Into Kyrgyzstan

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Friday 30 May - Shimkent to Risqulov, 83 km

Breakfast a bit disorganized as the hotel staff, as usual, were quite overwhelmed by 100 cyclists arriving all at once. I managed to get an egg plus one to pack for lunch, plus the usual other bits, eventually.
A very good day’s cycling, beautiful countryside, hilly and green, lots of people and animals and agriculture, and all the time the mountains in the background - some with snow on. There were flowers all over the verges - lots of pink, lots of hollyhocks white and pink, and some purple flowers. We went through villages with roadside stalls selling apples and wallnuts. One had apricots; I asked for 6 and received them free! Another had strawberries, small sweet ones like the ones in my garden at Blewitts Cottages, A small bag cost me 100 tengue.
Re-grouped at a bar at 75 km, I had a beer, then off with police escort to a Rest Home - a convalescent and old people’s home - set among trees and gardens. We ate our lunch in shady shelters under the trees - idyllic. The rooms are in two buildings, I am sharing a 2-bedroom unit with shower and loo with the usual other women.
Francoise got taken off to a local dental clinic with Christine (who is a dentist) for a filling, and came back very impressed. It was a government-run clinic for the people, very clean and modern ,and free!
Excellent dinner in the residents’ dining room - carrot salad, rice and meat (I had an egg saved from lunch), apples, tea and buns.

Saturday 31 May - Risqulov to Taraz, 104 km

Excellent breakfast, eggs, cheese, kasha, bread, coffee and even milk. I got 2 eggs to save for lunch. Lovely countryside again: hills not too terrible, mountains beautiful, lots of flowers - different today, loads of yellow and white and whole fields of pink. Lots of villages and people and animals and agriculture. There were lots of people along the road selling honey. The traffic was very fast and sometimes passed frighteningly close.
Around 11 am I put on my usual sun protection - log-sleeved shirt, three-quarter trousers, and a head covering soaked in water. Lunch was in a shady place with trees at 85 km. After lunch we pedalled in a group into the town and through wide streets to the hotel.
The hotel is an old Russian one. Liliane and I have a big room with a half bath and shower. We were taken by bus to the main square where there was a big anti-drugs festival going on; there was a brief ceremony for us with the usual exchange of medals and presents. When we got back in the buses we were whisked off at enormous speed to see a famous mausoleum miles out of town, an didn’t get back for dinner till after 9. Very poor dinner anyway.
I found we were just behind the lights on the front of the hotel, and these and the traffic noise made for a pretty poor night.

Sunday 1 June - Taraz to Talas (Kyrgyzstan), 156 km

The distance should have been much shorter, but the stupid police escort led us out of town on the wrong road for 22 km before anyone realized and stopped them. We had to turn round and go back to town onto the correct road, and this gave us an extra 40 km on what would have been a hard enough day anyway.
After 65 km through nice countryside we reached the frontier and had the usual long wait, but there was a little shop where I got some orange drink and a sort of shortbread biscuit which was quite nice. Also while waiting fixed my front lamp on my bike with Paul’s help. Found the cheap batteries I had bought were useless and got some more in the shop. The Kazaks were only letting people through 5 at a time, and took about 5 minutes to process each person. The Kyrgyz took no time at all and gave us a bit of welcome bread. I was near the end of the queue, and waited till the last people were through and then the last group set off with police escort. On the Kyrgyz side I changed some dollars into Som (the Kyrgyz currency) which was handy.
Kyrgyzstan at first was very similar to Kazakhstan, but soon we were passing through very beautiful countryside. There are flat fertile valleys with people working in the fields, spectacular hills and beyond them the mountains. There are lots of cows and sheep and people looking after them. There are lots of donkeys, pulling carts or ridden by little boys, and lots of horses, mostly ridden but a few pulling carts. The people are lovely, very friendly, crowds of adults and children in the many villages waving and shouting to us. A lot of the men wear tall white felt hats, but there are also round felt hats and sun hats. The women wear headscarves or sometimes nice headdresses.
We passed a spectacular dam with water gushing out and making rainbows. We went up a long mountain road with a very poor surface and a strong side wind, but after a bit he road turned and the wind was from behind and pushed us. Lunch was in a green valley with big picnic tables. The valley had gates which were closed behind us!
After lunch the road climbed some more but the afternoon was mainly flat, thank goodness, as it was a very long day. When we arrived at the town we turned off down a side street which became a track and led us into woods to a youth camp. We have several buildings with close-packed beds - 18 in mine. With the other women I got a (hot!) shower in the shower block and changed; it is much cooler here and I put on trousers and a jacket. Dinner was pretty poor. Toilets are, as usual, in a distant block but they are nice and clean. I did some washing and hung it on a line under the trees to dry, but it didn’t and I dried it on the back of the bike next day.

