last night we went to the kazakh embassy to (finally) pick up our transit visas so we could get to the airport in almaty for the flight to delhi. and as always... it was an adventure.
we pulled up to the embassy right around 630pm when they are suppose to start giving back passports/visas. to our dismay... a tourist bus was parked out front and there were about 100 people crowded outside the door waiting to push their way in. didn't take long to realize that most of the people were chinese tourist... the fact that they were all taking in chinese and all had cameras was a give away.
being english speakers living in a non-english speaking land... jen and i enjoy the fact that we never half to whisper. we can just say whatever is on our mind out loud to each other and not have to worry that other people will understand us. it isn't like we go around saying the words "penis" and "vagina" all the time (that isn't true... saying "penis" and "vagina" out loud in a crowd is one of jen's favorite things to do... another reason why i love here)... but we end up speaking freely almost everywhere we go.
we should probably be more careful with that.
as we walk up to the back for the crowd and i realize that there are a bunch of chinese tourist in front of us (which isn't something you see everyday in bishkek... they must have taken the bus from kashgar)... i say to jen "look... a bunch of chinese tourist" at which point the chinese tourist couple in front of us turn around... smile and nod. did they just turn around and smile/nod to be polite or because they understood me? jen decided to test this by saying "vagina"!
no response on the part of the chinese couple but that could be because they were mortified that the american woman behind them had just shouted out "vagina".
as the doors opened and the crowd surged forward... jen grabbed my hand and elbowed her way close to the front. the throng of chinese tourist were let in first and within minutes they started filing back out... one by one... with passport and visa in hand. jen... in splendid form at this point... starting clapping and saying "congratulations" and "good job" to each chinese as they filed out. she was rewarded with smiles and bowing but they left her hanging each time she asked for a high five.
it was priceless!
after we made it inside the building jen accosted a guy standing next to us with "hey... don't we know you?". she looked at him. he looked at her. i looked at him. he looked at me. we all looked at each other. after a couple of guesses we figured out that we "knew" him from the grand opening of "the host"... the new indian restaurant that we went to a couple of weeks ago. turns out that raj (his real name) was the owner of "the host" as well as a local club (aka - strip bar) called "heaven".
he is a really nice guy and jen engages him in conversation as i wait for our visas. come to find out... he is heading to delhi via almaty... we are heading to delhi via almaty. pretty small world but that is bishkek for you. jen tells him about our trip to udiapur and he tells us that we have picked a place that is both quiet and lovely. go jen for finding it! when all is said and done and we all have our visas... we end up offering him a ride to the airport in almaty (never hurts to have a friend who owns a strip bar... um... i mean an indian restaurant). totally nice guy. he is bringing indian food along for the ride while we are bringing cookies... a trade off that left all three of us happy. so we are picking him up at 1030am tomorrow morning for the four plus hour drive to almaty and the airport. we can't wait.
on a side note back to the visa experience... one of the things that i love about bishkek is the diverseness of the people. besides the chinese tourist (which was random and funny)... their were turks in line with us... uzbeks... iranians... i even saw a couple of afghanistan passports. it is fairly wonderful being exposed to the cultures of so many different peoples and it isn't something that we get back in the states.
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