Business Class from Bishkek to Osh

Note: Many of the photos in this post are in slideshow format. Be sure to scroll through if you want to see them all.

I’m drafting this post sitting in an outdoor Kyrgyz tea platform at the hostel where I am volunteering in the city of Osh. I think it’s call a topchan but I’m not totally sure since I haven’t had an opportunity to learn much about the local culture. Still, it’s a nice spot and I’m sure more Kyrgyz knowledge will come with time since I’m planning to spent a few more weeks here.

After being in SE Asia, getting off the plane in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan’s Manas Airport, I was greeted by a gust of fresh air. I could see tall mountains in the distance and lining the freeway into town were rows of birch or alder trees. Best of all the humidity had disappeared. Even though pollution controls on cars were probably worse than in SE Asia, the air is cleaner because there is more open space. I spent two days wandering around Bishkek, which I found very pleasant. Though it felt a bit like I was in Colorado it was also apparent that I was in a very foreign place. I saw very few white people other than those staying at my hostel and those I did encounter looked distinctly Slavic. Also, everything was written in Cyrillic. If you want to see some photos from Bishkek, check out this Instagram post: https://www.instagram.com/p/Bj-KVvSAcWW/?taken-by=brettsbattical.

The next day I got in a shared taxi for the drive to Kyrgyzstan’s second city, Osh. Aigul, the owner of Apple Hostel where I am volunteering, found for me what ended up to be the equivalent of a Business Class seat in a shared taxi; the front seat in a Mercedes sedan with over 500,000 kilometers on it. For the 11 hour trip I had this front seat to myself, which is not always the case here. As a result I could enjoy the unfolding scenery in relative comfort and I had a working seat belt. The three passengers in the back were students enrolled in a Turkish language program at the Manas University of Something or Another in Bishkek and were returning home for summer break. Their English was only slightly better than my Russian so we relied a lot on Google Translate.

Once we hit the open road I realized just how valuable my front seat with working seat belt was. About an hour outside Bishkek we left the Kyrgyz version of a freeway to begin the climb into the mountains. The scenery, as you can see from the photos in this post, was breathtaking. First we summitted an alpine pass and dropped down into a green valley full of horses and yurts. We climbed some more and descended into what looked to me like a granite mountain range reminiscent of the Wallowas, Trinity Alps, or Sierras. To a soundtrack of Russian, Kyrgyz, or possibly Kazakh pop music, the driver zoomed around a turquoise alpine lake, then through more mountains as the road paralleled a boulder strewn mountain stream.

We stopped for lunch and after staring at a menu entirely in Cyrillic I asked one of the college students using Google Translate (on his phone because mine didn’t have the Cyrillic keyboard installed yet) to order me some meat. Emerging from the squatty potty I rinsed my hands off at a tap and found half of a very tasty roasted chicken on a plate in front of me that cost me about $2.50.

When we got back in the car the landscape changed. The mountains were drier and though we still paralleled a mountain river, several times this stream turned into a lake with high cliff walls courtesy of Soviet era dams. In a few hours we emerged in the Fergana Valley, a breadbasket of Central Asia home to about 14 million people. The valley lies mostly in Uzbekistan but also bleeds into Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. At one point the road ran right next the Kyrgyz/Uzbek border, demarcated by two parallel barbed wire fences. Here the scenery reminded me more of Eastern Washington or the foothills of the California Central Valley, with temperatures to match. The driver had exhausted his flash drive of pop music so he and the university students started talking. They mostly seemed to be making comments about the slow, crappy drivers he was passing and the four totaled hatchbacks we came across. It’s also possible that they were making fun of me and all the photos I was taking through the passenger window and cracked windshield.

Eventually we arrived in Osh and the driver dropped me off at the Apple Hostel. I was greeted by the two volunteers I was taking over for, a German couple. I was relieved to be surrounded by people I could easily communicate with and very excited to explore more of Kyrgyzstan’s wildness once my time at the hostel is over. Now, 11 days later, that time is around the corner and it’s become clear to me that there is no way I’ll be able to find Banana Pancakes where I’m going - let alone fresh cherries, nectarines, or vegetables.

I’ve heard I’ll be subsisting on a diet of horse or yak meat and bread and will be offered fermented horse milk, which induces eight hours of sleep depriving nausea for Westerners the first time we have it. On the minibus or shared taxi rides I take from here on out I’ll be very lucky to get my own seat let alone a working seat belt and will have to rely on Google Translate since I haven’t had time to pick up much of any Russian. I’m still excited, when I was in SE Asia this was the kind of experience I craved, but just like that moment when my plane landed in Phnom Penh, I’m getting nervous about leaving behind the creature comforts I’ve enjoyed during my trip so far. I’m definitely looking forward to a break from washing linens, cleaning toilets, and being on call to check in guests at 2 AM.