Asia

Biking in Uzbekistan 1

Posted by Mark Sullivan on May 4, 2023
Posted in: Uzbekistan. Leave a Comment

Luba, Rebecca, and Jim are pretty excited about their new Uzbek hats

From Bishkek we flew to Tashkent, the Uzbek capital, to begin our two-week bicycle trip with Grasshopper Adventures. We especially looked forward to meeting up here with Jim’s sister Rebecca and our dear friend Luba. This trip was a 50th birthday present to Rebecca (though COVID postponements mean it didn’t happen until she was a bit older). And we’ve met up with Luba in several countries since first biking together on a Grasshopper journey in Japan in 2017.

But a funny thing happened as we were awaiting their arrival at the hotel where the group was meeting. I heard a shriek and felt a big hug from a woman I assumed was Luba. But no, it took me a second to realize it was Sharon. Yes, Sharon and Tony, our Australian friends from a 2018 Grasshopper tour in India, were here to do the Uzbekistan trip. Three years ago, when we first signed up for this trip, we’d encouraged them to join us but they weren’t able to. But this year they signed up, assuming we’d done it long ago.

With Rebecca, Luba, Tony, and Sharon on board we’re pretty confident this is going to be a great trip!

So great to travel with Tony and Sharon again

We spent the first two days biking in the countryside just east of Tashkent, where the landscape is dry and scrubby, with views further east of the Tien Shan mountains. Named the “Celestial Mountains” in Chinese, this range forms the rugged border between Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and China.

Then we traveled a couple hours toward the Northeast corner of Uzbekistan to a holiday resort area on the shores of the Charvak reservoir. Here we put in two pretty tough days of biking in the Chaktal range of the Tien Shan, with stunning views of both the highest peak in Uzbekistan and the bright blue water of the reservoir.

Mark on the road

The mountains above us

The reservoir always below us

Jim and Luba on pink day

We made a stop at the Sun Institute, also known as a “solar furnace,” where major research is done on sunlight, solar power, and the effect of concentrated heat on materials

The Sun Institute got very interesting when we discovered that Becky (with one of our guides, Ben) could hold a piece of wood in front of this intense mirror and it would immediately start smoking

After a pretty morning on the bikes (Day Four), we returned to Tashkent for a day of sightseeing (and a welcome day off from the bikes) before heading west for more biking adventure. We stopped for a welcome lunch at a lovely restaurant on the way. We had a wonderful table in a cool, beautiful courtyard. There was just one snag. When the main dishes came out — grilled chicken with onions and yogurt — nothing came out for the three vegetarians in our group. This is a culture where grilled meats are supreme, though they usually manage to scrounge something together for the vegetarians.

Meanwhile, Sharon (one of the vegetarians) had been eying the table next to us, where a group of local women were eating together. They had heaps of big red strawberries. And they had delicious-looking thin bread pockets stuffed with cooked greens. We’d had those earlier a couple times, and Sharon eagerly awaited those as the veggie offering. But alas, one of our guides finally announced apologetically that the restaurant simply had nothing to offer the vegetarians. Sharon asked why we couldn’t order the stuffed bread.

It turns out the ladies next door had made those stuffed breads at home and brought them in for their own lunch. Somehow they picked up on our woes and quickly offered Sharon a couple big pieces of their handiwork. When they learned there were a couple more vegetarians, they sent over piles more. Then they sent over a couple heaping bowls of those incredible strawberries for all of us. It was the best possible introduction to Uzbek warmth and hospitality, followed by a fun round of picture taking.

Thanking the ladies who saved our lunch — with Mark and Rebecca on the left and fellow biker Lorilyn on the right

Rachel and Rebecca proudly point to the spot where they went swimming in the reservoir

The views!

