Greener Pastures Dispatch

Tonight we are back in Bishkek. That is still in Kyrgyzstan. But that is not for long. We fly out tomorrow for Tashkent, Uzbekistan. We have to leave the hotel by 4:30 in the morning so we won’t get to take much advantage of the really nice place we are in. When last in Bishkek we stayed in the oldest hotel in town, the leftover Soviet hotel. Now we are in the newest in town. A huge difference, but they cost the same, go figure.

I don’t want to stay up late, so I will just post a couple of pictures (if the speed is good a few) from earlier in the trip as today was pretty uneventful.

We drove back to town, met a couple more co-workers from Sheila’s company, and went to lunch. Then to the hotel for some down time, which we did not get at Issyk Kuhl.

Lunch was at a Turkish restaurant close to Sheila’s office and the main square. It was great food. We did shoot a couple of shots of town, but haven’t had time to download them, so later for that.

We saw the parliament building (weak parliament) and the “White House” where a year and a half ago “the revolution” took place. It looked more like an office building than a “White House”. I guess the revolution consisted of about a hundred people storming the white house, and the guards not being willing to shoot. The President packed up and left, and the opposition leader took over. Of course now no one is satisfied with him, so who knows what is next.

Here is a picture Rita and I think show how it was driving up to Khorog with the Afgan villages just across the river. The villages seemed nice, but all the had connecting them was a donkey path, and we saw no electrical wires on the Afgan side.

Here is one we found that gives a feel for what the roads sometimes got down to in conditions. We made numerous fords along the way where there were no culverts and mountain streams crossed the road at will.

This is the family that hosted our overnight stay at their house in Murgab. At least the ones we saw. The father informed us he also had 6 boys. We liked this picture not only for it being our hosts, but it is typical of one thing we see a lot here. That is the older women dressed traditionally with the younger ones in western attire. And it isn’t always young girls or boys, often younger women of similar age are walking together with some in the old and some in the new.

Speaking of fashion, here is something we noticed in Khorog while walking around town. Do you think he is a fan, or did he just snag it because it is American?

Lots of animals on the road, horses, cows, yaks, and in this case goats. This shot Rita took out the window she opened just before the “Window Nazi” began swearing profusely in either Russian or Tajik (or both).

And here is a shot coming down the mountains that I got off by rolling my window down 4 inches. Of course the “Window Nazi” rolled it up (front controls) and locked it before I could get a second shot off. The irony is that Sheila was in his car the first two days and got sore eyes because it was hotter and he wouldn’t let her roll hers up. Once again, go figure!

Oh, and it’s beshbarmak, which is the name of the end dish (5th course) of boiled lamb meat in noodles. The 4th course comes with jambash, which is the sheeps head. And the fermented mares milk is called koumys, and they sell it in roadside stands, yum!

Here is some info in Issyk Kuhl (where we were the past two days) plus a bonus fact: It is very deep and the Soviets tested their top secret subs there during the cold war.

Issyk Kul (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Issyk Kul (also Ysyk Köl, Issyk-kol) is an endorheic lake in the northern Tian Shan mountains in northwestern Kyrgyzstan. It has a length of 182 km, a width of up to 60 km, and covers an area of 6,236 km². This makes it the second largest mountain lake in the world behind Lake Titicaca. Located at an altitude of 1,606 m, it reaches 668 m in depth. The lake is slightly saline and remains ice-free in winter. It is fed by springs and snow melt-off, and it has no current outlet. Its southern shore is dominated by the ruggedly beautiful Tian Shan mountain range. The lake level drops by approximately 5 cm per year.

During the Soviet era, the lake became a popular vacation resort, with numerous sanatoria, boarding houses and vacation homes along its northern shore, many concentrated in and around the town of Cholpon-Ata. During this period the lake, with its salinity comparable to Ocean waters, served as a secret testing ground for torpedoes.

