How to spend a week in Bishkek

1. Leave Bishkek 

Tokmok - Animal Bazaar and old stuff

When I first came to Bishkek, I hadn't made any contact yet with any locals, so I went back to CouchSurfing and found Stephen and Maki, an American/Japanese couple who have been living in town for a couple of months. They'd been spending most of their time exploring the city and learning Russian, but hadn't seen the surrounding sights yet. They offered to let me tag along on their trip to Tokmok (60km away), and I readily agreed.

Big ass sheep (Literally. The butt is pure fat. Delicious.)

 Tokmok is known for two things: an animal bazaar and a restored old minaret in an ancient ruined town nearby. The animal bazaar was exactly what it sounds like. Animals, people selling them, and it's a little bizarre. Sheep, goats, donkeys, chickens, cows, horses and who knows what else of all shapes and sizes were up for grabs and were being traded in Kyrgyz, Russian, and frantic gestures. It turns out you can buy a decent horse for 60,000 som (~$1,250)

Eeyore says hi

The ancient town was interesting in an entirely different way. Very little of the town remains, only a long, square mound of dirt from where the walls used to be, a very new-looking renovated tower, and these gravestones:

I wonder if the carved faces are meant to look like the deceased?

I forget exactly when they had dated these stones, but it was in the thousands of years. Each one had a likeness carved into it, ranging from a face alone to an entire torso. If arms were ever depicted, they were always holding a cup of some sort. I wish I knew why.

It was interesting to then compare that cemetery to the more modern version down the street. Here, traditional kyrgyz burial mounds have been combined with traditional Russian headstones and photographs to create a distinct style:

Here the identity of the likenesses are a little more explicit

After a few hours in Tokmok, it was about time to return to Bishkek and...

2. Make some friends

Bishkek connections (plov, school, dinners, mt. Rainier, etc.)

When I was preparing for this trip in Seattle, I sent a list of all of my destinations out to my friends and asked if anyone knew anybody who lived in or was from or knew people in any of the places I was going. Approximately 80% of the responses were connections in Bishkek. Unfortunately, I didn't plan well and it took me several days to actually get in touch with any of these people. Then, I only took photos of a few of them. They were all friends of friends of friends of friends, but that was enough to justify a phone call or email and a random meeting on a streetcorner or in a bar.

My friend Evan's coworker Dawn used to work in Bishkek with Yulia, who was busy this week, but knows Madina who gave me a tour around town.

Madina works with Yulia at Quality Schools International Bishkek, an international school here in town, and they gave me a tour the next day. I sat through the afternoon with the Science teacher to see what a biology class might look like out here. It had 8 students, and that was his biggest class of the day. He has 5 preps (different subjects that he teaches in one day), but fewer than 30 students. The general attitude of the teachers there was quite relaxed and happy, despite a few gripes about Central Asian medical services and expat tax/social security issues.

My friend John went to high school with Azeem at Andover. Azeem now works in Bishkek and took me out to dinner one night and promised to find me a place to stay.

Couchsurfers Stephen and Maki knew all of the London School of Bishkek's English teachers and we went to one of their parties:

Belting the Beatles in Bishkek

My girlfriend, Anna, works with Kaitlyn, who's brother was best friends with Rashid, who grew up in Uzbekistan, went to school in Spokane, WA, lived in Seattle for a couple years, and now is studying international relations-type stuff in Bishkek. Most of what I know about Central Asian politics is from Rashid and his equally globally-minded friends.

I first just met him for drinks with a couple of friends from Turkmenistan. I met him again for drinks with two of his friends from when he worked at the UN in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, who were visiting. The next day he showed us all how to make plov:

Rashid explaining the importance of the bone marrow in plov

Multi-national dinner party, from left to right: Rashid's roommate - Turkmenistan, Val - Kyrgyzstan, Vojtech - Czech Republic, Mario - Switzerland, Rashid - Uzbekistan, Inna - Turkmenistan

plov. plov plov plov.

After dinner. Addition of Bernt - Austria (left)

Despite having all of these friends and connections, sometimes you're left alone to just...

3. Wander and observe

...and stand in line at embassies

Here is a collection of some things that I saw while wandering around Bishkek trying to sort out my Tajik, Uzbek and Kazakh visas:

Another taste of home: Mt. Rainier must be the most common "mountain" photo in the world.

