Kyrgyz Memories

It has been almost 6 months since I left Central Asia, so I've had a lot of time to process my thoughts and put on some rose-coloured glasses. If being nostalgic was a resume-worthy skill, I would have employers tripping over each other to hire me, but unfortunately it's not. Life in Central Asia was not always easy and at the end of May I was ready to get the heck out of there, but I had some amazing experiences too.

Things I miss:

Frequent weekend trips away to small villages with beautiful scenery and traditional ways of life
Lagman and plov, staple foods of Central Asia, when done well (the greasy/fatty/bony versions don't make this list)
Old men in hats, be it a kalpak or an Uzbek skull cap
The gritty sound of Kyrgyz coming from round babushkas with a full set of gold teeth
Being able to cheaply buy everything under the sun at Osh Bazar
Having students with conversational English to chat with
The starry night sky over Lake Issyk-Kul
Soviet cars
Eating on a tapchan
Yurts
Buying tea by the pot for less than a dollar
Flat-rate taxis
Speaking Russian
Being connected to local culture
4-day work weeks and 14:30 starts
A 30-second commute to work
Soviet blocks
Outdoor activities/festivals like Ulak-tartysh (dead sheep/goat polo) and eagle hunting
Crisp fall weather with the smell of wood/charcoal stove smoke in the air
Donkeys, donkeys, and more donkeys
Knowing that everything I saw, did, or ate was interesting and exotic to people back home who had no knowledge Kyrgyzstan


Now, this doesn't mean I'm going to pack up and head back to Bishkek on the next plane, but I have been able to look beyond the negative memories that stuck firmly in my mind last spring as reasons for wanting to leave. I think I can finally keep the good times close to my heart without forgetting the bad memories and creating a perfect nostalgic Kyrgyzstan. I hope to return to Central Asia one day, but I'll make sure it's not to Bishkek in winter.

Football Madness

Mike and I went to another Besiktas football (soccer) game over the weekend. They played one of their major rivals Fenerbahce, another Istanbul team who are currently ranked at the top of the league.

It was even more exciting than the Besiktas-Manchester United game a few months ago. Besiktas won 3-0 which was unexpected and wonderful. Check out these videos to see how pleased the fans were by the result of the game. Apparently, some fans were so high on the win that they beat a local street dog to death. You live in a city of 15+ million and you can't find a better way to let out your joy??


Here are some videos showing the world's loudest fans. The first video is the kick-off and the cheering build-up, and the other videos are the fans celebrating after the first and second goals were scored.

Olives, Nothing But Olives, Mountains of Olives...

This post title is from the song "Jerusalem" by Dan Bern. It's a very catchy song with silly lyrics, but these lyrics specifically sum up a weekend that Mike and I had a few weeks ago with our Turkish friends.

We went to Bursa, a city of 2 million on the coast of the Marmara Sea, 4 hours south of Istanbul. Our friends Baris and Baki, both originally from Bursa, recently bought a few pieces of land together around Bursa, and invited us along to check out their purchases.

We left Friday night with Baki, Baris, his wife Pinar, his 1-year-old son Bora, their friend Cayan, and Pinar's parents. We stayed with Baris's parents in a picturesque village inland from Bursa. They live in a big, beautiful house with a great garden. They grow a little bit of everything- they have apples, oranges, olives, grapes, figs, peaches, plums tomatoes, onions, peppers, carrots, and so on. Baris's mother is an amazing woman: she speaks Bulgarian, Russian, Turkish, and German, and almost all the food in her house is homemade, from her own fruits and vegetables. Speaking languages and being a good jar-er apparently rank highly on my list of what makes someone amazing. She made us Turkish breakfasts to die for and amazing home-cooked dinners. A few weeks in her house would lead to a gastric bypass surgery being necessary (but well-worth it!)

Mid-October is olive season, and Baris and Baki recently bought some land in an olive grove. Bursa province is known for its olives and its olive oil, and both are sold all over Turkey and exported around the world. We went to their land to "pick" olives, although we actually were just picking up fallen olives off the ground. The weather was hot and manual labor is not something that I do well, so a lot of the day was spent trying to look busy, while actually doing as little as possible. Cayan rescued us from picking more and took us down to the waterfront in the town of Zeytinbağı, where we drank tea and walked along the waterfront.

We then went to check out another piece of land Baris and Baki bought together, this time coastal property where they plan on building retirement homes. We got there just in time to see the sun set over the Marmara Sea. It's an amazing place for a retirement home- peaceful, beautiful, and green.

We visited a friend of Baris's, who has a huge apartment on the outskirts of Bursa. Since Mike and I live frugally, it's exciting and mind-blowing for us to be around with people with money. This family had everything and more- a big box of Cuban cigars, a $25,000 sound system, a 5-star-hotel-style bathroom, and their 8-year-old son had his own TV, video games, and complete music-making system. Mike and I took pictures of the Cuban cigars like teenage girls meeting the Jonas Brothers, and the friend offered Mike a cigar to take home, as if it were no big deal. Maybe someday we'll have millions of dollars too.

On Sunday, we drove to the top of Bursa's mountain to buy chestnuts. Baris said that the chestnuts that grow in the forest on that mountain are the best chestnuts in all of Turkey, so he had to buy some. We also stopped at a cafe situated under a 600-year-old giant tree, which is a great location for a tea house. The branches spread out so far from the tree that they had to be supported by metal poles.

We drove back to Istanbul Sunday night, after a relaxing and filling weekend. It was my first time to another place in Turkey, so it was great to see more of the country and also get out of the big city. I hope we get invited back!

Turkish Wedding

A few weekends ago, Mike and I went to our landlord's wedding. We skipped the civil ceremony because it would have been 15 minutes of legal Turkish and therefore not very interesting for us. We chose instead to just attend the wedding party, which took place at an upscale hotel in Sultanahmet, the historic and touristy part of Istanbul.

We had no idea what to buy as a gift, and didn't get much help from asking Turkish people. We were told money, gold, and glasswear from a famous Turkish glass company are all popular gift ideas. We went with the cheapest option and bought Taylan and his wife Eda a vase with an evil eye in it. Who knows if they like vases, but they can always re-gift it!

The wedding was catered with amazing buffet dinner- mashed potatoes, beans, kebab meat, meatballs, rice pilav, beef, stuffed grape leaves, lots of salads, grapes, plums, carrot and celery sticks, and an open bar with beer and raki.

There were hundreds of people there, and we only knew the bride and groom and 3 other people- our friends Baris, Pinar, and Baki. We luckily found them right away (Baris has a shaved head and that always stands out in a crowd) and spent the night with them.

There was a gypsy band for less than an hour and everyone danced like crazy, Turkish-style. That means arms out straight, parallel to the floor, and lots of clapping and finger-snapping. I'm definitely not very good at it.

Taylan and Eda arrived, walked all around the reception hall greeting everyone and having pictures and video taken, and then spent the rest of the night dancing. Music was interrupted for less than 3 minutes when a cake was wheeled in, cut by the wedding couple at the speed of light, and then whisked away. Cake was served to the guests, but it wasn't the same cake they'd cut. Then the music was back on and dancing resumed. If I'd blinked, I'd have missed the entire cake-cutting.

The hotel had a roof terrace, and we went up with Baris and Pinar to check out beautiful views of the Blue Mosque and Aya Sofya. Unfortunately it was raining, but I still managed to get a few nice pictures of the mosques lit up at night.

Our friends all left before midnight, and Mike and I left soon after. Like most weddings I've been to, it wasn't a "social event" really. You talked to the people you knew and no one else. We were glad that we knew other people there, otherwise we'd have been all alone in a corner somewhere.

The morning after the wedding Taylan and Eda left for 9 days in Bali and Singapore- what a good honeymoon trip!

All in all, there wasn't much Turkish culture to be seen in the wedding. Most of the traditions seemed to be the same as at American weddings. Now I need to find a village wedding to attend- that will have a lot of local, non-Western flavor I'm sure. It was definitely fun to be at Taylan's wedding, but I think Andy and Aigul's wedding in Kyrgyzstan will stick in my mind more as a "local" wedding- horse meat, non-alcoholic beer drinking contests, and bad karaoke!

School Days, School Days...

I have started "hanging out" with my students during the 10-minute break between classes. I sit outside and students come up to me to "talk." Since their English is still very basic, we have a lot of conversations like this:

"Hello teacher! Hello!"
"Hello!"
"What is your name?"
"My name is Anna."
"Teacher what is your name?"
"Anna..."
"What is your name?"

and so on. It beats sitting in the teachers' room by myself, bored out of my mind. Last week I had a quite useful conversation with students. A few girls sat next to me and on my lap and started touching my hair and my earrings and putting pine needles in my hand and tic tacs in my mouth. They pointed at random things and said the Turkish word, then asked "My name is...?" meaning, "what is this in English?" I learned a few Turkish words from them. Then they were able to ask me how old I was (and understood the numbers in English!)

Then, one girl hugged me really tight and said, "Mommy, yes" and smiled. Then she hugged me again and said, "Father, no" and made a really sad face. So even as 7-year-olds, they already realize that their dads never hug them and are unhappy about it.

Come on Turkish dads, hug your children! Learn something from the Teletubbies... BIIIIIG HUG!

Maps

I think my personal google maps is visible to everyone, so check out the link if you're interested and you can see my house and my two schools to get an idea of where I spend my time.

Back to School!

If there were no schools to take the children away from home part of the time, the insane asylums would be filled with mothers. ~Edgar W. Howe

(Note: if you have no interest in teaching, this is likely to be dry and boring. Sorry)

I started teaching again at the end of September. I arrived in Istanbul without a job already lined up because I'd heard that it was "a piece of piss" to get an English teaching job here. However, it took me more than 2 months to find a job that I actually wanted. I applied to dozens and dozens, didn't hear back from most, and the ones I heard back from were unappealing- 6 day work weeks, no weekends off, split shifts, classes until 22:00, etc. The job I finally accepted is split- 2 days a week at a pre-school, 3 days a week at a 1st grade, as I mentioned in my last post. In both cases, there is a Turkish-speaking English teacher for 4 lessons per week, and I am the "speaking" teacher for 2 lessons per class per week.

