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Tuesday, October 21, 2008

A day in the stomach of a cycle tourist in Kyrgyzstan

Breakfast: Oatmeal with fresh or dried fruit (we change it up), cream and sugar; and tea. When we're in hostels, we sometimes treat ourselves to eggs, friend sausage and bread.

Lunch: Bread (the breads here are absolutely wonderful when you can get them fresh. Unfortunately, when we're a few days between towns, we end up eating a lot of stale stuff. But even stale bread tastes alright with nutella (we've polished of 1.5kg of it so far!), honey and jam (or favorites are apricot and barberry). We also eat some sausage and cheese for the protein more than the taste (we miss canadian cheese!!).

Dinner: We've done a much better job at keeping some variety in our diets here than we did on our last trip. It's different every time, but some typical ingredients include: potatoes, carrots, soup mixes, rice, bulgar wheat, some other grain we can't identify but really enjoy, pasta (but the only sauce is really more like ketchup than tomato sauce) and fried sausage. Sausage is the only protein that we've found here that we can actually carry on our bikes. One night we tried canned beef, or so we thought but there wasn't actually any beef in it at all, just barley and a picture of a cow on the label...another night we tried canned chicken, but we suspect that it may not have been intended for human consumption :-S

Snacks: There are endless possibilities for snacks in the local markets - a hundred varieties of cookies, many with fruit fillings and all delicious, lots of dried fruits (apricots, kiwis, raisins, pineapples, etc.) and nuts. We also stocked up on banana-chocolate granola bars that we found in Bishkek :) In cities, we love to treat ourselves to samsas (like samosas), piroshki (deepfried dough filled with potatoes, a personal favorite) and russian ice cream (mmmm! good!).

Local foods: Lots of mouth-watering things to look forward to in the towns and cities... shasslik are kebabs and though fatty mutton ones are most popular, we opt for the cheaper lean beef (you can also get horse, donkey or chicken)... plov is rice pilaf strings of carrot or squash and hunks of mutton (my personal favorite).... lagman is thick noodles, mutton and peppers in a slightly spicy soup.

Food is such an exciting part of travelling and one of the great things about travelling by bike is that you can indulge even more!!

Christine

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

LMAO!!! That is too funny, maybe it was dog food, oh well I guess it's something....

I don't think I would like horse or donkey.

Glad you got some warmth, take care.

Marcia

Anonymous said...

You take care over there. Off to the hothouse for the REG meal while in terrace on course. I will double up on your order cause you're probably really hungry for good food?
Travel Safe and have fun, Great updates and stories, I will try the frozen shoes next week while driving zamboni, -5 in the AM in smithers. Got some touring gear from mr. parm so bring it on snowclouds.
cheers from telkwa fire base on a sunny bulkley valley day.
TK

Anonymous said...

Good Morning, well we are well into November and expecting you home from your adventures, and they certianly are. I don't think there is anything wrong with living from meal to meal. Ginger and I biked partway in to work this morning and then turned around, too icy, it is -1! So my assignment today is to get the winter bikes tuned-up both of these bikes have studded tires. But then we look at your pictures and feel like total whimps.
G&K