I made my first phone call to Central Asia on Thursday so I could book our hotel. We had decided we wanted to stay at the Silk Road Lodge which is a hotel frequented by many adoptive families from the Yahoo group. It had received good reviews and seemed like a safe bet.
I have to admit I was a bit nervous about calling! My Kyrg coworker gave me instructions on how to dial the # since I don't frequently make international calls. He also told me, "If they answer and they sound like this: "GVjkaien knabga", just hang up and I will call for you tomorrow." (FYI: GVjkaien knabga is my attempt at typing something that is not understandable... something similar to Russian :) ).
Luckily when I called they did not sound like "GVjkaien knabga" or anything similar to that. I was able to book our room for 6 nights and they even sent me an e-mail confirmation in English that included our flight information since they will be picking us up at the Bishkek airport in the middle of the night! I had been warned that customer service is not a huge concept in Kyrgyzstan but so far I've been rather impressed! I seriously doubt that if someone from Bishkek called a US hotel that they would get an e-mail confirmation back in Russian!
Today we're going to mail in our visa applications and I'm going to start to read our 100 page travel packet (which is in a binder of course, thanks to my sweet husband). Have a great weekend!
7 comments:
We stayed at the Silk Road and had a great experience. I would ask about their suite. It is only a little more per night and is 2 rooms. Congrats on making reservations, that makes it even more real!
Hey Betsy and Bryan-
You should really consider just getting your visa at the Bishkek airport when you land. It's redicu-easy, super quick, and less expensive.
Email me if you want to know about this. We can exchange phone numbers - I'd be happy to talk you through what to do once you arrive at the airport.
-Suzanne
Oh yeah, my email address would help: flyingfish347@yahoo.com
-Suzanne
We got our visa at the airport. You land, walk in to the visa desk, fill out a form (we actually had one from our agency and had it filled out already), pay them $35 pp and you are done! Also, email me if you want about our customs experience. Be sure to tell the SRL that you want a driver to pick you up -- it's included in the cost and he will fight off those horrible people trying to load your baggage for you. It can be a bit overwhelming. Don't let anyone take your bags except "Mr. Silk Road". :-)
We thought Silk Road was great and they were very nice. You should be in good hands!
Yeah--sounds like things are moving along great! I can't wait to hear how everything goes once you get there!
Hey Betsy,
I'm finally coming back to life after our trip and catching up on your blog. Congrats again!!! SO, SO happy for you! You're going to be a great mom.
Good job with the Silk Road. When I called, they couldn't understand my email address. I followed up with 2 more phone calls made by my Russian speaking friends to get it done ; )
The SRL is in a great location, so you can walk everywhere. fyi, their english varies. A few of them speak it very well, others not so much. Make sure you bring a small phrasebook - general principles. I laughed one day when I was trying to converse with the housekeeper, she whipped out a Russian-English dictionary. That did the trick!
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