Yes, I believe he does.

Changing of the guard

Restaurant plov (not as good as homemade)

Campaign season for Bishkek expats? Nope, just restaurant marketing.

You have to be careful when wandering, though, because you might...

4. Meet some "police officers"

in Osh Bazaar

No photo for this one. While walking to Osh Bazaar a man in street clothes tapped me on the shoulder, showed me a badge and asked for my passport. I had heard about fake or simply corrupt police officers doing this to make a little extra money on the side. I had also heard that they had no right to do this, so I said, "Nyet." and turned to walk away.
Then he grabbed my sleeve, pulled me back, and repeated, "Passport."
"Nyet."
"Da. Passport."
"No, let me call my embassy." I pulled out my phone and started to push buttons
"Passport."
"Embassy."
"Embassy?"
"Embassy."
"Embassy? Passport."
"Embassy. Consulate."
"Oh! Consul! No problem! I'm sorry, no problem!"
"Yeah, whatever..."

I learned later that "embassy" in Russian is "pahsolstvah." I'll keep that in mind in the future. Fortunately

I should probably also actually figure out what the embassy's phone number is...

5. Leave Bishkek again

Vacation to Issyk-Kul

Once I finally had all of my visa applications into their respective embassies, I decided it was time to clear out of Bishkek and check out the legendary Issyk-Kul. Conveniently, the CouchSurfer I met in Osh, Roma (not the Roma I hitched north with), was coming through Bishkek and headed that way the next day. We decided to team up.

Step one was to get to Tokmok, where I saw this lovely relic of the Soviet era:

sometimes the under-street walkway drain clogs and you don't want to fix it.

and ate this delicious example of traditional cuisine from Roma's hometown of Novosibersk:

Siberian traditional dumpling soup. Mine has ketchup in it, Roma's has mayonnaise. It tastes about like it sounds.

Our ride from Tokmok was quite friendly, but the road was less so:

Paying our hitchhiking dues

But in the end, we made it to the lake and to Roma's favorite spot. Novosibersk isn't far from Kazakhstan, so he first came to this lake when he was 16. Since then he has traveled or lived near here countless times, and was a great companion to have when you want to avoid tourists in the biggest tourist attraction in the country. We got in late the first night and set up camp in his first secret spot:

drizzly camp

Roma the fire builder

 Then spent the next day exploring the surrounding area. Well, I was exploring. Roma clearly knew where everything was.

Issyk-Kul shoreline

 Including the fields of wild cannabis. He was dismayed that they had been overharvested recently. He blamed the German guy he'd last told about this spot.

Wild cannabis. Roma was quite proud of this.

Then we tried to find ice cream, but could only find stale biscuits, canned fish and fizzy milk drink at the local store.

Relaxing by a village store with locals

But the sunset was beautiful

Sunset over the cemetery

 And the next morning was spectacular

Morning on the beach

 So spectacular, in fact, that Roma decided to stay for another day (his stockpile of local hashish may have also played a role in his decision). I, on the other hand, had to get back to Bishkek, so it was back to hitching, and its accompanying adventures.

Round one: Three middle aged Kyrgyz women in a sedan. The woman in the back was clearly wasted (10am), as evidenced by the bottle of vodka in her hand and her slurred Russian. About the time she started to say "I love you", passed to bottle to the driver and tried to feed me by hand, I asked in my best Russian, "ahstanavitye pazhalstah. Zdyes. Spasibah. Da. Zdyes. Pazhalstah. Zdyes. Yekhat i vodka nyet. Ahstanavitye zdyes. Bolshoy spasibah! Ocheen priyatnah!" (rough translation of rough Russian: "stop please. here. thank you. yes. here. please. here. driving and vodka no. stop here. big thanks! very nice to meet you!")

Rounds two through four: fairly tame. Short, local rides followed by a grumpy bus driver.

Round five: young family heading to Bishkek via Tokmok. They invited me for tea

Tea with my hitchiking ride...

 which became dinner

...turned into a full meal

 and my third visit to Tokmok was complete. I finally arrived back in Bishkek around dusk, in time to check into the same guesthouse that apparently every cycle tourist in Central Asia is staying at:

biker hostel

Why am I back in Bishkek? A repeat of all of the above, plus, to...

