Day 63 - 65: Bishkek and Its Vicinity.
DAY 63 - Osh Baazar
I went to the Osh Baazar today. It was really surprising to see what people can do in order to make a living. I never knew that you can earn money with a weighting machine.
Here, in this baazar, you can find everything you will ever need to live in Krygyzstan. Despite of this wide range of products, I still prefer to look at things in associatiion with the local traditions for example shoes, hats, dresses, horse whips etc. And ofcourse things like camels which reminds me that I am still on the silk road.
Not forgetting these beautifully made boxes.
A local busker.
What happens to the traffic when the country cuts its electrical supplies? The traffic police comes to work.
Finally my passport is ready for collection today. My initial plan was to travel all the way overland into europe from asia by motorcycle. But that is impossible now. First of all, I do not have my motorcycle with me anymore. But I can still go by buses or trains. Thats was what I had been doing ever since I left China till now. But then, there is another problem. The "side by side" countries now are Kazakhstan in Asia and Ukraine in Europe. But to get from central asia (Kazakhstan) into Europe (Ukraine), there is this small part of russia in between and I will have to passby russia no matter what. It is inevitable.
So what the big deal? The main issue here is that even though I will not be stopping in Russia, even though I am just on the train passing by, I would still need to have a russian transit visa. And The russian visa is the most difficult visa to get in the world irregardless of which nationalities, and it is almost near to impossible to get one outside your country of residance. Even if you manage to get one, you will burn a hole in your pocket. Not to mention that you will have to wait from weeks to months to have it approved.
And so I decided to fly. However, flying out of central asia is not cheap either. Not many flight do this route and at such a last minute booking, it will be very expensive. The "cheapest" flight I got was 2 days later and it costed me a bomb. So... sigh...
DAY 64 - Military Man
It has been a long time since I last mentioned anything about the toilet and so here goes. The toilet paper here in central asia looks weird to me. Take a look at this.
At the first look, I thought that this roll of toilet had fallen into a pool of water and was dried again for use. It is all crumbled and thats why I thought so. However, I realised that my assumption was not true. This is the original state as it was bought off the shelf. oh ok...
I took used of this extra 2 days in bishkek to visit some more places. I went to the Burama Towers today. A 11th century tower restored by the soviets in the 1950s.
The sun was shining right behind the tower when I got there and so I only managed to capture it in silhouette.
A closeup reviews its look.
I love these snow mountains that surrounds the tower.
I went up the tower to have a look at the surroundings.
I saw a horseman.
Some weird structures.
Some weird stones
And the old city walls.
The sky is so blue that I started taking photos of myself.
Going down the tower,
I met some locals who asked to take photos with me.
The first thing I do when I got off the tower is to check out the weird stones.
Hmm.. what does this says? Can someone help me translate this?
Even though I did not understand a single word, I still find these stones very interesting. Especially they are all craving of faces. But why?
Here's a broken one.
Why are these in arabic? I assume it is arabic.
And then what are these?
Horses enjoying their meal.
More petroglyphs.
Coming back to the tower, the sun was no longer behind it and now I can take a better shot.
Krygyz soldiers. What are they doing here?
Then at the entrance to the burama tower, I found a row of information explaning its history.
But still I would need a interpretator to understand whats written on it.
This sign explains about the funny circular structure I saw from the top of the tower. Dont understand. Next!!!
Last few look at the tower before I left.
Just as I was about to leave the tower area, those soldiers came up to me and started asking me questions. Our conversation turned out so well that we started to do things the militray way. They started offering me shots and shots of vohka. The krygyz always like to propose a toast everytime they drink and I was also made to give some speech. Haha.. it was fun.
After a few toast and a few shots, it is time for me to leave. Coming to this remote location was not easy and i had to book a car to get here. Then The driver told me that I spent too long here and he demanded more money than we first agreed. After a long "argument" I finally decided to give him alitte bit more but still lesser than what he demanded. He got me back to the bus station where I took a bus back to bishkek.
The bus station and the surrounding.
Then back in bishkek, another guy helped me find the right minibus to take to go back to the place I stayed. Durign our conversation, I found out that he is also from the military. Hmm.. seems like most military personnal can speak some english. I thank him and he gave me back a salute!!!