The city of Karakol (formerly Przhevalsk), administrative seat of Issyk-Kul oblast, is located near the eastern tip of the lake and is a good base for excursions into the surrounding area. Its small old core contains an impressive wooden mosque and a wooden orthodox church that was used as a stable during Soviet times. A 14th century Armenian monastery was found on the northeastern shores of the lake by retracing the steps of a medieval map used by Venetian  merchants on the Silk Road.

Sevan trout, an endemic fish of Lake Sevan in Armenia, was introduced into the lake in the 1970s. While it is an endangered species in its “home” lake, it has a much better chance to survive in Lake Issyk-Kul where it has ravaged the indigenous species.

The Legend of its Creation 
In Islamic legend, the king of the Ossounes had ass’s ears. He would hide them, and order each of his barbers killed to hide his secret. One barber yelled the secret into a well, but he didn’t cover the well after. The well water rose and flooded the kingdom. The kingdom is today under the waters of Issyk-Kul. This is how the lake was formed, so legend says. Other legends say that four drowned cities lie at the bottom of the lake; in fact, substantial archaeological finds have been made in shallow waters of the lake.

Our best,
R&R

Today we went to the town of Karakol (not to be confused with the lake Kara Kuhl in Tajikistan a few days ago) at the East end of the lake and attended meetings with Sheila. It sounds boring, but we now know a lot about Kyrgyz health reform and Sheila’s job. The people were all great, and the problems were all familiar. People really are the same.

No pictures for now, just a quick note. But I will come back and add a couple another time. Best thing was Kyrgyz doctors and nurses wear hats as tall as those shown in previous photos. Just made of plain “scrubs” material.

We visited a polyclinic, a Kidney Dialisis (Spelling?) center, and a training center for doctors and nurses. The big problem is the Kyrgyz train Doctors and then they leave for Russia and better pay. The little ones go all the way from one agency not talking to another to data base problems. Really familiar territoty.

Tomorrow we drive back to Bishkek and do a lunch with one party, and dinner with another. This time we get to stay at the newest hotel in town, not the oldest. We leave the next morning for the flight to Uzbekistan. We will have to get there early, as the entry station into Kyrgyzstan did not give us an entry stamp when we drove in from Tajikistan. So we have to explain why that happened and see if we get through without some sort of “fee”.

I’ll let you know how that goes.

RKK

We flew to Bishkek from Osh yesterday in an Antanov (unsure of spelling) turbo prop. A good flight in a reliable old Russian plane. Even the mountains in the North had snow and ice fields. It was interesting to see some from above. They were not like any we’ve flown over before.

Today we left Bishkek and drove to the lake. We are at a resort in the town of Cholpon Ata. We went for a short swim after arrival and the water was great. About halfway between sea water and fresh, and while it felt cold on entry, it was really warmer than where we stopped on the trek to swim.

We were the summoned to an event by a woman Sheila used to work with when starting up the health reforms in Kyrgyzstan. Described as a former Soviet, and now Kyrgyz, bureaucrat and a “character”, she lived up to that. We were told our swimming could wait, and off we went to a surprise dinner in a yurt at a small resort in the mountains.

This is Sheila’s co-worker, our host for the meal, the person who prepared the meal with her grandson, and me (with the yurt in the background).

I’ll have to have Sheila write down the word for this event, as I A) can’t remember it, and B) Couldn’t spell it if I did. Something like bishpamek. It was a traditional 5 course meal of lamb, in which the penultimate course includes the lamb’s head, and the final course may or may not include brains. Fortunately for us, this time it did not.

This should be self explainatory!

It did include fermented mare’s milk, which didn’t taste bad at first but got worse as you drank more. They were sure the mare’s milk would minimize the effect of the vodka, though they could not explain how one alcoholic beverage would counteract another.

Here is Rita with the son of the woman who hosted the event. Can you tell how much vodka she has had? Clue: The boy doesn’t speak English.

It also includes many toast with vodka. You can get away with sipping most of the time, but on a few you were expected to drink the whole shot. Considering Rita neither eats meat nor drinks, she took this all well. Nibbling at the meat of the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th Course. However, she just pretended to eat her piece of sheep’s head. I, on the other hand, ate mine and it was not bad. Far better than the mare’s milk. All in all, we survived. You get to take whatever you don’t eat away in a doggie bag.

