One Crook, Two Angels, and many Itinerary Changes

I left my Shanghai hotel around midnight for a 4:15 a.m. flight to Almaty. I had been using WeChat and Didi without problems, but suddenly my payment wouldn’t go through. After about 15 anxious minutes, I remembered that I had another credit card attached to WeChat. I switched cards, ordered the car, and all was right with the world again.

After a 6½-hour flight on Air Astana, I arrived in Almaty at about 8:15 in the morning. I had been up all night, had slept only a little on the plane, and was tired and disoriented.

My plan was to take a bus from Almaty to Bishkek. The bus itself was going to cost only about $6, so first I just needed to get from the airport to the bus station.

Yandex showed a fare of about 3,500 tenge — roughly $7. Instead, for convenience, I went to what appeared to be the official taxi desk in the arrivals hall.

The driver said the fare would be metered. His “meter” was on his iPhone, which seemed a little odd, but off we went.

At the bus station, he showed me the fare: 35,000 tenge — about $73. He even told me he had given me a discount.

Something seemed wrong, but in my exhausted state it didn’t fully register. I paid him and went inside.

I already had my printed bus ticket. The woman at the counter looked at it and said:

“Nyet.”

No bus.

Because of heightened security, international bus service into Kyrgyzstan had been suspended.

So I went back outside to figure out Plan B. A smiling woman who spoke some English offered to arrange a private car to the Kyrgyz border for $100. That was about what I had expected to pay if I had pre-booked a car, so I agreed.

As we drove toward the border, my head began to clear.

Yandex: 3,500 tenge, about $7.

Airport taxi: 35,000 tenge, about $73.

And then it hit me.

I had been ripped off.

There was my crook.

The driver to the border was actually a nice young man. He explained where I needed to go and dropped me about 200 meters from immigration. The border crossing itself was simple: passport, photograph, stamp out of Kazakhstan, then essentially the same process entering Kyrgyzstan.

Almost immediately after crossing, I saw a sign welcoming guests to the 2026 World Nomad Games, the reason I had come to Kyrgyzstan.

The welcome area was really intended for athletes, diplomats and other official guests, but everyone was very friendly. Then a young man who spoke good English came over and offered to help me.

He walked with me through the border area, helped me use Yandex to arrange a ride, spoke with the driver for me, and showed me where to exchange money for Kyrgyz som.

He was my first angel.

He also told me he was going to Chicago in November to attend school. After the kindness he had shown me, I could only hope America would be as welcoming to him as he had been to me.

I gave my Yandex driver the address of the hostel I had booked in Bishkek.

We arrived.

There was no hostel.

No hostel at the address. No phone number. Nothing useful online.

Bishkek was extremely crowded because the World Nomad Games coincided with a major international summit, and accommodations were very difficult to find.

My driver could easily have left me there, but instead he became genuinely concerned. I asked him to take me somewhere — anywhere — where I could sit down, cool off and figure out what to do.

Eventually he found a shopping mall and got me settled inside with my luggage.

He was my second angel.

By then I was hungry, exhausted and still had nowhere to sleep.

I searched Agoda and finally found a one-bedroom apartment for $120 a night, probably more than twice its normal price. At that point, however, I wasn’t in much of a position to bargain.

The apartment had to be paid for in cash. A somewhat disheveled driver in a very tired-looking car helped me find an ATM, collected the payment and took me to the apartment.

To call the place basic would be an understatement. There was a bed, air conditioning in the bedroom, a small table, a couple of plates and glasses, and a water boiler.

But it was clean and safe.

At the end of a very long day, that was enough.

Epilogue: When I left Almaty for my flight to Kashgar China I went back to the Taxi stand and reported the incident. They seemed genuinely concerned and called a policeman over and I filed a report. Will anything come of it???