Bryn's Adventures in the Stans (and now also including the Sandy Parts!)

Vodka for Breakfast

2009-06-15T03:10:00.000-07:00

Hi again friends! I write in a semi-melancholy state; the travels are coming to an end. I fly home from Istanbul to Vancouver on the 17th of June, and I am realizing that what has more or less been 3/4 of a year of traveling with a short break at home for Christmas has been one of the most educational, inspiring, eye-opening and straight-up fun times of my life. I'll spare any excessive whinging for now though, and try to update whats happened since I last wrote from Tbilisi and wrap up a few loose ends of thoughts that I have been trying to hold onto for the past few weeks.

Dylan returned to Turkey from Tbilisi after our a VIP club visit, while Dan the Aussie and myself went north along the 'Russian Military Highway' to Kazbegi, a mountain village only 14 km south of the closed Russian border in the mighty Caucusus Mountains. And mighty they are indeed; the peaks reach up above 5000 m, and most are spectacularly jagged with lush green valleys separating them. Georgia continually proved itself to have absolutely breathtaking natural beauty in every corner that we explored. I have hiked in many mountain ranges around the world, and it always amazes me how even though mountains are mountains, there are always such drastic differences from range to range. As the Kyrgyz mountains differ from the Tajik mountains differ from the Rocky Mountains; once again, the Caucusus mountains were unlike any natural landscape I have ever seen. The country is a mountaineer's paradise. On our first day in town Dan and I walked towards Russia. The 'Highway' is barely passable for vehicles... rock slides cover the dirt track and have only marginally been cleared to allow enough space for a car to squeeze past without falling down the side cliff to the river below. On both sides jagged mountain ranges reach up beyond the clouds --- across the western range is South Ossetia, the most unstable area in the region, short of Chechnya which is only a few hundred km further northeast, but there is no way anything is cross those mountains. As I observed in my last e-mail, there is really very little sign that this country is teetering in a militarily precarious state. Not a single checkpoint or military vehicle along the "Russian Military Highway", and even though it got dark before we could get to the border (which is off limits anyways) we didn't encounter a single soldier or militia man or anything of the sort. Turkey parades its tanks around openly on the Armenian flanks as soon as you exit Georgia where the three countries meet, but Georgia's military presence is unexpectedly elusive.

The following day we hike up into the mountains to a beautiful old church perched above the village, and find ourselves in a morning snowstorm --- making for a beautiful and atmospheric hike. I knew there was a reason I carried long johns and rain gear through the desert of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria!

From Kazbegi we returned to Tbilisi where we made plans to meet again with Data, our Georgian friend from Gori so that he could show us some of the less trodden areas of Western Georgia, where his extended family lives. I also met a very interesting individual who has been traveling perpetually for the last 8 years, sustaining himself first by teaching English in Asia and now as a guidebook writer for the series Rough Guides. He was taking a holiday is Georgia from his current assignment of updating Turkey's guide, but he has worked on many other books in many other countries (including North Korea) and had some very interesting tales to tell. An inspiring chap.

After another day or two in Tbilisi we returned to Gori to meet Data, from where we hitched our way to Kutaisi, Georgia's second largest city (though only a fraction of the size of Tbilisi, and with the much more run-down feel of a town that ceased a lot of its upkeep with the collapse of the Soviet Union). In Kutaisi we were met by Data's cousin Gio (short for Giorgio, which every other Georgian child seems to be named --- Georgia's Mohammad, I guess), his younger brother Tsotni, and a dude who everyone called 'Chicago'. The excited young lads whipped us around the town and its outskirts to show us the sights ---- a gorgeous nature reserve with a big cave with massive stalactites and stalagmites, some rock outcroppings with dinosaur footprints preserved in what was an ancient mudflow, some very old holy monasteries and churches perched on cliffs above rivers and mountains overlooking the city, a place where the rocks are stained red with what is supposedly blood from an ancient storm that rained blood after the death of two legendary Georgian martyrs, and the massive gravestone of the great King David the Builder, who evidently built a lot during his day.

Upon returning to Gio's home after their tour around Kutaisi, we found that Data's parents had come from Gori, along with another uncle and a grandmother, and that a large family feast has been prepared. I mentioned a bit about what an affair Georgian dining is in my last e-mail... the table was literally overflowing with food and drink. Georgian feasting, called supra, is a wonderful thing with many interesting rules and customs... there is a tamada, or toastmaster, who is in charge of making toasts and appointing people to toast. There is the merikipe, who is in charge of making sure that no one's glass is ever less than half full. People give toasts with every drink, and toasts are often very long and serious, usually lasting several minutes. Toasts range from remembering the dead in the war, honoring guests and friendships, acknowledging Georgia's natural beauty, or giving shout-outs to peace, freedom, family, etc. Wine is the most common drink with feasting, and most families in Georgia grow their own wine which is a matter of pride for them. One of my friends offered me a 20 L jug of his finest to take home with me, which sadly I could not carry. During feasting the person throwing the feast keeps all plates on the table continually full, so that even when the meal is done, it looks like the food has barely been touched. Food ranges from khachapuris to stews to roast potatoes, salads, BBQed meats, corn pudding, cheese plates, bean pies... its excessive. "Georgians like to eat all the time" Data tells me, and it is gloriously true. At this particular feast, Data's father, who was once an important politician in Gori and who was recently falsely arrested by the government under suspicion of raising opposition protestors to join the demonstration in Tbilisi, enters a drinking competition with his brother-in-law, who apparently claims at every family gathering that they can drink each other under the table. Georgians drink wine out of normal glasses, and only skull wine (no sipping ever!!), and drink juice out of wine glasses. As the evening progresses, different types of drinking vessels are brought out for different types of special toasts. My personal favorite is the animal horn, which people had to make individual unique toasts with to the rest of the table when it was passed around them. There is something wonderfully barbaric and vikinglike about skulling wine from a big animal horn. Data's uncle proudly shows me a picture on his camera of him drinking from a massive Ibex horn that is nearly a meter long. The drinking vessels get larger and larger as the competition continues in good humor... and the food keeps coming. We go to bed around 2 AM, after sitting around the table for nearly 5 hours, when we leave it is just as full of food and drink as when we begun. Data's father and uncle are still going at it when we retire...

The next morning I wake up before everyone else, and go downstairs, where some of the family is already awake. Data's father is up and in great spirits. Seeing me he pulls out a bottle of cognac and two glasses. Gaumarjos! He greets me --- cheers! And he tells me that we are going to go to a place for Khinkali (delicious Georgian spicey minced pork dumplings) for breakfast. I quickly avoid the wake-up cognac by saying that I will go and wake up the others and get them ready. When we all get up and get down out into the glorious morning sun, Data's father and uncle are in a heated argument... After a seemingly hostile exchange, Gio and Data start laughing. "They are still arguing over who won the drinking competition last night", Gio explains. When we arrive at the khinkali restaurant - the best in Kutaisi, I am told - excessive amounts of the meaty dumplings is ordered, along with beers and a bottle vodka. Another friend of the family's is present, and so he feels it necessary to welcome us again with toasts and the ever exuberant Georgian hospitality...

Leaving breakfast in a semi-haze, we packed into Data'a uncle's mashrutka and drove to Samegrelo, a province further west, to a small village where Data's grandmother lives and the family often gathers for reunions and holidays in the summer. The village was set in some gorgeous mountains with a large river running right through it, perfect for swimming. We were obliged to another epic feast, complete with the excessive food, drink, and toasting once again --- we were introduced to a special toast, to brotherhood, called Vakhtanguli (named after Great King Vakhtang, who founded Tbilisi when on a hunting trip a pheasant that he killed fell into the hotsprings in the area and cooked itself to be so delicious he decided he needed to move the capital to the location), in which arms are locked and drinks are skulled in this way.

The next morning we went for a day hike into the mountains... through the river, to waterfalls, cliffs, forests, shepherds villages on top of mountains... the most remarkable places, seemingly untouched by anyone else. Worth noting was the villager that we met a ways up the track out of the village who was cutting firewood. Though he was alone, he had with him a 10 L jug of homemade wine and several glasses, which he had carried the whole way into the woods, along with his chainsaw, on the off chance he encountered any guests. We were offered the wine and numerous toasts, which we sort of slowly and hesitantly accepted, given that we were feeling pretty rough from the previous 2 days' feasting. This didnt stop the chap who was going to be operating the chainsaw from polishing off most of the jug. After we had lingered enough to be polite and then moved on, I asked Data it the fellow would have finished the wine if no one had come along. "Of course not. He would not have touched it. Drinking alone is seen as shameful and alcoholic practice; it is not done. He brought it along for guests."

Georgian hospitality is unsurpassed in my experience. I have only encountered such selfless (and at times over the top) kindness in Tajikistan and Syria... for this reason, it was very difficult to leave Data, his family, and all of my new friends to return to Turkey, which we did by mashrutka-hopping and hitchhiking to the eastern border post near the Turkish town of Posof. This frontier is obviously not very well used, as the road to the border (at least up until the Turkish side) is a winding bumpy dirt track... After getting exit stamps from the friendly, if not a bit lax Georgian officials, getting checked for Swine Flu by the Turks, and paying a painful 60 US for a new Turkish visa that apparently did not get extended in Sinop as I was told that it had been, we re-entered Turkey, where we immediately got lied to and ripped off by a jackass bus driver who we hitched from the border to what was supposedly the town of Posof where we wanted to get a bus to the Turkish town of Kars, but was really 9 km up the road from Posof... A little bit of a bitter welcome back after such a selfless and friendly experience in Georgia. But first a few last comments and observations about Georgia:

-vowels are conspicuously underused in Georgian, leaving us with unpronounceable words such as Mtkvari, Samshkte Jakhrtve, Mtsvardis...

-on Georgian Independence Day the protesting politcal opposition organized large rallies in the Tbilisi stadium. They shut down the train station for 24 hours, but to little apparent gain. Some of the Opposition coalition was against some of the more extreme moves by protestors, and pulled down their fake cells from in front of the parliament. My sense is that the demonstrations are going nowhere fast, and that Misha will hang on, albeit precariously, for the next little while. His term is supposed to last until 2013, but that seems like a bit of a stretch.

-apparently right after we left, Tbilisi started preparing itself defensively for a Russian attack.., but this seems strange, as another report I read said that there are current talks regarding the re-opening of the Kazbegi border along the Russian Military Highway.

-Georgian Christians seems to have more fun. They are all quite devoutly religious --- the homes I saw all had shrines with numerous icons and candles where family members said daily prayers; the churches were always full of people making prayers and hanging around (Georgian Church choir music is GORGEOUS); and the majority of people cross themselves three times whenever they see one of the numerous churches around... but this doesnt seem to hinder the Georgian proclivity for care-free fun. On one mashrutka ride, a fellow and his wife bought a bottle of vodka at a lunch break stop, polished it off along the way, and were having the time of their lives being rowdy on the bus... yet every time we passed a church they soberly and resolutely crossed themselves, before returning to their state of bliss...

Anyways, after being dicked around by the jackass Turkish bus driver, we hitchhiked down the road to Posof, where all transportation to our destination, Kars, had dried up, leaving us in the tiny village, which was actually quite charming, even if it is a middle-or-nowhere border outpost. The natural beauty of Georgia continues into northeastern Turkey, so we got to enjoy the beautiful mountains and lush valleys even more. The area is dotted with the ruins of Georgian castles and churches, which have, somewhat ironically in my view, been adorned with large Turkish flags.

We finally made it to Kars, which is one of the larger cities in the east, originally laid out by Russians, meaning that it follows a lovely grid plan and has some lovely drab rectangular buildings, but once again, the city is in a spectacular location. Dan and I met up again with our friend the Guide Book writer. We made a trip out to Ani, the ancient Armenian capital, which, as is evident again from the massive flags flying proudly at the ancient gate, is now proudly Turkish. Directly across a valley that unforunately divides Turkey and Armenia in this area and leaves the Armenian ruins on the Turkish side, the Armenians have started noisily mining the red stone of the area, leaving big natural blights in the beautiful green hills. The move is seemingly out of spite, an Armenian middle finger being sent to the Turks, given the fact that it seems like they could have put their mines anywhere along the valley banks for kilometers north or south of Ani. It is unfortunate, but the ruined churches and cathedrals are spectacular nonetheless.

After kicking around Kars for a while, I parted ways with my friends and caught the 30 hour train across the country to Ankara, where I kicked it with the good friends that I had met there at ODTU Spring Fest. We went for a three day camping trip in the moutains south of the city, and then I returned to Istanbul, where I am not preparing for the homeward journey. It has been a hell of a trip, and I would be lying if I said I was not melancholy about returning home. There is so much to see and do out here, and I feel like I have only scratched the surface of what I want to experience...

In Canada I will almost immediately be heading to the field to start my Master's research. I will be doing an archeological survey of the inlets around Sechelt for July and August, and then in September I will move to Toronto to start my Master's at the University of Toronto. I hope that this doesn't get in the way of me furthering my travels in the near future, though it will be nice to get back to school for a bit as well. I hope to get a chance to see as many of you as I can and catch up with as many as possible before I hit the field and then move to Toronto...

I will be trying to put up pictures when I get back, and I would like to hopefully write one more reflective sort of letter to tie up thoughts I have omitted or forgotten, and express some final ideas.

I miss you guys, thanks for following me on this one.

All my love,
Bryn

Tank Battallion Mutinies and Cheese Pies

2009-06-02T00:30:00.000-07:00

Gamarjobat from Tbilisi! It has been quite a while since the last e-mail, when I was back in southeastern Turkey. I don't really know how I will fit everything I want to talk about since then into one e-mail and remain sane, so we'll just see how this goes. Bear with me if this is disconnected.

After Van, I took a bus to Istanbul to kick it with Turan and my other pals there, to do some laundry, and to take a break from being constantly on the move. After a few days there I went to Ankara, the capital, where I have another good friend, Elif, whom I met the first time I was in Turkey. Her university, ODTU, is the largest in Turkey, and that week they were having a four-day 'Spring Festival', with musicians and DJs from all over Turkey presenting on several stages --- for those of you from UBC, imagine Arts County Fair for 4 days in a row. Dylan made it out of Iraq unscathed and I convinced him to come across the country to join the party. It was an amazing time, I met so many great people and made a lot of friends. It was a really great change of pace from wandering around the Middle East to just go and rock out for a while. Ankara is usually touted as being a pretty crappy place overall, as far as Turkish cities go --- over and over I have heard people tell me that the best part about Ankara is the fact that you can leave Ankara very easily. It is certainly nothing compared to Istanbul --- it really only became a big city with the formation of the Turkish Republic in 1923 when Ataturk proclaimed it as the new capital, so it all feels very new and stale --- but after my time there it really has a new place in my heart.

This of course made getting up and leaving again quite difficult. Dylan and I finally dragged our asses out of the comfort of our friends' home and got on the road. We headed north to the town of Safranbolu, which is one of the last towns in Turkey that is still comprised primarily of Ottoman houses over 100 years old. The whole village winds around a small river that has cut cliffs around it, making for an extremely beautiful location. From Safranbolu we shot north to the Black Sea Coast, which we traversed the entire way to Trabzon, the largest city in Turkey's northeast. This took quite a bit longer than we imagined it would, as the road along the Black Sea is probably up there with one of the most beautiful parts of the country that I have seen, but it is small and winding, and the coast is made up of cliffs interspersed with valleys into the sea every few kilometers, meaning that you have to wind up and down, up and down. Because of this no big buses traverse the route, so you have to hop from town to town by minibus. It therefore took us about 8 hours to go 150 km one day, and the same the second, which left us stranded in some cool small villages a few nights along the way. This would have been quite fine and relaxing, except for the fact that my Turkish visa was about to expire, and I was worried that I would get stranded on the coast before I could get out of the country or extend it. Luckily I found a government office in one of the towns, that, as far as I can tell, gave me an extra 3 months on my visa free of charge.

Trabzon is Turkey's main Black Sea port, and they recieve many ships from Georgia, Russia, and the Ukraine. There are therefore a lot of Russians in Trabzon, and some quarters of town are entirely Russian. Turkish men seem to have a fetish for Russian women, so there are many Russian prostitutes in Trabzon, called Natashas. And, of course, the place where all the cheap hotels for budget travelers like ourselves is where all the Natashas like to hang out. We checked out some exceptionally sketchy hotels, mostly with the windows blacked out. In the bars of Trabzon - where I got to use my few Russian phrases that I learned in Central Asia - the only females are Natashas --- who I must say are not attractive in the slightest. When you go to the bathroom, they follow you in, and sort of stand there looking in the mirror, pretending to powder their face or whatever, and when you leave you get the great pleasure of having disappointed a Natasha... Needless to say, we skipped out on any of the Russian action. We also met up with an Aussie named Dan, who was heading to Georgia, as we were, so we joined up with him, and from Trabzon hopped on the bus to Batumi, a large Georgian Black Sea port city.

Georgia, or Sakartvelo, as it is called by Georgians, is very different from Turkey. It is a Christian nation that used to be part of the USSR. I immediately felt like I was in Central Asia again when I arrived, and many of the classic characteristics that I encountered in the Stans are present here: a disconcerting lack of manhole covers, old run-down buildings that seem to be permanently 'under construction', a proclivity for alcohol, and a lot of Russian. But there are many differences as well. Georgia feels in many ways like it is less of a backwater and moving forward more quickly than the Central Asian nations. And this is all quite surprising considering that 10 months ago they were engaged with Russia, and, in several of the Georgians' whom I have spoken with's opinions, are on the brink of war again. It has its extreme poverty and corruption, but to a seemingly lesser degree. From what I can tell this is mostly due to the nation's post-soviet history, which I have been piecing together slowly:

Georgia was one of the first Soviet states to declare independence from the Soviet Union, however when they did so, the same fate befell them that did the Stans --- a government rose that was not entirely prepared for independence and was mostly based on the old Soviet cronies that ran the place before hand anyways. Corruption was the name of the game and the nation descended into what was in many ways a worse state than it had been in before the Soviet Union collapsed. Two regions of Georgia - Abkhazia and South Ossetia - seceded from the state and declared themselves autonomous (though no nation except Russia acknowledges their independence), and the country fell into civil war, in which Abkhazia and South Ossetia were backed by Russian 'peace keeping' troops. In the Abkhazian case, Abkhazians are ethnically different from Georgians; and during the wars over 250 000 Georgians were pushed out of their homes and forced to retreat from Abkhazia. Russia offers Abkhazians free Russian citizenship. The situation is similar in South Ossetia as well.

The first president of Georgia was deposed in a coup and a fellow name Shevardnadze took his place in 1995. Under him a lot more fighting took place in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Another region of Georgia, Adjara, tried to declare autonomy, and its political leader, who was tight with the former government, openly disobeyed and insulted Shevardnadze. From what I understand, the whole country was mob-heavy, and the police were incredibly corrupt, much like Central Asia today. In 2003 there were massive protests by people fed up with the situation, and there was another coup called the Rose Revolution, in which masses of people stormed parliament holding roses, and Shevardnadze was forced to resign and go into exile. The leader of the Rose Revolution was Mikheil Saakashvili (called Misha by the people), who holds presidency today. He immediately stood up to the leader in Adjara who had been giving Shevardnadze trouble, and that guy (I cannot remember his name) fled to Russia --- allowing Saakashvili to make a very powerful first impression. He cracked down on the mob and police corruption - and indeed, today, I have recieved absolutely no hassle from the police at all. As a matter of fact, this is the only country on this entire trip where I have been straight up ignored by the police and not drawn any attention at all! There was minimal silly beauracracy to enter the country --- I didnt even need a visa to come.

So Saakashvili significantly transformed the country, but there was a major difference from him and Shevardnadze. While Shev maintained good political relations with both Russia and the States, Misha openly dislikes the Russians and has very strong relations with the Americans. A Georgian friend of mine, who I met in Cairo, put it quite succinctly to me: "It is just stupid. Sure, you may not like Russia, but you cannot just stick your middle finger to them and say fuck you, they are our neighbour and they are massive. They could destroy us easily."

And unfortunately, Misha has been sticking his middle finger to Russia, who has very cold relations with Georgia and supports the separatist states. In August 2008, Russia invaded Georgia. The cause of this war is still under investigation by international monitors who are in the country right now, but the movement of the fighting outside of the separatist states seems to have been triggered by the movement of the Georgian army into South Osettia in early August. The war ended rather quickly --- officially at least. The fighting still continues in South Osettia, and a Georgian fellow that I met who was working as a UN monitor told me that he would not be surprised if more open war opened up soon. The whole situation has made a large portion of the population very unhappy with Saakashvili, whom they blame for the war, and protests are underway right now in Tbilisi, Georgia's capital. Starting over a month ago, opposition groups demanded that Saakashvili resign, and set up mock prison cells in Tbilisi's main street, Rustaveli Ave, in front of parliament, which they have been living in. Hundreds of cells now fill Rustaveli Ave, and cars cannot drive down it, meaning that traffic is really bad in other parts of town as people try to go around this main throughfare. It is quite a sight to see, though I cannot help but feel that the protest is losing a bit of its oomph after over a month... though the cells are all there, not all of them seem to be inhabited anymore, and the times that I have been through to check it out, things have been pretty quiet. Also, Misha is not budging yet, and apparently there is no real strong contender for oppositions leader, so everyone seems quite skeptical of the demonstrations' outcome. Many of Tbilisi's citizens are getting quite fed up with the road being closed as well, and the other day I saw some taxi drivers yelling at the protesters. Tuesday is Georgia's independence day, however, and apparently the protestors are trying to get people from all over the country to come and make a big demonstration.

Another interesting piece of the story lately is that a few weeks ago a tank battallion at a military base north of the city mutineed against the government, and was supposedly going to take forceful action against. Saakashvili very quickly put down the mutiny however by moving in with a large force of tanks and troops loyal to him, sending 3 ringleaders of the mutiny running. Rather conveniently, there was a video recovered of these people dicussing their plot. Posters of their faces offering a large reward are everywhere in Georgia, and two nights ago the main guy was found and shot dead, while the other two were injured and captured. Skeptics claim that the whole thing was a fake set up by the government in order to make an impression and draw attention away from the protests, and to demonstrate that Misha is still the 'strong man'. My friend that I met in Cairo agrees with this, saying that it is all to common and convenient that the government 'finds' video evidence of people admitting or discussing this or that, leading to their persecution.

And so, what have Dan, Dylan, and I been doing in Georgia during this time? We spent the first two days in Batumi, which is Georgia's resort town, overflowing with tourists in the summer. It was quite quiet this time of the year however. We did a beach day, in which I aquired probably the worst sun burn I have ever had. A week after the fact my whole upper body is peeling and still burning, so I look like I have leprosy or something.

From Batumi we took a bus to Gori, which is the home town of Joseph Stalin himself (Stalin was Georgian). All around the city are large statues of the great Soviet dictator, and there is a large museum dedicated to all the great things he did (skipping the Gulags and forced migrations of course). It is also the town where Data, my friend whom I met in Cairo lives, so we met up with him and his friends and spent some very good times together.

Gori was attacked by the Russians last August, and in the was museum there are the remains of two bombs that struck a large appartment building and the main square where a very large Stalin stands. Many people were killed. Data was in town during the attack and remembers being woken up by the bomb blasts and seeing everyone running around screaming in the middle of the night. Shortly after, the Russians occupied Gori. Data's view on things, however, is that the war is entirely political and not personal. He is very frustrated with Georgia's anti Russian sentiment - he has many Russian friends. He says that even when Gori was occupied, the Russian soldiers slept in the hallways of the appartment flats, when they could have very easily kicked down civilian's doors and slept there. He remembers how his neighbour even let the soldiers sleeping in the hallway use her shower... Regardless, he fled to Tbilisi after the town was occupied; the Russians withdrew before they reached Tbilisi. I found it quite interesting to see that, even though many parts of Gori are quite run down, there was no immediately visible evidence of the intense fighting that occurred -- all the blast damage, which I was shown in pictures, has all been repaired. I get this sense all over the country: it doesnt FEEL like a country that was just at war 10 months ago. However, there are massive suburbs on the edge of town (and all around Georgia) of hundreds of small square houses, all exactly the same, lined up side by side, which have just been build in the past few months serving as homes for displaced peoples and people that lost their homes during the war.

After seeing Gori and its nearby sites with Data, we all went to Tbilisi, where we have been exploring this lovely city. It feels something like a Central Asian city with more life and energy. It is very green, and there are spectacular churches and old houses everywhere. It also has a lot of old dilapidated places, much like Central Asian cities. The Soviets seemed to really like massive parks with rides and big statues, most of which are today in quite a depressing state. Yesterday we did a day trip to the barren border with Azerbaijan, which looks a bit like Mars, where there are ancient monasteries cut into the rocks on mountains overlooking the Azeri wasteland, complete with an oild derricks in the distance. Another Georgian that I met in Cairo, Tato, lives in Tbilisi, and is the manager of Tbilisi's largest night club (the best night club in the Caucasus!, he boasts) and a bit of a TV celebrity, having played on Georgia's first ever Big Brother style reality show, and coming 2nd place. Tato gave us a tour and invited us to be VIP guests and a party at his club last night, which was quite cool. I am not much for clubs, but I definitely had a good time doing a little boogie until sunrise... Tomorrow we will leave Tbilisi to head to the Caucuses Mountains...

