An overload of hospitality and the first hike

As you guys probably remember from the last entry, Hanna and I tried to flee from the rain in Bishkek and went to Osh. The way was 750km but we needed about 13 hours to get there because of the terrain. That was bad for our time management but good for views.

There are still some real nomads living Kyrgyzstan and from time to time you see them with their horses, apparently they also use the highway. We went in a normal car that was shared. It is slightly more expensive then a small bus but faster and more comfortable. We shared the car with a girl whose name I forgot and Mairam who got to be among the cutest grandmas alive.

This is Mairam in the picture.

As we went for a break to a highway restaurant she got so fond of us (I think especially Hanna), that she gifted Hanna on the spot a silver hair clamp and a necklace THAT BELONGED TO HER GRANDMOTHER. Can you believe it? I still struggle believing it myself. Hanna tried to refuse but no chance. Mairam didn't take it back.

I ordered fried fish and got that. Not more (except a teeny tiny bit of salad) and nothing less.

After the food Mairam asked us if we could be invited to her place to eat. She would leave the car in Djalalabad which is 2h before our destination Osh but said she'd be there in a couple of days. We wholeheartedly agreed!

When we finally arrived in our hostel in Osh it was past 22:30 I believe and we were really tired.

We spend the next day with a rather underwhelming city tour, two people of our old hostel told us that Osh would be a great city. We also had some local food called pilmeni which are Kyrgyz dumplings. Many places, especially in the more Islamic parts of the country, apparently have these raised mini-tables with carpets. I find them super comfortable and cozy. Maybe aome hipster cafe back home can adapt this style? Its really lovely 😍

This is a mosque of Osh that has supposedly a beautiful ceiling but I was not allowed in the main room. I could go to the prayer room below the main room which was full of carpets and praying people as you would suspect. We also went up a hill with a mini-mosque on top.

You don't really see the mini-mosque in the picture above but it's on the hill with the red flag. Anyway the picture shows a monument of the cities park but it didn't really catch our attention to be honest.

The view from the top of the hill with the mini-mosque.

As we were just strolling through the city wondering what we'll eat now (4h after the pilmeni) and gazing at this gigantic statue of Lenin...

... I suddenly got a WhatsApp message from Baktur, which is Mairams sons basically telling us that dinner is ready and if we could come over. Hanna and I didn't really believe it would actually happen and were really surprised. We obviously agreed, called the next taxi (it's an app called Yandex, uber-style) and went to the address Baktur gave us.

Baktur, his Wife and Mairam were there and Dinner was indeed ready. As I still don't speak 10 words russian (nor Kyrgyz) Hanna did the biggest part of the conversation. I tried with google translate but it's just too slow to keep up with a real conversation.

Bakturs wife cooked, there was a tasty salad for starters

We also had some sweet stuff from the bakery (picture below). The upper noodle-like looking stuff is pretty tough, the lower stuff that looks like rolled lasagna is crisp and sweet, unsurprisingly I really liked it 😂

There was also home made jam to go with either bread or the 'chai' which is black or green tea.

And the main dish is plov (spoken out load 'plaf'). Rice with veggies and meat. It reminded me a bit about paella just not as creamy but still really good.

The milk is actually sour milk which tastes... Strange. Everyone (except us) loves it here and drinks it almost as much as the chai, which is A LOT. Oh and there also was peach juice. The yellow stuff with the spoon inside is honey, in case the jam doesn't sweeten the tea (chai) sufficiently. I didn't needed mine sweetened tho. There was also some ghee (kinda Indian-style butter) and honey with ghee mixed together.

Mairam would not stop to fill everything up that Hanna and I would empty. No Chai? You get more chai. No salad anymore? Here comes more salad. Only a little bit plov left on your plate? Have another three spoons. Oh you only drank a tiny bit of this sour milk over an hour? Let me fill it more than before!

As if that is not enough hospitality they even got us gifts! Hanna got this traditional scarf and I got a traditional hat. Many old men still wear it. It's really warm. I don't feel 100% confident wearing it but maybe if it gets really cold in the mountains I'll consider it.

