Bishkek

We arrived in Bishkek on a Saturday morning and were suprised that the city was almost dead. As we walked on and saw the flags on half mast and the huge gathering we asked - it was the funeral of Aitmatov. Absolutley impressive, it seemed like the entire city was here. We walked on to our hotel but it was closed - the people had gone to the funeral. Besides many locals several presidents from surruounding countries and TV stations were there. The people were very proud of Aitmatov. Besides this there is not that much to report of Bishkek. We saw the Spain-Sweden game with "half the Spanish Embassy" (that's the way it felt like) and met this Spanish soldier on the way home from his assignment in Afghansitan (Bishkek has a large US airbase - which is actually within the regular civil airpot - and is a major base for Afghanistan supplies. You can see many tank transporter planes there). After telling us his story he asked what we would do here. He almost colapsed when we said holidays. He repeated about 3 times, you - here - holidays, vacaciones???

Bishkek, Kyrgystan