Taking a weekend break
Issyk Kul in November
A Weekend Break is exactly what it sounds like – taking advantage of a weekend to take a break from the usual day-to-day routine. Leave home on the Friday afternoon, explore your destination on the Saturday and then, after a relaxing morning, return home on Sunday – refreshed and enlivened.
In fact, one of the things I sometimes miss about not being based in London is the range of “Weekend Breaks” that were possible. Oh, don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty of opportunity to take a” weekend break” here in Kyrgyzstan, but when I lived in London the sheer range of opportunities was far, far greater. As well as being able to visit friends in other parts of the UK for a couple of days, the whole of Europe was basically within easy reach and it was possible to visit a vast number of old and interesting places for a short three day visit.
I used to be able to take a weekend break several times a year. Sometimes this involved jumping in the car straight after school on Friday evening and driving off, up North or out West, to visit former colleagues or old college friends, (and sometimes they came to see me, so the weekend was spent exploring London or the surrounding countryside). I got to see an awful lot of Britain on these trips, a lot more than I ever saw in my youth if the truth be told, and we often went to visit some stately home or garden. I even became a member of the National Trust and English Heritage which not only gave me discounts, but their newsletters were always full of ideas for future trips.
On other occasions it meant driving off to the airport to catch a flight to a European city, (Amsterdam, Athens, Belfast, Berlin, Brussels, Bruges, Florence, Geneva, Lisbon, Lucerne, Madrid, Milan, Oslo, Paris, Rome, Vienna or Zurich), and I still have my dog-eared copy of the Berlitz pocket guide to 34 cities of Europe which I used when researching and planning my forays abroad and with the pages marked for the cities I was planning for my next few trips, Barcelona, Cologne, Copenhagen, Dublin, Helsinki, Innsbruck, Naples, Salzburg, Stockholm and Venice).
If it was the school holidays or a Bank Holiday Weekend, then it was possible to make a long weekend and make the most of the extra day exploring the sights and delights of wherever I happened to find myself, even if, because it was a holiday weekend, the prices were higher.
As I said, please don’t misunderstand me. Bishkek is also well placed for taking weekend breaks, (or even just a day trip excursion). Indeed, every month I get to take one, even if it is just up to Naryn, and when I get there I have some work to do.
The mountain range to the south of the city, for example, has a number of beautiful valleys, each one different from its neighbours and with its own characteristics. This year we have organized several trips to one or other, or even taking in a couple of the valleys.
Further afield, there are places like Chon Kemin, Cholpon Ata, Bokonbaeva, Kochkor, Naryn, Son Kul, Kyzyl Oi, Suusamyr, even Talas. To be honest, there are a couple of “problems” associated with these trips, although they are not insurmountable. Perhaps the biggest is the distances involved. They are not so great, but it usually takes several hours to travel to the final destination, there being no motorways, (freeways or autobahn). This year, for example, because of the road works in Boom Gorge, my regular monthly trip up to Naryn has taken six or seven hours each time. The second is that in most cases it isn’t possible to do a “circular trip” and it is necessary to return on the same road as the outward trip.
Despite, these drawbacks, it is well worth the … just getting out of the office and the hustle and bustle of the city and into the countryside. We don’t have the same number and variety of sights as I used to be able to enjoy back in the UK, and we don’t have the equivalent of the National Trust or English Heritage), but there is always something of interest and the various places all have their attractions – especially the peace and quiet, the change of scenery and the opportunity to just relax and take things easy.
For travelling further afield, in particular visiting the southern regions of the country, it is always possible to fly down to Osh or Djalal Abad and then travel on from there, for example to Arslan Bob.
In theory, it is also possible to arrange trips to places in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, but there is always the problem of getting a visa. When I first came here it was a lot easier and I was able to visit Almaty and the surrounding district number of times, but I haven’t been for several years.
As it happens, this year we’ve been asked to organize a growing number of weekend breaks for people; more than usual; clients from Bishkek, from Kazakhstan and even from as far afield as Moscow asking us to arrange a “weekend break” trip for them – last week it was a visit Bishkek and Issyk Kul … in November!.
Oh, how that brought back memories and made me wish that it was possible to get away from the office more frequently.
Bishkek