| Back | Report | 28.07 - 04.09.2004 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| A yurt at Song-Köl |
That was all that we know about this almost unknown country in the west, when we acutally met at the airport in Frankfurt Main, Germany. Korbinian and I had never met before and we only knew each other by the internet, exchanging some emails after we met for the first time in the International Bicycle Travel Forum (http://globike.net) discussing what to do during the summer holidays. Thus we both decided to get out of Europe and discover an almost unknown country.
We wraped our bikes in a lot of plastic and cardboard and finally entered the plane which was going to take us to Moscow and afterwards in a shabby Tupolev after totally 8 hours in the air to Central Asia.
We arrived late in the night at half past three with all our luggage but without our bikes. We spent hours in Aeroflot’s office explaining our problem in English to the guys who knew Russian. Finally we took a taxi, got almost into a “wrong one” of a potential robber, and arrived at nine o clock at our guesthouse in the south of Bishkek, the country’s capital. On the next day our bikes arrived at the airport and Korbinian’s rim was totally cracked. Shit! It was still possible to ride but more than thousand kilometers on gravel? No, that won’t work.
We spent the rest of the day looking everywhere for a new rim. But Bishkek had no even one real bicycle shop. Only a sportsshop selling six trashy chinese bikes arose our attention. Luckily we met two dutch cyclists in front of the shop and soon it turned out that one of them was going to fly back to Holland on the next day and therefor could lend us his backwheel…
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| The two Dutch cyclists Oliver and Tiejo in front of the sports shop |
So everything turned out well and we started two days behind our schedule together with Tiejo, the other friendly Dutch cyclist. Together we rolled on the rough asphalt out of the town, got almost crashed by a dozen of crazy drivers and had a nice break in a café with greasy shashlyk and a tasty salat. For the night we were invited to spend the night in the garden of a mosque, drank the aromatic black tea, called chay, and continued our journey on the next day towards the country’s biggest attraction lake Issyk-kul.
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| Lake Issyk-kul at 1,800 m |
As we reached the southern shore, Tiejo decided to part because he needed some days of relaxation before he was going to go via Torugart-Pass into China to meet some of his friends there. So we made our way along the shore of Kyrgyzstan’s tourist paradise. The sandy beaches attract hundrets of people every summer to spend their holidays there and have a bath in the slightly salty lake, which therefore never freezes. After two days we reached Karakol, the touristic epicentre of the lake. However, the town had only one paved road and a few mom-and-pop stores with bags of food stacked up to the ceiling. After we still lived in luxury in Bishkek, we had to face the fact of being in Central Asia for the first time. As a result we had to pick up three different shops until we got pasta, chocolate and biscuits.
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| On the southern shore of Issyk-kul |
3,822 meters high was our first big pass going to be. What a challenge! We rode towards the town of Inylchek in many steep switchbacks full of slack gravel. Our bodies suffered from the altitude and we panted unter the huge effort. Although our muscles were aching we finally made it up to the top. From there we saw the first soaring mountains of more than 4,000 meters height and made our way to Inylchek. Even though it looked quite big on the map, it was only an abandoned ghost town. The windswept mining town lies within a desolate valley. It seems as if all the workers and their families, who had lifed, worked and laughed here, had been vaporised. Only the city and the machines were left over to rust away.
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| Downhill to Inylchek |
This uninviting place was not our favorite one and so we soon turned back since it was a dead-end road leading to Inylchek. On our way back we were lucky to get an adventurous hitch on an old russian military van together with a Kyrgyz family. The car rushed with immense speed up the narrow switchbacks and only a few inches seperated us from the yawning chasm, which was many hundert meters deep.
Fortunately we survived the horrible ride and got off a little bit strained in Karakol, where we had to stay for the following four days due to Tristan’s stomach upset. After an awful day for him full of convulsions, we were able to go on by bus back to a village on the southern shore, we had already passed on our way to Karakol.
