Larry Memmott's Blog

Millennial Walnut Tree

Arslanbob is a wonderful little village north of Jalalabad. Surrounded by ancient walnut forests, and with a particularly hospitable population, it is a great place to just relax.

	Arslanbob lies some 30 miles off the main Bishkek-Jalalabad road. The road is good, and it’s a pleasant drive through the countryside. Attached you will find a a .gdb file
To Arslanbob (click to enlarge)	which you can use

in Google Earth or your GPS to find your way.

Accommodations and guide services are easy. Arslanbob’s CBT headquarters is famous for its helpfulness. We arrived without making prior arrangements and a few minutes later we were set up

with a nice family homestay. We stayed with the Sabir family, whose address is marked on the map below. They were great, and provided us with delicious home-cooked meals throughout our stay.
	Breakfast at the Sabir Residence

Arslanbob is primarily an Uzbek village. Uzbeks from the Fergana Valley have told me that the annual pilgrimages their families made to Arslanbob when they were children had an almost religious nature. It’s understandable.  Spend a couple of days here and you almost feel like you’ve entered a mystic trance.

	There’s plenty to do in and around Arslanbob. There is the small waterfall on the outskirts of town, the big waterfall in the mountains above town, and horses to rent for riding in the hills. Most unique and satisfying, though, are long walks through the walnut forest. We were there in August and enjoyed sampling the many varieties of apples
The “Small” Waterfall

and cherry plums which grow wild and were just beginning to ripen at the time.

The “Big” Waterfall

	The walnuts reportedly ripen in September and the village empties as whole families move into the woods to pick them. Families hold the rights to harvest specific plots within the
Steep Climb to the Big Waterfall

forest. That would be a great time to be there, though it was certainly nice to wander through the woods by ourselves, too, and that feeling would most likely be lost at harvest time.

Around Arslanbob (click to enlarge)