Zhabagly, October 19th 2004
At the 15th of Octobre we reached Kyrgistan through the Turogart pass which marked the border between China and Kyrgistan. Everything went well through customs apart of one officer who didn´t like our Baedeker-guide-book in which Taiwan was positioned as an independent country – not runed by the chinese governement. To get through we had to rip out the page and throw it away. „... you must undelstand I am ploud of my countly!“ the officer said.
Driving on a iron scattered road in the snowy kyrkiz mountains we reached Naryn with only one flat tire! (even Coulthard would become world champoin with us…).
The next day, 16th Octobre, we went on to Bishkek via Issy-kul Lake and Burana, an ancient town with a minarett, ruins of a palace (?) and the for the turkish culture common tomb stones decorated with head, sword and drinking glass.
In Bishkek we met Olga and Valeri who took us to our residence for the following two days: “The Villa Real”!
After breakfast we went chasing tires on the biggest market of Middle Asia. Equiped with two new japanese tires we turned back to the villa. In a russian restaurant we had a good lunch and headed towards the mountains. In the national park, 40 km from Bishkek, we went for a little walk in the snow.
In the evening we had to say goodbye to Eva and Clemens who had to go back to Germany by plane.
We leaved Bishkek to cross the boarder to Kazakhstan on the 18th. Driving along the mountains in the kazakh Steppe we reached Zhabagly where we stayed in Zhenja & Lyuda´s Boarding House.
In the morning our local guide Mischa (not the guy from Öskemen) threw us out of our beds and took us to the Aksu Canyon in the national park. We found ourselfes in a pituresque place where bears, birds and deers are living, endemic and rare plants are growing. We spent a few hours walking in the Canyon and and had lunch at Nursultan´s scenic point.
Back at the Boarding House a whisteling sound reached our ears – it was not the “sound of silence” but the sound of flat tire number five on the Toyota (well, well GOODRICH you might be rich but good?).
So once again we had to go and look for a sevice station to do our tires. It took one full hour to fix the tires but it was not boring at all… drunken Muhamed, showmaster of the sevice station, entertained us verry well. All right Kung-Fu-Master Muhamed we believe you are the big hero…
Back at the Boarding House a delicious dinner was served before we went to bed.