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!

...I squeaked...

Lack of internet has been making life difficult.

Let's see...So many wonderful things the past few days.  How to summarize them all?

The day before yesterday was the first day of the Kagyu Monlam Chenmo. Since I had a private audience with HH Karmapa the next day, after teachings I went over to get my documents photocopied.  In the photocopy shop, I ran into my friend Yiga and her parents, who are from Kham and currently living in Europe. We chatted for a bit and I asked how long they were staying.  Palden, the father, responded that they would be leaving on the 28th or 29th.

"Definitely stay until the 29th!" I said.

"Why?" they asked.

"29th morning there will be a Lingdro!" I told them. "You definitely don't want to miss it.  Even if you have a lot of work in Delhi, a Lingdro shouldn't be missed."

Palden smiled, "Oh, that's no big deal. I was a Lingdro dancer back in Tibet!"

I couldn't believe it! He saw how excited I was and started talking about Gesar, breaking into song, listing his favorite characters and so on.  I'll be interviewing him soon!

Well, I was already on cloud nine as I made my way over to the main stupa, something I do each evening.  After making my rounds and meditating a bit, I started to head over to dinner. I saw, in the line of people coming in, the silhouette of a person with a midsized bird on his shoulder. The bird was flapping as if to keep balance, but not to take off. I assumed it was a parrot of some sort, kind of strange,but not the weirdest thing I've seen. I got closer.

It was an owl. A monk with an owl on his shoulder.

I  stared in total awe and asked the monk why he had an owl on his shoulder.   He explained that the owl had been caught and he was going to release it. Meanwhile, the bird was apparently enjoying a free ride.  The monk gently picked up the bird, held him out, and let me pet him and scratch him under the chin.

I PET AN OWL.  Owls are soft.

I was bouncing. BOUNCING, the rest of the day.

Yesterday, I went to my audience with HH Karmapa.  This audience was personal and not directly related to my research (although I am hoping to speak to him in regards to that as well.)  After discussing a few different things, I openly asked "Do you have any practice advice for me?"

"Can you read Tibetan?" He asked me.

"I can." I replied, then hastily added "I can't UNDERSTAND it all though."

He had already started walking away to get something "Don't worry. I don't understand it all either sometimes!  Here!"  He turned back and autographed a book and handed it to me "History of the Gesar Dances."

With pictures.

I squeaked.  I couldn't help it. HH looked at me oddly. 

"Sorry!  Excited!!!"  I bounced a little bit too.

HH is helping me with my homework. YAYYYYYYYY. (And cracking joked about Tibetan ability so as to not make me feel like an idiot. Also yay.)

Denma's Great Grandson

Bodh Gaya is located in the state of Bihar, the poorest state in India. Bihar's facilities reflect this in all aspects.  As a result, my internet works rarely, if at all.

Right now, I seem to have functional internet, but we'll see if it lasts.

I've continued conducting interviews and hearing lots of fascinating stories, but to know all the details you'll have to read my paper.  However, today I got a special opportunity.

While I was doing interviews at Sarah College, a friend informed me that one of our mutual friends is from the lineage of Denma, one of Gesar's main generals.  Not only that but "Drakpa" was in Bodh Gaya!  It took a few days to finally get in touch with him, because as a market seller, he was running a lot of errands.  We sat down and talked for quite a while, what gesar meant to him, to his family. What it meant to be the great, great, great, great, great grandson of Denma.  Even the question of did he believe in the Gesar story.  It was a long and complex interview. I'm very glad I recorded it, because I will have to listen to it several times to truly understand it.

Whether or not he believes the entire grand epic of Gesar, he does strongly identify with the lineage of Denma. Even his chat screen name is DenTruk Drakpa meaning "Drakpa, son of Denma"

Kagyu Monlam is starting tomorrow, so things should start to get a bit more interesting.  Meanwhile, I'll talk about a few other Bodh Gaya experiences.

First of all, you KNOW you've been here too long when the guys hawking dust masks know you by the bastardized Tibetan form of your name (amala.)

