Warsaw to Bangkok

All along the way, apparently from Sary Tash onwards, there were trucks hauling scrap metal – rusty scrap metal to be precise – from Kyrgyzstan to China. Apparently one of these 40 ton loads is worth $5000. One poor bastard had the side of one of his trailers collapse and his load had been dumped on the road.

Adjacent to the border is a trucker’s hostel where much of this scrap metal sits. Truckers gather here in the evening to await the re-opening of the border in the morning. As did we.

We were able to secure a room. We investigated the local store, which sold all the essentials – candy, booze and smokes. Nothing else. Not even water. The entire place was quite surreal. Rusting metal in heaps everywhere, bored people living in rusted trailers either wandering aimlessly or getting hammered. The ochre river and barren mountains provided the backdrop. It was like we’d been dropped onto the set of a sci-fi movie about a forgotten Mars colony.

The toilets here were uniquely bad. Typical squatters, but the lights didn’t work so even in broad daylight you couldn’t see what you were doing. And they reeked not of the expected unmentionable effluvia but of ammonia – suffocatingly so. My poor lungs were not having a good day.

At dinner, we arranged transport over the border to an equivalent speck on the map on the Chinese side. From there, we’d arrange transport to Kashgar.

In the morning, our driver was a no-show, so we walked through customs and the Kyrgyz exit control. The Germans had hiked into Kyrgyzstan from Kazakhstan and they had not received an entry stamp. I’d heard this before, about the border post near Karakol not giving stamps. A token bribe was required for the authorities to overlook this. There is a no-man’s land of 7km between the Kyrgyz exit post and the Chinese post. You are not allowed to walk so we were forced to hand over our remaining som (about $2) to a border guard to have him force some trucks to take us. I was first up, and found myself on a very slow truck with an ineffective driver.

We were passed by many trucks, but surprisingly not by the Germans, who ended up with our no-show from the morning. After 45 minutes, another check and a couple of long, meaningless stops we got in the queue for the Chinese side. There was a gate 100m away. For the next four hours.

You see, while in theory the Chinese guards are supposed to work in the morning, they decided not to bother, showing up only after lunch. At this point my driver had allowed several other trucks to pass us, despite my passport having been checked and cleared twice. The Great Wait continued. I read my new China guide extensively. With most of the other trucks now past the gate, we found ourselves at the front of the line. And went nowhere.

There are a couple of tanks on display on the Chinese side. Very scary ones, too. So scary that when it started to rain the soldiers ran and put them under tarps. Tanks that can’t handle a bit of rain are not so high on the intimidation scale, if you ask me.

The hours dragged on. Numerous passport checks were conducted. I’ll spare you the gories but suffice to say by the time my passport was actually stamped and I was free to go I was in a state of advanced stupefaction. Better still, the Germans were nowhere to be found.

A tout had a shared taxi to Kashgar ready to go. But I decided to hold up my end and wait, as I would not have wanted to be abandoned. While I waited, every man in uniform that passed by decided that he needed to see my passport, even though I was already free and clear. One of them graciously decided to practice his X-ray machine skills on my bag, nuking it for a full five minutes. It read “Film Safe”, but this still worried me.

After nearly an hour, the Germans arrived, having been subject to much delay earlier. We were able to arrange transport fairly smoothly.

The transport itself was absolute hell. We’d been dazzled by the sparkling new Mitsubishi. It had been a while since we’d seen a car with airbags, a CD player, and rear selt belts. We talked money, sure, but we forget about the little details.

One fun game travellers to Central Asia play is “guess which one is our driver”. We lost, as it was the third person to get behind the wheel. Then the dreaded “extra passenger” climbed in – a large Chinese who I can most politely describe as being ***faced. If only that were sufficient. The driver was a Chinese lady and this guy stumbled into the back seat. They proceeded to have a multi-hour conversation in the subdued, hushed tones and elegant pontificatory style that the Chinese are famous for. Did China’s famous poets – did Confucius himself – really talk like this? In addition, the music was blaring, and the vents were open so the mountain air could penetrate our bones.

The driver was actually the antithesis of the stereotypical Chinese woman driver. But make no mistake, she was equally incompetent. More so, really. The stereotype drives like she’s never been to drivng school This one drove like she’d never operated a motorized vehicle before.