Random observations on Georgia:

-it is very warm and very green. absolutely gorgeous natural beauty

-Georgian history is intertwined with very cool legends of great kings who carried 2.5 m swords and fought all kinds of battles and great wars

-Georgian food is AMAZING. It is all quite similar to Central Asian food, but somehow they got it right and made things delicious. The most common food is little cheese pies called Khachapuris, that are available everywhere in many different forms. You can get round cheese pies, square cheese pies, cheese pies with cheese inside and then more cheese melted on top, cheese pies with cheese inside and and egg cooked on top... the cheese pies are ubiquitous. They also do delicious little deep friend meat pies and bean pies. There are dumplings called Khinkali that are filled with spiced pork and delicious juice, and Shashlyk, which is usually pork or beef barbequed to perfection on a stick. No mutton like in Central Asia! I am going to get terribly fat here I think. Georgians also love to drink, anywhere, and at all times of the day. People have beers in hand when they cruise the sidewalk in the morning, the guy behind the counter at a corner store will ofter be rocking a beer when you go to buy snacks, and people just sit around on the streets drinking ---- yet somehow it doesnt seem like a sad alcoholic sort of drinking, but more just a social, and socially accepted, activity. Georgians are famous for their wine, which rather than sipping, they chug after making lengthy toasts to each other. At a Georgian feast, which we had with Data and his friends in Gori, there is a designated toastmaster, and a man responsible for filling the wineglasses. Toasts are given by assigned people, and are often really lengthy and serious (Data says that some toasts can last up to an hour). After a while a ram's horn is brought out and people start slamming wine out of that... and then people start singing and dancing, and somehow get to bed and go to work the next day, because it doesnt matter what day of the week it is, its always time to feast and drink!

-Georgians have a unique and ancient language that is not related to any others that exist anymore, and they have their own unique script, which means I cant read anything here. Luckily some stuff is still in cyrillic from Soviet days, which I can somewhat read.

I have so much more to write (from Turkey and Georgia!), but I have been at this for far too long and am about to get kicked off the computer. I am off to do some hiking in the Caucasus for the next few days, but I will try to get on a computer again soon to tie up the loose ends and write more...

Until then though, I hope to hear from you and hear how things are going back at home! I miss you all.

All my love,Bryn

The Iraq Temptation

2009-04-28T11:44:00.000-07:00

Salaam Aleikum friends,

This morning Dylan went to Iraq. Instead of being there with him I am in Van, a mid-sized mountain town on the huge Lake Van in the southeast corner of Turkey near the Iranian border.

Northern Iraq is Iraqi Kurdistan. The four northernmost provinces of the country are controlled by an autonomous Kurdish Government, with their capital in Arbil. The border posts are manned by Kurds, the police are Kurds, and the government officials are Kurds. It is the only relatively safe area in Iraq today, which is overall touted as the most dangerous place on earth. I even read somewhere that someone had calculated that foreigners have a 28% chance of being killed in Iraq. Don't ask what formula that calculation is based on; I am just as curious about it as you. When Dylan first suggested going to Iraq, my reaction was much like I am sure most other's would have been: fuck no. But of course I was curious, and my recent interactions and conversations with Kurdish people (southeast Turkey is almost all Kurdish; I'm just gonna come out and say it: this is Kurdistan) opened my mind a bit. The Turkish Kurds admire Iraqi Kurdistan for their success in achieving the goal of having an autonomous government within Iraq and for upholding some of the basic rights that Kurds in Turkey and Syria are not granted (and for just being the only people to have their shit together in Iraq). When we told people around here that we were considering going to Iraq, we were not given the 'you've gotta be insane' reaction that you would get elsewhere, but rather people just seemed to acknowledge it like it was no big deal, same as if we had told them we were going to Istanbul.

So we researched. Apparently at the border town of Silopi in Turkey you can get a visa for free on arrival, and be happily let loose into Iraq. No letters of invitation. No waiting. Just the fact that you could get a tourist visa to Iraq blew my mind. In Iraqi Kurdistan a foreigner hasn't been harmed since 2003. There are very few US soldiers. The Kurds heavily check everyone coming from Iraqi Iraq, and apparently it is very difficult for Iraqi Iraqis (ie. Arab Iraqis, who are rather bitter about the Kurds having so much power) to get in. The travel accounts we read of people who had been said that they felt entirely safe. Yet when it came time for me to make the big decision, I had a bad feeling in my gut (what IF something goes wrong...) and I told Dylan that I would take him to the border, but not cross. I told my parents that I was not going to go (whereas if I did go, I likely wouldnt mention anything until I got back, and rather tell someone else ahead of time to save stress and grief on their end --- sorry mom and dad!), and then hopped on the bus with him and cruised from the town of Mardin where we were yesterday to Silopi. The road sauntered through the breathtaking green hills and fields of Mesopotamia (a side note I wanted to mention: contrary to what I imagined, Syria and southeastern Turkey are LUSH with greenery --- not the sandy wastelands I had pictured. I can totally see how Mesopotamia was the cradle for so many ancient civilizations, and of course their traces are left all over this landscape in the form of Tells --- large mounds of thousands of years of accumulated anthropogenic debris --- which dot the mostly flat plains, and are often still the locations of contemporary villages.) and then into the mountainous region along the Iraqi border (northern Iraq, my Lonely Planet guide book claims, is the 'Switzerland of the Middle East'). The drive was gorgeous. Short of a much more apparent Turkish military force in the form of tanks and checkpoints, and fences, which are surely mined, the area is very similar to the rest of southeast Turkey: green and gorgeous. I don't know what I expected when looking into Iraq... burning villages? Crying babies? People hopping around with missing limbs? Of course not, but even though I knew what I knew about the place, it still felt strange looking across at a Iraqi mudbrick village that just looked like any other Middle Eastern or Anatolian mud brick village.

As soon as we arrived in Silopi late last night along with a bunch of Iraq-bound tanker and cargo trucks, and got off our bus, we were mobbed by taxi drivers shouting 'Zakho? Zakho?'. Zakho is the border town on the Iraq side. There is a taxi mafia in Silopi, and they specialize in 'facilitating' people's crossing back and forth. Apparently you just hop in the car with them, give them your passport, and they handle everything for you. And of course we were going to Iraq. Why the hell else would any other foreigner come to Silopi, which really was a shitty border town. There is big business in getting people to Iraq, and apparently its quite easy. Being right at the border, and seeing first hand that this was not a war zone in the slightest, but rather another area inhabited by hospitable Kurdish people, I immediately began to regret my decision not to go. The gut feeling was gone, but I still had other excuses: I told my parents I wasnt going. I have made plans to meet friends in Istanbul next weekend. I want to see Van before going back to Istanbul. If I go to Iraq I want to have more time to enjoy it. A whole bunch of pretty weak excuses, and I realized it, but I still didn't go. As I rode the bus away from Silopi this morning, and looked back into Iraq I felt a bit of remorse, regret, and jealousy. I feel like even after observing first hand that so many of our preconceptions about Iraq are just overdramatic generalizations based on stereotypes and shit media coverage, that I still let this scare me away. That said, there is still the inkling of doubt in my mind for sure. And things COULD be different IN Iraq. I will wait for Dylan to get back, hear his account, and let you know. Its just too bad that once I decide to go that it might be difficult to find a crazy bastard like him to come with me.

Its unfortunate too, because I will miss Dylan. Traveling with him was like traveling with Miles. We were both totally relaxed, easy going, and agreeable, both had the same sort of travel philosophy and goals. We just went with the flow. So today has been a bit emotional, but exciting things still lay ahead, and I hope to meet up with Dylan again in a few weeks (though he will likely be traveling the opposite direction as I, so it will brief) or hopefully travel together again in the future.

But lets backtrack a bit to our exit from Syria into SE Turkey. As soon as you cross the border there is a marked difference, not necesarilly in terms of landscape, but in infrastructure, and people. Turkey is far more wealthy than Syria, and this is very apparent. Also, Turkey feels so much less 'Middle Eastern' than the rest of the Middle East... even in the deep southeast the European influences are evident in building styles, advertisements, fashion, etc. And you can see girls' hair and arms... whoooooo! After getting a ride with some friendly border police who were cranking Rihanna's 'Umbrella' to the minibus station in Akcakale, the Turkish border town we crossed into, we went to Sanliurfa, a town where Abraham was said to have been thrown off the fortress that dominates the city by the evil King Nimrud, but Abraham landed on a patch of roses and survived, or something like this. What I found the most entertaining piece of information about this city was that it used to be called Urfa. When the nearby city of Antep adopted the name Gaziantep, which means 'Heroic Antep', the Urfans were jealous, so they changed their name to Sanliurfa, which means 'Glorious Urfa'. Wicked. After getting into the Turkish swing of things in Glorious Urfa (which wasn't all THAT glorious in my opinion) we made a day of checking out some nearby ruins for my archaeology fix and then doing a suite of minibuses (called Dolmuses in these parts) to eventually get us up into the mountains near one of Eastern Turkey's most famous sites, Nemrut Dagi. Nemrut is a MASSIVE tumulus mound of crushed rock on the top of a mountain, under which the pre-Roman King Antiochus, who's short-lived Commagene kingdom was the buffer zone between the Persian east and the Hellenistic west in the first century AD. On the east and west side of this tumulus mound Antiochus build massive statues of himself alongside Hellenistic gods. During the past few years earthquakes have toppled the heads off of these statues, and so there are no massive heads sitting eerily at the feet of the statues in the shadow of the tumulus. It's a very cool place, and it being one of Turkey's most famous attractions, we expected it to be packed, but to the contrary, Dylan and I hiked 15 km from the village we stayed in beneath the summit to find ourselves the only ones there, and the heads on the west side to be chin-deep in snow, which was really cool.

As a matter of fact, we have so far found ourselves to be the only foreign tourists in this part of the country. We have barely seen anybody, less backpackers than were in 'dangerous' Syria, which I find surprising.

After enjoying Nemrut and getting our exercise we did another dolmus and ferry combo to Diyarbakir, the capital of Turkish Kurdistan and homebase of the notorious PKK. Nearly everyone we have met in southeastern Turkey has been Kurdish, and this is no more true than in Diyarbakir. EVERYONE here is Kurdish. The large city was the site of the majority of the violence in the 80s and 90s that I wrote about in my previous e-mail. The old part of the city is surrounded by a massive ancient basalt wall which totals over 6 km in length. It really adds to the somewhat 'rough' feel of the city, but once again we were met with nothing but hospitality from the locals. We met two Kurdish boys who we got along quite well with and wandered around the city exploring with them and getting a bit of a tour. After a while the inevitably opened up about the problems the Kurds face. Like the Syrians, they felt that they were being denied basic rights, and desired an autonomous government. "We are proud to be from Turkey. We do not want our own country, but only the right to our own government, the ability to use our language, etc. We only want to be like Iraqi Kurdistan."

But the Turkish government of course has none of it. "They deny that we exist. Everyone in this town is Kurdish, except of course the mayor, and the municipal government officials, who were appointed in the west. We are being ignored, or worse, considered terrorists." One of the guys worked in the west coast resort town of Fethiye during summers, and said that he has been treated like an animal by Turks that he worked with.

One of the most poignant things that he said was this, when admiring a flag flying over a statue of Ataturk in the central square: "Is this Turkey's flag, or a Turkish flag? I don't know. If it is Turkey's flag, then it is my flag. But if it is a Turkish flag, then this is not my flag."

We also happened to be in Diyarbakir on April 23rd, which marks the anniversary of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the formation of the Turkish Republic under Ataturk. Around the country this is a big holiday, but we were likely in the worst place possible for any festivities. "This is a big day for Turkey, but not so big for us. Under Ottoman rule we were allowed to be Kurdish and operate under a Kurdish system of government. With the formation of the Republic, Turks tried to erase Kurds and Kurdistan."

And its really tough not to feel that you aren't in Kurdistan in SE Turkey. People don't speak Turkish to each other, they speak Kurdish. When you say Tessukuler (turkish for thank you) to someone, the nod in acknowledgement, but when you say spas (kurdish thank you) you get a warm and knowing smile. When we were in Mardin, all the hotels were booked full with tourists, but they were ALL Turkish tourists, getting away and celebrating the long weekend, many of them from Istanbul. So when people asked us where we were from, we also asked where they were from, to figure out what part of turkey they had come from. One fellow we met at a Monastery near Mardin smiled at us and turned his back to the crowd of Turkish tourists mingling around. 'I am from Kurdistan.' He told us proudly, but slightly conspiratorially.

Finishing our day in Diyarbakir ended with our friend taking us back to his house for dinner with his amazingly friendly family, which included long discussions about many things, primarily of course a continuation of the Kurdish topic. There is a lot of pent up anger and frustration there, and most common from all Kurds we met, including this family were quesions such as "do you know any kurdish people? are there kurds in Canada/US? what does Canada/US know/think about kurdish peoples?" After my time and experience here, I cannot help but sympathize with the plight of the Kurds in Turkish Kurdistan.

I hope that topic hasn't been beaten to death, but I have been finding it all very interesting, and have been having some fascinating discussions with people, so I want to pass them on to you. Its probably something that everyone could do with a little bit of awareness of.

After Diyarbakir we went to Mardin, which is a really really really cool old city built on a steep hill that overlooks those gourgeous Mesopotamian plains I wrote about above. The town is amazing, and its no wonder that it draws the Turkish tourists. As there was literally not a single room in a hotel in town, we slept on the roof of one instead. And it was after Mardin that we went to Silopi, as I wrote about at the beginning.

Now I am alone in Van, which is up in the mountains, and has a gritty, almost Central Asian feel to it, which kind of warms me. The surrounding mountains really remind me of Kyrgyzstan. After a few days here checking out Armenian castles and Churches I am going to burn all the way across the country to Istanbul, to chill out and be stationary for a while, as I feel like I have just been constantly on the move, and I want to visit some friends there and relax before making my next move.

So I will continue to keep in touch as the days go by, and I hope that you all do so as well!

Stay safe and enjoy the beginning of summer!

Love Bryn

Under Suspicion in Kurdistan AKA The Middle East: Its Complicated!

2009-04-23T00:36:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone!

I am now in Sanliurfa, in the southeast of Turkey. Last time I wrote I was leaving Jordan to try and get into Syria, which was expensive but painless for me. Whereas I was able to waltz through customs quite quickly (I passed the test of answering 'no' to the question 'have you ever visited Occupied Palestine?') some Americans that I met had to wait 8 hours to hear whether or not they got their visa or not.

First stop in Syria was Damascus, the capital, which I can easily say is one of the most beautiful cities I have visited in my life. If you believe the silly anecdotes that you get from Lonely Planet guidebooks, it says that the Prophet Mohammad came to overlook Damascus from the mountains on the edge of town, and decided not to visit it because he said that he did not want to enter Paradise before he died. The main part of town is aptly called the Old City, and it is a maze of alleys between really old buildings (some dating back to the Roman Period), filled with souqs delicious food stalls, gorgeous mosques, khans, and medressas, and some of the most friendly people I have met outside of rural Central Asia. I slept on the roof of an old hotel overlooking the city skyline. After 5 days in Damascus I went north to Hama, a gorgeous town famous for its waterwheels and delicious sweets, and from there I traveled with my friend Dylan, who I met back in Egypt, to Aleppo, Syria's second largest city, which also has bustling souqs and a lot of 'character'. From Aleppo we traveled east with a Syrian friend that we met into rural Syria, and then north, to Turkey.

I give you this quick framework of where we have been without any details because I want to focus more on what I have learned from the people I have met in the past little while in terms of how the Middle East works, and I will do so with reference to the people I have met along my northward journey from Jordan to Turkey. I hope that I can express the rather random bits that I have in a way that at least makes some sense... though at the same time, I think maybe the point, and the main thing that I have learned in the last little while, is that things here are complicated to the point that they dont make any sense:

-first off, Syrians are some of the most genuinely friendly and generous people I have met on this trip. Unlike Egypt, Syrians for the most part have no alterior motives, do not want your money, and are genuinely interested in what you are doing there. Many seemed bewildered that I would be there, and I was constantly asked why I was in Syria, what I thought of it, how it compared to other places I had been, etc. I believe that since the country sees so much less tourism due to people for some reason thinking that it is dangerous/too difficult to get into, that the people do not see foreigners as money/a nuisance (like in Egypt).

-Syria does not recognize Israel as a country (Jordan and Egypt are the only two Middle Eastern countries that officially do so, though most of the people in those countries think differently as well). Syria strongly sides with the Palestinian cause, and if you have any trace of having been in Israel you are not allowed into the country. The flag of the ruling party of Syria is an inverted Palestinian flag, and they are flown beside the Syrian flag everywhere, so for the longest time I thought that they were flying just as many Palestinian flags as Syrian ones, though I still do not think that the similarity is a coincidence.

-my first evening wandering Damascus' Old City I stumbled upon some old men doing what old Middle Eastern men do best: sitting on the street smoking and drinking tea. Seeing me, they beckoned me to join, and I got a bit of a history lesson in broken english along with tea and nargileh. One of the dudes' name was Michael, whilst everyone else was Mohammad, Ahmed, etc. I asked if Michael was Christian, and he said yes. 'We all live in peace here in Syria. People think we are warriors or something, but this is a lie. Muslims and Christians live in peace. We are all friends... But the Israelies... they are liars. We are a peaceful people, but they are trying to fight a war. What America thinks are all lies.'

-One man that I met in the Bazaar shook my hand and asked cautiously: "are you American?" When I replied negative he looked openly relieved and said "Oh good."

-the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad is one of these guys that likes to have his picture everywhere (like King Abdulla in Jordan, though Assad looks much more sinister in most of his photos). He is featured on every governement building, on posters lining the streets, in shops and on decals in car windows. His father is equally well-displayed, as is this badass looking dude with a thick moustache sporting camo and dark aviators. I couldn't figure out who this fellow was for the longest time, and then, when I asked a friend that I met in Aleppo he said in hushed tones that it was the president's brother. 'Younger brother' I asked. No, it was his older brother, but he was dead. 'Dead how?' An 'accident', I was told, and the subject was changed. Regardless, the Assad dynasty is credited for the formation of modern Syria as it is today (they have been in power since 1970) and some people are happy with this, others not, as I will get into below.

-Along with the Assad family portraits everywhere, there are also pictures of a mad looking bearded chap waving an AK. I was told that this is the leader of Hezbollah, the militant group out of Lebanon that clashes with the Israeli army... apparently the government quite likes them as well, but does not get along well with the Lebanese government, as Lebanon used to be a part of Syria. I find these tensions a bit confusing, and don't know enough yet to comment much further.

-In Damascus I met many people just through sitting at a coffee shop in the evenings. I befriended several young people who took me around town and spent a lot of time with me. When I asked them about the Assad gov't, they told me that they loved him, and that he was a level-headed and peaceful leader, focusing on the growth of Syria and not on war. Apparently there has not been any international fighting during the time that Bashar has been in power... which I think is true. When I asked about the pictures of him everywhere (because in my experience countries that have pictures of the leader everywhere have been dictatorships with governments that the general population dislikes, and I feel that the pictures everywhere is something of a way to justify power, and a bit of a scare tactic to remind people that the dictator is omnipresent...) my friends got a bit on edge and told me that the gov't does not put the pictures up everywhere, but the people do because they love him. 'He is like a rockstar' I was told. I countered that it seemed unlikely that the general public was responsible for putting multi-storey photos of him up on sky-scrapers and government buildings, but the conversation got a bit tense at that point so I let it drop. Point is this: there is a portion of the population, and this portion had university education, that is entirely content with the government.

-interesting experience with these friends: they invited me to their home out in the suburbs of Damascus, where the fellow lives with his family (strong family ties mean that most households contain 3 generations of family or more; even when the young generation is pushing 30). When I arrived I had to wait outside until all the females inside the house had gone to their designated room (Harem). It is forbidden for guests to see members of the opposite sex in traditional Muslim families. My friend's best friends had never met each others mothers. I knew that this was how things worked, but to experience it first hand was still a bit strange for me. The reason I was given was that once a woman is married, they are the man's queen, and should be treated as such, and cannot be seen to tempt other men. These are the women that wear the full veils (chador) when they are out in public. I obviously don't entirely agree with the reasoning I was given in this instance, but it is certainly not my place to argue these family's traditions.

-on a slightly related note, I reckon that these fully veiled women must wear some seriously kinky underwear underneath their chadors, because there are all kinds of lingerie stores, and these women always seem to be shopping in them...

-I look like a famous turkish actor named Kivanc. In the middle east he has been translated and the guy's name is Mohandnat. When I was in Turkey at the beginning of the trip I was told that I looked like him, and in Syria everyone started saying I looked like a Turkish actor named Mohandnat... it took me a while to put together the fact that they were one and the same. In Hama I was watching the sunset from a large hill in the middle of the city that was the ancient citadel. Syrian families were out in force for picnicking, a favorite Middle Eastern pasttime (if it involves sitting, eating, smoking, it flies). A few girls came up to me and asked if I was alright, what I was doing there, etc. After some introductions and a lot of giggling they invited me to go and picknick with their mother. After talking to them they admited that one of their friends had seen me earlier and went to tell the others that there was a guy that looked like Kivanc walking around, and they had set out to find me. When I was walkıng around the streets of villages, small chıldren would whısper my celebrıty name as I passed by and gıggle...

-one of the girls was attending University in Aleppo, and she told me she had a Lebanese boyfriend there, whom she was in love with, but it was a big secret and her mother did not know, because she was not supposed to be in love before marriage. 'Love comes after marriage, not before. If there is love before marriage their may be problems. If my parents knew about this, they would be ashamed and cast me out of the family.' She told me all of this was grinning and giggling in front of her mother. 'she does not understand english, so I can tell you all my secrets right in front of her!'

-In Aleppo, the second largest city in Syria, up in the north, Dylan and I encountered the same incredible friendliness and curiosity as the rest of the country. We met many young people from the University of Aleppo who invited us to come and see the campus. Of these people we met three very nice Kurdish fellows studying Medicine, who we arranged to meet for breakfast in the med school cafeteria the next day. Kurds are an ethnic group who live in northern Syria, southeast Turkey, northern Iraq, and eastern Iran. They are not related to Turks or Arabs, and have their own language and customs. They do not have their own recognized country, though they claim that these territories are Kurdistan. They have their borders drawn, whether imagined or not, their own flag, and their own government. In Iraq they control the entire north, which is designated as the Kurdish Autonomous Zone, and is the only part of the country that is relatively stable. The police there are Kurdish, the border guards are Kurdish, and by all their accounts, this is Kurdistan, or a part of Kurdistan at least. Our frıends, who we wıll call Ahmed, Khalıd, and Mohammad, were very forthrıght on lettıng us know that they were Kurdısh. 'Thıs ıs the Arab Republıc of Syrıa', they told me 'but where are the arabs? There are more Kurds ın thıs room than there are Arabs. Thıs whole country ıs more than just Arabs. There are Kurds, Armenıans, Turks, Persıans. Unfortunately thıs fact seems to be ıgnored'.

However, there was no outrıght anımosıty between these people and Arabs, as a matter of fact, many of theır frıends who we met were Arab, and there were even Kurd-Arab couples. There has been anımosıty ın the past however, especıally ın Turkey ın the 1980s and 90s. One of the Kurdısh governıng partıes, the PKK or Kurdısh Workers Party, launched a vıolent separatıst campaıgn that restulted ın thousands of deaths, but was more or less surpressed, wıth the leader beıng ımprısoned on an Island south of Istanbul, where he stıll chılls. From what I gather there was sımılar vıolence ın Syrıa as well. I asked my frıends about the PKK, tellıng them that so far the only perspectıve I had been exposed to was that of the Turks, who have offıcıally declared them a radıcal terrorıst group. I asked Ahmed ıf the PKK was seen as radıcal or ıf they had the support of the majorıty of Kurds. I was told that of course Kurds support them, they were one of theır strongest governıng partıes and they had brought some change to the kurdısh sıtuatıon (the PKK as ıt ıs today ıs mostly non-vıolent, I should note). 'Kurdısh people are treated unfaırly by the Syrıan and Turkısh governments' I was told.'We are not allowed to learn ın our language, we are denıed upper level jobs, we could not, untıl very recently, have Kurdısh radıo or televısıon. It ıs dıffıcult to publısh ın Kurdısh language. It ıs as ıf we dont exıst.' I know that on Turkısh censuses, there ıs no optıon to select 'kurdısh' as an ethnıcıty, even though over 12 mıllıon kurds lıve ın the country.

I asked Ahmed what he thought of the PKKs vıolence. 'It ıs complıcated. Obvıously we do not lıke vıolence, no one should be kılled. It ıs the law of Islam. But we trıed talkıng. We trıed beıng peaceful. We trıed askıng for our rıghts that we were denıed. But we were eıther ıgnored or persecuted. So we had to fıght. And when we fought, we succeeded ın beıng heard, and gaıned some of our rıghts. What ıs better, to be peaceful and be treated terrıbly, or to fıght and gaın some of the basıc rıghts you are beıng denıed?' I had been prepared to engage ın an argument, but I ended up fındıng ıt dıffıcult to argue wıth thıs logıc.

