DAY 1/2 – ARRIVAL – TUESDAY SEPT 29 – WEDNESDAY SEPT 30
I'm flying Turkish Airlines to get to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. I really should have tried harder to find a flight with Emirates because Turkish airlines leaves a lot to be desired, even in business class. Istanbul doesn’t have much in the way of gates so most of their planes park out on the tarmac and you are bussed into the terminal. Luckily, I am not planning on going into Istanbul so I can just transit through the airport.
When we arrive, it is slightly raining and as the business class passengers deplane, the first group have already filled up the small bus and we are being waved onto the bigger bus but I ignore them as do most of the people behind me and we all crowd into the smaller bus for the ride into the terminal because we know the larger bus will wait until half the plane has joined it
. I’m standing in the back with my rolling bag that doesn’t want to behave and my purse and a walking stick. The bus is weaving all over the airport until it gets to an airplane path and then has to wait for planes to pass. After two planes passed, a third one was coming but suddenly all the buses and the trucks waiting made a mad dash across the front of the plane for the safety of the building. I am not sure we were ever in danger but looking at planes rolling towards you head on is really a tad bit scary.
We passed into the terminal with the majority heading to passport control but I was following a group going to transit. One lone man was checking our passports and boarding passes and then letting us through to the concourse. Don’t think he actually checked the passports. No security so I went upstairs and found the gate for my flight to Bishkek and went to it as I had less than 1/2 hour to board.
No order to boarding as everyone was lined up already when I got there so into line and finally made it back to a bus and was driven out to the next flight. Not as nice a plane which is too bad since it’s now quite late at night and I’m arriving in the morning and need to be awake so I’ll have to try and sleep. There’s no individual entertainment, the seats don’t recline very much at all but there is food. I wasn’t too hungry so didn’t eat much. But I was up every hour or so going to the toilet. Found out the Turkish crew was much more interested in having a good time on their own. Every time I went to the toilet, the crew was in the galley having ice cream sundaes or something else yummy. Their food was much more interesting and entertaining that what we had been served
. Very glad that I wasn’t traveling economy!
DAY ONE - BISHKEK, KRYGRYSTAN WEDNESDAY SEPT 30
I had paid for a pick up and for a room so that I would have a place to sleep and relax as soon as I arrived as I knew sleeping on the plane wouldn’t give me much rest. However, my roommate was scheduled to arrive the night before so I figured, per the program itinerary, that we’d spend the day wandering around Bishkek as it appeared today was actually going to be pretty much our only day there. We are not scheduled to meet our team leader/guide until 6 p.m. this evening.
So it was with great relief that I saw my name when I came out of arrivals and also that I had my suitcase which had grown in dimensions since I had started packing and decided I couldn’t manage with the duffel I had. As usual, I have come with too much.
Slava is my driver and he looks and sounds Russian but he says he’s Kyrgyzstani. I’m not sure if he speaks too much English. I ask him about exchanging money and he sort of grunts at me not to do it in the airport but in town would be better
. So we are away in a van and driving into Bishkek which seems to be a very long way from the airport.
We are passing numerous fields, a lot of which are empty, some of which are growing crops, and some of which have half built houses in them as if the builders started and then ran out of money. Know in many of these places, you just keep building a bit and then a bit more as money becomes available so it’s possible to have homes in all sorts of phases of construction. We do pass an onion domed church which is quite new and lovely and has an LED sign running across the front, probably announcing the times of worship.
Slave pulls to a stop in front of some buildings which don’t look at all like a hotel and comes around to open the door for me. He says "exchange money" so I hop out and we go in to get some Kyrgyzstani Som. I try to exchange $40 in two $20 bills and the lady is unhappy. Now Slava speaks more English and tells me she would prefer a $50 or $100. So I exchange $50 and get several hundred Som for it. And then we are off again.
