OVERLAND TO TAJIKISTAN 2: Bishkek (trouble lies ahead)

I’m breakfasting in the rose garden in Red Guesthouse’s whitewashed courtyard. As I spread runny homemade jam onto chewy chunks of freshly baked lipyoshka bread, Galya, the proprietor, is showing me pictures of her daughter’s wedding. 

The guesthouse has had a lot of foreign guests since Galya’s daughter designed and uploaded the website. That was good for business, but Galya is still troubled by the visit of two Afghan men, who she says were “very aggressive”. I don’t understand everything she says, but it seems one of the Afghans had problems with his head, heart and bottom, but he refused to let the doctor examine his bottom. I not and tut at appropriate moments, while sipping a cup of Nescafe. 

Then Galya’s husband joins us, and shakes his head when he hears of my plans to travel overland via Osh and south to Tajikistan. He’s never visited Tajikistan but is still worried for my safety. 

He urges me to take lots of small denomination dollar bills. “Tajiks want dollars. You can give them $1, $5 or $10,” he says. 

Just like the Kazakh driver yesterday who warned me about the dangers of Kygyzstan, the Kyrgyz hoteliers are warning me about the dangers of Tajikistan. I wonder if every day on my journey south I’ll be warned that trouble lies ahead.