After spendıng some great days wıth Ahmed and co. (we ended up stayıng ın theır place and beıng on the recıevıng end of the excessıve Syrıan hospıtalıty, whıch was overwhelmıng at tımes), Ahmed ınvıted us to hıs vıllage ın the northeast where hıs famıly lıves. From here ıt would be a short hop ınto southeastern Turkey, where Dylan and I were headed next. When travelıng from Aleppo, to Aın al-Arab (ıt means Arab Sprıng, but there are no Arabs here, Ahmed joked), our passports were checked, as routıne procedure. The polıce ın the bus statıon seemed more worrıed about a group of syrıans on the bus that had not performed theır mılıtary servıce than us. When we arrıved our bus drıver ınsısted that he drop us off at Ahmed's door, whıch we assumed was just general hospıtalıty. However, just after we went out to explore the beautıful green vıllage and surroundıng fıelds, polıce went ınto Ahmed's house, demandıng where we were, what we were doıng here (we were probably some of the fırst foreıgners ever ın thıs vıllage), what our relatıonshıp was wıth Ahmed, etc. They demanded to know everywhere that we were goıng and when we were goıng. A bıt shaken, Ahmed explaıned to us that they eıther thought we were Western spıes helpıng Israel or, more lıkely, somehow aıdıng the Kurdısh cause. 'The polıce are the only Arabs ın thıs town, because Kurds are not allowed to become polıce', Ahmed saıd when I ınquıred. 'They are paranoıd of us. The only reason for theır actıons ıs because you are wıth me and I am Kurdısh'. Sure enough, the polıce contınued to call to make sure we hadn't left, and to make sure that they were ınformed as soon as we dıd.

Aın al-Arab ıs on the Turkısh border. There ıs lıterally a turkısh vıllage flyıng turkısh flags about 500 m away, across a fıeld. Thıs vıllage ıs mostly populated by kurds as well. There used to be a crossıng there, but ıt has been closed for securıty reasons. The Turkısh government was afraıd of PKK actıvıty and ınteractıons between Syrıan and Turkısh Kurds, and as an extra measure has mıned the entıre fıeld between the two countrıes. 3 weeks before our vısıt, a chıld from the vıllage had had hıs arm and leg blown off when he went too far playıng ın the fıeld and stepped on a mıne.

When we left Aın al-Arab to go to a vıllage where there was a border crossıng (where there was a less domınant Kurdısh populatıon, we were told), the polıce were notıfıed, and every step of our way, there were armed men who knew that we were from Canada and US and where we were goıng. After numerous stops, we were dropped off ın the Syrıan border vıllage, where we could have easıly slıpped under theır false facade of securıty and gone elsewhere, as there were no polıce awaıtıng us at our actual desınatıon. Regardless, we ate our last felafel of the Mıddle East, and trundled across no-mans land to Southeastern Turkey where we are now. When I started thıs emaıl, we were ın Sanlıurfa, but we are now ın Dıyarbakır, as thıs has taken me several ınternet sessıons to wrıte. I wıll wrıte about SE Turkey ın my next letter, as thıs ıs long enough, and I know there are thıngs that I wanted to say ın thıs one but have already forgotten.

I wıll probably not post thıs on my blog, as I thınk ıt mıght be a bıt sensıtıve, but ıf you know anyone who wants to read ıt, feel free to forward ıt to them. And lastly, I have trıed to remaın as neutral as possıble ın thıs letter, and more focus on expressıng just how damn complıcated thıngs are here. I have amazıng Turkısh, Kurdısh, Syrıan, Palestınıan, Israelı, and Egyptıan frıends, and I would never take any sort of stance agaınst a frıendshıp. It ıs always ımportant to remember that a people must be consıdered separate from the ıdeals of theır government, as the realıty of thıngs ıs often much, much more complıcated than any offıcıal stance that ıs beıng taken. I hope I havent offended anyone ın thıs e-maıl, just remember that I love you all.

And all you other ınfıdels and heathens, I love you all as well! Please keep ın touch, and I wıll wrıte agaın very soon!

All the best,

Bryn

Mohammad, Moses, and Eminem

2009-04-07T00:24:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone! It has been a little while since my last letter, so I guess I have a lot to try to catch up on. Right now I am in Amman, the capital of Jordan, and after I write this I am going to attempt to get into Syria.

Literally every other person you meet here is named Mohammad. Sometimes I feel like people are just joking with you when they tell you that their name is Mohammad, because you have met so many Mohammads, but it really is just the fact of that matter that about 60 % of people in the Middle East are named Mohammad.

After I wrote last I went to the Sinai region of Egypt. The Sinai is a hot, rocky desert that has been contested and fought over due to its strategic location and proximity to the Suez Canal. It was occupied by Israel for a while, but it now belongs to Egypt and a peace agreement has been signed. From Cairo I took an overnight bus to Dahab, a town on the Gulf of Aqaba that is renowned for its relaxed atmosphere, world-class Red Sea diving, and hippies. Across the Gulf you can see Saudi Arabia --- just a long swim away. The place is nothing like the rest of Egypt, to be honest, I didnt even feel like I was in Egypt anymore. It was the first place I was able to wear shorts and feel comfortable in a month, and when I saw a girl in a bikini I think I went into a state of reverse culture shock. People say that you go to Dahab and get stuck there due to its incredibly relaxed atmosphere, and I would say that it is quite true. I met people who had been there for months. I only planned on spending 3 days and ended up staying nearly a week. The highlight for me was the diving. I took a refresher course and then spent several days (and several $$) diving the gorgeous coral reefs and checking out the extrememely diverse aquatic life --- it was like Finding Nemo in reality. Seeing as I have only dove in cold old Canada prior to this, it was quite a special experience for me.

I also climbed Mt. Sinai in the middle of the night to watch the sunrise from the top. This is where ol' Moses saw the burning bush and got the 10 commandments from the big man upstairs. There is a monastery at the bottom where the burning bush is still growing... though it doesnt look very burnt these days. Our bedouin guide to the top of the mountain was named Mousa, which is Arabic for Moses, which I found quite fitting. I wonder if his name actually was Mousa...

In Dahab, everyone is your 'brotha'. In the place that I stayed, Eminem was one of the brothas running the joint. Shaggy was another. Around town I also met Zorro and Dr. Sheesha. It was kind of wierd.

When I finally did get out of Dahab, I went to a town called Nuweiba, to catch a ferry to Aqaba, the port city on the south end of Jordan. The ferry was a bit of an operation worth noting, and gives one final example of 'foreigner protection' measures employed by the Egyptians: there are 2 daily boats, a fast boat and a slow boat, both of which are quite expensive, the slow boat being slightly cheaper. Somewhat excited for a boat ride, I wanted to take the slow boat. I went to the ferry ticket office in the morning to buy my ticket, where a very rude fat man told me that I could not buy a ticket for a the slow boat; it had already left. So I purchased a ticket for the fast boat. I then went to the ferry, where you go through Egyptian exit customs and enter a large waiting hall with all the other passengers. I was in this waiting hall by 11:30 AM. At about 3, a boat arrived, and everyone got up to rush to the gate. I did so as well, and a police man asked to see my ticket. This was the slow boat, I was told, I have to wait for the fast boat... Indeed, the slow boat had not already left. So I waited longer, and at 6 PM the fast boat finally arrived. All foreigners were rushed aboard, where our passports were taken for (free!) Jordanian Visas. Then the Egyptians and Jordanians were let aboard, where they had to line up for Jordanian Customs to get their passport stamps. Being as there were hundreds of Egyptians and Jordanians on the boat, this process took 2 hours, and we did not depart until 8 PM. We arrived in Aqaba at 10 (Jordan is an hour ahead of Egypt)... probably about 5 hours after the 'Slow Boat' had arrived...

Jordan is much more laid back than Egypt, and much more wealthy than Egypt. The Jordanian Dinar is almost 1:1 with the British Pound, so things are shockingly pricey here after Egypt. The country apparently gets a lot of its money from Israel (Jordan and Egypt are the only 2 Arab countries that recognize Israel as a nation) and from other foreign investment (there are TONS of different banks in the country) and from goods shipped to Aqaba... because really it does not seem like there is an exceptional amount of anything being produced here... most of the country is arid desert.

The majority of Jordanians are actually Palestinians, who have migrated (mostly by force) from the Palestinian Territories and Israel. I have been told that Amman is actually 80% Palestinian. I haven't had many discussions about the fact with locals, but I think there is some resentment between the Hashemite Jordanians (who are supposedly part of the bloodline of the Prophet Mohammad out of Saudi Arabia --- the King, King Abdulla, is a Saudi and part of the Hashemite bloodline) and some Palestinian Jordanians... but I do not know enough to comment on it in detail.

After a night in Aqaba I came north to Amman, where I met up with my friend from Istanbul, Turan, who took a week off to join me. Amman is a cool city, very relaxed compared to Cairo. It is incredibly hilly and the streets do loops and curves around the hills, making it quite difficult to navigate around. Unfortunately, there is little to see here in terms of tourist sites, except for a stunning ruined Ummayyad citadel on top of one of the hills and a gorgeous Roman amphitheatre carved into the side of one of the hills in the middle of downtown. And the cool thing about downtown is that it literally is downtown --- it is at the bottom of all the major hills, so you wander down any steep street heading down and the chances are that you will arrive in downtown.

From Amman we went to a town called Madaba, from where we went and floated in the Dead Sea, which is 400 m below sea level and so salty that you can only bob like cork in it. We also went to Mt. Nebo, where Moses first climbed and saw the Promised Land in Israel below. From there we could see the Jordan River, Dead Sea, Jericho, and Jerusalem. Spectacular views across these famous biblical landscapes.

We saw several fantastic crusader castles, on our way down the King's Highway, which was traditionally the main north-south traderoute from Gulf of Aqaba up to the north and across into Europe --- sort of a crossroads with the the Old Silk Road, and it was also the Easternmost Crusader frontier.

Back in the south of the country, we went to Petra, the ancient capital of the Nabateans (300 BC - first few centuries AD) and one of the most breathtaking archaeological sites I have ever seen. Here beautiful tombs and temples are carved into red sandstone cliffs... the whole site is accessed by a 1.25 km walk through a narrow rift, only a meter or two in width in some places, called the Siq. If you've watched Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, it is the site where he finds the grail in the end. Petra is absolutely massive, and you can hike around anywhere - up to the cliffs above teh city with beautiful views of the surrounding landscape. It feels endless. We spend 2 and a half full days there wandering the ruins, and I still could have used another full day.

After Petra we went and camped in the protected desert area of Wadi Rum, where bedouins have set up camps and take you around of Jeep tours. Sleeping under the stars in the red desert was quite relaxing, and the landscape was breathtaking.

But now I am heading to Syria, where officially I am not supposed to be allowed to enter as I was supposed to have arranged my Visa back in my home country, but unofficially everyone is eventually let in at the border. I am pretty confident that I will get in, and quite excited to see the ancient cities of Damascus and Aleppo, which I am told have a lot more atmosphere than Amman... From Syria I will move back to Turkey, and my next move is still in the air after this, but I am still holding out on getting into Tajikistan for some archaeology.

I know most of you are probably going crazy with exams and papers these days, so I wish you the best of luck on all that, and if you get a chance please write, I would love to hear how things are going back at home and around other places! All the best of everyone, and all my love.

Bryn

Welcome to Alaska!

2009-03-23T09:27:00.001-07:00

Hi all, I have returned to Cairo from the Western Desert, and am heading my way to the Sinai Peninsula today. As I said last time I wrote, there were a few other things I felt like writing (bear with me, as this serves partially as a journal for myself as well). So hear are a few thoughts:

On Food:
- I have become addicted to felafel (which I had always dismissed as vegetarian hippy garbage) and dates (which I always assumed just sucked)
- I just ate some of the most glorious rice pudding with some sort of cake and frilly hairy crispy stuff on top of it. It made up for the baba ghanoush that I had at lunch that I believe was mashed up soggy cigarette butts rather than eggplant

On Fashion:
-In Siwa, the women take the full cover-up regalia to new heights by wearing black sheets pulled over their face that don't even have eye holes. They literally look like moving tents shambling along the streets, and they're actually quite scary looking when you encounter them in an alley at night.
-young males wear an excessive amount of hair gel and perfume
-apparently 30-50 years ago very few females wore headscarves. This is just a recent semi-fashion/semi-religious shift that has come with a more conservative government. Furthermore, even though the majority of females (Christians as well as Muslims, take note!) wear headscarves, I feel that they are finding ways to express their 'feminity' through other measures which work within the socially construed boundaries of Egyptian culture today in order to be a bit 'flashy'. For example, most headscarves are quite bright and fashionable; some are patterned, some are frilly and lacey, others shiny. Furthermore, girls wear a lot of makeup, especially to emphasize their eyes, even those wearing the full veil that leaves only the eyes visible. Also, even though bare arms and legs are pretty much a no-go, girls still wear mini-skirts over top of jeans or leggings, and some wear big tall boots. To me it seems that rather than being religiously oppressed in terms of fashion (and one girl I met emphasized very strongly to me that these fashions are based on traditions rather that Muslim doctrine), females are exhibiting a fair bit of agency in terms of how they present themselves.
-all that said, I have to say, religious reasons, traditions, whatever, lets be practical: its bloody hot here, its damn tough to be walking around in pants and sweatshirt all the time. and a lot of these people are rocking big jackets on top of that.

On Cairo:
-its insane.
-I have never seen such traffic and crowdedness compared to this. Beijing disappointed me in its unexpected quietness. Istanbul, which I had long considered to be absolutely nuts, pales in comparison.
-Last time I was in Cairo, I went to al-Horreyya and met up with some people that I had met there during my initial visits, and they took me to 2 insane house parties, one of which was in a penthouse suite on top of a 13 storey building with a rooftop pool and patio overlooking the Nile. It was crazy.
-I went to the main cemetery of the city, which not only has some wicked old crypts and ancient mosques, but there is also a population of about 50 000 people living within the cemetery. Very cool.

On the Desert:
-last time I wrote I was in Bahariyya Oasis. From there I went with the Canadian newspaper editing couple on an overnight camping trip into the desert. We went through the black desert, which is black, and the white desert, which is white. Both looked like a Dr. Seuss setting with some absolutely crazy rock formations... and all throughout the desert there is exposed limestone with shells and fossilized fish... which is pretty surreal to stumble upon in the driest place on easth hundreds of km from the ocean. I really wanted to know how long ago this was the ocean floor, but the only explantaion we could get from our driver was that it was from the time of the Great Flood.
-I think that Bahariyya, being so isolated way out in the desert, and with a relatively small population, has a fair amount of in-breeding. I'm just speculating, but I met a lot of Forrest Gump-type characters out there...

On good egyptians/bad egyptians:
-on one overnight bus I sat beside a guy who said his dream was to work for NASA but he didnt do well enough on the gov't standardized test and they put him into economics, and he now sells concrete. He bought me a coke and when he left he told me "you do not have a friend in Egypt, but now you have a brother", which I thought was pretty wicked.
-In Bahariyya, everyone wants to sell you a tour into the black and white desert. The majority of vehicles in town are landscruisers bought on loan from anxious youngsters who figured they could cash in on taking tourists out 4x4ing in the desert. However, as many tourists as Egypt sees, I dont think there are enough for the amount of Land Cruisers in Bahariyya. Therefore competition is incredibly fierce for getting tourists to take the tour. When we arrived we had a young lad immediately grab us out of our vehicle and take us to his reasonably priced hotel. However, he immediately started pushing the tour. We told him we would go and ask around to do some price comparing. He said ok, let him know. He also said he had to meet someone coming into town at the bus station. So we went into town, firstly to find a beer, since Doug (the ex-Province editor) was nearly dying from the dry town of Siwa. We sat on the street at a restaurant, only to notice that our little hotel man had followed us, and was watching us not so subtely. Trying to shake him, we settled in for a few beers, but the kid would not leave. He then sat down and tried to push us some more, but we told him to go away. So he went across the street, and sat watching us. When we got up to leave, he followed us, so we went into another cafe to shake him. Or so we thought. In the cafe we started asking around for drivers, and arranged to meet one at an appointed time, across the city. So we did. As we were talking with this very down-to-earth driver, I looked past him and noticed that our little man was just lurking right behind --- he had followed us all the way across town! He then said something to the other drivers, which we had translated to us as "these are my clients, they are taking my tour. don't take business from me." We got angry and told him to fuck off, and as we were leaving, he drove up to us in his vehicle... not to apologize or anything like that, but to push his tour again! Saying that he could finally give us a better price! Doug straight up started yelling at him, and we went back to the hotel and told them we were leaving in the morning. He said he needed to know where we were going, so he could 'tell the tourist police', but we told him it was none of his business. The next day we switched hotels, and we didnt know it, but apparently the little wanker followed us, called the owner of our new hotel, and demanded comission! The whole thing left a sour taste in our mouths and left us wanting to pound the kid.
-On my last day in Bahariyya I went to a hot spring, where a bathing lady was yelling at a bunch of young men, and a small group of other men were washing prayer rugs in the spring. The lady, who was egyptian, explained the confusing scene: she had changed into her swimming clothes, and the young guys had seen her change --- which to the sexually repressed young egyptian male is probably the highlight of his life so far, regardless of the fact that the lady was pushing 60 and not attractive in the least. She had yelled at them, and gone on to bathe. But then the young men went to steal her clothes, so she rushed into the reed changing hut, which was also doubling as a temporary mosque, and had got sand all over of the prayer rugs. This got everyone really fired up, and they were giving the lady a hell of a time (though she seemed pretty good at keeping her own and firing off the arabic insults as well). "If these people are so religious and care so much about their stupid prayer-rugs", she said, "why don't they bat an eye when it comes to theft?"
-in this vein, some Egyptian men really are fuckheads. Wandering the bazaar with a female friend allows you to experience the full gauntlet of comments, from "wow!" to "lucky man!" to "wanna have sex?". One time, a dude pinched the girls bum that I was wandering around with, and just darted into an alley. In the metro, I saw a young man do a hit and run boob grab to a fully veiled woman as he was getting off the train. I think they are so sexually repressed that they have to resort to this sort of thing for kicks...

Anyways, I think I have got a fair share of the thoughts that I wanted to share with you down. Hope you enjoyed. Until next time, please keep on keeping in touch. I'm having a good time, but I miss Canada!

Bryn

The Quran is too loud!

2009-03-20T10:55:00.000-07:00

Hello again, I am in Bahariyya Oasis, I have just finished eating some sandy falafels.In my last message I told you that a friend and I were going to try and 'cheat the tourist system' for our train from Luxor back to Cairo. We had been told that there was a train leaving at 8 15 and that we might be able to get 2nd class seats by just hopping aboard. When we arrived and saw the train, we were stopped by the police, who said, this was not our train. Does it go to Cairo, we asked? They said yes, so we said we wanted to get on it. They said we had to wait for the next train (which would have been the tourist train). We decided to just walk down the platform and hop aboard the train... the train car had no lights, no overhead baggage storage, the hardest seats you could imagine, and best of all, no windows! To be honest, I was pretty stoked, it was going to be an adventure. This was obviously third class, the cheapest of the cheap, and there were a lot of sketchy dudes on board. We waited 2 hours however, and the train didn't move. Then there was an announcement in Arabic, and everyone started getting off the train and getting on another one. One guy motioned us to follow him, so we did so, and got on an equallty dingy train, where the police found us. After moving us to a few different seats, they had a long conversation and decided that we had to switch trains again. Luckily for us, it was still a second class car, meaning we would save lots of money and be riding with egyptians, and second class has windows and nice seats. We buy a ticket, and settle in for the overnight trip. Little did we know, our ticket wasnt for an assigned seat, so every stop along the way (this train actually stops at different towns along the Nile, the ones tourists aren't 'supposed' to go to!) new people hopped aboard with assigned seats, and we had to move. This meant that all night we were constantly getting woken up and shifted from seat to seat. Oh well. We saved 25 bucks.

Because Muslims must pray 5 times a day, many of them have alarms set on their cell phones which play calls to prayer at the appointed time and have Quranic verses being sung. Therefore, on train and bus rides, when people cant get to the mosque, at the appointed time, everyone's cellphone goes off with a cacophony of prayers.I am having trouble figuring out how the Egyptian psyche works. In some ways I find them to be incredibly annoying and rude twits that I just want to hit, and then I meet some genuine and amazing people that renew my faith in the place. I have met more than enough travelers that have said that Egypt would be good without the Egyptians --- and at times I have found myself sharing this sentiment, however politically incorrect it may be. So many people here are incessantly pesky and seem to lack any sense of social boundaries or picking up on social cues that essentially say 'fuck off' --- a phrase I wish I knew in Arabic. Everyone here wants to get your money... and they will go to extreme lengths to do so. I could rand forever, but a few examples:

-After returning from Luxor to Cairo I went to Iskanderiyya (Alexandria - a lovely city that reminds me of Istanbul). My first night there I was wandering around alone, when a man appears on the side of the street to say hello (as EVERYONE tends to do, always to sell you something --- you just have to wade through them, say your obligatory hellos and 'canada dry's! and run away) and follows me asking questions. He invites me to tea, which I agree to since I had been looking for a tea anyways and having tea with these people is usually harmless as you can squirm away afterwards without buying anything. So we have a tea and a shisha overlooking the mediterranean, and he tries to sell me drugs. After I make it clear that I am not interested, he backs off, and we get into a pretty good conversation. He pays for everything and refuses to let me pay, and then says he will show me a cheap good restaurant (I had semi-asked, since I was getting hungry). I figure I will see the restaurant and then get away from him and go to my hotel before making my final dining decision. However once we get in front of the restaurant he motions me inside, to 'show me', the next thing I know we are seated and he is ordering food. I ask to see a menu to see the prices but he insists that I dont, since I will be given the tourist menu and he will get me the 'Egyptian Price'. I'm pretty tipped off by now that something fishy is going on, but we continue to have a good discussion (which is welcome, because travelling alone can be a bit lonely) and the food is good. Then the mate goes and talks to the waiter, disappears, and comes back. He proudly announces that if I was here alone the meal would be over 100 pounds, but since he is with me, I only have to pay 80. This is very expensive, and I tell him that I know this after being here for 3 weeks already (the meal was worth 50, tops). I tell him that I am disappointed and that he was being dishonest, and after a few minutes of awkward silence, the dude gets up, goes to the waiter, who gives him some money, and he dashes! I run to the window and see him burn down the street. A young Egyptian couple sitting at a table beside me ask if there is something wrong, I tell them I think I've just been slipped a fast one, and they say that yes, I have. 'You cannot trust anyone in Egypt.' says Adham, the young man, who I join to finish my meal. The couple is incredibly friendly, he is Christian, and his wife, Rihan, a Muslim, both smoke and drink and seem incredibly liberal; Adham is keenly interested in Egyptology, like myself, and we have a great conversation, and they promise to help me sort out my bill. I ask for it, and it comes as 93 pounds. The tally is in Arabic, so I get Adham to translate, and there is a beer that I didnt order plus an extra 30 pounds added on. I ask the waiter what this is and he says that "my friend" took 30 pounds from him and that I will cover it. I tell him hell no, and Adham explains this in Arabic. One thing leads to another, and I put down the money that I owe for the meal I ate and say I'm not paying any more. The waiter says this is a problem and I lose it and start yelling and swearing at him, I make such a scene that he finally just takes the money and leaves... Adham seems amused by this and says we should meet the next morning and go to the Alexandria Museum together. But the whole thing just left me so fired up. Rarely do I lose my temper and yell, but I was just so angry and felt so disrespected. I was ready to fly home that night, had it not been for the lucky meeting with Adham and his wife... It is really terrible being in a place where you actually cant trust anyone.

But the next day I met up with Adham, and spent 4 hours over beer and coffee in the evening with him and his wife... he even gave me some gifts. He wanted to meet the next day, and even arranged to take me to the bus when I left Alexandria... we met again and had a great time, and he wants me to return to Alexandria. 'Not everyone in Egypt is like the man from the other night.' Rihan reassures me. 'Most are, though.' Regardless, my faith in Egyptian hospitality is renewed.

And so things go, up at and down. I meet all kinds of bozos who just want my money or to make fun of me and don't want anything besides that, and meet an equal amount of people who just smile and say hi, or want to talk for a few minutes with no ulterior motives.

From Alexandria I took an overnight bus through the Western Desert to Siwa Oasis, 80 km from the Libyan border, and literally in the middle of nowhere. On this bus, which departed around midnight, the driver chose to crank his Quran tape. Immediately people started yelling in Arabic, and everyone on the bus started yelling at each other for about 5 minutes. It was madness. The fellow beside me, who spoke a little bit of english, explained that some people were complaining that the Quran was too loud, but the driver didnt want to turn it down. I was able to fall asleep to the over-reverbed Imam's singing as we cruised through the dunes in the moonlight...

There was once an Oracle in Siwa, and Alexander the Great marched his army across the desert so that he could consult it before he went off on his tour de force into the Far East. The Persian King Cambysees and enemy of Alexander sought to destroy the Oracle at Siwa and marched his army into the desert towards it, where the entire army disappeared. Today Siwa is an isolated location that is inhabited by Siwans, who speak a different language from Arabic and who don't see themselves as Egyptians. The Egyptian gov't wants to build an airstrip at Siwa to make it more accessible for tourists, and is sending in Egyptian laborers --- who, it was explained to me by a female British expat who has opened a cafe in Siwa, are all 'dishonest wolves'. The Siwans, on the other hand are 'honest and kind'. Siwa is gorgeous, and has lots of wicked hotsprings, and attracts a lot of hippies.

After Siwa I hired a vehicle to Bahariyya Oasis with a Canadian couple: a book reviewer for the Vancouver Sun and an ex-editor of the Vancouver Province, who quit because 'the newspaper industry is dead', and apparently the Province is leading the pack. I have been given some very interesting insight into how the paper industry works. His obsession with tracking down hotsprings is only topped by his love for beer --- which, since you coudn't get in Siwa, was driving him insane. They were good company for a 7 hour trip along a decomissioned road that has been covered by shifting sanddunes in the Great Sand Sea, a large desolate expanse of sand on the eastern edge of the Sahara. There is no regular vehicle transport along this route, one usually has to go back to Cairo to get to Bahariyya, but by taking the 4x4 we were able to get off the beaten path and see some very spectacular desert. In Bahariyya, we have booked an overnight trip into the White Desert for tomorrow, and this has come with a surreal experience with one of the most obnoxious and fuckheaded people I have encountered yet... which I will save for the next e-mail, since there are about 15 kids behind me wanting me to get off the computer so they can play Counterstrike.

