Trevor's Travels

Afghanistan Part 2 - The Daliz Pass

2011-01-18T17:22:00.000-08:00

Day 1)

June 8, 2009-

Sarhad e Broghil, Population 548. -elevation 3,400M or 11,154 ft

The lingering effects of food poisoning have left my body in poor shape. I am tired, my body continues to ache, my appetite is minimal, and my muscles feel heavy and weak. Despite this, I must put on my 65lb pack and begin the trek I have spent the last four months planning. As I stand in the tall wet grass beside the guest house, I feel antagonized by the imposing nature of the snow capped peaks that majestically surround me. I feel the adrenaline building up in my veins…….. I can hear adventure, discovery, and experience calling me with a seductive whisper from somewhere beyond the majestic rocky curtain known as the Daliz Pass(4,277M or .

Despite the lingering effects of food poisoning, and diminished oxygen level in the air, a result of the relatively high altitude of Sarhad, I slept fairly well. Excitement and anxiety pried my eyes open at around 5am. Soon after, our host served us a breakfast of flat bread with thick buttery tea before pointed us in the direction of the Daliz Pass. Filled to the throat with dense flat bread and salty tea, we began walking toward the barren mountainside. Our intended destination was a camp ground for nomadic caravans called Barak. Barak was located ten miles from Sarhad, and was unapologetically obstructed by the Daliz Pass (14,000+ ft). Day one of our trek turned out to be a long one, it provided us with several important lessons and an experience that neither my brother nor I would ever be able to forget.

As Toby and I slowly dragged our feet up the muddy mountainside, across the shallow streams and through the thickening snow, our lungs began to feel the strain of the thinning air. It was not until we neared the top of the first snowy ridgeline that I was able to coerce my brother to admit that the altitude was in fact wearing him down. This is the same guy who adamantly refused to wear sunblock because he was brown, and didn’t need it ( more on that fallacy later). By the time we had arrived at what we had hoped was the saddle of the pass, we were hopelessly fatigued, dehydrated and thoroughly discouraged by the incessant gusts of wind that ripped through our morale and pierced our cotton shirts like shards of frosty glass. At around 12:30 we employed the shelter of a large overhanging rock to escape the torment of the wind long enough to choke down a lunch of stale flat bread with raisons and peanut butter. The altimeter on my watch said 13,246 feet.

Shivering now, paradoxically soaked to the core from perspiration, we pushed forward up the thick muddy trail and through the knee high snow at a progressively slowing pace. Because of our fatigue, and our lack of acclimatization, we were not able to take more than 15 steps at one time before pausing to suck enough oxygen from the air to continue. The air became increasingly thin and our bags seemingly heavier with each agonizing step. We eventually made it to the top of the Daliz Pass; a flat snow field intermittently speckled with large patches of thick grass and boulder clusters. The wind gusts across the soggy mantle of the Dariz pass were pervasive and cruel. As we scurried over the top of the pass, the wind cut through our wet clothing, chilling us to the core as it gnawed at our cheeks and ripped open our tear ducts with blatant disregard for our mounting fatigue.

The descent provided us with satisfying and much needed relief, it had become obvious to us both that our pack weight and the mountain climate were given far less reverence than deserved during the planning stage of our trek. The trail gently zigzagged down a steep barren mountainside and soon placed us at the base of a steep ravine with a shallow but rapid stream providing a vein of life to the base of the desolate gorge. According to our old soviet topographical maps that we acquired online from the UC Berkeley archives, this stream was a tributary to the Oxus River.

It was now late afternoon, and my brother and I were weighted down heavily by debilitating fatigue. Being the ox that he is, Toby was now carrying a pack that weighed in the ballpark of 70lbs (30kg); mine was around 60lbs. Regretting it now, my brother had earlier in the day agreed to carry a bit more than I; this was because I was still feeling feeble due to the previous days I had spent praying to the porcelain/dirt hole gods in Ishkashem and later Sarhad e Broghil. This generous gesture is one that Toby would soon deeply regret, but one that has left me forever grateful.

After a 20 minute break spent complaining and contemplating how it was possible that we had not made it to Barak yet, we hastily began discussing possibilities of deviating from the path that lie directly in front of us. The trail in front of us looked hopelessly steep and appeared to unfeasibly lead up the far side of the steep rocky gorge. Ill with fatigue, we foolishly convinced ourselves that the trail ahead would be painfully challenging for us to navigate; therefore, we were better off finding an appropriate alternative route. Option B was to assume that the stream at the base of the gorge would gently and directly take us to the base of the Oxus River, at which point we would simply follow the river upstream until reaching our intended destination, Barak.

Undoubtedly influenced by heavy fatigue and driven by optimism thickly saturated in blinding ignorance, we chose to diverge from the path and attempt to navigate the presumably less strenuous route that followed the stream down the ravine. In retrospect, I find it shocking that we were so irrational to have diverged from the physically intimidating, yet assuredly correct path to Barak . We hardly spoke as we slowly worked our way down the stream; in vain, we diligently scoured the rocky creek bed for any sign of a path. After an hour and half, the seriousness of our mistake began to fuse itself to our dense skulls with terrifying force.

It was after 4pm, we were exhausted, and feeling lightheaded and slightly nauseous due to our lack of proper hydration and acclimatization. The stream soon became more reminiscent of a small river; this was interrupted at times with a massive snow bridge that assumed the shape and function of a small glacier. Not only were the snow drifts becoming increasingly dangerous to cross, but the ravine itself became incredibly steep and difficult to traverse. After Two hours, it appeared that we were perhaps half way to the Oxus river; however, small waterfalls and melting snow bridges obstructed us from navigating the last 500 (estimated) vertical feet downward to the base of the river.

Going further down the steep gorge had now entirely lost its appeal. We were forced to put our heads together and to brainstorm options, or lack of. It was clear that continuing down the stream would be incredibly dangerous; furthermore, we began to realize that even if we made it to the river, there was a very real possibility that we would be trapped by the steep canyon walls and swollen Oxus River. If no trail existed due to high water level, it would be likely that our exit strategy would be an immense challenge, if not an impossibility under the circumstances. Our options were limited, we were so far down the gorge that getting back up with our level of fatigue appeared to be an impossibility; moreover, camping on location was also impossible, we were deep in a narrow canyon with nothing below our feet but an ice cold stream, melting snow drifts, and large loosely set boulders……….setting up a tent would not be possible.

Worn down and weakened by the lactic acid accumulating in our legs and backs and feeling suffocated by the cold thin air, our debilitating exhaustion made our heads feel spongy and lifeless like the cumulous clouds hovering above us. In this unfavorable condition, we made our second utterly imprudent decision of the day.

I noticed a shallow rockslide (gully) on the left side of the steep gorge. It appeared that the shallow rockslide was at a climbable slope, and if we could pull together enough strength to shimmy our way up about 150 vertical feet, perhaps the steep wall of the ravine would level out enough for us to set up a tent and rest for the evening. It seemed at the time to be a simple and logical solution to our increasingly worrisome predicament, a quick fix that would bring our day of trekking to an end in no more than 20 minutes…

Perhaps not surprisingly, the gully turned out to be more challenging to climb than we had anticipated. Even at the early stage, each step was both dangerous and exhausting. We slowly and methodically crawled up the steep narrow gully and though our feet slipped continuously on the loose rocks beneath us, we were able to cling to the jagged cliff wall and slowly pull ourselves up the gully at a respectable pace. We climbed ten feet at a time, with heavy packs (my brothers being at least 70lbs), and thin mountain air, any more than that would be an impossibility in our feeble condition. After each ten foot burst our legs and arms would turn to jelly and the lactic acid built up in our muscles would deliver to us a sharp burning sensation that would often make our muscles cramp and temporarily seize up. Each incremental segment climbed would make my heart beat so hard that I could feel the veins in my temples twitching with each pulsing beat. After a minute or so of gasping for air, and wallowing in physical and psychological despair, I would check on my brother, before forcing myself upward an additional ten paces.

At 150 vertical feet above our starting point, it appeared that our climb was coming to an end. At the 300ft mark, Toby and I began to internalize our emotions of panic and fear; I for one cannot remember ever feeling as desperate, afraid, and exhausted as I did on that mountainside. At about 500 vertical feet I became so exhausted and dehydrated that my head would not stop pounding, my heart was beating so hard that it made my entire body twitch with each beat; with every meter I climbed I would feel an overwhelming feeling of nausea and shortness of breath. The gully at this point was so steep that one slip would without doubt send me to my death; even more horrifying than my own personal despair and fatigue was my lucid understanding that if I were to lose my grip, in all likelihood my body would act like a bowling ball and knock my brother off the rocks below me. There was no doubt in our minds that if this were to happen, we would both weightlessly cartwheel down the cliff at an uncontrollable rate until reuniting with the merciless boulders waiting for us more than 500 vertical feet below. I could not stop thinking about how if my brother were to slip, it would be entirely my fault. Words cannot describe how absolutely horrifying it was for me to embrace this realization.

6pm…….we were both out of water……….we were 1.5 hours into our climb, the gully was no longer a gully. We were now climbing up the side of a cliff. The 60lb+ bag on my back ceaselessly pulled me away from the cliff, providing me with a constant reminder of my hatred for gravity and our ever more dire predicament. According to the altimeter on my watch we had climbed over 600 vertical feet. The ‘cliff leveling out’ mirage was incessantly cruel, leaving us feeling ever more devastated and hopeless with each increment of climbing. I constantly searched the Cliffside for any sort of shelf that would be large enough to fit our tent and shelter us from the snow that was now coating the rocks with an undesirable lubricant. Above and below us the steep rocky Cliffside sandwiched us into a nightmare of hopelessness and fear.

At 6:30pm I could not comprehend why the cliff had not given into the hillside………….when would it level out. The snow poured heavy upon us as the sun slowly disappeared. My hands became numb and the rocks slippery from the falling snow. My palms and wrists were now raw and bleeding from the hours spent pulling myself up the sharp jagged rocks. Toby kept begging me to take some stuff from his bag, but I selfishly refused, I just could not bring myself to even consider adding more weight to my bag. Despite this I could not stop worrying about his role in this dilemma. After every 5-10 foot shuffle upward I would call down and check on him, he would usually just ignore me and look at me with a cold blank stare. What the hell could we do to get out of this……………..the cliff would have to end at some point………..but would we have the energy and will to make it to the top without passing out, or slipping on the snow covered rocks?

At 7pm it was getting dark, and we were in the middle of a snow storm. I told my brother that I could not go any further and that we should just climb into our sleeping bags and tie into the rock, or perhaps tie our tent to a four foot wide slanted rock ledge I had found. We needed to think of something quickly, time was running out, and I was becoming increasingly worried that my brother or I might lose consciousness, and allow gravity to pull us off the cliff. Toby would not entertain either of those ideas, saying it would be impossible to make it through the night that way due to the wind gusts and snow.

I continued to climb with determination to endure, though my nausea began to worsen and my head continued to throb. Toby sluggishly followed below, following each of my steps about ten feet beneath me. I felt a glimmer of hope after spotting a large jagged rock that protruded about ten feet from the edge of the cliff. The rock was about the size of a truck and lay about fifty feet up from us and off to the right around forty feet. It seemed plausible that the upper side of the rock would perhaps contain a large flat surface. We were now more than 800 vertical feet above our starting point. I felt like crying, helplessness and vulnerability was overwhelming us both. I fought hard to maintain enough motivation and optimism to escape from this situation. Having my brother below me and in such a dire predicament provided me with an ample amount of determination and incentive to continue climbing.

The other end of the large rock proved to be less than helpful as a potential camping spot. However, from this rock it appeared that an area fifty feet to the right, and seventy five feet up the mountain was an area where the cliff gave into a more gradual, but steep hillside. Toby and I pushed forward with excitement and anticipation, our misery would soon end. At around 7:20pm, Toby and I were out of the gully and standing on a steep hillside.

Feeling elated and comforted by our newfound ability to physically stand without the guidance and support of our frozen hands, Toby and I looked at each other and smiled. We cut sideways to the right along the hillside another 75ft until we came across an area level enough to pitch our tent. The snow had now stopped, the wind had thankfully subsided. After clearing away a small area, Toby and I used sharp rocks to cut a flat spot in the hillside. Toby in fact did most of the digging, each time I bent over to dig, I became overwhelmed with lightheadedness and nausea. I instead used my boots to clear away the sand that Toby had dug up ( I was basically worthless during this entire task). We set up our tent and were in bed by 8pm.

Toby and I were both incredibly dehydrated, and were far too exhausted to consider cooking. Instead, we treated ourselves to a scoop of peanut and handful of raisins each…………it was delicious. During our in-tent debriefing session, we solemnly promised ourselves that we would be more careful, and only make prudent and well thought out logistical decisions.

I shivered through the first half of the night, but eventually was able to heat my core enough to lie comfortably and fall into a semi-conscious slumber. Neither of us were able to actually sleep, our stomachs ached with hunger, our throats were dry and course from dehydration, and our muscles cramped and ached each time we attempted to readjust ourselves in the tent.

At two in the morning, when exiting the tent to use the penthouse toilet, I discovered that the tent was covered in 2 inches of fresh snow. Seeking to capitalize on this gift of nature, I quickly filled our water bottles and aluminum cooking bowls with snow and placed them in our sleeping bags so that we could melt enough snow to rehydrate ourselves. Within an hour we were able to hydrate ourselves with cold refreshing water. I continued this routine about every 2 hours until morning.

-June 9, 2009-

As the sun began to rise we slowly became aware of where we were. At 7am we saw a caravan of Yaks 100 meters above us. We had camped directly below the trail. We had learned our lesson and vowed never to diverge from the trail again.

Leaving Sarhad:

Going up the Daliz Pass:

The first saddle:

The end of day one- Toby cooking breakfast the next morning (the snow had melted by 8am)

A video of our camp spot:

Afghanistan Part 1 Ishkashem to Sarhad

2011-01-06T04:10:00.000-08:00

After narrowly slipping through the gauntlet of the pompous and patronizing Tajik border officials and crossing the Panj aka Amy Dariya aka Pamir river into Afghanistan, my brother and I were picked up by a middle aged Afghan man who worked for the Ishkashem branch of the Agha Khan foundation. At a slothlike pace, the dust coated white jeep carried us along a winding road and up the rocky hill to the town of Afghan Ishkashem. After being dropped off in the center of the village, my brother and I began to feel uneasy, frightened and thoroughly intimidated by our surroundings. The town was little more than a series of narrow muddy streets lined with small bazaar stalls and an occasional mud brick house. As we wandered up the muddy uninviting road, I became riddled with paranoia; I could not help but notice the leathery faces and the soiled clothes of the clusters of men who were now glaring at us with suspicious and curious eyes. My brother voiced his concerns about our safety, … I hesitated before telling him that this village was quite safe and not to worry. I was in Afghanistan……was I just being paranoid? Indeed it is common knowledge that the USA has not won any popularity contests in this country,…. after all it was the USA who was largely responsible for ripping this country to shreds for the last thirty years….but how would this affect my interaction and experience with these people.

I made a mental note: calm down and ignore stereotypes. It is unambiguous that the Western media paints a negative image of Afghans: the Taliban and ‘Islamist terrorist’ are often associated with the image of rural Afghans. This of course is an unfair and inaccurate depiction of the rural, poverty stricken Afghan people. It is common knowledge that often times Islamist terrorists come from expatriate communities in Western states, most of which whom were brought up in middle to upper class households.

I made a conscious decision to meet these curious stares head on. My brother Toby and I began confronting the curious stares by walking directly to each person on the street and saying Asalam Ahalikum, and following this with a sincere handshake and a smile. The fear and unjustified paranoia began melting away with each Afghan we met. Most would open both hands and sandwich my hand with theirs, they would do this with a warm smile and welcoming eyes. The key, in retrospect, was to ignore the nasty images of the Western media and to humanize these people by looking into their eyes and establishing a real and more accurate perception of these people; one based on fact and experience, rather than propaganda and negative imagery. Why does a turban, muddy boots, a weathered caramel colored face, and a striped chapan (Tajik/Uzbek robe) inspire in us a visualization of terrorism and hate? With this logic, should it not be fair that an image of a Chinese person immediately remind us of the atrocities and ideologies of Mao, or should a Georgian person fundamentally inherit the visage and reputation of Stalin?

Ishkashem was really not much of a town, it is a small trading post reputed to be a hub for opium trafficking. Despite the unlikely location, being so far out of my comfort zone began to make me feel alive. The previous eight months I had spent back in the United States had provided me with rest, reconnection, and a thorough reevaluation of the strengths, weaknesses, and existence of the relationships that make me whole. I left the U.S. because of the suffocating feelings of anxiety, monotony, and uncertainty that was chipping away at my soul. Falling back into my old life, and into my old self was becoming a depressing reality………being back on the road and in Afghanistan freed me from these heavy feelings. Peace and happiness slowly returned to me with each step I took into the Wakhan. These feelings were strengthened by the privilege and honor of sharing these special, unique and exhilarating experiences with my little brother.

After shaking dozens of hands and growing a bit more familiar and comfortable with my new surroundings, Toby and I checked into a small quest house across the road from the local police station ( the ‘Aria guest house’). We spent the rest of the evening wandering around Ishkashem gathering supplies for our trek at the local shops. We purchased: 4 head scarves, 3kg of rice, 1.5kg of lentils (bad idea, they take forever to cook at high altitudes), curry powder, 3 rolls of TP, .5kg of raisins, .5 kg of black tea, and a few bags of seasoning powders.

We were not alone at the Aria guest house. An enlightened Japanese guy with an American accent(he went to photography school in the States, and was born there) in his early 30s was also staying with us at our guest house. His name was A.K. Kimoto (his website is: www.spidersandflies.com). AK is a journalist and was in Ishkashem taking photos and gathering information about the problems associated with the widespread opium addiction in the area. Toby and I enjoyed spending our evenings with A.K. and learning about all of his research and experience. Though he considers his home base to be Thailand, he had previously spent a good amount of time in Kabul, and was putting together a self funded academic piece, and photo book on opium addiction in NE Afghanistan. According to A.K., many villages in the area, if not all, have an adult population with a 50% or higher opium addiction rate. In essence, most of the households have at least one opium addict.

*********************

-Side note: over a year later, as I finally type up my journal about Afghanistan, I have found out some unfortunate news. While doing a bit of research on A.K. to make sure his website is still up, I have found out that A.K. had passed away in spring of 2010. His website is no longer working, but you can find tributes to him, and an array of his work all across the web.

I feel compelled to share with you these words A.K. wrote about his time in Ishkashem, I found them online, but have not been able to track down his photo essay yet. I hope to do so.

“I offer to transport the mother and child to a clinic. One of the elders cuts me off before I can finish my thought. He smiles gently as he tells me that the child would never survive such a journey in the cold rain, and anyway, this way of life and death have been repeated for centuries in these mountains.”

Opium Addiction in Badakshan- words of A.K.Kimoto

In the remote North-Eastern province of Badakhshan in Afghanistan, opium and heroin addiction are ravaging isolated mountain communities, and the staggering numbers are only getting worse. In some places, it is said that 70% of the population use drugs in some form, from hashish, to raw opium and refined heroin powder. It is not uncommon to find three generations of a family smoking together behind closed doors.

Traditionally, Opium was used as a cure-all, the magic medicine that could work wonders on anything from back pains to headaches to the nagging cough that every one has during the brutally cold winter months. The residents of Ishkashem, on the Tajikistan border say that it was never a problem before. Now, the situation is changing. In Ishkashem, it is said that at least 50% of the population has a serious drug addiction problem. Other remote villages further down the inaccessible Wakhan Valley are said to have an unbelievable 70-80% addiction rate. Children are born into addiction every day, and thus, the cycle is perpetuated.

I also found one of the last correspondences he had with his close friend James Whitlow Delano ( www.jameswhitlowdelano.com ) regarding his lack of recognition for his work in Ishkashem:

-a pic A.K. took in NE Afghanistan-

“I don’t care about being recognized, and I don’t care if I go through life with no fame to show for my efforts. What bothers me is if people don’t take my latest work seriously. Not for my sake, but for the sake of the people who allowed me to photograph their lives. When was the last time you saw a 4 year old sucking down heroin? Is it not a tragedy? If I can’t do anything to bring attention to their plight, and if nobody cares, then what am I doing with my time and in fact, my life? It was never about awards or anything like that. I thought it was about being out in the world, witnessing things that others don’t see, and sharing these stories with a larger audience. I always said that I do what I do because I only have 2 hands.

6-6-2009 (journal entry)

I feel like shit again. The mutton stew and beans I ate for dinner last night ripped my stomach apart and has left me frail and weak. Food poisoning again! Went to the border bazaar today but was too ill to enjoy it. Popped a few pills that A.K. hooked me up with, and sat on the side outside the rock gate trying to ignore the curious stares and salesmanship of the vendors.

Getting transport and permission to go into the Wakhan Corridor has been a headache. After a lot of haggling with several different drivers, I was able to get transport for $600……….which is an extortionate price for the service. The Hilux will take us from Ishkashem to Sarhad e Broghil, and pick us up two weeks later and drive us back to Ishkashem. We also have a local guy sorting out our permits to get into the Wakhan. He is using his connections in Faizbad and Ishkashem to sort out permission for us to go into the Militarized border zone of the Wakhan corridor and Afghan Pamir. Slept most of the day, too sick to eat, sat around outside with Toby and A.K. most of the evening, drinking tea to stay warm and listening to A.K. talk about the heartbreaking stories of opium addiction and poverty in the villages surrounding Ishkashem. He spends each day with a young interpreter, about 18 years old, and a driver that he picked up out of town for the price of $50 a day, which is not that bad. He tells us that people are usually reluctant to have their picture taken, but he always explains to them that what he is doing is trying to spread awareness, so as to bring help to the area, and a way out of opium addiction and poverty.

7-6-2009 (Journal entry)

It all begins….. Our documents showed up late from Ishkashem, so we were not able to leave Ishkashem until 7am. The first police checkpoint in the Wakhan Corridor was a breeze; our papers got us through without hassle. Down the road a ways, we were stopped at the next checkpoint in the town of Shandar, this scheduled stop was a bit more challenging. After an hour of phone calls, waiting around, and a douse of uncertainty and confusion, the head of police called the commander in Ishkashem (whom he knows well,.. my brother and I had both met him as well), and soon after we were allowed to pass through the gate. Four hours into the jeep ride we reached the town of Qali Panja.

-side note: Qali Panja marks the end of the Wakhan Corridor and the beginning of the Big Pamir)

The local police questioned us briefly before accepting our permits from Ishkashem and Faizbad and writing us another one for Sarhad e Broghil. After the business end was taken care of, they invited our driver and both my brother and I into the police shack for lunch. Rice, bread, and tea…..sitting on the floor with five other soldiers, eating scoops of rice with curled fingers,……though my stomach was still a bit rough, it was a great and memorable experience.

The drive through the Corridor has been amazing, small Wakhi settlements and villages seemed to arise from piles of barren rock, caravans of double humped camels were often visible from the narrow dirt road. The Wakhi people wore bright red clothes and elaborate necklaces and scarves. I began to notice how their pale skin was often chapped and severely sun damaged, this giving them a very unique and weathered look, one that brought about emotions of empathy and sadness. The rugged road that took us the entire way to Sarhad was by all definitions intense. We drove through rivers and deep muddy streams, over deep ruts and mounds, and up and down the steep rocky mountainsides. Wakhi shepards, young and old watched over their sheep and goats, grazing them in the lush grassy fields along the riverside. Centuries if not millenniums old petroglyphs were frequently seen on large boulders near the road. It was a fascinating and beautiful ten hour jeep ride; however, Toby and I were both quite relieved when it ended. We arrived in Sarhad e Broghil slightly after five pm. Sarhad is the end of the jeep trail, it was an exciting realization that we must go on foot from here…

Soon after arriving, we were greeted warmly by our host and a dozen or so of the local Wakhi villagers. All had severely chapped cheeks, leathery skin and glowing eyes. The guest house consisted of a mud and rock shack surrounded by a 1.5 meter mud wall. Just outside the guest house were about forty Yaks owned by a Kygryz caravan. They were all resting and reenergizing after a long journey into Sarhad from their mountain settlements deep into the Little Pamir. The Kyrgyz territories are located deep into the Little Pamir and start with the village of Bozai Gombaz, before this village is exclusively Wakhi settlements. They respect each others cultural and religious differences and seem to have a very solid trade and social relationship, despite the fact that they segregate themselves geographically. The Kygryz are Sunni Islam, while the Wakhi are Ismaili Islam (a branch of Shia). Their language also differs, but from my experience, they all seem to know each other’s languages, as well as Pashtun.

Sarhad can be described as a serene location. Sarhad is made up of a series of mud shacks and low grassy hills. To the south is a wide flat riverbed interrupted at times by generally shallow streams. Beyond this is a wall of jagged snow peaked mountains belonging to the Karakoram Range, the peaks of these mountains generally representing the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. At the eastern tip of Sarhad is where three of the four highest mountain ranges in the world collide with breathtaking elegance. To the east of Sarhad you can see the Hindu Kush on the left, the Pamir in the center, and the Karakoram to the right. I don’t believe I have ever stood in a location exhibiting as much natural beauty and cultural vibrancy as Sarhad e Broghil. I must note however, that the Wakhi people of Sarhad are visibly worn down by the struggles of everyday life. The infant mortality rate in the Wakhan Corridor is claimed by many to be the highest in the world (163+/1000).

-Reference:

-“The human population of the whole Wakhan/Pamir area-both settled Wakhi and nomad Kyrghyz-suffer

from a compound of problems including chronic poverty, ill health, lack of education, food insecurity,

and opium addiction, arising from the remoteness and harshness of their environment and the lack of

resources and facilities”. (UNEP 2003 http://postconflict.unep.ch/publications/WCR.pdf)

After a quick meal, my brother and I went on a walk around the village trails. We stopped briefly on a large burial mound overlooking the river and expressed to each other the overflowing joy we felt to have finally reaching the trail head.

Here are a few pics:

Men in Iskhashem

On the road leaving Ishkashem…

Pics from the jeep trail:

Lunch at the Police Station

My Brother Toby pictured to the left:

The people of Sarhad e Broghil:

Photo credits go to my brother Toby on a few of these, notably the one below.

Day one! Hitting the trail………..destination over that pass in front of me

Videos:

Ishkashem panoramic shot:

Border market in Ishkashem. Tajiks and Afghans meet at the border once a week to trade with one another:

Khorog to Afghanistan-

2009-08-07T02:55:00.000-07:00

6-4-09

It was an incredible relief to finally be in Khorog. The van ride was easily the most uncomfortable 30 hours of my life. I was consumed with euphoria and adrenaline as I began making my way down the crowded dusty road toward the center of town. Toby was easily as exhausted as I, but in good spirits due to our recent escape from the soviet cage we had been imprisoned in.

Khorog reminded me a lot of Sarajevo: it being an isolated oval shaped town engulfed with high mountains in all directions, and also being a town that has seen its share of conflict in the last 20 years (mostly civil). Khorog, despite its unlikely location is an incredibly young and educated region of Tajikistan. It hosts several universities and has seen the benefit of a substantial amount of development money from the Aga Khan Foundation.

With a bit of help from some friendly locals, my brother and were able to find a relatively comfortable home-stay near the center of town. It was situated within a cluster of mud houses not far from the main road. We were provided electricity, warm meals, and even a makeshift western style toilet (an outhouse with a real ceramic toilet above the hole). Electricity was pretty much standard in the area thanks to Tajikistan’s major industry (Hydro-electric power), but plumbing was pretty much non-existent. Unfortunately the Tajik’s, due to hard economic times and an incredibly unstable privatization/independance period, the Russians have bought up much of their Hydro-Electric industry.

Exhausted yet powerfully euphoric with anticipation, we spent the evening sorting out logistics in a nearby Russian restaurant. As night fell, stress and uncertainty weighed heavy on my body and mind, but with a belly full of borsch and Tajik vodka I slept like a baby.

-I should note that during my short time in Khorog, I came across no fewer than five Tajiks, women and men, who were missing one or both legs. I of course cannot be certain of the cause of these particular injuries……..but I am willing to assume that they were all victims of land mines left in the area during the soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Along the Der-yoi Panj river which provides a natural border with Afghanistan for hundreds of miles, land mines lay dangerously hidden in forgotten locations throughout the area. Though many specific areas are marked with warning signs……….it is no surprise that innocent shepherds continue to fall victim to these lingering, indiscriminate capsules of hate.

6-5-09

Off to Afghanistan-

At 8am Toby and I hired a Russian jeep (Lada-Niva) to take us to the small southern border town of Ishkashem. The three hour river route heading south to Ishkashem was amazing. Rusting shells of Soviet Tanks littered the roadway and provided a stark reminder of the Russian invasion of Afghanistan in the 80s. Separating Tajikistan from Afghanistan along the west side of the road was the Der-yoi Panj river, historically known as the Oxus. High snow peaked mountains lay jagged and bare on both sides of the windy road toward Ishkashem. Glancing across the river into Afghanistan provided a fascinating spectacle; shepherds and farmers were living in desolate caves along the steep rocky mountainside. Crops were being sewn into seemingly barren fields high up the steep mountainside. I grew more fascinated and energetic with each passing minute. We were entering a desolate, high elevation area with a smorgasbord of cultural purity and significance.

As we drove along the weather damaged mountain road the thin air slowly squeezed our lungs as our elevation began to increase. Desperate looking village kids as young as 3, would often swarm our jeep with red crusty faces and innocent smiles. Their tiny hands would shove large vegetables into our windows while yelling the prices at the top of their lungs with desperate passion. Our driver purchased three large mountain vegetables from a group of children, but only after haggling quite hard for a fair price. The vegetables were wrapped up like corn, had a look similar to broccoli, and a pungent smell which seamed to be a mixture between onion and garlic. The jeep reeked pretty bad after we picked up these mysterious veggies.

We passed several desolate mountain villages on our way south. Young women with bright colored head scarves, thick wool socks, pastel colored rubber sandals, and dusty velvet gowns gathered water from the nearby river with yellow plastic jugs as our jeep slowly progressed along the narrow path. These villages were far from any sort of electricity or plumbing. In fact, plumbing is something I had not seen since Dushanbe. The men generally dressed relatively modern while the women almost always wore traditional scarves wrapped around their hair. (Square skull caps identical to the Uzbeks were widely worn by men throughout Tajikistan)

{This is of course an indication of the blurry cultural boundary between the Uzbeks and Tajiks. The Uzbeks and Tajiks had always(as far as modern history goes) coexisted in the region that stretched from the Pamirs to Beyond Bukkara. During the early 20th century, the Soviets colonized Central Asia and forcefully split Turkestan into countries based on the ethnicity of the inhabiting tribes and clans. Russia had already conquered Central Asia in the late 19th century (Great Game era) but had done little more than establish control and set up trading and diplomatic posts until the Bolshevik revolution turned Central Asia upside down. Since Turkestan has historically been a nomadic territory with long established city-states, this task proved to be a challenging one. The Kyrgyz and the Kazakhs were the easiest clans for the Russians to deal with. The people of both groups are nomadic, and had never really been part of any certain city-state within Central Asia. A border was drawn………a history and culture was created, cities were built, and oppressive violence forced the nomads into relatively sedimentary lifestyles. It is probably worth noting that in my opinion there is no real difference between the Kazakhs and Kyrgyz when pertaining to culture. They are undoubtedly different clans……..but their real difference lies in the geographic regions in which they have historically occupied.

The Turkomens were also relatively easy to sort out. They are sedimentary people, whom have had a settlement carved out alongside the Caspian Sea for ages.

