Bishkek to Kashgar - Our Return to China.

Kashgar, China - We are currently in Kashgar sitting in an internet lab with about 50 other Chinese gaming and chatting with friends. It's a fast connection and we haven't had too much of a problem with censorship. We learned about the labs from Ted and Barb who you will meet later in this post. But first... back to Bishkek and how we got back there...

After our hike in Karakol, we debated whether to take a series of buses through the southern part of Kyrgyzstan to the city of Osh (where one can catch a bus to China). However, the condition of the roads were said to be extremely poor and the amount and quality of transport iffy. We were looking at six days of hard travel. In the end we opted to return to Bishkek and make our way to Osh through the northwest route (15 hours by bus).

Upon the recommendation of a few fellow hikers we met at the Yak Tours camp, we decided to stay at a guesthouse called Sabyrbek's in Bishkek. True to their word, the place was quite funky and Sabyrbek, the owner, was quite a character. He greeted us in Russian, introduced us to the world's oldest guard dog in Russian, offered us tea and apologized for the lack of sugar...also in Russian. The place had the feeling of a well kept junk yard with bits of metal and furniture scattered amongst the tall grass of the yard. Here and there was a metal shack with semi-conscious old men or women barely visible amongst heaps of their belongings. Inside the old house the clutter continued. The only section of wall not obscured by piles of stuff, was covered by a large pencil sketch of Sabyrbek's head. The wall of the bathroom was decorated with a red plastic ladle, a metal plate with holes cut into it, and a rusty cheese grater. Our room was cluttered but clean and there was space to place our stuff. We had a bit of a misunderstanding on the price that didn't make us happy, but we liked the place.


Victory Square in Bishkek

We spent a day in Bishkek getting errands done. Here are the highlights:

• Post to the blog.
• Shop for art. Had to leave behind the $2500 statue that we liked of a man erecting a yurt.
• Bought an embroidered purse in the souvenir section of the department store.
• Bought Kyrgyz stamps at the post office.
• Bought some Nike socks (S - really, just knock-offs; K - Knock-off? I want my money back!) in the market to wear at night so that I can apply foot cream and keep my feet from falling apart.
• Didn't buy the package of "Barf" laundry detergent we also found in the market...although we did take a picture.
• Ate Lebanese food for dinner.
• Checked the Hyatt for copies of the new LP China, but found only post cards and over priced souvenir's.
• Walked in the park.
• Laughed at the 15 American soliders, from the nearby Manas Airbase, eating at Fat Boys...not too hard though, because we were eating there too. They have a damn good breakfast burrito there and a book exchange.

On Wednesday, June 27th we started our journey to Osh. We started with a taxi to the Osh Bazaar (a busy market with goods from the south and the place the place to catch buses to Osh). The night before, however, we decided to break up the 15 hour bus journey into two days by stopping in Toktogul for the night. Because of that requested stop (S - "Because of the new destination" more like it; this made sense..buses to Osh weren't going to want people who only wanted to go half the way unless they paid the same amount as those that wanted to go the whole way), we were told that we needed to go to the long distance bus station instead. Two policemen made sure we got on the right local bus across town. At the long distance station we practiced our bargaining skills to get a fair price for a seat in a minivan. We were slightly overcharged, but I managed to talk them into leaving one seat empty to give me a bit more leg room.



Stopping for Kymys

The drive was quite beautiful with deep canyons, high passes, green valley, traditional yurts, and rivers so full their banks could barely contain them. Our driver and his buddies were in no hurry. We stopped gas, lunch, Kymys (fermented mare's milk), honey, more gas, and finally to let us out at Toktogul.