I am behind in the e-mailing, since there is much more that I wanted to tell you about... so maybe expect another one sooner rather than later. But for now, I will leave you with this piece of information that I read in another traveler's guide book:

If you grease a donkey's asshole, it cannot generate the force required to make its loud eeee-haww baying noise. This way, Bedouins can sneak contraband on donkeys into Egypt across the Libyan border without worrying about a baying donkey giving their movement away to border patrols.

Anways, until next time, all the best,
Bryn

The Cult of Bob Marley

2009-03-11T08:13:00.000-07:00

25% of Egypt's income today is from tourism. In the 70s and up until the 90s tourism made up 75% of the country's income. In the 90s there were a bunch of terrorist attacks in which tourists were sometimes targeted, and tourism dropped substantially. The reason for the 25% these days, I am told, is not necessarily because there was a MASSIVE drop in tourism, but because Egypt's export economy has really boomed. The fact of the matter is that the country still sees shitloads of tourists, and that tourism is hugely important for the country's economy. Because of this, the tourist infrastructure is very well developed, and the government takes great care to protect its tourists.

On February 22nd, 3 days before I flew in to Egypt, there was a bombing in one of the main areas of Cairo that sees a lot of tourist traffic. One French girl was killed, and about 20 others were injured. After this the government supposedly quickly arrested some people (who I am told were only arrested to create the sense of some sort of security and closure), and police security on the streets was heavily upped. It is in this environment that I have been experiencing what I have so far found most frustrating about Egypt: the strict regulation of what a tourist can do and is expected to do for there supposed safety. Though it is not so apparent at first, visitors to Egypt are tightly limited by what the government sees as the 'tourist track' --- and veering off of it is made quite difficult. A few examples:

There are at least 5 daily trains from Cairo to the south of the country. I had heard that the Cairo train station was difficult to navigate, so I went with the Egyptian friend of a good friend who was also in Cairo when I was there. Maher (the Egyptian fellow) walked with my friend (who is American) and I into the train station. A policeman quickly asked what I was looking for, and Maher replied in Arabic. The policeman started asking Maher some questions, and then they got into an argument. As things escalated Maher broke off and motioned us to come with him, where he asked for more directions from someone else, and then we went to find the ticket office for tickets to Aswan (which was very well hidden). Maher explained that the policeman had asked him what he was doing with us foreigners, if he was a guide, and then eventually to see his ID. He had said that he cannot hang out with foreigners, to which Maher told him there was no such law. When we found the well hidden ticket office, and got in the line, which was really just a mass of Egyptians pushing each other for a ticket, Maher was approached by a policeman again, and then sent back and forth, talking to several people. I eventually purchased a ticket for Aswan, and we left. Maher explained again that the policemen had asked what he was doing with foreigners, and why hadn't we been approached by a guard when we entered the station... tourists are apparently supposed to be picked up when they enter the station and sent to buy the expensive sleeper ticket on the designated tourist train. They were not supposed to be able to make it to where normal people buy tickets. Regardless, I was told I could only travel 1st class, and only on one designated train. As it turned out, the train I took to Aswan was full only with tourists, and it only stopped at Luxor and Aswan, the only two towns that tourists would want to bother with, apparently.

Another time, in Cairo, I was exploring the old Christian Area of the town. I like to wander, and so got off into some back streets to just explore, and I was approached by a policeman, who asked where I was going. I told him I was just wandering, and he said I have to go back to the main street where the Christian Area is. By a rather freak chance, I ran into Maher and my friend shortly after this, and as we were entering the old Christian Area (where the street is fenced off with a police checkpoint) Maher was stopped and IDed, and once again asked why he was hanging out with foreigners. This is the exact opposite of what I experienced in Central Asia --- here the police hassle the locals for hanging out with tourists.

From Aswan I took a day trip to Abu Simbel, a magnificent temple buily by Ramesses II in the southernmost bit of Egypt. To get there however, you must travel with an organized tour bus or minibus that travels to Abu Simbel through the desert at designated times in a huge police-guarded convoy. So to visit Abu Simbel, you are forced to go with hundreds of other tourist coaches packed with fat old Americans and Germans. Travel anywhere between Luxor and a few km south of Cairo is only easily possible by train that doesn't stop anywhere --- if you want to explore this area of the country you have to hire a police convoy, and foreigners are not allowed to stay in many of the towns.

The result is a whole shitload of organized tours that you have to try to avoid like the plague (this is difficult), and a whole bunch of travelers like myself who are forced to do exactly the same thing. It does not feel like there is a lot of variety, and the lack of freedom and openness that I experienced in Central Asia (since there is no tourist infrastructure whatsoever) is a bit frustrating.

That said, I am having a very good time, and meet lots of very friendly people. The nice thing about a country with so many tourists is that there is always someone easy to meet and spend time with, and since I am traveling alone, this can certainly be comforting. I am seeing a lot of amazing things that I have been dreaming of seeing since I was 5 years old, and in this sense, a lot of the experiences are thrilling, surreal, and borderline religious for me. I have also managed to get a little bit off the 'tourist track' a few times, and these have certainly made for the most rewarding experiences yet:

From Aswan I booked a 2 day, 2 night sailing trip on a small boat called a felucca down the Nile towards Luxor with 4 other people that I met in my hotel there. Our boat was called Bob Marley Family, sailed by Captain Bob (a reallly tall and skinny Nubian with very dark skin who wears a white galibiyya all the time) and his crew of permanently stoned Nubians. The south of Egypt grows a lot of marijuana, and EVERYONE tries to sell it to you, which I find quite ironic, given how difficult it is to obtain alcohol here (in the government liquor store you have to show your passport to make a purchase, to prove that you are NOT Egyptian). The trip down the river was spectacular --- the Nile Valley is packed with really lush green agricultural land sandwiched between the barren desert hills, and the majority of farmers use really traditional agricultural methods. Captain Bob did not sail the entire first day with us (he was really good at disappearing and showing up out of nowhere at the most convenient times) but told us to meet us at his village for the evening. As we sailed, the crew insisted we listen to Bob Marley and nothing else. "We listen to Bob now!"

When we arrived at Captain Bob's village, which was a small mudbrick Nubian village on the west bank of the Nile, we had dinner on the boat with the sunset over the river, and then he invited us to his house, to see the 'Bob Room'. He told us to bring beer. We packed our stuff up to his place, and entered his room, where we found him, and four other old guys (some over 50) dressed in gallibiyas and head scarves who were just rocking out to Bob Marley and BLAZING. These giggling old men were chain-smoking more hash and marijuana than I have ever seen consumed, in a room where a shrine had been set up against the wall on a dresser outlined with flashing Christmas lights, a stereo system, stuffed Santas and plush hearts. The wall behind it was plastered with Bob Marley posters, as well as N Sync and Aqua posters. It was REALLY wierd, and a much more interesting 'local' experience than I would have expected in Egypt.

We sailed all day next day, with the Nubians continuing to smoke and sleep, and eventually reached our destination, where we spent another night on a really cool little island. The following day we went to Luxor (stopping in at a big camel market at a small village on the way, which was very cool), where Captain Bob reccomended we stay at (surprise surprise) the Bob Marley House. The Bob Marley House is a wicked place in a dark back alley, very colorfully painted, and, of course, adorned with Bob Marley everywhere. At 7 bucks a night including a massive breakfast, I really can't complain.

Luxor is the old Egyptian New Kingdom capital of Thebes, and so some of the most famous and impressive ancient Egyptian monuments in Egypt are here. The west bank is the necropolis, where massive mortuary temples stand, and tombs of all kinds of Egyptian nobles are cut into the cliffs. Yesterday I rented a bike, and cycled to the Valley of the Kings (where most New Kingdom pharaohs are buried). People said I was crazy to try and bike there, it was too far, too hot, (aka --- it wasn't a standard part of the 'tourist track'). It was ripping hot, but all in all a very nice ride, and I was able to go in the afternoon after all the tour buses had cleared out. The tombs were quite cool, and there was definitely a sense of awe. I went a bit off road behind the 'do not climb the mountain' sign, and climbed the mountain to the top of the cliff, where I was able to peak over to the other side of the cliff directly above the famous Dier al-Bahri mortuary temple of Hatchepsut, from where I could see all the temples and tombs on the west bank, the fertile Nile Valley, and all the way across to the desert on the other side. It was stunning. Today I saw the temple of Karnak, the largest still standing religious complex in Egypt, and one of the biggest in the world. Given that I have been dreaming of seeing these places since I was a kid, it has been quite exhilerating. Sometimes I wish I had someone to share the experience with, but seeing them alone is peaceful and meaningful in its own right.

The modern town of Luxor is beautiful, and of course, filled with Egyptians hassling you to take their taxi, take their boat ride, ride their carriage, or just straight up give them baksheesh. In the temples and sites it is ok, because sometimes the guards will let you go behind a closed area or show you something you wouldnt normally notice for a bit of baksheesh, but when they come up and start telling me stuff that I already to know or give me 'permission' to take a picture of something I have already photographed and want baksheesh, it gets a bit tiresome. Everyone here wants to be your 'friend', and hook you up with some sort of deal. It gets frustrating quickly, but you have to be good natured about it, as it is amazing how good natured the shameless touts are. And sometimes they do just genuinely want to be your friend. But when EVERY horse carriage that goes by whistles at you and asks if you want a ride, and when you finally convince them you don't want a ride, and then they smile at you and say "so you want to get high?", it goes from funny to annoying quite quickly. I even had a kid, no old than 13, come up to me on the ferry yesterday and sit beside me:

"hello my friend"
"hey there"
"my cousin have taxi, you want taxi?"
"no"
"you want carriage?"
"no thank you"
... a bit of a pause ...
"you smoke ganja?"
to which I just give a shocked laugh.
"Seriously man, hash marijuana, you name it, I've got it"
you've got to be kidding me. "no little man, I'm alright thanks"
"ok friend, you sure?"

And for some reason, whenever you tell someone you are from Canada (EVERYONE asks "where from?"). The immediate universal reply is "Canada Dry!". It has got to the point where when I am asked where I am from I just say 'Canada Dry', or I say "Uzebekistan" --- to which they give a bit of a confused smile, pause, and say "Very nice people! Number 1!".

And so I am sure it will continue. I want to talk more, but I realize that this is long, like usual, so I will save more for later. I am actually taking a train back to Cairo tonight (but a friend and I are going to try and sneak on to the non-tourist train --- which is 75% cheaper! --- wish us luck!). I will stay there for a day or so, and then go out to the Western Desert, where I hope to roll around in some sand dunes and swim in some oases, and soak up some sun. I have a RIPPING sunburn right now, which is going to turn into an immaculate farmers tan very quickly. I will have to wait until I get to a less conservative Muslim country to even things out, so I may not be taking off my shirt until I get back to Canada!

Also, one last thing, just to toot my own horn a bit (I am sorry, I cannot resist), but I just got word today that a paper that I co-authored with my professor at UBC has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Archaeological Science, one of the most prestigious peer-reviewed journals in the discipline. So you should all subscribe for it and look for Martindale, Letham, and McLaren 2009 in the near future. OK, I am done gloating right now, I just needed to tell somebody...

I wish you all the best, and please keep in touch.
Love always from the hot sandy lands,
Bryn

Lost in Cairo

2009-03-03T06:38:00.000-08:00

My first real strong interest as a young kid was dinosaurs, and my second obsession was ancient Egypt. I think a lot of the early obsession from 5-year old Bryn stuck with me and influenced me to study archaeology, and it has always been a dream of mine to visit Egypt. I knew since returning from Central Asia that I wanted to travel again, and after sitting around in Salmon Arm for a while after Christmas I realized I had to get out again. So on February 17th I flew to Istanbul (where it seems that all of my trips seem to begin for some reason), where I spent a week with my Turkish friend Turan and some other really good friends there. February 22nd was my birthday, so we did it proper Istanbul style. On February 25th I flew into Cairo, the capital of Egypt, where I have been for the past week.

Egypt is by far the most conservative Muslim country I have visited yet. Turkey's official line is that they are secular, and the Central Asians are too pissed on vodka to worry too much about the wrath of allah. In Egypt, however, I would say that 90% or more of women are cruising around in headscarves (and a decent handful are rocking the full black veil), alcohol is not easily found nor is it abundantly consumed, and there seems to be a mosque or two on every block, and many shops pump arabic religious programs on their TVs and radios. When the call to prayer rings out around the city its really quite impressive to listen to, as it echoes from every corner around you. I was walking in the main bazaar area (they are called souqs here rather than bazaars) on Friday (the equivalent of a Christian's Sunday) and people were rolling out mats everywhere to pray one. People were literally praying on the medians in the middle of busy streets and in some cases on the streets where cars were ripping around them. It was pretty intense.

And Cairo IS intense. It is the most populated city in Africa (20-25 million) as well as the most densely populated one. The streets are packed and traffic is insane. People park in neutral on the side of the street as people have to park so tightly that cars get boxed in, so there are men that hang around and push the cars around and maneuver them to make space for people to get in or out. Crossing the road is terrifying at first (you just have to go and dodge cars... but luckily there is usually so much traffic that the cars move slow enough that you can meander through them), and the sidewalks are so packed with crap that most people just walk in the middle of the street amongst the cars. The city is humming 24 hours, and the chaotic atmosphere can be quite draining --- though you do get into the rhythm of things. I went back to the busy market area today and was so tired from cruising around that I went into a mosque and fell asleep... perhaps the beginning of my conversion to Islam?

Egyptians are incredibly friendly and welcoming. In the 70s up until the early 90s tourism made up 75% of the country's income. Since some terrorist attacks in the 90s and a large boom in Egyptian industry, that number has dropped to 25%, but that is still quite significant. Therefore Egyptians are no strangers to foreigners and nearly everyone can speak English. They also know that tourists can be a major source of cash and will try every trick in the book to get some from you. In Cairo it seems like EVERYBODY is trying to sell you a tour, a painting, some perfume... or hook you up with someone who can, etc. There are people that try to trick you into going to certain places to eat or to stay, and they will in turn collect a commission... I actually had tea with a guy who collects commission from an Arabic Language School for sending them students --- and he told me that if I sent any potential students to HIM, then I would get commission too! So everyone is friendly, everyone wants to know where you're from, what you do, how you like Egypt, if you want to go for tea, etc. but it seems like most of the time there are ulterior motives involved. And Egypt has a major tipping culture. Called baksheesh, it is expected that small tips should be given for just about any service, from opening a door for you, to turning on a tap in the bathroom, to tipping on top of your food bill AFTER tax and obligatory service charge has already been added. I don't like to tip at the best of times, so this has become extremely annoying really quickly. I went to the pyramids of Giza, where people harass you everywhere for money. They tell you a good place to take a photo, and expect a tip. They let you into a monument that you've already paid the ticket price for, and they expect a tip. They call you over, and tell you that you're at the pyramids and that this pyramid belongs to this person (which I already know/have been told by 10 guys already) and expect a tip. And for whatever reason, small bills are always hard to come by here, and so baksheesh quickly burns a hole in your pocket. At one point I went to the bathroom, and came out where the guy had turned on the tap for me and had some paper towel ready, and I was just so fed up with tipped/didn't have any small bills to give the guy any ways, that I felt that I couldn't wash my hands, and so left without doing so.

In terms of sites, I have seen the Great Pyramids, as well as some south of Giza, like the Step Pyramid at Saqqara, and the Bent Pyramid and Red Pyramid at Dharshour. They were absolutely awe inspiring to see and touch first hand, and it really was a great experience. I have also been exploring the city in depth, seeing the old Christian Quarter, which is the oldest part of Cairo, and the Islamic Quarter, with all kinds of amazing mosques and cool back alley streets. The Egyptian Museum is an overwhelming and unorganized mess of incredible important artifacts. The downtown of Cairo is noisy and chaotic, and very fun. The food is good and cheap --- lots of felafel, baba ghanoush, tehina, shwarma. I have met lots of international people that live here, as well as many liberal-minded young Egyptians at a local watering hole called Al Hurreyra (the Freedom Bar) --- an place started by communists in the 70s that has historically been a hangout for Cairo's intellectuals and activists. In there I met a Palestinian refugee working as a journalist in Cairo now and an exiled journalist and activist from Ethiopia, as well as a slew of other very interesting and amazing people, who all seem to have a very great community here.

Tonight I am catching an overnight train to Aswan, the main city in the south, where it supposed to be hot and beautiful. I will kick around there for a few days and hopefully ride a boat on the Nile for a bit... and eventually work my way to Luxor, where the Valley of the Kings (think Tutankamun's tomb) is located, as well as some of Egypt's most impressive ruins. After about a month in Egypt I plan to work my way back to Turkey via Jordan and possibly Syria, and then I am hoping (fingers crossed) to be going on an archaeological dig in Tajikistan in May.

As always, I hope all is well with you, and I hope you will all keep in touch, as I really love hearing from friends and hearing how things are at home! And if any of you are coming to this neck of the woods in the next little while, let me know, maybe we can have an adventure together!

Love always,
Bryn

So long Central Asia (for now)

2009-02-11T22:32:00.000-08:00

Well, it is February, and if you haven't guessed, I am home, and have been home for quite some time now. I assumed this would be apparent, but I have been told 'you need to finish your blog and let everyone know that you are home'. So I am home. But not for long. I am heading off again in a week. But that's another blog, maybe.

Our final times in China were a blast - we were able to relax and party a bit. Of course we finally got robbed 2 days before departure, after being through what were supposedly some of the most dodgy countries in the world without losing a thing. Miles was pickpocketed, but was pretty good-humored about it. It was pretty sad to leave it all behind and return home. I came back to Canada, and Miles back to Australia. It was a bit tough at first, but I guess we were eased back to 'the West' from our time in Beijing and China's other large cities --- although I suppose that is somewhat ironic.

Since returning I have made it my pet interest to follow the politics and news coming out of Central Asia; I find it much more interesting than the crap people are whining about here. You want to see an economic crisis? Go to Tajikistan. So instead of writing a bunch of big reflections on the trip (like I was originally planning on doing a month and a half ago... you'll just have to talk to me in person if you want something more in depth) I'll just post a few things Central Asia-related that I find pretty cool, and throw up my ever-growing "The Central Asian Way" list.

First, if you're interested in following the news: www.eurasianet.org. The biggest news these days is that the Kyrgyz President just announced out of the blue at the beginning of this month that he was going to shut down the US military base at Manas Airport (Miles and I walked between all the US planes when we were in Bishkek catching our flight to Osh)- only 2 weeks after assuring the US that all things were good for the US to stay there. This is the US' only entry point into Afghanistan from the north, and with Obama planning on getting 30 000 more troops into Afghanistan, this whimsical decision by Kyrgyzstan could be pretty critical. Conveniently, Russia has offered Kyrgyzstan $2.15 billion to shut down the air base and to allow it to be used as a base for a new Russian emergency coalition force... Right now it seems like Kyrgyzstan is hesitating to wait and see if the US will offer more $$$. In other great news, Islam Karimov in Uzbekistan has made it illegal to hang laundry to dry outside in Tashkent, in an attempt to beautify the city. He is being criticized for not focusing on more pressing issues... such as the fact that over half of his country is starving.

If you are interested in some entertaining reads: "Silk Road to Ruin" by Ted Rall is hilarious and covers a wide range of topics from the dictators to the oil politics to how to deal with militia checkpoints.

Another great book that I just finished is called "The Devil and the Disappearing Sea, or, How I Tried to Stop the World's Largest Environmental Disaster" by Rob Ferguson. Its by a Canadian Public Awareness Specialist sent in to help raise public awareness for the Aral Sea disaster, however, he finds himself dealing with the absolute best in Central Asian bureaucracy and the whole project goes terribly awry. It does a really good job of demonstrating the absurd Central Asian mentality, and Miles and I found our selves in many of the same situations as Rob did...

Central Asian dictators are great fun too, my personal favorite being Suparmurat 'Turkmenbashi' Niazov of Turkmenistan. This video is hilarious, but also a bit frightening: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6XK-yGi7NA

While Turkmenbashi is pretty funny, Uzbekistan's Islam Karimov is just downright scary: search for 'Uzbekistan Torture Farm' on youtube.

If you need something, it will not be around (cabbies, ATMs, toilets, toilet paper, cold beer, food). If you do not need something, it will be everywhere and you will be made very aware of it (cabbies, police, mutton).
“No Problem” is the multipurpose English phrase used by Central Asians for ‘hello’, ‘goodbye’, ‘come with me’, and ‘there is a problem’. Alternatively, it can also mean ‘there is a problem but there won’t be a problem if you give me what I want’ or ‘there is no problem, but there will be a problem if you don’t give me what I want’.
A useful equation: If you are told that something will take a certain amount of time to get done, add 25-100% of the quoted time to calculate the actual time that it will take. Then flip a coin. If you flip heads then it will get done in the calculated time. If not, it won’t get done.
If it has bright neon lights and is pumping lively music, the restaurant/bar (actually, all eating establishments are called кафе-бар - café-bars - leaving things a bit ambiguous as to what exactly you can expect from a place) is most certainly dead. There is also a good chance that said establishment is not a restaurant or bar at all, but, say, a closed Laundromat.
No matter how extensive the menu is, the restaurant only has shashlyk (mutton on a stick), manty (mutton dumplings), samsy (mutton or mutton gristle in a samosa-type pastry), or laghman (mutton noodle soup). Oh and shorpo, yes, shorpo is soup! You will be told that the shorpo is very good today. Its not, its terrible. There is also plov, which is rice cooked in mutton fat with slow-cooked mutton on top. Plov is the pride and joy of the Uzbeks, and can actually be quite tasty (I am also told that it is an aphrodisiac). If the menu says it serves plov on a certain day of the week, they definitely do not serve it that day.
When you organize a ride with a ‘taxi’ driver, they will tell you that they know where they are going. They don’t.
Buildings with pictures of hot women in front of them are only hairdressers. Buildings that say кафе-бар MIGHT serve you food. Those buildings on every block that say аптека are ‘apothecaries’. They sell sugar pills and drugs that look like either candies or birth control pills --- for whatever ails you. There are also buildings everywhere with Cyrillic letters that look like they say HOTOPIC (the best translation I can come up with is ‘notarius’). It is certainly not a Hot Topic store, but we never ventured into one to figure out exactly what they were. Instead I sang ‘no- no- notorious!’ every time we passed one. Oh, and all those stores with the razor wire-topped concrete wall and the mirror windows? They’re likely just grocery stores or a boot shops.
Customer service is not yet a concept that most post-Soviet Central Asians have grasped yet. As a matter of fact, employees in stores and restaurants (there will always be way more staff than could ever be needed) will all try their best NOT to have to serve you. Some will tally stuff (they love tallying things!), some will text on their cellphones, and some will just give you the death glare until you shift to trying to get someone else's attention.
Walls are much more important than roads.

Volume 11: The Silk Road Home

2008-12-12T17:54:00.000-08:00

Hello all,

We are in Beijing, China right now, the final stop of our journey. We have done the entire trip from Almaty across China by train, which has made for some long stints on the tracks. Leaving Central Asia was a bit sad actually, I was really starting to get a feel for the place. A few last observations about Kazakhstan:

-we asked a few people about Borat. It was about an even split between those who hadn't heard of him and those who despised him. One girl we met on the train emphasized that he was a 'bad man' doing 'dirty business' through making fun of the Kazakh people. On the whole trip, we only met one guy (a Kyrgyz in Kyrgyzstan), who said that Borat was the best movie he had ever seen in his life.

-the sweeping regimes in Almaty (and Tashkent as well) are the most highly organized and efficient (though efficiency is all relative when you are in Central Asia and you are sweeping leaves in the fall) we have encountered. They had bright orange vests (which led us to believe that they might be paid), massive brooms which could clear entire widths of sidewalks in a single sweep, and people following behind with bags to collect the leaves. It was a beautiful system to watch in action. I really wish I had a chance to see what these places did with the first snow fall. I will do a comparison with Chinese sweeping below.

-we got stopped by police again one night in Almaty while walking through one of the central parks with a beer (as was every other Kazakh person around us). The guy took our passports and said that we had broken law 753 and that we needed to go to the police station. We held our ground and pretended not to understand. Then they asked to search us, which we didn't allow. They then said we were carrying narcotics. 'no' we said, 'no narcotics'. 'GUNS! You have guns!' came the reply, which we laughed at. A crowd of several police surrounded us, giving the 'money money money' motion, which we ignored. We then asked to see all their identification and badge numbers, which is supposed to scare them off, but the head guy pulled out his ID and didn't balk when we took his number. He then said that because we had broked law 255 we needed to pay him, which we refused. We finally told him to just take us to the police station (this was our last resort, these were the most steadfast policemen yet). Its a long walk, they told us, we'll need to pay for taxis (most police don't get cars). 'No way' we said, 'we're walking'. So the guy gets on his radio, farts around for about 5 minutes, and then gives us our passports back, saying that we can go.

-I was at the stage where I could read Cyrillic (not understand it necessarily, but at least read it), and now we are in a country where I don't have a hope in hell at reading the characters.

