Two Stops Past Siberia
- Projects
- Handicrafts
- Books
- A History of Inner Asia, Svat Soucek
- Beyond the Sky and the Earth, Jamie Zeppa
- Chasing the Sea, Tom Bissell
- Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present, Christopher I. Beckwith
- Erica Marat, The Tulip Revolution: One Year After
- High Adventure in Tibet, David V. Plymire
- Setting the East Ablaze, Peter Hopkirk
- Shadow of the Silk Road, Colin Thubron
- The Day Lasts More than a Hundred Years, Chingiz Aitmatov
- The Great Arab Conquests, Hugh Kennedy
- The Lost Heart of Asia, Colin Thubron
- This is Not Civilization, Robert Rosenberg
- Three Cups of Tea, Greg Mortenson & David Oliver Relin
- Informations
Posts Tagged travel
More Composting, More Kyrgyzstan, and (almost!) a Whole Bunch More Trees
Well, Farmer Dan and I have been as busy this week as one could imagine.
From the cold and snowy mountains of Naryn, we headed into the dramatically warmer Chui valley. This is the land of Bishkek, where there is more money, and much more will grow. Dan was surprised to see how prolific the small plastic tunnels are that cover many of the vegetable fields in Chui. Like mini green houses, these cheaply extend the local growing season. Back in Naryn, we only even heard mention of locals using them once.
We went down to Chui on the request of a volunteer named Kristian, as well as Kojo, his organization. They run farmer schools, and were eager to hear the words of wisdom that an organic farmer from America might bring. Here, in this land of relative wealth, instead of crowds of drunks around cars, or intimate sessions inside people’s homes, we conducted our training in a proper classroom.
The room had pictures on the walls of livestock, highlighting relevant parts, like birthing canals. We came in to a group of nearly 30 students, ages 18 to 60, from two different schools, some even ethnic Russians. In this setting, rather than use index cards with plant pictures to play the crop rotation game, we had everyone draw out sample rotations, draw them on the white board so Farmer Dan could comment on them, with his excellent farmer experience. While he may have caught people off guard with his yellow beanie and colorful backpack, once he started getting into detail, the students hung on his every word.
Our lodging there in Chui was different too. Rather than holing up with a host-family, we stayed with Kristian and his wife, in their plush Bishkek apartment. Their problems included showers that were sometimes too hot, and wireless internet that occassionally went out. It was like being in America, but with the most hospitable hosts around. Dan and I decided that the best way to repay them, besides with our excellent company, was with a house plant:Farmer Dan, making the world greener, every step of the way.
Since then, we have traveled up to Talas, where people seem to need a little more pushing. We had a meeting this morning with Corey’s organization, the local farmers union. Perhaps, we imagine, they figured we were too good to be true, and didn’t have venues for us prepared. So we went in to their office, and after a long, jovial conversation regarding bean processing and Kyrgyz-American farmer pen pals, we got to talking compost. Now, I am happy to report, we have two sessions, drawing on four schools, starting tomorrow.
And also, folks, last but not least, I am proud to say that with 36 donors, Trees for the Kyrgyz 2011 is nearly 90% funded. Folks, that means we have only 50 more trees to funded before the project has its official green light. At $17.50, or 5 trees a person, we need just ten more generous donors. Get yourselves to clicking on the box on the top right corner of this site before it’s too late!
Salt Mine Hotel, Stale Uranium, and a Visit to Father Ram
Well, for those of you who remember my humble past as a nameless backpacker, today we’ve a letter that rivals any I’ve written before!
Last weekend I tagged along with a group of volunteers who packed up to a local village to teaching local English teachers how better to teach. My goals, however, were not nearly so altruistic: the village in question was on the cusp of the one region in Naryn oblast that I have yet to visit, and with so little time remaining, I headed out for the great beyond.
My trip started in a drafty Lada with a dangling toy rabbit instead of a rear-view mirror. I entertained myself by trying to blow smoke rings with the steam of my breath. I was heading into the Jumgal valley. This place, a picture-perfect valley in the summer, with low green hills and snow-capped mountains presented a browner, drying side in the winter. I was headed to the city of Chaek, as far by road as Naryn is from Bishkek, but only on account of its formidable mountains. It is less than half th distance as the crow flies. The region’s little villages looked like old-West ranches, big and broad and very, very brown.
