Kyrgyzstan

Bishkek

: Statue of a horse riding a legendary strongman named Baatyr Kaba uluu Kojomkul

: Kyrgyzstan has a population of about 5.5 million. About 80% of that population is Muslim

: Great Gatsby at the cinema

: Some other flick that was in theaters during my time in the Kyrgyz capital

: The top floor of this building was a club but when we went…

: …there were only two people in the place.

: Dude selling strawberries out the back of his ride

: Commie movie rental shop

: Local girls taking a cell phone video of this crazy-ass Bishkek broad singing, dancing and yelling. The video can be seen all the way at the end of this post

: “My name is I Love You. Michael Jackson. Whitney Houston. My name is I Love You!”

: “She’s a maniac, MANIAC!”

: This is the only time I’d ever seen a window that’d just straight up fallen out of a building onto a pair of parked cars.

: Strange sculptures in front of an apartment building

: Close-up of the apartment from the photo previous

: I assume and hope this is a father and child

: Different view of those bizarre-ass sculptures

: A dude stepping out of JokerAs Online Betting Office

: “ribbit”

: Drinks for sale

: “We serve ice tea, red drink and blue-flavored mustache man”

: This square seemed to be a pretty popular place for locals to just sit and hang out

: Musician in the subway

: An Alaskan dude named Leopard showing off some leopard undies he found at the market

: I don’t know what these “anti-camel” taggings could’ve meant but I saw quite a few of them

: Camel-hatin’

: Get the fuck out!

: USSR

: Building in downtown Bishkek

: Beautiful Bishkek babe. As many as 40% of ethnic Kyrgyz women are married after being kidnapped by the men that become their husbands. Once they are kidnapped they are technically already married and it is considered disgraceful – sometimes even by the bride’s parents – if she get away and return home. Our local guide, Erkin, who was about 30 casually told us the story of how he kidnapped his wife.

: Ya boi ‘n’ Leopard throwin’ down a you-know-what in front of Bishkek’s yurt-shaped Victory Monument

: View from underneath the Victory Monument which was completed in 1985 for the 40th anniversary of a WWII victory for the Soviet people

: Men returning from the war

: A woman who awaits the return of her husband and sons from the war

: Women tending to the flowers around the Victory Monument

: Kyrgyz kid pedaling in front of a statue depicting two men carrying a disassembled machine gun

: Woman at the park carrying a bundle of flowers

: Woman up close

: Statue of a famous ballerina named Byubyusara Beyshenalieva

: The Opera and Ballet Theater

: Same place, different angle

: Figures atop the Opera and Ballet Theater

: Same

: Commies

: Atop a monument in the park

: Be sure to check out the shirt of the kid on the right

: Ping-Pong in the park

: Monument of stateswoman and military leader, Kurmanjan Datka

: Face

: Head

: Kyrgyzstani folk

: Aykol Manas in front of the Kyrgyzstani flag. The sun in the center of the flag has 40 rays which represent the 40 Kyrgyz tribes who unified under Manas to fight off the Mongols. The center of the sun is the representation of a tunduk, or crown, which sits atop traditional Kyrgyz yurts.

: Another vehicle which I’m sure gets at least forty hectares on a single tank of kerosene.

: Government building seen from Ala-Too Square

: Building

: Kids hanging out near Ala-Too Square

: Guards of the flag in Ala-Too Square

: Guard

: Shifty-eyed guard

: Playing in the fountain at Ala-Too Square

: For at least a good hour, the creepy dude on the left followed us through the streets of Bishkek.

: He was talking to himself the whole time and was…

: …carrying an Angry Birds pen around in his right hand.

: There’s the pen up close

: Peoples’ Friendship Monument

: Flowers in front of the Friendship monument

: Built in 1974 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the voluntary accession of Kyrgyzstan to Russia, the high relief here symbolizes the unbreakable friendship of Kyrgyz and Russian people.

: Kyrgyzstanis

: Gov’ment shit from a diff’rent angle

: Government facility

: Emblem on the building in the photo previous

: Chick with an American flag shirt

: Graffiti

: Who dat?

: I wonder how cool someone thinks they are in Kyrgyzstan when they take a can of spray paint and write ‘Notorious B.I.G.’ or…

: …’ICE CUBE’ on the wall.

: Yay Communism!