Cute Girl & Honey Stop on the Way to Toktogul

There was a bit of a commotion as everyone in town with a car offered us a ride and tried to understand our questions about hotels and bus times. We were saved by an 18 year old boy who ran a tire shop and spoke a little English. He and his sister walked us about 200m to a decent hotel. After "checking into the hotel", he also showed us his house, the bus station where we could catch a ride to Osh, and a nice place to eat. We tried to treat him to dinner, but he refused. We ate a spam like substance, eggs and some traditional bread (called nan, but it's more like a cross between a Indian nan and a bagel) for dinner, as we couldn't work out the menu.



Kids from the Hotel in Toktogul

The next morning at 7am we caught a bus heading to Jalal-Abad (where we could then catch a bus the rest of the way to Osh since the one to Osh directly was not coming today). It was on this bus that we met Aida and her family. Aida is a student at the American University in Bishkek and spoke very good English. She was on summer break and was in Toktogul visiting family. She, her mother, her little sister, her baby brother, and her cousin were all headed home to Osh. They were extremely helpful and told us alot about Osh. At one point the driver stopped to fill every remaining bit of leg room with watermelons. Aida and family bought one for us.



The Bus to Jalal-Abad

In Jalal-Abad, Aida helped us transfer to a bus heading for Osh. We helped her move the many pieces of her brother's bicycle that had to be disassembled to fit into the bus. During that ride she translated questions from some curious boys she called, "wild". The boys ended up giving me one of the traditional Kyrgyz felt hats. Despite the heat I wore it the rest of the ride.

Aida's mom made sure the driver took us directly to our guesthouse and Aida ran around until we found it. After we settled in, we accepted their invitation to dinner at their apartment, where they served a traditional plov (rice and mutton) and an impressive spread of goodies.



Dinner at Aida's House

The next day we met up with Aida again and we soon learned the extent of Kyrgyz hospitality. Aida and family were unstoppable in their generosity. They showed us the market. They helped us find the bus station and information about the bus to Kashgar. They took us to Solomon's Throne, the sacred Muslim mountain and the centerpiece for the city of Osh. Their friend who gave us a ride up to the mountain offered to give us his car (A Daewoo Tico built in Uzbekistan...one step above a moped) to use for a few days. They bought us souvenirs. They bought us icecream and drinks and then took us out to dinner. They treated us to lunch on Sunday. They would never let us return to the guesthouse without some sort of food or drink. We were extremely grateful and a little embarrassed by the extent of their kindness (S - especially since they would not let us reciprocate). It really made our trip to Osh special.



Aida & Family Atop Solomon's Throne


Karl & Suwei on Solomon's Throne

Osh is the second biggest city in Kyrgyzstan and is one of the region's oldest towns (dating back to the 5th century BC). "Older than Rome," we were told. A caretaker at the Dom Babura on Solomon's Throne offered us a prayer and told us that the name Osh came from a sound that the prophet Muhammad heard when he visited the throne. The sound is similar to ancient words meaning welcome. The part of town we were staying in is dominated by the Jayma Bazaar, which seemed to engulf the town in a maze of tiny shops that filled every nook and cranny with fruits, meats, breads, hardware, purfumes, toothpaste, buckets, rugs, tarps, appliances and everything else under the sun. I even found a Nutella like substance, but it had expired in 2006. The city is somewhere between 40% and 60% Uzbek and is only about 10km from the Uzbekistan border (the difference between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks according to Aida: the Uzbeks have more body hair). It's a lot more lively than Bishkek, with traffic jams and bustling crowds. Aida, says it's because people are out of work.



Jayma Bazaar



It was hot in Osh. On Saturday we spent the morning searching for a working internet cafe. We gave up when we heard a group from the guesthouse was going to go swimming in the afternoon. The guesthouse in Osh was tiny...two bedrooms, one with 4 beds and the other with 3, a sitting room/computer room/TV room, a kitchen, and a single toilet/bath. By Saturday it was full (1 German, 1 Swede, 2 Japanese, 1 Russian, 4 Americans including us, and the two or three caretakers that came and went). Most of us were planning on heading to China on the Sunday bus. Most of us were hot. And most of us went down to the pool on Saturday. The pool was great. Huge. Fed from the river. Cold. Packed. And it had a high dive platform that was truly a terror for the locals.