Both schools are private and expensive, so my students all come from rich families. There seem to be two types of rich people- the ones who are very Western and European, and the ones who are more Muslim and traditional. The families that send their kids to my school seem to be the more traditional ones- a vast majority of my co-workers and the mothers wear headscarves and dress traditionally- I bought long skirts but still feel like I stand out! At a parents' open house on Saturday, out of about 80 mothers, only 11 had their hair on view. It's so interesting to work in such a different atmosphere than my home life because I meet and interact with a group that I otherwise wouldn't. Central European-side Istanbul is very Western, so in my daily life in my neighborhood and in the center seeing hair is still the norm. However, once you get outside the center, many neighborhoods are traditional and headscarves are worn by most women. Atatürk decreed that headscarves are banned in all educational settings, so no teachers or students are allowed to wear headscarves. My co-workers take them off when they arrive at work, and put them on again before they leave. Some wear wigs during the day so that their hair still isn't seen, and Mike said that some of his students wear hats all the time. I wonder if the teachers are uncomfortable interacting with male teachers since it's probably the only time ever that men other than family see their hair. I'd like to have long discussions with Muslim women about the personal significance of the headscarf because it's so interesting to me.

At the pre-school, I teach 3 classes of 5-year-olds and 3 classes of 6-year-olds. The classes have 11 students, and the classrooms are all equipped in a Montessori way- colors, blocks, art supplies, pillows, fake kitchen, plastic toys, abacuses (abaci?), etc. The students split their time between sitting around a big table and sitting on mats in a circle on the floor. For the first month, I am sharing all the lessons with my co-teacher, Vahide. She does mostly classroom management while I teach. After this month, administration hopes that the students will have enough English and will be used to me so that I can manage the classroom on my own. Vahide will then have her own lessons at different times. Most of the students are great. Since it's their first exposure to English they are shy, but they have no problem repeating and singing along. Some kids clearly have learning disabilities and/or behavioral problems, but they are just allowed to do their own thing while the lessons are going on. I'm not sure what the best way is to deal with them... Anyways. For both grades there's an English book program with posters, pupil's books, stickers, songs, a puppet, flashcards, and interactive games. The book for 5th grade is an all-around bad book, so I've been supplementing the book with lots of coloring activities and other songs. There's not a lot of planning involved because the kids are happy with whatever they're doing, and they're easy to manage for the most part. Since Vahide is always around to discipline and translate when the kids don't understand, it's a very low-stress job so far. No one else at the school speaks English, so I'm mostly in my own world except when I'm around Vahide. But everyone is friendly and smiley and people always bring me tea and simit (Turkish sesame-seed bagels). Vahide and I are doing a lot of work making sure the parents know that their children are learning English (and getting their money's worth!). We set up an "English Corner" bulletin board where we post photos of the kids having fun in English class. We send out monthly letters to parents updating them on progress, and I even write a weekly blog post for the school's parents' website about all the exciting things we did the previous week. Hopefully the parents like all the work we're putting in!

At the primary school, I teach first graders, most of whom are in school for the first time ever. There are definite discipline problems, especially for me but also for their Turkish homeroom teachers. My co-teacher, Yasemin, teaches her own lessons so I am always alone in the classroom- no Vahide-clone to help me with classroom management :( There are 20 students in each class, and all the classes have a few bad eggs. There are small groups of boys who aren't interested in school at all and just like causing trouble. For some lessons the homeroom teachers stick around to make sure the kids are behaving, but it's even hard with the two of us- boys don't want to sit down and color, they want to throw things out the window. The first days were really hard for me because I wasn't prepared for them to be so naughty, but I've gotten used to it and am getting much better at managing them. We use a great book with a puppet named Freddie the Frog, and the kids really like Freddie. They like him so much they spend every minute of the lesson when my back is turned stealing Freddie off the desk and trying to pull his tongue out. Poor frog!

The hardest part in all of this is learning all the names! In total I have about 180 names to learn (plus all the teachers!), and they are the generation of Turks that go by their first AND middle name. Some examples of student names: Ibrahim Emre, Zeynep Sude, Elif Saadet, Mehtat Can, Burak Furkan, Hasan Ahmet, Ali Nihat, to name just a handful. In most cases it is not ok to just call them by one name. Even the ones without middle names are still a mouthful to pronounce- Necmettin, Neslihan, Dilemnur. Even when I remember their names they make fun of my pronunciation. The only way I can learn their names is to take pictures of them and study them at home- 2 lessons per week aren't enough to memorize names.


Even though I come home exhausted everyday with a sore throat from yelling and sore palms from hitting the desks to get their attention, it's a really great job. It's rewarding to see the students improving their English week-by-week, and I imagine that by the end of the year it will be amazing to see what progress they've made! I am learning new Turkish words everyday since the teachers and students speak very little English. So far I've got "be quiet" "children" and "teacher" down solid, now I just have to work on "sit down, shut up, stop throwing things at your partner, don't squirt your juice box all over the floor, stop playing tug-o-war with my puppet" and a few other necessary phrases. I work just 14 hours a week and earn about $1500, and get free breakfast and lunch at school. I do have an hour commute each way so that adds to the time, but I'm home by 4:30 and have all evening to hang out and relax and do nothing before the next day rolls around. And working part time at 2 schools makes the time pass faster. The first day at 1st grade every week feels like Monday, but it's actually WEDNESDAY! The students all seem to like me and always wave and shout hello when they see me in the hallways or the lunchroom and hug me a lot. It's hard to be angry at students when they give me a big hug and say "Hello Anna-Teacher!" I'm a sucker for lovey gestures...

I got a medicinal care package from my mom to prepare for a snotty, sneezy winter surrounded by children. I got cough drops, NyQuil, VapoRub, gummy bear vitamins (my fave!), Ibuprofen, and Sudafed. Hopefully that'll get me through flu season. Now all I need are care packages full of chocolate :)

Not your usual walk home

I started work at the end of September at a private school on the Asian side of Istanbul. I work 2 days a week at a kindergarten/nursery school, and 3 days in a primary school down the road as a 1st grade English teacher. At both schools, there is a Turkish English teacher, and I am a "speaking" teacher which just means that I'm there so the parents feel like they're getting something real for the tons of money they're paying for their children to be in an expensive school. More on the school in a later blog- there's a lot to say about my new job! My daily commute from home involves a 15 minute walk, a 25 minute bus ride, and a further 5 minute walk, and then of course the same in reverse on the way home.

Tuesday was Istanbul's Independence Day, so all schoolchildren had the day off. I still had to go into work at the kindergarten, but only for a few hours and just to make some worksheets and a big colorful poster with animal photos. I left work before noon, so was glad to have all afternoon off to faff about and watch lots of CSI:Miami on surfthechannel.com.

My bus ends in Taksim Square, the heart of modern Istanbul, but on Tuesday for some reason it stopped a few minutes away and let us all off in front of the Hyatt Hotel. The Hyatt was completely surrounded by police barricades, and on every street corner on the way into Taksim Square there were hundreds of policemen in full riot gear and gas masks. I had no idea what was going on, and the only thing I could imagine was that it was some sort of parade in honor of Istanbul's Independence Day. The park near Taksim Square looked like a policemen picnic, with cops loitering around in groups. They all looked like they were waiting for something, but there was nothing out of the ordinary going on. When I got into Taksim Square, it was EMPTY. This isn't strange if you've never been there, but just imagine Times Square empty mid-afternoon. All the roads had been closed and there were no buses and taxis, and the metro entrance had no people going in or coming out. Usually I walk home down Tarlabasi Bulvari, the main transportation street in the area and the most direct way home, but I wanted to stop at a language center, and walking down Istiklal, the main pedestrian and shopping street was a faster way to the language center. It looked like Istiklal, was closed, so I walked down Tarlabasi with the intent to turn off for the center further on down. There were more policemen and barricades up at all the intersections, and there was a police tank with armed guards all around it.

I realized that Istiklal was open, so I turned off Tarlabasi and Istiklal was almost empty, which only happens on a Sunday morning. There were lots of people with professional looking cameras running down the road, so of course I kept walking to see what they were going to take pictures of. All the shops that are usually full of shoppers all had their metal shutters almost fully closed. The windows at McDonald's and the Turkish bank were smashed, and at that point I REALLY started to wonder what was going on. As I got further down the road, I saw a police tank turning down an alley, and then thought I had gone far enough because I was getting closer to the "action," whatever that was. In a parallel alley, I saw lots of people running and then some smoke bombs being thrown, and started to feel a little scared. I kept walking home down Tarlabasi, but then smoke bombs flew out from an alley and a ton of people in makeshift scarf masks came running out into the street, and all the pedestrians in the area turned and ran towards me. I followed them, because what else do you do when a crowd is running away from something? People were ducking into all the open shops, and I followed in a trio of young-looking Turks hoping they spoke enough English to explain to me what was going on. They ran into a chai restaurant, and I followed them. We got inside just before the protestors turned onto our street and policemen followed in gasmasks. We hid under the bar, and I quickly found out that none of the 3 of them spoke any English. I got that it was an IMF protest, but it wasn't until much later that I learned that they were protesting the 2009 IMF/World Bank summit meetings, which were October 6th and 7th here in Istanbul.

The Turks I was with seemed really scared and also very worried about me. They kept saying "no fear" and "no panic" but I wasn't worried at all. In fact, I found it pretty silly that we were actually hiding in the first place, it's not as though the protesters were going to come in and look for us. Being off the street meant being out of danger, so I just enjoyed watching the "show." We saw some men who had been caught by the cops, and they had 2 cops restraining each protester, with one policeman following with a billy sticks. The protesters I saw were mostly middle-aged, overweight men. A few times smoke bombs went off right outside the cafe, and the staff had to quickly close all the windows. As soon as the danger passed, they opened up all the windows again and continued sitting on the sill, watching outside and commentating on the action. If only I spoke Turkish!