The major problem issues arose while the Russians attempted to sort out modern day Uzbekistan. This stretch of land contains almost all of the important ancient Silk Road city-states of Central Asia. Uzbek tribesman were undeniably the majority of the region, however the Tajiks had a strong presence in both Buckara and Samarkand and throughout various parts of modern day Uzbekistan…….enough of a presence that they are to this day quite irate about losing these cities to the Uzbeks. Sorting out Uzbekistan was a problem from day one. When the Russians drew up the borders and created the first draft of Uzbekistan…..the Tajiks were more or less ignored. The Uzbeks now officially controlled Khiva, Bukhara, Samarkand, Tashkent and the entire Ferghana Valley. Being the main minorities of the region, the Tajiks were initially given an autonomous region within Uzbekistan (1924). Then later, after a lot of bad noise the Tajiks were granted their own Socialist Soviet Republic in 1929. This of course did not erase the tension between the Uzbeks and Tajiks………….

The second problem with the split was the Ferghana valley……which is a region of Kyrgyz, Uzbeks, and Tajiks all inertwined………..cutting a border in this region needless to say has caused quite a bit of conflict. One only needs to look at a map to see the ridiculously carved borders of this region to understand how difficult it was for the Soviets to draw the line. Needless to say, all was not fair in the end, and many ethnic clans soon found themselves a minority group of the wrong country.}

OK, I will stop trying to create a history lesson and get on with my present explanation of my recent journey. I will mention however that the Tajiks are perhaps the only group in Central Asia that can truly claim substantial cultural and ethnic differences amongst other Central Asian clans. The Tajik Language is similar to Farci, while the Uzbeks and all other Central Asian tribesmen (including the Uigers of Western China) speak a Turkic language. Over the years, very few cultural differences have remained amongst the Tajiks and Uzbeks………..language is now the defining factor.

By the time we had arrived at the Tajik Afghan border it was noon, and the border was closed for lunch. The desolate border post was quite basic and simple….nothing more than a narrow steel bridge followed by a couple portable shacks for customs officials.

Bad vibes and mutual resentment began to thicken the air as my brother and I became aware of our close proximity to a Tajik military police check point. Unfortunately for us, the police checkpoint was located less than 100M from the border, an altercation was inevitable. Knowing that our permits and visas were in order, we were a bit more annoyed than worried about our proximity to the police checkpoint. Getting hassled, harassed, and shaken down by military police had become a familiar occurrence for us throughout our time spent in Tajikistan: {we had passed through no less than six police checkpoints in the last two days, many with officers who casually asked us for a bit of baksheesh for their troubles} . Predictably, within minutes of waiting outside the closed border, a group of soldiers approached Toby and I and demanded to see our passports. After I was forced to answer a few simple questions (in Russian), the young soldiers took our passports and walked back to their headquarters.

For two agonizing hours, we sat anxiously on wet chalky stones staring blankly into the heart of the grey flowing river below us. Rain began to pour from the sky just as a group of middle aged soldiers began walking our direction with our passports in hand. I unwarrantedly sighed in relieve.

Six roughneck soldiers with red leathery faces and bushy mustaches marched up to Toby and I with an underlining demeanor of mischief. Almost immediately I began to smell trouble; they had a suspicious and angry look in their eyes as they began berating us with questions. By the time my Russian language skills had became completely exhausted, the trouble had intensified immensely. I understood the issue, but was a bit unclear as to what exactly was going to happen to us.

-The Situation:

The dimwit at the Tajik Embassy in WA D.C had forgotten to stamp my brothers visa. And anyone who has spent anytime in former Soviet countries knows that without a stamp all documents are completely worthless.

So here we were in the middle of nowhere, exhausted, frightened and completely helpless as a group of Tajik military police relentlessly pried us about how we were able to enter Tajikistan with an invalid visa. After about 30 minutes of bad noise, the commander of the ramshackle police check point came over and in broken English began angrily explaining to us the situation.

-I was OK, my passport, visa, and GBAO permit was inline and was without problems.
-Toby was in Tajikistan with an unstamped visa, which makes it invalid
-this in essence meant that Toby was in the militarized GBAO region of Tajikistan without a valid visa…….. which was really not the ideal place to be without immaculate documents.

{the Gorno-Badakhshan region of Tajikistan tried to break away from Tajikistan during the civil war of 1992, but when the dust settled the local government of the GBAO region settled for being an autonomous region within Tajikistan.}

Toby stood motionless in a surreal state of petrified shock as the officer began explaining to us that Toby would undoubtedly be sent to jail and eventually deported. Having put hundreds of hours of planning into this journey, and come such a long way only to be shut down at the border of Afghanistan was not easy for me to digest. I spent a good 30 minutes pleading with the officers to let us through. I told them that we would be happy to pay a fine if we could simply slip into Afghanistan. I even promised that we would never return to Tajikistan if he merely allowed us to slip through the cracks of Tajikistan’s suffocating bureaucracy(my plan B was to come back in through the border above Kunduz after the Afghan Trek).

An hour later we had gotten absolutely nowhere. We were now through the gate and in the customs office, but where being detained. The sinister smirks on the officers faces made it clear to me that this was the most action that any of these men had seen for quite some time. I began to panic……angry faces, koloshnikovs (AK-47s), jail, deportation, failure, exhaustion, danger, pain, embarrassment, shame, helplessness……..what was happening..

Their crusty sunburned faces sat on their wiry frames like evil scarecrows, enjoying every minute of our discomfort and helplessness. The soldiers resented my desperation, and seamed to thoroughly support the proposed outcome of our dilemma. My brother and I had completely lost our composure and wore a thick mask of desperation and exposure. We were now at the mercy of poor, corrupt, bored, military police at one of the most desolate borders in the world.

Our bags were searched thoroughly as a series of phone calls were made by the station commander. Condescending and unsympathetic glares were directed at us as we stood like frightened puppies in the corner of the dusty steel shack. A million thoughts raced through my mind while we floated in the sea of uncertainty. My brother having very little travel experience was now in perhaps the most frightening and uncertain predicaments of his life. Would he be taken to a desolate Tajik prison while they sorted out his deportation documents? Would we be able to afford the bribes we may be forced to pay?

An agonizing hour went by before the officer stamped our passports and signaled us to start walking toward the Afghan Customs. We were told that since our visa invitations were filed in Dushanbe and our GBAO permits were inline, the military headquarters in Dushanbe had given us the OK to pass through.

It was a Friday……….so the Afghan customs officers had not returned to the post from their long lunch. We were forced to wait another 45 minutes with our tormenters before we were able to pass through the relatively easy Afghan customs and finally step foot on Afghan soil.

Khorog-

On the road from Khorog to the Ishkashem border crossing

I finally made it into Afghanistan. This photo was taken about 200 Meters from the border post on the Afghan side.

The beginning of the end- Journey to Tajikistan

2009-07-17T22:38:00.000-07:00

After a quick tour of Chicago and NYC, my brother Toby and I excitedly boarded a plane heading to the world abroad. Our journey began with a quick tour of Istanbul, Turkey, subsequently followed by a relaxing couple weeks in my home away from home, Bulgaria.

I can’t stress enough how completely amazing it was to be back in Bulgaria. All the stress I had been accumulating throughout the previous ten months seemed to vanish within the first few days I was in Bulgaria. I felt at home, comfortable, and exceptionally happy. I was able to reconnect with my host family, old friends, and my former colleagues from the Municipality of Chirpan. Speaking Bulgarian again was like a breathe of fresh air. Surprisingly, the words flew out of me quite naturally and the vocabulary came back rather quickly. After spending two weeks in Bulgaria, I found it enormously difficult to leave. Before leaving, I pledged to myself that I would make an effort to return sooner than later.

Tajikistan-

6-2-09

Toby and I arrived at the Dushanbe airport just after 3am on the second of June 2009. Our excitement and curiosity seemed to overpower our undeniable feelings of exhaustion as we made our way through Tajik customs. Once through customs, I was able to use my choppy Ruski skills to hire a cab to a nearby hotel. Our rusty, packed to capacity soviet era Lada (Russian car) controlled by a grisly middle aged Tajik man with a black square skull cap and a wiry grey mustache, peacefully sputtered along the dimly lit, tree lined streets of Dushanbe before stopping suddenly in front of the large blatantly soviet Hotel Dushanbe. We had made it!

The hotel felt uniquely comfortable and familiar: peeling wallpaper, obnoxiously high ceilings, walls smothered with arrogantly tacky paintings, mundane, sloppily laid rugs, the musky smell of mildew and cigarettes, and an angry, worn out, middle aged woman with dark sad eyes and an invasive pubescent mustache on each floor. There is nothing quite like a soviet era hotel; on one hand they are quite shabby, dark, and gloomy, but on the other they are spacious, peaceful, and strangely comforting.

Sleep was patchy at best and generally uncomfortable………. our fifth floor room gathered heat with mysterious efficiency and my short narrow bed appeared to have been built for an eight year old. After a few hours of frequently interrupted sleep, we forced ourselves out of bed, and by 8am made our way to the hotel restaurant. Another quite cliché soviet experience; Large high tables, seat cushions peppered with cigarette burns, 70s drug dealer décor, no lights, with only one window uncovered, and an angry looking young waitress with black hair, piercing brown eyes and a stenciled in unibrow. Our meal was about as plain as can be, which was due to the fact that my Russian restaurant vocabulary is quite minimal. My brother giggled as he absorbed the strangeness of post soviet Tajikistan. Little did he know that strange, bizarre, and difficult was the overall theme of former Soviet Central Asia.

Our day consisted mostly of running around town sorting out visas and logistics for our journey east. Plump warm raindrops dropped through the thick, grey, suffocating sky while we wandered around the surprisingly clean concrete jungle of Dushanbe. To my surprise, Dushanbe was actually the most well maintained former Soviet Capital that I had ever visited. The streets were clean and the buildings appeared to have been built with relative skill as they vibrantly glowed with visibly fresh coats of brightly colored paint.

On the 3rd of June we woke up early in order to take a flight into the Pamir Mountains to the incredibly isolated mountain town of Khorog. Khorog is located in the militarized GBAO region of Easter Tajikistan. We were required to attain special permission and a GBAO permit before entering the region. Unfortunately, since the clouds were lingering and the flight was presumably cancelled, we were forced to travel to Khorog by land. Without fully comprehending the implications and consequences of our actions, we made our way to a cluster of 4x4s on the edge of town and began inquiring about hitching a ride east.

This is when we made the first major logistical error of our journey. My Brother Toby and I decided to purchase seats in an old Russian 4x4 van. In retrospect, a land cruiser would have been the obvious correct choice for a drive of this magnitude.

So it began………15 of us packed like sardines into a half broken, grey wrecking ball of Russian steel and soviet engineering. The interior of the rig was a custom job: a couple of velvet covered steel benches bolted to the floor, two rows of broken seats, a small 80s era home stereo fastened snuggly into the dashboard, and red velvet material hastily fastened to the interior roof. Besides the worn out shocks and seats that constantly split apart with the slightest turbulence (which consequently forced my knees into the steel chair in front of me); the most irritating part of this vehicle was the damn velvet roof covering. While sitting, my head rested about 1.5 inches from the steel roof of the vehicle. The sloppily installed Velvet roof covering hung down about 8 inches from this roof……..which meant that for 30 excruciating hours, I had a dusty, sweat soiled piece of fabric resting on my face.

Due to a violent drug war that was rumored to be going on throughout the region along the Northern route to Khorog, our van was forced to take the low route, which for most of the journey hugged the edge of the Darya ye Panj river. Across the river, a mere stones throw away, lay Afghanistan .

We departed Dushanbe at around 10am and began sluggishly roaming down the dirty, pothole ridden asphalt toward the Pamirs. Dust poured through the broken windows as we were all slowly cooked in our velvet lined mobile oven. My patience began to diminish as we constantly took breaks and stopped for vehicle maintenance reasons. After the first five excruciating hours of the journey, I had begun to ignore the severe discomfort I was enduring. I had forced myself to accept the situation and began trying to enjoy the natural beauty and cultural richness of my surroundings.

Sharing this vehicle with friendly Tajik families turned out to be the highlight…….and only redeeming aspect of this journey. Bottles of unpasteurized goat milk were generously passed around the van along with cookies, candy, and various forms of nan bread. Toby and I had become part of a family and were treated with sincere kindness and warm hospitality. At the end of the day, we were all in it together…….and were forced to make the most out of a trying situation.

Another positive aspect of this journey was the incredible views from the tops of the mountain passes. One pass in particular looked down upon a beautiful blue-green lake with containing bright red islands with dark green caps. The lake was surrounded by lush, green rolling hills which expelled a consuming ora of serenity and uncontaminated bliss.

As darkness fell, the all-encompassing dust continued to coat my body and lungs while cool air swept in through the cracked windows and began to slowly dry the damp clothing which was glued to my body with an adhesive of dust and perspiration. Sleep was absolutely impossible; in fact, in order to avoid harsh discomfort, one must be alert at all times. Each time I unintentionally dozed off, I would be violently jarred awake by the van hitting a large bump or rock in the dirt road. The vehicles breaks would be used without warning, forcing my knees to smash against the chair in front of me while my head slammed against the van’s steel roof. As I attempt to describe how painful, irritating, and all around miserable this experience was for me………I wonder how I made it to the other side with my sanity.

At 3am we were forced to stop for close to three hours while a tractor cleared the roadway in front of us. A giant rock slide had recently fallen and obstructed the narrow road in front of us with boulders the size of Volkswagens. This particular stretch of the road cut along a steep mud and boulder cliff side which hugging the northern edge of the Darya ye Panj River. Being confronted with this massive obstruction helped me comprehend just how sketchy and dangerous this road actually was. Not only were the edges of this road heavily mined (there were several warning signs), but huge boulders and massive rock slides continuously fell upon the road. I was told that earlier this year a passenger vehicle was struck by one of these rock slides; hurling them down the rocky cliffside and into the river 200ft below the road, killing everyone inside.(Further research shows that in this mountainous region of Tajikistan there have been 23 deaths due to mudslides/rockslides in April-May of 2009)

At 7am we stopped for breakfast at a one shack village nestled into a lush grassy corridor near a sharp bend in the Panj river. We were served by a short middle aged man with a leathery face and soft green eyes, along with his two young daughters. This weather worn mountain family appeared incredibly dirty and unusually primitive. Knowing that their nearest neighbors lived over an hour drive in either direction, it dawned on me that these young girls would most likely never have the opportunity to go to school, experience the world, read a book, or even have the opportunity to venture far from their small mud shack. When I am confronted with these disheartening realities, it makes me resent the pettiness of the Western World. We have grown so accustom to comfort, mobility, and unrestricted pleasure that we often forget how lucky we truly are. While people bitch about traffic and slow internet, there are children all over the world who are forgoing educational opportunities in order to slave away so that their families are able to consume enough calories to survive. I of course am no exception to pettiness; I am in the middle of writing a long description about how horribly painful a certain van ride was for me. If I step back from this situation and look in with the eyes of one of these young girls from the roadside tea shack, things begin to look quite different. Perhaps the young girl would scowl at me and with a look of frustration across her saddened face, would tell me that the cost of my “horrible” van ride is more than her family earns in a month, and maybe I should stop complaining about journeys I take for purposes of leisure and curious exploration.

At 3:45pm on the fourth of June, we arrived in Khorog. The journey along the desolate hardly maintained jeep trail was absolutely horrible. Our van waded through large flowing rivers, up steep rocky hills, and along perhaps the worst road I have ever experienced. This entire journey was completed at an incredibly sluggish pace…….557km in 30 hours!

Dusting off the cobwebs-

2009-07-16T04:44:00.000-07:00

I have been staring through the glowing soul of a white computer screen for the last 40 minutes trying to muster up enough enthusiasm and creativity to begin shoving my thoughts and memories into this box of aging technology. Writers block seems to be an understatement and perhaps an unfair title for what I am currently experiencing. Assuming that you must first be a ‘writer’ to acquire writers block;……….I will say that due to my lack of achievement and past professionalism in the field of writing, I should perhaps only mention that I am suffering from severe laziness and perhaps even lack of confidence.

In many ways the last four years of my life have been a sloppy pastel smudge on the roadmap of adulthood. Experience I have gained but professionalism, responsibility, love, and achievement have been reminiscent of vanishing ink on this roadmap. What I am forced to confront is whether or not ‘experience’ is worth the sacrifice. Sadly, self induced pain is a nagging discomfort that does not merit sympathy. However, how else am I able to describe the painful, uncomfortable, lonely, and depressing lifestyle I have chosen for myself? Are these thoughts even worth writing, or is it better to internalize the turbulence constantly festering within my mind?

After a 27 month Peace Corps assignment in rural Bulgaria I completed a ten month journey which took me into the depths of the developing world. These experiences were incredibly eventful and without a doubt rewarding, however, they did brew a stodgy level of depression, loneliness and confusion that I am to this day struggling to digest. A consuming fire has ignited within my heart, mind and soul. My internal struggles, wanderlust, and inherited need for comfort and stability have become increasingly exhausting throughout the last 9 months of my life. As I attempt to write and ponder my life choices, a couple nagging quotes are beginning to eat away at my concentration.
(both from the Tao De Ching)

-“When you stand with your two feet on the ground, you will always keep your balance.”
-“The more you know the less you understand.”

The first quote sticks out in my mind because of the “a rolling stone gathers no moss” lifestyle I have been living in recent years. Perhaps this ancient Chinese philosophy rings true…………it is a bit difficult to maintain stability while wandering through life aimlessly and avoiding mainstream Western Societal norms.

The second quote is one that has been eating away at my mind for quite some time. I feel that the more I educate myself and essentially the more I open my mind up to the world around me, the more unstable and tormented I feel. Knowledge gained can be quite pleasant and attractive when it comes to bubble gum facts like Baseball statistics, or the history of the telephone; but when you begin to wrap your head around things such as International Conflicts, Globalization, Religious Conflicts and Global Ethics……..your head begins to lose all its stability and wander off into a very uncontrollable direction. Perhaps ignorance truly is bliss…..

Upon completion of my journey and return to the USA, I immediately was consumed with intense feelings of euphoria. The intense reverse culture shock I experienced was initially somewhat pleasant. I went from intense isolation and horribly depressing loneliness to a stimulating lifestyle of social gatherings and familiar comfort. My previously expanding mind began to wilt upon my return to mundane existence and a monotonous lifestyle of work, alcohol consumption, and heavy stress. Three years had passed since I last lived in my homeland; however, I struggled to find substantial differences in the world I had left behind. What eventually became clear was that I had changed and the world that I left had moved on without me. Such is life…….. I feel incredibly lucky to have been able to return to my wonderful family and friends, whom accepted me and tolerated me during my period of adjustment.

Well, now that the words are flowing I will wrap up the nonsense and move on.

I spent the winter working a low level accounting job at a ski resort in the Cascade Mountains. In retrospect, living alone in a desolate cabin and spending my days counting beans in an isolated office was not exactly the best way to reintegrate into the Western world. Besides several wonderful weekends spent with close friends and family members; my time in the USA (10months) was uncomfortable, depressing, and awkward. Sometimes it is easier to move on than to fight through the challenges or reintegration. Which brings me to my current situation………..sitting on a rock hard IKEA couch typing away in Brisbane, Australia.

To make a long story short, last December I decided that I would commit to a career in the field of international aid/development. In order to make this happen, my first objective would be to earn a Masters Degree in a relevant field. This is because entering into the field of Development is highly competitive. Essentially, getting your foot in the door with any reputable organization with anything less than a Masters Degree is near impossible. After doing quite a bit of research, I found a school and program that appeared to fit me like a glove. A few months later an acceptance offer came from the University of Queensland in Brisbane Australia. Though I applied to two other Australian schools, I was incredibly thrilled because UQ was by far my first choice. Starting July 27th 2009 I will commence my studies of International Relations at UQ in Brisbane.

Committing to $40K+ of student loans and two years of graduate study in a far away land was not an easy decision. To say that I have “commitment issues” is quite an understatement. I was forced to come to the conclusion that it is now time to grow up and to begin making a name for myself. Forced sjtability and the compulsory responsibilities of mass debt would now change my lifestyle substantially for at least the next 7-8 years. Knowing that I would soon be confined in an impossible to escape cage of debt and responsibility, I began to plan one last journey.

I spent close to 3 months sorting out logistics for a trip that would take me “the long way” to Australia. This would be by far the most challenging adventure of my life, and potentially the most rewarding.

And in the end it was both………………

-Itinerary: Turkey-Bulgaria-Tajikistan-Afghanistan-Uzbekistan-India-Singapore-Australia-Responsibility/Debt

Videos from my life overseas-

2008-10-20T19:28:00.000-07:00

Pakistan-India border closing ceremony:

Ulak-Tartir- This was a game I watched while I was in Kyrgyzstan at the Narus festival near lake Karakol. It is a traditional Central Asian game that dates back to the days of Ghengis Khan. There are two teams of 5, and they fight over a goat carcass. A point is awarded if the goat is placed on the tire and mud altar. There is one on each side of the field, and one for each team. This game has very few rules, and is quite aggressive and violant.

Videos from my time in Syria

Ali’s brother Ardishir playing the piano. I lived with Ali for almost 3 weeks while I was in Armenia. They are Iranian.

Varanasi, India:

Angkor Wat, Cambodia:

This is a tour of my pad in Bulgaria. I lived here for 2 years……..overall it was not too bad, but things got really cold in the winter, and super hot in the summer.

Islamabad - Lahore - Karachi

2008-10-20T14:44:00.001-07:00

5-17-2008

After a sweltering 4.5 hour bus ride and a couple of arduous police check points I had arrived in the capital of Pakistan, Islamabad. Pakistan is a heavily militarized country with countless numbers of police checkpoints strategically placed throughout its transit zones. Each check point provided a transparent reminder of exactly where I was, and what dangers may be recklessly strewn upon my path. In retrospect each military confrontation I encountered along my journey had effectively knocked me off my puffy cloud of ignorant complacency and down to the dusty floor of justified paranoia. Fortunately, most of the military police officers I encountered in Pakistan were friendly and cordial; nonetheless I often found the checkpoints to be considerably intimidating and slightly unnerving.

I arrived at a small bus station on the edge of Islamabad at 4:30pm. Islamabad was extraordinarily hot; it was to my surprise even more unbearable than Peshawar. The belligerently arid heat penetrated my body with excessive force. I sweated uncontrollably as I wandered across the parking lot to find a phone. After calling my Pakistani host Fareeha and bargaining with a cab driver for 30 minutes, I hopped into a cab and was on my way.

Perhaps I should refrain from going into too much detail about Islamabad. It seems more appropriate to simply paraphrase my experiences and interactions. Security in Islamabad is incredibly volatile, and the safety of my friends in Islamabad is my utmost concern.

Islamabad: Well, what can I say about this city; besides that it is in every way shape and form artificial. It was constructed from the ground up for the sole purpose of containing large business parks and highly fortified consulates and embassies. It is not a traditional or typical Pakistani city; it is a slice of commercialism and rapidly progressive development placed in a highly unlikely location. Islamabad is like Las Vegas………………a thriving concrete metropolis in an extremely improbable and sarcastic location. On the sun slick streets of Islamabad, Pakistani aristocrats drive around in exotic sports cars and diplomats cruise around in their brand new armored land cruisers, while peasant construction workers slave away in relentless heat to create the newest corporate office buildings. When I compare and contrast Islamabad to Peshawar, Chitral and Gilgit; I see potential overpowered by vanity and harsh reality. Pakistan unfortunately will not be able to build itself up economically until it resolves its parasitic social turmoil and government volatility. Islamabad is simply a shallow well of artificial hope surrounded by a forest of callous inevitability.

In Islamabad I was hosted by an incredibly talented artist in her late 20s named Fareeha (http://fareehakhawaja.googlepages.com/home). Her ethnicity is a unique blend of Tajik and Kashmiri. Due to Fareeha’s charming personality and active social life, she has acquired several social connections within the US embassy, including the US armed forces. Within a day of Arriving in Islamabad I was able to use Fareeha’s connections to penetrate the dense shell of Islamabad’s ex-patriot cliques, and had begun enjoying a wide array of social activities.

I must say that my time in Islamabad was incredibly refreshing and delightfully American. I had found a highly affable crew that provided me with a home away from home, and a place where I could truly let loose and be myself amongst other Americans. It had been a long time since I had the opportunity to spend time with other Americans, and it proved to be a breath of fresh air. Familiarity is comfort.

To be brief; I spent my time in Islamabad…………..
-Chillin on the US embassy compound: poolside pina coladas, pickup softball games, water polo, Socializing and networking at the American club, partying at the Marine Corps bar……etc
-Going on long miserable walks around Islamabad in scorching heat.
- Reading and sweating profusely in Fareeha’s apartment while she was at work (the power went out in Islamabad about every other hour-which means no fan!)
-Eating dinner at the Marriot with an old Peace Corps Bulgaria friend and current Foreign Service officer (Lenny).
-Parties, game nights, movie nights, and BBQs with Americans, held at their fortified mansions.

{Due to the intense danger of the area, Pakistan is a no-spouse, no-family foreign post. So basically every American working there is either single or living across the world from their spouse and kids. So essentially people generally live in groups of 5 or so in fortified mansions with their own 24-7 armed guards, maids, cooks, and vehicle service. It sounds pretty glamorous, but they are living in an area that is treacherously unpredictable and dangerous. A bomb could explode anywhere at anytime and US citizens are constantly a target. They are also living on lock down; they cannot leave the city of Islamabad without an armored convoy, and all the restaurants in Islamabad are off limits to all US military and Foreign Service. The restaurants within the Islamabad Marriot are the only exception to this rule. Due to the high security of the Marriot the interior is considered safe.}
…………………………………………………………………………………………..
-Unfortunately the times are changing, as I dig through my travel journals and type this up (October 2008), the Marriot lays in shambles. A bombing destroyed a large chunk of the Islamabad Marriot and killed 54 people(3 Americans) and injured 266. The Bombing took place September 20, 2008 and left the Marriot’s security helpless and shaken. Much like the disastrous bombing of the Marine Corps Building in Beirut; the terrorists rammed through the security gate with a dump truck full of explosives detonating the bomb while driving into the building. When I read the news of this particular terrorist attack, it took my breath away. I could not help but think about the safety of my friends stationed in Islamabad. I now know they are all safe and accounted for, however my friend from the Peace Corps informed me that he had lost two of his colleagues in the attack.

Lenny and I served in the same Peace Corps Country (Bulgaria) and County (Stara Zagora). He served about 40km from me, but was in a Peace Corps group that came a full year before me. By the time I had finished my service in Bulgaria he had been hired by the US Foreign Service and was stationed in Islamabad, Pakistan. A month before I arrived in Islamabad four of Lenny’s American Colleagues had been targeted and bombed at an Italian Restaurant in Islamabad - and now just six months later, a bomb had taken away the lives of two of his colleagues. I can only imagine how horrifying it must be to know that danger and death are potentially very real possibilities of your everyday life. When I was in Islamabad Lenny treated me to a steak dinner at the Islamabad Marriot;…………..and now less than 5 months later I am confronted with the fact that a step along my path has been violently destroyed and the lives of 50 innocent souls have been taken away by mindless ignorance and indiscriminate hatred.

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-Well I should probably keep this to myself, but in the spirit of journalism I will share: While hanging out at one of the known American Party houses called house # ____(about 6 Americans live there, and have some pretty good parties), I started talking to a military officer named John Doe. After a few drinks John Doe casually mentioned to me that there were several military operations in progress within Pakistan. Being part of the _______branch of the US military, he had quite a lot of inside information. He mentioned that a couple days ago an unmanned plane dropped a bomb on a terrorist cell in Northern Pakistan, and was responsible for killing no less than 14 suspected terrorists. I did not think much about this statement until the following day while I was combing threw the Internet and getting all the daily news briefs from several US based newspapers. I read no less than three articles that mentioned a bombing in Northern Pakistan that had killed 14, and was suspected to be a US air strike. I found the articles interesting because they all noted that the US military had not claimed any responsibility for the bombing. Interesting…………..so now I know something that has yet to be confirmed by my government and released to the public media.

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One of the last things I did before leaving Islamabad was to have dinner with my friend Lenny at the Islamabad Marriot. While walking through the Marriot we ran into Jim Doe the head of security for the United State’s diplomatic mission in Pakistan. After being introduced to Jim Doe, I asked him if he had any security concerns about Karachi. I had recently bought a plane ticket that left Karachi for Kathmandu, Nepal and wanted to make sure that the city was safe enough to visit.

Unfortunately Jim Doe’s answer to my question proved to be less than comforting. Jim Doe looked me in the eyes and said: “if you go to Karachi, and simply walk down the street there, I have no doubt in my mind that you will be immediately abducted a killed”. Needless to say, his comment gave me a lot to think about. I had heard rumors that Karachi was considered dangerous territory even by Pakistanis, but had no idea how feared it was by foreign diplomats. Apparently when Daniel Pearl was kidnapped from Karachi in 2002, Jim was in charge of his search and rescue. As most people know Daniel Pearl’s search ended in vain when videos began to circulate via the internet showing Daniel mercilessly being decapitated.

After a brief conversation I thanked Jim Doe for his advice and promised him I would consider canceling my visit to Karachi.

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5-22-2008

After a few wonderful days of unexpected serenity, I bid farewell to my friends in Islamabad and boarded the 2pm bus for Lahore, Pakistan. Following a painfully slow and uncomfortable bus ride I arrived in Lahore at 7:30pm. The worst part of the bus ride was the obnoxiously loud Bollywood films being played. It was absolute torture and never ending. We watched three full films while I was on the bus; the screeching volume ripped through my ears with blunt vigor that grinded away my patience with rapid force.

{for those of you who don’t know what a Bollywood film is: It is a type of film made in India that are surprisingly popular throughout India and Pakistan. All of the films are musicals with cheesy dancing, and glass shattering vocals. In my opinion they are absolutely atrocious.}

I arrived at a dark, loud, dusty, chaotic, dirt parking lot on the outskirts of Lahore at around 7:30pm. Overly anxious rickshaw and cab drivers swarmed me like locust and created a frenzied atmosphere that suffocated my patience and became quite overwhelming. After regaining my composure, I called my host Mohammed and was soon in the back of a rickshaw heading to his home. The smoky streets were filled with absolute madness, traffic laws seemed to be nonexistent, and the loud bustling streets of Lahore produced a fresh stench of rapid urbanization.

After arriving at Mohammed’s small inner-city home, I was greeted warmly by his family and offered a shower. I had been sweating buckets and collecting dust all day, so a shower was definitely something I could get into. After showering, I sat in Mohammed’s living room and pleasantly conversed with Mohammed’s family.

-Mohammed’s home consisted of: a small kitchen, a small bedroom, a 8x10ft open air, gated, cement patio consisting 2 cots a motorcycle and a sink. A small living room with two couches facing each other, a Persian rug in the center, chipped white concrete walls containing family portraits and posters of Islamic leaders, and one small bathroom with a squat toilet and a sink.

Mohammed was a cordial fellow in his early 20s with a shoddy mustache and a sheltered mind. He was an econ student at a nearby university, and was in his last year of study. I was quite enjoying my time with Mohammed until he informed me that he had told his family that I was Canadian. Mohammed told me that it was extremely dangerous for he and his family to host an American, so I must tell everyone I meet that I am Canadian or English. Well,……….. that is not exactly what I wanted to hear. I had felt completely comfortable being myself throughout Pakistan, and now I was forced to deny my Nationality in order to tame my host’s fear and paranoia. I consider myself highly adaptable and culturally sensitive, so I immediately consented to Mohammed’s demands and assured him of my cooperation with the unreasonable façade.

At about 10pm I hopped on the back of Mohammed’s motorcycle and we tore through the streets of Lahore to the shrine of Baba Shah Jamal. We were visiting a Sufi shrine where Sufi’s congregate every Thursday night to worship and meditate. After driving down a crowded dirt side street we parked the motorcycle along with 100s of others and walked up the stairs to the Sufi Shrine. Fruit vendors and elderly Sufis surrounded the area creating a very atypical atmosphere. Shirtless old Sufi men sat on flat wooden tables sporting aggressive beards and colorful bracelets around their biceps, while lethargically smoking hash and conversing amongst themselves.

Halfway up the steps to the Baba Shah Jamal shrine Mohammed and I took off our shoes before proceeding to the top entrance. The Shrine was similar in design to a Mosque, but contained a more complex, progressive and brotherly environment.

