Distance: 117 miles – Cumulative distance since Islamabad: 1324 miles – Travelling time: 1020 – 1430  – Temperature range: 11 – 27°C

Leaving Arslanbob

Setting off after breakfast, and with Murray having a swift rollicking from our host for walking half naked from the bathroom to the bedroom (eek! – he might have been seen by the women of the village) we did the reverse journey back to Osh.

More herds to negotiate

Soviet town signage

Answers on a postcard please if you can name this warrior!

The entrance to Jalalabad – obviously a top backdrop for wedding photos!!

We agreed to miss dropping into Jalalabad, the third largest city but we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to see what was going on with a wedding party! We carried on bumping along until by mistake we nearly entered Uzbekistan via a route unauthorised for foreigners. Turning around we were stopped by a policeman and questioned. As none of us spoke the other’s language it was intimated, with some relief, that we would go on our way without reproach or punitive fine!

With a high degree of navigating (I thoroughly recommend the app Maps.me), consulting of guidebooks and failed calls we found our way to the Eco Hotel in Osh in search of a room. With nothing available we were sent a street away to a great B&B run by a Kyrgyz lady with a mouth full of golden teeth and not a word of English! Given that our Kyrgyz wasn’t up to much we resorted to sign language an noises to communicate leading to much hilarity on both sides. It was perfect and we were pre-positioned to reach the correct border at Dostuk Port with Uzbekistan the following morning.

Osh has of note a huge craggy rock rising up in the middle of the city, called Suleiman Too. The holy prophet Mohammed is claimed to have visited here and so it is a place of pilgrimage. Our legs were still feeling the effects of the walk in Arslanbob, plus it was getting dark so we gave the steep walk a miss – thank heavens. The rest of the city, while being 3000 years old has little historic architecture other than shabby decrepit Soviet style buildings.

Having secured the car and taken out what we needed for the night – we had fine tuned this to an art form knowing exactly where everything should be, mostly – we set off to down town Osh to find an eatery. It was Sunday evening, in a former Soviet city, and there was very little open but we found a bar and settled in to a happy evening knowing that the next day we would be heading in a westward direction.