The Diarrhoea Diaries

The second time I left Bishkek I was alone. I decided to break up my journey to Karakol with a stop at the beach 'resort' town of Cholpon-Ata. I use the term 'resort' extremely loosely!

It's odd to find a beach resort about as far from the ocean as you can possibly get! Yet here, on the northern shore of the world's second-largest alpine lake, Lake Issyk-Kul, sits a small, run-down town, complete with cheesy, all-night Russian discos and a strip of golden sand (filled to overflowing with obese Russian and Kazakh sunbathers), that could pass as a 'beach'. The sidewalks are potholed, the beach-side tennis courts are cracked and overgrown with weeds, and probably haven't seen a tennis ball since the fall of the Soviet Union (when the town's 'hey-day' had apparently ended), and the food and lodging options are limited at best.

If you were to imagine the Greek Islands following a nuclear holocaust, you may get an image of Cholpon-Ata in your head.

OK, it may not have been that bad! However, after being accommodated in what felt like my Grandmother's dining room by a surly guesthouse owner (beacuse she didn't want to give up one of the nice rooms to a solo traveler, despite half of them staying empty all night), then being berated by her husband for asking why the outdoor shower was nothing more than a single trickly of cold water, then having to listen (through earplugs) to loud Russian techno from the neighbouring nightclub all night, I couldn't wait to jump in a marshrutka and get the hell out!

Next stop was Karakol. The name means 'black lake' in Kyrgyz, and it was be the first of four similarly named towns, in three different countries, that I would pass through - Central Asia's 'Springfield'!

Karakol sits between the eastern shore of Issyk-Kul and the southern ranges of the Altai mountains which stretch from Uzbekistan into Mongolia. The town itself is nothing spectacular - just another poorly-lit, dusty Kyrgyz burg. The mountains are drawing more and more trekkers every year, but the town is struggling to keep up, so few real services are available. Give it five years and maybe a few entrepreneurial Kyrgyz will have realised there is money to be made from these trekkers, and services will be improved, but for now, even finding decent equipment to rent is a struggle.

It was because of this that I spent a few dull days in Karakol waiting. I wanted to do the standard 4-day trek between the former soviet spa-towns of Jeti-Oghuz and Altyn Arashan, across two high passes of around 3900m. I hadn't wanted to do it alone, but since no other trekkers I met were going the same way, I figured this was the only option. Finding a one-man tent to rent - or even a two-man tent that didn't weigh 5kg and fill an entire 60 litre backpack - was a different matter! I decided instead to wait around for an American guy, Jay, who I'd met on the internet.... Wait, that sounds really bad! Let me rephrase: A guy I'd been chatting with on an online travel forum... That sounds almost as bad! Anyway, he was coming through from China and wanted to do the same trek, and it meant someone to share the experience and the weight of a tent with!

By the time Jay arrived and we were ready to set off, our trekking party had grown to a troop of five. The others were: Lino, a German-speaking Belgian; Camille, a French student and, adding a little oestogen to the group, Emese (or Meshi), from Hungary.

We somehow crammed all five of us, as well as five large packs, into one small taxi for the journey to the once-prestigious, but now delapidated Soviet-era health spa of Jeti-Oghuz Sanitorium, from where we were to begin our trek. The taxi, in true Central Asian fashion, broke down twice on the way!

The next four days were an adventure! Despite this being the main trekking route in the region, no one, as yet, has thought to run through with a can of blue paint and blaze the trail. Instead, you are left to negotiate the many cattle paths that criss-cross the area (these mountains are also used as pastureland for shepherds) with the aid of a detailed map which quickly proved itself to be completely useless!

We were blessed with four days of spectacular weather, with wall-to-wall sunshine and t-shirt temperatures even at the highest altitudes. The views of the lush-green valleys and forested hillsides, giving way to tumbling glaciers and jagged 5000m+ peaks, were jawdroppingly beautiful.... but we never even crossed the first pass!