There was on open courtyard with a covered sitting area on one side, and a small room containing the shrine of Baba Shah Jamal on the other. Before entering into the shrine, Mohammed and I dipped our finger in hot oil and touched it against our foreheads ( Mohammed told me to follow his lead). Next we entered the shrine; a small room containing a large ornate casket in the center, and flower petals all over the floor and casket. As we slowly walked counterclockwise around the room we both stopped briefly to bow to the coffin and place our foreheads on the edge of the decorative rectangle box before proceeding forward in line. On the other side of the room was the exit door where each person must turn toward the shrine and walk out of the room backwards (it is considered disrespectful to turn your back on Baba Shah Jamal). Throughout the courtyard, young Sufis walked around socializing and sharing candy, cookies, and pilov(rice dish) with one another. It was quite interesting to see everyone treat each other like brothers and to share the things they had brought. I being the lone foreigner was constantly confronted by curious young Sufis and asked several questions. They all seemed to be amazed by how tall I was; what can I say, we Canadians are tall people.

{Sufi’s have been around since the beginning of Islam; Sufi means ‘free thinker’. So as you can imagine many progressive sects and unorthodox practices within the Islamic faith fall into this category. For example: the whirling dervishes of Konya, Turkey are Sufi’s. Sufi’s are the evangelicals of Islam, which in essence means that a great number of Muslims find their antics to be far too unconventional to be acceptable. Sufis believe that they must meditate deeply (sometimes drug induced) in order to reach an out of this world plane where Allah can be more easily communicated with. Sufi’s are often associated with deep trance drum circles, hash, opium, and explorative meditation.}

At the edge of the courtyard, I noticed a group of 10-12 elder Sufis with long white beards sitting shoulder to shoulder under a small covered area. I sat in fascination and bewilderment as I watched these men interact with the young Sufis. It was nothing I had ever seen before, and something I found both bizarre and intriguing.

As the old Sufi men sat with their backs against the wall- young mostly un-bearded men began forming lines in front of them. As each young Sufi approached an elder, he would begin by kissing his hand, bowing, and then sitting cross legged in front of the elder Sufi. Next, the Elder Sufi would place his hand on the young mans left knee and begin staring deep into his eyes. They would stare into each others eyes with deep concentration and unrivalled determination. I later found out that Sufis believe that they can transfer spiritual knowledge this way. The Elder Sufis were performing a ritual that allows the younger Sufis to gain a greater level of spiritual knowledge through a two way meditative state.

After a few minutes of staring at one another, the elder Sufi would begin gently tapping the young Sufi on the heart while chanting “Allah, Allah, Allah” over and over again while maintaining deep eye contact. Sufi’s believe that because of constant and inevitable sin, our hearts slowly blacken, and by this ritual your heart can be cleansed. After several minutes of chanting and heart tapping it is believed that your heart will be purified, and that as you sleep your heart will be chanting “Allah, Allah, Allah” with each beat. The young Sufi’s were really getting into it, they would yell Allah uncontrollably while shaking and twitching, seemingly overcome with spirituality. I had no idea that this sort of thing existed within the Islamic world, I suppose each major religion has its own progressive and unorthodox counterpart.

Witnessing this was absolutely incredible; watching this ritual being done by 10+ Sufis simultaneously was a fascinating spectacle. As much as I wanted to document this event with film, I knew it would have been highly inappropriate and disrespectful to the Sufis. I am just thankful that the surrounding Sufis tolerated my presence and allowed me to observe this sacred ritual.

Mohammed and I later left the shrine and headed to a crowded area to the right of the Baba Shah Jamal shrine. Even though the place seemed quite ordinary and common, everyone in attendance took off their shoes to show respect. On the edge of the crowd were two hippie looking Sufis pounding large drums to a hypnotic beat. The crowd consisted of a ragtag group of mostly young Sufis sitting on the cement floor smoking hash and conversing amongst themselves. It was quite a different atmosphere than at the shrine, these people were plunging into a drug induced meditation, while the people at the Shrine were using deep thought and ancient rituals to achieve the same sort of enlightenment. Mohammed found the hash circle to be irritating, and almost immediately wanted to leave. He told me that the people were not real Muslims, but simply drug users out for a good time. I personally found the drum/hash circle to be quite interesting and unique. If I had it my way I would have stayed longer. I found out later that one of the drummers was completely deaf.

At around midnight Mohammed and I hopped onto his motorcycle and began our trip home. We ran a few errands on the way back, buying some flat bread and a bag of milk in a back alley marketplace. Riding through the busy streets of Lahore on the back of a small motorcycle was both exciting and frightening. It was thrilling to see such diverse sides of Lahore; it was quite refreshing in contrast to my predominantly cultureless days spent in Islamabad.

I really enjoyed my evening spent with Mohammed, but could not get past the way he treated me. He often reminded me to hide my nationality, and even forced me to wear my hair down instead of the cooler (temperature) and more comfortable pony tail. Mohammed was constantly nervous around me, and repeatedly reminded me that extremists in the area were on the lookout for Americans. I hated the fact that I could not display myself as an enlightened American, and help persuade Pakistanis that America is not synonymous with evil and hate. While spending the evening with Mohammed no fewer than 10 people asked me where I was from……………and each time Mohammed stepped in and told everyone that I was Canadian. I had enough………one night with Mohammed would be all I could bare. I would much rather spend my days alone and in relative danger than in a cloud of uncomfortable internal shame.

That evening Mohammed and I slept on the couches in the living room, his parents slept on the open air cots on the back patio, his sisters slept on cots in the kitchen, and his eldest sister slept in the small room with her husband and infant child. It was a cozy, crowded and incredibly hot house. Lahore was not surprisingly even hotter than Islamabad………..the temperature was becoming a bit ridiculous and difficult to endure.

5-23-2008

Mohammed left for work before I woke up, and at around 9am his sisters burst in the living room with my breakfast. One of Mohammed’s sisters spoke perfect English and was quite personable and enjoyable to talk to. We spent the morning pleasantly conversing before I decided to hit the road.

At around noon I took a rickshaw to a cheap hotel near Lahore’s large bazaar district. My stomach was acting up a bit, so I decided to spend the day resting and going on short walks around the bazaar. The heat was overwhelmingly strong and pretty much took all the joy out of being outside. The dust, pollution, and 100f+ heat made walking around arduous and increasingly difficult to enjoy.

At around 4:45pm I boarded a public bus heading to the Pakistan-Indian border. Each evening when the sun goes down a border closing ceremony begins. After arriving at the border, I bought a ticket and proceeded to the bleachers near the edge of the border. At 6:00pm the closing ceremony began. The entire ceremony was incredibly amusing. Their were two large sets of concrete bleachers separated by gender ( everything is segregated in Pakistan, public busses are cut in half by an iron gate, women in front, men in back), with one small front row section for the foreigners (me). The exact same set up was visible on the other side of the gate, except the Indian side did not appear to be segregated.

At 6:00pm an old guy with a bushy white beard, green skull cap, green shalwar and a large Pakistani flag began running around the border riling up the crowd. He would run around section to section starting patriotic chants and waving his flag – every so often he would face the gate, wave his flag, and yell things at the Indian crowd on the other side of the fence. The whole scene was wonderfully entertaining; it was like being at a high school football game. Both sides had way too much “school spirit”. Loud music began to blare louder and louder, as men danced around on the bleachers waving flags and yelling patriotic rants. The crowds on each side of the gate would yell back and forth………Hindustan!........Pakistan!...........Hindustan!........Pakistan! The war of patriotic spirit was on!

After the flag wielding cheerleaders pumped up the crowds on each side of the border, the soldiers on each side came out and began marching around with firm determination and amplified authority. The soldiers then marched straight legged by lifting their legs high in front of them and pacing forward at a manic pace. Next, the soldiers marched around raising their right leg high and then stomping the ground with excess force. Everything about this formal routine was quite unique and fascinating. Even the military uniforms were unusual; their hats were topped with what looked like Chinese fans.

After some intense military marching and a lot of foot stomping, the gates opened up. Two soldiers, one from each side began some sort of central stomp-off /marching showdown that ended in an aggressive face to face stare down. They then shook hands, did their stomp/march back to their respective sides of the border, while two other men took the flags down and shut the border-gate for the evening.

To sum it all up, the border ceremony consisted of a lot of overzealous patriotism, an Indian-Pakistani handshake followed by the closing of the gates, and the systematic lowering of the flags (done by both sides in unison). It was quite the spectacle, and truly an entertaining event to witness.

While standing on the dusty, crowded bus heading back to Lahore, a man besides me suddenly stood up and adamantly insisted that I take his seat. Within 10 minutes of my departure from the border, I had become a renowned celebrity on the bus. People constantly asked me questions and bragged about their relatives who were living in the USA. At each stop, vendors would briefly board the bus selling fruit, popsicles, tea, etc…………..and each time I would end up with something handed to me. By the time I had reached Lahore; I had been given three boxes of juice, a disgusting flower tasting popsicle, and half a coconut. I have really enjoyed how open, warm, generous, and kind Pakistanis are. I don’t think many Americans realize just how abundantly hospitable and warm Islamic culture is.

That evening I decided to go on a long walk around Lahore while subsequently tracking down dinner and an internet café. Surprisingly less than two miles into my walk I came across a Subway……….not the underground transit system but the wonderful American sandwich restaurant. I was thrilled and did not hesitate to spend four times the price of my hotel room on a delicious meatball sandwich. It was quite the treat…………..three years without a glorious meatball sandwich from Subway was far too long.

After another hour + of walking, I came across a smoky internet café with barely functioning computers. I have found that the internet is my lifeline………..no matter how good, bad, crazy, scary, painful, happy, sad, depressing, or enlightening my day has been, I can always find someone on the internet to share it with. I can send emails, post BLOGs, upload pictures, or simply read American media publications via the internet. Internet is the bright glowing sun in my cloudy days, and thanks to the technological boom of the 90s is accessible pretty much anywhere with phone lines. Life on the road would be infinitely more challenging if I were unable to Google logistical information, Email friends and Family, network with potential hosts, etc. In conclusion the internet has kept me sane, and has been a bit of a crutch for me throughout my Peace Corps experience and my travel experience thereafter.

After I had left my cyber chamber of comfort behind and reentered reality; I realized that while I was in the internet Café, Lahore had flooded. I had never seen roads fill up so quickly with water. There was literally 6-8 inches of water covering the ground, I was now on the banks of a shallow river………..and 4 miles from my hotel. About an hour of unsuccessful solicitation later, I was able to flag down a motor-rickshaw for a ride back to my hotel.

5-24-2008

After thinking hard about Jim Doe’s advice, and his grave warnings about Karachi, I decided to use my own skewed judgment and travel to Karachi anyway. After personal analysis, it became a calculated risk I was willing to take.

At 2pm I boarded a 3rd class train, destination Karachi, Pakistan. Karachi is the large, population 10 million + Wild West city of Pakistan; here goes nothing!

The train ride was to say the least painful, awkward, and uncomfortable from the moment I boarded. The worn out green vinyl bench seats provided little comfort as the radiant heat penetrated through my already overheating body. The ceiling fan provided a laughable amount of comfort while the open windows did little else than enable mass amounts of sand and dust to pour into the train. Heat and dust plugged up the inside of the train to a suffocating level. As the hours passed by, my dreams of cool fresh air became a mockery to practicality, and an unwarranted ambition to comfort.

Slowly the train putted along the rural desert landscape of Southern Pakistan. From the train I witnessed poor Pakistanis working in treacherous heat along the railroad tracks, often napping in the shade. The train cut across desert villages, and tent cities in the middle of seemingly uninhabitable climate. I found myself utterly amazed by how these people could live and work in such conditions. How many Arizona residents would be able to survive without their AC? These people live in tents, without fans or AC, and are forced to work long hours of manual labor with virtually zero shade. It is just one of the many things that need to be put into perspective; perhaps wealthy people in our world should be a bit more grateful for what they already have, and realize that in retrospect, their comfort level leaves little justification for complaints.

The people sitting around the train seemed kind and friendly, but the language barrier prohibited any shared dialogue between us. They would occasionally share with me snacks they were eating, and I would accept by simply smiling and bowing with my hand over my heart. Throughout the long journey passengers and vendors would come on and off the train. Most of the passengers greeted me with smiles; however a few of the men gave me cold intimidating stares. It was obvious to me that these people were not accustomed to seeing foreigners on their train. Every so often a group of guys would approach me and begin speaking with me in simple English. It all became a bit cliché…………I would be berated about Bush questions, dodge all the bullets I could, explain to them how much I loved Islamic Culture, then they would buy me tea……..and later we would shake hands in friendship before they walked away. Thankfully most of the guys on the train did not grill me too hard; I can only imagine how uncomfortable it would be to be confronted with overpowering hostility in a location that was for the most part inescapable.

The day was wearing on me……………the heat was unrelenting, I was sweating buckets, and the dust began coating me like a powdered donut. My skin was about 10 shades darker because it was now caked with a thin film of mud; which I inadvertently smeared around my face while attempting to squeegee the sweat off my forehead. Every so often I would escape the madness and discomfort by climbing to the 3rd level bench seat and attempting to sleep. I had my MP3 player which provided a pleasant distraction, but the dust and heat countered any sort of comfort with intrusive levels of discomfort.

5-25-2008

At 1:30am I suddenly awoke to a loud man made cat sound; I opened my eyes to see two men in their mid 20s inches away from my face. They were staring at me and smiling with probing eyes. Before I knew what was going on they had both jumped up to the upper bench seat I was laying on. The guys began hurling questions at me with intrigue, while smiling like jackals. It was a really weird situation, I was exhausted, uncomfortable, sweaty, filthy, and talking to a couple guys that were way too excited to be talking to a foreigner. For some reason I decided to tell these guys that I was an Atheist………. I for some reason thought it would end questioning, and perhaps be easier than explaining to them I was Agnostic. I was wrong…………….it provoked a 45 minute debate about how it is crazy not to believe in god/Allah, and that I must learn more about Allah. Two hours, 100 questions, and 3 cups of tea later the guys smiled, shook my hand, and exited the train. At around 4am I was again able to attempt a bit of shut eye.

I woke up at 7am feeling absolutely disgusting. It was like being ‘camping dirty’ but multiplied by ten. I was lying in a pool of sweat; my exposed skin was caked with semi-dry dirt, and my face was smeared with thick blotches of mud. The worst part about waking up exhausted and on a hot dusty train, is knowing that you have another 12 hours of misery ahead of you before you reach your destination. I asked myself again……….why do I put myself in these situations? Why did I not just pay an extra hundred bucks and fly to Karachi? After spending months on the road being as frugal as possible, it is amazing how much hardship you are willing to endure to save a couple bucks.

I arrived in Karachi at 6:30pm………..after spending 28.5 miserable hours on the sweltering, dusty, train. My mind and body were numb by the time I had arrived in Karachi. I had eaten next to nothing on the train because when my core body temperature is overheating, I tend to associate nausea with food consumption. The train ride had absorbed all of my energy and left me in a very lifeless physical and mental state.

As I prepared for my arrival in Karachi I decided to hide my camera deep into my bag, and mentally prepared myself for any possible confrontations. I had decided that perhaps telling people that I was from the USA, would not be a wise move in this area. It would unfortunately be prudent for me to take on another nationality while under these circumstances.

Here goes nothing……………..Things were chaotic as I exited the train and began walking across the platform toward the main exit. The platform was jam packed with a colorful assortment of beggars, vendors, and commuters. After exiting the train station I spotted a public bus down the road and without thinking twice, I approached and boarded the old crowded public bus. Upon entering the bus, I Immediately found myself surrounded with cold suspicious stares; it was unlike anything I had experienced thus far in Pakistan. These people really seamed to dislike me and disapprove of my presence…………..my heart began to pound faster, and my legs began to subtly tremble with uncontrollable nerves. One guy in particular was standing about three feet from me sporting a brown shalwar kameez, a long black bushy beard, a white skull cap, and dusty black sandals. He was in his late 20s and was staring at me with piercing, hateful eyes. It became clear to me instantly that this guy did not want me to feel welcome on his bus. I tried desperately to avoid eye contact with the man, but found myself instinctively turning back to glance at him in order to see if he was still glaring at me. Worst case scenarios began to race through my mind like a dark twisted slide show. I began to grow increasingly uneasy about the situation, and decided I would get off at the next stop. Just before I inevitably succumbed to panic and broke down mentally and physically with fear; I felt a gentle tap on my upper back. As I turned around an old man stood up from his chair and adamantly insisted that I take his place. He smiled at me warmly as I sat down in his seat before turning away slowly to gaze out the dusty bus window. It was amazing how something like this could happen…………..here I was literally about to have a panic attack, and all of a sudden I am confronted with a warm, simple, selfless act of kindness that consequently calmed my nerves and eased my mind.

I had no idea where the bus I was on was heading, but figured I would just get off when I saw something that looked interesting. About 15 minutes into the ride, the bus stopped alongside a recent vehicle accident. A public passenger bus similar to the one I was riding had flipped on its side. The shell of the bus was violently mangled, and the partially shattered windows contained highly visible patches of smeared blood. As I began to analyze the scene in more depth, I noticed that several of the people standing besides the bus were seriously bleeding and standing in 2-3ft wide puddles of vibrant colored blood. It was like a scene out of a movie, I don’t know that I have ever seen so much blood all in one place. After stopping at the accident for a couple minutes’, two men from the accident boarded the bus; one man in his late 60s had a deep laceration on his forehead and a broken nose, while another man in his early 30s had blood all over his shalwar, but no visible injuries.

I was incredibly exhausted, filthy, and sweating profusely as I exited the bus, but the fear and adrenaline provided me with enough juice to keep moving. I ended up at the Clifton Seaside……….a long stretch of seaside with an enormous park and a few luxury hotels.

While walking along the crowded sidewalks of the Clifton Seaside, I noticed how exceedingly different the atmosphere had become. There were palm readers and Sufis everywhere. Long haired Sufis sat in circles banging on large drums and smoking hash. Thousands of Pakistanis peacefully picnicked at a large, well maintained seaside park. All in all the area seamed relatively progressive and safe. I kinda expected people to be running through the streets with machine guns while hurling grenades at each other. It appears that I got lucky, and ended up in a calm perhaps even safe part of town.

It was now about 7:30pm and I was beginning to run out of daylight, I thought it would be prudent to lock down accommodation before things got too late. I ended up just walking around until I got lost and wound up in some sort of primitive bazaar area.
Narrow dirt roads, ground littered with animal bones and rotten vegetables, rotting piles of trash everywhere, pools of fresh animal blood, tailors, butchers, various vendors, and swarms of flies pretty much sums up the area. I have never in my life seen so many flies; shop keepers fanned flies away with square pieces of card board, but as soon as they stopped swinging the cardboard, the flies would cover every inch of the meat and fruit they were trying to protect. It was a bizarre and disgusting thing to witness.

The deeper I walked into the bazaar the more uneasy I began to feel. Darkness and cold stares began to penetrate and suffocate my strength. Instead of smiles and hot cups of tea, I was served frosty stares and unwelcoming smirks. This was definitely a neighborhood I should have avoided; I was clearly not welcome here. I began hearing bickering and whispers behind me, which invoked an uncontrollable sense of panic that sent a shockwave down my spine. Was I being followed? Had I got myself into a potentially fatal situation? What the hell was I thinking going into this neighborhood?...............I began to walk faster and faster as sweat poured heavily down my face. I had no Idea where I was and had no idea how to get out of this crazy maze of a neighborhood. The footsteps seamed to be getting closer and closer, even as my pace began to increase. Before I knew it I was at the edge of the neighborhood and near a main road; fortunately I was able to make my way out in one piece. With open air came pleasant relief and gradually subsiding paranoia. I was again in a relatively open area and began to feel a thin blanket of security upon my shoulders.

Darkness fell, and severe exhaustion and panic compelled me to immediately hop into a rickshaw and leave the area. I told the driver to take me to a hotel, and about 20 minutes later we had arrived in an area with no less than 15 hotels. We were actually back where I had started, near the train station. Finally my day was at an end! I could now find a hotel, take a shower and get some much needed rest. The last two days had been hell, and I was now more than ready to shut down my engine for a while.

Panic, exhaustion, frustration, and anger began to consume my body as each hotel I approached refused me occupancy. Over and over I was told that it was too high of a security risk for them to host me. After visiting no less than 20 hotels and miserably walking four miles through the loud, chaotic, and frightening streets of Karachi; I found a hotel that would take me. It was 11pm.

The hotel was incredible! After seeing the flashy new sign, and the four guards armed with AK47s out front; I new this place was a winner. The guy at the front desk spoke perfect English and told me he would allow me to stay at the hotel for $50; we settled on $20. I had enough danger, exhaustion, and excitement for one day. All I wanted to do was to get some food and go to sleep. I perhaps should add that the entire time I was on the train I had “stomach problems”…………..my stomach had been in shambles since arriving in Lahore. Since leaving Lahore the previous day, I had consumed only 4 juice boxes, 2 mangos, and 5 cups of tea. Thankfully now that I was at my final destination and in a safe secure hotel, my stomach was relaxed enough to welcome solid foods. For some reason, when I am severely stressed out and anxious, I tend to completely lose my appetite.

After checking into my room I ordered some fried chicken from the Pakistani style KFC across the street, but decided to play it safe and eat the meal in my pleasantly secure hotel room.

5-26-2008

I slept like a baby and woke up feeling great, the electricity stayed on the entire night, and the temperature remained cool and comfortable throughout the night. After eating a delicious continental breakfast; I took a taxi to the airport and by12:30pm was on a flight to Kathmandu, Nepal.

From the moment I left Lahore to the moment I left Karachi for Kathmandu;……….I felt severe discomfort and endured endless amounts of self inflicted pain. I really had no justifiable reason for this sort of traveling. It is not fun, enjoyable, enlightening etc……. It is simply a marathon of pain, fear, discomfort, agony, uncertainty, and stupidity. In hindsight everything about the last couple days falls into the reckless and foolish category. I can always say that I made it through Karachi in one piece, but at what cost? Was my less than 24hr experience in Karachi worth the potential dangers? I suppose nothing really went according to plan; I was told that the train ride would take 17hrs………..not 28.5hrs. This was a quite unpleasant surprise. If I had a bit more time in the city, perhaps I would not have jumped on the first bus I saw, or wandered through a poor unwelcoming neighborhood. I arrived in Karachi with less than 2 hours of daylight, exhausted, scared, and pumped full of adrenaline. I left Karachi rested but marginally exhausted with an overwhelming sense of foolishness.

{I made it out of Karachi alive but in hindsight, the decision to visit Karachi was quite reckless. Pakistan is now considered by many people to be the most dangerous country in the world. In the last year(2008): Newsweek, The Economist, and Time Magazine have published articles stating that Pakistan is the most dangerous country in the world. Karachi is said to have the highest street crime rate of any city in the world.
-Between January 1st, 2008 and August 31st 2008, there have been 149 kidnappings for ransom in Karachi. Over 1,000 murders take place each year in Karachi, and it has been said that 100 rapes occur each day in Karachi. So I guess…………Pakistan, and Karachi specifically was not the safest destination of my journey.}

-So this is pretty much the end of the road for a while. My trip concluded with Nepal, India, Thailand, Cambodia, and South Korea…….but I am not sure I will write about those experiences……..I really appreciate any writing feedback………so if you have anything to say good or bad……..please leave a comment or send me an email. I am planning on rewriting a lot of my stuff, and perhaps will turn it into a book. Thanks for reading………knowing that people read this nonsense gives me inspiration to write.
Trevor Lake
laketrev@hotmail.com

Here are a few pics-
Sufi shrine in Lahore:

Border ceremony:

Mohammed and his family:

Peshawar, Pakistan

2008-10-10T14:50:00.000-07:00

5-15-2008

I left Chitral at 8:40am on a crowded, cramped, and horribly uncomfortable mini-bus heading to Peshawar. I experienced faint hesitation and was a bit nervous about visiting Peshawar because of its close proximity to Afghanistan and the notoriously dangerous tribal areas between Peshawar and the Afghan border (Wazirestan). During my logistical research, I read that Peshawar had become a hot bed for terrorists, and that it was becoming increasingly unstable. Apparently terrorists were flooding into the tribal areas from Afghanistan and threatening the stability of Peshawar and Pakistan in general.

The paved road ended at about 11:40am as the bus began its ascent up a beautiful mountain pass. Besides the continuously painful discomfort and the rapidly transitioning scenery, the next few hours were rather uneventful. At around 2:30pm we stopped in the desolate mountain town of Dirat for lunch. Upon arrival in Dirat I was immediately befriended by a Pakistani businessman from Peshawar on his way to Chitral. He spoke perfect English and thankfully was more than happy to help me order some food from a nearby restaurant. I am constantly taken back by how friendly Pakistani people are. Even in my shalwar kameez I stick out like a sore thumb; which in essence helps attract friendly locals who seem to feel compelled to invite me into their daily lives with warm smiles and gentle curiosity. Dirat was a very bleak mountain town with friendly locals and weakening dry heat. Due to the high elevation and mountainous landscape, the northern regions of Pakistan are much cooler than the central and southern regions. As the bus inched its way toward Peshawar the temperature steadily rose, and my personal discomfort continued to climb to near unbearable levels. I numbed the pain periodically by nestling a pinch of naswar against my gums; the anesthetizing nicotine coursed threw my veins quickly, and partnered up with the music of Matt Costa to bring on a chemically, and melodiously induced trance of inspiration and reflective thought.

When we stopped for dinner at 7:00pm, I observed several subtle aspects of change. Along with the landscape becoming monotonously brown, flat, and dry; the people seemed marginally more introverted and less welcoming to infidels. I was now entering the heart of Pakistan, far away from the generally safe and delicately isolated northern regions.

At 8:45pm the bus pulled into a noisy, crowded, loud, and obnoxiously dusty dirt lot on the edge of Peshawar. I had no idea where I was and was a bit nervous and intimidated by my predicament. Peshawar was huge and incredibly underdeveloped; I was out of my element and beginning to feel a bit unsure about my immediate personal safety.………To top it off; I had no Idea where I was going. From previous travel experiences I have learned that a city’s bus station is generally a haven for con artists and sketchy individuals. As a result of this gained knowledge, my first objective was to immediately flee the bus station and then to reevaluate the situation in a safer location. As I walked along the dark, deafening, and agonizingly dusty street; I was stalked by overzealous rickshaw drivers and inquisitive vendors. I was a bit like a fish out of water and constantly on my guard. Despite my traditional Pakistani attire, the large backpack I was carrying over my shoulders overpoweringly screamed tourist. I really had no idea exactly how safe the area was, or if I was even heading in the correct direction; consuming fear and overpowering adrenaline kept me moving along the dark road at a frantic pace. Even so late in the evening, the heat was almost unbearable. Walking five+ miles with a 40lb pack in 95F+ heat was not easy; I was sweating buckets and was horribly fatigued by the time I reached a central area with a few hotels.

My fear and frustration elevated dramatically after being refused accommodation by the first five hotels I visited; each time the owner of the hotel would politely explain that their security was not adequate enough to host me. What does that mean? Were they worried about my safety, or were they simply trying to avoid hosting an infidel? I guess a bomb going off at their hotel would not be good for business. I eventually found an adequate/cheap hotel at around 11pm. I was sweating profusely, exhausted, filthy, scared, paranoid, hungry, and more than ready for a bit of a breather. The hotel was definitely on the trashy side; it was a dusty, windowless, dimly lit, concrete building with cracked walls and high ceilings.

My room: 8x8ft cement box, small bed with torn, stained and collapsed mattress, small filthy bathroom with a squat toilet and rusty shower pipe(no nozzle),no sink, no windows, and one barely operational ceiling fan.

My room was like a cement sauna; thanks to the lack of ventilation, the fan’s only productive effect was to push hot air back into my face. This was by far the trashiest hotel I had ever slept in. But for $1.30 a night……….how was I to complain. The problem with this place as well as the rest of Pakistan for that matter is that the power supply is both sporadic and unpredictable. I was in my room no longer than 20 minutes before the power shut off and I became encased in awkward, frightening, and painful discomfort. My black coffin of a room was turning into a bread oven. The lack of ventilation was suffocating me, it literally must have been around 130F in the room when the fan was off………..it was horrible. I felt my way through the darkness into the bathroom, the small dark room that held the key to my survival. I devised a solution to escape the inevitably looming effects of heat exhaustion. The solution………..20 min in the shower, 40 minutes sprawled out naked on the bed. It worked, however the radiant heat dried me in minutes and left me sweating profusely for the last 30 minutes of each hour. At 2am the power kicked back in and the heavenly fan began to spin around like angel wings. It was a lifesaver; I was not sure I would be able to handle the intense discomfort much longer. In reality, who was I kidding, where else was I to go. After another quick shower, I laid in my bed/hammock and finally was able to get a bit of shut eye. At 5am I woke up in a pool of sweat, my deep innie belly button turned into a sweat filled shot glass that poured down my sides with excess each time my lungs filled with air. Back to the misery and pain! I hopped in the shower again and resumed my cooling strategy for about an hour before giving up on sleep entirely in order to begin my day. At 6am I escaped my concrete coffin and began wandering down the adjacent street away from my hotel. Down the street a ways, I came across a crew of construction workers sitting on a dirty side walk eating a vegetable and rice salad. The guy’s operation appeared to be relatively sanitary, so with little hesitation I purchased a serving from the street vendor for 25cents and consumed it with slight anticipation of future nausea. It was early in the day, so I perceived that the plate I was using was only used a few times before me that morning……………it could have been much worse. The sun was shining and the food was delicious; I suddenly became increasingly excited about exploring Peshawar.

After wandering around in circles for a few hours, I came across a small internet café in the basement of a run down block apartment. The computers were ancient and the connection speed was ridiculously slow, but it did the trick. I was eager to research my future travel logistics and to contact my host in Islamabad.

At around 11am I took a rickshaw to Peshawar’s bustling old bazaar area and began my exploration. I was still marginally intimidated and fearful about Peshawar’s reputation, but eager and intrigued by my surroundings nonetheless. I was in Peshawar, the city on the edge of Pakistan’s disreputable tribal areas, and about to explore a world famous bazaar. The bazaar was incredible; it was amazing to be in the middle of something so chaotic, yet serene. The bazaar was endlessly abundant with just about any sort of consumable you can imagine. I thoroughly enjoyed this bazaar mostly because of the people; instead of being hassled and heckled, I was constantly greeted with copious arrays of enchanting warmth radiating from brotherly smiles. I was no longer afraid of Peshawar; my suspicion, hesitation, fear, and bewilderment rapidly melted away with each pleasant interaction.

Within two hours of arriving at the old bazaar; I had been befriended by a dozen people and been treated to four cups of tea. It was surprisingly difficult to walk down an entire block without being coerced into a hospitable gesture. The loud, crowded, dusty streets, were no longer a place of fear and overwhelming intimidation, they had become a place of warmth, a quiet village nestled away within rolling hills of fragrant flowers. The mask was taken off and what I saw within was something beautiful.

After about four hours of wandering, observing, and casual interaction; I became completely lost. I was not sure exactly where I was, but knew that I was definitely far from the old bazaar. I ended up in a large courtyard containing green grass, an old mosque, and several bushy trees that gave off an abundance of well appreciated shade. While sitting on a crusty cement bench in the courtyard I was approached by on old man sporting a bright white shalwar Kameez, a bushy white beard, and a white skull cap. His face was dark and leathery, with deep creases around his eyes and across his forehead. He greeted me with a warm smile and a “ asalam ahalikum”. I responded with “ halikum salam”. The old man soon began talking about his son who lived in Sacramento and how much he loved America. He then passionately explained to me that Muslims are generally good people, and how he does not understand why ‘Bush’ wants to destroy his religion. I was not exactly sure how to respond to this accusation; I have been approached with similar statements and accusations on several occasions, but am taken back each time the subject is broached. The man intensely proclaimed that the US invasion of Iraq was simply an action taken with intention to destroy a Muslim nation and to spread democracy and Christianity. He was adamant in his statements and had no doubt in his mind that the USA’s government wants nothing more than to eradicate the religion of Islam. I decided to just sit back and listen to this man vent, I was unsure how to respond to the man, and was not sure if confrontation and debate would be productive.

