If I get my passport back today I'll leave with Michael, a nutty 21 year old bike tourer, towards Sary Tash. He has a Chinese visa (having promised to FLY in) - funnily enough he is the only person I've met who has managed this. He should still get over the Irkeshtam pass as his visa doesn't specify that he must fly...
Unfortunately I can't download any of the best photos so far - very slow connections, plus the anti virus programs create havoc for USB's. So they will have to wait.
Most of my pics up to Almaty are here:
http://flickr.com/photos/robphair/
The Tajik visa story (see earlier, in Almaty) finished up today. I didn't get my Pamir permit by email on Friday but the big boss at Munduz Travel here in Osh made a big fuss and then told me that due to his excellent connections with the Tajik Embassy in Bishkek, he could get it to me by Monday night (last night).
His travel agency was classic Central Asian. Lots of young people hanging around the office (they said they were work experience students from the International Relations faculty, with about 10-15 hanging around in an office on one side and the big boss in an office the same size, just opposite. One female manager who did mostly admin work had to consult him for everything. Everything required his approval and in the meantime people just stood/sat around.
Big Boss was big, expansive, well dressed in lemon shirt and white linen pants, loud, and smelt of cigarettes. His modus operandi was classically Soviet. When the grand theatre of his explanation of how he would get the permit finished, I asked how much it would cost. The answer - $70 - $50 for the permit and $20 admin. When I questioned this he went into semi attack mode: 'Fine, if you don't want it I won't do it, you won't get it any other way, nobody has the connections I have, and I wouldn't send my worst enemy to the Pamir without a permit.' I could smell vodka on his breath now. I backpedalled and played contrite Rob.
On Monday I rang and said I wanted a receipt from the embassy in Bishkek. Big Boss refused and told me straight out that this money was a 'tip'. He then again threatened to cancel the whole thing. Again I backpedalled.
Meanwhile, one of the Tajik agencies had sent me a scan of the permit after all, out of the blue! So all I needed now was my passport.
Throughout the afternoon I had to call to see what was happening. If I got onto the female manager I always had to call back because she never knew anything, or had no licence to talk to me. 6pm last night - Big Boss told me they'd refused the permit and rambled something about 'bandits' and 'contraband'.
I wonder whether he got the jitters when I talked about going to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Dushanbe to complain - that could disrupt a neat little arrangement for him and the Tajiks in Bishkek. Yes, I'm a troublemaker.
I only got my passport - and money - back on Tuesday at midday after waiting at his office for almost 2 hours. At long last Big Boss received me -completely unapologetically, as you expect - leaned back in his chair, flipped open a white packet and proffered a cigarette. Is this a movie?? No thanks. I accepted the cup of tea instead. He rambled a bit more and then I had my hands on what I wanted.
I'm out of here. Michael from UK has the runs and is resting up.
The Pamirs promise to be hard. Next internet is two or so weeks away in Khorog.
About 3000km by bike so far.
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Monday, July 7, 2008
Karakol to Osh
I left Karakol and headed along the southern coast of Lake Issyk-Kol. The shore is quiet, with pebbly beaches, azure-clear waters and rugged spurs shrouded in cloud to the south. Much better than the resort dominated northern shore. I passed a girl running in Russian colours and slowed for a chat. She was a marathon runner from Omsk, training at altitude for the Omsk marathon. At a little village called Tosor I picked up supplies and headed into the mountains. At the top of the first gorge a herder family (2100m up) invited me to stay in a spare room and fed me with home made bread, jam, cheese, kymyz (sour horse milk, like kefir) and joghurt. The next morning Mum fed me up again, I bought cheese from her, then I was on my way.
Up a gravel/4WD road round constant switchbacks more kymyz was on offer in another 2 yurts. Further up into foul weather, then over a spectacular 3800m pass. Horses and cattle were grazing right up to 3700m or so, until the country was just rocky scree.
