Steppe-in' Up

Parts 1 to 4

Oh my Pachamama, Allah, Buddha, Parvati and Jesus, these few days have been some of the most consistently beautiful of my whole trip.

And when I say that I’m not just talking about all the unbelievably stunning landscapes, so many of which have been indescribably spectacular, appearing for us as gifts from the goddesses, day after day after day.

But it was also the amazing warm company of Anna Lena and Julian, who could enjoy and appreciate the beauty with me, as well as some wonderfully hospitable and generous local people we met on our journeying together.

I really don’t know what I’ve done to deserve such riches, but I must’ve been a cracker of a good person in a previous life, to receive such limitless treasures in this one.

After a delicious fruity porridge brekky we left our second river campsite east of Almaty, and continued to head east, towards the morning sun.

Actually, we left later than we’d sorta planned, as I had a flattie in the morning, possibly as the result of a super sharp thorn that passed in and out of my tyre without a trace.

Believe it or not, but that’s the first time I’ve had a flat tyre from riding on the road since even before I went to India in October last year! I know. It’s hard to believe isn’t it, but it’s actually true.

I got another thorny devil flat a few days later, just to start getting my average heading back in the direction of something even close to normal.

Embarrassingly, (well not too embarrassingly), I needed help to get my brake pads just right, Anna Lena’s expertise and eyesight was exactly what I needed. I normally just throw them on pretty roughly, but the rushed cycle mechanic in Almaty had fiddled with them and I couldn’t get them right. Anna Lena had never changed brake pads like mine before, but she worked it out in two seconds flat.

If she ever becomes a surgeon one day I wouldn’t hesitate to trust her with my life.

She also patched my tube, on Penny’s rushed insistence, as my spares were packed deep in my panniers, and she didn’t want to wait for me to find them.

Penny was frustratingly quick to criticise me for not getting my bike serviced in Almaty, but I explained to her with barely hidden annoyance that none of the bike mechanics had any time to do it when I was there.

Penny shoots first, machine-gun style, and doesn’t even try to ask questions later.

But she’s right to suggest I shouldn’t have been riding with my brakes in that condition. The steep descents of the past couple of days had shredded what was left of them, and there was never much daylight time in the campsites to spend any time time sorting them out, given our late arrivals and early starts.

But that's no excuse.

Live and learn.

Anna Lena and Julian have time constraints, as they have a deadline, and don’t have the time to cruise in the way that I can. If I was alone I’d just spend a day camped up somewhere and would slowly sort out what I need to sort out.

Plus, as you may know by now, bicycle maintenance is not on my list of the great unbridled joys in life.

But them’s just the boring details.

The real story of the journey was the magnificence of where we were.

We rolled into a tiny village to get supplies, which were limited there.

Then we had no option to ride on quite a busy road for awhile, the only road heading east from Almaty, and Penny insisted we split into 2 groups, with a sizeable gap in between, for safety reasons, because "that's how all the cycling groups now do it in Europe."

Well maybe there's some reason for that, but I wasn't really into it, especially because it meant I was stuck with Penny, but I agreed anyway.

And she wasn't interested in the slightest in having any sort of conversation with me as we rode.

She insisted I ride in front of her, but then couldn't stop herself from telling me, every few minutes, to speed up, or slow down, or catch up with the guys in front again, or leave a bigger gap, blah blah fucking blah, in order to maintain a gap from the other guys that she determined was appropriate.

Eventually I'd had enough, and said I'd ride behind everyone, and would stay in the group formation she wanted, but only if she stopped telling me what to do.

And then later, as the traffic eased, I just thought "fuck it," and caught up with the other guys and rode with them.

But despite my mind sometimes being preoccupied with this nightmare of a social situation, the scenery was so stunning that it distracted me in a good way, and I absolutely loved the journey.

On the big road

We stopped in a tiny town for a bready lunch of boiled eggs and cheese and tomatoes and cucumbers, washed down with a huge carton of peach nectar and good ole bubbly soft drinks, chocolate biscuits and chocolate. Mmmmm.

The crew were so friendly, I look windswept and haggard. Penny had gone off to eat on her own.