After camping the first night in easily the most beautiful spot I've ever camped (in a wide, green valley, with a monstrous peak dominating the view to the south), we were late to get started on the second day - not an easy task to get five people moving early!

When the trail turned into a field of boulders, which in turn became a steep-sided scree slope, which then became too sheer, forcing us onto a rapidly-melting glacier, we started wondering if the pass we were heading to was in fact the right pass! With less than two hours of light left, and a two-hour walk back to the nearest feasible campsite, we chose the safer option and headed down.

The next morning, we set off up what we thought - or hoped - was the right valley, towards the right pass. It all seemed to be going well, until we reached the glacial bowl near the top of the valley, and the trail became more precarious than the previous day. Clinging to the side of a near-vertical slope, with loose rock and dirt subsiding beneath our feet, we came to the realisation that this too, may not be the right pass! Jay and Lino confirmed this after dropping their packs and scrambling to the top, only to find a vast field of glaciers and no semblance of a trail on the other side!

With no chance of finishing the trail within four days, we headed back the way we had come and made camp at the same scenic spot that we had occupied the first night. Despite having failed dismally in our attempt to reach Altyn Arashan, none of the group was too perturbed! We were all still in good spirits sitting around a roaring campfire, finishing off the third bottle of cheap, 50 som (US$1.20) vodka that we'd brought, joking about the ridiculousness of the scenario and agreeing that it, in spite of it all, it had still been a spectacular few days.

And then the cows moved in.....

At first they approached cautiously, sniffing the air at the sweet scent of our noodle dinner. Then they became bolder, sneaking up behind us and stealing food bags. Finally, we were forced away from our fire by the menacing herd stashing all food and bags in our tent vestibules and crawling into our sleeping bags for an early night.

It was to be a night of little sleep! The cows surrounded our camp, stealing plastic bags from under our tent flaps and rustling them loudly as they tried to lick every trace of food flavour from inside. They stood for hours, mooing and grunting loudly within centimetres of our heads. They tripped over the guy-ropes on Camille and Lino's tent, leaving them in constant fear that they would be crushed to death in their sleep by a falling bovine. And when they couldn't reach our food, they decided that Meshi's tent would be sufficient as a substitute and proceeded to lick, and lick, and lick...

When I finally did sleep, I was awoken by Jay grabbing my arm in his sleep. He'd been dreaming that he was trying to shoo away the cows and had been grabbing at one of their snouts!

In the morning the cows were gone, but they had left their mark in a big way. Apart from our sleep deprivation, and the silky-white saliva covering Meshi's tent, they had also left a little reminder of their presence beside our fire. I'm sure they had just been crowded around it, trying to benefit from the last of the warmth from its dying embers, but I couldn't help but think that the twenty-seven fresh defecations they had deposited within a two-metre radius of the pit, were one final 'Fuck you' for us having not shared our food!

Needless to say, there was no fire at breakfast.

We trekked most of the way back to Jeti-Oghuz before being hitching in the tray of a large truck with three generations, and eighteen members of the family of a jovial Kyrgyz man. It was a fun ride, throwing our arms in the air with the children every time we descended a steep hill, and answering the usual assault of Kyrgyz Q & A: 'Where are you from?'; What is your name?'; 'How old are you'; 'Are you married?'; 'What? You're 32 and not married? Why not?'!

Of course, as I think I've mentioned before, hitch-hiking in Asia is very rarely free. Petrol isn't cheap here compared to average wages, so cars are usually filled to overflowing with bodies heading in the same direction as the driver, each of whom is contributing their part towards the cost of the gas. In some ways, this detracts from the usual hitching experience, since it's not just a kind-hearted gesture made by a kind-hearted person with no expectation of remuneration (and it did somewhat detract from ours when we were asked for 50 som each when the ride was over). However in other ways, it makes for a convenient means of transport, since you know that the first car you flag down that has a space, will stop for you.