Kashgar is 280km from the border and she took nearly five hours to get there. For once in Central Asia, the roads were immaculate. But this woman drove 60 the whole way, in places where most of us would have been going in the 80-100 range. She was completely unable to deal with the following: passing trucks, being passed, other vehicles in general, livestock, turns, cracks, minor potholes and patches, bridges, butterflies, bumblebees and rocks at the side of the road. She approached hairline fractures as though they were railway ties. A patch of dirt necessitated a complete stop. Wide, sweeping curves were hairpin mountain bends to her. I know what cautious is, and this wasn’t it. This was a complete and total lack of confidence and ability. Oh, and just because every fish and burnt raisin cake must have its vegemite and goat head icing, she spent half the time jibber-jabbering on her cellphone, with the requisite swerving and irrational, unpredictable speed changes.

My brain was siphoned of all positive thought by the time we pulled into Kashgar.

We were sort of tailing the driver’s brother, who also was making the run. It was at this point, finally back on smooth roads, that the brother’s car conked out. It’s funny – they always boast of their Mercedes or Audis at the stations, feeding on the Western distrust of Ladas. But their cars are over 20 years old and still prone to breakdown.

After dark, it gets hairy. High beam courtesy is considered optional,
street lights are nonexistent even in towns, and pedestrians mosey along as though it was still daytime. The best of course is when all of a sudden the road in front of you is filled with a thousand little lights. That would be your headlights reflected back by a herd of livestock. Horses are no worry at all, and neither are goats (who run away in terror). Cows are nonchalant
but smart enough to understand the meaning of headlights and horns. Sheep are the most stubborn about moving. Dogs, naturally, are dumb as toast and
will casually wander in front of anything. I’m amazed we only saw one of them dead at the side of the road.

Finally we reached to town of Ozgon, marking the beginning of the home stretch. Only 55km left to go at this point. God only knows why, but some civil engineering genius decided to re-do all of the drain pipes that ran under the road. So, in effect, for the entire 55km there was a big dirt speedbump every 200m or so.

Once settled in Osh, the big question needed to be answered – who else was going over Irkeshtam Pass this week. The place I was staying organized such things and had a pair of folks doing it Thursday. This meant being stuck in Osh for five days – by all accounts three or four longer than necessary. It was time to get to work – I had to find people going earlier or it was going to be a slow (albeit cheap) week.

Osh is one of the oldest cities in the world. They decided that 2000 would be Osh’s 3000th anniversary, though no documents point to a specific date of founding. yet, while other ancient centres – Athens, Jerusalem, Damascus – resonate with history, Osh does not. No old buildings. No old town. Nothing special ever happened here. So there’s nothing of historical interest – not even a decent museum – and no nearby natural wonders. It’s a place that simply exists because it does. Five…long…days.

The place where I stayed in Osh is an underground operation and by keeping the government out of the picture, costs (and prices) are kept down. I stayed at a similar operation in Bishkek, though the latter was considerably better-developed. The Osh Guesthouse is basically run by a couple of students using spare rooms in their apartment. But the place is maintained only to their personal standards. In other words, it’s a sty. Ants in the sugar, unidentifiable former vegetables in the fridge, grunged-out bathroom. Plus, it is facing a courtyard in the apartment complex and all the noise is amplified – wonderful acoustics, really – including kids, dogs, peddlers and other sources of racket. Especially the doberman downstairs. A classic case of useless dog training, he cannot distinguish threats from non-threats and charges everything that comes near the car he’s guarding. Which is located right beside the door to the building. He’s on a leash and behind a (flimsy) fence, but if he ever gets out, some kid will be killed for sure. At first I wanted to put a bullet in this indiscriminate psychopath, but now I just want to put down the owner, who has no business owning a dog.

Bumming around Osh you find fancier-than-average Uzbek staples, and unlike in Uzbekistan, the cafes have some soups other than laghman on the menu. For example, chuchvara, which is based around meat dumplings, with copious onion, red pepper, garlic and herbs thrown in.

Shorpo is another soup, based around a hunk of mutton on the bone. Black pepper and green onion are the key ingredients, but it manages to taste pretty good. The shashlyk comes in several varieties, many of which are nicely spiced. Some of these kebabs even feature vegetables, which you won’t find in Uzbekistan. Furthermore, they’re served with more than just the standard vinegary onions – they have hot sauce!

