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Published: November 6th 2014
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On the bus to Karakol, November 6, 2014
This blog is about our experiences travelling from Osh to Bishkek. What connects all the places we visited during this part of the journey, a part from them all being in Kyrgyzstan, is that throughout we have found a abundance of Morrisons (UK) supermarket plastic bags. Each one pleads for reuse to save the environment in English which 99% of the population can not read. One can only conclude that Morrisons cancelled an order with new UK laws imminent (we are not up to date!) or because of a quality issue. Whatever, the solution was to dump the bags on the Kyrgyics who like the rest of the Central Asians use new plastic bags for every item of shopping. We did just see them in the big cities. They were all over Aslanbob in the mountains. It was slightly surreal buying vegetables in the bazaar in Bishkek in a UK supermarket bag.
Our original plan was not to travel to Bishkek so directly and instead to cut East over mountain passes. Our first thought to go via Naryn was defeated because the mountain pass was already closed.
Our next idea to cut across to Kockor from Toktogul, suggested by the Osh hostel manager, made no sense given the price drivers were asking. It was far cheaper to go via Bishkek.
We were not travelling alone. As often happens when travelling independently we had linked up with others going in the same direction. We had all met at the Osh Guesthouse.
Robert, was a 77 year old retired electrical engineer from Warsaw. I started playing a game of trying to find a place he had not been and succeeded with Kansas and Iceland - both too expensive. Robert was a amasing role model for how widely you could travel on a very modest budget. He seemed to have been doing it all his life although restrictions in the communist time meant he was often limited to a couple weeks in the Slovakian Tatras. We enjoyed hearing about his travel experiences and his Russian was a great help in many situations. He showed no signs of stopping and was happy carrying a relatively heavy pack. He had been travelling in Stans and China since mid-September including the edge of Afghanistan and a 4500m
pass in the Pamirs where the temperature outside the bus had dropped to -15C.
We took a series of marshrutkas from Osh to Ashlanbob with Robert. The first was a some what stressful for Jane as three people around her were throwing up. I was perched on a stool at the front and blissfully ignorant of all this happening behind me.
Ashlanbob is a large village in mountains surrounded by indigenous walnut forests. We had missed the harvest when families decamp to the woods en masse to collect over 1500 tonnes of walnuts at the end of September and early October. This was our first experience of Kyrgyzstan CBT (community based tourism). We went to the office close to the village centre and were quickly allocated a homestay, one of 16 in Aslanbob affiliated to CBT. The owner came down and collected us in his jeep. Jane and I got sit on the packs in the back.
The sky was blue and snow capped mountains rose up in the West. We went straight out for a walk with Robert so we did not miss the daylight. The scenery was sublime. We
walked around a rock outcrop, through the edge of the Walnut forest to a natural platform that gave you a panarama of the village with the evening light catching the poplars and the mountains behind.
We got back to find the owner's son trying to light the wood burning stove in Robert's room. The guest rooms were full of smoke and he was resorting to patching the chimney with new mud cement. It seemed to work. I kept outside to avoid an asthma attack and the haze of smoke eventually cleared. We are now getting used to having our meals sitting on thin mattresses on the floor from a low table. That first evening we got fresh bread the owner's wife made in the tandoor oven.
There are many hiking routes from Aslanbob. In summer you can climb over the 3700m passes to glacial lakes. We set out the next day to visit the 90m waterfall which plunges off the mountain behind the village. It is a straight forward walk to start with, most Kyrgyics go by 4WD, and then everyone has to scramble up a steep pebbly slope for the last 30 minutes.
Homestay driveway
Second loo is on the left Robert to his credit clambered up to the final look out with us.
Who should we meet at the look out with the waterfall plunging behind but Imogen, a German doctor who we had eaten dinner with when we first arrived in Osh. She too became our travelling companion to Bishkek. Imogen seemed to have it sussed. In her late thirties, she had first taken a year's sabbatical to travel from the Berlin hospital where she worked. She came back and agreed to cram her work into intensive periods so she could have long periods off to travel. She had been travelling for a month in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan and was flying home briefly from Almaty before heading to Ethiopia for a month. Imogen was a pleasure to travel with, generous, and again like Robert, with a vast travel experience.
At the falls we also met John, a philosophy professor from Kansas State University, who had a Fulbright scholarship to teach in Bishkek for the year. I think he was surprised we knew so much about Kansas. We left him to fly back to Bishkek.
The four of us were still
hoping to cut across to Kockor in a private car and so agreed to travel together to Toktogul, roughly half way to Bishkek from Osh. At Bazar-kagon it took us 45 minutes to haggle a fair price from the shared taxi drivers.
The guidebook barely mentions Toktogul and it is pretty non-descript. At the local guesthouse we slept on floor mattresses as well as eating from them. We took a walk to the Toktogul reservoir which dominates the surrounding area. We came across a rusted broken Ferris wheel, a relic of the Soviet days. I found with a hard push that it still turned.
The next day the road to Bishkek took us over two 3000m+ passes with light snow all around. Our shared taxi was a Toyota people carrier with the steering on the wrong side. I was in the passenger seat and so got the best view of the oncoming traffic. The scariest part was overtaking a drunk driver in a Lada who was weaving from one side of the road to the other in front of us. I am not sure how long he lasted. I have never seen anything like
it.
At Bishkek we parted from Robert. He was aiming for a cheaper hostel. We were happy to go to one a bit more plush to catch up on washing and enjoy a luxurious hot bath. We bought food at the local bazaar and cooked a meal for ourselves and Imogen. We had all been warned about the bazaar and Imogen still got her purse pick pocketed from her hand bag losing $20 in som.
This morning we walked to the bus station together. At the major intersection we saw to our horror a pedestrian knocked over by a car. We rushed over to help and were soon crowded out by locals. I thought she would have broken a leg and then she seemed to be able to walk. Imogen had done a quick assessment which suggested nothing immediately major. It looked like one of the cars were going to take her to hospital as we left. We had suggested an ambulance but no local seem to consider ringing any emergency service.
We will reach Karakol later today and the local CBT are organising accommodation and trips for us. No doubt
we will find more Morrisons bags in circulation!
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Ilmir
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Your awesome blog brings back memories of my post-college business travel from Astana (fr. Tselinograd) to Almaty (fr, Alma-Ata) to Bishkek (fr. Frunze). Great Job! Love it!