Greetings from Hong Kong. Yes, it's been a while since I updated this - what the hell has happened? Well, after my last post I managed to get from Dushanbe to a little village in the middle of Gorno Badakhshan - a large region that borders Afghanistan. The people there are the nicest people you'll ever meet. It's one of the poorest regions in the world - but incredibly beautiful. All mountains, rivers - extremely high up. After spending 1 US dollar on my hotel, sleep and tea (and cigs and vodka :P ) I managed to get to Khorog. The capital of GB district. On the bus there I met some girl that spoke english - she's lived in Pakistan for a year, and worked for the Aga Khan foundation - working as a examine coordinator for the local school. And she offered my space to sleep on her floor, as well as dinner, etc. As I said they're too generous, considering how little they have. I stayed 2 days, and 'accidently' left them 10 dollars.. :)
Anyway, then got the bus to the outskirts and decided to hitch the Pamir Highway, one of the worlds highest roads. At no point does the road go below 2700 metres high. Very famous - it was built (well, blasted out the mountains) by Russians to enable them to position troops to the far corners of their empire. Until 8 years ago it was still illegal for foreigners to be anywhere near it - so I'm one of the few :)
Took about 2 hours and got dropped off at a local sanatorium - famous for it's natural hot springs. Since i'd not had a shower in - years I guess, I finally had a lovely hot bath. Ended up staying there for 2 days :)
Next day woke up and managed to get a lift instantly to Murgab - an old mining town, only 6000 people, but a surreal place. Any the last big city before the road branches north to Kyrgyzstan, and continues east to China.
Annoyingly I wanted to go to China, but the TJ/CHN border was closed to foreigners, so obviously the local traffic would go east, and nothing north. Grr.
3 FLIPPING DAYS I was stuck there! I'd changed most of my money back to dollars since I didn't want to be stuck with hundreds of dollars of Tajik nonsense, but I couldn't get out the country - on the 3rd day of sitting on my backpack freezing to death waiting for any car to drive by, I managed to get a car to stop - a family of Kyrgyz, they were going to Karakol (Black Lake) - and no problem driving me. A fun little journey - again in an ancient Sputnik car - which managed to break down on every uphill (including the bloody pass - at 4700 odd metres, was a lovely slog) - and I noticed again, as with almost every other ride, that the drivers seem more educated in mechanic's than half the actual mechanics in the UK.
OK, Karakol was beautiful - spent a nice night there staying in a homestay and eating and drinking with the family that owned the home. Seer Chai!! (tea with horse milk and salt, that you dip bread into - a bit odd at first, but nice :) Again, back on the road the next day, early in the morning (after more Seer Chai for breakfast) and sitting on my backpack again, in the hot sun (and freezing nights) - and after an hour, a van stops with about 10 people in it. Karakol is the last village before the border, so I'm asking is they're going to Sary Tash - the junction of the road to Osh and the road to China - I give the driver 8 US dollars (20 TJS) and - walk down the road. The view is stunning. All massive mountain ranges (the Pamirs) as far as the eye can see. Stunning.
Anyway, it was also damn cold - I was about 3500 metres high and about 3pm. I'd spoken to some kid whose parents ran the local hotel, so if I couldn't get a lift I'd go there shortly. All the traffic flying by were massive trucks. Dozens of them. And after 20 minutes - one stopped!!!
The driver was cool - said he'd take me all the way to Kashgar - just where I wanted to go! (Love that city) - and I got in - he was with a passenger who was fascinated by the fact an Englishman is stuck in the middle of Kyrgyzstan trying to get a lift out the country and kept asking me tons of stupid questions in Kyrygz which the driver had to translate into Russian for me. We drove for around 6 hours before reaching the border, a journey which I can only really describe as the Paris-Dakar Rally in trucks. Dust flying everywhere, trucks everywhere - except for actually on the road, and madness going on. Was a bit surreal. But get to the border we did. I was quite happy - we pulled in at a truck stop - turns out there were tons of trucks here since the border had closed already (Chinese time was 3 hours ahead) - so everyone was sitting around getting plastered. I hate watching people getting drunk when I'm not, so I joined in. Drank 3 litres of cheap (well, by Tajik prices! I hadn't drank in 5 days!) beer, we had a funny dinner. Then the driver invited me to stay on the top bunk in his truck! RESULT!
