A grim journey from Alrewas to Bishkek. Richard very kindly took us to Birmingham airport, where the plane for Bishkek was supposed to leave at 15.15 but finally got off the ground at about 19.30, so we missed the connection at Istanbul and had to stay in the Ataturk airport from 01.05 to18.55. Last year we were at the Sabiha Gokcen airport in Istanbul waiting for the flight to Baghdad during Ramadan. At the moment the sun went down, thousands of people got their carpets out on the floor and unloaded their picnic baskets. A group of men gave us plates of their delicious food and a group of women gave us some water and meat pies. A lovely experience. The Ataturk airport is quite different. The world’s largest, it is a massive construction of glass, concrete and aluminium full of expensive shops and cafes (33 euros for a burger so we didn’t eat there) and millions of people. We had to suffer 17 hours of it.
We got to the Dostuk hotel and booked in. On getting to our room we fell asleep and slept until after 5 pm. We went down and met our good friend Gapur (the manager) and got the key back for the van. We then went and ate at the Bukhara restaurant, although the outside pavilion was closed for the winter. We had a delicious aubergine salad, meat dumplings and a Kazan Chicken.
A lazy day in Bishkek. We got up late, still recovering from our nightmare journey to Bishkek. I wrote a polite email to Turkish Airlines asking them to explain why I got to Bishkek 22 hours late and had to suffer a wait of 17 hours at Istanbul airport. We went for a walk through Victory Park with its triumphal arch, eternal flame burning away and sculptures of soldiers carrying machine guns. The aim was to find the Historical Museum and the statue of Lenin located in a wood behind it. We walked for a mile before I decided we were going in the wrong direction and went back to the hotel. I have suffered some mild verbal abuse when it was discovered that the museum was only 100 metres away when we turned back.
Our hotel from Victory Park