Finally, we pull up in front of our hotel which had been changed earlier this week
. At first we were in town but now we are about a mile outside of the main center and tourist area of town. There are a number of people waiting outside the hotel (to get in, we had to drive down a side street and have them open the barricade for us to get to the reception area.) Slava tells me this is my group. Oh, huh? As I’m getting out of the van and getting my bags, my roommate comes out so I do know it is actually my group and I walk over to talk to her. She says the group is 8 people only and that they are getting ready to go into town to look around. A lady associated with Peregrine tours (the company) comes over to me and says she needs the money, passports photos and passport as she is going to go into town to get our Tajikistan visas which the company had said would be gotten the first day (as in after we met the guide tonight at 6 p.m.) But no problem. My roommate gave me the key to our room and I went up with my bags and tried to find my passport photos which were not where I expected them to be so I had to go and tell her I’d lost them. No problem since everyone is going into town, she’ll just take me somewhere to get photos taken – although at first she thought I had lost my passport and couldn’t figure out how I got into the country without it.
So we are back into the van and riding into town. We stop at a main corner and she points out the direction to a department store, to a park and to a couple of other buildings but I am in the dark about it all as my head is still spinning from just arriving and jumping into the thick of things. So I am going with Katya, the Peregrine representative, and the rest of the group has graciously decided to wait for me in the park across the street where there are numerous statues.
We go downstairs to an underground passage under the street and head into a small room where someone sits there with a camera and a computer
. We have to wait for him to finish with a small boy and then they take my photo and then I give it to Katya, we go back to street level and I see my roommate and the other tour members across the street in the park so I go to meet them and Katya disappears with the passports, money and photos from all of us, except the two Brits who had gotten their Tajikistan visas along with their Uzbekistan visas. Why we didn’t do that too, have no idea since we all used the same visa company.
Into the park which I think was Dubovy Park. Lots of statues there but mainly one of Kurmanjan Datka who is on the 50som note. This is from Wikipedia which I looked up to find out more about her as the guide book only mentioned her statue and name:
“””Kurmanjan Datka (Kyrgyz: Курманжан Датка; or Datka Kurmanjan Mamatbai kysy) (1811–1 February 1907), also known as "The Tsaritsa of Alai" or "The Queen of the South," was a stateswoman in Kyrgyzstan, who initiated annexation of that region to Russia.
Kurmanjan was born into a rich family of the Mongush clan in the Osh
. At the age of 18 she was supposed to be married to a man whom she did not see until her wedding day. When she met him, she did not like him and broke with tradition — first fleeing into neighboring China and later deciding to stay with her father, Mambatbai. In 1832, the local feudal lord, Alimbek, who had taken the title, "Datka", and ruled all the Kyrgyz of the Alai, was attracted by the young, vivacious woman, and married her. An instrumental politician in the increasingly decrepit Kokand khanate, Alimbek was murdered in the course of a palace coup in 1862 and Kurmanjan was recognized by the khans of Bukhara and Kokand as ruler of the Alai and given the title of "Datka".[1] In 1876 the Alai region was annexed by the Russian Empire. Recognizing the futility of resistance, Kurmanjan Datka persuaded her people to accept Russian overlordship.
During the subsequent continuing unrest and sporadic attempts by the local population to shake off Russian supremacy, gun-running and smuggling were profitable businesses and two of Kurmanjan's sons and two of her grandsons were charged with contraband trade and murdering customs officials. When her favourite son was sentenced to death, she refused the urging of some of her followers to effect a rescue, saying that she would not let her private hopes and ambitions be the cause of suffering for her people; she actually attended her son's public execution. The others were then exiled to Siberia and she essentially retired from public life.
In 1906, she was visited by Baron Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim (later President of Finland) who was a colonel in the Russian army at the time. Mannerheim took her photograph. She died six months later.[2] Kurmanjan Datka lived to be over 90 and was survived by two sons, two daughters, 31 grandsons, 57 great grandsons and six great-great-grandsons
.
