Traveling Through Kyrgyzstan, Part 1: The Return to the Yurt Campsby Randi / October 4, 2017
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.
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Olkhon Island & Lake Baikal, Siberia: I Don’t Think You’re Ready For This Jelly (me)
After three weeks of exhausting, nonstop activity in our big summer travels, we planned for four days of just pure relaxation in a presumed idyllic spot, Olkhon Island on the famed Lake Baikal, a tiny fishing village that is hard to reach and so we simultaneously assumed two incongruous thoughts: 1) that we would be two of very very few visitors (pretty true) but 2) that even so the island and village would be equipped to deal with visitors (hahah no). Can’t have it both ways. Really, parts of the island, like the lake itself and the cliffs and rocky terrain along the northern parts of the island, are beautiful, but getting there and for the most part being there is too stressful to allow for any relaxation, or, honestly, to allow me to recommend a trip here.
it’s like a little baby Azure Window! Oh Azure Window, RIP! (read the Malta posts on the main Travel page)
Through the Hostel Baikaler in Irkutsk, we booked a trip to Olkhon Island up on Lake Baikal. Most people in Irkutsk are indeed stopping there in order to venture out to the lake, which is the biggest freshwater lake in the world. The guidebook says that if all the other freshwater in the world disappeared, Baikal would be able to fill our needs for forty years. That’s a big ass lake. So the Baikaler people booked us a minibus ride to Olkhon and a 3 night stay at Olga’s Guesthouse in Khuzir, the tiny ‘town’ on Olkhon. When I say to you to never, ever use Baikaler or Olga’s people to book anything, I really, really mean it.
The best thing I saw all that day of the 8 hour minibus – our only big toilet stop
My view for an entire day – this was the best road we took. SO BUMPY
The minibus seemed nice enough, one of the nicer vehicles we’ve seen, and since we were picked up at our hostel early we got the first row which I figured would help with my carsickness (the van fit about 16 people). I was so funny thinking anything could stop the nausea on this ride, even if you aren’t prone to it. After we left, at about 9:05, we picked up a few more travelers at another hostel, before we set off and…nope, we just parked in a busy market square one block from our hostel at 9:15, the driver got off, and I watched as he joined apparent friends to smoke in the middle of the market. At 10:30 (that’s right), he got back on the bus, and we thought jesus christ are we finally leaving, an hour and a half late? Nopeeee, he drove around while on his phone yelling at people until we found 4 other people to pick up outside a stadium. I mean. WTF. I thought okay NOW we’re leaving and it’ll be fine. Little did I know.
The roads on Olkhon
After just under two hours, we stopped for a bathroom break, which is the best kind of break you can ever offer me. Five minutes later, we drove down the road to stop for lunch. It sucked that our two stops in a 7 hour bus journey were back to back; I was so nervous about having to pee, I was having palpitations. When we left the cafe in the middle of nowhere on the side of a dirt road, the real ridiculousness of our journey started. The road to Olkhon Island is not equipped for people to drive on. There aren’t roads, really, it’s just land. And we were not in a jeep or a landrover, we were in a minibus and pretty much off-roading. We felt every jarring bump and throw from the rocky paths that turned into sand dunes that you had to carefully maneuver and then back into rocky again. It was INSANE. We were all looking at each other like ‘oh my god this cannot be the way’, holding on for dear life to the handles above us or on the seats in front of us. It was like being on a roller coaster that also shook your seat violently and spun you around. I’m nauseous just remembering it. Of course that part of the trip was about 2 hours. It was the worst travel experience ever, until the return journey three days later, which was actually worse.
