Assalamu Aleykum (Lit:Peace be with you). This is the Kyrgyz greeting, said with a handshake and a hand on the heart. It really makes us feel welcome and is the start of the fantastic Kyrgyz hospitality.
And now for the superlatives! Kyrgyzstan is the greenest, prettiest county either of us have seen. The semi-nomadic people are also one of the friendliest and most hospitable which has made this place a favorite country of ours.
(DIMITY)
We made it through the Irkeshtan pass OK (mentioned in our last story). Our names were the 4th and 5th on the list of foreigners through the border since 1949 (the first three passed through only a month before), and we were the first independent travelers. The Chinese border guards were very friendly, and after the obligatory photo lineup told us lots of border skirmish stories! After a jeep trip with the friendly Chinese guards, and a 50m walk through no-mans land we were met by gun toting Kygyz guards and an electrified barbed wire fence! But after a 15 minutes wait, while immigration was called from the post 3km away, we were taken to immigration. Unlike the sensitive Chinese who spent some time examining Paul’s photo’s on CD’s we were quickly processed without even a cursory glance in our backpacks. There was however an extremely friendly beagle (supposedly the “sniffer” dog for narcotics) who came up and demanded a scratch behind the ear! Once over the border we were welcomed by the Kyrgz guards and stayed overnight in a hotel for vodka swilling truckies who were taking what looked like scrap metal to the Chinese border - your guess is as good as ours!
The next day we joined the customs jeep to travel to the town of Osh. The hotel manager at Irkeshtan very kindly offered to be our “git” (guide) and invited us to stay the night in his villa in Osh. His offer was particularly generous considering he only has one day off in 3 weeks and would be heading back to Irkeshtan the day after. Our 300km journey passed through some of the most magnificent, lush green, mountainous county side. This was such a contrast to the barren rocky wastelands on the Chinese side. One of my most memorable sights was the merging of a two rivers, one with dusty red water, the other a beautiful glacial blue. On the way we made a number of stops to join the local Kyrgz in their yurts for a bowl of Kymis and naan bread dipped in cream. Kymis (the Kyrgz’s coca-cola) is their national drink (apart from vodka!) and they drink huge quantities of it. Made from fermented horse’s milk, supposedly 4 bowls of this stuff will have you quite tipsy. Kymis is much prized for it’s nutritional and medicinal value, although curiously vodka also seemed to be valued for it’s curative effects. According to one of our Kyrgz taxi driver’s vodka will cure anything from a bad case of diarrohea to altitude sickness! That night Paul and I spent our first night sleeping the traditional Kyrgz way on beautifully decorated padded quilt on the floor.
(PAUL)
We visited two towns in the Fergana Valley, Osh, and Jalal-Abad. This area can be a political hotbed largely due to tension between the Kyrgz and Uzbek locals although we saw none of this during our stay. We did however see very large numbers of people (1000’s) marching against corrupt elements in the government, the lockup of the deputy prime minister, and the government ordered police shootings of many subsequent protestors. It was hard to imagine this happening in such a peaceful country. We at no stage felt threatened, even when we drove through and stopped in the beautiful, peaceful village where some police killings of protestors had taken place a month before.
(DIMITY)
From Jalal-Abad, we headed north to visit Lake Sary Chelek, a 7km long alpine lake set in a national biosphere reserve. With us came our erstwhile guide and chess partner for Paul – Almaz (hello Almaz!!), a foreign language student in Jalal Abad. We arrived very late at night and had quite an adventure after taking a wrong turn and getting our car bogged. At about 1130 we gave up our efforts and had an impromptu picnic by moonlight before pitching the tent and retiring for the night. Normally, due to it’s biosphere status, the entry fee to the lake is a ridiculous $20/person (US) however Almaz had made a few phone calls before our arrival and we entered for $2/person with the rangers under the impression that we were visiting on behalf of the Ministry. Unfortunately, as luck would have it, the Minister decided to visit the lake the next day! Poor old Almaz was found out. The lake did not disappoint and we both enjoyed the alpine countryside complete with wildflowers (including wild roses) growing up to 2 metres high.
We called in briefly in the capital of Bishkek which is the greenest city in Central Asia. Much of Kyrgzstan surprisingly feels as though it is stuck in a Soviet time warp complete with Lenin statues, Russian gingerbread cottages, Russians, sanitoriums and the old Soviet cars/buses that just keep on going and going! During our time in Kyrgzstan Paul and I did not see a taxi or bus that did not have a cracked windscreen or missing window winders or simply no windows at all. If you are unlucky enough to find yourself at the back of a bus it usually means a slow death by suffocation!
(PAUL)
We got off one of these buses to Cholpton-Ata by Lake Issy-Kul. This small, Soviet cum Kyrgyz “seaside” resort town has some really interesting petroglyphys nearby that date back 4000 years. 2000 years ago the region was inhabited by the Scythians and Saca people. They have been described in contemporary Chinese literature as having “fair skin, blue eyes, and red hair”! I left my business card at the museum and it would be a dream to return and survey some of the local grave mounds.
At the eastern edge of the lake near Karakol, I left D for a day and went for a hike down a beautiful wooded valley, complete with a crystal clear meltwater stream, and high, snow capped peaks. I camped overnight, while Dimity stayed in one of those Russian gingerbread cottages, and talked to the only backpackers we have seen so far.
At Kochkor, in the mountains south of Lake Issy-Kul, we hired a guide and horses to take us up a valley to stay with some Kyrgyz people in their summer yurts. The locals are still semi-nomadic. During the winter they live in towns in the valleys, and in summer they move up into the high mountains with their herds to graze on the lush mountain pastures (jailoos). They pretty much live on bread, cream, and kymis. I was really hoping to see some wild animal (besides marmots) at the jailoo, and in particular the rare and endangered Marco Polo Sheep, which I had heard live around here. At dinner time while enjoying a meat Manty (steamed dumpling), I asked my host (mostly through sign language!) if I could see one of these rare sheep around here. They said no, they are very rare, and you need powerful binoculars to see them. But they had recently seen one and were lucky, as now it was the meat in the Manty!
(NOTE PHOTOS FROM JAILOO ONWARDS NOT SAVED ON CD YET)
We then heard that a mountain road to Jalal-Abad had just opened, so we took this road back to Jalal-Abad. The road was perhaps the most beautiful, with so many flowers of different colors growing above hills of lush green grass. We saw many eagles/vultures flying around, and as usual, there were so many birds in the pastures that we could always hear them singing away. This may not sound so special to Australians, but after China, in which you hardly ever see wild birds bigger than sparrows, (let alone hear them!) it is a beautiful sound.
(DIMITY)
Back In Jalal Abad, prior to leaving for Uzbekistan, we joined Almaz at the local sanitorium. The boys enjoyed a bath in water from the natural hot springs and I was treated to a mud bath. This was an experience! I was completely covered with 3 bucketfuls of gooey (and smelly) mud by a brisk Russian matron in a pristine white uniform and left to sweat in plastic for 15 minutes. As I wondered how anyone could enjoy this slimy torture I heard soft snores coming from the cubicle next to mine! It was also very undignified to have mud suctioned off your naked body! Maybe I will stick to the mud face pack next time…