Up until yesterday, Mike and I were sharing one cell phone, and he had taken it for the day. I wanted to call him and warn him about the trouble, so I asked the gut in the trio if I could borrow his phone. I thought he'd understood me since we mimed back and forth and it looked like he understood I wanted him to lend his phone to me. But he got up and found a piece of paper and wrote down his email address for me. His girlfriend must have thought it strange that I was hitting on her boyfriend in front of her in the middle of a riot of sorts. And I never got to call Mike and warn him, but he made it home safely. The protests had finished by the time he was on his way home that he missed all the fun.

The staff at the restaurant finally thought it was safe enough to let us out (after about 40 minutes) and I was glad to be getting on my way home. The boy tried to get me to go walking with him and the two girls, but since we had a language barrier I really didn't want to waste my time. He finally got it that I wanted us to go our separate ways, but he still walked me to the intersection and cheek-kissed me goodbye. I didn't see any more protestors on my way home, but there were more and more policemen arriving, and I saw a police van with all the windows smashed. I was looking forward to reading about the protest online and blogging about it when I got home, but our internet was down and stayed down for 2 days. It's finally back up and running, which is why you're hearing about my adventure a few days after the fact.


I didn't take any pictures myself, although I wish I had. I was so confused about what was going on that I wasn't thinking right, and it probably is frowned upon to photograph anything that could be seen as police brutality. You can read more about the protests here and see pictures and a video here.

Stay tuned for blog posts about our visa run to Bulgaria and more information about my new teaching job!


PS. The new picture on my blog is the view from the teacher's room at my primary school job. Cool, huh?

The Perfect Craigslist Personal Ad

I spend a lot of lazy days at home on the internet, and often read craigslist istanbul to see what weirdos I share my city with. Craigslist personal ads are usually just inappropriate pictures with ridiculous pick-up lines, but when I saw the posting title "Hank Rearden is looking for Dagny - 28 (Ankara)," I thought that I'd found my husband. (For those of you who don't know, Hank Rearden and Dagny are characters from my favorite book, Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand).

Here is the man's full-text posting.

"Many guys dont want what I want. Any female must talk fluently what the hell she is talking about. Must be smart. Must be strong. Must deserve what she wants. I am a person of reason so I'm looking for same. Integrity, consistency, honesty are must. Sense of humor mostly comes with them. Appearence is important for me as long as one has the characteristics written here. Beauty is necessity but if you are not attractive -(beauty and attractiveness are different issues. For example: Adriana Lima, Megan Fox are beautiful women but not attractive for me. I prefer Gisele Bündchen, Rachel McAdams, Sienna Miller, Saffran Burrows;)) -it doesnt make sense at all. To hell, I'm not only looking for somebody to have sex. I must enjoy spending time with her.

Whatever, you must be single in every sense. No widows, no married and etc. If you have a boyfriend, dump him first before answer this. Age range between 20-28. Older than it is not ok. Younger is too young for me.

Send your picture please.I hate headshots. Find something spontaneous. Dont expect me to answer without it.

In case that I dont answer you even if you send your picture: You must know I am so pathetic that I cannot say "I am sorry, I didnt like you".


Lastly, keep it that way if you think I am an asshole.


Ps: I'm not like Hank Rearden but he's my role model. "

Turkish men don't seem to be the kind of people who A) read Ayn Rand and B)Of course the last thing I need is to meet strange men on the internet , but I thought his posting deserved a response. So I wrote to him, just telling him how much his posting "spoke" to me as someone who wishes to become a character from Atlas Shrugged and I asked if he could let me know if he got a date out as a result of the post, just to know if there are other girls with weird fantasies like me. I wished him luck in his search for his Dagny, and got a nice response back. If only he were really Hank Rearden...

Better Than a Horoscope

So Mike was typing in my blog address to read my new post and accidentally mistyped one letter. The blog he came to seems to eerily relate to what I'm going through in my life right now, so I wanted to share the most fitting part. It's like reading a horoscope that exactly sums you up at that moment in your life, only weirder because it's a random blog. Crazy coincidence! Imagine that the "you" is me, and the "I" is Aissa...

Thursday, April 04, 2002


Let's not have this coversation, you and me. We've done it before, and the same thing always happens.


You'll get pissed off, and I'll get self righteous, and we'll end up not talking for months until one of us comes up to the other on the street and we decide that we'll never part again. And six months later, we will.


Because you are fickle. And I am jealous.


You will find another and run off for a while, and when I call you on it, we will have this conversation again, and I will tell you that you won't find the pieces you're missing in another person and you will tell me to fuck myself.


And you'll know, as you always do, that I am right. But that fact will not be enough to stop you from going because...


Because you don't want me to be right.


So let's not have this conversation. Let's pretend that this has never happened, and never will, and when you don't call me I'll just shrug and write it off as one of those things that a person does when she is finding herself.


And we will leave it at that.

Observations

Now that I've been living in Turkey almost 2 months, I wanted to post some observations about Turkish life/Turkish culture.

Turkish people seem to view children as public property. It is expected that cute kids will be admired and entertained by strangers. My Russian teacher has a three-year-old son and a baby son, and she talked about how strange it was when she first arrived to have her kids manhandled without her permission. We sat together in a tea house outdoors, and one homeless man stuck his fingers into the stroller and started petting the baby's hands, a lot of people stopped and leaned over the stroller smiling and baby-talking, and a few people tousled the three-year-old's hair. Sasha said that in Ukraine the toddler was friendly and outgoing around strangers, but now is shy and reserved and uncomfortable being touched. In America, a woman would freak out if a strange man picked her baby up out of the stroller and started cooing at him! But here it seems perfectly normal and harmless.

_____________________________

In almost all countries in the world with the exception of the US and maybe Canada, soccer/football is the national sport. Everyone watches it, learns the chants, bets on matches, buys jerseys, and basically bleeds the colors of their favorite team. Turkey takes the love of soccer to a whole new level- here it is a way of life. Istanbul has 5 professional teams that all play in the top league in Turkish competition, and everyone has a team that they support- no one seems to be impartial here. When there is a match on, all the bars and cafes are full of people facing the TV, glued to the game, passionate about the result. Every vegetable stand and mini-market has a tv inside so that even men stuck at work can see the game in its entirety. The best games are the "derby" games between rival Istanbul teams. You can tell when those games are on because everyone is wearing a soccer jersey, and shouts drift out of the windows of cafes and homes when goals are scored or great saves are made.

Mike is big football fan and his favorite team is Manchester United, and he was ecstatic (as ecstatic as a British man gets) when he found out that they were coming here to play Besiktas, Turkey's champion from last year. We bought tickets online in the Besiktas section and I got to experience my very first soccer game. It was the perfect game to go to! Even if you hate soccer, you would have enjoyed this game. Besiktas fans recently received the title of "the world's loudest fans" at 132 decibels, and it was amazing to see the devotion for the game that all the fans had.
The stadium is designed so that 90% are home fans, with just a tiny section in the corner reserved for away fans. This section is fenced in like a cage, and even has a net over the top so that no one can throw anything at them. We could have gotten tickets to be in the Man Utd section, but they cost 123 pounds, compared to 75 lira in the home section. We also thought it would be a better cultural experience to sit with the Turks. Who really wants to spend 90 minutes with a bunch of British soccer hooligans anyways? :)

We got to the stadium an hour and a half before the match started, and already some people were there, eating bags of sunflower seats and every so often chanting Besiktas chants in response to the Man Utd fans in the cage. Once the game started, all the fans were on their feet and remained standing for the entire 90 minutes. Building up to the kick-off, all the fans were chanting and jazz-handing, getting louder and louder. At the moment the first kick was made, 32,145 (minus 2 because Mike and I didn't know what was going on... 32,143) fans simultaneously said, "Shhhhh" and then again built up into louder and louder songs. Everyone knew all the chants, and we discovered about halfway though that in the section opposite, there were 3 man standing up facing the spectators and leading the chant. Their section would start a chant, and then it would go around the stadium like an echo. These men are called "amigos" and their job is to plan and choreograph new chants and songs. Before the match, hardcore fans meet up to learn the chants for that game. The only chants we understood must have taken them hours to think up "Fuck you Manchester" and "Fuck you Rooney" (yes, very original).

Having heard horror stories about violence between Turkish and English fans and seeing the away section cage made me quite frightened to be a white faced, non-Besiktas-jersey-wearing, English speaking girl sitting voluntarily in a sea of hardcore Besiktas fans. We got some weird looks by the ticket collectors and security staff for clearly being foreigners in the Turkish section. The only fans we talked to were totally nice about Mike being a Manc and a Man Utd fan, and didn't make us fear for our lives even in the slightest.

The game was definitely not the most exciting game in history, but the atmosphere more than made for it. Manchester won with a goal 13 minutes before the finish, so Mike silently cheered while the entire stadium silenced for the first and only time all game.

Here is a video taken during the quieter second half to give a taste of what the stadium was like- imagine this x100 in your ears for 90+ minutes!






