Jalal-Abad Beauties

After a day's rest at Israel's, I decide to leave Arslanbob without going to the lake and decide to pay my friend Mohammed-Sadi a visit. The share taxis all want far too much money for the trip, so I decide to hitch.

The first car I ask for a lift happily offers me a lift for half the trip. When I get in, I realise I've hitched a lift with the police. We chat back and forth about life, money and their line of work and eventually I have to get out and find a lift for the rest of the way.

Instead of letting me hitch a lift, the officers tell me to wait in the car. Bulat, the one in uniform gets out of the car and waves down the first car that passes, tells the driver that he will drive me to Jalal-Abad because I have no money and tells me to get in. We get as far as Bazaar-Korgon (roughly halfway but on the main highway) before I'm kicked out of the car. I finish the trip in a mashrutka and am charged twice the price I paid to get to Jalal-Abad.

I'm picked up in Jalal-Abad by Mohammed Sadi's older brother and cousin, and we stop by their plot of land en-route to Sadi's house. The family owns a small plot of land where they grow onions.

The beauty in Sadi's backyard.

The beauty in Sadi's front yard.

The beauty who was too shy to talk to me, probably because someone decapitated her chicken (between us) and she's still in shock.

The beauty (Gulya) that Sadi couldn't stop looking at all throughout lunch. Despite being Kyrgyz and Sadi Uzbek, he still spent most of lunch either watching her or taking photos of her. Her T-Shirt reads "Some girls do. Some girls don't. I might..."

There's also a thermal spring in Jalal-Abad, supposedly with healing waters, so of course we make the trip. The water is salty and won't even cure your thirst, though the surrounding park is beautiful.

I take on a job for a half a day, free of charge just to see whether or not it's tough being a Kyrgyz farmer. The task is to clear a field of corn stalks, without machinery, using a sickle, the poster tool for the communist movement. It's tiring work but nothing I can't handle. Grandpa Lenin would be proud of me.