Riga to Kochkor, Kyrgyzstan - Ladas, Russians and Crap Russian Airlines
Twenty years ago the journey from Riga in Eastern Europe to Kochkor in Central Asia would have involved traveling within the borders of only the one country. Now, travelling to from the capital of Latvia to the small town of Kochkor via the Bishkek reveals a very similar past but also a very different geographical and economic present.
Dawn in Bishkek was incredibly quiet. The only action the taxi passed on the way to the central bus station were few a despairing drivers trying to push start their communist machines and some early morning workers waiting for their minibus. Watching the patient queues of commuters, it was striking how similar the scene was to Riga. Women with their very Russian red hair and and clinging clothes stood peacefully next to ethnic Asians. Through whatever twist of Soviet induced fate, these 'Russians' had ended up living in what is now a remote and developing nation which is impossible to spell without the help of Google and "cut" and 'paste". If their dice had landed differently they could have been waiting outside the opera house in Riga, waiting for the trolley bus to take them to the office.
The journey from Moscow to Bishkek can probably be placed somewhere between horrendous and horrific. Inside, the Aeroflot plane looked like the one in the fleet the bosses had forgot to upgrade. The winging fucking children had an apparently preplanned "who can throw the loudest tantrum competition?" It wasn't even babies who were the issue, it was grizzly four year old gobshites who took pleasure in trying to scream the plane out of the air. This irritation was multiplied by the desert like heat on the plane. It is always such a relief to have hot tropical breeze blasted in your face when you open the air vent to try and cool down.
Manas Airport doubles as a base for the US airforce. As the plane moved to the terminal it passed about a dozen large military cargo planes. Down the road is a Russian airbase and with China bordering Kyrgyzstan to the east it is an important patch of land, especially when considering Afghanistan is just a short hop south.
Staying in either Uzbekistan's or Kyrgyzstan's capital cities held little attraction. As the plane landed so early we headed for the small town of Kochkor which would be the launchpad for a four day horse trek to Son Kol. The journey could not have gone smoother. The taxi driver from the airport pulled up outside the freakishly quiet central station where he found us a willing driver who had a suitably bashed up Audi. Before my feet had barely got acquainted to Central Asian tarmac I was embarking on a three hour taxi journey.
Son Kol - Trekking, Balls of Gas and Teenage Girls
There's a lack of infrastructure when it comes to catering for foreign travellers and tourists in Kyrgyzstan. There a few hotels outside Bishkek which are value for money, making Kyrgyzstan a potentially difficult country to travel around. But, a truelly brilliant initiative has been set up called Community Based Tourism which allows foreigners to experience Kyrgyzstan through homestays. For little more than the cost of a couple of beers you get to stay with a family, normaly consisting soley of a motherly woman who you wish was your auntie, who put up in their house and give you breakfast in the morning. Through CBT we organised a four day horse back trek on Son Kol, a lake which is over 3000 metres high.
The first day involved about six hours riding.With an 18 year old guide, whose name I never really remembered properly, we steadily climbed up the mountain pass. Leaving behind the small town where we enjoyed a tasty soup, the picturesque silver topped mosques and swarms of crickets which jumped in their hundreds as the horses disturbed their rest, or whatever insects do in the day. I felt absolutely no guilt about doing the trek on horse rather than by foot. My two big expeirences of trekking involve suffering from altitude sickness in Ecuador for fsix days whilst in Malawi I spent three days kicking my own ankles on narrow paths which might as well have been in Scotland. This smug feeling was compounded when we passed a lone trekker with a guide who was bent in double with some horrid looking stomach bug. Given that we'd been on horse back for the last 4 hours, he had a long walk to the town.
