Bishkek

After a long drive to drop Nash Mash back in Almaty, we were rewarded with a horrible 5hr coach journey with no air con, broken seats, and too little legroom. But despite the discomfort, we made it across the border into Kyrgyzstan! 🇰🇬 This is the only democracy in the region, and they take it very seriously here, which means more religious freedom and laidback police. Nice 👍🏼

This has been a fairly uneventful stop, where we've had time to restock on supplies, buy some warmer clothes for autumn at higher altitudes, and stretch our muscles ahead of another big road trip. We went to Osh Bazaar to get more dried fruit and bags of pistachios, cashews, and almonds.

We spent one day wandering around the city centre, and one day basking by the swimming pool at the hostel. This is the first swimming pool at a hostel we've seen since Southeast Asia—what a treat! It was a delight to spend a day by the pool and prepare our own meals. We haven’t cooked for ourselves in months, which feels deeply strange given that in our ‘normal’ lives one of us cooks every single day. Dan whipped up a pasta, the envy of the kitchen.

Chelsea has visited Bishkek before, for a friend’s wedding back in 2018, and things have certainly improved since then. The roads are still terrifying and potholed, but more of them have tarmac, and it feels like a city on the up, with more cafes and development in evidence. The local Uber, called Yandex, works in English now (it didn’t 7 years ago), and there are more recognisable brands in pharmacies and stores. The theory is that the war in Ukraine is taking all of Russia’s attention so Central Asian states have more latitude to build relationships further abroad, most notably with China and Turkey. Bishkek feels like a slightly more Muslim, slightly less vibey version of Almaty, quickly approaching cosmopolitanism, though with worse roads and drivers (somehow) 😅 There’s much more of that to come though, as we’ve picked up a new 4x4 and headed out into the wilderness...Baca lagi