Woke up about 6am, with the worst hangover I've had in a long time - absolute bastard it was. Really, the worst I've had in - maybe forever - bah, if I can give everyone who reads this one piece of advice, it's when you're at 4000 metres altitude, DONT drink 3 litres of beer. Brr.
Anyway, after dying for 3 hours, and for some reason drinking tea whilst watching the A-Team dubbed into Russian, the driver tells me to get in the truck. OK, we drive round the corner to the barrier - and then - um, tells me to go across on foot! What the hell - I could have done that myself ages ago. Grr.
Well, I finally get back to Kashgar - zoom across the whole country to Beijing - visit Adam in Harbin, but he was a complete bastard so I zoomed to my favourite city from last time to Guangzhou - where I've spent the last 6 weeks teaching English and drinking *a lot*. :)
But yes, now I'm back in China obviously I can't access LiveJournal - so I'm having to stick to Facebook - hope you don't miss me too much :)
See you later!
(Blimey the Internet Cafe is playing Salaam E Ishq)
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Wow, been here 2 days - really got to calm down - drinking miles too much and smoking too - and I don't particularly like it either (the smoking, not the drinking), but I'm enjoying it.
I left Khojand around noon - apparently it was only a 1 hour journey, but arrived at the bus stand and theres a couple of buses that are hanging around doing nothing much. All going to Istaravshan, and the driver sees me looking like a dodgy foreigner and asks me 'hey - where you want to go?' in english. wow, Istaravshan of course. We get in the van and zoom off - the dodgiest road ever, turns out the chinese are rebuilding the whole road for them - from Khojand all the way to Dushanbe - and it's completely insane. For 2 hours being thrashed about, but the conversation was fun - he spoke a little bit of English - turned out his sister was the local English teacher, and she'd love to meet me, so how about I stay at his place that night? No problem!
It was great - met his family, and he showed me around the ancient city of Istaravshan, very old and nice - and went to play billiards - Russian Billiards of course, with a group of around 10 kids that had never met a foreigner in their life (it's super obscure Tajikistan remember) and afterwards, we drove to the countryside - right by the Uzbek border with his dad and his son, and got ready for some Quail catching. In the back of his car was a dozen quails all in cages - he put the cages in the centre of the field and erected massive nets surrounding it - then, as the sun came up, the birds went mental, and attracted all the surrounding birds which went flying into the nets and got trapped. Was fun, though very surreal to be awakein the middle of the night watching this stuff. All good.
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Just arrived in Tajikistan - the journey from Osh was a bit weird. The problem with here is the borders are absolutely fucked up (Thanks Stalin) - so heading from Osh to the border town of Batken you have to actually travel through an 'island' of Uzbekistan - completely surrounded by Kyrgystan, but still, a seperate country from here - requiring visas and all that shit. So, I got the bus to the border town before Sokh (the Uzbek island) - and there ended up chatting to some really nice local people who'd never met a foreigner in their lives, but knew a little bit of English from school - basically my Russian was better - but - rather strangely, an older woman came up - probably around 30 (they look miles older here) - and she was the local English teacher! Except - her English was still not great - but then no practice - but she did offer me a job - hmm.
OK - so - finally got a bus that was supposed to drive me around this fucking border, and after 20 minutes it left.
