After over 26 hours of travel, we made it to Kyrgyzstan at about 5 am this morning. Note to self, fly Emirates whenever possible because they have the most categories of movies that I have ever seen on an airplane.  We are talking Español (España) and Español (Latinoamerica). I watched three movies in Spanish.  If that’s not enough to convince you to fly Emirates, then the Dolly Parton Playlist will surely convince you.  Also, while the airplane food tastes like airplane food, it does not taste like little cans of Vienna Sausages. 

We booked these flights by ourselves instead of through the tour company, so there was no one waiting at the airport for us which was unfortunate.  While walking around the airport looking for an ATM, we were approached by a million Taxi drivers, but everyone knows you aren’t supposed to get a taxi that way.  You are supposed to follow the clearly painted signs on the floor that say Taxi and get a respectable Taxi from the queue of Taxis outside.  Except they don’t know this in Kyrgyzstan.  You go outside and there is no queue of Taxis, just another shady Taxi driver asking if you want a taxi.  So I told him where we were going, and he said $2,000 som, which is about $25.  He takes my bag and proceeds to walk across the parking lot towards the exit of the airport parking lot, which I was not crazy about. That was when I noticed he was wearing flip flops! I remembered our tour guide in Vietnam saying that is how you know the Taxi Mafia from the respectable Taxi drivers. Flip flops was the last straw. So I ran up and told him we weren’t going with him and grabbed my bag. I don’t know if that tell really applies in Kyrgyzstan, but I wasn’t taking any chances. 

Once you exit the airport building, you have to go through security to get back inside. So I just asked the security guard there where I could find a safe Taxi.  He turns around and shouts to one of the prowling Taxi drivers to come drive us.  Of course, this guy wouldn’t go a penny under 3,000 som once he found out the fancy hotel we are staying in.  And you know what, he had no taxi sign, taxi radio, or taxi identification either. But appeantly this is the way it is done.  And the security guard found him for us. I guess just whoever has a car and some free time at 5am heads to the airport and plays taxi driver. Long story short, we survived just fine.  Interesting to note, his Nissan had power windows on the front doors and manual windows in the backseat. I think this is so that your dog can’t roll down the windows like Artichoke does if I forget to put the lock on the windows.

We ate breakfast, took showers, and then a restorative three hour nap. They say you are not supposed to take a nap when you arrive at your destination, but “they” are idiots. Anyways, we had booked a 4 hour food tour of Bishkek (accidentally for tomorrow, but they were able to squeeze us in today).  So we did a little city tour to see some of the landmarks, which we will probably see again when our main tour starts, but it’s all good.  And then we had traditional Kyrgz foods.  I ate too much!  We had some fried bread called Kattama. It’s a flat, flaky, fried bread that has onions, chives, and cheese in it. Needless to say, it’s delicious. It’s also served with a bowl of cream (sour cream) that you are supposed to dip it in. I wasn’t sure why, or if I enjoyed the cream, but I just went with it.  

We went to a very busy Kyrgz restaurant and had a meal of Guro Lagman.  It’s pretty good. It’s little pieces of beef, green peppers, and red peppers on a bed of noodles that look like spaghetti but is not spaghetti. Needless to say, this too was delicious!

Then, to top it all off, we had a huge platter of desserts! We had some baklava, something with a similar consistency to fudge, something that tastes kind of like fried wontons nachos topped with cream, walnuts, funny looking raisins, and poppy seeds. We also had an assortment of nuts, and yummy local honey that you can dip the fried wonton thingies from the bottom of the stack of stuff in.  We were not able to eat it all, but we made a valient effort! And we brought home the nuts and fudge things for a midnight snack. 

The only other thing to note here is that we drank more tea today than we have ever drunk in our entire lives. A bowl of tea with the fried bread and multiple bowls of green tea with dessert.  Green tea is almost palatable when you take a stick of rock candy and swirl it around in there like a proper Kyrgyzstan person (I really don’t know the proper word for them. Kyrgyzstani? Kyrgz?)

That’s it for now!

Love,

thetwinsontour