The town of Khuzir (after a terrible rainstorm, hence the road is a pond)
One of the two main grocery stores in Khuzir/Olkhon
When we finally got to Olga’s Guesthouse in Khuzir, it was not the fresh sigh of relief we were counting on. It was a few lackluster wooden shacks, and our room was a small, dank, windowless affair with two college dorm beds with ugly, not very clean looking bedding on them. Windowless was the worst part. We told the staffer that her colleagues who had arranged this for us months ago promised that we would be in a building with a bathroom inside it (I pee at least every 90 minutes and I cannot be walking to another building in the middle of the night that often). The staffer was like, um no none of the buildings have bathrooms, here is our bathroom — two outhouse stalls about a full minute’s walk up the road of the grounds. (One was a western toilet; the other was a beginning-of-Slumdog-style-elevated wooden floor with a hole in it. When I talk about outhouses from here on out (and I’m sure I will), I mean this latter kind.) The sinks were halfway back down the little road. I mean. No. Your colleagues told us you had a bathroom in our building, and that was literally the only reason we booked with you instead of elsewhere, and we told them that at booking, that it was dependent on that! She was just like well nope we don’t have a bathroom so that’s it. We got our stuff from our jail cell of a windowless room and hightailed it out of that shithole. Luckily, we hadn’t paid yet, and luckily the staffer I guess heard from the colleague who made all the false promises (lies, they are called lies) and gave us our deposit back. We walked about 30 minutes in the sand dunes (omg it was so hard I’ve never been that sweaty before it’s like I had some sort of fever) up the road to Hotel Baikal View. It looked like a little string of colorful motel rooms, little log cabins in three rows, but they were so much better than motel rooms and the hotel itself was that sigh of relief we needed. The bed was the most comfortable in the entire country so far, and they had a bar, and a restaurant, and lots of staffers who spoke English and there was a POOL and a SAUNA and omg it was just great. And still much cheaper than the equivalent would be in the west.
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Our multi-colored string of hotel rooms! So cute
I loved that bed. It had clean white sheets and a big fluffy white comforter. The best. And every single room had its own bathroom. I was so happy that I didn’t have to put shoes and a headlamp on in the middle of the night to pee, I didn’t even care that the cabins were full of bugs (log cabins on a lake, man!), I didn’t even care that it was too cold to swim in the pool (we did jump in after our daily sauna use though, which was bracing but amazing hot damn I love saunas), I didn’t even care that housekeeping threw out my retainer/night guard and I’ve been grinding my teeth like crazy every since. (Okay, that’s not true, I cared a lot and cried but once a one-inch piece of clear plastic is gone, it’s gone. Fuckers.) I did love that sauna, hoo boy. And our first night, all night, was the hardest rainstorm I’ve maybe ever heard. I couldn’t sleep for a few hours because I thought our cabin was going to blow away, or at least flood quickly and completely. It was unbelievable. Can you imagine if we had stayed at Olga’s and I had to go out in that to trek to the outhouse in my boots and raingear and headlamp in the pitch black five times in the night??? Thank god we left. I’m so grateful to Z money for that one. I mean he didn’t want to stay at Olga’s either, he’s not a filthy monster, but yay for finding a nice place.
We ate a few times in the restaurant at Baikal View, because it was about a mile on the sand dunes to the ‘town’ of Khuzir and we were usually so tired from our day of exploring that we didn’t feel like trekking there and back (there’s like one taxi and you have to either be very lucky and find him randomly or get someone to call him, and it usually takes like 20 minutes for him to come anyway so no). The restaurant was fine, full of all the Baikal specialties husband was supposed to get. It was harder for me, but they had a really good pickle plate and good potato dishes (I say that like I’m not just talking about French fries and potato wedges). We also tried this weird kind of pickled mushroom that was interesting. I know the deathly gray color is unappetizing but they were decent.
oh I’ll have my usual thanks I guess |
like the most colorless plate of food ever |
Then, one night, the waitress was the first one (they all only spoke Russian) who understood really what kinds of things I was looking for and tried to help me get something that wasn’t just pickles and potatoes. She said what about this soup, otroshka? I had read about that soup before, and knew that it was cucumber, potato, egg, meat, sour cream, and kvass, that beer-like soda-ish dark bready drink that I for some reason like. She said this version was vegetarian, and they could do it without the egg and sour cream. I was skeptical but excited to have a soup. Lol again.
my kvass soup I can’t believe I ate this for dinner lolol
It was literally chopped up cucumber, potato, and a shittonne of spicy radish in a bowl of cold kvass. I mean. What. We were CRACKING up. It was…not bad, but it was incredibly strange and like WHAT. Imagine cold chopped veggies served in a bowl of undiluted, unadulterated soda, that’s what it was. I mean I ate it. It was still raw veggies. I still can’t get over it. I think the waitresses were laughing at me, having dared each other to see who could get the weird Americans to eat the craziest thing. I said to Husband that it’s usually with sour cream and egg and maybe that makes it less like a soda bath of cucumber and he said actually that sounds like it would be even stranger, and truly revolting. I guess the idea of soda and sour cream and egg mixed into a broth really is disgusting oh man alive Russia.
