Taking the long way home from Japan to Frome, UK

Category: kyrgyzstan (Page 1 of 2)

Candied Concrete Constructions

I doubt this is the usual overlander/traveller blog topic! Nevertheless, as one travels through the countries that we have on Fromeward Bound there’s no doubting the influence that concrete has in shaping the region.

It should be noted that I’m a big fan of concrete; both as a building material and also aesthetically. I particularly love 1960s brutalism; as a child I would visit my uncle who lived in the Barbican and marvel at this unapologetic beast of a structure. (I’m no snob though, as I’m equally enamoured by car parks!) I love the rawness of the material, the colour palette, the different textures; it’s uncompromisingly scale and it’s innate strength. I’ve mixed concrete only once before when Captain and I laid some foundations for an extension. It’s pretty mind boggling that from four simple ingredients of sand, cement, aggregate and water one can create a material so hard and strong it can withstand a nuclear bomb.

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The Wedding Crashers

I have no idea if this is a traditional thing or a new thing…in fact, I know nothing about it and I won’t pretend that I do.

But, from what I’ve seen in Central Asia, it seems that there is some sort of wedding custom that involves a fleet of cars. Yes, I hear you bemoan, the bride turning up in a car and then alighting from said car is also part of the Western tradition too. But I retort…does it involve someone sitting in the boot of a car (with the boot wide open I hasten to add) holding a huge movie camera while recording the entire drive? Does it involve several cars driving around and around town with hazards flashing; gleeful and frequent beeping; donutting; people lunging out of car windows; drones circulating above recording every move?

Now lets just hope they don’t crash 😉

Contravening almost every good practice of drone flying in one wedding

Contravening almost every good practice of drone flying in a single wedding

 

Surprise, Surprise

Nine months passed between deciding that Fromeward Bound was going to happen and finally leaving Tokyo. During that time I did a huge amount of researching and planning – reading blogs and forums, pouring over maps, etc. – and created quite a clear idea in my head of how I thought things would play out.

Despite all that ‘deep’ thinking, some things have turned out a bit differently…..

Our very first night on the road

Our very first night on the road

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Kyrgyzstan Reflections

#1 Shipping containers are recycled in all manner of new uses (see my separate blog post!)

#2 There is a plethora of VW cars – Golf Mark 2, Passat, Jetta and lots of Audis from the same era too

#3 Morrison shopping bags seem to be cropping up in quite a few of the smaller supermarkets

#4 Yet more apples and huge mounds of the biggest butternut squashes I have ever seen

#5 All the taxis are Mercedes vans

#6 Many of the towns and villages have tree lined roads of huge Poplar trees – they are so beautiful

#7 As in the rest of Central Asia, honey abounds

#8 Men usually wear clothes of rather drab colours while the women are often sporting pinks, purples and reds

#9 There are car washing facilities everywhere – all manned by young men and cost about £1.50 for a wash

#10 There are lots of rose bushes – though I haven’t yet come across one that smells divine

#11 On many of the houses, and particularly fences, there are long diamond motifs

#12 Porridge and rice pudding are popular breakfast dishes

#13 The landscape is simply stunning – the snow capped mountains are quite frankly the bee’s knees!

#14 Lots and lots and lots of Vodka

#15 As with the rest of Central Asia the people are very friendly and hospitable

Kyrgyzstan Route

Sadly, our time in Kyrgyzstan is just about to end….. We’re currently in the second city, Osh, and gearing up to set off for the Tajikistan border tomorrow, aiming to cross on Tuesday.

On the trip so far, not only has Kyrgyzstan been the most difficult country to spell, it’s also been the most beautiful. The mountains here are just amazing and the network of tracks that have enabled us to go way up into the hills equally so. Once again the car has performed beyond our expectations and will be treated to a car wash in the morning before we set off.

One for the Road

We drove over a mountain today! Where the Japanese would have built a tunnel the Kyrgyzs built a road. The said tunnel would have been expensive, over engineered, straight and pretty damn boring. This road, on the other hand, was cheap to build, extremely basic, curvy and absolutely totally exciting.

The road ahead (look carefully!)

The road ahead (look carefully!)

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