Heads-up Travellers: double dipping in Kyrgyzstan is the norm whether you are dining with a family in their yurt or in a restaurant. Many locals shove the spoon that was in their mouths into the communal serving dishes of food, and also into the shared condiment bowls that stay on the tables.

I was so famished on my second day of being separated from my support vehicle when mountain biking in Chong-Kemin that I really didn’t care about this generous nomad family’s utensils going from mouths to mutton platter when they fed me in their yurt.

However, later on the trip in a crowded restaurant, I watched a local lick a tiny condiment spoon and then plunge it back into the jar and I considered hepatitis, Epstein-Barr, meningitis, herpes, influenza, streptococcal infections, or some new strain of norovirus that would have me wearing diapers.

Solution: purchase a few pots of your own condiments at a market or grocery store. I bought honey in Jalal-Abad that tastes like a wildflower scented breeze from a blossoming alpine meadow. And always travel with Imodium or other poop-stopper meds.