Episode 13

We finally left Almaty one Saturday morning. We had Lorrain with us, she is one of the motorbike people, however, her motorbike died in Irkutsk in Russia and she had managed to get hold of a second-hand one in Bishkek, so she came with us to that city.

I liked Lorraine, I could get used to her, like Violet she is very easy on the eye; though I did lose my good possy because of all her gear. I mean to say the car was jam packed; I had motorbike tyres behind me, big leather boots and a helmut, a great bag that was so heavy it took 2 blokes to put it in the car, and goodness knows what else all around me, I was overwhelmed: this stuffed toy is just not used to such things:

Now I'm supposed to tell you about Bishkek but in all truth I didn’t get to see much of the place, I spent 2 days in the car in a 'stoyanka’(a guarded car park) while my humans stayed with a couchsurfing host and Lorraine went off to stay with her couchsurfing host. I did get to see her new bike as it was in the stoyanka with me. What I’m about to tell you about Bishkek is only what my humans have instructed me to say.

It is a dry, ,dusty and hot place, well I can vouch for that after all I was on meltdown in the car. There are some mountains that sort of loom through the thick dust haze and while the city swelters in 40C+ temperatures glaciers can be seen in the high mountains and it’s not all that far to all year round ski fields.

There are some wide leafy streets and a couple of cool fountains with a few modern buildings here and there. Several parks in and near the city centre, plenty of monuments to this or that, but not really a great deal to see.

My humans enjoyed their stay with Dev, their couchsurfing host, (is couchsurfing anything like sunflower surfing, I’ve done that). Dev is actually from India, a retired airforce pilot, who used to fly what was nicknamed the ‘flying coffin’ a transport plane that the Indians bought from the Americans after the Korean War for 1cent each. He was a very entertaining host apparently. They also met Zaphira ,his neighbour, who is a good friend and speaks some English, she has a sister married to an Aussie in Perth.

As we drove through the city centre when we were leaving David heard someone call his name and it was Robin, of Robin and Keely fame, the two bike people for whom we had been carrying spare parts since Dover. Robin had seen the GB plates on the car and thought it was possibly us whom he’d not meet. Actually, again, I was not introduced, bloody hell, my humans are beginning to treat me like a stuffed toy, I will have to do something to remind them of my importance.

After handing over the parts and enjoying a cool drink with these people we headed out of the city and up towards the mountains. Now don’t get any ideas of lush forest and tinkling streams. There didn’t seem to be any forest, even beside the rushing, white water mountain stream there was only small thorny bushes. We never did see the ski resort though we did see a couple of signs to it. Instead we came to a health resort. That’s what it is called though, according to my humans calling it a resort is stretching a point. It was several buildings, some could have been hotels, in varying stages of decay. Many contained thermal pools we believe because there were lots of people wandering about with towels about their person. It was late in the day of the last day of a holiday weekend so things were winding down, we didn’t venture inside to check out any of the facilities. L tells me that a dip in a thermal pool would be nice for her, but not do me a great deal of good. I wonder why!

We camped beside the rushing mountain torrent along with the stragglers from the long weekend. In the morning when everyone else had gone we found a watermelon that had been left in the river to cool off and forgotten. I could do with a bit of that too.

Now we headed east to Issyk Kol a very large lake in the east of the country. As we drove through one village D saw a man cutting his pasture for hay with a hand scythe while at the bus stop 50m away stood a 10 year old talking on his mobile phone, work that out.

Issyk Kol is the second largest alpine lake in the world after Lake Titicaca in South America. Many rivers flow into it but none flow out. It also never freezes due to mild salinity and some thermal activity. It appears bright blue as we drive along some distance from the shore. To each side are high barren mountains many with white tops, they reach up towards the 5000m mark. Part of the Tian Shan mountain range.

We stopped and looked at some petroglyphs in the town of Colpon Ata. They took some finding, only 3 k’s but about 10 lots of directions later we found them behind a big iron fence in a boulder strewn field. Some date from 500BC but probably the ones we could identify mostly dated from 100BC and more recent. In this harsh climate of 40C+ temps in summer and -30C in winter it’s a wonder they have survived this long. The wild long horned sheep or goat is the most common symbol. The carved figures are of Turkic origin and far more recent.