The Guys from the Osh Guesthouse High Jumping in to the Osh Pool
The two other Americans in the guesthouse were Ted and Barb a couple from Seattle who had been living and working in Japan for two years and who have been traveling around Asia for the last year. We orginally ran into them in line at the Kyrgyz embassy in Almaty. On Sunday we decided to share a car to the Chinese border with them rather than taking the 18 hour night bus. With 4 of us it actually worked out to be cheaper, and with a stop in the town of Sary Tash for the night we wouldn't have to travel in the dark.

The car however was tiny. It was a Lada, one step above the Tico. Ted and Barb's packs went on top. Barb and I each had one butt cheek on a wheel well while Suwei was pinched in the middle. Ted being the tallest of the bunch took the front with his knees in the glove box. The driver was Tajik and kept awake with a combination of Kymys and some brown earthy pills in an unmarked bottle. We left at about 1:30 pm.



Here are the highlights of the trip:

• Stopping at the Bazaar to get a plastic tarp to cover the packs. Good thing we did as the car was coated with dust and mud within the first hour.
• Finding a bottle of water without gas in it.
• Watching the road degrade. The further from Osh we got the worse the road got. By Monday morning the driver gave up on the road all together and opted for parallel trails reminiscent of Mongolia.
• Green hills riddled with yurts.
• Snow covered peaks in the distant, obscured by clouds.
• Red rivers full of dark red silt.
• The driver's sound maker. When the road was blocked by cows or sheep the Lada had the ability to make honking sounds, laser sound, barking sounds, cow moooos, sheep bahs, duck quacks...you name it. The only thing that made the animals move however, was to push them out of the way with the bumper.
• Staying in Sary Tash. It was a small and very quiet town, but we were more than happy to walk around and stretch our legs. The guesthouse was small and cozy. We were greeted in the middle of the night by two locals who insisted on pounding on our bedroom window for 10 minutes.
  
  
  
• Waiting for the right rear tire to come off. Every rock, every pothole, every tuft of grass would make the wheel groan. It got to the point where I could feel it hitting my right butt cheek. The road continued to get worse and we were just crossing our fingers hoping it would hold to the border.
  
  
  
  
• Crossing the border. This is one of the more interesting border crossings that I have been through and one of the most complex. It started with a check point on the Kyrgyz side. "Passports please." 3km more we hit the Kyrgyz customs. Here we left the Lada, walked past a line of trucks, through a concentration camp full of barbed wire, piles of twisted metal, and crumbling buildings. A guard led us into one of them. "Passport?" We got our exit stamp and watched the trucks being searched while we waited for a ride to the Chinese side. One by one we were placed into the passenger seats of the trucks and carried another few kms to...another Kyrgyz check point. This time only the driver had to show his passport. (S - my driver made me get out and go with him to show my passport.) "Passport?" We had made it to a checkpoint on the Chinese side. We climbed out of the trucks with our packs, showed our passports, watched the trucks being searched again, then climbed back in for another 3km ride. Finally we made it to customs on the Chinese side where we filled out forms, answered questions, and had our temperature taken. "Passports? Temperature?" Then we had our bags scanned and our passports checked two more times before officially entering China. All along this route was a scattered mess of old trucks hauling bulging loads of every kind, barely clinging on or in one case, no longer clinging on and laying all over the road. Then there were the breakdowns...trucks with half the engine laying in the road and greasy drivers scratching their heads. And finally there was the burnt out skeletons of a truck and shards of glass that looked as if someone had fired off a scud missle.
  
  
  
• Catching a ride to Kashgar in a black pickup truck and a sleepy Uighur driver with an arm spasm.
  