-The 36 hour train ride from Almaty to Urumqi in western China was relatively painless, save for 6 hours of border customs, during which time the toilet is locked (the shitter just opens out onto the tracks, so they don't want piles of crap pooling at the stations). We had no problems with our Visas, which we were half expecting, since we had possibly overstayed our Kazakh transit visa. We shared a room on the train with a Chinese fellow who had come to Almaty to find work but he had fallen down an uncovered manhole and shattered his arm, so he had to return to China. He also told us how many Chinese were going to Kazakhstan to find work, and that there were so many there that the Chinese consulate cannot keep track of them all, so the Kazakh police know that they can ding them hard. He says that lots of Chinese get taken to the police station and 'disappear', which we found a little disconcerting, since only 2 nights before we had offered to go to the police station as a strategy to get the police to give up. We would be fine, however, he said, since there are so few Westerners in Central Asia, and if something happened to us it would be bad news for Kazakhstan. He also reassured us that the police in China were friendly and that we could trust them and ask them for help. After over 2 months where the police were the most dangerous people we could encounter, this was a foreign notion.

-We had about 24 hours in Urumqi before we caught our next train to Xian. Urumqi is the capital of Xinjiang, the westernmost province of China. It used to be part of Central Asia, called East Turkistan, and has a large group of Muslim Chinese, the Uyghurs, who are a Turkic ethnic group closely related to the Kazakhs and the Kyrgyz (although a Kazakh woman on the train told us not to trust the Uyghurs, because they are not trustworthy and they do not have a motherland). For years the Uyghurs have been rallying to be a nation independent from China, which the Chinese government hasn't taken too kindly to, and has responded by sending large populations of Han Chinese over there to dilute the population (and to extract oil). Urumqi was cool because it still felt a little Central Asian (there was still Cyrillic on many signs), but it was also blatantly Chinese. This entire trip I have found it very interesting how political borders have really actually divided nations that are strongly distinct from each other (when a lot of the time the physical environment is very similar).

-One of the most interesting experiences I have had on entering China is a sort of culture shock related not to the unfamiliarity with Chinese culture, but moreso with the change out of Central Asian culture. If you remember my last few e-mails I wrote that Tashkent and Almaty were very modern cities that felt like Vancouver... well I think that in reality I had forgotten what Vancouver was like. When we first arrived in Central Asia, Miles and I commented on how amazing the amount of basic things that we take for granted at home that just don't exist or are difficult to access in Central Asia. Throughout our time there I became used to this, and started to take for granted the fact that we DON'T necessarily have these things. Then, when we jump into China, which in past 15 years has undergone a MASSIVE transformation and is very much a flashy modern state, I kind of realized 'oh ya, THIS is more what the west is like.' Its kind of difficult to explain, but maybe you can get a sense of what I mean.

China is also very easy to travel in. Its almost like there is an invisible Chinaman holding our hand along the way. There is reliable public transit, things have schedules, things follow the schedules, there are other tourists, lots of people speak english... To be honest, it feels TOO easy. Its not that I don't like China, its a spectacular place, but it just feels a little less adventurous after what we have been through. A lot of it feels packaged for tourists. That said, its kind of a nice holiday after our journey.

After Urumqi, we went to Xian, the old eastern hub of the Silk Road, meaning, that with the exception of some of the middle east, we have travelled nearly the entirety of the ancient world's most important trade route. From Xian to Anyang, where Jing, one of my professors from UBC is co-director of the second largest archaeological dig in China, which we got a personal tour of. From Xian we took the fast train to Beijing where we are enjoying the last few days of our trip before heading home. We are spending time with Jing and several of my friends that I graduated with that are going to school to learn Chinese here.

I fly to Vancouver on the 17th, which will be very strange I think, but I am looking forward to seeing friends and seeing some snow and having Christmas with the family. It has been one hell of a journey. I realize that I have just glossed over 2 weeks in China, this is partly because I have breakfast waiting for me --- not because China isn't super cool. The food is expecially glorious, particularly after 2 months of eating mutton fat. If I never see another sheep again in my life I would be a content man. I will probably write one last time when I get home with some final reflections, and I can talk about China then if anyone is interested. Of course I'd much rather see you all in person and catch up. So, I am looking forward to the holiday season, and I am REALLY looking forward to see you all very soon. Thanks so much for keeping in touch over these past few months,

All my love,
Bryn

Volume 10: The Central Asian Way

2008-11-29T04:14:00.000-08:00

Hello friends,

We are in Almaty, the old capital of Kazakhstan, waiting to catch a midnight train into western China. Since the last update we have divided our time between Almaty and Tashkent, the largest cities in Central Asia.

Tashkent is a beautiful city, very modern ---- street lights, manhole covers, paved roads, the whole works. After our time on the road so far, a lot of it spent in some dodgy establishments, we decided to live the cultured big city life and check into a fancy hotel. After 9/11 Uzbekistan allowed the US to build a large army base on their soil for missions into Afghanistan, which led the two countries to be on good terms. This brought a lot of large fancy American hotels to Tashkent. However, in 2005, Islam Karimov ordered the forceful suppression of a protest led by an exiled opposition party who's leaders had been jailed in the town of Andijon. The protesters were massacred by the police. The US was forced to pull out of its army base due to pressure from human rights groups. This pissed off Karimov even more, so he kicked all American NGOs, hotels, etc. out of Uzbekistan. This led to a bunch of empty fancy hotels, which were taken up by the state and had their names changed, which cannot not necessarily afford to run them properly. Since they don't have the upkeep nor do they see the business that they used to, you can go to them, ask for a discount, the reception makes a fake phone call, and you get a cheep room at up to 50% off the initially quoted rate. We stayed in a hotel that was about a 4-star hotel for 30 bucks a night.

-We were able to see an Uzbek Opera and 2 ballets in a beautiful theatre for under 5 bucks each. I've never seen an Opera or a Ballet, so this was very cool.

-Tashkent has a beautiful metro system, which is built to double as a bomb shelter.

-One day while riding the Metro we encountered one of the more strange english phrases that we have heard. A girl behind us, hearing us speaking English, said "I like to clean the garden. Would you like to clean my garden?" I am not sure if it was a pick up line or what, but when we got off the train I told her to keep her garden clean, to which she replied "Thank you."

-Uzbekistan has an absurd system of registration. Homestays are illegal in the country, and you can only legally stay in registered hotels, which give you a small unofficial looking slip of paper that say the dates that you stayed at the hotel. Theoretically you have to collect these slips and present them when you leave the country to prove that you have not slept anywhere illegally, so by the end of the trip we were carrying a stack of tiny hand-written slips in our passport. Our problem was that since we had camped out at the Aral Sea and taken an overnight bus, we did not have registration for two nights. We had heard mixed reviews on potential consequences: sometimes the border guards don't even look at your registration, and other times people had been fined up to 600$ for not being properly registered. We were able to change the date on one of our slips, and we figured we would try our luck with the other one and try to sweet talk our way out of any trouble...

The whole time we have been travelling in Central Asia, we have experienced the absurd in many different respects, to the point where it just doesn't phase you anymore. Miles and I have come to expect what would potentially really anger or frustrate many people, and have learned several key things for dealing with the Central Asian way. I mentioned previously the abosolute necessity of a sense of humor. Our transit from Uzbekistan to Kazakhstan exemplified this perfectly, and culminated in a day where everything just seemed to not work out to the point where it was pretty difficult to keep our sense of humor:

On Friday in Tashkent we applied for a Kazakh transit visa: a cheap visa that lets us stay in the country for a short period in transit between two countries. The lady in the consulate told us to come back the following day, which was saturday, at 5 PM. Knowing that embassies are closed on weekends I asked if she meant monday and not saturday, to which she replied "no, tomorrow". So we returned on Saturday, and, of course, the consulate was closed. We then went back monday morning, and they told us to come back at 5. We returned at 5 and waited outside the embassy with a group of people until 5:45, when they finally let us in, and then waited in line for another half hour. When we finally got to the reception, she said "Visa no". We asked why, and she said "no invitation", which didnt really make any sense because you do not need a letter of invitation for a transit visa in Kazakhstan (just a visa for the following country you are going to). Some guy came out from the back and said that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had not given permission for a transit visa, but that we could come back tomorrow and check. So we checked into our Tashkent hotel for another night, and went back the next morning, fully expecting not to get a visa (this wouldnt have been a huge disaster, Tashkent is a wicked city, but we need to get into China before Dec 5, and when we checked flights from Uzbekistan to China, they were all booked up until early December). Amazingly, they gave us our visa that morning, saying that we had only 5 days in Kazakhstan --- which is what we expected from a transit visa, though we asked for 7. Strangely though, they gave us validity dates for a 10 day span on the visa...

Anyways, we packed up our stuff and got ready to go to the border, because we wanted to catch an evening train from across the Kazakh border that would take us straight to Almaty, so that we would have some time to see the city with our transit visa and still get into China in good time. We saw in the Kazakh embassy a sign that said that the main border crossing into Kazakhstan was closed to foreigners, and that we had to use another one called 'Yallima'. The guy in the embassy assured us that it was close to Tashkent. We flagged down a car, and offered him 10 USD to take us to Yallima. He said he knew where Yallima was, and that he would take us there. We get in the car and fire off. First he stops to get some meat from the super market. Then he takes us to his house in the suburbs to drop off the meat and tell his wife he is taking foreigners to the border. No biggie, we are entirely used to taxi drivers with their own schedule. We then get onto the highway, and he pulls over, and asks someone where the border is. Of course he doesn't actually know where it is, we are used to this as well. Its the Central Asian way. Of course we're going the wrong way, so we do a U-turn and fly off in the other direction. We come to a police checkpoint (they are every few km along all main roads in Uzbekistan, we'd just had the luck of being with drivers that knew all the police and for the most part just flew through the checkpoints). Seeing us in the car, the police pull us over, ask to see our documents, make a bit of a hassle, come and talk to us --- 'Australia? Oh, Sydney, Kangaroo!', 'Canada? Hockey da?'. They're just wasting time, waiting for us to give them money, which we have learned quickly, that if you play ignorant and waste their time --- joke with them, shake their hands, pretend not to understand them, they eventually give up. Finally, they tell us that the border we are going to is closed, and that we have to go to a different border post, but no worries, they call ahead and let the police there know that we're coming. Great, thanks guys. So we drive off again, back the direction we'd initially come, all the way to a border post, which of course is the border post that we were initially told not to go to. We get out of the car, get mobbed by annoying taxi drivers wanting to take us across, and get told that the border is closed to foreigners. We're pretty pissed at our initial driver for bringing us here rather than Yallama like we'd asked him, but he points me into a guard house. I leave Miles with our stuff and go in, where I am told again that the border is closed. They send me to some room with some greasy guy without a uniform, who asks for my passport, and writes my name in a book. He then tells me once again that the border is closed. I told him that the other police had phoned ahead and said that we were ok, but of course they had not recieved that message. The greasy guy then motions the two guards at the door to leave the room and close the door, leaving me and him in a small room with mirror windows that you can't see out of. Knowing that this is exactly the situation that I do not want to be in, I move towards the door. The guy doesn't speak any english, but he makes it clear that if I give him money, he will give us a stamp in our passport and we will be able to cross. I'm worried that even if we get across the Uzbek side that the Kazakhs won't let us in and we will be stuck in no mans land, so I pretend I don't understand, and try to get him to just give up or present a different option. I open the door, and he immediately closes it. I say, OK, how much to get across, and he writes $200 on a piece of paper. I tell him to go fuck himself (thats the great thing about this place, you can tell police to go fuck themself and they don't know what you're saying) and open the door and leave right away before he can do anything else.

I go back to Miles and the car, which is surrounded by taxi drivers telling us that they will take us to Yallama for $100, and that Yallama is 100 km away. I get angry at our initial taxi driver for saying that he knew where Yallama was and that he would take us there. He just shrugs and points to the border, saying that we just told him Kazakh/Uzbek border (we were very explicit in making him understand that we wanted to go to Yallama). I yell at the guy telling him to take us to Yallama, but realistically there is no way he would for only 10 bucks, and I can tell that he is sweating and feeling bad about the situation. After a while hoping he would cave out of guilt, we just take our stuff out of the car and tell him to leave. Which leaves us dealing with taxi drivers all showing us how much it will cost for us to go to Yallama with them on their cell phone. They got pushy, as we were not ready to pay more than $20, so we got angry and started yelling at them. They all had a good laugh at us, and one cat started taking pictures of us with his cell phone, which made me want to break his skinny neck ----- (OTHER TOURISTS: taking pictures of people like theyre in a zoo is rude and not cool. Think of how you would feel if you were on the other side of things).

Finally some cat tells us he will take us to Yallama for $20, which we agree to, while all the other taxi drivers laugh at us. It turns out that Yallama really is 100 km away. We're now way behind and it looks like we're not going to catch our evening train to Almaty. Going through Uzbek customs was relatively painless: you fill out some pointless declaration forms, go to a useless border guard who can't read what you've written anyways: "Is your name Miles or Joseph? Why are there two names on your passport? What is Tajik Somoni (the Tajik currency that we are stuck with since no exchange booths outside the country will take it)?" and my personal favorite: "Where is the pen that you wrote this declaration form with?"

We get through this and then go to another place where they take our passport. Without even looking at the stupid registration forms that we had been collecting and worrying about the whole time, the guy says: "Uzbekistan, finish?", to which we reply "Finish!", and get our stamp and leave.

Its then a half km walk to the Kazakh border, where they take our picture, stamp our passport, give us some sort of migration card that we have to give in when we leave the country, and then we proceed. At the last police post before getting out of the border zone, a group of police say we need to do a 'passport check'. We give them our passports, which they scan, giving the same questions as all the other police. Then the guy lowers his voice and motions me close to him. 'You and you. $10 each. Tourist tax." Same routine, pretend not to understand them, then deny that there is any tourist tax (there isnt), offer them a cigarette (these ones didnt smoke, it was bizarre). Then they start saying they want a souvenir... they ask for Miles' hiking boots. Upon seeing his water bottle full of water they say "Ahhhh, vodka! Illegal!" They try the same thing with my water bottle, which is empty. Then they say they need to search for narcotics, which we say they can't do, we have no narcotics. After a while of standing around, they finally give us our passports, shake our hands, and send us through.... to another mob of taxi drivers.

Fed up with getting nailed by taxi driver, we push through to find a bus, which is monumentally less expensive, the taxi drivers just try to get you before you can find a bus. "no bus, no bus!" they say, which is usually a lie, so we ignore them and walk up the road. Problem is, since we are going through some small border post out of the way, there actually are no buses. So we go back to the taxi drivers and start negotiating prices, which are again outrageous. We finally --- I'm talking like an hour of frustrating negotiations --- get someone who will take us to Shimkent (where we are supposed to get the train from, but will likely have missed it) for $30. As we are about to throw our bags in the car, the mob of taxi drivers starts to yell at our new taxi driver and bar us from going to the car --- apparently they were trying to bully him out of letting us go for so little money. By this point we were both fed up and praying that these other guys wouldnt talk our guy into reconsidering, and at that second, a large empty bus comes through the border point with a sign saying that it was going to Taraz, a town that is 250 km closer to Almaty than Shimkent. I know that if we can get to Taraz then we have a shot at catching an late night bus from their to Almaty, so we whistle at the bus driver and get him to stop --- thanking our luck that the other cabbies had prevented us from getting into the cab just long enough for this bus to come through. However, before we can get on the bus, a mob of cabbies gets on and starts yelling at the driver. We get on and say we want to go to Taraz, the cabbies say we cant take the bus, then that we can take the bus for $30. We try to bargain, but are sick of bargaining by this point, so agree on the price, and then find that the driver wants $20 and that the cabbies will take the other $10, for some reason that I don't really understand. We say no, but no one budges. I try giving the bus driver his 20 and telling him to tell the other guys to get off the bus, but even the driver says we need to pay the cabbies. He then yells at us to get off the bus, so we cave and give the shithead taxi drivers the other 10. We then got a sweet ride in a big bus all to ourselves to Taraz. The driver liked Boney M and had that pumped, which was pretty good; we gave him a pack of cigarettes to smooth and hard feelings and he negotiated a midnight bus from Taraz to Almaty for us. After all the crap we went through that day we still arrived in Almaty pretty much when we had hoped, and almost within our budget.

Almaty, Kazakhstan, is kind of a fitting spot to end up in because its like a big Bishkek, which brings us full circle in our tour of Central Asia. Its all Soviet grid streets and big concrete buildings, except the city has MONEY. And its expensive. Things here cost the same or more expensive than Vancouver. They have tons of Western shops. The city actually reminds me of Vancouver or a European city, except everyone is FAR more dressed up than people in Van. Fur, leather, and big knee-high boots are the name of the game; everyone is dressed to the nines. The streets are full of massive land cruisers and mercedes. Borat couldn't have been further from the mark. I guess thats what happens when your country sits on the world's second largest oil reserve. Of course we are not getting the full picture of things; our bus through the country to Almaty was during the night, so we did not get to see what the rest of the country looks like, and our visa only gives us time for Almaty. I'd definitely want to come back to see the rest of the country. Tonight we catch a 32 hour train to Urumqi, China, and then we hop on a 53 hour train to Xi'an. I'm not really sure if I am looking forward to it. It'd going to be really strange to leave Central Asia behind, and I believe that I will kind of miss the Central Asian Way.

A few more things we have learned about Central Asia, in closing:

-If you need it, its never around, if you don't need it, its everywhere. This is true of taxis, ATMs, etc.
-no matter how extensive the menu is, they most likely only have Shashlyk (mutton on a stick), Manty (mutton dumplings), or Lagman (mutton noodle soup). Oh, and Shorpo, yes, shorpo is soup. If they tell you its good, its always bad. If a restaurant says they serve Plov on a particular day, they definitely do not serve it on that day.
-taxi drivers NEVER know where they are going.

I'll write again from China, and tell you a bit more about Kazakhstan, including a bit more about the Central Asian Way, which eludes me right now as my brain is fried from writing such a long e-mail, and Miles is waiting for me.

Until then, stay healthy, love,
Bryn

Volume 9: Wedding Crashers and Environmental Disasters

2008-11-21T22:11:00.000-08:00

Hello friends,

The last few letters have been quite long, so I might try to be a bit more brief with this one, and I MIGHT be getting a few pictures up that I can send your way to let do some of the talking.

After I wrote my last e-mail from Samarkand I went back the B and B where we staying to find Miles having some beers with our friends from the road Lachie and Helena, who we met in Kyrgyzstan and went eagle hunting with. We'd been in contact via e-mail and decided to travel across Uzbekistan together. The following day we hired a taxi across the desert to Bukhara, which alternated with Samarkand back in the day as the head city of the Khanates (the history of these places is a complex mess, I'm still trying to work it out myself, but in short and basic form we have Neolithic early agricultural societies and nomadic Scythians up north, then Turkic people come from the east, then Persians, then Greeks, then more Persians, a few Chinese people invaded, the Mongols came and wiped everything off the map in the 1200s with Jenghiz Khan, some Mongols stuck around, then Timur came and resuscitated Samarkand in 1300-1400s then there were a whole bunch of Khans shooting off and claiming various forms of legitimacy and quarelling amongst each other, then one Khan asked for aid from the Russian Tzar against invading Kazakhs, but the Russians took too long to show up and when they did the Khan decided to kill all the Russians instead, then the Russians got pissed and came and crushed the Khans, then the Bolshevik Revolution and the Soviet State, then the fall of the Soviet state in 1991 and the institution of Islam Karimov, one of the world's most corrupt dictators as 'democratic president'. Karimov looks kinda like an Uzbek Hugh Hefner, I imagine he struts around his palace in a purple velvet suit while ordering various media outlets to be banned and exiling (or boiling --- no joke) political dissidents.) After Bukhara we went to Khiva, capital of the Khorezm Khanate, and then Nukus, capital of Uzbekistan's most remote and poor region, Karakalpakstan.

-in Bukhara we stayed at a B and B run by a crazy old man named Mubinjon. He had been an Olympic sprinter back in the day, and was a trainer for the Russian team after he hurt his leg. Now he rocks around his place in a bathrobe and a bit fur hat and cackles like a mad man. When we arrived we found him up on the roof yelling at pigeons. The coolest thing about Mubinjon was that even though he didnt speak any english, he made himself very clear through series' of hilarious hand gestures, noises, and cackling. He also liked to say "psshhht, FINISH!" and "Fantastico!" a lot -Bukhara is like Samarkand in terms of historic architecture, except the old part of the city hasn't been encroached upon by Soviet buildings, which is quite nice. The same goes for Khiva, except Khiva is a city inside a massive fortress wall, which is even cooler. Once again, I'll let the pictures of these places do the talking.

-In Bukhara we went to a hamam --- an Uzbek bathhouse. The building was from the 14th c, and was a series of dark marble domed rooms, through which steam and hot water is piped. I had seen a video of Uzbek baths on the internet before leaving (YouTube: Uzbekistan No Reservations, look for the clip on the bathhouse) and had decided before coming on this trip I would never go, however, Lachie convinced me otherwise. We stripped down and wrapped ourselves in a flimsy towel and enter one of the steam rooms. Need to pee? No problem, just go piss in front of that hole in the floor on the other side of the room. Then, one by one, a sweaty uzbek man leads you to a separate room where he scrubs you, pours hot and cold water over you, and then order you to lie face-first on a marble slab. He then pulls down your towel, pours oil on you, mounts you, and pretty much beats you for about 15 minutes. My favorite move was the 'stand-on-my-bum-and-fold-me-in-half-backwards'. Then you flip over and he contorts you some more, and then rubs hot ginger all over you, which makes your skin burn. You then get sent into a steam room, and he takes the next person for his massage. As terrifying as it sounds, and as homoerotic as it is, I felt amazing after having every joint in my body cracked. Afterwards you rinse off in hot and cold water and go and drink tea. I'd go back any day.

-after dinner at our B and B in Khiva, Miles, Lachie and I decided to go and explore the city in the evening light (full moon and minarets are pretty cool). We ended up hearing some music and laughter from a chaikhana (tea house) and decided to investigate --- night life is scarce in Central Asia, so we felt it necessary to follow this up. We found the chaikhana packed with hundreds of people, with lots of people eating and dancing, and, at the other side of the room, a woman dressed up in a bridesgown. Before we could do anything we were grabbed by a man with two teeth and sat down at a table with a bunch of old men, and brought big plates of plov (national rice dish) and cabbage salads. Then, of course, the old cats started passing down bottles of vodka, to which everyone had to make some sort of toast. A note about vodka in central asia: rather than shot glasses, you drink it out of tea cups, and you must finish the whole cup or you get harrassed. This means that one bottle equals about 4 'shots'. After several (too many) toasts, and seeing no end in sight, I decided to hit the dance floor to avoid dying of alcohol poisoning. This brought masses of little kids wanting their photo taken... over and over again, with the band, with the bride's dad, with each other. Seeing the cameras got the old guys excited, and all of a sudden they all wanted their pictures taken, and they swatted away the kids and made us take pictures of them over and over again. Things were getting quite fun when - at about 8 30 PM - everyone cleared the floor and the bride got up and did some ceremonial walk to the door, hugging family etc, and then left. Everyone else followed, leaving a bunch of hyper kids, shitfaced old men, and us in an empty hall. The guy with two teeth kept trying to tell us something that seemed quite complicated, and we dispersed with the rest of the crowd. I guess the Uzbeks just like to party early...

-The next day some lady from Tashkent in a museum in Khiva invited me to another wedding: "Hello, where are you from? Would you like to come to a wedding?". Unfortunately we were leaving for Nukus that day, so were not able to attend.

-It must have been wedding weekend in Uzbekistan, because shortly after our invite in the museum we ran into a wedding procession out on the street. Some young guys dragged us out to dance in front of the bride and groom. Miles and the others were able to extract themselves from the scene, but I was cornered and was forced to do the funky arabian boogie with some guy in a wierd hat and a bunch of little kids. Any time I tried to move to the side I was dragged back in. I won't lie though, I do enjoy dancing.

-Nukus is the capital of the westernmost and poorest province of Uzbekistan, Karakalpakstan. Everything in the city is rectangular... the streets, the buildings --- its just miserable Soviet architecture to a T. People in Karakalpakstan are ethnically different from Uzbeks... and they make it known. "I am Karakalpak, not Uzbek" was the common introduction. Most of the province's problems stem from the Aral Sea disaster, which we wanted to see first hand. We were able to track down a jeep driver that would take us out to the new shore of the sea, camp with us for a night, and then drive us back to Nukus.

The story, briefly: when the Stans were part of the Soviet Union the Russians sent people in to implement various agricultural reforms to make use of the Eurasian Steppes and the more desert-like areas in the south. Local people were forced into massive cotton production projects, and water was diverted from the two major Central Asian rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya (kind of the Central Asian equivalent to the Tigris and Euphrates). Most of the states were forced into cotton monoculture, which in turn made them reliant on Mother Russia for staple imports. The big problem is that so many cotton fields were made that the diversion of the water caused to rivers to dry up and to not reach the Aral Sea. Water was even diverted from the Aral Sea. Instead of stopping expansion, more fields were made, drawing more and more water away from the sea and the rivers. The further into the desert the water has to go, the more it evaporates before it even reaches the fields. Between 1960 and now the surface area of the Aral Sea has shrunk to a quarter of its size (which means that the total volume of water left is an even smaller fraction). The shrinking of the sea caused an increase in the salinity of the water that was left and killed all the life that was there --- it had a diverse fish population, as well as water fowl, and muskrats (which are very important for the ubiquitous furry uzbek hat!). The sea was essentially dead by the 80s, and the main port town, Moynaq was entirely lost of any industry. Moynaq is now 160 km away from the present sea shore. The dried sea bed has left a white salty sand that gets blown up in sand storms (I can't remember the exact stat, but several 10s of thousands of tons of sand get blown off the sea bed annually). Apparently fertilizers and stuff have been concentrated into the soil after the irrigation channels dry up. Karakalpakstan has the highest rate of respiratory problems and infant mortality rate in the country. Crazily enough, Karimov has not cut down on cotton production in the country --- Uzbekistan is still the world's second largest cotton producer in the world after the US.

