When first entering a country you never know what to expect. The media in the west has an amazing knack of portraying countries around the middle east in a less favourable light. Common sense tells you to ignore half of what they write but in the case of Central Asia I would recommend you ignore 90% of what they have written. Yes we’d had a couple of hiccups but that was mainly down to our ignorance & naivety.
As you cross through each border you are entering the unknown to you. The scenery starts to change as you get close as if it is teasing you. Crossing into Kyrgyzstan was no different. We started to see more greenery but it didn’t prepare us at all for what was down the road.
The bit of Osh we saw was fairly run down & our exit out of the town took us through a residential area which looked much the same. The traffic was identical to what we had experienced in other countries through Central Asia with one or two exceptions. My first impressions of Kyrgyzstan were okay. Admittedly I thought it would be similar to Uzbekistan but I was so very wrong.
Heading out of the town we were following a truck with a horse in the back. That doesn’t seem too unusual except the truck did not have a roof & the horse was wandering around popping his head over the side every now & then. This was so alien to me having owned & worked with horses in the UK. Was I about to see in reality the advert for the Brooke Animal Charity? I really hoped not.
We carried on following the truck with Mischief & Mayhem & 40% Nuts behind us & soon we were out of the town making our way to Bishkek along the M41. First though, we had to get petrol. Sounds easy right? Not one of us had considered the day was Sunday. The possibility of finding a bank or somewhere to exchange our dollars was going to be nearly impossible. We decided our best option would be to try & find a petrol station that would accept our dollars. Luckily for us Jokubas could speak Russian so at each petrol station we stopped at he found himself translating for us. We tried a few without any success. It seemed the famous green note wasn’t so popular & we were close to running out of petrol. As we came into the next town it was becoming obvious we would have to use an ATM. Throughout the whole trip I was trying my best not to due to the charges the UK banks impose but we had run out of alternatives. Adam & Ian had already used some of the spare petrol being carried by the Mischief guys. Leaving John with Minty I ventured off to find an ATM machine. It wasn’t long before I found a bank & put my card in. The ATM was out of order so off I went to try & find another one (ATM’s are meant to be scarce outside of main towns in Central Asia). I passed a travel agent so popped in to ask if they exchanged dollars; they didn’t so I carried on. A bit further into the town I found a group of ATM’s. Feeling hopeful one of these would work I put my bank card in. It was rejected. Oops, I hadn’t activated it yet for Kyrgyzstan. Least I knew HSBC’s security was working but it meant I had to use my Credit Card. Trying to ignore the cost of extracting cash on a credit card I withdrew $50 worth of Kyrgyzstan Som & made my way back to John.
Not surprisingly, John had disappeared from where I had left him but I had seen the other cars so headed towards them. Luckily John was there so without the need of a search party we collectively decided to carry on & see how close to Bishkek we could get. The mischief guys were keen to get to a larger town to try & find some parts for their ailing polo.
The road out of the town was a surprise. Gone were the pot holes & ruts we had experienced so far in Central Asia. We had filled up with petrol & were heading into the wilderness of Kyrgyzstan. Wow, we were being spoilt. Through the spectacular scenery the road wound around the colourful mountains & down into valleys. Big lakes at the side of the roads with streams & rivers feeding them from various directions. Even the various livestock being moved by their herdsmen on the road didn’t interrupt any of it. It was quite breath taking.
It soon came time to find somewhere to camp for the night. We found a track going off the road which seemed to head to a river so off we headed down the hill to the river bank & set up camp. With Minty & the 40% Nuts Micra parked at the edge & Mischief’s Polo parked a little further up the hill, the tents were pitched & wood collected for the night’s campfire. With a warm beer in our hands it was time to sit back, relax & eat some dinner. It had been a good day’s drive.
