Day 15 - On to Bishkek

To get from one place to another in Kyrgyzstan, one must drive forever, or at least it seems as I sit in the back seat of the van jostling around like a bobble head doll. I cannot imagine this same route on the back of horse or camel. What has taken us three days of ascending and descending high mountains, would have taken weeks or months by animal.

After an excellent breakfast of crepes and homemade blackberry jam in the home-stay, guest house we are heading to Bishkek and on the road by 9:00 am. We make one historic stop at a Tower, a Minaret built around 1100 ad and graveyard with Turkish Balbal headstones, and another at a resort style restaurant named Hawaii.

Fermented Mares Milk..Not for me!  Katya didn't feel well afterward.

Hawaii???

By 4:30 we arrive in the capitol of Kyrgyzstan, home to 1,000,000 people, bustling about in the summer heat. It is in the 80's I would guess. We are tired, hot, and haven't showered in a couple of days, but we still have a city tour of Bishkek to do.

Our guide Lilya is very knowledgeable. She takes us to the museum and central square area built by the Soviets. Most of the large buildings and government edifices have all been built by the Soviets. Today, the buildings are in disrepair and their is little money in the Kyrgyz coffers to maintain or upgrade the infrastructure and buildings. The Kyrgyzstan people wish to forget the Soviet influence and concentrate on their own cultural history. They pride themselves in being friendly, and they are, but without a strong central government, some ethnic tensions are building. They seem to have a revolution here about every five years.

Finally at 7:30, we reach our very basic hotel, but we do have a shower facility and a western style toilet. Yippee. It's up early tomorrow for a flight to Tashkent. We will be in Uzbekistan for seven days.

All is well with the Worrall Travel Rs in Bishkek