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Mike got a haircut in a Turkish barber shop, and it was a great experience for me to sit and watch and learn about the 'secret' world of men's barbers. There were 6 or 7 barber chairs, and just as many barbers. The place was busy- every seat was taken and men were waiting for their turn. Mike went in just for a haircut, but most men were there getting shaved too. It seemed that the normal procedure goes like this: a man sits down in the chair and presumably tells the barber what he wants done. The barber slathers shaving cream on his face and neck using an oversized makeup brush and fits a new straightrazor knife into the handle. He proceeds to shave face and neck entirely, or to shape the moustache/sideburns into some ridiculous and very Turkish shape. As he shaves the hair off, he wipes the blade every few strokes on his non-shaving hand between thumb and index finger. He goes over each part of the face a few times to make sure all the hairs are gone, and then goes over it carefully again when he's done to make sure he hasn't missed anything. He rinses off the shaving cream and puts on one of two kinds of facecreams. Some men opt for a peel-off facemask- warm green goo that looks like leg wax and is applied using a tongue depressor, and some preferred a seafoam green cream that dries and is washed off 5 minutes later. Then, if the man has facial hair that wasn't shaved off (like a moustache), the barber goes through it with a comb and tiny scissors, trimming and shaping it symmetrically. Then he pulls out a spool of black thread, and proceeds to pluck the man's eyebrows using a procedure known as threading. One man even had a "tram line" cut into his eyebrow using a tiny razorblade. Once the beard/facial work is all done, the barber finally moves onto the hair. The cut is standard enough, except the barber uses no less than 3 different pairs of scissors, a straightrazor on the neck, and a mini-trimmer. The hair is then dried and styled using a hairdryer and round brush to spike or curl the hair into the silliest style possible. It seems as though every man then got a gob of hair gel and/or wax smeared into his hair and enough hairspray to kill the entire ozone sprayed on just in case the gel hadn't held the hairs in place enough.

Mike as a foreigner wasn't spared any of this barber shop tradition! Check out the style he got:







We can't decide if the barber was giving him a legitimate "normal" Turkish style, or if the fact that Mike is a Manchester United fan and he is a Besiktas fan made him give Mike an intention wanker style. I guess we'll never know! Once Mike washed out the tons of product, he was left with a good cut so it doesn't matter with what intent the barber styled him.

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Ramadan (Ramazan in Turkish), Islam's holiest month, just ended on Friday. Even though Istanbul is a Western city where most people claim to be non-practicing Muslims, Islam is much more noticeable here than in Kyrgyzstan. There are mosques in every neighborhood, and 5 times a day, the multiple calls to prayer can be heard. Guidebooks warn that during Ramadan most shops and restaurants are closed because people should be fasting from sunrise to sunset, but the vast majority (if not all) shops in our neighborhood and in the center were open. We moved into our new apartment on the first day of Ramadan, and were awakened at 2:30 am by a drummer. He walked down our street and we heard him from other areas of our neighborhood too, always with the same beat and just a few seconds in between each. Groggily we couldn't figure out why a salesman would choose a drum and the middle of the night as a way to sell something, and were slightly disturbed that we were stuck in a neighborhood with midnight, drumming salesmen. Eventually we put two and two together and decided that he must be a human alarm clock, waking people up for the pre-sunrise meal. We heard him every morning for the whole month of Ramadan. A few times we got up to watch him walk past, and sometimes he had a child with him, sometimes he knocked on doors trying to get money, and sometimes he even sang to himself. We got used to him and even sort of like being in a traditional enough neighborhood where that kind of thing still goes on. You can read more about this tradition here.





Mike and I both have jobs now, and we start this week. Mike works at a university and I work at a primary school. We will both have regular schedules, lots of holidays, and evenings and weekends off. Much better than the Istanbul language center life where you work all weekend and only know your schedule a week in advance. We are not ready to get back to work after almost 4 months of vacation and traveling. Wish us luck!

Eternal Fame

So, in Kyrgyzstan there was a teacher who didn't like me because she thinks I "stole" Mike away from her. She left Kyrgyzstan less than 2 months after I arrived, so we didn't have too much time to not get along, but the feelings of hatred within her must have been so strong that she still feels the need to blog about me!

http://janesdailyblah.blogspot.com/2009/08/so-many-enemies.html

Check it out. At least she was still able to enjoy the book I recommended.

Home Sweet Home

Here are some pictures of our new place in Istanbul:

New Address

Mike and I found the PERFECT place to live after weeks and weeks of looking. You can read a little bit about the house on craigslist, and this is our new mailing address:

Anna Marco-Cortiel
Işık Çıkmazı Sokak
No: 26
Yahya Kahya Mahallesi
Kasımpaşa Beyoğlu İstanbul
34440
TURKEY

We won't move until probably August 21st. When we move in we'll definitely post more pictures!

Romania = Meh.

After a great 2 weeks in Austria at the end of July, Mike and I got on a train and headed into deepest, darkest Romania. It was a 20 hour train ride from Salzburg to Brasov (pronounced bra-shoff), with a 3-hour stop-off in Budapest. Mike and I were in separate sleeping compartments, and he was with a heavy metal family on their way to a music festival, and I had a nice German family on their way to 2 weeks hiking in the Transylvanian Alps. There were 3 little kids and they made me play games with them and listen to stories they were reading. The littlest girl kept calling me "hübsche frau" which made me feel really old

We found a man at the train station in Brasov offering accommodation, and it sounded like a better deal than hotels in Lonely Planet, so we went along with him. We got our own private accommodation with living room, satellite TV, breakfast, bathroom, and comfy bed. It was worth it, even for 25 euros per night. We definitely aren't in Central Asia anymore! Prices are much more expensive than Eastern Europe in 2007 too. Pretty soon Moldova will be just as expensive as Paris!

We spent the first day just wandering around central Brasov. They have a Hollywood-type sign on the top of the city's hill, so we took a cable car up to the top and found the "Panoramic Lookout" right next to the Brasov sign. There was a great view of the old architecture and all the red roofs, and we had a peaceful walk down the mountain on a leafy green path.

I found Mountain Dew in the shop which I hadn't seen since America and of course bought it, but was disappointed to find that it had a completely different taste. We spent all afternoon and evening watching satellite TV, because it was the first time in months that we'd had access to good English languages programs. TV is so much better without bad Russian playing over the English track.

The next day we caught a bus to Bran Castle, which is THE tourist place in Transylvania, and also where people believe that the inspiration for Dracula, Vlad the Impalor, lived. The castle was set up for tourists with lots of placards explaining history of royal families, the history of the area, and of course a lot information about Bram Stoker, Vlad, and Dracula. It was a pretty castle with some nice views of the countryside, but not really worth the entrance fee. I guess I've seen so many castles in Western Europe that it was more of the same.

When we tried to catch a minibus from Brasov to Bucharest, we learned that Kyrgyzstan is far more organized and advanced when it comes to transport. It's never good when Europe fails horribly in comparison to Central Asia! We waited at a parking space that had a sign for Bucharest, with times listed. Every time a minibus pulled in, we asked the driver if he was going to Bucharest and he said no. We asked where buses to Bucharest stopped, and they pointed to the spot we were standing at. When we asked when the next minibus was leaving they said "in a moment," but every bus that came "in a moment" was going somewhere else. We ended up waiting 2 hours and seeing more than 6 minibuses come and go, none of which would take us to Bucharest. We finally ended up taking a train for more money because no one was helpful in any way. Had it been Kyrgyzstan, upon arrival at least 10 men would have come to us, offering their services as the best. We would have had our choice of bus, minibus, shared taxi, or private taxi, all for much less than what we paid in Romania. Prices would have been haggled down because each driver wanted us more than the other, and we would have been on our way in less than 10 minutes. Romania, you have a thing or two to learn!

We hope to get a night bus to Istanbul so we wouldn't have to overnight in Bucharest, but all buses bound for Turkey left in the afternoon. We tried to get a train, but it meant going overnight to Sofia and then waiting there for ages to get another train to Istanbul, so that would have been twice as expensive and no faster. We went to the bus station just to see if there was a non-advertised bus leaving, but there was nothing until the next afternoon. Luckily there was a cheapish hostel just across the intersection from the bus station, and they had a great room with satellite, bathroom and great bed, so we didn't mind staying the night. We bought tickets for the coach bus, but when we got to the station the next afternoon, they piled us into a minibus full of Romanians. We weren't really sure what was going on, but the ticket seller assured us that we would be getting to Istanbul.

The drive back was mostly uneventful. There was bad weather in Bulgaria so it was rainy and gloomy, and our driver was a jerk and kept rolling his window down, even though we repeatedly asked him to put it up because it was cold. We arrived back in Istanbul at around 3:30 am, and sat in a park in front of the Blue Mosque until the first tram came around 5:30. We got back to Maggie's house in one piece and had long naps to make up for a sleepless night.

Overall, Romania was not what I expected. Muriel reminded me that Romania used to be my dream country, but to me it didn't really seem to have much to offer. My experience in Bulgaria was that the people were much nicer and things were a bit more organized, and now that it's not all that much cheaper than Western and Central Europe, there are other places to go with more things to see. Maybe we'll go back sometime since we do live so close, but I have to say that I was quite disappointed.

With Dracula

Mike and I have spent an amazing 2 weeks in Salzburg. We've seen all the relatives, gone second-hand shopping and found some great things, spent time going through my grandma's apartment and taking things we liked (old Salzburg postcards, complete with Hitler Deutsches Reich stamps; a great hat that can be seen in my current facebook picture; some traditional Austrian jackets with goat-horn buttons, etc...) and of course eaten delicious food to the brim. We've probably each gained at least 5 kilos. But it was worth it! Schnitzel, Marillenknoedel, Eis, Kasnockl, Zwiebelrostbraten, Mohr im Hemd, the list goes on... yum! We haven't done much in terms of real touristy sightseeing, but Mike has gotten a good sense of what Salzburg is like. The weather hasn't been that great either. We definitely didn't pack right for the weather we've had. Every other day has rained and been freezing. Blah. Typical Austrian summer. We should have expected it.

On Saturday morning my parents and my sister Susi are taking a train to Freiburg to visit my sister Nici, and Mike and I are taking an afternoon bus to Brasov (25 hours from Salzburg), located in Transylvania in Romania. We'll explore for a few days, then spend a day or two in Bucharest, and then catch either a bus or a train back to Istanbul and back to real life. Mike got the EF job we wanted, I didn't, so he's set. I'm still searching for one, there aren't many options on the internet. I'll have to start going to language centers with my CV, or start finding private students. Not looking forward to that! There's a part-time job that I got, but I'm still looking for something else. Still apartment hunting too... we found the perfect one on craigslist, but it's a bit out of our price range.

