The Long Road Home

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A beautiful day in China

 

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Well I’m in a cafe in city of Bishkek capital of Kyrgyzstan. I’m trying to get an Uzbek visa. No joy so far. The uzbek embassy is a dirty grey stucco mansion with the green flag drooping outside it. First day I went it was closed. Second day a group of people was standing outside the embassy. A guard came out at 10am with a small piece of paper with names on it in biro. He read the names and people said yes. Of course mine wasn’t on. A lady from the Kyrgyz Finance ministry trying to go to Tashkent for a training course told me you can’t just turn up, you had to phone after 12 noon to register, and then come back the next day. I already have a reference number having paid quite a lot of usd to a travel firm for an invitation. But I still had to phone etc. So I did, and then went back to the grey mansion this morning, the thrid day. My name was now on today’s scrap of paper - well, they aknowledged an English person of some name was on the list. We all waited on the pavement. People go in one by one, first into a kind of outdoor holding pen, then into an office. I chatted with a big Uighur from Urumqi who was doing some kind of textile trade. He was the first Uighur I met who complained that the Han get all the money and the jobs. He only really spoke Uighur, with rough chinese and apparently some basic russian, but he couldn’t read. He was absolutely delighted to find I’d been to his home town on my way.

After about 1.5 hours, I was called in. There’s a room like a doctor’s surgery waiting room and a lady in a booth. There are photos of people in a factory weaving cloth on white looms, cotton plants being harvested, some kind of industrial plant, of a person lying in a medical scanner, of rows of identical parked cars. Also fabulous monuments in Samarkand and Khiva. The lady looked at all my documents, then disappeared, then came back and returned my documents and said I should come back at 3pm.  I am, rather worryingly, the only person who got their passport back like this. Everyone else had come out having lodged their documents for pick up later.

Hmmm. Quite worried I won’t be accepted. Well let’s see.

Meanwhile I have been walking round Bishkek slowly, sneezing and blowing my nose, and I can’t hear properly because my ears have somehow blocked up. I caught a huge cold over the pass somehow.

Bishkek feels sleepy and shabby. There are lovely green shady avenues and sun and shadows on the pavements. But there are weeds in the concrete steps of the enormous main square. The concrete cinema had handpainted pictures of women and men’s face, and a dark policeman in a hat. The Palace of Sport looked nasty and there was an advert for muscle men show. The trams are tatty shaky tin things. The parks have dried up roses in big bare beds ad lamps with smashed glass.

Only 500m from the goverment building are quiet dusty residential streets where old men sit outside their garages with cardigans buttoned up despite the heat, and a few children go in circles on bikes with no brakes in the evening sun.

But there are nice tree-shaded avenues with wooden park benches an peopel sitting.

Lots of songbirds and doves and pigeons.

Bishkek is brilliant for cafes. Outdoor cafes in parks, trendy cafes for smart ladies, Italian cafes for people working for NGOs, Turkish cafes, local cafes where you get pots of tea. There are all SORTS of people here. There are big old ladies with gold teeth wearing huge flowery dresses and socks and slippers. There are pale young couples with pale toddler children. There are Asiatic girls in flimsy slingbacks and slinky dresses. There are dark young men in flipflops and baggy sports shorts. There are rather hefty peroxide blondes in shades and miniskirts.  The police are wearing comically large hats. There are neat tired-looking grey men with document cases.

I had my hair cut in a salon with pink anaglypta walls, pink tipped brushes in a pink holder. The big women hairdressers had stiff brittle orange or straw coloured hair. The lady for some reason cut my hair extremely fast so the scissors were snagging and getting stuck. I just closed my eyes. Not much I can do. It cost 120 som or about 1.50 gbp.

I’m staying at a place where they run conferences. My room opens into the main conference room, rather oddly. There are Americns in shirtsleeves explaining how to search and arrest poeple etc to Kyrgyz customs officers sitting at little tables making notes.

I had a very nice dinner with an American woman working for an ngo funded by US congress and a Russian lady who explained how municipal asset managemmment works in kyrgyzstan (or doesn’t).

In an open air gallery in a park, I met a lovely man who showed me how to play a Kyrgyz chopochor (?) clay flute and a kind of metal kazoo. The gallery paintings were mainly very brightly coloured mountains and rivers and lakes, some horses.

In Osh I’d stayed in a tatty wooden guesthouse with shared bathroom smelling of hamsters. There was a hectic bazaar with piles of fruit and veg and hot samosas. I ate a lot of salads and blinchiki pancakes with sour cream in open air teahouses, and drank lots of black tea. I climbed Babur’s House, a rocky hill in the middle of the town and looked out where apparently Babur had looked in 1497 before going off to conquer everywhre down to India and rule the Moghul Dynasty.