In 1995 a then newly founded women's committee was named after her. Now it is known as Women's Public Union “Erayim”.
In 2014, the film "Queen of the Mountains" or "Kurmanjan Datka" (original title) was released, which centers around the story of her life.”””
The square with all its statues looks more like a revolutionary fighters square but outside of the statues, not much there so we continue to wander deeper into the park and follow the sounds to a rally. Did not realize it until later that they were having their elections this week. There are 14 different parties and throughout the city, we would see banners over the roads with the different party candidates and their party number. Turns out we have now wandered into a party rally for party number 14.
There are a series of banners leading towards the rally which look like Russian propaganda posters. There is a stage which is being set up with this party’s colors and flags and balloons. There are a couple or three rows of seats across from the stage and the seats are mostly filled with older people
. A young group of girls with dance costumes in the party colors are waiting to perform. We stand to watch and hopefully see the girls dance.
As we are standing there, we are people watching and people are watching us too. Several people try to talk to us but it’s obvious that we don’t understand. One older man, who seemed to not be totally put together, comes up and starts chattering to us. He is really impressed with my roommate and tries to get her to dance with him. One of the locals watching tells him that we are tourists and cannot understand him but it doesn’t deter him from trying and coming back to us several times. He wants his photo taken so I oblige.
Finally, we give up on the girls performing. It is taking too much time to get the stage ready. Supposedly there is a statue of Lenin close by so we head out of the park and on down the street. We pass a statue which looks more like Marx to me and are across from the American University. We head back towards the main street and find Lenin. Walking past him, we are coming up the side of the State Historical Museum and come to statues of the founding fathers plus a huge flagpole in front of the museum and we are in Ala Too Square or Freedom Square. There is a guard station at the base of the flagpole and we are mistakenly inside the roped off area and are gestured at to get out of there
. Everyone is able to duck under the ropes but me and I have to go to the lowest point to get out which is right in front of the guards but nobody seems to mind as they could tell I was trying to get out. They do have a changing of the guard ceremony but nobody seems to be around who can tell us when that is.
Across the street from Ala Too are two long buildings that have murals in blue and white all along the street front. Quite lovely. We continue down the street until we are in front of the White House. A bit hard to tell from the Central Asia book we are working out of but we are pretty sure that’s where we were and it was impressive.
Two members of the group wanted to walk on down the street. These two turned out to be the big walkers of the group. My roommate and another and I turned back so we could hit the department store. There were rumors of souvenir shops on the third floor of the big department store.
As we are passing by the large flag and guards again, there are several people standing in front who look like tourists and it is 10 minutes before 2 p.m. So we figure we’ll wait until 2 and see if changing of the guard happens
. We walk over to sit beside another tourist who is English speaking. We’re talking to him and suddenly realize that the changing of the guards is happening so we rush over to get photos. Three soldiers have come up the side of the flag with hip high level goose stepping and come around to the front of the flag. One is barking orders and the other two are climbing the steps where they exchange places with the two men who are retiring from guard duty. They then goose step down the stairs and follow the order man back around the corner and down the sidewalk towards the museum, goose stepping all the way. I am not sure I could do that. My balance wouldn’t be good enough to keep it up more than a step or two.