Half way up this pass I noticed my first theft - two bolts from the right side of my rear pack rack were missing. Very lucky I noticed. I check them regularly -though not as often as I did when I had crappier racks - and they have never come loose over 4 years, so I'm 99% sure they were nicked. Maybe the thief was one of the people I was telling about my big list of spares?
Over the next 2 days I wound down the lush Naryn valley, green meadows lined with jagged snowy peaks, to the south west, with occasional river crossings and detours over escarpments. Even high up they're not quite Heidi meadows - they are pretty heavily grazed. I soon passed my first chabani (herdsmen), these ones living in white old style tents, like our ancient canvas Scout tents. There had once been bridges on this road, but they were virtually all washed out. The road was rubble, gravel, not good. Even descending you can't go more than 15 km/h. Much more kymyz was around, and in one yurt I swear I had 8 cups. They kept insisting, swearing that it's extremely healthy and completely fat free. More home made bread and jam. Also more promises to send photos from home (making more of these than I should, I have a very bad track record.) For the first time my emergency shelter (a tarp) got a bit of a test in a stormy and rainy night. The sky was crystal clear before I went to bed - very rapid weather changes here.
By Naryn I was pretty tired and found a 'CBT' (community based tourism) flat with a well educated Kyrgyz hostess who spoke very good Russian. So I decided to have a rest day.
We had a good talk over dinner - she belongs to the generation that owes everything to the Soviet Union. Unfortunately things degenerated the next day after they all stayed up and watched Russia lose in the Euro football semis. She was very disappointed but I said I was glad because I was sick of rabid Russian nationalism. She got very angry and we had a big argument. I made her late for work. As she left I was thinking of saying, 'By the way, do you know how many Kyrgyz I hear skinheads kill in Moscow every year?' - but thought better of it.
From Naryn a good asphalt road led 100 km further west, running between two east-west ridges, uncannily like the Larapinta west of Alice Springs in places. The country dried out dramatically, and started to resemble huge rolling sandy hills of mine tailings.
The road wound up over two more big passes before reaching the Ferghana valley: the first 2800m, the second 2900m high. On the first I was invited to stay the night with a chabani family in their yurt. They were very happy to tell me all about how they live.
Generally they rent the high country meadows from the local government, and it seems that certain families have a long standing claim on certain areas. They take their yurts up high in May and stay there until September. If the kids go to school or Mum works, they come up for the long summer holidays. The husband/older sons stay the whole time.
Chabani often have a mix of their own and other peoples' stock, who pay them. The family I was with had about 50 horses, 5 cows, and 150 sheep and goats. I noticed many families lower down didn't have horses. I would stop and ask if I could buy kymyz and they would often say, 'No, you see, we're poor, we don't have horses.'
Mares are valued most of all as they produce milk for kymyz (only in summer though) which they sell for $US 0.70 per litre to passersby or at markets, a good earner. A good mare sells for $1500. They milk the mares every 2 hours from 6am to 8pm! This family said they got about 35 litres of kymyz per day.
There is a special process for kymyz production: you line a wooden barrel with a coat of cream, then smoke the barrel with pine cone smoke (or other if not available). Then you just stir the milk and within an hour or two you have kymyz.
The cows are milked twice a day and every family has a 'separator' (same word in Russian) to make cream. Some make cheese too. Many families now have small Chinese solar panels to run a light and a radio at night - not sure if they can power a separator!
Sheep are only sold for meat, at maybe $150 each. The fattier the rump, the better. They use the wool to cover the yurts but otherwise they can't really sell it - no market. Shashliks in towns are mostly mutton, with less beef.
The families make their own bread often using flour which they grind using their own wheat from the valley below. The dough goes into a deep pizza pan and bakes like a fat pizza/heavy Turkish style bread. Then the bread is eaten with green tea (+ cream), cream, and home made jam (there is a berry called 'oblipikha' which is like a powerful apricot which everybody gathers in the forests for jam.)
