Hello again guys, further to my first post on my trip to Central Asia, this is a rather short post to share with you a piece of logistics that I figured out online when my Airbnb host in Almaty was totally useless and unhelpful. I like my city breaks and it is always great to discover two big cities which are relatively close to each other, thus you can visit two cities in two different countries on the same trip. Examples of this kind of pairing include Copenhagen and Malmo, Vienna and Bratislava, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, Amsterdam and Brussels, Buenos Aires and Montevideo, Vancouver and Seattle, Hong Kong and Macau, London and Paris, Iasi and Chisinau, Tbilisi and Yerevan, the list goes on - in this case, Almaty is the biggest city in Kazakhstan with 2 million people and Bishkek is the capital of Kyrgyzstan with about a million people. The two cities are only 237 km apart and the journey which involves an international border crossing takes about 5 hours. The journey itself is relatively cheap and it makes little sense to fly from Almaty to Bishkek - however, it is quite hard to find information online and what makes it even more confusing is the conflicting information that I have found on several different websites - these were mostly accounts from travel writers and bloggers detailing their experiences when they undertook this very same journey. So rather than accuse someone else of posting inaccurate or misleading information, allow me to simply share with you what I had done having completed this journey successfully in February 2024, so if you are reading this some time in the future, remember some of the schedules and prices may have changed and hence it is your responsibility to make sure you have the most up to date information for your journey and I will share with you what I have learnt having just done this journey myself. Believe me, this will save you a lot of time! The bus from Almaty to Bishkek leaves from Sairan bus station in the North-East of Almaty, it is not on the metro system and you would have to get either a bus or a taxi there. It is not walking distance from central Almaty and yes, that's really annoying for them to put their main bus station somewhere very inconvenient, as it really ought to be near one of their metro stations.
Firstly, there are two options for this journey. The cheapest and more comfortable option is to get the regular bus (3000 tenge), the more expensive and less comfortable option is to get the shared taxi (which could come in the form of a mini bus or even just a regular car - 5000 tenge). Unless you are very unlucky, you ought to be able to secure a seat on the regular bus as there's plenty of capacity even with passengers turning up at the very last minute. The bus is big enough and I would suggest turning up between 45 and 30 minutes before the scheduled departure time of the bus which can be found in this website (in Russian) and if you don't speak Russian, there's always Google translate. There are 5 buses a day: 8 am, 10 am, 12 noon, 2 pm and 6 pm. According to the website, the ticket costs 3280 tenge but that probably includes a booking fee for the website. I turned up and paid in person, the driver charged me 3000 tenge. I know the prices quoted online can vary from about 1500 to 5000 tenge - I suspect some of the lower numbers may be from a few years ago but even at 3000 tenge (the price I paid), that is just £5.28 or US$6.70 - it is so cheap compared to what one would pay in the West for such a journey. I had a nightmare of a journey trying to get to Sairan bus station from my AirBNB as I waited 15 minutes for the bus to turn up, so always leave extra time for that journey - traffic in Almaty can be quite slow! It was such a stressful journey running through the bus station trying to find the right counter to buy the bus tickets - the staff were very helpful as they could sense that I was desperate not to miss my 12 noon departure. As I was so close to my departure time, I was told to simply pay the bus driver in cash instead of bothering with a paper ticket. The staff were great in pointing me in the right direction but in case you don't speak Russian, learn to recognize the way Bishkek is written in Cyrillic in order to find the right bus: Бишкек - well it is not that hard given that the Б is practically like a b in English and the second half of 'kek is exactly the same as in English. My bus driver was this really angry local guy who spent most of the journey shouting down his mobile phone in Kazakh (which I don't speak, I can speak some Russian), I have no idea what he was talking about but he sure was angry about something. Interestingly, we left at 11:47 am despite the fact that the scheduled departure time was 12 noon; that bus left 13 minutes early and I hope there weren't any other passengers turning up in those 13 minutes - thus I'd advice you to aim to take one of the earlier buses.
