I returned to Urumqi China on 2 May to finalize plans and arrangements for getting into Kyrgyzstan... and to enjoy the affordable five star Hoi Tak Hotel one last time. The pause also gave me a chance to get caught up with the postcards. The Russian built TU154 three engine aircraft with 200 seats took off nearly empty, so I had plenty of room to spread out. The two-hour flight included a cold picnic lunch... actually not bad.  

As I had flown in on the Kyrgyz national airline the Kyrgyz Immigration officials in the airport office issued the 30-day visa without a hitch. Generally, visas are only available from a Kyrgyz Republic Embassy in a foreign country, for China in Beijing. $36 and fifteen minutes later I walked out of the airport and into the arms of surprisingly polite taxi touts. That may be due to the fact that a rank of collective taxi vans stood waiting in front of the exit. Transport into Bishkek town by van cost 20 Com or about fifty cents. My hotel search started on the outskirts of town where I caught another minibus to the central business district. I had a hard time finding any building that looked like a hotel at all. Few hotels carry signs in English. Most of the local hotels are difficult to spot using the usual clues like height and window patterns. Finally, far from the city center I found the Hotel Issy-Kul (pronounced like "Is he cool?"), which at $46 felt like a run down Motel 6 on steroids. It did, however give me time to search further for more acceptable hotels. The Hotel DosTuk is slightly better at $62 a night, but not much. There also is a Hyatt Regency somewhere, but prior experience tells me the sticker shock might be fatal. 

Kyrgyzstan (pronounced Kur-gee "g as in guy" -stan) is green and uncluttered... still quite pastoral. There are many lovely parks within the city proper and all streets are lined with shady mature trees. The city is spread out like Los Angeles. I guess they think everyone eventually will have their own car like Americans. The air is clear and clean. Pedestrians are politely yielded the right-of-way by traffic. The weather has been ideal for my entire stay. Not a speck of dust has found its way into my eyes, though flying Dogwood (?) fluff has. Those are the pluses.  

It didn't take me long to see why the old Soviet system failed. It is so drab and unexciting. Capitalism may be exploitive, but no one can deny it creates much larger quantities of the things people like. People here walk around with somber, dejected expressions on their faces. Rare is the truly happy soul... and then it is likely to be in the body of a toddler or a young person in love. Over weight middle-aged Russian men and women lounge around pretending to do unessential work. Buildings are blocky and poorly maintained. Few things work the way one might expect them to work. Smoking and drinking are popular evening sports. Nearly every store is a liqueur store; whatever else they carry there is always a display of beer and Vodka. The capital city has a serious organized crime problem. The day I arrived a newspaper article told of a murder for hire gang killing the city's top policeman. Drugs seem to be at the center of the crime problem here, too.   

Balykchy

After four days stumbling around the capital city I bussed over to Balykchy on the shores of Lake Issyk-Kul. As is my masochistic habit, I walked two hours trying to find something that resembled a town center and an acceptable hotel. I found neither. The one "hotel" I did find seemed to be the spare bedroom in a lady's apartment and offered two army cots and little else beyond a toilet down the hall, so depressing I left without asking the room rate. Finally I gave up on Balykchy and climbed into a fully packed mini-van bound for Cholpon-Ata, reportedly a holiday haven about another hour along the north shore highway.

Cholpon-Ata

Already tired from my Balykchy hike, I repeated the performance in Cholpon-Ata, also without any obvious town center. As evening approached I began to wonder if I would ever find a place to sleep this night. At my wits end I noted a road leading down the hill towards the lake with what looked like a tall modern hotel building. The tall building turned out to be deserted, closed for the season. About to turn around I spotted a guard and asked: "Gastinia?" He gestured toward a clump of trees and a small single story building. Inside I found the "reception desk," though it looked more like a railway station ticket counter. The lone receptionist and I had a dandy time mis-communicating with one another, but finally I pointed to the most expensive of several alternatives on her Cyrillic rate card. More gestures: her suggesting eating and I indicating agreement and I handed over 590 Com (about $13.50).  

She locked up the office and walked me two blocks more toward the lake where we soon came upon a four-story concrete block building that looked like a prison. In fact, these facilities are part of a health resort that is getting ready for the "season" that begins in a couple months. Indoor swimming pools, heated therapy pools, massage services, and various other "therapies" are offered during the season. 

Inside, women dressed in white like nurses discussed my accommodation needs and room availability. Up three flights of stairs and through an entry door into a suite of rooms we went. Spartan, pretending to be elegant is the best I can do for what they offered me. Two narrow twin beds, a toilet with no tank cover and a broken seat suggested maintenance funds had not arrived since the Soviets built the place as a Workers Paradise decades ago. So tired a haystack would have looked like a Hilton, I indicated the place would be fine. Now the "nurse" and receptionist, and a third woman with an interest in the transactions began jabbering among themselves with an occasional "question" directed in my direction regarding food.  

We were getting nowhere so I led the entourage back down the three flights of stairs to the lobby where more arrangements were finalized and the "nurse" walked me back into the bowels of the building. As we passed the wall clock she pointed at the current time of 17:30 and then to a poster with more Cyrillic code containing three sets of times. I noted the times corresponded to meal times: 18:00 had to be dinner in about a half hour. Through a set of double swinging door we were in an enormous dining hall, several score of tables set up for dinner. Toward the back of the hall we stopped at table #26 and my nurse made it clear I would eat here... alone.  