The region’s capital Chaek, was unlike any I’d yet seen in country. It was built on the side of a hill, and had a small river running idyllically through it. At the top of the hill were two enormous school, and the center of town was built like the old West: there was no bazaar, but only a long row of shops. The sidewalks were mostly paved and always clean. The little restaurant I found served me lean sheep dumpling and sweet tea with milk and salt.The girls in the kitchen couldn’t stop their giggling, and when they said, “he speaks Kyrgyz like water,” it was clear this place sees few of my kind.
Jumgal region is notable for its current coal mine, and and aging uranium mine somewhere beyond the hills. That means that in Soviet times this would have been a very prosperous place, and while I was keen to stay clear of the radiation, (“when you go there, you get a headache,” my host father said knowingly), I did want to see how the town itself had evolved. This, I imagine, explained why there was not bazaar, and perhaps, why the town was so clean. Furthermore, I was treated to an exception local museum (featuring the pants and hand print of a local giant at 7 1/2 feet tall), as well as an incredibly well run library. When I walked in there, there was a flurry of commotion, and one woman ran back inside saying, “there is a foreigner here! Who speaks Russian?” A woman came out asking what was the matter, but when it became clear I only wanted to visit, she perked up and relaxed, “I’ve studied to be a librarian during Soviet times,” she said, “I’ve been be working here for 32 years!”
Beyond the incredible services, folks, I found a wide park with a giant, carnival swing set, and a horse who nibbled on my back pack.
But I couldn’t stay in Chaek forever, regardless of how much I might have liked to. While spending a night at the volunteer’s house who was hosting the training, I spoke with his host Dad, a knowledgeable old road builder who advised me to take caution of the Chinese. “If they say there are 1.3 billion of them, I bet there are more Chinese that their government has lost track of than there are in all over Kyrgyzstan!” But then he got more worried yet, “they will send their people here, not with guns or with knives. They will not attack us or kill us. They will just come and we will be friendly. Then they will join our villages and work our fields. It will not happen in one year or in ten, but many years from now, they will have repopulated our whole country, watch out.”
But even that conversation had to come to an end. The next day, it was off to an abandoned salt mine, simply called “Big Salt.” This place had seen declining use ever since the fall of the Soviet Union, and in 1999 tried to reinvent itself as a hotel. Despite there being no electricity, we got the caretaker to show us around, seeing the strange amenities, like the movie screen and bar (called Salt Bar) only with the flashlights on our phones and the flashes on our cameras.
From this surreal extravaganza, we headed out to a local shrine, one I had only heard about from an obscure travelogue. The locals called it “The Mecca of Kyrgyzstan,” and had named it Father Ram, after the name of the local town. It was a small hill, rising curiously out of a plane with nothing else around it. We found a little man there who told us to wash ourselves, in Muslim fashion, before he’d lead us on a circumambulation. The ten minute trip around feature many small paths cleared between the stone, most ending in bulbous cul-de-sacs with rock piles in the center. It was ancient Animism meets Islam at its finest.
And as much as I could keep touring the country forever, every great weekend must come to an end. The training was a success, and so were nerves, happy to be on the road, if only as a weekend warrior
Pilgramage
If You’re Offended, Go to Talas
For the second time in as many weeks, ol’ Kyrgy Carl has left the mountain paradise of Sunny Naryn for the warmer, more urban bastions of Kyrgyzstan. However, unlike last week’s frantic mission for sewing machines, this journey was a slower, friendlier, more artistic adventure.
The whole event started in the far back seat of an overcrowded passenger van. I had been taken in by a wide eyed and well dressed, ten-year-old village boy who said, so sweetly, “come, ride with us.” With me well in his pocket (and by his mother’s urging) he proceeded to sit on my lap for the duration of the journey.
As every trip in country must roll through Bishkek, this was, by necessity, my first stop. Before even arriving, however, I got a very excited preliminary phone call:
“Carl, we’re gonna have dinner tonight with a writer. He did Peace Corps Uzbekistan, even wrote a book about it. He’s kind of a big deal.”
The man turned out to be Tom Bissell, and was delightful company. He was working on a book where he visits every site said to hold the remains of an Apostle, and was in town researching one alleged grave of Saint Matthew, said to be buried in an old monastery on the shores of Lake Issyk Kul. “In the book,” he said, “basically I will go to the site, talk to some people, and then go into the history.” If the quality of his company is any testament to the quality of this new book, I say, keep an eye out for it.
From Bishkek, then, it was on to Talas, home of the expression, “if you’re offended, then go to Talas,” as well as my friend Corey. My travel companions were David (who some of you may remember as the owner of the SUV and 80’s music from last summer) as well as his caring and wildly intelligent girlfriend.
