Traveling Through Kyrgyzstan, Part 2: Ooh This is Me I’m Having Fun!

After too many nights in freezing cold yurt camps, we started the next section of our Kyrgyzstan country tour, which would take us a little more towards civilization and, even better, into guest houses! We packed so much activity into these extremely active days and got to see so much of the country, which we grew to love. Maybe it’s because I didn’t have to pee outside anymore, maybe because I finally got to wash my hair, but I started having a swell old time. 

• Catch up on Part 1!
  
• Catch up on our entry into Kyrgyzstan!

 
Day 3
“Put your mind to it go for it…get down and break a sweat!”

We woke up on Day 3 in our gross antsy yurt in the Kelemche Jailoo, after a night banging into the anchor swinging over my mattress pad. After a plate of kasha for breakfast (dudes I really love kasha!), I had to say goodbye to my little floofer ball o’ bear workshop, pictured above. This pupster was such a bad little baby but so flinging flanging adorable! It was hard to leave, but we had a long trek in front of us. 18 kilometers, actually, to our next sleeping destination of Kyzart village. For another day, we would follow Melis as he rode his horse and we walked like chumps behind him in the heat and up the endless hills. Still better than riding a horse though. 

The first few kilometers were pretty decent, although it was super dry and my eyes started going really fast. Luckily we had a lovely little stop by Melis’s favorite spot, a grassy shady treelined area by a big creek (small river?). So nice. I was going to pee behind one of the trees but Z exclaimed “You can’t pee on Melis’s favorite spot!” True. 

I enjoy activity and exercise but 18 kilometers across mountains added up to a lil too much but fast! ​There were some really steep hills in the second half that damn near knocked us out, with Melis of course amused, watching from the top of the hills from atop his noble steed. (She called me a steed!) Unfortunately, my left hip started throbbing, which is funny because my right hip is usually the one that gives me trouble. (Not funny ‘haha’, I guess.) But we had many more miles to go, trekking over rocks and hills and up and up and down those bullshitty gravel paths. So when we finally arrived in Kyzart Village, my hip was completely frozen. Nooooope.  

Finally we saw VILLAGE! and PEOPLE! you could say we saw Village People! And not just any, but little children who RAN up the road to meet us when we entered the village bounds. Melis went ahead to meet their little scampering feet and gave them big hugs. GUYS, they were his kids! He lives in the village with his family! It was the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen. They were so cute and so happy to see their dad. Almost as happy as I was to be done walking for the day. 

Melis told his kids he’d see them at home (I mean I imagine) and finished leading us to our guest house in the village, where we would be staying for the night. Despite knowing that ‘guest house’ was on our itinerary for tonight, I had refused to get my hopes up that it would be anything more than a little shack in a camp where I’d still have to pee outside. Remember in that amazing (terrible) (no amazing) Meg Ryan-Tim Robbins movie “I.Q.” about Einstein (such great nonsense) when Walter Matthau (RIP <3) as Einstein said “I’d rather be an optimist and a fool than a pessimist and right”? I think about that quote at least every day (since 1994) because well I don’t wanna be a fool! Mama didn’t raise no fool. And I didn’t want to optimistically imagine that that night I wouldn’t have to walk outside an actual house to get to an outhouse and then arrive and be proved wrong like a fool like a FOOL. That would be not so fun. But luckily I was wrong because we were led into a nice little REGULAR house! With a bedroom with BEDS near A REGULAR BATHROOM! With a toilet and a sink and a shower! Dance dance dance!

We had a lovely lunch with the hosts at their dining room table, set up in the traditional plentiful manner we’ve grown to love (so much melon!), and relaxed in indoor glory. I ate so much watermelon. And then we realized that no one was going to get up from the table until we did, which was super awks, and we didn’t feel comfortable taking such responsibility in someone else’s house, so finally after a long time of sitting in silence playing with our forks, I finally asked if we were allowed to shower. Z said, “I think they would prefer it.” We smelt. So we got to shower! This was the longest I’d ever gone without washing my hair ewwww. But it’s clean now! After we got clean, we just laid around on our single beds (we had three in our room!). My hip was stupid frozen from walking on it when it hurt so I literally couldn’t get up from the bed all afternoon. I tried to find a reading position that didn’t make it throb but I failed. But at least I won’t freeze tonight! 

