Osh (Ош). June 29 - July 2, 2014

Sunday, June 29th.

We arrived in Osh, Kyrgyzstan's second city, around 2:30pm. The previous night we had no Internet and did not have any hotels in mind. So our plan was to head to a coffee shop, get some lattes, and Internet to find a hotel. The plan was thwarted, as 'the' coffee shop was closed. As we drove around planning our next move, we happened upon Hotel Nuru. We were shown a few of the deluxe rooms and since it was my birthday we decided to splurge on one of those :) The mercury had been rising steadily and showed 35C, so we stayed in our air conditioned mini suite for the rest of the afternoon. That evening we did venture out for dinner and ended up in 'Izyum Restaurant and Bar', a rather big place but quite well done. We enjoyed a lovely birthday dinner after which we noticed that they showed the World Cup soccer (Netherlands vs Mexico) on a big screen on an outside patio. So we ordered some more beers and watched the game there.

Monday, June 30th.

Very lazy day in our lovely cool room. We actually moved from the 'Japanese' themed room to the 'African' themed one. We decided to stay out of the heat during the day - we'll have enough of that in the following couple of weeks - and simply relaxed, read, played online, Stephen had a nap,...

We ventured out in the cool of the evening to Tsarkii Dvor, where we had average food and fine beer. Then we headed back to Izyum to watch France beat Nigeria. The satellite feed keep cutting out, and unfortunately we missed both goals. But the beer was good.

Tuesday, July 1st.

Another relaxing day. We did a little route planning for Uzbekistan and the rest of the trip to Eeklo in Belgium. In fact the itinerary is working out quite well and we will be able to enjoy a few cities in Northern Europe as we head west.

We did venture out during the heat of the day to see the local attraction, which is a big rock 'Sulaiman Too' in the center of town. It is a UNESCO world heritage site. Also found a bank to change some dollars so we could fill up Sterlin with fuel and provisions and pay for dinner. Cash machines do not seem to work for us here.

Dinner was at the Bridge Bar which is also a restaurant, and a fine dinner it was. And although the pub has a nicely presented decor, the place was completely empty, which was a little depressing. Ramadan had started, so maybe that was why it was empty, but we suspected people also don't go out as much here.

The UNESCO rock.

Our African themed room.

Wednesday, July 2nd

Yes, we got up at 2am to watch Belgium play USA. It was an exciting game and USA gave it their all. There was one very happy Belgian in Osh!

Caroline's 50th Birthday. June 29.

I figured this event merited its own entry :)

Never in my 50 years had I envisioned being in Kyrgyzstan on this day! Let alone in 'Hotel Turist' in Kara-Köl,  halfway between Bishkek and Osh, on the Eve of my 50th Birthday.

The drive from Bishkek to Osh is 660 odd kms, crossing 2 mountain passes, on good but not necesserily fast roads. It usually takes between 9 and 10 hours, so we decided to stop for the night somewhere in the middle. Hence Kara-Köl.
Our Garmin directed us to its only entry under 'lodgings' for the area and so we arrived at 'Hotel Turist', a tired looking left-over from the Soviet Era.

Hotel Turist.

Corridor in Hotel Turist.

But you know what? It wasn't half bad.

Even though the building had definitely seen (much, I hope) better days, the room was functional (hot water, working fridge, tv with one channel and it didn't show soccer), and more importantly bed linens and towels were clean.

Panorama shot to make our room look bigger... or not.

Believe me: it was clean. Provided towels
were a tad on the small side though.

View from our balcony - yes we had a balcony.

The lady at reception quickly warmed to us (in a Russian/Kyrgyz kind of way...) and when I showed her our intended dinner, pot noodles, she let us borrow what I think was the only kettle in the place as she wanted it back afterwards.
Dinner consisted of: pot noodles, Wasa crackers, canned luncheon meat, tea, and, a quarter of a bottle of wine left over from the night before (enjoyed by moi straight from the bottle as the provided glasses weren't that appealing).

Pot noodles for dinner on the eve of my 50th.

Pot noodles accompanied by..... wait for it....
spam on Wasa crackers!

After dinner we went for a stroll and then spent the evening reading while watching some Russian version of a talent show in the background. No internet.

Waking up the next morning I noticed the picture on the wall above my bed was of one of my favorite places in California: Yosemite. Not a bad sight to wake up to on one's 50th birthday.

Waking up to Yosemite.

Out of our supplies Stephen prepared me a wonderful birthday breakfast of cornflakes (the real stuff), yoghurt, nescafe coffee with real milk and orange juice.

Breakfast.