Talas itself is kind of like Naryn, but different. It is poor and isolated and very Kyrgyz, much like Naryn, but less so in every way: the area has a strong bean market, leading to affluence, it has a direct road to Kazakhstan, making it less isolated, and still has some Russians. The Talas city bazaar is twice the size of Naryn’s, and carries a wider selection of items, like sewing machines, home-made jam, and pork. All this with roughly the same number of residents.
And then, there are beans. Talas is unarguably the bean capital of Kyrgyzstan, and the locals don’t even eat them. “They are regarded as poor person food,” Corey told us, “almost all of them are sold abroad.” Not all, of course, mind you. At least 40lbs have been sold domestically: specifically, of course, to yours truly.
After some overall fun, a short run in with some local hoodlums, and just enough work with Corey’s NGO to make it a business trip, quick as we came, we were gone again. It was two days of much needed catching up. I haven’t seen Corey since this summer’s visit to China, and it seemed much too long.
And then, on our way home, one moment stood out like no other. As we crossed one of the high passes to return to Bishkek, deep in a mist of fog, horses emerged from the mountain side: two cowboys were moving a heard.
“Whoa,” was my line, and “get the camera,” was David’s.
And so there we stopped, 11,000 feet in the sky, the three of us, friends, each artists in our way, to simply absorb the moment. It was, indeed, what life is all about.
The Road Home (To Sunny Naryn)
Beijing to Urumqi, Urumqi to Bishkek, Bishkek to Naryn city. How’s that for an exotic itinerary?
Beijing, it turned out, was a city both very similar, and very different to the one I left in the spring of 2008. Where in many ways, it hadn’t changed at all: big buildings, impressive sights, lots of cars, great subway; I found myself not recognizing much of anything. Beijing, while technically the same city, was all but foreign to this former resident.
But I still have friends there. My old business professor, an eager entrepreneur when I left him, was sporting two locations, 40 employees, a new wife and a very fancy car. I have two classmates who stayed, and they described watching the city change before their very eyes (and sometimes with surprisingly little warning.)
In the end, all the traveling, all the language practice, all the conversations, they pinnacled to one single two hour meal: I went back to my old host family. It was the quiet, safe environment that my language had flourished in its fullest, and being there again, it came right back. I walked right back in to our 16th floor apartment, there across from the Bird’s Nest stadium. Their first words were simple: “you got thin!” We looked at pictures, we caught up. We had dinner and a beer, and talked politics, just like the old days, (though now, I had to explain desperately what on Earth I was doing in ‘Ji-ar-ji-si-tan’) And they were delightfully unaware of the changes I just couldn’t get over. “Nothing has changed in Beijing,” they said, speaking more of their own needs than anything else.
“Yes, we have a subway station nearby now, very convenient.” But still, they just wanted to talk politics, and comment on the heat. I gave them a picture, and they gave me hugs. The food was wonderful. And then, just like that, we were off, China long behind us.
Where I had previously been overwhelmed by the mess they were making of the human rights of billions, this time, it was through the developer’s eye that I looked at the place. There are banks, folks, banks just everywhere. There are public toilets; free ones. I said to my friend there, “boy, in China, things get done. They say a year, they mean a year.” “Sometimes,” he replied, “they mean less.” But it was also polluted. With all the massive and beautiful buildings in downtown Beijing, I could seldom see more than have a dozen in any one direction on account of the smog. “They know it’s a problem,” my friend had said, “they say they will relocate all of the plastic factories here to an island within two years.” In America, you couldn’t even suggest such a thing; in China, it will happen.
And with that, we took the cheap, fast and clean subway to the airport, spent an overnight in Urumqi, and found ourselves back home in Kyrgyzstan, a place I was more than happy to see again. My friend, Matt had left us, one day earlier, in a manner fitting for two urban boys: in a subway station. Of my glorious summer break, only Corey, my fellow volunteer and I remained. At the airport in Bishkek, we pushed off the taxi drivers, and took a marshrutka into town. Home again, at last.
An Apology and an Adventure
First off, I feel I owe all of you an apology. I have tried, all these years, to provide the most wild and enticing letters the traveling community has to offer. However, my last one, I believe, was thin on the ground. Here, I’d like to offer an explaination, if not an excuse.
The “ear-ache” I mentioned in my last email turned out to be none other than a viral infection in the depths of my right inner ear. It was only after the fluid drained from my Eustachian tube did the pain subside. It was arguably one of the most painful experiences of my life, and on I was overcoming when I last wrote.
