From Xining to Xiahe (day 103 - 29.07.): a Tibetan excursion, or: how a European tourist is treated in China

Much to my frustration, I again had early morning transport. This time, it was a bus at 7.15 from Xining to Xiahe. I had been to the bus station here already and knew that it was less than 15 minutes by taxi from the hotel and that luggage inspections are fast. I therefore, for once (well, not really, but still...), left the hotel quite late. I still wanted to withdraw money and buy some food and drinks for the 6 hour bus ride, especially because I had to leave the hotel before breakfast time. Unfortunately, the ATM did not want to give me cash ("please contact your bank"), but with none of my cards, so it was clear that it was not related to my cards. I bought my breakfast at the bus station kiosque (green ice tea with plum flavour - my absolute favourite here!! - and very dry cookies) and arrived at the ticket control at the bus station at 7.05. The lady looked at me very astonished when she saw my ticket and started to investigate with her colleagues, then she asked me to come with her into an office, where they explained to me that the bus was leaving from another bus station! In a very reproaching fashion, they pointed to some Chinese signs on the bottom of my ticket! Only when I shrugged my shoulders, they realised that I could not read that. Now I realised why the lady at the ticket counter the day before talked so much, she was probably telling me exactly that... The guy immediately picked up the phone and called the other station to tell them that there was this ignorant European tourist who turned up at the wrong bus station and asked them to wait (that is his I interpreted the conversation at least..) and told me to hurry up and take a taxi. I made them write down the name of the bus station and off I ran. Fortunately, the first taxi accepted me, which is not a given thing here (see previous stories...). the driver was a nice lady (actually, there are a lot of female taxi drivers here and I normally much prefer them to their male colleagues..) and I tried to signal to her that I am really in a hurry, which did not really impress her much (for once, I would have preferred one of those testosterone-overdosed macho-drivers!!!!). We left at 9.10, but it turned out that the other bus station was really at the other end of town and each and every traffic light seemed to turn red right when we got there. I thought the bus would probably wait for 10 minutes or so and therefore I had mentally given up at 9.25 and started to develop a "plan B".... (As this is the only bus per day), but still had some irrational hope .. When we got there at 9.32, I just ran but there were so many buses leaving and each one of them could be  mine... I did not even see where the regular entrance was because there were so many people standing around. I therefore entered through the bus exit to increase the chance that the driver would see the lost European traveller and would stop. I showed my ticket to the guy at the checkpoint and he directed me to another guy (nobody checked my luggage by the way...), who got all stressed when he saw that I had a ticket for a bus that was supposed to have left 20 minutes ago. He was shouting my destination very loudly and asked everyone around him whether the bus had already left. One other guy took my ticket and ran into the passenger hall. Right at that moment, the driver of my bus identified himself and signalled that I should come over and the accompanying lady asked for my ticket, which had disappeared with the other guy. So there was a lot of shouting and finally the driver himself ran into the passenger hall to get my ticket back. When I entered the bus, I really felt ashamed and I had the impression everybody was talking about me and how incredible it is that everybody had to wait for me... (the feeling of guilt at its best... They were probably just having normal conversations...) Because of me, the bus started with almost 25 minutes delay! I am not proud of this episode, but find it quite incredible how helpful everybody was at both bus stations. Could you imagine any of this occurring in Europe if this had happened to a Chinese tourist? Frankly, I do not think so! So: thanks a lot to my various Chinese friends at the two Xining bus stations!!! ;-)

The drive itself was very long. Instead of the 6 hours, it finally took 7 and I really got terrible pain in my knees as I could not really move because leg space was very limited. The baby of the Tibetan lady next to me also started to be impatient after 2 hours, but the whole "neighbourhood" (including myself) were trying to find ways to distract the poor little girl. This time, I was not very popular... :-( The strange thing was that at some point, all passengers were asked to pay 5 yuan extra, which probably was related to the fact that we took a detour over a very small mountain road, at least this is what I thought to have understood. Because in some small village, where the driver stopped to buy two buckets of Yoghurt, a guy started talking to him and afterwards he gave some loud speech to all passengers and some discussion amongst them started. Then we continued and the accompanying lady collected the additional money. As far as I have figured it out, the choice was to either wait in that village for 4 hours until the road reopens or to continue via the longer route. And the collective wisdom of the passengers seemed to have been to pay more for arriving faster. While that road was super scenic, it was also in a really bad shape and very bumpy, which did not really help my knees...

Anyway, after a bit more than 7 hours, we arrived in Xiahe, which I thought was a small nice Tibetan village (with a quite famous Tibetan monastery), but actually - for Western standards - it is a medium-sized city. I had decided to stay 3 nights here to recover a bit and really was longing for quiet village life after all these "small" Chinese cities I have been during the last week. But it is true, compared to those cities with their skyscrapers, noise, pollution and traffic jams, Xiahe somehow is a village. But it really seems that it developed a lot in the last 3 years as some of the information in the Lonely Planet is completely outdated, for example that there is only one cash machine... Now, they are actually all over the place!! While the first two also rejected my card, the third one fortunately gave me money... Fortunately, because after paying the hotel in cash, I had barely 20 Euros left... While I write this, I sit in a nice restaurant attached to another guesthouse, which is decorated in Tibetan style and am eating Yak-meat dumplings. They are quite tasty, but also quite intense.... So after eating 3 of them, I had enough, while there are 7 more on my plate... What a waste!

More about after my visits in a separate chapter. And - what a wonder - no photos taken today!

Xining (days 101 to 103 - 27.07. to 29.07.): visiting a Tibetan monastery, or: how a religious place of worship turns into a circus

Perched on the eastern edge of the Tibetan plateau, Xining is he capital of the province of Qinghai. The population of 1.2 million is an interesting mix of Muslim (Huí, Salar and Uighur), Tibetan and Han Chinese, but for my taste, the city was too big, load and stressful. So I did not really see much of it (and ere is not much anyway in terms of sights...) as the reason for staying here was that I wanted to visit the nearby Tibetan monastery of Kumbum, which is of the great monasteries of the Gelugpa (Yellow Hat) sect of Tibetan Buddhism. It was built in 1577 on the birthplace of Tsongkhapa, founder of the Gelugpa sect. It’s of enormous historical significance, and hundreds of monks still live here but, perhaps it has become such big tourist attraction that the atmosphere really suffers. Of course, my visit contributes to destroying that atmosphere as well, I am well aware of that.... But compared to the several thousands of Chinese, I have only seen 3 other Westerners here..  The artwork and architecture, however, remain impressive. Nine temples are open to the public, each with their own characteristics. The most important is the Grand Hall of Golden Tiles, where an 11m-high stupa marks the spot of Tsongkhapa’s birth. There are quite a number of Tibetan pilgrims walking circuits of the building and outside the entrance, worshipping Tsongkhapa in a quite impressive way. But the religious purpose of this place almost seems to be forgotten by many of the Chinese tourists, who just laugh and shout right next to the pilgrims praying, despite the many "silence"-signs all over, and without even realising that this was inappropriate. On the other hand, most of them bow in front of the Buddha and whisper some words of prayer and leave quite a bit of money in front of the various statues as an offering... But to me, this did not seem to be spiritual for them at all....

Despite this, I was still glad I visited this place. It was impressive to see the gathering of the monks in one of the courtyards. There was always one of them standing shouting at another one who was seated and the others sat around them observing. The one shouting seems to criticise something about the one seated and after a while made a movement half Tai Chi half Karate towards the seated one pretending he was hitting him and clapped his hands to make the noise that goes with the hitting. It was really strange to hear this noise of clapping and shouting, especially before you have seen what is actually going on. The one seated then started his sermon which I understood was a defence against the criticism hand then the whole thing started again. After a while, a signal was given by the superior, who was impressively dressed (photo) and the monks interrupted this interaction and gathered in a huge semi-circle for prayer.

And despite having read it several times, I still have not understood the explanation how young a Tantra doctor's degree.... Do they really mean "aggressive" ..? ;-) (see photo)

Getting back was however more difficult than I imagined, as there was no direct bus anymore back to Xining (despite what had been said earlier). Fortunately, a group of 4 young women in their twenties, whom I had asked where the bus would leave, took me with them and in an odyssey of 3 hours I made it back to the hotel, whereas the direct bus to get there was less than an hour. The young women insisted even to accompany me from the bus stop (somewhere in the middle of nowhere I have to admit...) by taxi to the hotel, after they saw that - again - I did not manage to convince any taxi driver to drive me where I wanted... (Showing the address in Chinese...). In a funny 20 minutes drive, they were 4 on the back seat of a very small car, but found that vet amusing as did the driver... :-)

Photos of Kumbum Monastery at: https://www.icloud.com/photostream/#A65CmvASGCLGEd 

Jiayuguan and Zhangye (days 99 to 101 - 25.07. to 27.07.), first sight of the "Great Wall" and more Buddha caves, or: how I hopefully helped my taxi driver to get married rather than dying of the plague

The masses of tourists in Dunhuang also meant that I almost missed my morning train as there was a gigantic line at the security check to enter the station. I literally jumped into the train, just before it left (as always so far super on time). Jiayuguan is only a short stop for one night as it is famous for one thing: it marks the symbolic end of the Great Wall, the western gateway of China proper and, for imperial Chinese, the beginning of nowhere. As this was one of the defining points of the Silk Road, a Ming-dynasty fort was erected here in 1372 and Jiāyùguān came to be colloquially known as the ‘mouth’ of China. So, during the single afternoon I had here, I visited the fort and the remains of the Great Wall, both of which have been largely rebuilt in recent years, as you will see on the photos. And the small family-run guesthouse, in a traditional courtyard-house at the north-gate of the fort, which was so nicely described in my German guidebook and to which I was looking forward, was one of the victims of yet another "rehabilitation" / radical transformation of a historic site. Together with other traditional houses, it probably "disturbed" and has just been destroyed and there is now a "nice" little park with a little lake, just like everywhere....  While the fort is yet again one of these typical Chinese tourist experiences, I still thought it was impressive, as was the wall, which was actually quite a steep climb. The views over the lunar-like landscape around were quite nice.

Photos of Jiayuguan at: https://www.icloud.com/photostream/#A652plgjGyuxfd

The next day, i took a train to Zhangye. While this mid-size Silk Road town is mostly a jumping-off base for the unique cliff temples at nearby Mǎtí Sì, it is actually worth spending an afternoon there, as the Lonely Planet recommends and - as a a good obedient tourist - I followed, as there is one of China’s best preserved wooden temples that deserves an extended visit. And all this despite of the fact that the nearby city of Yumen was closed-off as a guy had died a few days before of the plague ("Pest" in German), transmitted by a tick through a marmot (Murmeltier). I would not even had heard of this if my friend Armelle had not sent me a message with a newspaper article attached  and with the ironic remark "hope you are not going there", but actually I was...  While I was first a bit shocked by this, after I had read more, I was much less: it was the "bubonic" pest, which is not transmitted through contacts between humans but via ticks, so there was actually no chance of getting infected in a busy train or bus and also, a simple antibiotic - of which my doctor had prescribed me many for my medical urgency kit - is enough to treat it, in case I would experience any of the symptoms. 