Anyway the bus went on, and - umm, after 2 hours - when we were in the middle of nowhere - broke down - I'll miss Kyrygzstan - I've never had so many buses break down in my life. Grr - after an hour of sitting around, a van drove by, and I finally conviced him to give me a lift to Batken for 100 som (2.5 dollars) - success! finally got into Batken around 10pm - small town - nothing much, especially after dark, but found a cheap hotel (5 dollars) and had Plov and a beer and slept. This morning woke early, watched half hour of shit Russian tv, and got a shared taxi to Isfana, the Tajik border town. Now, my Russian isn't great - but I asked the driver how much - 200 he said - wow, crazy price - how many Kilometres? 300. hmm, not a bad price, try for a little more - 100 i quoted - ok! he accepted it - so we left - bargain of the century. After 30 minutes, about 15km we hit the Kyrgyz customs. Do we need it he asked me and the passengers? No, Kyrygz customs don't touch us foreigners - so drove to the next post - which was that Tajik post - fuck! I need my passport stamped! after much much persuading, finally got the driver to go back, after promising him more money - at least, thats what he thought. Finally after 5 minutes of being written in the book blah blah, we got back to the Tajik post - they were very laid back - spooky in fact. So Isfara 20 minutes later, had to tell the driver no more money, I'd already over paid him, gave him a smile and a 'Salam Alekum' and finally he let me off. Got the bus straight to Khojand - nothing special - Tajikstan is very nice in an understated way, pretty people wearing very traditional dresses. Best thing is that noone here seems to shave, so me having stubble is not hugely unusual - which it normally ends up getting me stared at. And the cost of living - here at least is dirt cheap. Result!!! Liking it so far :)
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Greetings from the second largest lake in the world!!!
It's full of beaches, insane partying Russians and Kazakhs, extremely pretty girls (like you wouldn't believe!), mad nightclubs (or Dance clubs as they're known here) - and umm - insanely violent - already got in 2 fights, had my camera stolen, then stolen back, and umm - too much to say :)
Anyway, I've got a FaceBook account to which I'll probably update more often than this since you don't need to say much, and I'm a man of few words (though many hugs) - so feel free to add me to your list if you want :P
usual address (djdirect@talk21.com)
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High times again, got back to Tashkent, and it was like I never left, walked down the main road to the Hadra hotel and Ola almost (almost) leaps at me - wow - passionate girl! Very lovely, spent a great couple of days just relaxing, and met Oliver - a fucked up Austrian guy that's just driven through Afghanistan with his dog - and super happy to be here - and a Finnish girl and French boy couple that are - pretty dull, but we all decided to stick together and zoomed across in Oliver's van to Margilan - spent 3 hours trying to find a damn hotel, but ended up in the sticks - on the outskirts of a residental estate - but it was really a nice place - lots of cool people and we ate a massive meal in a family restaurant all cooked by the grandmum and costing less than 3 quid for 4 people (and that included 7 beers too).
Margilan was ok, waking up (not difficult after the invasion of mosqitos!) had breakfast and found the big silk factory in the town - was fascinating - the tour took us all the way from getting the silk from the cocoons up to the dying and making the carpets and materials. Was pretty, but a bit dodgy when we ended up being funnelled into the shop to purchase what we saw being made - didn't buy anything but had a chat to the girl who did the tour - she offered me a job teaching - umm, ok - i'll think about it.
We shot off afterwards and hit the border (Uzbekistan/Kyrgz) and crossed it with only one problem - when you enter the country you write down how much money you have etc etc - no real problem - when I entered I had 25 dollars US and a mishmash of other currencies - except when I left I had 500 dollars - since I was thinking I was going through Afghanistan I had to get some cash from the bank. I felt really proud walking through customs with 500 dollars tucked into my underpants :P
Anyway, in Osh and really a bit stressed about the onward visas - I know I have to get to a town called Batken from here without entering Uzbekistan again - but - you really can't believe the borders here - but there are ways around it (i hope :P) - some hardy people have made it - so I'll have a go. Anyway, for now - still here and still alive - for the next 3 weeks at least :P
(Incidently, I'm right in the middle of one of the British FCO's 'DON'T GO' places - it's nice though.
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| » Samarkand, Uzbekistan |
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We travel not for trafficking alone,
By hotter winds our fiery hearts are fanned.
