Greetings from Bishkek

Hello all, finally signing back on from Bishkek, in the northern part of the former Soviet Republic of Kyrgyzstan. I spent about 30 hours on an airplane and made more stops then most current rock bands make on their world tours. We left sometime on the 24^th and got in here early on the morning of the 26^th. We stopped in Indianapolis, Nova Scotia, Iceland, Germany, Romania and then here in Kyrgyzstan.

The most interesting stop we made was in Iceland, probably because it’s the only airport where we were allowed in the normal international terminal and there were some locals in there. All very tall and all very blonde. In Germany we were in what I guess was a US military holding area, and in Romania it was a really small airport that was completely empty, there were no personnel at all, it was like they just left the doors unlocked and the lights on. Heading into the former USSR was interesting, even from the airfield. The airports were really pretty small, in isolated rural farming areas and the construction and cars were all very 80’s. Considering Bishkek is the capital of Kyrgyzstan and the airport wasn’t real busy is an indicator of the differences between US life and living everywhere else. Really, major differences in every way when you compare to a modern US airport. Plus, seeing a lot of things written in Cyrillic with no English translation was interesting. Hard to imagine less than 20 years ago an American couldn’t get to places like this. True, why would you want to when talking about Bishkek, but it’s interesting nonetheless.

Here in Bishkek it’s sort of interesting. It’s chilly in the evenings and mornings, but really hot during the day. It’s pretty dusty too. There’s a pretty big mountain range called the Ala-Too, which is an extension of the Tien Shan Mountains. Past that is Kazakhstan, apparently. According to wikipedia it has peaks up in the 16,000 foot range. We can’t leave the Manas Airbase so we can’t really see any of the sights or anything, just the mountains really. All of the cars driving around are either Mitsubishi or Mercedes Benz, which is only interesting because on US ran places you’re used to seeing all US manufactured cars and here it isn’t the case. The food here is pretty good, one perk of being deployed. It’s all you can eat, there’s tons of it and it’s really not that bad. It’s also open 24/7.

We’re currently billeted in a big tent with the Romanian Army. They’re nice but interesting to say the least. They sleep most of the day, wake up around dinnertime and do whatever, then go back to sleep around 1 or 2 in the morning. Due to our jet lag, us crazy Americans were out around 4-5pm and up again around 4am. Everyone got some much needed rest, though. Half of yesterday I would sit down and still feel like I was on an airplane. It’s good to rest though, especially since in awhile we’ll be moving out to Kandahar.

That’s really about it for now. As a side note, I can make free phone calls through my computer with a VOIP program. If you have Skype already (Mac and PC) then I can phone you for free. If not, I can call your mobile phone or landline for like 3 euro’s a month. Just an FYI. I can get a phone number and a voice mailbox, so it’ll be almost like I have a normal phone. They have Afghani phones but I haven’t looked into that yet. Still exploring options I guess. My iPhone gets good service out here, but it costs $4.99 a minute and $20 per MB of data. Luckily I turned my data-roaming off. I put some pictures up on my Facebook page and will post some here as well.

Until next time.

-Danny

The Ala-Too Mountains

Some signs in Iceland.

The airport in Bishkek.