Oshpitality

Parts 1 to 4

With a population of about 250,000, Osh is the second largest city in Kyrgyzstan, and it's a real mix. 28% of the population is Uzbek, which gives the place a hugely different flavour than some other Kyrgyz towns. And the Uzbek border is only just up the road.

Kurt, Darina and I found a guesthouse run by the lovely Tanya, who speaks fluent Russian, but no English. Somehow she can communicate really well with us that way, even though none of us speak Russian.

The completely discreet entrance to the guest house. No signage whatsoever. This is a really common thing in Kyrgyzstan, and I'm not sure why. Maybe the owners do it to avoid paying tax.

But it ain't great for business.

Bits of shipping containers are often used for building here.

Tanya's boss, who lives somewhere else, insists that she sends a photo of the cash she receives from every guest, with their passport. Never seen that before. Talk about control freak.

What a crock

Our street.

After a week of journeying, I was ready to rest for a couple of days. Kurt, Darina and I went out for dinner every night. We chatted about all sorts of things, including their lives in St Gallen, Switzerland, where Darina is an English teacher with a cushy job (sounds like one of my other English teacher friends), and Kurt is retired and spends his time eating nice cheese and planning his next cycle trips.

They do vlogs of their journeys, and recently did a 13 month journey of 15 countries in Africa, where they cycled from Angola in the southwest right down to Capetown, and then all the way around to Zanzibar via Mozambique and Zimbabwe. And a pile of other countries in between. Sounds amazing huh?

Check them out on www.gonebikeabout.com

We went to a few places to eat, including Navat again, the place I went to in Bishkek. It looks fancy, the food was ok, but the service was as slow as a Chinese border crossing.

Kurt all cool, relaxed, and beerish.

When Irish eyes are wily.

This reminds me of a pic of me of when I was a kid, at our school formal. We decorated the hall with long silvery foil, which we got from a milk bottling factory, leftovers from their foil bottle sealing process. Definitely a lifetime away.

I wasn't puckered up like Darina though.

A maze-ing Osh plumbing techniques

Incredibly, this hill is right in the middle of town. And yeah, of course we climbed it. Well, part of it.

Spacey looking museum

Kurt outside a fertility cave. Local women slide in there and then get pregnant. It happens so often that the rock is now smooth and slippery. Wow, and I thought it was the stork.

The rather large sprawl of Osh

Babur, the founder of the Mughal Empire, used to meditate in here.

Loopin The Hills

Darina had the great idea of doing a 3 day loop around the hills of Osh before they fly out in a few days, and they said I could join them if I wanted. I was happy, both to spend some more time with these amazing people, and also to see more of the surrounds of this place.

On our way through the backstreets outa town an older man basically forced us to stop and go into his compound, where he ordered his grandson to pick apricots for us. So sweet!

So happy with the bounty. They needed to be eaten within hours, they were ready.

Good ol' water wheel, which hauled small buckets of water into a raised pipe for irrigation

"The Cooperation Of Everyone Is Good."

In the hot sun, not far out of Osh

We took some back roads, which were pretty dodgy in parts

Kurt couldn't wait

Heading up

We climbed to this pass, and then a little higher, to the real pass

Papan Reservoir ahead

Downhill and tarmac, both together!

It was stunningly beautiful, but there was no shade anywhere

We went for a dip

The wildlife followed us. See the vulture?

The guy in the black car was practicing his air gun shooting, aiming for a plastic bottle which his wife had stood up at the edge of the lake for him. See it? He was what Aussies would call a bloody wanker, firstly because he kept barking at his wife, and secondly because he was silly enough to be shooting not far from where people were swimming. Of all places to practice.

The scenery was stunning, as we eventually rode into the small town of Papan.

We stopped for drinks, and asked the shop owner Olam if he knew of a good campsite for the night. Pretty soon he'd offered us his back room. So generous.

Olam had inherited quite a lot of land, and it was teeming with ripe fruit - apples, peaches, plums, apricots, you name it.