  
  
• The desert. As soon as we crossed the border the landscape changed from green to brown.
• The deluge in the desert. Soon after we got moving it started to pour. Soon after that, we saw a lone road worker in an orange vest shoveling sand in the middle of the road, barely visible due to shear volume of water falling on him. Soon after that we saw his buddy running away with a pylon on his head.
• "Passports?" Making it through yet another check point.
• Watching our driver try to wake himself up by sticking his head out the window.
• Watching our driver try to work out the spasm in his right arm.
• Watching our driver swerve toward people he knew along the way...or slam on his brakes and drive backwards to chat with his buddies.
• Stopping for lunch in a town almost completely made of mud and watching the cooks perform the making of a serious plate of Lagmen (noodles, meat and veggies).
  
  
  
• Getting to Kashgar, finding a hotel and taking a shower.

That's all I've got for this entry. Check out the slideshow for pics and comments.

Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan to Kashgar, China

Kyrgyzstan: Who knew?

Osh, Kyrgyzstan – We arrived in southern Kyrgystan a couple of days ago and we still have not found a working internet café so I am typing this in Word and then hopefully either tomorrow or when we get to Kashgar, I can post it!

So what's happened between Kazakhstan and here? Some amazing things! We finally got to do a multi-day trek. But before I get ahead of myself...we arrived in the capital of Kyrgystan, Bishkek, after taking a 5-6 hour minibus ride from Almaty. It was a surprisingly smooth and easy trip from Almaty to Bishkek. The highway was so smooth and the Mercedes-Benz minibus was so nice that I fell asleep with my face pressed against the glass of the window. No jarring wake up calls with people staring at you because your head made a loud "thwap" as it bounced off the glass.

Bishkek was a relief after Almaty. The prices were a little more in our range. We ended up staying at the International Business School dorms. We had heard from an American couple (Barb and Ted who we are sitting next to us at the moment...but Karl will go into that in his next blog) that the dorms were a pit. If this had been at the beginning of our 6-month trip I would have agreed. The separate shower and toilet room were shared with the dorm room next door – you could call it a suite though that might be stretching it a little. However, since we were half-way through the trip (in Mongolia for a month we had pit toilets if lucky and no running water), I cozied up to the place and after a few days it grew on me. I checked out some of the other shower and toilet rooms on the floor and realized we were lucky...we got one of the cleaner “suites”. Our suite mates, however, were a different story – three guys who smoked in the bathroom, left trash everywhere, and partied into the late morning.

So now we were in a place that was a little bit more affordable to hang out, rest up and do a little bit of blogging. It took us a couple of tries and several frustrating hours to find an internet café that we could install Picasa2, Karl's must-have choice in manipulating the photos and uploading to Picasa Web. We finally found a café in a basement of a building that fit our needs and the girl that worked the desk was sweet and spoke English. Also a bonus was that it was just down the same block from Fat Boys, a little café, somewhat ex-patish, but with good food, a large book exchange, and several cute young female waitresses that always seemed to remember Karl.




So it got to be a little of a routine and I have to say I really enjoyed "routine" after months of excitement: get up in the morning, do a little workout routine (sit-ups, some weights using the 1.5L bottle of water, yoga positions, etc.), shower, walk through the park (actually parks), buy yogurt and a large mango or kiwi fruit juice, internet for a couple of hours, eat lunch at Fat Boys, internet some more until dinner, walk around in search of a good place for dinner and then retire around 9pm.

Kashgar, China - Ok. Now after 2 days of travel (which actually felt like 10 days) we are back in China. Going to try to finish the entry that I started in Osh.

So after blogging in Bishkek, we headed to Karakol and Lake Issyk-Kul for some change in scenery. In particular we wanted to get out and do a multi-day trekking trip and we had read that the mountains just south of Karakol (the Terskey Alatau Range, part of the Tian Shan Range that spans Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and China) was the place to go. We spent the next day trying to get all the stuff together for the trek: renting a tent and stove, trying to get information and a map for the trail, etc. We were told that we should hire a guide as there were no trail signs, lots of snow on the last pass, 2 Belgians lost for 2 days, blah, blah, blah. So we ended up finding this budget sensitive tour company that had a guide for $15 a day. We went ahead agreed because the map sucked, we were on a time constraint, and there was suppose to be some free (and not-free) hot springs that we wanted to make sure we hit.