I was impressed that I'd managed to travel from the capital of Latvia to a small town in the mountains of Kyrgyzstan in under twelve hours. But the contrast of half a day was nowhere near as impressive at the thirty-six hour time scale. If present day Bishkek still demonstrated the remnants of the Soviet Union then the pastures of Son Kol resemble life, as I imagine, thousands of years ago. As we crested the pass and saw the huge alpine lake for the first time. We made our way down to lake level where the simplicity of life was obvious and somehow beautiful. The vast green plains that surrounded the lake gradually merged into the surrounding snowcapped mountains. Dotted on these huge pastures were small individual camps which looked like they had been placed for maximum visual impact. Their symetrical white round yurts contrasted spectacularly with the jagged mountains. In the surrounding highlands were flocks and herds of animals feeding on the grass. The real beauty came from the fact that there was no obvious signs of 'modern' life apart from a few ever lasting Ladas.
Our accomodation for the three nights would be in these yurts. These are big round wooden structures covered in animal felt with a hole in the conical roof to allow the smoke from the stove to escape. The Lonely Planet had warned about the region is to food what Milton Keynes is to character; forgettable and empty. But the food served up by the various host families was always fresh and tasty, although I didn't have such high hopes at first. The first yurt was spacious, comfortable and warm with the only drawback being the almost toxic level of mutton fumes.. Some five hours after arriving the chunks of meat and fat were still bubbling away. However I was pleasantly surprised by the tasty meal served up. Instead of presenting me with a slab of dried out sheep, it was flacked and tossed through some pasta to make a sort of mutton bolognese.
Standing in front of the Yurt, digesting my food in the chilling mountain air, I craned my neck upwards to look at the spectacular stars. It's not that Kyrgyzstan has prettier stars than elsewhere, it's just that there is zero light pollution, which coupled with the altitude, allows these little balls of gas to show their full glory. I haven't seen the milky way so clearly since nearly slicing my penis off on barbed wire in Bolivia. I wasn't trying to molest the wire, I was simply relieving myself during a break on a long overnight bus journey and nearly impaling myself on the spiky metal. I'll always remember that night for nearly getting tetanus via my cock but also the spectacular starry night in the Andes.
With such a clear view of the night sky it wasn't long before I saw a shooting star. After making that noise everyone makes when watching fireworks 'ooohhhh' I became suddenly panicked about the wish I was meant to make. What more could I wish for at that moment? Somehow, all the usual things like success in job, happyness, Playstation 3 all seemed very irrelevant standing on the pastures of Kyrgyzstan. A few weeks ago in the office I welled up whilst watching an analyst talk on Bloomberg news. It wasn't the dreary man who almost drove me to tears, but the guy behind him who was looking at the most horrific looking stats and graphs on his wall of six monitors at 7 in the morning. Just watching him made me depressed. The contrast of that sphere with the rural life around Son Kol was so harsh I couldn't justify a wish which seemed valid. I probably should have stopped being so wet and just asked for mid table security for the Wanderers.
The next few days involved on average six hours riding a day punctuated by lunch at a random yurt on the plains. It seemed like our guide would simply drop in on a family and an hour later we would be served up food. It's not like there was any phone signal after all. The riding was straight forward but absolutely spectacular. We climbed up the cliffs surrounding the lake, the water of which was perfectly clear and different shades of blue looked like a commercial for a Greek island.
Given that the last trip I'd made to really 'exotic' shores was to Africa it was only natural that I made comparisons along the way. Kyrgyzstan was a lot more developed than the majority of African countries I visited making it simpler and more comfortable to travel around. The people, particularly around Son Kol, had a very different mind set. A good example was the young guide. He felt comfortable interacting with comparatively rich tourists on a daily basis and showed no signs of longing to perceived gold paved roads in Europe. He said he loved living in Kochkor and he, like other people on the pastures, seemed to embrace their way of life and acknowledge the benefits of life by the lake. After all they had fresh food, shelter, close family ties and with a little wheeling and dealing could probably make a bit of cash selling their animals. I'm not going to make some outrageous hippy statement that its 'heaven on earth' but their link to the land and family was something I admired. Too many times in Africa, I encountered people who assumed that moving to Europe would solve all problems and they often would make desperate statements about doing any job in the UK to leave their homeland. Many of the people in Kyrgyzstan seemed to have a closer tie to their country, this was maybe because of the more favourable outcome of their 'colonisation' by the Soviet Union compared to the Britain and France's role in Africa.
