We are in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan after 8 days of roaming its countryside. This is the first place internet has been available. We are continuing our adventures with Ian returned to good health and me apparently with a cast iron stomach. Me and vodka had a set-to last night at a birthday party for a guy in the group and I have now sworn off it for life. My birthday party will be tomorrow night at our farewell to this country.
So to tell of our adventures. We have been to the hottest place in China and the second lowest land place in the world. We have also been to the city and town farthest from the sea in the world and the largest rock temple complex in central Asia. We’ve been the only westerners in crowds and queues of Chinese tourists and experienced Chinese officiousness when our guide was forced to buy a new airline ticket when Ian’s boarding pass read Ian Gordan instead of Ian Gordon. We have crossed the Gobi and Taklamakan deserts (albeit the latter by air- it was still visible). We’ve had our itinerary changed by the Chinese government so we didn’t go anywhere near Tibet. (Drat!) We had to go through 7 passport checks from power-starved minor officials during a 300km gravel road journey through the 3750metre pass from China to Kyrgyzstan but it wasn’t scary. At one stage we has 2 soldiers with rifles in our van but we were just dropping them off at another checkpoint. Our most different adventures have been here. It snowed (briefly fortunately) throught the roof of our yurt while Pam and I were lying in bed one afternoon and we spent a great couple of days in a yurt camp where at night you peed bush toilet style in minus 10 degrees with wind chill factor thrown in for free. We were up in the mountains at 3530metres. Getting there we had 3 flat tyres and eventually ran out of spares. Luckily there was another Peregrine group at the yurt camp and a kind Kyrgyz in a little white car took our guide to them while we drove on up the mountain road on the flat tyre before being rescued.
However we are loving the adventures, and the new food of which there is far too much. We usually start with a salad, then have soup, and then they bring out noodles or dumplings or mutton or chicken and potatoes. And of course there’s lots of beautiful breads and home made jams. We always leave so much behind. All our meals have been provided here, sometimes in restaurants, sometimes in people’s homes. The group of 7 Aussies and 2 New Zealanders is a great mix and we have lots of fun, jokes and stories. Our guide and driver are Russian, she with excellent English, he with none. Kyrgyzstan has a beautiful landscape, with 94% of it snow-covered mountains and the rest valleys with myriads of horses, sheep, cattle, especially on the high mountain pastures during summer. However it seems to be decaying since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Roads are mostly dirt while the bitumen is bumpy and potholed. Each day there is power shedding in some parts of the countryside and the palce is littered with abandoned industries and buildings. The countryside is very traditional, of the horse drawn plough variety.
However it’s the differences we have come to see- the heehaws of donkeys when you wake in the morning, walking down dusty streets in villages with horses and their riders cantering past, being stopped on the roads by herds of sheep, horses and cattle being driven back from summer pastures or dodging dawdling donkeys or cows on roads and ‘footpaths’, whitewashed mud brick housed whose trims are painted Russian blue, with hay stacks in the ceiling and a dung heap at the back door beside the apple tree, autumn colours and not being able to read any sign because of the Cyrillic alphabet, and battered old Russian cars amid the new Audis and Mercedes. Most fascinating are people’s faces-a genetic melting pot of Mongols, Huns and Turkic tribes with a very long and bloody history, only a thin veneer of Islam and a long tradition of hospitality.
We are off to Usbekistan in a couple of days and will have passed our half way mark.