 6. Learn Russian

Here's to another week

Classes start tomorrow. Hopefully I'll get some grammar to back up the choppy vocabulary I've pieced together.

Back to the Blog

Things I learned about China that I didn't know before I came to Central Asia:

1. It's under construction

A common sight in Xinjiang

Demolition of old-town Kashgar, new-town Kashgar behind

Especially in Xinjiang, construction is rampant. Villages that one guidebook (from 2002) said were "good places to see traditional Uighur culture" and another (from 2010) said was "beginning to become another Chinese city" were very much in urban development when I went to see them. The Han locals that I spoke to supported it, for the most part. One woman I met in Ruoqiang said with pride, "yes, there is much construction. This is a developing city!"

 During my time in the province, the most common job of the Han people that I met was "construction engineer." They all told me that Xinjiang was the place to come once they graduated because if the push for development. Mao's encouragement for the eastern Han people to move in and help develop the Uighurs is still very much present here. Most of the travelers whom I met were very opposed to the "destruction" of Uighur culture, as were some Uighur people. However, I also got a sense that the economic and educational benefits that come with China-fication were very much appreciated.

2. The military and police personnel are very friendly, and professional

Despite the sometimes quirky or seemingly oppressive laws that they are required to enforce, most of the individual police officers or military personnel whom I met in China were very friendly. Not only that, but they were always quite professional, too. They took care of their uniform and appearance, they did their jobs dutifully, and I never once was asked to pay any bribe or other "fee".

File photo from an earlier post. A very enthusiastic police officer in Northern Xinjiang. He wanted to capture our multi-national group (Vietnam, Russian, USA)

As soon as I entered Kyrgyzstan, however, the difference was very apparent. The first two Kyrgyz border guards that I met were sitting on a rock on the side of the road, shirts untucked, eating sunflower seeds with their backs to the trucks waiting to cross through their gate. Once approached, they passively flipped through my passport, examined the Chinese visa only (not any of the information that might be pertinent to their jobs), and let us pass.

Within hours of being in Bishkek, I heard two seperate stories of travelers being hassled by police or fake police for bribes or passports. A threat to call the embassy seems to be enough to get them to back off, luckily.

3. They have mummies

Those are two real people who lived 1000s of years ago. Crazy, right?

Ever think mummies were just for Egypt? WRONG! it turns out Xinjiang is almost entirely desert, and when you bury a body in the desert, it just sits there. For a very long time. Almost every town had a museum and each museum had a collection of mummies from the area. This one in particular had a dozen, including 3 infants. Interestingly, most of the mummies are light-skinned, tattooed central asians, not east-asian.

4. EVERY town has a central square.

Not only that, but every central square has a gigantic TV that plays Chinese TV until midnight every night. Nearby, a crowd of middle-aged women will be dancing choreographed, yet tame dances to pop music (think "electric slide" quality dancing, maybe a step up from "macarena")

The TV at night

Statues of Mao were also popular additions to these squares

5. English isn't a strong suit.

OK, maybe I knew this ahead of time, but it's still fun to see some of the signs. Here a a couple of examples:

What do you mean when you say "carrots" and "basket"...? Is that TP?

Yes. A good reminder while I pee in the nasty, nasty, uncleaned urinal hole.

Things I've learned about Central Asia so far:

1. The food from Mongolia to here is basically the same, but becomes more flavorful!

Below is an example of meat in a pocket of bread. In Mongolia, it had various names, but basically consisted only of boiled mutton and bread. In Xinjiang, it was known as cao bao zi and had a little bit of spice added in with the mutton. Here in Kyrgyzstan, it's called samsa and is super flavorful. It's still mutton and mutton fat, but they add in onions and probably a good handful of spices to keep things interesting. I love street food.

Hot pockets ain't got nothin' on this

 Below is another dish. I forget its name in Mongolia and Xinjiang, but it was usually some type of rice with a bit of vegetable mixed in (here it's yellow peppers), topped with a chunk of meat. In Central Asia, it's called Plov and gets quite a bit more varied. The meat is in smaller chunks and is mixed in with the rice, and the vegetables are more varied. I hear there is even plov with pistachios in Uzbekistan...

Plov. it's fun to say, right? Plov plov plov.