But let's come back to that temple... Originally dating to 1098, it contains an astonishing 35m-long sleeping Buddha – China’s largest of this variety – surrounded by painted clay statues representing "arhats" (Buddhists who have achieved enlightenment) and Qing-dynasty murals. It seems that until the 1960s, small children would climb into the huge Buddha and play around inside his tummy. Today, you are not even allowed to take photos.. (Not even without a flash). Apart from the Buddha-statue, there is also a beautiful main hall with nice woodwork, including the doors and the structure holding the roof. This is one of the few wooden structures from this era still standing in China. In the centre, there is also a nice multi-floor wooden pagoda, initially from AD 528, but the present structure is a thorough reconstruction from 1926. As a nice surprise, I witnessed a performance of a group of older male musicians, who met in front of the temple just to play traditional music together just for the fun of it. And spontaneously it seemed, some women joined and stars singing to it. I sat down for ago half an hour and listened... Really nice.... And they really enjoyed the attention of this foreigner, but also of the many Chinese who started to gather around, some of them joining in the signing (all of them seemed to know melody and lyrics...)

In the afternoon, I hired a private taxi to visit the famous cliff temples / caves of Mati Se. While it is quite a long drive (1,5 hours) and already one third of the distance to my next destination Xining, it was not possible to visit it on the way for various (annoying) logistical reasons. I haggled with at least 5 drivers, who all wanted to charge incredible amounts, until I found a reasonable one. He profited from the occasion of this country-side outing to take along a lady he fancies (that seemed to be very clear and soon I realised from the way she spoke to him that she actually liked him as well...). When I stopped him, he was probably about to see her for a chat (I presume), because the shop she was working in was right in front. He shouted something inside and - after some negotiation with her boss (a family member? Who else would let an employee leave in the middle of the day..?), she joined us. And during the entire drive they were chitchatting. These constant voices that I did not understand actually made me very sleepy, but I could not really fall asleep as the road was far too bumpy. Mǎtí Sì translates as Horse Hoof Monastery, a reference to a legendary event in which a heavenly horse left a hoof imprint in one of the grottos. Between the 5th and 14th centuries a series of caves were almost as miraculously built in these sandstone cliffs and filled with carvings, temples and meditation rooms. The caves are reached via twisting staircases, wooden balconies, narrow passages and platforms that were really impressive. The grottos are spread over many sections and despite initial hesitations, the driver would not wait at the entry gate and let me walk around the area, but negotiated with the lady at the entrance and then drove me in. Strangely enough, hat was actually the rule, as inside the area, there were plenty of taxis driving around with visitors. Sometimes, it was quite difficult to climb up / down to the caves as the ladders / stairs carved in stone were steep and narrow and the Chinese visitors did not seem to realise that it makes lots of sense to first let people come down before going up and so people permanently got stuck from high sides in the middle of the ladders/stairs... The monks at the caves were all very well-equipped with iPhones and had as much fun taking pictures as I had. Quite unexpected.. ;-) I took quite a bit of time to discover the various caves and thus left the two lovebirds plenty of time to flirt. Once, I was ready with my visit but saw them walking in the nearby hills, so I took a bit more time to visit hat the driver would not feel obliged to immediately come back to the car. ;-) On the way back, the lady, who spoke a few words of English, started a very basic conversation and, thanks to my English-Chinese student dictionary, which I bought the night before for 2 Euros (!!), we managed to understand each other. We even stopped for a small roadside picknick to eat the watermelon the driver had bought before. In the the end, it was a very nice day and - hopefully - the two lovebirds will soon get married and will live happily ever after (sorry, I am a desperate romantic...) :-)

Photos of Zhangye / Mati Se at: https://www.icloud.com/photostream/#A65NI45MGXHrUE

Dunhuang (day 97 to 99 - 23.07. - 25.07.), another Silk Road highlight, or: beautiful Buddhist caves and Dunhuang Desert Dune Disneyland

Despite its remoteness in the middle of the desert, per capita income in Dūnhuáng is among the highest in China, thanks to a recent push into wind and solar energy production (sorry, but I just HAVE to mention this..). The town is now thoroughly modern, but compared to other places, it has maintained its distinction and a really nice atmosphere. With clean tree-lined streets, slow-moving traffic, bustling markets, nice cafes and some souvenir shops, it also has remained as much an oasis for travellers as in the Silk Road times.

The visit of the Mogao caves was certainly so far one of the highlights of this trip. From the originally 1000 caves, about 500 still exist and despite their age, some of them are quite well preserved, due to the hot and dry climate and the fact that for about 500 years they had been covered by sand and forgotten. As soon as they were rediscovered, the problems started. A number of Western explorers (or I should rather say thiefs) came here between 1904 (a Brit) and 1925 (an Amercian), with French, Japanese and a Russian following and plundered the caves by detaching some of the mural paintings and steeling (more correctly, they "bought" them for ridiculous amounts from the monk guarding them), the manuscripts and silk paintings which had been discovered in an amazing cave library, amongst which the oldest print in the world. Most of them are now in possession of the Louvre and Musée Guimet in Paris, the British Museum in London and the Hermitage in St. Petersburg. The museum here contains only a very sad number of low quality manuscripts and copies of their originals.

The decoration of the caves is really extraordinary: various Buddhas (in all shapes and forms - painted and as statues) and paintings telling stories to relate the message of Buddhism to the simple people. Actually exactly the same, somehow, then the paintings in Cappadocia's cave churches at the beginning of my trip in Turkey.

When I bought the entry ticket (which is scandalously expensive with 20€ (same price for Chinese tourists!!), the lady told me that due to the extremely high number of Chinese visitors, their "leader" had told them to cancel all guided tours in English in favour of Chinese ones. That was a blow because you need a certain level of explanation to understand what is depicted in the murals. I was now very happy that I had carried my one kilo DuMont cultural guide with me all the time as it contained a 12-page chapter on the caves with a detailed explanation of what you can see in some of the various caves. Instead of guided tours, they also put the guides inside the caves and pushed the masses of Chinese tourists from one cave to the next in maximum speed, the open caves being marked with blue and green flags. I followed the flow as the guides had very powerful torches to show the various paintings and statues in the dark caves, so I could actually see the stuff... My torch was too weak to see a lot of things. But i always stayed until after the groups had left and before the next one was let in, which allowed me to look at things without rushing and in some caves, the guides actually gave me some explanation in English as well. They were quite surprised by the level of detailed description in my guidebook.

In the afternoon, I went to visit the dunes, for which Dunhuang is famous. I know I also had to pay another ridiculously high entrance fee here, but I did not expect this kind of "circus". They basically turned this nice wonder of nature into a kitschy Dune Disneyland, with a huge visitor's centre, a kind of shopping mall, a stage for shows, etc. and there were amazing amounts of tourists (almost exclusively Chinese..), all of them wanting to go for a camel ride up the dunes and there are actually enough camels for all of them, which provoked a "traffic jam" on the way up to the dunes (see photo). Whereas most people only went onto the first lower dune, I decided to escape the masses and climb up to the top of the highest dune. The climb to the top of the dunes – the highest peak swells to 1715m – was sweaty work even if it was already around 19.00, but the view across the desert sands makes it really worth while. The view from the dune was spectacular and here were only 3 other young Chinese guys who made it up to hear, so it was wonderfully silent. Exactly the right atmosphere to watch the sunset.

Photos at: https://www.icloud.com/photostream/#A65M7GFPGaJ7eb

Turpan / Tulufan (days 93 to 96 - 19. - 22.07.), the hottest place in China, or: does China / Turpan have talent?

Turpan (Tǔlǔfān) is considered as China’s Death Valley. At 154m below sea level, it’s the second-lowest depression in the world and the hottest spot in China. In July and August (exactly when I am here) the temperatures soar well above 40°C, forcing the locals and the crazy visiting tourists like me into a state of almost permanent heat shock. I actually almost did not want to leave my air-conditioned room in the very nice Silk Road Lodges, which are situated a bit outside town, but surrounded by beautiful vineyards, where - as I was told - I could pick grapes for free as much as I wanted. The building is quite new, but follows the local traditional architecture (photos). Despite the heat, the ground water and fertile soil of the Turpan depression has made this a veritable oasis in the desert, evidenced by the nearby centuries-old remains of ancient cities, imperial garrisons and Buddhist caves.

I did not do much the first day, except a small walk around the vineyards, picking some grapes and admiring the grape-drying-halls that were all over. In the evening, I went into town to a fancy traditional Uighur restaurant, on the shore of a small lake, recommended by the very nice manager of the hotel. The food was very nice. When I came out of the restaurant, I heard loud music and it turned out that in the little park around the lake, took place the Turpan Singing and Dancing Competition, which - of course - I needed to watch. It was something like "Britain has got talent" or "Deutschland sucht den Superstar" but for kids / teenagers. Lots of little boys and girls were singing and dancing and playing the drums (see some bit so sharp iPhone photos below). Sometimes quite good, sometimes just funny! I really enjoyed the atmosphere... In the end, we even had the privilege to see two members of the jury perform, it seems quite (at least locally) famous singers (photos).

As agreed during our lunch after the train ride from Kuche, the next day I went on an excursion with my new Chinese friends Wu Rui bin and Liu Feng mei, a couple travelling for two weeks (photo). I walked up to them at the Turpan train station (which is almost an hour away from town) to ask for help to get to the bus station. I had written the signs down on a sheet of paper, but fortunately, they both spoke a bit of English and offered to go together. The bus station was a 5 minute walk and really well-hidden... From the front, it looked like an office-building. On my own, I would never have found it... During lunch, we discussed a bit and I explained, with a very skilful little drawing, what I actually do for work... It was really ridiculous, but they finally understood. It is really difficult to explain what I am doing to someone who almost does not speak English. ;-) Wu Rui bin is a banker and Liu Feng mei a trained lawyer working for the government (she did not really explain what she was doing though...). They were quite funny and we had a great time together.