The square is quite busy with a small boy selling bags of pink cotton candy. You can rent a bicycle, single or tandem, and ride around. And there are plenty of locals out and about. We head for the department store. The bottom looks exactly like a big Korean department store with separate counters of people selling every manner of cameras and phones and watches. We take the escalator up and find clothing, up more to appliances. Not sure if we are high enough so we go up further and find more clothing but more traditional. We give it one more floor and find one souvenir shop so we head for it. My roommate is finding stuff that she wants and settles in to bargain. Our other companion wanders around and finds that there are many more souvenir shops towards the back of the floor. Many of them are selling the same type of items. We’re mainly interested in T shirts but I end up with a t shirt, a magnet, and 2 small dolls dressed in the traditional manner of Kyrgyzstan
Don’t know about the other two but I am starving by now but we cannot find a place in the store to eat so we find a taxi to get us back to the hotel and go to eat in the restaurant there which is abysmally slow but it’s food and welcome. Another tour member joins us. We have until 6 when we are meeting our guide. But she has come with some unwelcome news. She had gone with Katya because she needed to still get her Uzbek visa. Katya had been unsuccessful in getting the Tajikistan visas for the group. According to the embassy, they were out of the stickers (the visas) for the passports. Their solution was to tell Katya to send us all to Almaty (the capital of Kazakhstan) to get our visas. My roommate has just come from spending several days there and as she is Canadian, she cannot go back because she has to have a visa before she goes. The rest of us can go across the border and get a visa as we cross.
Whatever the speculation is, we have to wait until 6 to see what the solution will be. So at 6 we meet downstairs in the lobby and Katya and Slava are there along with Anatoly who will be our other driver for this trip. Anatoly is also Kyrgyzstani but speaks only rudimentary English. He and Slava speak in Russian together. Katya informs us that our guide has been delayed in Osh, Kyrgyzstan and cannot get a plane to Bishkek until tomorrow. She gives us the options for the Tajik visas.
(1) We can drive to Almaty tomorrow, hopefully get the visas, and then drive back the next day where the company will then fly us to Osh to pick up the tour. Osh is a two day drive so they will fly us to pick up the slack.
(2) We can fly to Dushanbe, Tajikistan, and get our visas as we enter the country and take the tour in reverse and drive to Tashkent, Uzbekistan from Osh.
There is a whole lot of discussion about it but we aren’t sure what the choices really mean. And this is where we realize also that because my roommate is Canadian, she’s stuck in Bishkek until we get the visas in Almaty – IF that is what we are going to do.
AND to top it all off, at a few minutes after 6 p.m., a ninth member of our tour shows up at the door of the hotel. Katya had been unsure if she was coming or not. According to the program provided to us all by Peregrine, the tour was starting at 6 p.m. this evening so she was not late BUT since they had counted on getting our visas today, she would not have had a visa and we would have been late leaving the next day while they went to get her one. This should have sent alarm bells to all of us that the program was not going to work as scheduled and there would be big problems.
Slava takes over as our unofficial guide and gets us all into vehicles and we go out for dinner without an official tour leader. It is a long dinner with salad and bread and soup and dumplings and plov or osh (typical rice dish of the region – plov in Uzbekistan but osh here) with water and tea. The newest member of the group is being told what is happening and she is less than happy but willing to go to Kazakhstan to get the visas. So the plan is made to leave the hotel tomorrow morning around 8 as it is a 5 hour drive to Almaty. We should take our suitcases with us and plan on spending the night. So not a lot of sleep to get in tonight before we have to be up and away.
Back in our room, I am busy rearranging my suitcase and deciding that I can leave a small amount of stuff behind with my roommate. Since she is staying, I’ll come back to the same room. The others have to check out totally as they’ll get a different room when they return. While I am finding places to put my stuff out of her way, I open the closet and on the top shelf are two WWII era style gas masks!!! What a hoot!! And WHY??? We gamely take them out and try them on and take selfies and photos of each other and then post them on our Facebook pages because it is such a hoot. I had wanted to bring one back from Kadykchan, Russia, when I visited that deserted city but just didn’t have the room. It said that these masks were standard hotel room equipment so guess I can’t snag one here.
Our tour group now is 9 people, 2 Americans (myself and the lady from New York – the one who showed up at 6 p.m. like the schedule told her to do so), 2 Brits, one lady from London and one gentlemen from Wales, one Canadian (my roommate and friend), one lady from Mauritius who is now Australian, one older married couple from Australia, and another lady from Australia. Looks to be a good group. My roommate and I are the only ones, beside the married couple, who knew each other before the trip
