Astana and beyond

We made it to Astana by bike. For me it is one of the milestones on our journey and we are really content with ourselves.
Astana itself is a little bit like disneyland for architects with a lot of glass and marble and some really impressing architecture.
When a fellow traveller in our hostel asked after the old-town, the manager just laughed and said: "no old-town, new town". Everything in the city center has been built in the last 15 years and the surroundings of the city are one huge construction ground. It is not my favourite city but I am really glad that I've seen it. These hyper-modern and monumental buildings are such an enormous contrast to the rest of kazakhstan we have seen so far, espeacially the south of Kazakhstan where there weren't even any proper roads.
After we spent two nights in a hostel and one night in our tent with a view of the skyline of Astana, because our tent is much more comfortable than the hostel beds were, we picked up our long awaited package from Germany with new saddle for me and new tent poles and left Astana towards Pavlodar.