Jim meets some enthusiastic local kids

Mark on the road again

Bishkek

Posted by Jim St. George on May 1, 2023
Posted in: Asia, Kyrgyzstan. 3 comments

Mark hiking in the Tian Shen mountains near Bishkek

As unlikely as it seemed at the start I really liked Bishkek. There’s nothing particularly interesting or exotic about the city, but I just really settled in nicely.

First off a quick preview. This is the first stop on a four-week trip through Central Asia, arranged around a two-week bicycle trip in Uzbekistan, and including a three-day stop in Istanbul on the way home. We’d scheduled the bike trip a couple months into the COVID lockdown when cabin fever was running high. Grasshopper Adventures – with whom we’ve done three bike trips previously – advertised this trip for September 2020 and we thought “Oh, that looks like fun. Let’s sign up, since COVID will surely be over by the fall!”

Obviously that didn’t work out and we kept postponing and postponing it, but finally we’re off. The plan is to add three other ‘Stans to the trip: Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan. I had previously been to Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, but these are all four new countries for Mark.

The city is full of long parks along boulevards and square parks behind museums and trees and trees and trees

Now, back to Bishkek, the capital and major city of Kyrgyzstan. Again, there’s nothing great about it but it’s a very comfortable city. Lots of great parks, millions of trees (literally), easy to walk around, and – while we were here at least – perfect weather. Sunny with highs in the high 60s and low 70s. We found some excellent Georgian food which always helps.

As far as adventures, there were three highlights. First up was a day-hike in the mountains. Bishkek sits just north of a section of the Tian Shen mountains, and in late April at least they’re still snow-capped and beautiful. So we hired a driver to take us maybe 45 minutes out of the city and did a two-hour hike up into the mountains. Mark and I are both having some knee problems (mine temporary, his less so), so we didn’t want to go too high or too deep into the mountains but it was a beautiful little trek.

I was up in the mountains too

The second great adventure was the big local market. We’ve been to a bunch of these markets over the years (I’d even been to this one when I was on a work trip in Bishkek in 2005) but not a lot in recent years so it was fun to poke around the colors and smells and sounds of the local market.

Mark and one of the many friendly Kyrgi vendors

And finally I spent a couple hours one morning in the National Fine Arts Museum which was surprisingly interesting. Now, I have no reason to believe there was any particularly important art here, but it was a fun way to see how the Kyrgis see themselves. Lots and lots of paintings of peasants up in the mountains doing peasant things. You know, cows and hay and sheep and all that stuff. And then add to that the kind of Superman-esque quality of Soviet art, especially from the 1950s and ’60s and it was just a good way to spend a couple of hours.

From 1958 and titled “Help to the Collective Farm,” I love just how happy these kids are going to work in the farm. As a kid I spent a lot of hours working in our vegetable garden and I don’t ever remember being that happy about it.

The real highlight of Bishkek, though, when the weather is perfect is just to wander in the parks, find an empty bench, and sit and read. A very pleasant way to start our trip through the ‘Stans. Next up, Uzbekistan and the two-week bike trip.

Up in the mountains

A very strange sign at the beginning of the trail up into the mountains. An ant crossing? Carrying … something?

Mark in the mountains

The two of us on the hike

Bishkek has seemingly thousand (though perhaps only hundreds) of statues of great heroes riding off to battle

This statue of Lenin was once in a more prominent place but some years ago was moved behind the National Museum. Still pretty much in the middle of the city though.

Goose-stepping military in the changing of the guard outside the National Museum

Colorful dried fruits and nuts in the market

And bread!

A gorgeous rug in the National Museum

Oak Park was my favorite place to sit and read. In addition to all the trees and greenery it had a big collection of sculptures. This guy with his horse was my favorite.

Another piece of Soviet propaganda art as this young Kyrgi girl marches confidently toward the future, school books in hand

We went to Meat Point a few times. It was strange – excellent steaks, massive portions, really inexpensive … and almost completely empty except for us.

Oh, and Meat Point had nice shots of vodka at crazy low prices. This bull became a good friend of ours.

