northlandboy...and his girl

The physical entity known as Lindsay Hill is now a legal entity once more! Yesterday morning I collected my replacement passport from the British Consul here in Bishkek. I only held it in my hands for half an hour, as I then had to go and hand it in to the Kyrgyz Consular Service, to get a replacement Kyrgyz visa. That takes 1 week, or 3 days if you pay double ($72). They got me to write a letter explaining why I wanted a new visa – reasonably obvious with my blank passport, and police report, but form must be followed.

All going well, I will be able to pick that up on Friday morning, and race out to the Kazakh embassy, and try and hand my application in. It’s a bit of a mess there, and it took me over an hour yesterday just to get through the queue to get an application form. They couldn’t understand why I didn’t have my passport. Luckily some English/Russian speakers helped a bit, but the guard was still an idiot, and couldn’t really work it out. But now at least I can pay the money to the bank in the next few days, and get the form filled in, so that when I go there, it will just be a matter of fighting through the queue, and getting my application handed in.

I then need to try and get a Chinese visa too – no idea how long that will take. I think it will probably take me up to two weeks to get things sorted out, and then I can get back on the road, heading to Kazakhstan. At least one bright spot is that it seems that the Kazakhs will give me a full tourist visa here, unlike the short transit visa I got in Tashkent. Of course, nothing certain there until I actually have the sticker in my passport.

I spent 9 days riding from Bishkek up to Issyk-Kul, and doing a loop around the lake, before coming back to Bishkek. All very pleasant, except for the main road, at least as far as the Torugart turnoff – it’s very busy, especially on a Sunday, and the road quality is variable, sometimes quite narrow. You get pushed off the road into the gravel a few times. Kyrgyz drivers don’t really understand the power and danger of speeding vehicles. At least another two decades to get any sort of cultural education of good driving I think.

The southern side of the lake was nicer, with the road frequently near the water. Camped near the water a couple of times. One day I was riding along, seeking some shelter from a very nasty squall that was coming up, when a Land Rover came by, with a Swiss couple and baby on board. I ended up camping with them on the beach, and they cooked me a lovely dinner, and we sheltered inside the car from the cold wind. Food, warmth, good company, what else could I want. And then the wind dropped right around bedtime – perfect.

The early morning swim the next day was rather refreshing, but I guess not as cold as a lake at 1600m could be. A touch salty too – that combined with the small waves, and sandy beach, made it feel like I was by the sea – quite nice when you’re thousands of kilometres from the ocean.

I stayed in a homestay in Karakol run by an old Russian woman, in an old Soviet apartment block. Very nice indeed, made to feel very welcome. The second day, when I was eating my fantastic breakfast, she even put together a special package of pancakes for my lunch that day. More than made up for the fact that Karakol is a pretty dull sort of a place. Most roads in the town were just dirt tracks, and there was little in the city that stood out.

But the people could be good – I was having dinner by myself, and got dragged over to a group of Kyrgyz Telecom network engineers, who were having a leaving do for their boss. A couple more rounds of vodka than I would have liked, and I was trying to work out how to escape, but luckily they declared that 21:00 was late for them, and it was time to go to bed. I was happy about that, as it could have started getting messy. But nice guys, with a few speaking a bit of English, and they gave me translations of the toasts, which are taken fairly seriously here.

So more time to kill in Bishkek, but it’s OK – I’m quite happy here, the place I’m staying at is nice, and I can eat all the simit I like from the Turkish supermarket.

After the trials and tribulations of the last week, I thought I would post a few random musings/observations on Kyrgyzstan for today’s discourse.

Language: Someone asked me the other day what language you use here. My answer was “Whatever I feel like”. That’s a bit flippant, but there is some truth to it. Many people here speak Russian, Kyrgyz, and in service industries, English. I know a little Russian, and a little Turkish, which happens to be related to Kyrgyz. So sometimes I use some Russian, sometimes some Kyrgyz, and sometimes English. If all else fails sign language usually works well. Most shops have calculators for telling you the price of things, that helps a fair bit. English is growing here, but it’s still from low numbers. Russian is the true lingua franca, and I wish I had spent more time trying to learn it.