: I don’t quite know what dolphins have to do with pharmacies…

: Fruit stand

: “FAG”

: Some gangsta shit

: Was checking out the graffiti on this wall when I noticed…

: …all the weed that’d been growing right behind it. Turns out the shit grows naturally and I’d see it all over the place while wandering around the capital.

: I’ve always wanted to get a blowjob from a chick in the sidecar while driving one of these.

: Beater

: A dick aiming for someone’s mouth or a wedge of cheese or the moon or something. Not sure what that circular thing is, but – no doubt – that’s a dick heading right for it.

: MAMA

: Urrbody loves them a Snickers

: Aw sweet “HIP-HOP” tag, bro! Nice! You’re already on your way to becoming the next Banksy.

: U look good now, bruh, but them be man-tits in ten years. Guarantee it.

: Walk along the railroad tracks

: Can you think of a more romantic wall on which to proclaim your love for someone?

: If I were you, I’d want me too

: A bag of “nasvai” – smokeless tobacco pellets you put under your tongue that burn and give you a strong buzz within a minute

: Nasvai goes well with cheap-ass Kyrgyz beer

: Group SUCK IT!

: Billboard for Obama Bar & Grill which I NEEDED to go to once I knew it existed. I’ll get to that later…

: They’re GRRRRRREAT!

: “Bowl o’ surryul?”

: Middle range vodkas which sell for 135 Kyrgyzstani Som – the equivalent of $2.75 USD

: In a league of its own, THE most expensive bottle of vodka at the supermarket which sold for $13.25USD. It was SO cheap to get fucked up in Central Asia.

: Allen the Texan posting up at a table in the hostel for a night of vodka intake

: Female vender at Osh Bazaar

: Woman up close

: Dude holdin’ down his shop

: Wearing your religion on your sleeve

: “You ain’t representin’! You ain’t keepin’ it real!”

: The Klan runs a box-making operation in Central Asia.

: Psy!

: I actually ended up buying one of the shirts that says “Muslim” on it to see how long it takes for me to get beaten up by wearing it in my not-too-accepting-of-outsiders neighborhood back home

: Kyrgyz hats

: Throwback video games

: Michael Jackson’s MOONWALKER – haven’t seen this game in years

: Cologne shop

: I had been leaving the bazaar when I came across a little table with a guy selling this hilarious assortment of sex enhancers – wasn’t expecting to come across this treasure trove in a Muslim country.

: Too large, too thick, too hard, too strong

: Check out the Obama one with the thumbs up

: Think MJ gets any cash for this endorsement?

: Pictured on the box of these performance enhancing drugs (BOING!!!) is none other than recently deceased beardo, Mr. Osama bin Laden. “What, are you juicin’, Larry? Are you juicin’ now?”

: Chocolate-covered ice cream bar

: Drunk and/or dead guy passed out near Osh Bazaar whose presence everyone ignored

: Criminals

: I’d chow that box

: Obama Bar & Grill

: Canadian dude named Brandon shaking hands with the president

: ObaMosaic

: Inside the restaurant

: Presidential booth

: At the airport

: I’ll give you a mouthful of Wiener Nougat!

Fergana Valley & Song Kol Lake

: Herder in a traditional Ak Kalpak hat

: www.ratemymullet.com

: Outdoor pool at a market where we stopped

: Market exterior

: Market interior

: Muslim man in a taqiyah dangling his meat

: Fergana Valley was very scenic

: Humble abode

: Song Kol Lake

: Song Kol was one freezing-ass alpine lake

: I’ve never seen a cherry look so much like a penis

: Nomadic herders and their cattle traffic

: To be completely blunt and totally ignorant, while growing up I always imagined every country outside the US to be a putrid hellhole. I can’t express how glad I am I decided to expand my horizons.

: Flag boy who appears to have a raging saddle boner

: Damn

: SUCK IT at the top of the world

: “Frenchy” on the left and a French bicyclist who’d been pedaling his way through the mountains

: Offhand, I can’t think of a better place to ride a bicycle

: Serenity now!

: Roadside beekeepers producing fresh honey

: Bee truck

: “Honey for sale!”

: Fresh Kyrgyz honey turned me into a real life Winnie the Pooh constantly craving a “smackerel”

: Yurt home

: Chubby yurt kid

: If you look towards the bottom of the picture, you’ll see an abandoned vehicle down by the river.