I turned 50 overnight!

We checked out around 9am and continued to Osh, where we arrived around 2:30pm.
At 4pm we were settled in our nice deluxe hotel room, a nice birthday treat for both of us to enjoy.
The last time we met up with Jennifer and Justin, in Karakol (Lake Issyk-Köl), they gave me a (long-life) cake they'd bought in anticipation of possibly meeting us again around my birthday. I enjoyed that chocolate-raspberry cake in the afternoon of June 29th, on my birthday, in our nice room, in Osh. Naturally I shared the cake with Stephen :)

Enjoying my Globatrol Birthday Cake.

We relaxed and stayed out of the heat and in our room for the rest of the late afternoon. At about 7:30pm we ventured out in search of a place for dinner and we found 'Izyum', within easy walking distance of our hotel. Interesting place: big 'restaurant' area, with a bar beside it, outside dining and a patio at the front. We didn't expect too much but and had a wonderful dinner accompanied with some beers.

50th Birthday Dinner.. no matter where.. 'Tough and Together'. 

Izyum's restaurant space.

Just before 10pm I noticed a reflection of a big screen and sure enough, they showed soccer on a big screen on the patio. So we moved over there to watch Netherlands beat Mexico 2-1 over a few more beers.
All in all not a bad way to spend one's 50th birthday.
Now let's hope Belgium will make it through to the next round as well!!

Last but certainly not least: I want to thank my family and my friends for the lovely birthday wishes, sentiments, notes, messages (email, facebook, skype,...).
It was a very good and warm feeling to read all of them and they made my day extra special!!!

To Osh (Ош). June 28-29, 2014.

Saturday, June 28th.

We said goodbye to Nomad Hostel and Bishkek and started our drive towards Osh. Getting out of the city took some time, as it usually does, even here there was urban sprawl. Shortly after clearing most of that sprawl we spotted familiar cops hiding in the shadows, but in passing I very obviously held up the iPhone filming them and we believe that may have deterred them from pulling us over that time... And we weren't bothered anymore for the rest of the day.

The road first went west but after a while we turned south through the mountains and 2 passes, with a beautiful green valley in between, towards Osh.

All kinds of traffic on the first pass through the mountains.

You can see the bottom of the road that we just climbed.

Beautiful green valley.

Beautiful green valley.

Getting through the second mountain range.

We always planned to do the drive over 2 days (we had time to kill since our Uzbekistan visas didn't allow us to enter before July 2nd), so in Kara-Köl (not to be confused with Karakol at the east side of Lake Issyk-Köl) we hoped to find a place to sleep for the night. Kyrgyzstan did not strike us as the country to go free-camp, so for us that was not an option.
Had it not been for an entry 'Unnamed' (*) in the category 'Lodgings' on our Garmin we would never have found 'Hotel Turist'! So yes, we followed the directions to the only lodgings entry in within 50+km and found this tired looking Soviet era hotel. But you know what? It turned out to be alright: although everything looke worn and tired inside and out, everything was clean, including linens, which was the main thing. And the shower had hot water. the place was actually quite busy with locals and foreigners alike (we met South Korean travelers staying here), so this was obviously the place to be. Not too difficult to imagine as it is most likely the only option about misdway between Bishkek and Osh.

Quite the location for the last day of my 49th year!

Hotel Turist.

Sunday, June 29th.

On this here my 50th birthday, we continued our drive south towards Osh. The first part was again through beautiful mountains before it flattened out and became less appealing. Again a cop-free day for us although we saw them in several locations.

We'll never tire of scenery like this.

Another beautiful vista.

(*) There are lots of entries called 'Unnamed' and it has to do with our Garmin not supporting any other than Latin characcters; that's just the software we have on it.

Back in Bishkek (Бишкéк). June 26-28, 2014

Thursday, June 26th

We stayed at Nomad Hostel again, checking in just after lunch. In the afternoon we went for a long walk in search of three places, 1) A french style restaurant where we planned to have dinner, b) Sierra Coffee, a coffee joint owned by a New Zealander and c) the Uzbekistan Embassy just so we knew where it was for the appointment the next morning. We failed miserably to find any of the three. In fact we ended up walking around for 4kms in the wrong direction (thank you Google maps). But we did find a shopping mall and did a little window shopping. Caroline's birthday was only 3 days away after all. Once back at our hotel we searched for the embassy, only to discover it was a mere 700 meters away. Oh well, we got to see quite a bit of leafy Bishkek.

We had a superb dinner at Obama Grill and Steakhouse.