There were even the sweet fruits of a lifetime of love in there

A Communist leprechaun beginning to prepare yet another superbly delicious dinner

Olam's wife brought out fresh peaches for us, a jar of very sweet preserved apricots, and a massive jar of kompot for us to drink. No shortage of Vitamin C around here at this time of year.

And no shortage of amazing old fashioned Oshpitality.

Kurt and Darina before I cremated them.

We slept like drunk babies, with no one admitting the next morning whether or not they'd heard any snoring during the night.

Kurt showing me how tall he wants to be

The scenery was drop dead gorgeous again the next day.

Let alone the riders

It doesn't get any better than this

Saltlick

We chatted for awhile with these sweet boys. No smartphones in their pockets.

We stopped for a drink in a little town called Nookat, and asked about somewhere to stay, but there was nowhere, so we decided to camp further up the road. It was a really interesting town, and was totally bustling around the market area.

A couple of friendly young women came to chat in English. That's pretty unusual in these parts, as the women in this particular region tend to not speak to men in public so much. One of them handed me her 2 year old boy to hold for awhile, but he looked pretty unsure about the whole dubious arrangement, biting his lip a couple of times to stop himself crying.

I must say I miss having little kids around.

Eventually we headed up the road

There's a lot of these cars around, screeching and rattling past

Eventually we reached a place called Peshchera Gorge. It was late afternoon, and a whole crew of locals had gone there for a swim after work, just like the boys would do on the north coast in Oz.

It's a very different scene to Oz though. In Oz the lads would go down with a carton of tinnies, and drink their way through them pretty quickly, getting more and more raucous as time goes on. Here they turn up with the same hotted-up cars, but the lads are brandishing watermelons, which they devour like hungry boars, and then throw each other in the raging river like teenagers.

It's cute.

I guess some of them were actually teenagers.

Eventually everyone left, which was our cue to set up camp. It was beautiful.

Again.

The next day we faced a rough and tough climb first thing. I started quite a way behind those guys and knocked back a kind offer of a lift from some truck drivers close to the bottom. We all had to push part of the way, as the road was steep, rough, and sandy in parts. Darina got a lift from the truck guys further up the road, to the top of the pass.

Good morning! Welcome to the world of cycle touring.

Looking back

The downhill was quite slow too, as happens when the road is so rocky and rough.

Eventually the valley started to green up, and we rolled into cute little townships and farming settlements.

Very elaborate bus stops, all glassed in. Wish they'd spent the money on the road instead.

The small settlement of Mangyt. We stopped for lunch, a cool drink, and to tape my glasses, the frame of which had snapped the day before. Cheap and nasty.

Eventually we passed by Aravan, and then climbed a pass.

We rode along the Uzbek border for awhile. See the watchtower over there?

Rolling back into Osh.

Kurt and Darina headed off to stay at a hotel close to the airport, as they had an early flight, and I headed back to Tanya's guesthouse.

Last Days in Kyrgyzstan

I spent a couple more days in Osh, as I had plans to soon ride over the border into Uzbekistan, which isn't that far, as the screeching rustbucket spins.

I wandered into town every day.

Old mosque around the corner from home.

My route into town

Navat, the restaurant, had vegetarian lagman, what a treat! The beer was good too.

My burbs. There was creek in the middle of the street. Well, canal, but it sometimes spilt over.

Important looking men

Important looking women

More aesthetically rich plumbing

The Ak-Buura River, which flows right through the guts of town

Good ol' Vlad Lenin lifting his thumb for a pigeon

Modern wedding attire, except for the ak-kalpak, the traditional Kyrgyz hat.

Soviet era sculpture

Tethered heart

Osh-creamery

Local cinema. I didn't go.

Cute footpath

Jesus glowing

More kvas

Heavy tea drinking session

Virtual brain-twisting

Dart targets

Manicured gardens, slovenly public building

The ritzy part of town

I just did

Local swimming hole

Another Silk Road caravan passing through

Jayma Bazaar

Osh's main bazaar was awesome, really quirky, with a lot to see.

