Still around in Kyrgyzstan

Getting on the web is not the easiest of things in Kyrgyzstan: Internet cafes are few and far between and even if you happen to find one, power cuts occur frequently. In fact, in all major cities we travelled to, the power was cut at intervals of up to 6 hours a day, and in some places even the water supply was suspended for a long time.

After Jalal-Abad, we drove to Bishkek, where we stayed for a day. It's not really the most fascinating city, with few 'sights' as such. Sure, there is the obligatory Lenin statues and ex-Soviet squares, but it's not particularly charming. The museum was probably the most interesting experience, being mostly devoted to Lenin and the Soviet propaganda with sculptures and paintings depicting the Russian revolution and the advancement of the great Communist cause and Soviet strive for world peace. Hundreds of pages of Lenin's notes were also displayed. We were of course unable to really understand them, but it seems Lenin had a habit of making frantic pencil drawings in the edges of his notebooks during boring meetings.

The city has quite a different feel than the cities down south in the country: there are considerably more Russians, far less Muslims and in it has somewhat of an unsafe feel to it (not that we encountered any problems): there are youths hanging around in the streets and the city is badly lit at night.

First of September was also the first day of Ramadan. Hanna, with her experience from more devout Muslim countries, has been almost shocked to see that Ramadan goes largely unnoticed at least here in the Northern Kyrgyzstan. Kyrgyz men still start drinking vodka from 10 a.m., everybody smokes and restaurants are open and busy from morning till evening. But the price of sheep is on the rise: the taxi driver who brought us back from the mountains bought one to be slaughtered at Eid Al Fitr, end of the month, bringing it back to town under the trunk of the taxi - it fitted perfectly in the place of the spare tyre and only protested at the worst bumps with a soft "ba-a-aa". The price was 2000 soms (approximately 40 EUR). We also enquired about the price of other animals. A donkey is cheaper than a sheep. "Of course. Donkey no eat!"

From Bishkek, we headed to Kochkor, from where we went up to lake Song-Kol, to have a bit of a walk in nature, high up in the mountains (3500 m), with pastures full of horses, sheep, cows and donkeys. We slept in a yurt, the traditional nomadic home of the Kyrgyz people.

The scenery was great - mountains on the one side, lake on the other - but the weather was not really optimal: we started our with a clear sky, but as the day advanced, the sky darkened, with rain and a cool breeze. The night in the yurt was quite an experience: it was very cold, even when covered with thick blankets. The following day, as we were walking back along the lake, the sky got dark grey and just before we got in the taxi, it started to rain melting snow. As we were not at all equipped to stay in the mountains with this kind of cold weather, we decided to head back to Bishkek, thus abandoning a part of our planned itinerary.

So now we are back in Bishkek again, resting for a few days in a nice and relaxed travellers guesthouse (Nomad's Home, behind the Eastern Buss station, Drevesnaya street, fourth house on the left. Best deal in town.), where the main topic of discussion seems to be the horrible authorities refusing to issue visas. Chinese are by far the most cursed - as we have already mentioned, it is virtually impossible to get a tourist visa to China at the moment. A shitty situation for many overland travellers. Beijing Olympics seem to work like a means to transfer tourism income from the already poorer Western China to the wealthy Peking area; it's end of the high season and the hotels and restaurants in most of the country have been empty since July, meaning that many a family in the Western China will have to tighten their belts until next summer - when hopefully no international event will give the Chinese authorities a reason to use this kind of draconian measures.

One World, One Dream - Getting a Chinese visa.