: Here’s a close-up of it

: Spontaneously deciding to enter the yurt…

: Red-faced yurt kid

: #YurtLife

: Doing the dishes

: The horse on the right has a boner from watching the suckling

: Audi

: Precious

: WAYYYYY up in the mountains

: Family photo

: Mountain Life

: Close-up of the family from the photo previous

: Think you’d become an alcoholic if you lived in there during the winter?

: For sale on the left of the photo are bags of cheese balls and fermented mare’s milk. The cheese balls were pretty good…the mare milk – uh, not so much

: Outdoor bed

: More cheese balls and mare’s milk for sale which may or may not be these people’s only source of income

: So much competition from rival vendors

: Horse power

: Ride or die. It’s so strange to see dudes on horses like this in the middle of nowhere texting while they ride.

: Strange abandoned building

: Monument which I can’t recall the significance of

: View of a home as seen from the monument in the photo previous

: Camp spot

: Early in the morning I was awakened by animal noises only to find our camp completely entrenched in errant livestock.

: Hills

: Partially skeletal yurt

: Mother and daughter in some rural village

: Dude tinkering with his car

: Close-up of the guy from the photo previous

: Two old men that’d been walking past

: Gotta stay fresh

: Cemetery

: The occupant of one of the mausoleums

: A nomadic family in the process of moving their entire yurt home

: The familial transition as viewed from behind

: Kid flexing his muscles at us from his home on the right

: Roughhousing in the grass

Karakol

: Judging by the logo at the top there, I’m guessing that every tune-up at this auto shop comes with a happy ending

: A face with history

: Karakol street scene

: Hair cuttery

: The only thing this man is missing is a wooden tobacco pipe

: Bros

: “NO MASSAGE, NO SUNGLASSES, NO VIAGRA” – I dig this dude’s style

: Karakol ride with a…

: …Kyrgyz sun in the back windshield.

: Wandering down a different Karakol avenue…

: Dudes hanging out

: I wonder if this woman had once upon a time been bride kidnapped

: “MR. BREAN”??? Get real

: I bought a T-Pain notebook specifically for the purpose of walking around and making strangers hold it up while I took pictures of them.

: Homiez at the market

: He had no idea what his hat meant but was glad to pose for a photo

: Another Teddy-Bend-‘Er-Ass appearance

: Ain’t up to much of anything

: Messy ice cream eater from the photo previous

: Man from two photos ago getting’ down with T-Pain

: “Second hand” store

: Monument

: Art from the monument

: Same

: “I LOVE YOUR RASH”?

: “SEXY LADY’S”

: “FREND’S” Just a bit away from this one I saw a tag that said “Oprah” and I was so pissed I wasn’t able to get a photo of it.

: Looks like being an immature asshole is a worldwide phenomenon

: Inked up

: Woman in traditional garb on a government building poster

: Hungry-ass face

: Native American flavored ice cream

: Kid

: Batman Man

: “Are you my man?” Can’t tell what that design is supposed to be. Robotits? A tongue? Ass cheeks?

: 12 Kyrgyzstani som = 25 cents US. You really can’t afford not to smoke here.

: Dirt cheap vodkas

: Drunk lady who was probably smashed on said dirt cheap vodkas

: The reptilian face of a building

: Chicken stand

: Wasted on dat good stuff ‘n’ wearin’ locally produced hats

Jeti-Oghuz Valley

: Local lady

: En route to our final destination in Jeti-Oghuz Valley, we had to cross a bunch of sketchy, old, deteriorating wood bridges. This one actually wasn’t in too bad of shape.

: Nonetheless, I still got out as the truck passed just in case the bridge were to give way.

: That’d been a pretty strong current for such a shallow stream

: Camp

: I visited in mid-May and during this time locals had been assembling yurts which they’d rent out to the summer tourist crowd.

: Our guide, Erkin, explaining how Boris Yeltsin used to vacation in those houses there in the background

: Kids bein’ kids

: One of the many spectacular views I saw while hiking in the area

: No one wanted to come with me so I wandered up these hills by myself and…

: …was rewarded with these stunning views.

: Aw yeah

: Near the top of the hill had been a pack of wild horses that just stared at me the entire time I walked past.

: They didn’t look like they were used to seeing humans up there.

: “With the birds I’ll share this lonely view”

: Nap time

: On the descent

: Back near the bottom after my exhausting hike, Frenchy and Dave, the two guys at the bottom right there, had been smoking on somethin’ good and let me in on the action.

: Can’t think of anything more entertaining to watch while sitting, enjoying my buzz

: Frenchy and Dave trying to repair the bridge we’d broken while entering for a safe exit the following morning.