The including a number of sights in the area, notably  the ancient city of Jiaohe,which was established by the Chinese as a garrison town during the Han dynasty. It’s one of the world’s largest (6500 residents lived here), oldest (1600 years old) and best-preserved ancient cities, impressive in its scale rather than in its details, where you can still see the remains of a large monastery and a 10m-tall pagoda surrounded by 100 smaller pagoda bases. Next station was the Bezeklik cave-complex (Bezeklik meaning ‘Place of Paintings’ in Uighur), which has a fine location (closer to the flaming mountains) and interesting history, though the caves are essentially empty. The site is famous for having many of its distinctive murals cut out of the rock face by German (!!!) archaeologists in 1905. Some few still remain, but they are not very impressive (and photos were prohibited). The "Flaming" Mountains, the midday appearance of which is compared to multicoloured tongues of fire, were immortalised in the Chinese classic "Journey to the West", when the Monkey King used his magic fan to extinguish the blaze. We then went to the "grape valley", another one of these super Chinese tourist "attractions", which charged a very unreasonable entry fee just to see grapes, which I have already seen around my hotel anyway. So my friends and myself decided to skip that and just to hangs out in the restaurant. We admired the various kinds of dried grapes and my friends bought 2 kilos (!!) as souvenir... Finally, we visited a very kitsch (as entirely newly built) museum dedicated to the uniquely Central Asian–style system of underground aqueducts called "karez" (very similar to what we had seen in Iran), but at least it was nice and cool down there and they had some nice stands selling all kind of Chairman Mao souvenirs (photos). The Emin-Minaret, a very nice Afghan-style structure built by Emin Hoja, a Turpan general, in 1777 was finally not included in the tour, but as it was not far from my hotel I convinced the driver to drop me off there.

The last day, when I again had a night train, I negotiated a late check-out and actually stayed in my room, as it was so hot that I really did not feel like doing anything... At least, I managed to sort out some photos and write up some of my blog, but also tried to catch up on world / EU news...

 Photos at: https://www.icloud.com/photostream/#A6GdIshaZVCL

From Kashgar (Ka'shi) to Kuqa (Ku'che) and then to Turpan (Tulufan): my first train rides in China (days 91/92 and 93/94 - 17./18.07. and 19./20.07.), or: a "hard sleeper" in a "hard sleeper"

I am currently (I mean two weeks before, when I actually wrote most of this.. ;-) ) on my first train ride in China. After almost a week in Kashgar and on the Karakorum Highway, it was high time to continue. But due to the summer holidays here in China, many trains are already fully booked weeks in advance and I now had to plan my trip day by day for the next two weeks in order to be book the train tickets, sometimes I got one of the last available tickets on a certain day and - while I intended to get comfortable "soft sleeper" tickets, there were none available anymore for any of my trips... But many travellersI have met in Kashgar in the hostel told me that "hard sleeper" was "totally ok" and anyway the only alternative was a "hard seat", but for trips of between 9 and 14 hours over night, I decided I need a sleeper. And now that I am on here on the train, I have to say that a "hard sleeper" is really totally ok, especially for someone who sleeps so hard than myself... ;-) the unusual thing is that there are no compartments within the coach, but just a long corridor with all the sleeper beds. I was in the middle, conveniently indicated on the ticket with basically the only Chinese sign I know: 中 which is also the symbol for China, the "middle empire" and I also recognised the "Central" Asia guidebook in the hostel, which included the same.

The train left Kashgar with 30 minutes delay at 22.20 and is supposed to arrive at 07.05 in Kuqa, my next destination.

There is quite an atmosphere here in the coach: many families with young kids / babies, so lots of shouting and screaming... In the waiting hall, where everyone has to wait until the train arrives, I had already realised that I am the only Westerner on this train, for the rest all kind of ethnicities, a micro-cosmos of the Xinjang province: mostly Uighurs, but also Kyrgyz and Tajiks (the only other ones I recognise) and of course Han-Chinese. [now at 23.20 the light has just been switched off and all of a sudden the noise- level went down considerably. ;-) anyway: while I had enjoyed the chaos for a while, I decided relatively quickly to put my earphones in and listen to music. But nobody seems to speak English, except "hello" and "thank you". But I quickly made friends with the baby of the young Uighur family with the sleepers below me: I smiled at it and the baby (probably about 6 months old) smiled back and then did not stop looking at me and each time I smiled at it, it had a huge smile back... The mother and grand mother really enjoyed this and so I started playing a bit with the baby, which really enjoyed it... This also seemed to convince the other people around - who looked at me with a certain level of scepticism when I boarded the train - that I am not a bad guy. And when I took out my bowl of instant noodles and started preparing it (as almost everybody of them does) with the hot water which is available in huge thermoses they smiled and I had the impression I was almost accepted as one of them. I had seen all the people with plastic bags with instant noodles in the waiting hall and bought one last-minute in the kiosque there, as I thought this was a great snack before going to bed (as I had an early dinner already at 5..). So, while communication is basically inexistent, my co-travellers are very friendly... ;-)

I did not really get lots of sleep that night... Each time when the train stopped (4 times), here was quite some movement in the train and my "baby-friend" was not happy and felt the need to express this at regular intervals. ;-) I was lucky that the hotel in Kuche accepted an early check-in at 7.30 in the morning without any extra charge... This allowed me to get some proper sleep...

The city of Kuche was an important stop on the Silk Road and an independent kingdom until the foundation of the Chinese communist state. The king is still alive, he is now 88 years old and is a prominent member of the communist party. The restored / reconstructed (in China this often seems to be the Samer...) royal palace museum is full of photos of the king shaking hands with all the successive Chinese leaders. The old town - or what is still left of it - is quite nice, but nothing spectacular. The reason why I initially decided to stop here was to visit some Buddhist caves about 1,5 hours drive away, but - while reading a bit more, I realised that a German archeologist took away all the mural paintings and sculptures and that of the many hundreds of caves only 5 are open to the public. Also, during my further trip planning, I also realised that I would see other (more spectacular) Buddhist caves. The trip planning and hotel booking etc. took actually quite a while and it would in the end have been quite stressful to visit those caves, so I passed... I walked around quite a bit here in Kuqa for two successive days and did not meet a single other Westerner. Also from the reaction of the people in the old town and at the markets, they do not seem to see many of them here ... ;-) While Kuche is not a beautiful place as such, it was still quite nice, as you can see from the amount of photos I took... ;-)

Photos of Kuche at: https://www.icloud.com/photostream/#A65GH8MqGcc2T0

Now at the train station waiting for the second night train on to Turpan (Tulufan), another important Silk Road city. Let's see... Just before the train approached, we were allowed to enter the platform, but a communist-drilled lady was shouting at the crowd, which - imagine!!! - wanted to stand where they wanted (!!) and the crowd started to organise itself - following strict and loud commands, resulting in 4 nicely organised rows on the platform like if we were in the military (see photo, a bit dark, but you can even see the lady in a light blue shirt..) But when the train actually entered, the lady could shout as much as she liked, but the people just abandoned their lines and went where they wanted! ;-) so authorities cannot control avery thing, even in China.. ;-)

This time, it was a more modern train: it had two "floors" with 4 sleepers in each "compartment", but less space. I had the upper one, which was a challenge even for me as an only average-tall European.. I was not able to sit up and sit straight. So I was either sitting in the corridor or lying down... As such, the train ride was rather uneventful and I actually could sleep for a while... Most of the time, the only thing we could see was desert. But in many parts, they have installed a massive amount of wind turbines, literally hundreds of them, that is quite impressive.

Photos of train rides at: https://www.icloud.com/photostream/#A65aVbMKGLYAII

Karakoram highway (days 89 to 91 - 15.07. - 17.07.): spectacular landscapes up to Pakistan, or: a border which - for a change - I did not cross

The Karakoram Highway over the Khunjerab Pass (4800m) is said to be one of the world’s most spectacular roads and it is China’s gateway to Pakistan. For centuries this route was used by caravans down the Silk Road, but inky end if the 1970ies, a real road was built in a tremendous effort, which killed qui a number of workers. Khunjerab means ‘valley of blood’ – local bandits used to take advantage of the terrain to slaughter merchants and plunder caravans.

As the highway starts in Kashgar, I decided to go for a three day excursion up to the Pakistani border. At first I had planned to do this together with a group of other travellers I had met when I washed my laundry in the other hostel, but the decisive email went in my spam folder and I did not see it. So I went on my own.

Two hours from Kashgar you enter the canyon of the Ghez River, with its dramatic red sand- stone walls. Ghez itself is a major check- point to be allowed on the highway. The canyon itself currently undergoes major construction works as they want to turn the previous road (with only one lane in each direction) into a real "highway" with four lanes, lots of enormous bridges and a number of tunnels. The beauty of the canyon is already seriously impacted on by the works and I can only imagine his it will look once the works are finished. Due to the construction works, he drive up was difficult as we were driving for about 3 hours on provisional, quite bumpy dirt roads. Twice we had to wait for quite a while as they were working on that road. We had to cross two rivers and the driver was very worried about his car.. Once I thought water would soon come in the car, but it did not.. ;-) the rivers were all completely dirty as the works turned everything upside down, a stark contrast to the crystal-clear mountain rivers it had seen in Kyrgyzstan.

At the top of the canyon, 3,5 hours above the plain, you pop out into a huge wet plateau ringed with mountains of sand-stone and aptly called Kumtagh (Sand Mountain) by locals. Soon Kongur Mountain (7719m) rises up on the left side of the road, followed by heavily glaciered Muztagh Ata (7546m). Wonderful! We spent the first night at the shore of Karakul-Lake, mirroring the glacial peaks, where I had to insist quite a bit with the driver (who -against the reassurances of the guy from the hostel - spoke not a single word of English) that we do not stay in an ugly building right on the road, but in a Yurt away from the road and on the actual shore of the lake. The guy who rented out the room spoke English and made up all kind of excuses why sleeping in a yurt was not possible. But by refusing to even get out of the car and look at he room, they eventually gave in and we went to a nice family yurt down at the lake. So, in contrast to Son Kul, where they have specific yurts for tourists, here we were actually hosted by a family in their single yurt. A very different experience. The family was very friendly, but dinner and breakfast were extremely basic. We just ate what they would normally have. Also, the only other tourists around where two Chinese girls hosted in hohe Yurt next "door". After dinner, I started transferring the photos of the last days on my iPad and the family (father, mother, a teenage girl and a younger brother) and the driver started to gather around me to see my photos and I started a photo show... As the family was of the Kyrgyz minority living here in Xinjang, I notably showed them photos of Kyrgyzstan as they had never been there and they were literally enchanted when they saw the photos, especially of the much more richly decorated (and thus more beautiful) yurts. I imagined that for them it was like watching one of these "redecorate your house" shows we have in all our countries on TV, that make people dream about much more beautiful apartments and houses. They wanted to see plenty of other photos and in the end out photo-session lasted almost an hour and a half and it was almost midnight when the light was switched off and we all went to sleep (which I understood from them is quite late for their standards).

