Osh

June 10-14 

The 45 minute flight from Osh to Bishkek felt a little sketchy. The airline was switched on us from a Turkish Air affiliated Pegasus to an unknown Manas Air. The takeoff and landing were pretty exciting, but the other option was a 12 hour bus ride! We landed around 5:00 pm and took the bus to town (thanks 2GIS app for the routing!). It's fun to confidently brush off the aggressive taxi drivers and walk to the bus stand. 

One morning we were walking near Sulemein Too, the big hill in the center of town, when we were approached by a lady who apologetically asked us to participate in the grand opening of their tourist center (actually a small yurt outside the Sulemein museum) as we were the only white people they'd seen that morning. We agreed, amused, and then ended up in a photo shoot and interview with the local TV station.

That afternoon we joined a food tour where we enjoyed Kyrgyz samsas, manti, shashlyk, and plov. Apparently most samsas available in town are the smaller Russian variety, while a traditional Kyrgyz samsa is basically a large bread bowl filled with juicy beef and onions. Tasty! During a brief discussion of vegetarianism our guide joked that ethical vegetarians should head to Kyrgyzstan where the free ranging animals have democracy even if the people don't. He thought it was hilarious. Technically Kyrgyzstan is a democracy but our guide was quite cynical about the level of corruption in government. In any event we ate two meals worth of food on the tour and then went home to chill. 

We joined a walking tour the next morning with the same guide, who also ran the new tourist center. In front of the Lenin statue he told us that older Kyrgyz people still respect Lenin and have fond memories of the USSR, but that younger (and not-lazy) Kyrgyz were happy to be rid of socialism, as he termed the Soviet style of government. We walked through Osh's wedding park, clearly set up for the sole purpose of cheesy wedding pictures. Our guide told us Kyrgyz weddings are expensive, costing as much as $10k-$25k, and many couples go into debt for their wedding day, after which they will work in Russia to pay it off. There was a WWII memorial similar to the memorial in Bishkek, although the eternal flame was no longer lit (gas supply issues). There was an interesting discussion on working women in Kyrgyzstan. After children are born, women move in with their parents for 40 days to protect their “clean energy” and the husbands only visit occasionally. Many women do go back to work after their children turn 1, as grandparents help with childcare. But it sounds like there is still a pretty present gender disparity.

Our interlude quickly came to an end and it was time to head to Tajikistan on the Pamir Highway, our final country!