KUL-ALA

Thurs 30/5/24

We would be taking a 8 day road trip, starting from Almaty to Issyk, Saty, Zharkent, Basshiy (Kalinino) and back to Almaty.  For this trip, we booked our tickets through Qatar Airways, part of the OneWorld alliance. In this trip, we transited at Doha (DOH)  before arriving to Almaty (ALA), Kazakhstan. We bought our ticket about a month before the departure date. Our return trip ticket cost RM 3838 per person. 

It was busy at KLIA during the school holiday week. There was heavy traffic to KLIA too, and we arrived after more than an hour via Grab (it would take only 45 minutes in normal circumstances). We utilised Partner In Crime's Enrich privilege to access MH's Golden Lounge while waiting for our flight. Our flight from KUL to DOH departed at 8.00 pm to a full capacity plane. I chose the arabic chicken biryani for dinner, while Partner In Crime chose baked fish with tomato basil ragout. Since I am now a Silver member of Qatar Airways' Privilege Club, the stewardess approached me prior to take off to ask for my choice of meal so Silver members are guaranteed their meal option of choice. Of course, Partner in Crime's choice was guaranteed too.

baked fish with tomato basil ragout

arabic chicken biryani

The next sector from DOH to ALA both of us had the Irish beef stew with mashed potato. This sector only took 4.5 hours. The flight had a 3-3 seat configuration and I chose the window seat on the right side (starboard) to enjoy the views of the Chatkal and Kirghiz mountain ranges from Tashkent to Bishkek and Khrebet Kungey Alatau  mountain range between Bishkek to Almaty.

Irish beef stew with mashed potato

mountain views from the flight

We landed at ALA (Almaty airport) on time at 7.50am the next day, 31 May.  We then exchanged 1276 USD (6000 MYR) to 556336 KZT at the airport by cash. 

Almaty airport

This time, we didn't buy a local  SIM card, but opted for Maxis data roaming for MYR 89 (2 GB daily) for 15 days.  Outside of the arrival hall, we were greeted by an Avis representative who spoke no English, who then showed us the way to the airport car park where our rental SUV was parked.  

Since we were picking our car outside of the normal operating hours which start at 9am, we had to pay extra 10,000 KZT (about MYR 100) for this "extra services" which was never mentioned in the Avis nor Rentalcars.com website during online booking. Our communication with the Avis guy was done using the translator app and a phone call to his colleague who spoke English when we tried to get a better explanation on the extra charges.

So please be aware that you might have extra hidden charges when picking up your rental car outside of their office. We saw an Avis booth just outside the arrival hall, but it was unmanned at 8am. 

Our car was a Nissan Terrano SUV with automatic transmission, petrol RON 92 and cost RM 3939 for a 2000 mileage limit for 8 days. The highway in Almaty region did not have automatic tolls so we had to stop at the barrier to pay for toll charges which we paid by cash. However, it did have an automated vehicle registration detection which we have no idea where the camera was located. 

Nissan Terrano SUV