Te last nights accommodation was again in a yurt but this time away from the lake and perched on the mountain side. Being a Saturday night the son of the family had some of the boys around. Quite impressively five young men arrived on the back of a horse. A bit different to pulling up in a Ford Fiesta. Two teenage girls, who were the granddaughter and niece, were also hanging about. It's amazing that you can can be sat outside a pre-historic looking hut, freezing cold on a mountain face in Central Asia yet the teenage girls wouldn't have been out of place on Wycombe High Street. All they needed was a can of cider. One of the girls was the 'cool one' from Bishkek who, between very broken English, would spit and generally snarl. All this whilst waring the latest fake designer tracksuit and baseball cap. Her cousin was the 'quiet one' who just generally whispered.
This final camp would also turn out to provide to best meal of the trip. Having agreed earlier in the day to try the fish from the lake, I soon began to regret this decision after seeing a dozen or so flies buzzing around the small limp fish on the floor of the yurt. However a few hows later, beautifully cooked whole fishes were brought out for dinner and thankfully they were steaming hot in the middle. Like the food generally around Son Kol it was simple but fresh and extremely tasty.
One day we shared lunch with a group of walkers. I generally try and avoid fellow foreigners whilst in other countries as I largely hate them. This middle aged, fat spectacled, Spanish man can firmly be put in the " Hi, I'm an arrogant twat" category. I came all patriotic when, in summary, he said he went to London twenty years ago and the food was shit therefore all British food was still dog crap. He cleverly evolved this argument to the point where anyone who lived in a capital city was some sort of donkey pedophile. Arrogant bell. Later in Kochkor there was the classic hippy traveler. "Hi, I'm really down with the locals, I've got my hair in a massive matted dread". This pair spoilt my view of the street as I sipped on a warm beer. Would they sit on the curb in their home town eating bread like someone who has a real problem? No, so why travel thousands of miles tand sit right in my line of sight.
Back in the relative civilisation of Kochkor I did the usual things after a few days in the wilderness. Had a beer (warm) checked the Wycombe result (lost) briefly browsed Facebook (inane).
Kochkor to Jalalabad - Dust, Taxis and Bogeys
The plan was to cut across Kyrgyzstan, rather than go the easy route via the capital, stay the night in the mining town of Kazarman ending up in Jalalabad in the west of the country. However, after getting to the town of Naryn which should have been the source of transport for Kazarman, the taxi and bus drivers were all insistent there was no transport west that day. At this point you could feel the heat from the taxi drivers hands as he rubbed them together, he new he was in for a big pay day. This very nice man ended being my driver for the next 12 hours across the gravel roads of central Kyrgyzstan, climbing a few spectacular passes in the process. The journey meant the landscape and surroundings became very different. As we progressed slowly down the Ferganna Mountains, it became increasingly obvious we were entering an area which was more populated and more fertile. As the old Audi brought us down towards sea level, dozens of bee hives started to appear along the side of the road and in the distance large sunflower fields popped out of the hazy dusk. One less than welcome change to the landscape were Daewoos. Hundreds and hundreds of Daewoos. Every which way were these shit-mobiles, created by a company which makes washing machines and I though had gone bust 10 years ago. The average models were only slightly above the size of a toy car and despite this handicap, they were the vehicle of choice for taxi drivers. They literally made up 95% of cars in Jalalabad, even the local rude boys whizzed round in them, like they were something to be proud of. I can just imagine the conversation between two spotty seventeen year olds "got my first car innit?" "wat iz it?" "Daewoo. 5 door. white." "shit man, I got one of those..."
On arriving in Jalalabad I had a substantial covering of dust and therefore the best crusty bogeys in the history of man. Jalalabad is the sort of random non-tourist town I love when traveling, not humongous but big enough to have a few places to eat and somewhere to buy a Mars and check the internet (lost again). Just an average town. Craving a hot meal, I tucked in to a ice cold beer (for once) and a couple of keema Shashliks.