Why am I talking about Uzbek food in Kyrgyzstan? Well, the heart of Central Asia features states that have seldom been ruled by outside powers – particularly Bukhara, Samarqand and the Fergana Valley (the latter being densely populated, very conservative, and where Osh is located). Aside from a few short-lived forays by the Chinese, Alexander the Great and Jenghiz Khan were the only foreigners able to subjigate this part of Central Asia, and Tamerlane the only insider to ever build a credible empire here. The Russians arrived with modern weapons in the late 19th century from the north (having been previously rebuffed on more than one occasion). This was to head off the British, who had Afghanistan for a time a were trying to enter the rest of Central Asia via what is now the Karakoram Highway between northern Pakistan and Kashgar.

The Russians of course won, courtesy of a bloody Bolshevik assault that formed the seeds of today’s Islamic extremism in the Valley, and eventually the region was portioned off into Soviet republics. Nationalism however still remained strong and Stalin – perhaps in one of the few times he actually had a reason to be paranoid – decided to redraw the map to break up ethnic solidarity. Thus, Tajik cities of Bukhara and Samarqand ended up in the Uzbek SSR, and the Uzbek city of Osh landed in the Kyrgyz SSR. Upon the collapse of the USSR, these borders remained. It should be noted that the Tajiks in particular are unhappy with this arrangement, as the tourist dollars flowing into Bukhara and Samarqand would do wonders for their non-existent economy.

Today, there are many Kyrgyz in Osh, and a few Tajiks as well. Tajikistan is not far away and many Tajiks arrived during the civil wars of the mid-90s in their country. Among older people at least, they can easily be identified by their hats.

Low, square hats of embroidered green felt are worn by Uzbeks. Blacks ones are worn by Tajiks. White ones, with highly detailed embroidery are worn by Uyghurs in Kashgar. High (a foot or so) white felt hats with black embroidery are called kalpaks, and are worn by the Kyrgyz. The uniform of Kyrgyz politicians is a “forward-thinking” tailored suit and a sparkling clean “traditional” kalpak.

At the bazaars you find traditional Kyrgyz beverages. Bozo is mildly alcoholic, thick, fizzy and sour. This somewhat soupy drink is made from millet and is not unlike African sorghum beer. Kymyz is fermented mare’s milk. Not only is a little alcohol always popular, but before pasteurization (which in Kyrgyzstan is still about twenty years away), fermentation was the best way to kill off bugs. Kymyz tastes like smoked sour milk.

Meanwhile, the Germans with whom I was trying to connect online regardng crossing into China (you generally need a taxi for this, so splitting costs is rather important), were AWOL. Worse yet, the person at the guesthouse hadn’t heard back from the Brits that were crossing Thursday. Confirmation from them of the arrangement was essential if I was to avoid the torturous, overpriced, overnight bus to Kashgar on Wednesday night.

No sooner than I put down the pen on that previous paragraph than my Germans walked through the door. But that doesn’t mean it was smooth sailing…

With the Germans in town, a Tuesday departure was now in the offing. The guy at the guesthouse was charging $140 to the border. We knew that was too high. Part of the problem, though, is that the border is 7 or 8 hours from Osh, and only open in the morning. This forces an overnight stop along the way. That limits the pool of willing taxi drivers. It was decided that the next morning the first task would be to gather some information. Other travellers had done the whole trip to Kashgar for $25-40, but that involved luck and/or patience. Luck is always an unknown quantity. I’ve been more or less lucky on this trip, never once without adequate transport or lodging despite booking almost nothing in advance. I had this nagging feeling that I was due for a catastrophe. As for patience, I had all the time in the world, but the Germans were in tight with their visas and had to get to China with a quickness.

Turns out they had a similarly offbeat route than I to Osh. Many trans-Eurasian travellers take a southern route along the old Hippy Trail through Turkey, Iran and into Pakistan (wisely bypassing original 1960’s stops in Herat and Kabul). Others go through the Caucasus and Turkmenistan into Uzbekistan. By all accounts, the Caucasus are a blast if luxury isn’t a concern and Turkmenistan is surreal – a desert dictatorship whose leader, Turkmenbashi, is the most self-aggradizing individual on the planet. He’s on all the money (hey, just like Mao!), has statues of himself everywhere and has renamed half the country is his own honour. I wish I’d have been there to see it myself.

The route I’ve taken – through the Baltics and Russia – is unusual. Considering that most travellers in Central Asia are passing through as part of much longer trips, I’m surprised nobody else took my path. But at least the hardcore nature of the travellers here proves my theory correct – that touring Central Asia is impossible to do on a vacation from work.