For dinner, the teachers cook some traditional central rice. It was delicious.
Then I learnt a interesting fact from them They told me that the krygyz believed that by eating the burned rice at the bottom of the pot ENHANCE your SEXUAL power. We all ate abit for the fun of it. Haha... DO like the locals.
So after eating that, may I present to you, all the sexually enhanced teachers!!
DAY 65: OBAMA
Went to another baazar to take a look. Its massive and chaotic. Polices there tired to ask for money. This baazar is built out of containers.
Here's another interesting fact about taling the minibus in central other than it is like getting pack into a can of sardine. Paying of bus fare is base on trust. You get to your seat first and then start passing the money from one passenger to another till it gets to the driver, If a change is required, then the driver will pass the money back to you again through the same channel. Interesting huh?
After the baazar, I went to a american pub to watch the results of the election. OBAMA wins.
That night, the teachers went out for a drink but I did not join them as I do not have enough krygyz money and I did not want to change more as I am leaving central asia early next morning. I took a photo qith my host before she left for the pub. In this photo, she is wearing a krygyz hat and the rug we are holding was picked up by her from a pile of ...... during the horse festival.
By the way, this is how the krygyz money look like.
This was the wonderful bed that I slept on for the past few nights.
EARLY next morning, I made my way to the airport to catch my flight to UKRAINE!!!
Finally, after travelling through 2 time zones, I will be making my first continent crossing from aisa into europe!!
Total number of days spent in central asia: Kazakhstan (14 days) + Krygyzstan (16 Days) = 30 Days
Total amount spent: Kazakhstan (SGD$1227.10) + Krygyzstan (SGD$526.14) = SGD$1753.24. EXPENSIVE!! I was not expecting central asia to be so expensive, especially kazakhstan.
Thats all for the 2nd part of The Cold Journey. Stay tuned for more adventures while I make my way towards to Cold in Europe. See you in Part 3!! POSTING IT REAL SOON!!!
*Click HERE to return to the Main Page of The Cold Journey.*
I went to the Osh Baazar today. It was really surprising to see what people can do in order to make a living. I never knew that you can earn money with a weighting machine.
Here, in this baazar, you can find everything you will ever need to live in Krygyzstan. Despite of this wide range of products, I still prefer to look at things in associatiion with the local traditions for example shoes, hats, dresses, horse whips etc. And ofcourse things like camels which reminds me that I am still on the silk road.
Not forgetting these beautifully made boxes.
A local busker.
What happens to the traffic when the country cuts its electrical supplies? The traffic police comes to work.
Finally my passport is ready for collection today. My initial plan was to travel all the way overland into europe from asia by motorcycle. But that is impossible now. First of all, I do not have my motorcycle with me anymore. But I can still go by buses or trains. Thats was what I had been doing ever since I left China till now. But then, there is another problem. The "side by side" countries now are Kazakhstan in Asia and Ukraine in Europe. But to get from central asia (Kazakhstan) into Europe (Ukraine), there is this small part of russia in between and I will have to passby russia no matter what. It is inevitable.
So what the big deal? The main issue here is that even though I will not be stopping in Russia, even though I am just on the train passing by, I would still need to have a russian transit visa. And The russian visa is the most difficult visa to get in the world irregardless of which nationalities, and it is almost near to impossible to get one outside your country of residance. Even if you manage to get one, you will burn a hole in your pocket. Not to mention that you will have to wait from weeks to months to have it approved.
And so I decided to fly. However, flying out of central asia is not cheap either. Not many flight do this route and at such a last minute booking, it will be very expensive. The "cheapest" flight I got was 2 days later and it costed me a bomb. So... sigh...
DAY 64 - Military Man
It has been a long time since I last mentioned anything about the toilet and so here goes. The toilet paper here in central asia looks weird to me. Take a look at this.
At the first look, I thought that this roll of toilet had fallen into a pool of water and was dried again for use. It is all crumbled and thats why I thought so. However, I realised that my assumption was not true. This is the original state as it was bought off the shelf. oh ok...
