Kyrgyzstan

And then we left China.

To the west of Kashgar is a couple of land routes out of China...
One is Phunjurab Pass into Pakistan via Tashkorgan
Another is into the mountains (Pamirs) or Tajikistan (currently not allowed to American citizens)
One goes into Kazakhstan to the northwest of Urumqi
Two more mountain passes lead into Kyrgyzstan.

Flag of Kyrgyzstan

We went into Kyrgyzstan two days before the Olympic games started.
The morning we decided to leave was chaotically smooth.

We were expecting Mike to come in that night from Cherchen (he had gone back to take care of some personal business)
and at the same time we really concerned because we thought that the borders may be closed due to some internal security threats that had occurred in Xinjiang.
So we went to the tourist office and consulted about a lot of different things... but the biggest issue was that we thought that we should go that day... we had them get on the
phone to try to negotiate with a tourist office in Kyrgyzstan for a border pick up (the border is about 20 hours from Osh on a bumpy dirt road (to get a comparison do an internet search
of the Mt. Antero 4 wheel drive road (Colorado)...

We finally got the car set up and suddenly Mike just happens to walk into the tourist office for a unrelated issue (none of us had cell phones - no real time communication means) so
if he had not come into the office just a few moments later, we would have not known he was in town and delayed our trip out of the country another day.

I argued with the Chinese tour office lady about the price and then we hopped in what turn out to be "Saidali Senior"'s (the taxi driver from the trip to Pakistan's borderlands) taxi once again. A pleasant surprise.

We had to hurry up because we just had a bit of time before the border would close, and there was no way that the taxi driver on the other side would even think about waiting for us overnight. Along the way we ate some food in the car, Mike had not slept for a day and it was about to be extended into a multiple of overnighting it.

The road to the border was beautiful, resembling red rocks and Utah borderlands... what a beautiful place Xinjiang, it has everything except for Penguins and a Jungle. The river water was also unique in this area, the exact color of the rock outcroppings... muddy as the Colorado river when it hits Utah. (The kind of thing that Alex Ip was wondering if you could swim in it or not.)

After that we went through customs and had no idea if the taxi driver would be waiting for us or not. He was 5 kilometers down past customs so we jumped on a Import Exports monster double load semi that got 1/92 miles to a gallon. It was a Kyrgyz-Uzbek guy from Osh wearing sweatpants, and the ride would be for free and there was enough room for all of our bags as well.

The Border Area

He was really friendly and we started playing music while he was driving 10 Kilometers per hour.
We sang a Yulduz Usmanova song, Jeli Jeli. I played Rubob Omar played his new drum and Adnan sang, mike tapped a plastic bottle on the dash board.
He was nice and explained about the mixed people there in Osh and moreover the Fergana Valley, a nice play we one country turns into another in a sort of gradient effect.

We were getting closer to the second largest city before long and also closer to the Uzbekistan border, that is a good place to get closer to.
Then we had to go through Kyrgyz customs... on the way to there, we saw a line of imports trucks to China, there was probably 400 trucks sitting there.
Probably for days, it was a strickened border customs procedure than usual... shoot. I was wondering if the bord truck drivers had enough food water... they probably did not have enough fresh clothing.

After we got through customs we encountered a character, that was also our four wheel drive high watering volkswagen looking cars driver.
He was wearing an old New York Newsy boy cap and had a look like he had a chip on his soldier... he was also very small and a bit elderly making him a little unique for the circumstances amongst other things.

He strapped our bags on top of his car and started to drive us off... we found him to be a real pain in the neck...

Then I noticed that he looked like a cricket... so I came up with a better name than the one issued on his birth certificates: Jimmy Ricket the Kyrgyzstan Cricket.

He was real rickety when he drove shacking around and not handling the four wheel drive road well, he complained to us and later found out that he had been cussing a lot.


(Soviet Jimmy Cricket: ironically later we were in a media store and I saw a soviet version of Pinocchio and this Jimmy was in there)

The natural scenery was really nice as we where driving: two rivers converged, one was blue and clear and the other was red rock muddy, it was unexpected



Pamir mountains famous of Tajikistan were sitting right next to us, once again we could see 7,000 meter peaks, those majestic monsters!!!

Pamirs of Tajikistan

And the valley that shook your soul with its vast spread. We saw real nomads here... tending to their cattle and tending to their things.
Gurs we set up and the architecture was pretty much the same as others central asian pastoralists use.