We started with a taxi ride to the the town of Jeti-Oghuz, past the Broken Heart and stopped right in front of the Seven Bulls. Basically red rock formations that looked like a broken heart and seven bulls (actually it looked like the 7 bulls had eroded to become about 10 bulls). The landscape was quite unique -- green, really green, grass and trees jutting out from really red rock and dirt. The taxi driver offered to take us to the 5th bridge (out of 7) for $5 more but being the cheapskates that we are, we said no. Also I wanted to make sure I didn't get HAPE so I wanted to walk the 1000m ascent slowly instead of driving it in 15 minutes.




The start was pleasant enough...along a dirt road following a stream up the valley. The road ascended but the incline was almost unnoticeable. It was a beautiful green lush valley.

At about 4pm we started the real ascent! We ascended about 300m (1000ft) in less than a mile. Hungry and sucking major wind...I fell far behind Karl and Marat. But that was ok...I had given Karl the tent to half-way up the climb and was hoping that the home for the night and dinner would be ready by the time I crawled up there.




The next day started with a steady climb up to the 3800m (~12,500ft) Teleti pass. A little snow and a lot of scree later we were up. Not bad. It started raining on the way down but it peetered off halfway down. And down, and down we went. There were some switch backs but most of the time it was straight down. Even the switch backs were steep!




Ended up in Karakol valley at about 8000ft. It was about 3pm and both Karl and Marat turned to me and asked whether we should try to get a little head start on the next pass (another 2 hours possibly), Ala-Kol Pass, or camp here. I elected to camp here - it was low at 2500m (~8250ft), I wanted to sleep low because for me HAPE always came on the 2nd night, and we were all hungry already.

We found a totally sweet camping spot. Marat bought some bread off some folks from a yurt just down the way (we had eaten all our bread already) and started dinner. Karl and I relaxed -- attempted a towel bath but it started to rain, collected wood and started a campfire, and read. So nice not to have to cook!




Marat was just the perfect guide. Upbeat but laid-back and not too talkative. Definitely a gentleman: would wait and make sure I didn't fall into the water during river crossings, helped me put on my pack (though I got him to stop doing this after a while...my pack weighed nothing), wouldn't let me carry hardly any of the food (I was already just carrying a few food items when he took everything that even appeared to have any weight to it...left me with the bag of dried pasta and the box of tea bags) and pulled some drunk Kyrgyz guy off me that wouldn't let go off my hand (after a handshake) was attempting to go in for a kiss (Where was Karl??? you ask... during this incident? Well, Karl was standing there about 15 feet away politely telling the drunk Kyrgyz that she was mine...in English...is that the extent of American chivalry?).

As mentioned, the next day was another pass. Back up...past treeline, through a "camp" (a little wood cabin, camping spots, fire rings, pit toilet and lots of wood carvings), along a beautiful lake called Ala-Kol(our pic of this is even better than the one in the LP) and up to the pass. It was a haul -- 1300m (4000ft) back up to 3900m. The scenery was spectacular so I was left breathless from both the altitude and view.




I dropped the pack when I reached the top of the pass and went over to were Karl was waving me over. Check this out. We were standing on top of a patch of snow that was actually a cornice above a steep slope -- looking down it looked like a 90 degree angle (though Karl says it was probably more like 70 degrees). We figured we would walk up the ridge a little around the snow and go down the scree. Nope. Once Marat and I added our names and route to a little piece stuck in the large cairn at the top, Marat said let's go and headed to the spot Karl and I were just admiring. Well, though we took half the slope down with a mini-avalanche and picked up some speed halfway down, the snow was soft and the angle lessened further down so we lived. It took just a few seconds and we dropped a thousand feet on our butts.