Not much else new- I got a haircut with bangs and Mike got a cavity filled today after 4 hours in the dentist waiting room (and learned that he needs a wisdom tooth pulled ASAP). Hopefully he'll be able to enjoy our adventures in Romania even with a toothache!

I finally got all my Central Asian pictures posted on facebook. Hopefully that's the last you'll have to see of me in Central Asia for a long, long, long time.

Istanbul Introduction and More Current Events

I am currently in Austria with Mike, my parents, and the rest of the Euro family. Unfortunately my brother isn't here, even though he was supposed to be. He noticed the day before leaving America that his passport expired the next week. After spending 6 hours on the phone, my mom learned that he couldn't get an expedited appointment in CT, and the Prague Airport Police wouldn't even let him into the country (and that's assuming that the JFK Airport Police would have let him out). So he stayed how with his new boa constrictor, and my parents came alone. It's been nice having Mike 'Meet the Family' and having him around has made everyone practice their English pull out some good old 'hilarious' stories of me as a baby/kid. It's also been amazing to have great food again, good, non-fatty, non-teeth-breaking, non-mutton, non-drowning-in-oil food. We have another week here and then, somehow, we're going back to Istanbul, but we don't really know yet how. Maybe by bus, maybe by train, maybe by plane, but we haven't decided if/for how long we want to stop off in Budapest/Bucharest/Sofia/somewhere else. Blah. It's too bad that Europe is so expensive, and especially compared to the prices we're used to it's downright impossible to buy anything without feeling the hangman's noose of bankruptcy closing around my neck.

Our first week in Istanbul was great. We spent two nights in a hostel, which was nice because we met a great Australian couple, but not so nice because of course we had to pay, and the employees were jerks. We moved in with a friend of a friend, and were in a great part of town with an amazing Bosphorus view and great company. We spent the week looking at tons of apartments, but didn't find any that really spoke to us. We are looking for somewhere in the center with a view of the Bosphorus and without our price range, but nothing had everything we wanted. We're still busy emailing craigslist people, hoping to have places lined up for when we get back. We are still deciding if we want a flat for ourselves, or just a room in house/flat. We also had a job interview and stopped in a a handful of language schools we found on our wandering of Central Istanbul, but only got a response from one school we emailed. Everyone says that schools in Istanbul are desperate for teachers, so why don't they respond?? No one knows... We are hoping to hear back from EF by the end of the month, and hopefully we get the job. It's teaching at a foundation course for university students who need to get their English to an Intermediate level before stating university in English. It's a lot of money and not too much work, so it'd be ideal. We'll see!

We didn't do many touristy things but just walked around marvelling at the beautiful scenery that was all around. We watched a Turkish movie on someone's rooftop and had an unbelievable view of the entire city. The night pictures of Istanbul on facebook are taken from that very rooftop. We took a ferry across to the Asian side of Istanbul, which is just as modern and hip as the European side.

There's so much to do before we are really settled, but it will be great getting to know the city and find our way around. I'm looking forward to entertaining all the people who promise to come and visit! :)

The End of Uzbekistan

So, after a long pause in updating that has left all of you I'm sure hanging in suspense, I am back online to complete the tale of Uzbekistan.

We arrived in Khiva with a mix of different kinds of transport. We took a bus to Burani, a town north of Khiva, then took a shared taxi to Urgench, and then another shared taxi to Khiva. Transport plus waiting for taxis to fill up ended up being most of the afternoon, but we spent 7000 sum each instead of 20,000 each, which a non-shared taxi door-to-door would have cost from Nukus to Khiva. We opted for price rather than speed, since of course we were on vacation and were not in any rush.

Khiva is a beautifully preserved old city, complete with city walls, mosques, medressas, and minarets. Lonely Planet complains that all the life has been squeezed out of it as a result of all the restoration that has kept the old town looking as good as it did, but I think that it's just the opposite. Many locals live in the Old Town and go about their normal lives in among all the mosques, it was easy to imagine ancient days with the hustle and bustle of market day.

Immediately when we got out of our shared taxi, a man stepped out of another taxi and recommended a homestay to us. We didn't have any preference, and for $10 per person per day with breakfast, it sounded like a great deal. And it really was a wonderful guesthouse. We had a private Western bathroom, an air conditioner (that really didnät work) and our own balcony, and there was a rooftop terrace with an amazing view of all of Khiva. We had dinner in the guesthouse on the roof and watched the sun set over the old fortifications and the minarets.

It was quite hot, and we spent two days just wandering around. We didn't pay to go into any museums or mosques, because we'd already seen our fair share of souvenier-shop-filled old brick buildings. But even just walking around the Old Town there was a lot to see.

We spent our last day in Khiva not even in Khiva. We got a taxi for $40 to take us around to some old forts in the surrounding desert of Khiva, about 1.5 hours from the Old Town. The driver knew where to find the forts, which are spread around a large area of desert. Archaeologists believe that there may be 50 forts in the area, and it is therefore named Elliq Qala, which means, of course, 50 Forts. We went to three forts, 2 of which we could walk around. They were quite well preserved, and even though they are more or less just different shaped piles of packed dirt, part of the fun was imagining how different it looked in its prime. We also stopped at lake Ayaz, which is a salty lake right in the middle of the desert. We had wanted to swim, but when we got to the lake and saw that it was quite gross-looking, with deep stinking sand/slush and lots of flies, we decided to just dip our feet in. It was still strange to see a bunch of seagulls in the middle of vast expanses of sand!

We then took a bus to Bukhara, where we spent a few days when we were in Uzbekistan in winter, but at that time it was so cold that we really didn't see everything there was to see. We spent most time in our hotel room watching satellite Arabic girls dancing around trying to get men to call in. This time, I was determined to do more sightseeing, even though all the tourists we'd met said that Bukhara was the hottest place they'd been. We were directed to a hotel by our taxi driver, who of course wanted us to stay in his friend's hotel. It was quite a swanky one, with a great courtyard. Tourist season was over, so we got a double room that was normally $50 for $25 including breakfast, satellite TV (broken), an air conditioner (not broken!!) and a shower with HOT WATER. Not too bad. I did the bargaining myself too, which made me feel quite good considering I usually hate it and I'm pretty bad at it. Mike is the master at haggling. I'll just leave it up to him whenever I can.

The thing we spent most of our time doing was looking at antique pieces of Uzbek fabric. I had wanted to buy one in Khiva but didn't, and then it turned out that the pattern I had really liked was unpopular and most of the people I talked to in Bukhara had thrown out their fabric in that pattern because no tourists wanted to buy it. But I learned from different salespeople the exact description and origin of the pattern I wanted, so it was quite easy to go from stall to stall saying I wanted Urgutskie suzani, and it makes shopping so much easier when sellers don't try to interest you with this and that that you really don't want. It was in-and-out, and finally I was able to find exactly what I wanted, and get them for amazing prices. I was even congratulated by the owner of our hotel for getting them so cheap! He asked how much I paid and I said 15,000, and he said '50,000? Good price!' and I said 'No FIFTEEN' and he couldn't believe it. He said it was local price, and that tourist price is MUCH more. So Bukhara was a good place for my haggling :)

In Bukhara we found a nice restaurant that had the first good fried laghman since we left Bishkek, and we found the mauseleum where Somoni was buried, the man who the Tajik currency is named after. Both Bukhara and Samarkand are predominantly Tajik towns, so it's not surprising for him to be there. We also found yet more medressas that we hadn't seen the first time around. It was really hot, but not as bad as we'd been expecting after all the stories.

We took a night train to Tashkent, and it was probably one of the most uncomfortable nights I've ever had. The train was HOT, and it was a newer sleeping car so instead of windows that pulled down to open, the tilted out, so there was barely any breeze. A bunch of policemen took up the sitting room under our beds, so we had to lie in bed the whole time while they were all underneath drinking and doing crossword puzzles. When we arrived in Tashkent I was terribly sweaty, tired because I hadn't really slept, and super dehydrated. When we arrived in Tashkent the hotel we wanted had no double room, so then I really wanted to cry and not have to find another place. We decided to go to a Lonely Planet guesthouse that it said was hard to find, and we got a taxi driver who looked at the map and seemed to have some idea where he was going. He didn't of course, and didn't believe when I told him he was going the wrong way. Finally we just got out because he couldn't find it, and luckily we weren't too far from where we were supposed to be. We found a nice driver who knew the place exactly and dropped us off there for free. It was $15 per person per night, but it had air conditioning and breakfast and I was way too narky to want to find another place.

I took a nap and a MUCH needed shower, and then we wandered around Tashkent some more. We spent 6 days in Tashkent in total in winter and Mike really didn't want to have to go back, but I thought there were still some things we could see. It was the hottest it had been the whole trip so we didnt feel like doing much, but the best thing was Aqua Park, possibly Central Asia's only worthwhile waterpark. Lonely Planet said it was 3000 sum ($2), but the price had gone up to 15,000 sum for 3 hours. We paid it and dogeared the page as yet another complaint to write to Lonely Planet about, but really enjoyed a few different swimming pools and some much needed tanning time.

We repacked our bags and caught an early morning flight to Istanbul. I worried that I might have some problems at the airport, as I had a felt rug, 2 antique pieces of fabric and a bullet from the Tajik-Afghan border in my bag, but it turned out that Mike was the one with the problems.