For lust of knowing what should not be known,
We take the Golden Road to Samarkand
Uzbekistan
Yes, finally, after a massive explorating of west and central Uzbekistan, finally made it to Samarkand. Insane place - in fact, all the cities here are utterly surreal. We started by getting the overnight bus from Tashkent to Nukus, the capital of the entire western region, Karakalpakstan. There's not a lot there, the border to Turkmenistan is a few miles away, and 100 miles north (5 hours by bus :P) is a little village called Moynaq. Now, I'm not going into too much - there's tons of info on the Net, but back in the 50's the Russians decided to irrigate the entire northern steppes, and to do that they diverted the tributary rivers that fed the Aral sea. The result of this was the sea shrank and shrank and Moynaq went from being one of the main cities working on the sea in 1970 to being a town over 100 miles from the current shoreline. The city was (and still logistically a huge place - over 4 miles from one end of the street to the other!) - but there's so few people, and the people that are there are kind of diseased and tired and run down. It's a real ghost town, and when I say it looks like some kind of post-apocolypical Max Max nightmare I'm really not joking. So we arrived, the bus out was scary with all kinds of odd people, but when we arrived they must have the odd foreigner coming all the way out there since there were a few kids cycling on the dusty (or sandy I guess) streets and all saying hello and just being nice. Anyway, when you walk for about 10 minutes off the road you're presented with these ancient ships just rusting on the old shoreline. Long way away from the new shoreline.
OK, so, after a day there went to Nukus for the night, we arrived in the evening and just decided to head off in the morning. Nukus itself is quite a lively city and we just relaxed had a beer or 2 (and smoked about 20 cigarettes, what's going on, I never really smoked before, bloody Asia and China I'm like a chimney) - and watched the locals (especially the local girls, absolutely stunning), and slept. Whilst Leon slept and moaned, I just checked out the city briefly, quite a laid back sort of provincial place - nothing life changing, but nice. Anyway, got the bus from there to Urgench, another modern big city, but the gateway to Khiva - one of the old slave trading cities (and probably the biggest slave trading city in the world at one point) - and we roll up, and walk through the ancient gate overlooking massive walls
and...
umm, nothing, no people. Huge madressas, beautful mosques, really old alleyways etc that were host to thousands of people, and - noone. We spent 2 nights there - 1 too many, it was pretty admittedly, but the absolutely lack of life gives it this almost 'model town' kind of feel. Anyway, kind of just did nothing but relax and play too much Gameboy and chat - the food was lovely :) Right, head back to Urgench and get the bus to Bukhara, the holiest town in Uzbekistan. Ask how much (in Russian, I'm almost fluent now, having loads of really broken conversations :P) and the reply 'tree-teesht' - 3 thousand sum (2 and a half dollars) - awesome price. Board the bus and turns out he said 13 thousand, so end up a massive argument, and i tell the guy to just let me off - in the middle of the desert. It was about 55 degrees and basically it was absolute mentalness - but he said ok ok ok, and we haggled like mad, finally 9 thousand. Fair enough.
Bukhara is lovely city, very ancient, very beautiful, great atmosphere really huge and beautiful minarets and madressas (though not really up to Samarkands absolutely insane stuff they have here) - great place.
Now very nice in Samarkand, moving on soon, but first relaxing with some really nice motorbikers, cyclists etc that are travelling around the world on their bikes, some awesome other major long term travellers and some other cool people. Basically, having fun. Tashkent tomorrow.
31st Jul, 2007 @ 19:04
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| » Tashkent, Uzbekistan |
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CHANGES again.
Fucking Afghanistan, stop it, after deciding to head over their and chill out with your bearded goodness, you decide to start actively targeting foreigners. OK, admittedly it's mainly Germans, but still, it's damn annoying since one of you bastards might mistake me for a German (which is worse than death anyway). Actually, fair dues, the Germans are at fault now for actively *paying out for any kidnapped citizens* - which gives the incentive. Sigh.
Bah.
Anyway, enough. Strange times here, now I've been here now nearly 2 weeks (should get my final visa tomorrow so can finally move on on tuesday), it's been pretty awesome. I'm living in the circus district - which according to Lonely Planet is a pretty dodgy area, but I'm loving it. My mate Leon (another British traveller has turned up, and having a torrid time over visa's as well - (Turkmenistan came out last week and just told all 30 foreigners in the queue they're not issuing anything to *ANY* of them - haha) so we're chilling, and we've met ton's of people. They're so utterly laid back and cool it's a real shock to actually enjoy staying in the same place for ages (admittedly i'm quite looking forward to actually being on the road though), - I'll miss them :P
Ola the owner of the restaurant, the guy that makes the kebabs that keeps calling me Hindu (since I wear a Hindu red-string-thing-round-the-wrist), - the daughter Nelly that has a crush on me (though basically what would you do if a good-looking-foreigner that always smiles turns up and spends a fortune (by local standards - 4 dollars a day? 8 beers), Smiley - the woman from the other local bar that always smiles at me - she's super cute - and of course, the Kenyan's from the circus - oddly we just kind of hang out chatting since it's weird to see some black dudes here - and we were talking with them and loads of their mates - made a change from constantly speaking bloody Russian all the time - and then when we stormed into the circus yesterday, everyone we know actually worked in it - looked cool, the first time I've actively harboured a desire to work in the circus :P
So basically, it's been awesome, and I would hugely recommend Tashkent as a city to visit for anyone that just wants to go to a relaxed place. It has the mixed Russian/Uzbek feel that everyone just likes getting along with everyone else, so you don't have the pure-russian cultures that you get in European CIS states.