The little stove (inside/outside the yurt) runs on dried manure gathered after the winter from the sarais (stables) down in the village. Water is boiled in a samovar (which has a hollow core for fuel).
Child labour isn't much of an issue here!
On the second pass I found a NZ and Scottish cyclist coming the other way, up from the Ferghana Valley - golden fields way below to the west. They had come from Europe and the Kiwi wins the prize for cheapest bike to travel across Central Asia so far... but these roads will test it.
Down towards Jalalabad into the heat of the valley and I spent my last night before Osh with a retired Kyrgyz Russian language teacher.
From Jalalabad it was a hilly 100km loop on good roads around a bit of Uzbekistan to Osh.
In Osh I found that my GBAO (Pamir) permit hadn't come by email and desperate measures were needed...
The bazaar in Osh was a real treat, though, with lovely friendly people, no haggling needed, and no massive hordes to negotiate. I spent most of the weekend with Xavier (a French bike tourer, down from the Pamir) and also met up with 3 Swiss riders - then 1 British.
Most of the people working the bazaar are Uzbek rather that Kyrgyz; the woman often conservatively dressed in Uzbek patterns with a monobrow painted on, and henna stained hands.
I bought a whole stack of supplies here for the Pamirs: 1kg sultanas, 1 kg peanuts, 5oog dried apricots, 500g lollies for gifts, excellent mountain honey...
Odile and Olivier, French bike tourers I met in Kyrgyzstan, took some great pics in this area. Sadly, I lost most of mine (memory card died).
Up a gravel/4WD road round constant switchbacks more kymyz was on offer in another 2 yurts. Further up into foul weather, then over a spectacular 3800m pass. Horses and cattle were grazing right up to 3700m or so, until the country was just rocky scree.
Half way up this pass I noticed my first theft - two bolts from the right side of my rear pack rack were missing. Very lucky I noticed. I check them regularly -though not as often as I did when I had crappier racks - and they have never come loose over 4 years, so I'm 99% sure they were nicked. Maybe the thief was one of the people I was telling about my big list of spares?
Over the next 2 days I wound down the lush Naryn valley, green meadows lined with jagged snowy peaks, to the south west, with occasional river crossings and detours over escarpments. Even high up they're not quite Heidi meadows - they are pretty heavily grazed. I soon passed my first chabani (herdsmen), these ones living in white old style tents, like our ancient canvas Scout tents. There had once been bridges on this road, but they were virtually all washed out. The road was rubble, gravel, not good. Even descending you can't go more than 15 km/h. Much more kymyz was around, and in one yurt I swear I had 8 cups. They kept insisting, swearing that it's extremely healthy and completely fat free. More home made bread and jam. Also more promises to send photos from home (making more of these than I should, I have a very bad track record.) For the first time my emergency shelter (a tarp) got a bit of a test in a stormy and rainy night. The sky was crystal clear before I went to bed - very rapid weather changes here.
By Naryn I was pretty tired and found a 'CBT' (community based tourism) flat with a well educated Kyrgyz hostess who spoke very good Russian. So I decided to have a rest day.
We had a good talk over dinner - she belongs to the generation that owes everything to the Soviet Union. Unfortunately things degenerated the next day after they all stayed up and watched Russia lose in the Euro football semis. She was very disappointed but I said I was glad because I was sick of rabid Russian nationalism. She got very angry and we had a big argument. I made her late for work. As she left I was thinking of saying, 'By the way, do you know how many Kyrgyz I hear skinheads kill in Moscow every year?' - but thought better of it.
From Naryn a good asphalt road led 100 km further west, running between two east-west ridges, uncannily like the Larapinta west of Alice Springs in places. The country dried out dramatically, and started to resemble huge rolling sandy hills of mine tailings.
The road wound up over two more big passes before reaching the Ferghana valley: the first 2800m, the second 2900m high. On the first I was invited to stay the night with a chabani family in their yurt. They were very happy to tell me all about how they live.