Driving out the Aral was very eye-opening. We drove to the west of it, along a plateau that used to form the western most edge of the sea, so we could look down into the dried sea bed. The landscape, though barren and flat as far as you could sea, was still very powerful and breathtaking, probably for its sheer starkness. After a 7 hour drive from the nearest town we came down off the plateau to the southwest corner of where the sea is now. and had a camp out in the dusty sea bed near the new shore. Ideas were tossed around of swimming, but it was pretty gross looking, and very cold. It was really really eerie. The following day instead of driving back on the plateau we cut straight across the old sea bed. In the middle of this, tens of km away from the shore now, there are rusty hulks of old boats laying in the sand. Several oil wells have been built out there, and we came across one place where tractors were planting twigs in the ground --- a pretty futile restoration effort, as far as I can tell. Other than that there was nothing out there. We drove to Moynaq, the old bustling port city, and found it to be a pretty depressing sight. The city just got straight up left high and dry, literally, and it just feels dead. There are more rusty boats sitting in the sand amongst shells that are 160 km from the water now. Such a haunting and truly memorable experience. Highlight of Uzbekistan so far.

Well I guess this didn't end up being as brief as I promised. After returning from the Aral to Nukus, Miles and I parted ways with Lachie and Helena, and caught a 20 hour bus to the country's capital, Tashkent, where we have decided to check into a fancy hotel and live the cultured big-city life. I'll leave the story of how this is possible for relatively budget travelers and telling you about another one of Uzbekistan's moronic bureaucratic policies, the registration system, for the next update. We are waiting on Kazakh transit visas right now, and look to enter Kazakhstan by early-mid next week, where we will just spend a few days en route to Western China.

Until next time, I hope all is well at home, keep in touch,
Брын

Volume 8: The Hungry Police of Dushanbe and the Golden Road to Samarqand

2008-11-11T04:58:00.000-08:00

Hello friends,

We are now in Samarqand, Uzbekistan, we arrived here from Dushanbe four days ago.

Our time in Dushanbe (capital of Tajikistan) was very enjoyable, especially after over a week without electricity and eating only potatoes and noodles in the Pamirs, followed by that 22 hour ride in the shitty Chinese minivan along the landmined 'highway' (read:river bed) from Khorog. We were extremely surprised to find that Dushanbe was an outstandingly clean, green, and beautiful city. We were able to enjoy such luxuries as man hole covers, street lights, and near-24-hour electricity.Our hotel of choice was the lovely 'Hotel Вахш' (Vaksh), which was a true gem --- high ceilings, big marble lobby, red carpets everywhere and a wicked chandelier; as well as room with an entire wall covered in mould, a shower where the water just shot with immense pressure out of the place where the faucet attaches to the wall (instead of the shower head) and launched up onto the ceiling and dripped down over the entire bathroom, and 'floor ladies' with full racks of golden teeth that continually come and pester you for the key, for you to pay ("120 Somoni. Give me."), or to do your laundry. According to our guidebook the hotel was a hideout for rebels during the civil war, but any bullet holes that were in the walls seem to have been plastered over. It was wicked. The next day we tried to switch hotels, but our other choice was full, and we were not about to stay in one of the numerous 5 Star joints in town, so we went back to Vaksh, where the lobby lady smiled knowingly at us, like she knew we'd be back. "Room 8?" she asked. We asked if it was possible to get another, and she poured over her looseleaf notebook, and said that everything was full, but we could take a 'Lux Room'. We declined and just stood there for a while, so she absently flipped through the notebook some more and finally gave in. "OK, room 313. 120 Somoni, give me." This room had a great view over the central square to the Opera House, and the only problem with it was that our constantly-running toilet flooded the room below us. It was a keeper.

It was so wierd to have a beautiful city like Dushanbe in such a poor country. It was like some sort of bizarre Tajik oasis. It is by far the nicest city we have been to in Central Asia. There is one main avenue lined with massive trees and beautful parks that are spectacularly lit at night. There are massive buildings and statues, and of course, friendly Tajiks everywhere. The city felt entirely safe, even late at night. It blow Bishkek away. We spent 5 days there relaxing and enjoying the place while we waited for our Chinese Visa (which we obtained without any hassle whatsoever!) A few other observations/thoughts:

-the president, Emomali Rahmonov, is displayed everywhere, and he has huge gaudy palaces and other strange buildings all along the main drag. the museum has large halls dedicated to him

-The city is immaculately swept of all leaves, all the time. it is like a leaf-free utopia

-there are policemen everywhere. one day, when walking around one the central statues in the city, a massive replica of Ismoil Somoni, an ancient Tajik hero, a police man blew his whistle at us, and beckoned us over. he asked us where we were from etc etc and then told us to follow him behind the statue, he wanted to show us something. he showed us some engraving of a map on marble stone behind the statue and told us to take a picture (which we didn't--- we didn't want to pull out our cameras). he then called over another cop, and introduced us, and told us it was his birthday, and that they didnt have enough money to eat that night, the only had 50 cents, could we please give them some money. we declined, and after a little bit more pushing he gave up and we walked away. we decided that it was pretty wierd having police officers beg from us, and decided to avoid them when possible. The following night, however, we were having a beer in the central park, and then walking back to our hotel, when, once again, whistles blew, and two policemen beckoned us over. They motioned us into a side parking lot behind a bunch of trees, and asked for our documents (passports) --- which were at the Chinese embassy. We handed them photocopies, which they took under a streetlight to scrutinize (they couldn't read them anyways). After a while of pretending to read them, they said "10 Somoni you, 10 Somoni you. We need piva (beer), vodka, calvos". Realizing that these guys were half cut already (and likely boldened by having a few beers ourselves), we told them no, we won't give you money, but we'll go buy more beers if you want to have a beer with us. This seemed quite alright with them, and they agreed, on the condition that we also buy them 'calvos'. We didnt know what Calvos was, and when we asked they made a motion to their mouth, which we interpreted as the motion that we had seen Tajik people use when taking this local greenish chewing tobacco type stuff. "How much calvos?" we asked, assuming they meant chewing tobacco. "1 Kilo" came the reply, which sent us laughing. We told them we wouldnt buy them a kilo of chewing tobacco, but if they came and showed us where to buy calvos we might buy them some. So one policeman took us to a corner store, where we asked where the calvos was. The clerk pointed us to the back --- to the sausage aisle. "Calvos?" we asked. "Calvos, da!" said the policeman, as he ordered a kilo of sausage and a bunch of buns. We asked him if he wanted beer or vodka, and he opted for the vodka, and left while we paid for it. We then returned to the parking lot, where the 2 police called over their other on-duty buddies and they all mowed through the massive sausage and some buns --- they must have been genuinely starving. When it came to the vodka, we weren't allowed to drink from the bottle --- one officer ran across the street and got a bowl, from which we had to drink from, in a very secretive manner --- I am assuming that somehow they figured if anyone saw them drinking from the bowl they could just say it was tea. I have never seen a bottle of Vodka go so fast. After it was all gone they shook our hands and thanked us profusely, then stumbled off back to duty. Turns out the police in Dushanbe are pretty fun.

-November 6th was Constitution Day in Tajikistan, so there was a big stage with live music right outside our hotel room. We also went and watched a special play at the Drama Theatre that was entirely in Tajik and therefor made no sense.

-There are no McDonalds' in Tajikistan (neither in Kyrgyzstan). Dushanbe did, however, have such greasy delights as 'Southern Fried Chicken', 'Big Mac', and 'Chief Pizza'

When we recieved our Chinese Visas on Friday we hired a taxi to the town of Penjikent, near the Uzbek border. The highway north from Dushanbe was immaculate --- up until the President's summer villa, which is massive (it is ubelievable how there can be such huge wealth differential between this one man and the rest of the country --- an educated University Teacher makes $175 per month). Shortly after the villa the highway degrades to shit, with some chinese road crews building bizarre snow tunnels in random places. The highlight was a multi-kilometer tunnel through a mountain (which effectively shaves 4 hours off the drive). The tunnel was built by Iranians, who apparently did not pay much attention to the water table, as water gushes in from the ceiling and the way in flooded most of the distance. Apparently we got lucky, because the tunnel is frequently closed due to too much water.

After a night in Penjikent we headed for Uzbekistan, which we entered without any problem --- some Tajiks had killed some Uzbeks near the border or something like that, so it is only open to tourist traffic, of which we were the only ones. The Uzbeks actually had a computer at their border post, which I suppose is much more effective than having my name transcribed in various dusty notebooks at checkpoints across Tajikistan. We then bombed into Samarqand, a city with much history, and a key location on the Silk Road. My second day here I was sick as a dog (I will spare you the gruesome details), and did not leave my bed until late afternoon. I have been better since, though something seems to be rotting in my stomach --- last night I spent near as much time in the toilet as I did in bed. Regardless I have been able to see a bunch of the sights and enjoy the place a bit. A few highlights and observations before I sign out:

-Uzbekistan has the most ABSURD monetary system in the world. The highest denomination bill - 1000 Sum - is worth about 0.75 US, meaning that you need to literally carry stacks of cash. My toiletry kit is full of money. The novelty of carrying fat bank rolls and feeling like you are mad bling wears off really fast. To make matters worse, there are only ATMs in Tashkent (capital of Uzbekistan), where we will not be for at least a week. Samarqand is relatively big (500 000 people) so we assumed it would be easy to get cash and did not bring any into the country. Not so. The only possibility is cash advances on credit cards, and they only do that on Visa cards (I have a mastercard). So we spent about 4 hours this morning running from bank to bank and exchange office to exchange office (most have a limit on how much you can get and what currency you can get) trying to get enough money from Miles' Visa card for us to last until we get to Tashkent. As we have learned time and time again on this trip, NOTHING is efficient in Central Asia. Never have a schedule, and never expect things to be logical. Another problem is that when you get change in Sum from an exchange office, they hand you a fat stack of several hundred bills, so you can't be fucked to count them and check to see if they give you the right amount. We learned our lesson this morning when we found that we had been shortchanged 6000 Sum (the equivalent of only about 4.50 US) --- but we will be sure to count tomorrow when we go back for more cash since the places we went had daily limits. We are also learning that some of the town we are heading to will only accept Sum while some only accept dollars, and some won't let you exchange cash. All of this hassle makes less sense seeing as Uzbekistan is considerably more touristy than Kyrgyzstan or Tajikistan (but I guess its all relative). Regardless, there were ATMs everywhere in Tajikistan, where we saw zero tourists besides the 2 American wankers we entered with, but there are Tour buses ripping around Samarqand.

-another brief example of how you cannot have a schedule in these places: on our taxi ride from the Uzbek/Tajik border to Samarqand, we picked up a guy on the side of the street, who introduced himself as a police officer. We drove several km down the road to a place that makes Samsy (baked mutton dumpling things that we learned the danger of our first day back in Bishkek). The guy picks up some Samsy, and then we drive ALL the way back to where we picked him up and drop him off there. I assume it was the equivalent of a donut run for cops back at home.

-Samarqand is renowned for its ancient Islamic monuments --- and for good reason. There are 14th and 15th century Medressahs, Mosques, and Mausoleums built by Timur and his descendents everywhere. Massive blue tiled domes dot the city line, to the point where you can just kinda follow from dome to dome and find amazing monuments nestled within the ugly soviet buildings around them. Describing these places would be kind of silly, and not do them justice, but if you cannot wait until I return and can put some pictures on the internet, I would really reccomend googling Samarqand and its monuments, particularly the Registan.

-one police man offered to let us go to the top of one of the minarets in the Registan (for a bit of pocket change of course). agreeing, he then took to a locked gate with hammer and bashed door open. the view from the top was stunning.

-We met up with our friend Robert, the German intern we met working in Bishkek, and spent a few days with him. We also went out for our second night since last time in Bishkek to some bizarre diskos. The only real highlight, besides a power outage, was a 70s-ish door lady who told Miles that he needed to shave and cut his hair. When we went to enter the place, she grabbed the top of our pants ---- for what we assumed was just goin to be a pat down ---- and hiked our pants up wedgie-style. Apparently they were sitting too low on our hips for her approval.

-The toilet paper everywhere in Central Asia --- when you are lucky enough to get toilet paper, and believe me, this is most of the time never --- is more like sandpaper. I am more aware of this fact than ever with my recent stomach problems.

----- We are still having a great time! The key to enjoying this place is just to have a sense of humor about everything and to know that a lot of stuff is not going to make any sense. Tomorrow we are catching a train to Bukhara, west of here, out in the desert, where we are promised more ancient monuments and fortresses, and hopefully some camels. We are going to work our way to the Aral Sea, the world's greatest human-caused environmental disaster, and I will write back more soon!

Until next time,
Bryn

Volume 7, Part 2: The Pamir Highway, Murgab to Khorog (also including: why not to pee on the Afghan side of the highway between Khorog and Dushanbe)

2008-11-04T20:43:00.000-08:00

We've made it to Dushanbe, amazingly (this story later). I need to fill you in on a bit more background information on Tajikistan, specifically the Pamir region:
As mentioned, the Pamirs are HIGH (4 of the highest mountains in Central Asia are here: Pik Karla Marxa, Pik Engels, Pik Lenin, and, my personal favorite, Pik Kommunizm). This means that nothing grows up here. During Soviet times, the region relied entirely on exports from Russia, but when the Soviet Union fell, the people of the Pamirs were left with nothing. The region suffered from drought during the civil war, and is currently experiencing a drought right now. They are the poorest people I have spent time with in real life. Most are unemployed, those who are employed have an average annual salary of about 200 USD A YEAR. Luckily for the people, several NGOs have offered their support, the largest being the Aga Khan Foundation. The Pamiris are all Ismaili Muslims, which means that they follow a separate branch from mainstream Islam that emphasizes the bloodline of the Prophet Ismail. Aga Khan is a Swiss dude who is the 49th Imam (religious leader) in the line from Ismail. He has pumped millions of dollars into Pamir communities and has funded the establishment of the University of Central Asia in the western Pamir town of Khorog. The Ismaili Pamiris WORSHIP the Aga Khan... we're not just talking adoration, he literally IS their living god. And, unbeknownst to us, he was coming to the Pamirs for a visit...
After the first stretch of the Pamir Highway in the Volga, our first stop was the town of Murgab, in the eastern Pamirs. The town is dusty, the buildings are all made of mudbrick and plaster. As mentioned, there are no plants anywhere, pretty much everything is imported from elsewhere to its sparse bazaar. The name of the game for meals in the Pamirs is bread, noodles, and potatoes, which we have subsisted on for the past week and a bit. Upon arrival in Murgab, we walked around with our bags on (Miles and I and the 2 Americans we had shared the car ride down with). The most immediate thing we noticed was everyone's excitement to see us. People would open the doors of their homes and wave, even beckon us to come visit. One fellow ran up the hill to us yelling "No Problem! No Problem!" (it turned out to be the only english phrase he knew), and guided us to his home, where he put the four of us up for a few nights. The Tajiks are undoubtedly the most friendly and hospitable people I have ever met. For a country that is so poor, and for an area that literally has nothing, it is unbelievable how happy and generous the people are. I have trouble even here expressing how crazy this situation is, and how positive things are even in such a shitty situation. It is inspiring.
We spent a few days exploring Murgab, of which one of the activities included registering once again, paying more money, and getting another unofficial-looking document stapled into the passport (but believe me, without this document, you are screwed in Tajikistan, there are police checkpoints everywhere). Miles and I then set out to organize a driver to get us along the rest of the Highway, hopefully in a more reliable vehicle. Murgab has a very good French NGO-funded ecotourism program that coordinates local drivers and homestays for tourists, giving communities across the Pamirs much-needed employment opportunities, so we arranged a driver for five days through this program. We set off the next day without the Americans (I will spare you the rant on ungrateful and rude Americans who seem to think that travelling in other countries is a right rather than a privelege and that the world is out to serve them...) in a 4x4 Army Jeep (this time without any hitches!). Our driver's name was Tatik, and he wore orange and blue corduroy pants, a jean jacket, a black leather beret, and had one gold tooth. He also used to be a driver/bodyguard in the Soviet Army. Since then, for some reason, he had gone to Moscow to study agricultural engineering, and then returned to the last place on earth where any agriculture would be possible to be a taxi driver.
Our trip across the Pamirs was amazing. The term 'highway' should be used lightly when we talk about the Pamir Highway. The road is a pothole-filled semi-paved road at the best of times and a bumpy dry streambed type thing for the rest of the way. Most days we would pass at most 3 cars driving along. On the first day after leaving Murgab, Miles and I did a day hike across a 4700 m high pass --- now the highest I have ever been in my life. Miles had found some altitude sickness medicine, but still suffered mildly at the top, though not nearly as severely as in Kyrgyzstan. Tatik picked us up at the other side of the pass and too us to some hotsprings where we stayed in a yurt heated by the springs.
One thing the Pamirs do have: Rubies.
Tatik began asking us about precious stones, and told us about a ruby mine near Murgab where the Tajik gov't pulls out the best rubies in the country. He then says how some people from Murgab sneak into the mine at night and illegally mine the stones. He then produces a small bag of gems. "Shhhh", he says, as he shows us the rubies in the hotspring yurt. "The owner of this yurt is ex-KGB. If he comes, hide the stones." After a while of examining the rubies that Tatik has, he pulls out his prized ruby, that he claims was given to him by a mine administrator when Tatik saved his life in his taxi. The ruby is about 50 grams and he wants 5000 USD for it. I don't know the price of rubies, but I think that in reality a stone that big is worth much much more. "I cannot sell it for more" he says, "otherwise people will get suspicious."
Coming back from the hotsprings, Tatik has to drop some stuff off at his home in Murgab before we start working our way west. We are also driving a Pamiri family of 5 from the hot springs to Murgab for a wedding. On the road we stop at a small village. "I have to pick up the sheep for a sacrifice." Sure enough, a live sheep is thrown in the back of the jeep, and our bags are thrown on top of it. At Tatik's house the family invites us for lunch, and then invites us to watch the sacrifice of the sheep. So we watched a live sheep get its head cut off.
Another family wanted 'to sacrifice the chicken' in our honour, but having just eaten a massive meal of potatoes and noodles at another famil's house earlier on the road, we had to decline. Visitors are seen as blessings here, and you will literally be invited for tea or a meal just by walking around a village.
One day we went out with a local guy looking for endangered Marco Polo Sheep, which are supposedly migrating from Afghanistan through the Pamirs, but we didnt see any. That same family hooked up their solar battery so that we could watch a japanese-pirated dvd of the Batman movie with Jack Nicholson as the Joker. Our first english movie in nearly 2 months, and it was in a shepard's hut 70 km from any village.
On the third day after leaving Murgab we turned south off the Pamir highway and drove to the Wakhan Valley, of which half lies in Tajikistan, and half lies in Afghanistan. The Afghan part of the valley is responsible for 90% of the world's opium production. The Tajik half apparently has no opium due to extremely heavy anti-drug laws (apparently Tajikistan is 3rd in the world for drug seizures), but it has to get to the rest of the world somehow, and I imagine a large amount of it still passes through the Tajik side. The border with Afghanistan is literally just the river that runs parallel to the road, so we were within 100m or less of Afghanistan for 3 days of our trip. At one point we stopped so that Tatik could yell at some Afghans from a camel caravan across the river to ask how they were doing and if they knew someone from his family that lived in a village in Afghanistan. The caravan people invited us across the river for dinner with them, but we could not go across as Tatik was afraid that Tajik militia patrolling the road might catch us. The Wakhan is filled with the ruins of silk road forts, which gave me my archaeology fix, and at the end of one day we went to a hot spring in a cave and got naked with a bunch of Tajik men and boys. Bonding experience.

Tatik actually spoke very good English, so we had some very interesting conversations with him, most of which could only remind me of Borat:

"I have wife, but I want to have other lovers. In your country, is this OK?"
"What is it one should say to foreign girl to make them want to do the mate?"
When told that 2 girls could get married in Canada: "WOW. This is very interesting... but how do they... you know, make the baby?"
"One tourist I drove was very big... very big bum. Very nice. I wanted to taste her. It would have been like the elephant and the mouse. But she would have none of it."

Creepy ol' Tatik.

One thing we noticed as soon as we hit the Wakhan Valley was an incredible number of people walking west along the road. When we asked, we learned that they were walking to Ishkashim, a village at the west end of the valley, where the Aga Khan was going to be visiting on the 4th of November. These people, who had no cars, were setting out to walk about 150 km to see the Aga Khan speak. Tatik himself said that he would be driving 10 people in his jeep from Murgab to Ishkashim for the event.

When we arrived at Khorog, our final destination on the Pamir highway, and the largest town in the Pamirs, we went to check into a guesthouse. When we told the owner that we planned on staying 2 nights, she asked us where we were going to go afterwards. "Dushanbe" (Tajikistan's capital), we said. "You will not be able to leave" she replied. "Aga Khan is coming, road will be closed for a week."

It turned out Aga Khan was flying into Khorog the following day, giving a speech in Khorog the next, and then heading to Ishkashim after that. Everyone from all over the country was coming to Khorog, and apparently nobody would be leaving until after Aga Khan left. We went and asked around, and learned that we would have to get out of town the following day otherwise it would be impossible to leave. We decided to wake up early and try to find a car that would take us to Dushanbe.

At 7AM we headed downtown to find that all the roads were closed off by the police and no cars were in the city. People were out sweeping in full force, making sure that every road and back alley of Khorog was clean for Aga Khan. Groups of women had been up all night banging drums and singing, and people were hanging flags and banners everywhere. The atmosphere was extremely festive. We decided to walk to the airport, where we knew Aga Khan would be flying in, but hoping that we could maybe book a flight out for the following day. The walk to the airport was 5 km, and all along the road people were sweeping and decorating. The atmosphere was very exciting. The airport was full of people ready to greet the Aga Khan, and we learned that no flights would be leaving the city that week. Dump trucks full of people from Dushanbe were coming to the city. We realized that this was potentially going to be a very cool event, but we needed to get to Dushanbe to organize our Chinese visas. After a lot of debate we realized that we would regret not hanging around to see what would happen, and decided to stick around for the day and then try our luck with vehicles at the edge of the city in the late afternoon. We hung out with the crowd on the street for several hours, no one seemed to know when Aga Khan was supposed to arrive, and we couldnt really figure out what was going on. Finally a helicopted landed in the city, so we expected the guy to come down the street in some sort of parade, but instead a bunch of land cruisers and hummers just flew past and then everyone on the street started walking towards the town center for some reason, so we joined the mob and followed them, but in the town center people were all just kinda standing around and nobody really knew what was going on. We figured we'd better get out while we still could, so we dashed to our guesthouse, grabbed our bags, and searched for a vehicle heading to Dushanbe. It took a long time, but we finally found a guy and his son who were leaving, so we arranged to go with them. They had an 8-seater van type deal that they wanted to fill before leaving, but it turned out we were literally the only people in the city trying to get out, so we ended up just leaving, the only car heading out of town while tons of vehicles poured in towards Khorog. I still sort of regret leaving the place with so much excitement, but with our visa situation we could not afford to risk being trapped in Khorog for a week.

The vehicle we drove to Khorog in was a small Chinese minivan-type deal called a Dongfeng Yuan. The Chinese seem to have engineered their vehicles with lawnmower engines to save money. This fact, combined with the fact that the 'Highway' from Khorog to Dushanbe was actually in worse shape than the Pamir Highway (it was like a Canadian logging road that even we would hesitate to drive in pickup trucks) made the 556km journey take 22 painful hours. Add to that the fact that the father was trying to teach his son to drive... Neither of them spoke any english, but the son would keep turning around and say "DUSHANBE!!" with both thumbs up.

At one point in the middle of the night we stopped for a bathroom break. Miles got out and walked towards the south side of the road to pee, and the driver and his son started whistling and yelling at him to stop. They motioned him to pee on the other side of the road. It turned out the side of the road near the bank of the river dividing Afghanistan and Tajikistan is mined. Further along the road we saw warning signs in Cyrillic with a stick man running away from an exploding land mine. Moral of the story: watch which side of the road you piss on in Tajikistan.

To make a long story short (I am running out of time on this computer) the ride was eventful and long, but we made it to Dushanbe, which turns out to be an amazing and beautiful city that blows Bishkek out of the water. I will describe it to you more the next time I write, and I promise to write back to those who have written over the next few days as we wait for our Chinese Visa. Until then, bye for now!

Bryn

Volume 7, Part 1: The Pamir Highway, Osh to Murgab

2008-11-04T20:39:00.001-08:00

Hello from Khorog, Tajikistan!

A little about Tajikistan to start: Tajikistan is the poorest country in Central Asia. The eastern half of the country is made up of the Pamir Mountain Range which is on average above 3500 m, and the western half is only slightly lower, until you get to the far west. This basically means that the country is nothin but mountains, which means that they have very little in terms of resources beyond rocks. The country looks like a bizarre puzzle piece, interlocking with Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, as well as Afghanistan to the south and China to the east, due to our friend Stalin's (most likely vodka-fuelled) attempts at border definitions based on ethnic (linguistic?) boundaries. (Considering that we spent the first four nights with Kyrgyz families, I'd say he fucked up). In reality, Tajikistan is home to a whole shwack of ethnic groups, from Uzbeks to Kyrgyz to Afghans to Wahkanis to Shugnanis to many others that I cannot spell. During Soviet times these people were all held together in a relative peace due to economic support from Russia. However, in 1991, when every Russian in Tajikistan got out as fast as they could, the country was left with absolutely nothing (except those mountains...) and civil war erupted. In the southwest there were Islamists siding with Afghanistan, in Dushanbe (the country's capital) and the northwest (a town called Leninabad!) there were those still clinging to the Russian way, and in the Pamirs to the east were a handful of people who were not happy with either and formed a guerilla army (this situation is simplified). The Pamir province, called the Gorno-Badakshan Pravince, unofficially declared itself as a sovereign state separate from the rest of Tajikistan. Apparently over 60 000 were killed and over a million diplaced. In the end, the Russians - fearing that Tajikistan would be overcome by Islamic extremists, and that Uzbekistan would then be encouraged in a similar direction, working its way north towards The Motherland - sent aid and encouraged cease fire/ peace agreement, which was signed in 1997. Tajikistan was only opened to tourists in 2002. Enter us.