And finally, in the category of “You Think You’ve Seen Everything…” there was this note on the menu in a Georgian restaurant we quite liked: the price they would charge if you accidentally (or presumably even on purpose) broke a dish. We’ve been in a lot of restaurants in a lot of countries and never seen this one before!

Koh Samui Yet Again

Posted by Jim St. George on March 5, 2023
Posted in: Asia, Thailand. Leave a Comment

Breakfast at Vana Belle, where they offered us champagne to start the day. Occasionally we would accept.

We closed our three-week holiday on our favorite island in the Gulf of Thailand, Koh Samui. We’ve been here a number of times and always consider the beach absolutely one of the best in the world. And we loved it again this time, though it wasn’t quite perfect. The first day we were there the sea was so rough you couldn’t really go in safely. I tried and before I got more than a few feet out a big wave just knocked me on my butt. As I stumbled to get up another came and knocked me back down again. So I left and waited until things calmed down the next day.

Then a few days later a pretty big storm blew through one evening and the next two days there were red flags out along the beach: don’t go in at all. The sea was really rough and so that was the end of that.

Our view from lunch. Normally we’re eager to get away from a resort for lunch, but the food was so good and varied we ate every lunch here, then went out for dinner. And with a view like that, there’s not much not to like…

Again, lots of reading (I finished the full three-volume biography of Teddy Roosevelt!), lots of lounging, another great hotel gym to stay at least a little active in, and lots of good food. Some great beach time before the weather turned. But I learned two things over these three weeks.

Local fish and calamari, one of many low-key but great meals. You know you’re not home when you notice the ashtray in the picture!

The first is more cool than important. We flew in and out through Singapore, which is almost exactly half-way around the world from New York. So the day of a flight out of New York, for instance, Singapore Air looks at the weather conditions and decides whether to fly northeast across the North Atlantic and over Europe, or northwest over North America and down the east coast of Asia.

On our outbound they flew us the northeastern route over Europe but on the return weather conditions were such that we flew northeast out of Singapore, up over Alaska and down across North America. So in fact we went around the world on this trip. How cool is that?

Dinner our last night at The Boudoir, our favorite French restaurant in Samui. Right – who has a favorite French restaurant on an island in the Gulf of Thailand? Turns out we’ve been there each of our last few visits to the island and it’s this little sliver of France off on a remote road. Since we were last there, though, a younger French couple started running it and it’s maybe not just quite as great as it used to be. Still good though.

Here’s the other thing I learned: three weeks of lazing on a beach in luxury resorts is just too much. I never thought I’d say that but by the end I was just a little bored with it all. To be sure, that is not the worst problem a person has ever had. But we both had the sense that we don’t need to do that again.

The good news is that we’re already getting excited about doing a winter vacation next year in Vietnam that would include some resort beach time but also probably some trekking in Sapa in the north, cruising in Halong Bay, urban time in Hanoi, and so on.

Hard to imagine getting bored on a beach like this, but somehow I managed it

If you had suggested on the LONG flight home from Singapore to New York that I would even consider another east Asia trip so soon (oh, and to make everything even more miserable I was sick on the flight, presumably from something I ate the last day in Thailand) I’d have been clear that wasn’t going to happen. But here we are just a few days back in New York with a Lonely Planet book sketching out what you could do next winter with five weeks or so in Vietnam. I’m already getting excited!

Bamboo Bar was a fun, colorful place maybe five minutes from our hotel and a nice place to stop for a pre-dinner drink

Enjoying a calm day in the sea

These were our chairs, under great branches that provided shade all day long

Another view from lunch

What’s the problem with a little late-afternoon storm if you’re already wet?

Lunch

An elegant plate at The Boudoir

Finally, this is the wine list at The Boudoir. I saw that chalk board and had to pull up the blog Return to Koh Samui from a previous visit. Sure enough, if you click on that link to our 2015 visit – eight years ago! – there’s the same chalk board down at the bottom. Nice to know that some things don’t change.