Today we spent a day off in Bishkek. After a long breakfast together with two other Germans at the hostel, we went to the city center.
There, Fabi got rid of the thing that had bugged her the most since we left homeby getting the camera of her phone repaired. As many of the bigger and former communist cities, Bishkek also has a Tsum shopping mall where you can get nearly everything (at least if you are looking for an electronic product). Inside a second mall across the street we found a phone repair shop where one of the employees quoted the equivalent of 20€ for the repair. After one hour he had purchased the necessary part at the Tsum and installed it. It had been a long time since Chris had seen Fabi that happy 😉
After we got the phone repaired, we went for a stroll through the Tsum ourselves. The mall where the repair shop was located was a “western style” mall like we knew them from Germany. Bigger’ish boutiques of bigger brands with display windows and food vendors located all over the house. The Tsum was a little different. Here, the different levels were absolutely packed with smaller shops that cramped the maximum amount of products onto their 4m² shop area. Each floor has its “topic” and once you find the correct floor you can choose from three or four different vendors all selling the same product. But the selection is not too bad and Chris purchased an UV filter for his camera lens.
On the way back to the hostel we walked past the Hyatt Bishkek when we spotted two massive trucks parked on the hotel’s parking lot. They had the “expedition vehicle” look with massive, chunky offroad tires, placement of the air intake high above the ground and a cabin on the back. One of them was from Hamburg, the second one had a Dutch numberplate. Interesting combination of this type of vehicle with that kind of hotel. Maybe that’s the way multi-millionaires do their overlanding trips? Or were the trucks maybe support vehicles for some bigger ralley?