I needed to go to the туАлет (toilet), and as I went in I slipped my phone into my shirt pocket. But at the time I was wearing Julian's high viz vest, and my phone hadn't actually made it into my pocket at all. As I went to squat, my phone fell down, bounced on the wooden floor, and skimmed right across the front of the hole leading to shit hell, just missing it.

I was so lucky!

If it had gone a couple of centimetres further across it would have bounced right down into the shit pit, and I would've had no option but to get in there somehow to get it.

Now that would've been a very shitty story to tell.

So lucky

Khorgos is the Chinese border, where I'd come from a few days ago, and we were heading towards Kegen.

We eventually had a long long climb to the top of the pass.

There's always Soviet-style kitsch at these places.

Get ready for cruise mode

It was a spectacular, long and fast roll down the other side. The views were unbelievable.

A moulting yak. Their fur drops off every spring, so they end up losing their jumpers, just like us.

We took this side road and headed off to find a campsite. There's an app called  iOverlander, on which people tag spots like potential campsites, accommodation, water supplies etc. It's super handy.

This is actually part of Charyn Canyon, a different section of which Rohan and I visited a few days ago on that day tour.

Julian wetting his hair without having to take his shoes off. Very innovative.

Another magnificent light show. Ho hum.

Lentil as anything.

Steppe-in' Up

The next morning we climbed out of the canyon.

At some point the scenery suddenly changed, and we were in the green. It was as if some Goddess had just come over and watered the whole place.

It wasn't a 12% gradient, more like 7%, according to Anna Lena's app.  I sorta knew that already, having learnt about gradients the hard way, in Laos and Vietnam, and this wasn't anywhere near as steep as on some on those roads.

But it was still a long climb.

But the scenery made it all worth it.

We rolled down to some roadside kymys (fermented mare's milk) and kurt (the dried sheep, horse or cow cheese) stalls. These horses wouldn't move from the road. We later discovered that they were all protecting a little foal from oncoming traffic, as she was sound asleep on the road.

Churning up the mare's milk.

The kymyss is actually quite nice, once you acquire a taste for it. Penny had made us all little bread snacks, and I thought that was sweet, but later realised it was probably because she didn't want us to fuff around wasting time while we snacked, as it was all about the destination, not the journey.

Mmmmm, sounding a little bitter aren't I.

Kurt stall with Kazakh Elvis watching on.

All the drovers are on horseback in these parts. None of this motorbike or quad rubbish.

The vast steppe.

Eventually we rolled into Kegen.

There was so much on this menu in a random cafe, but they had pretty much none of it.

The three fat women were actually across from us.

But we still managed to get a cracking feast of potato samsas, other pastries, and this absolutely delicious layered cream cake. Go figure.

Riding off with an incredible vista and a full belly.

The situation with Penny seemed to be getting worse, so Anna Lena decided to take the yak by the horns and do something about it, and talk to her. I'd already tried to talk to Penny about the situation but she was unable to even begin to listen to me.

After a long chat on the road Anna Lena reported that Penny had listened, and my next few interactions with her were actually quite normal and civil.

In fact, our evening at the campsite felt so much better, it felt like a weight had fully lifted from our group.

It didn't hurt that we also happened to be in Paradise.

The sunset was honestly to die for, at one of the most beautiful campsites in history.

And it got bloody cold too. We were at about 2000m up there.

Bye Bye Kazakhstan

I felt like I'd only just arrived in Kazakhstan, and here I was already leaving it. I've actually gotta be in the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek by a certain date, so I wanna make sure I have enough time to get there taking the route I want.

So incredible to wake up to this view.

And the riding to the border was spectacular.

The last border settlement.

Watch tower.

The border post, in the middle of nowhere. One of the smallest border outposts I've ever crossed, just a couple of sheds and boom gates. It was very smooth sailing, with only cursory checks of our stuff.

Kyrgyzstan, like Kazakhstan, is visa free for all of us, for a period of 30 days.

As soon as we crossed, the road was bad, with a long stretch of dusty gravel roadworks.

Snack stop. A little calf kept licking us, sweaty salt-encrusted as we were.

Footy game

The local police chief was super friendly, giving us his card, and telling us to contact him if we got into any difficulties.

The road then became a steep dirt track for a few kms. We needed to push our bikes most of the way up.

