Bishkek - Osh - Sary Mogol - Erkestam - Kashgar

Well, here I am - sitting in the hotel internet cafe, browsing through the pictures I made with my digital camera. It's been a while since I reported extensively here. But now, as I am alone and my friends on their way back to Bishkek, I will try to sum up the last week. It has been by far the most amazing one during my stay here in Central Asia. Let me begin with our transfer to Osh, which almost ended in a nightmare for me.

As I have already mentioned before, the Kyrgyz international airport Manas is packed with American transport jets. When we were asked to board our plane - a rusty Russian Yak 40, a stark gust came up, cutting my boarding pass off the ticket. Seeing this important sheet of paper fly away, the stewardess made an unmistakable sign that I shall run. Right towards the American base. What followed was an interesting scene. Everytime I seemed to have caught the pass, wind came up again and blew the paper farther away. After some 250 meters, I finally got hold of it, jumping on it, not letting it fly away again. This whole show caused a good deal of laughter among my friends and the other passengers, luckily, the Americans, whose zone I entered, weren't too amazed at all. The flight was unexpectedly smooth, despite the wind. The old plane, probably 35 years old, took some time to take off and incline, though I was impressed on how safe everything appeared. We Europeans are security fanatics, that's what I know now.

Having arrived in Osh, Hadji, a friend of a collegue from Bishkek, picked us up by car. His actual name is different, but everybody calls him so because he went on the Hadj some years ago. He is Uzbek, like more than sixty percent of Osh's population. During national delimitation, which I have also covered in this blog, the Uzbeks reacted with a chorus of outrage to the allocation of the city towards the newly formed Kara-Kyrgyz oblast. In 1991 the city was the scene of a tragic - but happily unrepeated - outburst of violence between the Kyrgyz and Uzbeks. More than 300 people died, evoking fear of further ethnic clashes in the heterogenous Ferghana-valley. Until now, this scenario did not prove true. Problems lie elsewhere. The economic situation the Uzbek side is much worse than in Osh, that's why the Uzbeks remain happily on the Kyrgyz side, where also the political scene is a bit more liberal than in authoritarian Uzbekistan.

We stayed overnight in Kenesh's apartment, from where we approached the fabled Osh-market the next day. Here, all ethnic groups of Central Asia come together and bargain over nearly everything that can be traded. Cheap Chinese products, all sorts of agricultural goods, cattle - all can be found here. The athmosphere was relaxed, as we came on a Tuesday. On Sunday, I was told, the scenery gets more crowded, with people from outside Osh coming to the city.

We equipped ourselves with plenty of food: bread, dried fruits, salami, and god knows what else. If I hadn't known we were planning to cross a 4000 meters pass, I would have guessed we'd go for the Everest. The taxi ride lasted about 5 hours and took us across two passes, where we got a first impression of the altitudes in this region. I couldn't concentrate too well and talked nonsense, to the amusement of my friends. When we entered the plains again, it was not too far to Sary-Mogol, our final destination. Based on some 2500m, nothing else than potatoes grows here; no trees, no bushes, nothing. In the background, 40 kilometers away, the Pamirs rose, with Pik Lenin (7,134m) shooting out.

Our host family warmly greeted us and with Kenesh's assistance, we could exchange some first basic information. The father, about 65 years old, was a veterinarian when he still worked. Having retired now, he reminded me a bit of my own grandfather, reading every single bit of the newspaper and generally being more interested in politics. Me and my three friends were staying in the winter house, a solid brick-building, built to resist outside temperatures of about minus 40 degrees in January or February. The diner was amazing, all sorts of milk products, lepyoshka-bread, tea (caj) plus a strong soup with traces of meat gave an impression of how unexpectedly rich a table can be decorated, even though many of these things had to be bought on the markets, brought to this remote spot from fertile Osh.

The next day, we started our tour. Heavy rain delayed our departure, but finally, around eight, the two Lada Nivas arrived to pick us up. They took us away from the Pamirs, to another mountain range, the Alaj. There, me and my three friends, Kenesh and two locals started to hike up the valley. Base-altitude was at about 2,500m; hence we had to climb up around 1,500m to the pass - quite a long way for us unexperienced hikers. We soon all became quite disillusioned: The locals found it easy to cross the torrent by jumping from stone to stone. All of us Berliners didn't manage it too easily, but fortunately, nothing else than wet shoes had to be bemoaned. Sebastian however got problems with his circulation, so he couldn't keep pace with the others, remaining at the end of the trek.