Arslanbob and the largest Walnut Forest in the world - old mutton and French
One of these less than spacious cars was my transport to Arslanbob. The sheer impracticalities of these vehicles was demonstrated by the driver trying to squeeze in my backpack into a shoe box which doubled as a boot. Arslanbob is surrounded by the largest walnut forest on the planet. *geek voice* 'did you know that walnuts originate from these very hills and Alexander the Great took them back to Europe after being presented with them in return for not pillaging the region.'
The homestay for the first night was fine and gave was the first night I camped. One of the really interesting aspects of the area is how people look. Two girls were playing with a couple of boys in the grounds of the house. Running through the old outhouse and beneath the fruit trees. They were both dressed in cooling Islamic dress but they looked so different. One girls' pale skin and dark eyes could have been from anywhere in Europe whilst her playmates complexion was darker in every aspect and was more akin to the region. Through out the trek over the coming days, faces would peer up from the fields which could have been in Baghdad, Bucharest, Tehran, Shanghai or Seville. Diversity doesn't only exist in Elephant and Castle. The guide for the three day trek said Chechens had moved to the region after falling out with the new soviet government after the First World War. It really is striking the fluidity of peoples movements in the region.
The first day of the trek was deceiving. Walking through shaded orchards stopping for a tasty picnic and finishing the day off in a flat and sheltered camping spot was probably about as perfect a day of trekking I'd ever had. But problems were already starting to show. The springs which were meant to be the source of water for the trip were generally dried or drying up and looked pretty rancid. Our two guides were friendly and helpful but their cooking was pretty sub standard. By the second evening, I could only wonder how the mutton managed to stay fit for Lovegrove consumption after 48 hours sweating in a rucksack on the back of one very flea ridden and moody donkey. The second day was salvaged by 30 un-recreatible minutes. The guide said he like classical music and although I was short of any Vivaldi to play him from my phone, I searched for any music I had which involved violins. Mountain. Stars. Fire. The Verve.
One of the strange things about traveling in Central Asia is the French. French are everywhere. Normally you bump into a token Frenchie when abroad but around here they were bloody everywhere. To the point where many of the English speaking guides spoke in a French accent. I got quite defensive when they would greet taxi drivers with 'Bonjour' or say 'Oui' to a border guard.
Finishing the trek I was pretty dehydrated as I didn't trust the water. The trek was still good. Walking though the orchards was a relaxing way to see very different surroundings and learning and seeing the different groups of people was also worthwhile.
Kidnapping
Fear is in the mind. The Lonely Planet warned that the journey on the dusty roads up the Ferganna mountains would have passengers grabbing for imaginary bibles. But it was fine, in fact by South American standards it was more like to a Sunday drive in Chiltern Hills. However the journey back from Arslanbob to Jalalabad left me considering my own demise at the hands to a Daewoo taxi driver. Being the only passengers in the car the driver was steadily making his way back to Jalalabad on the nice flat tarmac road. I was dreaming about breaking open a fresh cold bottle of coke. Suddenly the little crapster turned off the road. No this isn't right, I thought. Straight, you just go straight. I was now assessing the Daewoo in the light of my immanent death. This particualr version wasn't as well maintained my first Daewoo experience. The electric windows were stuck a quarter down, the windscreen had more cracks than usual and the dash hadn't had the love a diligent taxi driver should give. As the driver crept onto a waterless river bed, it became clear in my head the lack of TLC was because the driver was an assassin and not a helpful taxi driver. He turned and smiled at me, flashing his gold teeth. Brilliant, he's going to sell my testicles to a witch to complete his collection of gold teeth. There was no reason to be on the river bed as it was totally inappropriate for a car which struggled to cope with the undulations of a smooth road, let alone a stoney waterway. As he approached something that resembled a track, he turned again to his right and offered me a cigarette. Oh well, I thought, my last smoke this really is it. I thought I might end up in some tragic kidnap video in Uzbekistan, but death in Kyrgyzstan was not on the schedule. I declined his offer, as I don't smoke, and although one last cancer stick would have somehow been poetic, it would just made me cough and loose what remaining manhood I had left. As I peered out the corner of my eye at the driver, he was smirking. I realised the last vision of my life would be the windscreen of this Korean skip as I was sodomised by the gold toothed assassin.
As it turned out the taxi driver was a bloody taxi driver and his mind fuck journey across the river bed was part of a ridiculously elaborate shortcut. It turns out that guide books can't tell you when to be scared. Emotions aren't rational.
... into Uzbekistan - The journey of the secret Arab, vomit fruit and sticky sheets.
It turned out the border crossing near Jalalabad was closed because the Uzbek side was still jittery after an attack by militants from the Kyrgyz side. It just would have been better to find this out before trying to make our way there that morning. As it turned out, a helpful Daewoo driver took us to the taxi park and the taxi drove us, and a couple of other passengers to the border. The journey was pleasant for two reasons. In Africa the five seat car would have had three people in the front; driver, normal passenger and passenger with gear stick between legs. In the back there would be four passengers meaning a serious case of testicle squashing for Peter. Nowhere on the trip did I see or experience the extreme ridiculousness which is a common feature of African transport. It was also a pleasure to hear the driver and his front seat passenger exchange two hours of banter, even though I couldn't understand their words. In my head they were scoring the women by the side of road whilst analysing Jalalabad Wanderers crushing defeat at the weekend.
My bowels generally loosen whenever I get close to borders. It's because I'm acutely aware I'm vulnerable to a crooked official. Everything went smoothly apart from the most annoying and inappropriate border guard ever. "Where you from?" "UK." "No, where you really from?" "England." "No you're Arab." No offense to Arabs but I seriously didn't want to be accused of being some secret ninja Arab when crossing into police state which was seriously concerned about terrorism, especially considering its neighbors. This one guy just followed me for a full 5 minutes with me refuting his claims. When he discovered I was half Mauritian, he just became a little confused and shut up. Other than being inferred I was a terrorist, the other sort of character you don't want to be accused of at border is a drugs mule. The two nice Columbian guys who were our companions in the taxi to Tashkent looked mortified as the drivers joked, 'oh Columbia, you have coke? Lots of drugs in Columbia...' and so on and so on. Our car made it in time to Tashkent as the sun was setting and in time to book tickets on the overnight train to Bukhara.
The journey from the border was slowed down by continuous police stops. Uzbekistan is my first ever police state and although I could feel a bit of lower intenstine action during the early police checks, it wasn't too intimidating. I even got to have a chuckle at the unfortunate soldiers, with large guns and Hollywood sunglasses, who had the envious job of guarding a 200 meter tunnel. Inside. Carbon monoxide anyone? One of the benefits of the police state was that Tashkent had an amazingly clean and well ordered train station. I raised a smile as the money changers suddenly started scuffing their feet and staring at the pavement as the police did their rounds.
I love traveling by train. The only time I really dislike them in England at rush hour where they are the most soul destroying place on earth. In the four bed compartment was a young family, which is always preferable to the imagined buggerer. One of the features of travelling in the region was people often buy their fellow passengers food. I'd already managed to dodge a melon bullet earlier when the taxi driver had offered me a piece of the vomit fruit. He pulled over to the side of the road to offer his passengers dessert after we bought him some shashlik for lunch. Now, enclosed in the small compartment there was no way I could turn down the offer of the the largest slice of melon ever cut. Not only did it have that distinctive melony vomity taste, but was also ridiculously juicy meaning my sheets for the night would be sticky. But for a very different reason than normal. From the first day of the trip it was obvious I would have to end my hot drink abstinence and drink tea. That was just about bearable with three spoons of sugar. But melon was a step too far. Melons really bother me. As they remind me of sick, I was in fact eating vomit and not necessarily my own. If it had been water melon I may have deliberately tried to choke myself rather than endure the horrific taste.
Squat Toilets - When will the UN do something about these abominations?