I didn’t manage to ride here from Osh because feeble with this cold. (How do proper explorers do it? And people who travel cheap cheap and camp everywhere? I’m staying in nice places wherever I can, and I’m always getting knocked back with colds and food poisoning etc. Not sure how they do it)

After a few false starts cycling round outskirts of Osh (cottages with startling orange tiger lilies, pink and red cosmos, and big white and yellow dogdaisies - nice)  I found a minibus that was going to Bishkek and caught it. Disappointing but I had a lovely time in the minibus. It was overloaded. Lots of mothers breastfeeding large toddlers.  Young skinny driver and old grey haired co-driver called Hassan. We all ate dinner together at a teahouse where the women and children took off their shoes and sat on a carpeted dais with a low table. The rest including me sat at wood chairs at table with clean flowery plastic table cloth. There’s a wash stand at the door for washing your hands when you come in. We had pots of black turkish tea, fresh flat bread, tomato and cucmbers which someone had brought. Everyone shared everything. If you buy a bottle of orange juice then everyone will have some, and then give you hunks of bread in return. We had plates of stewed lamb. It was suggested that the skinny driver should marry me to sort out the problem that I’m not married. We talk by flickng through a russian english dictionary. They gave lots of crumpled money to police at checkpoints. As night came on, and we were in the mountains, they played Kyrgyz folk tales chanted over the tape player. Repeated phrases, mesmeric. A burly Kyrgyz dad quietly pointed out each landmark, the lake near Jalalbad, the Naryn river slow and blue in its canyon, hydroelectric dams, and finally the stunning pass out of the mountains in the pink dawn onto the plain where Bishkek lies.

Tomorrow, hopefully, and rather incongruously, I’m setting off for my cousin’s wedding this weekend. Will be rather weird suddenly to be in the Cotswolds. Really looking forward to see all my family. I’ve actually not seen anyone I know apart from Rick since April. Then I’m back to my bike in Bishkek next week, to continue - hopefully - from here through the rest of Central Asia to the Caspian Sea. Bit worried about the visa problem. Let’s see.

Fire crackers at a funeral? Sue explains…

 

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Whilst I’m here resting in Kyrgyzstan, I’m just writing to say a huge THANKYOU to all the people who have made donations to the charitable projects we are supporting. WE HAVE RAISED ALMOST HALF THE TARGET AMOUNT ALREADY - just under USD 60,000 - towards the target of USD 140,000. This is thanks to corporate sponsors especially Crosby Capital Partners, Deutsche Bank, Prudential, and Lloyd George Asset Management, and lots of kind invididuals who’ve contributed through JustGiving pages. THANKYOU!

If we manage to hit the fundraising target by the end of my journey home, it will mean the sports centre for 5000 street children in Cambodia, and playgrounds for 10000 children in the earthquake-affected areas of Pakistan can be built. Both of these charity projects which we hope to make possible through the Long Road Home adventur use sport as a means to help rebuild broken communities.

Thankyou to some great groups of people who got together to make group donations, especially the super team at Reuters Hong Kong, and the Hong Kong cyclists. And a big thanks too to ADM Capital, Beeline Bicycles, Kodak, and Virgin Atlantic HK who are also making invaluable in-kind contributions to the project.

On the next leg of this journey from Asia to Europe, I’ll hopefully go through the rest of Kyrgyzstan, into Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and then into Azerbaijan and Georgia. Several other firms have expressed interest in becoming corporate supporters - well, NOW’s THE TIME to write to me and get involved!

Meanwhile, thanks again for everyone’s great support, and best wishes from Bishkek!

Well I’ve arrived in Kyrgyzstan. I am completely AMAZED by how very different it is from China, so close. Knives and forks, salads, bead on the table, umbrellas on pavements and people sitting out, blond and blue eyed people on the streets in the mix of different faces. I am going round staring. I had to change my original route to geet here because it tuned out that even if I got all the paperwork for the Torugart pass, I still would need to rent a four-wheel drive car and driver to get up there, because apparently they don’t let you go up alone. So I decided to try the alternative Irkeshtam entry point which you can just ride through. Irkeshtam is west of Kashgar and leads you into the far south of Kyrgyzstan, just north of the Pamir Alay range of mountains that form the border with Tajikistan.

Actually I left Kashgar escorted by a black limousine with four Uighur men in suits inside. I’m not quite sure who they were. They’d appeared in the hotel lobby as I checked out, were very chatty and had a big discussion about which road was ok and where I would find accommodation etc. They decided I should be escorted. So I cruised out of Kashgar behind their black car. Then they waved goodbye.