Generally they rent the high country meadows from the local government, and it seems that certain families have a long standing claim on certain areas. They take their yurts up high in May and stay there until September. If the kids go to school or Mum works, they come up for the long summer holidays. The husband/older sons stay the whole time.
Chabani often have a mix of their own and other peoples' stock, who pay them. The family I was with had about 50 horses, 5 cows, and 150 sheep and goats. I noticed many families lower down didn't have horses. I would stop and ask if I could buy kymyz and they would often say, 'No, you see, we're poor, we don't have horses.'
Mares are valued most of all as they produce milk for kymyz (only in summer though) which they sell for $US 0.70 per litre to passersby or at markets, a good earner. A good mare sells for $1500. They milk the mares every 2 hours from 6am to 8pm! This family said they got about 35 litres of kymyz per day.
There is a special process for kymyz production: you line a wooden barrel with a coat of cream, then smoke the barrel with pine cone smoke (or other if not available). Then you just stir the milk and within an hour or two you have kymyz.
The cows are milked twice a day and every family has a 'separator' (same word in Russian) to make cream. Some make cheese too. Many families now have small Chinese solar panels to run a light and a radio at night - not sure if they can power a separator!
Sheep are only sold for meat, at maybe $150 each. The fattier the rump, the better. They use the wool to cover the yurts but otherwise they can't really sell it - no market. Shashliks in towns are mostly mutton, with less beef.
The families make their own bread often using flour which they grind using their own wheat from the valley below. The dough goes into a deep pizza pan and bakes like a fat pizza/heavy Turkish style bread. Then the bread is eaten with green tea (+ cream), cream, and home made jam (there is a berry called 'oblipikha' which is like a powerful apricot which everybody gathers in the forests for jam.)
The little stove (inside/outside the yurt) runs on dried manure gathered after the winter from the sarais (stables) down in the village. Water is boiled in a samovar (which has a hollow core for fuel).
Child labour isn't much of an issue here!
On the second pass I found a NZ and Scottish cyclist coming the other way, up from the Ferghana Valley - golden fields way below to the west. They had come from Europe and the Kiwi wins the prize for cheapest bike to travel across Central Asia so far... but these roads will test it.
Down towards Jalalabad into the heat of the valley and I spent my last night before Osh with a retired Kyrgyz Russian language teacher.
From Jalalabad it was a hilly 100km loop on good roads around a bit of Uzbekistan to Osh.
In Osh I found that my GBAO (Pamir) permit hadn't come by email and desperate measures were needed...
The bazaar in Osh was a real treat, though, with lovely friendly people, no haggling needed, and no massive hordes to negotiate. I spent most of the weekend with Xavier (a French bike tourer, down from the Pamir) and also met up with 3 Swiss riders - then 1 British.
Most of the people working the bazaar are Uzbek rather that Kyrgyz; the woman often conservatively dressed in Uzbek patterns with a monobrow painted on, and henna stained hands.
I bought a whole stack of supplies here for the Pamirs: 1kg sultanas, 1 kg peanuts, 5oog dried apricots, 500g lollies for gifts, excellent mountain honey...
