MIR Corporation's Travel Blog:
Chinese Turkestan & Central Asia
Andrew Barron, MIR's Director of Scheduled Group Tours, visits the ancient Silk Road in Western China and the 'Stans with the Chinese Turkestan & Central Asia scheduled group tour. Read about his journey from Almaty to Urumqi, Kashgar and Bishkek. 
Day 11: Bishkek, departure from Almaty - The Universal Language of Border Checkpoints
May 23, 2008
Today we did some touring in and around Bishkek, the capital city, with its wide boulevards, tall statues, sparse traffic and sunny weather. We had a good visit at an upscale school for children of expat VIPs, and then the group had to head to the airport. I talked at some length with our city guide about his real love, the mountains of the southern and western part of the country. I think a return visit to Kyrgyzstan for more exploring in the "hinterlands" would definitely be rewarding.
The last leg of my journey was to drive from Bishkek back to Almaty, including a border crossing on foot. Our groups often get special permission to stay with their vehicle, but I was asked to hop out of the car on the Kyrgyz side and pass individually through passport control. Exiting the Kyrgyz side was easy; I passed my passport to the border guard, had it stamped, and continued through no-man's land, with a line of other pedestrians. On the Kazakh side I started to walk down the tunnel to the frontier and was waved inside the building on the side with much shouting (not the threatening kind, but still a bit unnerving coming from the uniformed men who run the border point). Inside was a crowd of mostly Kyrgyz / mostly young men. A crowd lined one wall, and it was suddenly a familiar scene from every border and airport everywhere in the world: blank forms on a table, stubs of pencils being passed around, and officials quietly waiting in booths by turnstiles. I grabbed a form, and that's when a fellow traveler approached, a rough-looking guy, a bit taller than me, probably Kyrgyz. He said something in Kyrgyz that I didn't understand, clearly to me. Gesturing. I didn't follow what he said and he repeated himself, and repeated the gesture. One last time and I got it: he needed a hand with his form, and I happily translated the English language version of the form, and helped him complete his entry documents. I stepped through the turnstile, met my waiting driver, and drove off to Almaty, the airport and home.
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