The wake-up call came at 2:30 AM for our flight to Bishkek. With the trouble in Osh the border to Kyrgyzstan was closed and we had to make a detour through to the north and then southeast of the country in order to get to China.
On the runway at the Bishkek airport we taxied passed a line of 14 US KC135 tanker transport planes that are used to aid operations in Afghanistan.
We were met by our new Kyrgyz tour leader, Tatiana who led us to the 15-seater bus that was to take us to the Chinese border. Driving into the city, the contrast of Bishkek to Tashkent was immediately apparent. The streets were busy with every make of car – Mercedes, Toyotas, Hondas, Audis – in contrast to Uzbekistan where all we saw were Uzbek-made trucks, buses and cars. The city was full of students, statues of socialist and Kyrgyz heroes, broad streets and lush green squares with huge elms. Tatiana explained that not one statue of Lenin or Marx was destroyed after the fall of the Soviet Union because the Kyrgyz people had been happy as part of the USSR. We visited the excellent national museum and a beautiful Russian orthodox church. We also drove past several building that had been burnt during the ‘popular’ uprising in April that forced President Bakiyev to leave the country.
We headed out of the city the next morning along one of main roads through Bishkek that translates as ‘silk road way’. It follows the trade route all the way to China. We drove for awhile alongside the border with Kazakhstan through lots of small villages and past the road side yurts selling fermented mares milk. Each town had its war memorial, all dated 1941 to 1945 (1941 being the date when Hitler invaded Russia). The first check point we came to was embellished by a tank parked by the side of the road.
Tatiana explained that there was still a lot of tension in the country after what had just happened in Osh and with the upcoming referendum on changes to the constitution. She made it clear that she believed that life had been much better in Soviet times when government policies forced people to live in ethnically mixed villages.
We saw lots and lots of livestock grazing in open pastures -horses, donkeys, sheep, yaks, and goats. Kyrgyz are outnumbered 2 to 1 by their livestock; two thirds of the population lives in rural areas.
Video of Kyrgyzstan herd...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkHebZ-tjuw
The mountains were sprinkled with fresh snow as we climbed higher on our second day on the road. We passed grave sites dating back to the 5th and 10th centuries and crossed velvety smooth pastures that were painted with wildflowers. We crossed four passes – 3038m; 3100m; 3574m; and finally the Torugart Pass (the border with China) at 3752 m.
Video of a 360 view along the road...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPICdG7tg_Q
Pictures driving through Kyrgyzstan to China...
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