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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| » Almaty, Kazakhstan |
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Come on bloody Uzbeks!!!
There's really something odd going on now, the Uzbeks are entering the realms of extreme piss taking - turned up yesterday, and the woman was going on about 'invitations' - letters from Tashkent, and even more manners of weirdness. What is annoying, is she won't say a confirmed date, or even just a Yes or No you'll get it - all we know is to keep popping in every day on the off chance. Rather spooky, whilst waiting yesterday a guy called Ben or Louis or something that I'd met in Kaskgar, China turned up - he's a bit of a drinker, and a fun chap - so spent most of the day hanging out with him. The Italian dude got his visa no problem and shot off. Fucking lucky fuck.
Back meanwhile in the depressing zone, I was chatting to poor Les, the Irish guy (77 years old remember, and frail as hell) and his luck's going from bad to absolutely atrocious. Saturday night I'm sitting in the cafe drinking a Karagandeskoe beer and Les comes ambling along, after the third pizza from the Mc Burger fast food place in consecutive days, and we have a chat - I'm kind of his unofficial son at the moment - looking after him (or at least - trying to not get him killed) - and we're talking about central europe, and he has an great photo from Prague of something - he toddles off to the bedroom to get his camera to show me, scoots back 10 minutes later, super glum. 'What's up Les?' - 'My camera has been taken, I've lost all my pictures'. - well, I've had my camera nicked before (the russians are absolute crooks!) and yes, the problem is that - it's not so much the actual camera - more the pictures on it that you lose. One of the reasons every month at least I at least put everything new onto a CD - especially me, I'm useless (I actually left my camera on the counter of a beer seller here - but luckily she was one of the honest ones :P) - so spent all morning (incredibly tired and hungover) with this chap finding him a new camera. Poor guy.
Anyway, the night before me and the Italian went out for beers. Not just a beer, but many - god damn he drinks beer fast. I mean absolutely downs the first pint in one then moves on to the next, then stops for 2 hours. Fair enough, whilst I plod along getting plastered (it's the British way :P) and we end up sitting in the main pedestrian centre, seeing locals fighting, and ended up meeting this very nice girl, that oddly fell in love with bloody Fabrittzio, and to keep me entertained, phoned her Indian mate to come down and talk to me. Thanks! When he realised he wasn't going to make much cash, he just went back to bed. Lazy git. However, the girls here are by far the most stunning I've ever seen, makes russian and ukrainians look almost polish in comparison :)
Rather oddly, I just hovered over an icon in the bottom right of this screen - and it's called 'The Translator of Programs'. Marvellous :)
Off to the uzbek embassy again now, sigh.
10th Jul, 2007 @ 12:01
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| » Almaty, Kazakhstan |
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Well, I've met a 77 year old Irish chap who's also staying in the same hotel and also waiting for a visa (Russia) - and the poor chap ended up being absolutely robbed blind by all the travel agencies - up to 500 dollars in one case, Russian's can be absolute bastards.
Anyway, I went to the Uzbek Embassy yesterday - application form and passport in hand (turns out I didn't need the passport after all since they just copy it and hand it back whilst they process it - I could have just gone with a copy - and have it by now - boo) - and I ask and they ask me for my invitation! What? Invitation - what's that all about - I came here 2 days ago and you told me that we don't *neeeed* an invitation. Commence much chit chat between the women in the back office and they come back and say, hmmm - ok, we'll take the form. So? Is that good or bad? I've not quite worked out whether or not I'm getting the visa. 'So, is everything good?' - 'Just come back on tuesday or wednesday' - BOLLOCKS, if I go back on tuesday and I've not got a visa I'm going to have a heart attack, or at least my bank manager will, it's so damn expensive. And I lost (or it was nicked) my worlds most ancient and broken down mobile phone (though the clock and the calculator still worked, bah). Though, not sure what's happening, quite a lot of drinking and flirting with the girls in the hotel, always good :P
Come on damn Uzbeks, give me this visa!!!
6th Jul, 2007 @ 19:12
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| » Almaty, Kazakhstan |
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WHAT THE UTTER FUCK HAS HAPPENED HERE??