Friday, June 27th

Today was visa day. We headed to the Uzbekistan Embassy for our 10am appointment only to find many other people milling around all with the very same 10am appointment time. At roll-call we found out that we were 6th in line. We only had to wait 1 hour and 20 minutes before we were let in to be processed. The very good news, less than 5 minutes later we walked out with our Uzbekistan visas. This was the last visa we needed before getting to Belgium, so it was a good feeling to have this secured.

To celebrate, we headed to and, this time, found Sierra Coffee and had a mighty fine brew and lunch. We stayed there for quite some time, relaxing in the nice cool space.
Afterwards we paid a visit to the nearby modern shopping mall, where, the day before, a certain 'birthday-girl-to-be' had spotted some nice clothes that would do very well as a birthday present :)
In the evening we set out again, determined to find 'U Frantzuza' this time. First one of the online maps directed us to its sister winebar, and at least there we were pointed in the right direction. Turned out we were very close the day before but missed it by half a block. We sat down for dinner in the 'garden' but were generally disappointed with the quality of food and service.

That evening, upon getting back to our hostel, we met Martijn and Dieter, 2 (slightly crazy, good natured) Belgians on tour in Kyrgyzstan in a rental car. We swapped some stories, mostly about encounters with the blatantly corrupt police.

Didn't take any pictures really...

Around Lake Issyk Kul (Ысык-Көл). June 23-25, 2014.

Monday, June 23rd

We left Bishkek and headed east towards Issuk-Köl, the lake in the north-east of Kygryzstan. The lake is huge and we planned 4 days to drive around it, putting us back in Bishkek on Friday (June 27th) to visit the Uzbekistan Embassy to pick-up our visas.

Along the way to the lake we made a detour through the back roads to visit Burana Tower. This is a 24m high stump of a Minaret supposedly dating back to the 11th century but most of what one sees is a Soviet restoration from the 1950's (according to the Lonely Planet). It can be climbed for a small fee. Of course Stephen climbed it. As much fun were the Turkic totem-like stone markers, 'balbals' dating from the 6th to 10th century, in a nearby field.  Our tourist activity was completed with a visit to the small museum where the nice lady gave us a guided tour. Hard to believe this was quite the place in its day.

Slightly leaning Burana Tower.

6th to 10th century 'balbals'.

It was so nice to spend time on the back roads. We told ourselves we have to do more of this. Our GPS took us on a convoluted route, but it was fun. And we had time. Not soon after we joined the fast roads and were flagged down by police hiding around a corner. Unknown to us, we were meant to be driving with our headlights on. Maybe a rookie mistake, but we knew the shakedown was coming. The second mistake was handing over Stephen's California drivers license. Clearly we have a lot to learn about dealing with the 'Police'. The situation was resolved with a negotiated sum of 500 soms (around USD $10).  The Police officer (aka thug) claimed the alternative was a fine, payable in Bishkek where we could also collect the drivers license (once paid). In hindsight, maybe we could have waited and talked ourselves out of this. Of course not everyone is driving with their head lights on (it's about 50-50, and in some places even less with lights on) and there were no signs telling us that we must have head lights on, which made this whole process quite frustrating. Our zero-tolerance for bribery wasn't not working out that well. The rest of the drive was painless and the mountain scenery was really quite beautiful. It was for that scenery that we came to Kyrgyzstan after all.

Lake Issyk-Köl is suurounded by mountains.

We took the northern road and around 3pm started to look for a place to stay. The towns along the lake were not that inspiring, the best of the bunch seemed to be Cholpon-Ata, where we stopped at the very nice '3 Crowns Hotel' (Tri Koroni). Dinner was at a small local eatery where they had real trouble understanding us. But after pointing at some pictures we got bread, salad and shashlik, so we were happy.

Tuesday, June 24th

The morning tourist activity was a visit to the nearby petroglyphs. The visit was pretty good, with the stones laid out in a large field. We could wander around on a mini treasure hunt looking for markings, some dating back to The Bronze Age (1500BC) but most are anywhere from 8th century BC to 1st century AD.

The most obvious of the petroglyphs.

Some petroglyphs are bit trickier to spot.

The rest of the day was spent driving to Karakol. Although the distances are not too far and the roads are very good, our progress was a little slow due to lots of little towns with unclear speed limits and the constant threat of Police lurking in the trees. But we made it without being stopped. The drive was very nice with the lake being surrounded by snow capped mountains.

Once at Karakol we headed to the Madanur Hotel  (English site to come online later) to retrieve a Macbook Air charger left by Craig from Bermuda Rover. Getting the charger back to him would have to be sorted out later. The lady running the hotel was very nice and after having a look at the small but clean rooms, we decided to book in for the night.