2. Even though you're in the high mountains, you should still be careful about drinking the water.

Ever since that last night with the Kazakh family, my GI tract was having issue on-and-off. After three weeks, I decided to take some antibiotics. After a full course of antibiotics and no improvement, I decided to take the opportunity in Kashgar to visit an English-speaking doctor. Conspicuously, my symptoms disappeared as soon as I arrived at the hospital, leading the physicians to think that I was just crazy or a picky eater, and leading me to try to get a stool sample into the cup shown below:

my target practice facilities...

I've given stool samples in the states before (last time I came back from traveling, actually). There, you have a little tupperware bin that you can seal up and pass to the lab techs. In Kashgar, you go in a small cup that seems to have less structural integrity than a Costco sample cup, then you walk across the building, down a flight of stairs, through a crowded waiting room and hand the open cup to a lab tech, who examines it immediately under a microscope to tell you that he can't find anything interesting. On the plus side, the half-day at the hospital only cost me about $2.50.

3. Hospitality is a virtue

Everywhere I've been in Central Asia I've met tons of super friendly and welcoming people. Couchsurfers and others have put me up for a night or several, I've been given meals and free rides. One of the drivers that picked me up actually tried to pay ME 50 yuan (~$8) for food after he dropped me off.

Couchsurfing in Kashgar

Upstanding Kyrgyz gentlemen celebrating a new baby boy. Roma and I had been allowed to spend the night at this truck-stop cafe about 20ft away while they were celebrating...

 

4. Hitchhiking isn't as hard as people say

I tried it on a whim in China and it worked quite well. Research about Central Asia, however, told me that it would be very difficult and most people would want money. I met one traveler who came from Kyrgyzstan and had been successful, however, so that was enough for me to give it a try.

My experience thus far: not bad at all! It usually takes a few tries before someone will actually pick you up. They still aren't quite used to the idea here in Kyrgyzstan. Most people will just try to direct you to the nearest taxi stand instead. Once you make it clear that you just want to get somewhere in the direction of where you're headed and that you're not going to be paying money, though, some people will happily take you. Trucks tend to be the best option, as they're already getting paid and are probably pretty bored from days of driving anywhere. 

If you're not in a rush, have time to spare and don't mind super awkward attempts at Russian conversation followed by hours of silence and hand guestures, it's great!

Fro truck. He didn't give me a ride.

Truckin' it

Sometimes they break down...

Sometimes they are SUPER heavy and SUPER slow (biking would have been faster on the up and downhills than this truck)

When your tire blows out, just swap it for one of the others! Who needs a spare when you have 18 wheels?

Roma the non-monogomous muscovite mountaineershops for Sega in Osh, Kyrgyzstan

Roma and I waited for about 2hrs in this town before we got a ride.

Relaxing in the frieghtliner. Good ol' Detroit manufacturing, complete with American-sized bed in the back

American truck, Russian Gazprom.

Co-pilot and driver near the Kyrgyz-China border

sometimes it's more hiking and less hitching

5. Politics are a mess. Borders make a big difference, despite ethnic ties.

Central Asia has a fascinating history. So many different peoples have lived in these lands over the millenia that it has become very difficult for anyone to say who was "here first". As a result, when lines are drawn on a map they become a good excuse for nationalism. Stalin drew some lines back in the '30s that are causing loads of issues in this region today (take a look at a map of the 'stans to get an idea).

The Russian and Vietnamese researchers that I crossed from Mongolia into China with were studying the effects of nationality on spiritual beliefs and traditional customs in the Kazakh people in the Altay regions of Russian, China and Mongolia. These people all come from the same ancestors not too long ago, but modern borders have separated them. The researchers' preliminary observations were that the peoples in each country were now more similar to their countrymen in Moscow or Beijing or UB than they were to their ethnic brethren across the border. Nothing published yet, but an interesting idea nonetheless...

Chinese border guard helping Max (Korean) and I get a ride to Kyrgyzstan

The bustling metropolis of Irkeshtam, Kyrgyz border town. Basically a trailer park/truck stop in teh mountains.

Independence day in Bishkek (31 August. 21 years of independence after the collapse of the Soviet union)

6. Learning another language is hard. Russian is really hard. Chinese is even harder. Mongolian/Kazakh/Uighur/Kyrgyz/Tajik/Uzbek/Chinese/Russian all at the same time makes you want to go to Central America with a spanish phrasebook.

