Bishkek is fine.

It has some monuments, it has a pretty cool national museum (I especially enjoyed the floor that focuses on nomadic Kyrgyz culture through the last couple of millennia), and it has Indian and Korean restaurants where a vegetarian can find sustenance. It’s very walkable once you get to the center, and it’s about 15 miles away from some serious nature.  Do I want to spend a ton of time in Bishkek?  No. But I will say this: it’s the first place I’ve been in Asia where I wasn’t conspicuous.  I am a tall fair woman and I tower above all the Turkic peoples and the Arabic peoples and the Asiatic peoples whose bloodlines have circulated throughout this region.  But Bishkek has a fair number of Russians, or Russian-extracted citizens.  And—unlike the pretty universal traditional dress of woman in Turkmenistan and Tajikistan especially (and to a lesser extent in Uzbekistan too)—the women in Bishkek are wearing…whatever.  Tank tops.  Short shorts.  Miniskirts with Chuck Ts.  Green mohawks.  No one looks at me at all, and that’s a relief after so many weeks of feeling like I had a giant neon arrow reading OUTSIDER pointing at my head.

Statue of national semi-legendary hero Manas, subject of a massive epic poem that runs to 20x the length of Homer's Odyssey, which not only narrates Manas's deeds but also reflects thousands of years of Kyrgyz history.

Ala-Too Square, the central public gathering place in Bishkek

Monument of Friendship, a nice Soviet commemoration of 
that one time when Kyrgyzstan gave itself over to Russian dominance.