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Out of Almaty to the Kyrgyz border
Escape from Almaty to the east, sticking close to the mountains on local roads to evade traffic – almost impossible on a Saturday. Lots of booming restaurants and wedding reception centres, shashlik mixed with diesel fumes, blaring Turkic pop. How many weddings can there be? First night - slept in the garden of a florist who I had got café advice from on the way through. On the next day I found some company in a young Kazakh tobacco picker who had just brought himself a new ‘Ukraina’ single speed roadster the week before and was getting into riding. Made in Kharkov, exactly the same as the ancient Soviet ones, most likely in the same ancient Soviet factories. Funny that in some areas they stick to these, and in others they’re importing rubbish Chinese bikes. After 25km one of his pedals was clunking. I had a look and found a loose crank AND pedal. For that effort I got the nickname ‘diamond–eyes’. We had a feed in a market chaikhana (teahouse) and then a local Russian invited me back to his place to try his home made kvas and meet his Korean wife, who he rescued from Kyzyl-Orda (godforsaken town in the northern wastelands of KZ, on the Moscow-Central Asia train route – dust, crumbling buildings, camels). I asked him about the scars on his arms. He said, ‘I told you, I had to spend almost a year in Kyzyl-Orda’. He also had some shocking army service stories. The modern day Kazakh army gets mixed review from the local men – about half say that the old Russian practices of ‘dedovshina’ (officers constantly beating, humiliating and robbing new recruits) still persist. I’ve been reading Anna Politovskaya’s ‘My country’s army’ which has damning accounts of the army’s utter legal immunity, and indifference to soldiers’ lives. The second Chechen war from 2000-2002 was especially horrible. It’s hard to imagine a more inhumane culture. Even worse is the fact that many of the commanders seem to have built themselves political careers on the basis of their supposed hero status. That’s all about Russia, but the cultural influence is extremely strong in Kazakhstan.
The road swung around to the south up a dry rocky canyon and up onto a series of plateaus. Late in the evening, at a roadhouse, I caught up with a pair of lovely truck drivers who I had passed while they were fixing their Kamaz. The elder – Russian, blonde, the younger – Uighur, neighbours from Zharkent, near the Chinese border. The Russian one had a charming old fashioned way of apologizing when he used a mild expletive, not wanting to offend the guest. We said goodbye and straight away I was bailed up by some Russian long haul truckies from Bishkek, 2 men and one 21 year old son, who were just as friendly but stereotypically ‘rude’ – I can’t find the words – they swore in the most crude Russian ‘mat’ virtually every second word. (‘Mat’ is the extremely crude slang of prisons and army.) Funnily enough the son didn’t swear at all, although his dad was going for it.
Heading further south across dry plains, across the Charyn River canyon, and up another long valley to Kegen, the country got dryer and the traffic sparser. I found my first wayside kymyz (fermented horse milk) salesmen. Past Karkara the valley became lush and fertile again, but the road towards Kyrgyzstan petered out into a gravel track.
At the border I was prepared to speak only English, as I hadn’t registered (though you don’t need to.) The Kazakh guards were funny and completely un-hostile. One was a ruddy, jolly redhead called Max who told me what a dog specialist he was, said he wanted to come and work in Australia, but was then confused when I told him we have no land borders. His offsider, an earnest young Kazakh, told him, ‘it’s a separate continent, silly!’ Duh. Max proudly told me that they had internet, satellite TV and earnt $US 500 per month. Then he asked, ‘So how much do you earn?’ I came up with, ‘More than $US 1000 a month.’ (I’ve decided this isn’t bad- they normally don’t probe further.) Then he added, ‘Even the commander over there’- pointing at the Kyrgyz side – only earns half of that.’
Over at the Kyrgyz side the very young guards tried to be stern and strict. They said, ‘Wait there!’ while one went into a decrepit shack with a Soviet radio set visible. Then ‘Enter!’ after a bit. The young guy mucked around and eventually found a key for a safe in which there was nothing but a stamp with a date. I got my stamp and he painstakingly wrote my details in a book, struggling with English letters. I asked, ‘Can I go?’ He said, ‘Yes.’
Just beyond was a rather more grand house. I heard, ‘Stop!’ The Kyrgyz commander came out. I said, ‘But the soldier said I could go.’ Answer, ‘He was drunk. You haven’t been through Customs yet.’
He took me into the house. Paper shuffling. Lit a candle. Questions about what I was doing. Then he produced a customs declaration, A4 size. ‘Fill this out.’ I said, ‘Why?’ (‘Zachem’ in Russian can express a bit of disdain, more like ‘Why bother?’) ‘Hmm, OK.’ He put it away and got out another, smaller form which he gave to me. 'Fill it out.'
I looked at it. The title read 'Quick questionnaire for foreign tourists who enter Kyrgyzstan'.
I started filling it out. After a bit he got bored and said, 'Give it here'.