literally main street Khuzir
We did eat several meals in Khuzir, too. There were a lot of fish shacks, and a lot of small cafes, and a few decent ramshackle places with some things I could pick out. We went twice to this hopping cafe on the main drag (the name of it was just its address, and there’s like one street, so just like…it’s there) that had salads in a glass case (not refrigerated…I am living dangerously) and so I picked out a cabbage-y cucumber-y looking salad and another carrot-yuba salad! I had that yuba salad twice at this place, I was so happy to find it again, my favorite dish of Siberia. I really hope this yuba looking stuff I keep finding in Siberia (also had some in Yekaterinburg) really is tofu skin and not just some weird part of a fish (or worse) that I’ve just never seen before. That would be bad, and embarrassing. Let’s say it’s yuba before my stomach starts to hurt.
I love that this carrot-yuba salad was everywhere in Siberia!
We also went to Kafe Olkhon on you guessed it the main drag, which I really liked the look of. It was a proper old dark wooden pub-sort of place, full of Russian people and travelers. They had a menu with pictures and some English translations, and I got a giant plate of plain kasha (love it, I’m sorry) and a carrot-cabbage salad. It was a great meal for me if totally boring and plain to everyone else. I love that kind of meal.
There were a few sad grocery stores in the town, one less sad that had a few fun chocolate treats we found. That less sad store also had a fellow customer wearing the best shirt I’ve ever seen. I tried to get a picture of her without being too obvious but I failed. Anyway, the shirt was red and in white block letters it said “Puberty Silent’. WHAT. IS. WHAT. We’ve seen the most incredible tee shirts with things in English written on them. I guess this is how Chinese people feel when they see the nonsense character-tattoos of westerners.
ate the entire bag of chocolate-strawberry things on the walk home. should have gotten two of them. yummm
Wandering through the dirt roads once with new French friends we met, we passed a house that had a ‘homemade bread’ sign out front. So we rang the doorbell , it started to pour, and the lady came out to the gate, in that order. We said ‘you have bread?” and she said yes how many? and we said um, I guess two? and she came out with two enormous loaves of bread. like, enormous. 50 rubles each, so pretty cheap. We were cracking up. She didn’t even let us in, we just bought bread from a random lady at her house on the side of the road. It was hilarious. Almost as funny as trying to break into that bread itself, which took not joking all of my strength to break apart. Inside, it was really nice and fluffy, delicious really, but that outer shell was f-ing armor.
“homemade bread” |
the bread lady’s house. she didn’t let us in |
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Okay, that’s enough about the food!
Olkhon itself is interesting. The town of Khuzir (and, consequently, the entirety of the surroundings for miles and miles considering Khuzir is the most built up touristed part, despite it being literally two dirt roads) is not really ready for tourists, at least not a lot of them. It doesn’t not have the infrastructure to support tourism. Does it even have infrastructure? That bus ride, I’m not exaggerating, it was horrendous. We really can’t recommend going to Olkhon because this ride was so hellish and it takes up two entire days. It’s just not worth it. Once there, the guesthouses all seem to be like Olga’s and the very famous Nikita’s, complexes of small wooden shacks with shared outhouses (oh p.s., the entire island except for our hotel was outhouses. The restaurants too – you were lucky if the restaurant you chose even had a key to the nearest outhouse shack down the block. It’s fine when traveling (used to it by now) but like not in the place you’re staying for days). (Nikita’s charges hourly for wifi, so glad we didn’t book there.) It’s cool to be at a place that is so remote and raw, but it really cannot handle the tourist trade in its current state. It’s a shame because parts of the island are beautiful, but I just don’t know how people can really go to see them. There is a hydrofoil boat that might go once or twice a week, saving most of the minibus ride, but then even getting around the island for the tours (which is the most important and best thing to do on the island; you’re not there to stay in the ‘town’) requires driving in minibuses on the same and even worse roads! The entire day! It’s just a mess there.
the roads we drove on for like a whole week
Let’s talk about those tours. We booked a tour of the north cape of the island, called Cape Khoboy, with our hotel. Every hostel or hotel books the same tour, with the same sort of driver and Soviet military-looking 9-person van, the same fish soup cooked for lunch by the driver (smelled great but I wasn’t going to eat even if it was vegan when we were driving all day on those obstacle sources of rocks, dunes, and tree roots), and the same collection of sights before and after Khoboy along the way. It cost 1100 rubles per person (100 of that was a random charge that we weren’t told about in advance and I kind of think was the driver and his friends tricking us but what could be do), which is like 15 pounds, so not bad for an entire day of sightseeing. And the landscape really is beautiful.
