June 25, 2014
On the road to Osh: I've decided to take extra socks with me to Almaty
The next day I cruised downhill through nice scenery dotted with little villages. Mid-morning I stopped in one of these and went into a shop to order my usual quadruple helping of Snickers. Unfortunately my Russian still wasn't up to much and the confused woman went to get her son, who spoke excellent English, to come and help. Following his arrival, and perhaps with some concern for my dietary needs, I was soon invited to come and eat breakfast in their house behind the shop.
The 17-year-old son's name was Elizai and he actually lived in Bishkek with his father, this place being his grandparents home and business. I side-stepped his offer of kumus by asking questions about himself and life in Kyrgyzstan. Although Elizai was clearly an intelligent young man I was still very surprised when he told me that he had traveled to Indonesia, Malaysia, Moscow and Belarus. Naturally I asked him why. "For the Asian Physics Olympics" was the response. At first I thought, as you might expect, that I had misunderstood, but further pressing revealed it to be correct. Elizai was a young Olympian (in the sport of Physics.) Perhaps oversteping boundaries I asked him who paid for all this travel. His parents.
"And what do your parents do?"
"My father has a business in Bishkek, sending socks to Almaty. My mother lives in Almaty."
"Does she sell socks by any chance?"
"Yes, she sells socks."
I guess there must be a fair bit of money in socks in Almaty.
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Beyond the small town of Goulcho there was another, somewhat unexpectedly and annoyingly large, pass for me to navigate. So much for being downhill all the way to Osh! The afternoon passed with me cursing having to regain all the uphill on a series of seemingly never-ending switchbacks. But then the never-ending switchbacks ended and I reached the top. It was a pretty crowded summit too, with a herd of horses flock of horses wait a minute I'm going to ask google. Google says 'It depends on the situation. They can be a Troop (military), a Team (agricultural), a Herd (wild), a Harras (hunting) or a Stable (racing).' I'm still flummoxed. Let's go with herd. It was a pretty crowded summit too, with a harras of horses, and a wedding party no less. And then the bicycle tourist joined the party and chaos almost broke out. But then everyone left.
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| Heart | 2 | Comment | 0 | Link |
Over the other side the going was less steep and the surrounding pasture-lands were covered with yurts and their animals. I was soon beckoned to stop by a young German hitch-hiker named Philip. I was about to tell him that I had no space but it seemed he only wanted to chat whilst his lift waited for its engine to cool down at the side of the road. Philip had hitch-hiked from Germany alone and seemed a little bit insane, in a nice sort of way. He told me he wanted to get to China by the next evening so that he could watch Germany's final group game at the World Cup.
"I'm kind of planning my itinerary around the football at the moment, I want to see all the Germany games" he told me, perhaps failing to notice the wonderful Kyrgyz culture all around him.
"Yes I might start to do that with England's games now" I lied.
"England are out already."
"Oh."
Today's ride: 97 km (60 miles)
Total: 21,451 km (13,321 miles)
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