Here is a shot of all the group at dinner.

Tomorrow we will meet still more of Sheila’s colleagues and see the lake from the other side. We are hoping there will be a little more down time than today, as the time at the beach was cut short. We will see.

Please not I added a couple of more pictures to the post on Osh, by gosh!

R&R

It’s Morning in Osh, Kyrgyzstan. Yesterday was a long day from Murgab, and the roads were a mixed bag. The 8 hour drive that was projected turned into 12, plus an hour’s time loss due to time difference.

Of course that wasn’t all road time, there were two 5 minutes breaks to take pictures, 20 minutes waiting out a thunder shower while the drivers ate, and the waiting at checkpoints while our papers were checked out. That waiting amounted to some good breaks, as we were stopped at either 9 or 10 places. That is if you count two places where after being checked by one party, you were sent to another to repeat the entire process. Welcome to the Department of repetitious redundancy of the former Soviet Union.

I’ll try to write more descriptive post later when we have down time at the resort at Issyk Kul. For now I just want to note that we are alive and well, and having the time of our lives. So far our internet access has been a bare minimum, so I apologize for that.

We do a whirlwind tour of Osh starting right after breakfast, and after that we fly to Bishkek, which is still in Kyrgyzstan. That is where Sheilam Rita, and I seperate from the guys, as Murat and Jenya go back by car to Almaty, Kazakstan, where they live and work.

Aziz had to go back to Dushanbe, Tajikistan where he lives and works from Khorog two days ago. Since his departure we have been with a different driver and have been riding with Jenya. His english is not as good as Aziz but is still very good, and it has given us time to get to know him.

I will have to write more on the different driver, but that is a whole story and may have to wait until we get back. Let’s just say for now that he appeared to be bipolar, and we nicknamed him the “window Nazi” after the soup Nazi on the “Friends” TV show.

He was not as good with the checkpoints, and his driving scared the crap out of me a few times, but he got us here and we parted on relatively good terms. We found there was a whole back story of his not knowing he was going all the way to Osh when he started, so considering all, I guess he was OK. Still I would have liked full control of when my window was down, and I would prefer his eyes on the road more.

We did go through some bigger mountains and drove along the border with China. Here is a view from there. They walk a lot here so the guy on the road was no surprise. The fence running parallel and to the left of the road is to separate Tajikistan and China, though I think the actual border is up in the top of the mountain range and inaccessible.

We also went through an area with hundreds of these guys. Still debate on what they are, technically. Some sort of really huge ground hog, but a different color than I’ve ever seen. They were thick through one valley we passed through, and this one posed for me.

We went to Suleiman Mountain (that’s King Solomon of the Bible) and visited the another museum. This is a shot of the Kyrgyz Mullah in the small Mosque at the top. He is explaining the handprints in the stone to Rita.

Then we were taken to an Uzbek restaurant for plov (rice with meat), with melons for openers, and a tomato, onion and cucumber salad as well. We sat on what looks like a bed, but with a table in the middle. It gets you off the floor, but still sitting cross legged like the shots from earlier eating on the floor.

This is the woman who arranged our tour of Osh (another co-worker of Sheila’s) and the Guide who explained Suleiman Mountain to us.

The restaurant was on a canal and was a spectacular place. Now, I’m doing internet while Rita visits the market here.

Next stop, back to get our stuff and fly off to Bishkek. More later.

RKK

I’m writing this in Murgab, Tajikistan, high in the mountains of the G.B.A.O. at the home of a family who rent rooms fro the night. Fortunately, all was as it should be with the authorities here, and the registration process was painless (and Somony-less).

Then it took a while to locate a place to stay. But, while we waited we found a theater with folk musicians performing.

That was actually our second cultural event of the day, as early in the afternoon the new driver of the Lada, who replaced Rustan and his Honda (that was making a strange noise), stopped at a small house on the side of the road. There was a sign in Chinese on the front of it, but it was a nice Kyrgyz family who fried us fish and served us bread and some kind of yogurt dish.

