Obsession of the Week: Black, White, & Perfect All Overby Randi / August 31, 2013
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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.
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.
the road that never ends
flat bit!
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!”
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.
obsessed with the poster for the October Revolution in the background
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.
whacking the wool with metal rods to…soften it?
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.
well this is embarrassing
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!
eating yurts are better than sleeping yurts
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!
looking to the left
looking to the right
looking to the right a minute later
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.
NOT CHINA!
ALSO NOT CHINA
PARTING THE MOUNTAIN SEA
CASTLE ON A CLOUUUUUUUD
DORK
I’m in a fairy tale and not the shitty new season of Once Upon A Time kind!
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.
Issyk Kul was SO lovely
I FUCKING HATE THIS HAT
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.
seriously the view from the lake. we could see snow-capped mountains from our swim!
At our next guest house
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.
Beijing, China: Adventures in Health and Electronics
We’ve been together on this journey for a while, right? So it’s okay to get a little personal. Today we’re going to talk about what happens when people stop being polite and start getting real. The Real World: China. No we are going to talk about health issues we faced in Beijing, and then be rewarded with a look at our hilarious attempt to fix the little baby laptop in a huuuge Chinese computer parts superstore center where no one spoke English. It’s like an interlude. La la la la…
Just to clear up any potential confusion, no, that lead picture has nothing to do with anything. We just saw it on the street.
So, first of all, you think Beijing, you probably think air pollution. Luckily, the air pollution levels when we were there never reached high enough levels for an Unhealthy warning alert – according to @BeijingAir on twitter, the best provider for hourly updates and pollution levels. It’s incredibly useful and apparently trustworthy (run by the embassy, not by Chinese government, which has doctored the reports before, apparently). But even in the just ‘Moderate’ and ‘Unsafe for Sensitive Groups’ ranges, we were still uneasy about breathing in so much dangerous particulate matter. I mean, we were outside the whole time, walking around the super busy streets. So we did some research and found a shop in one of the business districts that sells masks. Not surgical masks, which do absolutely nothing, but legitimate face masks that actually filter out many of the dangerous particles. Doctor’s masks and scarves do zilch, p.s. Doctor’s masks, the ones they wear in surgery or at the dentist, and the most prevalent type you will see on people in China and other polluted countries, are only for protecting others (i.e. a patient) from any germs in the doctor’s mucus. They don’t do anything in the other direction, when the wearer is inhaling. It’s just a waste. Scarves, I imagine, are just as useless if not more so.
So, first of all, you think Beijing, you probably think air pollution. Luckily, the air pollution levels when we were there never reached high enough levels for an Unhealthy warning alert – according to @BeijingAir on twitter, the best provider for hourly updates and pollution levels. It’s incredibly useful and apparently trustworthy (run by the embassy, not by Chinese government, which has doctored the reports before, apparently). But even in the just ‘Moderate’ and ‘Unsafe for Sensitive Groups’ ranges, we were still uneasy about breathing in so much dangerous particulate matter. I mean, we were outside the whole time, walking around the super busy streets. So we did some research and found a shop in one of the business districts that sells masks. Not surgical masks, which do absolutely nothing, but legitimate face masks that actually filter out many of the dangerous particles. Doctor’s masks and scarves do zilch, p.s. Doctor’s masks, the ones they wear in surgery or at the dentist, and the most prevalent type you will see on people in China and other polluted countries, are only for protecting others (i.e. a patient) from any germs in the doctor’s mucus. They don’t do anything in the other direction, when the wearer is inhaling. It’s just a waste. Scarves, I imagine, are just as useless if not more so.
this is what I look like outside in China hahahahahahahahah #bankrobber
We made our way on our first afternoon to Torana Clean Air, a smaller store than we expected with a small range of face masks and room air purifiers. They did have the masks we wanted in the sizes we needed, just not a big range of colors, so we were stuck with this weird octagon color pattern. Whatever, I don’t care what I look like if it’s keeping my lungs safer. The mask is called the Vogmask, and it helps protect from airborne particulate matter and “non-oil airborne particles” like dust, pollen, and, best of all, SECONDHAND SMOKE! I’m gonna wear this baby on the trains so hard! I know that obviously this sort of mask isn’t perfect, but it is good at filtering big and tiny particles, according to studies, and decent at the dangerous sort-of-small particles, so as long as it’s better than nothing and better than a doctor’s mask, I’m happy. I would like to get one of those total face covers with the mouth hole that you blow out of but like I’m already stared at enough here I don’t think I would be able to handle more.