But in the afternoon, as we arrived at the lake quite early, I agreed to go on a motorbike excursion to the surroundings that some guy from the neighbourhood had "offered" me and kept insisting on. As I had not much else to do and after having negotiated a better price, we went. The idea was to reach the Muztagh Ata base camp (1,5 hours driving) and from there to walk to the tip of the glacier (30 minutes). When we had set off, I already started to regret my decision as I had not thought at all about safety issues (nobody has helmets here and so of course there was none for me either). Also, in order to keep the price down, the guy decided not to take the official road / path, as he would have had to pay, but went along very small "secret" paths. So secret that we got stuck first at a river, where the water was too deep to get through. I had already agreed (!!!) to walk though myself as he said he could not do it with me on the motorbike, but when I was already half through the river he called me back as he could not make it... Then he called a friend to investigate about an alternative route, which he could however not find. I was really starting to get annoyed as it was not comfortable on the motorbike at all and I realised that he took some illegal roads as he was looking for an a opening in a very long fence around the area. But he insisted on continuing as he feared of course I would not pay him if we went back. But when we got stuck again, after a very long and difficult detour, I told him to go back and so we went back after about 2 hours to the lake without even having come close to the base camp or the glacier. After a friendly negotiation, we agreed on a bit more than half the initial price...

The next day, we continued to Tashkurgan, the last town in China before the Pakistani border. I visited the ruins of the fort (which was used to shoot parts of the movie "kite runner"), apart from that not much to see there, except the culture which is entirely different as the area is inhabited by Tajiks (the Tajik border is actually also not very far, but there is no crossing around here ..). Tajik women are extremely elegant in the way they dress and much more colourful. Unfortunately, I did not dare to ask any of the women whether I can take a photo, something I really regretted afterwards, because they are really beautiful! We had lunch in a very simple local restaurant, where the owner seems to be a real fan of "knitting" / sticker and of various leaders of the Chinese communist party, as they displayed knitted images of them....(see photo) Very kitsch indeed!!! ;-)

In the afternoon, we intended to go up to the Khunjerab-pass / the Pakistani border, but the driver stopped at the military police station in Tashkurgan to inquire and they told him that we are not allowed up, I was really frustrated as this was the whole point of the excursion, as everybody says the most beautiful parts are there. I insisted to speak to the guy from the hostel and told him that I was surprised about is because we were not even refused at a checkpoint, but because he driver proactively asked the police. In the guidebook, it had said that you need a permit to get up to the pass and I suspected they did not get the permit and now tried to blame it on the military police. I told this to he guy from the hostel and he reassured me that no permit was necessary anymore and "anyone" can go up there. After further insistence, he suggested that we should try again in an hour or so, as "things might change". I thought that was quite strange... But that is what we did, but this time, the driver just drove up the road and it turned out there was no checkpoint anywhere!! So we were able to drive up all the way to about 2 km from the pass, where there was the Chinese immigration post and there, indeed, out excursion ended.. No view on the other side of the pass into Pakistan with its amazing mountain panorama.... Anyway, the weather was not that good, so I would probably not have seen much anyway... As the world's second-highest peak "K2" is very close to the Khunjerab, I had imagined a very spectacular panorama and was quite disappointed by the fact that there was really nothing to do to get to the pass... (When I saw that the driver was not really engaging with the border guards, I tried use all my charm and smiles to convince them, but: no way! They were very busy with looking good for a film crew who was there and also made an interview with the commander... So that might have been the reason.... But I was very upset with the driver, who knew he could get up until here and tried to tell me it was not possible and the guy from the hostel basically lying at me as well... Anyway, I got as close as possible and there were some beautiful panoramas there.... But in the end, the three day excursion was not worth while, a simple two days to the lake and back would have been enough... But well....

Photos at: https://www.icloud.com/photostream/#A6GFssfGFewbY

Kashgar (days 85 to 89 - 11.07. - 15.07.): first impressions of China, or: eating all kind of weird stuff

Kashgar (or Kashi in Chinese) is actually a quite pleasant city and I stayed there (with an interruption of the 3 days I was touring the Katakorum Highway, see separate post) for a week. It was the first place in China, after crossing the border from Kyrgyzstan over the Torurgat pass (see separate post). While it is certainly not a typically Chinese city as it is in the Uyghur autonomous province and the majority of inhabitants are Muslim Uyghur (despite all the efforts of the central government to settle Han-Chinese people to counter-balance...). But still, it was a new country, with many new impressions, which is reflected in the number of photos I have uploaded (new record: 99 for one chapter!! Sorry for this, but believe me, I have deleted soo many already...)...

I particularly liked the old town and it busy commercial life (notably the daily night market with its numerous foo stalls). The atmosphere there was very special at dawn, when the locals break the fast they observe during this month of Ramadan. All of a sudden, people start eating everywhere, and some stands hand out bread and watermelon for free during the first minutes. Also, the kind of food on offer is special and fascinating for me as a European... a particular delicacy is cooked goat head (served in a broth or in pieces), but also all kind of other parts of goats and sheep (intestines, testicles...) While at my first visit at the night market I was quite "conservative" in my food choices (meaning I stayed away from the more exotic stuff while still trying the soup prepared on the basis of a goat head, but without the meet..), I became more daring the following days and tried some of the intestines (which I also like to eat when in Europe - "vivent les tripes!") as well as various liver dishes (grilled kebap or cooked in a hotpot) ad everything was delicious, except the kind if strange yellow jelly-like stuff in one of the dishes served in a small bowl (see picture). I later on read that it is the pure far of the "fat-tail-sheep".... :-(

But the Sunday market and the Sunday livestock / animal market were also very interesting and i just wandered around, tried to soak in the atmosphere and took photos... I really enjoyed that day... Finding transport back from the animal market (which had been transferred recently from a place relatively central to the far-away outskirts of Kashgar) was not that easy. I met Jens, a German guy I had met in the Old Town Youth Hostel there (who stopped his marketing career several years ago and started travelling the world instead and now earns some money as a photographer...) and we finally got a lift in a little motor-scooter, together with the proud new owner of a well-nourished sheep, which he purchased for the price of 100 Yuan (about 12 €!!!) The trip was not so comfortable and took ages... And as the sheep just did not want to turn around and liked to push its behind against our legs / knees) we were in constant risk of - well, how shall I say this - getting blessed with liquid or solid sheep "products"... We were lucky though that the sheep was very well educated (in German we would say "stubenrein"), the proof being that as soon as it got off the scooter, it "emitted" (sorry, the use of this word is a "déformation professionelle", but i thought in this context appropriate) considerable amounts of little black "bullets" on the street and started to empty its bladder. ;-)

The old city of Kashgar with its mud-brick houses and is small alleys is also very nice, but not much of it actually remains. As seen notably in Uzbekistan, also the Chinese government has a major policy to "clean up" the old parts of the cities, which basically means destroying everything and building new, but then mostly ugly and tall concrete buildings. The amount of destruction work i witnessed here was really amazing (see some of the photos). If the government actually recognised the value on the traditional old town, I am sure there would be other ways of renovating, in a responsible way and respectful of the local tradition. But that is probably too much to ask.. Instead, they will probably just open another kind of small theme park, where you have to pay an entry fee to see some fake reconstructions of how it all once looked like...

It was not that easy to actually find some relatively intact parts of the old town, but was nice to stroll through the small streets there and observe the activities going on there... ;-)

And, of course, one of the highlights here in Kashgar was the final of the soccer World Cup, which I finally watched in my hotel room as I could not motivate myself to go to the Old Town Youth Hostel in the middle on the night. It was really a nerve-wrecking match, especially as there were two about 5-minute long power cuts  ... Both times very long 5 minutes I thought... But in the end, I did not miss anything, it was still 0:0 afterwards... ;-)

Photos at: https://www.icloud.com/photostream/#A6GRMtznsjNeP

Other first impressions from China / Xinjiang:

- Supermarket: the price relations are extremely different from those in Europe: whereas you spend 1 euro for 30 eggs, a litre of the cheapest fruit nectar (not even juice) costs 2€. As I have seen in a report on TV a while ago (and as a consequence of several dioxin in Chinese milk scandals), there are actually a variety of German milk products, the cheapest litre of German milk being at 2,50€!! All the local vegetables are very cheap.

- Ramadan: as this is the Uyghur (Muslim) part of China, eating is not that easy during the day as we are currently during Ramadan. Most food stands in the Uyghur-dominated old town are closed and I am desperately waiting for the sun to set so that I can go to the night-market just opposite from the square in front of the mosque where I am sitting right now, observing the people.

- Despite the "warnings" in the lonely planet and the fact that Kashgar seems to be a quite strict Muslim city, I have not yet seen any woman fully veiled. On the contrary, there are many Uyghur women which are not covered at all.

- scooters: in contrast to what I had experienced in Vietnam a number of years ago, the scooters here are also plentiful, but are all (and I mean ALL!) electric: so they do not make noise and they do not (at least not directly... of course if electricity is produced from coal, then it is a different story...) contribute to pollution. Also, I was prepared for much worse in terms of pollution... At least here in Kashgar, it does not seem that bad... But that is perhaps also because there is lots of wind today... 

