Accross the mountains

Nalachi city is kind of already in the mountains but not quite enough. The road accross the mountains goes over 3000 meters and it is winter already. It will be extremly cold and I just cannot afford to sleep somewhere in between. I must go hitchhike up and down in one day.
I am realizing one scary truth. I have two things here that keep me alive: my magic letter and my tablet. If I lose my magic letter, I can't hitchhike and I freeze. If I lose or break my tablet, I lose my ability to communicate in chinese, nobody helps me, I can't orientate and I freeze.
It's that simple. Magic letter and tablet, two things keeping me alive. Two things that I use almost every minute of the day.
It's my tablet which got me hotels, lunches, sim card and pretty much all the help I had.
It's not more than 200 kilometers alltogether but the road is snowy and not many cars go there. Actually, out ouf Nalachi, there is just one truck. I am lucky enough to hitch it and we ride further and further accross the mountains. Then the road is closed, the police has put some barricade over it but somehow they let our truck pass anyway. With each village we pass, I hope it is not the final destination of my driver. On the road, I see only trucks and also one bus with tourists. I am really lucky I got this lift.
The truck stops eventually. On a remote village on a mountain top, 3000 meters high. High mountains in the taklamakan desert, I can't sleep there, this would just be the end. In any case, as in every chinese village with population over a hundered there is a police station with policemen that might be willing to pay for a hotel. That would be the third in a row and these guys have computers and internet; they'll figure out eventually that I am surfing on police kindness.
So I hitchhike everything I can. Trucks, cars and the tourist bus that has finally made it to the top. It stops not because of me but because tourists need to have lunch. So they pay me lunch, it's very good. They always eat some beef and vegetables with a whole lot of noodles and I just love those noodles. Chinese cuisine has been my favourite for a long time anyway.
When lunch is finished they invite me to the bus. At some point a guy goes on to collect money and I just discard him with my magic letter. I feel like I have got a magic wand. I can't thank that police officer enough.

At some random point of the road, the bus stops and lets me out. I am out of the mountain death zone probably but still at about 1700 meters so the night wouldn't be very comfortable.
I manage to hitchhike a minibus who takes me for free after I show my magic letter. I really can hitchhike anything here. Paid, unpaid transportation, it doesn't matter, I have a free pass on everything.
The bus leaves me in Hejing Xian, I thought that was a village and it has skyscrapers. There is fog, it is cold, god it's even snowing a bit. What the hell will I do?
I don't have time to get out, It'll be dark and even if I get out, where will I go. I made a decision today: I want to leave Xinjiang as soon as possible.
"Can I put a tent in your garden?" I ask a guy living in a small house, just under the skyscraper. Yeah I know, hotel, police, police pays for hotel again but it's better than to freeze.
"Don't be stupid, it's cold out there, come and sleep home!"
"What?" I am not sure to understand correctly but I take tea with them.
The guy is 26, like me and he is very curious. My tablet takes turns from his hand to mine, we are having a complicated discussion about politics in Xinjiang in Chinese, and all thanks to google translate.
"The chinese government is bullying the Uygur people", says the guy.

The family eats only bread for dinner. They put the piece of bread into tea and then eat it. The guy has to go to work. He is interesting anc curious, his stories about the opression of Uygur people are really moving. However I am relieved to stop communicating again because talking through the tablet is quite tiring. I have to switch between english and chinese keyboard all the time and then try to decode the very approximative translation. And since english and chinese mandarin are very different languages, decoding it takes quite a lot of brain power. But how would it be without google translate? I am realizing that now more than during my work, my computer is of critical importance. When someone will later ask me what is the most important thing to take for improvised budget travelling, I will reply without hesitation: a tablet and a useful set of programs.

As soon as the guy leaves, his sister takes over. She is a 15 year old smart teenager completly fascinated by my trip and my life as a european so the tablet keeps changing hands again.

I manage to get to sleep at 10 beijing time which is 8 PM Urumqi time. Urumqi time is not an official time zone, but it is a time zone Uygur people use between themselves without being officially recognized by China.

I sleep so well and so happily. They leave me in a room heated like a sauna. There is a kettle of tea on the fire if I want some at night, a big bowl of bread should I ever get hungry and the mother brings me a bowl of some sweet and very tasty youghourt. When at home, in civilisation, I worry about what will happen next week, next month even. Today I don't worry about anything even though I have no idea where I will so much as sleep next night. I just enjoy my warm bed.

In the morning I have breakfest. Bread soaked in some weird white wheat mud. It's not tasty but it's a good breakfast. And then, desperation comes again, stronger than ever. The woman makes the sign for money. I thought they were helping me! I thought I was a guest! I thought it was from the heart! But I don't have the strength to fight anymore, I will give them money and then never try to get invited anywhere ever again. Evil people, evil china!

"Money for what?," I ask, just to confirm

"Tea, bread,..."

Yeah yeah, I get it. "How much do you want"

The mother starts waving hands energically.

"No! We don't want your money! We want to give you money!"

I refuse many times but in the end they force me 50 yuan and a piece of bread. That's money I can put on my phone or if conditions are too extreme, for a hotel room. It still counts if it's not my money. I am going to Urumqi tomorrow and where will I sleep there? Actually, I haven't spent more than 10 yuan since I am in china. I just bought some sweets one morning and that's it. The rest of it have been gifts. Life is not so bad.

Encounters with police

With my magic letter in hand I stick my thumb out for new adventures. And it is really a magic letter for no one else has ever asked me for money since. The first car stops, I show the letter, he tells me to get in and we go. It's not more than 30 kilometers but he doesn't ask me for money and that was my goal of the day. One ride, two rides, three, all short but successful. I think I will manage to hitchhike in China. The landscape alternates between only road and urban areas like the one the first hitch led me to. They are filthy places full of shops with big red sinograms and usually a police station.
It's getting more and more dark and I am just hitching ride after ride, wondering who is going to take me home.
The last family seems to go in that direction, the father goes on about sleeping, he asks me a question which I don't understand but what else can it be besides "do you want to come to our home?"
I answer a definite "shi", yes and the guy drives me right in front of a hotel. I tell him that I don't have money for hotels so... think my good samaritan, think, what only other solution can you find. The guy drives me 50 meters from the hotel and lets me out. Fail.
Next ride is some other guy who takes my letter, reads it but I'm not sure he understands it. Maybe he doesn't read chinese. Maybe he only reads Uygur written in arabic alphabet.
He stops at some market where he asks me to give him the letter, he shows it to some weirdly looking guys and gives it back to me. The weirdly looking guys then come to me with a threatening look on their faces. They say something in chinese that sounds like "do you have a problem with us?"
They are too big, too many and too threatening so I just walk away. I walk about 200 meters when the guy with the car honks at me again, he's alone in his car, he wants to take me in and we continue our way. I have no idea what that about. My hopes of being invited home start to shiver but have not dissapeared yet and when the guy starts about cold and hotels, I tell him that I have no money for that.
So the only solution which remains is... he drives me to the police station. Come on, how many things can a chinese person imagine before he invites someone home?!
He tells something to the police, probably explains my situation, what else, and then rides away. The police take my passport, ask me questions, I tell them my story and they start looking for an interpreter. They get one on the phone and we can start to communicate. They say that it's against the law to sleep in a tent, same story as in Ili city. I ask if I can sleep at the police station.
They say that they'll ask but they don't feel confortable with that.
"How did you come here?"
"With the two people that left me here."
"Why did you choose this police station, why not a police station in Ili city?"
"I didn't choose this police station, these two people dropped me there, I have no idea what I am doing here"
"So you insist in sleeping at this police station?"
Apparently, the guy didn't tell them anything. He just dropped me here and the police and said nothing. The police actually thinks that I came to them of my own free will with the first and foremost intention of sleeping at the police station.
"Do I insist... I never wanted to sleep at this police station."
"So why did you come here?"
"Why did I come... these guys left me here."
"Why didn't you sleep at these guys place?"
"Obviously they didn't want to, that's why they left me at the police station."
Everyone tries to make some sense of the situation.
"You cannot stay in this place, tourist can only go to cities, not to urban areas or villages." I think I get why North Korea is China's ally now.
"It's too late to hitchhike now"
The phones goes back and forth from me to the translator.
"The police suggests that they pay for a bus to take you to Ili city where you can sleep."
"I'll try to put a tent there, like I would in here. And then I will hitchhike towards Urumqi and end up in here, probably at the same exact police station"
"The police suggest they pay for a bus to take you to the nearest hotel in the direction of Urumqi. Then police will pay for the bus and for the hotel."
I am surprised. I used to expect miracles from people and was dissapointed each time but I never even tried to expect anything from the police, I always considered them my enemy.
"Do these terms seem agreeable to you?"
I am on the dream end of a negotiation. "Yes I agree!" Who wouldn't.
"The police sends you its sincere apologies for the trouble caused."
You know, seriously, I think I forgive them. And they give me apples.
That night I sleep in a hotel and I have rarely seen such a fine hotel. It's golden luxury everywhere, I have my own bathroom with toilet and shower. Ok, no warm water but who cares, I will not freeze tonight.

