Bishkek

Knowing that I am about to travel back to Europe I should be waking later but the last couple of days I seem to be waking earlier. Jet lag will not be helped by this trend.

One reason for waking early I'm sure was anticipation over breakfast. I've cooked pancakes the last couple of days & it's such a nice way to begin the morning. After devouring a large stack I pack up & leaving, knowing that I had a short cycling day to get into Bishkek.

Before I left the Uzbek farmer who'd invited me to stay at his house came to see how I was. I reflected on how different his facial features were from the Kyrgyz that I'd met. Since moving out of Tajikistan a very clear ethnic line was crossed, Tajiks are very distinct from Kyrgyz. In fact it would be more accurate to say that this happened since leaving the area of that country inhabited by Tajiks which happened somewhere in the high country between Murgab & Karakol. The Tajiks, as previously described are ethnically related to Persians, as well as speaking a language related to & at least partially mutually intelligible with Farsi. Kyrgyz are a much more oriental lot. Some, especially petit women look Chinese. The Uzbek farmer stood out from the Kyrgyz faces by looking a lot less oriental than them. I suppose this is natural the Uzbek homeland is further West than that of the Kyrgyz. Later at the guesthouse at which I stayed in Bishkek I met a group of Turks from the Aegean city of Izmir. They, Uzbeks & Kyrgyz all shade a Turkic heritage but the Turks were indistinguishable from Southern Europeans.

I arrived in Bishkek shortly before noon. It seemed quite an active place there were lots of cars on the road & people walking around the centre. The place was packed with Mercedes Benz. In contrast with Dushanbe I didn't notice lots of NGO Landcruisers. Bishkek had a look of greater prosperity than Dushanbe. There were plenty of shops & the people clearly had more money to spend on their appearance. There were Internet cafйs everywhere & those that I visited were good & cheaper, better than any since Turkey.

I'd been expecting to stay with someone I'd contacted through hospitalityclug.org but things didn't work out so I ended out at a ramshackle but friendly guesthouse in the centre. It wasn't such a bad thing that it happened that way, the guesthouse was cheap as I camped in the garden, there were cool people to talk to & I got the addresses of hard to find bicycle shops in Bishkek. The latter was the most useful as I was a bit worried about the hub in my front wheel & my pedals had been annoyingly squeaking since Mashhad. In each case I lacked the tools to fix the issue.

I cycled 52 km in 4 hours & 3 minutes
Total so far 9269 km in 134 days