Last time I was here 3 years ago it was a lovely place, little pricey, but a cool place to hang out for a month. Had my nice little hotel, 4 dollars a night, the irish pub was awesome, a quid for a pint, basically, fun times.
Fast forward to now, and the price of everything has gone insane - I'm feeling really guilty for the way I went on at the hostel in Urumqi over their mad $5 dollar a day - I went to a hotel, according to lonely planet it's $10 a night (everyone uses dollars here incidently) and the price has risen to a - umm, quite pricey $120 - touch out of my price range!
Anyway, finally after 3 hours searching, found a place for 12 a night, which is the most I've paid for a hotel in the last year - and it's the hostel in Almaty 2 train station - according to LP it was 2$ - insane.
Anyway, the price of everything has hit rediculous levels - the pub is now 2 quid 50 ($5) a pint - UK prices - whoa!
Well, it's all good - anyway, I've just been to the Uzbek embassy - apparently there was some shit with the British Embassy in Tashkent not issuing visa's to the Uzbeks so they reponded with us needing invitations. Arse - anyway, after going to the OVIR office for my registration (2 hours of soviet madness), I headed across to the Uzbek embassy to ask - and apparently they've no idea we need invitation, and told me to just pop back tomorrow when I got my passport back and it's no problem to get a visa - that's great - and i also found out the Tajik's dont care about invitations anymore and - even better can issue permits for Gorno Badakhshan - so I can enter via Afghistan and not have to keep backtracking all other the place, though it does mean I have to visit Afghanistan - won't that be fun - I have to go since I want to visit Turkmenistan and the only visa I can get is a damn transit visa (well, i can get a tourist visa but then I'm subject to the insane 60 quid a day minimum fee.
Anyway, China was fun, the beer was cool and insanely cheap (1 quid for 5 pints :P) and I found an insane nightclub that just never stopped being awesome. Was a fun little diversion for a couple of weeks. Anyway, now - back into serious travelling - so will keep you all updated, should be heading to Shimkent as soon as I get my passport back from the Uzbeks.
Interesting times.
4th Jul, 2007 @ 15:50
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| » Urumqi, China |
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Bored out my head, really bored out my head - drinking like crazy which is good, but other
than the beer and the strange clubs theres fuck all here - and the food is absolutely
diabolical. How can a nation just eat noodles and pigeon every day?
Got my Kazakh visa and arrive 1st July, fucking looking forward to it
Anyway, story time.
Thanks to SA
26th Jun, 2007 @ 12:01
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| » Kashgar, China |
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Please note - The miserable Chinese cunts have banned LiveJournal so whilst I'm here I can't update it, though I'm still taking photos.
I'll be back soon, I still love you all, and any comments you leave will still get to me.
China is awesome (though compared to Pakistan it's dull as hell) but - when I arrive in Kyrgyz Republic, I'll update this)
Keep checking ok :)
12th Jun, 2007 @ 19:30
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| » Karimabad, Pakistan |
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What has been going on in the last week?
Well, quite a lot - after heading from Chitral town up to Mastuj - which was where we has planned to organise the trek over the Shandur pass at 11000 feet (3800 metres ish) - the original plan was to buy a donkey and head over the pass, but we noticed there was another pass (Chamundar pass or something like that) - 14000 feet - but it's a little early in the season to go mad and do such massive treks (or not :P ) - anyway, Mastuj was nice, but kind of degenerated into a massive joint smoking venue - the guy who owned the Foreign Tourist Garden had a dedicated smoking room for the Charas (Hashish) - absolute mental evening - finally retiring back to the hotel around 9pm too wrecked to do anything except eat.