I will not freeze tonight

The next day I leave the hotel in the direction of Nalachi. At noon, I manage to create a sim card. It's not an easy process, I deeply regret to not have paid for the first one. Appearently, sim card require a chinese identity cardcal so you have to be a chinese citizen for that.
"Does that mean that foreigners are not allowed to have a chinese sim card?"
The lady just does a gesture that means "I don't know" or "This situation is too complicated for me, go away."
I manage to make a sim card because a nice girl who even speaks some english accepts to create one on her name and give it to me. At a second "china mobile" office I manage to figure out how to call to russia but only after explaining to the lady where is russia because she didn't know. Come on lady, Russia is not only the neighbour of your country but also of your region, where did you go to school?

me and one of the many china mobile employees

I met I also get free lunch, a happily looking guy invites me to sit and eat noodes at his restaurant. There is a lot to eat, it's a kind of soup with very slimy noodles and I eat it with chopsticks. He gives me a funny white bread which I like very much and I have one more for the road.

On the road to Nalati

In the evening I arrive to Nalachi. The city is above 1500 meters of altitude, the wind blows like crazy, it is freezing really bad, this is not a good place to put up a tent. I try my luck with the good citizens of that city.
"May I put up a tent in your garden?"
"We have no space at home"
I said garden, at least to be safe from the wind but never mind.
I try next door and the guy invites me in. He seems to say: "why sleep in the garden, better sleep inside" and I could not agree more. I tell him my story insisting that I travel for a dollar per day so he doesn't bring me to a hotel. Then he starts saying something like he knows about a place, a friend of his perhaps, where I could take a shower and whatnot, and we should go there. Why not, I am curious. We take all my stuff and go accross the city. I start being a little worried. At last we stop. There is a reception. We are at a hotel.
The hotel lady is nice at first, she is happy to have a client, you see on her face she is smelling money. But lady you're mistaken, that's not money, that must be my socks and believe me, they are not worth much.
They are both very surprised when I tell them very clearly "wo mei you qian", I have no money. But use your logic people, why would I try to put a tent in your garden if spending money was an option for me? And why would I have a tent in the first place?
The lady tells me that staying in a tent is against regulations. Appearently, in Xinjiang, not only the police but also people are enforcing the law. For the first time a thought has crossed my mind: china just might be a dictatorship, just as the european media say. They might have been wrong about Iran, they are not wrong all the time.
"Do you agree with me calling the police?" Appearently, customers opinion is important.
"No, why would you do that?"
She calls the police anyway.
She says something like. "Hello there is a guy who went to my hotel, he wants a room and he says he has no money, what should I do?" Again, as if I chose to be here.
She probably wants the police to force me to pay for the room but I am going to fight that.
The police takes me to the station, they process me through different levels of authority and one of the policemen is so fascinated by my story that he takes photos of my photos with his iphone while I display them on my tablet. I kindly explain to him that he can download the originals on my website which makes him very happy.
Many of the policemen tell me that they think that what I do is great and that they are going to pay for my hotel tonight. That was easy. They ask if I have enough to eat and I say yes. I still have the bread from lunch and anyway, I am not hungry because I ate a bunch of noodles. I also don't want to bother the police more than necessary.
They take me back to the hotel where the surprised lady is told to prepare me a room for free. She is surprised and annoyed but she will not disobey a policeman's command. So she sets up a room for me, a small one at the last floor. I am allowed to take a big thermos of warm water for tea and... there is internet!

my second room has internet

I can talk with Janela all night long now from the safety and warmth of my bed and everything is okay.
If I think about it, me and china have reached a good mutual agreement. The chinese want to have full knowledge and control over the comings and goings of foreigners and I am travelling for one dollar per day. If China wants me to stay in hotels, they will pay for my hotels. It is good for me, it is good for them and at the end of the day, everybody is happy.

This country is crazy!

I am in China and this is fucking weird. Why? Why did I leave Kazakhstan where people speak a slavic language somewhat close to my own? Why did I leave a country to which culture I have gotten used to. Kyrgyz culture, Kazakh culture, they are different but still very similar compared to what is awaiting me. I am a computer engeneer, a guy who studied well at school, who can get a job and leave a calm life. A guy who one day, decided to play a game. And I have been playing this game for a while. I have been playing my game and the reality of people's lives was my realm. Knowing this is a game has put me at a big advantage against many people and situations I have encountered. It has helped me keeping a sane mind, not panicking even when the bus driver in Turkmenistan threatened to call the police, even when the chiftain of police in Kyrgyzstan tried to extort money from me.
I have been playing this game so long that I didn't notice when it started to become a reality. I have a Kyrgyz girlfriend now and she is no game anymore. She is part of my reality. Another part of my reality is the freezing cold.

The other side of the border looks like something that I have never seen in a long time. Last time in Turkey, perhaps. Civilisation is everywhere. Perfect roads. Shops. Lights. Shiny billboards. Everything is clean and working, I miss the human touch. I have been used to seing struggle and imperfection in the passed countries. Here struggle is hidden.

The other side of the border

I think I am having a cultural shock.
First thing I need is a sim card. It's not as easy as it was before. In kyrgyzstan I just went to a shop, asked for a sim, put money on it and there I go. Here, I have to go to a special shop named China Mobile. Fortunately, they are everywhere. The guy doesn't speak english, I get that, I am tolerant person but 2 kilometers from the Kazakh border he doesn't even speak russian! Come on!
I am saved by a chinese student who speaks perfect english and explains everything. First, I have to get a chinese number. I can choose between a lot of numbers which are all very long and look the same to me. Then, I need to buy a sim card. It's 50 yuan for the number and 50 for the sim card. The guy forgets that I have to pay because of the language chaos so I get my sim card for free. I can hear Janela's voice after about two days of silence, that's a relief. Especially in my situation. I go to the main road, it's dark already. It's getting colder and colder.
I try to hitchhike but nobody stops except a car with two young and confused guys who tell me something very fast in mandarin before driving away. It's depressing. The cold is a a blow to my morale. Maybe hitchhiking doesn't work in China. I am 2 kilometers from the border, not an ideal place to camp but what choice do I have?
The truth is, I don't really think I am going to camp. Someone will invite me in. In these conditions, in this cold, it is a sure thing. Someone just has to see me. The problem is, nobody's out there and I can't blame them.
Meanwhile the guy from the telephone company realized he just gave me a free sim card. That doesn't compute in his chinese business mind. He calls me and tells me a bunch of fast chinese gibberish. I don't understand a thing and he is really annoyed. After a while he switches to Uygur which I don't understand either. Learn some international language you asshole!
He disables my sim card anyway and I can't call Janela anymore. Damn, I really thought he was too lazy to go through this timely process of disabeling the card. I should have had paid.