From Naryn over the Torurgart pass to Kashgar (day 85 - 11.07.): the 6th border crossing on this trip, or: the most spectacular and the most expensive

We left Naryn at 5am in the morning. There was nobody on the streets of Naryn except two drunk (and not very stable) Kyrgyz men who still did not have enough and bought some more Vodka at the gas station. The drive up to the Tash Rabat caravanserai, which is basically on the way to the border, was nice. Tash Rabat is famous for its complex structure. While almost everybody calls it a caravanserai (from the 15th century), which makes sense as the traders followed the Silk Road over the Torurgart, the scholars still have another theory: it could also be an early Christian monastery from the 11th / 12th century. Whatever it is, it unique position in this beautiful mountain valley at 3.500m is amazing and the structure itself as well. Just a pity that Gulnira told me that I would only have 20 minutes there in order not to come too late to the border. To visit and take some photos, it was of course enough as it is quite small, but I would have liked to profit a bit more from this serene location and sit down as have a tea in one of the the surrounding Yurts. On the way back from the side valley to the main valley, there were literally hundreds of marmots hopping around in the grass and - when they saw us - trying to get back into their hole or hide behind a rock somewhere. But i managed nevertheless to take a relatively close-up photo... ;-) I really like those animals.. They look really cuddly... ;-)

On the Kyrgyz side, there were two controls: one checkpoint before the long drive up the pass, where you have to show your permit and your passport before a gate opens and the car is let through and then the actual border check about 10 km from the pass. Both very quite unproblematic. Interestingly, one guy from the border police told the driver (who with the car went a different way without customs control) to leave my big backpack in the car... At the customs control, they gave me a form only in Kyrgyz and Russian, I which I understood absolutely nothing... But a friendly Kyrgyz traveller filled it in for me, without asking anything - except the number of bags and the same policeman who followed me through all the way indicated the number without the backpack in the car - in front of the eyes of the customs official. So I signed a form which was not true at all, but the customs official could not care less... I showed my passport to a friendly and smiling lady, got my "exit" stamp and off I went ... ;-)

After we had driven the abou 10km through the noman's land before the actual pass, I realised that Gulnira, the lady from tourist office in Naryn actually had made a mistake when she told me that the Chinese driver would meet us on top of the Torurgart pass at the border at 11 Beijing time.... It was in the end 11 local Uyghur time (which is 2 hours behind). So we had left far too early in the morning (6am would have been more than fine ...) and I rushed without any reason when visiting the Mountain caravanserai. Instead, we waited for almost two hours on top of the pass, just in front of the closed entry-gate to China (which - it appeared only opens at 10.30 local time anyway!!!). We were the first ones, but soon one truck after the other arrived and there was a line of about 30 trucks (ehm, lorries ;-) ) in this deserted mountain landscape... Surreal somehow.... Just before the border opened, two other cars with tourists arrived: one with a group of Czech hikers (what's with all these Czech people around here?? Any idea, Honza?? ;-) to be precise: there was one Slovak in that group and he was the only one talking to me... ;-) ). In the other car was a British couple in their fifties...

Once the border opened, at least there was some activity: I watched how the customs officers very carefully inspected all the Kyrgyz trucks (the Chinese went through almost without any checks...), much to the frustration of the Kyrgyz drivers...  Our Chinese driver finally showed up with a half-hour delay at 11.30, showed a paper to one of the border guards, briefly looked at my passport and here I was in China. I waved my Kyrgyz driver goodbye and we started our descent towards Kashgar. After about 120km, we got to a first checkpoint, where I had to have my luggage screened. The most suspicious item in my luggage was not my drugs, ehm I mean "medicines", but my books!!! I had to take any printed material out and everything was carefully inspected. I later heard from travellers that their China guidebooks / Lonely planets have been confiscated / the Tibet / Dalai Lama related pages ripped out, but fortunately, my printed guidebooks are very art / architecture related and in German and the lonely planet in electronic format on my iPad, which they were - strangely - not interested in at all...  Anyway, with about 5 minutes, the inspection was very efficient and we continued. A few kilometres further, we arrived at another checkpoint, where I needed to get out of the car an show my passport, but it was enough to wave with it and the guy did not even look at it properly. After a few now kilometres (about 200km from the actual border !!!) we finally arrived at the Chinese immigration, which was on lunch break for 1,5 hours, which meant more waiting... (Very inefficient, as nobody can make it to here from the opening of the actual border gate before that lunch break, so everybody has to wait... I chatted a bit with the British couple, really passionate travellers, who did the same trip with their kids 20 years ago!!!

Thanks to the guide who came with the Chinese driver (it seems that having a guide is now obligatory for this border crossing for Westerners as they facilitate in case of communication problems... ), also here, everything went very fast and smoothly once the Chinese officials had finished their lunch. No customs forms to fill in, no questions, only an electronic baggage screening and no further searches.. Within 15 minutes we were through.. ;-). Now more driving to Kashgar, but as I was so tired and it was quite hot, I did not see much, as I was sleeping most of the time.

All in all this border crossing broke several records: it was so far the most spectacular in terms of landscapes, at the highest altitude, but also the most expensive, the longest in terms of time spent, with the most controls / checkpoints but regarding the nature of the checks on both sides in the end the least problematic....  Still, after a long day of more than 10 hours, I was very glad when the driver dropped me at my hotel in Kashgar in the late afternoon ... But I made it! ;-)

Photos at: https://www.icloud.com/photostream/#A6GQOeMmyRHI8

To Kochkor, Son Kul lake and to Naryn (days 82 to 84 - 08. to 10.07.): my last days in Kyrgyzstan, or: staying with a shepherd's family

From Karakol lake, I continued by shared taxi on to Kochkor, the base for excursions to Son Kul lake, which I intended to organise with the local CBT (community-based tourism) office (local agencies to promote local home stays and tours with local guides to promote responsible tourism and provide for an income to villagers...) I waited there for a while to convince the very few other travellers who passed by to share transport, but unfortunately on this day, everyone else seemed to be only interested in horse trekking (including the French couple I had dinner with in Karakol). I even considered this as an option for a moment, but for it to make sense, I would have needed an extra day, which I did not have as I had to cross over to China before the weekend. So I would have to go - yet again - alone :-(  The more surprising thing was that at the CBT-office, I finally met - by coincidence - Yosef, the Israeli guy whose contact I got from one of the travel agencies as he was also interested to share transport over the Torurgart pass to China. While I went on my 5 days trekking, I had sent him my passport and visa copies as he wanted to care care of the formalities,mount then I did not hear anything anymore, despite my numerous reminders. I was even asking around in Karakol whether anybody had seen him anywhere (I knew he was in Karakol at the same time...). I was really angry as I could not organise any alternative either as I did not know whether he perhaps had confirmed for me and just has no internet as he is on treks... But after almost a week, I was clear that that could not be the case and I was really angry, so i started my own preparations. And now, there was his guy in the office, introducing himself to the CBT-guy as Yosef and I knew it had to be him. So I introduced myself - much to his surprise - and he started tottering trying to find excuses why he did not reply. He really felt uncomfortable and rightly so! ;-) That should had taught him the lesson that you always meet people at lest twice in your life ;-)

I also booked my homestay with CBT and specifically asked for a guest family with satellite TV which has the programme to watch the football semi-final Germany - Brazil. The very helpful guy at the office then really found one and when I arrived at their house, the guy had already put on "Russia 1", where they broadcasted some previous matches... Fine! But the match would only be at 3am at night... But when I got up in the middle of the night and switched on the TV, there was no football... I zapped through all channels... Nothing.... It turned out later that tonight's match was broadcast on "Russia 2"... :-( what a frustration!!! When arriving at the CBT-office in the morning to start my tour to Son Kul, the guides standing in front of the office (some of which inhale briefly met the day before) all welcomed me with a big smile and one of them said "Germaniya sem (7) - Brasiliya adin (1)!" And I started laughing as I really thought he was pulling my leg. But when I went online in the office, I realised it was the truth - unbelievable! And I have missed this great match, what a shame!!!

It took about two hours to get to the lake, which is at 3.016m, and is about 20km long. To get there, you go over a much higher pass, where there are still some patches of snow. All around the lake, there are green summer pastures, herds of sheep, goats, cows, horses everywhere and even a few yaks, nomads and yurts everywhere...

Staying with a nomad family in their guest yurt was an experience and it was interesting to observe - at least from the distance - one day in a nomad's life. A lot of activity with the animals in the morning and in the evening, but during the day, at least for the men, it was rather cool, while the women did the cooking and some housework, but they also enjoyed life, chatting with the women from the neighbouring yurts over a cup of tea, having a nap... The kids played and the men (but also some older kids) were playing a game called Narda, similar to backgammon, but with slightly simpler rules. It was fun to watch and soon they invited me to join. I played four games: one against the older nephew of the family, in his twenties, (game lost), one against the 16 year old daughter (game lost!) and two against the younger maybe twelve year old nephew (first game lost, second won!) ;-) I really had fun, sitting there in the sun, with a view in the lake and the mountains, and playing that game.... (Just forgot to out on my sunscreen and got a slight sunburn... ;-) ) Later, I went for a swim in the lake. Despite the whole theatre an Italian couple was having about how freezing cold the lake was, I have to say that it was actually not cold, at least close to the shore, as the lake is not very deep and the sun quite strong. What I really enjoyed was that it is quite silent up here, the only noises being the flies and the bees (and the mosquitoes, which were everywhere, very big and aggressive so I actually did not enjoy those...), the cows, sheep and horses, from time to time a bird and the wind. From time to time some bits of a conversation or a dog barking. Wonderfully relaxing (except for the mosquitoes, but fortunately, I had my "anti spray" ;-) ).

The not so nice thing was that the father of the family could barely walk straight when he came back from Kochkor with the purchases of the day, amongst them a quite fancy-looking new electricity storage / battery, with many different connections, to the happiness of the entire family as everyone seemed to find the right plug to charge their respective mobile phones. To me the father was friendly, but it seems his wife was not so happy to see hi in this state.

As soon as the sun set, it got quite cold and when we came out from the nicely heated yurt, where we had dinner. "We" included three Americans working for the US "peace corps", a government sponsored programme of volunteering, in Azerbaijan and who came here for holidays. On 4th July, I had already met about 15 peace corps volunteers in Karakol who were gathering there to celebrate Independence Day together. I have to admit that I had never heard about these peace corps before and so it was quite interesting to talk to those guys, two working in education and one in rural women's projects..

I was prepared for sleeping in a cold yurt, but I was positively surprised: the family also had put a fire in the little iron stove in my yurt and had already prepared my mattress, with 2 very heavy covers. I nevertheless added my sleeping bag, just to be sure I would not wake up during the night because I was cold.

Outside, there was a lot of noise, as the cows and the donkeys were not happy that they had to gather and were attached to a pole. It took a group of 5 men, one of them on a horse, a dog and later the support of all the women of the family, and quite a bit of time to get all the animals where they were supposed to be and it was quite a show... ;-) with animals and people running in all directions.. Really funny, actually, at least for me as an observer .. ;-)

I had a wonderfully relaxing sleep, without being cold and was woken up by the noise of the cows who probably wanted to be released from their poles. That was really early and I decided that I deserve a bit more sleep. Breakfast was at 9.00, just ok for me! ;-), and afterwards we left back to Kochkor as I still had to make it to Naryn.

Photos of Son Kul at: https://www.icloud.com/photostream/#A65idkMwGYM9Ii

From Kochkor, I went by collective taxi to Naryn, where I had to do the formalities at the CBT-office to get to China the next day. The Director of CBT there is a young and dynamic woman called Gulnira. We talked a bit and she suggested to go for dinner that night with her colleague and a small group of other tourists. In the end, the group was delayed and her colleague had to wait for the group, so we went for dinner just the two of us. We had a very nice and interesting conversation. She has studied for a year with a scholarship in the US and has worked beforehand for an NGO working with local women in difficulties (domestic violence etc.)

