Karakol to Kashgar, Part One
This grueling, multiday extravaganze embodies many peculiarities of third world travel. The first leg, Karakol to Bishkek (we’re talking Kyrgyzstan here), seemed straightforward enough - hop on minibus and six hours later you’re there. The deal with minibuses is this - they’re hollowed out vans, ambulances or whatever with between 10 and 15 seats in them. They’re much faster than buses and much cheaper than taxis so for that I like them. They depart whenever they fill up. So if you’re one of the first you get choice of seats, but wait a while to leave; if you’re one of the last you leave soon but get a lousy seat. Of course there are no schedules so you can’t plan this in advance.
For this trip, I got the worst seat - crammed above the wheel well with no leg room, on what was to be ‘the sunny side’. Almost immediately following departure, this one woman starts to make a nuisance of herself. She needs music. This, for some reason, is a selling card for transport in these parts, even if it means hearing the same tape five times over. At this point, I’m so sick of Russian pop that I’m ready to bail. But that’s nothing.
The sun is beating down on us - me especially. My knee is in pain. I’d like some air. Guess who has a problem with open windows? I told her where to go. It was 30C in that vehicle.
So she stews a while. At the rest stop, she goes around and shuts all the windows. Then she gets a friend and, most amazingly, the driver to back her up. Splendid.
Now, I’m not just whining about my own discomfort. No, with no fresh air, temperatures over 30 and some lovely gas fumes, I felt queasy. The little girl in front of me started puking. I tried to open the window, as I deemed the health of everyone to be more important that this idiot’s ego. World War 3 broke out and the driver - staring down a bag of puke mind you - decided to have the windows remain closed. This is why I say that some people are simply bad people.
There are two ways into China from Kyrgyzstan and both are pains. The
Torugart pass requires a special permit. It’s easier overall, but the
permit is expensive. The whole permit business is essentially a racket to put money in the pockets of Kashgar travel agencies. The Irkeshtam pass, accessible via Osh, is cheaper, but takes a long time to execute.
Next day, off to Osh. Bishkek to Osh is like Vancouver to Calgary, about
10-12 hours through the mountains. I’d read in the local expat rag the night before that the road was closed due to rockslides. Given the time and/or expense of the alternatives, I decided to risk it anyway. To get to Osh, you go to the Osh Bazar in Bishkek, rather than the bus station. I get there, look around for a bus or minibus and there’s nothing.
Stranger still, I’d been left ompletely alone. Normally, a foreigner at a Central Asian bus depot is like a drop of blood in a tank full of hammerheads.
Finally, a woman got my attention. “Where are you going?”
“Osh.”
Let the bargaining begin. The opening bid was $35. I know that of course is way too much - I can fly there for that. The best way to get the bid down is to take a group of taxi touts with you (don’t worry, they’ll follow) over to the minibuses (I finally spotted a couple). Insist that time and comfort mean nothing to you. Usually, the taxis won’t go near the minibus price. It came down to $20 for the taxi vs. 700 som for the minibus. The latter is cheaper so the minibus won.
But it wasn’t a standard minibus, as I found out when I threw my bag in
the back. It was a beer delivery truck. Trust me - this is not a “Josh
finds another new brewery by accident” story. It was going to be making several stops. As I said, they don’t leave until full, and this one wasn’t even close. What got me though is that they weren’t even trying to solicit business. So now I’m thinking “we won’t leave here for hours”. Plus, there were no windows where I’d be sitting so I’d miss all the view. I ran the numbers again. The taxi, with speed, comfort, and views, was only $3.75 more. Old dopey-headed Josh was asleep at the switch. Now I knew that a taxi would do it for $20 - I just had to find another one.
After much waiting, the ride began. It’s nothing special at first, just
cruising the lowland strip in the far north of the country. Well, after
running a few errands of course. Then we headed up into the mountains.
Raging rivers tore past us down the slopes. The roads were Western quality and I thought we were laughing. We climbed high into the barren mountains, the finally through a tunnel under the pass.
At the other end is the yawning Suusamyr Valley. This alpine valley
sprawls, and is very arid. No trees - just dust and bits of grass. Nomads populate the region, moving their herds around the grass patches. They live in yurts (circular felt tents) and sell kymyz (fermented mare’s milk) by the
side of the road. Clusters of yurts surround the streams coming down from the peaks. That’s how civilization started! Well, once they decided to grow things, which is highly unlikely in the Suusamyr.
The road was still good and now flat and straight, so we were flying.
Again, though, the window was an issue. Some of these people simply cannot handle the wind in their face. So naturally I was sweating up a storm as the mercury rose. I’m too nice.
Coming out of the valley, you pass through a typically dusty,
going-nowhere small town - Toktogul. Bear in mind it was the Soviets who decided to settle the nomadic Kyrgyz into pointless towns.
From here, the landscape gets very cool. It consists of hills, completely
barren. Without vegatation, what little rain and snow they get here washes down the hills in channels, creating irregular grooves so that the hills look like walnut shells. There is a huge reservoir, and later on a series of dams with aquamarine lakes behind them.
At this point, however, the road becomes terrible. Rockslides had covered the highway and were only loosely pushed aside. Construction was also an issue. When they work on roads here, not only do they apparently not work on Fridays, but they also work on an entire section at once - no leaving at least a lane smooth for traffic.
After leaving the hills, we drove past cotton fields on our way to
Jalal-Abad. Cotton is a big agricultural product in Central Asia, with ridiculous irrigation schemes concocted by the Soviets to support it. For example, draining off huge amounts of water from the Amur-Darya and Syr-Darya rivers, thus reducing the inflow to the Aral Sea. This has shrunk from the world’s fourth-largest lake in the sixties to the tenth-largest today, bringing environmental devastation to the region. And the scheme doesn’t even work - 70% of this siphoned water is lost due to evaporation
before reaching any fields.
Tags: Central Asia, Kyrgyzstan, Travel