These things are a risk of traveling, and only my second time really getting sick, since that awful bought of esophogitis I overcame in Vietname, those many long years ago.
But boy oh boy, folks, have things picked up since then! After recovering from the ache (from which I still have some ringing) (and writing that too boring letter) my friends and I cavorted about Xi’an and all it’s wild splendor.
Xi’an is the city everyone expects to find when planning a trip to China. It’s ancient city walls are still in full force, big and broad enough to host hords of tourists as they ride around them on bicycles. Inside the walls, the buildings still have their upturned eaves, and even the tourists night markets sport very un-pretty touches, like external air conditioners; proving they are still lived in by real, breathing people. Outside the city walls, the buildings are giant, and it seems as though the walls are defending the inner city from the montrosities without.
After a mean set of suction cups (traditional medicine meant to suck out poisons) the three of us amigos got on a 12 hour train for Beijing. Here in this heavy touring season, train tickets are hard to come by, and we settled for seats, even though the train was over night. This was fine, until we found that (first) all the unseated passengers linger in the seating car, and (second) a landslide and a fire redicrected our train, and balooned the trip up to a solid 28 hours plus.
However, we did arrive in Beijing, our spirits in tact, and only missed a day.
Now, we’ve a few more days here. My friends are all cavorting about the sites, while I meet friends from a time long past. But more on that, when we meet again.
Western China, and on to the Mainland
I wrote to you last from Urumqi ( I think) the capital of the once and former Uighurstan. Today it is a modern Chinese city, appearing almost identical to every other Chinese city I’ve seen since. The marvel, of course, is how the Chinese are able to build at the speed that they do, and with such uniformity, in such far flung places. Urumqi sports clean streets and beautiful parks. It also features a 75% ethnically Chinese poplation, effectively drowning out the natives.
The Uighur language is very close to Kyrgyz, and during a mission to track down my laptop (unfortunately now lost forever), I got to speak to many Uighur people. They comiserated my loss, helped me try to track it down, and took the opportunity, for whatever reason, to share their discontent. Perhaps it was the novelty of a white man speaking something like their language, but the stories were unending. China, folks, is a big a complicated place.
(Language side note: The Uighur people I spoke with sprinkled their language liberally with Chinese, just as the Kyrgyz do with Russian. Just one more parallel with the old Soviet Empire…)
But we haven’t just been on a tour of big cities, not at all. My crew and I spent some serious quality time in the city of DunHunag, the plastic-y Disney Land tourist town nearby the spectacular MoGao caves. Once we got over the overwhelming mass of tourists pumped through the caves (an attraction in its own right), we were able to see some of the most extensive Buddhist cave art in the world. The colors were magnificent, and the restoration an abomination. It would have all been for naught had we not also gone to the dramatically less touristed 1,000 Ming West caves, a singificantly smaller find, but absent the tourist hord. In this place, we experienced a quiet ambiance that might have been closer to how the place could have been during its heyday. This plus a riotous night market and a desert oasis (chock full of Chinese tourists all identically clad in knee-highm, bright orange, sand protecting booties) rounded out our desert time in sheer magnificence.
Since then, folks, we dropped by the delightful Lanzhou, for a taste of a pleasant working class city (with more commerce than, perhaps, all of Kyrgyzstan combined) and are now resting peacefully in the city of Xi’an, in China proper. It is this place that houses the unparalled Terracotta Warriors. While my friends check it out themselves (these are old stomping grounds for me) I’m resting from our long train rides, getting over an ear-ache, and waiting to see what my old home, Beijing, has waiting for me, after all these years.
KyrgyCarl on the Road Again (In the Old Haunts)
First of all, I must thank all of you for the outpouring of support I received from my last letter. You were all so kind, and so gracious, it hurt that I could not reply to you all individually. Unfortunately, due to the nature of the violence, Peace Corps put all of its volunteers on radio silence. I can tell you all that I am safe and sound, and so are the other volunteers; furthermore, as for now, the future of Peace Corps Kyrgyzstan looks bright. I wish I could say more.
But time is moving forward, and I am moving with it, and that is where I will write from today. Specifically, from Kashgar city, China.
