Not the Midnight Train to Georgia.

The Tashkent Ekspress

Almaty-2, the city's main station was originally built in the 1930's, but reconstructed in the 1970's it handles on average 5k passengers daily. many international routes run from here mainly into the major cities of russia and more recently china.

The soldier and the farm worker, relics of a Soviet past.

Not the most exciting nor photogenic of places

Nor easy to understand, nothing bilingual here.

But there it is: 001 18:25 departure choo choo Thomas, still got a bit of time to kill so lets see what is on the platform.

Just as I expected: Trains.

And people.

And people selling stuff.

Here is the iron horse that will be carrying us across anonymous dark landscapes.

Now seeing that gladdened my heart somewhat.

Ticket to ride, a 15 hour journey through the night,(though that includes a 3 hr stop to clear the border checkpoint at 6am), covering a distance of some 500 or so miles. Farewell Kazakhstan.

Are you fucking kidding me????

I need beer!!!

Beers drunk, bar closed and so to bed...well if you can call it that. jesus it was a cramped, I just really hate sleeping on my back, unable to toss and turn in my sleep, and waking up for breakfast?

FFS, I think I will pass on that!