I headed north west up a long straight dull drag, directly into a headwind. attled along grimly for around 20km slipstreaming tractors where possible, then turned around, and there hung round the horizon were mountains including what must be either the Pamir or Kunlun like a white wall south of Kashgar. So it’s all worthwhile - eventually.

I then went through brown Uighur villages west of Kashgar. There were spits of rain, surprisingly. The long villages were rows of poplars and mud single-storey houses with double doors painted pale blue and pale green and multicolour patterns along the lintels. Two green lorries with Kyrgyz number plates rolled through. Kind of exciting.

I went up onto wide windswept valley of grey gravel. As usual, the climb looked nothing much (ha ha) just empty low brown hills, but ahead there was now proper rain, a dark grey wash drifting over, and thunder was rumbling continuously. Suddenly heavy rain splashing on me. I dashed to a place where a dry river bed goes under the road, scramble off road under bridge. Thunder and lightning. Water pouring off the road. Eat boiled egg and naan bread for lunch sitting in the pebbles sheltering from wind by a bridge support. It was chilly and windy.

Finally I got going again when the storm eased, and found water now pouring everywhere. Whole orange rivers had appeared rushing over brown pebbles. You would hear rushing booming sounds and then round a bend find big scary brown torrents gushing off the cliffs onto the road. The flat areas were now flooded so the trees to the right stood in a sudden lake. There were bits of scattered rock on the wet road.

I went past the turn north up to the Torugart pass. There’s a huge white block house there blocking the road, where I guess they must check your papers etc, way way before the real border. There were loads of container lorries and messy trucks piled with scrap metal parked, and there was a cluster of shacks. Above, you could see lorries creeping along the road, tiny in the distance heading for Kyrgyzstan. The sun came back out, and I headed on towards Irkeshtam. I went through long green sunny warm valleys with nice brooks running over the grass. All my clothes dried. I had some chocolate and a blue butterfly was dotting about. I saw two pale brown pheasants bobbing along quickly into the grass (could not find in bird book), and a huge rabbit with silver ears just sitting there.

Then there were long empty stony valleys one after the other. Occasionally crows flew by croaking, and some smaller black birds with red legs and beaks (I think choughs)

At last I saw a patch of dark trees, and it was Wuqia county town. Last county town before border. The cook where I had dinner went mad and made me 6 dishes incl broccoli, chicken, cabbage, lovely mini tomatoes, mange tout, and pao pao steamed dough and dishes of apricots and water melon. I had to give whole plates away to other people. Outside, men were wearing rather improbable Kyrgyz hats like flowerpots. Actually a bit like the smurfs’ hats, if you remember those, except these ones are black and white and have embroidered patterns on. The town was a weird set of concrete rough blocks, with enthusiastically fancy street lamps and a big dusty square, in the middle of the wide empty hills. There was a karaoke competition in the square that night. Women in hedscarves and old men in those hats were solemnly watching. Everyone was there and children were dashing into the floodlights and running in circles. Two women in heels with microphones announced the competition in kyrgyz and chinese as if it was the eurovision song contest. Some contestants were in very fancy clothes, white evening dress etc. All rather bizarre with the mountains around and nothing for miles and stars overhead. I’m not sure who won.

The next day I stocked up on quite reasonable chocolate and left. The mountains got really weird. Some barren brown chunks piled like towers, then suddenly bright orange ridges, and whole valleys of weird yellow lumps with holes in.

Noone lives up there. I saw a few shepherds moving flocks of brown and white and black sheep in the river beds. Their wives go bumping along on donkeys in the middle of the flock, with strange saddles that make their legs stick up. Dog trotting at the back.

I was doing about 10kph as the road again and again went gradually up over great chunks of land. Every so often I’d get an open view to my left of the amazing snowy Pamir mountains. I hardly dared look.

I met two very cheery german chaps in the middle of nowhere on the way from Frankfurt to Tibet by bike. Quite odd to have a lovely conversation suddenly, laugh and take photos and so on, and then suddenly to be entirely alone again with just the road and rocks and sand.

I came to Wulukeqiati village, a line of low shacks. There’s no guesthouse so I went into the village govermnent compound and asked for help. They put me up in a room. The government and party cadres live in the compound in bunk rooms. The girl next to me had studied computer science at Urumqi university. There’s no running water. The loo is a squat 50m away. We all had dinner together suoman noodles.

The next day I rode on to the Chinese gate. It was sunny bright and cold. Amazingly there were CAMELS roaming wild across the wide mountain valleys. I suppose camels have to be wild somewhere but I didn’t expect them here. Rather mangy looking. Funny faces eyes so low down. They watch me go past, staring. In the afternoon, I saw the border. Red flag flying. A white border house. Lorries parked. I sat with my back against a milepost and ate tomatoes and naan looking at the gate opposite me across a river.