Hmm, so tomorrow morning head off to start the process for my Kyrgyz double entry visa, and in the evening pick up the Tajik one, and then head for Samarkand, and actually travel for the final week or 2 in the country :P
Hurrah.
22nd Jul, 2007 @ 17:15
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| » Tashkent, Uzbekistan |
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Happy 1 year since I left the UK :) whilst it's been the most interesting, and most insane year of my life - and i know it's getting crazier from here, I'm kind of missing stuff, talking to people, actually having conversations with the same person for more than one day at a time, having a girlfriend, blah blah etc :) that sort of thing!
Anyway, enough of the misery, lets talk about what's actually happening in life - I'm kind of in a weird buffer zone now. Normally when I'm travelling in visa territory (especially like here where every country surround me is again visa requiring) I'm quite stressed - since if the embassies fuck me about then I'm stuck in that country. However, I had a lovely conversation with by the far the most friendly embassy in the world today, and for a tiny 45 dollars US, they gave me a month visa - yes, I'm talking about the lovely Afghan embassy - turns out the friendship bridge is open for all traffic, not just aid workers and journalists - that was my main worry, and they told me, chill out, come in the back room and - umm, smoke some Afghani Hashish. Fair enough, can't resist (what has happened to me lately, I'm smoking like crazy) - so, me and the Afghan embassy are just chilling, they wonder off with my passport and my 50 dollar note, and the cute Afghan girl wonders back in 20 minutes (after I go out and chat with the embassy guards and get some photos) and - I've got an Afghani visa - hurrah! Well, means that now I *HAVE* to sort out my Tajik visa before I make it to Afghanistan since my route is kind of fucked up, I'm no entering Mazar I Sharif, the northern most city (famous for having loads of wars in the past) as opposed to Herat (famous for being the cool artistic centre of Afghanistan). However, the most interesting route for me is the Herat - Minaret of Jam - Kabul road - 2 weeks solidly driving over insane mountain passes in insane conditions. And it's 3 days from Mazar I Sharif to Herat (again, insane conditions) - basically, no fucking idea what's happening. We'll take it as it comes, as the Afghans say 'Shanti Shanti' (slowly slowly).
Anyway, still in Tashkent, and still liking it, but really could do with someone coming out here to visit me, hint hint...
13th Jul, 2007 @ 22:44
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| » Tashkent, Uzbekistan |
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Changes sang David Bowie, and with good reason, since my plan's are changing everyday. After the awesome plan of Turkmenistan Afghanistan and into Tajikistan, unfortunately I've just spent the last 4 hours pissing around with the embassies, and now the Turkmen border with Afghanistan is closed - and ummm, they won't issue me a visa - shame as the Afghans were great, no problem whatsoever - which means now i'm screwed over my tajik visa, since they're being a bit cuntish too. sigh, come on you queers!!!
Anyway, other than that, yes, food here is great and beer is dirt cheap, really loving it so far :)
12th Jul, 2007 @ 18:54
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| » Tashkent, Uzbekistan |
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Fuck you Dan, I've just been on the Tashkent metro, which means I'm winning on the old metro challenge, that's got to be 200 extra points for me.
