Best & worst so far...

Nothing exciting to report really, apart from a colorful and chaotic walk around Osh bazar again today. Sunday attracts more traders and buyers than normal, many from outside Osh and there is a whole array of regional, traditional clothing being worn, a dazzling display of colour and local cultures... Very nice.

Anyway, as I have little to rerport other than I am off to China tonight, I will fill in a gap with a best and worst list from my travels so far:

Best Guesthouse/hostels:
Blacksea Backpackers, Odessa
Godzilla's hostel, Moscow
Sakura Guesthouse, Bishkek

Best Towns visited:
Brasov (Romania), Odessa (Ukraine), Almaty (Kazakhstan)

Worst Town visited:
Atyrau (just a business city)

Best Currency:
Uzbek Som (has great artwork of famous sites in Uzbkeistan)

Worst Currency:
Uzbek Som (You get bundles and bundles as largest denomination is equivalent to around 60 Euro cents,I saw people walking around with plastic bags full of money !!! )

Best Tourist Site:
Registan, Samarkand, Uzbekistan

Best Nature:
Lake Song-Kul, Kyrgyzstan

Best Beer:
Sibirskaya Korona.
Tian Shan served in ice glasses at the Bull & Bear, Almaty.

Worst Beer:
In a cafe in Fergana, Uzbekistan, don't know the name though as it was served draught to my table.

Cheapest Beer:
Found in a cafe near Chorzu bazaar, Tashkent (300 Som = $0.25, Euro 0.20, GBP0.13)

Best local cafe:
Bar next to Renaissance in ZARVSHN complex, Tashkent

Best foreign style pub:
Bar, Sarajevo
Metro, Bishkek

Most Mashrutkoes (minibus) seen in town:
Chisinau (Moldova), Osh (Kyrgyzstan) & Shimkent (Kazakhstan) are all overrun with mashrutkoes!

Most Expensive:
Moscow

Least Expensive:
Uzbekistan & Kyrgyzstan

Worst Crooks:
Kyrgyz Taxi drivers

Best Bazaar:
Shimkent (Kazakhstan)

Funniest Person:
Noda ("the professor") from Japan staying in Bishkek.

Best Travel Mates:
Not fair to pick anyone out, but special mentions for those I have spent some time with go to Justyna (Poland), Tina (Oz), Kristina & Leah (US), Jon (US), Yuta & Ikiko (Japan) and Andy (UK).

Hottest girls:
Odessa & Moscow

Nicest girls:
Kyrgyzstan

Friendliest local people:
Uzbekistan

Worst border crossing:
Moldova/Transdniestr

Most Weddings seen in a day:
Astrakhan

Best Night Club:
Arcadia, Odessa

Best Waiters/waitresses:
Koreana night club, Osh (Kyrgyzstan)

Top 10 Recommended places to visit from my route so far:
1. The Registan, Samarkand, (Uzbekistan)
2. Lake Song-Kul (Kyrgyzstan)
3. Red Square, Moscow (Russia)
4. Piran (Slovenia)
5. Bridge at Mostar (Bosnia)
6. Old towns of Kotor & Budva (Montenegro)
7. Brasov (Romania)
8. Predjamski Grad (Slovenia)
9. Altyn Arashan (Kyrgyzstan)
10. Aksu Zhabagly Nature Reserve, (Kazakhstan)

Happy Birthday !

Happy Birthday to Rachel if you are reading

Which nation has the most travellers?

I have been thinking back as to who I have met throughout my travels. So, just for a bit of fun, if I was to create a medal table of nationalities of the number of other tourists I have met and spent some time with since leaving Austria, when I went off on my own, I would probably guess at this:

Remember: This is quantity, not quality ;-)

1. U.K.
2. Japan
3. Germany
4. France
5. Netherlands
6. Israel
7. U.S.
8. Australia
9. Switzerland
10. Finland

Others count at 3 or less per country..

