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The Silk Road Slog: Osh, Kyrgyzstan to Kashgar, China

Posted on August 18, 2013 by The DromomaniacAugust 19, 2013

Greetings from Kashgar, Xinjiang Province, Western China! Aside from my broken tooth drama and the fact that my bank debit card expires in 12 days, it’s very exciting to be here. (Anyone from California flying to western China next week? Anyone? Hello?)
Just to put a neat little bow on Kyrgyzstan, which I miss: I took a marshrutka to the edge of Osh and hitchhiked southeast to Sary Tash, paying a total of 250 som ($5) for the three or four hour trip up, and then I was confronted with this amazing sight below: a Mongol Rally car with three Australians, stuck. Do you know about the Mongol Rally? It’s a drive from London to Mongolia (on any route you wish) as an excuse to party afterward. The main rule is that your car’s engine must be 1.2cc or smaller and then you donate it at the end. This car was with a convoy but somehow one of the cars took off with their keys—and they only had one set of keys. They thought that someone would notice their absence and come back at any moment, but they waited seven hours, all the while incredibly good-humored about their predicament. When other Aussies finally arrived to save the day, they were still all smiles and laughs.

The journey is more important than the destination in the Mongol Rally. Let’s put it this way: the bathtub that had been attached to the top of the car had broken off just days before.

Shipping containers as a second floor of a house in Kyrgyzstan

Sary Tash. Not the worst place to stay a night. Left road to China, right road to Tajikistan, and in the middle is the militiaman’s car who helped flag down a truck for me the next morning to go to the border. I hung out at the gas station behind chatting with everyone. That’s my idea of fun. (I met a Polish couple who tried for two days to hitchhike from the border to Murghab, Tajikistan but they said only eight cars each day passed, and they didn’t get taken.)

The road is nice and paved all the way to the Kyrgyz border with only one checkpoint. The Kyrgyz stamp you out, then you stand and flag down one of the passing trucks to two more checkpoints over the next few kilometers, then you come to the Chinese post where dusty Chinese and Soviet flags in the office say it all: there will be nonsensical delays and bureaucracy. They make you read a government proclamation in unintelligible English but the point is for tourist’s “safety” travelers aren’t allowed to hitchhike with one of the many trucks or cycle on your own to the border post where they actually stamp your passport, 142km away.
I aligned myself with an Uzbek and two Tajiks who had been through the border before and we waited for transport to materialize. A guard went through my bag, but asked only one question: “Do you have any books?” I didn’t. I asked if there was a toilet. The guard, already angry at a French cyclist who challenged his authority, snorted, “No! There’s no water!” There was neither water nor food nor toilets for nearly the entire stretch from Sary Tash to where the Chinese stamp your passport which is hundreds of kilometers. At one of the Chinese checkpoints there was a small store, but that was it.

Isn’t this pretty? The Pamir mountain range goes in a straight line for as far as I could see, an incredible sight on this clear day.

The killer road to Kashgar, still under construction. This shortened my life span. Our minibus cost 100 yuan ($16.50) each for the ride that took about five hours in total. Then it’s another two hours to get to Kashgar, 30 yuan ($5) in a shared taxi.

Id Kah Mosque in Kashgar. I arrived horrendously tired and filthy, but buzzed to be in such a dynamic place, which this photo fails to show.

Tooth update
     As luck would have it, a retired American dentist was staying at my hostel here and he agreed to have a look at my tooth if I could find a magnifying glass because he lost his reading glasses. I wish one of his kids would have taken a photo of me laying down on the low table where they were playing cards, the good doctor with a magnifying glass and a flashlight poised above me with ragged, bemused travelers in the background. He said it was a very clean break and I can let it go for now, but that if I didn’t do something eventually, all that chewing on the other side of my mouth isn’t good in the long run.
     I always ask my dental questions when I get a chance:
     Soft or medium bristle toothbrush? Soft.
     Dental floss or dental tape? Tape.
     Waxed or unwaxed? Waxed.
     Does fluoride make you dumb? Yes, he said he never uses toothpaste, just water and an antibacterial rinse like Listerine.

Body update
I don’t feel so hot. Something I ate has gone through me and I feel weak. It’s exciting to be here, but man, is it dusty and dirty everywhere! India needs to move over and give Xinjiang space on the pollution bench. (India: 62 rupees to the dollar today! The cheapest country in the world is now much cheaper.)

Practical information
In Kashgar Old City Hostel is better than Pamir Hostel because Pamir has street noise and rock-hard beds. Both have dorm beds for 40 yuan ($6.65). Both have English-speaking Chinese staff and lots of Chinese travelers as it is school holidays now.

Why don’t you stay with me? You can follow along with RSS, subscribe to an email feed, see what’s cooking on Facebook, pray that I’ll say something worth remembering on Twitter and if you are really slumming it, there’s always Google+.

…and on my first day in China, I broke my tooth.

Posted on August 16, 2013 by The DromomaniacAugust 17, 2013

I was biting a piece of hard bread and this happened.

I know, I know, it isn’t the prettiest chunk of tooth. No pain for now, but as the Singaporeans say, “What to do?”

I’ll write about the beautiful and rough journey from Osh, Kyrgyzstan to here in Kashgar, China after I figure out what to do about my tooth.
Why don’t you stay with me? You can follow along with RSS, subscribe to an email feed, see what’s cooking on Facebook, pray that I’ll say something worth remembering on Twitter and if you are really slumming it, there’s always Google+.

Last breaths from Kyrgyzstan

Posted on August 13, 2013 by The DromomaniacAugust 15, 2013

A shyrdak, which is a heavy felt rug, and my foot, which is an appendage heavy with dirt and sun.

I usually don’t like to announce what I will do until I have done it in case I don’t do it, but I need everything to fall in place, so this is the plan: tomorrow I will hitchhike or carjack a ride to Sary Tash, a crossroads settlement near the Chinese and Tajikistan borders. After a freezing evening at 10,000 feet (3000 meters) the next morning I will hitchhike to the border and head to Kashgar, China. There’s a lot of potential roadblocks, but I hope I make it OK. Imagine if I lost my passport between the Kyrgyz and Chinese borders? I guess I would have to settle down and start a family there, so it could be a blessing in disguise.
A very public thank you to Makiko and Stephen with whom I stayed for 11 days total in Bishkek. They are hardcore travelers who have decided to live in Bishkek for a while only because it’s a cool place to be. Inertia kept me at their place for too long, I’m embarrassed to say, but they are solid people I’ve enjoyed my time with. A few nights were passed by playing Brandi Dog, which is apparently a Swiss board game that Stephen has played in many lands .

Makiko and Stephen. Makiko is the one on the left offering a glass of kompot.

Stephen and I were going to go for a day hike to Ala Archa, but at the entrance it started raining so we decided to head back. As we were waiting for a ride, we happened to meet the dapper director of the park. (Read with sarcasm:) Who knew that being director of a park in Kyrgyzstan can get you such a flashy car?

For all the good times in Bishkek, it wasn’t all honey and roses and bells and dew. I was walking across a street and the driver of a passing car threw his drink at me. I think it was a latte macchiato judging from the quality of the cup, the color of the stain on my shirt, the car and the accuracy of the throw. Tip of the cap to you for your taste, Sir!
I also had the fake cop treatment at Osh Bazaar in Bishkek, where a guy shows an ID and tries to pass himself off as a policeman to shake you down for some money. If I hadn’t already heard about this scam, I might have been worried, but he tugged at me when I had just noticed my arriving bus so I gave him some choice English and left.

Bishkek circus building. I can’t imagine there are many places in the world where there is a dedicated building for the circus.

On nearly every corner in Bishkek is a girl selling ice tea or some fermented drink out of these kegs/barrels.

My favorite photo in Kyrgyzstan I didn’t take—there was no time to grab my camera—was from Karakol of a big Mercedes that was driving with a huge roll of carpet in his car, about four meters (15 feet) by one-third meter (1 foot). He (I couldn’t see the driver, but it could only be a “he”) simply slotted the carpet through both rear windows, but there was a meter of carpet sticking out both sides of the car. Of course, he was plowing down the road like nobody’s business, seemingly oblivious to this being a problem. I should have stolen a car to follow him and just to see what happened.

Instead of roadside diners, Kyrgyzstan has roadside yurt diners. This is on the ride to the second city of Osh in southern Kyrgyzstan. The shared taxi ride was incredibly unpleasant for reasons I am trying to forget, but the scenery was absolutely fantastic, some of the best ever. This would rank as a “2” out of what I saw that day.

Hanging out at Osh Guest House with one of the staff, Abdul Noor.

     I was talking with Abdul Noor as he was getting ready to go out and pray at the nearby mosque. He said, “Can I ask you a question?”
     “No, absolutely not. How dare you!” I said. “OK, what is it?”
     I was thinking he might like to engage me in a discussion about the impact of Islam in modern society or about American attitudes towards Islam or maybe sensing I was a scholar of ancient civilizations (I get that all the time) what role Islam played in early migrations in Central Asia. Instead, he asked, “I want to buy a watch on eBay, but I can pay you and have you buy it? I can’t use a Kyrgyz credit card.”

Osh Guest House toilet. All the flash photos wash out the grime. It’s hard to get a representative picture of this place.

For the love of Allah will someone please open a new guest house in Osh? Osh Guest House has been here nine years, but it is a wreck! Keep the same staff, but how about a less run-down, less miserable, less cramped place? It’s unbelievable. At 350 som ($7) for a dorm bed, I am sure another suitable location can be found. It’s incredible that this dive in the hard-to-find, imploding building has lasted so long.
I haven’t slept well in a long while now. The beds here are too short for someone my height. What dwarf decided that footboards on beds were a good idea? Why would anyone need both a headboard and a footboard on a bed unless they wanted that crib feel? China will be different, right?

Practical Information
If you didn’t care about wifi or meeting other travelers and want to be by yourself in Bishkek, stay at the Spartak Stadium Hotel just under the west side stands, 350 som ($7) for a bed in a desolate room you’ll probably have to yourself. First door on the right, then upstairs.

A smattering of Kyrgyz food and drink

Posted on August 11, 2013 by The DromomaniacAugust 13, 2013

A quick word: As the Mormons might say, these are the latter days of my stay in Kyrgyzstan. My plan is to go to Sary Tash tomorrow near the Kyrgyz/Chinese border. (“Sary Tash” is an ancient Silk Road town meaning “without internet”) and then try and go for Kashgar, China the next day. Facebook and Twitter are banned in China, I am told, plus Gmail doesn’t always work. In fact, on my last visit seven years ago, I discovered my own website, kentfoster.com was blocked. What I am saying is that I don’t know how much I will be able to write while I am there. If you have any China travel suggestions for me, please let me know. All I have imagined is to stay about 10 days in the Kashgar and Urumqi areas and then I have 20 more days for the rest of the country. (I know, I know…)

Duck shashlik, 130 som ($2.60) each skewer

Kuyrdak, a meat and potato dish, 120 som ($2.40)

Not Kyrgyz food. Homemade sushi from Makiko. Tasted much better than this bland photo.