Monday 2 June - Talas to Taldi Bulak, 72 km

Not a very good breakfast - my own coffee, milk and jam, their bread, pancakes and cream. Back through the woods to the main track and several km to the village. Lots of people on horses, and with horses and carts taking people to work. In this region there were lots of horses everywhere, everyone uses them, especially shepherds and cowboys. We even got held up by a herd of horses on the road, and also by two flocks of sheep.
On leaving the village we were to visit a mausoleum, but there were some interesting little shops in yurts nearby so some of us went there instead. I bought a necklace and two bracelets for presents.
The countryside today was spectacular, huge hills, valleys with rivers running through, mountains in the background. Friendly natives, as usual. We are at 2006m here, going higher tomorrow.
We are sleeping in a school, the pupils were just leaving as we arrived about 2.30, it appears to be end of term. There were boys in three-piece black suits, in this heat! I don’t know if all the children here go to school, we see a lot of children working looking after animals, and small children looking after even smaller children. Women and girls don’t ride horses - it seems to be strictly a male activity.
The school is a rambling building and people are sleeping all over the place. I found an empty landing and installed myself, and Christine invited herself in too. We went out to look for shops, but there were only some tiny local shops which didn’t sell anything I wanted - cheese, jam, fruit. A local lady gave me some tiny round cheeses, they are very hard and very very salty. I ate a few over the next couple of days but ended up throwing most of them away.
Back at the school we found they had set up the showers in the lorry. There are three cubicles with thick green plastic curtains, a generator for the water pump, and they work quite well. Had a shower (cold, of course) which was very refreshing.
Omelette for breakfast, good. Set out at 7 am for a col at 3600m. The road was not all that steep, but near the top the surface deteriorated into a rough track, and we also had a headwind on the zigs (a following wind on the zags, of course). Reached the top at 25 km, the track continued on the descent and was quite difficult, it was cold at this altitude and I had to stop several times to unfreeze my hands.
There are lots of yurts in this area, there were several on the way down from the col, friendly people came out to see us, they all seem to have herds of horses and make kumiss (the national drink, fermented mares’ milk). Some of the foals are tied down on the ground, presumably to stop them taking too much milk.
At the foot of the descent we re-grouped and set off on a good valley road. We picnicked by a river in hot sunshine. The scenery was spectacular, completely unspoiled, a green valley with a river and high folded green hills. On the way from lunch a bunch of us fell over but fortunately no-one was much hurt. I got a bruised knee and elbow, not serious.
In the afternoon we could see a big black storm brewing over the mountains, and it got nearer and nearer and the wind got very strong. I was nearly last with Michel Arnoud who kindly sheltered me from the wind, but then it started to rain and the wind got so bad we had to get off and walk (wearing full waterproofs by this time). The van belonging to the travel agent came up and offered me a lift, which I gladly accepted. Most of the group was sheltering in a café, a few under some trees, and the vanguard had reached the farm where we were to camp and were sheltering in a barn.
When the weather improved we got the tents out and set them up, a big one to eat in and a smaller one to cook in, and 4- berth tents for the cyclists. I have to share with the three other women, of course. Our tent lost two attachments before we even got it up, but it eventually went up OK. Liliane and Francoise shared one inner chamber, I had the other, which is missing an attachment and will not stretch out properly, and Christine had a bed in the central empty section.
I had a cold shower in the lorry, and they have also set up troughs and taps to wash hands etc, which is quite good. Dinner was veg soup, lentils mixed with ready meals (I had to pick the bits of meat out) and tinned fruit salad. As soon as we got back to the tent there was another terrific storm, thunder and lightning and rain hammering on the tent, but after that it was quiet.

Wednesday 4 June - Bivouac to Biskek via col, 152 km

Up before 5, got the beds and tent (very wet) packed, breakfast in the food tent and away around 7 am with the slow group up the col. It was not as hard as yesterday’s, the road was well designed in long hairpin bends and I reached the top at 3,300 m after17 km among the first 20. I was quite pleased about this. It was cold at the top.
After everyone was there we had pollution masks distributed and put on our lights and reflective tabards for the tunnel - over 2 km long, badly lit and ventilated, and a poor road surface. When we emerged there was a stupendous 30 km descent on a long looping road. Most of the way there was a river running alongside and criss-crossing the road. The scenery was wonderful, a river gorge with changing rock formations.
After a lunch stop we set off again on a ountry road with police escort. There was a long wait with little shade because both tandems had punctures. We re-grouped for the entry into town and were told it was 20 km, but in fact it was 32km in searing afternoon heat and I ran out of water about 20 km. The road was typical of the region - straight and tree-lined, but the trees too far away to give shade.
Eventually we reached the hotel Dostuk which is quite good, with airconditioning. Had a beer at the oudoor bar, collected luggage from the van, aske directions and went out by taxi with Jean-Jacques and Michel Bedard to a bank machine and then a nice Italian restaurant where the menu was printed in correct Italian and English. We had proper Italian food and Italian red wine and it was very nice, such a change from interminable rice and meat.

Thursday 5 June - Bishkek

Up quite early, did a stack of washing and hung it 0n the balcony (discreetly as this is quite a posh hotel). Went out with Paul, who had a copy of a guidebook map. Went across a park and down the big modern main street to a shopping centre where I bought postcards and a Kyrgyz hat and some bits and bobs. I found a nice new case for my camera as the old one was broken. Paul got his photos copied to a CD to send home. We found the Post Office and I got my stamps rrom a helpful lady sitting at the door; she also stamped Par Avion on all the cards.
Paul was looking for an English bookshop; we went to Fat Boy’s but it was only a café, not a bookshop, so we had lunch: I had a baked potato with hummus, which was not very good. We talked to an American aircraft engineer called Aaron who was very interesting. There are a lot of ex-pats working in Bishkek. Walked on down and found a “bookshop” but it only had two shelves of books and we didn’t buy anything. On the way back went to the Beta store: there was a North Face shop upstairs and I got a new cap with a neck shield, just what I was looking for. Then did the supermarket and got my usual supplies of cheese, nuts, dried fruit etc. Got some cherries and apricots at a street market.
In the evening went out with Paul, Jean-Pierre and Andre Giroux to a German microbrewery which was a bit disappointing: neither the beer nor the food was particularly interesting. I had he only non-meat item on the menu - soup which came with toasted cheese and was not bad. This place was in a back street and the atmosphere was quite different from the main street - not modern, more Moslem, piles of rubbish everywhere, street stalls, altogether poorer.

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