- Саламатсызбы!
- Саламатчылык!
- Кандайсыз?
- Жакшы!
... so much for my Kyrgyz (Hello! Re: Hello! How are you? Fine!). Kyrgyz and Kazakh are i think insofar interesting languages, as they are Turk languages, but written in cyrillic letters. Well, at least, for Kyrgyz (likely similar for Kazakh), since the influence of the USSR; before that (and maybe in future?) it has been written in the latin based "uniform turkic alphabet"... and before that in Arabic letters .. and before that in Turkish runes..
enough of the blabla, now here the last part, some pictures from kyrgyzstan! (I like the english "Kyrgyzstan" more than "Kirgistan", that "Kyrgyz" looks far more stylish :-) )
Starting with Bishkek, the capital city, the pictures have been taken all only several hundred meters apart.
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..still in the same area.. below: habitat of Vipera renardi and the official town's landmark, I would say. An absolutely huge factory, which overshoots everthing and sets the whole city below a smog dome.
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AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA[... here imagine 6 lines of cursing because i overwrote a prior topic ...]
As visible above, the weather got better and better the last week of the trip, which we spent more or less in the surroundings of Bishkek. Warmer temperatures means more interesting stuff outside. The herpetological highlight definitely has been a specimen of the Steppe Viper, Vipera renardi (right picture). On the left picture a Dione's Rat Snake (Elaphe dione), below another Racerunner species, Eremias arguta.
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Unfortunately i didn't find what I was veery much looking foward to, namely a Halys-Viper, which belongs to the group of pitvipers. And seeing that would have been really something new to me.
When you are in Kyrgyzstan, there's no way that you leave without having been in the mountains. In our case it has been an excursion up to about 3500 m.a.s.l., which was a bit below the glaciers there.
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The last part in Kyrgyzstan (besides an amazing good-bye-party and a taxi trip back to Kazakhstan) was a walking trip through Bishkek. Quite a contrast program from the beautiful mountain scenery, into the heart of the city. Below right is the main marked from Bishkek, photographed from above. From there you would have absolutely noooo idea what's going on below. Its a huge souq, like a small city, below those currogated metal sheets.
...and at the very end, on day 21, I think i saw heaven:
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..of course every now an then you find some funny oddities... like the stones above or the suff pictured below. A tornado- and stealing-proof stool, good ol' Seppi on the road and cool architecture.
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To sum everyhing up: Just amazing.
And thanks for that veeeery nice evening! :-)