The real wild, wild west...

Visa--check!
Flight--check!
Hotel--check!

I'm going to Bishkek! Where is that?... In the Kyrgyz Republic (formerly Kyrgyzstan)--a country smooshed between Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, China, and Uzbekistan. And really, it's wild out there!

The facts:
Populations: 5,264,000 (estimate because a lot of people are still nomadic herders and such)
Languages: Kyrgyz (Turkish roots) and Russian (Soviet roots)
Independence: 31 August 1991
Land: From the Tian Shan Mountains with a peak at 24,400 feet and the sub-tropical valley called Fergana.
Weather: Ranging from 104 F to sub zero with even constant snow fall in some desert areas during winter.
Traditions: Bride kidnapping.
Games: Buskashi or Ulak Tartysh. (A team game resembling a cross between polo and rugby in which two teams of riders wrestle for possession of the headless carcass of a goat, which they attempt to deliver across the opposition's goal line, or into the opposition's goal: a big tub or a circle marked on the ground.)
Transport: Train, plane, bus, mini-bus, and horse.

Should be fun! But I think the real adventure starts on Thursday when I fly out on Uzbekistan Airways. Read some entertaining reviews here: http://www.airlinequality.com/Forum/uzbekistan.htm. (Just for starters: my airline ticket is handwritten and I picked it up at the airline office in Delhi.)

Read more about K-stan here. (All of the above information was obtained from Wikipedia.)
See the countryside here. (Photos taken from real people and posted on Flickr.)

Tomorrow night, I'm off to Amristar to visit the famed Sikh Golden Temple. Should be interesting. It's the most holy place for people of the Sikh faith. Then I'm off to Pakistan for a two day jaunt in a country once considered part of India but now an independent Islamic Republic. Exciting stories to follow. Stay tuned!