Anyway, Uzbekistan, after an initial unfavourable entrance into the country - it was a really nice bus journey and I chatted with the driver all the way - cool dude - and finally dropped me off after 2 hours sleep (I was a bit of a drunken mess - not like me) - met a guy that wanted me to pay for the lift to the border, and then - christ - got to the border, absolute pandemonium - during which the exchange guy gives me half the amount of money I should have been given (more on the money later) - and about 3000 Uzbeks go crazy at the border trying to power their way though - and with varying amounts of success. The thing is that everyone had so so so much luggage and shit with them, that you're constantly being pushed out the way by a short massive-breasted woman with dyed red hair and gold teeth (what is it with the central asians and gold teeth?) with about 12 foot high stack of broken televisions and cheap chinese clothing. God damn. Finally, after about an hour of massive piling on's, and - at one point, me squashed up against the gate with imaginations of a Hillsborough type killing. God damn, it was insane.
Finally made it though, and who do I bump into but the two Japanese girls that I'd been hanging around with in the embassy in Almaty (turns out when I went to pick my visa up yesterday the girl was fed up with me coming round every day and hassling them, so just printed my visa on the spot, lovely :P) - and we got a shared taxi to Tashkent from some sleazy bastard of a driver that wanted us to pay for the petrol in the car as well as the actual bill for driving us here - the Japanese girls were well pissed off and told him to fuck off (in not so many words), we finally arrived and I checked into the hotel and went off to find some cash.
The Japanese girls still had tons of Kazakh money, and were well up for changing it - they were kind of shocked when when they finally made it to the bank, they weren't interested. In fact, the only money you can change here is US dollars, Euros, British Quids and Jap Yen - basically, the Uzbek Som is so utterly fucked that they can't trade it with any other fucked currency, though the Kazakh Tenge is staying reasonably stable these days - especially against the UK Pound, where the Dollar is falling through the floor - and they were screwed - they had to go all the way back to the lovely hotel (god damn, fix the toilet door lock!) - 3 times some bloke walked in on me - luckily I'm not bashful :P - for me it was really annoying, I had my visa card and my maestro card - and thank you very FUCKING MUCH HSBC for changing the PIN on my card, so I can't actually use it. Not that I can use the visa either in a cash machine - went to the machine in the SAS Radisson Hotel and it was empty - ok, went to the hotel Intercontinental (remember, I've not really slept for 2 days, wearing ponging clothes and not even had the chance to shave so get sometimes get looked at suspiciously :P ) and used the cash machine - ok, ask the guy - how much is 100 dollars (50 quid - the usual amount I get) in SUM - answer - 125000 - ok, type it in, - wrong amount. Bastard - whats wrong with the machine. The guy comes back tells me the maximum I can withdraw in one transaction is 20000. 20000!! thats - 8 quid, 16 dollars - what the hell? I'm going to have to withdraw the maximum amount 6 times???? Gah - ok, put in 20000 and - umm, it doesn't have that - sigh, what the hell - ok, anyway, I go to the Amro bank and have to do a cash advance, and change the dollars to som - 50 dollars - and - I get back - umm, a *massive* pile of cash - all tied together with a rubber band. Turns out the largest note you can get here is a 1000 Som note - approximately 40p, or 80 dollar cents. Now, imagine changing a 50 dollar note (I actually wanted to change 100 dollars at first - but - thought against it) - you get a massive pile of 1000s - and at first they wanted to give me 200's - blah, thanks but no thanks :)
Anyway, so far quite enjoying it here - the heat's not as bad as everyone rambled on about, the people are quite cool, it's about 80% Muslim, though very influenced by the Russian culture, so you see less girls draped in burqa's (though the odd one) and lots walking around looking stunning and flirting shamelessly, quite fun, and the area I'm staying in 'Ganga' (literally named after the Gangee river in India - though looks nothing like it, although there is a circus there, and the whole of the Gangees was a circus :P looks quite nice, and beer is dirt cheap (500 som - 20pence UK, whoohoo - there goes my liver) though apparently it's a 'rough area' - thought the whole of this damn country was a rough area - but theres tons of bars and clubs - everything here is miles cheaper than in Kazakhstan - it's really nice not to have to constantly stress over cash for once (well, i never really *stress*, but now i'm just chilling).
Tomorrow off to the Turkmen and Afghan embassies to sort out their visas and then head down to Samarkhand and get back onto the original Silk Road proper.
11th Jul, 2007 @ 17:31
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