Caroline found a nice coffee shop (Karakol Coffee) selling lattes. We updated our blog quickly that we were in Karakol, just in case Jennifer and Justin were passing through. Less than an hour later they sent an email and we had a small catching up. We finished the evening with a nice stroll around town and dinner in one of the few restaurants.

Catching up with Jennifer and Justin.

Russian Orthodox church in Karakol.

Wednesday, June 25th

The hotel manager kindly rang the Uzbekistan Embassy to make an appointment for us. We were lucky to get an appointment for 10am on Friday (June 27th). Before leaving town we got our caffeine fix in Coffee Karakol and ended up having an interesting chat with the owner.

The drive around the southern side of the lake was a little less developed and a little nicer for it. The road was also a little closer to the lake shore which helped. Along the way we visited Fairytale Canyon. We drove up and did a small hike around the canyon. Nothing to grand, but good to break the day's drive.

South shore of Lake Issyk-Köl.

South shore of Lake Issyk-Köl.

Fairy Tale Canyon.

There are not so many hotels along the southern route, so we ended up in Balykchy, which is a bleak little town. It has one redeeming feature, which is a very new and very nice hotel. It turned out to be a good place to stop for the night. We had pot-noodles in our room for dinner.

Thursday, June 26th

As we drove out of Balykchy the over-achieving Police stopped us, and just about ever car passing. And although we had done nothing wrong, they were clearly delaying us and looking to find a way to extract a bribe. A local stepped up and told the Police something and things got a little tense. The father of the local was clearly not happy his son was intervening on our behalf, and the local himself was visibly shaking, presumably from the stress of the situation. The whole exchange was in Russian and it was hard to tell what was happening. In the end our documents were returned and we went on our way. It was heartening to see that a local, while being hassled himself, spoke out to help us, at risk to himself. The whole Police shake-down thing gets old very quickly and leaves a really bad taste. We crawled the rest of the way to Bishkek without incident.

Bishkek (Бишкéк). June 21-23, 2014

Saturday, June 21st

We had pre-booked a guesthouse that is a favorite with overland travelers called Nomads and headed straight to it based on GPS coordinates kindly provided by Craig. We arrived to find they did not have our booking.com reservation. We quickly worked out that we had incorrectly booked the Nomad Hostel (instead of Nomad's Home). As luck would have it, Nomad Hostel was very nice, and more to our liking. The fact that we had one of their 2 private rooms, and that there were only a few other guests at the time also helped. We immediately got a much needed load of washing going.

Getting cash was a little more tricky than most places. ATMs seemed to accept Visa but not Cirrus/Maestro, which is what our ATM card uses. Fortunately there were about 10 money changers on each street corner. So, we quickly obtained the local currency.

After a brief walk around we headed for Obama Cafe and Restaurant for a very nice meal. It did not take us long to start to like this city.

Sunday, June 22nd

We relaxed and enjoyed Bishkek. There were not many sights to see as such, but there were nice parks full of sculptures, tree lined streets and the shops were modern. The drivers are a little crazy, but that was to be expected.

Based on advice from our Lonely Planet guidebook we did find the magic ATM which works with our cash card.

Dinner was at Sushi and Pasta, another very good choice. We stayed in for the night and watched Belgium defeat Russia in a very close match.

Monument to something.

Lots of nice shady parks.

Kebab for lunch.

Across the Kazakhstan/Kyrgyzstan Border. June 21, 2014.

Saturday, June 21st

It is always good to start a border crossing day with a coffee. So we did.

The 200-odd km drive to the border was on very good roads, but with the usual dangerous drivers, slow trucks, poorly marked pedistrian crossings in the middle of the highways, unclear speed signage, police everywhere and silly overtaking restrictions. Even with these obstacles, we made relatively good time to the border. About 30 kms short of the border Stephen said, "hard to believe we will drive through Kazakhstan without being stopped once by the police". Less than 3 minutes later we were stopped. But the police check was quick and efficient. Maybe we dazzled the cop with our highly organized and folderized paperwork.

The border crossing on the Kazakhstan side was frustrating, but once it was all complete, the clock revealed that it had only taken 1 hour. It felt like a very long 1 hour, but still quite quick compared to some other crossings. The actual processing time was less than 5 minutes, and the rest was waiting around trying to work out what to do. Twice Stephen was pulled to one side and into an office hidden from security cameras and asked directly and persistently for money. First by the border police and then by customs. Our zero tolerance for bribes paid off, but probably was the reason for our subsequent excessive processing delays. Kazakhstan immigration was friendly, and they even joked about the poor showing by England the night before in the FIFA World Cup football.

