dordoi bazaar

on sunday we went to the dordoi bazaar - which claims to be the largest bazaar in central asia. this was our second visit there and i feel like we have only seen a small part of it. the place is pretty overwhelming but we had a great time: taking photos of the locals, jen helping in the kitchen where we ate lunch, buying some gifts to take home, and getting a couple of mattress pads for our bed.

typically scene - guys pulling over sized carts with goods

bank grand opening with live music and dancing

some really nice ladies who helped us pick out a snack

they were so excited to have their picture taken

the restaurant where we ate lunch and jen helped make noodles

lugging around our mattress pads

after eating, jen thought that it would be a good idea to print the photos of the ladies and give them copies. so we found a place in the bazaar that printed digital photos and 30 minutes later... she presented them with the photos. it was so much fun watching them respond with joy and laughter upon seeing the photos. they were so happy that they started wrestling over the copies and we thought that they were going to get in fight over them.

the trip ended with us making it back to our car and realizing that we had parked "illegally" and had our license plate taken by the police. apparently, instead of giving tickets, they take your license plate instead. so we had to go and track down the officers (who were sitting in a car with a large stack of plates) and "pay" the ticket. jen did all the negotiating. 400 soms later ($11 us dollars) we had our license back and were on our way home.

jen showing off after getting our license plate back

here are the photos