Okay, so this is a little terrible, but the name of the cape is pronounced like ‘ho boy’, a little phlegmier, but still close, so the entire week not joking (and still) Z and I were repeating to each other our favorite bit of SNL weekend update:
it’s when your whole body goes
hoo boyyyyy
Khoboy itself requires a decent amount of time for a hike down and up through all the twists of the mountain. We ran into our French friends there, which was hilarious. It was a beautiful place, which makes me sadder about how weird it is to be a tourist there. Seriously if they just paved the road and excavated the outhouses once in a while (it had been a too-long while for most of them) it would be oodles better.
All over Siberia, we have seen trees and bushes covered in scarves and pieces of colorful cloth. It’s like a shaman thing, I think. Shamanism is big in this part of the country. The trees are really fun to see.
Khoboy had an outhouse (worst condition of whole island), so that was lucky, since this was another of the three days (out of four) where I was a ball of nerves all day about having to pee. I’m so dehydrated.
The driver also took us to other outlets along the north side of the island, beautiful rocks jutting out over the lake that we climbed up and hiked down (some of the pics above are those other parts of the cape; I can’t tell which was which part). It was exhausting but really worth it, so beautiful.
But again, the roads. My god. I bet you think I’m being dramatic just for the sake of drama, exaggerating. Here is another picture I took on the route when I WASN’T hanging on for dear life.
These are not roads, and our little bus, my god, it’s a miracle that it made it through. All the tours are in identical buses and I just do not understand how they operate after driving through this. We spent almost 45 minutes driving through WOODS. Like, without a road, just making our way in the woods. In a bus. Here’s a picture of us going through the woods behind another car. The one in front of us really gives you the perspective I need you to have in order to agree with me on how insane this all is.
pretty scary right?
Another day, we went on a hike along the lake with the French people. It was a cold and rainy day, but we said hey let’s be outdoorsy. But then it started to really rain, like buckets, like pouring freaking rain, and the ground/sand was incredibly muddy and I started to have trouble making my way up without slipping backwards, which is a really scary feeling, and the ground just kept giving way instead of letting me progress and it was miserable. Beautiful, but miserable. Luckily, the foggy weather really reflected that state.
that’s a boat!
It totally looks like Japan, or a scene out of Avatar, right? That fog was insane. The farther we went, the harder it got to see where we had come from, and with the rain getting harder and harder and the ground getting wetter and wetter, we all decided to stop and head back before too long (too long for me though). Our shoes were so disgusting. Not to mention our pants. We’re just always dirty this trip, it seems.
I know right now you are like…dude…all of these nature scenes look gorgeous! Why are you complaining so much! But see it’s just because it’s been a minute since I wrote about the driving conditions. After all this beauty, we still had to get back to Irkutsk/civilization. And when I tell you that the return minibus journey was BY FAR the worst bus trip yet, I really mean it. The van was not nice this time. Instead, it was over-crowded, and the door was broken. There was no trunk area for luggage, so 20 people all with giant backpacks and suitcases had to sit WITH their luggage either on their lap or in the aisle next to them, making this the most unsafe bus ever, not to mention impossible to get on and off of. The driver was awful and refused to stop for lunch. The whole thing was so bad that, when we got to the ferry crossing (where we got out of the car) (after about 1 1/2 hours), Z and I actually knocked on the windows of every car on the ferry and asked if they could take us the rest of the way for whatever money they wanted. Unfortunately, the only ones who had room for us were not going to Irkutsk. Seriously, that’s how bad it was. Thank god we made it back in one piece. When the driver started letting people off in Irkutsk, we got off at the first opportunity even though we were like 20 minutes walk from our hostel. We didn’t care we just needed to get off that death machine.
minibus from hell
Luckily, we got off in Irkutsk right near our favorite place, Engineer Coffee (or something like that), with the best, nicest staff and the best coffee (according to the coffee drinker of the two of us). They also had clean bathrooms, free water, and good wifi. It was a godsend.