Well, another strange and awkward conversation in a very volatile region……………what is the appropriate response? I suppose over the last few months my answers have become more and more polished, and my opinions have become more dynamic. My rebuttal was a bit typical:

“There are over 300 million Americans in the USA, and most of them do not believe in the fundamentals of our current presidency. Our country is made up of a beautiful mixture of displaced immigrants from all parts of the world. We have complete religious freedom, and by law must respect all of the many religions of our nation. There will always be bad and good people in each and every country of our world, unfortunately the western media puts it’s emphasis on the bad, and shines light on hatred, ugliness, and bigotry rather than love, respect, acceptance, and tolerance. I assure you that America does not have any intention to eradicate Islam, nor does it want to take over Islamic republics. America was attacked by a group of Islamic radicals full of hatred, and it spooked our presidency into making poor decisions with miscalculated consequences”

After discussing, and peacefully debating for about an hour, we shook hands and parted our separate ways. I enjoy these sorts of interactions immensely; each time I am able to speak to a person with a view different than my own, I feel enlightened and am able to look critically at future situations with a broader point of view.

Within 30 minutes of leaving the courtyard I ended up in a bustling back alley filled with goats and textile shops. Even though the street was slightly shaded, the walls of the narrow alley radiated vast amounts of powerful heat that expelled sweat from my body like an unripe steak. Despite it being only 2:30 in the afternoon, my body was already shattered with fatigue.

A young guy with a long beard spotted me from across the street and waved me over. He was sporting a military style (camouflage) hat and an off-white shalwar kameez. As I walked across the road to greet him he flashed me a warm smile and said “hello please sit down”. While sitting down beside him, he observed my sweaty, worn out appearance with concern and told me that I should sit and rest. He then walked into the building and came back shortly with a Coca Cola on the rocks. It was just what the doctor ordered; it was the most delicious and revitalizing coke I had ever consumed. My new friend’s name was Ahmed and he worked as an assistant/security guard for the small medical clinic. Moments later another man named Mohammed came from within the medical clinic to greet me; he had dark skin and soft eyes. After finishing my coke Ahmed escorted me into the clinic and sat me down in a small office at the end of the narrow hallway. The office was dimly lit, had a large ceiling fan, and was decorated with cliché, flagrantly bright posters of farm houses, domestic animals, and sports cars. I sat in confusion, alone in the office for about 15 minutes before the director burst into the room to greet me. She (Johar) sat down across from me and with a suspicious/confused/curious look asked me what I wanted. The question caught me off guard……………..what did I want? I was escorted in off the streets and now was sitting in the director’s office of a hospital. I told the director that I was a tourist and that I had been casually invited to the clinic by Ahmed for a short rest and a cold drink. She internally analyzed my answer briefly before asking me if she could get me something to drink. After politely declining her offer, she gave me a strange look before ordering her assistant to bring me a Coke. The director of the hospital was a plump, pretty, and confident woman in her mid 20s. She had just finished medical school and was now overseeing her parents (both physicians) clinic. We spent the next hour discussing various correlations and contrasts between our countries’ health care, education system, and social dynamics.

I found it fascinating that she was so cold, cynical and stubbornly pessimistic when it came to love. I consider myself a bit of a cynic when it comes to “soul mates”, “true love”, “destiny”, “marriage”…….etc. but she truly blew me away. She believes that love is childish and non-existent in the mature educated world. Her views on marriage were very business oriented, very structured, with little room for nonsense. Johar believes that your parents always know what is best for you, so when the time comes they will choose the perfect mate for you. And this arranged marriage is not about love, it is about “your duty”……which pretty much means your put on earth to work hard, make babies, train your kids to live a lifestyle free from sin and corruption,………then you die. I find her opinions interesting and practical………….but I am not sure I am ready to throw out self interest, spontaneity, deviance, and romantic love in favor of a dull, scripted, monotonous, conservative, and highly orthodox life.

After our little chat, Johar told me that I must come back at 1:40pm for lunch. After thanking her for the hospitality and conversation, I stepped out into the rugged heat and continued my journey to nowhere. In order to ensure I did not become disoriented, I simply walked in a straight line down the hot dusty street away from the clinic. I figured as long as I did not make any turns I would be able to retrace my steps and return to the medical clinic with ease. I now felt very comfortable in Peshawar; I had been confronted only with smiles and kind words. Where were all the terrorists at? Where were the cold stares, harsh words, and blind hatred? Was I in the same Peshawar that I had been reading about on the news?

Peshawar’s dry heat was debilitating, and agonizingly uncomfortable. It was well above 100F as I walked down the crowded streets dodging decorative buses and aggressive rickshaw drivers. After walking about two miles in unbearable heat I decided to take a bit of a breather. I found a corner store and picked up a small bottle of cold ‘Arabian Dew’ (tastes just like Mountain dew, Pakistanis love their Mountain dew!) and a small brick of Naswar ( chewing tobacco). I spent the next 30 minutes sitting on a dusty, shaded curb sipping soda and enjoying the effects of strong Pakistani tobacco. My body was stoned and my mind was numb as I sat on the curb, sweat pouring down my face, trying in vain to unravel the complex thoughts and perplexities plaguing my conscience.

I have found that I enjoy putting myself in awkward and uncomfortable situations. I thrive on stepping outside of my comfort zone and into unfamiliar territory. I suppose it is the way it makes me feel that drives me into these situations. The feelings of vulnerability, confusion, fear, excitement, danger, shame, and enlightenment spike when I am outside of my element. I am beginning to believe that this adrenaline rush caused by disposition and fear is perhaps borderline unhealthy. Is that why I am in Pakistan? The need to push the envelope, and constantly take things to the next level has landed me in an increasingly unstable country, with undeniable dangers and volatility. The interesting thing about my off the path travel experiences is that I have continually come to the same conclusions: No place is as dangerous as you may initially think; ignorance breeds fear. People are the same all over the world; love, hate, lust, greed, kindness, selfishness, playfulness, happiness, sadness, desire and determination, are things possessed by all human beings no matter what your race, ethnicity, religion or geographic location may be. Love, warmth, kindness, open-mindedness, and tolerance opens doors to friendship, and dissolves ignorance and hatred.

At 1:40pm I arrived at the medical clinic and was greeted warmly by Ahmed and Mohammed, who were both sitting in white chairs near the entrance of the clinic. Ahmed then escorted me to a back room with a fan, dining table, and a dozen rusty chairs. The electricity was off, which made the room turn into a sweat box. I was forced to constantly wipe the sweat off my forehead in order to prevent the dust and sweat from invading my already burning eyes. I then sat alone in the dimly lit room for 40 minutes……………..Had they forgot about me? What was I doing? Should I head for the door and sneak out of this relatively awkward situation? I decided to tuff it out, and eventually my lunch arrived. Ahmed presented me with chicken, yogurt, hot milk, coke, and a tomato-cucumber salad. After eating my lunch in silence and isolation; four middle aged Pakistani men entered the room. They all sported long bushy beards and light colored shalwar kameezes. I stood and greeted the men as they entered the room with confident demeanor and curious eyes. We then sat around the table and began to discuss my favorite topic………..American politics.

To say the least the conversation was a bit rough around the edges. It was a four on one political debate where the gloves were off and the river of propaganda was raging uncontrollably. After calmly debating with the men about the Iraq war, President Bush, Pakistan-USA relations, and Islamic extremism;…………the men touched a nerve that sent me into a uncontrollable whirlwind of rage. After listening to one of the men go off on a tangent about how the 9-11 attacks were planned and allowed by the US government, I completely lost my composure.

-The man’s argument: “The USA has seamless intelligence, intelligence so broad and thorough that it would be impossible for the USA to allow such a large scale attack to slip through its fingers unintentionally. The USA condoned and helped plan the 9-11 attacks because it wanted an excuse to attack and conquer Islamic nations. The USA’s goal is to eradicate the religion of Islam, control all of the world’s oil, and convert all people to Christianity. The 9-11 attacks were not executed by Islamic extremists; they were simply a series of accidents caused by mechanical problems within each airplane.”

The last statement is what tripped my breaker switch and took me over the edge. I stood up, walked up to the guy and said:

“That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard in my life. There is bullshit propaganda everywhere, and just because it is written on a website, or in a newspaper does not make it true. Here are a few facts for you: Islamic extremism is very real. There are in fact Muslims who hate my country enough to perform a Jihad attack on it. The 9-11 attacks were executed by Alqeida! There is no gray area, there is no room for debate……………it happened. Islamic extremists killed over 3,000 people in my country in one day. It is not a conspiracy! The USA would not bomb our own country, or allow terrorists to kill thousands of people just to create an excuse to start a war. These statements are common sense. America is a country of diversity; we are all displaced immigrants (with exception to American Indians) trying to make better lives for ourselves in a very young country. My country is not perfect, neither is my government. We are not one culture trying to extinguish another; we are many cultures and ethnicities trying to live as one in a land of growing tolerance and acceptance. Our intelligence is very complex and strong, but not free from error. It is literally impossible to avoid all terrorist activity through intelligence. The fact is that Americans do not generally like President Bush! We do not believe his decisions in relation to Iraq were good ones. I did not choose to invade Iraq………..my president did this on his own behalf, and under false pretenses. I believe going into Iraq was a mistake, and so do most Americans. You must understand that there are over 300 million Americans in the USA………..and the majority of them despise President Bush and his Middle Eastern foreign policy. I find it absurd that you would believe all the stupid, bullshit propaganda you have been told. Why would any country shoot themselves in the foot? Not everything is grey……………………this issue is black and white.”

I literally yelled this statement as loud as I could, and with furious anger. My throat completely dried out and created a painful and uncomfortable tickle in my throat. Even after pounding a glass of water, it took me a full 10 minutes to get my voice back.

After regaining my composure, I looked around the room and was a bit taken back by how silent the men were. They were all in shock and seemed to be a bit embarrassed about setting me off like that. I guess they adequately comprehended that they had offended me, and now understand just how sensitive Americans are when discussing the 9-11 attacks.

One man stood up and broke the silence by saying: “we are all brothers and were simply born in different geographic locations. We know and understand that there are many things said about the USA that are not true; but we do know that your president is no different than Hitler. He is a bad man, and is responsible for the deaths of many Muslims.”

We all stood up, smiled, shook hands and left the table without animosity, hatred or anger. We understood each other; we knew that we could not possibly see eye to eye on all of the complex issues of recent international politics. We are simply concerned citizens of or respective nations, who are concerned about the future of our countries.

After our debate, three of the men left, while Ahmed and Johar reentered the room to present me with the idea of going to a museum. I told them I would love to go to the museum, but first had to purchase some clothes from the bazaar.

I walked about a mile from the medical clinic to a small tailoring shop on the edge of a small, goat infested alley. The shop owner did not speak any English, but sent off his assistant to track down someone who did. A few moment later three teenagers entered the shop and greeted me with energy and enthusiasm. Within 30 minutes the teens had helped me buy 8 yards of cotton cloth from the bazaar, and explained to the tailor that I wanted a shalwar kameez made with the material. Everything went off without a hitch; I was measured up and ready to pick up my tailored clothes the following morning.

When business was finished, the three guys took me next door to their shop for an orange Fanta and a bit of conversation. The three young guys berated me with questions that I was more than happy to answer. Throughout my time on the road, I have been asked just about everything, and have come up with polished answers to even the most controversial questions. Toward the end of our conversation one guy asked me……….. “What advice can you give us?”……………….. …………………………………………………………………………………………………….. I thought about it for a minute and then proceeded to say:…………………………. .……………………………………………………………………………………………. “My advice to you is to leave your country for a short time so that you will be able to analyze your country from the outside in. It is important to see that there are multiple sides to every story, and often it is difficult to understand the world within the comfort of your own country-city-neighborhood. If you have spent your entire life exclusively drinking Coca Cola, and have seen only Coca Cola commercials and advertising; how can you possibly know anything about Fanta? There is nothing wrong with you choosing to solely drink Coca Cola, but it will provide you with a more accurate personal comparison and contrast if you know first hand exactly what Fanta tastes like. So basically what I am saying is: step outside the comfort of your everyday life, and go see the world.”

His response:

“You do not understand, you have no idea how we live, what you say is not possible for me or any of us. You think that we can simply leave our country and explore the world, but you have no idea what you are talking about, because you know nothing about our lives. I am 16 and must support my parents and my sisters; exactly how can I afford to leave me country? We live in a poor country, and have responsibilities to our families; we are not free to leave. You just don’t understand that what you say is not possible for us.”

Well what can I say, the kid had a point. Who am I to tell people the road to enlightenment is to see the world, and that anyone can do it. I grew up in a financially stable family, in a wealthy country full of opportunity. What do I know about the life challenges of Pakistani teens? I suppose it is a bit challenging to follow your dreams when you are held down with enormous amounts of responsibility, particularly with your family’s financial wellbeing. I suppose my advice becomes void and foolish when speaking to those of less privileged backgrounds…………I will never forget this conversation because it brought me down from the hippie cloud I was floating on and pulled me back to earth. Life is not fair, suffering is inevitable, and most people live and die without chasing after their dreams; dreams and aspirations often die at a young age. Unfortunately,…….. responsibility, maturity, and rational thought can be the kryptonite for lofty dreams and personal aspirations.

After my humbling and slightly disheartening conversation with the young guys, I headed back to the medical clinic to meet up with Ahmed and Johar.

About 30 minutes after I had returned to the medical clinic, a new guy named Zar showed up with a small ornately modified car and moments later we were off to the museum. Before I left Ahmed gave me his army hat and shook my hand with a warm smile.

Zar, Johar and I drove to the museum at around 7pm. The museum was closed for the evening but was quickly reopened after a bit of bakshish (Arabic word for tip money) was presented to the guards. The museum was quite interesting; it consisted primarily of ancient Buddhist artifacts found throughout Pakistan. I could see the cultural and national pride in the eyes of my hosts as they paraded me around the museum. It had been a long day, and I was pretty much exhausted by the time I had reached the museum, so I can’t say truthfully that I enjoyed the museum much.

Later that evening Zar drove Johar and I to a four star hotel called Pearl Continental Hotel. It was by far the nicest hotel in Peshawar. The hotel was absurdly priced and outrageously extravagant, however this did not stop my hosts from parading around the joint like they owned the place. It was an interesting situation, I found myself over evaluating the situation; this is my curse, I tend to over evaluate everything………Why was I taken to the nicest restaurant in Peshawar? Is there something they expect from me, or are they simply trying to display their wealth to me? Am I expected to pay for the food? Would they have taken one of their Pakistani friends here, or was I here simply because I am a white guy from the USA. Was this simple dinner and short lived façade of wealth going to disrupt their financial stability? After all, a $100 dinner bill to your average Pakistani correlates evenly with a middle class American spending $1,000 on a meal. Sure it can be done, but it is not something that should be taken lightly. The dinner was dragged out for three long agonizing hours………I was tired, bored, and generally was not into the conversation. It turns out that Johar really wants to further her education in the USA, but is not sure exactly how to get her foot in the door. I told her I would be her sponsor if she applied for a visa and perhaps help her look around for potential scholarships, but generally there is not much I can do to help. After I had finished out the conversation, consumed a bit of chicken, 3 cups of coffee, and some chocolate cake, we were on our way home. I was dropped off at my hotel at 10:30pm…………it was a long day and I was exhausted.

When I arrived at my hotel the power was completely out, the guy at the front desk had to escort me to my room with a flashlight. I was blind as a bat in my pitch black room and again sweating profusely. It was horribly uncomfortable……………your body can handle about 20 minutes of 120F+ heat before your head starts feeling funny, and the nausea begins to creep up on you. At this point I feel my way toward the bathroom and have a seat on the 3 in wooden platform below my shower. I sit on the platform mainly to avoid the 3 inch cockroaches that squirm around my bathroom floor when the lights are out. (They really freak me out…………..they are literally the size of small mice.) After turning on the water I simple lean forward, hug my knees and sit in strange, but soothing silence for about 30 minutes. The water crashes against my back, and eventually cools the core of my body to a degree that the nausea subsides and I again feel brave enough to reenter my dark furnace of a room. Again I am lying wet, naked and in comfortable darkness pondering recent events and experiences.

-Why did I get so worked up about the whole 9-11 conspiracy comment? Why did I feel comfortable confronting the guy and yelling at him? Was that a potentially dangerous move? Why the hell did I spend 3 hours in a posh hotel restaurant today? Would it have been worth it to splurge on a $20 room in a nice hotel? $1.30 for a room is not bad………but is the pain and discomfort worth the money I am saving?

The electricity kicked in around 1am…………and I drifted off to sleep shortly after. I awoke at 4am sweating buckets and feeling nauseous…………..time for a shower.

I checked out of the hotel at 7am…………….gave a confirmation phone call to my host in Islamabad, picked up my tailored shalwar kameez, and within two hours was on the 11am bus headed to Islamabad.

Medical Clinic crew

The guys who helped me in the bazaar

-The Hindu Kush-

2008-08-29T10:59:00.000-07:00

-The Hindu Kush-

5-11-2008

My body was slowly falling apart and I feared for the worse as the bus pulled out of Gilgit at 7:30am; my head was pounding and my stomach was aching for food, but the thought of consuming anything other than soft fruit overwhelmed me with intense feelings of nausea. In this condition, how was I to survive a 15+ hour hot, cramped, and bumpy bus ride? I have been shedding pounds at a frightening rate throughout my journey; I currently weigh about 180lbs, a full 35lbs less than I weighed 3 years ago before I left the USA for my Peace Corps assignment. The major issue being that I was relatively skinny when I left; which means now I am simply unhealthy.

Food poisoning, sporadic eating habits, and overall malnutrition are excellent ways to lose weight and help bring out your inner skeleton. I should create a weight loss program when I return home; food poisoning is the perfect way to unite bulimia and anorexia together in order to create the perfect combo of rapid weight loss without the psychological issues that accompany both. One rotten sandwich a month for 6 months………and I guarantee you will shed those pounds, but always be anxiously waiting for the diet to end!

The bus driver skillfully drove along the sketchy partially washed out road, dodging large boulders, gushing streams, and half cleared landslides. The road cut along the canyon wall with incredibly sharp precision that left very little room for error. We were never far from a fatal accident as we constantly had to slam on the breaks to avoid head on collisions with oncoming cars. I kept my sanity by putting the situation into perspective; this man does not want to die, nor does he want to kill everyone on the bus, and he obviously knows the road and its limitations to a much greater extent than I. Still, looking down 300ft cliffs that are only inches from the edge of the bus is frightening. The road was a maximum of only a lane and a half wide in most segments, and was only partially paved.

While driving along the windy road, I began seeing inspirational words written with white spray paint along the stony cliffs. The words were written in both English and Urdu and were usually 1-3km apart. The messages read: “Serve Nation”, “Educate Your Children”, “Develop Your Area”, and “Help the Tourists”. I interpreted these messages as a sign of forward progression for Pakistan. The people of Pakistan do not want to fall into the fiery pit of self destruction and intolerable extremism. They appear to be striving toward being a fundamentally religious but progressive nation; a nation free from epidemics of war, hate, pain, ignorance, and political turmoil; a nation that strives to pull away from the very things that have been crippling their Islamic counterparts.

At 11:50am our bus peeled off the road and stopped for lunch at a small mud/wood shack alongside a shallow river. I was a bit confused about the eating situation, but thankfully was taken under the wing of the man I was sitting next to on the bus. I followed him into the shack where we left our shoes at the door, and proceeded to sit on the floor surrounding a straw matt; soon after, we were all served vegetable curry, rice, chapatti, and milk tea. I felt a bit strange, awkward, and out of place; however, moments like these are what I truly thrive on and strangely enjoy. The inquisitive man next to me spoke broken English and looked about as fair skinned as any European I had ever met. He had light brown hair, a thick colonial mustache, and green eyes. The only part of his appearance that made him appear ethnically different was his Chitrali cap and his shalwar kameez.

I definitely was the oddball of the crew; most of the men around me had long thick beards and sported Chitrali caps with their shalwar kameez (traditional clothes). The men in the shack stared at me intimately and seemed to be discussing me intensively as we ate. I had no choice but to smile occasionally when eye contact was made, and recognize that I was simply a weird looking guy, wearing weird clothes, and in a land where reverence and cultural conformity is incredibly important. If I were dining at a restaurant in the USA, and a Kenyan Bushman walked through the door (wearing traditional clothing) and sat beside me at the table, I would most likely inadvertently analyze the man and discuss his lack of conformity. From day one I have been completely aware that I am merely a guest in the countries I visit, and it is my responsibility to respect each land’s culture, religion, and social norms despite how radically they may differ from my own.

After lunch we all boarded the bus and were soon on our way. A couple men on the bus had spent their break fishing down beside the river; one of the men was now holding three small trout gilled by a thin twig. I thoroughly enjoyed the company of the man next to me; we discussed a variety of topics but did not dive too heavily into anything much deeper than small talk. It was pleasant to discuss simple things like family, work, and recreation; as opposed to international politics and President Bush.

I was only able to choke down about half of my lunch, which instead of curing my hunger and soothing my aching stomach, actually made me feel worse. I found it increasingly difficult to enjoy my surroundings and to take pleasure in the moment. I was traveling an unknown road, a road of vast cultural significance and natural beauty, but unfortunately was not in the proper condition to soak in the atmosphere and properly enjoy it.

We constantly picked up villagers and dropped them off as the bus slowly made its way along the increasingly shabby road. I noticed that several of the village women we picked up had dyed orange decorations on their hands and wrists, their children had the same markings. The dye on their hands is similar if not identical to henna ink, and is called “mandee” in Urdu. Some women had it decoratively painted on their hands, while others had their entire hands sloppily dyed orange. All of the village women wore traditional burkas (decorative long baggy shirt, and pants) and covered their hair with colorful shawls. The Pakistani women would often cover their faces with their shawls and turn away the moment they caught a glimpse of me. I guess that is what I get for being an infidel.

One of the steep rural towns (Golokmuri) appeared to be having some sort of festival, perhaps it was a wedding. The whole village seamed to be celebrating together on a grassy hill resembling a natural amphitheatre. Further down the road was the town of Gurdu, where villagers stocked the bus inquisitively as it drove through. The villagers of Gurdu wore shabby, tattered clothes and overall looked quite filthy. Despite the villagers’ rugged appearance, their smiles radiated strongly enough to exhibit an outline of happiness and contentment with their rural mountain village lifestyles. When the bus stopped in Gurdu, a woman boarded the bus holding a small child with her face painted like a batman character. Speckles of a black tar like substance was caked around both eyes, cheeks, and her forehead like a lone ranger mask; after later inquiries I found out that this was considered to be healthy for the baby, because the black substance attracts the sun and keeps the baby warm. We were in fact high on a rugged mountain pass, where the air was considerably cooler than the lower valleys.

The scantily paved road officially turned to dirt and rocks at 2:30pm, which resulted in the slowing of our already sloth like pace. We were now traveling less than 15mph along the steep bumpy road up a rocky mountain pass. I witnessed several large families having picnics amongst their livestock on the grassy rolling hills that surrounded the road. Throughout the mountain passes we would drive in the vicinity of small villages where the children would spot me and enthusiastically run along the bus in order to catch a glimpse of the strange looking foreigner. Many of the children wore green baseball caps with “Pakistan” and a white star printed on the front. When the bus occasionally stopped, I noticed that the villagers greeted each other by first the woman kissing the man’s hand and second the man kissing the woman’s hand. I poked my camera out the window and took a couple of photos of the kids surrounding the bus, a few of the young girls seemed repulsed, scared, and furious, while others smiled and eagerly crowded toward my window. Their faces were dirty; their clothes near deterioration, and a surprising number were cross eyed (which often suggest incestuous behavior…….)

The rural mountain villages along the isolated dirt road consisted of clusters of mud shacks alongside lush green fields of grazing yaks. The people that gathered around the bus at each stop looked weathered, worn down, and had dry chapped hands. Despite their physical appearance, they did exhibit an exuberance of happiness. Each person returning to their village was greeted with ecstatic reactions and an abundance of smiles. Many of these villages were far from electricity, and generally seemed to be self sustained.

The village at the top of the pass was called Shandur and consisted of little more than a polo field and a tea shack. Apparently Shandur hosts several important polo games each year. Leading up to Shandur was a series of steep grassy marshes filled with grazing yaks. A couple of times we dropped off shepherds equipped with camping gear at desolate fields tens of miles from the nearest village. Shandur was surrounded by rolling hills of lush green grass and lined with massive snow capped mountains. The Yaks grazing near the road would lift their bushy tails and athletically sprint away from the road as the bus slowly crept up the hill. I was actually quite surprised to see how agile and athletic the yaks were. They would raise their tails and sprint around the fields like hyper gazelles; quite impressive for such a large beast.

After a quick tea break in Shandur we began our descent into the desolate and seemingly inaccessible Lasper Valley. The road began to get sketchier and sketchier as we made our way down a frightening series of cut backs. Several times the bus driver had to send his assistant outside in front of the bus in order to guide us along the narrow road. We were literally a 7inch landslide away from disaster and death. The 300ft cliffs on the edge of the road made my heart race with fear. This was by far the most dangerous road I had ever been on. The road was cut into an unstable mountainside of falling rock, and was barely wide enough to hold a vehicle. The collapsing sections of the road produced the frightful appearance of a serrated knife.

I breathed a sigh of relief when we reached the village of Mustouch, home of the 5^th and final police check point before Chitral. Each time there was a police check point; I was forced off the bus to fill out a form (Visa #, Passport #, destination, etc.) and answer a few simple questions. Most of the police I encountered along the way were friendly and gave me little hassle.

It was now 7:00pm and we had traveled only 262 kilometers from Gilgit. Which means the bus was traveling at an average speed of around 15 miles per hour.

After the police check point the bus continued for another 20 minutes before stopping indefinitely. Apparently this was the end of the road, but we were still 114km from Chitral. The road was too windy, rough, and narrow to handle a small bus; from Mustouch onward the roads were only accessible by jeep.

I was absolutely exhausted by this point and I felt as if I had a stomach full of jagged rocks. My options were to either stay in Mustouch for the night and catch a jeep to Chitral in the morning, or to simply keep the party going and continue my journey. I decided to go with the latter; I was horribly fatigued, but wanted to get it all out of the way in order to wake up fresh and rested in Chitral.

I was not actually hungry, but my painfully empty stomach yearned for substance; so I decided to try and track down a bite to eat. After a quick exploration of the desolate mountain village, I came across an old wooden shack selling groceries and shoes. There were very few consumables in the place besides peanuts and stale cookies;….I opted for the dusty box of milk I scoped out on the floor near the worn down combat boots. Boxed milk never really goes bad does it? The 8oz box of milk was covered with dirt and was a bit rough around the edges, but I had irrational confidence that it was legit, so I made the purchase. After pounding the box of fermented dairy poison I was off to find a ride to Chitral.

I easily tracked down a man with an extra seat in his old beat up land cruiser and hopped aboard. We left Mustouch at around 7:30pm, at which point I soon discovered that the jeep trail to Chitral was pretty much insane. We drove along the thin barely visible jeep trail, over the top of landslides, through deep streams, and around recently fallen boulders that obstructed our path. The ride was bumpy, terrifying, and slow going, however we were definitely making progress.

9:05pm- we stopped in ParWak, a desolate village consisting of a small makeshift gas station and a few mud shacks. I actually felt quite uneasy about this stop; my mind began racing wildly as worst case scenarios were uncontrollably bouncing around in my skull. Why were we stopping? Perhaps so they could take me into a shack and decapitate me after lecturing me about my “anti-Islamic American Government”. Of course my mentality at this moment was paranoid, ridiculous, and skewed, but in the back of my mind I was fully aware that stranger things had happened.

Should I have felt comfortable with the situation? Is it unnatural for an American to feel a bit uneasy while alone in the darkness of desolate North West Pakistan? I followed the four other men from the jeep up a hill and into a small mud shack with no door. As we entered, the room suddenly became deathly silent. What I visualized upon entering the shack was a mirror image of what the Western media had pounded into my mind. Here was a room full of dirty, bearded, terrorists, with horrible extremist intentions and hearts as cold as ice. Why was I unable to see a room full of kind, gentle, friendly men, conversing about the same sort of life issues we all do while congregating around friends at our local American dive bars? I later felt horrible, guilty, and disgusted about my racist, ignorant, and unfairly presumptuous first impressions.

The dimly lit room was filled with middle aged Pakistani men with dirty clothes and shaggy dark beards. They were all sitting on a foot high wooden platform covered by a dirty Persian rug, smoking hash cigarettes and quietly conversing amongst themselves. At the end of the platform was a prehistoric television set tuned into what looked like the Indian version of Baywatch. Even though the reception made the picture almost unwatchable, several of the men stared at the television with undivided attention. As I stood in silence observing my new surroundings, I could not help but contemplate the possibility that I was in a room of uneducated militants with very strong opinions about the Bush administration.

After about five minutes of suspicious stares, and verbal inquiries directed at my driver, the men lost interest and went back to their Bollywood Baywatch. At the end of the shack was a small mud stove where they were cooking vegetable curry and rice. As I slowly approached the stove an old hunch-backed man stood up off his 6 inch stool and with a weathered smile, graciously offered me his seat. Moments later I was handed a plate of food and a cup of milk tea. The men cordially smiled as they intently observed me consume my gift.

My stomach was in poor form as I desperately tried to choke down each bite of the dry, barely consumable rice and vegetable curry. I felt awkward and rude not being able to finish my meal, so I discretely ditched my plate of food and snuck out the backdoor into the darkness. I awkwardly hid outside in the bushes near the jeep until my jeep-mates were ready to hit the road again. We were back on the road at 9:30pm, tearing through the moonlit trail with frighteningly aggressive tactics.

The next leg of the jeep trail was periodically obstructed by large herds of sheep. I am still unsure whether the shepherds were beginning or ending their day. Why where shepherds herding sheep at 11:30pm? Was it possible that they where working the shepherd graveyard shift? Is there a shepherd graveyard shift? Anyways, my driver became increasingly frustrated by the obstructive flowing rivers of sheep, and constantly yelled out his window at them. Judging by the intensity of his tone and body language, I believe that my driver was threatening the shepherds with some form of violence for obstructing the road.

At about 11:45pm the dirt road finally ended and a paved road began; within a half hour we had arrived at the largest city in the Hindu Kush, Chitral.

The streets of Chitral were quiet, empty, and dimly lit by street lamps. I was dropped off in the center of town, and within 30 minutes was able to find a cheap hotel room to lay my head ($4). The room had peeling green wallpaper, one small cot, a rock hard pillow, and raggedy off-white sheets. The 8x10 windowless room was blazing hot and had one of the most disgusting toilets I had ever seen. It was now 12:30PM………and despite the condition of my hotel room, I felt relaxed, peaceful and ready to sleep. After a cold shower to cool down, I hopped into bed and almost immediately fell asleep.

At 2:30am I woke up suddenly after having a horrible nightmare that I was drowning in a pool of dark sludge. When I woke up I was desperately gasping for air and was choking on a mouth full of vomit. Stomach juices disgustingly sprayed across my chest, legs, and bed as I stood up frantically coughing up the rancid contents of my throat and mouth. My balloon like stomach was bloated and stretched out to the point of bursting. I was scared. The next 6-8 sleepless hours I puked, burped, farted, shat, and laid in my bed painfully deflating. The situation was all very strange, terrifying, and uncomfortable. I was actually afraid to fall asleep because I thought I might die. Perhaps it was a bit silly to think that, but waking up choking on your own vomit is frightening.

5-12-2008

At 11am the young hotel owner suddenly burst into my room and was shocked to see me still lying in bed. I abruptly responded by yelling at him and telling him to get the hell out of my room. I guess that was my wake up call. After a cold shower, I consumed a handful of salty cookies, pounded a quart of iodine flavored water, and was on my way out the door. The streets of Chitral were now bustling, loud, and packed with people. I was in the middle of a large bazaar with shops selling everything from naswar (chewing tobacco) to machine guns. As I wandered through the busy streets of Chitral, I was constantly presented with curious stares intermixed with warm smiles and guiltless curiosity. Eventually I made my way past a cluster of armed soldiers and across a small bridge to the jeep-station on the far end of town.

