Land of the Golden Teeth - Kyrgyzstan Part 1

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KYRGYZSTAN - (June / July 2007)

- Friday 29th June to Thursday 5th July -

- (Kashgar to Osh) -
No one seemed to know which days, or how often the bus went from Kashgar to Kyrgyzstan. Everyone was certain that it went on a Monday, which didn't really suit my timetable, but other than Monday everyone had a different opinion, maybe Wednesday, Thursday, or perhaps Monday Wednesday and Friday - who knows!!

So it was off to the long distance bus station to try and find out. However, when I got there -‘Foreign Bus counter closed’. A lady at the Chinese long distance bus counter didn't know anything about the bus to Kyrgyzstan but managed to tell me in broken English that the foreign bus counter would open in 20 minutes. After 30 minutes still no one, 60 minutes - no one, then around 90 minutes later, the 'foreign' bus counter opened. Amazingly, the lady behind the counter could speak English. The bus to Kyrgyzstan left on Monday's, Thursday's and Friday's, so I booked a ticket for Friday.

Even though I had a ticket for Friday, no one at the hotel, both staff and guests, or at the nearby restaurant which operated a 'travel service' would believe me that the bus to Kyrgyzstan left on a FRIDAY!!

There are two ways to get from Kashgar to Kyrgyzstan, (1) over the Torugart pass and onwards to Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, or (2) over the Irkeshtam pass towards Osh, the second city of Kyrgyzstan. Both journey's are supposed to take around 20 - 24 hours even though they are not that far, Kashgar to Osh being only around 250km.

Going straight to Bishkek would have made more sense for me but there is no public transport over the Torugart pass and the Lonely Planet makes it seem like a lot of hassle with long waiting times, corrupt border guards, and basically a big scam getting transport from the Chinese border to the Kyrgyz border which are located quite a distance away from each other.

So after buying my ticket for the sleeper bus, it was to Osh that I was headed. The day before departing, a Japanese guy checked into my room at the hotel in Kashgar and asked me about the bus to Kyrgyzstan. Now that I had found out, I could tell him, and he ended up buying a ticket for the Friday bus as well.

I was told that the bus left Kashgar at 8am Beijing time so we arrived at the bus station around 7am to make sure we got our designated seats. We managed to find what looked like the bus that would be going to Kyrgyzstan, the only sleeper bus in the station, but there was no one around. Over the next hour the area around the bus gradually began to fill up with what looked like passengers, but it wasn't until around two hours later that someone official looking appeared on the scene, after which, all pandemonium broke loose. No keeping to your designated seats, just fight your way onto the bus and get what seat you could. All the luggage storage under the bus was full so all sorts of bags, prams; bikes etc were just flung into the inside of the bus with no thought as to where people were going to sit!

So around 3 hours later than I had been told, the bus left the bus station in Kashgar. As it happened, the Thursday bus had had an accident shortly after leaving Kashgar so all the passengers from the Thursday bus were on this bus as well as all the Friday passengers, although the people from Thursday's bus didn't believe there was normally a Friday bus and wondered where myself and the Japanese guy had appeared from.

Along with myself, two Japanese guys, two Korean girls and a French couple, the bus appeared to be mostly full of Kyrgyz and Uzbek women traders who were taking back to their respective countries all manor of things. Which explained why both the luggage storage under the bus and inside the bus itself were full to busting with bags of goods.

Also, as became quite evident as I spent more time in Kyrgyzstan, all Kyrgyz women have gold teeth! Even the young ones seemed to aspire to have some. Dental hygiene must not be the best in Kyrgyzstan, but why gold teeth? Some of the women looked quite pretty until they opened their mouth at which point they turned into Jaws out of the old Roger Moore James Bond movies!

Fortunately, the bus made speedy progress on a good surfaced road though barren mountain scenery towards the border without having an accident. Around four hours after leaving Kashgar, we arrived at the border. Getting from the Chinese border through the Kyrgyz border was to take a further five hours, during which time the bus had to be unloaded at the Chinese customs point with all bags taken through the ex-ray machine before being reloaded back on the bus again - which given all the bags and goods that were on the bus, was no small matter!

The bus then had to drive the 10km or so from the Chinese border point to the Kyrgyz border point where we all had our passports checked at least five times by different guards over a distance that couldn't have been more than 10 meters. Fortunately, all the travellers tales that I'd heard of corrupt Kyrgyz border guards who demand a 'tip' for checking your passport five times over 10 meters didn't materialise, so apart from the extraordinarily long time it took to cross the border, the crossing was pretty painless.

