The wide, fertile valley floor gives way to the unfinished. Barren, vast, lonely land. Only the life-giving blue of the Orto-Tokor reservoir contrasts with the piles of rock, stone, and sand that have reluctantly formed into mountain shapes behind it. On his bicycle and completely on his own, the author travels through post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan. With every step, he encounters strange, often threatening situations. The country wavers between stagnation and new beginnings, between modernity and ancient traditions. As his travel reading, Chinghiz Aitmatov's wonderful love story "Djamila" begins to merge with his lived reality, the journey increasingly becomes an adventure of unpredictable depth and breadth. Partly profound, partly poetic, but primarily humorous and very personal.