Meggan Badin

We are in Urumqi since the afternoon. Just another Chinese city without any soul, with no identity. Being on the Silk Road is just something in a distant past with no relation whatsoever with the office towers, shopping malls, highways. We visited the Xinjiang museum which is quite well designed with its highlight the Loulan beauty 3800 years old European mummy found near the Taklimakan museum. Unexplained presence of Europeans in this area.

We jumped from all writings in Russian and Kyrgyz to Chinese and Arabic. Quite a change, especially after 2 months trying hard to read Cyrillic letters.

Friday night in Urumqi! Quite a sight! Large open air square where they all come to eat al fresco. Every thing is being cooked, shell fish, all kinds of fish and seafood, kebabs of all meats and vegetables. Noodles being cut by blades and swirled into the steaming soup. Thin pastry swirled thin to the right thickness and then grilled with all kinds of fillings. Shellfish fried into flaming woks and dipped in several sauces before the final spices are sprinkled over. All in loud cries, smoke and laughter. I am reconciled with Urumqi. It may have lost its identity in its new construction clothes but not its soul. It is amazing how a few km away from the ‘stans how all is so different. Food here is an art, a refinement which takes every simple central Asian dish to unknown and unexplored heights.

We decided to skip breakfast tomorrow and go directly to brunch before Kashgar.

I like the way the Kyrgyz people position themselves in relation with all their neighbours. They feel they are the elder brothers to the Kazakhs, Uzbeks and even the Chinese. Their history goes deeply into the past linking Scythians to Mongols, West and East. When they start speak about Manas, their steppes Iliad, they become passionate and recite poems to the glory of the first khan Manas. It is one of the most national binding tradition.

We had dinner in a traditional place last evening with passionate poems from the Architects President Bektashov. They would have killed a horse for dinner if we were a greater number for dinner. Their hospitality knows no limits.

We have been well treated and received by the local architects and the girl from the Aga Khan Foundation. Hotel was booked and this morning they took us to lunch with a museum visit. Half of the museum is dedicated to communism and Lenin. A past glorified for such a poor result.

We kept the evening free to enable us receive the Skidmore summer adviser call.

Bishkek is a quiet laid back capital in an appropriate scale driving people to be more convivial. The soviets left large green avenues and parks. People go out and sing karaoke outdoors, others play ping pong. Women push their prams and babies late at night. It is a far less conservative city than the other capitals, Dushanbe and Tashkent. However like the others several of the young people have left as soon as they have an opportunity, either to Moscow or elsewhere. Jobs are scarce and there is high unemployment among the young.

Horse riding gives nature a greater chance to be observed and appreciated, like driving in an open roof car. The natural scenes open up slowly and gradually to us as the horse climbs up the hill.
We said goodbye to our guide Almaz Japarovich Apiev round noon and reach the Karakol centre by marshrutka. We are off to Bishkek by car. Despite our negotiation, we have not been able to stop him from putting his music. They love it and love it loud. I hope the 5 hour drive leaves me without a headache. The views on the Karakol lake is a good compensation.
We are expected by the lady Asel Betsova from the Aga Khan Foundation who has been kind enough to reschedule our hotel arrangements 4 or 5 times. I have a series of meetings during my stay until Friday morning with the Minister of Architecture and other officials of Bishkek.
Our Kazakhstan visa has expired and it is too much of a hassle to apply for a new one. We are sick of bureaucracy and have decided to skip the Almaty stop and fly directly to Urumqi.

We decided to stay an extra day in Karakol to enable us complete all the administrative matters concerning Kim’s registration at Skidmore. Karakol is just a typical soviet town. Grid plots and large unused space in between. Nowadays these open space are all unused and abandoned. The town itself looks abandoned. Apparently all the city dwellers move to the green pastures and their yurts in summer leaving the town empty and renewing with their nomadic life.

But every Sunday is the animal market where one can buy horses, sheep, yaks and sometimes camels. Lively and Kyrgyz.

Food is improving as we move closer to China. We had our second dinner at Fakir café written Fakup in Cyrillic letters and tasted our first Moldavian Cabernet sauvignon.

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.