Sunday 29 September 2019


CENTRAL ASIA ADVENTURE – PART 1

The question asked by most people when they heard we were heading to Central Asia and the “Stans”: “Why would you want to go THERE?”. The best answer I could come up with was “Because we’ve never been there before.” From the G Adventures tour description, this part of the world seemed interesting. And then there are the other things that motivate me, number one being to learn. At this stage in my life, learning opportunities are few and far between. Travel is one of the most rewarding.

The five Stans achieved independence in 1991 following the breakup of the Soviet Union. So did nine other countries that were part of the old USSR: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. I guess I’d just like to know how they’re getting along, twenty-eight years later. Maybe I’ll visit them all before I’m done.

Thirty-six hours and nine times zones after leaving Charlottetown, we touched down in Bishkek, capital of Kyrgyzstan (pronounced Keer-ghiz-ston). Along the way, we had a six-hour layover in Istanbul airport. It opened in April 2019 and will be the world’s biggest when it’s finished in 2025. Soaring concourses, magnificent skylights, and sparkling marble floors combine to create an unreal experience. Best of all, there are no PA announcements. None! Either get to your gate on time or you miss your flight. Turkish Airlines took very good care of us on the Toronto-Istanbul and Istanbul-Bishkek legs of our journey. I’d fly with them anytime. Flight attendants tell stragglers to “Hurry up and take your seat!” And they mean it. I like that.

Bishkek was the starting point of our journey. The city of 1 million or so is rather drab. Most buildings date from the Soviet era and look very much like what we saw in Romania, Hungary, and Bulgaria: ugly and ready to fall apart. Below is an example of the ugliest public sculpture I've ever seen, a concrete monstrosity typical of the Soviet brutalist style.
But the people are very friendly and things are cheap. A very nice restaurant meal for two cost us $33 CDN. (We’d eat for much less outside the capital.) We wandered around in a bit of a daze the first couple of days, recovering from jet lag. Very few people speak English, very few places accept credit cards, everything is written in the Cyrillic alphabet, and ATMs are very fussy about which cards they’ll accept. Elva says: “You brought me here. Now figure it out!” Lesson learned: never leave home without an ample supply of $US.

We met up with our G Adventures group on the evening of Day 2 and had a very nice meal together. Our fellow travellers range in age from early twenties to early seventies and hail from several countries: Australia, the UK, Canada (six of us), and Sweden.
Our guide, Assan, led us on a walking tour of Bishkek in the morning and gave us a brief history lesson. Not surprisingly, the Kyrgyz people have had a difficult history over the past 150 years characterized by war, genocide, revolution, corruption and, finally, independence. As an example, 400,000 Kyrgyz fought on the Russian side during World War II. Only half came home.

After lunch, we drove to Burana, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and climbed to the top of the tower, all that remains of the ancient city of Balasagun, established in the ninth century as a caravan stop on the silk road. Tour buses carrying Dutch and Chinese tourists stopped while we were there, another indication that the “Stans” are being discovered.
Our accommodation for the night, Ashu Guest House in the village of Chong-Kemin proved to be the biggest surprise of the day. The village itself is rather quaint, reminding us of what Prince Edward Island might have looked like seventy-five years ago. But the guest house had wifi and was undergoing a major expansion, including a pool. Eighty people showed up for dinner!

On a bright, sunny morning, we walked around the village and watched people pick potatoes by hand, the way we used to as kids. We boarded the vans bound for Son-Kul (Lake Son) and stopped a few times along the way to check out the scenery. We had lunch in a home stay in Konchar and climbed to the top of a mountain pass at 3,400 metres along a rutted gravel track before descending to our camp beside the lake. Five of us settled in for the night in our yurt after a delicious meal. (Just so you know, we’re not staying in a yurt because we have to but because we want to.) It was a damned cold night on the shores of Son-Kul. I’m not used to sleeping with a crowd; let’s just say that each of us took a turn on the saw… The pungent smell of a dung fire greeted me as I took photos of the sunrise over the camp. Because there isn’t a tree for miles, cow dung is the fuel of choice for heating and cooking. Everything tasted fine to me!
The area around the lake is summer grazing ground for local herders. A couple of families spend the season there in their yurts and move the herds around on horseback. With winter on the way, the herds of cattle, yaks, sheep, and goats are driven down the valley, a three-day trek, where they will spend the cold months. We watched as they rode along the track, expert horsemen all, the youngest only twelve years old. As we drove by farm houses, I noted each one had a dung pile where you’d expect to see stacked wood.

On the way to Bokonbayev, we were treated to a felt-making demonstration by Ms. Fatima, leader of a cooperative and brimming with entrepreneurial spirit. Carpets and bed covers are made by hand from wool using a technique as old as time. (As you may have guessed, the photo below is not Ms. Fatima.)
Next morning, we drove along the south shore of Issyk-Kul, the second-largest mountain lake in the world, topped only by South America’s Lake Titicaca. The lake is lined with beautiful beaches and several resorts, most of them half finished or boarded up. We were told these are a holdover from the Soviet regime and that there is simply no money to finish them.

We stopped in the town of Barksoon to visit a rather unique tourist attraction that doubles as a yurt factory. We were welcomed by Mr. Mekenbek, artist, craftsman, inventor, and musician; a truly impressive renaissance man. He and his employees showed us how a yurt is made and erected. Elva even went for a swing. As in every other place we visited, we were treated to way too much food.
 
Next on the agenda was a photo stop at Jeti-Oguz where we saw sheer cliffs composed of red conglomerates. 
From the village of the same name, we took a track that led us into the Sarychat-Ertash Nature Reserve and our eventual destination, a yurt camp. The meadow where the camp is located is called Kok-Jayik, meadow of the flowers, and is truly one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever laid eyes on. It reminded us of the Alps and the Rockies.


The plan was for us to either hike in the area or take a ride on horseback. Elva chose the latter while I stayed behind due to a mild case of la touristique. Suddenly, the heavens opened and we were treated to a spectacular thunderstorm. Fortunately, the yurts are waterproof and we stayed dry through supper and a restful night.

Next morning, we set out for Karakol, a regional centre of some 90,000 souls. Along the way, we stopped in at the Przhewalsky museum, dedicated to the memory of the great Russian geographer before settling in to the three-star Green Yard Guest House. Point of information, there are no showers, or electricity for that matter, in a yurt camp! We ended the day with a pleasant dinner together at a local restaurant. Tomorrow, we cross the border into Kazakhstan.

Our impressions of Kyrgyzstan are very favourable. Although it’s a poor country (the average monthly wage being only $200 CDN), the people are very friendly. The scenery is spectacular and tourism is on the rise. Of the five Stans, Kyrgyzstan is the most democratic. But they have a long way to go. In conversation with an Australian pediatrician we met at the Jeti-Oguz yurt camp who runs a clinic in Karakol, I learned that one of the biggest threats to progress is the brain drain. We leave here knowing we’ll not likely return and hoping people’s lives will get better.