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Day 454: Unpronounceabilistan
Blog: The Odyssey Expedition - 18 April 2010
Tue 30th Mar: Wasn’t too happy when the guy from Vladivostok whom I was sharing the taxi with (and someone I thought was a friend) whipped out my passport and claimed I had dropped it in the night and he had ‘found’ it for me. I would have been happy if a) I believed him [...]
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Day 453: My Kingdom For A Biro
Blog: The Odyssey Expedition - 16 April 2010
Mon 29th Mar: By 9am I was back outside the Kyrgyzstan embassy. I put my name down on the list and headed over to the DHL office to see if my replacement camcorder had arrived. It was still being held in customs. Frustratingly, this meant I would be without a decent video camera [...]
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Coup in Kyrgyzstan, business as usual in Tajikistan?
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 11 April 2010
From my neighbors’ flat in Khujand, in northern Tajikistan, we watched images of Kyrgyzstan’s coup on Russian satellite TV. One woman was sitting in her dark shop illuminated only by flashlight, weeping. The mannequins that had once displayed her goods were now nude. In the next shot, another woman swept glass from the steps of [...]
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My 3 Best Kept Travel Secrets
Blog: Brooke vs. the World | RTW Travel Blog - 11 February 2010
I have recently been nominated by Linda Fairbairn of Journey Jottings to participate in the “3 Best Kept Travel Secrets” project. I’m happy to finally get to take my turn, and if you like what I have to say, why not subscribe to my feed? 1.) Overnight in a Yurt on Lake Issyk-Kul, Kyrgyzstan Get [...]
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Ala Kul Pass… Retrospective
Blog: Yoyo's travel blog - 9 February 2010
Well, it took some time but I managed. thanks to my poor technical sills it took a long time, but still. This was taken on the pass of Ala-Kul, in the Karakol trek (don’t remember- reminder). anyways, me and Nadav met a group of Polish travelers, who decided to go back down the mountain, because [...]
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Hola, Kiva en Colombia! Do svidaniya, Kiva v Kyrgyzstane!
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 24 December 2009
By Rob Packer, KF9 Kyrgyzstan My fellowship in Kyrgyzstan has come to an end and now I’m writing this in London before starting as one of pair of Kiva Fellows in Colombia: a first for Kiva. During training, I heard on the Kiva rumour mill that Kiva would be starting in Colombia a few months [...]
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Ait mairik bolsun! (Eid Mubarak)
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 28 November 2009
By Rob Packer, KF9 Kyrgyzstan Islam in Kyrgyzstan feels different; more of a personal matter compared with other countries I’ve travelled in. While it’s probably an exaggeration when the Lonely Planet for Central Asia says that the Kyrgyz “limited it to what they could fit in their saddlebags”, there is probably some truth in the matter [...]
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Money from Siberia (Part 1 of 3 of the Remittance Series)
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 24 November 2009
By Rob Packer, KF9 Kyrgyzstan This is part one of a three-part post on remittances with forthcoming blogs by Meg Gray (KF9, Nicaragua) and Agnes Chu (KF9, Samoa). In the US or Western Europe, we often think about remittances as something that people send from our home countries back to their families in Mexico, Ghana, the Philippines, [...]
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Verb rules and road duels
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 6 November 2009
By Rob Packer, KF9 Kyrgyzstan A less endearing road habit is driving in the country at night, where the gentleman’s etiquette of how to deal with oncoming traffic that I’m used to, has become an updated version of the staple of the 19th-century Russian novel, the duel.
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Kyrgyzstan’s Windy City
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 1 November 2009
By Rob Packer, KF9 Kyrgyzstan In the middle of October I spent a week away from the Bishkek office of my MFI, Mol Bulak Finance, to see microfinance in action in their Balykchy branch. Part of the training as a Kiva Fellow is to complete an online course from the United Nations Development Program on microfinance, [...]
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A Sunday outing, MFI-style
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 12 October 2009
By Rob Packer, KF9 (Kyrgyzstan) I feel it’s almost become a cliché to write about the inspiring professionalism and overwhelming dedication of MFI staff on these pages. I’ve now been at my Kyrgyz MFI, Mol Bulak Finance, for a week and have now seen where the clichés come from: reality. As if to drive the point [...]
