Kyrgyz Country side

Lack of internet but so much going on! The best I can do is try to summarize. I will post photos later, but it's more important just to get the words out.

We drove out of Issyk Kul, got lunch in Bishkek (where I discovered the magic that is okroshka. Just try it. Now.) and then headed over to the pastures near Talas.  We had a crisis involving a CRAZY CRAZY driver who wanted to charge us 1000 som more to take us to the exact place we told him we wanted to go.

The passes were over 10,000 feet, which made me happy, and covered in snow despite it being early July.

We found a yurt with nomads happy to take us in, a mother, her daughter and her neice.  The mother was pregnant with twins, yet insisted on doing all the work. We did try our best to take care of her.

Unfortunately, the cold weather and altitude struck Aijaan rather hard, so I was largely left to my own devices.  Our hosts didn't speak a lick of English so I spent this time learning Kyrgyz! Within a few days, I had mastered some basics.

On our second day, there was a horse race festival for the local nomads.  It featured wrestling, racing, and the local form of polo involving a dead, headless goat.  Unfortunately, due to a lack of women, they did not take part in the one sport I wanted to see, Girl Chasing.  During this sport, women get on horse back and men get on horseback. The women get a head start down a racetrack and the men must chase them down and give them a quick peck on the cheek. If the woman avoids being kissed, she earns the prize, If the man succeeds, he earns it. They joked that I should race, and had there been more women, I would have.

I was able to take part in some of the nomadic work. For example, I milked a mare. I also separated the cream from the milk to make Kaimak, one of the most delicious foods in the world, the thick, yoghurt consistency cream that is spread on bread. Yum!

After the horse race, a family gave us a ride into Talas.  Talas was far smaller than expected which created some difficulties, specifically no ATM that would accept a mastercard debit card. We also had trouble finding a hotel.  And unfortunately, all there was to see was the Manas Mausoleum and Museum, both of which were interesting, but not worth the overnight in Talas.

We went back to the pastures where I spent more time meeting the nomadic neighbors, drinking Komuz, eating Kaimak and learning basic Kyrgyz.  It was by far my favorite part of the trip :)

Last Days in Issyk Kul

All of the rich food of the previous days took a bit of a toll on me, so I spent my first morning in Issyk Kul in bed, drinking tea.  The local cure for an upset stomach is vodka, so Aijaan ran out to a shop and brought back more tea and 50 gm of vodka.  I managed to down it, but it burned so hard, it took my two tries and I thought I was going to lose it.  I managed!!!

Once I was feeling a bit better, we made it down to the beach, and what a beach! The water is ocean blue, and cool but not cold. People were swimming, paddle boating and also just relaxing on the beach. The sands of Issyk Kul are famed for their healing properties, especially for asthma and arthritis, so Aijaan and I covered ourselves in sand.  The sand is SO iron rich that when I brought my camera bag, which has a tiny magnet, the magnet was covered with black iron filings.

People are also walking around selling things. A lot of people were selling fresh smoked fish, which was a huge temptation, but with an upset stomach, we decided to wait a day.

In the afternoon, we made our way to Choldon Ata to see the petroglyphs.

The petroglyphs were about 4000 years old and mostly depicted different hunting scenes. Of course we also found some "modern" petroglyphs.  Mostly young punks writing things like "I love you".

The field of petroglyphs was huge. Then our driver told us that there was a place called Rokh Ordo, a spiritual center, nearby. Aijaan got very excited, because she had heard of this place, but thought it was further away. Of course we had to go!  The center was built by the same man who made Supara. He made it as an homage to all religions, philosophies, and thinkers who love peace.  The idea was to show respect to all and show love for all religions, without saying one is right, but instead that all love peace and all religions and philosophies that love peace are a path to peace and love.

An Islamic center and Russian Orthodox center in the background, with the old Kyrgyz gods in the foreground

Rokh Ordo

Young Kyrgyz man with a young golden eagle

Catholic saints

Buddhist Center

Victor Hugo

Jewish center

This place is also largely devoted to Kyrgyz writer Chinghis Aimatov and has a hall devoted to him.  As we were walking over to that hall, we found that we were being followed....

A professional photographer had taken a liking to us!  So those of you who saw my recent facebook profile picture. That's from him.