Naryn was a necessary stop to get organised for the crossing-over to China via the Torurgart pass, but has nothing special to offer. Unfortunately, after the Israeli guy who initially wanted to share transport and costs for the expensive Torurgart crossing (400$ per car for up to 4 people) dropped out, I would finally be alone in the car, which is really stupid considering that I have written to at least 6 different agencies who organise these transfers to find someone to share within a certain range of days, but nothing... ! :-(

In my guest room in an old Soviet apartment block, which was quite ok and comfortable, I watched some traditional Kyrgyz television show, of which I just had to take some pictures (see photos). What was striking was not so much the folklore they showed, but the fact that almost nobody was ever smiling. All in all, it was quite entertaining. Anyway, do not really have anything better to do after my early dinner with Gulnira. ;-)

Photos of Naryn at: https://www.icloud.com/photostream/#A65ejO17GoftLg

Karakol (days 73 to 75 and 77 to 81 - 29.06. - 01.07 and 03.07. - 07.07.): a "fake" nice place, or: how I still got to see at least the panorama of Pik Palatka

I would like to underline that at this very moment I WRITE this chapter (it is posted only almost a week later because of lack of internet access), I am lying in a hammock in the glass veranda of a mountain refuge / lodge with a very nice view on Pik Palatka (4260m high) in Altyn-Arashan, a spartan hot-spring development at 3000m which does not really deserve its name, which translates into "Golden Spa". It is located in the middle of Arashan State Nature Reserve, which is said to be home to about 20 snow leopards and a handful of bears, although the only animals I saw likely are the horses, cows and sheep belonging to local shepherd families. This is the place where my 5-day-trek was supposed to arrive on the 4th day. So, after 2 days of "curing my wounds" and a lot of reflexion and hesitation, I decided to go up from the other end of the trek to Altyn-Arashan directly, to spend the night in the lodge, profit from the hot springs, walk up a bit the next morning and walk all the way back. Like that, I would at least be able to see part of the panorama, which I was supposed to see on my first trek. Instead of the 5-6 hours indicated in the Lonely Planet, it just took me 4 hours to climb up the 14 km and the more than 1000m of altitude (nota bene, or "OBS" as the Danes would say, especially for Pia: so somehow it seems that I am far fitter than the average after all!!! And this even though I was walking in my very light trekking shoes, which I had taken on this trip as "normal" shoes in addition to my hiking boots. Initially, I wanted to buy new hiking boots in an outdoor shop in Karakol, but somehow in the end did not manage. It would also not have been a good idea anyway, to walk for two days in new boots... ;-)

But before reporting on the hike itself (see below), let me give you some info on Karakol. Considering what it is, I really spent a lot of time in the town of Karakol (only 75000 inhabitants but it has a university!!) There were several reasons for that:
1) when I arrived it was a Sunday and before leaving on the trek, I had to organise a few things so I could not immediately leave the next day.
2) as you have already read (haven't you???), I had to shorten my trek and so had to return to Karakol after 3 days and I needed two days to recover and to take care of my "wounds"...
3) there was a nice place to watch the football (or soccer, actually... ;-) ) World Cup and there had been quite so e important matches (notably the quarter finals with Germany - France and Belgium - Argentina.
4) I met a bunch of very nice other travellers here and we hung out together quite a bit, watched football,  talked ... (From Germany, France, United Arab Emirates, Uk and - of course - also my travel mates Sally (from the US) and Stacey (from Canada), who reminded me hat we had not only met before in Merw/Turkmenistan,  in Khiva to drive to Bukhara and now on the way back from the trek and - again in the traveller hang-out Karakol café in Karakol, but we actually also met in Samarqand at the train station as we boarded the same train to Tashkent... ;-) I even met two French who attended a conference at Karakol university in the context of an EU-financed project on "training of officials"!!!
5) the hotel was quite comfortable, even though I was somehow "ashamed" to reveal the price of my accommodation (40$/night incl. breakfast), as all the others were more in the real backpacker category in the order of between 5 and 10 $.... But I had told myself before his trip that - if possible - I want to offer myself (and also deserve) a minimum level of comfort, amongst which a private bathroom.
6) and in the end, there were some quite nice houses / buildings here, which made very nice photos (see below) even if the town as such is quite ugly and somehow also a "hopeless place"... So do not let yourself be manipulated by these nice photos of the wooden church, the quite original mosque which looks like a Buddhist temple, and some of the wooden houses... ;-)
7) I wanted to go and see the animal market, which seems to be quite atmospheric here and this takes place only on Sundays ... (I did it this morning and indeed, it was worth it to soak in the essence of Kyrgyz traditional nomadic culture, in which the animals of course play a central role. It was quite funny to see how only 7 or 8 year old boys were already all alone on the market and trying to sell some sheep (and negotiating quite hard with an old lady or gentlemen...), the buyers carefully inspecting the animals by looking in their mouth or feeling certain parts of their bodies and then with a remark of almost disgust turning away (as they were probably really not good enough or it was just a tactic to push down the price... Who knows... Unfortunately, I left the memory card on the desk in my room and could not take any photos with my good camera (I was really angry about myself when I realised this just after my arrival at the market..), so I only could take some pictures with my i-phone... :-(


Photos Karakol at: https://www.icloud.com/photostream/#A6Gf693ZJ0zKBL

Photos animal market at:  https://www.icloud.com/photostream/#A6GDdyTvdwZMX


First day of my second hike

On the way up, I only met a couple and a family coming down, several jeeps with foresters and 2 "mountain / jeep buses", transporting a group of older tourists downwards.... The "road" is quite a disaster and so the forester's jeep broke and I overtook them and never saw them afterwards... Sometimes, it was quite steep, be in general it was ok and the road mostly went along the Arashan river, which was really nice. Valentin, the guy who lives up here, is very nice but also quite a strange character, but a "normal" person probably cannot live here ... ;-) when I called earlier (Yes, he has a fix phone up here.... Have not seen any cables though..) and asked about the weather, he said with a heavy Russian accent: "The weather up here is like a woman, it always changes its mind!" ;-)  when I arrived, he prepared some tea for me and then showed my the hotsprings, which are about 400m upstream. I wondered why he wanted to drive me there in his incredibly old "jeep", but the simple reason for this was that I had to help him load up an old woodstove, which he wanted to bring to the forester house, which was right next to the hotsprings.... The thing was quite heavy... ;-) Valentin has built a real pool, which collects the water of the hotsprings and has built a wooden shed / blockhouse around it. It was very nice to get in the warm (not really hot...) water after the hike... And Valentin was also praising the healing qualities of the water, proudly showing me the certificate of an analysis of the water done by a German "Professor" working for Degussa, who once came here and took two samples I a bottle with him and later sent the certificate. To me it does not mean much though, but hopefully, it has a good healing effect on all the old (and new) blisters.... I am actually the only guest tonight here, which really feels a bit weird. The lodge is extremely simple, especially the bed rooms and - after having seen the bedsheets, I am quite glad that I brought my sleeping bag with me... I do not think that they are washed after each time someone used them... ;-) Some of the other trekkers I had met in Karakol yesterday have told me about the "ambiance" there, as the lodge was basically full...  A pity... Dinner was extremely light: just a tiny tiny little plate of salad, a small bowl of pea-potato soup and three slices of bread... Valentin told me that he would leave early the next morning, but there was a lady here as well which helps him keeping things in order (I had only seen her when she brought dinner, I do not know where she was hiding beforehand... ;-) ) He also have me some tips as to what little hike to do tomorrow morning, before starting my descent. At 21.00, the lodge was spookily silent and I will now go up into my room... Good night! ;-)

Second day of my second hike

As recommended by Valentin, i intended to go up to the two small lakes in the morning (4 hours up and down), before starting the decent to Karakol. I followed his explanations, which were however not very precise and some ended up walking and walking but there was no lake after 2 hours... I kept walking and eventually arrived at a lake after more than 3 hours, but it turned out it was the "wrong" lake... (Less nice than the other one, much smaller and more difficult to reach ...).. "But a lake is a lake" you will say and you are right...it's just that it took me almost 5 and a half hours instead of four and it was much more tiresome... I had a quick lunch at the lodge, before starting my descent and - of course - there were plenty of people arriving that day at the lodge, inter alia a French couple that I would meet again later.. The descent was relatively fast, but still had a certain impact on my knees... At some point, the driver of a truck loaded with wood asked me whether I want to hop on, but I refused (as I wanted to do both ways walking...) He just shrugged his shoulders and continued... I reflected a little on the issue and very soon decided that it would actually be a good idea finally to go with him (the knees,the shoes which were not appropriate, the fact that I would arrive earlier in Karakol, etc.) He was not far and I started waving and running after him but unfortunately he did not see me... I continued and after 10 minutes saw that he had stopped to fix again the ropes around the wood. I shouted, started running and waving, but he just got on his truck and left, literally 50 meters away!!! I was angry with myself for quite a while, notably because I wanted to continue still the same day from Karakol and I realised that it would be quite late.. Anyway... Another wrong decision the consequences of which I would have to bear just myself... (Rightly so... ;-) ) During this trip, i have to take so many practical decisions all the time and very quickly and I realise that quite often, it turns out that it was not the best decision I took...  On the other hand, there were usually other opportunities following and the consequences were never severe... I arrived down at the road after about 2h45 but had to walk still almost another half an hour, because no minibus came along and I was not sure where the stop actually was. I was back at the guesthouse only at 17.45 to pick up the rest of my luggage which I had stored there... I was hesitating whether I should really leave that late but on the other hand I had already stayed in Karakol for so long. Fortunately, while I was considering this question on a park bench close to the guesthouse, a man with his baby-daughter in a stroller walked up to me and asked me whether I needed some help... I said "not really" but put the question I was just considering to him and he recommended to me to continue by minibus to a small village directly on the lakeshore, which was on my way... It was 2 hours away and therefore still feasible the same day. It turned out that he spoke German and was a tour guide. He put me in a taxi, explained to the driver to drive me to the minibus station and to if home onward transport to that village. Very nice indeed! It took 30 minutes for the minibus to fill up. The drive was very nice, along the Southern shore, where the road is mostly directly next to the road and on the other side, there are beautiful views on the mountains. I arrived in Kadhza-Say village at 20.45, when the sun was just going down... A bit of confusion to find a place for the night, but eventually I found a room in a former Soviet holiday resort directly on the lake .. (A pity I forgot to take pictures of the room and the "bungalow" I stayed in. But it was very clean and cheap. ;-) and they still served me some food as I was really hungry After this physical effort of the day: more than 8 hours of walking with considerable altitude up and down....

