After our weeks in the mountains, it took a bit of getting used to Osh. It was baking hot during the day, there was traffic once again, but above all there was so much stuff in the shops. We were able to get our first decent meal since Karakul and our first beer since Khorog, so we did like the place.
No shortage of Bread at Osh Bazaar
From Osh, our plan was to make our at a more relaxed pace to Bishkek, We had about three and half weeks in hand, so we thought we might try and get across to Kochkor for some horse trekking. One evening in Osh we were having a meal with Marija in a Chaikhana, when we noticed a lone cyclist at another table (we spotted the bar bag). This turned out to be a Dane called Leo, who had come through Tajikistan three weeks earlier and had since been touring around Kyrgyzstan. He was full of praise for Arslanbob, a village in the mountains near Jalabad, so we decided to include this on our itinerary. Marija, who had a few days to wait for a package of spares coming from Slovenia, decided to come too.
Another reason we liked Leo was, that at 48, he took over our mantle of being the oldest cyclist on the Pamir Highway.
On the road to Arslanbob
Cooling off in a irrigation ditch
To get to Arslanbob we followed the road to Bishkek as it skirted round the tail end of Uzbekistan's Ferghana Valley. After a mosquito ridden camp we reached Bazaar Korgon and the turning for Arslanbob, 45 km up in the hills.
Marija stopping to chat with an Uzbek man
Walnut forest, Arslanbob
Muharram at Homestay No. 12 Arslanbob
Arslanbob is part of the Community Based Tourism (CBT) network. This is an initiative where villages are helped to set up and run their own tourist office, homestays and activities for tourist. We received a very warm welcome at the Arslanbob CBT office. On the recommendation of a couple of cyclist we met en-route, we chose to stay at Homestay No.12 run by 19 year old Muharram Myrzamaksudova in her family's house. It was a wonderful place. The house has this dreamy veranda that seems to hang out over the valley, above the tops of the walnut trees, with panoramic views of the mountains. Muharram, herself is the most charming, attentive and good humoured host you could wish for. Within ten minutes we had fallen in love with the place and decided to stay for two days. Unfortunately, Marija could only stay one night as she had to get back to Osh to meet her package of spares.
Arslanbob itself is an interesting place. A victim of Stalin's random frontier drawing, it is a wholly Uzbek village embeded in Kyrgyzstan. There was nothing Kyrgyz about the place apart from the currency.
Leaving Arslanbob
Cafe society at Bazaar Korgon
After two days we reluctantly tore ourselves away from Homestay No.12 and whizzed back down the valley to the main Osh-Bishkek road. This road was upgraded quite recently by the Turks and is in really good condition. For the first couple of days the road carried on round the Ferghana valley on the flat. Then it tuned north and started to climb up the Naryn valley into the mountains. In the valley bottom, there was plenty of turquoise blue water in the reservoirs, but the road through the hills above was very dry. It was a tough, hot pedal.
Naryn Valley
We followed the road up past the mining town of Tashkomor, then on up the valley to the town of Karakol. Beyond Karakol the valley became much more green and lush. After a long climb, we reached the summit of a pass and were in sight of the massive Toktogul Reservoir. On immaculate tarmac, the long descent to the reservoir was the fastest of the trip. It's not often you get to overtake buses on a bike.