Karl wanted to camp high that night...so we stopped early and pitched camp in between all these snow-melt streams at about 3300m (11,000ft). Even at that elevation we were already back into the lush green fields of grass and flowers.

One thing that struck Karl and I as unique was the greeness. The lush green grass came right up to the scree and the valleys were full of dark, dark green pine trees (that were tall, a hundred feet tall). The green of the grass was almost neon (like the catepillar below!) and the green of the pine trees was dark and had so much depth that we knew we wouldn't be able to capture it with our cameras. (You definitely have to come out and see it for yourself!)




The next day was an easy day. Hurray! 2 hours and we were down to the hot springs. We decided to stay in the little Yak Tours house and eat with the rest of the folks there. Marat showed us a little hot spring along the river in the afternoon...it was perfect...more of a luke warm spring which us good since we were still warm from the hike. After dinner we checked out the hot springs...had to pay $2.50...there were 3 private concrete pools in a wooden cabin. So hot and so nice. We were jelly afterwards.

Slept well that night and the next day we hiked 3 more hours out to the town of Ak-Suu. I do have to say that this is one of the best backpacking trips I have ever taken. The scenery was incredible and unique (at least for me). There were hot springs at the end. I didn't have to cook (and only had to carry my personal stuff). There were chocolate trees and heavenly music emanating from the streams. And...ok, I'll stop.

Well I am going to end it here. Karl's already started on the next leg of our misadventure. For more pictures check out the slideshow below.

Bishkek, Karakol and the Terskey Alatau Range, Kyrgyzstan

Not Crossing Kazakhstan

Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan - Ok, so we just got back to Bishkek after 5 days of trekking up in the Tian Shan mountains south of Karakol. It was truly beyond beautiful, but you all will have to wait for the photos. We are behind on our blogging and would like to show a bit of Kazakhstan first.

But... before I do that, I want to share a Mongolian joke.

On our last day in the Altai Range, I saw Khishgee reading a small, well-used and slightly torn book. I asked her what it was. She said it was a joke book. I then asked her to read a few to me as I wanted to post a Mongolian joke to the blog. She read about 20 before we both realized that they all pretty much sucked. Birah overheard us and said he had a good one. This is the joke he told... with a few enhancements:

A man riding across the steppe really has to pee. He climbs off his horse faces the wind and lets it go. The wind blows and he gets pee all over his pants. Thinking himself a smart man, he figures he has learned his lesson and vows never to do that again.

Later that day, he feels a gurgling in his stomach and realizes that he's got a bad case of diarrhea (K - probably ate too much yak yogurt). Remembering his experience earlier in the day, he squats...this time with his back to the wind, and....gets shit all over his pants!

Ok, so the punch line is a little weak and a bit awkward, but it had a true Mongolia feel to it.

Ok...on to Kazakstan...

Even if I hadn't rented "Borat" a week before our departure from California, I still would have been shocked upon entering Kazakhstan. Knowing that the "Kazakhstan" portrayed in the film was completely fictional, the only preconceived notions I had of the country came from our time in the Kazakh province of Bayan-Olgii in western Mongolia (see Crossing Mongolia - Part 4). Unlike western Mongolia where the centuries old nomadic culture has continued to thrive almost unchanged in relative isolation, the culture in Kazakhstan has suffered two generations of Soviet influence. The collapse of the USSR in 1991 did not mean a return to their roots. Instead they powered ahead fueled by huge reserves of natural resources to become central Asia's most successful economy. Borat couldn't afford to live in modern Kazakhstan.