I can't put my hands out of my pockets anymore for more than ten seconds. I still don't have gloves, I should have bought some. I decide to resort to a desperate move: I knock on the door of a nearby house. A frightened lady opens the door. I really hope she speaks russian.
"Parusky paniemayete (do you understand russian?)"
"Go away, go away!," she seems to say in chinese. I don't even try english. I get out my tablet, set up google translate.
"May I build a tent in your garden?"

I have no idea how the automatic translation sounds but I hope she understands. And no I can't. She shows me a place, just outside her garden, where I can build my tent and now please leave me alone. A terrifying thought crosses my mind: I am in europe. This is a civilised country, people are afraid of each other and not hospitable either. They would let me freeze to death as long as I leave them alone mind their own business.
It's not that much of a problem, I have a tent and a sleeping bag, maybe I will feel cold for two hours during the end of the night and everything will be fine. Wrong. It's 7PM (actually it's 9PM Beijing time but I still haven't adjusted my clocks) and I am already feeling the same cold I felt in Kyrgyzstan at 5 in the morning. I have all of my clothes on. Three layers of pants (I have recieved some pants from the guy in Kazakhstan), my tshirt, two sweaters and my jacket. I even cover my sleeping bag with the table cloth I got from the lady in Kadzhi-Say which now serves as a blanket.
From midnight, I feel really cold, I have to shiver to keep warm. At 5 AM, the cold reaches its peak, my feet are becomming a bit numb because of the cold. I am surprised by such violant temperatures. How cold is it? Is it -10°C? -15°C? -20°C. Maybe it is -20°C. I have to get myself a thermometer.
And you know what? There is wifi in there. I may freeze to death in that tent but I will have the connection to tweet about it. Thqt is if I get passed the internet censorship.
I check the altitude. 607 meters. Not very high but I'm in the desert, it gets cold.

My frozen tent in the morning

In the morning, I still can't unfreeze my feet so I'll go, I have nothing better to do anyway. A man says hello as I get out of my tent. He invites me home to eat breakfest. The lady from yesterday is there, she's not as scared as yesterday and brings me breakfest and chopsticks. The family is quite poor but they have electricity and even a computer somewhere in the corner. It's china, other criteria apply maybe.
For the first time on my long hitchhiking trip, I am using chopsticks. We are eating some kind of white bread which tastes pretty different from what I am used to. They put some really spicy peppers on the bread with the chopsticks and then they eat it. My mouth burns but I haven't eaten since yesterday morning so I am really happy.
"Mei guo bu hao," says the guy. I am proud to understand: "United States not good." I am hearing that from armenia and east.
He gives me a bag of apples for the road. "Take it for the davay", he says because he thinks davay means road in russian.
I gladly take the bag of apples. Meanwhile, my feet have unfrozen.

From Bishkek to the Chinese border

I caught cold in this last car. My throat hurts, I need time to rest at Nurbolot's place. Luckily, his place is a safe haven for me for as long as I need and he has the internet. I say hello to some of my friends in Bishkek, mostly Gulmira and Aiperi. I learn that Aiperi, the successful business-shark who has four jobs, is single and created a whole language center at Prospekt Mira from nothing is actually from a village in the Naryn region. If she returns there, they will probably kidnap her and kill her forever.
I leave on tuesday morning through the Dordoy bazar to Korday (in Kazakhstan), border city north of Bishkek. The border control is quick and painless and I get this annoying Kazakh registration form. This time, I'll try to stay in the country for less than five days.
I get a ride from Korday straight to the border of Almaty. It's a taxi but he takes me for free. Almaty is huge so I need another ride to get me through the city. I have forgotten the ways of the Kazakh, while neighbours with the Kyrgyz, they are way different. More distant, more cynic, more globally minded. And way richer. Now that I've lived in Kyrgyzstan for nearly three months, I can see the difference clearly. While in Kirghizia people live in mud houses without running water even in the capital, here it is less common and there is tap water even is some small cities.

As opposed to Bishkek, Almaty has some kind of architecture. Some parts of it are even beautiful and there are skyscrapers there. The bus costs more, the phone costs more and everything is more expensive of course. Kazakhstan is the model of success in the region if you don't count Turkmenistan of course but Turkmenistan is a fucking dictatorship. Kazakhstan also in a way, they have a president elected for life but nobody complains. Because democraties are a horrifying example in the region. The only actual democracy is Kyrgyzstan and it had two presidents who took most of the country's money, shot people and ran away. So when a president is good enough to actually run the country, people are happy to keep him in power for as long as possible. Because every new president is a new risk at chaos.

Almaty is not ugly at all

My cold is getting worse. And I am alone. I am trying not to take any chances so I have negociated some couchsurfing inside the city. I am counting 2 days gor the mongolian visa. Couchsurfing never works for me but this time, I've written to almost the whole site. I really need the place, I need some confort to get better and some rest before China which will be a great unknown. Miracle of miracles two people said yes to me. I will go to Uki Uki, a girl around my age living not far from the mongolian embassy. It takes me a while to get used to Almaty's transport system. First off, there are busses and not Marshutkas as in the rest of the country. Then, instead of paying to the driver there is a guy collecting money pretty much like beggars in Paris metro. Except you are actually expected to give money to this guy.
It takes me two hours to get to the rendez-vous place with Uki but she is very late so I still have time to look for the mongolian embassy. It's 4.30PM, of course it will be closed but at least I'll be able to get the opening hours on the door and apply for the visa the following morning. Afterwards, I'll only have to wait one day because the mongolian embassy has a reputation of delivering visas fast.
I can't believe my eyes: the consulate is actually open, not only is it open in the afternoon but the consul happens to speak english. Before, that is what I would expect of any embassy but now this is nothing short of a miracle. It gets better. I fill out my form, give 58 dollars to the guy and he prints me the visa in a matter of minutes. I love Mongolia, best embassy ever.

I meet Uki at some kind of big shopping center. I am tired and sick but we talk, she has lots to tell, she's a bit rainbow although she doesn't know rainbow festivals exist and half of the couchsurfers in Almaty appaearently come to her. She used to be a web programmer but threw everything away and became a yoga teacher. She gets good money out out it appearently and her appartment is european styled, it is designed with tast and it has internet. There is nothing to eat and I haven't eaten since morning but I have a place to sleep and that is everything I hoped for.
I don't have a lot of money. Just about 400 tenge from the 1000 that I got by exchanging my ramaining Kyrgyz money. I've already bought a sim card with it and enough credit to sent sms to Russia to Janela. So I really can't prolong my stay.

Me and Uki

The next morning I leave at 8 from Uki's appartment. It takes me two hours to get to the other side of Almaty in a snowstorm. It's cold, I am sick and snow is falling like crazy. But I am thinking that this kind of day is going to repeat over and over so it's a good time to get used to it. I start hithhiking towards the border. There are esentially 4 cities on the way: Issyk, Chilik, Chungze and Zharkent. After Zharkent it is really the border.
The police sees me and they say they'll stop a car for me. They start waiving their sticks and scaring the shit out of everyone just to get me a lift.