As you can see there are Gurs in this motion shot taken from the car

It was really neat to feel you had really seen nomadic peoples.... (they buy snickers and coke from the city 40 kilometers away from time to time, but the difference is that I noticed that they ate snickers too before
they discovered that I eat snickers back home, unless they visited my hometown without telling me at some point).

Then we took a bathroom break and then we got shook around in the car on the road for a while, a guide book said that you should" get ready to have the teeth rattled out of your skull..." everyone was getting tired
and we were going to Osh right away.

We stopped for dinner played music for the restaurant and then went on, the taxi could not understand what it was that we were looking for but finally got that we did not want to stop for the night and wanted to go on.
We learned that it was not good to make someone drive so far before confirming the distance we found out upon arrival in Osh that it would be another 12 hours or so.

When we got there, this nice old lady gave us some help into a dirt cheap place to stay and at 9 a.m. we got to bed for a couple of hours, but we are not party poopers and got back up at 12:30 p.m. to go have a look around this new land... and this new city.

The cricket driver was cussing at the hotel guy in the end, so we judge that he is a crude old soviet army dude guy (as he confirmed when showing his old work permit documents and vertifications.)
We made it into Osh all the way from Kashgar in one non stop drive. We are tough.

Here at the end of the ride we met this nice lady who also was a worker at the restaurant near our hostel...

Osh turned out to be a friendly place with lots of interesting art types and Uzbek influence in the architecture and overall culture.

On top of Solomon's Rock

Traditional Artwork With UFOs
Tigers and Gurs

Horses and such

Traditional Kyrgyz Women
Eagle Throwing A Wolf Off Of A Cliff
Beautiful Clothing
Woman's Clothing
We met musicians (music teachers) after visiting a art center and we played with them and then ate dinner together... they took us out to a restaurant that server fermented milk, it was better than the Mongolian version.

The next day we went to Jalalabad... on the way to Osh.

Jalalabad Gate

Dams (Hydro Electric Power is central to the economy)... this water ends up being use for cotton cultivation west in Uzbekistan and resulting does not make it to the Aral Sea much at all anymore.
Decided to help cook the trout at the restaurant

After that the taxi broke down, a rock smashed through the front windshield and almost killed me, we found a bag of paraphernalia and saw some guy kicked down and left on the ground. It was a really rough night, really really rough. Finally at 5 in the morning we arrived in Bishkek, the capital Kyrgyzstan and we went to the hostel and checked in.

The rock that almost smashed my head, good thing I ducked and saw it coming. (we taped the windshield back shut after that.)

Statue in Bishkek (nice place with tons of trees, second greenest city in the Soviet Union)

We found some great hats to wear

We ended up playing a show for Pakistani's living in Kyrgyzstan, were treated to dinner introduced to many people in the community and Abbass Khan, a journalists from one of the two largest newspapers in Pakistan.

After that he wrote an article about our music in a clipping that was about Mr. Butt (the man in blue's official visit to Kyrgyzstan). He is from a political party that helped bring the military president out of office about two weeks ago... just after we met him, he went back to Pakistan.

I ended up spending quiet a bit of time with these guys and it was very fun.

On the way to Issuk-kul (inland sea in Kyrgyzstan) I saw this billboard
Sunset at Issuk-Kul (just after we arrived)

Accordion Player (really good)

Later we spent much time at cafes trying to reaarange our schedules and fix problems back home...
internet cafe blues and IP phonebooth blues...

After everyone else left I made my first friend from Turkey, his name is Burush.
We hung out the last 5 days I was there, it was a really good time.

Sunset in Bishkek

Another person who I met in Japan through my homestay family went back to Kyrgyzstan before I came and we met up several times... she showed me around the city, a really cool museum and several good restaurants and a Bizarre...

Me and Asel

I also met with another friend Roman who helped me on the Burma project... Mike and I went to see his church service, there we met his colleagues and since the church pastor was not there he gave the service... the praying style although Christian was like none we had ever seen... really intense fast taking (everyone did it individually). For the service Aiijamal and Fatima translated for us.

all and all it was a trip to Kyrgyzstan to see friends and to enjoy a little bit of natural scenery. It was also a time to reorganize the trip and to get ready for the next leg... everyone would split up in Kyrgyzstan and stayed there for another week, finally we reconnected but it was much later in another country.

At the heart of central asia, the most mountainous nation (90%) and the most interesting buses and fabric designs... until next time see you again Kyrgyzstan.