-From Uzbekistan to Kyrgyzstan-

After returning from Bukhara, I pretty much just lounged around for a few days in order to regain a bit of energy and enthusiasm for my next leg. After a bit of R&R my health was restored, and I was able to enjoy life again. I had been plagued with minor illnesses throughout my time in Central Asia, so I assumed the worse would be over.

I was invited to Aibek’s Aunt’s pad again for a dinner party. It was a wonderful evening, and of course we were served large portions of horse meat, and thick noodles. Toward the end of the meal I was presented a plate with a large cow bone on it,………Aibek’s uncle dug into it with a fork, and offered me a large bite of solidified bone marrow………….it was pretty gross!

After dinner Aibek and I went to the disco with a couple of his cousins. The disco was dimly lit, mostly concrete, and saturated with tacky American décor. We spent the next couple hours captivated by the seductively moving women on the dance floor, while shooting vodka, nibbling on fruit, and puffing tobacco through a hookah filtered by milk.

After a bit too much vodka, we hit the dance floor and cut a rug with the hookers (literally) on the dance floor. It was late on a Tuesday evening, so it goes without saying that the good girls were studying or doing something else respectable, while the prostitutes were in full swing trying to pick up local and international businessmen.

At one point Aibek’s cousin brought an English speaking hooker back to our table and sat her down next to me. I was visibly annoyed by this unwelcome gesture, and was adamantly told that she was not a hooker, simply a friendly girl wanting to practice her English. I was not buying it, and despite the hookers efforts to break me in by conversation…………I was not buying it(no pun intended). If she was not a hooker………… Why was she drinking a beer? Why was she telling me to relax? Why was she at a disco at 2am on a Tuesday night………..yeah……….not so convincing.

After I had enough dancing, booze, and awkwardness for one night, I told Aibek I was ready to leave and we rolled out of there……………I slept in the next day till 2pm.

Interesting tid-bit:
-Old poor people (Uzbeks,Tajiks) love blessing people. Often times while on public transport, an old scraggly, scruffy looking bearded man would board the bus before departure and mumble a few words followed by the symbolic washing of his face. After this, the passengers on the bus would follow the mumbled words by symbolically washing their own faces…………next the guy would go around collecting money for his services. I found this quite interesting……….It happened frequently………..and occasionally old women would also perform the blessings.
-Other times blessings are performed by using incense………..this usually happens around the bus station. Gypsy-Roma-Tajik women will walk around the station with a small pot of burning herbs. The women douse unsuspecting bystanders with the smoke of the incense, while presenting blessings of luck and prosperity. Later they charge a fee for their services…………, just thought I would add that bit of info to the blog………one of many things I found interesting in this country.

2-28-2008

Yesterday I went to Aibek’s village/town called Gregarian. The Soviets created this town about 60 years ago in order to house the people working Uzbekistan’s cotton fields. Aibek, his father, and all three of his uncles were born in this town.

Because the hospital was so far from Gregarian, Aibek’s father and uncles were born in their home, with the exception of Aibek’s youngest uncle who was born out in the cotton fields. Aibek’s father, nor any of his three siblings have any idea what day they were born on. They were born away from the hospital…………and were not given any documentation to record their date of birth. In consequence they are ignorant of their legitimate birthday every year. Aibek’s grandmother, who is in her 80s……….has no idea what day or year she was born. Keeping track of such things was simply not important for Uzbek villagers back then. She was once told that she was born around the time Lenin died,……..so she is pretty sure that she was born in the mid 1920s.

Gregarian consists of several rows and blocks of long, narrow, single story, mud brick houses. Each home has a large back yard, usually consisting a variety of livestock (chicken, cows, donkeys camels, turkey etc), and a garden. I really enjoyed the strange, but uniquely peaceful and tranquil atmosphere of Gregarian. Everything was built from brown mud and straw, people smiled at each other, and dying donkeys wandered the muddy streets with halfhearted desperation.
{when a donkey becomes too old to work, the Uzbeks simply release it,….and let it wander the streets alone until it dies. The streets of Gregarian were littered with haggard looking donkeys trying to find grass to eat.}

After arriving in Gregarian, Aibek and I went to his Uncle’s friend’s home where we enjoyed the increasingly familiar meal of horse meat and noodles. I will also mention that after the horse/noodles dish is consumed, the host will bring out the juices-broth of the cooked meat, and serve it as a soup. In my opinion it is a bit unpleasant and rank tasting…………but I believe this is only because I have not fully adapted to eating horse meat.

I am not sure if people are already sick of reading about cultural facts/notes of Uzbekistan………but here are a couple more.

