The only photo I have from the entire day is a cup of coffee. Which goes to show how lazy today was.
It reached late afternoon so I packed up and asked the hostel to call me a taxi. The pregnant receptionist warned me to not pay a Som over than the price she was quoted. Even after I jumped into the taxi, the receptionist reminded/shouted at the taxi driver to not overcharge me.
I assumed the worst and was ready for a fight at the other end, but the taxi driver was docile and didn't attempt to overcharge.
I landed in Bishkek Airport at around 10pm and again, it was my least favourite travelling chore - dodge the taxi drivers. I'd read about Bishkek airport being notorious for aggressive taxi touts. As soon as I walked through arrivals I was greeted by a short Kyrgyz taxi driver who refused to leave me alone and even followed me as I walked as far away from arrivals as possible, he got bored after an extended period of time and scuttled back to his prime touting position.
At this point I decided to head out of the airport at the departures entrance, now totally deserted. One cab had started pulling a way but stopped. The driver jumped out, started shouting and motioning me in. There was already another chap in the front seat of this taxi - it screamed kidnapping and extortion attempt, but it seems preferable to giving the other taxi tout my money, so i jumped in.
I showed the address on my phone of where I needed to go and hoped for the best. The two Kyrgyz men chatted in the front (hopefully not about how they were going to rob me), but eventually we reached the hostel, or nearby the hostel, and I jumped out as the road ahead was pedestrianised.
The walk to this hostel is probably the most discomforting I have ever done. A pitch black country road, strewn with trash, steam coming out of pipes attached to the building on the right and a railway line to the left for good measure. I could see phone screen lights in the pitch black distance and hurriedly walked up this path in the hope it would lead me to my hostel.
To my shock, this was actually the correct road and I was in front of my hostel. I rang the bell and waited. And waited. Rang the bell some more and then waited some more. As I was contemplating jumping the 8ft gate, someone kindly buzzed me in.
On first impressions this hostel looked legit, the first 'hostel' hostel that I had stayed in, as opposed to a home-stay or a cheap hotel. I checked in and hit the hay.
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