Soon we met the others with the horses and donkeys, so we could finally pack our stuff on the animals. The donkey that was carrying my stuff though seemed to have problems with the river, too. On one spot, he fell down sideways, dipping my backpack deep into the ice-cold water. 400 meters down from the pass, we had lunch in a hurry, as a storm was brewing. Finally, we reached the crossover between the two valleys - snow lay to our left and right. The altitude had taken its toll. Sebastian wasn't able to continue and luckily the horses couldn't either due to the terrain on the other side. The guides were afraid that they might stumble and fall down to the side. A horse is one of the most precious properties in rural areas, and hence they wouldn't risk it. So, Sebastian and Laura could turn back on the horsebacks. They arrived safely in the village at night.

We, the others, went on downhill. We reached the Jai-Loo (a herdsmen station) at 6 p.m. and started to erect our tents. The shoes were dried on the oven inside the yurt - and after a brief diner, we all fell asleep really quickly, knowing that the next day might require more strength again. We were right. The next day was insane. Although Elke and I (the others had left to Osh so they didn't have to go back again) rode up the pass on one donkey and one horse, the weather soon became the worst I have seen so far. First it was raining, right into our faces, without mercy. Ascending further up, the rain turned into snow, not less uncomfortable. Some hundred meters below pass-level, we ended up being in a proper thunderstorm. Lightnings stroke some meters away, scaring the sh** out of us. At this point, and seeing the scared faces of one of our guides, I would have liked to be somewhere else, away from this climatic nightmare. However, our most experienced guide, a cattle-trader, remained calm. Taking into account that he has walked to the Pamirs three times already (500 km), where he bought some dozen yaks, there could not have been any more reinsuring sign that we didn't have to be afraid. He has seen worse, he told us. And it was true. Short before reaching the pass, the sky cleared up and gave sight of the adjacent mountains, beautifully snow-capped. We had reached the top. On the other side of the pass, we could spot one lonely horse on the next plain: Our horse.

The rest of the day was ok, though the ride downhill on the horse was quite long and tiring. At 6 p.m. we had reached the plains again, to start our social trekking. Our guides had many relatives on our way back to the village. So, we stopped almost everywhere to have some caj, bread and other food. My digital camera proved to be an attraction, the women put on their best clothes for this photo-shooting. I will send back more than 30 pictures once I am back in Bishkek.

The next day led us to the Pik Lenin range, which we approached first with a Lada Niva, and then by horse again. The most spectacular thing were the river crossings on the horsebacks. I could not believe that horses could physically cross such a roaring torrent - but as seen in numerous Westerns, they can. The slippery stones though caused my horse to collapse sideways, resulting in wet shoes. Like a miracle, that was the only thing going wrong.

It was time to say goodbye to our hosts after this spectacular day. In a Lada Niva, we headed east to reach the border crossing Kyrgzystan-China the same day. We expected a town at the frontier, but we were disappointed, not to say shocked: The border post consisted of a huge parking lot for waiting Russian Kamas-trucks, transporting scrap-metal to China. The awaking giant cannot hold pace with iron-demand and needs to buy scrap from adjacent countries - to melt and further process it. So, the place bursted with a dubious athmosphere. Aggressive truck drivers, a shady 'hotel', a sketchy restaurant - rather not guaranteeing a safe and relaxing stay. In the middle of the night, we were woken up by an unpleasant knocking on our door - passport control. Luckily, the soldiers were not demanding us to bribe them - however, they insisted we should drink vodka with them.

We crossed the border the next day - and this time had to pay bribes, namely $50 due to some 'irregularities' with two of our passports. Anyway, we had arrived in China's wild west, Xinjiang. The largest province, with only around 20 million inhabitants, is inhabited by the local Central Asian people, the Uyghurs, and now, many many Han chinese. I'll cover this issue in a seperate article.
A taxi took us to Kashgar, the fabled Silk Road oasis. Here, we met up with Hasan, our local guide. With him, we had two amazing days in this strange city. He showed us the old Uyghur city centre and all the other sights of this place, and he took us to the Taklamakan desert, some 4 hours drive away. That's it, now you're informed. Tomorrow I'll visit the Sunday Market to interview some cattle-traders on their lives, dreams and - of course - their cattle.

This is - as you see - Mao Tse Tung. It is said to be one of the largest statues of him in China.