juin 2011

Marshrutka. The first time after Georgia. But this mode of transport here is better with a Mercedes mini-bus and a great driver Islam. He was happy to pose in front of his vehicle before we started off.

Stop at some yurts to drink horse’s milk (not us) and buy some kurut (dried horse cheese). Lunch at Balykchy and now heading to Lake Issyk-Kul which is already visible. It is the second highest lake in the world after Titicaca. All sorts of stories about it. Kyrgyz secret about a “Loch Ness” monster. But it was a secret held for a long time by the Russians until the end of 19^th century when all people poured down here to have their little dacha. Russians tested precision torpedoes in it.

We left Karakul in the early hours – 06H00. We have two new passengers, 2 ladies in their fifties from Holland, José and Mariam. We wake up every day with the same feeling. Today cannot be as beautiful as yesterday and yet it is! The morning sun on the lake and the snow peaks in the background is stunning. On the road Soyoun the driver is quite willing to stop for the photos to be able to smoke a cigarette each time. We would have told him to stop everywhere on the 63 km to the border. Again the camera cannot capture the ensemble, whether we look in the direction of China, Tajikistan or Kyrgyzstan. Beauty here is abstract, cold. It is hard on the people who chose to live here. It does not give, they have to pay their tribute. It is cold, windy and snowy with below 0°C in summer.

We were the first of the day at the Tajik border. It took us only one hour to stamp the 5 passports, go through customs. Kim and I had never received and filled the entry form at the border entry at Oybek. The passport officer wanted to send us back 3000 km back. After a long negotiation and 60 som less (15 $) everything was in order and we were able to proceed to the Kyrgyz border 20 km away! Surprisingly there is a village – Bor-dobo – in-between?! By village I mean a few houses.

The Kyrgyz border was welcoming and sunny. The friendly officers introduced themselves to us. Football conversation and they were very intrigued by our road map, boasting that their peaks are higher than the Tajik ones. But it again took a longer hour.

Suddenly the landscape changes, all is green. The grey snowy peaks are behind us. Green rounded pastures with horses running freely and yurts scattered around. The natural landscape looks like golf links with snowy pits (instead of sand ones). Again beauty beyond description. All seems unchanged and untouched since centuries.

We arrived in Osh around 16H00 and it took us one hour to locate the hotel. Merci Lonely Planet! The same happened in Dushanbe when the hotel had moved. Shower was a blessing even if water was cold.

Osh is the second-largest city of Kyrgyzstan. It had its moment of glory with Alexander the great and Babur, but also sadly famously with the riots of 09 June 2010, almost exactly a year ago with 200 dead and 200 000 people displaced. Apparently these riots occurred mainly for ethnic reasons with a large number of Uzbeks living in this region. Again one of the errors of border drafting.

I should stop talking about records and highest point. We have a new Kyrgyz driver, Soyoun, with a Pajero driving us to Osh. The previous one is driving is Niva back to Khorog. Short trip through the high Akbajtal pass at 4665m down to Lake Karakul. The drive is all along the barbed wires Chinese border for km. It was apparently built by the Russians and is about 20 km inside Tajikistan.

Karakul lake means Big Black Lake is a huge spectacular lake at 3914m altitude. Salty but frozen until May every year. Lifeless. No a single fish or any form of life. No wonder the whole village looks at the mountain instead. This region is in fact populated by Kyrgyz and very few Tajik, but the political arrangements in drawing up the borders; it ended up to be in Tajikistan. It has the same time as Kyrgyzstan ie one hour ahead of the rest of Tajikistan. 

We are only 63 km from the official Kyrgyz border, but life here is already Kyrgyz.

Second pass breaking our yesterday’s personal record, Naizobhi 4314m. Murgab is just a desolate place with the bazaar as the main area of activity. The bazaar is only an open place where all the trucks collect around a square and open the back doors of their containers. People buy directly off the containers. Nothing grows here. So all vegetable and fruit come from Khorog or Kyrgyzstan. This explains how rare they are on the menu.

Menu is a big word. In the homestays we are asked “Dinner?” “Time?” That’s it. Then you wait for the surprise, you eat what you are given. Last evening was some cut cucumbers and a noodle soup with floating spicy red oil over. The 2 girls, the South African and the American girl were staying in the same place and had dinner with us.

We took our Diamox tablet since last night. It is supposed to help the adaptation to high altitudes. And we were right we never felt so out of breath for just a few hundred metres walk, with headaches and a strange feeling of vibrations in the fingers.