It sprawls right through adjoining streets, and seems to go on forever.

Berries and stone fruits galore. Yum!

This area was on my bucket list

There's one long main drag, but loads of side laneways too

Buns and bikkies

Witch supplies

Mmmm. Icecreams.

Whole dried apricots. I bought loads.

Untalking heads

Teaware

Local smithie shops. Everything handmade.

Amazing place to people watch.

These are actually stamps that they use to make all the different shapes on their breads.

The market even sprawls out under the highway overpass

A view from above

Uz-beckons-tan

And so it was finally time to leave Kyrgyzstan.

As usual, I have other places to go, and people to meet. Don't ask me exactly who they are or where exactly I'm going, but they're all out there, I know that for a fact.

It's been a really amazing time in Kyrgyzstan. The country is one of the most scenically beautiful I've seen so far on this trip. The people have been incredibly hospitable, so much so that, somehow, I've even found myself coming to expect it, because so many people are so generous and so welcoming so often.

Especially when you get on your bike and get out of the cities.

The roads in Kyrgyzstan are some of the worst I've ridden on anywhere. And the drivers would probably get the gold medal for the worst I've had to deal with so far. Or maybe a gold medal's not appropriate. Maybe it should be blood red.

I've seen a pile of accidents, and seen vehicles where it'd be a physical impossibility that people weren't killed.

Kurt put it so well when he described NZ drivers during his cycle trip there some years ago ... "they've got nowhere to go, but are in a hurry to get there."

It's sorta appropriate for here too. Constant screeching from bald tyres, speeding, swerving between each other and around corners, accelerating and braking heavily, and just driving way too close to other vehicles, including bicycles, is common.

But once they get out of their vehicles, they're the kindest, warmest and most generous people to everyone they didn't just kill whilst in it.

It's one of those weird puzzles you get sometimes. Driver education is definitely needed here, yesterday. And road upgrades.

But, again, it's with a sad heart that I leave, after travelling from the far eastern corner of the country, along Lake Issyk-kul, to the capital of Bishkek, then west and south over the huge mountain range, and down into the Fergana Valley, and eventually to Osh.

This was my route through Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. I entered eastern Kazakhstan from China. There was also the three day loop out of Osh, but I forgot to put that in, sorry.

And this is zoomed out a bit, for context.

And tomorrow I'll be discovering another new country for the very first time.

Uzbekistan!

There's something exciting about going to a new country, especially one that you know very little about.

Despite Uzbekistan being smack bang in the middle of Central Asia, and despite the fact that I've only ridden about 50 clicks or so in from from the Kyrgyz border today, it suddenly feels so different here.

I mean, it's still Central Asia of course, it's still a little wild and a little chaotic, and it's still hot and dusty. But this place feels a bit smoother, and a little bit wealthier. Some of the shops are a little ritzier than anything I've seen since Bishkek.

And all of the signs are in Latin script. Yay!

Despite the fact that I've been getting my head around the Cyrillic script slowly anyway, Latin is so much quicker, even though I still have to translate the words. And there's also some English signs here.

And what an amazing thing to do, to travel to a new and unexplored land, when it also happens to be the occasion of my 61st birthday!

Yes! The universe keeps delivering!

I could be shrivelled up and lonely in a cheap apartment in some grey city somewhere, but here I am instead, sitting having a cold and strong raspberry-flavoured tea and some (slightly dodgy) kartoschka somsas (basically little potato pastries) in some random town in Uzbekistan.

The world really dishes it up, I can tell ya.

Smooth Crossing

I cycled off from Osh late morning today, and it really didn't take too long to get close to the Uzbek border. As I approached, a massive line of parked lorries appeared, and stretched for at least a kilometre back from the crossing, their drivers milling about waiting for something to happen, but appearing to accept the fact that nothing much was.

As for me, I was just shepherded past the whole lot, zipping along on my bike, feeling a little guilty that I get to zoom past with a minimum of fuss, just because I'm a foreigner and I happen to be on a bicycle.