That’s right, your very own, Kyrgy Carl has returned to the Middle Kingdom, his once and former stomping grounds. This time, however, with my Chinese hiding deep in the recesses of my mind, my Kyrgyz is coming out in full force. See, the people of Kashgar are ethnically Uighur, and there language is in the same family as Kyrgyz. Imagine a Frenchman and a Spaniard trying to carry on a conversation. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
See, my father and my brother and my best friend, Matt came out to Kyrgyzstan, timed just right for the parliamentary referendum at the end of June. We toured the country. I showed them the world that I have grown to know, and I relearned the novelties. The fermented horse milk was once again sour; the boiled sheep bland; the hospitality overwhelming: at one point, my brother said, “Carl, I think I might be feeling hungry right now, but I’m not sure I can remember the feeling.”
We spent our Fourth of July in the At Bashy Mal Bazaar, the place I’ve now spent so much time. We drank beer and ate fried fish with grilled beef. My Dad didn’t like the fat. I was the kind of magic that is too easy to forget. Plus, to have such luxury as to share my new life with my best friends in the world is a gift finer than any other.
Their trip, a small two weeks, went by with reckless ease. Since then, Matt has stuck around, and we’ve teamed up with another volunteer, and cross the Torugart Pass, one of the highest commercial borders in the world, and are now resting with cold beers on a rooftop cafe in Kashgar, the capital of the Uighur world. At the border itself, high and cold in the middle of nowhere, we ran into a crew of Kyrgyz nobles, both from Kyrgyzstan and China. Upon learning of our language skills, they invited us to they’re parting party. We drank and ate with these people, enjoying hospitality like only the Kyrgyz can show.
Since then, it has been China, once again, in full force. The city is big, the buildings tall, and the streets broad and well paved. The Uighurs are surprisingly lax about hearing us speak a varient of their language, but tickled all the same. From here, we head to the magical Mogao caves, some of the most impressive repositories of Bhudist statues in the world.
It’s travel like I know it, folks, and never fear, you’ll be with me every step of the way.
Cold Friends
So I’m heading out to another Peace Corps Acronym this week, hailed by volunteers as the most valuable of these things, we’re gearing up to be taught Project Design and Management at PDM. This conference will be once again held at the Hot Lake of Dreams, the perpetually unfrozen Lake Issyk Kul. That means travel, and travel on the Peace Corps penny means an excuse to see the country, and visit friends.
This has been my first time out of Sunny Naryn since the winter began, and in the rest of the country, its, different. The main road out of Naryn goes over the Dolan Pass into a region centered around the city of Kochkor (or, Ram). Kochkor is a windy place, and this combined with the surrounding mountains means Kochkor, very much unlike Naryn, was almost barren of snow.
The next stop on the route away from home is Balykchy (Fisherman). Balykchy is a dried up, formerly industrial Soviet city on the south west corner of the Lake. Once prosperous, like an American Rust Belt city, Balykchy has fallen on hard times. Its factories are largely closed, yet it still acts as a transportation hub. Maligned by travelers frequently mistreated by taxi drivers who know their customers have no choice but to come through, and no reason to stay, it exhibits a characteristic particularly reminiscent of home. Balykchy, not cold as Naryn, is nonetheless as windy as Chicago. Biting cold, but nostalgic nonetheless.
My next destination was at the fabled home of my old teacher, Tamerlane, the Hero King. The snow had recently fallen here. Upon arrival, there was no need to call my friend because, as a teacher in town, there isn’t a soul who doesn’t seem to know him, or know where he lives.
I found him hiding in his kitchen, cooking with his wife, watching the two six year olds cavort around like elephants, and his 2 year old take short, choppy steps. Over the next couple of days, we hid inside from the cold, eating, watching nature movies, and talking with his family. Dinner our first night was Kyrgyz dumplings, called monty, made of mutton, fat, onions and potatoes, with a side of pickled garlic and tomatoes. His mother, bedridden, always with something interesting and specific to tell me, was feeling passionate about how Hitler and WWII were terrible, and it was good that we live in peaceful times. Sometimes we’d do chores together, like chopping wood, or stoking his furnace.
And it was one ironic image that I thought would stick with me. My teacher, starting a coal fire, with the torn pages of a book entitled simply “Leninism.” But instead, it was the freshly fallen snow on the road out of town. Thick and unplowed, cars, vans and trucks competing with cows, sheep, and horse drawn wagons for space on the road.
From there, it was off to the Karakol volunteers, and their world of consumer goods, Russian influence, and skiing. Volunteers here do much of what we do in Naryn, though their material life a bit more advanced.
There seems to be nothing happier than visiting good people on cold nights. I wish you all, my friends, this same success.
Originally written Januay 11th, 2010
Clustr Map
Kyrgy Carl, Making Waves!
