Location: Shymkent, Kazakhstan
It was a sunny morning when we left the little restaurant and the ~70km ride up to Shymkent took us through rolling hills of grassland interspersed with small groves of yellow trees, very similar to the Merritt area in British Columbia.
Our main reason for stopping in Shymkent was to get registered at the migration police. I think I had explained earlier that in Kazakhstan foreigners have to get registered just once within the first five days of being in the country. If you arrive at an airport they register you automatically but when entering the country at a land border you have to find a police office that can register you. Good Luck! Not every office will do it and there is no list to find out which cities have a police office that registers foreigners. But it is still your responsibility to get registered unless you want trouble and a fine. What frustrating Soviet hangovers! At least in Uzbekistan the required registration provides the government with a record of your whereabouts. The one time registration in Kazakhstan however is just a bureaucratic inefficiency.
Anyways, because it was Sunday the Migration Police office was closed so were forced to find a place to stay. We went down the first little road and finally found a house with a covered parking spot. We asked if we could set up our tent there for the night. They had no definite answer but invited us in, served us tea and piled endless plates with cookies, bread, meat, sweets and fruit infront of us. I still felt a bit uncomfortable with the Central Asian way of honouring guests by piling loads of food infront of them upon arrival but the host will not partake in the eating. Instead the hosts usually just sit at the table with you and keep you company while you eat. Still a bit awkward for me. They were really nice though and the daughter even spoke relatively good English.
The family then insisted that we would be too uncomfortable sleeping outside and that they would pay for a hotel for us. We tried to reason with them but their mind was made up: we would be way too cold to sleep outside. The father then drove off to find a hotel for us. Meanwhile, the daughter-in-law started preparing the labour intensive Kazakh dish Beshbarmak in honour of the guests. We were a bit worried because it was starting to get dark, the father was still out looking for a hotel and the meal was hours away from being ready. We really appreciated all their well meant efforts but we felt like we were being pushed around a bit. We were tired and just wanted to go to sleep in our tent.
At 9 pm dinner was finally ready. As tired as we were, it was still very delicious. Afterwards, the father offered to transport us and the bikes to the hotel in his car. Well meant but that would involve taking all our bags off the bikes and in the end the bikes alone did not fit in the car together so that he would have to make two trips. We would be lucky to get to bed by midnight. After lots of back and forth with an English speaking lady on the phone who translated for us, us getting a bit frustrated, our hosts being extremely patient, they finally agreed to letting us sleep on their porch. We felt bad because the father had already paid for the hotel room and they had been so generous but at the same time we were annoyed at having so much hospitality forced on us. We felt very awkward. Did they hate us now?
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