So, there it is, proof that more people from Great Britain travel abroad than from any other country.
Why does everyone want to get away ? because it's so bad ;) QED

If I was to do separate tables for Europe and Central Asia they would look very different:

South Eastern Europe table:
( Includes Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Serbia, Romania, Moldova, Ukraine and Western Russia)

1. U.K.
2. U.S.
3. Australia
4. Netherlands
5. France
6. Finland
7. Germany
8. Poland

For Central Asia:
(Includes Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan)

1. Japan
2. Germany
3. U.K. (all in Kyrgyzstan!)
4. France
5. Israel
6. Netherlands
7. Switzerland
8. U.S.

Hope I didn't forget anyone !

Sakura's Guesthouse, Bishkek

I've stayed there long enough it deserves an entry of it's own...

Delightful guesthouse, run by Sakura and her parents, nice garden, seating/eating area, interesting guests from around Europe and Japan and was always a fun atmosphere.



Left: Sakura, whose guesthouse I am staying at.
Right: A music fan already and loves wobbling back and for to the sounds

Here's a link to their website created by Noda ("the professor") and Taichi. You'll need Japanese fonts to see it all properly, but there's a link to an English page too

http://sakuraguesthouse.web.fc2.com/

It was here that I actually met the first fellow British backpacker since Moscow around two months earlier, I did not meet any Brits throughout Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, not that it was a problem, just an observation ! Matt had cycled from "somewhere between Bristol and Gloucester" to Kyrgyzstan and was continuing onto China and over the Karakoram highway to Pakistan and India, proud thet he had cycled every single bit of the way, though he did admit to taking a boat across the Caspian Sea from Baku, Azerbaijan to Turkmenbashi in Turkmenistan, but insists he cycled around the boat while it crossed !! I have met quite a few cyclists doing similar things and it sounds amazing, maybe some ideas for my future trips !



Left: Sakura with 'Mama', Tolka
Right: (L to R) "Yogi", Yoshi (Sakura's Dad), Tim, Cat, Andreas, Justin and me

Most of the guests have been Japanese and the rest European or Israeli, strangely as I noticed since Uzbekistan, all the Europeans travelling across Central Asia are either, British, French, German and occassionaly Dutch, no more Swiss anymore and none from anywhere else with the sole exception of Andreas who is Swedish, but he has lived in Japan five years so fits into that group now !!.




Left: Kyrgyz ladies selling Kyrgyz shyrdaks (felt rugs)
Right: Some odd "synchronised mop dancing" I came across in Bishkek

While in Bishkek I have been out to various restaurants/cafes with various visitors at the guesthouse, the choice of food in Bishkek is pretty good, especially compared to the rest of central Asia and another of the reasons I have stayed a while, enjoying eating out at Chinese, Lebanese, Turkish and Italian restaurants. Central Asian food although good at times, has not so much variety, lots and lots of meat and no vegetables, so gets a bit dull after a couple of months. I enjoyed the dinners I had at homestays, Kyrgyz homecooking was great, but sadly local cafes do not even get close to offering the same kind of meals. Fortunately the pretty good range of internation cuisine in Bishkek's reastaurants makes up for this.



Left: Aisuluu (a friend of my friend Cath in Amsterdam) and me at a Turksish restaurant.
Right: Delicious Turkish lavash bread, yummy

Work or Travel ?

Well, I'm still in Bishkek, haven't managed to leave yet, a few reasons; the atmosphere and comfort of the guesthouse, the guests, some local friends I made, some travel weariness, being lazy and now I have a job offer at the Centre for English Language Studies. Just deciding whether to do that and stay a while longer or move on to China. I have been asked to work for a month to finish some currently in progress courses and could then afterwards create new course options to continue there, but I think that is unlikley, maybe I will stay one month but that would be maximum as I want to move on to China and SE Asia. Will let you know what happens.