Policement hitchhiking for me

They get me a car to Issyk, a guy who is driving pharmacy products there. He is very nice, he doesn't hate me because the police forced him to take me as a passenger and he invites me home.

I hesitate a bit, I want to be at the Chinese border as soon as I can. But I am feeling very bad, cold, tired and I also hungry. I feel it would be stupid to refuse. My host goes to the market to buy some food, just for the occasion. He is very nice to me, has two children and a lot to eat. He has running  warm water in his house which reminds me that Kazakhstan is really much more rich than Kyrgyzstan.

My host's grandchildren

He cooks plov, a little different than the Kyrgyz version but still very tasty. I sleep great and feel a little better. It is still snowing but just a little bit. But I better hurry, I don't intend to register in Kazakhstan so I need to stay less than five days unless I want to negociate with the border officers again. And I don't expect short processing from the chinese side either so unless I want to spend the night at the border, I better get myself there early and legally.
I hitch several cars before I get to Chilik. Then, a bus takes me for free to the last intersection before China. I am now more east than ever before by hitchhiking. My last record was Janela's house in Tegizchil. But now I have passed it by a few kilometers.
The road is white with snow and white mountains around it. But soon the landscape and weather changes. There is a microclimate around Zharkent, the weather is warmer and no snow. And I am only 40 kilometers from the border, khorgos. I am really going to China! The first new country that I will visit without Ilona. My first boat hitchhike is approaching. In some time, I will be looking for boats from China to Korea.

Two more rides before the chinese border and then I see the first barricade. Some Kazakh army chieftain tells me I cannot go on foot. I am not surprised. I have read Remi's blog, the french guy I met in mountains around Karakol along with Clark and Miri and he writes how they had to pay expensive taxis through the border at Iktersham (Kyrgyz/China) and there just wasn't any other way.
No way I am paying for taxis. But the chinese are worse byrocrats than Kyrgyz and Kazkah so I am not so sure I will manage to have my way.
The chiftain tells me that I have to take a bus. I ask him if the bus is free, he tells me no. I tell him that I am going to camp in front of his border control cabin until he finds a free solution for me. A bus comes and he puts me on it among the passengers.
The bus doesn't have seats, it only has a lot of beds. People are randomly sitting on the beds and it is really unconfortable. But I feel like being in this bus is the safest choice because I look like an ordinary tourist and everybody likes ordinary tourists.

It takes forever to reach the Kazakh border. The road is full of giant buildings and fences with Kazakh emblems. Kazakhstan is really making a fuss about that border. They are building some kind of center for international cooperation and they are making sure tourists see it before they arrive to China. If this is the Kazakh side, I can't even imagine the chinese. Maybe I should have gone through Iktersham, Kyrgyzstan and tried my luck with the taxis.
At last, Kazakh control post. They ask me questions about where I was, where I will go and they process me. I want to go to the Chinese control but again, I must take the bus, say the Kazakh lady.
"Is the bus free?"
"I think it's 500 tenge (about 4 dollars)"
"And if I go on foot?"
"Then the chinese will shoot."
"Do they have good aim?"
"Surely better than ours."
Turns out the bus is the same one as the one who brought me to the Kazakh border post. I get in again and this time, it's the chinese border control with cameras everywhere and everything electronic. I have to fill out an immigration form which I hand to the border guard together with my passport. He just writes something in it with his pen, puts on a stamp and lets me go. He actually doesn't even need my visa, he just needs to take a photo with his camera, I am already in his database and everything is computerized anyway. He knows everything about my visa, about me, and probably can read my thoughts.
I exit the border post prepared to face buses and taxis and burocracy. But nothing. I am in china. I have done it without breaking any of my rules. The road is open.

In the middle of nowhere

If you follow the main road from Naryn in the west direction,you'll arrive to Osh eventually. But before you arrive to Osh, you pass a high and snowy mountain range. At the end of this mountain range is the city of Kazarman. It is completly surrounded by mountains and inacessible unless you're ready to give it a whole lot of effort. West of Kazarman there is an even bigger mountain range and the road going from it is the most surprising, beautiful but also the most dangerous road in Kyrgyzstan. It goes way over 3000 meters and people die on it every winter.

Theo and John went through this way by bicycle and told me wonders. And I am going there now. The first ride I get is to Baetov, a city at the beginning of the first mountain range. Two young guys with sheep in the truck take me there. They buy me some dinner including a bug chunk of cold fat sheep meat. This is still the Naryn province. However I am not hosted anywhere so I sleep in a tent again. I am only 1500 meter high, so it doesn't get that cold at night.
I am just woke up at midnight by a guy who discovered my tent not far from his house and wants to host me but I'm too lazy to move my tent.

In the morning it starts snowing. I manage to pack my tent before the snow gets too intense. I want to continue west, direction of Osh but I get an unfortunate information; the road is closed by snow, nobody will go there. I don't mind but the problem with hitchhiking is that you have to be at least two to be stupid: the hitchhiker and the driver.
There is another road that goes to Osh, also through Kazarman, I have to get back a few kilometers and take it. People say it is open. It's a dirt road with absolutly nobody on it. I start walking on it. One car goes there, one car stops. It is a big truck transporting provisions to the city. The conversation repeats itself.
"Where are you going?"
"Kazarman."
"How much will you give?"
"Nothing"
"I'm the only car on the road, you'll freeze and wolves will eat you"
"If such is my fate"
"Get in you idiot!"

So I get a ride all 70 kilometers to Kazarman. The mountain path is high and impressive, there is nobody going our way. It starts snowing again, the road is white, the sky also, the mountains too. We see cars going the opposite way.
"They are taxis going to Bishkek," says our driver. There is no bus going from Kazarman to the capital, the road is too hard. The only way to get there is by special taxi. By special taxi I don't mean a special car but a special driver suicidal enough to try this road in a normal car. In europe, they would probably use a helicopter. Some of these special taxis break down on the road.
We are pretty safe in our powerful truck. A car is waiting in the snow, a family comes out, they are signaling us to stop. The parents give us their three freezing daughters to take care of and we continue our way.
It takes us 5 hours to get to Kazarman.

"The road" to Osh is closed, the people say. The driver's son calls his friend, he can host me. His friend's name is Adlet and he gives me the impression of a very kind and incredibly naive person. He is 21 and I 26 so calls me "uncle Filip" and he adresses me with respect. When I tell him to drop the act, he tells me that he can't, respecting the elder is so deep in his education that not doing it makes him really uncomfortable.
He helps me with everything, he even zips up my jacket which is kind of weird.
They make a lot of manti; my last days in Kyrgyzstan are marked by my favourite dish.
Adlet gives me some "gamashe", a pair of pants to put under my pants not to be cold. It's a prescious gift.
The whole evening he and his family are trying to convince me not to take the road to Osh.
"Don't go there uncle Filip, please. You will die. If wolves don't eat you, you will freeze to death"
I tell them that I want to see, at least, if somebody is going there. Maybe I'll get a super-styled jeep like to Son-kol.

Adlet and his family let me go with worried looks at their faces. I leave for Aral, the only village west of Kazarman and the last bit of civilisation before the Osh region.
I get to the village with two guys who don't understand how I can get anywhere without money.
"The road is closed. You'll die there.," they say instead of goodbye.

I can't make a hunderer meters without meeting worried looks and people telling me that I am going to die. I start seeing a pattern there and I am thinking about actually not going to Osh. I want to try to have a relationship with Janela my fairy before I do something stupid.
But I want to try to find my jeep. I make the last kilometers of my way with a guy on a horse who is fascinated with my story and tells me that I am going to die but that he doesn't think that I am so stupid anymore.