We went past Jelandy with its hot springs. A very disappointing horrible building in the middle of nowhere and hot smelly common baths. We left after 5 minutes. Ride through the Koj-Tezek pass at 4 272 m, our personal record . Roads winds down slowly to the driver’s suggestion – BulungkuL. No one on the road except a few Chinese trucks. Then the off the main road two lakes Tuk-Kul and Sasyk-Kul. Salty lakes frozen In winter. The track continues to the an empty space. No one nowhere, Finally just a few houses, some children running around, an old man with a herd of cows, yaks, sheep and goat. The driver seems to be known.

After some discussion, we are taken to the “hotel”. Simple lunch of fried eggs, non and some yogourt. We are shown our quarters, 2 floor mattresses and loads of blankets. We understood why after. Toilets are a hut with nothing around within 100 m radius. Fried lake fish for dinner and sleep at 21H00. The night is freezing cold for us even in summer. This place is known to be the coldest in Tajikistan. One can imagine the winter nights.
This is the place where we had the strongest “edge of the world” feeling. It is like 30 km beyond the edge. In fact we did drive beyond to see this unique lake Jasil-Kul, accident of nature. Immaculate span of water half the size of Geneva lake and nothing around except us.
In the middle of the night arrive two French cyclists from Shanghai. Breakfast with them and we are off.

We started early at 07H30 with 2 army officers in the shared taxi. The whole road winds along the Panchir river which separates Tajikistan and Afghanistan, with land mines on the river banks! It would seem that we took a shortcut through Afghanistan during a few km with no questions asked or checkpoints control since our 2 passengers were our warranty. The Afghani villages are amazingly green and beautiful. From the pictures one will never guess the country origin. Travelers on donkeys or horseback walk along the narrow paths high above the river like they were from a few centuries before

Khorog is just a 30 000 inhabitants village where the Aga Khan has created the University of Central Asia, becoming at the same time a hub for the region. Few backpackers such as a Czech biker going to Afghanistan, 2 girls from South Africa and waiting like us to go to the Pamir mountains.

The girls here are amazingly beautiful with unique eyes and skin colour. They look more European than all the turks or other Central Asian population. But strangely the men really look Iranians, or Pakistanese.

Tomorrow we are off through the Pamirs to Jelandy small village with hot springs. We tend to think that the mountains the next day will be the same as the day before. But it never does. Each landscape is unique.

Dinner at the Pamir Lodge where we are staying. Simple dinner with rice, pasta with sauce and a fried egg. I wonder which cuisine this is. I had my first casserole shower ever. I wonder if this is equivalent to the traditional Japanese bath. If the aim was to impress, I was.

It is always interesting to share travel tips with the other travelers. An English couple, the Czech biker and an Australian cyclist. All great travelers having been to most countries.

From this morning we will enter a zone where communication and electricity will be minimal. We leave this morning for a 8-hour trip to Kalai-I-Chum where we will follow the road along the Tajik/Afghan side. We will do the 2^nd lap to Khorog the next day before going through the Pamir mountains among peaks of 4200 to 5700 m then to Kyrgyzstan.

No pain, no gain. We preferred the long road to the Dushanbe – Khorog one hour flight for which the Russian pilots are paid danger money. Nevertheless it took us 12 hours to reach Kala-I-chum with a lot of fears. But one of the hardest elements on the way was not being cramped among the 8 passengers in the Toyota Land Cruiser but the same Tajik music for 12 hours non-stop. It was harder than the bumps, the holes, the engine repairs. But this was largely compensated by the 360° views we had all the way. We were in the 3D cinema. The scenes and natural landscape are unbelievable, beyond description.

We slept at Bahrom Sangkuka, an inhabitant of K-I-chum in his house with breakfast and hot shower! We used for the first time our silk sheets and extra-slim pillow. No dinner as we arrived at 22H30.

Dushanbe means “monday” in Tajik and was always a great Monday market. The city has ambition and may be resources to meet its ambitions but it is committing the same mistake as elsewhere.

Rulers feel that modernity and development can only be achieved by erasing the past and building monuments and nowadays preferably glass towers Dubai style. The temptation here is strong. I was taken to the Mayor and the Minister of Construction and architecture to plead for the past and the cultural identity of the place. It may help hopefully. Nul n’est prophète en son pays. My words seem to weigh more than my fellow local architects .

The people here offer a wide range of faces and combination unseen in many places. From the darker Iranian, Indian type to the Chinese/Mongol looking to the fair skinned blondes. But most amazing are their eyes which seem to be always light coloured whether grey, green or brown. It is not a surprise to see a very fair skin with Chinese small blue eyes and the head covered.