Statue of a traditional Kazakh in front of a not-so-traditional apartment block

Due to cost contraints, we decided not to explore the countryside of Kazakhstan and elected instead to stay in Almaty. Once we got use to the sticker shock and learned how to live a bit more cheaply, we realized that we really liked the city. Almaty is the commercial center of Kazakhstan and is the most cosmopolitan city in all of central Asia. As Suwei mentioned earlier, it is the first place where neither one of us looked out of place. The city is also quite beautiful, with tree-lined streets, snow-capped mountains, lush green parks, and fountains everywhere that actually worked. But...we were still paying 80 bucks a night so we need to stay focused, figure out our next move, and move quickly.




When we arrived in Almaty we didn't have a clue. We searched for a Central Asia Lonely Planet book in Ulaan Baatar, but couldn't find one. We were flying blind. Day 2 in the city was spent looking for cheaper lodging. We floundered a bit in the morning following a series of bad directions to a number of suggested locations of internet cafes. We ended up in the Hotel Kazakstan speed surfing for budget hotels at 25 Tenge a minute. Forty minutes and six dollars later we concluded that there were none. The nice woman manning the business center there spent about a half hour on the phone calling around to every hotel in the phone book. She was the one who found the quirky Russian hotel up on the hill where we ended up staying all week. I don't remember the name of the hotel as there was no sign outside. (S - The Armand Hotel, if anybody happens to heading in that direction soon and needs a cheap place to crash.) The front entrance was in the back of what looked like a big pink observatory hidden in the trees of a gated community. We were sold by lunch our first day there.

We were greeted by a heavyset Russian woman with limited but functional English skills. She seemed surprised that we had actually found the place (it took the taxi driver over an hour). Since there was nothing but trees near the hotel, we asked if there was someplace we could get lunch. She led us through a maze of ornate ballrooms, half-constructed hallways, and concrete stairwells to a shabby little room next to the kitchen with a few folding tables. She asked us what we would like for lunch:

"What do you have?"
"Cold soup."
"Ok, cold soup sounds good. Do you have anything else?"
"Let me check."

She shuffles off back into the kitchen. A few minutes later she returns.

"Liver and macaroni."
"Anything else?"
"No."
"Ok, we'll have the liver and macaroni."
"Do you want supper tonight?"
"Yes, we would."
"What would you like for supper?"
"Ummm, what do you have?"
"Let me check."

She disappears into the kitchen again for a few more minutes.

"Meat and rice."
"Anything else?"
"No."
"Ok, we'll have the meat and rice then."
"What time you eat?"
"How about 7:00pm?"
"Ok, 7:00pm, one minute please."

Again to the kitchen.

"No 7:00 pm, 6:00 pm. The cooks go home."
"Ok, 6:00 pm."

The cold soup, the macaroni, and the liver were very, very tasty. But for supper we ended up eating in town since we had to find an ATM as the hotel would take nothing but Tenge. The next few days our favorite receptionist was replaced by a series of other, very similar, heavyset Russian women with no English, but we were already sold and decided to stay.

Our state of confusion began to turn around on day 3 after we met Nick, an American working for a real estate agency in the Alatau Hotel. We found his name on an expatriate website listing possible sources for cheap apartments. Over coffee (S - good coffee...brewed, not instant and free...I have to mention this because a cup of drip coffee cost $4 in Almaty and I had not had any non-instant coffee for well over a month) he advised that if we liked our hotel we should stay as beating the price would be next to impossible. He also suggested we talk to CAT (Central Asian Tours) about our onward travel plans and he gave us a few possible sources for English language guide books.

We took his advice and went to the CAT office. We walked away from there with a list of possible routes and their corresponding prices. We walked to Ramstore (a mall and department store) where we looked for a guide book and ate lunch. We passed up the AFC (American Fried Chicken: "The taste that is in your mind.") for gyros in the food court. Then we walked to the Inter-Continental Hotel and to the Hyatt Regency where we finally found a LP Central Asia, Copyright 2004. That evening we filled ourselves with pizza and information about Kazakhstan.