Kyrgyz stew. Good stuff, but I think that dill overpowers everything.

Kyrgyz jerky! 80 som ($1.60) Delicious, and very hard to find.

Non-greasy beef!

Hey bartender! Another greasy fermented drink for all my friends!

Vodka display in a small supermarket

Obama bar and grill, Bishkek

A day in the life: hitchhiking in Kyrgyzstan

Posted on August 9, 2013 by The DromomaniacAugust 12, 2013

     This is kind of how I would have written it in my journal book in the pen-and-paper days before I started a blog:
     Bokonbaevo, KYRGYZSTAN
     Saturday, August 3, 2013
     I’m sitting in my room in the homestay I had the local Community Based Tourism (CBT) office organize for me for 400 som (US$8) with my headphones on, laughing convulsively for the 50th time to the Bill Hader interview on Bill Simmons’ podcast as he does his Lorne Michaels impersonations. The woman of the house doesn’t know I have a computer and is no doubt wondering if some psycho is in her home. She is probably speed dialing now to CBT: “No more Americans!”

A girl working in the family store in Bokonbaevo. I’m a fan of big, round, Kyrgyz faces.

     I’ve had it with marshrutkas, which are old, 18-seat vans that act as public transport all over the country. They’re too small, too slow, stop too often and if I have to stand in one, I must stoop and I can’t see out the window. I’m hitchhiking as much as possible now, especially after today’s events. It’s good to know hitchhiking is a viable option. I like the mobility and options it gives me and it feels like traveling at its best. That doesn’t mean everything was great, but worthwhile.
     “Hitchhiking” can also mean paying for rides, but I don’t mind. About half the time I ride for free, half the time I pay—and I always know which before I get in. I discriminate; I usually put my thumb out only for nicer cars. I figure it’s easier and less risky. There are tons of old BMWs and Mercedes here for some reason. It always cracks me up when a huge Mercedes will stop and the driver will agree to take me, say, 30km, for 25 som, which is 50 US cents. I can’t imagine a Mercedes stopping for me in Germany and the driver saying, “I’ll drive you 30 km if you give me 50 cents.”
     Communication with drivers is tough, but I make do. Speaking a little Kyrgyz jazzes people up, I’ve discovered, but Russian is the lingua franca here and it’s still an official language.
     I started from Karakol and headed west along the less-developed, more dramatic, southern side of Lake Issyk Kul. I quickly got a ride from a guy wearing a Clovis East High School Wrestling t-shirt, which is an hour from where my parents live in California. When we arrived I was going to take a photo of him, but first he tried to get me to pay 250 som ($5) instead of the 25 som we agreed. Jackass. I had a tense couple of moments as I thought he might try to speed off in those two seconds it takes for me to fetch my bag out of the back of his car, which is the hitchhiker’s drama every time.

After a few more rides I was plopped down next to these two girls, a Finn and an Israeli. They were waiting for a marshrutka to Bishkek. I offered to have them hitchhike with me, saying we could go to the apricot festival and then could go tomorrow. The Finn was desperate to go, getting the shakes from not seeing her boyfriend in six months (“Six months plus a day, you can wait!” I said, but she wasn’t having it.) The Israeli girl wavered, but a marshrutka came and off they went. I got a faster ride to Bokonbaevo, so when they arrived I was already at the station waiting for them. That’s a powerful advertisement for hitchhiking. That’s a powerful advertisement for me, too: a confident dude traveling in an unconventional way, knowing about obscure events, having fun. I am irresistible. Wait, let me put in my teeth.

This super-nice Russian guy gave me a ride to the apricot festival.

A watermelon cooling in the water on a sweltering day at Ton beach.

The apricot festival didn’t impress me. It had a great location right on the beach in Ton, near the town of Bokonbaevo, but without any shade in the brutal heat. Plus, foreigners had to pay 500 som ($10) to attend, which is a lot of plov. Locals supposedly pay 200 som, but no one really needed to pay anything as it was open. I walked along the beach a while, got an apricot danish, and left.
As I was hitchhiking back, a French traveler was dropped off next to me by a truck. He was traveling with a badminton racket strapped to the top of his backpack and three big maps wrapped in a meter-long tube. He had just spent three years in China, he explained, and they wouldn’t let him mail the maps home. They didn’t look to be anything special, but he decided they were worth carrying home on the Silk Road. He had recently come overland from Kashgar, which is my destination. I pumped him for information incessantly while car after car stopped for us, all trying to get us to pay too much to go back to town, which amused him.

This Kyrgyz woman picked up the French guy and me. I was hoping she would open her mouth as she had an amazing display of gold teeth. I had her take the French guy into town while I got out at the bypass because I decided to go 40km west to Tuz Kul, or Salt Lake.

The Salt Lake sign. Can you see all the wild lavender or whatever that is? I’m really letting you down by not having a better camera or better photographic skills. It was crazy to hitch another 11km on dirt roads to get to the lake, but it was easy going both ways.

I had the Salt Lake all wrong. I had envisioned a small, remote but it was packed with hundreds of people. I thought it would be a Dead Sea-like experience of floating on your back, but the water wasn’t so salty so people weren’t so buoyant. If it were, it would be dangerous to swim on your stomach, isn’t that right? (The Great Traveler here went through the whole trouble of going there and forgot his swimsuit.)

Supposedly the Salt Lake mud has therapeutic properties so it is smeared all over.

Picking up hitchhikers—fun for the whole family!

     Where are all the classic Soviet-era cars? Ladas, yes, but I’ve been disappointed not to see many Moskviches, or my favorite, the Volga, a tank of a sedan. Instead, there are mostly old BMWs and Mercedes, Japanese right-hand-drive cars (how do they get delivered here?), and Kyrgyzstan is paradise for 1990’s German truckspotters.
     Been gone six and a half months. I’m tired.
     Why don’t you stay with me? You can follow along with RSS, subscribe to an email feed, see what’s cooking on Facebook, pray that I’ll say something worth remembering on Twitter and if you are really slumming it, there’s always Google+.

The stare-worthy faces of eastern Kyrgyzstan: Karakol, Lake Issyk Kul & Altyn Arashan

Posted on August 8, 2013 by The DromomaniacAugust 11, 2013

Without much argument the main attraction of Kyrgyzstan is Lake Issyk Kul and the hiking opportunities in the area. (My main attraction is hanging out at the retro roller skating rink in Bishkek, but that’s just me.) Issyk Kul is said to be the second highest alpine lake in the world after Lake Titicaca in Bolivia. Years from now when I am sleeping under a bridge I will impress my fellow homeless by saying I have been to both, but where is the top 10 list? I can’t find it on Google.

Kyrgyz girl from Karakol

A Russian wearing a traditional Kyrgyz hat, a kalpak, getting a bit burnt in Cholpon Ata on the north coast. That’s going to hurt tomorrow.

I did a short trek into the mountains southeast of Karakol from Ak-Suu Sanatorium up to Altyn Arashan, about four hours and 700 meters uphill to a pretty valley below next to a rushing river. (All water rushes in Kyrgyzstan, even the sewers in downtown Bishkek.) It’s a beautiful route, but hiking is too solitary an exercise for me. I’m already alone most of the time; I don’t need to heighten the sensation of being isolated. I was thinking this after I had reached the valley, wondering if I should head back down, but then an hour later I was lounging in a hot springs with two fit birds from England (I love that expression) and wondering why I don’t go hiking more often. I’d prefer to go hiking with someone, but it’s like tennis: if your partner isn’t at a similar level, it’s a drag.

Altyn Arashan valley

Altyn Arashan, same-same but different

This couple runs the second place you come to in the valley, Arashan Travel. If you didn’t bring your tent, it is 300 som ($6) for a bed, 200 som ($4) to use the hot springs (I prefer room 3), and 100 som for breakfast.

Karakol disappointed me. I had higher hopes, but it is a dusty, sleepy town. Maybe my boredom heightened the excitement to find Karakol Cafe, because I don’t even drink coffee. I poked my head inside and it felt like I was in an American college town full of short-haired, fair-skinned people with their heads down in their laptops. The excitement emanated from hearing the story of how the cafe came to be from the plucky young owner, Aikerim, who regaled me with stories of corruption, bureaucracy and the pitfalls of starting a business in Kyrgyzstan. I love that stuff, even more when there is a happy ending. It is a testament to her strength and perseverance that it has taken off and deservedly so.

Aikerim, Wonder Woman.

I may be the last to discover this, but one of the secrets to business success anywhere is free wifi, pure and simple. Wifi is the travelers’ crack of the early 21st century without a doubt. If you have strong wifi, travelers will put up with absolutely anything. They will stay or eat in the worst hovel with wifi rather than a great place without it.

I tried a little hitchhiking from Karakol heading west to Jeti Oghuz, and got very lucky when these geologists picked me up to see these red rocks.

Hitchhiking back from Jeti Oghuz, a Russian picked me up who had worked in Silicon Valley as a programmer and said that it must be strange for me to travel halfway around the world and see landscapes like in California. He’s right. California has everything. I should go home. I’m tired. I miss my mommy.

PRACTICAL INFORMATION
The accommodation deal of the Kyrgyz century is Park Hotel in Karakol. I had stayed at Pegasus Guest House in Cholpon Ata, paying 400 som ($8) for a dorm bed, the toilet being a literal outhouse as you can see in this photo, but in Karakol through word of mouth I found Park Hotel, only blocks away from the middle of town, 600 som ($12) for my own room in a clean modern new building. I can’t stress enough how much of a good deal it is. Let me repeat that again: Park Hotel is the accommodation deal of the Kyrgyz century. Get room 1 as the wifi in the lobby baaarely reaches there.

How to get a Chinese visa in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan

Posted on August 7, 2013 by The DromomaniacDecember 28, 2013

It feels like cheating to simply fly in to Kyrgyzstan from Europe and hop over to China. I would love to do the full overland slog through Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan, curling up through Central Asia, but recent events and my American passport are working against me. Kyrgyzstan is the only country in a huge radius that is easy for me to visit. Otherwise, the visas are simply too expensive and too much hassle as I mentioned in my last blog post.
The Chinese embassy won’t issue visas to regular travelers. I believe they only do so if you are a resident here or have an invitation from someone in China. Otherwise, they send people to agents like Miss Liu. I learned this on both the Lonely Planet Thorn Tree, which is a little too much like finding a needle in a haystack, and caravanistan.com, where I learned that Miss Liu at Avia Travel, 142 Chuy Street, the main street in Bishkek, has become the defacto Chinese visa office. Now everyone in the know knows Miss Liu.