I gave up on learning more than a few phrases in Chinese. I'm going to start taking Russian language classes for a short time while I wait for visas here in Bishkek. Wish me luck. So far I feel like I've only been able to experience a certain amount from my travels. Watching someone like Roma, my Russian hitchhiking buddy, be able to have a full conversation with our drivers or other locals, made me realize that by learning a bit more of the language I will have more opportunities to get a feel for what life is really like for the people whose homeland I'm visiting.

Harry's Russian twin, "Garry" Potter. He must go to Durmstrang.

7. It's very mountainous. And beautiful. And sparsely vegetated.

ooo

aaah

this wasn't even the craziest road

you could see the bottom of this lake through tens of meters of water.

So there are some of my thoughts over the past week or two of Central Asia. I'm in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan now and will probably stay here or in the region for the next two weeks at least as I apply and wait for my Uzbek, Tajik and Kazakh visas to go through. Luckily I have some contacts in the area who can show me around, and the mountains aren't far away, so I'm sure I'll have enough to keep me busy. I'll keep you posted on any adventures...

Rally back to Khovd

The Rally

After accidentally crashing a Kazakh wedding while visiting Olgii's mosque:

coincidentally, the best man was the clerk at the internet cafe from which I wrote my last post

and helping Alec the Russian construction worker celebrate his birthday:

From left to right: Alec (Russian), Delicious bbq meat (Russian), Melanie (German/Canadian), Diman (Russian) and Adi (Israeli)

I decided it was time to head to Khovd.

I had taken a minibus from Khovd to Olgii, and planned to take the same, or a jeep, back. Melanie, pictured above, also was headed to Khovd, so we went down to the market to book ourselves a ride for later that day. Easy enough. We got there, found a jeep, found a good price, he said he was leaving at 1pm and would pick us up at our guest house, gave us his phone number, no problem

At 1pm we were ready at the guesthouse. I wasn't expecting a prompt arrival, it being Mongolia and all, so I was pretty relaxed. At about 1:15 Melanie (being German) began to worry. I reminded her that my 2pm minibus from Khovd didn't actually pick me up until 2:55, then we picked up three other people and didn't leave the city until 3:30, so we didn't need to worry until much later. Might as well enjoy the Olympic archery in the cafe (Mongolia beat the US, it was quite fun to watch, actually).

At 2:15, Melanie's patience was reaching an end. We tried calling our driver constantly, but no answer. Finally, we get through, only to remember that he doesn't speak English and we don't speak Mongolian. All we could make out was a repeated "Auto ochho! Auto ochho!" before he hung up on us. When we asked the owner what this meant, she said, "oh, he says he is coming!" Very nice, we'd be gone in minutes.

At 2:45 we called again. This time, our Mongolian host took the phone. "He says he will be here in 20 minutes". Ok, not bad.

At 3:15 he wasn't there

At 3:45 we started scheming about other options

At 4:00 we realized that the fact that his phone wasn't ringing probably meant that he had either turned it off, or had already left Olgii and was out of service. Bummer.

Then, we saw these outside:

Notice the Yak skull

And most of the scottish flag

 Many of you may have heard me talk about the Mongol Rally (http://www.theadventurists.com/the-adventures/mongol-rally/). When I was in college, a few friends of mine were seriously considering entering, but nothing ever came of it. I had forgotten about it until now, when we suddenly had two tiny Renault Clios with British plates sitting in front of our guesthouse. A man who looked rather like Indiana Jones with thigh shorts came out of one of the cars to the guesthouse. 

They were six Scottish soldiers (three Scots and three Englishmen, really) and had driven from Goodwood, England to Khovd over the past two weeks and were now looking for a mechanic who could install some metal plates on the underbelly of their cars to protect them from the Mongolian roads. I had been wandering town the day before and happened to walk through the mechanics' district, so I told them where I figured they could get some help. During our conversation, we told him about our Jeep predicament and found out that they, too, were headed to Khovd.

Brilliant.

After some shuffling around to the market and haggling with mechanics, they scrapped their mechanic idea, threw our backpacks on the roof, scooched over in the back seat and crammed another two people, some extra food and a flat of beer into the tiny cars. We were off!