The crossing into Kyrgyzstan was delightful in comparison. Customs was extremely friendly and helpful while immigration were massively efficient. Even with completing temporary import paperwork for Sterlin, we were through in 20 minutes. Only to have this spoiled 400 meters after the border when we were singled out for a quick check by the traffic police. We were waved on once the cop worked out that we didn't speak Russian. He did glance at our paperwork, but not sure what he was looking for.

Overall a good crossing.

Almaty (Алматы). June 19-21, 2014.

Thursday, June 19.

We loved Almaty.

Unfortunately we would not be staying more than 2 nights here.

On arrival in the city we looked for a coffee shop, with wifi, to enjoy a latte and to look for a place to stay (as opposed to driving around and trying to find something). We decided on Mildom Apartments, went to check it out, liked what we saw and checked in for 2 nights. It has a superb location in the city center with very competitive rates.

Upon checking our emails we had a message from Justin and Jen, who we'd met in Ölgiy, and who had also just arrived in Almaty. We met up at Bar Raketa for drinks and dinner and a good old chat about overland travel and visa issues :).
When we turned in that night we were still planning to do 3 things the next day: 1) go to the immigration Police to try and get our visa changed, 2) take Sterlin to the Landrover Dealer for his check-up, and 3) go to 'Stantours' to sort our some logistics for our LOI for Uzbekistan.


Friday, June 20.

That morning, over coffee and tea in our room, while preparing to go the Immigration Police and possible stand inline for a long time (apparently the office can get crazy busy), to most likely be told that our visa category cannot be changed, we both kinda just decided: 'you know what... let's not bother with it.' Losing a lot of time instead of using the little time we had here to walk around, all of a sudden didn't seem right. We decided to leave KZ the next day and cross into Kyrgyszstan.

So we drove to Landrover where Sterlin was seen to immediately. The people and service were top-notch. They even called us a taxi (on their tab) to allows us to meanwhile go to Stantours. By the time we got back to the garage the job on Sterlin was almost finished. Around noon we drove out of the garage, with Sterlin given a clean bill of health.

And then we just enjoyed the afternoon in this very green and leafy city: lunch, walked around and relaxed. We did also find a Nomad Insurance office where we managed to buy Third Party insurance for our trip through Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and back into KZ. Incidently, when the lady in the office saw our immigration cards she immediately commented: 'It's annoying that they make a little mistake and then they won't fix it.' She was adamant they wouldn't even consider changing it. Which made us feel even better about not wasting time trying.
That evening we again got together with Jennifer and Justin, this time at The Shakespeare Pub (website looks a little bit nicer than the actual pub, but it did us nicely). Food, drinks and good fun alround and lovely talking to like-minded people.

Love that building.

Zenkov Cathedral in Panfilov Park.

Dinner and many drinks with Jennifer and Justin.

To Almaty (Алматы). June 18-19, 2014.

Wednesday, June 18.

We decided to go with the 'gun it to Almaty' option which meant covering 1130km in 2 days. That way we'd arrive in Almaty on Thursday evening, have the Friday to sort the car and paper work, and try and sort out the visa issue.

The day's driving didn't get off to a good start with what seemed like endless roadworks of the worst kind (ie.: road ripped up, extremely uneven surface and traveling in the dirt, with serious speed and over-taking restrictions). With the distance we wanted to cover that day we almost wavered and turned around (to head back to the Russian border and try and sort out the visa issue there) but we gritted our teeth and continued. The roads were some of the worst we've had during the whole trip and they never really got better: if there weren't any road works it was all potholes (lots of them and of the kind that would do serious damage to our car); and the few better stretches were full of speed restrictions that seemed ridiculous most of the time. But with the reputation of the police here, one sticks to them (even most of the locals do). The scenery along the way..... flat and uninspiring is putting it mildly. We left Semey at 9:00am and arrived in a place called Sarkand at 8:30pm (11.5 hours later), where we found a small, clean and friendly hostel for the night. Potnoodles and a beer were a feast that night.

We covered 716kms that day. Epic.


Thursday, June 19.

Early start as we anticipated the same road conditions and, with more townships en route, even more speed restrictions. And we were - unfortunately - not wrong. On this second day towards Almaty we only had 440km to go.
We arrived in Almaty around 4:30pm.

Some of the 'better' roadworks....
it may mot look it but very slow going..

Ridiculous speed restrictions on the good stretches

The landscape didn't have much to offer either.
This is all we saw the first day.

A little more variety towards the end of the second day.