Posed smiley faces

Posed suffering faces

Chivalry isn't dead. Julian helping to push Anna Lena's bike up the hill.

We stopped by this pond and had lunch with the horses.

This woman actually came out and asked Anna Lena for a selfie. On Anna Lena's phone. Go figure.

Panoramic view. As for the road, well ......

It was a long road to the town we were headed for, the larger town of Karakol.

We rode through small settlements, the road was pretty bad, and the traffic slowly started to pick up as we got closer to civilisation. It rained too.

We also got our first real taste of Kyrgyz drivers on the road leading in to town. Some of them are bloody crazy. Unsafe overtaking, driving way too close to us on the bikes (both in cars and trucks), and some seriously unsafe driving manoeuvres left us feeling pretty dubious about riding on the road itself. Sometimes we decided to ride on the bumpy gravelly shoulder off the road, just so we didn't have to spend so much time and energy watching our backs in our mirrors.

Julian, I must say, was an absolute Godsend in that regard. I dubbed him our "Cardian Angel," as he was completely reliable in his warnings of approaching vehicles when he was at the back, it really felt safe riding in front of him.

I mean Julian's just demonstrably angelic anyway, in so many ways. Anna Lena is too, for that matter. They're a good celestial match.

Beer in plastic bottles. Just like Germany.

Famous Kyrgyz philosopher and statesman Kidr ake Baisary uulu.

Carcerated At Last

We rolled into town late in the day.

We were hungry, had very little money, (besides a little that Anna Lena had exchanged with a French couple we met coming the other way), and we needed a place to stay with wifi, so the Deutschies could organise some important stuff for themselves.

Unfortunately the scene with Penny had reverted to type, with the constant criticism of me firmly reestablished, but this time hidden from Anna Lena and Julian. We were all a little unsure as to what to do about the whole situation, but I knew that there was no way I was gonna share a room with her, and hoped that being in a town could provide the perfect opportunity to make a getaway.

But that proved unnecessary, as Penny suddenly decided she was going off to a particular guest house, right then and there, no matter what the rest of us wanted. The other three of us weren't quite ready to find a guesthouse yet, as we badly needed food. So we suddenly parted ways, and when Penny decided not to give any of us her contact details I realised, with euphoria, (immediately followed by a weird inner guilt), that this would probably be our goodbye.

It was the strangest thing.

We'd just spent a few days together, and it'd been really weird and difficult at times, most particularly for me, and for Penny too I'm sure, and also for the Deutschies. But we'd still been together in some incredible places, sharing the journey, all four of us.

And then suddenly she was gone, riding off into the sunset, cutting whatever loose ties had been formed with us, with no acknowledgment whatsoever of what had transpired, no good wishes for future journeying, really just nothing.

I gotta say, as unexpected and strange as it all was, I wasn't slow to express how relieved I felt.

The three of us subsequently headed off, we got food, money, a room in a hotel, and then washed off days of cycling and camping grit with hot running water.

What a complete and utter joy that was.

Finally getting all that sweaty grime, and Penny, off my back.

Karakol

This town is one of the main urban centres on or near Issyk-Kul, a huge lake which sits at an altitude of over 1600m. Issyk-Kul is the second largest mountain lake in the world (after Lake Titicaca, on the border of Bolivia and Peru), and the tenth largest lake in the world by volume, mainly because it's so bloody deep, nearly 670m at its deepest point.

Karakol itself was our first taste of urban Kyrgyzstan, the town sits on one of the many feeder rivers into the lake, but is itself quite a long way from the lake.

It's not huge, with a population of only about 85,000, but is the fourth largest city in Kyrgyzstan, after Bishkek, Osh and Jalal-Abad. That tells you a little about the demographics of this small country.

Karakol's a super interesting place, quite run-down for the most part, and is just generally quite unkempt, which turns out to sorta be the vibe for quite a lot of places around here.

Hotel brekky spot, and reception clocks. I can hardly imagine a town more different to New York than this one.

Another retro barber shop sign. The image of the bearded guy has followed me all over Asia in the past year or two, including in India.

A real supermarket! With cute spice buckets.

Monument in one of the squares close to the main shopping hub.

