In Bishked

First we went to a square to hear about the legend of Manas, a mythical hero of the country. The legend was passed on orally for centuries as they didn't have a written language. It is written now, but some special orators have learned it and the performance takes 4 days to tell.

Then we visited the White House, where the president conducts affairs of state. It is a communist style building from the 1950's. On the fence is a list of those who were killed in the 2nd revolution in 2010, and a monument to them is nearby. They were killed by the second president who had gained control in the first revolution, where the first elected president gave up his position to avoid bloodshed. He is now a Maths professor in Moscow, whereas the one who killed the people resides in Belarus, and his son who emptied the central bank and bankrupted the country lives in a London. Kyrgyzstan has no extradition agreement with UK.

Then it was the Friendship monument, showing the main ethnic groups united. Long may that last! This was followed by another square, another monument to Manus. At one side of the square was a building which had been a garment factory relocated from Ukraine when Germany invaded. After that we walked to the beautiful park, where there was a large statue of Lenin pointing to the expensive American University. That also had a statue of Marx and Engels chatting. The gardens in that area were beautifully maintained, with discretely placed upturned plastic bottles drip-feeding water.

We walked to see the oldest building in the city - 1860, now ministry of Culture and Tourism.

We then saw the memorial to those who died for the Bolshevik revolution, and after that, a famous ballet dancer who performed with the Bolshoi Ballet, set in front of the dance school. Next was an enormous children's library which has to have puppets, actors reading books there etc to encourage the kids to read and get off their iPads.

We saw Victory Square, with a monument in the shape of a yurt, to commemorate the dead of the Great Patriotic War, 1941-45. (WW2). It is customary for wedding parties to come to pay their respects. We saw three different groups.

Then we rejoined our bus to go to Osh Market which was so interesting. Very different fruit and veg (though lots imported from China). Lots of different types of rice, many types of dried apricots, lurid coloured sweet biscuits, a meat section with Horsemeat and yak. There were lovely quilts and one stall sold nomad cradles which had a hole for the baby poo and you could also buy a pipe to attach to boy babies. Nowadays people buy this for a cheeky baby gift.

Mr C had horsemeat stew for dinner. It was tender and tasty though he found the guts a bit chewy.