Women: I have to say, this one really surprised me. Central Asian women are hot. I really didn’t expect that. It’s not just the Russian-descent women either. There are many good looking Uzbek, Tajik and Kyrgyz women around. The main difference is that the Russian women tend to wear almost nothing at all. Especially practical in the heat here, and I for one welcome it. The Uzbek women tend to dress more conservatively, but very nicely, with great traditional dresses, with a touch of style to them. The only bit I can’t work out is that the late teens/early twenties Russian girls will be walking about in a boob tube, hot pants smaller than my underpants, and heels – but they might be out with their mother, who will look like a traditional Russian babushka. Long print dress, headscarf, the works. It’s a bit odd, seeing the juxtaposition – traditional Russian values next to something presumably American-inspired . Furthermore, I haven’t decided if it’s related to economics, the lack of McDonalds, genetics, or just general lifestyle, but most young women here are slim. Not so much of the Muffin top in evidence here.

Russian couples dressing up for an evening out: This is a bit of a funny one. Around early evening, as I wander around the town, I see various couples obviously on their way out to some dinner/party/club/movie/whatever. The women obviously put in some time and effort, finding a nice, suitably short dress to wear, with heels, and makeup – beyond the usual amounts anyway. They are not looking overly different to young women in say England – although probably slimmer and better looking (see above). So what does Russian man do? Well, he finds a clean pair of jeans, the tighter the better, pulls them up as high as they can go – it’s important that your shoes and socks are fully showing – and then puts on a T-shirt, tucked in. I figure that if I lived here, and wore decent clothes when out on the town, I would either have women falling all over me, or I would get beaten up by the Russian Mafia, for moving in on their girls. Probably both.

Kyrgyz man, and underpants: It would seem that Kyrgyz man does not wear simple cotton boxer shorts. I spent ages wandering around Dordoi market yesterday, looking for simple cotton boxers. Dordoi is actually a pretty good market, but what tends to happen in these large markets is that everyone sells the same crap. I could find tight-fitting boxers, fat man boxers (honestly, I am not making this up), synthetic material boxers, but no plain cotton ones. Later I did find some cotton ones, but they came in sizes 1, 2 or 3 – what on earth do those sizes mean over here in the real world? And they were all sealed up in indestructible plastic, so I couldn’t get them out. At $5 a pair, they were too expensive also. I shall keep searching.

Drunkenness in public: You do see a fair bit of this in Central Asia. Many Russians have left, but vodka has very much stayed, and is very cheap. I walked past a pub at 8:55 this morning, and there were already people having a beer. Seeing very drunk people is not uncommon. Yesterday there was a man lying on the ground near my guesthouse, on his back, with his pants around his ankles. Thankfully he was still wearing his underpants. Riding around, you get many offers of vodka – people don’t always quite understand why you might refuse, just because you want to cover another 50km in 35 degree heat.

And now I am off to the rugby – for all those who may follow in my footsteps to Bishkek, and wish to watch international rugby, or any other international sport, try the Metro, on Chui, a couple of blocks west of Beta Stores. It’s the main ex-pat hangout. I had some trouble searching online for a place to watch the rugby in Bishkek – one of the top 10 results was an earlier post on my website. Sigh. But the Metro showed the game last week. Beer was a little expensive at ~$2/70som per pint, but that’s not as much of a ripoff as some other ex-pat bars (The Great Game in Tashkent, I’m looking at you here).

Tomorrow I will finally get back on the bike, and head to Issyk-Kul, to do a big lap of the lake. I will come back here in maybe 10-14 days, hopefully to get my passport, etc. Probably have at least another week here sorting out visas. Previously I’d never had a rest day in my tent – but here I’ve just had over a week in my tent. Nice place I’m at though, Nomad’s Home – highly recommended if you’re passing through here.

I’ve been thinking about the positive aspects of what’s happened, and here’s some of the things I’ve come up with:

• The loss of all the photos means that there won’t be a slide-show at the end. Dad was worried he was going to have to sit through a long, boring slideshow.
• Dropping weight – all cyclists are always trying to reduce the weight they are carrying, and I’ve dropped 2-3kg at a stroke!
• New version of the Ortlieb barbag is now out – the mesh pocket on the front of the old one wasn’t quite right, and I see that has now been changed
• I’m sure there’s a few others I can come up with too…

Things are starting to get sorted out now though. Passport application has been sent away to London, will be interesting to see if it comes through OK. Not having a proper witness is a problem. The British Honorary Consulate here signed it, and put his official stamp on it – hopefully it works out OK, and it doesn’t get delayed.