China used to have the coolest money

     Some people on the forums were down on their experience with her. I was expecting someone gruff and all-business, but Miss Liu couldn’t have been more helpful. I spent so much time in the office asking questions and consulting her map that I learned all I needed to know and I started answering questions on the phone from travelers calling in as she was tired of repeating herself.
     The upside of going through Miss Liu is you don’t have to mess with letters of introduction from your embassy (which the US embassy doesn’t issue) or onward plane tickets or hotel reservations. Not only is it easy to get your Chinese visa here, Miss Liu claims that Bishkek is the only place in the entire region where you can get it. Not Kazakhstan nor Uzbekistan nor Tajikistan, which I find hard to believe, as well as her assertion that I can cross from Tajikistan into China, where all other sources say it is impossible. Imagine if you went through the hell of getting to the Tajik/Chinese border and couldn’t cross?
     There are niggling details involved with the visa:
     —The passport entry stamp for Kyrgyzstan has to be legible. This can be a real problem because they sometimes aren’t, and I was told that applicants have been asked to leave the country and come back again with a good stamp!
     —Wait until you get to the office to fill out the application. A lot of it is unnecessary and some detail isn’t needed, such as the dates of every country you have visited in the last 12 months. (Despite recent unrest, in Urumqi, Xinjiang province, it’s OK to write that it’s one of your destinations.)
     —It’s not cheap. It will cost about $100 more than if you were in the ideal place to get the Chinese visa, Hong Kong. Someone is making good money. Most nationalities pay about $140 but Americans pay $230. Only US dollars are accepted and the banknotes must be unblemished (All money changers in Bishkek freak out at pen marks or .00001 millimeter tears.)
     —It takes a week, but if you get it to Miss Liu early Monday it can be acquired that Friday. You have to enter China within 30 days of when you applied for the visa, not when you received it, and for all this, you can only stay in the Middle Kingdom for 30 days and it’s single entry. Kashgar alone must be worth a week. It’s ridiculous.
     —Two photos are required. It’s not worth trying to make the passport photos yourself as they will likely be rejected as they have to be extremely precise in their measurements and proportions. There’s a place down the street by Ala Too Square that will make four photos for 100 som ($2).

This airline is the secret to cheap international flights to/from China. More about it later.

PRACTICAL INFORMATION
A hostel has opened upstairs from Avia Travel. The entrance is around the back. Go upstairs, first door on the right. No sign. It’s new, but it already feels ancient and rundown somehow. I can’t remember the price. It’s probably 400-500 som ($8-10), I think, for a dorm bed. The phone number is 0772-139-070. I can’t remember the name either, but it was something hastily improvised, like “Bishkek Inn”.

I am in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan for no reason at all

Posted on August 5, 2013 by The DromomaniacAugust 7, 2013

Never been to Kyrgyzstan. Never been anywhere near Kyrgyzstan. (The other giant blank spot on the map for me is West Africa.) The hassle and cost of visas for the ‘stans have always put me off, but then the confluence of two events made the decision easy: Kyrgyzstan decided to go visa-free and Pegasus Airlines decided to start flying here for crazy-cheap. From lots of places in Europe you can fly here via Istanbul for about 400 euros round trip, all-in. I flew 215 euros one-way from Germany. Pegasus also lets you check in one bag for free; the only thing one could quibble about is the high cost of food and drink on board, but both of Istanbul’s airports are far worse.
My Plan B for getting out of Europe was to fly from Oslo or Stockholm to Bangkok for about 200 euros one way plus 30 euros to check in a bag on norwegian.com. That’s an amazing deal for mid-summer.

How is this for a face? Many Kyrgyz women are very striking. Roller girl here is outside of a roller skating rink in the center of town. It’s an atmospheric time capsule, the kind of place that will be the first to go when Bishkek modernizes, unfortunately.

This is a photo of a photo from the roller rink. It doesn’t look like it will be a successful jump, does it? The guy on the end has reason to be nervous.

I stayed my first night in a supremely derelict apartment transformed into accommodation for travelers called Bishkek Guest House. Two helpful, pious Muslims who put up with travelers eating in front of them during Ramadan (not that there’s any other place to eat in the guest house), welcomed me, but I started wondering where the main cross beam was so I could hang myself. Thankfully, Stephen of Monk Bought Lunch fame and Makiko of giant sushi eating fame invited me to stay in their apartment. I was happy to accept; a Canadian had been robbed in the elevator going up to the hostel a few days before. (I met Stephen through my website in Nepal. I am happy to meet anyone; in person you’ll be able to witness how tired I am.)
3 som coin

     At first, second and third glances the capital, Bishkek, looks very rundown. Most of the city can be accurately described as a decrepit, unkempt shambles. Has any landscaping been done since the Brezhnev era? I’m used to this, though. If I may name-drop, it isn’t so different from Tiraspol, Odessa, or Bucharest, and inexplicably, such fallowness grows on me; not everything has to look cookie-cutter perfect like a suburban San Diego housing estate.
     For a city of nearly a million, downtown Bishkek is very calm and quiet aside from some inbreds who honk their horn too much. Thankfully, car ownership is low. The main drag, Chuy Street, is almost quaint. The abundance of trees provide a spell of relief from the brutal heat. (Trees make all the difference. Name a horrible place that has a lot of trees. You can’t.) The heat is relentless. Days are often around 35C (97F) and in the middle of the night it doesn’t get below 20C (70F). My limbs are already an unnatural shade of burnt red.
     With Bishkek’s nightlife, cultural events, and great nature nearby, I can see the attraction for foreigners. As one extremely loud American put it, “Everyone is either staying longer than they thought or planning to move back!!” Anecdotally, it seems true, but I had to take two steps back in embarrassment. (Do I come off like that? Am I so loud? I can’t be. Can I? I might be. I need to tone it down—until I go to China, and then I’m speaking Chinese full bore like it’s meant to be spoken. Now I just need to learn Chinese.)