Since the last update, Miles and I successfully obtained Tajik Visas in Bishkek, as well as GBAO permits. These permits are required to travel into the Gorno-Badakshan Province of Tajikistan (the Pamir region that tried to declare autonomy during the civil war). As soon as we got this paperwork dealt with, we got the hell out of Bishkek, catching a flight south to Osh, Kyrgyzstan's second largest city. Let me tell you, Central Asian airlines are something else, but that is another story. There is a reason they are not allowed to fly out of Central Asia due to international flight safety standards.

Osh was very different from the rest of Kyrgyzstan. It felt much less Soviet and more middle eastern... more alive and friendly. The Bazaar was HUGE and amazing, supposedly one of the best in Central Asia, and definitely the best we have seen yet. From Osh we worked to arrange transport along the Pamir Highway into Tajikistan. We met two Americans in Osh who were wanting to do the same, so we figured we woul split the cost of a ride together. The guesthouse we were staying at offered us transport to Murgab, Tajikistan for 250 USD, but we decided to look for a cheaper option. In the end we found a ride down arranged by another guy from Osh in a Russian army jeep for 210 USD, which we snagged, convinced that we could do no better. However, the next morning, when we went to meet our ride, our 'transport arranger' informed us that the owner of the guesthouse we had been staying at had paid off our arranged driver NOT to take us to Murgab. Apparently the guy we were going through used to work for the guesthouse guy and had been caught doing some dodgy dealings and was fired, so now the two were competing with each other... Annoyed and a bit anxious to get out of Osh, we put the pressure on our man to find us another ride to Tajikistan. At 11 AM he had come up with one driver will to take us south --- in a Volga Sedan (russian car, thats all you need to know. anything not made by the russian military is prone to lighting on fire at any random moment). Feeling a bit desparate, we agreed.

Our move out of Osh was slow. Apparently the Volga still needed some parts, which we had to stop at any garage along the way to look for, which of course, no one had. In the end we settled for a bit of air in the tires and headed on our way, without whatever part our driver had been looking for. It only took until the first hill that we realized we might be in trouble in the vehicle. It struggled with a slight uphill, and we knew that the Pamir Highway between Osh and Murgab climbed through a 4200 m pass and a 4600 m pass. Also, the windows didnt roll down (except the front one, which wouldnt roll up), there was a massive draft coming in from the back seat, and our driver smoked like chimney. Furthermore, and worst of all, after about an hour on the road, he through in a tape of Kyrgyz pop from what I would assume would be the early 90s which he played for the rest of the trip (about 18 hours).

We powered on. We stopped for a late lunch at some dirty Kyrgyz roadside cafe, and then hit the road again, however, when we tried to hit the road again, there was a big bang, and the whole car dropped about 50 cm. Shit. Our driver got out, winched up the rear side of the car with a rusty jack, and crow-barred out the rear suspension, which had apparently failed. He threw the springs into the trunk. Instead of any replacement, we just continued without rear suspension. On we went. On the Kyrgyz side of the border there is a 3900 m pass, which we slowly climbed, up into deepening snow. Trucks coming from China slowly snaked their way down from this pass. Near the top we saw a chinese semi flipped on its side. As soon as we hit the summit of the pass, the other side was covered in snow. All the Chinese trucks had chains, but our little Volga only had bald tires. To the left was a mountain and to the right was a cliff face down to a about a thousand meters belows. As soon as we hit the snow we started fishtailing. This was the first time this entire trip that I seriously feared for my life. Our driver remained stoic as we slid past chinese trucks and scooted down the mountain to a snowy Kyrgyz town called Sary Tash --- the last Kyrgyz town before the Tajik border. In front of us lay a frozen plain about 50 km long, and then the Pamir Mountains rose like a wall. We approached these mountains as it was getting dark, and quickly realized that it would be insane to go up into an even higher snowy pass in the dark. After a team meeting we convinced our driver in broken russian that we wanted to sleep before continuing to Murgab (a further 8 hours minimum in good conditions down the highway). To be honest he seemed a bit relieved and took us back not to Sary Tash but to a town further west called Sary Mogol, where he had family. We came to his home late at night, where we were welcomed with tea and plov, and a warm bed in a mudbrick house.

The next morning we set off again back to Sary Tash and then to the Tajik border. First off, Kyrgyz checkpoint. Cold but uneventful after 30 mins of waiting even though we were the only car there. Then several km through no-man's land to the Tajik checkpoint, at the top of the 4200 m Kyzyl Art pass. We get out of the car, give them our passports, go into a room for a bit, get sent out again where they say they need to do a customs baggage check. They pat my bag and ask me to open it, where they see a gas tank for my MSR Camp Stove. "AHHH! Torpedo!" They exclaim. "no, fuel bottle", I attempt to explain. Meanwhile, Miles opens his bag, and at the top is sitting a carton or Marlboros that we purchased before leaving North America for bribes. "Ah, Cigarettes!" The soldiers exclaim. Miles gives them a pack, and our baggage check ends right there.

We then move through some gate, where we are taken into another office for another registration operation. This time we go in one by one. When I go in and sit in front of the soldier, who is looking at my passport, he says:

"Hmmm... Canada da?"
"Da."
"Canada... hmmm.... Hockey da?"
"Hockey?" I say. "Da, da, hockey."
"Pavel Bure, da?"
"Da." I say.
"Da" says the soldier, and he waves me out.

After this, we go into another building, where the same operation goes. They transcribe my name into Cyrillic into a looseleaf notebook and send me on. If you go the Tajik border today and had access to the registration notebooks, you would find 'Bryn Letham' transcribed once in english and in twoвшаааукуте ways into Cyrillic. National Security, I guess.

So we are in Tajikistan, the Pamirs. They are STUNNING. As soon as you cross the Tajik border, there is no snow except at extreme heights... the place is an absolute desert. Rather that driving through valleys with mountains above you, were are driving through what appears to be barren plains... except the plains are at about 3500 m, and the mountains on the sides reach well above 5000 m. The landscape is surreal, and unlike anything I have ever seen before. We stop at a large lake formed by a meteor called Karakul for lunch in someone's home in a small village, then continue to Murgab. Before Murgab is a 4600 m pass. As we work our way up to it, our mufflet straight up falls off. As with the suspension of the Volga, our driver jacks up the car, gets under it, and unscrews some parts, throwing them into the trunk. We continue up the pass through the beautiful mountains (it looks like what I imagine Mars would look like) to Murgab... Remarkably, we all make it in one piece.

From here we organize the rest of our journey along the Pamir Highway, and through the Wakhan Valley, which will have to wait until the next time I get on a computer, as I have to jet now. We are trying to get to Dushanbe tomorrow, but there is a very realisitic chance that we will be stuck in Khorog for the week (long and entertaining story, will come next time). Until next time, I would love to hear from home... Happy Halloween (that doesn't exist over here)...

Will continue the story soon...

Love, Bryn

Volume 6: The Black Hole of Bishkek

2008-10-21T04:07:00.001-07:00

Hello everyone from Bishkek, the Kyrgyz capital.

Miles and I have made some significant changes to our plans. We have a gap between our Kyrgyz Visa's expiry date and our Uzbek Visa's entry date, meaning that we have to get out of Kyrgyzstan and into somewhere else before we can enter Uzbekistan. Our initial plan was to try and get a Visa for Kazakhstan and pop up to hunt for Borat for a week or so before we enter Uzbekistan, but after talking to several travellers that we have met on the road, we have been convinced to go south into Tajikistan and travel the Pamir Highway: 'the highway at the roof of the world' - apparently. Our guide book touts it as one of the greatest road trips in the world, and after being convinced that Tajikistan is safe (it was the site of a major civil war after independence in the 1990s and only became open to foreigners for the first time since the late 1800s in the late 1990s), we have decided to go there and enter Uzbekistan from Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan.

This meant coming back to Bishkek, shitty Bishkek, to apply for a Tajik visa (we knew we'd have to spend more time here anyways, even if we were applying for a Kazakh visa instead). However, we were informed that Tajik Visas were really easy to obtain in Bishkek, so that sweetened the deal even more. Last time I wrote we were in Naryn, we spent one night there, hired a driver and went into the mountains to the ruins of a 15th Century caravanserai and a 10-12th Century Karakhanid fortress (for my archaeology fix) and stayed in a small yurt camp up at 3500 m outside the caravanserai (maybe I will get back to this whole experience later, as it was one of the highlights of the trip for me, but for the sake of the narrative, let me stick with Bishkek and the Tajik visas). After a wicked night in a yurt we returned to Naryn, from where we were hoping to hire a 4x4 to take us on a road across the country to Jalal-Abad on the western side, meaning that instead of having to backtrack to Bishkek in the north center of Kyrgyzstan, we would be doing a loop around the country and doing minimal backtracking, and most importantly, putting aside the fact that we had to return to Bishkek for a few more days. Unfortunately, after getting a local tour agency to make a few phone calls to Jalal Abad, we learned that the road between there and Naryn was snowed in, meaning that we had no option but to go north to the capital. It was a thursday, and we decided that if we burned straight back to Bishkek maybe we could get to the Tajik consulate and have our visas by the next day, or more realistically, the following Monday. And so we piled into a shared taxi to Bishkek after negotiating with the Naryn taxi mafia (they all move around in groups, wear all black suits and black leather old man golfing hats, shake each others hands constantly and pass bills between each other, and move you from car to car as you negotiate a price. If you try to bargain too hard, the other guys start arguing with the driver for some reason, and then you get passed off to another driver... in the end we ended up paying the equivalent of 12 dollars each for a 5 hour ride ---- except this means 5 hours of Kyrgyz pop music blaring on the radio, for which they should be paying YOU to listen to...).

We arrived in Bishkek too late to go to the Tajik Embassy on Thursday, so we checked into a place called Nomad's Home, where we paid the equivalent of 6 dollars a night for a bed in a yurt set up in a courtyard in the suburbs on the northeast edge of town. Here we meet a few other travellers (including a guy from Montreal) who are all waiting for various visas. Some have been at the same place for 10 days. Some longer. This was not encouraging. 'Welcome to the black hole of Bishkek visa hell', we were told.

After 2 and a half weeks of traditional Kyrgyz food (greasy mutton based stuff, mostly) Miles and I went to New York Pizza, which boasted the best pizza in Central Asia (it wasnt bad), and hunkered down on the internet to try and sort out our plans.

Friday morning we worked our way to the Tajik embassy, which is wayyyy out in the suburbs on the exact opposite side of the city. Our plan was to go with our most charismatic smiles and hope for the best. We'd been one night in Bishkek and were ready to leave again already. The place sucks. The Tajik receptionist was very lovely, 'but', she says 'you need a letter of invitation into Tajikistan'. New rule. As of less than 3 weeks ago (we talked to a guy that got a visa in two days without a letter at the end of September). Shit. Back across town to the internet cafe district (there are TONS of net cafes in Bishkek, but for whatever reason, they are all clustered within a couple of blocks). E-mail our man at Stantours, who had organized letters of invitation (LOIs) for us to get into Uzbekistan. While we're waiting for this we go to various Bishkek travel offices asking if they issue letters of invitation. None do. After checking e-mails several times throughout the day, Stantours pulls through. They can issue an official LOI approved by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2 weeks. Shit. BUT --- 'you can try an unofficial LOI, we can get that to you within 2-3 days'. It sounds dodgy, but we don't have 2 weeks to wait, and we have to go somewhere between Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. We go for the unofficial LOIs, and pray that we'll get them by Monday morning to take to the Tajik embassy asap. If all goes well, we could theoretically have our Tajik Visas by wednesday, meaning we'll have been in Bishkek for just under a week.

On the meantime, we have a weekend to kill in Bishkek. We saw most of the sites in the first 2 days we were here. Luckily, at the beginning of the trip we met 2 guys in Cholpon Ara: Jez, a British NGO worker working for Mercy Corps in Bishkek; and Robert, a German economics student doing an internship in the city. Both had been living in Bishkek for several months, and both were trying to get out of the city as much as possible on weekends, hence our meeting in Cholpon Ata. We called them up and met up with them, as well as another hilarious guy named Okon, from Toronto, who has been teaching at the American University of Central Asia here for the past 3 years. We all had dinner and they took us to a PUB (we didnt think such a thing existed in Kyrgyzstan, all establishments here are diner style cafeteria lunch rooms that lack any sort of atmosphere whatsoever) But here in Bishkek, some British guy has opened a proper pub called the Metro in a dimly lit old theatre of some sort, where all the British and American expats living in the city congregate and bitch about how much Bishkek sucks. There wasn't a Kyrgyz person in the place, and it was truly bizarre to be in a place full of people speaking English. Here I learned some interesting things:

- at the universities in Bishkek, you can buy 'A's for about 500 som --- 15 USD
-at the Casino outside the Hyatt, you can buy PhDs. apparently this is popular with germans.
-I saw a guy who looked exactly like Chuck McTavish (sorry non-Salmon Arm people, SA reference). I told Jez and Okon that this guy looked exactly like my good friend's dad, and Okon said 'OK, you have to meet this man'. He introduced me, and it turned out the guy was an Albertan that owned a golf course north of Bishkek, and worked in Kumtor, the Canadian-Kyrgyz goldmine and environmental disaster that (I think?) I wrote about in my last e-mail
-Okon and I relived Joe Carter's 1993 world series game winning home run
-it is best to live near official buildings in town, because they have less frequent power outages. For example, Jez lives in an apartment right beside the Ministry of Defense building - he says he thinks he's only had one power outage in 7 months (Miles and I have spent at least 50% of our time without power at various places around the country)
-if the power goes out in the pub, or any restaurant for that matter, no big deal. just light a bunch of candles and continue as normal. makes for a real romantic feel at those aforementioned atmosphere-lacking restaurants.

The next day we met with Okon and Jez for a Chinese lunch (no power), and Okon took us to see the American University. He nearly died laughing showing us the statue of Marx and Engels, deep in some sort of discussion, facing the ex-KGB headquarters/now-American University. Furthermore, there is a MASSIVE statue of Lenin, which was moved from the main square in the city post-independence and now also faces the American University, arms outstretched towards it. We also went to the State Historical Museum, which is pretty much a 3 storey shrine to Lenin. They have every book and letter the man has ever written, and numerous statues and photos of him. There also some wicked pictures of the world's dictators all hanging out, including one of them doing a team huddle style hands-in-the-middle sort of cheer. Islam Karimov (Uzbekistan) is really old and short. Putin is even shorter but he looks like he could break a man in half. Turkmenbashi (Turkmenistan until he died in 2006) is about 7 feet tall and looks like a fuzzy bear. The guy from Iran looks like he just got off the streets from a week long bender, and has a really chilling but charismatic smile. I really wanted some of those pictures for my room. On the ceiling of the top floor was a big mural, including a section with Ronald Reagan wearing a cowboy hat and a skull mark and riding a nuclear bomb. Mother Russia was hot, of course. There were also a lot of confusing paintings of people dying and looking like zombies. Overall, of the sites to see in Bishkek, I would most highly reccomend the museum.

Saturday seems to be a major sweeping and burning day in Bishkek, except unlike the other towns where it was all leaves, in Bishkek you get burning plastic as well. Saturday is an unhealthy day to go outside.

That night, Okon wanted to go to a night club, so we decided to go out for pretty much our first time since coming to Kyrgyzstan. Before this weekend 9 PM bedtimes had been the order of the day, especially when you are in small towns with no street lights and no power. Bishkek is also supposed to be quite dangerous at night, but we felt safe with Jez, Robert, and Okon. Okon went home for a nap, and we were never able to wake him up, but the remaining 4 of us went to the Metro, and then to 'The Golden Bull', a pretty greasy club that seemed to be in some sort of warehouse room. It was full of Kyrgyz and Russians dressed to the nines (they all dress REALLY well in the city, especially for being so poor --- we figure its all just cheap Chinese stuff from the Bazaar. The club was admittedly quite fun, even though we didnt really fit in. At one point I was just kinda dancing away as I do, and some Kyrgyz girl came up and yelled in my ear 'You dance terribly!'. Some other guy told Miles and I to cut our hair. Aside from Robert getting his jacket stolen, the night was fun and without any problem. We all crashed on Robert's apartment floor.

Sunday was a write off in terms of anything worth reporting aside from the fact that it PISSED rain. It was our first rain since arriving, the weather otherwise has been clear and beautiful. The following day was clear and beautiful as well. Someone told us that Bishkek sees sun over 300 days of the year.

Monday (yesterday) came, and it was our moment of truth. Amazingly, our LOIs came from Stantours in the morning, the lovely lady at the Tajik Embassy helped us fill in our application forms, and it looks like we will be getting our Tajik Visas on wednesday morning (tomorrow). We are also getting special permits that allow us to travel the Pamir Highway (more bureaucracy, but thankfully the lady was helpful --- we have a lot to do in Tajikistan in terms of registering and paperwork, but I will save this for after we've actually experienced it) This means we'll be getting out of Bishkek ASAP, and we will be able to enter Tajikistan on Friday at the earliest. We're still sorting out exact travel plans. I have heard that there is not any electricity in the eastern half of Tajikistan, except in one city that has it every other day, so unless I have anything amazing to write about in the next 3 or 4 days, it may be a little while before the next update. Until then though, I'm sure I've provided you with enough to read. There are just so many little stories I could relate (for example last night Miles and I got out of the city into the mountains and found ourselves at a nearly abandoned Soviet Spa where we thought we would be spending the night alone outside in the cold, and then walking 40 km back to Bishkek today --- luckily neither happened), I am having to pick and choose, but I'll continue to try and fill you in on the best ones.

Hope all is well back at home, and I always look forward to hearing from you all! Talk to you soon!

Bryn

Volume 5: Pigs is Pigs

2008-10-14T04:18:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone, we are in a small town called Naryn right now, on the southeast of Kyrgyzstan. Looking south we can see the mountains in China.

After I wrote last, Miles and I ate some super sketchy cold noodles in a rusty bowl in the bazaar and then went on a 3 day guided trek of the mountains south of Karakol; up the Karakol Valley, across a 3860m pass, and down a valley called Altyn Arashan, 70 km in total. The wilderness here is stunning, and the mountains are unbelievable. At the top, just before the pass, there was a 3500 m alpine lake called Ala Kol. Before this trip the highest I had ever hiked was about 2600 m, so this was about 1200 m higher. It was one of the most physically challenging hikes of my life. Unfortunately Miles got altitude sickness, which made things very difficult for him, and a little bit scary for me. I definitely had my first serious bout of homesickness and loneliness for a while on the trek, especially the first night, realizing that I was in the middle of nowhere literally on the other side of the world (we are 13 hours ahead of British Columbia in Kyrgyzstan). Regardless, the mountains were spectacular and I was still able to enjoy it. I was also distracted from my melancholy when we descended from the pass for our second night at Altyn Arashan, where we were greeted by a whistle from a hairy naked Kyrgyz man standing with his hands on his hips outside of a hot spring pool. That evening we enjoyed the hotsprings as well with our naked Kyrgyz guide.

After the hike we returned to Karakol where we spent a day recuperating... both of us were having some serious trouble getting out of bed. We stayed at the guesthouse of a man named Valentin, who was a motocross trainer in the Soviet Army, and rips around on his 1994 Canadian Kodiak 4x4 ATV, given to him by the Kumtor Gold Mine, a Canadian-Kyrgyz operation south of Karakol that is responsible for spilling Uranium and Arsenic into Issyk Kol and is in the process of being shut down. 'This Canadian 4x4' Valentin proudly tells me as he struts his stuff in an old one-piece ski suit, 'is the best model of 4x4 in the whole world'. Valentin is apparently a bit of a legend in Kyrgyzstan, as everyone seems to know him, and he seems to have the hook ups for everything.

After our day of rest, we got up early the next morning to go to the Karakol Sunday Animal Market, the largest animal bazaar in Central Asia, with a few travellers we met at Valentin's place (yes, apparently there are other people travelling over here, but they seem few and far between. It is definitely nice to have someone to speak english to though). People come from all over Central Asia and China, as well as Pakistan and Afghanistan, for the Sunday Market, and it was one hell of a sight. Thousands of people were crammed in with their animals trying to sell them. Animal rights activists would probably melt into a pool of goo in Kyrgyzstan, as I cannot say that all of the animals here looked comfortable or entirely healthy. My personal favorite was the 'secret' pig section (pork being a no-no in Muslim culture), which was hidden at the back of the bazaar where people had pigs stuffed in the trunks of their Russian Ladas and Jeeps. Purchased pigs were thrown into burlap sacks or zip-up shopping bags, and you could see people walking around with purses that were squirming and squeeling; stuffed with a pig or two.

After the animal bazaar we decided to go with the travellers (2 aussies, 2 brits, one swiss) that we met at Valentins along the south shore of Issyk Kul to a town called Kaji Say, where the well-known eagle hunter, Ishenbek, lives. 'When you go see Ishenbek', Valentin told us as we were leaving, 'tell him that Valentin sent you.' So we set off on our quest. Kaji Say is a very small town, and Ishenbek's wife runs a small bed and breakfast, one of the only places to stay in town. After some persuasion to get him to skip work the following day, we organized an eagle hunt with him. Eagle hunters are extremely revered in Kyrgyzstan, and apparently they train with their bird all their life in order to become good at it. The eagles are trained not to fly away and only do as their master commands, and they just rock out on the eagle hunter's arm (properly protected by a heavy duty leather glove) until they are commanded to fly. Early the next day we saddled up in a bunch of horses with Ishenbek and his eagle, Toman, as well as a young Kyrgyz boy and another fellow who I gather owned the horses, and headed up into the high hills above a small town called Bokonbaevo. The way eagle huntings works is you go up to a ridge with the eagle, and some people ride down into the valley below through the bushes making a lot of noise to stir up rabbits, foxes, or wolves. When someone spots an animal Ishenbek removes a blindfold from the eagle and throws it out and yells commands at it to attack whatever has been spotted. After riding through several valleys we finally spotted a fox. Ishenbek hurled the eagle up into the air and started yelling like a crazy man, and the eagle swooped and swirled and dove several time at the fox, chasing it down the valley. It was one of the most breathtaking and exhilerating things I had seen, but the fox really did not stand a chance. Toman slammed the fox and pinned it down, and Ishenbek rode down the hill yelling and screaming towards the prey, and we followed. Amazingly Toman was trained to just pin the fox down and not kill it or peck at it until Ishenbek arrived, so as not to spoil the pelt. When we arrived, we saw that the eagle had the fox in a sort of choke hold, while the fox had its jaw clamed on the eagle foot, but it didnt seem to mind. Ishenbek cut the fur off one of the fox's hind legs, and gave Toman the command to eat it. It was absolutely gruesome yet fascinating to watch the eagle eat the fox while it was still alive and squirming. Another sight for animal rights activists. The eagle made a bloody mess as it pecked its way into the fox's lower innards (after what seemed like forever) and the fox eventually died. Immediately after that we all went and ate lunch.

We parted ways with the others, and today we left Ishenbek's and completed our circumnavigation of Issyk Kul, and headed south to Naryn. We have organized a trip to the ruins of a caravanserai called Tash Rabat 120 km south of here and at 3500m, as well as a night in a yurt up in the mountains near the caravanserai. After that we will either travel west through the mountains if the road allows (its looking unlikely, it was snowed in a few days ago, though apparently open today) or north back to Bishkek where we will sort out some Visas for our next countries of destination. I will write again when time permits.

A few more quick observations of Kyrgyzstan, for those interested:

-on saturdays, the school childred in Karakol banded together for a mass sweeping event, followed by a mass burning of the swept leaves, making it very difficult to breathe or see in town. Sundays seem to be a day of rest from sweeping.

-there must be a black market for manhole covers, as they all seem to be missing

-there are probably almost as many horse/donkey drawn carriages on the road along southern Issyk Kul as there are cars.

-I have no idea how anyone keeps track of livestock here, they just run around everywhere --- and there is a lot of livestock.

-we fit 8 people into 1 Lada on our way to the Sunday Animal Market. the bottom was grinding against the dirt road most of the way

-people here would do well to spend less money on walls and more money on roads. the roads are terrible, and EVERY building or home in towns has big concrete walls around it

-there power is out about 70 % of the time here

-in one restaurant in Karakol, this table full of old ladies gave us a few of their salads after they saw we were eyeing them curiously. Noticing that these old ladies were pounding Vodka, we decided to return the favour by buying them a bottle and giving them a toast. After dinner we ended up dancing to Kyrgyz pop in the restaurant with 50 + year old ladies. Miles was a major hit.

-Kyrgyz pop is worse than Russian pop is worse than American pop. The Kyrgyz love all of it, and listen to nothing else. Our 3 hour taxi ride to Naryn today was particularly painful.

-everyone has cellphones here, and they walk down the street cranking Kyrgyz or Russian or American pop on their pnone

-I wont be able to put up pictures until MAYBE bishkek, as the internet is too slow and you get charged per megabyte

Thats all for now. I hope everyone in Canada had a happy thanksgiving and I look forward to hearing from home!

