Initially we’d planned to
taxi out to a nearby village in order to go horseback riding, but we awoke to
yet another dreary, drizzly day – not at all the kind of day you want to spend
on a horse. Instead we decided to take a taxi over to Osh, as it was only an
hour and a half away and perhaps might have clearer weather. While walking down
Toktogul Street, we heard someone call out from a balcony as we passed, “Hello!
Where are you from?” in a very American accent. It turned out that we had been
walking past the Jalalabad office of a US government funded group, and the
young woman who was calling out to us (C) was one of their employees.
We chatted with C for a
little bit, and learned that even though on the surface things in Jalalabad
seem really calm and everyone seems to get along, there’s a lot of tension
right underneath the surface. We exchanged contact info, then C headed back to
work and we headed off to catch a taxi.
In order to reach the taxi
touts at the far end of the bazaar, we had to walk through a crowd of people. B
got jostled (or as he put it, “violated”) by a group of tracksuit wearing
youth, and found himself pick-pocketed and out 2300 som ($40ish). Justifiably,
this put him in rather a foul mood for the rest of the day. I would however,
like to point out that it could have been a lot worse. He had initially put his
wallet with all of his money in his pocket. I had admonished him against taking
so much with him on a day trip to Osh, so he ended up leaving his wallet and
most of his cash in the homestay. You’re welcome. Hah!
We negotiated a decent price
for a taxi, but again we didn’t have great luck with our driver. While he
wasn’t a horrible driver by any means (especially not when compared to our
nightmare ride to Bazar Korgon), for some unknown reason he stopped the car in
a small village about half an hour outside of Osh, hopped out, and said he’d be
right back. And then was gone for half an hour. Then, when we got to Osh, he
tried to pressure us into agreeing to hire him to drive us back to Jalalabad
when we were ready to go. Um, no. For one thing, we had no idea what time we’d
be leaving the city. For another, he’d delayed us by a half an hour for no
clear reason. C’mon, dude!
Osh was depressing. Granted,
it was a dreary, overcast day, but the Osh I remember from 2008 was a vibrant,active place. Back in 2008, the Jayma Bazaar was a jam-packed and bustling
place, filled with lively sellers who traded pleasant banter with everyone who
passed, local and tourist alike. The bazaar was torched during the events ofJune 2010 (which affected Osh as well as Jalalabad), and it has obviously not
fully recovered. While there were plenty of traders around the periphery, they
seemed to go about their business rather solemnly. The central part of the
bazaar was nearly a ghost town. Much of it was empty, and some places still
showed scorch marks. Remembering the active bazaar of 2008 made walking through
the silent center of the Jayma Bazaar an eerie experience. And the building
with the big sign reading Миру-Мир (peace on earth) was completely gone.
We headed for the park for
the purpose of finding the old Aeroflot Yak-40 – cum – movie theater – cum
tourist attraction to photograph. While it hasn’t operated as a movie theater
for some time, back in 2008 the thing was decently maintained, and you could
pay a few soms to go inside and have your photo taken. Now it is merely a
derelict shell filled with filth. Next to it, however, was a ferris wheel – which
of course B and I rode. None of us had any interest in climbing Suleiman-too,
so we wandered through the park for a bit (accidentally ending up in the local
lovers’ lane), and then we decided to head back to Jalalabad.
At the bus station we
negotiated a good price for the return trip and hopped into the driver’s van.
When the cars parked behind him didn’t promptly move out of the way, the driver
hopped out. I suspect he planned to round up the drivers of said cars, berate
them, and get them to move out of his way. However, he forgot to set the
parking brake and left the van in neutral, meaning that when he hopped out, the
van started rolling. He scrambled to get back in, but was unsuccessful, and we
rolled smack into the car behind us (albeit at a very slow speed). The accident
was so slow-moving that it surely couldn’t have caused much (if any) damage to
either vehicle. But nonetheless, both drivers got into a huge argument, and
pretty soon nearly every taxi driver in the vicinity had chimed in. Our departure
was delayed by a good 20-25 minutes. Sigh.
Just outside of Osh, our car
was stopped by a traffic cop. Our driver blatantly paid a 60som ($1.10ish)
bribe (this involved an ostentatious hug and handshake, during which the money
surreptitiously changed hands), and then we were on our way “home” to
Jalalabad.
We returned to Jalalabad
around 5pm, made plans to meet up with C for dinner around 8pm, and then called
Hayat (as he was far more reliable than the local CBT coordinator) to arrange
transport for the following day. Dinner with C was lovely (except for the part
where a rather inebriated local woman forced me to dance with her).
We also
learned that the Kyrgyz word for mud is баткак. For those of you who don’t read Cyrillic, that’s
essentially pronounced butt cock.
This will never, ever get old.
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