- (Kyrgyzstan/ Osh) -
The bus set off from the Kyrgyz border at around 6:30pm and travelled through some spectacular mountain scenery which was dotted with small Yurt encampments of semi nomadic herds people. The bus travelled over several mountain passes, the highest of which was the Taldyk pass at a height of 3615m. Unfortunately, the road from the Kyrgyz border was unsurfaced and in a terrible state so progress was very slow going and uncomfortable. At one stage in the middle of the night, the bus appeared to brake down and I can remember waking up with the bus motionless, looking out of the window and seeing a thick covering of snow on the ground. Fortunately, the bus managed to start again as braking down on the top of a mountain pass in the middle of the night with snow on the ground is the last place that you want to brake down!

We reached Osh around 5 O'clock in the morning. The 250km journey had taken us around 22 hours!!

According to the Lonely Planet, the Kyrgyz are one of the oldest recorded ethnic groups in Asia, going back to the 2nd Century BC. Originally from Siberia, they migrated to what is now Kyrgyzstan between the 10th and 15th centuries along with the Mongol armies.

Kyrgyzstan is located in a mountainous area in what was the southern part of the old Soviet Union. Located next to China, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan gained its independence with the break up of the Soviet Union in 1991. 94% of the country is mountainous with an average elevation of 2750m, 40% of which is over 3000m. 3/4 of the 40% is under permanent snow and glaciers.

The Kyrgyz are by tradition a largely nomadic race and the horse apparently still plays a very important part in Kyrgyz culture. Whilst the Soviets tried to settle the Kyrgyz in permanent settlements, you still see many Yurt encampments in the mountains throughout the country.

With regards to the traditional Kyrgyz home, the Yurt, a Yurt is a roundish sort of tent made up of multilayered felt which is stretched around a collapsible wooden frame. The outer felt layer is coated in sheep's fat to waterproof it. At the top of the roof is wheel with two, three ply struts called a ‘tyndyk’ which supports the roof and is depicted on the Kyrgyzstan national flag. From start to finish, it apparently takes around 3 hours to set up or pull down a Yurt.

According to the LP, there is only one backpacker place to stay in Osh, the Osh Guesthouse, which all 7 of us 'non-locals' on the bus were trying to get to. Unfortunately, the bus station was someway out of town and only one of the 7 of us had had the foresight to bring any local currency (I had been told that you could get Kyrgyz currency at the border, which ended up not to be true!)

After walking around the bus station for 10 minutes wondering how we were going to get into the centre, we managed to catch a mini bus that was going into town and the Japanese guy 'with the money' kindly paid for us all. After getting into town, it took another hour for us to find the guesthouse as the guesthouse was located in the middle of a run down old Soviet housing estate and wasn't signed at all. The Guesthouse, which basically turned out to be just someone's flat, turned out to be full, or at least it didn't have room for all 7 of us, so we ended up being taken to Osh Guesthouse 2, which was evidently not open at the time but was being refurbished for future opening. However, the owner was friendly and helpful, so whilst not fully complete, he let us stay at the guesthouse for the night.

Osh, which is located in the south eastern part of the country has a population which is around 40% Uzbek and as a result is a lot more Muslim than the north of the country which is apparently a lot more ‘Russified’. The borders of the former Soviet Union's Central Asian republics were apparently drawn up by Stalin in 1924 and areas portioned off on the map without much thought to the local population on the ground. These republics were never intended to become borders of actual independent states and there are therefore sizable minorities of different Central Asian ethnic groups in all the former Central Asian Soviet states together with sizable Russian communities in the cities.

Osh and the surrounding area felt the full disadvantage of all this gerrymandering of the borders when in 1990 there was a week of pitched gun battles between the Uzbeks and Kyrgyz, during which up to 100 people are said to have died.

Despite being the second largest city/ town in Kyrgyzstan, there's not a lot to do in Osh. Apparently it has a good bazaar although that doesn't really do anything for me as I’ve seen lots of bazaars on my travels. However, there are several quite nice restaurants with outside tables and raised seating platforms where you can eat and drink while sat lazing around on cushions in the sun.

(During my second visit to Osh on my way to Tajikistan, I visited a town called Ozgon which is around 55km out of Osh and which is said to have at one time been an encampment for some of Alexander of Macedonia's (Alexander the Great to us Western Europeans) troops and the site of a number of citadels that date back to the 1st Century BC. All that now remains of historical value in the town is a couple of 12th Century mausoleums and a minaret. However, the town is well worth a visit if you've got a few hours to spare in Osh).

All 7 of us 'non-locals' were heading to Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan the following day either by public bus or by shared taxi. I arranged a shared taxi with the Japanese guy who I'd meet in the hotel in Kashgar, together with the two Korean girls which while being more expensive at around $20US each as opposed to about $12 on the local bus, would only take around 12 hours instead of up to 16 hours which the local bus was supposed to take.

Setting off around 8am, the journey was thankfully on a smooth newly surfaced road all the way. Again the scenery was spectacular especially during the second half of the trip where we travelled through mountain valleys and passes, the highest of which were the Ala-Bel Pass at 3184m and the Tor-Ashuu pass at a height of 3586m. We also passed several turquoise coloured lakes which looked spectacular in the afternoon sun and plenty of Yurt encampments and livestock. At one stage the road became completely blocked for around 20 minutes as a number of Kyrgyz herdsmen/cowboys on horse back moved hundreds of sheep and horses from one side of the valley to the other.