OK the plan the next day - get to Sol Laspur which was the last village before we hit the pass - the place we'd get the donkey - the guy who owned the Tourist Village in Mastuj gave us a letter to give to his mate there which asked for his assistance in helping us buy such a beast - the town was gorgeous though so the very French Mikael and I went exploring and was guided around the village by a couple of the locals - unfortunately the previous night in the Tourist Village I showed all my previous photos (especially the ones from the gun village :) to the owner of the hotel - and I ran out of battery power - shit. But the guys told us that the maximum we should pay is Rs 2000 - any more than that and we're being taken for a ride. Good advice!!! We got to get back and tell Stefan and Alen. We race back to the guest house (which was actually guy-who-was-helping-us-with-the-donkey's house) and Stefan's jumping up and down in excitement - he's bought the donkey already - a super strong beast for Rs 4700. At this point things started to fall apart - me and the French guy were kind of getting pissed off as the whole thing was getting kind of expensive and silly - the other two had no idea about how to look after a donkey, and - after the walk from Mastuj to Laspur (20 miles) - I was really pissed off with how slow they walked - well, not so much how slow they were - but just how many stops. However, when we saw the donkey we saw that it kind of fitted in with their style - was a bit shaggy and falling apart, but kind of loveable in that way I am :P
So in the morning the donkey was saddled up with 4 backpacks - first by Stefan, and when one of the locals came along and told us to redo it as it would injure the animal, he kind of got a bit animated and told him that he didn't need any help since it was quite obvious - at which point the donkey wondered off and started eating all the grass in the lawn of the guys house. This and Stefan's reaction pissed him right off, and we all got chucked out the house. Though Mikael and myself went back and apologised, he said he was just pissed off that the locals who had been doing this for years shouldn't be treated so shabbily.
We finally started up to the pass - the walk took about 7 hours, and during that time there was 5 cigarette stops, 2 spliff stops and twice the donkey collapsed under the weight (and the steep route) - an old mountain woman came and made her son repack the bags and take the animal up - the humiliation :) The pass itself was lovely - home to the highest polo pitch in the world, there was lakes and really nice mountain scenery. But - a passing car came along and agreed to take us to the next major city (Gilgit) - so we took it, and split up at that point - I guess we'll be meeting Stefan again in a day or two :)
I'm off to China now.
QUESTION to any of my readers - do you think it's better to go to Central Asia (Kyrgzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan) - I'll be right next to them as I arrive in China - or zoom across China to do the SE Asia trail which everyone does (ie, Thailand/Burma/Laos/Vietnam/Cambodia/Malasia etc)
Just wanting to know which you guys find more interesting.
5th Jun, 2007 @ 12:11
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| » Chitral, NWFP, Pakistan |
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Happy birthday to me.
Yes, normally I'd be quite drunk by now planning to head to a nightclub to chase girls - but now I'm back in Muslim Pakistan, all I've got is a half a litre of red wine - homemade by the Kalash tribal people - and a load of potatoes. The plan is I make MASHED POTATOES with loads of milk (no butter sadly, because you just *can't buy it here*.)
Anyway, the last week I've been in Bumboret and Birir valleys - home to the Kalash tribe of people. Strangely in the middle of a massive muslim population that stretches from Istanbul to Kashmir, in the middle - right by the Afghan border (only 10km away) is these little valleys is 4000 of them - and they're so different from the Muslims it's unbelievable. The men are roughly similar, although very open and friendly - they consume a remarkable amount of alcohol, they make their own wine and schnapps - vicious vile stuff that gets you pissed ultra quick. The women are dressed in long black dresses coloured with lurid neon pictures of nature scenes at the bottom with dozens of bracelets all in many colours. They're very close to nature, all vegetarian (great!) and love being photographed - god damn different from the muslims.
Anyway, the valleys are beautiful, and so relaxing the days consisted of eating chatting, drinking and smoking far too much charas with Stefan and our new travelling partners Spanish Alen and French Micheal - and we even went trekking over the 3000 metre pass to the next valley - which nearly killed me - we were walking up the ice flow and it broke underneath me at one point and I managed to hang on with half my body to the remaining ice whilst the other half dangled over a freezing cold mountain spring. Scary times.
But back now - got tons of photos to upload - we made it to the last day of the Kalash spring festival 'Joshi' - and it was insanely colourful - and just insane.
But now, I just want to be somewhere slightly more easier - so i can at least dance :)
Tomorrow - we're heading to Mastuj - the last town before the Shandur pass - which leads back to the Karakoram highway - and we're going to buy a donkey, and do a 6 day trek over the pass. The donkey we've already named "Roxanne" - after the Police track 'ROOOOOXXXXAAANNNNNNNEEEEEE" - you get the gist. :)
29th May, 2007 @ 14:13
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| » Chitral Town, North West Frontier Province, Pakistan |
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Well, after a surreal 4 days in Peshawar - where the bomb blew up 20 odd Afghans a few days back - it was a nice enough city - there is a slight air of danger there - no idea where it comes from since all the people there are very cordial and friendly, but sure enough there's that slight feeling.
