The aftermath
Trip Start
Aug 18, 2010
1
10
38
Trip End
Ongoing
Osh, Kyrgyzstan
Monday, September 13, 2010
The first thing greeting us at Osh is a police road block, and after that you can see all the charred remains of the houses and shops from the riots in June. It's very sad to see so much of the city in ruins. Life here is difficult enough already without all these problems. You can see people starting to rebuild some of the houses but it's going to be a long process and I think many people just left for good. The streets are very quiet, especially after dark. I can imagine this used to be a very lively place, with lots of street side restaurants and tea houses but most of these are burnt or destroyed now.
The most scary thing on the trip happened when the hotel I'm planning to go doesn't have anyone answering the door. I've waited for an hour but still no one shows up. Normally I'll just go find another hotel but many hotels has been closed since the riots. Walking around the streets, with no street light and people is quite scary. I saw two police but in central Asia they tend to create more problems then they solve so they're no help. So I'm practically wandering around blindly. Good thing I met a taxi driver who called the hotel owner and gave me a ride to meet him. It turns out he was at the mosque. We went to the hotel afterward.
One of the attractions is the bazaar but when I got there, I was surprised it was completely burnt down, and this bazaar is quite big. The merchants now set up their shops on tables or cargo containers. I guess life needs to go on. The rest of the town doesn't have much to offer, except a hill in the center offering a nice view. Up there, you can really notice how the destruction is only in certain parts of the city while the rest is completely fine. It's actually quite a nice city with lots of trees lining the streets.
As these were my last days in Kyrgyzstan, I finally tried shashlyk, which is basically kebab. It's a central Asia staple but I tried it so late in my trip because that's the only food you can get in some places and I heard people getting sick of eating so much of it. So I was trying to avoid it as much as possible so the same thing wouldn't happen to me.
I was forced to stay in Osh for a few days while waiting for people to share a car down to Tajikistan because no public transportation goes that route. After two days, I was getting worried about when I'll get to leave as most people were heading to China or coming from China. Then something amazing happened. I just finished lunch and I walked past a hotel. Just at that moment, another person came out from the hotel with an English guidebook. We started chatting and it turns out he and his wife are planning to go to Tajikistan the next day as well. The timing seemed too perfect to be a coincidence for me. So we spent the rest of the day getting to know each other and arranging a car.
The following day, there were of course problems. Our guide didn't show up and we waited for an hour. So in the end, we had to go find ourselves another guy, then waited around a bit more. However, eventually we were off.
Comments
Awe... no pictures. But good to hear from you.
Merry Christmas to you!