I took used of this extra 2 days in bishkek to visit some more places. I went to the Burama Towers today. A 11th century tower restored by the soviets in the 1950s.
The sun was shining right behind the tower when I got there and so I only managed to capture it in silhouette.
A closeup reviews its look.
I love these snow mountains that surrounds the tower.
I went up the tower to have a look at the surroundings.
I saw a horseman.
Some weird structures.
Some weird stones
And the old city walls.
The sky is so blue that I started taking photos of myself.
Going down the tower,
I met some locals who asked to take photos with me.
The first thing I do when I got off the tower is to check out the weird stones.
Hmm.. what does this says? Can someone help me translate this?
Even though I did not understand a single word, I still find these stones very interesting. Especially they are all craving of faces. But why?
Here's a broken one.
Why are these in arabic? I assume it is arabic.
And then what are these?
Horses enjoying their meal.
More petroglyphs.
Coming back to the tower, the sun was no longer behind it and now I can take a better shot.
Krygyz soldiers. What are they doing here?
Then at the entrance to the burama tower, I found a row of information explaning its history.
But still I would need a interpretator to understand whats written on it.
This sign explains about the funny circular structure I saw from the top of the tower. Dont understand. Next!!!
Last few look at the tower before I left.
Just as I was about to leave the tower area, those soldiers came up to me and started asking me questions. Our conversation turned out so well that we started to do things the militray way. They started offering me shots and shots of vohka. The krygyz always like to propose a toast everytime they drink and I was also made to give some speech. Haha.. it was fun.
After a few toast and a few shots, it is time for me to leave. Coming to this remote location was not easy and i had to book a car to get here. Then The driver told me that I spent too long here and he demanded more money than we first agreed. After a long "argument" I finally decided to give him alitte bit more but still lesser than what he demanded. He got me back to the bus station where I took a bus back to bishkek.
The bus station and the surrounding.
Then back in bishkek, another guy helped me find the right minibus to take to go back to the place I stayed. Durign our conversation, I found out that he is also from the military. Hmm.. seems like most military personnal can speak some english. I thank him and he gave me back a salute!!!
For dinner, the teachers cook some traditional central rice. It was delicious.
Then I learnt a interesting fact from them They told me that the krygyz believed that by eating the burned rice at the bottom of the pot ENHANCE your SEXUAL power. We all ate abit for the fun of it. Haha... DO like the locals.
So after eating that, may I present to you, all the sexually enhanced teachers!!
DAY 65: OBAMA
Went to another baazar to take a look. Its massive and chaotic. Polices there tired to ask for money. This baazar is built out of containers.
Here's another interesting fact about taling the minibus in central other than it is like getting pack into a can of sardine. Paying of bus fare is base on trust. You get to your seat first and then start passing the money from one passenger to another till it gets to the driver, If a change is required, then the driver will pass the money back to you again through the same channel. Interesting huh?
After the baazar, I went to a american pub to watch the results of the election. OBAMA wins.
That night, the teachers went out for a drink but I did not join them as I do not have enough krygyz money and I did not want to change more as I am leaving central asia early next morning. I took a photo qith my host before she left for the pub. In this photo, she is wearing a krygyz hat and the rug we are holding was picked up by her from a pile of ...... during the horse festival.
By the way, this is how the krygyz money look like.
This was the wonderful bed that I slept on for the past few nights.
EARLY next morning, I made my way to the airport to catch my flight to UKRAINE!!!
Finally, after travelling through 2 time zones, I will be making my first continent crossing from aisa into europe!!
Total number of days spent in central asia: Kazakhstan (14 days) + Krygyzstan (16 Days) = 30 Days
Total amount spent: Kazakhstan (SGD$1227.10) + Krygyzstan (SGD$526.14) = SGD$1753.24. EXPENSIVE!! I was not expecting central asia to be so expensive, especially kazakhstan.
Thats all for the 2nd part of The Cold Journey. Stay tuned for more adventures while I make my way towards to Cold in Europe. See you in Part 3!! POSTING IT REAL SOON!!!
*Click HERE to return to the Main Page of The Cold Journey.*
posted by ZeeVinCeZ at 9:54 PM
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