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Finally I have time to sit down and give an account for my trip so far. But so much happens in a week, even a short one, so I will probably miss out on a lot. Anyway...
In brief, this is what I have done the last week:
After leaving home very early on Sunday I spent most of that day hanging out in the SVO-airport in Moscow (that I never can remember the name of). I've earlier claimed that this is the most boring airport ever, but in fact Doha airport was actually worse. But here I was alone for 10 hours and the restaurant only accepted Russian currency or overpriced dollars (10$ for a cappuccino!?!?!), no credit card. So I mostly sat on the stairs reading. But I had in fact one break from this monotonous activity when an Iranian guy wanting to know the time just sat down beside me. That was when I realised that my 'bad English' is actually... well, bad. We didn't have any common language and the waving of the arms didn't help one bit but still he insisted that we should sit and talk. I humored him for a while but I actually preferred the reading.
Just a note: I'm flying Aeroflot, which isn't half as bad as I'd expected and when we got on board I got the best flight meal I've had in years. Seriously. It was just simple salad and chicken with some rice but it was really tasteful! I thought it was worth mentioning.
After about 20+ hours of no sleep I landed early in Bishkek and took a taxi in to town. I found Sabyrbek's guesthouse I had singled out before I came and got to sleep for some hours. After that I went out for some food. I got in contact with a Norwegian guy, Bjorn-Inge, who is a friend of a classmate of mine and met him and his friends for lunch. They told me they were going to Osh that same day and asked me to come along. And so I did. I canceled my stay at Sabyrbek and got into the taxi later that evening for a second night with little or no sleep. But I had no other plans anyway.
During the three days of Osh we didn't do very much. We walked in the park, climbed Salomon's mountain, went to Osh bazaar and went swimming (except me, I didn't bring my swim suit). But it was actually nice not doing much. We just hung out, relaxing. There is really not much to see in Osh anyway and often I feel I'm being a bad tourist if I don't go to the museums or that sorts of things. So Osh was nice. And I got to meet a lot of locals, friends of Bjorn-Inge and hang out with them, something I wouldn't have done if I didn't come with him. In fact, I would probably not come to Osh at all if I hadn't gone with him. And food is cheaper in Osh and I stayed with a friend of his so it was a cheap way of spending the week.
Friday morning we got into the taxi again, prepared for another 12 hours of driving through the mountains. This time it was daytime so we could actually see something while driving. Between Bishkek and Osh you have to go through two mountain passes of 3000+ m, higher than any mountain in Norway! And the scenery is beautiful: high snowcapped mountains, green mountains, valleys, rivers, yurts surrounded by huge flocks of horses and more. My favorite was the lower part of the river Naryn which has a really strong blue-green color. Nice.
Back in Bishkek it was late when we came to Sabyrbek's. His guesthouse is in fact a house for guests. It is his private house where he is renting out bed for tourists, mostly backpackers because the house isn't that big and it easily feels overcrowded. This time there was a lot more people and I was afraid that I would have to drive around Bishkek trying to find somewhere else to sleep. But Sabyrbek apparently operates under the idea that if there isn't any room, we'll make room, that being squeezing six beds into a 10 sq m room, finding a matress in the yurt behind the house or sending people over to the house of his ex-wife (who, I hear, is a doctor and bakes cakes) two blocks down. I got a bed in the top corner of a tiny room but I was just happy that I didn't have to find somewhere else.
There are so many more things I could write about but I don't have the time or energy to write about it all (neither does the reader, I guess). However, a few things I must mention:
The food there is great. I have yet to taste food I don't like, although I did try out one of the national drinks here (I think) called Maxim, that tasted like fluid sour bread. No wonder, because it is made from barley. And that was not good. But the bread here is marvelous, the melons are so sweet and I just love the green tea.
Using seat belt when driving is apparently an insult to the driver so the ride to and from Osh was a somewhat scary experience. Going to Osh I was in the middle seat with a full view of where I would fly through if the car crashed. And I could also see all the scary times when the driver overtook trucks in curves. But we actually had a fairly responsible driver and once you're in the car you just have to decide to relax or get out of the car. And I suspect that the other means of transportation aren't necessarily better.
People are very friendly and sociable here. I don't speak either of the languages here, Russian and Kyrgyz, but still people take you in and make you feel welcome. And when we were in Osh I got to experience that what people do is actually being social, just hanging out and talking. And that is very nice.
I hope to share more of my experiences later, both those already made and those yet to come. Tomorrow I'm meeting with the tourist group I'm spending the next five weeks with and I'm excited about that. We were originally going through Tibet but that is closed so we are going through Pakistan instead. And now rumor has it that we won't get in to China either so this can be interesting. I guess we'll find a way.
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