Eating a samsa (something like a big samosa) in the Osh Bazaar.

Eating a samsa (something like a big samosa, 15 som, about 30 US cents) in the Osh Bazaar on the west side of town. Photo by Stephen Lioy. Copyright Stephen Lioy. Trademark Stephen Lioy. All rights reserved. Anyone unlawfully using this photo without proper written consent in triplicate can expect a major, major whipping.

The Trekking Union of Kyrgyzstan, one of several interesting organizations here that make travel easy, offered a day-hike to Kel Tor Lake about 90km to the southeast. For 360 som ($7.25) there was round-trip transport to the beginning of the trail which was otherwise not accessible by public transport and a guide who spoke a little English. (En route we happened to pass Tokmok, a town east of Bishkek where the two Boston Marathon bombers grew up.) The hike was 2.5 hours and 1000 meters up to the lake, the payoff being the amazing color of the water due to its mineral content.

I cringed when I saw this. I had flashbacks to traveling in Russia and Ukraine years ago when abacuses (abacii?) were common. I’d gather some things, bring them to the counter, and the babuschka would whiz the wooden caroms back and forth to tally everything. When she was done, she would then lean on one hand and glare at me, waiting for me to pay. I’d helplessly ask, “Skolko”? (How much?) Without fail she would give a priceless wave over the abacus and a look that said, “Don’t you have eyes, Stupid?!”
Maybe antipathy towards clueless foreigners has changed in Russia these days. It has to be. Here it’s been a pleasant surprise to see how friendly and patient everyone is even though my Russian hasn’t improved.

PRACTICAL INFORMATION
Many people come to Kyrgyzstan as part of a big, ugly overland tour through the ‘stans, especially on the Pamir Highway from Tajikistan, but there isn’t public transport and it is an expensive and difficult journey to organize. I heard of two travelers who, when faced with this dilemma, simply bought an old Lada, drove it to Bishkek, and sold it. Easy. Plus, it’s safe to say that driving that route would be the experience of a lifetime.
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In Praise of Denmark

Posted on July 14, 2013 by The DromomaniacJuly 3, 2014

Practical information
     Normally I dispense (what I hope is) practical information at the end, but I sense this money-saving tip is something either you care immensely about or not at all with nothing in between, irrespective of how expensive Denmark is. (And make no mistake, Denmark is painfully expensive with one of the highest food prices of anywhere in the world.) Anyway, one of the best travel secrets I have is this: you can go for free on the ferry between Hirtshals, northern Denmark and a few places in Norway by hustling a ride from a car waiting in the harbor parking lot. I have done this a few times. Cars pay to go on the ferry regardless of the number of passengers, so go 30-60 minutes before the departure and ask any of the cars in the queue to drive on to the ferry. It is quick and easy. All you do is ride with them on to the ship. It takes five minutes max. (There is also this Danish rideshare website.)
     In my mind, this is why you travel light, why everything you own fits into one backpack, a light-enough bag you can be mobile with to take advantage of these opportunities. However, people don’t travel this way much anymore. At the risk of sounding old, this kind of information would have been hungrily devoured 10 or 20 years ago, but backpackers and backpacking are changing. Low-to-the-ground backpackers are an endangered species. What I just suggested sounds akin to scuzzy panhandling for many people. However, if I invented an iPhone app that puts travelers in touch with drivers who have space in their cars and charged 5 or 10 euros with no face-to-face interaction, everyone would be on board with that, right? Travel is evolving.

     One of these days I might lay out the case that I am one of the most-traveled people in the world, super-heavyweight division, but I only mention it to say that from allllllll my running around, I think the five foreign countries I have spent the most time in are Hungary, Denmark, Japan, Malaysia, and I don’t know the fifth, but it would be Russia if the visa wasn’t such a hassle—not because of this photo. I have probably visited Denmark 15-20 times. I can even speak the mushmouth language commonly known as Danish. Denmark isn’t obviously beautiful like Norway, another place I have a ton of memories from, some of them even good, but it grows on you, it seeps into your soul, particularly the people.
     Wait, how about some Danish pop music to get us in the mood. I can recommend “Special” by Mew and “Rotator” from Dizzy Miss Lizzy. (The songs are OK, the videos are awful.)
     (Pssst! Want to know the worst band of all time which also happens to be Danish? It’s Michael Learns to Rock. If you don’t believe me, just try and sit through this song below. I dare you. No, really, go ahead, I can wait. I was tortured by a whole CD of it once while hitchhiking in Indonesia. I’m still in intensive therapy.)

     To show how much I like Denmark, brace yourself for some heavy praise: if I had a gun to my head and was forced to marry a random woman from any country—my version of a shotgun wedding—I would choose Denmark. I don’t know if you can go wrong marrying a Dane; just ask all my ex-wives. Besides being easy on the eyes, a typical Danish woman is relaxed, down-to-earth, open-minded, artistic, pragmatic, tolerant, and without hangups.
     Likewise, if I had to force someone at gunpoint to raise my illegitimate kids, it would be a Dane before anyone else. The parenting seems extremely permissive, but somehow it works; they grow up very well-adjusted and well-rounded. They’re solid people. You often see them on the road and yet do you ever meet freaky Danish nutjobs? Never.

