkent to Turkistan to Kyzylorda

Shymkent was a nice change of pace from all the Uzbekistan cities. It did not feel crowded and the city was spread out with lots of shops and malls scattered about. My initial plan of just staying one night in Shymkent changed to two nights to slow down the pace since there was a nice cosy hostel and a chill city to stroll around doing nothing.

There were some sights in Shymkent like old archaeology heritage sites, but I did not make much an effort to see it. By the time I walked pass the site, it was already late evening and closed. 

Cold Mead Bar on a Hot day in Shymkent

Walking Around Shymkent

The weather was still burning hot in Shymkent so most times during the day was spend hopping from one shopping mall to another in nice cool air-conditioning just finding the food outlets to hang about reading books and scrolling nonsense while waiting for the nice evening weather.

Shymkent

Shymkent Park

Shopping Mall in Shymkent

Two nights and then it was a short ride to Turkistan. I initially wanted to stay in Turkistan for three nights to see all the sights slowly. The first day itself in Turkistan and I knew I would not linger about too long in Turkistan. It felt whitewashed that most of the silk road monuments were reconstructed too beautifully.

In addition, there were these new buildings adjacent to the historical sites, built to look like a tourist trap making the whole ancient city of Turkistan feel like one huge, constructed tourist gimmick. It was a too clean a city I felt, and even going further outskirt of Turkistan, the places feel too new.

Turkistan Museum

Mausoleum of Khoja Ahmed Yasawi - Turkistan

Karavan Saray - Turkistan

I did a day trip to Sauran Ancient city and that was a good waste of time. The long journey of 90km to the site was along the way to Kyzylorda but to be frank it was a 10 minute detour maximum. The deterrent was that there was no direct turn into the Sauran Ancient City site, forcing me to make an additional 30km run just to find the U-turn.

Turkistan was a slight disappointment to be honest; hence I left after stretching out two nights and made my way further away from the tourist path to Kyzylorda. The journey itself was boring, straight roads through the desert but slightly dangerous with all the sudden heavy cross wind coupled with many truckers overtaking me since I could not go fast.

Sauran Ancient City - Kazakhstan

Sauran Ancient City - Kazakhstan

Kyzylorda turn out as expected. Nothing of interest and I just zipped around town with Bragge seeing without thinking much. No hostel as well in Kyzylorda as well since it’s not a touristic place. Hotel was one of the most expensive I have paid in Central Asia costing me 16500 tenge. It was a classic old soviet style hotel, so the experience was interesting at least for the price.

Memorial Park in Kyzylorda - Kazakhstan

Travelled on: Aug 2024