: Shot taken from my tent

: Kyrgyz dude makin’ dinner

: Leopard trying to burn a whole pine tree he’d found

: Kyrgyzstani version of a traffic jam

: More beekeeping honey-makers

: Massive full moon

Arslanbob

: Woman selling shit near the border with Uzbekistan

: On the way to Arslanbob

: Arslanbob is a small town of only about 1500 inhabitants

: Baby

: No idea whether these kids had been going to a wedding or if these were just their school uniforms

: Same little girls on the bottom right of the photo holding hands

: Old lady

: Riding ass

: Sucking ash

: Close-up of the dude in the photo previous

: Kids

: Guy

: Same guy up close

: Fixin’ the ride

: Leanin’

: 1USD = about 48 Kyrgyzstani Som (KGS)

: Minaret near the Uzbekistani border

: Arslanbob children

: Arslanbob elder

Kochkor & Lake Ysyk-Kol

: Girl on a balcony

: Lenin. Our guide said that he personally liked the massive Soviet influence on Kyrgyzstan. “If it weren’t for them,” he said, “we’d still all just be a bunch of herders wandering around the mountains.”

: Photograph from beneath the tunduk, or crown, of a yurt that’d been in the process of being built. As mentioned previously, the image of a tunduk appears on the national flag.

: Mountains everywhere

: Daddy daughter

: Strike up the band

: Ballin’

: Check out those blue eyes

: A major dust storm blew through the area while we were there

: Whoosh

: Visibility was quite shitty

: Eagle hunter

: Here’s the eagle hunter climbing up a hill from where he’d let go of the eagle to catch a rabbit he’d set loose in the area. Even though the rabbit had been about a hundred yards away when the beast was let loose, it didn’t stand a chance.

: As it’d been trained to do, here is the eagle separating the head from the body of the rabbit he’d just caught.

: After the hunting demonstration, the owner put a mask over the bird’s head so it wouldn’t freak out at the sight of unfamiliar people and start tearing our eyeballs out.

: Ivan the Aussie doing an eagle-armed SUCK IT!

: Staring contest with rabbit’s blood still freshly dripping of the talons

: Eagle-armed SUCK IT!

: Kyrgyz pride?

Altyn Arashan

: Altyn Arashan

: The road to Altyn Arashan was so rocky that we needed to hire an old Soviet army truck and driver to get us out there.

: Shepard tending to his flock

: This one goes to eleven

: Cliffy

: Man on horseback leading a flock through the hills

: Altyn Arashan is so fuckin’ sweet

: Snowy mountain closer up

: Massive fuck muscle – thus the phrase women always be usin’ to tell me I’m “hung like a horse.”

: Joe the Australian doing a SUCK IT during this late-May snowstorm. Australians never see snow and were going apeshit and dancing around as it fell.

: Didn’t take too long for the snow to start melting though

: Hiking in the area

: Leanin’ in front of a pasture

: Here is the outhouse where this old Canadian dude named Ed came frantically running out of yelling that nobody use the facilities because he’d somehow managed to drop his binoculars down into the shitty hole. No one could figure out why he had his binoculars out in an outhouse in the first place.

: Being the good dude and avid fisherman he is, our guide Erkin grabbed his fishing rod and fearlessly stormed into the outhouse to rescue Ed’s binoculars.

: Here’s Erkin looking back smiling as I practically had an orgasm, taking too much pleasure in old Ed’s frustration

: Here’s Ed holding up the shitty binoculars at the end of Erkin’s line.

: Close-up of the shitty binoculars with little hunks of dump speckled all over it. I wouldn’t put those things up to my face if I were him.

: Me and an old local dude I’d been rippin’ vodka shots with

: Pasture

: Local dudes

: This guy was a very skilled ping pong player. Guess there isn’t much else to get good at up in the hills with no electricity

: Truck rider

: Horse rider

: That’s Altyn Arashan for ya

: Ridin’

: Smokin’

Chong Kemin Valley & Burana Tower

: There were a lot of these nationalistic monument type things along the side of the road throughout the country.

: Hillside Kyrgyzstani flag

: Name of a town perhaps?

: Representin’

: Nationalistic stuff

: Burana Tower

: Art inside the museum at Burana Tower

: Same

: Statue

: Bony-ass dog looking for a meal in a garbage pit just outside the Burana Tower facilities

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