Upon arrival, I was quickly befriended by Timuk a 21 year old college student from the Kalasha valley. He had been studying economics and English in Peshawar and was eager to converse with me in English. With pride and enthusiasm he began telling me all about his village of Bumboret and how I should definitely visit the Kalasha Valley. His stories intrigued me and immediately sparked my interest. What was the Kalasha Valley? Why had I never heard of this strange place? Timuk told me to take a jeep to the Kalasha valley and that he would meet me the following day to show me around his village. I accepted his offer without hesitation and immediately boarded a small double-cab pick up truck heading to Bumboret.

{The Kalasha valley consists of three small villages tucked away deep in the folds of the Hindu Kush. The total population of the three villages (Bumboret, Rumber and Birir) is around 3,500 people. The Kalasha valley is extraordinarily unique because of its one of a kind language, religion, and culture that has been incredibly maintained throughout its history.}

I was astonished by how many people we could fit in the pickup truck. Five other people and I sat facing each other on bench seats in the bed of the truck, 6 people occupied the seats inside the truck, and 6 other people stood on the bumper hanging off the back. It was quite impressive that this truck was able to take such abuse; we were like a bunch of monkeys clinging to a safari jeep.

The Hindu Kush was absolutely beautiful. The road between Gilgit and Chitral seamed to be geologically forced within one long jagged mountain valley. However, once we entered Chitral the canyon magnificently open up into a series of deeply cut mountain valleys surrounded by enormous hills and dominant snow capped peaks. The area was lush, green, and justifiably under populated.

It is hard to believe that a place like this still exists in the world; an area so desolate, inaccessible and implausible that a community as culturally and ethnically diverse as the Kalash has been able to remain intact and avoid the sharp destructive claws of globalization and religious oppression. How were the people of the Kalasha valley able to avoid religious and cultural coercion and persecution throughout their long history? How were they able to avoid urbanization and forced conformity? My only hypothetical answer to this question is that the tremendously isolated location of the Kalasha valley has adequately preserved their culture by forcefully maintaining a unique, simple, desolate, but sustainable lifestyle of the villagers.

After a long stretch of wavy road that plowed deeply through thick green vegetation high along the mountainside, we began a descent into the small barely accessible town of Ayun (20km from Chitral). Ayun is situated at the base of a valley, between a large river and the sharp, rocky mountainside that breaks slightly making a heavens gate entryway to the Kalasha Valley. Ayun at first glance(my) is a very primitive looking town of dusty dirt roads, shale roofed mud shacks, and skeptical locals. Groups of tired and weathered looking men squatted together in front of the meat markets and curiously observed the passers by. Most men on the streets of Ayun wore dirty shalwar kameezes, Chitrali caps, and large checkered turbans around their necks.

After passing through Ayun we began to climb higher and deeper into the mountainside on an increasingly narrow dirt road. The road followed the rim of a steep canyon on a trail blasted out of solid rock. After about 30 minutes we arrived at a police check point where I was asked to fill out a form, pay a registration fee, and answer a few questions. Apparently it was mandatory that I register with the police station in Chitral before entering the Kalasha Valley. After a bit of confusion on both ends of the conversation, the police decided to let me through as long as I promised to return the following day to Chitral and register.

The rocky dirt road cut gently onward through the narrow canyon to an increasingly desolate location. The road was barely wide enough for a jeep, and often hugged the edge of 100-150ft cliffs. Parts of this road were down right terrifying, but being able to look forward and see just how deep we were into such a marvelous canyon was amazing. I felt as if I were driving into the unknown, a place where no white man had gone before, a true expedition. Of course this was far from the truth, but nonetheless being in such an isolated area and foreseeing cultural discovery and adventure, raised my spirits significantly and enchanted my soul.

The scenery became more and more beautiful as the canyon began to open up into a lush green valley of fruit trees, grassy fields, grazing goats, and sporadically placed mountain shacks. I had no idea what to expect when entering the Kalasha Valley; I only knew that it would be culturally different, and situated in a very beautiful, lush, secluded mountain valley.

The first time my eyes gazed upon a Kalash woman I felt indescribable exhilaration. Through the thick plum trees about 30yds away from the road, I saw an old woman standing like an angel near the edge of her garden. She had long, dark, exotically braided hair, with a colorful, beautifully beaded headdress that wrapped around her head like a halo and draped down her back. She wore many bright colored necklaces around her neck and a long black dress edged with thick colorful patterns. Something about that opening visual really moved me. I felt that I had finally seen something pure and different, something so unique that it shattered the MTV-CNN-FOX-CORPORATE- bullshit of my generation, and produced a glimpse of cultural purity that I had never seen before. It was like going on a long hike through a desolate mountainside and suddenly coming across an American Indian wearing a beautiful headdress, and traditional clothing; but this Indian was of a lost tribe, unaware of the pushes and pulls of today, unaware of the unavoidable cultural oppression and dilution of our modern world. Imagine that this Indian was part of a tribe that was located so deep into the forests that it had been completely untouched by the outside world, and able to remain free from the poisons of our modern, corporate, greedy, rapid paced, ugly, urbanized and selfish modern societies.

I am not so naïve as to think that I had discovered a culture unscathed by modern society, however I am convinced that the Kalasha Valley is one of the few places in the world that has remained culturally pure throughout the years, and I pray that this will not soon change.

After being dropped off at the bottom of Bumboret, I slowly walked up the dusty road soaking in what I could of the magical atmosphere. Each time I saw a local villager, I was taken back by their stunningly decorated attire, and their ability to completely ignore my presence. Children ran up and down the dirt road playing with a short stick and an 8inch wide wire wheel. They would guide the wire wheel upright while moving it along with their stick. The girls would giggle and play together in the grass fields along the narrow stream that zigzagged every so often across the main road. Women were working in the fields and socializing while washing laundry along the river bank. Clothes were scattered amongst flat, bleached white river rocks, radiantly drying in sun. I find it a quite challenging to describe in words just how uniquely Kalash women present themselves. Their clothing and accessories are made out of bright joyful colors; their hair is braided into a very distinctive and exotic style. The hairstyles of the young girls are even more peculiar; they often have a shaved head except for two long braids, one on the front, and one on the back of their heads. The front braid is always tucked behind one of their ears and draped down the side of their kneck. The Kalash men wore regular Shalwar Kameezes and Chitrali caps as they rebuilt parts of the road and looked after sheep along the rocky hillside. The only cultural difference in their clothing was the feather they wore sewn into the front of their Chitrali cap that signified they were Kalash(not Muslim).

My initial observations of Bumboret exceeded my expectations significantly. I immediately began to realize that this would by far be the most interesting and significant section of my journey. In a way, being in the Kalasha valley gave me a boost of energy and added drive to continue my exploration; but it also presented a peak of greatness and amazement that perhaps I will never again be able to reach.

After a quick observation of my surroundings, I came across a small guest house where I dropped off my bag and decided to check in. There was no electricity or plumbing, but the price was right and it included two meals per day. Despite the excitement and exhilaration I was feeling as a result of my newly found paradise, I was exhausted from lack of sleep, and a bit run down with sickness. After checking in I promptly laid down on my bed and fell asleep. I woke up around 7pm and decided to wander further up the road and explore the area.

The narrow valley had only one poorly maintained jeep trail that cut through the center of the village. The heart of Bumboret is a large cluster of old wooden houses intertwined like shingles on the steep hillside. The houses in the center of the cluster have thick mud/wood roofs that the locals use to congregate and socialize. Each small house appears to have been put together centuries ago using an age old traditional carpentry technique. The large pieces of dark wood used in the construction of the houses, give the homes a very rustic, primitive charm.

5-13-2008

I woke up at 5:30am, ate a quick breakfast and was in a jeep heading to Chitral by 6am. At 8am I arrived in Chitral and was immediately befriended by a young Chitrali cab driver named Mohammed. He guided me to the police station where I spent the next hour shuffling from room to room filling out forms and answering questions. After registering my Mohammed and I did a bit of clothes shopping at the local bazaar. I managed to pick up a baby blue shalwar kameez and another Chitrali cap for under $10. I have personally found that it is prudent to stay low profile in Pakistan. Wearing local clothes, and being cautious and discreet while taking photos is a good way to keep from making waves. As an American in Pakistan, the last thing I want to do is stand out. I have found that having long hair, wearing local clothes, and taking very few photographs has helped me maintain a low profile. If I had a shaved head, wore western clothes, and ran around photographing everything; perhaps my experience in Pakistan would not be quite as pure-safe-pleasant.

I quickly made it back to Bumboret and past the police check point without any problems. I was happy to have made it back to the Kalasha Valley in time to view the beginning of Kalasha Valley’s spring festival dubbed Joshi.

At around 5pm I began walking up the road to the heart of Bumboret. I came across a small green field near a narrow creek where local villagers were practicing their cultural dances. Young boys methodically pounded large drums as the young girls danced together in harmony with interlocked arms. While sitting on a small rock at the edge of the field and observing the dancing; my Kalash friend Timuk slapped me on the back and sat down beside me. He told me that the women were gathering flowers on the mountainside and would be parading down the road soon. Timuk spent the next hour sharing his culture with me by explaining many of the Kalash customs and traditions.

This is what I learned:

- The Kalash people live only in the 3 villages of the Kalasha valley.

-Language: the people of the Kalasha Valley speak a unique unwritten language called Kalash.

-Religion: They practice a pagan religion called Kalash. They often sacrifice goats for various reasons to please their god Mohadeo. Most serious religious ceremonies take place at their spiritual house called the Gestikan. The Gestikan is full of animal figures and effigies, and is a place commonly used for birth and death rituals. The Malosh is a holy place near the village where sacrifices are commonly made to Mohadeo. They believe in only one god, but a god with several deities that protect various aspects of life.

-Birth: - A holy ritual is performed at the Gestikan and a goat is sacrificed.

-Death:- if the deceased age is 10 years or older, all three Kalash villages will congregate and sacrifice 50-70 goats and a few cows. The body is placed in the Gestikan for two days, villagers visit the body during this period in order to pay their respects. The leaders/elders of each village will give speeches about the life and accomplishments of the deceased. The villagers then have a large feast of cheese, bread and joosh (boiled goat), they use up 40-50 bags of flower during the celebration. They also drink their fair share of home made wine and brandy during the funeral ceremonies. Bodies are buried in the village graveyard called the modokjol.

-Women: wear traditional clothes at all times. They produce all their clothing by hand and are all masters of their craft. Small tattoos on the faces of women are a sign of beauty and maturity.

-All women are considered unclean during menstruation (5-6 days a month), and are forced out of their homes to a small female only house called the beshali. The beshali has a yard but there is a line in the yard that they are forbidden to cross until they are “clean”. They are not to be touched by anyone during this period, and are not allowed to converse with other men.

-After childbirth, the Kalash woman must go through a purity ritual, and is sent to the beshali for ten full days.

-Marriage: Kalash villagers usually get married between the ages of 18-22.

Women are expected to maintain their virginity until marriage; men are not.

People get married only after falling in love, marriages are never prearranged. The man will surprise the woman and her family by randomly kidnapping her, after they elope the families will then meet. The families then have a month to get to know each other and to agree with the marriage and decide the dowry (gift from groom’s parents). After this is settled, they will perform a ritual, and sacrifice a goat to make the marriage official.

Festivals: The Kalash celebrate several festivals, most have to do with the beginning of harvest seasons. Timuk’s favorite festival is Chomus. It takes place December 18-20, and each family must sacrifice a goat for the celebration. The festival is full of dancing, eating, and drinking mass quantities of home made wine. (I imagine this is why Timuk likes it so much).Joshi festival is the festival of spring, and lasts an entire week. The heart of the festival is between May 13^th-16^th. Each of the three villages hosts one day of the festival with a large dance and celebration.

-Bumboret is the largest of the Kalash villages, and Birir is the smallest(Rumber is obviously somewhere in the middle).

Where on earth did they come from??????

-There are three accepted theories to this question, however they have all remained inconclusive.

1) They are descendants of Alexander the Great’s soldiers, which makes them more or less Macedonian immigrants. This is plausible because Alexander the Great did in fact trample through Northern Pakistan sometime during the 4^th century BC. He was also known to have occasionally planted groups of soldiers to start cities throughout his conquered lands. And of course the Kalash people generally have quite fair skin

2) They are from Asia, and migrated from the Nuristan area of Afghanistan.

3) The Kalash people migrated to Afghanistan from a place in South-Asia that the Kalash people call Tsiyam. The land of Tsiyam is talked about in Kalash folk songs, and their epic stories.

After a fascinating and very educational conversation with Timuk, we started walking up the road toward the Kalash women. We soon met them on the narrow dirt path and watched them slowly drift by with beauty and grace. The women were singing a very serene mantra as they marched down the hill in unison. While gliding in sync, they clutched each others shoulders with one hand, and carried a bouquet of yellow mountain flowers in the other. I felt privileged to be with my friend Timuk ,because my association with him allowed the Kalash women to feel at ease, and in essence trust me enough to photograph them. Earlier in the day the same Kalash women would shyly turn away when I approached them. Now they were smiling at me and even posing for photographs. Two of Timuk’s sisters were part of the mini-parade, so being a buddy of Timuk’s really got me in the door. We followed the beautifully dressed women down the hill and to the grass field where everyone danced in unison to the melodic beat of the drums. It felt amazing to be the only tourist experiencing such an incredible event.

Later in the evening, Timuk and I walked around his village discussing life, love, and the cultural differences of our two countries. We ended up in the home of his aunt, an old wooden house in the center of the giant hillside colony. The house had two small dirt floor rooms and a small covered patio. Only one of the rooms had a door and was furnished with cots to sleep on. The other small room contained a few wooden trunks, a couple small stools and a tiny stove. Timuk’s Aunt’s home was very simple, yet practical. We sat on small wooden stools on the patio and drank home made apricot brandy while snacking on walnuts and dried apricots. Our conversation was very limited due to the massive language barrier, but thankfully, kindness and hospitality can be expressed without spoken words. Timuk’s Aunt generously presented me with a beautiful thin decorative chest-band as a gift for being a guest in her home. I was blown away by her amazing generosity and warmth toward such an outsider like myself.

Next we headed to Timuk’s house where I was greeted cordially by his mother and sisters. The house was quite similar to his aunt’s home, but had one small extra room for socializing. The room was 8x8ft and had a small hole in the ceiling that let in enough sunlight to light the room (neither home had electricity or plumbing). The dark wooden walls were covered with pictures of bollywood actors in revealing clothing. I was invited to sit down on the small straw matt of the “social room” and was immediately presented with walnuts and homemade wine. My new Kalash friend kept cracking the walnuts for me and presenting me with the flesh of the nut. He always treated me as a brother, and displayed kindness and generosity graciously. Not long after sitting down, Timuk and I made a toast and pounded our glasses of wine. He followed the toast by pouring us each a glass of homemade apricot brandy. A few minutes later his mother entered the dimly lit room and presented me with a blue and yellow bracelet as well as a pink and orange chest-band. After the evening winded down, I gratefully thanked my hosts and made plans to meet Timuk the following morning.

Words cannot describe how incredible I felt as I walked home from the heart of Bumboret. I had spent the evening as a guest in the homes of some of the most hospitable, kind, and unique people I have ever met. Despite feeling relatively ill throughout the day, I feel confident in saying that this was by far the most pleasant and memorable night of my journey thus far. I fell asleep feeling a strange almost spiritual sensation that consumed my mind and body. I was feeling a level of contentment and blissful happiness that I have not been able to attain since my early childhood. It sounds a bit strange to be affected this way by a simple evening, but in reality this was the zenith of my journey. It was a moment of bliss that made all the food poisoning, bumpy bus rides, horrendously long train rides, frozen midnight walks, cold stares, police shake-downs and repetitive political debates worth it. Traveling long distances, months at a time along unpolished and unreliable paths is ridiculously challenging. But in the end; the experience, knowledge, and insight gained is absolutely priceless. People explore the unbeaten path despite enduring endless amounts of self inflicted hardships simply because “the ends always justify the means”.

5-14-2008

I woke up smiling at 7am and by 8am was on the roof of Timuk’s aunt’s house drinking milk with the locals. Today was “milk day” of the Joshi festival, so the un-pasteurized goat milk flowed like wine. After hanging for a bit with Timuk‘s relatives, we hopped into an old station wagon and were off to Rumber to enjoy the festivities. The crew consisted of Timuk, his brother, two of his cousins and his Muslim friend from Islamabad (Ahmed). The vehicle was uncomfortably packed with sweaty guys and live poultry. In the back of the vehicle were three live chickens that flipped out and flew around the car after each bump we hit. The situation was strange, hilarious and uncomfortable, but fairly enjoyable. It felt great to be part of something so unique and unusual. I was thrilled to be in a station wagon with a group of young Kalash men on the way to Rumber’s Joshi celebration. For the first day in close to a week, I felt healthy, rested, and mentally alert.

At 11:30am we arrived in Rumber. Rumber is located about an hour away from Bumboret by jeep. It is nestled away in an adjacent mountain valley, and is equally as desolately located as Bumboret. The extraordinary thing about the Kalasha Valley is that it is geographically hidden, and is located in a vast paradise of natural beauty. The main residence of the people of Rumber is a cluster of wooden houses located near the base of the valley. The festivals take place on top of a flat surface high on the hillside.

Rumber was glowing with exotic charm, as we drove up the final stretch of the trail.

Beautifully dressed Kalash women lit up the dusty mountainside like Christmas tree ornaments. Their colorful and radiant appearance created an enchanted atmosphere of cultural pride and tradition. Rumber was much smaller than Bumboret, and appeared to be even less financially sound. Kalash villagers are very simple, generally poor people that seam to live a near poverty yet peacefully adequate lifestyle. They don’t have much, but their community is so tightly knit that they tend to take care of one another like a giant family.

I immediately noticed that the women of Rumber more commonly had facial tattoos than the Kalash women of Bumboret. The light blue facial tattoos of Kalash women were very small and simple: usually a dot or a dot surrounded by a small circle on their forehead, chin, and one on each cheek. Occasionally a woman would have a small V tattooed between her eyebrows.

After arriving in Rumber the entourage and I walked across a small wooden bridge and past a primitive but clever hydro-powered flower mill before arriving at Timuk’s cousin’s place. We greeted our friendly Kalash hosts by saying “Shpata Baba (to a woman)” and “Shpata Bya(to a man); this means hello/greetings in Kalash. The crew and I then sat down on the floor in one of the rooms and were soon presented with homemade apricot brandy. The strong brandy loosened my mind and enhanced my already euphoric feelings of happiness and cultural absorption. For the next hour and a half, we sat on the floor in a circle drinking Kalash moonshine and conversing like old pals. Timuk was the only guy in the room who spoke fluent English, but the other guys were able to ask me questions through Timuk’s interpreting.

By 2pm we were all starving, thankfully the women had just finished preparing and cooking the chickens we brought over; lunch was ready. We enjoyed a pleasant meal of goat cheese, pita bread and chicken before heading out to the celebration. My host insisted I eat the majority of the chicken; again I was bombarded with selfless and unrivaled hospitality.

The festival took place high up on the hillside of Rumber. The shade was scarce and the sun was beating down hard upon us. The Kalash women of Rumber danced around to the beats of drums, chanting quietly while visibly getting lost in the moment. They locked into each other shoulder to shoulder while dancing in a drawn out circle, skipping their feet in unison with awkward sideways steps. Near the dancing square was a large cluster of wooden shacks where people stood around, observed, and socialized in the unrelenting heat. I was not alone at the festival, there were close to a dozen tourists and professional photographers lingering around the dance circle. I felt that the photographers were at times a bit too intrusive and culturally insensitive. However, I had no problem sharing my cultural experience with these other people; it was obvious to me that everyone there that day was completely affected by the beauty, grace, and purity of the festival’s atmosphere.

I returned back to my guest house not long after nightfall and spent the rest of the evening writing in my journal on the front patio. The moon was bright and the stars magically lit up the sky in a very special way. A group of Muslim men with long beards and dusty faces sat beside me talking amongst themselves and smoking hash cigarettes.

{They empty their cigarettes, roll bits of hash into the tobacco, reload the cigarette and smoke away}

I had a hard time sleeping that night; I could not stop thinking about my recent experiences. I was profoundly impacted by the last two days, and will never forget their significance. I was incredibly lucky to have come across Timuk at the jeep-station in Chitral, and to have been introduced to the Kalasha Valley. I have no doubt in my mind that I will return to the Kalasha Valley someday.

5-15-2008

I woke up early, grabbed a quick breakfast and was in a jeep headed to Chitral by 6am. I arrived in Chitral at 8am, and proceeded to hike to the main bus station about a 20min walk away. At 8:40am I was on a bus headed to Peshawar 12 brutally painful hours away,………….thankfully I was blessed with the worst seat in the house. I was seated in the far back corner of the mini-bus, the invasive wheel well took up pretty much all the potential leg room, it sucked……………

Here are a few pics:

40km past Gilgit

Batman kid:

Village kids on the mountain pass between Gilgit and Chitral

Guest house crew

The trail going into the Kalasha valley

Ayun Villagers up

Women of Bumboret down.

Trail into Bumboret UP

Bumboret kids:

Kalash Shepherd

Old Kalash woman training the youth, Bumboret

Kalash women with mountain flowers

In the residential area of Bumboret

-Timuk's sister and child at his home in Bumboret:

Timuk, and his aunt at her home:

The Kalash crew in Rumber:

Rumber:

Rumber Villagers:

Hydro-powered flower mill in Rumber:

The KKH (Karakoram Highway)

2008-08-18T12:36:00.000-07:00

-China to Pakistan-

I left Kashgar at 12:30pm on a bus to Sost Pakistan. Sost is the first town/customs post on the Pakistani side of the Khunjerab pass. The Khunjerab Pass peaks out at 16,002ft and is considered the highest “paved” pass in the world. Khunjerab means ‘valley of blood’, and gets its name from the reputation it had during the Silk Road period. Historically this pass was home to generations of thieves and murderers who constantly attacked, slaughtered, and looted passing caravans along this important stretch of the ancient Silk Road. The landscape, geography and harsh weather kept this pass exclusively for the use of only the most determined, hardy and brave caravans. It was not until recent years that this pass became accessible to motor vehicles. In the late 20^th century the governments of China and Pakistan decided that it would be sensible to create a road between the two countries in order to facilitate an overland trade route between the two countries. After 20 years of brutal labor the KKH (Karakoram Highway) was completed in 1986. The Highway follows the ancient Silk Road path and connects Western China’s Xinjiang province to Havelion, Pakistan 1,300km away. The highway, which must have seemed impossible to construct 50 years ago; cuts directly through the rugged Karakoram Mountains. The Highway was successfully built as a joint venture between China and Pakistan, and is known in China as the “friendship highway”. Despite the engineering feat, and all around success of the project, many lives were lost during construction; mostly due to land slides and falls (810 Pakistanis, 82 Chinese deaths).

My recent marathon travel was thoroughly wearing on me; however, I was able to fight through the exhaustion with a bit of adrenaline produced by my anticipation, fear, and excitement for the unknown. The thought of traveling on the famed KKH to Pakistan was enough to keep me alert, attentive, and happy throughout the 7 hour bus ride from Kashgar to Tash-Kurgan. The incredible scenery and remarkable landscape also helped keep me conscious.

As the road began to ascend up the KKH and through the Pamir Plateau (3,000M); I suddenly realized that my fatigue had vanished. While gazing out the window I witnessed some of the most breathtaking scenery I had ever seen. Crystal blue mountain lakes surrounded by clusters of Yurts, caravans of double humped camels climbing through glowing white sand dunes, jagged cut mountains tops, deep sharp crevasses being slowly shredded down by steep massive glaciers, endless views of bleached white salt flats that added exotic diversity to the landscape of mountain lakes, sandy dunes and grassy marshes filled with grazing yaks

My bus arrived in Tash-Kurgan (12,000ft) at around 6:30pm. Tash-Kurgan is beautifully located in a desolate valley between large horse shoe shaped ranges of snow capped mountains. We were forced to stop here for the night because the Chinese customs and the border itself had long since been closed for the day. I ended up finding a trashy hotel, and sharing a 3 bed dorm room with a couple tourists from my bus. The price was right ($2), however it was lacking the one thing I desired most; a shower. I had not bathed or changed clothes for five long, exhausting, sweaty days, so a bit of clean up was definitely in order. I tracked down a banya near my hotel and spent the next hour vigorously scrubbing my body with soap and hot sulfur smelling water. The shower facility I rented was a dark 4x8ft room of rusty pipes, and crumbling concrete. Green algae coated the lower half of the walls where all of the baby blue paint had chipped and pealed away.

After my shower I was refreshed and ready to continue my journey into the unknown……and presumably unsafe. After meeting up with a couple of Korean girls and a Canadian guy from my bus, we grabbed a quick meal and hit the sack.

5-6-2008

I woke up at 3am freezing cold with a pounding headache and ruthless diarrhea; probably just a mixture of mild AMS (Acute Mountain Sickness) and bad food. I began my day at 8am by running a few errands around town, AKA: spending what was left of my Chinese currency on snacks for the road. The bus left at 9am but did not clear Tash-Kurgan’s customs until around 11:30am.

The windy cut backs up the KKH to the Khunjerab pass were amazing. We drove through a steep mountain valley of green-brown fields. Yaks and goats grazed throughout the barren seemingly uninhabitable mountainside. Yurts and mud shacks were scattered sparsely along the steep rocky slopes and alongside the curvy river, providing shelter for the rugged inhabitants. The massive, sharply formed, dark, snow peaked mountains gently kissed the bright blue sky and seemed to create an impenetrable barrier between China and Pakistan.

After a couple military check points, and a relatively gradual climb we had reached the top of the Khunjerab pass 16,002ft. The air was noticeably thin, and the view was exactly what you would expect……..absolutely phenomenal. After a short break on top of the pass, the bus continued down the Pakistani side of the KKH.

At the very peak of the Khunjerab pass, at the point where China meets Pakistan; there is a distinct line across the road that provides a very vivid contrast and clue of what is to come. The newly paved road on the Chinese side abruptly stops where the Pakistani KKH begins; smooth sailing is over and the uncertainty begins.

As we descended down the KKH into Pakistan the bus traveled at a very sluggish pace. This was due to the many road obstacles we encountered: giant potholes, streams, bumpy unpaved sections, landslides that covered half the narrow road and giant recently fallen boulders that obstructed our direct route down the wildly sketchy road. The road descended in a series of sharp cut backs that seemed on most occasions quite dangerous. The margin of error was slim; the slightest driving error on the narrow road would send our bus tumbling off a 200+ft cliff. The pass is closed most of the year do to dangerous and unpredictable weather conditions, but was opened the first of May; 5 days ago.

The final stretch of the bus ride was by far my favorite. After surviving the stomach turning cut backs, we made it to the bottom of the canyon where we drove past a couple of USA army officers near the edge of the raging river; not sure what they were doing there. At this point the road simply followed the river that cut deep into the steep rocky canyon. The narrow, near vertical, geologically diverse canyon was amazing. I opened the window and peered my head out in astonishment each time the bus turned a corner and opened visibility to another bend of the canyon.

At 1:00pm we reached Sost (we gained 3 hours), where I spent the next couple hours working my way through customs. When I finally cleared customs my heart was pumping and my mind was racing wildly. I was here, (Pakistan) a land of incredible natural beauty, deeply diverse culture, warm hospitality, and peppered with a bit of Islamic extremism. My rapidly pumping heart and increasing levels of adrenaline made it more than easy to ignore the immediate dangers of the latter.

I have traveled extensively in several Islamic republics and have found them to be in most cases safer, more hospitable, warmer, and friendlier than the Western countries I have visited. I feel quite strongly that the Western/American media has painted an unfair portrait of Islam. The fact is that Islamic extremism is not at all representative of Islam as a whole. The Taliban, Al Qaeda, and other Islamic extremist groups are simply a small minority of uneducated, ignorant thugs, with nothing to live for. These Extremist prey on the ignorance of others and use their power to breed hate and false hope. They in no way, shape, or form, come close to representing the peaceful, kind, loving and tolerant Muslim majority. One of the fundamental principals of the Islamic religion is to be hospitable and kind to all people, whether or not they are your friends, strangers, or even enemies.

In the Holy Koran there is a story about a couple of men who traveled many miles in order to assassinate the prophet Mohammed; when they arrived to kill the prophet he greeted them with smiles, opened his home to them, and served them food and water to cure their fatigue. He did this out of the kindness of his heart and in full knowledge of the men’s intentions. Mohammed new that he would be killed by these men, but served them as brothers despite the fact; the men later were so taken back by the prophet’s generosity and kindness, that they decided to spare his life and eventually converted to Islam. What we should all take from this story is that Islamic religion when practiced in a conventional way is as peaceful, warm, and selfless, as any other well accepted religion of our modern world.

When examining other religions such as Christianity, should we judge based on the few or the masses? Is the Catholic priest pedophilia epidemic representative of Christianity or more specifically Catholicism? Are the Christians who bomb abortion clinics a good representation? How about the ones who protest gay pride parades with signs that read “Aids is the cure to Homosexuality”, and “Jesus hates Fags”. Should the crazy, incestuous, polygamists Mormons of Idaho be the sole representation of Mormonism?

Perhaps we should all stop generalizing and stereotyping based on the actions of the distinctly despicable few, and instead begin examining the good of the majority.

Overall Sost did not bring much to the table, so I decided to work my way downstream to the town of Passu. The sun was radiating fiercely through my skull as I nervously walked down the bustling main street to the bus station. After a few quick inquiries I found out that all of the busses to Passu had left before noon. As I walked out of the small gravel parking lot known as the bus station, a scruffy middle aged man sporting a Chitrali cap, a bushy brown beard and a white shalwar kameez (Pakistani clothes: long shirt and baggy pants) approached me. His suspicious eyes cut through me as he offered me a patronizing smile while saying “Asalam ahalikum”(peace be with you), I responded with a nervous smile and “ ahalikum Salam”(and to you). After a brief but awkward moment of silence he asked me in broken English where I was from. I hesitated briefly but then responded firmly by saying that I was from America. I then smiled, and stared at him attentively in order to gage his response. He began stroking his beard and laughing hysterically before tapping me on the shoulder calmly and saying “Al Qaeda big, Al Qaeda big”. I smiled nervously, turned away, and began walking down the road away from the bus station.

How was that supposed to make me feel? Was he merely joking around with me? I had been in Pakistan only a few hours and it appears that I had just been given some sort of vague warning of potential danger to come. My adrenaline shot through the roof, and my heart began pounding so hard that I could hear each beating pulse through the veins in my head. I eventually calmed down by putting a few things in perspective, and hopped in a van heading to Passu.

By the time I had reached Passu, 1.5 hrs down the road by mini-bus; I was calm, happy and excited to be in a land of such natural beauty. Passu is a beautiful, desolate, and barely accessible area of scattered mountain and valley villages. I decided to stay at the Passu Inn with my new Canadian buddy Steve. Steve and I hit it off immediately and shared a lot of the same philosophical ideologies of life and travel. The view from the porch of the Passu Inn was heavenly. I was at the base of the most incredible canyon I had ever seen. A large but relatively dry river bed cut through the center of the narrow valley, while the mountain ridges on both sides dominated the skies with authority. As I stood in front of my hotel I could hardly comprehend what I was seeing in front of me. The mountains were incredibly unique and magnificent. I was gazing at a black, snowy mountain range that seamed near vertical, and was topped with jagged spikes. I found myself wishing I had a geologist beside me to explain just how these mountains were formed.

After a wonderful dinner of vegetable curry and chapatti bread (a dish I later grew tired of), Steve and I decided to explore the area. We ended up hiking about 5 miles up the canyon’s dry river bed before realizing that we were soon to be in complete darkness. Getting back proved to be a slow, scary and dangerous experience. A couple times I found myself in absolute darkness, and hiking cautiously on the edge of a 60ft eroding cliff.

