Now, some things you can read and trust. Others you cannot. The sign that told us there was a border crossing “THAT WAY” ended up being one you could not. We drove “that way” for about a half an hour, and pulled up to said post. We should have known that a country at war would close all of its minor posts, but we, apparently, were in idiot mode. Backtracking we found the main crossing and got in line. Let me just say, that the line was rather short. I guess there aren’t many folks as stupid as us, who actually WANTED to get INTO Kyrgyzstan. Whatever, we had the resort mostly all to ourselves, and it worked out fine.
Passengers have to cross separately from their cars, so the kids and I got out and started to navigate the series of checks and windows- all 4. As usual everyone was amazed and bewildered that we could speak Blankistani, and as usual it gave us big bonus points and lots of smiles. We basically breezed through in about 20 minutes, which is actually a lot faster than a few times in Germany or especially the US- where we’ve had to wait up to an hour! Then pulling up a filthy piece of sidewalk, we waited. Just about the time, we heard the “I need a bathroom” chorus, the van pulled up and we were set to go.
In all of our trip up to now, we’d not been pulled over even once by the road police. But, wouldn’t ya know it? Not more than 30 seconds into Kyrg. We get pulled over. Then again 5 minutes later. It was starting to get irritating- we still had a LONG way to go that night!
At 8:00, we HAD to stop to eat, and found a great place to both change our money AND get some authentic Lagman- home thrown noodles with a spicy meat and vegetable stew. It was one of the best meals we’d had on our trip. It was also the last cabbage –free meal we’d have for a week. We watched part of a World Cup game on the wall mounted TV alongside a VERY drunk bunch of young adults, and made a hasty exit so as to not get stuck in trouble.
I loved this cut out Lenin made of steel still displayed on the top of one of the town's buildings. Ummm...ok.
With only a couple hours left in our trip, we hit the road once again. This time at the entrance to the “Ecological Park of Lake Issyk-Kul” we hit a military road block. It was there that we first really let it sink in that these boys meant business. There were dozens of armed soldiers and police pulling everyone over. They were searching some cars quite carefully, but only gave us a cursory glance. I think the passel of kids tipped them off that we weren’t too terribly threatening.
There were also armies of fish stands, and we knew we were getting closer to the lake when we saw these:
By now we were very sleepy and eager to get to our destination. But we got one last kinda cool “treat” along the way. The cottonwood trees were in full bloom and the wind had picked up from the thunderstorms on the mountains all around us. At one point, as we were driving through a “tunnel” of cottonwoods the wind was blowing so much fluff off the trees that we thought it had started snowing!! It really looked JUST LIKE driving through a snowstorm, and was so fun. Pulling up to the guarded gate, we rang the bell, and were greeted by the guard and his two mangy dogs. They told us to wait while he woke up the administrator…. Were they ready for us?? How would this place compare to the last dump?
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