Getting around Bishkek

I'm back home but just had a couple more blog posts to send out!

In Bishkek mostly we walked, but because of the very efficient public transport system and after a bit of orientation, we found it quite easy to make our way around Bishkek using the public transport system.

  We discovered an extremely helpful website that made our getting around much simpler than it might have been. bus.kg  We simply clicked on the map of the city, set departure and destination points and it worked out the best way to get us from Point A to Point B.

We found marshrutkas, their minibuses, really handy. Pay 10 som as you get on (about 20c) and ride as far as you want. So simple.

 They were a bit hot and airless on these 38⁰ days, but we are young enough and fit enough to survive. Young people always get up for older people. That helps.

Depending on where we wanted to go, trolley buses were sometimes our best option. We caught the number 4 or 17 to church on Sundays. Pay 8 som as you get off, about 16 cents for us.

  If we had been wanting to catch a taxi, on the other hand, we would be able to find one parked and waiting on any street corner!! Not where we would expect to see a taxi parked, is it?

We didn't use taxis very often because my limited Russian vocabulary wouldn't have been sufficient to get our message across of where we wanted to go and then not have them rip us off as we got out.

And as it is Summer at the moment and can be pretty hot (high 30's most of last week) we made use of the drink stands that appear on just about every street corner in the city. These sell a variety of local drinks for 6 som (about 12 cents), including iced tea, compote, made from fresh fuirt, Maksim and Kumys.

Maksim is a wheat based drink that Kyrgyz like to drink in the summer and is said to be particularly healthy.

Another one is Kumys - fermented mare's milk. Both of these, I would have to say, must be acquired tastes!

This girl was at the corner of our street and was a friendly face as we walked by. I bought my iced tea from her a couple of times.

For those of you who have wondered, if ever there are words in blue and 'different looking' like bus.kg at the top of this blog post, if you click on that it will take you to a website with information about what I have mentioned.

Bishkek

To me it seems that Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, is trying to move on.
There are signs of the old and the new - the old Soviet days and the new Kyrgyz Republic.

It is common to see once-grand buildings falling into disrepair,

 

and cranes at work on new buildings.

There are crumbling footpaths

and stunning city squares.

This is their White House, the presidential office building - fairly impressive!

Closeby is a monument which is 'an exposition of two stones: black and white. At the joint of the two stones people push away the black stone. The monument symbolises the victory of good over evil, light over dark' 

 There are lots of very attractive tree-lined streets, 

 

parks

 and gardens throughout the city,

 and the people work hard at keeping it clean and tidy.

 

 I was impressed by their cute little rubbish bins all around the city.

And I must say that I was surprised to find that marijuana grows wild in lots of random places around Bishkek, especially as it is supposed to be illegal!

On our way to the Girls' House we walked down a quiet street which Joan renamed 'Marijuana Lane'.

Cooking piroshki

On Mondays we go to the Girls' House to hang out for the day. Sometimes we have leaders meetings, sometimes we go shopping or visiting from there and always we eat some sort of food while we're there. A couple of weeks ago Joan helped make Piroshki - Russian fried dumplings filled, in this case, with potato and onion.

 First a large batch of dough was made and left to rise - a simple dough with flour, water and yeast.  Two of the girls chopped the onion to be cooked with the potato for the filling.

When the vegetables were cooked, the potato filling was spooned onto the flattened portions of dough and rolled into little logs.

 Many hands make light work, as we know.

  

Joan knows exactly how to put piroshki together now.

 When they're filled and rolled they're fried in hot oil.

Far from a health food, but very very delicious. Piroshki would have to be one of my favourite indulgences in Kyrgyzstan.

Tourists for a day

Last Thursday we visited Lake Issyk Kul

This huge and very beautiful lake is a couple of hours from the capital, Bishkek, in northeastern Kyrgyzstan. Situated in the northern Tien Shan mountain range, it is one of the largest mountain lakes in the world. Its name (from the Kyrgyz word for "hot lake") refers to the fact that it doesn't freeze during the winter.

 At the beginning of our journey, not far from the city, the farmland beside the road was picturesque and productive. Mountains always in the background. I asked our director one day if there is anywhere in Kyrgyzstan where one cannot see mountains. He thought not.

This is their biggest tourist route and so tourists are catered for all along the road. In these traditional Yurts there was a wide range of Kurut for sale.