I stayed at a rubbish little guest house with no water and no loo. I went to see the gate and chatted with a border guard who then invited me for dinner and rushed about later pulling up metal blinds to go into little import export offices where he knew everone, to find a computer to go on the internet. He posted a gushing post in chinese which you might have seen.

Some big alsations were in a yard beind my window ay night and were barking and walking about all night. My arm was hurting again. Don’t know what’s wrong with it.

Anyway, the next day I changed my rmb for massive wads of dirty kyrgyz som notes in some dark grocers shops. There were big burly lorry drivers hanging round the lorries in bobble hats, who must be uzbeks or kyrgyz. There was an awfully strong gale blowing from the west ie headwind.

I went through three checks on the chinese side, and handed in my chinese departure form. I ticked the box ‘going home’. Goodbye China! Felt awfully sad suddenly, after all this long time in Hong Kong, and then long weeks cycling to get here.

At the last checkpoint, a guard lifted up a metal barrier pole and I went under, and he clanged it down again. I headed away towards the Kyrgyz entry gate.

I was really struggling against the blasting wind. There was a nice little cottage with white stones aournd flower beds and a green wood kiosk like in a National Trust carpark. Noone was there. Finally someone appeared in a dark green uniform and let me through to a parking area with loads of lorries and broken glass and bits of scrap metal. There was a hut like a brownie hut. It smelt just like the old mobile classrooms we had at junior school. There was noone inside except me. A man in a wood cubicle stamped my passport. I headed off but a guard turned me back again, to go through customs which I’d missed. That turned out also to be in the brownie hut place. Noone was there and the cubicle had been shut up, so I banged around until someone came. A nice man in green took me into an office and wrote something in a big ledger. It all seemed very haphazard. A guard helped push my bike up the slope out of the carpark and some lorry drivers shouted goodbye. And that was it. I was in Kyrgyzstan.

It was suddenly green, green slopes and little yellow flowers. I had a boiled egg and bagel sitting on a grassy bank squashing some very nice-smelling herbs. There was a village of white cottages with shiny pitched roofs of corrugated metal or something. People were playing volleyball on dust with no net and the ball blowing away. It was terribly windy. Birds were sort of going sideways dragged off by the gale. It was bitingly cold as soon as the sun dosappeared. There were huge dark rainclouds. The mountains now were near and huge and scary. Suddenly it started to rain. And then icy bits in the rain. After a nasty set of hairpins I realised that there were too many difficulties - uphill, against huge headwind, on a rough track - I wasn’t going to make it to Sary Tash the next place 70km away before dark. And I didn’t like the idea of sleeping out in the hail and wind at 3500m. So, I hitched a truck. Two cheery Uzbeks driving a Russian truck with 60 tons of coal picked me up. It was a very good thing I decided to hitch. It rained, hailed, and snowed as we battled along the rough high track to Sary Tash. The massive Pamir mountain range all along the south with black skies above. It was brutally cold. There were a few yurt tents on the enormous expanses of grass, with brown horses and foals. A few people bundled in thick clothes were doing things, a woman walking across the green to her tent, two children playing with a marmot (?) on a string. Otherwise empty amazingly beautiful mountains. We did two breathtaking passes shuddering up at about 10kph. We listened to Uzbek rap and the drivers sang along and bopped away grinning banging the steering wheel. Bits of the truck fell off, the speakers first, then the luggage box lid, then I opened the window and the whole glass fell out, and then the left wing mirror broke and had to be fixed back on with wire. They dropped me off at a lorry park 4km out of Osh. This was actually far from ideal as it was now 2am. I bumped nervously along the dark unlit roads until I reached the dark unlit town. It was not really fun at all. Somehow I found a hotel and avoided a nasty dog. Chinese time it was 4am and I was really tired after everything.

But today I’m fine. It is just astonishing to find everything so different. It’s much more difficult now everything’s in Russian or Kyrgyz and there’s been one powercut, but I have really enjoyed the knives and forks, the bread, the raw cabbage salads, the sunny pavements with birds singing and people sitting out having pancakes and tea. Tomorrow I’m hoping to set off north towards Bishkek.

Another cultural experience on Sue’s journey home.

 

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Today I spotted two other blogs that mention Sue’s journey home:

Hi! Just entered Kyrgyzstan… just to anyone trying to contact me:

(a) neither of my mobiles are able to access networks right now (b) Blackberry has GSM signal only ie I can send SMS from it (but not receive or send email). (c) I can read Reuters and gmail at internet cafes (ie intermittently).

Just thought I’d let you know. I’ll write a post in a bit…

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