I was able to avoid the usual pedestrian and bus passenger queues when I arrived, and just joined the small handful of truck drivers waiting to get stamped out at Kyrgyz passport control.

But I needed to wait there for awhile, because the border guard just up and left,  without a word of explanation or apology, while the drivers and I waited patiently in line. He came back some time later, and silently continued his job.

The drivers were a friendly bunch.

It was pretty smooth on the Uzbek side. Despite the presence of an x-ray machine at the customs counter, which everyone else was required to use, I was just directed straight to the customs counter, probably because the guy wanted to have a chat in English.

He asked me what I was carrying, I told him the usual story - camping gear, food, bike tools, etc, and then he said, "do you have any drugs?", to which I replied, "yeah, I've got a bunch of heroin, some cocaine, and a kilo of the most kick-arse hooch from Afghanistan that will blow your brains out, if you care to partake!"

He burst out laughing, and we zipped out the back and fired up.

Ok, ok.

No we didn't.

I said, "of course I don't have drugs," which he seemed to totally believe on face value, the gullible bastard.

Actually he was really sweet, like a big cuddly Uzbek brown bear, without the nasty sharp claws and teeth.

He let me through without even laying a clean finger on my dusty possessions.

So that was that. My Kyrgyz journey was suddenly at an end. I'd been travelling through the place for over a month, and already want to come back.

A New Land

It was all a little buzzy on the Uzbek side, with lively markets and quite busy eating houses, and friendly dudes trying to sell me SIM cards, or rid me of my Kyrgyz currency, as it's not tradeable outside Kyrgyzstan.

But being the seasoned traveller-slash-haggler that I am, I managed to eventually negotiate a decent enough exchange rate, to give my chosen currency dealer a small profit, but not too much.

I had a cold drink, and inserted an Uzbek SIM into my phone, which a couple of Italian travellers had given me yesterday, and which has about a week left on it.

So I had cash, I had internet, and I had a direction to head.

I was ready to rock and roll.

It was a smooth ride here. For the first 30 clicks or so the road was a dream, and for the last 20 it was more predictably potholey, particularly on the edges (where I'm forced by the traffic to ride), and ya just gotta keep yer wits about ya.

Just like the "tarmac" roads had been in Kyrgyzstan.

But I made quite good time, because it was a slight downhill pretty much all the way, from the roughly 1000m elevation of Osh, to about 500m here in Andijon, a city of around 400,000 people.

Not that I'm in a hurry.

The Kyrgyz border, this time from the Uzbek side.

Roadside corn, drying and collecting fuel particulates, for flavour

Roadside drinks are ubiquitous, especially when it's hot. Sharbat is a rose flavoured drink, ayron a sour yoghurt drink.

I rolled into Andijon. It was happenin.

I found a hotel, showered and rested, had a snack, and visited the markets that are, fortuitously, right in my street.

Parking spot round the back.

Rat trap. Or maybe it's a bear trap. I didn't see any critters.

Lunch snack

The markets were really good, the fresh produce was super high quality.

Local witch smudging the bad spirits away. I've seen this a few times around this part of the world.

More delicious fizzy apple/caramel homemade drink.

I thought about a birthday cake for myself, I love the style but this was a bit big.

Or one of these.

But to be honest, it was so hot, it really didn't feel like cake weather.

Better than an improper one I guess.

And now I'm sitting in this large and slightly air conditioned café/eating place, really enjoying myself, and feeling like the most blessed person on the planet.

Blessd that is, not bless-ed.

I thought about getting the Snikers or the Napaleon.

Cherry kompot.

What a dream-come-true! 61 years old, and still healthy enough to ride a bike around the place with a minimum of fuss and pretty much no pain.

Still full of love for humanity, and a huge appreciation for the hundreds of people that have helped me on this journey so far.

Let alone for all those hordes who've helped me my whole life!

Muchas y muchas gracias amigos, you know who you are❤️

http://buymeacoffee.com/krolesh9