     The Danish language is fantastic, totally underrated. Quick: go find a Dane and ask him/her to say these three words: Bo (a name), bov (forest), and bog (book). You will immediately get into an argument when you claim they are repeating the same thing three times. Any word that has a “d”, “v” or “g” in it, but doesn’t begin with those letters, is high comedy.
     Fellow Scandinavians sneer at Danish as some barbaric version of Norwegian spoken with hot potatoes in their mouths, but I find it very expressive. It can also be hard on the lungs, as Danes make a funny, quick inhaling sound when they agree with something. The first few times you witness it you think they are in the inital stage of a heart attack.

     I went to a Danish high school graduation ceremony, not thinking to bring my camera. Has there ever been an interesting high school graduation ceremony? No. I made a speech at my own graduation and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. (Damn right that was a humblebrag.)
     What a mistake. First of all, a room full of Danish high school seniors looks like a casting call for a movie: tall, lean blondes with lustrous hair and sturdy, handsome guys with a refreshing lack of attitude. Danes come from good stock, I’m telling you.
     After the diplomas were handed out and everyone sat down, five skinny guys got up and went to the back of the auditorium to a band setup. How quaint, I thought, they are probably going to play a traditional Danish song. I was not expecting an eight to ten-minute rendition of “Seven Nation Army” by the White Stripes, a version something between reggae and rock. It blew me away. In what other country would you see that? If they had played “School’s Out” by Alice Cooper, my head would have exploded.

After the graduation ceremony groups of students piled into horses and carriages to visit everyone’s families for drinking and eating. They put special, heartfelt messages on bed sheets on the sides of the wagon. (“Fucking finished”)

“1st honk, we drink; 2nd honk, we down it; 3rd honk, we flash.” Another one said, “1st honk, we down it, 2nd drink, we flash, 3rd drink, one of the boys will helicopter.”

     Danish TV is something to behold. You notice the difference from American TV right away during the commercials when they promote upcoming shows. In America, it is either over-the-top fire and brimstone to get your blood pressure rising or it starts slow and restrained, portending some imagined doom, building to a crescendo: “Tonight, on an all-new NCIS Peoria, violent heroin addicts are getting ready to take over downtown!!!”
     In Denmark, it’s all warm and fuzzy, like listening to someone’s lovable uncle. Every channel sounds like it has the same soothing voice from the same imagined man: large, chubby, big beard, chain smoker, comfy in an over-sized sweater as he calmly, slowly intones what is coming.
     The TV news is a breath of fresh air with the anchormen in their regular street clothes and a three-day stubble, looking like they woke up 10 minutes before and didn’t have time to get themselves together. Also, unlike in America, there is no dubbing on news reports. If Putin is speaking, he is speaking in Russian with subtitles. I like that.
     The entire society is progressive beyond anything I am used to. There are no big money politics. You don’t need to be rich to aspire to be in public office. I know a guy, a former school teacher, who has held three ministerial posts in the government. The present Health Minister is a 30 year old woman. Even as it concerns something as mundane as shopping, Denmark, unlike most countries in northern Europe, has finally allowed the supermarkets to be open on Sundays, which has been the bane of my travel existence for years. Nothing had been more depressing than being in Scandinavia on a Saturday afternoon and realizing everything was closed until Monday morning.

This youth hostel in a miserable location by the highway in the middle of nowhere epitomizes pricey at 450 kroner ($77) for a bed.

     Hitchhiking out of Denmark
     The good news is that I hitchhiked 1000km (620 miles) to southern Germany. The bad news is that it took 17 hours. Near sunset I got stuck outside of Leipzig which was only halfway, but in the clutches of desperation and defeat, a nice guy in a speedy 1997 Porsche 911 saved me.
     Some people say you haven’t lived until you ride in a car going 250kmh (155mph), the driver with one hand on the wheel and the other fishing for greasy french fries in his McDonald’s bag. I might be one of those people, it was that exhilirating. He asked me as a point of reference what the fastest I have been in a car is, and I guessed it was 260kmh (160mph). For my benefit, after asking if I was OK with speed, he made it up to 280kmh (175mph). In an old Porsche at that speed, the windows feel like they are going to shatter and the rushing wind makes it too loud to speak. It was wild to be blowing by cars like they were pylons, and yet two cars passed us—though not exactly at that speed. Germans are in a hurry! Here is some shaky video:

porsche hitchhiking sign porsche hitchhiking sign

Saying goodbye to my driver outside Nurnberg at 12:30am, about to go into scuzzy panhandling mode to get the next ride.

It isn’t my favorite thing to hustle rides in the middle of the night at highway gas station rest areas, but I have done this many times and am used to it, unfortunately. It took me half an hour of chatting up people before I found a Croatian guy who readily took me. Just after we were on our way, he asked, “Do you believe in God?” Oh boy. I hesitated, and he rephrased the question: “Since you were able to get a ride with me this late at night, can you believe in God for the next hour?”
Yes! Yes, I do!

