Kyrgyzstan is a very safe country

Our first night in the campervan went well, however we had some sleeping arrangement options to work out. Technically, the van can sleep five people. The main living area turns into a large enough bed that three people could sleep, and then there is a rear area that would be very cozy, but it could sleep two. 

For the first night, we made the bed up in the larger area, but it was a real gymnastics exercise especially since it was raining out and we had to do it all without getting anything wet.

And it worked fine, but for the second night we made up the bed in the back. Much easier, and it can stay made up without having to set up and take down every day. Not as much room, but we've slept in more cramped areas, and we slept just fine. It'll be great for the cold nights up in the mountains!

But if we have any really warm nights we might have to sleep apart with one in the back and one on the narrow area in the front. Without having to set it up, there is room for one and it will be much cooler that way. We'll see if we end up getting any really warm nights.

We ended up moving to another spot by the river.

Our next drive will take us through a mountain pass, but we didn't want to do it on a cloudy rainy day because we wouldn't see the scenery, and of course the scenery is one of the main reasons we're here. So we decided to stay along the river, but moved to a location closer to town in order to get a better internet signal.

We parked up here temporarily and went for a walk during a break in the rain.

The water is spring melt coming from the nearby high mountains and it is ice cold!

Imagine how pretty this would be with blue sky and sunshine.

Yes, we got caught in the rain!

Speaking of internet, I'll tell you how we're getting online here.

Originally, I was thinking of bringing our Starlink. It would have been great to get online in the mountains because guaranteed we're going to have some days without cellular access. But two things stopped me from doing that. 1) We only have the vehicle engine battery for power, and would have to have the engine running on and off to use the |Starlink for any length of time and 2) we ended up making the decision to go to China and Starlink is not allowed into the country. So we would have had to ship ours from Kyrgyzstan to Japan and pick it up there. I did look into that possibility, but it just added a whole new layer of logistics, so we ended up cancelling that idea. You'll just have to do without us the occasional day or two at a time!

So, that left us with cellular options. There are three carriers in Kyrgyzstan... Megacom, Beeline, and O!.

Megacom apparently has the best rural network, with Beeline a close second. But O! is mostly in the built up areas. So what I did was I bought a thirty day 50gb eSIM package and when we arrived in Bishkek I bought a 30 day unlimited Megacom package. The eSim was about $20 USD, and the Megacom package was dirt cheap at about $12 USD. So for $32 USD, we have a decent availability of cellular options, and we've found already that it's been handy to be able to switch between the two when one signal is stronger than the other.

This was our location for the second night.

GPS 42.663576, 74.001961

A herd of goats went by in the rain. 

Photo taken through the wet window!

This friendly girl came by to say hello.

Kyrgyzstan appears to be a free camping paradise. I mean, we knew that there is a lot of free camping available, but in reality it is just so easy. Nobody cares where you park and set up, and that might have to do with their history of being a nomadic culture. And it's a very safe country. I had asked Vlad about locking doors etc, because the van has an odd locking system. He said not to worry "somehow, we are a very safe country".

The weather forecast for the day looks like it's improved. Even calling for some sun this afternoon, so after a stop in the nearby town it looks like we're heading up into the mountains. You may or may not hear from us for a day or two!

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Record low deal on this Instant Pot Air Fryer.

And in Canada...

Record low deal on this Anker Power Station.