Today involved a long day on the bus along bumpy, dusty roads with a few intermittent stops as we head to the capital of Kyrgyzstan, Bishkek.

Suddenly we see a lonely tower amidst the fertile fields of the Chuy Valley. The Burana Tower (also known as Kara Khanids Minaret). Once it stood at the center of the flourishing Silk Road city of Balasaghun. Nowadays it's a fascinating museum complex that includes the tower itself (24.6 meters, original height used to be over 40 meters,) remains of the citadel, a collection of balbals (gravestones used by nomadic Turkic peoples), petroglyphs (stone carvings) and a small museum. The earliest archaeological findings date to the 5th century. Three centuries later, the settlement around it had grown into a larger city. Arabic travelers in the 17th century wrote that Balasaghun had once "a wide fortress around the city, 40 cathedrals, and 200 ordinary mosques; 20 institutions for the poor and ten madrassas or religious schools." Today, we can just imagine how big the city must have been to have had so many public institutions. The city had its own irrigation and sewage system and its own mint. Babals - Initially, they were erected by Turkic tribes as a representation of slain enemies. Later, they became memorials to their own ancestors, characterized by detailed carvings of faces and hands; they also give us an insight into the clothes, jewelry, and weaponry of the time.

After leaving the tower we suddenly found ourselves on a 4-lane highway which came as a surprise. Our guide was able to tell us we were only about 300 km from the Chinese border and that they had built this road to make it easier for travel. The Chinese really know how to build roads!!

A quick drive through Tokmok which was established as a northern military outpost of the Khanate of Kokand c.1830. Thirty years later, it fell to the Russians who demolished the fort. The modern town was founded in 1864 by Major-General Mikhail Chernyayev.

All too soon we arrived in Bishkek the capital and the largest city in Kyrgyzstan, located at the foothill of the magnificent Kyrgyz Ala-Tau mountain range with a population of about 840,000 people. Bishkek is a city of many green parks and marble-faced public buildings combined with numerous Soviet-style apartment blocks and thousands of smaller privately built houses. It's laid out on a grid pattern, with most streets flanked on both sides by narrow irrigation channels that water the innumerable trees which provide shade during hot summers. The city is believed to be the greenest in Central Asia with more trees per head of population than any other.

Ala-Too Square is Kyrgyzstan's main square, located in the center of Bishkek. Ala-Too in Kyrgyz means "great mountain", symbolizing the mountainous terrain and nature of the country. At the northern edge of the square is the State Historical Museum, behind which lies Oak Park. A large pedestal holds a statue of Manas the Great, where previously a statue of Lenin stood. Next to Manas is the official flagpole of the Kyrgyz Republic, and a little further is a monument to those killed in 2002 and 2010. Stately soldiers in neat military uniforms were gripping carbines in snow-white gloves to guard the flagpole and have perfected the marching step, which has to be 90 degrees for guards of honor in the Kyrgyz Republic, while other countries require just 70 degrees. At the southern edge of Ala-Too Square is a monument to Chingiz Aitmatov.

Commemorating the 40th anniversary of the end of WWII, the Victory Square Monument is designed to evoke three symbolic yurt struts curving above an eternal flame. Kyrgyzstan even has its own white house which is the seat of government with a formal garden out front.

Oak Park is one of Bishkek's oldest parks and is home to an open-air sculpture exhibition, as well as several important monuments and buildings. Even though the park was officially renamed in honor of Chingiz Aitmatov in 2010, it is still mostly known as Oak Park. Many of the oaks are as old as the city itself. The first trees were planted by Alexei Fetisov in 1890, a botanist from Russia. These trees have grown to be very large, and in the summer provide shade from the hot sun, and in the fall provide plenty of crispy falling leaves.

This evening we dined at Arzu restaurant where we were treated to a musical performance using traditional Kyrgyz instruments.

Such a quick look at Bishkek but Oksana assured us we had seen the important sights.