01
Osh
4 days
Once again it seems impossible to get our point across in Mandarin, even with our translation app. Nobody at the Kashgar bus station seems to understand that we want to take the shared taxi to the Irkeshtam border crossing. Although all travel forums and websites seem to talk about them, they seem to have collectively slipped everyone’s minds. While we sit down to arrange a Didi to the passport stop, we are addressed in Russian. An angel from heaven. Turns out he is one of the bus drivers to the border crossing and he will arrange for us to take the bus. He puts us in a taxi and off we go. Along the road we do change our minds and decide to hitchhike whenever we are not obligated to get into a Chinese minivan.
Beyond the Kyrgyz border, we are picked up by a truck. ‘It's still a long way to the passport control,’ he says. The driver is the same age as we are and has both a Chinese and a Kyrgyz wife and children. And according to him, the women are even girlfriends.
After the passport checkpoint a car heading for Osh stops and we gladly accept the ride. As much as we enjoy hitchhiking in trucks, a faster option can't hurt at the end of this long day. On the way, we are extra glad about our choice when we see collided trucks twice. We had even considered asking one of those trucks for a ride.
Our driver gives us a big ball of kurut and we try to figure out how to eat this indestructible ball of cheese. Gradually, as we descend to warmer altitudes the snowy Kyrgyz mountains make way for green hills and charming villages with horseriding shepherds.
Our days in Osh are spent planning and talking to strangers in coffee bars. We are too late for the livestock market. Oh well.