Bye, Bishkek

It’s our final day in The Stans and we decided to have a lazy morning. Brad and I are the last two here. We thought it fitting to visit the Bishkek Central Mosque given mosques have been central to most of the places we’ve visited over the course of the tour.

This one is one of largest in Central Asia, with an area of more than 4,000 square metres, 38 metres high and with 70-metre-tall minarets. It cost $25 million funded by Turkey and was opened in 2018. It’s a copy of the Kocatepe Mosque in Ankara.

Once we’d finished our visit we took a leisurely walk to a café we visited a couple of days ago that’s in the middle of a park. We figured we’d enjoy sitting on a patio before we get back to chilly Toronto. It was a wonderful decision.

We meandered back to our hotel. We were fortunate that late checkout was available to us so we were able to go back to the room and relax and do final packing before our pick up to the airport.

We now begin the looong process of getting home. First leg - a flight from Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan to Almaty, Kazakhstan.Read more