Sunday, nothing was open so we took the #6 bus up the hill towards the mountains. The bus was loaded with hikers, climbers and picnickers. And on the road there were mountain bikers, backpackers and Sunday drivers. It seems Almaty is a fairly active town and a good portion of the population head to the hills on their day off. The bus dropped us off at the Medeu Ice Rink (1700 m) and we hiked our way up to the Shymbulak Ski Resort (2300 m). I was sucking some serious wind on the way up (partly due to some stomach issues I'd been having, but mostly due to me being seriously out of shape). We stopped for a rest at the top of an avalanche control damn to watch a guy in a bear suit pretend to eat children and pose for photos. At the ski resort, for 600 Tenge we took a ride on the chair lift hoping to reach Talger Pass. However, we soon realized that it was 600 Tenge per chair lift and it took 3 lifts to reach the pass. Being cheap bastards, we elected to work off our salami and cheese lunch by sucking more wind. Clouds and rain moved in before we made it to the pass so we turned back towards home. It really was nice up there.




Monday and Tuesday we spent a lot of time walking around town getting things done. Here is what we did:

• Waited in line at the Kyrgyzstan Embassy to apply for visas.
• Got coffee and pasteries at Thomi's.
• Walk around in circles looking for a post office that actually sold stamps.
• Got a haircut. Now I really look like a Russian.
• Walked back to the Kyrgyz Embassy to pick up our passports with visa.
• Took lots of pictures of camel statues that were scattered all over town. (Do any of you San Franciscans remember the hearts?)
• Washed our clothes in the bathtub and dried them on the towel warmer of our hotel room.
• Took a ride to the top floors of the highest office complex in town where the US consulate is located. I remember thick bullet-proof doors, a Jasper Johns print of the American flag, and a fantastic view of the city. (We both needed pages added to our passports.)
• In the consulate we chatted with John, an American working for an NGO in Almaty for the last 3 years. His organization was closing down due to rising living costs and was sending him home in one week. At the same time, his wife had accidently sent his and the dog's passports through the wash and he was at the consulate checking to see if they needed to be replaced. He told us where we could find the best shashlyk in town.
• Walked and bussed all the way across town to eat shashlyk. Shashlyk is basically kebabs. This particular place, recommended by John, was just a rusty, smoking shack wedged between the sidewalk and a few cars parked on the street. They had tables set up and you could buy beer from a news stand across the street. They weren't ready to serve food yet, but a small crowd had already collected. We had a skewer of pork and a skewer of chicken, soaked in vinegar and sprinkled with paprika. John was right, we've had none better.
• Ate samosas and icecream (S - had another Magnum...best icecream bars ever) while waiting for a few college kids running a cell phone store in a subway under Dolsky Ave to burn two DVDs to backup all our photos from Mongolia.
• Took a soak in the Arasan Baths. These public baths cost 1000 T for a two-hour session. It was a bit confusing at first but Suwei and I found our way to the respective male and female sides. Entering the bathes I was approached by four fat men in white coats, looking like overweight orderlies from a funny farm. They wanted to give me a massage. Tempting as it was, I only had enough Tenge in my pocket to rent a pair of shower shoes. I undressed, lockered my stuff, and used my REI pack towel to cover my bits while I checked out the bathes. Figuring out the customs of a foreign land is always tough, but doing so while naked is especially difficult. The first room I entered was full of slabs of marble with buckets of soapy water next to them. In the back of the room a few men were laying on these slabs being slapped by fat men in white coats. I moved on. The next room had showers, of which I partook. Getting the feel for things I tried the Norwegian sauna, the cold pool of the Turkish bathes, and then the excessive heat of the Russian saunas. The Russian saunas were filled with fat old guys beating themselves and each other with myrtle branch (for sale out front) until they turned all pink and puffy. I moved from hot to cold and back again until I was fully refreshed and relaxed. I'm pretty sure Suwei had a slighlty different take that she might want to share.

The next day we caught a minibus to Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan. More soon. Check out the photos and commentary here:

Almaty, Kazakhstan