Some wildlife from around Kyrgyzstan

Above: Various butterflies encountered on walk to Altyn Arashan



Left: Cow in the snow at Song-Kul
Centre: Horses at lake Issik Kul in Tamga
Right: Horses galloping across the plains at Song Kul



Left: Kitten at Yak Guest house, Karakol
Right: Not wildlife, but a toilet with a great view.

What prams are really for..

Throughout Central Asia, I have been interested in the way people carry their small children around, held cradled in one or both arms, hanging over the shoulder or sometimes just held under one arm so the small child appears almost to be flying. From South East Asia I remember the usual way mothers carried their small children was using a large shawl, wrapped around themselves with baby wrapped inside, shoulders and head poking out. I assumed this was because puchchairs/prams etc were out of the price range of most mothers, but in Samrkand bazar I found the real answer. Prams are not for pushing lazy babies around at all, they have a far more important use....

To transport and sell bread at Samarkand bazar !

Back in Bishkek

Have been lazing around Bishkek for few days at the lovely Sakura guesthouse, a bargain price, friendly people and a load of Japanese guests to drink tea with. One day when a couple of Israelis left and two more Japanese turned up, I counted there were 8 guests, 7 Japanese and me ! Also the owner (Yoshi) is Japanese and his Kyrgyz wife (Tulko) speak excellent Japanese, it's like being in a small Japanese enclave in a quiet road in Bishkek. Yet another 'Lost in Translation' moment for me. Some evenings Yoshi also invites along his fellow Japanese teachers or Japanese workers in Bishkek - whoever they are - for dinner, usually a lively affair... As i said, it's a great little guesthouse

Today, took a day trip to Ala-Archa again, this time with Andy from Ingerland and Nicola from France, we took a different route high into the mountains with wonderful views around as we climbed and climbed along a stoney and at times snowy path upwards towards the clouds that seemed to hang just a reach away. At lunch break the clouds started to sneak around the mountains and engulfed us and it got a 'bit chilly' (that's for Rich ;-)), so headed back down and now back in Bishkek, after five and a half hours walking up there and back at quite a pace, I'm shattered....



Left: Me at Ala-Archa canyon
Right: Andy and Nicolas at Ala-Archa


Wales are playing Slovakia tomorrow, I have a small hope of finding on TV here, fingers crossed anyway.

that's all I have to say today, bye for now...

It's a small world

Two stories of conincidence I heard this week:

One of the Japanese guests needed a translator at the Uzbek embassy the other day, he went to a nearby park to try find some students who might speak English who could translate for him. It's not always easy to find English speakers here but there are soem around, but what are the chances that the first girls he asked, spoke not only English, but spoke good Japanese, great ! But wait, how on earth could he have somehow picked out two girls who were students of Yoshi, the guesthouse owner who also teaches Japanese at the University in Bishkek !!

Secondly, my friend Adrian was in Ukraine recently, what a surprise when he met an old schoolfriend walking along the beach front in Yalta !

And just to add a small coincidence of my own, I have met a few people along the way, some of them more than once, but the 2 French guys I have mentioned previously, I have now bumbed into unexpectedly 6 times !! Samarkand & Fergana in Uzbekistan, Cholpon-Ata, Karakol, Altyn Arashan and now in Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan. I know they are now in Osh and waiting to cross into China like me, maybe I will see them there somewhere too.

Anyway, why do I write this ? It's just to show I'm not that far away, because it really really is, a small world.

More from Song-Kul

I already wrote briefly about Song-Kul in the previous post, but it deserves some more attention..

I made arrangements in Kochkor, an average sized town with little to offer except for a beautiful setting in the foot of the mountains and the ability to arrange trips to the surrounding mountains and lakes. Wandering the streets, school kids got excited at the sight of me and shouted 'hello' and 'my name is ......' and some - as in Khiva - asked for photographs, which made them even more excitable. I remember as a child always being told not to talk to strangers, it is so good that children in Central Asia don't have this restriction or any inhibition to do so, they are usually delighted and excited to speak to foreigners - strangers - and for me it has so far provided so many memorable photos and moments. I stayed at a homestay run bu Kuka and on arrival she was just starting lunch with some family, which I was invited to join. Some tasty pasta and vegetables dish, bread and few vodka toasts with Kuka's sister who was constantly astounded that I was from somewhere so far away from Kyrgyzstan. A friendly and enjoyable homestay with the usual way too much food which makes me wonder if all Central Asians really believe all foreigners eat twice as much as they generally would for a meal.