Later during the evening the mom of Bakturs wife also joined us. In the picture you see from left to right: Baktur, his wife, Hanna + me, Mairam and the wifes mom. Afterwards we were offered to get a ride home which we declined since this Yandex is really not expensive and we felt like we had overused their hospitality by far. But to no avail, they invited us to ice cream, which was in some park. We didn't know that and had to get in the car, went to said park and got ice cream. Im glad they at least let me pay for that.

It was an incredible evening and Hanna and I were super amazed by these nice people. Baktur even arranged something at a hiking place, we will probably go in a month or so to stay there for cheap, he knows some people there.

In the next morning we went for the Karakol national park. The town at the park called Kirgiz-Ata is 40 minutes south from Osh. We left by Matrushka (shared mini van) the city and tried hitchhiking. Usually you (locals aswell) pay a small amount to help with paying the gas. Some travelers told us, that you can also make it without paying anything at all if you are upfront about it but I don't feel comfortable with that attitude and we just asked every driver how much they think is appropriate before entering the car.

That said: It worked like a charm. We had 4 different cars and one matrushka until we arrived but never waited longer then 3 minutes. That includes this super bumpy dirt road within the national park which is 20km long (on top of that 40min drive to the Kirgiz-Ata). The 3rd car carried us the majority of this dirt road and was half full with sacks of dried horse shit. It's actually extremely comfy to sit on this sacks! 

(Im sorry for this kursive text, the website is buggy and I'm tired. Its 0:03 and I gotta get up at around 7 tomorrow for the next hike)

We weren't mad that we left them eventually behind because we needed our breath to get going 😂

Here is one foto of the view, you find more in the picture section :)

1,5km before we reached the top it started to rain and fog appeared. We were looking for some shelter and found a nice looking tree. As we sat on the stone, Hanna asked me if I saw the cow. I was confused and then I saw it. There was a dead, half cow hanging on its remaining 2 feet from the tree. I guess not everyone reading this blog wants to see it, so I'll put the pictures at the very end with some spacing.

That cow was super weird and kinda spooked us. Since the rain continued we decided against putting up a tent and looked at the basecamp for a place to stay. There were plenty yurts and the guy who gave us the last lift told us he would make a big party the next evening, we were invited. He was super nice, we found him again and asked for a place to stay. He offered a yurt for around 12€ a night, he is building a place for local tourists which isn't entirely finished yet, so we were literally his first ever guests 🤩

I made a quick video of the yurt, you'll find it with this link:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Vd8q0NzWyggv8SrfYnxb37w5G-LlUdfB/view?usp=drivesdk

We had nothing warm to eat but the basecamp/tourist place was bigger than expected. It seemed that our host had nothing to eat so we went around and asked if there is a place where you can buy food. Instead of finding such a place we were incited again! Its incredible. By now we already had a bad consciousness about it but were also happy about food.

This was our dinner.

We then went back to our host and got warm and cozy in the yurt in our sleeping bags when he comes knocking and telling us he will make dinner in an hour. We tried to decline but he wouldn't have it. We agreed on just drinking some chai. After an hour we sat together in the kitchen (see below).

Our host made salad and fried eggs for all three of us. He had trouble believing that we really already ate and were not hungry, some of the food is now stored as breakfast.

So yeah.. hospitality here is crazy. I've never experienced any of that. One of the guys we hitchhiked with also invited us, he was going to some wedding or dancing event. Hanna didn't totally understand him and I'm of zero help. We actually thought about it (and maybe should've done it, considering the weather....) but went hiking instead.

Tomorrow is supposedly great weather so we will try again. I bet there is a great view from the top (3400m) on the glacier right at its foot.

Oh and the picture of the cow comes below now. Stop scrolling if you don't wanna see it.

Hope you all are doing great, bye bye unt the next few days 🤩

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Yeah.. that was weird. But also drier than sitting in the rain 🤷‍♂️