As a male, sitting on the toilet is something which I enjoy. If I had to create a list of 'pleasurable solitary activities' it probably would be vying with masturbation for the top spot. However, all too often leaving Europe means saying hello to squat or pit toilets which in turn means painful knees. The award for most disgusting pit toilet goes to a little number in Mozambique which was in a small border town and involved squatting over a hole in the ground, and being in a tropical country covered by a hot tin roof, lots and lots of cockroaches. The trouble is for Europeans is that we have got so used to sitting down. In front of the TV, at work and you can't go to a football game without some cock telling you to "sit down prick, my boy can't see the pitch" and, most importantly, on the thrown in the bathroom. Always sitting down. I am aware not everyone sits down at work, I for one often walk to the toilet. But all this sitting means we have weak knees. Thailand, Malaysia, Uganda, Kyrgyzstan there always people. of all ages and sexes squatting, knees fully bent and arse approaching the ground, as a way of waiting. If I have to wait for more than four minutes I soon start looking around for something to at least lean on. But their squatting ability, these squatters, really come to the fore when they go to the toilet because the pit toilet requires this athletic position. At least twice on the trip I thought my kneecaps were going to burst through my skin, and every time I stood vertical again I would have a little cry.
Around Son Kol toilets consisted of planks with a hole and some sheet metal as walls. Thankfully it doesn't get very hot by the lake otherwise it would be transformed from the Land Before Time paradise to a stinking toilet purgatory. But it is quite something to have an unobstructed views of two months worth of shit. Its amazing how much human crap. Different shapes and different sizes; a technicolour of pooh. I remember one was full of very fat maggot type things and although obviously disgusting and off putting when trying to see to business, with time to reflect, it was a rare occasion where I'd seen the full circle of life.
Bukhara and Samarkand - Bugger the beauty, I met a world cup winning manager
Morocco has it all. Ancient culture, mountains, beautiful cities, great weather. When I was there I felt like every other person either wanted to call me Jewish and threaten to get a shotgun and kill me or try to sell something to me. "Haggling is a part of the cutlure'" the guidebooks say. Maybe, but its also a pain the arse. Bukhara and Samarkand have stupendous buildings from hundreds of years ago. There would be more but Ghengis Khan didn't like them and therefore destroyed them in the thirteenth century. The buildings in both towns were intricate, colourful and spectacular given their age. But unlike Morocco, every other word wasn't 'no' to a hawker or having to do that annoying walking quickly thing to ignore some pushy kid trying to sell you a rug.
Getting to Bukhara meant a very different pace for the trip. I was hundred percent ready for a little sight seeing, some casual lunch and beer in the shade followed by a little more walking around old mosques to return to the aircon room. However, the situation changed as my bowels started doing the diarrhea waltz. I was earlier really smug when I heard panicked package tourists worryingly telling their guide that the food for lunch mustn't be too spicy and cooked properly. Seconds later I waltzed into a butchers which doubled as a street side seller of tasty pastries stuffed with meat. However I realised something was wrong when I wasn't hungry at dinner time. In typical Lovegrove battling fashion I gulped down couple of kebabs. I'm always hungry after all. As it turned out my wish for a tactical bout of weight loss food poisoning would come true.
So Samarkand. Beautiful. Wonderful. Beautiful. Blah, blah, blah. Lets skip forward to the last day of the of the trip. Walking into yet another spectacular building where there were a pair of very nice Italian shoes along with brand new trainers. Footwear had to be taken off before entering sacred buildings. A change from the usual worn tourist leather sandles. Interesting I though. A pretty lady guide shouting her information to........... Luis Phillipe Scolari. World Cup winning manager. I'd found a world cup winning manager in Uzbekistan. I would later have my photo taken with him to end on a perfect note, a near perfect journey.
Note.....
It didn't end on a perfect note as I had to wait at Tashkent airport for 6 hours. The only seating available was on metal chairs which had fixed armrests, meaning you couldn't lie in any comfortable position. What fucking genius invented these?
