Bishkek

After Jalal-Abad, I travel directly to Bishkek, forgoing Lake Sary Chelek since I'm still tired from hiking around Arslanbob and couchsurf in Kyrgyzstan, the first time in my trip. My most amazing host is Nazik, who signed up in part because she's keen to practice her English. We don't speak English until after I return from Ala-Archa as other couch surfers come to stay and they don't speak Russian.

Nazik's mum is a chess superstar and coach, her younger sister is the Kyrgyzstan champion and her mum's star pupil, Diana, at 10 years old beats me without breaking a sweat. I redeem myself the following day and am smiling from ear to ear knowing I beat the future world chess champion.

I make plans to visit the museum of fine arts and end up in the museum of Lenin. If you decide to go there, make sure to look up, the ceiling of the entire Lenin exhibition is painted in the most amazing murals, though I'm told to pay for photos and can thus only snap one.

Part of the ceiling of the second floor of the Lenin museum in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.

I bump into a Lithuanian tourist, Arturas, in the museum. We grab lunch and bump into two Kyrgyz kick-boxers, Johnny and Aibek, who offer me a lift to Song-Kol to join them in their training/fighting/drinking/hunting holiday. We drink beers together, a lot.

After beers we head to play ping pong. I lose embarrassingly, so we return for more beers. Then we're joined by a couple of beauties...

... and all is good again.

Couch surfing at Nazik's - Angelica and Gustav from Brasil, myself and Nazik. Angelica and Gustav are two months into a ten month trip. They're travelling in part for pleasure, but also to shoot a documentary film on microlending/microfinance around the world.

After getting up to scratch on what exactly microfinance is, I'm very excited about seeing it succeed as it helps the poor help themselves make a better living for themselves. The socialist in me likes this a lot. To learn more about their work, check out their site Human Development in Focus.

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