5-7-2008

I woke up at 6:30am, washed a bit of laundry in a rusty metal bucket, ate a quick bite, and was on the trail by 7:45. Steve: Canadian, Ono: Japanese, Matt: French, and I decided to hike to Borut Lake, a small lake in the shadow of Mt. Betura (7,500M). Shortly after beginning our ascent we found ourselves dwarfed by Mt Betura and at the base of the Guglan Glacier. The sun was beating down hard upon us, and the dusty landscape of red sand and rocks provided not the least hint of shade. We caught a break while passing through a small Tajik village near Borut Lake. We noticed a Tajik woman standing in front of her mud shack and staring at us with childlike curiosity; we all smiled at the woman and yelled “Asallam Ahalikum”. She smiled soon after, waved us over, and invited us into her home for tea. The woman and her husband sat us down on the floor and we all sat blissfully in a circle around the small half buried stove in the center of the shack. No words were spoken, only simple hand gestures, miming and friendly smiles were used to aid communication. I shared with them peanuts and sugar cookies, while they provided us with stale wheat bread and scolding hot milk tea. The woman wore a round decorative hat with a flat top, a beautiful purple dress, and uniquely braided hair. Her face and skin was worn and leathery, but her eyes were youthful and gentle. After soaking in the hospitality of our new Tajik friends, we left the isolated Tajik village and headed down to Borut Lake.

The Glacier, Lake, and Tajik hospitality was an incredible part of the day but the highlight for me was the extension bridges. We headed back down the mountain and to the base of the river bed where we came across the sketchiest bridge I had ever seen. I felt like Indiana Jones as I slowly walked across the shoddily constructed bridge. The bridge consisted of narrow cables intertwined with a series of logs and sticks brittle with age. Each stick was placed between 1-3ft apar,t which meant each step had to be taken carefully. The exhilaration I felt while crossing this bridge was incredible, I felt like an explorer on an adventurous mission trekking through unknown habitation.

The next 4-5 hours I hiked through lush green fields of irrigated farm land stopping only briefly for water breaks and pleasantries with the locals. Eventually we made our way to another daredevil extension bridge that crossed back over the river to the other side of the canyon. Before crossing I watched a local woman with an enormous load of grass walk across the bridge without once bracing herself with her hands; this was incredible. Can you imagine watching a middle aged woman with a 60lb load on her back walking across the top of a 150YD set of monkey bars, but the kicker is that the monkey bars move up and down, back and forth, and have loose, unstable bars? So basically, I found this no handed feat quite impressive. I on the other hand grasped each cable side rail firmly as I slowly walked across the bridge praying that each wooden plank would not collapse beneath me and drop me through to the rocky riverbed below me.

Well, the day was awesome, but I foolishly failed to apply sun block to my pasty white skin. As the sun slowly faded, the sky maintained its glow due to my radiating red skin. I looked as if I had spent the entire day submerged in a bucket of red paint. No amount of cream, Chinese pain killers or melatonin pills would help me get to sleep. Each movement irritated my burnt skin and sent a stinging pain through my entire body. This was my first brush in with UV rays at high elevation. Lesson learned.

5-8-2008

After breakfast I hopped aboard an old Suzuki van and headed about an hour down the rock-strewn KKH to the small town of Hunza. I was dropped off on the edge of the highway at 11am and spent the next hour of blistering heat hiking up the steep narrow roads to Hunza. Hunza is an exceptionally beautiful mountain town nestled alongside the brilliant Karakoram Mountains. The people in Hunza and in most of northern Pakistan are culturally and ethnically different than the Pakistani majority. The people in Hunza for example display a culturally unique mountain lifestyle and intentionally segregate themselves from the region’s other minority groups. Their fair skin, strikingly vivacious eyes, and unique dress set them apart from their Pakistani counterparts. Despite their Caucasian appearance, they do in fact follow the conformities of the region. The people of Hunza are religiously and culturally Muslim, and exhibit hospitality, warmth, kindness, and joy in all aspects of their day to day life.

I spent the day of cultural absorption sporting a white Chitrali cap and a traditional long sleeved shirt in order to avoid the forceful rays of the sun, and protect my already toasted skin. I took it easy on my body today; short hikes, a quick exploration of an 800 year old fortress, and several non-verbal conversations with local villagers.

I was only given a three week visa, so unfortunately I was again rushed, and in frantic, see all you can travel mode.

5-9-2008

I started the day by taking a jeep to Alamabad, and later a 9:30am bus to Gilgit. I arrived in Gilget around noon; a small historic town which played a big role during the “Great Game” Era. The town was loud, busy, dirty, and overall quite intimidating. At each street corner there was a small fortress made of sandbags and razor wire. These military posts were guarded 24-7 by soldiers sporting machine guns and thick beards. I felt as if I were in a war zone; the scene reminded me a lot of the militarized down town Beirut (except not quite as clean). This was the first real Pakistani city I had been to, so I knew it would be a whole new ball game. I found it relatively easy to feel at ease in the very moderate northern villages of Pakistan, but entering the heart of the North incited in me new fears and emotions.

It is impossible to ignore the fact that Al Qaeda and the Taliban do in fact have strong operations in Pakistan. And despite the safety, warmth, kindness, and hospitality that surround the majority of Pakistani Muslims; there will always be a possibility that I might brush up against the wrong individual. However, this is definitely not a significant enough deterrent to keep me out of Pakistan. Although it will be prudent for me to exercise caution and good judgment at all times while traveling through this country. I believe that knowledge of the area you are in is important no matter where you might be. It is also important to understand that even though there are risks involved with traveling to certain areas, it does not mean you would be wise in skipping them completely. The world is packed full of potential danger; I believe that we should educate ourselves and take calculated risks constantly rather than live a risk free, seemingly safe life clouded by ignorance and fear.

-Just because there are more than 1,000 murders in Los Angeles(County-Population 10 million), California annually, does not mean it is unsafe to take your kids to Disneyland.

I felt intimidated and nervous as I wandered around Gilgit lost and confused trying to track down a place to stay. The few curious stares I came across were countered adequately by the smiles and greetings of friendly locals. One young man around 20 years old approached me suddenly and offered to help me find a place to crash. Tamir worked in a local bank and was part of a wealthy family in Gilgit (he even had his own car). He also was studying English at a nearby language institute and was more than eager to practice his English with a native speaker. After checking into my hotel, he offered to take me around town and show me the historical sights of Gilgit. Tamir and I began with a short hike up a rocky canyon to the site of a couple ancient Buddha’s carved in the stone. Later we shared a late lunch of vegetable curry and rice. We ended up spending the entire day together cruising around town discussing religion, politics, and women. Mohammed, a devout Muslim, was incredibly open minded, intelligent and eager to soak up all the knowledge and experience he could.

The highlight of the day was going to a local park and playing cricket and football (soccer) with the locals. I didn’t quite understand Cricket, but found hitting to be quite easy and nearly identical to baseball. All the locals greeted me warmly and were more than willing to allow me a spot on their team. There were at least 5 Cricket games going on at any given time on the large grass field, it was quite the sight.

Pakistanis love cricket: obviously a simple but lasting product of British colonization. After the Brits left India in the early 1950s(officially ended its occupation in 1947), Pakistan was formed as a way to create independence for the large group of Indian Muslims. Despite breaking the country in two, and creating the Hindu-Muslim split; cricket and other British influences remained in both countries.

My initial fear and nervousness associated with Pakistan’s extremist reputation had completely melted away by the end of my first day in Gilgit. The people were absolutely amazing, and greeted me with open arms not unlike the wonderful people of Albania, Kosovo, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, and Islamic Central Asia. It is impossible to ignore the fact that, though Muslims are normally quite conservative, and firmly religious, their openness, compassion, and humanity are generally admirable.

Today gave me a second wind; I now feel that I am able continue my journey without losing motivation and burning out. I feel remarkably refreshed, happy, and enlightened. I feel proud to be in a country that the West shuns as violent and extremist, and to be able to see first hand how misleading and harmful the Western/American media can be toward Islamic Republics. I feel personally obligated to share my first hand experiences in order to promote a more truthful reputation and understanding of the people of Pakistan. I am now sitting peacefully in my hotel room examining and contemplating in bewilderment, just how a country like Pakistan could get such a horrible international reputation. How are these reputations formed?

Perhaps the answer is obvious:……………- a recent history of prominent Terrorist Cells, Islamic radicals grooming youth in extremist madressas, and sporadic violent terrorist attacks on Western/American military-diplomats-aid-tourists.

Exactly how many bad apples does it take to spoil the bunch? When comparing a country like Pakistan (population 150 million) to a randomly chosen 25 US states (assuming you were able to split USA’s population in half this way), what sort of comparison would we see when correlating both country’s crime index; specifically violent crime? Without even doing the research and punching the numbers I can tell you with confidence that the USA has substantially more violent crime than Pakistan. The United States has one of the highest crime rates in the world, yet we are somehow able to avoid the harmful reputation. How is this possible? Are cracked out drug dealers for some reason less imposing and dangerous than Islamic extremists? A foreseen answer to those questions is that Islamic extremists attack indiscriminately and tend to kill in the masses, but perhaps we are forgetting about American shitheads like McVeigh and Ramirez.

Driving down the wrong street in LA or NYC is no less dangerous than driving through the tribal areas between Peshawar, Pakistan and the Afghan border. Anyone can be in the wrong place at the wrong time, no matter what country you are in. So why are we so afraid of Islamic countries? It doesn’t quite make the headlines like it once did, but the fact is that minorities including homosexuals still occasionally get lynched in the USA. Perhaps an interesting correlation would be to find out the number of lynchings/hate crimes in the USA during 2007, divide it by 2, and then compare it to the number of foreigners or ethnic minorities murdered in Pakistan in the year 2007. I will make the assumption that the USA gets the grand prize.

-Quick Fact: in 2006 there were 17,034 murders in the USA(Population 300million)

-Current Population of Pakistan is 164 million

-I challenge anyone reading this to test this theory.

I made it back to my hotel/Hostel at around 6pm and spent the next couple hours relaxing with a book. At around 9pm I wandered out of my hotel and down the loud smoky streets to a dark alleyway where I found a few locals making kebabs. I bought a couple kebabs (meat patties), a cucumber, a couple pieces of chapatti bread, and washed it all down with a warm/hot mountain dew. The kebabs were amazing; the flavor reminded me of Turkey’s famous Adana Kebabs. The only drawback to the situation was that I bought the food at a back alley street restaurant, and due to the dim lights was not completely sure just how thorough the meat had been cooked.

The Nausea began at about 11pm………..followed shortly after by a bit of bloating and sweating. The rotting meat in my stomach began slowly filling my chest with gases and causing my mind to struggle with consciousness. By 4am I had “expelled” pretty much everything I had eaten that day, and despite the ferociously hot temperature of my hotel room, I was shivering uncontrollably. At 5am I decided to take control of the situation by swallowing 1000mgs of Cipronal. I am not very happy with this decision;………… instead of “killing all the bacteria”, it simply made my throat burn and my mouth taste like aspirin each time I puked thereafter. My previous optimistically high level of happiness, excitement, and morale had gone drastically down hill. I was now laying alone in a shitty hotel, puking, shitting, and shivering in the fetal position, all while mentally slapping myself in the face for eating Gilgit’s mischievously delicious street food. I am not sure why I do it to myself;………………..Why is it that I tend to make the same mistakes over and over? Perhaps I should have learned from past experiences, that back alley restaurant establishments in underdeveloped countries do not serve the safest meat. Eating at these places is like playing Russian roulette, disaster is always a very real possibility.

5-10-2008

After a horrendous night of pain, depression, and sleepless physical misery; I decided it would be wise to postpone my journey to Chitral. I had planned on taking the 8am bus 15+ hours to the North-Western city of Chitral, situated in the renowned Hindu Kush. However, I was in no condition to travel and was instead forced to lye in bed all day suffering in agonizing silence. The monotony of my day was only interrupted briefly by unpleasant trips to the filthy toilet (hole in the floor) and periodic sips of chlorine flavored water.

At 8pm a guy from the hotel staff visited my room to make sure I was still alive. Apparently I had disrupted the sleep of another guest by noisily “expelling” rotten meat throughout the previous evening.

The worst part of having food poisoning is the recovery process; there is nothing more irritating than having your body cramp with hunger while your stomach and mind adamantly refuse to entertain the idea of consuming food. It would be so much more convenient if my whole body was on the same page. If the thought of food makes me nauseous, why is it that hunger physically prohibits my body from relaxing.

5-11-2008

I woke up at 6:15am feeling refreshed after a long night of melatonin (pills) induced sleep. After checking out of my hotel, I began the 4 mile walk to the bus station. The hotel owner sympathized with my condition, and kindly offered to carry my bag for me all the way to the bus station. I smiled and thanked him gratefully but refused his offer. Wow, another random act of kindness; I could not believe that this man I barely knew was willing to escort me all the way to the bus station carrying my heavy bag. It is completely refreshing to be around submersed in a culture so selfless, kind, and hospitable.

The streets were quiet and peaceful, vendors were sleeping on the sidewalks beside their carts, old men were sweeping their door steps, and packs of dogs were feasting on piles of rubbish alongside overflowing steel dumpsters. The scene was unfamiliar and pleasant; Gilget had slowed its pace and began to exhibit faces of calmness and repose. Before reaching the bus station, I smiled and said hello (Asallam Ahalikum) to several armed soldiers near their baracades, each of whom initially observed me with suspicious stares, but later with warm smiles.

I arrived at the bus station at 7am, and immediately bought a bus ticket to Chitral ($5). While waiting in front of the bus station a small group of soldiers standing behind a wall of sand bags and razor-wire spotted me and waved me over. As I slowly approached them I was immediately put at ease by their warm smiles and gentle eyes. Their kind faces and friendly demeanor adequately countered the intimidating presence of AK-47s slung over their shoulders. One of the older soldiers with a dark leathery face and an inspiring moustache greeted me in English and asked me what I was doing in Gilgit. After explaining to them that I was a tourist and was on my way to Chitral, he nodded with understanding and yelled something in Urdu (Pakistan’s official language) to one of his men, who quickly nodded with acknowledgment and ran off up the dusty road. About five minutes later the soldier returned to the makeshift mini-fortress with a small serving plate containing a cup of milk tea and some sort of wheat-sugar-gelatin dish. The soldiers promptly set up a chair and small table for me and told me to sit down while presenting me with the small tray. I was completely shocked, here I was hanging out with a few Pakistani soldiers whom immediately befriended me and treated me as if I were an honored guest. For the next 30 minutes I sat and drank tea while answering various questions about American culture and government. I was surprised to hear them tell me over and over again that they liked the USA, and that we (Americans) have made their country better. Presumably they felt this way because we had helped them a great deal after the disastrous earthquake of 2005; or perhaps because of our dominant efforts to expunge terrorism and Islamic extremism from Pakistan. I didn’t want to pry too deeply into their reasoning, I was simply pleased and elated to be visiting with a group of armed Islamic men who actually liked my government;………………….quite rare this day and age.

After thanking all the soldiers by smiling and bowing to them with my hand over my heart; I boarded the crowded mini-bus. Within minutes we had left the KKH and Gilgit behind and were heading West toward the rugged mountain passes leading to the Hindu Kush.

{Update: I should probably add that I wrote most of this blog months ago.............. currently Pakistan is quite volatile and in many areas unstable and unsafe. It goes without saying that traveling in war zones is generally not safe, however the message of the above blog is intended to voice that Islamic countries are not unsafe, but simply misrepresented and misunderstood. The best current example would be Syria.......... represented as unsafe and extreme by Western Media, but in actuality quite calm, safe, and peaceful.

A few pics of the KKH:

Yurts in front of lake Karokol-Chinese side of the KKH

Views on the way up the KKH(China)

The Top with Steve:

On the way down, The Pakistani side of the KKH

Passu Extension bridge

View around Passu:

The hike around Passu:

Hunza:

at the old fortress-

on my way out-

the old fortress-

Gilgit with Tamir:

China

2008-08-02T17:23:00.000-07:00

-China-

4-7-2008

The ride itself to Kashgar from the Kyrgyz-Chinese border was far from pleasant, and as a whole, rather awkward. I sat high off the highway in the passenger seat of a large red semi-truck driven by a middle aged Ugher man with a leathery face and a long wiry goatee. Besides a few monotonous smiles from my new friend, our communication was utterly paralyzed. He spoke only Ugher and Chinese,………..while I was relying solely on Russian and English for communication,………..so as you can imagine the 4.5 hour journey to Kashgar was a bit dull and uncomfortable. I understand that “beggars can’t be choosers”, and that I should be incredibly grateful for the free ride I was given to Kashgar; However I will add that the broken shocks on the semi-truck ensured a spine wrenching ride. Each time the truck hit a bump (which was often), I was forced to stand in my seat as I braced myself with my arms to absorb the fierce bounce and save my spine as the shocks bottomed out. It became tiring, was rough on the back, and ensured that I was awake and alert the entire drive.

On the brighter side of the spectrum, the shallow valleys and serrated mountains we traversed were completely magnificent. We drove through sharp, jaggedly shaped mountains that glowed in remarkable shades of reds and oranges and seamed to radiate beams of sunlight from within. The surrounding cliffs and mammoth rocks were artistically cut up like Swiss cheese. The geological marvels I bore witness to in route to Kashgar were stunning in all aspects of the word, and seemed incredibly unique. The natural beauty of the land became even more charming when it suddenly became intertwined with seemingly ancient civilizations tucked deep into the desolate landscape. Double humped camels, large muscular horses, and fat bottomed sheep roamed around the steep hills under the watchful eyes of their primitively dressed sheppards. The dry flat valley floors seemed only marginally interrupted by the small isolated clusters of mud shacks and irrigation ditches created by the sporadically positioned inhabitants. I enjoyed the beauty of this area immensely, and was entirely impressed by how these people lived without any help from modern technology. It appeared that life in this region had remained fundamentally unchanged for centuries. No power lines, no satellites, no automobiles, the only things that appeared to be in use were the simple necessities of life: food, water supply and shelter. I found myself pondering with intensity whether these people were living in hardship and “poverty” or the idyllic isolation from the pains and evils of the modern world.

Is it true that ignorance is bliss? I found myself pondering a few age old philosophical arguments:…… Is primitive/rural life in its entirety more ethically/morally pure than life in modern societies? Does the increase of worldly possessions equate to more greed and unjustified needs? Are busy, laboriously hard rural lifestyles in many ways easier than the busy, intricately complex, fast, and ambitious lifestyles of modern city dwellers? In the realm of morality, is it not much easier to live a life free from sin, if you are simply living in isolation and away from the raging rivers of worldly temptation?

Whenever I come across rural habitations, seemingly untouched by the expanding claws of modern/Western society,…….I find myself fantasizing about how life would be in their shoes. Would my life be boring and bland, or would it be blissful and rich? I tend to agree with the idealistic core of Eastern philosophy religions: nothingness = happiness and desire = pain & suffering. As I slowly move forward through the challenging obstacles of our modern world and inevitably gain knowledge, experience, and cynicism; I find myself with an increasing number of worldly vices and a mind willing to challenge anything and everything. Brilliance and innovation have remarkably prevailed within ancient civilizations all over the world for thousands of years. Throughout the last two centuries of rapid globalization we have seen an increased rate of innovation and technology that has supposedly made our lives “easier”. But has it? I find it to be absolutely frightening that in barely over a century, we went from sole reliance of snail mail to blackberries. What does this recent rapid development and growth of technology foreshadow about our future?

I believe that cell phones and the internet have made us to an extent, overly accessible. Soon we will be walking around with GPS microchips implanted in us at birth, and lying to your girlfriend/wife/parents about your whereabouts will be literally impossible. The once sentimental, and carefully written letter, is now near extinct do to the ease of producing frequent, sloppily written emails. Is this a step forward or backward? Is it really necessary for us all to be so accessible? Remember when only doctors and drug dealers carried pagers? It all happened at an alarming rate, within 10-15 years we all went from happy, private, and moderately accessible people, to frantic, turbo paced, easily reached people with compulsive addictions to the internet and an underlying fear of being stuck in an area with bad cell phone reception. Has the quick acceleration of modern technology, industrialization, urbanization, and globalization made our lives easier and spread idealistically peaceful views and humanity, or is it quite the opposite? Just a thought…………….

From the border it took over three hours of driving through a barely accessible geological paradise to reach the end of the fire colored mountains. The final hour and a half of the trip was done on a modern, newly constructed highway that took us through the windy flat desert into Kashgar.

I was dropped off on the side of the freeway about 8 miles from my destination and quickly hitched a ride into the historical Silk Road city-state of Kashgar. This Central Asian trade post has a long history of conflict with China, and frequently changing leadership and diplomacy. In 1884 Kashgar was indefinitely absorbed into the Xinjiang province of China; however, in 1933 and in 1944 Kashgar was able to briefly pull away from the oppressive grasp of China and set up independent republics.. Kashgar as a whole is only marginally different than the other newly developed capitals of former Turkistan. The inhabitants of Kashgar are predominately Muslim, speak Ugher(a Turkic language) and look, dress, act, and eat the same way as their Turkic counterparts of Central Asia.

Having spent the previous few months exploring Turkistan (Central Asia)……….I was utterly unimpressed with Kashgar AKA Kashi. The old, orange mud cluster of shacks that made up Kashgar’s old town, seamed bland in comparison to the architectural marvels of Uzbekistan, and the captivatingly primitive villages of Kyrgyzstan. Kashgar as of current is going through the changes that other once glorious and ethnically different Chinese cities are facing. It’s culture is being suffocated by oppression, the land being destroyed by industrialization, and the minds of the inhabitants are being brainwashed by the corrupt media and propaganda of the Chinese government.

I also found Kashgar to be slightly disappointing because I was now in China, and ready for a change of scenery, but at the end of the day I was still in Central Asia and far away from Han (majority ethnic group) China.

Upon arrival in China, I became quite intimidated by the language barrier, my Russian language skills were no longer a valuable asset in this part of central Asia. All the signs were written in Chinese and Arabic……….which means confusion, and frustration was eminent. I wandered around the streets of Kashgar for several hours praying in vain to find an English sign that said “Hotel”. Halfway through my 3^rd hour of pain, stress, confusion, uncomfortable heat, agony, exhaustion, and frustration; I came across a group of 8-10 year old Chinese school girls. As I sweated profusely through the blistering heat, and drug my heavy bag up the crowded sidewalk the young school girls all smiled at me and yelled “hello” in high pitched squeals. I stopped immediately and said the word ‘hotel’ in Ugher while looking the girls in the eye and shaking my hands to represent confusion………………This did not work; I must have said it wrong. I then said “where Hotel” over and over while showing the girls the international sign language for sleeping. They seamed to understand this final gesture immediately and after speaking amongst themselves briefly, signaled me to follow them across the 5 lane street. I followed the elementary school girls across the busy road as they dodged speeding cars with ease and calmness. As my mind began to comprehend the situation, I began to feel a bit self-conscious about being led around the city by a group of 8 Chinese school girls with pink backpacks and pigtails. Would it appear to others inappropriate to be led into a hotel by a large group of 8-11 year olds? Well,……………..my options were limited and my exhaustion was almost unbearable, so I went with it.

After about 5 blocks we had arrived at a large run down looking hotel about 50 yards from a busy street. I felt both awkward and relieved as the schoolgirls guided me into the hotel and to the front desk; I can only imagine what the women at the reception desk was thinking. I smiled and said “thank you” to the giggling schoolgirls as they exited the hotel and continued their journey home from school.

I was able to obtain a relatively clean hotel room for about $5 a night………..and was quite relieved to have a bed to lie in, a sit down toilet, and running water. It was only about 6pm, but I was severely exhausted and had no trouble skipping dinner and sleeping through the night.

The next morning I wandered through the busy streets of Kashgar and eventually made my way to the bustling market district. Here I grabbed a quick breakfast of what appeared to be soup. To this day I have no idea what was in this mystery soup. Most of the yellowish chunks within the soup seamed to be internal organs of some sort……..my guess was pig. I ate the 15 cent cup of street soup 2-3 times a day while I maintained residence in Kashgar.

The market area was quite intriguing………the food court contained various snacks such as pig and cow feet boiled to perfection with the skin dripping off the bone like a pompom for simple consumption. Their were also several varieties of mystery soups and goat heads chopped in half for a quick and tasty meal.

Further down the street was the spice market, and medicinal market where you could find dried frogs, snakes and lizards to cure all of your nagging ailments. I ended up buying a bag of dried apricots and dates and continuing my journey through the overcrowded streets of Kashgar. I walked around 12 miles in a massive circle before I ran out of juice and was forced to head back to my hotel for an evening of relaxation with my recently opened book ‘The Great Game’ by Peter Hopkirk. It was time to learn a bit more about the eventful historical struggle between the Brits and Ruskies for control over the buffer zone (Central Asia) between Russia and India. For the record I found the book fascinating, and was entirely impressed by Hopkirks writing style and his ability to tie a couple centuries of war and diplomatic chaos into one well written book.

At around 9pm I ventured out of my hotel room in order to track down something to eat. I decided to follow the smell, smoke and loud sounds I encountered as I walked out of my hotel. I ended up in a dark crowded alley near my hotel where several Shashlik restaurants busily served traditional Central Asian dishes to hungry locals. I stepped into one of the shadowy, jam-packed, smoky roadside restaurants and ordered some nan bread and four ground beef shashliks ( meat on metal skewer). I consumed the traditional Central Asian meal quickly with the help of no less than 3 cups of adequate tasting green tea. The bill for this hearty meal was a whopping $1.20.

The following day I followed the same routine as day one: a long walk exploring the city, 2-4 hours of reading and a hearty late night dinner of nan bread and Shashlik. I ordered the beef shashlik again mainly because it was the only Central Asian dish I had yet to become ill from. The thought of any other food on the menu brought back horrible memories, and in consequence made me feel nauseous. I looked forward greatly to leaving Central Asia behind and having a brand new assortment of dishes to become ill from.

Since I had already spent so much time in Central Asia, I was eager and anxious to leave Turkistan behind and stimulate my mind with the cultural absorption of perhaps the most impressive and historically significant country in the world(China). I bought a ticket for the 8:30am train to Urumqi about 30 hours north of Kashgar.

4-9-2008

I woke up at about 5am with a bloated stomach and an overall feeling of discomfort and foreshadowed sickness. I drank a bit of water, ignored my symptoms and went back to sleep. I woke up at 8:15……….which is not good, because my alarm was supposed to go off at 7am. I frantically dressed, sprinted down the stairs, and to the hotel reception desk for check out. I showed eagerness, impatience, frustration and cruelty as I yelled at the women behind the counter to hurry up and give me my deposit back,…………..this seamed to take ages. By 8:22 I was out the door and running down the dark streets of Kashgar to the nearest taxi (it was dark because it was actually 5:22am……..trains leave on Beijing time). I eventually hailed a cab, and spent the next 10 agonizing minutes yelling with impatience and freaking out about the $100 bucks I had just blown by missing my train. I arrived at the train station at 8:40am (Beijing time)…………my train had left 5 minutes prior……..F$*#!

After the adrenaline, anger, and frustration began to subside; I began to feel nauseous and achy. Thirty minutes later I was on a bus from the train station to the center of Kashgar. By the time I had reached Kashgar’s city center my nausea was almost unbearable, and I was on the verge of shitting myself. The two mile walk back to my hotel took over an hour because of my slow nauseating pace, and my desperate need to sit down on hard surfaces about every 5-8 minutes. By the time I made it to my hotel, and re-checked in……..I was in a very sorry state of existence. I began to realize for the first time,……… that perhaps it was a good thing that I missed the train.

That damn shashlik had done me in, and here I was day 3 in China and already praying to the porcelain god, shivering in bed lying in the fetal position, and trying desperately to keep from “having an accident”.

Well what can I say…………..the next 4 days was hell, I was out $100 bucks because of the train I never boarded, and I was back to my recovery diet of yogurt, crackers, and bananas. Nonetheless on 4-12-2008 I boarded the 8:30am train to Urumqi and arrived the following afternoon.

The train ride to Urumqi from Kashgar was relatively uneventful; I spent a lot of time sleeping, reading, and suffering severe annoyance from the preposterously loud sounds of the train’s elevator music. I came pretty close to going postal when from 5-7pm I was forced to listen to some sort of Chinese variety show………..it was hell!

Day 2: 4-13-2008, I woke up to the pleasant sounds of traditional Uhger music and a few hotties dancing around in the aisle. One guy was playing what looked like a banjo, and 3 beautiful, fair skinned Uhger girls (18-22) were singing, yelling, and dancing seductively while smiling from ear to ear. The whole train was clapping, singing, and really getting into the music. Even though I was still feeling relatively nauseous and exhausted; I truly enjoyed this free spirited Ugher band and the energy that they spread contagiously to the people surrounding me.

When I woke up and peered my shaggy head curiously into the aisle………everyone erupted with laughter and warm smiles welcoming me to join the festivities. After about an hour of silent observation,…….the theatrics stopped and a couple of the dancing girls spent the next hour trying to impress me with simple English word phrases (most of which they completely butchered, and were not prepared for responses to).

“What is your name” , “ Where are you from” , “My name is_________”

The sun was shining, the people were friendly, and my nausea had for the most part subsided. Today was a good day. I exited the train on the afternoon of April 13^th 2008. Urumqi at first glance was incredibly developed and much more Chinese than Central Asian. Despite the fact that I did observe a few basic underlying differences between Kashgar and Urumqi; truth be told, there was nothing that intrigued me about Urumqi.

Within 30 minutes after arrival, I was able to track down an internet café and began researching my next leg of travel. Where should I go next? Perhaps I should have planned this out better………my only excuse is the fact that I had spent the last 3-4 days miserably ill in my hotel room. Luckily I was sitting next to a cute Chinese girl who spoke immaculate English; I broke the silence by asking her what the cheapest way to Beijing from Urumqi was. After a bit of cliché dialogue, we both decided that it would be better if we took the train together to Xian (former capitol of China), rather than going solo straight to Beijing. She goes to University in Xian, and offered to show me around the city.

We both bought tickets for the midnight train to Xian, and then proceeded to explore downtown Urumqi in order to burn a bit of time. Susan (her English name) gave me a relatively extensive and informative tour of Urumqi, but at the end of the day I found it to be unimpressive and basically a larger and more Chinese version of Kashgar. The highlight of Urumqi was watching a freak-show street performer tie up an 8 year old boy in cannon ball position, poking a metal rod through the flesh in his forearm, and lifting the boy off the ground by the metal rod. It was graphic, unorthodox and weird, but was strange enough to be entertaining.

-My dilemma: How do I top Central Asia? The people were Islamic, which meant their hospitality was second to none. Their culture was completely bizarre when compared to the Western world. And basically, everyday was a crazy, wild, unforgettable adventure that seamed (at the time) impossible to match. And now……………. I am in China, historically incredible, culturally unique and wildly diverse, but with a current political regime that strangles free speech, open minds, and overall humanity. Is it even possible to enjoy China by simply overlooking the past century of mass murder, political rape, harmful propaganda, invasion, and oppression? …………..I hope so.

4-16-2008

I arrived in Xian 36.5 hours later………finally the China I was looking for, a giant recently restored “ancient wall” surrounding the city, with McDonalds and KFC everywhere. Susan walked me to a nearby hostel…$4 a night(not bad)…..I dropped off my bag and we were soon off to her university. A couple public buses later, we were at her university and speaking to her round bodied, smiley, enthusiastically friendly professor Jane (English Name). She was awesome; we spent the next several hours touring the city, visiting 1,000 year old pagodas and various other historical landmarks. Unfortunately the substantial amount of pollution in Xian hindered me from capturing any memorable photographs. Literally unless you were 50 feet from an object……….Xian’s smog obstructed all clear views no matter how kick ass your camera is. Apparently if it rains 40+ hours strait, and the rain happens to clear up in the morning, you can occasionally get a clear shot of some of the greater monuments of China.