After we dropped our bags back at the Hostel Baikaler for the few hours we had until our sleeper train to Ulan-Ude, we went in search of food. We decided on the great-named Sushied, with the ‘sushi’ part in cyrillic and then the ‘ed’ added after that. So fun, and the food was decent. I needed all the vegetables and ordered a green salad, a seaweed salad, a veggie sushi roll, and a veggie noodle stir-fry (to share and granted I gave Z most of the stir-fry but still, lots of food!).
my favorite kind of salad is two salads |
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So, all in all, I guess I’m glad we went to Olkhon? Lake Baikal is beautiful, and it’s cool to be somewhere few people go. But man. The discrepancy between the scenery on the coast and the lake versus the journey there and the roads and the town, it’s drastic. If you had a private helicopter you should take that and try it out for 2 days maybe. It really is so beautiful. But what a mess it all was. Except that bed. My god I loved that bed.
the main intersection of Khuzir, Olkhon Island
that lake tho
honestly I think my fave thing about Olkhon is that they recycle. first place we saw in Russia doing it.
Zagreb Vegan Scene: The Art of Raw
The view from our table at The Art of Raw. Fance.
The Art of Raw Food is a food club and restaurant in Zagreb that lays claim to being the only 100% raw vegan restaurant in Europe. IN EUROPE! That’s a pretty good claim to fame in itself, but now it can also say it was my favorite restaurant so far in Europe, period.
Maybe I’m inordinately impressed by raw food, maybe I was in awe of the owner’s previous, long-term experience at the famous & fancy Le Bec Fin in Philadelphia. Or maybe it was just incredible food, with incredible attention paid to everything. All of these considerations made this experience one of my all-time favorites.
Several weeks before my trip, I emailed Darko, who co-owns the establishment with his wife, to reserve a table. You must do this in advance, as it is more of a club than a restaurant. (When we paid the check, we got membership cards. You can bet I’m looking forward to using that again.) Saturday hours were only 12pm-6pm, so I booked us for lunch as soon as they opened.
The restaurant was a little tricky to find. It’s on the third floor in an apartment building, and you have to check the little name plates at the door to buzz in. Once inside, I loved the place. It felt like a shabby chic home, with the kitchen out in the open in the front room, and two comfortable, airy dining rooms off to the side. We were the first customers and chose a lovely table right in front of the open terrace.
Darko and his wife, Lena, own and run the place. Lena was also our server. They were both so kind and friendly. We talked a lot, especially with Darko about Philadelphia and raw restaurants in the USA.
Once we sat down, they brought a dish of cherries. If you haven’t heard, Zagreb is lousy with the stuff. No, seriously, the cherries I had in Croatia are the best I’ve ever had, so we devoured these quickly.
The restaurant was a little tricky to find. It’s on the third floor in an apartment building, and you have to check the little name plates at the door to buzz in. Once inside, I loved the place. It felt like a shabby chic home, with the kitchen out in the open in the front room, and two comfortable, airy dining rooms off to the side. We were the first customers and chose a lovely table right in front of the open terrace.
Darko and his wife, Lena, own and run the place. Lena was also our server. They were both so kind and friendly. We talked a lot, especially with Darko about Philadelphia and raw restaurants in the USA.
Once we sat down, they brought a dish of cherries. If you haven’t heard, Zagreb is lousy with the stuff. No, seriously, the cherries I had in Croatia are the best I’ve ever had, so we devoured these quickly.
Mmm, juice. I mean mmm, noodle juice.
To start (and to get my fill of vegetables before moving on to Bosnia), my boyfriend and I both ordered juices. I had spinach, cucumber, lemon, and mint juice, while my boyfriend had pineapple, mint, and lemon. Both were great, although I’m used to ordering my 24-36 oz. green juices and so finished mine way too fast.
Lena also brought us a dish of fig carpaccio. This blew my mind. Thinly sliced fresh figs, covered in olive oil and salt and pepper. They did not taste like any figs I’ve ever had. Who would have thought of doing this? The oil and salt really softened the figs and they fell apart easily. The usually sweet figs were now savory and they were just wonderful. I love when novel but really simple concepts succeed with flying colors.
Lena also brought us a dish of fig carpaccio. This blew my mind. Thinly sliced fresh figs, covered in olive oil and salt and pepper. They did not taste like any figs I’ve ever had. Who would have thought of doing this? The oil and salt really softened the figs and they fell apart easily. The usually sweet figs were now savory and they were just wonderful. I love when novel but really simple concepts succeed with flying colors.
Fig carpaccio
Stuffed mushrooms
For our first ordered course, we chose the stuffed mushrooms and the sushi. The mushrooms were stuffed with a tomato sauce and a dollop of cream, which melded nicely. They tasted great, but weren’t mind-blowingly different from other stuffed mushrooms I’ve had.
