2025 Central Asia Adventure – Shymkent Kazakhstan
Today’s Huntington’s Disease report is a real bummer from the US Food and Drug Administration after the great results of the AMT-130 clinical trials I reported on in my Istanbul post two weeks ago. uniQure revealed that the FDA may be changing its tune on the evidence required for an approval application! During a meeting about filing the Biologics License Application, the FDA says it “no longer agrees” that the Phase I/II data for the treatment will be “adequate to provide the primary evidence in support of a BLA submission”, despite the company previously having worked with the agency to settle on the protocols and statistical analyses used. Let’s hope this is just a bump in the road and not a major roadblock. If Trump and Brain-Worm RFK Jr are behind this I’ll go ballistic. I’ll keep you posted.
Hello from Shymkent, the sixteenth stop on the trip.
After 32 hours on the train, I had a good night’s sleep, a long warm shower and feel human again. I’m wrapped up in a terrycloth robe in bed. Luxury!
Hunting for lunch I walked out of my room to the elevator, but the LCD display is showing the Chinese characters for STOP and the buttons do nothing. I walked down 5 flights, better than up that’s for sure – you’ve got to love trading potential energy for kinetic energy with the help of gravity! I asked the woman at the front desk for directions to a nearby ATM, she pointed just down the street to a supermarket and said my name perfectly, wow. Maybe there aren’t many people staying here, or I’m just the only non-local? I walked to the supermarket – one ATM didn’t have a choice for English but I was able to get cash from the next one. I bought a USB-C cable, snacks and a new pair of socks. I spotted a bottle of Macallan 18 whiskey for 233,000 Tenge or USD $427 – wow!
I argued with Grok about building a walking path for interesting things to see near my hotel. After 3 rounds of invalid paths, it gave me an out-of-order 6 hour walk. I reordered it and sent it to my phone. I walked through some parks, some pedestrian walkways, and stopped at a Burger King where I was the local celebrity as the kids working there were trying to use translations to take my order. Sadly I asked for no onions or pickles, and got onions and pickles.
The next morning I went back to the supermarket and got a new battery for the laptop bag’s Samsung tracking tag. I walked to the Mega Planet shopping mall, then to the flagpole at Independence Park and met up with Kristine and Jonas. They told me their hostel was a disaster – dirty sheet with what appeared to be blood on them, broken glass in the windows and non-working lights. They bailed the next morning and found better accommodations, organs all intact. We walked just down the road to the old castle/fort and explored the ruins and museum rooms, then to the bazaar, which was far bigger inside than I thought. We had a great dinner at the Istanbul restaurant near my hotel and talked about investing strategies for a long time. I told them about the pain in my hip and Jonas said I am definitely walking sideways! I introduced them to baklava and now they’re hooked.
After another great sleep I walked out and down the block for a haircut. The girl at the desk said through translation “Man empty 20 minutes”, OK. I got in the chair, showed him I want to cut off more than an inch, and made it very clear. He started with 1/2 inch cut all around. This is not the first time I’ve had this problem, maybe they’re scared about cutting too much, but I motioned again to cut more, and he did. Then he nearly shaved the sides and the back down to the skin. Dude, just give me what I ask for!
After dinner I hobbled to a nearby Thai massage place. I explained the pain in my hip and the woman at the desk asked if I want a Bali Master or a Kazakh Master. I said Kazakh because I’ve never had that before. She led me upstairs and into a beautiful dark wood changing room. I changed and my master Rika was waiting. Turns out she is Balinese with very good English, so much for requesting a Kazakh. She took me to the room, again great decor. I told her about my right hip pain due to all the walking. She starts in and within 5 seconds I know she’s magic. Wow. Just amazing. I don’t know if it’s just that I haven’t had a decent massage in so long, but she would still rank near the top of my more than 500 massages. We finished the hour and I asked for another hour. She’s booked for the next time slot but I can come back in 1.5 hours. She walked me to the “chai experience” room to finish up with tea, cut fruit and a tray of honey almonds, dried apricots, dates, peanuts and raisins. What an experience! This is probably the nicest massage spa I’ve ever been to.
I walked to a nearby restaurant, my hip is actually feeling great, loose and almost no pain! A woman led me up to the top floor, the place is deserted and looks more like a banquet facility, I have a table for 10 to myself. I said I want to pay on my Visa card – nope. They only have a QR code for a local payment system called Kaspi. I explained I don’t have it because I’m not a local. I gave her 10,000 cash, but then she asked to give me the change on Kaspi because they don’t have any small cash! I say no again, I don’t have this system. She goes off and gets me change, but rounded up and took another 170 off me. Kazakhstan – the land of incorrect change…
Walked back to the spa, Rika brought me into the same room and went to work. I’m pretty sure I fell asleep for a small part of it, 90 minutes went by very fast. I had my chai experience again and got changed. I tried to give her a tip for her exceptional service and she looked absolutely stunned and couldn’t move her hands to take it. I put it in her hands and said thank you. She said “I feel like I want to hug you!” so I gave her a hug. Makes me wonder how she’s treated by her other customers… If I could put her in my suitcase and make her my personal massage lady for life I would!
Bottom line: Shymkent is a nice town, lots of parks, markets and historic things to visit. It’s an important stop on the train line since you can continue east to Almaty or cut south to get into Uzbekistan.
Next stop: Tashkent Uzbekistan