I get a lift to the last intersectio but then my car is goint left to a nearby village and I just wait. The road is empty and quiet. There isn't much snow on it anyway but the snowy part is supposed to be 17 kilometers away and that's probably a point of no return.
Slowly I pack my things with the intention of getting back to Bishkek, there were enough adventures for today and I have to get my chinese visa.

The problem is Kazarman is a little bit like Son-Kol. It is difficult to get in and it is difficut to get out. All cars are leaving before 11AM to make it through the mountain pass and all these cars are taxis so they are no use anyway. A taxi from Kazarman to Bishkek costs 1200 som ($24), way over my budget which is zero.
It is already 12AM and I am returning to the village. A lot of people want to say hello to me because not many tourists come in the winter. I go pass them as fast as I can, no time to lose until I hear english. By english I mean real english, not the "hello me name Adlet what is your job?" type of english.
Her name is Gulzar and she is the vice-director of a school. She's 29 and is also an english teacher. Her english is about the level of a french high school student but it is outstanding for Kyrgyzstan. She wants to invite me home and I'm curious so I go. She lives there with her sister, her husband died two years ago and her sister's husband is god know where.
She likes me a bit too much actually. She takes me to school and tells her collegues that I am her boyfriend she met through the internet. I represent a kind of prize for her, she wants to show off with me. I think it is funny at first but then it makes me feel a bit unconfortable.
I tell her that I did volunteer work in Karakol and Bishkek and she wants me to teach her classes. I get grade 5 and 6, english class.
The children are very polite, they stand when I ask them a question and they don't make a noise. They really deploy a lot of effort into replying to my questions.
I ask them stuff like "what is your name?", "how many brothers and sisters do you have?", "how old are you?" and that's about it but it's a very good start.
Gulzar is very happy and takes a lot of pictures of the event. She then invites me to a show of disabled people. There are a lot of them because there is a mine in Kazarman with a lot of uranium everywhere, the place is probably worse off than japanese Fukushima except nobody bothers with the radiation readings.

Gulzar has to go somewhere, she leaves me the house for a few hours, I can eat whatever I want and she has a lot of honey and ayran, the kyrgyz yoghurt.
I also go to sleep at a reasonable time because there are only women in the house and they don't drink vodka.
I leave the village with Gulzar telling me "Don't forget me." Weird feeling.
I get a ride with to Kazarman with some people who forget that I am not paying them anything but I don't pay anything anyway. It is already 1:30 PM and there isn't a single car on the road east of Kazarman. Everything has already left in the morning. I manage to stop an old car, jigul lada transporting gasoline. It is driven by two happy guys who had a little too much to drink.
There is no space so I have to sit on the front seat, next to one of the guys.

"Don't be afraid," says the driver, "we are a bit drunk but we are not dangerous"
I tell them that I am not afraid, I am happy to get a lift.
They offer me a bottle of disgusting bozo which contains more of their saliva than the actual drink. They also have some bread, I take that.
After a while we make a stop for vodka.
They drink half a bottle in two people, I don't drink.
"Do you know why we drink," asks my seat mate, his name is Anameldin.
"No, tell me"
"It's because of the radiation... you know! There is radiation in the city, we drink vodka to help to live with the radiatioooon. And the roads... the bad roads... it shakes the car, it's difficult to drive. Vodka also helps, the car feels stable."
It really takes a lot of vodka to feel stable with this soviet-era car on a mountain road but then again, they drink a lot.
The car breaks down and it will keep breaking down every 5 kilometers. So between vodka stops we also have car repair stops. Car repairs consist of pouring water randomly over the overheated engine and then pushing the car backwards.
"Are you sure you will be able to drive after finishing that bottle?" I ask the driver.
"Don't worry man! I have an alcohol tolerence built over a whole lifetime."
He seems to know what he is doing, he is a rare good kind of drunk. He is constantly apoligising about his drinking behaviour and respecting the fact that I don't drink. He is worrying that I would be afraid because they are drunks but I don't see why. I have seen dangerous drunks, I feel completly safe with these two.
They are going a total of 40 kilometers to Dodomul, the first eastern village. We arrive in the late afternoon to the house of Anameldin's parents. It has only one heated room with a floor made of wood instead of mud and and only heated room also. It has no running water, no surprise there (even homes in the city don't have it) and it also doesn't have electricity. It is just a heated cabin.
They have a lot of milk products and they drink Ayran instead of tea, it's super tasty. Only unfortunate thing, they don't let me put jam inside my Ayran.
The men all drink vodka except me and they are starting to have a serious concentration in their blood. Especially Alameldin who now has trouble standing up.
"We cannot leave you here says the driver," it will be dark soon and it's too dangerous. "I will find you a place to stay in a family."
He invites me to a family to which he sells gas to. Kazarman is already a very remote city and this village is remote even by Kazarman's standarts. They don't have buses connecting them to civilisation, they don't have gas except what these two drunks bring them every week. They live on a high plateau in the mountains in very harsh conditions.
But I am pretty confortable there. The men speak russian and the women only Kyrgyz. When I put my tablet out to show them some pictures, nobody even looks at them. Their eyes are captivated by the strange device that I have just opened. They have never seen anything like this before. Phones are common,  smartphones are not rare either and if you search long enough you can find someone with a laptop computer but a tablet with a removable keyboard... never. I feel like an alien descended from the skies. One of the men takes my tablet and starts browsing through all my pictures. He doesn't really care about my trip.
"Devushky goluiy?" (Naked girls?), he asks with a retarded look at his face. He doesn't even speak russian properly. He looks like a little chieftain of a local group of assholes. He wants to browse through some pictures of Janela, I really feel bad about that, like he is stepping into my intimate zone. I take the computer from him. He has a retarded and surprised look on his face, he laughs stupidly.
"Have a little respect, she's my girlfriend!"
"She russian?"
"No Kyrgyz. Don't you see the slanty eyes, does she look russian to you?"
"She your translator"
"My girlfriend. Kyrgyz from Karakol. We are marrying next year." The latter is not true but this guy gets on my nerves.
"Hey everyone! This foreigner is going to marry a russian girl!" He yells in Kyrgyz and drinks a bottle of vodka for the occasion.
After a while my drivers also join us. They are seriously drunk now. My driver is happy and Anameldin just fall in front of the table into a pile of bread and Jam.
"Dooont driiink vooodka Filip it is baaad for you," says Anameldin.
"Calm down Anam," says the driver. And they drink and drink even more. They start singing songs in a very loud voice.
"I am still taking the car down to Kazarman," says my driver with a sure voice, "it has never betrayed me."
Anameldin is now sleeping on the couch, he is feeling sick.
"Mooooother, mooother!," he screams.
"Come on Anam, try to sleep!" says the driver.
They take the road after fifteen more minutes, completly drunk and in the dark of the night. I stay to sleep at their friends house in Dodomul.
The next day I start hitching at 9 in the morning. No car on the road. Only a guy who wants to take me for an insane amount of money and a huge truck that is being loaded. I run to the truck.
"Where are you going?"
"Naryn"
"How much will you give"
"Nothing"
"You'll die there, wolves will eat you, we're the only car on the road"
"If such is my fate..."
"Get in you idiot!"
And that is how I get a lift from the middle of nowhere to my friend's Nurbolot appartment in Bishkek. But not after being invited to a giant breakfest, to a restaurant and being given huge amounts of borzok
.

