Arriving in Bishkek we made for the Albatross Hotel, only to be told that our good friend Gapur Karimov had moved to another hotel, the Premier. After spending three hours driving round and round, asking countless people who got their phones out and showed us where it was on the map, we eventually in desperation went down this little unmade road and asked a man in the street who, it turned out, worked there. He phoned Gapur who came out into the street to meet us. The Premier is a “boutique hotel”, rather small but the room was lovely and the breakfast delicious. We didnt dare to ask the price, but it was very reasonable.
A disaster in the evening. When we met Jim and Sonia at the end of August, they took us to the “Chicken Shack”, which is part of a Korean restaurant and serves KFC type meals, but twice as good and a fraction of the price. Gapur couldn’t find it on the internet, the taxi driver (who charged us 78 pence for a 5-mile ride into central Bishkek) couldn’t find it on his satnav, and his office couldn’t find it. He took us to the “Chicken Star” where I had a reasonable meal but Jennifer’s chicken panini was a disaster. The following night we ate in the hotel and had a delicious meal served to our room for a very cheap price. Some folks think we must be incredibly rich, gallivanting round Central Asia, staying in a hotel (occasionally) and eating out at times. In fact Central Asia is so cheap that we are living much more cheaply than we would at home!!!