And I got a marriage proposal today. I was waiting outside the stupa (blocked off because the Thai and Lao prime ministers were visiting) when a middle aged Khampa man came up to me and said "Oh! You are 'Choedak Tsering's' friend?  I am his dad!"  I was happy because I hadn't spoken to Choedak since I left Dharamsala.  I asked where he was and we got to talking.  The father was happy enough to give me his son's phone number. Later, I ran into him again on the road, which was good as I'd made a mistake copying down the number.  He gave it to me again and asked "Where is your husband?"

"I don't have a husband" I responded, "I'm unmarried."

"Oh good! You can be our namma (bride/daughter in law)"

I choked. Nope. He was not joking. He then went on about how his son liked me and had told them ALLLLL about me, but was too shy to tell me and...and...and...and.

At this point, the mother came in to join the conversation.

I managed to extract myself from the situation, but I get the feeling they're still hopeful.

The rest of my day consisted of conducting interviews while avoiding that section of the market.

Tomorrow starts the Kagyu Monlam Chenmo!!!

On to Bodh Gaya

Yesterday, at 12:10 AM, I got in a car with a friend from IBD and we started making our way down to Delhi.  It was definitely an interesting ride, as we got stopped at 7 police checkpoints, where our passports and visas were checked.  I'm hearing that it has something to do with local elections, but I don't really know.

From Delhi, I boarded a plane to Gaya.  Being that we're in India, we got on the plane and then waited an hour and a half before take off.  I had the good fortune to be seated next to an extraordinarily racist, judgmental asshole who would not shut up.  I eventually told him that I needed to sleep (true), because every other attempt to get him to stop talking to me about how ever other race had horrible habits seemed to fail.  Charming.

Once in Gaya, I was picked up and brought to my hotel in Bodh Gaya.  It's a brand new hotel and I was very happily surprised to find that this place, under budget, was outfitted with the most comfortable beds I've ever slept on in India (outside of The Grand in Delhi) and a bathtub. An honest to god bathtub.  I took a LOOONG shower and then my friend Tashi picked me up and we went out for Bhutanese food.  America needs Bhutanese food.

This morning I made up for the all night car ride by sleeping until noon.  I then went to Tergar monastery, where most of the Kagyu Monlam festivities will be held.  After lunch I made my way over to the main stupa to make offerings on behalf of some friends.  While walking along, a gaggle of teenage girls were commenting in Tibetan on my dress, so I thanked them in Tibetan, which broke the ice. It turned out they were from Suja School, here to attend HH Karmapa's teachings.  They were also all from different regions of Kham.  After a bit of social chatting, I asked if I could interview them.  At 17-18 years old, they've been my youngest interviewees.  It was really interesting to see their point of view.  My favorite question and answer:

Me:  To the best of your knowledge, where was King Gesar born?
All: Dege! He was born in Dege!
Me: Why do you say that?
All:  Because Kunga sings that song, "Phayul Dege" and in the song it says "Dege is my fatherland and it is the birthplace of Joru, King Gesar!"

Yep.  That was the main reason.  Well done, Kunga.  You should be proud.

After I went back to Tergar, I also interviewed a lama in his late thirties.  This interview was amazing and went on quite a while.  He was from Yushu and in his hometown, he says there were many people who would go to the mountains and fall asleep and wake up able to recite the Epic.  These people are illiterate and didn't even know what they were reciting until they asked a more literate person, who would pull out the Gesar books. Others, he said, would meditate in a manner similar to the oracles, then fall into a trance and start reciting and acting out the epic. They would be completely oblivious to the world around them, not even hearing questions adressed to them.  They would swing their arms, like fighting with swords, and be completely lost in the epic.

People are taking turns borrowing my books and singing the drung.  It's so much fun to hear people's stories. But by far my favorite part of all this is how excited the interviewees get.  No one seems to really care about Gesar in exile, so for many of them, it's their only chance to tell these stories and talk about it.  Their excitement is contagious and I've been smiling like a madwoman all day.