Traditions of Naryn

I thought Kyrgyzstan is as exotic as it can get but there is still a strong connection to Russia in the Chuy and even the Issyk-Keul region. People speak russian, they are a bit civilized even though they sometimes live in houses made of mud. If you push it far enough, you might even see some european influance in the mix.
Naryn is different. I often see people speaking obly Kyrgyz. The woman's position is well defined, she often wears the Kyrgyz traditional scarf when she is married, her social status is clearly below the man and it is not rare that she has been stolen according to the tradition.
Traditions are strong and very much alive here in Naryn. Every breath you take is guided by a tradition.
People eat meat in Naryn. Fat sheep meat, all the time. They eat so much meat that they think that you die if you stop eating meat. Vegetarians in Naryn probably eat chicken. Narynians are very proud to eat meat. They are serving it as often as they can, in as big quantities as they can in a completly random preparation. Actually there is no preparation. They often serve you a giant bowl of cold sheep meat with a lot of fat and they wait to see your admiration because of the quantity.
Sometimes, instead of tea, they drink bouillon of meat, a soup they make by boiling fat and bones.
"We can eat 5 sheep in a day," says one guy I meet proudly, "we invite guests, and it's 5 sheep minimum. Mi-ni-mum."
After five seconds of living there, I get it, these people are proud of their meat. Naryn is also very cheap. A samsa is 10 soms here while it can be 30 soms in Bishkek. There is only one road in Naryn, it is about 10 kilometers long and the city is organised around it. Not more than 500 meters to each side, then the high mountains stop every attempt at civilisation.
Naryn is the third largest city in Kyrgyzstan but it has every aspect of a mountain village. Besides a few official institutions because it is a regional center, it is just an accumulation of farms and cows are running throught the streets. The whole thing is 2000 meters high, so it is pretty cold.

There is a river flowing through the city

I don't really want to put up a tent but so far it seems that I have no choice. The guys that brought me to Naryn left without inviting me anywhere, it is already 5PM and how the hell am I going to find a place to stay. I am not going to a hotel that's fore sure. My electronics are all runing low on battery. My camera is on half of it's backup battery, my phone is almost depleted and my computer is on about 20% of it's primary battery, the backup one being depleted.
Walking randomly on the street doesn't solve anything, I was kind of half-hoping somebody would invite me in out of curiosity. But it's too cold and Narynians are eating their sheep inside.
I look for a place to put up my tent. It is easy to get out of civilisation, even from the center, I just have to walk a few hundered meters to the mountains nearby. My phone battery dies while I am calling Janela. Me and her, we talk everyday. I think we are seriously in love. Who would have thought. I put my tent just outside the garden of a house. A lady comes out, I ask to recharge my phone and I get dinner.
She only speaks Kyrgyz, I don't understand a thing and after giving me loads of food she throws me out to the cold of the night. I put up my tent, I can't believe that I'm sleeping outside again after such a long time of being hosted. When I put all my clothes on, I can manage to keep a normal temperature  from 9PM to 5AM. Then, the cold wakes me up no matter what and I stay awake until 7AM when the sun goes up, warms the air a little bit and I can sleep again. So all things considered, the wheather is still kind enough to let me sleep in a tent.
However I am not staying in a place where fate is not kind with me so I buy a bunch of sweets, start eating them and prepare to leave towards Osh.
"Don't eat on the street, come to my shop!," says a happy hyperactive guy in an orange coat. I follow him, curious about what he wants. His name is Urlan, he was a soldier during the war with Uzbekistan. After having seen atrocities I couldn't even see in a movie, he quit the army after 4 years and started working in a shop in Naryn. The local mafia tried to shake him down once or twice but he and his good friend beat them up so now business is going well.

Urlan, my host during my time in Naryn

He serves me coffee, biscuits and I eat some fruits from his shop. He even lets me sell stuff because he thinks it is funny. Some customers are confused.

Me selling bread

When I tell him my story and that I came down from Son-Kul on foot, he invites me to his home and even pays fora Banya. Urlan is one of the most energic people I've seen in a while. He keeps running around, doing things, talking, he is always smiling and he eats a lot of meat. His wife is pretty as a picture and they have two small children.
The only bad new is, I cannot recharge my tablet. It just doesn't work. I think my charger is broken. The next day I look in all Naryn to find a replacement but nobody has seen such a charger before. Actually, they have never seen a device such as my tablet, I have the impression to be an alien here who arrived in a flying saucer with superiour technology.
Urlan says his relatives are going to celebrate the Kal'em, a ceremony where the newlywed husband gives horses, sheep or money to the bride's parents. The amount of money depends on the person wealth but ususally it is around $2000 which is quite high considering what people make. It is not unusual that people take credit to pay Kal'em. Actually, Urlan says, people take credit for almost anything.
"It's how we live, we can't help it. It's stupid, it ruins lives but we take credit"
Kyrgyz people take credit to celebrate a wedding, to buy a car, a TV, to celebrate a birthday and pretty much any celebration and then they spend their lives paying the credit back. Everyone knows credit means doom but they do it anyway the same way a smoker smokes pack after pack.
I don't know what Urlan said to the people but at this Kal'em ceremony I am invited to be the official photographer. I am running around with my small compact camera, constantly taking pictures of everything. People are gathering into groups, taking pose and asking to take a picture of them. Some of them are treating me as an object; just striking a pose in an uninteresting place with some uninteresting people and wanting me to take a thousand picture of that. I'm realizing that being a professional photographer requires a bit of self control.

Wife's family with eldest in the center

We are invited to the small table which is full of any kind of food that you can imagine in Kyrgyzstan (which is not actually not that much in diversity but a lot in quantity). There is borzok, thir oily bread, salads and a lot of different sweets. Everything is super-tasty so I eat all the time and a lot. I'm definitly not dying of hunger now but I have mongolia to get through so let me enjoy myself now.
Women are cooking like crazy in the kitchen. I realize that the kitchen is just some wooden cabin with a fire in the corner but they are making wondersthere. They brought two enormous containers full of sheep meat ready to be cooked.

kitchen

Urlan says that organizing this ceremony usually costs more than the money the husband pays. So in the end, in spite of the husband and his ralatives gathering all the money they can get and taking credit, the bride's family doesn't make a single cent (or som to be exact) and also takes credit. Everyone lives happily in debt for the rest of their lives.

We are waiting endlessly for the husband to come. There are several times when we are called outside (it is getting cold) because he would be here any minute but then everybody waits, nothing happens and we go inside again.
"Make room for the photographer!" Urlan yells everytime. I try to get the best angles for pictures but it's not easy in all this chaos, people are running in front of  my lens all the time.

At least the husband comes. According to the tradition, they take away the rope in front of him and let his car freely pass.
It is a young guy with his best Kalpak on. He goes to greet the Khazai, the master of the wife's house, the girl's father probably. Everything is very ceremoial. I wouldn't say prepared or formal because these are Narynian peasants, you can't even think about formal when it comes to them. However, to my taste, everything lacks genuine feeling and is, as everybody repeats me, "a tradition".

Urlan explains to me a very peculiar tradition of stealing knife. You cannot give a knife as a gift, it means that you wish death on that person. You also can't buy a knife because people don't sell them. So your only alternative is to steal a knife. If you are a guest somewhere, it is commonly accepted to steal a knife for example when a person is killing a sheep and leaves his knife out of sight.
It is polite to leave a symbolic amount of money when you steal a knife but never the price of the knife. And nobody will think badly about a person who stole a knife. However, stealing other things is very tactless and they will probably beat you. But I didn't steal a knife.

People are starting to drink vodka and behaving like animals, I seek a calm place to text Janela, I am not really in the mood of discussing stupid stuff with drunks.
"In here we have this tradiiiition...," tells me a small ugly drunk for the thousandth time. He is always coming to me, hugging me with his breath stinking with vodka and saying: "In here we have this traditioooon..."