After retiring back to my hostel, I took a short nap then headed to a nearby restaurant for some eats. After a lot of confusion and some primitive sign language, I managed to order something to eat. It ended up being some fried rice with chicken; which worked out fine for me. After dinner I visited a relatively upscale but fair priced massage parlor, the massage was not exactly as deep tissue’ as imagined, but was relaxing nonetheless. Having a few knots worked out of my upper back, proved to be quite rewarding and therapeutic.

4-17-2008

I took a bus to the site of the Terracotta Soldiers about 1.5 hrs from Xian. The Terracotta soldiers were found in the 1970s by a farmer digging a well in one of his fields. After finding a few shards of sculpted clay and relaying those to archeological experts, it became known that what this farmer found was perhaps China’s greatest archeological find of the 20^th century. The 7,000+ soldiers, horses and armored chariots were built to scale for the emperor to be buried with. It was believed that this army would be with him during the afterlife.

4-18-2008

Off to Beijing. I bought a hard seat ticket (half the price of a sleeper) which proved to be absolutely miserable. The seat back was vertical, and the foot room was ridiculously minuscule. I arrived in Beijing at 7am, and was absolutely exhausted. After a short bus ride, and about an hour on the busy subway, I made it to my host Nan’s apartment. Nan is a film student at Beijing’s communication university. She speaks fluent English and sports a recently opened mind, due to her recent study abroad experience in Estonia.

I spent the next few days touring around Beijing with Nan’s other guest Omri, an Israeli backpacker fresh out of the military. We had a blast together, debating Middle Eastern politics and the prospected conflict between Israel and Iran. One evening we met up with a few more Israeli guys and spent a rainy evening at the Beijing Hooters drinking beers and dancing the Macarena.

……………………………To be completely honest, I found China to be less than pleasant and the people to be living ( in general- from my brief observations and personal beliefs) in a selfish, ignorant, fantasy world; a world that sees China as just, ethical, and the only country with the exclusively correct answer to the world’s problems. I found the selfish social norms and mannerisms of the Chinese to be quite comparable and parallel to that of the people in former soviet countries. I hypothesize that Chinese people are the way they are because of their socialist government. They are products of socialism, and an unfortunate predisposition to selfishness and seemingly discourteous behavior. I have no doubt in my mind that the Chinese are completely unaware of just how off-putting their mannerisms can be. And in general, are kind hearted people: after all, when compared to the West or Islamic nations,……..many countries are comparatively rude and uncivil.

So what exactly caused this phenomenon of selfishness and rudeness? Could it be that decades of oppressed individualism is what causes Chinese people to act in an anti-social way (when compared to the West)? Or is it simply the NYC/Chicago scenario……..where people are rude and selfish merely because there are just too many people packed into a small space, and it is kill or be killed; if you want to get onto the subway you better push and fight. Why is it that my entire thesis is invalid when speaking of minority areas, and rural villages of China? In my opinion it is because these areas have been out of the governments reach.

The philosophical ideals that have “guided” the structure of socialist regimes are in themselves beautiful and pure; however, the results when practiced on a large scale have been conclusively negative and disastrous. The only proven successes of communism have taken place on the small scale. For example the Kibbutz system in Israel has shown great success, which means communism to an extent is possible. These small Israeli farming communities are able to function brilliantly by following the pure philosophical guidelines of socialism with few negative side effects.

So why is it that socialism has failed on a large scale? In my opinion it all comes down to basic human nature.

-Greed

-Selfishness

-Laziness

-Free will

Unless these are completely eradicated from each and every human being within a socialist regime…………….the communist structure will fail.

Instead of socialism breeding humanity, hope, comradery, brotherly love, and selflessness, it took a turn in the opposite direction. Somehow large scale communism in practice resulted in infectious corruption, greed, selfishness, and oppression. It is in my opinion impossible for one to adequately argue that the Chinese government has created a socialist government that works. For example when analyzing recent Chinese history, it is not difficult to find the similarities between Mao and Stalin,……….both found the “greater good” to be much more important than individual lives. Suffering, death, oppression, and pain correspond tightly with China’s economic expansion, political reform, and socialistic unity. How does China expect to progress through the hindering oppression of its central government? I personally find it disheartening to see a once culturally diverse, free thinking, genius people fall into a black hole of ignorance and self delusion.

I once asked a Chinese teenager if he thought it was unfair that the government filters and controls all of the media in China. His response was startling; He mentioned that the government only filters out the lies, and that it is better to have government controlled media because “you know you will always be getting the truth”.

That being said, I will simply outline what I did, and where I traveled throughout China:

4-21-2008: At 5:30pm I boarded a train to Kunming the capital of China’s Yunan region; a region of China culturally unique and not surprisingly similar to nearby SE Asian countries.

4-23-2008: I arrived in Kunming at 7:10am………….I was exhausted, having spent the last 38 hours nonstop on a train.

-at 7:30am I boarded a bus and headed north to Old Dali. I arrived in Dali 6 hours later at 1:30pm. After wandering around a bit and visiting a few 9^th century pagodas, I walked down to the freeway and managed to flag down a bus heading to Lijang.

-After 5 more hours in transit I arrived in Lijang at 10:00pm. Soon after I found a place to crash and spent the evening wandering around the extraordinarily intact and charming old town of Lijang.

4-24-2008: I woke up at 6am, wandered around Lijang for a few hours, then proceeded to the bus station where I caught the 10:00am bus to Shangra La.

-5hrs later, at 3:00pm I arrived in Shangra La. After checking into a sketchy $3 a night hotel near the bus station; I spent the rest of the day touring around the various Buddhist monasteries, and wandering around Shangra La’s beautiful old town. The monastery on the edge of old town had the largest prayer wheel I have ever seen. It must have been 15 feet across and 20ft high. Buddhist prayer wheels contain (depending on the size) thousands of written mantras (prayers) and these prayers are activated when turning the wheel clockwise. The large prayer wheel was beautifully decorated and was surrounded by handles every couple feet so that people could spin the wheel and activate the mantras.

4-25-2008: I woke up early and caught the 8:20am bus for Deqin.

The drive was amazing, massive green fields with thousands of grazing yaks, isolated Buddhist villages dotted the hillsides, steep rolling hills, sharp windy roads carved through the edge of the mountain pass. My head started pounding when we reached the top of the pass 14,000ft. 7hrs later at 3:20pm we arrived in Deqin. After checking into a shitty $3 a night, beetle infested hotel, I went out for a tour of the town.

-I spent the day wandering around the steep hillsides, visiting monasteries, and attempting to communicate with the locals throughout old town. My headache never completely went away throughout my time in Deqin.

- Deqin is a small town on the edge of the Tibetan border, its inhabitants are over 80% Tibetan……..and the town sits at 12,000ft. After wandering through old town, and visiting the market, I felt contented that I was able to get a small taste of Tibetan culture. I also went for a short hike around the hillside and checked out a series of white painted mounds, Buddhist graves.

-Unfortunately Deqin is as far north as I was able to go, the Chinese government has restricted all access to Tibet by foreigners. The official reason for this is safety (for the tourists), but the real reason is most likely to avoid another PR disaster by allowing human rights activists to stage another protest against the Chinese occupation of Tibet so near to the opening of the Olympics in Beijing. With so many tourists coming to China for the Olympics, it is easy to see how the Chinese government foresaw a reputation damaging incident during the 2008 Olympics. A simple solution by the Chinese was to stage a fake protest in Lhasa, kill a few peaceful Tibetan monks, publicize media briefs that made Tibetan monks sound like ungrateful, violent beasts eager for the taste of tourist blood, and to cover it all up; set up a Tibetan museum in Beijing in order to show visitors a glimpse into the “happy and peaceful” lives of the “ ethnically Tibetan Chinese”(this is not fact, merely a hypothetical I developed).

-I woke up at 3am with a pounding headache; I was not even close to acclimatized to 12,000ft. After taking a couple Advil I was able to get back to sleep.

4-26-2008: I woke up early and went for a long walk around the small town trying to soak up as much Tibetan culture as possible. The Tibetan women wore pink scarves on their heads like turbans, and usually sported bamboo baskets on their backs. Deqin was tucked into a small valley between large steep hills. The surrounding hills were delightfully littered with colorful prayer flags and clusters of white graves.

-At 11am I boarded a bus that would take me all the way back to Kunming.

4-27-2008: After a miserable 20 hour bus ride I arrived in Kunming at 7:20am and walked straight to the train station, angrily dodging the solicitation of overzealous cab drivers and street vendors.

-At 9:30am I was on a train heading to Beijing.

4-29-2008: After a 48hour non-stop train ride, I arrived in Beijing at 9:30am.

-I wasted no time and headed straight to the Embassy of Pakistan to pick up my visa, then went straight to the forbidden city for some sight seeing. After a long day of sight seeing I headed back to my host Nan’s Apartment for a bit of R&R.

4-30-2008: Went shopping, highlight-buying a 8GB thumb drive for $15.

5-1-2008: Peleg (my Israeli friend) and I headed to Sematai at 7:20am. Sematai is a place a few hours from Beijing where The Great Wall of China is for the most part original and stretches seemingly endlessly along grassy, desolate rolling hills. We spent the day hiking along the eroding wall, up and down the rolling hills. It was absolutely incredible to be in the middle of such beautiful scenery, and hiking miles and miles on a massive 4,000 year old wall. Hiking on the great wall was definitely the unrivalled highlight of China. The only downside of the day, being that the air pollution reached even Sematai, which meant visibility was muffled by brown smog. The Chinese have really done a number on their environment, but can we really complain? We do in-fact continue to outsource factory work to China and buy up all the products produced in these factories. So in many ways we are as much to blame as the Chinese for the large factories that pump endless amounts of CO2 and other pollutants into the air and water supply.

5-2-2008: After running a few errands, and saying farewell to my new found friends, Peleg, Omri, and Nan; I hopped on the 6:30pm Train to Urumqi. Train travel is pretty expensive in China, so I decided to buy a hard seat ticket instead of the hard sleeper which was twice the cost.

-I ended up easing the pain a bit by getting drunk with the locals I was sitting next to. It helped me get to sleep, but did not erase the fact that I would be sitting on a hard, vertical seat for the next 44hrs.

5-3-2008: Day two was much more painful than the first, but again I eased the pain by drinking watered down Chinese beer and a few forced shots of the local firewater.

5-4-2008: 2 days of scarce sleep, dehydration, and too much booze really wore me out. I arrived at 10:45am feeling like hell, and completely exhausted………..however the show must go on.

-I scrambled through the ticket line quickly and was able to catch the 11:21am train for Kashgar. Again I punished myself by buying a hard seat ticket in order to save money……

-“I sit now at 12:32pm and drink beer alone while writing in my journal. 30 minutes ago I smoked a cigarette with a guy sitting near me, he is about 20. He is now sitting across from me as I write, and asking me questions in Ugher. I smile and try to explain to him that I have no idea what he is saying.”

-Eventually the crew got bigger, and by the time the sun went down I was surrounded by a fairly large group of Wiggers (The major ethnic group of Chinese Central Asia). We drank beer into the night, and I eventually passed out at 11pm.

5-5-2008: I arrived in Kashgar at 11am, quickly boarded a bus that took me to Kashgar’s long distance bus station. And within an hour was on a bus to Sost Pakistan. The ridiculously strenuous travel marathon ended 7 hours later when my bus stopped in Tash-Kurgan, China 12,000ft: the last town before the Khunjerab Pass, 16,000ft.

Just to put a bit of perspective on how ridiculous the previous two weeks were; I will punch some numbers in order to explain to you exactly how much time I spent in-transit: In the last __14__days I was on a bus or train for _213_ hours or exactly __63.4%__of the time. And for the last 4 sleepless nights I had only a hard seat to sit/sleep on for rest. So yeah,…………was it all worth it? I think so, but I will definitely never do it again.

____________________________________________________

Well the party is officially over, I made it back to the homeland on July 16th. I am currently chillin up at the family Chalet in the mountains trying to decompress, and get a few things written down. I have my work cut out for me trying to update the blog,.........a lot has happened since China. I have recently been considering turning my blog into a book, not sure it is publishable, but I figured I would give it a shot. I welcome any feedback, positive or negative. I have no idea how to go about getting published, so any advice is welcome also.

Thanks,

Trevor

PS: I apologize if this blog offends people, I wrote what I felt, and I know it can sound a bit too harsh at times. I am definitely not an expert on all of the worlds issues, so if you feel strongly about something I wrote, I invite your criticism and debate.

Pics from China:

Beijing with my host Nan, and Israeli friends.

Beijing

The Forbidden city Beijing

The Great Wall of China

Terracotta Soldiers X'ian

In front of the Forbidden City

Kashgar

Uigher men in Kashgar

Mystery Soup in Kashgar

Uigher man in Urumqi

Urumqi

On the train with the crew

-Irkeshtam Pass-

2008-05-01T08:31:00.000-07:00

4-4-2008

I left the Jalalabad bus station at around noon and headed back to Osh…..hopefully this time around the food will not be so rough on my
stomach…..I feel quite certain that I would not survive another round of Osh style food poisoning.

I arrived in Osh around 2pm and quickly found a cheap hotel near Salomon’s thrown (large rock mountain in the middle of town). The place was only $4 bucks a night, the downside being that my bed’s pillow was merely a cloth sack filled with saw dust, and the bed itself was a foot shorter than my body.

My roommate turned out to be a really cool guy; an fascinating, bold, and friendly Dutch traveller named George. George and I spent most of the day together trading travel stories and inspiring one another for future adventures. After a long conversation with George, I had become convinced that Pakistan is relatively safe; since Tibet is now officially closed due to violent protests, I will now make my way to India via Pakistan. I am in fact particularly excited for this new leg of my journey. The pass I will be travelling on peaks out at around 15,500ft. And then there is the brilliant Karakorom highway…………which I will more adequately be able to describe in the near future.

4-5-2008

I woke up at 7am and headed to the jeep/taxi parking lot that caters to the locals wanting to head south of Osh. I would soon find out that south of Osh is pretty much no-man’s-land. Civilization ends……….and the endless snowy peaks begin.

After a couple hours of painful dialogue with overzealous cab drivers, I found a family heading to a city past Sary Tash (my destination). I hopped into the back seat with Mom, the boy and the baby, while Dad drove and Gramps sat shotgun. They were a jolly and lively crew, and I enjoyed my time with them immensely. I was pretty much forced to teach the eleven year old boy English the entire car ride (6.5hrs)….though I was tired and would much rather sleep, I found it rewarding because he and the family loved it, and soaked up each word like a sponge.

The roadway to Sary Tash was ridiculously desolate…..I had no idea that Kyrgyzstan pretty much ends after Osh. About 15 miles below Osh; the paved road turned to dirt, and the road’s quality diminished with a vengeance. My driver drove like a maniac the entire way, weaving through the windy roads like a getaway driver, while vigorously trying to avoid potholes and large rocks. I was genuinely surprised that our vehicle did not suffer a flat tire during our journey.

After several snowy almost uncrossable mountain passes, and driving through several isolated mountain villages, we had arrived in Sary Tash. While passing through the final village before Sary Tash, I viewed a large cluster of Yaks nestled up against the roadway trying to find grass through the snow. I mention this only because this is the first time I had ever seen a herd of Yaks, and I must say, they are cool looking. They are pretty much just hippie cows……..with thin vertical horns who are so badass that bitter cold, and chilling snow does not bother them.

Sary Tash(10,400ft): Wow…….my first thought was “where the hell am I?”. I soon realized that Sary Tash was merely a remote village, not the quaint border town I had imagined it to be.

I felt like John Voit in ‘The Deliverance’…..I was in a land of Kyrgyz hillbillies. Sary Tash is a severely isolated mountain village consisting of only a few small clusters of mud brick shacks and a general store located in an old box car.

The snow was falling and the winter breeze had become stubbornly cold. Villagers were riding around on their horses and herding their cows, yaks, and Goats while trying valiantly to fight off the bitter cold. ( I have no Idea where the animals grazed, the entire area was submerged in snow). After arriving, I hoped to get out of the snow relatively quickly in order to secure a safe place to lay my head for the night.

Almost immediately after being dropped off on the side of the road by my driver, a dark faced teenager(18) up the road spotted me and signalled me to follow him to his home. As we silently walked along the icy road; a crew of teenagers on horses and antique bicycles drove by and snatched my new companions black knit cap. The gang of hoodlums jeered, and smiled their jackolantern smiles at us as they threw the teen’s hat in a muddy ditch on the side of the road.

The gang of kids were obviously poor, but perhaps my new friend was even lower down the rung than they were. It appeared to be that not one member of the crew was missing fewer than 4 teeth…..which I found impressive seeing how they were all in their teens. Upon further observance, I sincerely doubt that anyone in the entire village has a full set of teeth. If my host’s family was any indication, it would be safe to say that a dentist had never made it the mountain village of Sary Tash.

With a warm smile, my new friend presented me to his parents, and fortunately they welcomed me kindly into their home. The mud-brick shack was split into two rooms, an 8x10 kitchen and a 15x15ft family room. The family consisted of a mother, father, grandma, sister(15), brother(18), baby, and infant (2)…..so it was a packed house. The shack was lacking any sort of plumbing, but was equipped with electricity…..which was a godsend. It allowed me to escape from the strangeness by submerging myself in my book.

The family was great, they were harshly poor and weathered looking, but continuously radiated their home with smiles and kindness. After a walk around the town, and a few failed attempts at communicating with locals, I came to the conclusion that these people were entirely different than any of the Kyrgyz people I had met thus far. They did not even look the same; the Sary Tash villagers had red-brown sun burnt looking faces, and were quite small and petite in stature. I read somewhere that Sary Tash was in fact a Tajik village, and that the community merely leased the land from Kyrgyzstan. I was not able to confirm this, due to the fact that I was unable to track down a single person in Sary Tash that spoke Russian or English.

I crashed on the living room floor side by side with my new siblings. The fire burned out not long after bedtime; I slept rather poorly as a result of the blatant concoction of harsh coldness and grandma’s snoring.

At 5:30am I climbed into my warmest clothes (which means I wore everything in my bag), packed up my bags and hit the road. I walked about a half mile along the dark icy road until I had made it to the fork in the road. Left was for China, Right was for Tajikistan........... I turned left and walked down the road another half mile toward China.

It was dark and freezing cold,…..much colder than I had anticipated. In order to fight against the painful cold; I picked a 100M stretch of road and paced up and down the stretch for about 2 hours hoping to keep myself warm until the sun came out. By 8am the sun began to shine, but a truck headed to China was nowhere to be found. I had a glimmer of hope at 8:15am when an old soviet ambulance drove down the road through Sary Tash…..only to keep heading right to Tajikistan.

As the locals began to rise, they all immediately climbed to the roofs of their homes and began to shovel off the 8inches of fresh snow which had accumulated throughout the night. At approximately 8:45am I would say that at least 80% of the locals(men) were up on their roofs shovelling snow.

I caught my lucky break at 9:00am……..two Russian trucks began heading toward me and I was able to flag down the first one for a ride.

I hopped into the old Kamaz( Russian semi truck)smiling and was greeted by two men with a loud “asalam ahalikum”;moments later we were ploughing through the snow toward China. My new companions were Kyrgyz drivers who were involved in a bit of import export. Their route only brought them to border and back. One guy was 25, and the other in his 40s, they were both genuine, and friendly fellows..

The road through the pass was not much more than a snow covered logging road. It was usually covered with deep snow, and was relatively steep and uneven in places. Due to a series of recent snowfalls, and the overall desolate and harsh nature of this pass; we were inevitably delayed.

Our truck became stuck in the deep snow on several occasions, each time we banded together with other trucks (also delayed due to our predicament) in order to dig, yank, and pull ourselves free.

Overall the day was wonderful, the sun was shining, I was experiencing some new and exciting truck driver comradery, and most importantly; I was on my way to China.

In the end, I would say that our delays added about 5 hours to our travel time across the pass. However once we made it over the high point and began our descent, it was smooth sailing. The weather gradually became warmer, and the roads clearer.

About 15miles before the Kyrgyz-Chinese border we came across a sort of military road block. Two young soldiers stood in a mud booth, sporting Russian kolichnikofs (assault rifles) and full soviet uniform. It was very, very, strange. It was as if no one had told these guys that the Soviet Union fell, and that they were free to go home. These guards were wearing large soviet belt buckles, and soviet pins in their hats. Not one piece of clothing on their bodies signified anything Kyrgyz................where was I?

After passing the security check point, it was a new, smooth, paved road from there to the border.

I hit a bit of a snag at the border; the problem being that the border closes each day at 2pm..........and by the time I had arrived at the border it was 5pm.

After thanking my truck driver buddies for the lift, I began to wander around the area. I was surrounded by beautiful desert landscape interrupted by bare jagged hills and a wide, shallow river .Pretty much the only thing around me was malnourished minuture donkeys, drunk border cops, and a small trailer park which hugged the riverside about 50M from the border.

I was really excited to be on the border, and at such a strange and remote location.........I would venture to say that very few tourists have used this border crossing (relatively).

Ahhhhh the trailer park, what can I say.....this place was pretty wild. It was a deserted cluster of old school box cars/trailers/caravans.....it was a cliché image of something you would expect to see in the middle of nowhere.

After wandering around curiously, and observing the dirty, haggard, tired, weathered, smiling, locals go about their day to day business; I began to see how difficult their lives must be. I observed a crew of children using a large chunk of scrap metal and a stack of old tires as a slide. Their clothes were ripped and filthy, while not one child was wearing shoes. How could these people live in such conditions?.....The bottom line is that this community was completely lacking most essential societal resources. Schools, industry, recreational outlets, plumbing, and media were completely non-existent in this area. However, I imagine this has simply become a way of life for these people, and that “luxuries” are simply out of site and out of mind.

While snapping a few photos of my curious surroundings, and wandering around inquisitively; the locals began to take notice. What was the goofy looking blonde guy doing in our neighbourhood? Why is he here? Why does he have long hair?( I can only imagine this is what cruised through their minds).

One group of local women took particular interest in me, the waved me over and through a bit of broken Russian, I was able to explain to them my situation. They were thrilled; they immediately invited me into their home and excitedly presented me with tea and cookies. After about an hour of awkward conversation, they invited me to spend the night in their home as their guest.

Sure why not..............where else was I going to stay!

I can’t say I much enjoyed our conversations however; they mostly revolved around me being American, and them wanting me to marry one of their locals.

I escaped the suffocating conversations by going for a long solo walk around the countryside. After exploring the hills ( most of which were besieged with human shit) I headed down to the river.

{their are no toilets in the trailer complex, so it appears that all the locals just walk to the nearby hillside and squat wherever........taking a walk along the hills was like trekking through a mine zone}

As I peered across the riverbank, I saw a beautiful red wind carved canyon with what appeared to be several caves near the entrance. My problem was that a river obstructed me from reaching this canyon..............As I walked up river looking for a way to cross; I began to see that the river split into two shallower, narrower streams. But as I followed one of the streams up river it split again, and then again.........yet still it was too deep to cross. Walking alone after a long day of strangeness, I began to see this river as a metaphor for my life.

-Instead of wading through the single challenging river (returning home after PC service).....I chose a different path.....I walked up stream to find something that was easier, or fit me better personally. But after each stream I followed it simply forked again.....and before I knew it I was forced to cross 10 deep streams instead of one consistent river.

I saw myself purposely choosing seemingly easier paths but then realizing they forked. After heading upstream to find clarity and an easy way to cross; I was forced with more tough decisions and even more rapids and slippery rocks. Where was I going with that one..............it seems I got a bit too deep in metaphors for my own good.

The bottom line is that I feel at times that my dinking around (Peace Corps ,Travel etc) has guided me to a river that will be quite challenging to cross without severe discomfort and unforeseen obstacles. All my friends( or I hope they are my friends, most I have not seen for quite a long time ) have moved on with their lives.....and are perhaps a bit too mature and established for a homeless, jobless, hobo they once knew quite well.

OK moving on................................

After returning home from my long walk, and tranquil self reflection, I returned to find the trailer packed with locals. I stepped into the old rusty box car and immediately became the “novelty guest”. It was the last thing I really wanted to be, but what could I do. I drank tea, answered questions, and refused marriage proposals for hours upon hours.

{the trailer: 8-9ft wide, 25ft long, split into two rooms, one room incuded a small wood burning stove, front steps are a stack of truck tires}

In order to temporarily escape the strangeness, I grabbed my book and tried unsuccessfully to read between rounds of awkward and invasive questioning. The toothless, over –excited women had a little gossip gathering in the other room, and begged me to join.....by then I knew better. The entire evening, random women would show up and I would be called upon to analyze our new guest, and asked if I “loved her” or “would marry her”. The women I felt were acting quite obnoxious, and it became increasingly uncomfortable for me to be around them . I was truly in another world, and I must say the novelty of the situation wore off early on.

Dinner was great, it consisted of a delicious spread of beef, potatoes, bread, and several different types of jam. The flavour was relatively bland, but it really could have been a lot worse. I worried (to a point of paranoia) that I would get food poisoning. These people were definitely NOT the hygienic type............and after watching the daughter wash dishes with brown dirty water,......and seeing grandma prepare the food without washing her hands.................I began to feel a bit uneasy. I abruptly began to fanaticise about how disastrous it would be to be stuck in the trailer with a horrible case of food poisoning. Vomiting and shitting myself as I lay in a crowded dirty trailer with obnoxious unhygienic locals.............. What a frightening thought.

Besides the 10 odd marriage proposals; dinner was actually quite pleasant. After our meal we just kind of sat around on the floor and drank endless cups of tea. The edge was gone, and the atmosphere became serene. That was of course until the cattle came home. Then a fresh round of strangeness began.

Grandpa and a few uncles stormed into the trailer at around 10:30pm.............and they were obviously hammered. I sat in the corner reading while trying to ignore the commotion. An argument suddenly erupted between grandma and grandpa,............ gramps was pissed. He kept yelling with rage, standing up, and rushing the old lady. Thankfully each time someone would intervene and calm things down. At one point the worn out looking, hunch backed old man got so pissed that he stormed into the other room yielding his rubber boot and tried to throw it at grandma full force. Fortunately his level of inebriation greatly distorted his accuracy; his heavy, knee high rubber boot slammed hard and loud against the wall about a foot from the old woman’s head.

What was the right thing to do at that point? Things were obviously getting out of hand, but I was merely an American novelty/guest. I really had no pull, and perhaps meddling in family affairs could lead to unnecessary personal danger.

Eventually everyone calmed down, beds were prepared, and we all hit the sack.

I was in the left half of the box car; it was a 9X12 room with a few blankets and pillows to share. I was forced to share this small area with 4 other men, 3 of the 4 had come home recently from a long day of alcohol abuse.

{I was offered vodka constantly, but declined each time. At no point did I feel comfortable enough to even have a sip of alcohol with the locals}

Sleep sucked: the guy next to me kept putting his hand on my face, and his arm across my chest. Two guys over from me was the “cougher”.......the guy must have had TB........he coughed loud and hard all night. The guy on the far end would talk/hum/sing in his sleep.............it was quite irritating.

I woke up startled at 3am to the commotion of the two guys to my right wrestling and yelling at each other. Within seconds they were on their feet raging with anger, arms cocked and ready to brawl...........but again the skirmish was alleviated by a mediator before blows were thrown. The conflict had arisen because the two guys were sharing a blanket, and apparently one of the guys was hogging.

I woke up in the morning after sparsely sleeping, to the guy next to me snuggling up against me like a giant teddy bear...................it was 8am........and I was increasingly thankful that I would escape this strange trailer very soon.

After a breakfast of strange brown soup ( sour milk/wheat based liquid).....I bid my farewells to my hosts, and exited that trailer like a bat out of hell.

Most of the strange and awkward situations I have encountered on the road thus far have been quite laughable and secure. However, I feel this particular occasion, my awkwardness crossed a line. It was no longer fun, exciting, strange, and enlightening;....................it became weird, ugly, bizarre, uncomfortable, and downright frightening.

However, it is all over now, and I am now able to look back on the strangeness and add it to my life-experience archives, while having an increased awareness and gratefulness for the pleasant American lifestyle I have been lucky enough to live.............I have absolutely no room to complain about lack of luxuries, while other people in the world suffer from extreme poverty while smiling ear to ear. I feel slightly guilty for living such a privileged life without the day to day hardships that these people face. I wish them luck in their lives, but fear that their uneducated and underprivileged children will have enormous challenges overcoming their ugly predisposition to failure and a life of hardship

After a series of shot hitches over the border I had made it to China. I walked down the road about a mile in the pounding wind excited for the adventures that lied ahead me. China is a place that I have always dreamed of visiting. The remarkable history and cultural diversity of this enchanted land, was now at my fingertips

After about 3 hours of pleasant daydreaming and travel planning, a semi-truck pulled over gave me a ride to Kashgar...........................................

On the way to Sary Tash:

The family I stayed with in Sary Tash:

Sary Tash local kids:

Dinner in Sary Tash:

Sary Tash:

The road to the pass:

Truck driving buddies:

Stuck, with the crew of another truck:

The pass got hairy in spots:

The first women to greet me at the border trailer park:

Locals being resourceful with an old oil barrel:

Home sweet home in 18A:

An old pic: taken from my car on the road between Bishkek and Jalalabad

-Kyrgyzstan-

2008-04-02T06:06:00.000-07:00

3-8-2008

I woke up feeling stable and well enough to finally leave Osh. After choking down a small breakfast with a bit of dizziness and tolerable nausea; I was ready to explore Kyrgyzstan.

At around 11am I met up with a motley crew of fullbrighters, PCVs and Mercy Corps volunteers. I met up with the interesting and kind hearted crew on their way to observe and document the ‘Cock Fights’ of Bazaar Korgon.

We piled into two shared Taxis and left Osh around 11:45pm. We spent the next couple hours trading stories, and soaking in the beauty of Kyrgyzstan’s gorgeous countryside. Windy roads cut magnificently through grassy rolling hills, each consumed with an abundance of sheep, horses, and cows. Kyrgyzstan doesn’t have traffic jams; the only real transit nuisance is the livestock that spills onto the roads.

I enjoyed watching children and men riding along the grassy hills with their muscular horses, and keeping the livestock in line with their sticks. I found distinctive beauty in the villages we drove through……..time stood still here. People gathered at the wells to fill water jugs, donkeys were used to plow fields, old bearded men with tall traditional hats sat on benches holding their cane and speaking slowly amongst themselves.

After arriving in Bazaar Korgon (about 20km from Jalalabad) we drove through a maze of dirt roads, mud houses, and inquisitive locals before arriving at a secluded barn and horse stable.

We were greeted with affection by the gristly old men guarding the gate, and escorted to the cock fighting area. There must have been over 150 people crammed into the small rectangle shaped barn. The crowd squatted, sat, and stood in an oval shape around the 15x25ft fighting area. Men outside the barn held their cocks with pride, as they prepared them for future battles. We were greeted mostly with curious stares and overall acceptance. We had broached a venue that had obviously not been visited by many outsiders.

I was not sure exactly how I felt about watching cock fight. I was there to view a cultural event, and to observe and understand a Kyrg subculture more than I was for the thrill and excitement of things.

Should I feel bad about attending, and watching a callous activity that is both illegal and highly frowned upon in most civilized societies? After all they are only birds, and quite low on the food chain for that matter. I also justified my presence by thinking about how ugly and worthless looking the birds are,……… banged up roosters are far from being cuddly and cute. I of course would completely object to puppy fights, or koala bear fights, but I found cock fighting surprisingly easy to digest.

I had mixed feelings and emotions as I watched two roosters peck each others faces raw. The battle action was minimal besides a lot of pecking, a few sloppy headlocks and the occasionally swift jump kick to the face. The atmosphere of the event was almost laughable…….here were about 150 grown men, squatting intently around a couple of roosters pecking at each other. Most of the men watching had money on the fight, therefore the faces in the crowd showed a dark blend of seriousness, nervousness and fear.

I felt as if I were watching a welterweight boxing match……..a few weak hits, a lot of dancing around……..and a disappointing anticlimactic ending.

