Hiking Arslan-bob - in the walnut forest

Had breakfast at our homestay. Rice porridge. Almost like Christmas. Then a walk to town and back again before meeting with the rest of the group for a hike to the mountains and to the big walnut forest that they have here. The biggest on the planet. 600 hectares in total. Beautiful mountains with the sun shining of the snowcapped peaks.

What could be better than a walk after so many days of cities and buildings. First stop was the town centre with a busy market, then on to a small waterfall and then we headed to the mountains and the forest. A good chance to walk and talk with some of the new people in the group who joined in Tashkent. When the majority of the group decided to head back for lunch we continued for an extra half hour before heading back to town for lunch.

Turned out our late lunch arrival was a bit of a problem since some of the restaurants were sold out due to a busy market day. So we had bread, tea and somsa (samosas) for lunch. Back to our homestay to relax in the courtyard, have a nap before dinner and just enjoy the nice place. The next couple of days will be wild camping. Dinner was really good with some good veggies and a little meat in a potatoe stew - Dimlama. Ready to go to bed and an early morning tomorrow.

Breakfast - porridge

Banana in Arslanbob

Waterfal

Mountains and springtime

Hiking in the worlds largest walnut forest

Arslanbob market

Late hiking lunch

Border crossing – Hello Kyrgyzstan

Today was goodbye Uzbekistan hello Kyrgizstan. Uzbekistan has been interesting, very nice (as in everything is neat and in order), we've seen lots of beautiful buildings with blue tiles, the food has been good but limited to too few dishes so we're ready for new food (Shasliq – meat on a skewer with raw onion rings. Plov/pilaw – rice with carrots and meet. Somsa/samsa – Samosas with meat inside. Uzbeki soup or noodle soup – same same but with noodles.) the people have been nice and the women dressed in beautiful colored dresses. We also came across western tourist again mainly a bit older than us. Uzbekistan has been a good country travel in but we're also ready for something else than buildings, history and cities. High expectations for Kyrgizstan – the mountain country famous for its beautiful nature.

Left hotel at 8 am. About 3 hours driving to border crossing. The usual briefing about “do not do anything silly at the border”. Also a sweepstake about how many hours it would take to get us and the truck through customs.

Arrived at the border around 11 am. First checkpoint was a few kilometres from the actual border. Fully armed soldier came on the truck and had to inspect all passports and visas. Then a drive to the border. Everybody off the truck and fill in paperwork including a declaration on how much currency we each carried. Then they wanted to have a look at our cameras, ipads and phones and the pictures we had taken – as in ALL pictures, some showed pictures from years back – and they were interested in our books. Like in Turkmenistan they are very aware of religious books which you can't bring into the country. They're definitely also worrying about religious attacks.

Passport stamping and on foot through no-mans land. About a kilometre. The Kyrgiz border was much more simple. Wait in line, hand over passport, stamping, done. About 6 minutes. How all borders should be. Not any traffic passing through except us. Partly because Kyrgyzstan celebrated constitution day today so it was a public holiday, partly because the border is not really that open and the two countries do not have the best relationship.

But we made it in record 2-hours-time. Only two. Almost unbelievable. Truck always takes a little extra time, but we used the waiting time to exchange some money (still Som currency but now 59 to a US dollar instead of 3900), buy an ice cream and say hello to a new girl joining our trip. Marine from France. And our new guide Bigaim.

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Drove to Osh – the nearest town – to have lunch. Excellent lunch with noodles and spicy sauce – Lagman. Then 5 more hours of driving to Arslan-bob. Small village in the mountains. Approximately 1500 meter above sea level. Very rural with a stunning mountain backdrop. Homestay at a local family. Dinner with pilaw/plov and then to bed ready for some serious hiking in the mountains tomorrow. It's going to be good. Long travel day today though. Feeling tired and ready for a good nights sleeps.

Decorated truck

Lunch in Osh

Kyrgyzstan country side

Dinner at home stay in Arslan bob

Kamchic pass - When will we see our truck again?

Back on the road. Except this morning we were waiting for a bunch of cars to take us over the Kamchic pass on the way to Ferghana valley. The truck had already left the day before. We knew that the first attempt to get the truck over the pass didn't succeed so we were crossing our fingers for a better update for breakfast. But the truck was still stuck at the police control post this morning. Apparently there had been an accident involving a bus some years back so busses are no longer allowed to cross the mountain pass. Even if they are completely empty. Due to the geography of the Ferghana Valley and the surroundings the detour involves crossing borders, obtaining visas and permits for the truck. And most of all it is time consuming. Maybe 3 to 6 days without the truck and our equipment. So of course every possibility of getting the truck across the pass were checked.

Anyway we were in for a morning rally. Nice new cars, 8 in total, three persons in each car and off we went. Very fast. Going between 80 and 120 km/h leaving Tashkent in a hurry. And these guys were even hired to drive nicely – can't think of how the other taxi drivers would drive. When we made it to the police control post at the pass our truck was still parked there which in fact was a good sign. As long as the police had not ordered the truck to leave there was still a chance it could make it over the pass. Anyway we got our backpacks which were on the truck – just in case. Continuing over the pass was so beautiful. And it's totally weird that busses can't cross since the road is actually quite good, there are two lanes and it's not steep at all. And trucks totally overloaded with heavy cargo can cross. Unfortunately due to the army's presence in the area pictures were not allowed, but the mountains were beautiful. At the top we passed through a couple of tunnels with armed guards outside and inside the tunnel.

When we did the lunch stop in the valley news came that the truck had made it across the mountain pass. Leaving our local guide – Jalal – with our driver to take care of negotiations apparently worked. With a fistful of US dollars to speed up the process. The local police boss even escorted the truck over the pass and since he was in a hurry to go home for lunch his police officers were told to “shut the fuck up and mind their own work” whenever they tried to pull our truck over.

In the meantime we did a little more rally driving before reaching the first stop of the day – a nice palace. The Palace of Khudáyár Khán - one of the last to be built.  With no Jalal we had time to walk around on our own and just enjoy what was left of the palace which was beautiful but small. 

Two more hours of rally driving we had the last stop of the day at a silk factory. It was a bit warm in the afternoon but we enjoyed being shown around the different parts of the factory to see and experience how the silk cocoons were boiled in hot water before being spun, dyed, dried and wowed. Very impressive and lots of skills going into each step of the process. We arrived at our hotel in time for a cold beer and some food with the group. Getting ready for a border crossing tomorrow and a new country. Exciting.

Soviet style buildings

Palace

Silk factory

Ours cars for the day

Interesting meals

Fergana fried chichken