So, Song-Kul. After the pictueresque and often interrupted journey in my taxi as mentioned earlier we climbed over a snowy mountain top and down towards the lake with beautiful mountains sitting behind, it's a memorable first sight. At the yurt that would be my home for the next two days, I was greeted by a number of shepherds, 3 dogs, and a couple of horses. I had no idea who was living in that spot, until later when I returned in the evening and deduced who was still there. Rosa was the "lady of the yurt" and her husband was one of the men I had seen earlier, but he never told me his name ! I arrived around lunchtime, so after a quick snack of salad, bread and mutton, washed down with Kymys (fermented horse's milk) and as much tea as you can drink, I went for a long wander along the lake into the distance, just gazing at the views around. It was certainly cooler her than Kochkor, probably a drop of around 20 degrees in temperature to a climate everyone warned was cold and very changable.



Left: Lake Song-Kul at night.
Right: Taking some cattle home beside Song-Kul.

I was a little surprised the next morning, when I woke to find snow on the ground, I had heard rain on the yurt roof early morning and it was cold, but didn't really think it would snow, but snow it did and despite the that everyone else kept complaining about, I thought it was really nice, if unexpected. Another walk in the other direction that morning to discover what was over there, back for lunch, Plov (fatty Mutton, rise and pumpkin; the national dish of Uzbekistan) as ever washed down with Kumys and endless tea. The afternoon I tried the third and final direction away from home, which was back the way we had driven in, but after an hour or two, diverted to try and avoid some very black clouds which truend out to be a very heavy and painful hailstorm to shelter back in the yurt.





Top: Yurts on my first evening (left). Same photo the next morning (right).
Bottom: Family transport and pet (left). Another photo of my home (right).

As I had arrived back early, an early tea was provided, tomatoes, bread, fatty meat, kymys and tea. Not so long later dinner arrived, pasta with mutton, and friend potatoes/vegetables which was very nice, although as usual the mutton had little meat on the fat. Throughout communication was a little restricted, all conversations were in Kyrgyz which I obviously don't know, expect for the occassional order from the taxi driver (he stayed there too) who continued to speak (though seldom) to me in Russian, "sit down" when I preferred to stand, "here, eat" when i was trying to be polite and wait for everyone to be at the table, "sleep" when the beds were put out, but i didn't want to sleep yet. But the point of all this is that it would have been reasonable if someone had told me that that evening we had been invited to a 'Kyrgyz feast' at another yurt. I had already had 2 meals and I noticed a lack of eating amongst everyone else, but only when we finished and my driver said to me "po-idyom" (We're going). "Gde?" (where?), I asked, "gostii" (visiting) he replied.. Oh ok, so a visit, that's OK I thought, but i didn't realise it was a visit to a speacial feast. A third dinnner.

At first we sat and had Kymys, but then the table was taken away, a cloth put on the floor in the middle of everyone and food delivered, it was grandly unveiled and turned out to be a very dodgy looking pile of meaty stuff in different forms. It is known in Kyrgyz as "five fingers" as it is traditionally eaten with the fingers from a shared bowl. Now anyone with any germ phobias should stop reading. The meat was handed out to 3 or 4 key male members of the party who cut it all up and threw it back into a bowl, or simply put it on your plate. After various pieces had been eaten, the final dish was a mixture of all and some new bits all thrown back into the central bowl, had noodles added to it and was then mixed up by hand again before being handed out. I don't know exactly all the contents but I have to say I didn't enjoy it, it was horse meat, though some bits were undeterminable, like a sausage shaped piece of hard rubber with some fatty lining inside and then.... well i won't say anymore as it gets even worse, but I know it contained some parts of an animal I wouldn't normally choose to eat. With it was a greasy, oily bowl of stock, which although pretty awful was quite pleasant in washing down the bits of whatever it was.! Thankfully I wasn't forced into eating very much and my plate was taken away by one of the ladies who shared out all the leftovers between themselves. Finally some more kymys, (no tea this time which I would have loved) and we left, stopping off at another yurt for tea and biscuits on the way home. A traditional final Kyrgyz evening at lake Song-Kul if nothing else.




