BISHKEK, KYRGYZSTAN: A MEAL AND A WALKING TOUR OF THE CITY

After our drive into the mountains, we came back to Bishkek, the capital and largest city of Kyrgyzstan and once a rest stop on the Silk Road. 

Like travellers of old, our caravan also visited a caravansary in Bishkek for refueling. 

They made us very comfortable . . . 

. . . and then started bringing out dish after dish of delicious-looking food. By the way, see the tissue box at the bottom of the picture below? Those are napkins. They are just about the same weight and strength as what we think of as cheap tissues. They weren't super effective.

We had eaten a meal similar to this in Almaty, where we had filled up on the many dishes initially placed on the table, not realizing that they were but appetizers.

BISHKEK, KYRGYZSTAN: A MUSLIM CEMETERY

We made a rather unconventional stop as we returned from a drive in the mountains--a cemetery.  I really enjoy visiting cemeteries. They say a lot about a country's culture, and each one is unique. We've seen some pretty interesting cemeteries over the years. (See here, here, here, and here for a few.)

This one was in the middle of nowhere:

. . . and in the distance we could see another cemetery, even more in the middle of nowhere:

Engraved on one of the crosspieces of the dome in the photo above are the dates 1947-2014.

My dad died when I was young, and I grew up visiting the cemetery, wandering (rather happily, actually) among the graves and wondering who the people were and what they were like when they were alive. Some of the same emotions I had as a child flood my heart every time I visit a cemetery, including this one outside Bishkek. If anything, this cemetery triggered those feelings on a grander than usual scale because of the style of the memorials.