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Karakol, Magnificent Karakol
Blog: Yoyo's travel blog - 2 October 2009
Yeah, I know, it’s not like me to write such a bombastic headline. but we just got down from the mountains, and it was incredible. We arrived in Karakol (the small town not too far of Issyk-Kol) with the night bus from Bishkek (hourly at least untill 11:00PM, 7 hours, East bus station, 255Som + 40Som [...]
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Altyn-Arashan Free Hot-Spring
Blog: Yoyo's travel blog - 1 October 2009
Finding the free-of-charge hot pool is not difficult. the best way is to ask the guys in the Yak Tours cabin (the second big building coming from the South, or the first coming from the North). if they don’t help, use these directions. 1. Stand by the strange looking sign outside the Yak Tours cabin, the [...]
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Karakol Animal Bazar
Blog: Yoyo's travel blog - 1 October 2009
The Sundat morning animal bazar (mal bazar= Kyrgyz) is a great way to see local Kyrgyz people in their real surroundings. go early, to catch the best sights.
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Ala-Archa excursion
Blog: Yoyo's travel blog - 23 September 2009
As always, we make plans- and God laughs. in this case, he laughs so hard he’s crying. Wanting to trek in Ala-Archa canyon we, as always, planned the craziest trek possible in the region. well, almost the craziest. we were going to trek up Ala-Archa, cross Ala-Archa pass, down the stream and up to Alamudin pass, [...]
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Shana Tova- Happy New Year- Kyrgyz Style
Blog: Yoyo's travel blog - 15 September 2009
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Kyrgyzstan Visa Extension
Blog: Yoyo's travel blog - 15 September 2009
We have extended our Kyrgyz visas in Bishkek. The building is on Toktogul 64a, corner of Ibraimov. the sign says something about visa department of Bishkek. you need to give a photocopy of info page and visa page, your passport and 1085 Som. they also request a letter of application, which means you need a blank [...]
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Osh and Arslanbob
Blog: Yoyo's travel blog - 14 September 2009
After a very long and bumpy ride from Murgab (105 Somoni, 10hours), through a very strange border crossing where they never checked us we got to Osh at about 11:30. finding Osh Guesthouse wasn’t easy, and asking around only made more trouble as evferybody on the street was drunk. The only thing worth mentionoing in Osh, [...]
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Sary-Chelek to Bishkek
Blog: Yoyo's travel blog - 13 September 2009
After our trip to Arslanbob we decided to see one more thing in-route to Bishkek. Sary-Chelek, a holy lake near Tashkomur is not an easy place to get to, but was our only idea on the way. we spent a night in Jalal-Abad, in local motel, and the next day caught the 8:00AM bus to [...]
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Bishkek, the Capital of Kyrgyzstan
Blog: Travelicious - 9 August 2009
When waiting for our departure into China, we spend a couple of days in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan. Unlike in Uzbekistan where all obvious memorabilias of the Communists have been demolished, quite a few Lenin statues are found around in the squares of the Kyrgyz main city.
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Kyrgyzstan Visa
Blog: Yoyo's travel blog - 4 August 2009
We have made our Kyrgyz visa in Dushanbe. the embassy is in Said Nasir 104. Monday,Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. 9:00-17:00. a rush process costs 80$ to be payed in the Orienbank down Rudaki Avenue, 600m from the embassy. the embassador will gladly explain where. the visa is issued when you return to the embassador within [...]
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Observations from Kyrgyzstan
Blog: MatthewGain.com - 3 June 2009
Sarala-Saz Jailoo Yesterday as we drove from Naryn, Kyrgyzstan over the 3,752 metre Toruguart Pass into the Xingjiang province of China we bid farewell to Kyrgyzstan and in fact Central Asia. Thus as has been my tradition with the previous countries, this post is dedicated to our ten observations from Kyrgyzstan. As I have said previously, when [...]
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Yurt baby, yurt!
Blog: MatthewGain.com - 29 May 2009
So,Elizabeth has fulfilled one of her childhood ambitions of sleeping in a yurt. What is a yurt you ask? Why it is that funny looking shelter in the picture above. Traditionally the nomadic Kyrgyz people would live in these and move them to high ground in the summers and back down to the warmer valleys [...]
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Altyn Arashan
Blog: MatthewGain.com - 28 May 2009
A couple of days ago we hiked out of the alpine town of Karakol to Altyn Arashan, joined by Christine from the US who we met in town (and who gave us some awesome travel tips for China where she has been living for the last four years – thanks Christine!). Given the elevation of the [...]