Love, Bryn

Volume 4: Sweepers and Bottle Kids

2008-10-06T03:42:00.000-07:00

We are now in Kyrgyzstan. I can't actually think of the right adjectives to briefly describe this country, and even though we've only been here for 5 days, I could write a short book on this place. Luckily, limited time on a slow internet connection will spare you that, but I will try to give you a bit of a sense of the place from a few of the experiences so far.

Our arrival was in Bishkek, which is the country's capital. Probably the most shocking thing at first was the contrast between this city and Istanbul. Bishkek is 1/15th the size of Istanbul. Bishkek's streets are about 5 times as wide as Istanbul's and in a strict north-south grid pattern. Bishkek has little traffic, and very few people walking around. You can walk across the city in about 30 minutes. Most importantly, Bishkek is downright eerie.

We arrived very early in the morning and waited in the airport until it got light. We checked into a guesthouse and then walked around town.... the only people on the streets were people sweeping. People sweep everywhere, make little piles of leaves, and then move on. Since it is the beginning of autumn this is a never ending process. The city is Soviet through and through - perfect grid streets and plain, depressing, rectangular architecture. Lots of wide streets, big squares, and imposing monuments. Everything is in Cyrillic, and you can't see into any of the buildings or shops, so you really have no idea what anything is. Lenin statues point to different things around town. Everything is run down and dirty. Manholes are half opened and the streetlights don't work, so as soon as it gets dark, you definitely have to watch out (both miles and I have tripped several time over random piping and pieces of concrete -- in the daylight) We to a large amusement park that looked like it hadnt been in operation since 1991, grass and vines growing over mary-go-rounds and creepy clown statues. No one else was in the park. It was really creepy. We had been in Bishkek only about 8 hours and we already decided that we needed to get out fast.

It did get a bit better though. The city is very green; there are trees everywhere. We found some bazaars that are apparently where all the people go. These places made me quite uncomfortable at first, but they were certainly an experience. They put the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul to shame (sorry Turan). Dordoi Bazaar is said to be the biggest bazaar in Central Asia, and it is pretty much a city in itself outside of town, made of double-stacked rusty freight shipping containers. As we got more comfortable with the situation, walking around wasn't too bad.

The food is sketchy. That first morning we saw a street vendor selling some samosa type things that looked quite delicious. Being gung ho we walked up and grabbed too. The inside was filled with some strange mystery meat and a block of half melted cheese. We both had diarrhea our second day in Bishkek, and we blame it on these shady street samosas. In the bazzar we saw the most disgusting looking sausages you can imagine, raw chickens sitting in the sun crawling with flies, various animal heads, and coke and fanta bottles refilled with some mysterious puke-colored liquid. We immediately decided that we were going to have to be super careful about what we ate, and potentially become vegetarians. Crackers and properly packaged yogurt looked to be my diet for the next month. And the beer is delicious.

Our food worries were somewhat alleviated with our taxi ride out of Bishkek:

Taxis here are wicked, once you get used to them. We stick out like you wouldnt believe, and any time we walk past someone standing near a car, they reach in and grap there yellow plastic taxi sign that they bought at the bazaar and attach it to their roof, pretending like you didnt see them add it. It doesnt seem to matter though, as everyone will get you where you want to go, eventually. Our taxi home from Dordoi Bazaar had to be started by sticking a wire with a pin attached into the air conditioning vent to create a spark, and the horn worked similarly. When we wanted to leave Bishkek we got swarmed at the bus station by people wanting to give us a ride. We were going to Cholpon Ata, a small village 4 hours east of Bishkek on Lake Issyk Kul, the 2nd biggest alpine lake in he world (after Titicaca). We picked a driver who would take us there for the equivalent of 10 dollars. We crammed into his old Soviet car that looked like it would light on fire at any time with him and his (supposed) parents, two very traditional elderly Kyrgyz people. Only the driver knew a few words of English. Pulling out of the parking lot he reversed into a piece of soviet mystery metal jutting out of the side walk, putting a big hole in the bumper. 10 minutes out of town we were pulled over by the police (I don't really know why, I think he wasnt wearing his seatbelt). He paid them off and we continued, but everyone in the car, who had before been very amicable, seemed a bit edgy and tense. About 10 minutes later, we pulled off the highway and drove into some residential area where we stopped and they all went into a gated house. "Boys, 5 minutes please". the driver says. They return with some bags and stuff them in the trunk. Back on the road, then this happens again, the mother taking some bread into a house and returning with more bags. "Boys, 5 minutes please." The third time we pull off to a house with several yurts erected in the yard, and a whole bunch of people milling about. By this point I'm thinking we're dealing with Kyrgyz smugglers. "Boys, 5 minutes please" he says, and all three go into a yurt, leaving Miles and I in the car, where, after much more than 5 minutes, we begin to read. Another person comes out of the yurt and to the car and invites us to come in and have tea. We oblige, and enter the yurt to the sight of the most amazing spread of food I have ever seen. I don't know what any of it was... delicious noodles, salads, breads, pastries, nuts, all extravagantly laid out. "Boys, this is my family." Tays our driver from across the yurt. Turns out we had just been invited into a Kyrgyz family reunion. After a while eating amazing food, our driver and his family left. "Boys, 5 minutes please" he said, as we were still eating. Not wanting to get left behind we finished up quickly and tried to leave, but the ladies serving tea didnt seem to pleased. As we got to the door of the yurt our driver came back and said "Boys, sit down", and they brought Miles and I some special dish of plov with mutton, which was actually very tasty, and I imagine was made especially for us. We finally finished that off and left, 2 hours behind schedule for Cholpon Ata (we have quickly realized that you cant have a schedule in this country), but realizing that we had just experienced something very very special.

No one really speaks English in Bishkek, but outside of Bishkek, there is even less. Ordering at restaurants has become a matter of closing our eyes and pointing at a random dish in Cyrillic, a strategy which has miraculously worked out really well for us.

Turns out Cholpon Ata was very eeire as well... its a Russian and Kazakh holiday resort, but it was completely empty. Its really wierd when there are streets of over-staffed restaurants with no one sitting in them, ever.

This is getting too long, so I will be brief with a few more points:

-everyone here is POOR. it is a healthy eye opener.
-we saw some really cool 3500 year old petroglyphs behind Cholpon Ata
-we rode a mini bus from Cholpon Ata to a town called Karakol today, where we squished an unbelievable number of people into one vehicle, and some old Kyrgyz man tried to tell us how far away everything is, in Kyrgyz.
-there are bottle kids here, for those who know the Trailer Park Boys. They wander the back streets and throw bottles. As most of their targets so far have been inanimate, I have had quite a chuckle out of this.
-the mountains here are AMAZING. the natural beauty of this country is outrageous.
-Miles and I are going on a 3 day trek across a 3800 m pass with alpine lakes and hot springs on wednesday.

Hope this wasn't too boring, if you have any specific questions or anything please write, I'd love to hear from you and fill you in if I can. Until next time,

Bryn

Snapshots of Istanbul

2008-10-01T04:53:00.000-07:00

A raıny street near the Grand Bazaar.
There was a sıgn at the stall next to thıs that promısed 6 tımes ın one nıght. When I asked the owner of thıs stall about ıt he proudly saıd 'no no no that place only 6 tımes. Here, plus fıve tımes' That doesn't make sense, I told hım, 6 ıs bıgger than 5. 'no no no, only 6 tımes there, here, plus 5' So wıth thıs stuff I can make love 11 tımes? I asked. 'Yes, plus 5.'

Wıcked.
Turan and I at a Narghıle joınt ın Taksım.
Doıng ıt Turk style at the Meyhane, rıght before beıng surrounded by a bunch of crazy turkısh people I dıdnt know who seemed so happy to see me...
The northern brıdge across the Bosphorous.

Volume 3: Ishmısh, Ekmek, and Seker Baba

2008-10-01T04:02:00.000-07:00

Merhaba all,

It ıs the last day ın Istanbul and we are busy preparıng for our 8 30 PM flıght to Bıshkek, Kyrgyzstan. We wıll arrıve at 4 30 AM Kyryz tıme, and the aırport ıs 30 km out of the cıty, so ıt ıs sure to be an exhaustıng adventure tomorrow mornıng.

The last few days ın Istanbul have been great, though I was a bıt sıck for a day or two, but feelıng better now. We have really just been eatıng as much good food as we can before we get to the land of horse braıns and sheep eyes. Mıles' love for the Doner has grown to a bıt of a fetısh, though I succumbed to ıts greasy ıll effects on the stomach the other day, so I am off the doner traın for a whıle. Mıles contınues to push strong.

Ramadan has offıcıally ended, so now there ıs a week long holıday called sugar fest, ın whıch everyone seems to eat as much candy as possıble and runs around on a sugar hıgh. The atmosphere ıs very festıve. I trıed to get ınto the spırıt by buyıng a bunch of Turkısh Delıght (way to much) and offerıng ıt to kıds on the street, declarıng that I was Seker Baba (Sugar Daddy) but apparently that was a bıt creepy, and no one here seems to lıke Turkısh delıght anyways.

I had an ınterestıng experıence last nıght. We went to a Mayhane, whıch ıs a tradıtıonal Turkısh pub where you eat mezes (appetızers) and drınk Rakı (a strong turkısh alcohol). Lıve musıcıans come around to all the tables and play tradıtıonal musıc on tradıtıonal ınstruments, and by the end of the nıght everyone ıs clappıng and dancıng and sıngıng. I do enjoy a good lıttle boogıe, so I ended up doıng my best tradıtıonal turkısh dance wıth everyone, and a turkısh gırl from another table started dancıng wıth me. Thıs seemed to get a bunch of other turkısh men from another table quıte excıtıng and they all came and cırcled around us and patted me and gave me hıgh fıves and yelled ın turkısh... then the gırl bent over backwards lımbo style wıth her head towards me. As everyone knows thıs means you are supposed to lıck her forehead and put money on ıt, however I must have forgotten thıs rule. Not only that but you all know how cheap I am.... everyone was stıll yellıng at me, whıch was quıte confusıng. After the gırl left, the turksıh dudes then all seemed to want to grınd wıth me and contınued yellıng and gıvıng me hıgh fıves. I looked to my frıends ın confusıon, but they were all just laughıng. I soon broke away and got back to the table, and I stıll dont really know what was goıng on. Apparently they thought I was Russıan, whatever sıgnıfıcance that has...

Bye for now, talk to you when we get to Kyrgyzstan,
Bryn

Volume 2: Arrıval ın Istanbul

2008-09-28T12:08:00.001-07:00

Hello everyone,

We are ın Istanbul, Turkey rıght now, and let me start by sayıng that I cannot fınd the apostrophe key on turkısh keyboards and that the letter ı ıs ın the place where the letter i should be, and all the punctuatıon marks are ın weırd places, so bear wıth me ıf thıngs look a lıttle wıerd.

Mıles and I flew out of Seattle on wednesday, and asıde from beıng a long day of transıt, everythıng went smoothly and my Turkısh frıend Turan was there to pıck us up at the Istanbul aırport. I sat besıde a turkısh man on the connectıng flıght from Frankfurt to Istanbul who was very excıted to hear that I was from Brıtısh Columbıa --- `you know Steve Nash then! I love Steve Nash, he ıs my favorıte Basketball player!´ He then pulled out a basketball magazıne and showed me Steve Nash ın an artıcle about the top poınt guards ın the NBA. Nash was lısted as #2. `Thıs ıs actually wrong, Steve ıs number one. He ıs athletıc and he has smarts. You know how I know that he ıs Canadıan and not Amerıcan? Amerıcans can be powerful and athletıc, but they cannot be smart lıke Steve Nash. That ıs how I know he ıs from Canada´.

The days ın Istanbul have mostly been spent wıth Turan (whom I travelled around Turkey wıth for a month last summer) and showıng the cıty to Mıles. We have also met up wıth an archaeology frıend of mıne who happened to be travellıng through the cıty thıs week, as well as meetıng up wıth frıends that I met here last summer. It ıs the last few days of Ramadan here, so thıngs are a bıt ınterestıng. Most people are fastıng and cannot eat durıng the hours of sunlıght, whıch means that throughout the day restaurants are mostly empty and no one ıs smokıng (whıch ıs strange for Turkey) and then at the evenıng prayer there ıs a mad dash for food, and the cıty gets crazy. Yesterday a man ın the Spıce Bazaar was explaınıng the superıorıty of Turkısh Saffron over Iranıan Saffron (Turkısh Saffron cures heart dısease, clears your veıns and arterıes, and ıs an aphrodısıac) when a fıght broke out between a merchant and a customer, and everyone was eıther tryıng to break up the fıght or get ın on the actıon. The saffron merchant trıed very hard to get our attentıon back to hım and hıs saffron `hey´he saıd, ´everyone ıs just very hungry, so we are all a bıt edgy´.

We went to dınner at Turans parents house. They were very excıted to see me, and pronounced me as theır new son, whıch ıs a pretty wıcked deal, because Turans mom ıs an amazıng cook. Mıles and I werent aware of the fact that the sıgnal to eat at the end of the day ıs the lıghtıng up of the Mınarets and the call to evenıng prayer, so we were both sıttıng around a massıve table of food wıth theır famıly (they dont speak any Englısh), wonderıng why no one was startıng to eat. We thought maybe they were waıtıng for us to start, but they all seemed more focused on lookıng outsıde the wındow. As soon as the mınarets lıt up across the ıstanbul skylıne and the ımam on TV began sıngıng the call to prayer they dug ın, whıch was relıevıng. A turkısh Ramadan feast, for those curıous, consısts of a startıng bowl of soup made of sort of a salty yogurt wıth pıeces of dough and chunks of meat. After that you eat an array of snack type thıngs lıke cheeses, flat bread, nuts, drıed fruıt, jams, stuffed peppers, turkısh delıght (whıch happened to have been blessed, I was told after eatıng), and meat that looks an awful lot lıke ham but apparently ıs not. After that we had rıce pılav, turksıh meatballs wıth baked potatoes, and a cold bean salad. Thıs was all followed wıth Baclava and sweet pastrıes. It was absolutely glorıous. I have also been makıng a poınt of tryıng as many dıfferent turkısh dıshes that I dıdnt try last year as possıble. Mıles loves doner ıt turns out, and hıs eyes lıght up at every doner kebap stand that we see (there are about 3 per block). Last nıght I had somethıng called the Prıme Mınısters Chıcken... whıch was some sort of bun smothered wıth sauces breaded chıcken, vegetable, and stuffed wıth French Frıes. Every nıght Turan says that he ıs goıng to fast the next day, but always ends up chowıng down for breakfast wıth us. Yesterday he was warnıng Mıles and I that we shouldnt eat so many doners as we would surely get dıarrhea. Turns out the only one wıth the shıts the next day was the pıous turk.

We were successfully able to get an Uzbek Vısa; ıt was actually shockıngly easy. The hardest thıng about the operatıon was fındıng the Uzbek consulate, whıch, ıt turned out, was an ınconspıcuous buıldıng on a backroad that looked lıke someones house. It had a very homey feel, ıt was not the ımposıng monument we had come to expect. There were about 3 staff ın there and no one else, they took our applıcatıons, passports, and letters of ınvıtatıon, and had our vısas for us that afternoon, no questıons asked. It dıd help to have Turan there beıng translator. Now we only have our Chınese and Kazakh Vısas to obtaın, except apparently the consulates wıll be closed next week for Turkısh natıonal end of Ramazan holıdays, so we wıll have to obtaın them ın KYrgyzstan, whıch we fly to next wednesday.

I could type on, but I am feelıng a bıt under the weather today, and am stıll jetlagged, so I thınk I wıll go to bed. One last experıence worth mentıonıng has been Turkısh traffıc. For our fırst two days, Turan had access to hıs famıly car, so we were able to drıve around Istanbul. Turkısh drıvers are manıacs, Turan beıng no exceptıon. I dont know why lınes are paınted on roads; two lane roads are fılled wıth at least 4 lanes of traffıc. The means of communıcatıon ıs the honk, everyone ıs honkıng at everyone, and ıf someone starts honkıng at someone, others seem to hear the honkıng and feel they need to honk even ıf they dont really know what ıs goıng on. You dont shouldner check or look behınd you when changıng lanes, ınstead you just go for ıt and ıf someone happens to be there they wıll honk at you and you have to weave back ınto your orıgınal lane. The most ımportant thıng ıs that you beat the guy next to you to whereever you are headed. It ıs also ımportant to yell at each other a lot. On one hıghway goıng through a tollbooth type thıngs a car tryıng to cross about 5 lanes drıvıng perpendıcular to them to get to the other sıde got hıt, whıch ended up blockıng several more lanes. The drıvers got out and started yellıng at each other, and then cars nearby stopped and got out and started yellıng as well. Everyone else around starts honkıng because there are cars ın the way, whıch sends a rıpple effect of honks across the hıghway. We happened to be rıght behınd thıs, so we had to weave our way around the stopped cars, all the whıle honkıng and swearıng of course. Turan says that everyone ıs just bıtter because they have been fastıng.

The Stans Adventure Volume 1 AKA a long introduction/How does this blog work?

2008-09-17T13:45:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone,

As most of you know to some degree or another, I am going on a trip to Central Asia this fall, departing on the 24th of September. I think I have figured out how to blog, so as well as my e-mail list I will try to post my 'where in the world is Bryn?' gig on here so the people that I forgot to add to my e-mail list can read my ramblings, if they want. If you want to be on my e-mail list, let me know and I will add you. I imagine I will use the e-mail more than this.

I was telling my friend the other day about our travel preparations, and he said to me “Man, you know how people write back home with travel stories when they’re abroad? You could be writing travel stories about your adventures before you’ve even left.” So I thought I would give it a shot and tell you a bit about what planning a trip to a bunch of Post-Soviet republics is like.

For those who don’t know, I am traveling with my friend Miles from Istanbul to Beijing, with the intent being to follow the old Silk Road through Central Asia. We plan on going to Turkey, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and all the way across China to Beijing. We have flights from Seattle to Istanbul, from Istanbul to Bishkek, the Capital of Kyrgyzstan, and from Beijing home --- we are filling in the blanks in between as we go. The plan is to spend the majority of the time in the Stans, the heart of the ancient Silk Road trade route that connected eastern Asia to the Middle East and Europe.

The most common question we get is, of course, how did you come to decide to go THERE?

It was Miles’ idea initially, and it was formed where all the greatest ideas are formed: around a table with a few beers. Miles and I had been tossing around the idea of traveling; he wanted to be a drifter and stay away from returning to Australia for as long as he could, and I kinda submitted to thinking that was an alright idea and told him I’d be interested in ‘drifting’ with him. Our first conversation about the Stans went something like this:

Miles (in a very Australian Australian accent): Mate, what we gotta do, is go to the shittiest countries in the world, it’ll be dirt cheap and we can just rock out.

Me: The shittiest countries in the world?

Miles: Ya mate, shit countries. Like those countries that end with ‘stan’.

Me: Oh, like Uzbekistan? That’s near Russia, isn’t it?

I had no idea where the ‘stans’ were. I didn’t even know how many there were (there are 5 that are usually considered to be ‘Central Asia’: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan. Also in the area is Afghanistan, Pakistan, and I have seen Azerbaijan be considered a stan as well). Our initial discussion was for the most part forgotten for a while, but then several weeks before the end of last school year, Miles said to me: “Did you know they drink fermented mare’s milk in Kyrgyzstan?” That intrigued me. I started googling these countries (and looking up their locations in an atlas) and found that they looked amazing: Kyrgyzstan has beautiful mountains and alpine valleys with yurt villages – a trekker’s paradise. Kazakhstan has expansive steppes with nomadic horsemen. Uzbekistan has amazing Muslim architecture and important ancient Silk Road cities such as Samarkand, Khiva, and Bukhara. And they all have this weird residue of Soviet rule that just seems so strange in contrast to the countries’ Middle Eastern and Asian influences. From here we bought the lonely planet guide, a big map, and began to actually make plans to travel there.

People asked us ‘why go there?’, to which our stock reply was ‘why not?’.

Of course its not until after you buy your plane tickets that some of the reasons ‘why not?’ start to emerge. Further research produced some pretty terrifying stories… The food is apparently terrible and everyone has diarrhea, the police are apparently a major pain in the ass and get half their wage from taking bribes, and everything works on ‘Central Asian Time’, which is pretty much ‘Soviet Bureaucracy Time’. Just getting INTO these countries is a (comical) nightmare. To get into each Stan you need a Visa ahead of time. Obtaining these visas requires filling in interrogative forms that are poorly translated from Cyrillic, writing cover letters, sending proof of entry and exit from the country (read: you have to buy your plane tickets before applying for your visas), and sending your actual passports along with money to the nearest embassy of your respective Stan. The embassies can choose to deny you a visa and not give any explanation, but they still take the application fee. I was told to apply for the visas that are easiest to obtain first, as then other Stans see that other Central Asia Republics are willing to let you in, and that sort of warms them to you. Kyrgyzstan was supposedly the easiest visa to get, so we mailed our passports to the Embassy in Washington DC with high hopes. I received e-mail notification from UPS that a man named Plutov had signed for our package, so the wait began. Part way through I sent the embassy an e-mail and received this reply: “Thank you for e-mailing the Embassy of the Republic of Kyrgyzstan” this is an automated message to say that we have received your e-mail. We will read it, and if we find it interesting, we may get back to you”.

While we were waiting for our Kyrgyz Visas, I started organizing our other applications. We wanted a two-month multiple entry visa into Kazakhstan, so that if things go awry in Kyrgyzstan or Uzbekistan we have the flexibility to go to Kazakhstan earlier/return to Kazakhstan and search for Borat. To get one of these visas however you need a special Letter of Invitation into the country. To get into Uzbekistan at all you need a Letter of Invitation. To get these letters you need to pay someone (usually a travel agency within the country) to write one up for you. Most of these travel agencies will only write you a letter if you buy a tour from them. One company however – Stantours - will just organize letters for you without requiring you book a tour. So I did a lot more filling in of forms for them, and then wired money to a Latvian bank in New Zealand, even though the company is supposedly based out of Ashgabat in Turkmenistan. A few days later I receive an e-mail from Stantours stating that my Letters of Invitation were underway --- but that I owed more money (which I didn’t), and that “our Brazilian passports were almost ready”. ‘Shit’ I thought. This was bizarre. I politely e-mailed them back asking what they were talking about. “Ohhh, sorry, we thought you were a different client.”

Amazingly, they pulled through with Letters of Invitation into Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. They got the dates wrong on our Kazakh letters, but the mistake is manageable within our itinerary. The only problem was that we still had not received our passports back from the Kyrgyz embassy. It had been three weeks and we needed to get them back so that we could send our applications to the Kazakh embassy in Toronto. I phoned the Kyrgyz embassy, and to my surprise the phone was answered after 2 rings with a nice lady who said “Yakshimuh siz?”. She told me to call back in two hours (which I thought would be after they had closed. Remarkably though, when I called back, she was still there, she looked up our names, and told us that they had put the passports in the mail the previous week. So where was UPS on the return? It took them a week to get our passports back, even though I paid through the nose to have them do express return. I still don’t know what happened.

By this time it was too late to send our passports to the Kazakh embassy if we wanted to have them back in time for our flight to Istanbul. Encouraged by how easy it was to get through to the Kyrgyz embassy, I decided to phone the Kazakhs and see if they had any express visa issuing options. The first thing I learned was that the Embassy of the Republic of Kazakhstan in Toronto is actually in Ottawa. They moved offices on the 1st of September this year. They moved again yesterday. I tried several numbers for the embassy, each time receiving a voice mail thing where it said ‘ This is the Embassy of the Republic of Kazakhstan in Ottawa. Leave a message or press 0 to speak to a Receptionist”. So I pressed 0, and someone from ‘reception’ picked up, but no, this was not the reception for the Kazakh embassy. They’ve just moved, this is their new number, I will transfer you. Same voice mail, press 0 to speak to reception. This led me back to the same lady not affiliated with the Kazakh embassy. I left a message, sent them an e-mail, and decided to call back the next day. Same ordeal. I called several times throughout the day, and then one time the line was busy. ‘My god’ I thought, someone is actually on the phone over there. Call back. Busy. Busy. Busy. Eight hours later, still busy. As far as I know, the phone for the embassy of Kazakhstan in Toronto, or Ottawa, is still busy.

Where we stand now, we have to try and get our Visas for Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan in either Istanbul or Kyrgyzstan, of which both options will be hindered by not knowing the language. It will be interesting to see what happens, and furthermore it will be interesting to see how our trip plan gets modified as we go along.

I just found out the other day that Air Canada has cancelled my flight home from Beijing due to ‘cut backs’

As it sits now we are ready to fly to Turkey on the 24th, where we will be staying with my good friend who lives in Istanbul, Turan. I am extremely excited to return to Turkey, and to get this trip underway. Things have been really stressful lately, and I’m really looking forward to the change in scenery. I realize this message is incredibly long. I have no idea if you will be getting letters of such length while we are over there --- I don’t even know if the keyboards will be in English or Cyrillic. Regardless, I know that I will miss all of you a lot, but I hope that we can keep in touch as much as possible.

Also, for those in Vancouver this coming weekend and interested, I will be in town, and am looking to organize a bit of a goodbye-type gig on Saturday night. Right now plans are tentative but it looks like we might start off hanging out on campus, and then move to some sort of pub later in the evening. If anyone has any suggestions of places to hang out, let me know. I hope to see as many of you as I can before I leave.

I’m gonna cut this off now before it gets any longer. The next time I write will likely be from Turkey.
Bryn