After the Tian Shan trek we needed some rest. It came in the form of a three-day camping trip on the shores of the Song-Kol lake, which we reached by jeep, the lazy way. The lake, at an altitude of 3000m, is surrounded by green valleys used by the Kyrgyz shepherds as their summer pastures, called “jailoos”. The village dwellers from the lower valleys erect their yurts here in spring and move in for the season, bringing along their livestock. Yurts strewn around the plains, herds of cows and the occasional yak grazing the grass, and horses galloping across the fields all day long: this was the backdrop for our holiday.
Our driver stayed with the shepherds in a yurt, resting and drinking kumys (the fermented mare milk that is the national drink of Kyrgyzstan), while we stayed in our tent. Kumys is an acquired taste, so I bought a bottle from the shepherds and tried to acquire it. It hasn’t been a total success. A much better buy was fish, straight from the lake, which they fried for us to supplement our self-cooked dinner.
One of the yurts doubles as a “store”: along one side of the yurt there are a couple of cases containing some vegetables, beer bottles, cigarettes and the ubiquitous expired Snickers bars. Central Asia seems to be the place where things go after they’ve overstayed their welcome elsewhere: second-hand cars (many in right-hand-drive configurations, straight from Japan), snacks beyond their expiration date, and travellers which have already been everywhere else. Kyrgyzstan, however, is really the pearl of Central Asia. Despite the many travellers here, it still feels like a virgin land, and travel here is pleasant, easy and rewarding. People are genuine, not yet spoiled by tourist dollars, and the nature is awesome. It feels like this country has got everything that it needs to become a prime destination. I’m happy we’ve visited while it’s still relatively pristine.
After three days we started moving southwards in the direction of China. We had our eyes on the Torugart pass, a somewhat difficult border crossing, but the one that made the most geographical sense. The springboard for that pass is a dusty town called Naryn; there’s little to do there except sit and wait for partners for the Torugart pass to appear, since there’s no public transport on the route and taxis must be shared on both sides of the border. By sheer luck as we arrived to the Tourist Information Center, there on the stairs was Nico, a Frenchman who had already been twiddling thumbs in Naryn for three days by that point. The next morning we all set off together for China.
We passed on the way through Tash Rabat, “stone fortress” in Kyrgyz, an important caravanserai in the Silk Road times and a rather forgotten landmark these days. Restored 30 years ago by the Soviets, it’s now cared for by the local shepherds who leave their yurts at the sound of an approaching car’s horn, collect their entrance fee and unlock the gate for the visitors. The place is smaller than it seems, and rather gloomy — it’s quit hard to imagine how at its heyday Tash Rabat used to be a high-class hotel.
A few hours and one punched tire later we were at the pass. There we said out goodbyes to Kyrgyzstan, switched to a Chinese car, and said hello to Xinjiang, the largest and westernmost of China’s administrative divisions. The part into which we were crossing is ethnically Central Asian, populated by the Uighur, a Muslim nation. The signs are dual-language, in Uighur (which uses the Arabic script) and Chinese; gone are the days when we could read or converse — from now on it’s language-less, hardcore travel.
We arrived in Kashgar and immediately launched ourselves into the adventure that is Chinese cuisine: in the first local restaurant we saw, with a Chinese-only menu and waiters who speak neigh a word in English, we ordered at random and got rewarded with an endless supply of spicy, delicious food. China is a wonderful place to travel in, if you can overcome the uneasiness of being completely helpless and maybe even learn to enjoy it. We’ve got a month of that ahead of us and I’m looking forward to a fruitful time.
August 9, 2011