On The Road Again

This past Thursday we jumped on a bus to one of the Almaty's main bus stations. Set up similarly to a train station, the bus station is basically a bunch of buses and cars parked in front of a large building. Conductors stand outside their vehicles trying to recruit passengers.

We walked to the far side of the parking lot where Chris was able to make a deal for the back seat of a car (an older Mercedes, if you're interested) that would take us to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. The driver then attempted to find someone else to fill the car so we could head out. We waited around for about an hour until we decided to just pay for the whole taxi and get on the road (it's amazing how a little 11 month old can guide our decisions...). We had a good drive down and a nice visit to Bishkek, but that's all for a later post.

During our wait Chris discovered a really cool samsa stand. Samsas are pockets of flaky dough filled with things like cheese, chicken, lamb or beef. They are usually rather cheap and pretty tasty (if a little greasy). These particular samsas have a more bread-like dough and are called tandoori samsas as they are cooked in a tandoor (a cylindrical clay oven).This is a glimpse inside the tandoor, with samsas stuck all along the inside.