Posts from — October 2008

Uneventful day really. Late start … not. I tend to wake up at the crack of dawn at the moment. And lo and behold there was power in Osh today.

But it was Sunday and therefore it was a slow day. I made my way to the airport by way of a little mashrutka (small bus), found the lone gate and was part of the small crowd that wanted to go to Bishkek today.

The airplanes were all not so new – 4 out of 5 were propeller planes. But the flight was good. I got to see a bit of the landscape through the clouds, longing to be able to ride these roads. But that I will – if ever – have to do some other time.

The airport in Bishkek was empty and deserted. After fending off the usual crowd of taxi drivers (what part of net do you not understand), Ainura picked me up. We go back a while and she had set things up perfectly. The first time we met was in 2004 I believe when I first came to Central Asia to conduct human rights seminars and have been in touch ever since.
Turns out that she found a place for me to stay. A German lecturer who also worked on the same human rights project, Tanja, was nice enough to let me stay at her place and so all is set to go. After yummy lunch at a Uygur place we pottered back stopping over at an internet cafe.

As I said, uneventful day.

The days in Osh … what should I say. Again, the two days were largely similar, so I am folding them into one entry again. Osh is in the Fergana Valley. Funny thing that I was here just a few weeks ago – just a couple of hundred kms to the West. And the bazaars of Kokand and Osh being so similar, one could just forget that it is a different city.

The helicopter landing pads are the same in all of Central Asia.

What is different for once is the internet cafe business. This is the only place so far that has put restrictions on the amount of uploads you can do. Which stinks after all the pictures I have been taking on the Pamir Highway. In the end, after scouring the places – one charging triple the price, the other closed, the third one not allowing uploads – I found a cafe that would let me do what I needed to do. Sort of … it was slow on the first day and smoking on the second.

The main attraction of Osh for me was the bazaar. But after having been to so many already they are remarkably similar so I cannot get worked up about them all that much. What is interesting though are the people that stop by here. Again, just as in Kokand there is a great variety of different ethnicities milling about. All a result of this conglomeration of people over the centuries – and artificial lines having been drawn to come to some kind of separation.

One other amazing thing was the food here in Osh. I have eaten Lagman before in Bishkek and it was good. But so was the one that I tried here. And open kitchen to some extent – here is proof. Lagman are noodles with meat and vegetables (and tons of garlic) and some sauce. Yummy, yummy Uygur stuff. Can’t (yet) get enough of it.

Turns out that my keyboard has given up after coming down from the Pamir Highway. It worked perfectly fine still in Sary Tash and now it is not doing much any longer. I will write to the manufacturer and see whether they are willing to send a replacement.

I also decided that I would fly to Bishkek after all. The initial idea had been to drive to Bishkek and fly back, but I don’t feel like being boxed into a car forever (10-12h, depending on the degree of craziness and ability to push fatigue [sadly this is a factor]of your driver). It also reduces the time I cannot work on things if I have to for the visa part.

Today I was heading to Osh from Sary Tash. About a six hour ride by car, there are 20 people milling about the confluence of two roads and all starting for any car that comes by. You have to muscle your way in and I don’t really stand a chance. It just so happens that the man from the guesthouse seems to be a big man here and at a word from him I was in the back of a car. Back meaning back … I was in the very back of a 4×4 in pretty cramped conditions. There was also meat packets (boiled meat) and bread (I guess there is none in Osh?), so I had a cozy few hours there.

The drive was amazing - through gorgeous countryside. But on extremely bad roads. It would have been great to bike this stuff, though pretty harsh. Yet I didn’t have time to make it to Bishkek by bike and would have had to return to Sary Tash, so leaving the bike there seemed to be the right thing to do.

I found a place for the next few days and will be heading to Bishkek from Osh. No pictures today. But there are tons on the flickr site.

daily distance: 30 km
total distance: 11,353km
riding time: 1-2h

The night had been windy - and I didn’t sleep too well. Not well at all as a matter of fact. I kept waking up and couldn’t fall asleep in the wee hours of the morning.

Slightly groggy I packed up - but woke up to blue skies and more stunning scenery.

The Kyrgyz border post was a no-brainer. All said and done within less than 5 minutes. The guys were not awake yet and the drug inspection guy only wanted to know where I was from and where I was heading. “No problem, you can go.” Looking at the bike he probably figured whoever is stupid enough to bike over these mountains won’t bother transporting drugs. Rightio. It was still cold, but the scenery grew more and more stunning.

So did the wind and I was glad I was in Sary Tash after 30km, a depressing place. But I will take a car or bus from here tomorrow and head for Osh and then Bishkek to do the interview at the US embassy for my work visa. I will then come back and head for China if all goes well. At least and important set of documents has made it to Bishkek already … so things are on their way.

The town is uninspiring. But provided some good photo ops.

And the mountains which had been shrouded by fierce sand storms all afternoon showed their full beauty before sunset. Keep your fingers crossed that the cold winds abate somewhat next week when I am supposed to be back here to head to China.