In his words...'At the airport in Tashkent, I went through all various checks until I go to the Passport Control. The guy behind the desk looked at my passport for a split second before telling me in Russian that there was a 'problem.' My passport, apparently, didn't work and I needed to pay the guy some money to get through. I suddenly lost all ability to understand anything he said at the mention of money and played dumb. I knew my passport was fine, just as it has been for the last 10 years. The guy called his supervisor who then tried to tell me I didn't have a visa. I pointed it out to him. Then he told me that I didn't have the correct stamp. i pointed it out to him. Finally, he dragged me off in the direction of a third guy. This one spoke some English and then tried to tell me that the picture in the passport wasn't me. Usually, this is an understandable mistake. The picture was taken when I was 16, I have short hair and no beard. This time, though, I had shaved my beard off and had an haircut so for the first time in years I actually DID look like my passport picture! I explained how time works and that no man is left unaffected. This didn't deter them... now it was a challenge. I wasn't going to pay them a penny, but they couldn't put so much effort in for nothing. Their last trick was to claim my passport was fake. I stood my ground and told them I'd wait for them to verify. Finally, they gave in and threw my documents back at my with contempt. '

Thus ended almost one year in Central Asia. All in all, it was a great experience, but I can't say I'd recommending life in Bishkek to anyone.

The rest of our trip- almost

So, I haven't written for a long long time. It's just because I'm lazy, but also because there isn't really much to say about the rest of our trip, especially compared to all that happened on the Pamir Highway.

Mike and I spent 3 days in Dushanbe, where there wasn't much to do. It was too hot to have done anything anyways, so we just sat around in some of the many leafy green parks and read books.

We took a shared taxi up to the northern Tajik city of Khojand. It was a tough mountain road to get over, but luckily for visitors to Tajikistan in the future, there is a tunnel being built as we speak by Chinese road crews. Our driver seemed like a good guy, almost too good- he offered to tow two cars up different stages of the mountain pass, so we wasted a lot of time starting and stopping as the rope connecting the car to our car snapped/came untied/who knows. In the end we didn't get the up the mountain, which isn't surprising considering the steepness and muddiness of the road.

We found a great hotel in Khojand- it was a modernish apartment bloc converted into a hotel, which meant we had a bedroom, an enclosed balcony, a living room, toilet, bathroom and a kitchen (all unfurnished but for 2 twin beds, a table, and a TV with no working channels) all for less than 10$ for the 2 of us. It was a needed break since we paid 15$ each in Dushanbe. We didn't do much in Khojand either- it was really really hot. We spent a few hours swimming in the Syr-Darya river, which was full of businessmen stripping down to their underwear and little children cooling off. If we floated all the way down the river, we'd have ended up in the Northern Aral Sea in Kazakhstan! In an internet cafe, we met up with 2 Tajik guys, one who went to school in Prague and spoke good English, one who spoke very very little English, and they wanted to meet up later on to talk. They took us to a park that evening, where there were tons of people riding on Soviet rides, using paddle boats in the river, and generally just having a good time enjoying the evening coolness. We went up in the ferris wheel to see Khojand from above, ate some ice cream, and then Mike and I took a taxi back to the hotel. There are a lot of Soviet things still left in the city- a giant hammer and sickle statue, and a bust of Marx and Lenin on the side of an apartment bloc. There were many streetside cafes, where we spent most of the days just playing cards and drinking cold drinks.

We took a shared taxi to Penjikent, close to the Uzbek border. We stayed in a Lonely Planet-recommended homestay, but the owner of the homestay Nematov had let the "fame" of Lonely Planet get to his head, and he was sort of an ass. Lonely Planet said that it was full board, but he said that food wasn't included, but wouldn't give us a price as to how much meals would be. He said "whatever you think it's worth," which is never a good way to do business in my book. Lonely Planet also said that he arranges good reliable transport, but it seemed like he arranged very overpriced transport. We met up with 2 English girls at the homestay and wanted to arrange a day trip into the Fan Mountains to see a string of very beautiful turquoise lakes. We found our own taxi for much much cheaper than the Nematov had offered. He took us to the first 2 lakes in a string of 7 (the first one was meant to be the most beautiful), and the taxi driver gave us a few hours to walk around. The lakes were full of the bluest water I've ever seen. We wanted to swim, but the water was horrible cold. We had a picnic and walked a bit around the mountains, and then went back to Penjikent.

In the evening, we said goodbye to the English girls, who were heading to Dushanbe, and set out to find and explore ancient Penjikent, the ruins of the old city. A nice man offered to drive us there when we were asking around for directions, and he took us around the old city a little, telling us the history, and even drove us back to the homestay- all for free! It was the first real hospitality we'd seen in a long time, and after the jerk Nematov and a really not nice guy we met in a cafe, we'd started to think that Penjikent was just full of bad eggs. Luckily, it wasn't so. We also met a nice kid who loved speaking English and, though only 18, already worked as a translator for a tourist agency. He had great aspirations of how to improve Penjikent and make it a more international place, which is always good to see in young people in Central Asia.

The next morning, we got a taxi to the Uzbek border. We had planned on another day in Penjikent, but we got such a bad vibe from Nematov that we just wanted to get away. It's only 30 minutes to the Uzbek border, and from there only 40 minutes to Samarkand, so it didn't take long. We didn't have any problems at the border, but I was really worried because I had the bullet I picked up along the Afghan border in my purse and worried that might set off the metal detector. The Uzbek guard saw my jewelry box in the metal detector and I had to get it out from the very bottom of my backpack to show a few silver chains to him. He said I should have declared them on my customs form, and that if he were a jerk he could confiscate them and get me in big big trouble, but luckily for me he was in a good mood and just sent on our way, suggesting we buy a donkey since our bags were so heavy.

We got to Samarkand and immediately got a taxi to Shakhrisabz, Tamerlane's hometown. We checked out the Ak-Saray Palace, built by Tamerlane and at one point was more beautiful than all the sights in Samarkand. Now it's gone except for a few pieces of it, but it was nice to imagine how big the palace once had been. There was also a giant statue of Tamerlane. He had built a crypt for himself also here, but when he died the pass between Samarkand and Shakhrisabz was closed, so his body was buried in Samarkand instead. We spent 3 lazy days resting in cafes and in our homestay. The homestay was the best place I've stayed in Central Asia. The grandfather was wonderfully nice and hospitable, and just all around a super guy. He gave us 2 free meals even though they should have been 6$ each, and always had bottles of water to give to us and even gave me his granddaughter's Uzbek fan when I said I was interested in getting one. Instead of a plastic/wooden fan that you open, it's a wooden stick with a piece of fabric on it. You spin the fabric around on the stick and it creates a great breeze. The homestay also had a functional shower with warmish water (!!! the first GOOD shower since April in Bishkek!!!!) and a nice tapchan (tea bed) too that was usually in the shade. One night after tea and watermelon we even fell asleep under the stars. If you ever want to go somewhere just to relax, Shakhrisabz is the place for you!

We then took a taxi back to Samarkand, where we spent the day walking around and re-seeing all the sights we saw in winter. I'm so glad we saw it in winter, because it was a huge construction site this time around. All the main roads around the center were torn up and all the store fronts were being "beautified," so all the shops were closed. It took ages just to find somewhere selling cold drinks. At midnight we got a train to Nukus, the capital of Karakalpakstan, the westernmost region of Uzbekistan.

The people of Karakalpakstan are not Uzbek but Karakalpak. They speak their own language, which is Turkic, but more similar to Kazakh than to Uzbek. My rudimentary Kyrgyz translates Karakalpakstan as "the land of the black hats," but I'm not sure if that's really what it's supposed to mean. A kalpak is the Kyrgyz national black and white felt hat, but it might have some other meaning too...

The train wagon where our beds were was full of children who had just finished up a summer camp in Tashkent and were headed home to Nukus. All the kids (aged about 8-16) were very interested to talk to us, and one boy who spoke Russian acted as the translator between Mike and me and about 30 Karakalpak kids. They were all orphans, which was so sad since they were all so nice and polite! The Russian speaking kid, Vladimir, looked a lot like Freddie Highmore (Charlie from the new Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie) and I would have adopted him in a second! He said he had a mother, so I don't know why he lived in an orphanage. All the boys on the train had a hobby of making animals with little folded pieces of silver paper, like gum wrappers, and they showed us some of the things they made. They were amazing! Hundreds and hundreds of little folded silver papers made a giant swan. They gave us a little swan and a snake they'd made, and even though they've fallen apart in my luggage since then, I really hope I can put them back together when I get to Istanbul because they are really pretty. After about 18 hours in the train driving through a very sandy desert for the entire day, we arrived in Nukus.

We found a hotel and spent a bit wandering around the city looking for food. Nukus is definitely nothing special- the only thing Lonely Planet lists is an art museum, which is meant to be the best in Central Asia. Since Mike and I don't like art, that wasn't anything for us. We found a Georgian restaurant and had some pretty good lagman.

The next day, we caught a bus going up to Moynaq, a fishing village that used to be on the shores of the Aral Sea, once one of the world's largest bodies of water. However, because of the Soviet desire to turn Central Asia's deserts into successful cotton producers, the Aral Sea was irrigated much too much, and the lake shrunk, creating one of the world's worst environmental disasters. Now, the sea split into two parts, and the fishing town of Moynaq is now hundreds of kilometers from the water's edge. We were going to see the former shoreline and rusting hulks of fishing boats that are now resting in the middle of the desert. It was terrible to see and hear about what life is now like in Moynaq. Our taxi driver talked about how the economy used to be back when there was water, and the welcome sign at the entrance of the town still has a fish on it. Now it's just a little desert village. We walked up a hill where we could look over where the water used to be. There were 6 fishing boats lined up, and 2 more a bit further away. They used to be located all around the city, but sometime recently they were all brought to this one place, to serve as a memorial (and maybe make it easier for tourists to find them). There were big posterboards showing arial pictures of the sea in the 1960s and the sea now, and articles explaining how the fishing and muskrat industry was great back then and now Moynaq has lost everything. It was definitely a depressing day. We caught an afternoon bus back to Nukus, and the next morning spent some hours getting to Khiva by bus and shared taxi.