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| The switchbacks to Barskoon are already in sight |
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| Up on Barskoon Pass |
We entered the road to Barskoon-pass. It was leading somewhere into the mountains to a Canadian goldmine and was thus well maintained. Nevertheless it was extremly steep and we had to push our bikes the last two kilometers until we were after 32 switchbacks on the top of the 3,819 m Pass Barskoon Ashuu-Suu pass. We were already awaited by one of those fiercely looking security officers, who guarded the whole route. But the officer was friendly and just wanted his picture to
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| Endless plateau... |
be taken by us. Afterwards we turned of the well-kept road and followed a dirt-track into the wilderness. For three days we were almost all alone and met just a few horsemen, nomads and lots of majestic eagles. We also were invited into a yurt and were served with Kyrgyz tea in bowls and Marco Polo Sheep. Actually this animal is on the Red List and therefore hunting it is prohibited. But our hosts did not care at all...
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| In a yurt |
Soon we reached a “normal” (normal in this case means gravel) road again and shortly afterwards Naryn. At first glance it was a bleak city with run-down houses. Stones were thrown at us and drunk people begged for money.
Unfortunately we had to stay for two days because we needed a special permission for a border-zone to be signed by the local authorities. So we took our time to chat with another german cyclist in our guesthouse and to stroll along the bazaars.
After getting the last signature, we left in the early afternoon southbound and climbed two more passes until we put up the tent in front of the staggering mountain chain of At-Bashi. The jagged and snowcapped mountains towered over the slightly swung plateau, where we were lying and watching how the sinking sun coloured the mountains in many different hues. At nightfall when the first stars appeared we finally went into our sleeping bags.
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| The mountain chain of At-Bashi |
On the next morning we bought the last food for the following days at the Chinese border, because we were expecting to be without any settlement there for days. When we told the locals about our intentions to go to Ak-Saj, to the Chinese border, all of them shaked their head and repeated the same words: “Volk, volk”. They were talking about wolfs, which live in the area and they tried hard to dissuade us from going there. At last our stubborn will prevailed and we continued towards the first military check-point, where our papers were checked and we were stopped since our permit for this sensitve military border-zone were not correct. Damn! There must have been a misunderstanding between us and the soldiers in Naryn, who signed the papers. After the soldiers, who confiscated our passports, disscussed for four hours, they decided that we had to stay overnight at the military base. We were constrained to put up our tent between barbed wire and a trench. The soldier in command adviced us that any attempt to escape would imply a fatal ending, as he pointed silently on his gun...
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| Behind the snowcapped mountains, that's already China |
On the next morning, the soldiers phoned their headquarters for permission and luckily we were allowed to pass the gate and slowly rolled into the desolate and barren landscape. When we turned round the next corner, the hills smootly move over into a softly swung plain and open a breathtaking view to a massive mountain chain, which constitutes the border to China.
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| Behind the snowcapped mountains is already China |
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| Nice campsite |
We followed the road westward and passed a lot of check-points, where our papers were checked thoroughly. The officers were friendly most of the time but sometimes so curious and hospitable that we were only allowed to leave again after they studied every detail of the passport and we ate some bread. Two days later we arrived the Torugart pass, which leads into the People’s Republic of China. We turned northward and spent the night on the shore of amazing lake Chatyr-Köl at 3,600 m under a gigantic starlit sky. The Milky Way was extremly bright and all the other constellations caught our sight es well.
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| The Chatyr-Köl |
On our way north we passed another mountain lake, the Song-Köl. On the shore there were dozens of yurts, some friendly nomads presented us some bread and we were invited three times for chay. We rejected the third invitation and instead looked for a small hill, where we put up our tent and enjoyed the unique scenery.
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| Relaxing at Song-Köl |
Finally we climbed two more passes with more than 3,000 m. Lastly, after five and a half weeks we reached Bishkek again and rode to our guesthouse, where the journey full of sacrifices began. There were so many things we had to live without: asphalt, plenty of food, beds, electricity, network for our mobile, etc. But we got instead compensated for all the sacrifices: hospitality, only friendly people, chay, gigantic landscapes and the immense feeling of freedom. We were sure that this journey altered us in a very special way...
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| A last glance at Central Kyrgyzstan |
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| On our way to Bishkek |
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| The last sunset |