Blogs from Osh, Kyrgyzstan, Asia

The road less traveled has allowed for some interesting tales as we continued our road trip out of Tajikistan into Kyrgyzstan. While our journey took us through much of Tajikistan and a small portion of Kyrgyzstan; from the border to Osh, we found these countries to be somewhat similar. Perhaps Kyrgyzstan is more developed and the roads we experienced were in much better shape. But as we said, the bulk of our travels were in Tajikistan. Flat Tire….. No Surprise Toward the end of day two of our trip we were beginning to feel a bit road weary. Even though our driver Zamanbek was firmly in control, riding in a 4X4 over what could be best described as the most basic roads proved a bit tiring when riding many hours each day. At one point, we ... read more

Day 10, our last day on the Pamir Highway. It took us 3 hours to get from Sary Tash to Osh. The road was properly sealed, kinda like you'd expect for a highway! We gave a lift to a Korean guy Soo who had stay in the room next to us in Sary Tash, we'd had to walk through his room to get to ours, so we figured he was basically family. It's quite hard to describe the scenery on the way to Osh, in parts the earth was an amazing red, but as we neared Osh it turned into rolling hills and there were lots of people making hay, ready for winter. There were also lots of similarities with Mongolia; we could see that they sun dry cheese, there was the yurts, the types of ... read more

So - various things come to mind as we are driving along, that don't easily fit into my diary. The main thing is that from our vantage point on the truck we have an amazing view of everything. A bit like being on the top of a double decker bus, so you can see over walls and into the distance. Most of the rural houses are single storey, some with a hay loft above, and with corrugated iron roofs. They also mostly have an outside toilet again with a corrugated roof held down by large stones. One thing I noticed is that where we would put a caravan in the land of a new build, here they build a yurt, just as temporary but maybe more cosy. And talking of yurts - the flag for Kyrgyzstan ... read more

Geo: 40.5236, 72.799Time Check: 0645Status: Up and refreshed after a great nights stop at a "good hotel" to recover after nearly a week of sleeping on floors in local homes at altitudes around 4,000m. The last few days have been both fascinating yet at the same time hard work. We have been traveling through breathtaking scenary with little or no Western facilities. The local people have been wonderful.We set off from the Murghab on the 18th and travelled via the Lake Karakul, one of the worlds highest salt water lakes (4,200m) and then made our way across the Takjekistan border into Kurgyzestan and arrived into Osh yesterday lunchtime the 19th. We were tired and dusty.........ready for a shower that did not involve walking 100m to a small shed in which we had to ladle tepid water ... read more

Geo: 40.5151, 72.8083Entered Kyrgyzstan via the mountain pass and then rapidly descendeddown a bad road to the actual border gate where we were greeted with warmsmiles from the officials.Lisa was suffering badly from the altitude and I think they took pity on us… after the normal array of questions… do you have any AK47's…no.. do you have any pistols… no… do you have any drugs…. No… a quick look into the canopy is confronting enough for any border official to just say… you can go with a quick flick of the hand.Into Sary Tash to get some money changed where we also met aDutch and German couple who were riding bikes.. hit it off and went to theirguest house and had lunch…Lisa was still crap so off we went and could not believe thedecent, I think ... read more