'Why did you tick "Tourism on Great Silk Road" AND "ecological tourism"?
'Well, I'm kind of doing both.'
'Where are you going on the Silk Road?'
'Osh.'
'That's not on the Silk Road.'
'Umm, yes it is.'
'Hmm.'
'So, do you want the form?'
'No, you keep it.'
'Can I go now?'
'Mmm.'
And I was free to go.
My favourite bit: ‘He was drunk’. (He wasn’t!)
The road swung around to the south up a dry rocky canyon and up onto a series of plateaus. Late in the evening, at a roadhouse, I caught up with a pair of lovely truck drivers who I had passed while they were fixing their Kamaz. The elder – Russian, blonde, the younger – Uighur, neighbours from Zharkent, near the Chinese border. The Russian one had a charming old fashioned way of apologizing when he used a mild expletive, not wanting to offend the guest. We said goodbye and straight away I was bailed up by some Russian long haul truckies from Bishkek, 2 men and one 21 year old son, who were just as friendly but stereotypically ‘rude’ – I can’t find the words – they swore in the most crude Russian ‘mat’ virtually every second word. (‘Mat’ is the extremely crude slang of prisons and army.) Funnily enough the son didn’t swear at all, although his dad was going for it.
Heading further south across dry plains, across the Charyn River canyon, and up another long valley to Kegen, the country got dryer and the traffic sparser. I found my first wayside kymyz (fermented horse milk) salesmen. Past Karkara the valley became lush and fertile again, but the road towards Kyrgyzstan petered out into a gravel track.
At the border I was prepared to speak only English, as I hadn’t registered (though you don’t need to.) The Kazakh guards were funny and completely un-hostile. One was a ruddy, jolly redhead called Max who told me what a dog specialist he was, said he wanted to come and work in Australia, but was then confused when I told him we have no land borders. His offsider, an earnest young Kazakh, told him, ‘it’s a separate continent, silly!’ Duh. Max proudly told me that they had internet, satellite TV and earnt $US 500 per month. Then he asked, ‘So how much do you earn?’ I came up with, ‘More than $US 1000 a month.’ (I’ve decided this isn’t bad- they normally don’t probe further.) Then he added, ‘Even the commander over there’- pointing at the Kyrgyz side – only earns half of that.’
Over at the Kyrgyz side the very young guards tried to be stern and strict. They said, ‘Wait there!’ while one went into a decrepit shack with a Soviet radio set visible. Then ‘Enter!’ after a bit. The young guy mucked around and eventually found a key for a safe in which there was nothing but a stamp with a date. I got my stamp and he painstakingly wrote my details in a book, struggling with English letters. I asked, ‘Can I go?’ He said, ‘Yes.’
Just beyond was a rather more grand house. I heard, ‘Stop!’ The Kyrgyz commander came out. I said, ‘But the soldier said I could go.’ Answer, ‘He was drunk. You haven’t been through Customs yet.’
He took me into the house. Paper shuffling. Lit a candle. Questions about what I was doing. Then he produced a customs declaration, A4 size. ‘Fill this out.’ I said, ‘Why?’ (‘Zachem’ in Russian can express a bit of disdain, more like ‘Why bother?’) ‘Hmm, OK.’ He put it away and got out another, smaller form which he gave to me. 'Fill it out.'
I looked at it. The title read 'Quick questionnaire for foreign tourists who enter Kyrgyzstan'.
I started filling it out. After a bit he got bored and said, 'Give it here'.
'Why did you tick "Tourism on Great Silk Road" AND "ecological tourism"?
'Well, I'm kind of doing both.'
'Where are you going on the Silk Road?'
'Osh.'
'That's not on the Silk Road.'
'Umm, yes it is.'
'Hmm.'
'So, do you want the form?'
'No, you keep it.'
'Can I go now?'
'Mmm.'
And I was free to go.
My favourite bit: ‘He was drunk’. (He wasn’t!)
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