Location: near Bazaar-Kurgon, Kyrgyzstan.
Today our route closely followed the Uzbek border in western Kyrgyzstan. As we were riding along we noticed some men standing beside the road. They were nicely dressed and had colourful, scarf-like fabrics tied around their waists. There were numerous vodka glasses on the roofs of the vehicles parked next to them and especially one of the guys could barely stand up he was so drunk. When they spotted us they started shouting and waved us over. We decided to stop and have a look. We found out that there had been a wedding here the previous day and everybody was still celebrating. The main guy, probably the father of the bride, dragged us to a table, half using us as support because he was so drunk. Our presence caused a big stirr amongst all the people and in no time we were surrounded by a crowd with numerous phone cameras snapping photos of us.
Someone brought a huge platter of bread, buns, cookies etc, followed by a few slabs of meat and a bowl of soup. The meat did not look very appetizing and the fact that it was left over from yesterday forced us to politely put some of it on our plates but not eat it. We have no time for food poisoning.
A few girls dragged me over to the dance floor and the DJ cranked some cheesy English language pop song about kissing.
Back at the table the men were so enthusiastic about us beeing here and we clearly did not eat and drink fast enough to satisfy them because they kept pointing at the dishes, constantly reminding us to take more. Some just started putting stuff on our plates if we did not respond to their encouragement. Then the vodka came out. We said we did not want any but they clearly did not hear that. When we only took a small sip of the cup we were offered they kept motioning for us to just gulp it all down. No thank you. I have no desire to burn my throat out. When we only took another small sip the guy behind us reached forward, picked up our cups and brought them to our lips. Drink!
Okay, that's enough! Force feeding us vodka is not going to make us drink more. We are out of here! But that was easier said than done.
The whole crowd followed us, some grabbed our hands to keep us from going, two guys refilled our vodka cups and ran after us with them trying to get us to stay by offering more vodka. Meanwhile another guy got a shopping bag and hurriedly dumped the entire contents of the bread and cookie platter as well as the slices of meat into it and gave it to us to take along. With a bit more force than we would have liked we managed to get us and the bikes out the gate and cross the road. We shouted many thanks to the crowd that had now gathered there and then quickly rode off to catch our breath. Wow that was crazy! Quite funny actually.
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