Hitchhiking in Europe the hard way

Posted on June 30, 2013 by The DromomaniacJuly 1, 2013

Are you tired of my hitchhiking stories? Is it the equivalent of baby photos, only your own are interesting? OK, I’ll make it short. Besides, I might be losing my hitchhiking touch. It’s getting harder and harder even though for mysterious reasons women pick me up more often these days. (If you are keen about the philosophy of hitchhiking and why it is the greatest invention ever, I blather on about it here.) Is it worth mentioning that I was hitchhiking with over $1000 in cash only if I was robbed of it all? No? OK, let’s get to it. (Attention future drivers: I keep my money in my left pocket.)

Would you pick up this man? Me neither.

A tough hitchhiking route I have done several times is Holland to Denmark, so I broke out my go-to sign. I still needed 13 rides in 13 hours, which isn’t something to crow about, though the last four drivers were women. One had never picked up a hitchhiker, but said I looked “sympathetic”. Maybe she said “pathetic”. The 13th driver, a saint who saved me in a big way in northern Germany, was a pretty, blonde Hungarian woman who works for a California company. The sign made all the difference.
If I tell someone I had 13 rides to go from A to B, they groan, assuming it would be better to have only a few rides. I don’t mind. I don’t mind telling my life story to drivers 13 times, even if I have to struggle to do so in different languages. It’s a very small price to pay to get a free ride. Some travelers get tired of this perceived invasion of privacy (“Where are you going? What are you doing?”) and make up stories, conjuring up a Walter Mitty-esque, today-I’m-telling-everyone-I’m-an-astronaut narrative. I never do because I can’t remember the lie, I’m not good at lying anyway and I think everyone would see right through it. (My driver’s license says I weigh 187 lbs (87kg); I’m such a hypocrite.)

“Jeeves, fetch the Bentley. I shall troll for hitchhikers.”

     Another route I’ve done many times, Zurich to Budapest, also went in fits and starts. The last two times were hellish and I slept in a truck stop in Austria—coming AND going. Rough. I wrote about the brutal details here.
     I hadn’t been standing long at the highway rest area outside of Zurich before the Swiss police swooped in, brusquely suggesting that the place I chose wasn’t safe. (There is no point in arguing with all the police who deal with me on the roadside, but I make sure to only speak English and do plenty of “Yes, Sir”s with some faint bowing.) I was told to move. A woman who had witnessed this from afar asked where I was going, then gave me a ride to Germany.
     The rest of the way was typical hitchhiking stuff. This 1971 Bentley above took me next, my first ever Bentley. It was like riding in a boat. No suspension. Every turn I thought the car was going to fold on its tires. Then a girl with bright, long, orange dreadlocks and her child took me, then an enormous Mercedes, then a young dude.

Since it was tougher than normal to go from Bavaria to Vienna, to go onward to Hungary I thought it might be a clever idea to have a “BESZELEK MAGYARUL” (“I speak Hungarian”) sign. I eventually got into Hungary, but I had no other signs, so I used it again. It made no sense and only caused people to look at me like I was an idiot.

Near Vienna a fierce gust grabbed the American flag that was velcroed to my backpack and blew it far away, leaving me naked. I almost always have my USA flag on my backpack when I hitchhike (and never otherwise). It shows I’m a traveler. It attracts positive attention 99% of the time. Americans as a whole do not travel this way, which makes me an attractive oddity, and if someone wants to vent about America being the global policeman, that’s fine with me. The discussion is always civil, except for the one time when an Iraqi picked me up in Germany and yelled, “Scheiss Amerikaner!”, but even then he said it with a smile.
Predictably, I got stuck and with true American conceit I felt that the lack of a flag—my lack of an identity—was keeping me from getting picked up. (“If they only knew I was American!”) It was a struggle to get to Budapest, so much so that I took an 11 euro Hungarian rideshare to go back to Vienna. (In Budapest I went to my favorite horse salami place in the main market only to discover that horse is only one of several meats they do now. When will this Western Europeanization of Hungary end? Very upsetting.)

Three Photos from Switzerland

Zurich airport. Look at that: 50 flights scheduled in a 60-minute time span, 12:20-13:20, which is impossible. I don’t get how they are allowed to schedule it like that, in Switzerland no less.

Someone came and ruined my favorite graffiti next to the airport! Jackass. I hate humanity. “Ich bin so einsam” = “I am so lonely”.

50% off of 300 Swiss francs (US$315!) for these ridiculous sandals? That’s a discount? Please. Some things about Switzerland I’m not going to miss.

Practical Information:
     My hitchhiking preparation always consists of checking out Hitchwiki for places to start and reviewing Google Maps, even if I have done the route many times before. You would be surprised how often there is miscommunication or drivers saying one thing and doing another so it’s good to know alternative routes.
     If hitchhiking just isn’t your thing, this is the best (cheapest) way to travel around Germany: MeinFernbus (only in German, unfortunately). Super-cheap bus fares, wifi on board, and electrical outlets that are supposed to work. I was impressed. They also go to neighboring places like Zurich, Luxembourg and Strasbourg. Check out their route map.
     Hey, there are some of you out there who receive my blog posts via RSS. Some of you might be in a panic that Google Reader is kaput as of July 1. I don’t have a recommendation for you, but some wise people have recommended Feedly as an alternative.
     My next blog post should be about Denmark—a very underrated country—and why it is always a good idea to marry a Dane, among other things.
     Why don’t you stay with me? You can follow along with RSS somehow, subscribe to an email feed, see what’s cooking on Facebook, pray that I’ll say something worth remembering on Twitter and if you are really slumming it, there’s always Google+.