The Germans also had a unique route. They went via Poland to the Ukraine, whipped through southern Russia (Astrakhan, etc.) and into Central Asia via Atyrau, Kazakhstan. Amazingly, they missed Uzbekistan altogether. Their ultimate goal is India, so there were basically only going to China for Kashgar and then taking the Karakoram Highway to Pakistan. It was a bit of a shame, really. They had so little time in Osh, which is a pretty good substitute for Uzbekistan (well, without the architecture), having never made it to that country. Whereas I, familiar with the basics of Uzbek street life, had three days in Osh. However, I had been expecting five days, so I’d been lazing about. All of a sudden, I had one day to work out transport to Kashgar, get a haircut, wash a few shirts, climb Solomon’s Throne (the big rock overlooking the city) and pickup some Kyrgyz beers from some country-hunting friends.

This reminds me of a story told in Karakol about their local beer. The brewery made a beer called Przhevalskoe, named after Nikolai Przhevalsky, one of the earliest Central Asian explorers, whose expeditions predated the more famous map-and-pillage exploits of Sven Hedin and Sir Aurel Stein. He caught typhus from a stream in the Karakol area and soon thereafter carked it, making him a local hero. Ironically, water from the mountain streams was one of the main factors in the success of Przhevalskoe beer. The north side of Lake Issyk-Kul is rife with wild hops, the other key ingredient. This being the Soviet Union, a case of this new beer had to be dispatched to Brewmaster Central in Moscow for evaluation and quality control. They dug it, and from that point forward, the brewery in Karakol sent its entire output to Moscow for consumption at the dachas of Communist Party bigwigs, leaving the locals in Karakol to drink lousy beer from elsewhere in the empire. With egalitarianism like that, how could the USSR possibly have failed?

With our transport arranged, the Germans and I spent the rest of the day kicking around Osh. We climbed Solomon’s Throne and got an overview of the city. It’s much smaller than the 300,000 population would indicate.

The Germans – Stefan and Gisene – proved to be wonderful travelling companions – friendly, agreeable, and unlike many road couples totally receptive to individual travellers. Don’t get me started on the insularity of couples and groups on the road.

The next morning the bus from Kashgar to Osh arrived, and disgorged four of its passengers in the direction of the Osh Guesthouse. We swapped stories as they’d just arrived to where we’d been, and we were heading to where they’d just come from. The Israeli, Ari, gave me his copy of the China guidebook, sparing me the trouble of tracking this down in Kashgar.

Our taxi arrived on schedule and we were off. The road wasn’t too bad at first and we made pretty good time. We encountered much livestock on the road. The mountains were unspectacular, but perhaps that was just the sickness talking. Gas fumes were in the car, the driver was smoking like a chimney and the dust kept the windows closed for long stretches.

The normal stopping point is Sary Tash, a village that sits in a valley between the bleak, dusty hills from which we’d come and the white Pamirs to the south that form the border with Tajikistan. Clouds largely obscured the Pamirs on this day. After Sary Tash, paved roads became a fantasy. We spet some time on a track that had been worn into the grass beside the road because it was smoother. We stopped for lunch at a shack in the middle of nowhere. They had only one dish – shorpo. It’s edible enough, and this time around I got quite a bit of meat. This establishment doubled as a motel – the platform on which you sat to eat could be cleared and blankets laid out.

From there we drove a minute down the road and bought some kymyz, which was notable for not being at all smoky, unlike the rest of the kymyz I tried.

The earth here became quite red andwe came upon a river whose water was thus painted a deep ochre. The ochre river met a bright turquoise river, a spectacular contrast of water colours that we viewed from a hill. It was not, unfortunately, an ideal place to stop and take a picture.

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 ... [Continue reading this entry]

No worries, though, as I went up to their camp at Altyn-Arashan. On a terrible jeep track, we bashed and banged up to 2900m, encountering nomads and following a wild, rushing river. Altyn-Arashan is a meadow with a hot spring, ... [Continue reading this entry]

The ride to Tamchy stretches through farmland from Bishkek for a while before entering a low, jagged canyon. Upon exiting the canyon, we stopped for lunch. The roadside stall had some fried dough with meat stuffing. It’s desperation food, so ... [Continue reading this entry]

By mid-afternoon, we were in Bishkek. The ride right before the border was the last time I heard my favourite Russian pop song, the Oi Oi Oi song, which I have been unable to find since. My guesthouse was not ... [Continue reading this entry]

I could have traveled through the Fergana Valley into Kyrgyzstan directly, but I wanted to pop into Kazakhstan so I went that way. Plus, by going out of my way in Uzbekistan I wouldn’t have to go out of my ... [Continue reading this entry]