Kurut is hard dried balls of fermented milk or milk curds. I haven't acquired the taste for kurut yet and probably never will. I don't thnk I could bring myself to put another piece into my mouth. It is extremely salty and very weird but would be great if you were dying from starvation in a harsh climate - as some nomads might be.

I was quite impressed with the colours and shapes of the kurut here. It really looks quite appetising, don't you think?

As we went deeper into the mountains and closer to the lake, the landscape changed and was quite arid. I was pretty happy about the clouds that day, from a photographic point of view.

In the villages we went through along the way, I was taken with the pretty and simple little houses on the roadside.

 Also along the roadside, food was available for sale - mostly dried fish (from the lake). . .

 

. . . and apricots. It's summer and apricots seem to be everywhere and certainly on the road to Issysk Kul.

 

They are purchased by the bucketful and our bucket was 200c (Kyrgyz som). That's about $4.  In Australia I firmly believe that it is not possilbe to buy apricots from a supermarket that taste like real apricots. These tasted VERY real.

Because this country is land-locked they have no ocean - this is as good as it gets for them. And it is very beautiful. The sand is as fine and clean as our best beaches in Australia, the water is clean and clear and at least 18⁰C, but there is no tide. They have no concept of tide. Isn't worldview interesting?

 We enjoyed spending time with our host director and his family for the day at the very beautiful Lake Issyk Kul

and then headed home via some more stunning Kyrgyz scenery. . . .

 

and some sweet corn on the roadside at dusk, as you do!

'The corn lady' was such a happy person and wanted her photo taken lots. . .

. . . especially with an Australian. We are pretty unusual and popular here in Kyrgyzstan.

And how could I say 'No' to a photo of this guy?!

 The storm brewing behind the mountains on the homeward journey was dramatic.
We were home late and tired after a great day out as tourists.

The little shop in our yard

We are so pleased that shopping for the basics is very easy for us here. We don't have a car and so we have to walk and carry everything home in bags. Quite by accident, we found a tiny little shop in the yard of our apartment block. It looks like a garage/shed and we wouldn't have much need to walk that way, except that one day we noticed a couple of young girls walking towards us with plastic bags of fresh fruit and veg. When we asked where they had bought their goods they pointed out this obscure little shop. It's one of our favourite little haunts now!

 

And the people are incredibly friendly. It's a family business with a number of young people manning it most of the time.

Ayka is always SO enthusiastic about our visits and asked for this photo on Day 2. Ayka's English is excellent and she loves to try to teach me Russian. I love to try to learn. So far I have mastered the numbers from 1 - 10, some greetings and quite a lot of the letters of their cyrillic alphabet. I can pronounce lots of words but have no idea what most of them mean, but its fun trying to sound them out.

And Ayka's brother Kuba was pretty keen to have his pic taken with David too. When we had these photos printed and gave them to the young people they were SO happy. They were really interested in kangaroos, as is just about anyone we talk with here. I gave Ayka a card I had made with a photo of two kangaroos. She was thrilled and showed it to all of her family.

This little (VERY little) shop is no bigger than most single car garages in Australia. Here one can buy bottled water, milk, juice and soft drink, fresh bread and baked goods, frozen meats and icecreams, cheese, butter, processed meats, all sorts of sweet treats and, most importantly, fresh fruit and veg. Not a lot we can't buy here.

We're so thankful to have such a great little shop so close by with such friendly owners. We enjoy their company and they enjoy ours and we have occasion to see them most days of the week. One of the many pluses of living here.

Signs and language

I'm really enjoying the challenge of deciphering the 'code'. Sometimes it seems that way with some of their alphabet looking and sounding just like ours, and others looking like ours but not sounding like ours. And some of their letters we just don't have. It's a game for me.

Internet

  

Restaurant

Buffet

 Not sure what is says under Buffet, but whatever it says its going to cost 120c (Kyrgyzstanian Som) and that's about $2.40. It's pretty likely that will be the cost of a main meal, perhaps an 'all-you-can-eat' one.

 

Stop

Telephone

 Depositer and depositi

This ad seems to be for putting down a 16% deposit for a block in a new housing estate - little houses pictured bottom right of billboard.

 Jam

Toilet

Its pretty easy to find a toilet when you need one here, but one can never be sure just what it will be like. Some are 'western' style, some are squat style. They vary in cleanliness and comfort, but they all meet the need.

Tourism

Fast Food