Jodie and Christine VS. Naryn

And we thought that days off were for relaxing! It wasn't to be in Naryn, though...

Arriving in the city, having frozen our butts off and not washed properly in a week(our nightly 'showers' use 2 face wipes each!), we decided to splurge on a 'Lux' room at the Ala-Too hotel with our own toilet and hot water shower! Looking forward to washing, but even more to eating and enjoying a cold beer, we opted to hit up a restaurant first.

I should try to explain here how much food means to us when we've got 'biker' appetites. It occupies much of our thoughts each day and we're always looking forward to the next meal. One night last week, I had 2 dreams: in one, a giant roast beef and cheese sandwhich was just flying around taunting me and in another, Jodie and I were trying to decide which breakfast buffet to hit up because there were so many and they all looked so delicious. But in Central Asia, that is the stuff of dreams and dreams only. In South America, we could count on a hamburger and fries in every city, and even McDonalds chicken nuggets now and again...but here we ride into town salivating at the thought of burgers and pizza and are handed a menu in kyrgyz or russian (we can't even tell the difference, which makes decoding quite difficult!) that we stare at until something familiar pops out at us. And familiar means something that we've tried here before, not something familiar from home! The food's not bad at all, but it's just not what we crave after a week or more of one-pot wonders on the camp stove.

Dinner and a few beers later, we weren't overly concerned when we got home and discovered that there was no water at all in our room - we were content to sleep and clean up in the morning. When there was still no water in the morning (we couldn't even flush the toilet), we started to get concerned. The water will be on by 1:00, they said and so we donned bandanas to hide our greasy hair and went into town.

Back in the afternoon, there was still no water. I tried to communicate that I wanted a bucket so that I could go to an outside tap and at least get water to flush the toilet. Although the woman I was asking had a bucket in her hand, she looked at my like I was nuts to think I could take it. And so we headed to a store to buy our own bucket! By the time we were back, there was water and again we got excited about the prospect of a hot shower. How naive!

Of course the hot water heater doesn't actually work. Well, it feels hot, but no water comes out when you turn the hot tap on. So off in search of help. Three women and one repair-man later, all we get is this sign-language message: the woman pointed at the water heater and said, "ka-pow!". Ok, we get it. But we paid double the regular price just so we could have a shower. Smelly and rather grumpy, we tried to communicate that we wanted some money back. But of course, we have to wait to talk to the director. On October 30. Ok, ok, tomorrow. At 1:00. Nope, at 5.
Incredibly the director fixed the hot water (a bit to our disappointment since we'd already heated water in the kettle to wash with and would have preferred some money back...)

And then the banking. We tried all 4 of our cards in the towns only ATM and no deal. So off to a bank with a huge exchange rate sign on the door. Will you chnage dollars? No. To two more banks...Will you exchange dollars or give us a Visa or Mastercard advance? No. Back to bank #1. Oh, no, we don't take MC, only Visa. Ok, we've got a Visa. Oh, we can't to Visas until Monday. Ok, will you change dollars? Yes, ok (yep, the same ones that said no 2 hours ago!). Baffling, but we've got enough money to make it to Osh.

And so it went on our days 'off' in Naryn. All part of the experience I guess but it sure does make us miss the comforts of home!!

Christine