Kyrghyzstan day one: Bishkek sucks! (July 23)

The lady on the right recently replaced Lenin as the pride of Bishkek - and the guy on the left is the one that tried to rob me!

Maybe I just should have stayed at the hotel (see last entry)? Bishkek has so far given me NOTHING positive, but instead a lot of negatives. I can only hope that either the city or my attitude improves, because I have three more days until the rest of the team arrives!

• I arrived at 1:30 in the morning, which is never fun. At least I was sitting in the front of the airplane, so I would be quick through the passport control and off to the hotel. I thought... Instead an administrator from the biggest tour agency in town muscled his way in to the line two people in front of me, and handed in 25 (twenty-five!) passports from people in his group, and got preferential treatment! That took more than half an hour... :-(
• Then, as I exited into the terminal building, I was attacked by what must have been the most intensive group of taxi hustlers I’ve EVER seen. And believe me, I’ve seen quite a few. I must have been the only one that looked clearly foreign to them (yeah, the Mohawk, I know...) because they all attacked me. I focused on the guy that looked the least menacing and negotiated the price of a taxi ride down from 35 to 13 US$ (Lonely Planet says to pay 11, so I didn’t do too bad), and got in to the taxi. The ride was uneventful in itself, but when I got out of the taxi, the price was somehow back at $35 again! I had to physically wrestle my bags (big backpack + daypack + plastic taxfree bag – difficult to juggle) from the taxi driver and his friend and fight my way to the hotel!
• The hotel (Kyrgyz Altyn, 30 Manas, +996 312 66 64 12j) is decent enough, with clean rooms and shared shower (even though I can’t understand why it should cost $30 – all hotels in Bishkek are ridiculously expensive!). But of course they had managed to loose my reservation, so I had to argue a lot to at least get a bed for the night. At 2.30 in the morning and with my reputation probably spreading around the Bishkek taxi fleet, I felt my other options were limited indeed!
• When I got out on the town I quickly got my expectations of its state confirmed – Bishkek is definitely a city in decline. Just like the rest of the country, Bishkek has really lost a lot when the USSR was dissolved, and everything from the communist era is slowly falling apart. I don’t think I’ve ever seen as many badly tended facades and gardens of ex-palaces and -villas as here.
• All the signs are in Cyrillic script. OK, I can’t really blame the city of Bishkek for my lack of knowledge in Cyrillic letters, but what really ticks me off is that none of my two guidebooks, neither my phrase book has any Cyrillic <-> roman translation table! How the f%#k can they write names in their books and maps with only roman letters, not include a translation table, and then expect someone to find ANYthing!?
• When I bought a water bottle, it was fizzy and not still. It’s that Cyrillic again… :-(
• When I finally took a break from walking and sat down for the first time, in front of a monument to study the map, a guy comes up to me and says the two English phrases he knows, and then tries to steal my backpack.
• NO ONE here speaks English, not even at Fatboys, described by the guide books as the best backpacker place in town. I’ve also been to two other hotels that are supposed to be backpacker hangouts, without meeting ANY other westerners. I DID see two backpackers (although they might not have been westerners) from afar, but lost them before I could catch up. I know that my dear Anna traveled other central Asian countries and managed well, but then she at least had her sister for company – being by yourself is quite another matter!
• On my way from Fatboys, I took some pictures of a monument. This quickly brought out the local police that asked for my passport. Fortunately enough I had read the warnings that they will hold on to your passport until you pay a made-up “fine”, so I had a laminated photocopy to give them, but they still dragged me into a small building, searched through my pockets and backpack and tried to make me give them my watch/compass/barometer/altitude meter (I have to continue those gear articles soon!) as a “gift” to get my laptop computer back.
• At the local fairgrounds I was assaulted by beggars that literally tugged at my clothes and my backpack. Also the fairgrounds was really depressing and worn down. I’m sure that there will be an accident in the not too distant future.

All in all, I look back at my first day in Bishkek and can not find a single positive thing to say, except maybe about the beer that I’m drinking as I’m writing this. Even that is US-style and very tasteless though, but at least it’s beer...

And the outlook for the next few days is not very promising either: During all my interactions with the locals they have tried to rob me (well except for the simile I got when I paid my food in the supermarket – but she probably gouged me as well :-(). If I can’t trust an ordinary man to not steal my backpack, how do I even dare to ask the way? If I can’t trust the police, what to do if something goes wrong? And since I can’t even read the signs, how do I even dare leave the hotel?

I can only hope that it gets better, otherwise I will probably stay in my room and watch old Boston Legal TV shows on my laptop for three days until the rest of the team gets here and we meet the local affiliate.

I can only say Öf – my phrasebook says that it is the kyrghyz sound used to express something that is terrible or disgusting!