Holiday time.

Just before 8 I snuck out of  the apartment in Bishkek, took my first taxi in Kyrgyzstan to the Western bus station in time to get the 8 o clock bus to Karakol  Now I am here I wish I had done a bit more research on this much put off trip because there are both more things of interest here and less. More because if you go in one direction  you are in the mountains, and there is a very old fashioned sanatorium too and there is also the beach on Issykul. And less because the actual town does not seem as attractive as I thought it would be and I did not realise a swimming costume might be useful for saunas and spas.  Despite this it is probably still nice that I am away. The actual journey might have taken 6 hours but it was very easy.  Once past Kemin, instead of taking the turn off to where I live, we headed up the mountains.  We stopped briefly at a motorway service station type place but nicer than that. Luckily I had been warned that we might stop, but I only had a coffee for fear of not realising when our bus was off again. One of the passengers sat with me, I think she too thought it better to stay together. After that we stayed on the bus till we got here. Some of the rocks on the mountains passes were beautifully weathered and there were some yurts on the route belonging I guess to people running little road side stores.   Then we dropped down into the valley and travelled the length of Issy Kul lake.  Unfortunately that is when the weather turned and rain and snow fell, but I could still see it was very beautiful and the whole route it tree lined.

Once at Karakol I grabbed a taxi to Green Yard Hotel where I am staying.   They presented me with melt in the mouth biscuits and coffee which was a nice surprise, but I am not quite sure what other services they offer.  Just re-reading their specs it does say that there is a sauna here so maybe I need to check. Saunas seem to be popular here, but unfortunately the one at Ashu does not work.  I headed out into Karakol but with my usual unerring instinct headed in completely the wrong direction until a kind driver stopped and pointed me in the right direction.  The walk back into town was long and complicated by snow, (the weather forecast has been for good weather so I did not bother bringing my umbrella) but just as it started getting really heavy I  found a shoe shop where I was able to buy a belt  (my jeans have been held up by a shoe lace up till now) and downstairs there was a second hand shop where I found a good jacket for about £12, thus equipped I headed for the information bureau, but it was shut as I had forgotten it is a public holiday here. So I pottered about a bit more trying to find somewhere recommended to eat, but the map was disintegrating so fast that in the end I just popped into the first suitable place which was a very nice Turkish restaurant.  I then walked back to the hotel in time to write this and have a couple of calls.

Typical Kyrgyzstan  flats in a less scenic part of town.

The start of Lenin street.

I was given a bag for my jacket which reminded me to say something strange about the plastic bags that litter the streets of Kyrgyzstan.  For they contain the keep Britain Tidy logo and come from Morrison's supermarket.  Apparently they have changed their bag design recently and the whole of their old stock seems to have ended up here littering our streets, so at least they are keeping Britain tidy.

Karakol unfortunately seems to have the tatty potholed streets and rubbish of Senegal, despite its potentially elegant old Russian buildings. It is surrounded by snow capped mountains which give it a slight feel of Ambleside.  It also has a grid system that reminds me of some American towns and I bet in better weather with the many parks and trees, if it was tidied up,  bits of it could look lovely, but today it just seemed wet.  For some strange reason, leaves which I would not have thought were a health hazard, in fact I would have thought were beneficial, are burned in the streets like the rubbish, so along with the snow there are burnt patches around the trees adding to the soggy feel.    However, right now I am holed up in a rather elegant room watching CCTV and hoping that things will seem brighter tomorrow.