Before dinner, we took a short walk around the village, finding a nice little mosque (above) and lotssss of children who chased us while screaming “HELLO! HELLO!” I know it sounds adorable but after three months of children AND adults shouting HELLO at you it gets beyond annoying. 

Dinner was a nice veg stirfry mixture kind of thing and – you guessed it – a GIANT plate of cucumber and tomato salad. I had a lot of bread too because, like the watermelon in this region, the bread was RG too. Also we hiked like 30 kilometers in 27 hours and my hip was wrecked AF! I get to eat all the bread! 

​I had the best night’s sleep in a week. 

​

​
Day 4
“Things are looking up…in DULOC!”

After such good warm sleep, I had a plate of melon for breakfast – the fruits of my labors from the previous evening, when Sacha and the family asked me what I would want for breakfast and I said ‘just fruit please’ and they spent 10 minutes trying to convince me to have a plate of shredded potato instead and I was like please just fruit is fine I’ll grab an apple from the basket and they were like ‘but potato though’. I guess no one has just fruit for breakfast in these parts. 

At about 9:30am we left for Kochkor village, for a quick stop to get water and whatever groceries we needed and then for the main morning event – a traditional carpet factory. 

See how pretty the woman’s creations are? Keep that in mind for when I reveal what we made.

​So, a traditional Kyrgyz (or any, really) carpet factory meant that they use wool and felt. Despite knowing for several days that this traditional cultural art tour was on the agenda, I didn’t even think about the wool aspect before we arrived and they explained it all to us, which I guess was pretty stupid. But despite a decade of veganism, I guess I spent all my worry and attention on making sure the food would be taken care of rather than ensuring that the activities would be vegan. Getting out of horse-riding was enough, I assumed! Once I realized oh this is all wool, it was way too late to say anything. And I’m not sure I would have said anything anyway – this was our one hands-on cultural art exposure in the whole country, and my opposition to their use of wool would literally have accomplished nothing besides cutting our activities and limiting our learning about the culture. 

Admittedly, I’m glad I didn’t have the foresight to cancel this activity, because it was actually really fun. Unlike other factory tours that get added to tourist itineraries as boring ways to try to force souvenir-buying, we actually learned a lot here, and the private instruction made us appreciate Kyrgyz art more than any other visit in the country did. The people were nice and accommodating and didn’t laugh at us too hard when they had us make our own little carpet out of scraps.

​That’s right – they made us do art. The lady instructing us on how to make the main type of carpet showed us every step of the process and then made us create the design and then physically make the carpet. It was embarrassing! Neither of us are artistic, and when put on the spot we are almost anti-artistic. Also, it’s a very physical process that I imagine takes a lot of practice to get the hang of, so our first attempts at dancing and stomping on the rolled up bamboo holder to squeeze the water out was, well, not graceful. 

First, you take metal rods and beat the tufts of felt so they are soft, I guess, as in the picture above. Then, you arrange your design on a bamboo frame, pictured below with the lady laying out the base brown square.

Then we added bits of colored felt on top of the brown square to make our gorgeous design, after which the lady rolled it up in the bamboo, tied the rolled up tube with rope, poured boiling water over the rolled up tube, and used the rope to squeeze it, DANCED on the tube, then made US dance on it and jump up and down on it for 10-15 minutes to get the water out, lather rinse repeat, and then unroll the tube and marvel at your beautiful art as you wash it with cold water and soap. 

Are you guys ready to see the art we created? Are you? Remember than everyone on my mom’s side of the family (EVERYONE) is like a professional artist. I did not inherit those genes. 

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. It’s BARELY our initials. (Ed. note: this is now framed and hanging in our living room.)

