A ridiculously early start,  up at 1.30am to get ready to check out, get in yet another taxi, and off to the airport for the short 3.45am flight from Samarkand to Tashkent.  Today I fly onwards to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.

In between flight 1 and flight 2, there is a brutal 12-hour gap.  Nothing is straightforward forward though, it would not be travel otherwise.  My first flight was domestic into terminal 3 in Tashkent.  Flight 2 is international from terminal 2.

Last year I was stuck in Rio airport for 20 hours, which was painful.  This 12 hours, but there is less to do, no internet, and fewer restaurants.  But as I wandered around aimlessly I stumbled across “left luggage”.  When I checked airport info it said there wasn’t one, so this was a nice surprise.  I got out all freed up and no longer tied to the airport.  I spent the beautiful Sunday morning wandering around and sitting out in the sunshine.  Tashkent is nice in the sunshine. Seeing chatting Babushkas on street corners, shop vendors setting up for Sunday trading, and an aging men’s soccer game getting ready to start. It was nice to take stroll and watch the Tashkent world go by.

After wandering I found a park bench to wile away time in the warm Sunday sun, iPod music was excellent and so 5 hours later I was able to collect my luggage, check-in, and get through immigration for one more time.

Kyrgyzstan here I come, and to think a couple of years ago I’d never heard of it, and certainly couldn’t spell it!

The following day beautiful sunshine welcomed me to Kyrgyzstan as I headed out early to Ala Arch National Park, which is just 30 minutes outside of the capital of Bishkek.  94% of Kyrgyzstan is mountains, so it seemed appropriate to head out to a park that travelers rave about.  An Archa is a tree that abundantly grows here, hence Ala Archa Park.

The views in and around the park are lovely and the air is a clear crystal.

There is no denying the scenery was special, the fresh air, and the water than runs as clear as glass.  I had an English-speaking guide for the /tour who was a little bit crap.  Smoking, phone calls and texting and not great with information, not all people are ideal for the role of a daily tour guide. He was a policeman in his past career….maybe he should have stayed that way?

We went for lunch at Kyrgyzstan’s restaurant Navat.  I bravely tried the national dish of horse meat and noodles.  Not sure about that one!
The ornate Navat teahouse or colorful inside.

The tour guide remained on his phone.  Just to round things off badly, he dropped me at a local bazaar to explore.  I thought he’d come back, but apparently that was not in the plan . To be honest, I was happy to be the navigator of my own day.

The bazaar was busy but a little underwhelming, so I wandered off to find new pastures.  New city, no map and no idea where I was.  Just as I like it. My learned advice for situations like this, have the address of your hotel on your phone and in the local language.  I learned that lesson a long time ago in Japan. With this as a safety net, everything always works out fine. Obviously, in this day and age I should have a working phone in foreign countries, but what’s the fun in that?

A hotel popped, so I wandered in to get a street map, and that meant I was set, apart from the fact that I had no ide where on the map my hotel was.  Fun times exploring.

I made my way back to Aloo Too Square, explored parks and local sites, meandered down roads as I tried to navigate street names using my limited understanding of Russian alphabet. It comes from the Cyrillic script, so can be a little tricky. Though I made my way around and ventured to the hotel safely.

On my second day I had only two places I wanted to explore, unsurprising the first one was a football ground.  The second was the National History Museum of Kyrgyzstan to provide the links to the dots with Kyrgyzstan and the Silk Road, and later how the fall of the USSR in 1991 worked out here. I find that each Soviet Republic had differing paths but the catalyst for change had strong connections to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

FC Dorado Bishkek is in second place in the Kyrgyzstan Premier League is FC Dordoi Bishkek.. When I say Premier League, I use that term loosely. That said, the first team players are professional and were formed in 1997.

Followed that with a walk around the abundant parks that set off Bishkek well, and to the largest mosque in Central Asia that was opened in 2018 by Turkish president, Erdogan. The ornate and impressive mosque can accommodate 9000 people.

Rounding the day out with a beer and food at a roof top restaurant with views of Bishkek.