- (Bishkek) -
We arrived in Bishkek in extra quick time at around 7pm after only taking ten and half hours to get there. The taxi dropped us off at Osh bazaar/ bus station on the western limits of Bishkek. It was at this point that I departed company with my travelling companions as the Japanese guy and the two Korean girls headed for a Japanese run guesthouse while I tried to find a recently opened guesthouse which had been recommended to me in Kashgar called ‘Nomads Guesthouse’.

After several journeys using the local mini bus public transport, during which time I got completely lost and could find no one who could speak any English, I luckily bumped into a Russian guy who could speak a bit of English and who fortunately could direct me to my destination.

Nomads Guesthouse proved to be a good choice and well worth the effort to get to. Although a bit out of the centre of the city, it was clean and friendly and fairly cheap. You also get a choice of staying in a standard dorm room or staying in one of the two 'sanitised' Yurt's that have been put up in the Guesthouse's back garden. At 8pm every night, you could also get a good home cooked evening meal served in the family kitchen which saved you having to negotiate the local restaurant menus which were almost exclusively in Russian - The Russian Cyrillic alphabet being as incomprehensible to me as Chinese characters are!

As for Bishkek itself, the city is very Russian (around 40% of the population is apparently Russian) and is located just to the north of the snow topped peaks of the Tian Shan mountains, which at an average height of 4800m are visible from all over the city. Because the country is located reasonably close to Afghanistan and due to the fact that Kyrgyzstan is a fully signed up partner with the US in the 'War on Terror" (more to annoy Russia I think!), Bishkek has a large US military presence. However, apart from at the airport, you don’t see much of the American's presence as they have been confined to barracks after some recent trouble with the locals.

I quite liked Bishkek. There's not too much to do in the city itself, but its quite quiet and is far leafier than I had expected a former Soviet city to be, with lots of parks and open air restaurants.

In the very middle of the city is Ala-Too square (formally Lenin Square), which is a big open square surrounded by golden coloured domed buildings where the Kyrgyz flag is guarded by soldiers who change every hour with a short marching ceremony. A Lenin statue apparently once occupied pride of place in the square but this has now been relocated to a small quiet park behind the State Historical museum.

The State Historical Museum, formally the ‘Lenin Museum’, is quite an interesting museum to spend an hour or so in - as is the Frunze House Museum which has lots of photos of the Bolshevik conquest of Central Asia. Mikhail Vasilievich Frunze, who the museum is named after, was a famous Bolshevik general who was born in Bishkek in 1885 and who seized Kiva and Bukhara in modern day Uzbekistan for the Red Army in 1920. However, despite being a Red army hero, Frunze was to survive several 'mysterious' auto accidents before dying in 1925 during a stomach operation ordered by Stalin!

To the west of the square is the 'White House', the seat of the current Kyrgyzstan government which is out of limits for ordinary people but has a couple of nice fountains in its gardens which you can see from the roadside.

Apart from that, that is about it as far as the sights of Bishkek go.

However, I did have a couple of nights out in Bishkek, one of which was eventful in so far as one of the guys in the hostel got invited out by a couple of Russian people he had meet earlier in the day. We met them in a virtually empty Karaoke bar where the only people singing were two Russian girls from our group and a group of very very drunk Russian teenage lads who at the end of the night for some reason, wanted a fight with us even though we hadn't spoken to them all night. Fortunately however, by this time of the night, the lads could hardly stand up never mind have a fight!

All the songs throughout the night were sang in Russian and I didn't recognise any of the songs except ‘Angels’ by Robbie Williams which was sung by the group of very drunk Russian lads who couldn't stand up, and by the sounds of it, couldn't speak English never mind sing in English!

In true Russian/ Central Asian style, the vodka flowed a bit too much and toasts had to be made. All of which made for a slightly fuzzy ending to the night. I can remember that we ended up in a night club but I can't remember much about getting home other than the fact that I tried to catch a taxi on my own back to the guesthouse in the early hours of the morning. For some reason, the taxi kept on stopping with the driver getting out to talk to his mates. After this had happened a few times, and when the drivers back was turned, I decided to get out of the taxi and walk back to the guesthouse with not much idea of where I was. The next thing I can remember is walking along a canal with the sun starting to come up before I inadvertidly stumbled upon the guesthouse. I've no idea how!

All in all, I think I was quite lucky. Apparently the local police don’t look too kindly on people wandering around drunk, especially foreigners! - After this episode, I've decided to keep off the Vodka from now on!

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Photos

Osh
The Mountain/ Hill is supposed to look like a pregnent woman lying down!!