After relaxing in Almaty for a week and a half I felt I was ready for a rest, so I headed to Bishkek, capital of neighbouring Kyrgyzstan, which proved well able to provide the goods on further relaxation. I brought with me a new camera - not as good as the lost darling, but cameras cost 50% more in Central Asia than they do in Australia and I bought the best camera I could find for the money I was willing to spend. The new device has only a 5x zoom (the lost one had 7x) and other shortcomings, but I figured it would be adequate to the task - and so, thus far, it has been.
The "Sakura Guesthouse" had been recommended to me by other travellers, and proved a perfect choice. However, after a couple of days there I did bestir myself and take the long marshrutka ("marshrutka", "marshrutnoe" and other variations all basically mean "fixed route") ride to to Karakol, by the shores of the eponomous lake.
Most people go to Karakol to hike in the surrounding mountains. If they want the lake, the town is a little too far - so they go to the resorts that dot the lakeshore. I didn't feel like hiking or swimming so I just kicked around town for a few days before heading back to Bishkek.
Back in Bishkek I made Sakura my home. The place is named after the manager's eldest daughter. I paid a little extra for a room to myself. No biggie, Sakura was still one of my cheaper sleeping places.
I had exhausted the city's sights in the first couple of days. Now I was just waiting, waiting for visas and my Uzbekistan LOI (Letter of Invitation - a prerequisite for an Uzbek visa). Killing time.
In the mornings I'd go down to breakfast and watch Sakura and her little sister torment the two kittens - niku! - that would come over from a neighbour's place to cadge food and attention. When the girls were around, they got rather more attention - and the wrong sort - than they liked.
After breakfast it was time to plan my day. Upstairs to read? Into town to play dodge-the-corrupt-cops? After I managed to get the iPaq connected to the guesthouse's wi-fi, I could spend all day lounging in my room.
I fell in with some of the other travellers. A gregarious Austrian-Israelis by the name of Nir liked to arrange dinner groups, so I was eating well (blowing my food budget but consoling myself that the cheap bed more than made up for it.) It all helped pass the time pleasantly.
By and by my Uzbek LOI came in, and I went to the Embassy and got the visa to go with it. It was time to go.
I was determined to take the road less travelled by, so instead of heading to Osh and the Dostyk border crossing with the rest of the herd, I headed south for a border-crossing near Tash-Komur. Alas, fate had other plans and through a series of misunderstandings - I said "Tash-Kurgan", the driver heard "Kurgon" and beckoned me aboard - I never made it to that border-crossing. By default I ended up at Dostyk.
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