I have the impression that this party is more about losers getting drunk than about the newlyweds. If I ever get married, I will bring only close relatives who will have some understanding of the moment. No need for show-offs. Janela is on the same page with me on this.
"I'd rather eat half a sandwich with a person I love than to have a diamond." she always says.

I try to talk less to the drunks and eat more mati and random stuff instead. Not far from me sits the elder. He is about eighty years old but looks about eight hundered. He looks that he is about to die any minute now and everybody treats him with respect.

The guests from the husband's side go dine at the big table. I thought the little table was luxurious, the big table is even more. There are giant amounts of food and everybody is eating with the elder grandfather in the center.
Urlan serves vodka after a while but doesn't drink himself. His brother is an alcoholic and he doesn't need to mess up his head with this shit. On the whole, Urlan has his ideas straight, he knows what he wants and what he doesn't and he takes no bullshit from anyone.

In the end of the evening I get into an argument with Urlan's grandfather over dating a Kyrgyz girl.
"I'll tell you something, we don't need any french here. Kyrgyz girls are happy with our own guys."
"Obviously your guys, with all the vodka they are drinking, have forgotten to please one of their own."

The grandfather doesn't appreciate my replu but appreciates my character.
"You communicate a lot with your eyes," he says to me, "you are not afraid."
Urlan takes me apart, he tells me I should be wary of grandfather.
"Grandfather is a bad person. From any point of view. He was in jail for fifteen years. In Kyrgyzstan, when you go to jail, you are a bad person."

Urlan said that Grandfather likes me but that I should avoid any possible conflict by replying strictly yes or no to his questions.
There are interludes where we dance but it is frustrating how nobody has a clue of how to do it. I would not ask for salsa but any alternative to the stupid club-style dancing. Appearantly, people here don't even suspect couple dances exist.
The drunk guy who always hugs me comes dance with me and repeats:
"In here we have this tradition..."

The decision is taken that a sheep should be killed for the sake of the ceremony. They bring the poor animal, all people make an omen, it creates a weird atmosphere. The animal seems to be stressed out, perhaps it senses something. Four men take it and put it on the ground. It tries to get away but finally gives up. One of the guys pulls out a knife. Just an ordinary knife, nothing special. He has a wild look on his face, I think he likes killing this sheep a little bit too much. He has this wild look at his face. I wouldn't be surprised if he could kill a man and I wouldn't be surprised if half of the people present here kidnapped their wives.
However Urlan says the guy is a good guy, he is his friend and the ability to kill humans doesn't make him a bad person anyway.
He cuts the sheep's throat with an assured gesture. The sheep dies very fast and blood starts accumulating in the recipient they stuck under it. There was a moment I felt a little uneasy but just a moment.
I text Janela "they killed a sheep it's horrible". Janela is the most sensible person in the world, the kind of person who will reassure you if your throat hurts because you got a cold but now he just replied "come on don't be a pussy, it's their habit!" This kind of sheep killing seems to be as normal as breathing air.
"If you think this is bad, how would you feel if you seen a person's throat being cut?"
"Anyone would feel bad seeing that"
Urlan has an amused look.
"We've cut throats of the Uzbeks during the war with Uzbekistan not long ago. You get used to it. I can show you on video."
However the battery of his phone was dead and the video was on it so I didn't see people being cut alive. But I guess you can get used to anything.

I start to get tired and overeaten, I go find a place to sleep. Soon there is some girl sleeping next to me and I have to give her space because people are accumulating like sardines. There actually isn't enough space for all the people to sleep in the house. Urlan sleeps outside, in the freezing cold, I have no idea how he does it.
The next day we have breakfest: meat with fat with meat with a boal of oily bouillon to drink. Actually all the meat was good, I don't complain.

I am leaving Naryn for Osh now. Urlan's wife gives me a bottle of jam and a ton of borzok and also cookies.

I went to Son-Kol and lived

"Son-Kol is a lake is closed," said miss liu from the Chinese agency, "all roads are covered by snow."
I hitchhike a truck from Balychy to the south for the first time, direction of Naryn. There is not much traffic on the road although it is the main road to the south-east. It also goes high into the mountains pretty fast. My drivers tell me that there is nobody going to Son-Kol anymore but they can get me to a village called Bashugandu on the main road, north-east of the lake. There is a path from there that leads to the mining base of Kara-Keche south-east of the lake. There should be some people there, and if I am lucky, I can catch a truck going to get coal. From Kara-Keche it is 40 more kilometers to the lake, south-east side. That is 40 kilometers that I will have to go on foot because according to them, there is no one at the lake and therefore no cars going there.
In Bashugandu I get worried looks from villagers.
"Dont go there on foot," they say, "wild wolves are running all over the place, you'll get killed. Come sleep at our place you'll be comfortable and worm instead"

Village boy on a horse

A car is going to the mining base, it wants to take me but the driver gets into some family problems with his wife and and they decide not to go. So I go by foot very fast passing the villagers who all try to stop me, always talking about the wolves. So far, I didn't see a single one. I get picked up by a mining truck on the way, as advertised and we ride into the night.
I arrive in a little settlement about 5 kilometers from the mining base. It is freezing cold already and completly dark. There are no houses, just a few trailers. It looks scary. A women comes out of one of the trailers, she lookes surprised to see me.
"What are you doing there"
"Going to the mining base, I'll sleep there I think"
"In a tent?"
"Yes"
"You're not afraid of the wolves?"
"Are they afraid of me?"
The woman seems genuinly worried and it is the first one that I believe.
"They are wolves on the road at night. It's no joke."
She lets me into one of the empty trailers, there is a heater there. In the freezing cold I really need that heater. It is operating at full power and it only manages to create a normal temperature in it's close proximity. The isolation of the trailer is bad but still many times better than my tent would be. I was lucky this woman was there with her wagon and heater. My head hurts, I don't know why and then I realize that I have not drunk anything for the whole day. I also don't have a lot of food. Just one bag of buns, a symbolic quantity of some vegetarian sauce and buiscuits Nata left me and some nuts from Kairad. It's not so bad for one person actually but food tends to dissapear pretty fast in the mountains.
The next day I start at 7AM, the night is dark, no light whatsoever. The feeble sun must be clouded by the giant mountains surrounding my path from both sides. My goal of the morning is to get some food and water at the mining base. I am greeted by Kyrgyz workers with black hands and I can see coal everywhere. The mining base is an accumulation of trailers like the one I slept in with a house at the center. I am invited to the canteen by the chief of the base who is also the local chief of police with about the same grade as the asshole who tried to deport me at the Kazakh border.

The mining base

This one has more of a sense of humour. First he tells me that I am a spy because I know russian too much, then he tells me that there are still people living at Son-Kul lake but wolves will kill me before I get there. It is still 40 kilometers to go. I drink tea with the workers, eat bread, buiscuits and some kind of rice porrifge. They give me a big bottle of bozo, a Kyrgyz traditional drink made from wheat for the road. It is drink and food at the same time, perfect for the mountains.
I don't walk 5 kilometers before a black jeep stops. The chief of the mining base is in there, he tells me to get in:
"We can't let you go alone, it is way too dangerous. Allah spoke to me, he told me to help you."
That is how with the will of Allah I make it to Son-Kul lake in a badass jeep with the chief of police lecturing me about religion.

I make it to Son-Kul lake with probably the best car in the region, it even has an altimeter, we pass 3000.

