Kyrgyzstan has three southern provinces: Osh, Jalal-Abad, and Bakhten. I just got back from Osh and Bakhten. It's incredibly hot down there. And dry. And Uzbek. I'm seriously going to have to learn Uzbek in order to do my research--there wasn't a person I spoke to who didn't at least mix up Kyrgyz words with Uzbek pronunciation. Most people weave in and out of Uzbek, Kyrgyz, and Russian. It's hard to follow.
The road from Bishkek to Osh is actually very nice--most of it, anyway. It's large new. There are a few back construction areas, and a few places where you have to drive a lot of extra kilometers because the road that you would normally take to a destination now goes straight through Uzbekistan. It was a 11 hour drive from Bishkek to Osh. That's about 3 hours longer than it was during Soviet times.
