The Plan, Stan.

Hey all! I'm here in Kyrgyzstan and had a very safe and quiet flight. Thanks for all your pleasant thoughts. :) My first night was spent in a yurt or gur (a collapsible nomad house made of wool and sticks) as there were no rooms at the inn. It was pretty cool... For about the first 6 hours. Then I was woken up by the train--or should I say train-S. And after that, there were the dog fights. And in the morning (6 am) the gardener scraping his metal dustpan across the sidewalk. And later that morning, I discovered the flea bites. LOTS and LOTS of flea bites. Ick. I feel for all dogs everywhere today. Amazing that I did not get a single flea bite in India but take me to a 3 star hotel in Bishkek and I get about 50. *sigh*

I waited all day for Jeremy yesterday but he arrived around 5 pm after a long night of Kebab revenge (food poisoning) and a 4 hour bus ride. Then he had about a 6 km walk to the hotel with a 30kg bag on his back. Poor guy! He was exhausted when he arrived but it was a really nice reunion. From there, we stayed up all night sharing photos and stories about my time in India and Pakistan and his adventures in Kazakhstan. Good times all around.

Today we've been out and about exploring Bishkek, the Kyrgyz capital. First stop: a really cool sidewalk gallery of some French photographers work. The display included 100 photos of life from the air covering every topic from India rug markets to garbage cities in Mexico. Loved it. Second stop: an art market with hundreds of pieces painted by local artists. Most of it was Kyrgyz mountain scenery but also the typical majestic horse in the wind kind of stuff too. :) Third stop: the State History Museum. Some pretty interesting stuff. Mostly branze painted plaster monuments of Communist themes and LOTS of letters penned by Lenin. The only bad part was that everything was in Russian and the only place I saw anything in English was a couple news clippings on display. The best part though was the gallery on Kyrgyz nomadic life. I must say, their art work, weavings, tools, and lifestyle really reminded me of the Native Americans. It's cool to think that this lifstyle still exists out there on the steppe... Fourth stop: lunch! Some really good mutton on a stick, a nice wheat noodle soup in a bell pepper and tomato broth, and some interesting dumplings not too different from China's gyoza and Korea's mandu. Fifth stop: the Russian Orthodox church. We wondered in just before service started which gave us a really nice opportunity to hear the traditional songs and prayers as well as witness many worshippers lighting candles. The inconography was beautiful as well as the numerous paintings form the life of Jesus. Sixth stop: the internet cafe. :) Next stop: check out another guest house where we can leave our bags and head out for some trekking. This may be where we go tomorrow night as they've got a really cheap dormitory and free luggage storage (plus cheap meals!).

I will keep you all up to date as we get moving here. Right now we're just feeling out the city, spotting the tourism offices, looking for some hiking stuff (for me), seeing what gear we can rent, and making plans about where we're going and how we're going to get there. But things look good! There's a lot to see here! Some really beautiful mountain lakes, glaciers, snow capped peaks, old Russian sanatoriums with natural hot springs, and some pretty cool horse back riding. Appearently it only costs about $300 to buy a horse here... And Jeremy is considering heli-skiing. I'm certainly not good enough to justify the expense (or the steep descent) but have vowed to wait at the bottom with a hot cup of hot chocolate when he gets down. But we'll see. Kyrgyzstan is an outdoor wonderland.

Hope you are all doing well! Thanks for keeping up with this journey of mine. I really didn't expect things to go this way but I'm really glad they did. :)