About every 15 minutes the fight would stop and the cocks would be snatched up by their managers for a bit of a cool down period. The managers would swallow water and spit it into the bird’s faces, and asses;………it was hilarious to watch grown men spitting water up the asses of haggard looking birds. In retrospect I suppose this is the way to cool these roosters down and prepare them for another round of pecking.

I frankly found the cock fighting to be a bit on the boring side. My amusement and pleasure came mostly from watching the people interact, and soaking up the bizarre atmosphere of the event. Birds pecking at each other for an hour, and having the fight be a split decision………..was a bit lame. I was under the impression that these birds would fight to the death. I wanted to see a swift jump kick, followed by a beak through the heart.
These Cocks are lifetime fighters, and have the scarred up faces to prove it. So I ask myself what is more humane, the Kyrgyzstan cock fighting where the birds peck at each other for an hour and never die, or South American style where they equip the birds with razor blades in hopes to create a bloody battle that will last no more than a couple minutes. Perhaps the latter is more humane because in the end the bird feels less pain and endures less suffering;……..a razor to the neck seams to me a bit less inconvenient than 10,000 sharp pecks to the face.

I will attempt to refrain from mentioning any revealing details about my new friends due to privacy reasons, but I will reveal that I was lucky to have met them. I thoroughly enjoyed hearing about their interesting lives, and the stories of events that shaped their careers.

One guy in particular, a well established American photographer named Thatcher, became a real inspiration to me. He has traveled the world, worked for many humanitarian NGOs….. and has established himself professionally as a well known and respected photographer. Throughout the incredible challenges faced, he has maintained an incredibly humble and jolly attitude. He has the exclusive ability to selflessly embrace other cultures and spread warmth and happiness to those around him like a plague;…… this is something I am both inspired by and envious of.

After a full day of cock fights, we met up with a crew of PCVs and headed to the disco. The discothèque reminded me like a junior high dance. It was filled with locals celebrating women’s day be pounding vodka and sloppily dancing to American hip-hop music.

Toward the end of the evening I began to feel a bit exhausted and weak. It was my first full day out of bed in well over a week. I was quite proud of myself for making it through the day without physically collapsing, and maintaining social enough to make friends.

Day two in Jalalabad was great; I was able to sleep in, and regain some of the energy I had spent the previous evening. After a day of laziness and relaxation I met up with a crew of PCVs for some shashlik (meat skewers) and a couple beers.

The sun was shining as we drank beer, and conversed about things such as Peace Corps bureaucracy, traveling, dog bites, and Brian Boytano. I fully enjoyed hanging out with the J-Bad PCVs and being goofy Americans. Spending time with this wonderful group of PCVs lifted the weight of loneliness and depression from my shoulders, and gave me a shot of energy for future adventures.

Traveling alone can be a bit of a challenge at times. My recent spell of brutal food poisoning was my most recent and significant hurdle. I was not sure if I would be able to continue my journey after being completely physically and emotionally drained by a week of pain and agony. I am mentioning this only because I want to make clear that these shallow ruts along the road are leveled off by the uplifting and warm characters I meet along the trail.

After a few days in Jalalabad my health was almost 100%. My appetite and excessive energy has not returned, but the warm weather and pleasant sunshine saturates my body with joy and happiness.

3-11-2008

At around 1:00pm I walked about 3 miles to the J-Bad bus station where I caught a shared taxi to a small village called Akman. After being dropped off on the main road; I walked the 1.5miles into Akman……..and enjoyed every step.

Akman was a rural paradise……….perhaps many will not feel the same way about this village as I, but nonetheless I really enjoyed its exquisiteness and purity.

As I walked along the dirt road through the small village of Akman, I was meticulously observed by locals with curious stares. Young boys were riding bareback in pairs on muscular horses. Others were riding donkeys through the streets carrying jugs of water or other farming supplies. A cluster of women were standing on the edge of a small river, collecting water in large metal jugs before carting them off to their homes with makeshift wheelbarrows. All the men were wearing either skull caps, or the traditional tall white hats with black trim.

I made my way to Meghan’s(PCV) school and interrupted her class do to a bit of Q & A with her students. I have visited numerous schools throughout my journey and have often taken the role as honored guest; which involves being bombarded with questions. One boy in particular asked me a question that showed significant contrast and painted a vivid rural picture that differed greatly from other schools I have visited thus far.

He asked me “ do you have any sheep”………..a simple yet important question in Kyrgyzstan. I told him I did not have any, and asked him if he had any. He responded by saying that he had eleven sheep.

This was noteworthy to me, because I compared it to a time in Turkey when a student the same age asked me if I liked “Bush”.

These kids don’t worry about politics, they are too busy being kids, and taking care of their livestock. Their parents don’t teach them which world leaders to hate; they simply work hard all day and night in order to survive and live their lives the way their parents and ancestors have lived for hundreds of years.

This story may appear to be relatively insignificant, and unworthy of a second thought. Nonetheless,…. to me it was more than a simple question about sheep. It painted a picture of rural purity, and an essence of life without politics, war, over-consumption, capitalism, and greed.

Upon arriving in Meghan’s classroom she greeted me with a warm smile, and quickly returned to her lesson. She taught with enthusiasm as she played a learning game with her knowledge-hungry students. I fantasized about how my own Peace Corps experience would have been if I were a TEFL, and how great it would be to be around cheerful kids all day……..but then I remembered how I was barely able to control the 6 year olds during my bi-weekly kindergarten classes in Chirpan, Bulgaria.

I have a lot of respect for anyone who can keep kids under control and learning throughout the day; whether it be in Kyrgyzstan or any other country around the world. Allah knows, teaching is not an easy thing to do.

Meghan lives in a small painted mud house on the edge of a narrow river. It was a typical village home, chickens running around the yard and occupying the trees, ninety or so sheep grazing in the yard, several cows tied to trees on the side of the house, a small barn for the sheep, and an outhouse. I loved it!

After a quick cup of tea and some nan bread, we went on a walk around her village. We walked through the dusty streets of her village, and were greeted with both welcoming smiles and curious stares. Young boys were hauling large vinyl bags on donkeys, while the girls were lugging around large metal water jugs. We walked through the rolling hills past the cemetery and back toward the village, stopping once briefly for a chat with a women living on the hillside. While walking back through the village streets we came across a group of men squatting and standing in a square formation next to an unfinished mud house. Women and children were sitting on a collapsed pile of bricks on the side of the house while watching the men at the head of the square speak. We had stumbled upon a local election, the men were voting on what to name the street they lived on. It was a typical dusty village road, with seemingly no significance. However to the villagers, the road was more than that; no longer would they live on a nameless road in an undeveloped village, they showed pride and honor as they solidified their status and named the street after a hero of Kyrgyzstan.

3-12-2008

I slept in until about 10:30am, and then headed to Bazaar Korgan with Meghan. We stayed up late the evening before enjoying wonderfully heartfelt conversations about just about everything. We spoke together as if we were old friends. Meghan has a huge heart, and is the type of girl that you can immediately feel comfortable with. She reminded me a lot of my good friend and former site mate in Chirpan. After a long time away from family and friends, it is really nice to find people that you can really talk to. And thankfully I have been fortunate enough to meet a few people like this on the road. It is what keeps me sane.

Traveling has become a lifestyle; it is a way of life that is not always easy on the body or mind. I am not longer on vacation, I am simply living a nomadic lifestyle. Throughout my journey it has been imperative that I meet people that lift my spirits, and portray inspiring amounts of humanity. If I had not met such people, my adventure would be shallow, dry, dark, painful and my personal growth would become horribly stunted.

After a quick lunch and beer with Meghan; we hit up the public banya. The public bath was in a hard to find back alley mud building with peeling blue paint. The shower room was reminiscent of something you would find in the basement of an abandoned warehouse. A dirty bathtub, rusty metal pipes, paint peeling off the mud walls, and a home-made shower head made of sheet-metal and twine. It was wonderful to finally shower, a significant amount of time without bathing makes you really appreciate indoor plumbing.

After the banya Meghan and I met up with two Kyrg women who work as anti-bride-napping activists.

Bride-napping:
-80% of marriages in Kyrgyzstan come from bride-nappings
-57% of these bride-nappings are non-consensual
-92% of the women kidnapped eventually consent and stay to be married

When I first heard about this phenomenon; I was shocked, but naturally found it laughable, mostly because the problem was so impersonal, and distant.

I briefly mentioned bride-napping in my Turkey Blog after learning about it through some RPCVs (returned Peace Corps Volunteers) who served in Kyrgyzstan.

Now that I have actually spent a significant amount of time with the people of Kyrgyzstan, and have learned about this problem from local women; I no longer find it humorous. It is absolutely terrifying and disheartening to know that women everyday are being kidnapped, raped, and forced into loveless marriages.

How Bride-Napping works:

-A young girl is selected at random from the streets of Kyrgyzstan (usually from a larger city, or nearby village) and forced into a car. She is driven away screaming and kicking,……but shown no compassion by her aggressors. The future groom’s sisters, aunts, and grandmothers force the girl into their home and restrain her in a corner of their house.

Tears, screams, kicks, and desperate pleas are laughable to the aggressors during this process…..The women know that with persistence they will eventually be able to psychologically break the young girl as if they were breaking a horse.
The grooms relatives will tell the girl she must stay and force a veil on her head that symbolizes marriage (ownership). The poor girl will cry, scream, and yell for hours but will see no pity or kindness from her captors. They will tell her to quit crying, to submit, and to stop being stubborn. They will tell her she is disgracing her family by saying no, and that they will not stop until she submits to the marriage.

During this time, the grooms parents will contact the girls family and offer them a dowry, usually some livestock and money. The parents almost always agree, which makes it even more difficult for the girl to say no to the marriage.

Meanwhile the women will threaten the young girl with curses, and tell her over and over that if she refuses she will be cursed with bad luck and will live in misery the rest of her life.

After the young girl is no longer able to handle the vicious abuse, she unwillingly submits. She is now wearing a veil that signifies submission, and is locked into a room that evening with the groom in order to consecrate the unity (be raped).

This is usually how the story ends, because all women are fully aware that a girl without her virginity is disgraced and undesirable in Kyrgyzstan. If she does not follow through with the marriage; her own family will not take her back, she will be cursed, disgraced, and disowned. However, if she submits to the marriage, she will have sacrificed everything she has worked so hard for in her former life.

The poor girl is forced to drop out of her university and throw all her aspirations of happiness and prosperity out the window. Her once promising life and career is now shattered because she is forced to marry a Sheppard. She is now more or less a slave for her husband’s family in the hills of rural Kyrgyzstan.

-OK………..this story may seam a bit dramatic and even unbelievable, but I assure you this is a very real problem in Kyrgyzstan.

As an example of how real Bride-Napping is; I will tell you a true story:

Meghan (my friend) was hanging out with her “Shepard friend” in her village when he excused himself to take care of some family business. He told her that he had to help his cousin bride-nap a girl from the village. Meghan (PCV) told him that it was wrong, but he only shrugged his head and told her that family is family, and tradition is tradition.

That evening a 19 year old girl from the village of Akman was bride-napped. She became absolutely hysterical; she was in love with another man and adamantly refused the marriage. The groom’s relatives spent hours and hours trying to break the girl psychologically, but she still refused. She begged for mercy and understanding, but received no compassion from her captors.

After being presented the dowry, the girl’s father agreed to the marriage. At this point the poor girl was desperate and helpless. The girl was forced to say the only thing she could think of to get out of the grasp of these evil women. She told them that she was not a virgin. After telling the women this over and over and adamantly refusing the marriage, the women cursed the girls and allowed her to escape their home with her womanhood intact.

The next day, she was nagged relentlessly by her own grandmother. She was told that she is disgracing her family, and that she must go through with the wedding to save her family’s good name. Often if a woman refuses to marry, the community will assume she is refusing because she does not want her potential groom to find out she is not a virgin.

Oksokols (white beards) as well as old women have the highest status in the community, so basically what they say goes. The girl’s Grandmother relentlessly berated her with guilt. Over and over she was told that she is disgracing her family and that she must follow through with the marriage or she will be disowned………………………..What were her options??

This story ends tragically,………..the psychologically abused girl went out to the barn in her back yard and hung herself. In her pocket was a note that said “tell my father I am still a virgin”.

-The town’s reaction to this tragic event was very cold. In order to save face, both families, and the community at large told people that the girl was mentally ill, and was not a virgin.

-Unfortunately the people of this particular village and the majority of people throughout Kyrgyzstan, are unwilling to admit and unable to recognize that bride-napping is a major problem. Cases such as the suicide in Akman are becoming chillingly frequent throughout Kyrgyzstan.

Any young girl walking around Kyrgyzstan is a potential victim of bride-napping. Young Kyrg women will never walk anywhere alone and are in constant fear of being kidnapped. Imagine walking to university everyday and living with the fear that you may be kidnapped at any moment and never attend another lecture again. Bride-Napping happens to everyone: rich and poor, in villages and in big cities.

A separate example I will only briefly mention (for her privacy) is the case of a friend of mine, an American girl who was kidnapped for more than 3 days. She was simply taking a taxi from Bishkek to Osh……..and wound up bride-napped in a mountain hut with no running water, or electricity…..just a room full of crazy women……..this happened less than a year ago. It goes to show that in Kyrgyzstan, even westerners are not exempt from this tragic and traumatizing crime.

Moving on………………………….

After a day of relaxation, cleanliness, and enlightening conversations with the anti-bride-napping activists…Meghan and I left Bazaar Korgon and headed back to Akman.

After greeting Meghan’s host family I sat on the river and soaked in the village atmosphere as Meghan went into the house.

The sun was going down as I watch young village boys, two per horse gallop bareback along the riverside. They were helping their fathers and brothers with the sheep and cattle. It was like watching cowboys in a movie. Large herds of horses, sheep, and cattle were being forced along the narrow river by young cowboys whipping their animals with thin sticks. I witnessed one kid attempt to make his donkey drink out of the river, the bank was steep and the donkey refused to go near the water……….it was entertaining to watch the young kid unsuccessfully attempt to force his donkey to drink for about an hour.

After about an hour and a half of sitting on the riverbank in peaceful silence and tranquility, Meghan came back and sat beside me with tears in her eyes.

She had spent the last hour being yelled at by her host grandmother. And it turns out that I was directly responsible for this horrible lashing.

Last weekend Meghan had hosted Thatcher at her place so they could hang out and take pictures of rural Kyrgyzstan. They also went on a walk around the village……….

Basically, some of the villagers saw Meghan and I walking around the village and hillside and found it peculiar that she had spent two consecutive weekends with two different men. We were the talk of the town at the watering hole………This is not a figure of speech, villagers actually get all their gossip while filling up their water jugs at the watering hole.

So, what happened was that an old woman from the village came to Meghan’s house and yells at her host-grandmother about how Meghan is disgracing her family. She was told that the whole town thinks she (Meghan) is being a whore.

-It turns out that walking around the village is reserved for people who are either married or seriously dating.

Meghan was caught off guard by her host-grandmothers anger and disgust. She was told over and over that she was shaming their family and that she was foolish to have gone on a walk with me. How could she disrespect her family like that? What was she thinking?.................Meghan did not know what to say, this minor cultural mishap had turned her once pleasant living situation into a living hell. She did nothing wrong;………a simple walk around her village turned into a cultural blunder that caused her once serene home life to turn into a painfully awkward and cold living situation.

I felt quite bad about this because I was directly responsible…..and poor Meghan had to deal with over an hour of verbal abuse from Grandma.

Meghan and I sat on the riverbank for a long time trying to make sense of the situation…..but how could we possibly comprehend something like this………the concept was way to foreign to understand……..our only choice was to accept it. And Meghan’s only real choice was to keep walking on egg shells and hope one day to shed her reputation as the village whore. ( She is in fact well liked and accepted by her community, this misunderstanding quickly blew over, even with Grandma)

3-13-2008

I woke up early and took a shared taxi to Bazaar Korgon, then had to wait about 3 hours for a shared taxi to Arslenbab. While I was waiting I was befriended by a crew of locals who took me to the café for a bit of chai. We spoke only Russian, which meant our conversations were simple and often lost on me. I tend to be a curious figure for local Kyrgyz men. Often the men attempt to interact with me by joking around about drinking vodka and chauvinistic sex. Most of the people I have met around the bus stations have been a bit on the crude and obnoxious side. The drunks in this country make me feel incredibly uncomfortable; alcoholism appears to be a dire epidemic in Kyrgyzstan.

It was drizzling rain and overcast as we drove up the steep hills through rocky fields saturated with horses and sheep. We drove along a narrow road that hugged the river tightly, and was swarming with school children and livestock. The drive up the mountain to Arslenbab was slow and beautiful. Children no older than ten were slowly riding donkeys along the road loaded with seemingly unliftable piles of sticks and grass. Shepard’s grazed their livestock along rocky cliffs, and hills that seamed even too steep and jagged for mountain goats.

Kyrgyzstan has a quiet yet vibrant appeal to it. The people of rural Kyrgyzstan smile and seam to be happy with their busy yet simple lives. I feel as if I could live here and be happy…….beautiful mountains, slow pace, simple lifestyle, I suppose I am just drawn to the relaxing and romantic essence of rural Kyrgyz life. Nothing is as it appears however; I am sure the day to day lives of these mountain villagers are rough, tough, and full of pain. From a distance it is easy for me to imagine the simplicity of it, without mulling over the details that make the lifestyle potentially unbearable.

The mountain village of Arslenbab began at a melting snowline; it was visually obvious that a large amount of snow had melted within the last week. Snow and mud was the theme of the town’s landscape, plateau and cliffs on my left, and rolling snowy hills leading to a large mountain range in front and on the right. I had arrived in a mountain paradise.

Upon arrival I was immediately greeted by a trekking guide who worked for CBT (community based tourism)……he quickly took me to his office and set me up with a local home-stay not far from a 60M waterfall.

I slept in a 12x12 room separate from my host family’s home. It had a small wood stove and several thick blankets (Tishuks) on the floor to sleep on. After settling in to my room I hiked to the small waterfall and sat in peaceful contemplation for about an hour. Later I hiked to a nearby cliff overlooking the village and read for a few hours.

{I have been reading and trading books throughout my trip, and thus far have read: Ideas & Opinions: Einstein, Warrior Politics: Robert D Kaplan, Eastward to Tartary: Kaplan, Under the banner of Heaven: Krakauer, Into the Wild: Krakauer, Into thin Air: Krakauer, The essentials of Ghandi, around the world in 80 days, The old Testament, Angela’s Ashes, Catch me if you can, From Beirut to Jerusalem: Freidman, Three cups of tea…Next up is ‘The Great Game’….}

After nightfall the first evening, my host and his friend came into my room for dinner on my floor. We ate some plov (rice and meat) and were able to discuss a variety of subjects. My host’s friend: a scruffy looking 55 year old with a shadowy beard and a scull cap, is the German teacher at the local school, he also speaks almost fluent English. He was a great guy; we discussed the Uzbek-Kyrgyz conflict that took place in Osh and Ozgun in 1990-1991.

He said the violence in the region had erupted because life was no longer being controlled and regulated by the Russians. Essentially old Kyrgyz-Uzbek tensions were released because “the teacher had left the room”………..and the students were now left to scuffle without consequence. Most of the fighting was over land and hundreds of people died during the conflicts.

I suppose the hostility and fighting was inevitable….the border of Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan is ludicrous. Stalin’s attempt to geographically split up the clans of this region into two separate nations resulted in a border that looks like interlocking fingers. …… The plan failed to a certain extent because it was impossible to geographically split up the clans without some clans ending up in the wrong country. This is why cities such as Osh have an enormous Uzbek presence…….and remote villages like Arslenbab are over 98% Uzbek.

3-14-2008

I have really enjoyed Arslenbab so far, the small village is situated at the base of a beautiful mountain range, and is cut in half by a shallow river. Walking through the steep muddy streets men greet each other with warm handshakes and smiles while saying “Asalaam Ahalikum” (peace be with you in Arabic).The bundled up children will never miss an opportunity to say hello and goodbye to you while walking along the village’s muddy roads.

Day 2:

I woke up at around 8:00am and after a bit of tea and a quick breakfast with my host family, I hit the trail. My goal of the day was to hike 3.5 miles up the snowy mountain and reach a 120M waterfall. The CBT guy had told me the previous morning that I needed a guide and snow shoes in order to reach the waterfall. I prefer to hike on my own and at my own pace, which lead to my decision of attempting the waterfall hike solo and without snowshoes. The snow was thick and wet, but the sun was shinning……it was a magnificent day for a hike.

In order to properly plan my ascent, I began by walked around the village and asking locals exactly where the large waterfall was. After I gathered enough general info about it’s whereabouts; I began my hike. I used common sense to find the waterfall; I simply followed the river up stream. This turned out to be a valuable and affective way to gain elevation while avoiding the thick snow. The rocks along the narrow riverbank were bare, which allowed me to gain ground at a solid pace. After about two hours of following the river up stream; I came upon a steep slope that would potentially lead me to the waterfall.
The only problem was that it was covered with waste deep snow. I proceeded to climb (swim) straight up hill and used bushes and trees as a sort of anchor and rope. It was a slow and difficult climb……I slipped and fell several times on my way up, each time tumbling down hill about 20ft before becoming lodged in waste deep snow. The snow hardened around me instantly, and I felt as if my legs were stuck in the snow with suction cups. A couple times I fell at such irregular angles, that I was afraid I would twist my ankle. After several long frightening falls, and a few nearly vertical climbs up rocky cliffs; I made it to the top.

I had climbed to a small cluster of trees about 60M above the waterfall. It was a beautiful view; I was sitting at the edge of a 50M cliff and peering down into a mostly vertical canyon. I pulled out my lunch of chocolate cookies and dried fruits while enjoying a bit of rest and rejuvenation.

My view of the surrounding mountains was spectacular; it made the last hour and a half of climbing up steep hillside and deep snow well worth it. I was soaked almost up to my waste from melting snow, and my boots were about as waterlogged as they could possibly be………but it was warm, sunny and I was on top of the world.

As I was packing up my things and getting ready for my decent, I carelessly stepped on a snowy mud patch and slipped about 8ft down toward the edge of a 50M cliff. I was able to stop myself about 4 feet from the edge.

I have not had a close call like that for ages, I was genuinely terrified. Fear and adrenaline kept me in stationary almost comatosed contemplation for the next 30 minutes. I was much more cautious from that moment on.
Going down the hill was a piece of cake; I practically swam down the hill. I was soaking wet already, so more wet snow up my pant leg was hardly bothersome.

After the 3hr hike back to my room; I washed my clothes in a bucket, set them out to dry, and then proceeded to take a well deserved 2 hr nap.

3-15-2008

I woke up to boots that were still soaking wet and my legs feeling like lead. After a bit of hazy contemplation I decided to take it easy. I watched Indiana Jones in Russian and later went on a short hike to a nearby cliff. While sitting on the edge of the cliff; I read and listened to music for about 4 hours as I overlooked the magical mountain village of Arslenbab.

3-16-2008

I woke up refreshed, had quick breakfast with my host family, said a few words of farewell, then hiked down to the main road and caught a shared taxi to Bazaar Korgon.

After arriving in Bazaar Korgon I was forced to bargain with a cab driver for about an hour before I could get a decent price for a shared taxi for Karakol. The two hour drive to Karakol was absolutely breathtaking; snow peaked mountains, jagged hills, rocky multicolored cliffs, massive canyons, and a vibrantly glowing green-blue river that led to a large reservoir.

-Jumping ahead a bit…….I will say that the drive from Bazaar Korgon to Bishkek has the most beautiful scenery I have ever seen.

I arrived in Karakol about 2.5 hours later and was a bit surprised at what I found. Instead of arriving at a vibrant town of 65,000 inhabitants; I found a dirty, desolate, mountain town of less than 15,000 inhabitants. I was confused…………I walked around the main road with a small map asking locals if they were able to help me find our location on the map. After many strange looks, and a lot of confusion, I figured out what had happened. I was in the wrong Karakol…….the other Karakol was on the other side of the country and situated on the edge of Lake Issykul.

Once I had come to the realization that I was far from anywhere, I decided to make my way all the way to Bishkek. Within 30 minutes I was able to flag down a bus to Toktogol (about 100km north). I arrived in the small town of Toktogol about 1.5 hours later. I quickly realized that my transport and lodging options were severely limited in Toktogol. This resulted in me standing on the edge of the road with my thumb in the air hoping to catch a ride 300km north-east to Bishkek.

The first hour consisted of nothing more than blank stares and curious faces. It began to get dark, so while standing on the edge of the road I began to scope out possible crash pads. Behind me was a white abandoned shack with broken windows and a visibly stable roof…………that would be my contingency plan.

I waited just under 2 hours before a black Audi pulled up and agreed to take me into Bishkek. The guy drove like a maniac, but got us through the two mountain passes and into Bishkek in record time. I arrived in Bishkek at around 10:30pm……and quickly met up with my hosts Nick and Jessica.

My hosts were great, Jessica is a warm, adventurous American girl, and Nick is an intelligent humorous Britt. They both teach English in Bishkek.

Bishkek: Big, Ugly, Soviet blocks, lots of Russians.

3-20-2008

After a bit of R&R in Bishkek, I took a bus to the town of Cholpan Ata on Lake Issykul. I met up with a crew of PCVs and enjoyed some great dialogue and a taste of Russian malt liquor known as ‘Baltica 9’.

3-21-2008

I had been looking forward to this day for months! March 21st is Narus, which is the Islamic New Year. Narus is the biggest and most fascinating holiday in Central Asia. And I was in the perfect location to enjoy it in style.

We headed to the airport (a concrete strip of road surrounded by fields) at around 11am. The local airport was the central point for Narus celebration in Cholpan ata. About a dozen yurts were set up by locals, and a large stage hosted a variety of performances throughout the day.

{a yurt is the Central Asian version of the Indian TP)

We began the celebration by visiting a series of yurts owned by friends of the PCVs I was accompanied with. Each yurt contained a U shaped floor table filled with all varieties of Kyrgyz cuisine.

We were treated like honored quests as we consumed mass quantities of fermented millet, horse meat, black tea, and various other traditional Kyrgyz dishes. Our hosts were warm and hospitable, with smiles that were genuine and welcoming.

I had never been in a yurt before, and was amazed at how unique and beautifully decorated they were.

Onto the main event………………….

Ulak-Tartish or Pull-Goat: also known in Central Asia as Buzkashi, is the single most awesome sport known to man.

I have been dreaming about watching this game for months……..and at last the time had come.

How it is played:

Two round alters are placed about 100yds apart. They are about 7ft wide and 4 feet high, with a shallow whole in the middle.
-Two teams of about 5 horsemen line up in the middle of the field between the two alters.
-The ball: A furry 100lb goat is killed about 15 minutes before the game starts. The head is chopped off, and so are half of all four limbs.
-The goat carcass is placed in the middle of the two goals about 50 meters away from the horsemen.
-The men are then signaled to begin, and they charge the dead goat, and try and pick it up.
-They use their horses and body’s as weapons as they wrestle for the goat, and try and take the carcass to the alter and drop it on top for a point.
- The game has the look and atmosphere of rugby on horses, the men who play this game are tough as nails, and are often bloodied and injured by the brut violence and intensity of the game.
-Many men(players) wear soviet era tank helmets to prevent head injuries.

I loved it! It was fast, aggressive and savagely violent. The amount of power, toughness, and equestrian skills it takes to play this game is astonishing.

During the game I witnessed a high speed fall that resulted in a brutal trampling and a powerful horse kick to the guys back. He stood up like a cowboy……in obvious pain, but unwilling to display it to the crowd. Within minutes he was back on his horse and fighting for the goat carcass.

Watching Buzkashi was the highlight of my Central Asian adventure. It is a sport that I will most likely never see again. I feel quite lucky to have had the rare opportunity to witness this incredible sport while in Kyrgyzstan. The sport has been around since the time of Genghis Khan. It has been said that the sport originally was played with human corpses, and was used as a battle exercise for soldiers. I am not sure I would have enjoyed the sport quite as much if it were played with a human corpse.

3-23-2008

Well it is a double holiday, both my birthday and Easter Sunday.

I took an early bus to Karakol (the real one) and met up with a crew of locals and PCVs for a bit of an Easter celebration. We all tossed money down on a 5 month old lamb and slaughtered it for a feast. A PCV named Karina (future med student) slaughtered the animal by slitting its throat over a plastic bucket. I had to turn away…….I don’t really have the stomach for that sort of thing.

The feast was great, even though I am not a huge fan of lamb; the meat was deliciously seasoned and turned out pretty good.

Overall the day was mediocre……..I would have preferred to spend my birthday and Easter with my extended family, or some friends from America…..but such is life on the road.

Wow I am getting old……26……I am beginning to feel a bit pathetic. I am 26 years old and have absolutely zero material possessions and am unemployed. I can’t help but compare myself to friends of mine who have graduate degrees, fiancés, and own their own home. I have absolutely no regrets about my life choices thus far, however I find it difficult to avoid the gravitational pull of the American dream. It is a challenging to take the path less traveled, while feeling equal to those who are successfully living the American dream.

I have no genuine fear of failure, and have lofty goals for my future, however I find it impossilbe to ignore the fact that most of my peers are enjoying successful relationships and well established careers. Here I am dinking around in Asia, I have not worked a day in 6 months, and will soon return to the USA penniless, homeless, and jobless at age 26.…Well,….this blog is running a bit long, so I will stop thinking aloud.

4-1-2008

I am currently back in Jalalabad, I really enjoy the people here so I decided to use Jalalabad as my last hub before heading to China. I have spent the last couple days planning the next leg of my journey and trying to piece together this Kyrgyzstan blog. A lot has happened in the last month, so I apologize if this blog appears to be hastily written and is generally unreadable. I find it to be an enormous challenge to adequately describe the things surrounding me and the thoughts consuming my mind.

I have decided that I will head to Osh next, where I will try and hitchhike to Sary Tash. Sary Tash is the last town before the Chinese border. It is also technically a town in Tajikistan, but from what I am told a Tajik visa is not necessary. From Sary Tash I will wake up early and hitch hike into China to a town called Kashgar. From Kashgar I will take the less traveled lower Silk Road route. Instead of the easy route: 2 day train ride to Uramqi from Kashgar, then a 2 day train ride from Uramgi to Beijing. I will travel around the southern side of the Taklamakan Desert before heading North-East to Beijing.

I am relieved to get out of Central Asia without any dangerous encounters with the locals. Kyrgyzstan in particular is not the safest country in Central Asia. Things are relatively safe during the day, but can be quite dangerous at night. Gangs of drunks, and young Kyrgyz thugs often assault and rob foreigners during late hours of the day. I know a PCV in Karakol who has been beaten and robbed twice while walking home after dark. I will admit that I was a bit paranoid as I walked through dark roads at 10:30pm in Karakol. A few nights ago, I had to walk 2 miles along dark streets to the Karakol bus station in order to catch an 11pm bus;……the entire time I feared I would be a victim of an attack. Anyways,……I will conclude that Kyrgyzstan is quite safe, but walking around in Kyrgyzstan after dark is never a good idea.

OK……Sorry………I will not write another word. I miss you all, and I look forward to coming home this summer. Congrats to my close friend Ryan Schrenzel for tying the knot. I am sorry I was not there buddy.
Over and out,
Trevor
Here are a few Photos:

Bazaar Korgon Cock-Fights:

Bazaar Korgon:
Me and Lenin-

Akman (Meghan’s village):

Meghan’s yard:

Arslenbab:
Village gas station-

Small waterfall-

Cliff overlooking the village-

Village kids-

The hike to the large waterfall-

Lunch above the large waterfall-

Large waterfall-

Too much sun on my hike-

Pit stop in Toktogol:

Cholpon Ata and Narus:
Rock drawing 800BC-

Yurt-

Getting ready to cleans their faces-

Outside Narus:

Kyrgyz vulture, trying to get a bit of marrow-

Too much booze-

Pregame Buzkashi:

The real deal-

-From Uzbekistan to Kyrgyzstan-

2008-03-16T23:41:00.000-07:00

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-