Kyrgyzstan & Uzbekistan 1998: Do you know Stan?

Note: Almost titled this story Around the World in 40 days, (that’s half the time it took in the movie) but while we did circumvent the globe it was mostly by air.

Do you remember a few years back when Clinton sent cruise missiles across Pakistan to Afghanistan?

Well, my Bro and I had plans to visit a few of the “Stan”s. Kyrgyzstan & Uzbekistan just above Afghanistan and Iran, only two weeks later, via the Torugart pass from western China. Probably not a smart thing to do given the circumstances but, we went anyway, not that were that brave were just cheap and would have lost money trying to get a refund on the tickets. Plus, we already had our visas.

For Kyrgyzstan you had to have a letter of introduction from a resident. This was a throwback to the policies of the former Soviet Union. Since I didn’t know anyone there or any where’s close buy, I called the embassy to see if maybe there was another way. After about a 15-minute, very informative conversation with an embassy official I learned that Ulysses S. Grant had Kyrgyz’s roots and as long as my Bro and I both knew him he could help us. Two fifty-dollar bills later, plus the standard fee we had our visas.

Uzbekistan was a little more up front about the price of their visa you just had to pay for one night’s stay in an overpriced hotel owned by some government officials’ brother, in advance of course and they would condescend to give you one.

Want to see how the “Pros From Dover” managed? You will just have to wait for The Book!