The progress out of Almaty was painfully slow as there was a traffic jam, even though it was lunchtime. The outskirts of Almaty soon gave way to the emptiness of the Central Asian grasslands covered in snow. I fell asleep quite soon after that, only to be awoken when we made a stop about 2 hours into the journey for a toilet break. Even though you are leaving Kazakhstan, don't make the mistake of spending all your Kazakh currency as you need 100 tenge to use the toilet and then there's a shop there for you to spend the last of your Kazakh currency (though obviously, as expected, everything is so expensive in that shop as they know you're trying to get rid of your Kazakh currency). The bus will stop there for about 10 to 15 minutes. Make sure you use this chance to go to the toilet as there are no toilets at the border crossing! The bus will reach the border town of Kordai after about 4 hours of traveling - when you reach the border with Kyrgyzstan, you would then be instructed to take all your belongings, including any big pieces of luggage you may have with you across the border crossing, do not leave anything on the bus. I have heard stories of queueing for hours at the border crossing but I barely had to wait a minute or so on both the Kazakh and the Kyrgyz sides of the border. Even though I can speak Russian, the border guards were quite happy to speak English with me the moment they saw that I was travelling on a British passport. You will first have to clear the customs on the Kazakh side, get an exit stamp on your passport, then there's a short walk across a walkway to the Kyrgyz side where you will then officially enter Kyrgyzstan after you get a stamp on your passport. After that, you will have to walk a short distance past the money changers to the place where you can board your bus again - it is pretty obvious, just keep walking until you see a place where the bus has space to stop. Try to take note of the other passengers who were on your bus and see where they are waiting. The exchange rates at the border are pretty good actually and I've seen some money changers in central Bishkek offering terrible rates for Kazakh tenge, so if you have any Kazakh currency left, this is a good time to change them for Kyrgyz som. There will of course be plenty of taxi drivers offering to drive you to Bishkek but the city centre is still 21 km away and your bus will take you to the main bus station in West Bishkek, thus just say no to the taxi drivers or ignore them all.
At this point, you need to avoid putting any of your luggage in the hold for a good reason: the bus will enter Bishkek city shortly as Bishkek is relatively close to the border - that's when the bus will crawl through traffic in the city. The bus driver was quite happy to let passengers hop off the bus if the bus is stuck in traffic but it would be difficult for the bus driver to get out of the bus and let you get your baggage out of the hold. Look up the hotel or destination in Bishkek in advance, bearing in mind that the bus will enter the city from the east and then drive along one of the main boulevards like Chuy Avenue all the way from East Bishkek, trough Central Bishkek before arriving at the bus station in West Bishkek. If you know that your destination is in Central Bishkek, then use your GPS to monitor the progress of the bus and ask the bus driver to let you off once you are relatively close to where you need to be - that way, you can avoid going all the way out to the bus station in West Bishkek and coming back into Central Bishkek. The journey did take 5 hours 30 minutes as predicted, though that did take into account the traffic jams - if you're lucky enough to avoid the bad traffic, it could be faster for you. So once you have arrived at the bus station, you may need to get a local bus to your final destination - all local buses in Bishkek charge a flat fee of just 20 som no matter how far you travel, but be warned that the traffic jams in Bishkek can be horrendous, that's why I recommend jumping out of your bus from Almaty when it is stuck in traffic in Central Bishkek. The local buses leave from the bus stop on the main road outside the bus station, so you would have to walk out of the bus station and take the underpass to get to the other side of the road where you can catch your bus. I would advice you to look up which bus you need in advance so you are not desperately looking that information up at the bus stop. I used Yandex maps and it has never let me down once on this trip, the information is always accurate. I couldn't download 2Gis as it was not available on my Apps store (probably because I have a British phone) but Yandex maps worked really well and I swear by it. All in all, it was one of the cheapest bus journeys I have ever made given how long the distance was between the two cities and it was relatively comfortable, though I would have appreciated at least one more toilet break on that very long journey, so you would need to avoid drinking too much before getting on that bus.
So that's it, if you are making the journey the other way, obviously you would start at the bus station in West Bishkek and end up in Sairan bus station in Almaty. I'd like to leave you with one observation I made: there are train stations in both Almaty and Bishkek, so is it possible to take the train instead of the bus journey described above? The answer is yes but you wouldn't wanna do it. Whilst the bus journey takes about 5 hours 30 minutes, taking the train between these two cities would take about 27 to 28 hours. The reason is because there simply isn't a direct rail link between the two cities, they are on different lines leading to Moscow and you would have to take long detour via the city of Kulan in Kazakhstan, wait in Kulan for many hours for your connecting train to Bishkek. Kulan is a small town with little to see or do there, so it really makes no sense taking this long detour. As for why the Soviets who built the railway system designed this route without establishing a direct link between Almaty and Bishkek, I don't know but I suspect it probably has something to do with the challenging terrain given that both cities are surrounded by high mountains but then again, there are valleys for the road to go through so this is one that will continue to baffle me. If there is enough demand, perhaps they will build a high speed rail link between Bishkek and Almaty one day but right now, the locals are happy enough to use the road link. It is expensive to build a modern rail link through the mountainous terrain in Central Asia, the technology is available, but there got to be enough demand to make such a massive undertaking economically viable and judging by the number of empty seats on my bus from Almaty to Bishkek, we are still a long way from it. If they can't even fill a bus, how are they going to fill a train? So unless you have a special love for trains and have plenty of time to spend on your trip, you have to do what everyone else does and take the bus between the two cities. So that's it from me on this topic, if you are reading this in preparation for your trip to Almaty and Bishkek, then I wish you a great trip and you're in for a treat. I truly enjoyed myself on this holiday and I am so glad I finally had the chance to visit Central Asia as it has been on my bucket list for quite a while. If you have any other questions relating to this topic that may not be directly relevant to the Almaty to Bishkek bus journey, please feel free to leave a comment below and I'll try my best to help you. Many thanks for reading.
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