-Uzbeks sleep on the floor, Thick 1X6 meter blankets are folded and laid down in order to create a sort of narrow futon like mattress. I have actually quite enjoyed this concept, the firmness has been great for my back. The only issue I have with the arrangement is the closeness. The blankets/mattresses are laid out shoulder to shoulder………..so privacy and space is not really in the equation. I asked one day if I could simply set up shop on the other side of the room………..I was looked at as if I was crazy. Apparently it is bad luck to point your feet at someone, or to lay at someone’s feet. So sleeping together is basically a display of respect for one another, and if I were to sleep alone they would feel as if they were disrespecting me.

-Kids Hair: I noticed that all of the young boys I saw in Uzbekistan had shaved heads, and that the young girls had short hair. After a simple inquiry, I found out that it is believed that if you cut a child’s hair frequently, their hair will grow back thick and strong.

-Traditionally in Uzbekistan the uni-brow was considered desirable and beautiful……….In consequence, many women would mascara or stencil their eyebrows together. I found this to be only prevalent amongst the old rural women. The younger crowd has adapted the overly plucked and stenciled euro look.

-Before a meal, everyone puts their hands in front of their bodies, palms out, and a prayer/blessing is said. After the blessing is said everyone symbolically washes their face with their hand in one sweep across their face from top to bottom.

-I love camels!

Day two in Gregarian started at 6am when Aibek’s uncle picked us up in the towns ambulance and drove us out to a field in the center of town to hunt coyotes. After trekking around the muddy fields for a couple hours, we gave up our hunt and settled for shooting bottles. After a quick breakfast and a powernap, we hit the road again. We headed out into the cotton fields in order to do a bit of pheasant hunting. We enjoyed a simple lunch followed by a couple shots of vodka on the hood of the Russian jeep before departing into the fields for the hunt. Two hours, several shots, muddy boots, and fatique was the price we paid for our one pheasant of the day. To be honest the whole situation was bullshit. Aibek’s uncle was using a 12 gauge …………while the three of us were using single shot 22caliber rifles. How the hell am I supposed to shoot a flying bird with a .22???

-Moving on…………….

2-29-2008

After saying my farewells to my wonderful Uzbek friends in Tashkent, I began traveling east. I made my way to the edge of Tashkent, where I tried my luck at hitchhiking to Andijan. Andijan is the closest city to the Uzbek-Kyrg border, but to get there requires traveling over a mountain pass. There are currently no busses or marshutkas to Andijan from Tashkent, so in order to avoid paying for a cab, I figured hitchhiking would be the way to go.

Within no time I was on the road to Andijan with my new buddy Rasheik. Rasheik was a Kakon native in his late 30s. He was a typical scruffy looking Uzbek transporter, with a beer belly and a mouth full of gold teeth. Rasheik and I spoke sporadically throughout the trip, but our conversations were limited by my Russian language proficiency……which is quite minimal. Rasheik was transporting a van load of ‘Shrek cookies’.

We rocked out to loud Russian tunes as we drove through the small, crumbling, depressingly desolate towns and villages on our way to the mountain pass. Crumbling concrete, rusty cars, malnourished donkeys, weathered faces, large potholes, and consuming mud puddles were the theme of this leg of our journey.

One town had built a new concrete drainage ditch on the side of it’s main road. I witnessed several locals washing their clothes in the drainage water, and others standing on the side of the road with buckets and soap, desperately trying to wave down drivers for a quick and lucrative car wash.

Well………….the pass was absolutely gorgeous! Snow peaked mountains, mud house villages, livestock wandering around untrekable terrain, men young and old…cruising around on underdeveloped donkeys, coal vendors on the side of the road, military, machine guns, and roadblocks. It was quite the experience……………..toward the top of the pass were a series of two deeply cut tunnels. Each went through a large chunk of mountainside…………These tunnels were guarded with intensity. The atmosphere and appearance around the tunnels reminded me of a ‘Cold War’ movie. Cammoed out soldiers with machine guns guarded the tunnel from raised booths, and packs of snow at the tunnels entrance. The combo of ice, snow, mud, angry stares, machine guns, and cold darkness portrayed a sort of authoritative intimidation. The dark tunnel was interesting, dim lights, pipes on the ceiling, and two soldiers in the middle standing in the darkness with machine guns and blank faces.……their presence did not seem to be necessary…….but that is just my opinion.

By the time I made it through the mountain pass, I had been questioned, and my documents checked 5 times. Why is it, that Uzbekistan has remained so militantly Soviet? I really feel that the road blocks are a bit overkill and unnecessary.

At about 8pm we stopped in Kokand to visit Rusheik’s wife, father, and 3 month old daughter for a quick snack and some coffee. Rusheiks wife did not seem to be a day older than 18………

I arrived in Andijan at about 10:15pm and was dropped off at Aibek’s sister’s place. I had finally made it! Andijan is pretty deep……..and proved to be a bit of a challenge to get to.

My hosts were very kind and warm, and immediately fed me hot tea and traditional Uzbek food. I was given some sort of sketchy looking poultry………..which in hindsight I really should not have eaten.