The next day, we again spent our morning on the beach. We couldn't decide what to do for lunch, so we had a picnic on the beach! We ate Samsa, pieroshki, and bought one of those whole, smoked fish.  Those things are not the easiest to eat! First we had to peel off the skin, then cut out the meat. But wow, it was worth it.  If you ever go to Issyk Kul, you MUST eat a smoked fish.

In the afternoon, we made our way to Karakol to see the Chinese Mosque and the Karakol museum.  Both of these were wonderful, but we agreed that it was not worth the two hour drive in each direction.

Day Two. Bishkek to Issyk Kul, Kyrgyzstan

Jet lag started the morning early. We had breakfast at our hotel, a very russian breakfast of juice, blinchikis (kind of like a crepe), sausage and eggs.  We then made our way to Dordoi, the largest bazaar in central asia.

Dordoi Bazaar

The bazaar was the definition of Kyrgyzstan's diversity. My hostess, fluent in several local languages, was able to point out through language, dress and accent, where people were from: Uzbek, Chechen, Kyrgyz, Russian, Kazakh and so forth.

The bazaar had everything. Our favorite parts were the shops that sold traditional clothing and modern Kyrgyz fashion. Both of which are extremely popular.

Kalpak, one of the traditional styles of men's hat

We found a wonderful hat shop also selling traditional Kyrgyz ladies' scarves, a necessity for some of our site seeing, such as visiting the inside of local mosques.

Aijaan (my hostess), pushed me away from the variety of bazaar snacks. Normally I'd object, but her reasoning was valid: "They don't make it well here. You have to eat this in Issyk Kul."  Except when we hit the Samsa.  Samsa are one of her favorite snacks, and I understand why! It's a triangular puff pastry filled with ground meat and onion. She got chicken, I got beef.  Really good! We also bought some fresh cherries.

After last night's extremely rich dinner (horse meat, anyone?), we opted for a much lighter lunch, then got in the taxi for Issyk Kul. Our driver was an older man, originally from Issyk Kul, who made the ride a blast by pointing out everything on the road, trading jokes and puzzles and talking to us about Kyrgyz culture and history. His wife ended up in the taxi, and a few hours later, his son and daughter in law, so before long this was a family trip to Issyk Kul.  His wife brought sour apples, fresh apricots and home made bread, all of which were delicious.

Road to Issyk Kul

The ride to Issyk Kul took around three and a half hours, but since we left pretty late, we only arrived nearing 8 PM.  Aijaan and I headed off to find dinner and I heard a rustling. I looked down to see something, roughly pica sized, running around. She said "It's a hedgehog". Holy moly, Kyrgyzstan has wild hedgehogs.

In the restaurant, one ran across the restaurant and took a nap behind the counter.  Apparently, he's a regular. I shall take photos of the next one I find.

Not much else to report!  Shall write more tomorrow.

Day 1, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan: The Journey Begins

Technically, this post encompasses two days, but it was around 24 hours.

I flew from JFK to Moscow on Aeroflot, which was much more comfortable than expected. Then again, I did get the exit row all to myself.  I was pleasantly surprised by the movie selection and food. All in all, Aeroflot gets my approval.

Moscow airport, on the other hand, could use some organization.  It was very difficult to figure out where to go to get to international transit (eventually I found a guided tour of about 15 Chinese athletes, all of whom were at least 6 feet tall.  Amalia used CHINESE. It was very effective.)  To make matters worse, after getting through passport and security, the Bishkek flight was listed as being at gate 19. It wasn't at gate 19.  At the time the flight was supposed to board, it was STILL listed as gate 19.  It was gate 32.

But Moscow wasn't a total loss. Meet Cheburashka, the former Soviet claymation star who will be my co-traveller on this journey.

If I squeeze his hand, he speaks in Russian.  I don't understand it, but whatever.

Three hours later, we arrived in Bishkek. The landscape during landing was amazing. The central Asian Steppe must be seen to be believed. It's so broad and smooth, that it looks almost as if a giant blanket has been thrown over the landscape.

And then there are the mountains and the poplars. In terms of nature, this place looks like Lhasa, but altitude wise it's rather low at only 2600 feet.

