Mongolia-China trip, day 7: good morning Kazakhstan!

Seventh day from Zaisan to Almaty, Kazakhstan

 
With my bag strapped on, my teeth brushed, my hair combed and my bus ticket in my pocket, I try to get out of my dorm room. Alas, the lock is jammed! Fortunately, a multi-tool and a kick finally open the door. I notice in passing that I am becoming less and less patient!
I understand that we need thirteen hours to arrive at our destination, so I’m not too worried, I’ll find a hotel when I get to Almaty.
As a precaution, I pointed out on Mapsme the address of a hostel that has a great rating, you never know.
The bus that transports us is full as an egg, it’s a German bus that should have been scrapped ten years ago. The air-conditioning doesn’t work, the seats are as slumped as we are after three hours on the road, it’s crazy hot.

1200 km to do in a bs as rotten as it is full, it’s the ideal program for the great travellers

 
The landscape goes by, desert, desert and desert, then the colours change, trees and meadows appear.
In the bus there are lots of beautiful babies who smile at us as only toddlers know how. The driver is nice, the passengers and my neighbour too. The bus stops in truck stops where I discover the first local specialities, soudjouk, horse meat sausages and big Chinese raviolis that are called manti here. The kilometres make us numb, we are tightly packed, tossed about, everyone is dozing.
 

Unfortunately, it doesn’t take me 13 hours to reach Almaty but over 20!

 
When the bus stops, it is 3.30 am. My neighbour shakes me, I am in a coma and for once I am so schlumpy that I can hardly lift my bag.
I laugh as I look at my watch and beg the driver to drive another two hours, ha ha.
Taxi, Taxi!
Men crowd around me. It’s far too early to leave in search of a place to sleep, so I remember the name of the hostel I registered on the phone.
Yes, yes, Taxi…” My negotiation skills are close to zero. 
I show the driver the hostel address, my battery is at seven percent. It’s just enough time to realise that we’re ten kilometres from the city centre and I quickly switch off the mobile, one problem at a time.  
The taxi is not an official one, I break rule number one: never get into an unofficial taxi. I do the same with rule number two because I accept the advertised price without flinching: two thousand tenge, six euros.
Let’s be crazy, the same with rule number three when another man gets into the taxi, not as a customer but as a friend of the driver.
Here we go. Five minutes later the driver stops me in front of the local Hilton, forty-five euros a night. I burst out laughing, no that’s not where I’m going. He insists and explains that it’s the name I gave him. Ha ha.
 

Жоқ, жоқ, жоқ, мен жатақханаға барғым келеді! (No, no, no, I want to go to my hostel!)

 
the driver grumbles. I turn the mobile phone back on to guide him, count to ten and it definitely goes off.
Don’t panic, I open my laptop and plug the phone in to charge it. One thing at a time.
Meanwhile, the driver who doesn’t speak a word of English goes to find the night watchman who knows five, to sort out the situation.
I’m outside, in this sleeping city, surrounded by three Kazakhs, my PC and phone in my hands, loading, so I will finally go to bed, waiting that the damn phone will wake up and show me the way.
The night watchman is very helpful but he doesn’t know any more than the taxi driver. Nothing serious, everything will work out. In fact, everything always works out in the end.
After a few seemingly endless minutes, the little apple appears on the screen and the phone starts.
The hostel is somewhere in a residential area and the taxi, if it finds the street and the number, does not find the hostel.
I ask him to leave me there, the GPS recharges, I go to walk and find by myself this corner of heaven on earth where there is a bed waiting for me.
I say goodbye sir, good night to the driver and go off the taxi.
 

In this street, contrary to what Mr GPS says, there is no hotel

 
The street is dimly lit, not a cat in sight. The GPS shows me two positions three hundred metres apart with the same name.
No worries, I am now wide awake, I go up and down the street several times. No sign, nothing. 
I check the street number on the map: fifty-nine.
It’s obviously a private house, there are no signs indicating a hotel at this number. What to do?
I ring once: no answer.
I ring twice: same.
If I ring a third time, I take the risk to see a man with a Kalashnikov appear, which is a lot for one single day.
I leave and wander around like a lost soul in search of a plan B. Then a car stops not far from me. A young man gets out, obviously returning from a party in a nightclub.
I walk forward with a smile on my face, mobile phone in hand and ask if there is a hotel in the area. This young man speaks perfect English, it’s my lucky day! Alas, he doesn’t know any hotel in this street even though he has been living here for decades.
 

Be careful what happens next, I have witnesses, it’s the truth!

 
He looks at the GPS more closely, the two of us are now wandering down this obscure street.
No, he is sure, no hotel.
“I’m sorry,” he says, “I don’t know where this hotel is, I’ll call them”.
But in fact, no, he can’t, his mobile is also out of order: no battery. 
I thank him and take my bag but the young man stops me:
Don’t go away, you are my guest in my country! My house is nearby, I’ll offer you a tea, charge my mobile and call the establishment. If I can’t find it, I’ll pay for a taxi that will take you to an establishment I know and which I’m sure will be suitable for you. Don’t be afraid, I just want to help you”.
I’m not worried for a penny, this young man is really charming.
Many of you reading this would have run for the hills, but I have a certain amount of faith in the human race, and to be honest, I’m often right.
It all sounds very good to me. I follow him into his house, which is dapper, modern, decorated with expensive Elytis wallpaper and equipped with a bunch of high-tech appliances. These are important details, I have just spent a month in Mongolia, this neat interior welcomes me back to civilization.
 

My new friend is called Baïral, he is twenty-six years old and is starting a business. He has set up a home-delivery company, and we chat about quiche lorraine and appetizers while waiting for the battery to charge

 
Baïral finally manages to reach the owner of the hotel, whom we wake up from a deep sleep. Yes, it’s fifty-nine, he didn’t hear the bell, but all the other guests did. He’s in a bit of a bad mood when I show up there, without a reservation, in the early morning.
Bairal insists on accompanying me, only a hundred metres away, but he insists: the streets are not safe! (oh yes, really?).
In front of the hotel door which finally opens, Bairal invites me to a brunch for the next day (I really like Kazakhstan) and Elman, the owner of the place, hastens to carry my bag (even if he’s really in a bad mood). I say sorry three times, I apologize ten times.
We’ll see tomorrow, for now I want to sleep and so do you…
Like Iroquois on a buffalo hunt, we climb the stairs and arrive in a large dormitory where four bunk beds are waiting for me.
I close the door a little too hastily behind me and it answers with a bang worthy of the birth of a king. Elman gives me a look of, how shall I put it, exterminating tourist moron.
 

I taste the bed, the blankett: it smells good, it’s soft… I feel ready to make Compostela and any other slow and painful pilgrimage, I’m so full of joy

 
Elman, before slipping away, opens the bathroom door.
Bernadette seeing the Virgin would not have been as blissful as I am in front of this pure white ceramic toilet, yes, this world has unsuspected paradises that sometimes take the form of a clean bowl to relieve a bladder in panik.
I curl up in the duvet and plunge into incoherent dreams populated by bra-armatures detector gates, recalcitrant passport scanners, pictures of the Dalai Lama popping up on my computer screen. I also see bus-shaped saunas, elegant camels proposing to me, unloaded phones, stamped passports, obese backpacks and overflowing toilets in which customs officers check the toilet paper roll, shouting Paper! Swamp!
 
I really need to rest.

Going from Mongolia to Kazakhstan through China is a great adventure!

Stop being afraid! Throw yourself into the adventure: Travel!

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