They were a bit expensive at about $30 USD, but that’s super worth it for something that is helping you not get asthma and lung cancer and all kinds of shit. I do feel like I can’t catch my breath sometimes here, so I will have to see a doctor when we get back about whether China-induced asthma is a thing, but overall it’s okay. Hooray for us looking like fools but acting like smarties! I like being healthy!
So, about that…
After we left Mongolia (hip hip hoorayyy!), I had some abdominal discomfort, like, in and around the kidneys. I was peeing a helluva lot more than usual, which by now you know is a lot anyway, and it wasn’t because of drinking much more fluid, so I was concerned. We decided to go to an international health clinic we had on our emergency list (we have a list of all the hospitals and clinics where we are going where mostly expats go, so they speak English), called Parkway Health. They made a same-day appointment for me and were so nice and professional and I love them.
It was a hilarious experience, if you forget the part about me not feeling great. With my symptoms, they pretty much just needed to do a urine test. So one of the many nice nurses led me to the bathroom upstairs, but it was locked. She got another nurse, and they both tried lots of random keys to unlock it, but nothing worked. I was just standing around for like 20 minutes. Finally one of them said, “Can you just hold it?” I did my best to communicate, “Um, I don’t just need to pee, you need to test my urine, like that’s the whole point of why I’m here??” Finally they got it open and took my sample off to the lab. Meanwhile, I met the doctor. She was a lady doctor so in your face, riddles. Her English was slightly less wonderful than all the main nurses’, but still good and I felt comfortable with her. She asked if we had been traveling hard for a while, and I explained that yes, we don’t sleep we just take trains to random places for like months now. I said I had just gotten to China from Mongolia AND SHE SHUDDERED. She gets it. I said how we were pretty much in a car for 7 days there where I had to hold my pee all day and I was also dehydrated. She was like no no no this is all bad! Are you sleeping? No I’m not sleeping as much as I should be or usually need to. She was SO CONCERNED. She kept putting her hand on my shoulder like for moral support, that’s how upset she was with like, these very minor complaints. It was like if I became a doctor. I would SO be the doctor telling everyone to sleep more and drink more water and getting so upset if they weren’t doing enough of either. She was like, listen, you need to sleep more, you need to drink more water, you need to eat berries, especially red ones (amazing medicine). Then she hit a language snag and said, “You need…it’s in Chinese pingwan (or pingyan I don’t know)…just….lying down on the bed is good.” I THINK SHE WAS TRYING TO TELL ME TO TAKE NAPS. I love this doctor! The results came back and showed signs of infection, and given the symptoms was 99% a UTI. Which, given how many jokes I made about getting UTIs in my recent posts, shows that the universe looooves messing with me.
if anyone knows why I’m sharing this picture we should be best friends
We went over the things that can cause a UTI and kind of just laughed:
Dehydration – CHECK
Holding urine – CHECK
Long car rides/travel – CHECK
Squatting instead of sitting when urinating – CHECK CHECK (all that business about how it’s better anatomically to squat is just for #2; for #1 for women it leads to incomplete emptying which leads to infection in the urinary tract which issss UTI)
Poor hygiene – CHECK did you READ the Mongolian outback post?