Photos at: https://www.icloud.com/photostream/#A65fk75vG1hkOl

Flashback 2: Bishkek (chapter 1) and on to Issyk-Kul lake (chapter 2)

Chapter 1: Bishkek: the Kyrgyz Capital (days 67 to 71 - 23.06. - 27.06.): three full days in a city where there is actually nothing to see, or: the discovery of "slow travelling"

I stayed in Bishkek for 4 nights in the end, somehow changing to a mode of "slow travelling", a term I use in reference to the slow food movement... Taking the time, enjoying local ingredients / local life, talking to people, sitting in a park, just observing people and writing my blog, etc. ;-) wonderful!

The guesthouse "Ultimate adventure" was also quite pleasant, relatively central and built around a nice garden. The first day, I needed to get some stuff organised (load credit on my local sim-card, change money, buy a memory card for the camera, buy another plug and cable to charge the iPad (have left the plug in the guesthouse in Osh..) So I walked around, looked at the shops, had a snack etc. but I could not find any shop selling  electronics. All of a sudden, a guy sitting on the side of the street asked the "hi, where do you come from?" question and our conversation got started. He was from Pakistan an he spent 6 years studying medicine (and just successfully finished) in Osh and Bishkek, something quite common as in Osh alone, there are 200 Pakistani medical students, those with too low grades to get into a Pakistani university and not having enough money to study in the US or in Europe. The reason he chatted me up was that he thought I was German (I just cannot her it...) and his friend, also a Pakistani medical student, started to learn German and needed some practice.. So he called his friend Ahmed to join us in a café later. He was actually killing time before meeting a Taiwanese girl he got to know on "couchsurfing", which is not only a great internet platform to find a host, but also jut to meet people... So, in the meanwhile he helped me find all the stuff I needed and then we met the Taiwanese girl (whose name I had forgotten..). She had been studying Russian in St. Petersburg for a year and was now travelling before getting back to Taiwan. She told us that she converted to Islam 3 months ago as she felt attracted to this religion already quite a while, but agendas not yet fully comfortable with religious practice and so our Pakistani friend helped out... After a while, Ahmed joined us and we started to speak German. He was quite good after such a short period of studying. He is studying German because he wants to live in Germany, where his brother lives. He tried to get a tourist visa first, but was rejected. They told him that he could apply for a student visa if he can prove sufficient knowledge of German and that's how it started. Funnily, it turned out that his brother was living in Mannheim and that he was working in a flower shop in the same street than Anne, my friend from study times in Paris... ;-) the world is so small sometimes... Ahmed is studying really hard every day and I really hope he passes the test at the end of his course.

The next day, I went to a Russian bath, which was quite an interesting experience. The bath is separated between men and women and inside, there is complete nakedness, despite the fact that you get a towel to put around your waist. I would have been me only one wearing it so I conformed to the general practice. They have a dry sauna and a very humid sauna (but not a Turkish steam bath...) and a nice pool with ice-cold water. In the humid sauna, they use branches of birch trees with leafs on them and beat their whole body with them... If you sit next to one of those, it really makes you feel the heat even more from the wind it generates. But the weird thing I found is when they ask each other to do it, sometimes among friends, but sometimes also strangers... I have not tried this, neither myself nor asking anyone else... ;-) after the sauna then briefly under the shower and into the cold water... This almost took my breath away, so cold it was... I probably stayed in there 10 seconds, not more ... But after repeating the cycle three times, I felt like newborn... ;-)

Photos at: https://www.icloud.com/photostream/#A6JEsNWnGtWIqb

Chapter 2: Bishkek to Lake Issyk-Kul (days 71 to 73, 27.06. - 29.06.): a truly local train in Kyrgyzstan, or: 13 som (0,18€) an hour and relaxing on the lakeshore beach

Our train left the Bishkek II train station on time at 06.42. This train exists only in summer and mostly on weekends, when there is at least a remote chance to fill it up. It has only two coaches, which were only half full. The landscapes were quite nice, with the mountain panorama in the back, but unfortunately the train windows were very dirty, which shows on the photos (sorry for that). In the train, things were quite lively due to one single family (a couple with three kids, two boys and a girl). Tanya (picture), a not so well behaved little girl, who - instead of being terrorised by her older brother - rather preferred "terrorising" me, much to the distress of her mother and preventing me from sleeping a bit (i got up at 5.30 after all!!!)... ;-)  But Tanya kept me awake and busy, her brother also made quite a fuzz and her mother (photo) spent almost the entire train ride on the phone, sometimes crying, sometimes laughing, but in any case not taking care of her children. I eventually managed to doze a little. After a while, I smelled heavy alcohol and when I opened my eyes, saw that it was the three women close by, which - I guess - were on a weekend excursion without their families. They were eating pieces of smoked sausage and drinking vodka, not from the bottle, but in style, toasting with small glasses. I think they were having a great time, chatting the entire trip and laughing a lot. After around 10 stops and 4,5 hours (half an hour less than foreseen!!!), we arrived in Balykchy on lake Issyk-Kul.

More than 170km long and 70km across, Lake Issyk-Kul is the world’s second-largest alpine lake after Lake Titicaca in Peru/Bolivia. The name, meaning ‘hot lake’, is something of an exaggeration. A combination of extreme depth, thermal activity and mild salinity do indeed ensure the lake never freezes, even in the fierce Central Asian winters, despite lying at an altitude of over 1600m. And the mysteriously temperate waters create an ever-mild microclimate and allows the mysterious jekai, a Kyrgyz version of the Loch Ness monster, to survive (haven't seen it though...)

I continued in a shared taxi to the town of Cholpon-Ata, where I got a room in a kind of small hotel resort with a private beach on the lake. And instead of only one night I stayed two nights and spent a lot of time just relaxing on the beach, with the nice mountain panorama around. From time to time, I took a nice refreshing bath in the lake that was not as cold as I had thought and definitely not the 15 degrees the lady at the hotel reception told me.

In the afternoon of 29.06., I took a shared taxi to my next destination, Karakol, from where I intended to make some nice trekking tours in the Tien-Shan mountains.

Photos at: https://www.icloud.com/photostream/#A655Z2WMGd8bCQ

"BREAKING" NEWS (almost live): 5-days trekking tour in the Tian Shen mountains close to Karakol (days - 1. to 3rd July to ): or: amazing nature of Kyrgyzstan

First day

Kasidin from the Karakol guide and porter's association came to my guesthouse at 9, I paid half of the price and he and the guide went shopping to get the food for the next five days, which gave me the time to re-pack my stuff as Kasidin had confirmed, when seeing my second smaller backpack, that I had bought and taken specifically for smaller trekking tours, that the space left in there (which was half of the backpack and I was quite proud of my minimalistic approach) was not enough. In order to reduce weight of the luggage I agreed to share the tent with the guide as well as the cooking gear, but I would have to carry half of the stuff and half of the food. So I transferred the things into my main big backpack and there was huge space left when all my stuff was in. But when they came back from shopping and I saw the many bags (plus the camping mattress and the sleeping bag (my own one has a comfort zone of 13 with a comfort limit at 9 degrees and I was advised to rent a better one as temperatures can - even in July - drop to well below 9 degrees), I wondered where all that should fit as the guide's (his name is Mischa) backpack weekend already full (he had the tent in there as well.. We drove to the start of the tour close to the "spa" of Jeti-Ögüz, past the actual Jeti-Ögüz mountains (which means "seven bulls" (and there is a whole legend about them: god turned the seven bulls a king had let to his two sons into rocks after they could not agree how to share them and were fighting because of that). It is a bright red rock which makes a nice contrast with the blue sky. The "road" became very bumpy on the last bit and we were driving already along a quite wild mountain river, with shepherd and yurts everywhere and with quite adventurous "bridges" over those rivers, but I was grateful that we still drive a while, because some people start the trek at the spa, which means 1,5 hours more... No other  tourists around though. Only locals driving up in their cars for picknicks..  When we arrived at the starting point of the trek, we needed to fit all he stuff in the backpacks, which we just managed, but my backpack was now super full and extremely heavy (the food was several kilos: a kilo onions, a kilo potatoes, a kilo carrots, ....). Of course, the food has to last for 5 days for two, but still.. But what they did not buy and what they did not tell me to bring was water and I had only taken a half litre bottle!!! How would I survive on half a litre of water? But there would certainly be plenty in the mountains...  The trek started with quite a steep ascent and Mischa was going rather fast. Instead of going my own pace (which is always THE rule for hiking, I know it!), I tried to follow him at his pace. At this altitude however, which I am not used to, that really wore me out very quickly. And to my colleague Pia: this is the answer to your very sensible question: no, it appears I am NOT really fit for a 5-day trekking tour, at least not with a super heavy backpack and at high speed.. ;-) One thing is the pace (I adjusted that very quickly, after about 30 minutes), but I had completely under-estimated the additional effort from the heavy backpack: not only did my back start to hurt after about 1 hour already (imagine then 5 days with between 5 and 8 hours of trekking each day..), over two passes, both just under 4000m...  I had to make two emergency breaks, Mischa encouraged me, but I really started thinking of stopping the whole thing, or at least to change route. In addition, I did not feel super well, as I had another diarrhoea (the third time on this trip, twice after having given in to that craving for this nice-smelling smoked sausage they sell everywhere..  Cannot really imagine why, as it seemed ok both times, so it was probably something else). Anyway, I felt weak and, on top of that, the sole of my right hiking boot started to come off!!! They are very good quality ones but already 9 years old (not that I have used them that many times...) I could simply not imagine how I would safely make it over two high passes with steep ascents and descents with a loose sole, which might eventually come off completely and then what....??? And would I not die (sorry, but I like over-dramatising sometimes...) from de-hydration as there was no source / spring or anything during the first two hours and the river was not very trustworthy...???

So, by the time we arrived at the lunch-spot I had decided to tell Mischa that I would only do two days: up to the place where we would camp tonight and then down the same route tomorrow. And that is what I did... Despite our basic communication (he speaks a little English and in addition with my poor Russian) we could figure things out: He wanted me to continue and was very sweet indeed. He agreed to take all the food (which was by far the heaviest) in his backpack and I "fixed" the hiking boots provisionally with a blue rope (see photo) that Susanne (Danke!!!!!!) had taken to Turkey and which she had kindly given me together with some other stuff... He told me that I could get water later and for the moment he took some water from  a small (clean-looking) side-river and cooked it for tea, so I filled the tea in my now empty small bottle... So, with that, I agreed to continue and then evaluate the situation when we arrive at the camp..

