Our flight from Almaty wasn't scheduled to leave until 2:40am.... stupid o'clock. But, that's what you get when you only spend $222 USD ($301 CAD) for the IndiGo Airlines one way flight each from Almaty to Bangkok, connecting in New Delhi.
And we're fine with that...it wasn't fun, but it's all part of travel, and we just put up with it. We could have paid double to get a direct flight on a better quality airline.... but that wouldn't be like us!
And, because we didn't want to spend another $40 USD ($50 CAD) or so on another half a night in our apartment, we checkout out at noon... with 12 hours to waste until we had to be at Almaty Airport.
It was a cool, drizzly day. But that didn't stop us from walking the 4 kms or so to the Shakespeare Pub for another one of their delicious curry meals.
We ordered a chicken curry, and a spinach and cheese curry, and split them.
Then we just kind of sipped on our drinks and hung around for an hour wasting time. The restaurant agreed to look after our carry on bags, and we went out for a walk over to the big indoor market.
Some nice looking pork chops!
It's a huge market, but it wasn't very busy.
The horse meat section.
Kazakhstan is big on horse meat.
But they do beef as well.
Lots of fruits, especially apples.
Pickled stuff.
Most of the sellers were just sitting there staring at their phones.
I guess ten years ago they all must have read books!
This section was a little busier.
Kazakhstan is a land locked country. I guess that's why there wasn't much seafood for sale.
From there, we went back to the pub and wasted another hour. Then walked over to the big fancy Dostyk Plaza shopping mall to waste some more time.
Along the way, we stopped in to feed the pigeons!
This one sat on my shoulder, and I didn't even have any food!
This is a typical old Soviet apartment block where there are no standards... the owner of each unit is free to do what they want with it, so some are fixed up nicely, and other not so much.
Observatory.
Arrived at the fancy mall.
Nice Christmas tree out front.
And a lot of Christmas decorations on the inside.
It was actually busier than it looks in this photo.
LEGO Santa.
More Christmas decorations.
Eventually, we figured we'd go back and pick up our bags and take a taxi to the airport. We were still way early, but we find that time goes fast in an airport.
The problem was, that Almaty International Airport is probably one of the worst international airports in the world. Far too small for the population, and not enough seating. Very crowded. So it wasn't even like we could sit and play backgammon comfortably. Anyway, it was interesting people watching. Lots of kids, even into the early hours of Friday morning.
And we noticed that getting onto our flight as well... lots of kids. In fact, we had one screaming baby the row in front of us, and another right behind us! Fortunately, they weren't screaming at the same time, but it was a pretty sleepless flight.
It didn't help that we were a half an hour late leaving. Then, we got a half an hour up in the air, and there was some kind of medical problem. Couldn't really see what was going on because it was about eight rows behind us, but the flight attendants were literally running up and down the aisle, another was on the phone, then bringing emergency medical supplies... then they actually announced that there was a medical emergency on board. We figured for sure we were going to get turned around, but then things settled down eventually. We never did find out what happened.
And, the seats were really uncomfortable on this IndiGo flight. More legroom than normal, but just couldn't get comfortable.
Arrived in New Delhi, and even though we were doing a connection, they forced us through the whole security and x-ray thing again. No logic at all. But whatever, it's part of travel so we just deal with it.
And we were starved! Had "Full Irish Breakfast" at the Irish pub at New Delhi airport. We don't recommend it... the sausages were pretty pathetic. But the coffee was good, and it put something in our stomachs. Very expensive by New Delhi standards, but cheap by world airport standards... 524 rupees ($6.30 USD, $8.55 CAD) each. No photo because we didn't want to be reminded of it!
And so we sit, awaiting the second flight... another four hours and fifteen minutes in the air and we will arrive in Bangkok.
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