Fu** Police Part II

16th of September:

 

Again I want to take a mountain road to the South which is plotted in my map. But the people explain me that this road does not exist. That means I have to choose the next bigger one but also this one is quite a dirt road going over a pass which is 3000 plus meters high. Most probably this road can not be used in winter time. This means that this part in the middle between North and South is almost disconnected. We mostly drive through narrow valleys along Jurts, gaining height in hours by winding up the serpentines. One time we come to a bigger village where I am asking a drunken Mercedes driver for the direction. Here it seems not to matter what they do. As long as there is no asphalt there is also no police.  He can not tell me the way since he is too drunk but he is still driving. I guessing my way and in the next village I get at least the main direction from a girl which is washing the carpet on the short piece of asphalt they have here in this village. From now on I just ask for the direction to Ош since the small villages in my map have all other names and especially the young people do not know these names. The older still remember the Russian names. We are coming down in the wide Fergana valley which reaches until Uzbekistan which is actually already very close now. Coming closer to the city Jalal-Abad, the third biggest city after Bichkek and Osh, we get again stopped by the police. I see him taking money in his pocket from another driver. So I am thinking ok what they want this time. Anyway he just asking where we come from and he gets friendly when he recognises that I come from East-Germany. He is one of the many we met who has also done his military service in the Sowjet Union times in the former GDR. For this time we are again released without a problem. We stay just before Jalal-Abad in a corn field.

 

(N 41.02636°, E 72.98614 °)

 

17th of September:

 

Ош is our destination for today. In our map it seems that we are actually driving through Uzbekistan. Along the streets we see a lot of Chaihana. It looks like a bed with a carpet, in the middle there is a table and above you have something like a roof. Here the people drink their tea or eating something. We read that this Chaihana is very typical for Uzbekistan. But anyway the South of Kyrgyzstan is anyway a melting pot of Central Asia.

 

We go on and some kilometres before Ош a car in the opposite direction gives a light signal, which normally mean that there is police. Anyway I am driving all the time very slow. As usual the police stop us and want to have all documents. When he has all documents he gets suddenly serious. He tells us we were driving to fast. I tell him that it can not be true. We go to the guy whos is the officer here. He shows me his radar and the display shows 66 km/h. He does not wear police clothing; he is fat and tries to look as angry as he can.  He wants to tell me that I was driving 66 km/h. He want to have my driving license and also the papers for the car and always telling something about deportation of the car and the documents. The other one is smiling and tells us we could enjoy our holiday here also without the car. Then the good cop bad cop game is starting. The “good” one tells me that the other one is bad but it is his boss. His boss would forget everything if he gets 100 USD. I tell him that our speed was not 66 km/h. But how can I prove it. It is impossible. Well than he says maybe it was 40 km/h and because there is some blue Village sign we can only go 30 km/h. Hmmmmmmmm what should we do?! I ask for his name, to make him afraid, Kotomi asks to contact the embassy. Suddenly he just wants to have 1000 Som, around 20 EUR. I want to have receipt and then he tells me it would be 3000 Som ???!?!?!? Well finally I gave him 20 USD. But anyway I am still angry on me that I did! I should have just waited there and finally I could have proven my speed with the GPS data. But these two guys were a fu*** perfect and criminal team of Police mans. They know how to rape their own people and also foreigners. The way to Ош I really drive slowly and these guys still make me mad. I knew it before we started this journey, but it is really ridicules. Anyway in Ош we get the food for the next 2 weeks since we are not sure how easy we can get anything in Tajikistan on the Pamir highway. We eat some Лагман in a Chaihana and drive out of the city. Almost exactly one week after our last Баня we find here again one, but this time really nice and hot. After the Баня it is already dark and we are driving in direction of Sary Tash, finding after 100 km a place in a valley at a river. 

 

(N 40.25673°, E 73.41695 °)