The chief of police is one of the very religious people. Usually it is ok to be christian as long as you believe in god, nobody will bother you. But some people, like him, really take it as their mission to convert me to the right faith. I tell him that my girlfriend is Kyrgyz and more muslim than Allah himself and he is relieved, she just might do the conversion for him.
At Son-Kul, he drops me in front of a Yurt where I meet the first non-russian speaking Kyrgyz. A woman lives there while her husband is fishing. She invites me in to eat fish. They didn't catch a lot of fish this season but she doesn't mind and it really is very good. We try to communicate with mimics I have been used to understand and be understood easily in russian for the last weeks.

She prepares bread in her yurt

After having a good meal, I decide to explore the lake. It is not Ala-Keul but still, the lake is very beautiful, it is a giant lake as high as 3000 meters of altitude. From time to time they are yurts, each of them about two kilometers apart. The lake is starting to freeze but the ice is usually not thick enough to step on. Outside it is cold, people say that temperatures go to -20 or -25°C.

View of Son-Kul lake

I walk on the south side of the lake for the whole afternoon. The lake is bigger than I thought and I barely make it back to the yurt where I left my things before nightfall. It is a long way back but I can't stop to rest because I really don't want to witness the -20 without any warm clothes.

Along the shore

I talk to the fishermen in the Yurts a little bit, they are a bit surprised to see a tourist. But nobody seems to be going back. I start wondering how I am going to descend these 45 kilometers of mountain path from the lake to first civilisation but it is still too early to worry. Plus, the woman told me something like there will be some friends going back down tomorrow.
When I get back to the yurt, it is freezing cold. I can't even put my hands out of my pockets. Nobody has given me gloves yet and I am starting to really need them. But I am convinced it will happen.
When I get to the yurt with my things in there, a car is allready being packed with pretty much everything.
"Do you mind if I put my tent next to your Yurt?"
"You call this a tent?, " says the fisherman, "you are going to sleep in our friend's Yurt, it is better"
With the horrible cold that I feel I don't really want to argue.

The owners of the Yurt are going away, the car is being loaded and overloaded

"You know what," says the fisherman, "just take the key of our Yurt and sleep there."
I am realising that this car is maybe the only transport that will go to the village for a long time but at the same time isn't it great to have my own Yurt. I say no to the car and yes to the Yurt. The car leaves and darkness and cold overwhelm me.
It is cold, really cold, what would I do without my Yurt? I am starting to realize that what I just did was just a little bit reckless and the fact that I am going through everything with a relative comfort is just very necessary luck. I am glad I made it so far but I keep in my mind to try to be a little less stupid next time.
My shoes are wet, my pants are wet, everything is freezing to ice, I can't feel my fingers if I leave them out too long. And the sun didn't even come down completly. I need to make a fire, I need to heat up that furnace before everything freezes.
Nothing burns. It is too cold and some of the wood is wet. There is coal, I don't even know how that burns and "kyrgyz coal" which is a variant of compressed cow poo and it is about the best fire fuel you can get. There is a oil lamp in the corner of the Yurt, I pour the oil on the pile of wood. Thanks god it burns. I find more chunks of wood and after a while I even put some coal in. I don't know what the fuss is about all people buying coal, that thing doesn't burn or very badly. I fuel my furnace with cow shit, that's more Kyrgyz style anyway.

Me operating a Yurt

After a while, I even manage to make tea and it is really needed. There is a lot of food in that Yurt. Mostly there are maccaroni and potatoes but I manage to find a bottle of home made jam which is really tasty. I drink my tea and eat buns with jam. I am the happiest person in the world. I hear some yapping, I thought is was dogs but then it tries to get into my Yurt, to dig through the wall, to dig under. A little paranoia overwhelms me and I barricade the door with a table. Then, I go to sleep.
The combination of my sleeping bag together with the furnace allow me to have a comfortable night.

This is my Yurt!

I realize that it is a full skill to know how to operate a Yurt. You have to handle the furnase, the cooking, the lighting, air flow, it's not that easy.
I create myself a comfortable nest with enough tea to last a month, a lantern and a drying system for my shoes and clothes. Since I am staying here a while I establish communication so my parents and Janela don't worry too much. I attach my secundary GPS beacon to the Yurt from the outside, so it has a clear view at the sky. The device is connected by bluetooth to my computer inside the yurt and I can send messages by satellite from my comfortable bed.

The black device is a satellite transmitter, it is connected by bluetooth to my tablet, inside

The next morning I want to visit my Yurt neighbours 2 kilometers away but I am greeted by two errant dogs who I mistake for wolves. So many people are scaring me with wolves that I start seeing them everywhere. Maybe it is the same case with the people who tell me to be careful because of the wolves, maybe they are also imagining them because other people told them.
My mission for today is to find myself a car to get down. there are several ways out of Son-Kul. One west, back to Kara-Keche, the coal mine, 45 kilometers. One south to the main road to Naryn, 45 kilometers. Two west, 70 kilometers to the main road to Balychy. Nobody is going down either of the road, there should be a car going in a week. The rule is simple. If there is fish, there is a car downhill, if there is no fish, there is no car. And this week there is no fish.

Fishing boat on Son-Kol

I am not ready to wait a week, I decide to go by foot. The firshermen have different opinions about wolves, distance and feasability because they are all going by cars and nobody has a clue about how it feels to walk the way. They advise me to take the south road, 50 kilometers to the main Naryn-Osh road. If there is a car going from Son-Kul, it will go that road.
"It is a two-day walk," says the fisherman, "and it is dangerous to camp anywhere because of the wolves."
Message recieved, no walking at night. I have to make it in a day. My plan is to wake up early in the morning, and start at 6AM. It will be dark but the first 10 kilometers will be above 3000, there should not be any wolves there, nothing to eat. After I cover my first 10 kilometers there will be light. The most wolf-infested area should be after I descend the high mountain range to about 2500-2300 meters, about 80% of my journey. I need a weapon.
I look in the Yurt some clothes, I find a sock. I soak in in oil and put a plastic bag and paper around it for quick inflamation. I take some matches and I have myself enough fire to scare the wolves for five minutes, about the time the oil burns and I find a tree to climb on and a flying saucer to save me.

My weapon of mass destruction

At 6AM I have my breakfest and I start walking. It is dark but the sun is slowly coming up. I am on the top of a mountain range, day comes quicker than in the valley. It is freezing, it must really be -20. I have a centimeter square of skin exposed the wind and I feel it's nakedness.
I have almost everything on me. My two sweaters, my coat, Igor's cap and a piece of table-cloth that I got in Kadzhi-say as a scarf. Besides my fingers freezing I feel confortable. I could put my second pair of pants over my first but no need.
The path is white with snow and beautiful. It goes over a saddle at 3400 meters where I get my first telephone signal. I have a series of supportive and worried messages from Janela who probably didn't manage to read my GPS beacon.

I am leaving my Yurt behind

I lose my GPS signal pretty quick when I get downhill. There is a million turns, I just cut straight through the terrain nearly twisting an ancle and killing my tablet. I get to a road at 2300 meters, theoretically entering the wolf zone, it is nice and quiet there. The path is better, it is a road actually, I can walk faster. I am on schedule, I should meet civilisation at 5PM if I keep my current rate. Except my feet hurt, I am tired of walking between the mountains across the endless plains. But civilisation is starting to appear; by civilisation I mean abandonned ruins from the soviet era but enough to find an enclosed space to hide from wolves and not freeze to death. There is even one house that seems inhabited, I pass it quickly, just marking it on the map as a safe spot to return to.

First inhabited farm

Ten kilometers from this place I see another house, I am starting to feel saved. About five kilometers before I reach the main road I hear a roar on the road and dust in the air. Miracle, that's a car! It is a jeep coming from Bishkek to Naryn through Son-Kul. It went up by the eastern road and down the south road. And they take me all the way to Naryn with a lunch stop.

Naryn, civilisation at last.