The half hour before dinner gave me time to walk the block down the shady dirt path to the lake where I watched the glass smooth surface reflect clouds and sky. Lake Issyk-Kul is a dead sea, one of the largest high altitude inland seas in the world, I'm told. Rivers from the surrounding mountains flow into the lake, but none flow out. Others waiting for the dinner bell strolled aimlessly or sat on benches admiring the placid lake. It is so quiet here the singing birds can be heard clearly in the branches above. Soft conversations in Russian and other languages continued until a man approached me asking if I spoke German. While I'm hardly fluent, what a pleasure to communicate with another human being with words again. 

The dinner of stew beef, boiled potatoes, oatmeal (I kid you not), hot tea in a custard bowl, whole wheat bread and butter, a mild white cheese slice tasted wonderful after a day of fasting.  Up at 06:00 I dashed out for another go at hotel searching, but found nothing. The 08:00 breakfast included meatloaf, mashed potatoes, bread and butter, portage, a glass of thick sour cream and tea. Mind you these meals were included in the $13.50 room rate. 

After breakfast I resumed my investigation of a couple promising places and one turned out to be a newly constructed motel, small but with all the required modern facilities save an in-house restaurant or en-suite shower. My bathing would require visiting the spotless shower room a couple doors away. A restaurant 50 meters away satisfied my hungers. When I asked the room rate, all with gestures of course, the charming young receptionist wrote 200C on a slip of paper. I couldn't believe the rate so she called her son who spoke surprisingly good English. Yep. It is 200 Com or about $4.50! I guess I can put up with a public shower room... especially since I'm the only guest at this pre-season establishment.  

The receptionist, the wife of the owner had been so pleasant and patient with me I bought her a bouquet of flowers when I returned with my bag, hoping her husband wouldn’t misunderstand. After a quick dinner in the tiny nearby cafe, I walked across the highway to an excellent one terminal cyber cafe (called Internet Clubs here) and worked several hours. The owner promised to get FrontPage installed by morning and I planned to return for some long overdue maintenance work on my web site. 

The next morning I learned that FrontPage could not be activated. So, I prepared to head back to Bishkek. Outside my motel I accepted a ride in a private car picking up passengers to defray costs, something common in this country. The driver plucked 70 Com from my array of bills. Having paid 40 to get here I declined and started to walk away. He yelled something to me in Russian and I again held out my money for his selection. This time he wavered between 40 and 50, so I handed him one of my fifty Com bills. He smiled.  

The bus waiting at the station in Balykchy didn't look like much, but I figured they wouldn't put it on the road without a safety check. Wrong. About forty minutes into our three-hour trip the front right wheel bearing burned out splashing grease all over the break lining. As we had just started our mountain decent loss of breaks posed a small problem.  

I watched for ten minutes as the driver and conductor fished pieces of the shattered bearing out of grease, assessing the problem. It looked like they were planning to fix things on the spot. I had a different diagnosis: terminally ill. This bus would never be safe until major repairs could be made and the break shoes properly cleaned of the grease. So, I grabbed my bag and hailed one of the shared taxis passing our disabled bus every ten minutes or so. It seemed to me an additional $2.35 taxi fare was a small insurance premium. My double bus fare only came to $3.50 so I ignored the forfeiture. Better safe than sorry. Hope the other passengers made it home safely.

Back in Bishkek

Back in Bishkek I found the Energetic Hotel Mr. Ulan Moldobaev had reserved in my name before I left for Cholpon-Ata. Ulan is the president's Technical Consultant on the World Bank's IBPRS Project: President of Kyrgyz Republic, that is. I met him and the country's Controller in the bank while trying to get a cash advance on my Citibank bank card. The bank teller did her best to smooth the transaction, but lack of a common language complicated things. Ulan stepped in to bridge the gap.  

Afterwards he questioned me about my impressions of Kyrgyzstan. I told him the unflattering truth as I saw it, ending with what poor values hotels in the capital are. As we strolled through the long halls of the bank he and the Controller carried on an urgent consultation. Finally asking me if I had tried several hotels, which they considered good values in my $40 to $60 price range. As we reached their waiting cab they insisted on showing me the Energetic Hotel near the capital buildings.  

At $30 I considered it an excellent value for this overpriced city, though certainly not luxurious by any means. Built in the Soviet era, it showed all the bad taste in design and furnishings common to that mentality. Still, it attempted to be elegant and my suite of two large rooms with high ceilings plus bathroom, featured rug covered polished wood floors, glass enclosed china cabinets with tea service displays, and cable television including access to CNN! Hot water is another matter. The tiny water heater had been set to tepid, making quick showers essential until the staff could reset the temperature the next day. Located on the fringe of Central Park, I enjoyed many walks of exploration. The park seems to be a display arena for the works of a sculpture class: many are poorly executed, amateurish... and there are a lot of them. Others are monumental and impressive. An amusement park is integrated with the strolling/sculpture park.

In a few days I'll be heading into Kazakhstan. Getting the 30-day visa from the Kazakhstan Embassy took the better part of a morning and $35 (which had to be deposited in a specific bank half way across town). 

Peace,
Fred L Bellomy

PS: Here is that good on-line MAP of the Central Asian region I'm exploring. Take a look at this excellent collection of photos of Kyrgyzstan. Here is some summary information for BISHKEK and another nice INTRODUCTION to the country. F