From now on, things were MUCH better: the boot was stable again, I hydrated with small sips of tea, I went my own pace and that backpack was just SO MUCH lighter... So all that was fine... I could really enjoy the beautiful landscape: the mighty river, all white, foamy and noisy (in a nice way...), the snow-covered mountains in front of us (actually most of them are small glaciers...), the shepherds, their yurts etc... Just beautiful!!! By the time we were at he camping spot, I had decided to continue up the next day... There was still the possibility to either go the same way back if I do not make it over the first pass or to take a side-valley before the second pass and shorten to three days... The camping spot was right next to the river and some smaller side-streams with a beautiful view. We were the only ones. Wonderful!! We put up the tent and started cooking, trying to use a lot of onions and potatoes and carrots to reduce the weight. We prepared a nice vegetable stew with "lagman", local fresh noodles, actually quite similar to Swabian Spaetzle... ;-) we watched the sun go down, talked a bit (it turned out he is 31 and has a daughter but his wife has left him. We observed two marmots ("Murmeltiere") or rather: they observed us... ;-) and went into the tent in our sleeping bags at 20.45 as it was getting quite cold. I finished my blog entry for today at 21.15. Very efficient! And after this I now deserve a good night sleep (a bit early for me, but ok.. After all these efforts...).

Second day:

The river was quite loud and it took me a while to fall asleep, but then I slept relatively well. It turned out that Mischa is even a worse "long-sleeper" than myself. I was awake as of 6.30 and he had said we would have breakfast between 6 and 7, but he did not move and so I decided to stay in my cosy sleeping bag as well. At 8, I made a move however and opened the tent and went outside, which made him move as well.. I washed myself with the ice-cold water, that really woke me up immediately, much better than a coffee... (But no reason to start taking cold showers in the morning at home though...). There were quite some clouds coming up and when we finally left at 10 and went up a quite steep ascent, we quickly were in the middle of the clouds / fog (?) and it started drizzling first, then really raining. Mischa had no mercy with me and was pushing me ahead. Up to the pass, we had to overcome (or what verb do you use in English for that??) more than 1.000 m of altitude and with his alpinism training, he probably knew that the weather would not get better and therefore wanted to move fast. And he was so right... We had to cross several snow fields, which I mastered all fine, but at the end of one of them, the snow broke in, I fell and was sliding for a meter or so until I could get hold of a rock. Mischa helped me up. No major injuries however. I just scratched my hands on the icy surface of the snow as I wanted to stop sliding and also scratched my knee, but I was quite wet after that, but that did not matter much as the rain would have done the same after a few minutes anyway. Each time I wanted to stop for a little breathing break, Mischa pushed me ahead and I think we reached the pass already after two hours... There we briefly stopped (guide: "5 minutes break" - me: "only??", him: silence) but right in that moment the heavy rain turned into ice rain and then into very little hale and on the pass the wind was extremely nasty and cold... The five minutes were just enough to open my backpack (which took several minutes as my fingers were frozen stiff already (I did not bring gloves...) and to put on all the extra layers I fortunately brought with me: a sweater with a hood, a quite thick fleece jacket (which I so far asked myself almost every day why I brought it, especially in Bukhara with 44 degrees!!!) and, on top of that, the high quality rain jacket that I bought with my sister before leaving. She was so right: a good trekking rain jacket makes all the difference. Despite all this, I was still cold. My reflex would have been to hide behind one of the rocks, but Mischa - rightly - pushed ahead as he wanted us to get out of that bad weather front. Even if I was perhaps not the fittest and fastest to go up (as I had not done much these past 5 years to stay fit..), I have quite a bit of experience in hiking and trekking and I was following the guide's pace without any troubles... You should have seen me: I was almost running down the quite rocky path, jumping from stone to stone, like a "Gemse" (is that "game" in English??) Well, anyway, it is like a Capricorn and lives in the mountains and jumps from rock to rock... So, maybe it helps being an (astrological) Capricorn?? Due to the heavy rain, the path and basically the whole slope, turned into a stream and so my boots were full of water very quickly and it became very slippery... But the Mischa was pushing ahead really without any mercy as there were nasty dark grey clouds approaching and we heard the thunder already quite close... Just down, down, down and quickly... While he certainly had a good instinct concerning the weather, it was in my view quite irresponsible to run that fast under these conditions and also he very often was so far ahead of me that I could not always memorise which path he took, especially because my glasses were full of raindrops and I could not see that well. All in all, this was actually quite a dangerous descent, but I survived... The ice-rain turned into normal rain again and also slowed down a bit, but later on took up pace again. So we could not really have a nice break as there was no shelter anywhere and I became quite tired from all that running and feared also therefore my concentration and capacity to decide on where to put my next step would eventually diminish and I would slide / fall. Even more so because the path was now extremely muddy and my right boot suffered enormously from this express-decent. And several times, I almost fell... despite the fixing, the sole of the boot started to come off, which made it not very stable...I saw how the state of the boot degraded from minute to minute and it became clear to me that I would not be able to finish this 5-day trek with two more very difficult ascents... What a shame: now that I became used to the effort and everything was more or less fine.  We were pacing down the hill for another three hours (!!!) without a break and for the last hour I decided to set my own pace as the rain had almost stopped and we were not really in a rush anymore... So, all in all, we paced up the pass and down again for 5 and a half hours with only two 5 minute breaks, without eating any lunch and finally arrived at the next camp site at 15.30, whereas it normally takes about 7-8 hours (!!!!) The spot was very nice, close to the river, some side-streams and a small waterfall. We put up the tent very quickly as it was starting to rain again... Then I changed into the few dry clothes I still had and we prepared a nice hot tea and had a late lunch..  That felt good!! ;-) After the rain stopped, I went for a small walk around, took some photos and - together with the guide - met a group of 6 Czech hikers who had put up their tents just a few meters up from our's, but we could not see them initially... They had made a nice fire and we started to chat, especially the guide as finally somebody could much better communicate with him in Russian... They offered us some nice cold beer, naturally cooled in the river, and Mischa tried their self-made pipe with cherry tobacco (photo). The fact that they stay here for three nights inspired me... Instead of my original plan (going down tomorrow to Karakol), I decided (under the condition that the weather will be nice) to stay up here for a day and another night... I could still walk around a bit and just relax... Certainly, it is more beautiful up here than in Karakol and I had paid for 5 days anyway and am not sure I would get any refund... I will explain this to Mischa only tomorrow morning, after I have seen the weather... ;-) now it's 20.30, dinner is still cooking on the gas stove and I am getting really hungry!

Third day


Today, we got up much earlier and it was actually Mischa who took the initiative at 6.45, which I ignored at first and then he also also slept some more until about 7.30. The weather was not great (fully cloudy but at least no rain...). So my first instinct was not to stay for another day here at the camp and so I did not say anything to Mischa about it. We had breakfast in the tent and while I was preparing my completely wet backpack for departure, Mischa went out and - so I thought - did the same. After a few minutes I felt some sun in the tent and looked out and indeed: there it was!! ;-) I was really happy and already started to think about what to do today, but realised that Mischa was gone and so were two of our three food bags! I then saw Mischa far away talking to one of the shepherds. Of course, he did not know about my plans and as we would not need most of the food and he did not want to carry it, he offered it to them. As such I thought that was a wonderful idea, but how would we spend another day without any food? I was angry at myself that I did not talk to him before about it... Anyway, I continued getting prepared while Mischa still had his chat (for quite a while...he is actually quite a chatty person... ;-) ) and by the time he was back, the sun had already disappeared again (as we all know, the weather changes quickly in the mountains, right? ;-) ). Before getting in the still wet hiking socks and boots, I first took care of he various blisters I got yesterday... Running downhill with wet shoes and socks and an almost broken shoe does obviously not help... Fortunately, I got these "miracle blister plaster" which creates like a second skin above it. Without them, I would certainly not have been able to walk...  Still, getting into the boots was rather painful and yesterday did not really help with the boot's condition either... I now had to put 5 strings to stabilise the sole more or less, as the boot was about to disintegrate completely. After we had left, Mischa again would have deserved a ticket for excessive speeding... But as there was no reason for it, I just walked at my own pace and deliberately slowly in order to profit from the scenery and take some photos. Like that, it was actually quite pleasant and the sun even came out from time to time. But I had to stop several times to fix the boot which was getting harder and harder. At some point I heard some English-speaking female voices from far and was somehow struck by them, but did bit know why... But then I saw the two coming from behind the next curve and I was Sally (from the US) and Stacey (from Canada), whom I had first met in Merv/Turkmenistan, then again in Khiva/Uzbekistan, from where we shared a  day of transport to Bukhara (and chatted quite a bit...)! Incredible!! I knew that they would go to Kyrgyzstan after a week in Kazakhstan, but did not know where and when.. And when I started waving at them and they recognised me, they started screaming: "Jürgeeeeen!" As they could not believe it either. They were on their way up to the lake I had not seen and we chatted quite a bit, took a photo (see below) and then off they went as they wanted to get to the lake still tonight... Really funny!!  As the boot was getting worse, it seems i started to put more weight on my left foot and so after a while, my left leg started to hurt... In addition to the various blisters I started to get fed up with this hike and just wanted to arrive, especially as we walked on a "road" for almost 45 minutes... When I asked Mischa whether we could stop a car passing by, he said that we would soon be at the gate of the national park, where I would have to pay the exit fee, and that from there, there would be a minibus. I said ok, but the "soon" was unfortunately not THAT soon... By the time we arrived at the minibus "station", I could barely walk anymore as one of the blisters on my left foot was hurting quite a lot... Worse even when we got off that minibus and still had to walk 200m to the guide's association's headquarters... I thought I would die... Kasidin was quite surprised to see us back already and we told our story... When I took off my left boot, I realised why my foot was hurting so much: with the still wet socks, one of the blisters had opened, was further irritated and (sorry guys, but you have to read through this...) there it was, the pure red flesh..   Kasidin, his wife and his father asked us to come into the very nice yurt, they had put up in their garden to have tea, but only for me and Mischa as they were practicing Muslims and since a few days it is Ramadan here... We had a very nice conversation, which was very welcome after the last hour of torture... When I got up, I could barely walk anymore even in my flip flops ... Everything was hurting. At the time of writing, I am back in my guesthouse, the owner of which was quite surprised to see me back so early, and body really hurts everywhere, so in the end it was not all that bad that my boot gave up... And while there was some damage done to my body, fortunately the only thing really broken was my boots! ;-)(sorry for the teaser on Facebook, but I hope nobody was seriously worried...)  and, after all, I think it was still worth doing that trek...but, Pia, you are right, next time with a bit more preparation.. And sometimes it needs a broken hiking boot to tell you... ;-)

Photos at: https://www.icloud.com/photostream/#A65VaUrzGwy8SE