The next morning I was driven to the local university where I met with the English teacher, and several students in the classroom. I felt very strange and out of place there………people looked at me with unrivaled fascination. As if I were the first foreigner they had ever seen……….it was awkward.

After my visit to the university, I bid my farewell to my delightfully hospitable hosts and boarded a shared taxi for the Kyrg border. I arrived at the Uzbek-Kyrg border at around 1pm and made my way through it by 3:30pm. The border was a piece of cake………..a few normal delays……….but overall it was quite easy. I met a few old ladies in line who told me there were in fact mini-buses that go to Osh………so that was a relief. After entering Kyrgyzstan the old women from the customs line were waiting for me at the gate in order to escort me to the Marshutka. With warm smiles, they walked me to the bus and insisted on paying my 10 cent fare. They were very kind!

After arriving in Osh I changed some $money for local currency and made my way to an internet club to make some phone calls. After inquiring to the internet club staff about local hotels…..I was given the option of staying at the internet café for $5 a night. I accepted.

My room was basically an 8 x 10 area at the edge of the main computer room, but separated by a ½ inch particle board wall. The wall had several cracks and holes………so the privacy was less than comforting. The other drawback to the room was the door……….it was 2x3ft……so getting in and out became a bit annoying. The room consisted of a small desk, and a narrow 1ft high cot…....ohh and the room did not have a light.

After dropping my bag off, I grabbed a quick ‘lagman’ lunch and began exploring the very ethnically vibrant bazaar. Probably the most interesting one I have seen thus far in Central Asia.

After about an hour of walking around Osh,……..my body began to show signs of despair.

PAIN:

I truly understand the definitive meaning behind the word pain. Pure Pain is foul, ugly, wretched, and fierce, and has no mercy or sympathy for its victums. I know this feeling too well………….

After two+ years living in a developing country, and five months on the road…..I have come to understand and recognize the beginning stages of food poisoning. After sensing future discomfort, I headed back to my cot with two bottles of water, and a roll of TP. I was prepared for the worst, or so I thought. Shortly after arriving at my cot, my body began to break down. It began with mild muscular aches and pains, and was followed by a pounding headache and a sour stomach.

Nothing could have prepared me for what lied ahead of me………By about 7pm I had an excruciatingly painful headache, piercing stomach pains, and was involuntarily shivering violently while curled up in the fetal position on my cot. By 8pm I began the first of many long drawn out puking and shitting sessions. My nausea was intense, my shivering was uncontrollable, my headache was vicious……..and the squirts were downright untimely, inconvenient, and F’en unrelenting. The combo was unbearably painful,……….I prayed to the gods for it to end………but was answered only with more pain and discomfort.

The puking subsided by day 3……….but the cold spells, headaches, dizziness, nausea, dehydration, and diarrhea were all going strong.

At day 5, I pretty much thought I was going to die………I was choking down no more than a 3ounce cup of yogurt and a half banana per day, and was consuming less than a liter of water per day( due to extreme nausea)………..I was hardly drinking and eating, yet I had horrible diarrhea that sent me rushing to the toilet at least once every 2 hours.

It was boring, painful, and an all around miserable experience…….listening to music gave me a headache, reading made my dizzy and increased my nausea……..my options were simply to lye still and feel sorry for myself………and analyze how stupid my trip was, and how pointless it was for me to be in Kyrgyzstan. My attitude really took a turn for the worse………

I did not hit a breakthrough until mid way through day 6……….I began to force myself to consume more water, and constantly nibbled on bread in order to somehow get solid food in me. By the evening of day 6 I felt substantially better………….The sickness had been conquered.

So……….I am not sure why I felt the need to type this whole experience out……..I know everyone gets sick, and it is no big deal...........But I must say that, this specific time was intense. I have had food poisoning probably 10 times in the last 3 years……..but nothing has come close to how horrible this latest experience was. Previously my longest and most horrible case of food poisoning lasted only 3.5 days. Childs-play compared to the Kyrg brand food poisoning.

Imagine typing away at an internet café when all of a sudden, a lanky, scruffy looking foreigner, with a long beard and uncontrollable hair emerges from a 3ft door at the edge of the room. He is wearing hospital scrubs, profusely sweating, shivering, and looking half dead as he slowly walks through the computer room toward the toilet.……I must have looked like a troll to these people……..scurrying back and forth from the toilet to my private hole in the wall. I did this 15 times a day for a week. If my brain had not been so numb with pain and exhaustion,……….this situation would have been a bit awkward and embarrassing.

So now it is the end of day 7……….my brain is a bit slow……my appetite has not fully returned, but I have hope for tomorrow!

Now I sit here with a sour stomach, but a relatively clear head………and desperately try and motivate myself for future travel.


(this was written over a week ago, I am currently doing fine.)
-Tashkent-


-In Gregarian-







Osh, Kyrgyzstan-