The Victory Monument (of victory over Nazi Germany)

Airan, which is somewhere between yoghurt and cottage cheese and is drunk, weirdly enough

Stalls selling kymyz, which is fermented mare's milk. It's the national dish and is sold everywhere

Trying kymyz. It's actually not unpleasant. Kind of fizzy.

Where we spent most of the week - the garden at the Tunduk Hostel

Bishkek

Aug 23–27, 2024 in Kyrgyzstan ⋅ ☁️ 31 °C

From Almaty to Bishkek, on the bus, which was a bargain at £6 and was only meant to take 5 hours except that some idiot left their bag on the bus at customs so we all had to stand around in the sun waiting for the bus to come back. Other than that a straightforward border crossing and then a taxi across Bishkek.

We were staying in a decent hostel on the outskirts of town, in dorms for the first time in a while but they were cheap and it had a nice garden and a swimming pool so it was a good place to hang out. All sorts of really friendly and mostly very interesting people, with almost everyone doing some mental overland journey so we were in good company, including some who were cycling (rather him than us though).

It's a good thing it was pleasant because Bishkek, well, you don't go to Kyrgyzstan for Bishkek. We spent a day exploring the main square, park and city centre: the highlight was trying kymyz (fermented mare's milk, slightly alcohol, think champagne but with more protein) and some tasty kebabs but ultimately it is just quite a boring place so we decided to not flog a dead horse and preserve our energy.Read more