After we were hailed and celebrated as Kyrgyzstan’s most acclaimed artistes, they feted us with a lovely lunch in the yurt-for-show in the backyard. We had so much nice food and guess what the main event (for me) was? LENTIL SOUP! What a happy day! 

After lunch, we packed up our gorgeous piece of wet wool and started the drive around Issyk-Kul lake, which we would eventually go completely around. We drove along the southern side, going counterclockwise (or anti-clockwise as they say in the UK, one of the things I fully approve of). Issyk-Kul lake is the largest lake in Kyrgs and second largest saltwater lake in the world (after the Caspian). The name means ‘warm lake’ because, despite being in the Tian Shan mountains which are all snow capped in these parts, it never freezes. Well aren’t you lucky! The drive for the few hours to the Fairytale Canyon was so beautiful! Yay water! I love water! And it was regular summer warm now! The view from the car was so fun – beautiful lake and beach and swimmers on the left, desert and mountains on the right. Kyrgyzstan had ALL the climates and environments all at the same time! 

We hiked around Fairytale Canyon and saw how the gorgeous peaks and cliff faces really did look like something out of a fairy tale! From a magical elephant to a castle in the sky, everywhere we turned had a spellbinding view. We barely made a dent in this huge place. Despite all the wonderful sights, the clearest memory we took away with us of Fairytale Canyon was the white man standing outside the entrance wearing a Ben Carson for President t-shirt. We COULD NOT. 

Anyway, here are some pretty pictures of the parts that didn’t make us lose even more faith in humanity. 

After we explored this spectacular canyon, we drove back to the lake shore for a swim! Yayyyy it was time to swim! We changed into our suits in the car (this is MUCH HARDER to do than Jennifer Grey made it look in Dirty Dancing. I was cursing that movie for days afterward) and relaxed in the beautiful blue water. I know what you’re thinking – wait, this is all the same day? All these varied and fun activities in one day? I know! In one day we’re doing more than we did in a week on the Mongolia country tour. (Ok one day I will be done bashing that.) You know how much I love water – in drinking form, melon form, and looking at form, so it should be no surprise that swimming in form also makes me sublimely happy. 

The water was cold but it was so fun to be swimming again. We had a great time, except for the CRAZY lady with her family nearby who splashed us and wouldn’t leave us alone. She was a lunatic and we tried to say please leave us alone and she just kept saying (in Russian) GO UNDER GO UNDER AHHAHAH I’M A LUNATIC! It was infuriating but luckily didn’t ruin our time. 

Like I said before, Issyk-Kul is the second largest saline lake in the world. Sacha told us some facts about it, and said that “the lake is a little salty” because 260 rivers flow into it and none flow out of it. And then he said it’s also salty because of all the tourists. And we laughed and he kept going, saying “and tourists and no toilets!” and we laughed and then he said to himself (but I heard!) in his thick Russian accent “this is a joke” and I almost threw up trying not to throw up laughing at this without him knowing I heard. 

After our swim, we drove the rest of the way to the village of Tamga, where we were staying in a LOVELY little guest house run by a LOVELY older couple. It was such a nice place. There were other tourists there but none staying on our floor of the one house (there were two houses) so it was like we were alone in a house! I had my own bathroom! Dance emoji dance emoji! The husband and wife running things used to be serious mountain climbers and so the dining area was decorated with absolutely incredible photos of their most impressive treks and climbs up the snowiest and tallets of peaks. The house had an exquisite garden that made us really jealous as we have not been able to keep a plant alive on our patio as of yet. Our room was the standard little basic with the single beds but it was clean and nice. All the vegetables and fruit came straight from the garden, and you could tell. I almost didn’t even care about having more cucumber and tomato and eggplant and tomato and peppers and tomato when they were that fresh. I cared a little. They also grew apricots and made delicious apricot jam. Best of all, they had wifi! It was super weak but enough that I could send a few texts to my fam and send a few angry tweets to Trump defenders. What a great day! Will day 5 continue the fun? Find out soon on the next episode of “how many times will she pee today, Johnny!” Byeees.