Bolshoye Almatinskoye Ozero

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Big Almaty Lake

The rented van came at 8am to pick us all up to the mountains, thanks to great coordination by Din. After 1.5 hours on the van and scheming guards trying to bribe our entry, we were at the mountains that housed the Big Almaty Lake.


So, according to the bus driver, he couldn't bring us any further from the barricade and we had to hike our way up to the lake. We would find out later that we were duped as we saw many cars while hiking up and there were even parking lots available just outside the Lake.

Getting there: most people would take a taxi (about 1500 Tenge) to the entrance of the mountain and then hiked from there (this would take approximately 2-3 hours, about 8 km). In our case, the taxi drove us to the foot of the mountain, so we only need to climb the mountain for about 3km uphill. Along the way, many local families would be having their picnics and gatherings beside the river so it is a pretty cool sight as well. For the entrance fee, we paid about 2000 Tenge for 11 people. 

If you are travelling in a group, I would recommend hiring a shared van to share costs. My buddy contacted a shared van service and we rented a shared van to and fro and it cost us (11 people) about 1500 Tenge each.








Blogging this 3 months later, I kinda forgot how beautiful the lake was until I came across this picture while editing and even in it's original, unedited form, the blueness of the lake was incredible and I still can't believe I saw this gem with my eyes. Close up, the lake is still half frozen which contributed to the seemingly shaded blue colours since the frozen bits were of a lighter shade of blue. We were camping on the dam, having some snacks and taking all these scenery pics when a hailstorm approached. We were stuck there and at the mercy of all the falling ice - drop, drop, drop. We were suffering tremendously from the hailstorm and the falling temperature but thankfully all these cleared and we were ready for our next expedition - down to the middle of the lake (to take chio pictures hahaha)








Our shared van, which has a sign behind that says children.

We ended our BAL trip by crashing a grad trip of local students! We were walking downhill to meet our van driver when a bunch of people graduating from KIMEP called out to us and got us to join them for all the food and fun! We were interrupted with light rain but that didn't stop us from chatting with them and enjoying all the delicious food they've prepped. Thank you for the warm hospitality, Kazakhs!


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Puah Li Xuan (LX)

+65 / Sunny Singapore
Finding the fine balance between Food and Fitness

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