For those of you interested in Central Asia, like I am, you should take notice of what’s going on in Kyrgyzstan today. Protesters have taken to the streets and are calling for the president’s resignation. As you’ll see in the video below, police have opened fire in the main square where I took my Bishkek…
Osh, Kyrgyzstan – Kashgar, China | 8 October, 2006 | $50 (overnight sleeper bus) This would be my third time traveling between Osh and Sary Tash on this trip and this time I decided to go by bus. The first time was in a large China Aid truck after my accident and the second time…
Osh, Kyrgyzstan | 7 October, 2006 | $4.12 My brilliant plan to get a ride from Tajikistan to Sary Tash, Kyrgyzstan and then to hitchhike on a truck to the Chinese border didn’t quite work out. We arrived in Sary Tash at dusk and were told that the Chinese border was closed for the next…
Nukus, Uzbekistan | 9 September, 2006 | $15 I arrived in Nukus at dusk and soon found out that most of the hotels were full of tour groups. My taxi driver kept circling the city, trying to find me a place to stay. The only reason to go to Nukus is to go to Moynaq,…
Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan | 31 August, 2006 | $3.82 After a week around Northeast Kyrgyzstan I finally got my Uzbek LOI (letter of Invitation) and spent another ten days in Bishkek trying to secure Uzbek and Tajik visas. I was in Bishkek for my birthday and it was nice to be in a place where I…
Song K?l Lake, Kyrgyzstan | 25 August, 2006 | $6.36 Although Song K?l is the second largest lake in Kyrgyzstan its incredibly inaccessible and only inhabited from June to September. I booked a homestay with a local herder through CBT and caught a car up from Kochkor with the couple I’d been traveling with and…
Kochkor, Kyrgyzstan | 23 August, 2006 | $6.36 Kyrgyzstan has a wonderful network of homestays across the country run by a community based tourism organization called, oddly enough, Kyrgyz Community Based Tourism Association (CBT). I had met a Dutch couple up at Altan Arashan that I got along with so we ended up traveling together…
Karakol, Kyrgyzstan | 22 August, 2006 | $8.90 After coming back from the countryside I stayed one more night in Karakol. My bunk room was taken so I was given this huge room with my own piano. The price includes a multi-course sit down dinner.
Altan Arashan, Kyrgyzstan | 20 August, 2006 | $15.27 This is one of the most beautiful places I’ve stayed. I suppose some of the beauty was in the remoteness and emptiness of the valley. I spent two nights here and probably could have stayed longer, sitting halfway up the mountain drawing and reading. Most people…
Karakol, Kyrgyzstan | 19 August, 2006 | $7 An interesting Russian man owned the large house where I slept in Karakol?a small town near the Eastern edge of Lake Issyk-Kul. Out back was a beautiful yard full of flowers and a garage heaped with old cars, motorcycles and miscellaneous metal parts and tools. Some people…
Cholpon-Ata, Kyrgyzstan | 17 August, 2006 | $7.63 I arrived by bus in this town on the edge of Lake Issyk-Kul and wasn’t sure where to go. Although the town was full of tourists almost all of them were Russian and there was little catering to the English-speaking tourist. I ended up following a sign…
Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan | 14 August, 2006 | $3.85 USD I loved this hostel! At the time I was there is was quite new and not in any guidebooks but still full which is a testament to how nice, laid back guesthouses are needed in Central Asia. I took an minibus overnight from Osh and a…
Osh, Kyrgyzstan | 10 August, 2006 | $20.36 USD After the car accident the previous night I was delivered to Osh by China Aid truck, pickup, minibus and taxi. The cheap guesthouse I wanted to stay in was full. They offered to let me stay on the living room floor but I wanted to pull…
Sary Tash, Kyrgyzstan | 9 August, 2006 | $0 USD Apparently, this China Aid truck is where I slept in Sary Tash. Three years later I still don’t remember, due to the car accident I was in somewhere near the China-Kyrgyz-Tajik borders. Read all about it here.
Most of you know how fascinating I found Central Asia on my last trip but it’s not often in the U.S. news. I see today that Reuters is reporting that the U.S. military base in Kyrgyzstan will probably be shut down. First Uzbekistan kicks the U.S. out, now Kyrgyzstan. The U.S. presence in Kyrgyzstan certainly…
I feel horrible that I’ve been keeping such a huge secret from all of you loyal readers for so long. There’s a reason why I didn’t write much about Kyrgyzstan a year ago—I was in a pretty bad car accident somewhere between the Chinese border and the tiny town of Sary Tash. A year later…
When I travel for long periods of time (I’m almost at five months now), some places and even countries fade from my memory quickly. When I left Bishkek in September, and then again in early October, it was a peaceful place. But today I got an email from Nargiza, the girl who posed as my…
After sitting around in Osh, Daniel (the Australian thrid of Team America—the name they made up for our three-person travel group in Tajikistan), flew into town and in a whirlwind I was on a bus to Kashgar. Because there was an actual bus we were pretty sure that the border was open. We never got…
Today I finally found where to buy fresh bread near my gueshouse in Osh. The directions I was given were classic: Take a right after walking past the garbage cans and mini market. From there look for the Kyrgyzstan Resturaunt on your right. The sign is in Russian. In-between Kyrgyzstan Resturaunt and Kyrgyzstan Cafe there’s…
and China won’t let me in. Tajikistan started and ended on bad notes (waiting for permits in Dushanbe… almost getting into a fight with the militsia in Murgab and projectile vomiting at 3,800 meters), but everything in-between was completely amazing. I flew on a tiny 17-seater plane with no computers on board. We soared through…