You've got to remember I'm only 25km (40 by road) from the Khyber Pass - the border with Afghanistan where tens of thousands of people in the past (last time the Brits that started a war with Afghanistan) have been slaughtered in various wars.
Anyway, the food was pretty dire for me - this close to the Afghan border the diet pretty much consists of beef and mutton kebabs, and with poor me being a vegetarian I couldn't eat anything :( So spent 2 days cooking mash potatoes the way *I* love them (kind of a bit like how the Russian's make Puree).
2 days ago (yesterday was the journey here - fucking killer - 16 hours on the bus - and Stefan my Swiss constantly stoned mate that I'm travelling with is now addicted to my Advance Wars Gameboy game so the journey consisted mainly of us blowing each other up :) we went to a little village of around 400 people about 30km south of Peshawar called 'Bara Adam Khel' - famous for the fact that every single person in the village is manufacturing guns - absoutely everyone - every shop is awash with guns, shotguns, pistols, rifles, Kalishnakov's - constantly there was gun shots in the air which the police escort we 'bribed' found normal and shit us up constantly, it's not natural to see guys walking down the street with rifles then suddenly blast away at a flock of ducks.
Chitral - where we are now, a gorgeous little isolated valley community with a minority Christian population - only 10km (as the crow flies) from Afghanistan border, but the crow would have to fly damn high since the Hindu Kush is in the way, and the police we met here are lovely and invited us to a Polo game tonight - that's nice of them :) The food here's not bad - and the weather is not to hot - which makes a change from the 46 degrees it is now in Lahore. will spend the next week in the valleys drinking local white wine so will be quiet :)
22nd May, 2007 @ 10:46
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| » Lahore, Pakistan |
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Worrying times here - in the hostel in Lahore (the excellent Regale Internet Inn) all the foreigners, for theres about 6 of us here are a bit worried about what is going on outside.
What is going on you ask? Well, the Chief Minister, Musharraf, who has pretty much had a free reign on Pakistan for the past 20 odd years was finally sacked recently, which in any other country would be pretty normal shit, but here he's got a huge following and hartals (strikes) and bombings are becoming a pretty common occurrance.
In Karachi in the south, over 40 people killed, and one of the Germans staying here just came from there because there was no work to do (he was an English teacher :P ) and the salaries hadn't been paid in over 2 weeks. He was commenting that it was becoming 'a bit tense'.
Anyway, I'm staying in the Regale Internet Inn - which is *the* place for travellers to stay in Lahore (and in fact, the whole of Pakistan) - and theres about 5 westerners here, and about 4 Japanese - the fact is everyone had plans of where to explore and where to see in this country, and the last plan for us was Peshawar near the Afghan border, entrance to the Chitral valley.
The problem is that just when we're arranging it, BOMBS BOMBS BOMBS go off, so the group of us are sitting around the television watching BBC News (except the first german (not the one from Karachi) that likes CNN :) and all of us are just wanting to know whats going on - over 20 killed in the town we're heading for because they blew up a hotel popular with foreigners (in this case Afghan's) is still worrying, what happens if you head to a mosque, or a bazar, or anywhere where people gather - you're a target.
Gah.
Anyway, after the strikes yesterday when absolutely *NOTHING* was open, except the ice cream place round the corner (since Pakistan is a dry country, instead of bars, all the men go to the ice cream and milkshake bars - it's completely bizarre tons of men all telling lurid jokes with giant red mugs in front of them - we went with Liz the American girl who's here on her own, and she wasn't allowed in, haha) - even the western supermarket that sells Heinz beans (for 50 rs) was closed - anything to do with the west has shut down, and the locals told us the best thing we should do is fuck off back to India where it's much safer.
Ah, but that's no fun.
Anyway, Pakistan is a super friendly place, we go out and meet the locals and have a laugh with them, they see so few foreigners that it's really surreal for them meeting us, and we even met some Pakistani that is residing in Manchester that didn't believe that I was English - most odd.