Top: Horses on their way home (L). More sheep in Kyrgyzstan than Wales! (R)
Bottom: My hosts for 2 days (L). Song-Kul and mountains at night (R).

Around the lake and back in Bishkek

Just arrived back in Bishkek yesterday after a couple of weeks going around Issik Kul, the 170km lake in eastern Kyrgyzstan. Following on from Cholpon-Ata, next stop was at the far eastern end of the lake at Karakol, a town used primarily as a base for hiking and trekking tours in the Southern Terskey Alatau mountains. From here I went into the mountains to Altyn Arashan at around 3000m where there are thermal springs in which you can bathe. It was about a 15km walk there (longer if you start heading the wrong way, because you have been wrongly advised by two French tourists, the same ones referred to previosuly !!) and the warm spring water was delightful seeing as the temperature had dropped to 'pretty cold' up there in the mountains.



Left: Walk along the river Arashan.
Right: Accomodation at Altyn Arashan.

After a night in a building loosely classified as a 'hotel', I headed back down to Karakol where the next day I managed to extend my Kyrgyz visa for an extra month. Getting the visa extension took around 30 minutes, finding the correct building and office took about three hours ! Anyway, this now means instead of having to get to China by yesterday before the Chinese border closed for a holiday, I can stay here some more time. Apparently the Kyrgyz/China border is closed on the Chinese side for ten days for a national holiday from Oct 1-10. Ten days for a holiday !! Now you can understand why working in China is quite appealing ;)

Along the southern shore of Lake Issik Kul, I stopped one night in Tamga, a quiet, sleepy small town with the feel of some wild west town, dusty, almost deserted streets, horses tied up outside houses, dogs fighting and barking all night. The land around was full of fruit trees, there was a quiet park in which was located one of the lake region's many sanatoria and by the lake there was a small but OK beach where a local lad had brought his horses to drink and rest.



Left: One of 3 lovely kittens at my Tamga homestay.
Right: Tamga villager's house and horse

Moving on, I caught a lift on a bus as far as Balukchy and then a shared taxi to Kochkor, which is the nearest point at which you can arrange a trip to lake Son-Kul, possibly the highlight of Kyrgyzstan's wild and natural scenery. It took a rip-off priced taxi organised by CBT to get there and for the price paid I would have expected a taxi that didn't need to stop every now and then to cool down the overheated engine with litres of water along with occasional repairs to the engine parts. The climb up the mountain track over snowy peaks, avoiding horses, cows, sheep and yaks along the way ends in a descent down to the lake, which lies at over 3000m surrounded by pretty stunning mountains. By the lakeside, I stayed for two nights at a shepherd's yurt, fed and looked after by Rosa, who seemed a very popular chef, as each day visitors arrived at our yurt for her lunch.










Left: The all too familiar scene of taxi driver with his head under the bonnet.
Right Top: Views along teh way to Lake Song-Kul
Right Bottom : Yurt camp where I stayed by lake Song-Kul

The area has a few shepherd's still living there, tending their sheep and cows, though it is now the end of the summer season and most have already descended back to their villages as the weather has begun to get cold. As if I needed evidence of this, the next morning on emerging from the yurt, I found it snowing and the grass now covered in a layer of white.




more (+ pics) to follow....