It's a small city, with less than 1,000,000 people.  The nation only has about a 6 million population total.  My friend, Feruza, picked me up at the airport. She is Kyrgyz, originally from Osh in the south, but she's spent a lot of time in Bishkek. She was concerned about Bishkek as a developing city, but as the capital of a nation that has only been independent for 21 years and had two major uprisings in the past 10, it's doing amazingly! The streets are clean and organized, there doesn't seem to be a lot of crime, it feels safe, there are very few beggars (we saw 4), and everyone we saw appeared well clothed and well fed.

Bishkek is very diverse, even within the Kyrgyz Muslim ethnicity. You would see a woman in a mini skirt and tank top, next to another woman in traditional dress with her headscarf tied behind her head, next to a woman who had adopted the Arabic style of Hijab. There are also many Russians here, most of whom do not speak Kyrgyz.  For young people, there is a debate between whether it is better to know Kyrgyz or Russian.

We wandered around town, mostly so that I could buy a charger for the gopro camera (I knew I forgot something!) and I got to try one of the national drinks, Shoro, a sour, salty grain drink. Not my cup of tea, but very interesting, at least.  What's interesting about Shoro is that, in an effort to popularize local culture, Kyrgyz businessman Tabylydy Egemberdiev started bottling and mass producing it. What this meant was that although the local art of making this drink was being lost in Soviet and post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan, he managed to repopularize it.  I saw at least 7 street-corner stands with women pouring brand-name Shoro from coolers. His efforts at re-popularizing Shoro have been an amazing success.

We made our way over to Supara, a Kyrgyz cultural complex and restaurant, which was also founded by Egemberdiev, with the same goals in mind.  He has managed to make a high class, yet still affordable, restaurant complex, showcasing Kyrgyz traditional arts, architecture, food and culture, in a way that pushes Kyrgyz culture forward in the Kyrgyz mass media.  Again, he is succeeded. While we were there, we saw a deputy of the Kyrgyz parliament with her family, several major Arab investors, some Turkish tourist, and plenty of families and parties of Kyrgyz people looking for a good dinner and a good time.

I also had the good fortune to meet a man dressed as the legendary King Manas.  The epic of King Manas contests with the epic of King Gesar for the longest epic poem in the world. It holds a similar level of importance.  The flag of Kyrgyzstan, for example, represents the opening of a yurt and the symbols of King Manas: the two things that Kyrgyz people feel best represents Kyrgyzstan.  This actor also prided himself in looking like Genghis Khan.

And the food. Oh the food. First we had Boorsok, a puffy fried bread bite. We also had Nan, a baked bread, and both of these were dipped in kaimak, an extremely heavy cream yoghurt.

For our main course, we had Besh Barmak, or "five fingers", a dish consisting of five parts: Horse meat, horse sausage, horse intestine, horse meat broth, all over home made noodles.  Horse meat is a food of the aristocracy and it is so much better than I could have expected.  Definitely worth trying!

Of course, if horse meat intimidates you, they had a mutton version and several tamer, yet still traditional dishes, such as dried yak meat with pickled cabbage, fried mutton with potatoes  a few kinds of soup and some lighter dishes.  We, however, went for the richest of the rich.  Be forwarned, this is extremely rich and even local people when unused to eating this on a daily basis will suffer an upset stomach.  I was fine.

We then made our way back into the city center, which is presided over by an enormous statue of King Manas, labeled "Generous Manas".

By enormous I want to note that I wasn't kneeling to take this picture.  We walked around the central square, saw the parliament building, and I learned more about the recent history of Kyrgyzstan, including the uprisings in 2005 and 2010 against corrupt presidents. The 2010 uprising resulted in the deaths of 200 protestors, when the president's brothers ordered the army to open fire.  Their names are on plaques on the gates of the parliament building, and a large monument honors their sacrifice for Kyrgyz freedom.

By this time, the jetlag was hitting me hard, so we made our way back to the hotel. It turned out that there was a singing competition on TV.  During this competition, local singers from a village came out, men versus women.  They traded songs and jests and puzzles, such as "What is soft and sweet but has no sale value on the market" (Sleep), "What has no legs nor feet, yet can move extremely fast" (Gossip).  It was a blast to watch.

Next up: The bazaar, historical museum and on the way to Issyk Kul!