I'll write about our time in Khiva, Bukhara, and Tashkent soon. Early tomorrow morning Mike and I are flying to Istanbul! We'll be there a week looking for a job and an apartment, exploring the city, and hopefully swimming a lot, and then we're going to Austria to meet up with my parents for 2 weeks. Yay!

Khorog-Dushanbe

In the morning we wanted some time to just explore Khorog a bit, but Ruslan offered to drive us around and show us things instead. We went to see the first car that ever drove the Pamir Highway, in the 1930s. It was a old Soviet truck, and it had been made into a statue, and after spending 5 days driving on the highway, it's amazing that a car of that kind could make it on the road that even our 4-wheel drive struggled on.

Then we went to the Khorog Botanical Gardens, which definitely weren't worth the 3 somoni entrance fee. There were lots of flower beds with labels in Russian and Latin, but nothing growing. We saw lots of clover, daisies, and some irises, but nothing special. We did get a nice view of the whole city of Khorog, which is quite beautiful and green.

We then stopped at the bazar, where we got some food for the road, and I bought some traditional crocheted Pamiri wool socks. Not like I'll need them for a long long time since we were out of the mountains and getting into regular summer weather, but they'll come in handy sometime in cold weather. Plus they are really pretttty.

We got a flat tire (again), but luckily Vladimir is a mechanic so he got it changed in no time.

Again we spent the whole day driving next to Afghanistan, which was getting busier than it had been. There were more villages and more people out and about with their cows and donkeys. If Osama is hiding anywhere along the Tajik border, he will never be found. There is so much wilderness, lots of mountains, caves, and tiny little villages that could be keeping him safe. Or he could have swum across the river and be living in Tajikistan like a Tajik- no one would ever know.

We spent the night in Kalaikhum, a small village. Our homestay was right on the edge of a river, so we fell asleep to the roar of the water.

The next morning we set off early again, because it was a long long way to Dushanbe. The first 45 kilometers were amazing- this part of the road had been redone by Turkish crews and was flawless- no bumps, 3 lanes, water canals, curbs, avalanche-prevention walls, everything. It was in this stretch that something went wrong in Ruslan's car, and the drivers spent almost 3 hours repairing it. We sat around in the hot sun, reading and waiting for them to be done. Good think Vladimir is a mechanic, otherwise we would have been there forever.

Shortly after the car got fixed, the road disappeared entirely. It was in the worst condition of any stretch of the whole trip, and we bumped around for hours and hours. We turned away from Afghanistan and then were high up in the Tajik mountains on dusty dirty roads

We stopped for dinner in Kulyab, a city along the way, and got ANOTHER flat tire. We got into Dushanbe after dark, and got dropped off at some hotel listed in Lonely Planet. It was $14/pp per night, but it was close to the center and one of the cheapest listed, so we stuck with it.

Our hotel was next to the opera house, and in front of it was a big fountain surrounded by outdoor tables and shashlyk sellers. We spent our first night sitting out with the Swiss couple, enjoying the warm evening and eating unfortunately bad shashlyk. It was the only evening when there wasn't a thunder storm, so we'd chosen a good night.

We spent 4 days in Dushanbe, just wandering around, staying in the shade to avoid the heat, and enjoying what we decided is the most beautiful Central Asian capital city. There wasn't much to see or do, but there are lots of parks, fountains (that were actually turned on) and trees. The next day the Swiss were leaving to spend 2 days at Iskender-Kul, a mountain lake, and then they were flying back to Bishkek to spend a week trekking in Kyrgyzstan. So we said our goodbyes and we were on our own for the first time since we left Kyrgyzstan.

Once we were crossing the main street in a place without a crosswalk, and a policeman was waiting for us on the other side when we got across. He asked us why we hadn't used the crosswalk about 10 meters away, and I said that there hadn't been any cars coming, so we just crossed there. I was sure he was going to ask for our passports and probably a bribe, but he told us that the crosswalk had been built for our safety, so we should have used it. He then asked where we were from, asked if London was the capital of England, and asked if we were enjoying Tajikistan. I said that it was pretty hot, and he pointed down the road and said that there was a river we could swim in to cool off. He then sent us on our way, wishing us good travels. So different from a run-in with a Kyrgyz policeman would have been!

Langar-Khorog

We left early the next morning for Khorog, the capital of the GBAO region of Tajikistan and GBAO's largest city, with almost 30,000 people. But before we got there, we had a whole day's drive next to Afghanistan to complete.

We drove through the Wakhan Valley, which Tajikistan shares with Afghanistan. We had many great photo opportunites with mountains rising up on either side. We caught a glimpse between the clouds of the Hindu Kush Mountains in Pakistan, but unfortunately it was too cloudy to see much.

We spent most of the hours just staring across the Pyanj River, which had gotten a lot wider by this point, into Afghanistan. There were many villages and many Afghan people on the other side. They looked just like Tajik people on our side, so I don't know what all this talk about Afghans being terrorists is about ;)

The whole trip we were on a paved road that was the best we'd seen in days. The Afghan side had a dirt donkey path the whole length along the river, that in some places got quite scary. We stopped at the scariest part, which was built over a sheer rock face high above the river, which had a very very fast current. There were some parts where footing had been found in the rocks themselves, but there were more than a few places where wooden logs had been used to make a bridge that jutted out from the cliff. There happened to be a man and his donkey about to walk onto it, so we sat down to watch his journey across. He had had a big bag on the donkey's back, but before he got onto the bridge, he took the bag on his own back and led the donkey by a long rope. I'm sure he saw 6 of us sitting across the river, 3 of us with cameras, and it must have made his trip a lot worse... but we couldn't leave, we were just so scared and interested in how/if he would make it to the end. His donkey lost his footing once and I had to look away because I was sure it was the end, but he (very slowly) made it all the way across to solid ground that wasn't hanging over the river. We wanted to give him a round of applause, but feared that it might jinx him or something. I wouldn't have made it even one inch onto that section of the road. His crossing was bad enough, but when we imagined that someone actually had to build it right over the river, and someone had to be the first person to test if the bridges held... that should make it onto someone's list of worst jobs.

We stopped for lunch in Ishkashim, one of the few places where there is an actual bridge to Afghanistan. There are 2 other bridges- in Khorog and in Kalaikhum. Mike and I had thought for some time about getting a visa in Khorog and then going into Afghanistan from Faizabad to Kunduz to Mazar-i-Sharif, and then going north to Termiz in Uzbekistan, but some people I emailed on couchsurfing.com made it sound quite dangerous (plus I knew my dad would have had a heart attack) so we'd decided against it. We met an American in Murgab (he was from Wallingford, CT, and knew people who went to EO Smith) who had been in Afghanistan and absolutely recommended it, he'd had no problems and said it was beautiful, but I still didn't want to risk it.

The American told us there was a way to sort of get into Afghanistan- every other Saturday in Ishkashim, Khorog, and Kalaikhum there was a bazar in Afghanistan, where you could surrender your passport (no need for a visa) at the bridge, cross over, shop, and then come back. He said they had burkas for $5. I was really hoping to go to this bazar, but our taxi driver found out that due to some problems in Afghanistan, all 3 bridges had been closed and the bazars cancelled until further notice. Too bad!

There really wasn't much going on in Ishkashim, so after lunch we headed on our way again. We got stopped at a police checkpoint just as we were leaving the city, and 2 of the cops asked/demanded to hitch a ride with us for about 100 km to another village. You can't really say no to a cop, so we made room for them- one in our car, one in the car with Phillippe and Dominique.

We dropped them off and then turned off the road to Khorog to visit sulphur hot springs. We didn't swim, because the weather was pretty hot and the springs were outdoors, but it was really cool just to look at the giant white cloud-like shape that had been created by all the sulphur. Phillippe went in for a quick swim, and got out smelling like eggs.

We drove through a pretty little village, where some locals flagged us down and talked for a few minutes with our taxi drivers. We turned around and drove the other way for a few minutes, and our driver Vladimir explained that the Afghans were dynamiting some rocks off their road, and last time they'd done it some rocks flew over into the Tajik village, so they wanted our cars to be safe from falling stones. We sat and listened to the explosions, and I posted a video to facebook where you can sort of hear explosions over the sound of the river.

We got into Khorog in the evening, and our driver found us a homestay for $10 a person, with an indoor toilet and a shower, 2 things we'd hadn't seen much of since getting into Tajikistan. Vladimir told us there was an Indian restaurant just up the road, so we went there for dinner. I can honestly said that it was the best food I've had in all of Central Asia. It was great bread, chicken tikka masala, great rice, and RC Cola, which is hugely popular here (even more popular than Coca Cola).

I had a hot shower, and after almost a week of no shower at all, it was the most wonderous feeling! Unfortunately I somehow broke the hot water faucet, so that no one after me could take a shower (sorry Mike!). We had electricity too, so we uploaded all 600 of our pictures onto my computer. It felt good to finally be back into civilization, but also sort of sad that our Pamir adventure was almost over.

Murgab-Langar

We said goodbye to our new Swedish friends, who were heading back to Osh with Sharshen. We left Murgab at 7:30 am with the Swiss couple, Phillippe and Dominique. We had 2 drivers and 2 Land Cruisers "for safety reasons" since they'd heard that the roads were washed out. It was more just that they both needed to get back to Dushanbe, and wanted their petrol to be free. But oh well, we got a deal anyways.

We were very glad to be leaving Murgab, the worst place on earth. It was also the last part of the country where Kyrgyz people lived, so we'd soon be seeing real Tajiks. As soon as we got out of the village and into the mountains, everything became a winter wonderland. All the mountains were covered in 6 inches of snow, and it was absolutely beautiful being surrounded by white mountains on all sides. There hadn't been snow the day before when our driver, Vladimir, had come through with an Austrian tourist. The weather changes so quickly in the Pamirs that everytime drivers come through it must look different.