The main mosque here is HUGE - it can fit around 150,000 people - very beautiful, with so nice people - one chap was learning Russian and wanted me to spend an hour with him teaching him basic Russian pronouciation. Was surreal, but my Russian isn't so bad ;) Me, Stephan the Swiss guy who *was* my travel partner for exactly 0 days before abandoning me to look after Liz (though I'll admit I'd do the same thing, since it's pretty dangerous for a girl to be here alone now) and Peter the cycling Brit (was cycling from south India to London, through a couple of warzones and 5,000 metre passes) went exploring the mosques and the markets - where we could pick up our Salwar Qameez's.
These are the Pakistani outfits that *everyone* wears, the white/light baggy outfit that looks suspiciously like bed clothes, and in fact feels like that, and really if you're trying to avoid looking like a super foreigner which will almost definitely get you shot is a great little investment - only 100RS (85p) for an outfit - though not sure if I'd wear it back home though :P
So with a hartal on, not much to do, so we went to the final of the Junior National Squash Championships - was stupid, but fun - I'm not hugely into Squash, but watching these 11 year olds racing around a squash court with the audience going mental was fun. Oh, and we found the off licence that sells beer to foreigners. It wasn't great beer, but very drinkable.
So, currently, theres a group of us just watching tv, talking, smoking the Chillum and relaxing in the bonkers 45 degrees heat - it's really horrible the heat, but the atmosphere is surreally fun - trapped in a very aggressive country so sticking to ourselves. We could definitely do with some girls though, since having been surrounded by thousands of men for the last 6 months, just sitting watching US tv is having a very odd effect on us, I can see why all the locals think western women are complete nymphomanics, since I'm feeling that way now! Really need to have a girlfriend or something.
Rather oddly, what we do have, is an addiction to Star Gold - the Indian tv channel that specialises in foreign stuff - so we all sit round watching The Simpsons every night (7pm Monday to Friday PAK time and 9pm Sundays) and the obligatory Arnie movie each night - 'Raw Deal' and 'Twins' so far.
So, what can I say about here - utterly bizarre place - not really hiding, and not really getting involved in the best way to describe it - hope it calms down over the next week but the general concensus is it's getting more and more mental every day.
Shit.
15th May, 2007 @ 16:20
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| » Lahore, Pakistan |
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Goodbye India - after an interesting day in Amritsar I met a Swiss guy in my hotel who was a nice chap - doing a lot of the 'smoking of the charas' - so we chatted - him and a German and a French - and discovered that he's coming to PK the next day! Holy shit. OK, we'll meet up and start doing some travelling together.
Amritsar was a traditional Indian city, hot as hell, dusty as hell, but - the Sikh's number 1 temple, the Golden Temple was gorrrrgeous - so friendly people, free accommodation - free food for everyone (and about 30,000 people showed up!) - madness - chatted to a group of sikhs for ages, and had a nice (if expensive as hell - 50rupees for a gravy and 3 chapattis!) meal.
Woke at 3 in the morning and discovered a cockroach nibbling on my balls! HOLY FUCK, slap myself in the nads, the cockroach runs off and I get my sleeping bag and fall asleep again.
Woke at 9, the Swiss Cheese fucked off to Pakistan, so I went to post my books that I didnt need anymore (ie, India LP and some other crap) to Ula - which turned out to be madness - I collected my spare bank card!! yay! Cash! Spent about 2 hours trying to find somewhere to make a CD of my pictures - but it was expensive and nigh on impossible, I nearly went mental and killed everyone :) Finally, to post them - went to the post office, after 10 minutes told me to go to the turban shop opposite to wrap them, after 20 minutes, they told me to go to the Singh Brothers round the corner - after another 20 minutes they told me to go back to another turban shop - and they made me wait 30 minutes as they dealt with another customer, finally wrapped me up, charged me 400, great - 2pm, I can get the fuck out of here!!!
The journey to the border was interesting, but nothing sensational, the crossing was standard, didn't have to pay any baksheesh! And then the border ceremony - what the fuck - it was mental. Absolutely mental.
Will talk more when I've more time. :)
13th May, 2007 @ 16:10
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