Then we weren't

You can still see the pavement in the distance

Still within sight of Olgii, the rear vehicle (Elvis, was its name) had earned a flat tire. The first of their entire trip, it turns out. No worries. British Army efficiency (and plenty of whinging and inter-car piss-taking) hopped to and the new wheel was on in no time. We left Olgii in the dust and headed south.

Now, if you have ever been to Mongolia, or read my bus entry, you have an idea of what these roads are like. Now take a look at the vehicles in these pictures. They each have about 4in of clearance, 2 wheel drive, and not much more than a 1L engine. Completely not suited for this journey. But that's the point, isn't it?

Our maximum speed was about half that of the jeeps and buses and trucks, so the trip was going to take considerably longer than the 7hr jeep ride. As such, we camped partway at a beautiful, seemingly untouched lake.

They were in love with my bivy sac. OR and Seattle's economy can thank me for the advertisement.

After a night of Scotch whiskey, Mongolian beer, Lake swimming, Apache dancing and Scottish-American translation via the English, we were up at dawn to start another full day of driving.

Well, some of us were up at dawn

Ken (with Grace the monkey) and Spud (with the eye mask) were inseparable

We were off for the adventure that is the Mongol Rally. We inched along and bumped and scraped and crossed rivers

This wasn't even the deepest one

And stopped for beautiful mountain photo shoots

We found out later that this exact shot (with different cars) was in the Mongol Rally handbook. We were within 20ft of the same spot on the road. Picturesque spot, I guess.

From left: Archie, me, Andy (on the hood), Nick, Jamie, Spud and Ken. Elvis (front car) and Jezebel (back car) also pictured.

And then Jamie got Jezebel stuck

high-centered on the mud and grass tuft

 So we got out the shovels and started to dig

This was half an hour after we had washed up in the river

and we pushed. And we dug, and we tried lifting, and we were firmly stuck. Luckily, a truck was passing by and agreed to pull us out. Not before it got itself stuck, though

He actually asked us to drive forwards (into what we had been stuck in) so he could maneuver

But in no time, we were out and back on the highway. Or road. Or track, or whatever you want to call it

The truck waited until we got out of the mud, then took off at top speed

By the evening we rolled into Khovd, about 24 hrs after we had left Olgii. 3 or 4 times as long as the jeep would have taken, but as I told these boys: you don't write home about a jeep trip.

Off to UB. Good luck, gents

Even in Khovd, we actually camped with these guys one last night to save money (and because they were just fun to be around), helped them get to the mechanic in the morning, they got us to a hotel, and we parted ways.

On a side note: most of these guys will be headed to Alberta for tank exercises in a couple of weeks. Spud has two weeks off sometime in September or October and may come visit Seattle. If any of you would like to play host to a Scottish tank soldier, let me know. Be warned, you may need a translator. Or watch the movie "Trainspotting" a few times before he shows up.

Khovd and beyond

Now I'm in Khovd. I had hoped to see some Khoomei singing here (also known as throat singing, it's traditional around here in in the Tuvan region in Russia), but it turns out it's actually not easy to organize unless there's a competition (which I missed by a week), a concert (the theater takes vacation in August), or you want to pay a singer $100+ for an hour.

Despite a bit of disappointment there, I did connect with an American named Bob and his british wife, Hazel, who have been living here for 10 years teaching English. They had some fascinating insight and peculiar perspective into the Mongolian culture and educational system. I won't go into detail on that here, but it's much more cynical, or maybe realistic, than the guidebooks make it out. They also know everyone. Melanie wanted to set up a homestay similar to mine and ended up in a car with a Mongolian family headed to the countryside on a week vacation within 2hrs. She's also paying a fraction of what I did. Not bad.

I think I'll head to Bulgan tomorrow to get ready to cross the border to China on Monday (it's closed for the weekend). Bob and Hazel have an Australian friend who lives there who will help me figure out the crossing. I'm not sure if there is internet in Bulgan, and once I'm back in China I'll be behind the great firewall again. This means my updates for the next several weeks in Xinjiang will be via email (unless someone can tell me a relatively easy way to get an internet cafe computer to open google's blogger). If you received an email about this post, you'll get those emails. If you didn't and want to keep updated, let me know and I'll add you in.

Since the internet here isn't bad, here's a couple quick videos to give you a feel for the ride. It's hard to get a sense of the road from the first one, unfortunately: