Proper tourist stuff.

I had a quick chat with my host this morning, which made me decide that pottering round Osh and not hurtling off to walnut forests was a better agenda for this visit. It is not a great tourist hub, but actually is quite a nice lively place.  This town was the hub of ethnic violence in the past and I had expected a town that seems more impoverished and conservative. Although there more young women are in Islamic head wear here than in Bishkek, most people are very fashionable whatever they are wearing. The whole vibe reminded me of Turkey, wide avenues, lots of nice parks and families out in the park just relaxing and enjoying the warmer evening.

There is however, one major tourist attraction here. Suleyman Mountain. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulayman_Mountain

Osh is in a wide flat valley, today I could not get any sense of what the country around here is like, but then suddenly emerging out of the valley is this mountain. I guess it is a bit like Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh. Luckily climbing it was not too bad. Reminded me of my trek up to the church in Marseille, but no lovely cafe at the top, but I had sensibly had a coffee before I went up the mountain. Sadly lots of rubbish and the only petroglyphs I saw were modern ones as visitors had scrawled their details, but I was still glad to have treked up and looked down over the town. Legs in agony now and had to crash out this afternoon, but happily pottered about this evening and had a meal out. There are lots of green parks here and if they could only be cleaned up a bit Osh could be a very nice town.