Have also done shopping for an MP3 player and a camera. Unfortunately electronics here are quite a lot more expensive than China, and I’ll be in China soon…but I have to get a camera for the next few weeks in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. The camera I got was more than twice as expensive as what Amazon has listed. Maybe towards the end of my time in China I’ll upgrade to the latest Canon model that I want. Had to settle for a Nikon Coolpix L11 here, the only other options were Sony, and I don’t want MemoryStick stuff – I want something that uses SD flash, as it can mix and match with my MP3 player. Plus a later camera will probably also use it, and I can re-use the cards.

I think I’ve almost done with my shopping now, so will probably stay in Bishkek one more day, then head off on a loop around Issyk-Kul for a couple of weeks. Hopefully I won’t get lost – maps are easy enough to get, but no-one sells compasses! Or so I thought…then I was wandering around the souvenir shops, and I am now the proud owner of an ex-Soviet Army compass with wrist strap. Combination souvenir and functional item. No chance of getting a GPS here. I also bought a Russian harmonica, for those quiet nights around the campsite. Sounds a bit funny, but that could just be me.

So things are working out, and I’ll be OK. Will order a new barbag from the UK, hopefully that will be here by the time I get back to Bishkek. Must take better care of it in future though.

Thanks for the messages of support – it is much appreciated.

“Umm, Heather, where’s my bag?”

Look around under the chair, behind the computer, around the Internet cafe, where is it? I can’t see my barbag, and as I look around more, and still don’t see it, things seem to slow down, in that car-crash way. What if I left it at the restaurant? Run out the door, back down the road to the restaurant, but they’re closed. Back to the Internet cafe, no it’s not here

Well, what was in it? My passport, a few hundred dollars, my GPS, my camera with ALL my photos since London, my travel journal from Turkmenistan to here, a credit and a debit card and my MP3 player. So only the most important stuff to me, that’s why it was in the barbag, rather than at the hotel. Bugger

There was a small chance I had left it at the restaurant, but checking back the next day, they hadn’t seen it. They were nice people there, with an honest feel to them, and I believe that they would have given it back if I had left it there.

That left only the Internet cafe – someone must have taken it from under my chair. It’s easy enough to get engrossed in what you’re doing, or possibly it was when I was talking to Heather. The following day, when trying to get some assistance from them to put up a sign offering a reward for return of the documents/memory cards, they were appallingly rude, and I suspect them of being in collusion with whoever took it – it was possibly dragged back into a back room, based on where I was sitting.

The nearest NZ embassy is in Moscow. There is not even a British embassy or consulate in Kyrgyzstan. What to do? On my way back to the restaurant, I saw a couple of other touring cyclists, so stopped to talk to them (bike touring works like that). After a bit of a chat, it turned out the cafe we were at was run by the honoray British consul. So I had a chat to him, and he’s a nice guy, and offered good advice. I’ve spoken to Barbara at the NZ embassy in Moscow, and she’s told me to apply for a new passport through London. Apparently that will take around two weeks. But no-one within 5,000km has known me for more than five years! No worries, the consul will help out with the referee stuff. He can also help out with providing an address for receiving goods.

And things could be worse – I’ve got money in a few locations, and I still have an HSBC debit card – so it’s not like I’m starving on the street. I have money, access to more money, and most of my stuff, especially the bike! I could get emergency travel documents, but they would only really let me go straight home, and where’s the fun in that? I probably wouldn’t be able to get the necessary visas without a full passport.

So the plan is to apply for a new passport tomorrow, do a bit more shopping getting replacement items, like a camera, compass, etc., then I’ll head off to the Issyk-Kul area for a couple of weeks. I’ll then come back via here, hopefully pick up my new passport and credit card, plus a new barbag. Or that’s the plan anyway.

One problem will be visas – I had Kyrgyz, Kazakh and Chinese visas in that passport, and I’ll need to get them again. Could be a bit of a pain, but it’s really just a matter of time and money – and I have both. Could all be worse, at least I wasn’t physically harmed.

All a bit of a shame, as the ride up from Osh to Bishkek was one of the best rides of my life – especially the last few days, riding up over 3,000m passes, across the jailoo, yurts and horses everywhere, just fantastic. And then a drop of 2,500m in one afternoon on good roads – it was about as good as it can get. But shit happens, and life goes on, and I just need to deal with that. Things will be alright, and I’m calm about it.