Road impressions

Sorry, for not posting anything these past days. I've had a stomache flue, which probably was a souvenir from the Issyk-Kul conference. So today I finally can eat again and the energy is coming back. I took many pics on our journey and today I started going through them and making a selection. I started with some pictures, I am fascinated by because of the way they were taken - from the bus on our way back! I was really surprised that some of them turned out ok, although I had expected them to be all blurry. And it was really really interesting to pay attention to what's going on on the side of this road.

To give you an impression: There is basically only one main road from Bishkek to Issyk-Kul. It takes you out of the city, through the suburbs and some smaller towns, then a long time through farming land with only small settlements on the sides of the road and then into the mountains. When you get out of the mountains on the other side you see the lake already. The first town you head into is Balaktschi. From there you either turn left to get on the north shore of the lake or right to the south shore.

From Bishkek to Balaktschi it takes about 3 hours (plus about 1hr per 60 km depending on whatever town you're heading to). Especially during summer the main road is always busy because of the holiday season. And it's dangerous especially at night, because the road is not lit and some drivers are overtaking at very risky spots. So I've experienced, that even when you drive very carefully yourself, you get blinded by the lights from the opposite direction and you don't have a chance to see the cars getting in your lane (and there are many of them!), because they're overtaking from the opposite direction - assuming you will slow down, not knowing that you can't see.

So on the way there with Philipp's host family driving in a beautiful Audi A8 at night, I was quite nervous and watched nothing but the traffic. On our way back however during day time, I was so bored on the bus when most other conference participants were sleeping that I started taking pictures of anything on the way. So here is what you see (from top to bottom):

1. On the side of the road you find many locals selling goods in different kinds of stands, i.e. vegetables, fruits, honey, fish or kymyz (horse milk). The closer you get to Balaktschi the more often those stands are traditional yurts.

2. This is a view when you start to drive through the mountains from the lake direction. It's still quite green here, but the further you get in, the more the landscape turns to stones and dust.

3. Here you see the typical sight on that road: overtaking cars on the opposite lane.

4. This is another type of stand by the side of the road. I assume it's a little cafe as there is a table and some chairs.

5. A mosque in a little town. This is the typical look of mosques in this region.

6. A man with his bike waiting to cross the road in some of the little towns on the way.

7. I'm glad this picture turned out good, because it shows a typical (although very small) cemetary and I was never able to take a picture of one so far. Each grave has a little construction (like a yurt roof or a little temple like house) on top of it. They vary depending on how important or how wealthy the person used to be.

8. This is monument to remember the accidents that happen(ed) on this road. Of course today, they server more as a warning. There are at least 2 or 3 like this one.

9. It's the high season for watermelons. So there are lots of people selling them by the road. This is a small stand, there were other ones where it looked like an ocean of watermelons - I've never seen so many in one place in my life!