THANK YOU PARKVIEW I WUV YOU |
They brought me a paper cup of water in a plastic holder lolol |
I mean, every single thing! Man alive! She put me on a cycle of antibiotics (and I’m all better, p.s., this blog is on a 2-week tape delay). I went to the waiting room and told Z the good news (not sarcasm; it’s a simple easily treatable thing, that’s good news). Then I said, “The doctor said I need to sleep more, drink more water, and eat berries.” Z responded, “Oh SURE she did. Did she also order you to pet more small dogs??” I almost passed out laughing so hard and had a very hard time convincing him that doing more of my favorite things was indeed doctor’s orders.
I’m relieved that we went to a real doctor who believes in medicine and fixed me up. And mostly, I’m super grateful for our UK health insurance, which covers us worldwide and immediately gave the clear when the receptionists contacted them so we didn’t even have to pay out of pocket first. We area so lucky to have such good insurance that covers us everywhere we go – well, except in the USA. It covers us in freaking China and will continue to cover us in Kazakhstan and everywhere else, but it can’t cover the USA because their healthcare system is too much of a mess. Every other country is fine though! Jesus America.
Okay that’s enough about my insides! Here’s the treat I promised you (plus one more hilarious treat at the bottom) about our adventures in Beijing’s super intense electronics scene. One whole section of the city seems to be electronic parts superstores, selling all types of gadgets but most of all doing repairs and crazy customization of gadgets. Little baby laptop’s fan stopped working, so we took it to this section of the city and just dove in headfirst. We entered one of the giant buildings, and were greeted with four floors of indistinguishable counters with Chinese guys gadgeting huge messes of gadgets. We went over to one counter that we chose randomly and showed the guy the computer and mimed a fan turning with our hands and then did a NO gesture. He got it. Unfortunately, he didn’t have the part. We tried the next counter, and a guy was just not into trying to figure anything we were miming out (not as many English speakers as you might expect in such a city!). Onward! The guy at the next counter was in, and he rebooted the computer a few times and determined that the fan wasn’t actually broken, but that something was stopping it, so he needed to just go in there and clean the parts instead of replacing them. How we communicated this is a feat of human interaction and behavior because it did not happen with actual language.
So we watched as he took apart the entire little netbook, because since it’s so small everything is under the keyboard, and he really had to take every last piece out. Like, we went down to the motherboard. Little baby was in 30 pieces! And to check if what he did worked, he had to put it all together again, all the tiny little barely visible screws that each have a very specific part they go with so you have to keep all these tiny screws straight and it’s a mess! Of course, the first go-round didn’t jive well with the computer, because it refused to work! So back apart it all went, a little more fixing, and then back together. Oh it was EXCRUCIATING to watch. How can people watch actual surgeries?! Finally he did a few more rounds of fiddling and it was back! It took over an hour of stress and just sitting in the super hot warehouse with people staring at us like whaaat are these tourists doing here. We also increased the computer’s RAM (I think that means it has horns now!) and we got a Chinese power cord so we don’t have to keep plugging it in with an adaptor, and it all came to I think 230 RMB, which is less than $35. Not bad! It was kind of fun to have the kind of electronics experience usually reserved to locals who have a clue what they are doing with electronics. It was definitely out of the ordinary and cool to see.
ahhh GUTS
Okay, one more random thing, I guess relating to health? At the checkout at most grocery stores we went to, they have tons and tons of condoms where in the USA there would be, like, gum and candy bars. It’s a little disconcerting but hey, China is serious about birth control which is good! But one brand jumped out at us and we were CRACKING up.
UH HUH, that’s a condom brand called JISSBON. So shocking and hilarious! But it gets better, if you can believe it. Our Chinese friend said that jissbon is ACTUALLY WHAT CHINESE PEOPLE CALL JAMES BOND. So this condom line is named after James Bond! And it JUST HAPPENS TO SOUND HYSTERICALLY PERFECT FOR A CONDOM. Omg I can’t even believe. The writing underneath says something like “you can’t even see it”, something very 007 spy-like. Ahh it’s so funny!
Okay that’s all the random thoughts I have for today. And don’t worry Mom I’m all better and it was like nothing!
