Saturday 29th June 2013<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_0_placeholder\n
Down Day in Osh.<\/p>\n
Basically, a down day means we had more time to lie down this morning, as we were staying for another night, and no travelling. Someone knocked on our door just before 8am. They had forgotten to give us our breakfast vouchers. They should not have bothered. Rice pudding with rancid butter, dry bread, cold pancakes with rancid cheese, and dry cake. The tea was nice. Oh, and we were sitting in first class, with no air con.<\/p>\n
We spent the morning doing boy jobs and girl jobs. The men worked on the cars, and the women did the washing. Shock horror. My bargain fleecy from Cornwall, costing all of \u00a34, has a perfectly round hole in the sleeve. Tried to phone Moira to wish her Happy Birthday, got one verse sung and lost the connection. Then off to the bazaar, the biggest in Central Asia. Dubious taxi ride, but arrived ok.<\/p>\n
Really hot, bustling, noisy. Wandered around, taking it all in. People spoke to us, asking where from. Saw parts of animals which should have stayed on the inside. Traders pushing trolleys, nearly taking your feet off if you didn’t get out of the way in time. Stalls along muddy streets, under cover and in old containers, some with the climate control still working.<\/p>\n
All felt well enough and hungry enough ( we will freeze the pizzas) to enjoy lunch. Sat on terrace by river, beer, bread and national lamb – lamb stew with vegetables and noodles. Beggar came along, men with national hats on, children with really round faces, one playing with a balloon and smelling the plastic flowers.<\/p>\n
We bought a washing machine. Lidded barrel which will be strapped to the roof and clean out clothes as we drive. Hilde treated herself to a washing up bowl, Atle a pair of sunglasses. Tim still on the look out for an arial, bought a make do one. Began to run out of steam, got a good taxi back.<\/p>\n
Still more work to do on cars. More dirty washing I suppose. I’ll put it in the washer tomorrow. I sort paperwork. Got hold of Moira. Motorbike and sidecar turn up, French driver. He is heading to Mongolia, but taking longer. Hilde and I running up and down from car park to room, fetching and carrying. We are now both sitting on camping chairs, outside in the car park, it is 10pm and we are catching up with the blogs. Hope the mechanics finish soon. We have not discussed dinner, and nor planned the route for tomorrow yet. You get lazy on down days.<\/p>\n
Did I tell you KYR has the biggest walnut forest in the world? I think many of the floors in the hotel are made of it. The lifts are like Arkwright’s till, you have to run in, if you dawdle you get trapped in the doors, literally.<\/p>\n
We get a taxi to Rich Man’s Restaurant. Remember that name. There is a private party in a large room, everyone is drunk. They all invite us in. We are shown to a private booth, low wrap around settees in pastel green and blue. We order a red wine, from Moldova, difficult because the waitress does not speak Norwegian or English, and we speak no Russian. So pointing and sign language avails. The wine is fizzy and unspeakably bad. Wonder what the wine we bought in Samarkand is like? We order beer. Then we look at the menu. A work of divine comedy. Herring in a fur coat, list of the cost of replacing broken crockery, including hookahs, ……..<\/p>\n
A storm erupts, thunder and lightning. A car wash at last. We slump down the settees, exhausted. Finally the food arrives. Hilde has top trumps, griddled meat and veg. I have meatballs and the others have steak. We planned to finish the meal with a vodka, but the meal finished us. Remember the restaurant name – \u00a329. Member of staff purloins our wine. Someone cooking huge piece of meat on hot coals in courtyard. Storm abated, we get a taxi and back to bed. 2am.<\/p>\n
Leaving Osh. To Kazarman and beyond?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Saturday 29th June 2013 Down Day in Osh. Basically, a down day means we had more time to lie down this morning, as we were staying for another night, and no travelling. Someone knocked on our door just before 8am. They had forgotten to give us our breakfast vouchers. They should not have bothered. Rice […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kyrgyzstan","category-central-asia"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3bX1q-fP","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapetim.co.uk\/mongolia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapetim.co.uk\/mongolia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapetim.co.uk\/mongolia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapetim.co.uk\/mongolia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapetim.co.uk\/mongolia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=981"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapetim.co.uk\/mongolia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/981\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1743,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapetim.co.uk\/mongolia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/981\/revisions\/1743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapetim.co.uk\/mongolia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapetim.co.uk\/mongolia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapetim.co.uk\/mongolia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}