This was in an area with many Yurts. In Mongolia they are Gers but actually here they are Yurtos (no idea of spelling). They apparently pasture many Yaks and sheep for the summer, and return to lower elevations in November.

When I say Murgab is high, I mean high. The pass outside town is over 13,000 feet, and the town is at around 11 or 12. I can actually notice the lack of oxygen when breathing. The town itself is more old Soviet than village. Most of the people here appear to be Kyrgyz.

Between 5 of us, and perhaps our drivers as well, we have two rooms. The one we’re in is about 18 by 25, the other a bit smaller. I see bedding piled up against a wall, so I think we get some padding, otherwise, it’s just carpeted floor. Here is dinner in one of the two rooms, with the bedding still piled at the side of the room.

The road today was quite good, and we arrived late afternoon. We could see some high peaks, but we were so high ourselves, and the valley so wide, they didn’t seem all that high. They reminded me of the mountains of Nevada, but with ranges much closer together.

The worst day for road and the nights stay was Tuesday, right out of Dushanbe. They told us 8 hours and we took 12. Serious four wheeling and just one good break. I even got to take a short swim on the break.

It got dark before we crossed the last pass of the day, and when we hit the guard station, they decided to demand Zhenya’s visa. The only problem is, Kazaks don’t need, nor would one be issued if wanted.

Fortunately Rustan was very good at clearing up any misunderstandings. Reportedly some Somony (The currency of Tajikistan) changed hands. And reportedly it was so small an amount that it should have embarrassed the guard.

We arrived in Kalaikhumb late and we spent the night in some sort of dormitory building, where Sheila and Rita got to bunk on a separate floor from the boys. I shared a room with Aziz, and Marat and Zhenya had the other. The drivers were taken elsewhere. It was about a hundred degrees in the room, no fan, and a busted screen on the window. Fortunately for me (not for him) Aziz seemed to draw all the mosquitoes!

Some of the areas we passed were marked to warn people to stay out, and at one point we passed a de-mining detail. This is leftovers from the civil war that ended 5 or 6 years ago.

The next day was much better (shorter), but the roads were still bad and Rustan starting worrying about a mystery noise coming from his front tire or suspension. We arrived in Khorog early in the afternoon, and found we were stay in in a really nice hotel. Well, nice for here. After 20 minutes when they got the generator fired up it got better with a fan, though I was quite disappointed to find the AC was “not functioning yet”.

We were at the edge of town, so we were driven and did a little walk in town and through the market. Everyone wanted to walk back, as the hotel was just a few miles and they were ready to stretch. But I had to cut my participation short as my stomach went south on me. They flagged me a ride, as everyone here does, and I was back at the hotel about an hour before the rest. The flag a rid system is sort of a cross between hitch hiking and a taxi, as you contribute some Somony to the driver. It seems efficient, and it must be fairly safe as women and children do it all the time.

I don’t think it was food or bad water that got my stomach, I think it was drinking about a gallon and a half of bottled water “with gas”. But, it did warrant some Imodium before the night was up. I do feel pretty good today, so I guess it wasn’t that bad.

Then we had appetizers on the lawn, and then dinner inside as it was both dark by then, and the Mosquitoes had found us.

After dinner it was off to the room to download a couple of days worth of pictures. Pretty hot, but at least it was nothing near the night before. Still no screens on the windows, but luckily the mosquitoes all hit Zhenya in his room, and not us in ours. Again, fortunate for us, not him.

That brings us to tomorrow’s plan, which starts early as they want us out by 6 AM. Actually, they wanted 4 Am but were talked out of it. We will head out and drive all the way to Osh, Kyrgyzstan, but it’s only about 400 kilometers, and the roads are much better.

We will pass a high mountain lake, Kara Kul, and we are told we will be able to see the highest peak from there. However, it is behind another range and so I don’t expect much view. More about that in the next post.

RKK