Beautiful Russian Orthodox Cathedral

Deep-fried and absolutely delicious potato cakes, samsy kartoshka, which are very common bakery items here. You can get all varieties at local bakeries, or even at a good supermarket.

As for the filthy fingers, you can get all varieties of those just by riding my bike for awhile and fiddling with the chain.

Entrance to the local market. Funnily enough, many buildings, even public ones, are sometimes left unfinished, particularly their interiors, with people not bothering to clad the wall framing.

Delicious halva. We bought a nice chunk.

Random street scenes.

The Dungan

In the late 1800s a large minority of Hui Muslims within territorial China escaped, or were forcibly deported, due to a huge revolt against the Qing Dynasty, and the massive reprisals which followed.

The troubles led to huge shifts in the demographics of northwest China, with the loss of a massive 21 million people, as the combined result of massacres, migration, famine, and corpse-transmitted plague. Northern Xinjiang lost 73% of its population at this time, Gansu lost 75%, and Shaanxi Province lost 45% of its population (and a whopping 99.5% of its Muslims).

Various waves of migration resulted in Hui Muslims settling in the then Russian Empire, which included all of the Central Asian countries. Many settled in the Karakol area, and are known as Dungan. Some aspects of their culture remains, including their food.

We went to a Dungan restaurant, where the only dish on offer is ashlan fuu, a delicious cold spicy noodle soup, served with apple juice. It was a great vibe in there, and, in fact, all of the restaurants in that particular covered laneway appeared to be offering the same thing.

Ashlam fu served with potato bread and apple juice. Strange that it's served cold. The soup that is.

Soviet-era apartment block.

We spent a day organising things in Karakol, including servicing our bikes.

And eating strawberry and ice cream waffles. Well, Julian's was an Oreo flavoured one. He's the only person I know in my whole life who hardly ever eats fruit (he doesn't like it, and never has, not even as a kid). He's slowly warming to the idea these days though, thanks to Anna Lena's delicate coaching.

Issyk-Kul

The next day we rode off through the traffic, and were soon out of town. It was quite cool, and threatened rain.

Stunning fields en route to the lake, now heading west.

We passed a few small towns.

And stopped at one for lunch. The sun came out.

Kyrgyz KFC, I guess.

Our first glimpse of Issyk-Kul

Another stag party

Classic Soviet-era Lada from the 1970s. They were a bit of cultural icon behind the Iron Curtain for a few decades during that time. I have fond memories of zipping around northern Poland in one in the 90s, packed to its low roof with every flavour of Krolikowski imaginable, all joking and laughing and stuffing our already dripping purple mouths with more forest blueberries, which we'd just picked.

Such sweet memories.

Tiny husky midget balancing on its ass.

This little boy was the quintessential entertainer. He ran up to his donkey, jumped on top, and then slid right over to the other side (accidentally) and fell off, but somehow managed to land on his feet. He then immediately bounced back on like a well-trained gymnast, and trotted off smiling, not missing a beat.

Kyrgyz ute

Muslim burial monuments

The lake became more and more beautiful as the afternoon progressed.

We stayed at this cute little guest house, as we were a little worried about rain, which was predicted. It was also getting late, and we wanted to maximise our chances of enjoying the lake while it was still light.

We walked through some small farms and hung out down at the lake beach, playing music, singing, snacking and chatting. Sounds good doesn't it.

Not Quite Yet

Anna Lena and Julian plan to head south to Tajikistan, and I'm on my way to Bishkek.

Their plan was to head north from here this morning, over the Arabel Pass, a high altitude pass heading in the direction they want to go. But the weather's been crap in the mountains, and it'd probably be quite tricky to get through in these conditions. Thunderstorms at high altitudes can be super dodgy, and heavy rain consistently triggers landslides up there.

So they decided to carry on west with me, along the southern shore of Issyk-Kul, planning to head south on another route further along.

I'm very happy to spend a few more days with them.

Sometimes you meet really beautiful warm and thoughtful people, and can travel together smoothly and easily, it feels so good.

I feel genuinely grateful to have spent time with these guys.

So, no goodbyes just yet.

There's more Paradise to explore with them, and more amazing and inspiring things to come❤️

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