Judging by the crowd, we began our day in Bishkek much like everyone else: with a trip to the main bazaar. We were happier with our room choice for the previous night when we just had to walk a couple blocks to reach the bazaar and passed a bakery on the way, where Charla found a slice of breakfast honey-chocolate cake. As we walked around, Chase found his breakfast in the bazaar itself—meat on a stick and a fresh meat and potato samosa. While the food was great, the beverage was not; sour coconut milk is not a good pairing with fresh, delicious food. The good far out-weighed the bad in the bazaar, especially once Charla found some stylish leggings that put together the Union Jack and the Icelandic flag. She’s ready for some cooler temperatures once we get to high altitude in Russia.
After a good morning in the market, we left town for the famed Lake Issyk Kul. We took a route that mixed directions from our paper map and Google Maps, being sure that we didn’t accidentally re-enter Kazakhstan and use the last of our available entries, and the drive was gorgeous. We passed between Kazakh and Kyrgyz mountains, over some small rivers, and through a sunflower field before rejoining the main road that took us through the mountain pass and on to the lake.
We thought the somewhat heavy traffic on the still-under-construction road was somewhat normal until we arrived in the town of Bosteri and started looking for a place to stay. We checked out a few places as we searched for the one Rashid recommended, and we soon found out it was a holiday weekend in a lake-beach town at full capacity.
Luckily, we had been trying the find a place while following a man in a Toyota who seemed to know what was going on. When we got a chance to talk to Mairambek, who had spent a year living in the US, he told us about his search for a room and kindly helped us find an apartment near the town market before finding his own. We were thankful once we settled in and then went for a walk around the neighborhood and down to the beach. Our walk back took us through a small market (tiny compared with the one we had experienced in the morning) where Charla picked up some fresh vegetables to add to dinner.
Today’s lesson: Fresh coconut, good. Sour coconut milk, not good.