After a couple of days in Almaty we left for Kyrgyzstan, unfortunately we had to succumb to traveling by car since the Kyrgyz railway system is virtually non existent. We stayed briefly in Bishkek and then headed for a lovely little village called Arslanbob.
In Arslanbob there are no hotels so we stayed with a family. This is the lovely matriarch that cooked us incredible vegetarian food (being vegetarian is something they find outrageous in Central Asia). Community based tourism (CBT) arranges homestays and guides, ensuring that most of the money goes directly into the local’s pockets. Wish there were more of these initiatives around.
This is the patriarch, who didn’t do much of the cooking, but he was very chatty and friendly. Unfortunately, we hardly understood a word that he said, but it didn’t seem to bother him much.
Arslanbob is surrounded by the worlds biggest walnut forest at 600 000 hectares. Here are two little helpers, rivaling the squirrels. Don’t worry about these little boys though; school is compulsory for eleven years and child labor is not an issue in Arslanbob according to our guide.
The whole village is out in the forest, picking walnuts during the harvest season.
Another happy walnut picker. Most people over thirty have several golden teeth but it’s not actually gold but some kind of metal.
Perfect autumn lunch in the walnut forest. This is a good example of what Joen calls a “Harrison Ford autumn” (referring to the multitude of movies where he saves the world in a perfect New England autumn setting), as opposed to the “Jodie Foster autumn” (referring to Silence of the Lambs).
Arslanbob is also surrounded by majestic mountains. We hiked up to “Holy Rock”, and although being rather experienced hikers, this was quite a challenge. There are no proper paths, so the rock ended up feeling less holy in the end, due to our excessive swearing on the way up.
I completely forgot about our endeavours on the way down when I found the cutest little miniature donkey! Most of the boys seem to have their own donkey in Arslanbob. Our guide explained that since old Russian jeeps have become affordable, the donkeys are out of work and given to the boys to trot about. I would be infuriated as a girl, not being allowed my own donkey.
Joen on the other hand, found a miniature lady, chatting away in Russian and Kyrgyz. He did not understand much of either language.
One of the many children shouting: photo, photo! And then becoming very shy once captured. And then breaking out in all smiles again, when showed the photo. What I liked the most about this village is that all people seemed to make a pretty good living; they were not rich but not poor either. Most of them were self sufficient, growing vegetables and keeping livestock. The animals were well fed, and roamed freely on the pasture and in the forest. I wish all animals could live like that. At least this is what we experienced and what our local guide explained to us.