We turned off the Pamir Highway, because instead of just going through Tajikistan, we were going the alternate route along the Afghan border. As soon as we turned off, the road went from asphalt to dirt/rocks, and stayed that way almost the whole rest of the trip. The snow disappeared a few miles on, and the landscape was more like a desert. There were sand and rocks everywhere. We stopped by an alpine lake in the "desert," that Phillippe said looked just like Bolivia.

As soon as we turned off, the road went from asphalt to dirt/rocks, and stayed that way almost the whole rest of the trip. We went through a police checkpoint, and then we were at the Afghan border! A small river separated us from Afghanistan, but we could at any moment have waded across. We stopped for lunch on the banks of the river- Mike and I had a cucumber and some chococlate-covered peanuts, Dominique and Phillippe got out their camping stove and heated water for Ramen noodles.

We snaked along the side of mountains on narrow dirt paths... definitely not a "road" you'd want to be on in a rain storm. We had to stop often to let the shepherds pass by with their flocks of goats, sheep, cows, and donkeys. Everywhere we looked was just brown. There were some small tufts of mountain plants, but no trees or bushes...

...until we went around a corner and saw an amazing green oasis of tall trees and fields in front of us! This was the village of Langar, brushed over in Lonely Planet but a place that I would recommend to everyone. We drove down into the valley, on narrow, snaking roads, past small mud houses. Everywhere there were people and children waving and shouting "hello!" Our driver took us to a homestay, in a house especially built for Aga Khan. The Aga Khan is the leader of Ismailism, a branch of Islam. You can read more about the Aga Khan title here and read about the 49th imam and current leader of Ismailism here (he's Swiss!?) He has single-handedly given more than $500 million dollars to the Pamir region (he spent $200 million just to build a branch of The University of Central Asia in Khorog!) It's said that he has supported the people of the Pamirs since 1998. Anyways. In 2007 it was the Golden Jubilee year, his 50th year as leader of the Ismailis, and the house we stayed in was built for him.

We dumped our bags and went for a walk around the village. There were some petroglyphs, but Mike and I had seen enough of them AND it was a steep walk up a dusty mountain, so we waited at the bottom for the Swiss couple. They'd never seen petroglyphs, but said that it wasn't worth the walk. Then we walked around town for hours, just marveling at the friendliness of all the people. There was water everywhere- rivers, creeks, springs, waterfalls. It really felt like an oasis, because everywhere we looked outside the village was just brown. Many people wanted us to take pictures of them, and it was just such a relief to meet really friendly people after 10 months in KG.

The daughter of our homestay took us to the Aga Khan "museum," which is more just like a community center. Ismailis don't have mosques at all- instead, there's just a center where people can go to pray and to socialize. The prayer room is designed in the traditional Pamiri way- there are 5 pillars around the room, which signify the 5 pillars of Islam. We also went to the grave of some famous Ismaili. There was a big stone wall built, covered in Marco Polo Sheep horns, and there were many small ovens that the daughter of our homestay kept sticking her hand into and touching her forehead. There was a smaller enclosed stone wall inside where the man was buried, and around this wall were many many more horns. It was a very peaceful place full of warped trees and lots of green grass.

We went back to our homestay where dinner was included and had plov. We all went to bed quite early, because somehow sitting in a car all day is exhausting.

Osh-Murgab

The Pamir Highway got off to an exciting start. We split the car with 2 great Swedes, Anna and John. She's a diplomat working at the Swedish Embassy in Moscow. Our driver (who Chris recommended) was actually on the Osh Guesthouse coordinators blacklist because he had tried to scam some foreigners he drove out of money. He was the only driver in Osh the day we wanted, so he got the job, but we were warned not to give him any more money than we agreed to.

The morning after one night at Osh Guesthouse I woke up completely covered in bug bites. They still itch horribly today (a week later!) and I think they might have been bed bugs. What a way to start a trip :)

We got the car for $175 from Osh-Murgab, $43 each. We set off around 11 am in a great Russian Uaz Jeep. Just a few miles out of Osh the road completely disappeared, and we were basically off-roading the whole way to Tajikistan. We went over at least 2 million bumps and it's amazing to think that everyday marshrutkas stuffed full of people take the same route. There was some bad weather in the mountains, and we spent most of the trip to the border in clouds and rain.

We got out of Kyrgyzstan alright (the border guard spent 2 months studying at The London School!), but from the Kyrgyz border to the Tajik border there were 20 kilometers of horrible road conditions and bad snow. It was a small muddy road through snow and up high mountain passes. Not something I'd like to do again. There was a house just past the Kyrgyz border crossing, and the people living in No-Man's Land offered us some yak airan (yogurt) which was quite tasty and unique. They had many yaks that we also took pictures of.

We also got into Tajikistan with few problems, but the border guards hadn't seen a diplomatic passport before, so they tried to give the Swedes some problems. Sharshen, our taxi driver, had to pay the guards with about 5 liters of gasoline. But we got across into Tajikistan!

It was getting dark, so we overnighted in a small village called Kara-Kul. It is next to a big frozen lake. In the Pamirs from the border to Murgab, most people are Kyrgyz, so it didn't really feel like we'd left. We basically went straight to bed since the altitude was affecting us, we'd sat in the car all day, and it was late at night. Anna was really affected by the altitude and felt really ill, but I just had a bit of a headache (which might have been due to all the bumps...)

It was freeeeezing cold, but we got a traditional bed of mattresses on the floor, and it was quite cozy.

In the morning, we walked to Lake Kara-Kul, which is big and covered in ice. There were beautiful snowy mountain peaks all around the lake, and we caught a glimpse of Pik Lenin, the tallest mountain in Kyrgyzstan. There were animal skins and Marco Polo sheep horns lying all over the place, which was quite sad to see, considering that they are quite endangered. :(

After breakfast we continued onto Murgab. There were a few more hours of moutain roads, but the weather was clear and bright, and it was great to see all the mountain peaks everywhere. We arrived at lunchtime in Murgab, which is by far the most horrible place I've ever been to. It's a miserable town of about 6000 people, and does have a desert feel. It's dusty, grey, and all the people look very ill. They are also Kyrgyz here, but are much darker than people in Kyrgyzstan because they are much closer to the sun, and their eyes are all red because they either do lots of drugs, even the toddlers, or they don't wear sunglasses. Maybe both, since it is the Opium Highway of drugs from Afghanistan.

Luckily, we didn't spend long in Murgab. After lunch of bread and tea at Sharshen's family's house (that we were ridiculously charged 3$ for), he drove us to Mediyan Valley, where we were to stay in a yurt (finally!) and swim in some hot springs. It was another bumpy ride on a dirt road, but only about 1.5 hours in the car. We stopped off at a house because Sharshen had heard in Osh that the man living there had a tiger. We thought it was bollocks, but he took us around the back of his house and he had a cage with a SNOW LEOPARD in it! He said he'd caught it in the mountains in November when it was a baby, and he was going to give it to the Dushanbe Zoo. Who knows if that will happen. There was a dead marmot in the cage that the leopard hadn't eaten, and he did NOT look happy at all. Sadness. But we got to see the rare snow leopard, in its natural environment!!, sort of. Ben Scott, our London School co-worker, must be green with jealousy that we saw it and he didn't :)

The Mediyan Valley is probably the best place in the Pamirs to live. It's a secluded valley protected from the wind, and there are all sorts of natural springs. There are at least 4 different hot springs with varying temperatures, a river, and cold water springs. They used the hot water for everything- heating the house, cooking, and even heating the yurts! There were 4 radiators in each yurt, which kept them much warmer than regular yurts.

It was cold and rainy in the evening when we arrived, so a bath in hot springs sounded like the perfect activity! The water was 65 degrees Celsius, which seemed impossibly hot. After about 10 minutes of wading up to my ankles, I got used to it enough to get in all the way. It was really relaxing, but still VERY hot, even when I got used to it. But it was great to be in hot water while it was raining in very cold water though the ceiling skylight.

Sleeping in a yurt isn't all it's cracked up to be. Most people say that it's very cold and uncomfortable all night, but here it was too hot. We had a giant duvet, which was so thick it was almost suffocating. We were right next to the radiator, and it felt like we were in an oven. It didn't help that my bug bites were horrible itchy. I spent hours awake, sweating and scratching. But I finally got to sleep in a yurt, which I'd wanted to do all year.

In the morning, we went for a ride with Sharshen, who had to drop some stuff off at the leopard man's house. He took us to see some not-so-amazing petroglyphs, and then we walked most of the way back to the yurts, through a great valley next to a river. We were served Oromo for lunch, and drove back to Murghab in the afternoon. On the way back, we met two Swiss tourists who were heading for a swim in the hot springs. They said they had a car for the next morning going to Langar, along the Afghan border. Mike and I had initially planned on going there, but then since it seemed expensive, we'd decided to get a cab to Khorog, the capital of the GBAO region. But when we heard that they were planning to do just what we wanted, we decided to go with them instead. It was $805 from Murgab all the way to Dushanbe (almost 1200 km), over the course of 4 days. We paid $320 and they paid the rest. So we got from Osh to Dushanbe for just $203 each, which is quite cheap compared to what it seems others pay.

We decided not to eat dinner in our homestay when we got back to Murgab because it was so expensive, so we went out in search of a cafe. Murgab is bleak during the day, but at dusk it was even worse, if that's possible. We found a cheap cafe and had buckwheat and mediocre oromo, and I re-chipped the tooth I'd just gotten fixed in Osh. So much for Kyrgyz dentistry. Only a little piece chipped off and it hasn't gotten worse since, but what a waste of 400 som! After food, we hurried back home quick because there were scary dogs and scary groups of men wandering the dismal streets. We were very glad that it was our first and only night in Murghab.

We set off the next day with the Swiss couple for Langar. I'll update probably tomorrow about all the fun things that happened between Murgab and Dushanbe, where we are now. We'll stay here for probably another 3-4 days. Hopefully we'll find someone we can couchsurf with to save some money. It seems like a really beautiful Central Asian city, so we're looking forward to exploring it.

I've put some pics on facebook, so check those out.