Raw sushi, omg
The sushi, on the other hand? Mind blowing. I fancy myself an amateur vegan sushi connoisseur, and I’ll never pass up the opportunity to have it. This was one of my favorites.
Just look at that detail! So many vegetables are stuffed in there. The sushi I’ve had recently (and frequently) in NYC is amazing but heavy, stuffed with fried tofu and grilled mushrooms and covered in heavy creamy sauces. This raw sushi was light and delicious and a welcome change of pace. I just loved it.
Just look at that detail! So many vegetables are stuffed in there. The sushi I’ve had recently (and frequently) in NYC is amazing but heavy, stuffed with fried tofu and grilled mushrooms and covered in heavy creamy sauces. This raw sushi was light and delicious and a welcome change of pace. I just loved it.
Raw Pad Thai
For our entrées, we ordered the pad thai and the empanadas. I would recommend both of these dishes. Surprisingly, this raw pad thai was the first pad thai I’ve ever truly enjoyed. Cooked (authentic) pad thai always leaves me feeling meh. Perhaps it was because this raw version had to focus on really selling the flavors, rather than relying on greasy fried components. Whatever it was, it worked and was delicious.
Empanadas
The empanadas, however, again blew me away. In what I assume was a dehydrated seed and vegetable bread wrapping (which was great) was a savory nut mixture that satisfied my constant taco craving. Spring greens also filled the inside, but what sold it was the topping. A thin cream sauce held diced cucumbers, carrots, peppers, peas, and black sesame seeds. You can ask my boyfriend – I was raving like a lunatic about those peas. How often do you find perfect, fresh peas? And they were perfect. The whole dish worked deliciously. I want it now.
We were pretty stuffed, but of course we needed dessert. We ordered the torte, a creamy filling on a chocolate nut crust. It was pretty good, not too sweet which I liked. Strawberries filled the bottom half and flower petals were scattered in berry sauce. It was lovely.
We were pretty stuffed, but of course we needed dessert. We ordered the torte, a creamy filling on a chocolate nut crust. It was pretty good, not too sweet which I liked. Strawberries filled the bottom half and flower petals were scattered in berry sauce. It was lovely.
Strawberry torte
This torte would have been more than enough for dessert after we were already stuffed, but then Darko poked his head in and said he was going to make some superfood ice cream for a little girl in the next room, and would we want some? Like I would ever turn down ice cream! I am that little girl in the next room! I’m glad we decided to go for it, because this was one of the best parts of the meal.
Raw superfood chocolate ice cream
This was some of my favorite ice cream ever! And I went to Vida Vegan Con and had samples of like 50 different kinds. It was insanely chocolately but tasted light, more icy than creamy. It reminded me of the chocolate cream ice at Rita’s Water Ice, which I used to love. At first we were wary of the enormous portion, but we ended up debating whether it was proper etiquette to drink the remaining liquid from the bowl. (We stopped ourselves, barely.) Boyfriend is still raving about it, and he doesn’t really dig raw food like I do. (He’s also an omnivore.) If you go, make sure you can have this!
The whole experience took more than two hours, so if you are trying to squeeze in a rushed meal, this is not the place for you. But I didn’t mind in the least. It was a special meal and was worth the time. I would say it was also worth the money, but it was so cheap! Given the quality of the food, service, and attention, I expected a meal equivalent to at least $100 USD, at least! Instead, it was 200 kuna, or $40. Can you believe it? I spend more than that at my local raw place for just juice and one dish. +1 for Zagreb.
Overall, this was an amazing restaurant. I wish it was in a more convenient place for me, but it makes it a special destination spot. Darko and Lena are great people, and I hope you get to meet them.
The Art of Raw Food, Zagreb
Overall, this was an amazing restaurant. I wish it was in a more convenient place for me, but it makes it a special destination spot. Darko and Lena are great people, and I hope you get to meet them.
The Art of Raw Food, Zagreb
- Water speed: Good; we were given big glass bottles to refill our glasses, which I always love
- Bathrooms: Fine, clean. A little weird that the sink is next to the dehydrator, but whatever – the toilet is separated!
- Service: Great
- Food: Wonderful. Go if you can!
- Bonus: Everyone was so friendly. We loved talking to them about Croatia, raw food, and America.