Gee, I’m an educated stuffed toy don’t you think?

As we passed along from one village to the next we often saw people selling apricots beside the road. We stopped once to try and buy some but they wouldn’t sell anything less than the bucket fullfull, small bucket, but still far too many for my humans, I’m unlikely to help eat them, so we didn’t get any. They did look good. The fruit trees in orchards and gardens were all heavily laden with ripening fruit, peaches, plums, apricots and apples. Made my humans mouths water!

There were some small beaches where people had out beach umbrellas and were swimming and soaking up the sun but there weren’t any trees large enough to provide shade so we didn’t stop. We might have been at 1800m but it was still dam hot.

At the eastern end of the lake we came to Karakol. A pleasant enough town with a small Orthodox cathedral that my humans visited: I didn’t get taken in, apparently my religious education doesn’t need furthering at this point. Some distance away is a Chinese mosque that looks more like a Buddhist pagoda than a mosque; extremely oriental in design and presentation.

After a visit to the bazaar L decided that although some improvement has been made in hygiene standards the small butcher shops were still not up to the western standards of the 1950’s. There was refrigeration and plastic bags, and the butcher didn’t touch the meat, but no one apparently had bothered to explain that surfaces must be cleaned occasionally, and refrigeration works best if it’s switched on. In the shop in Karakol it was, in another village we stopped in it seems to be there just for appearances apparently. I guess it will be eggs, soy, or some sort of frankfurter type thing from the supermarket again.

In one of the mountain valleys outside of Karakol we drove up to a sanatorium. These places were very popular in soviet times but don’t get near so much business now. This one was in a very run down state. My human enquired about enjoying a soak in a thermal bath. That is quite literally what it would have been. When they asked to see where they would be soaking it turned out to be in a small shed divided into two rooms, one for ladies, one for gents, nothing for stuffed toys, garden gnomes, or inflatable toys on holiday. In each room were 4 average sized bath tubs and hot and cold taps. Cleaning here too, did not appear to take priority so L and D fearing they might end up with more complaints after a visit than what they came with gave the whole idea a miss.

In another valley we saw a mountain they call ‘broken heart’, it is a pointy hill split in two with deep red eroded cliffs on two sides. Along the stream at the bottom are tall, deep green pine trees, the contrast in colour is really pretty. Just beyond the ‘broken heart’ are the ‘seven bulls’ and there is some legend about them having a fight and causing a heart to break or some such thing. Anyway with even more erosion over the centuries, the sever bulls look more like nine now. There is another sanatorium here that has seen better days.

We drove up a little canyon called ‘fairy tale’ canyon, it was rather nice, had a few interestingly eroded pinnacles and we visited a nice red gravel beach where I got my picture taken. Water was pleasantly warm according to L. Also went to see ‘salty lake’ apparently a ‘dead sea’ like experience. After wending our way along 11k’s of narrow rough dirt track we came to a large yurt camp where we had to pay about AU$6 to see and use the lake. We drove down to it, it is only quite small, about the size of 10 olympic size swimming pools. When we parked in the car park L opened the door, then shut it again quickly. The smell of the toilet was overpowering, and there was a 10 som (about 20 cents) charge for the privilege of using it. I wasn’t allowed out of the car in case I absorbed the smell, they reckon they didn’t need that in the car. The water may have curative properties but L and D weren’t about to try it as they feared that most people would probably use it as a toilet. The smell of the toilet overpowered any cooking smells from the restaurant too. We didn’t linger long.

As we headed towards Naryn and the Chinese border we took a side trip into see Song Kol a very pretty lake, without toilet smells, in the bowl of some high majestic mountains. The lake is at 3000m and the pass we had to go over to get there is 3500m. Above us, and not all that far, are small patches of snow while higher up are some glaciers.

Around the lake on the now drying summer pasture were many scattered yurts and herds of sheep, goats, horses, cattle and a few grazing donkeys. At the top of the pas was a small herd of yaks, big horns and very shaggy, woolly coats. The area is completely treeless. We didn’t get right to the water’s edge as it was grassy and very boggy, but I did get my photo taken admiring the scenery. This was a very peaceful, pleasant spot without any unpleasant smells.

© Lynette Regan August 25th 2012