Journey to the Jailoo

July 16, 2008

Sometimes I complain about how small my salary is; other times I worry that coming to Kyrgyzstan knowing how small my salary would be was a terrible mistake. But then I have weekends like this past one which I wouldn’t trade for any amount of money, and I know that I made the right decision when I decided to move to Kyrgyzstan.

Last Friday after work, K, B, J and I piled into our boss’s van, although she wasn’t there; we were in the company of her husband and son. We were driven eastward to Kara-Koo, the small village on Lake Issyk-Kul’s southern shore where we stayed both last month and in February. We arrived late and went straight to bed, and awoke bright and early the next morning, setting off without even having breakfast. We drove south from Kara-Koo, and wound our way over the mountains and into the valley below. We drove through several villages, and then began making our way slowly into the mountains.

Our destination was the jailoo (pronounced jai-low), or the high mountain pastures where the Kyrgyz traditionally spend their summers. Navigating the “road” (more like a vague, rock-strewn path leading up the mountainside) to the jailoo was difficult for the van, and it took us quite a while to reach our destination… but it was definitely worth it. Our boss and her daughter as well as a school staff member and her two children were waiting for us outside their yurt. Additionally, they had spread a large blanket next to the yurt, and on it was spread a gargantuan picnic, enough to make up for our lack of breakfast.

The day was perfect. Prior to our departure from Bishkek, our boss had called to tell us to bring warm clothes and rain gear, as it had been cold and rainy all week. However, we were greeted by perfect blue skies and ideal temperatures. From our breakfast blanket, we could look out across the jailoo, dotted with livestock, to the valley below. Beyond the valley, behind a small rise of mountains, we could even see the glistening blue waters of Lake Issyk-Kul. Paradise.

While we were breaking our fast, an elderly couple, distant relatives of our boss who reside nearby, ambled over. The man was 87 and the woman was 78. They both continue to live in the jailoo and care for livestock as they have for all of their lives. They invited us to come with them to watch them milk their horses and prepare kumis, a traditional Kyrgyz beverage made from fermented mare’s milk. They care for a small herd of horses, and had perhaps 20 mares and at least 10 foals. The man would lead a foal to its mother and allow it to nurse briefly. Then, as he led the foal away, the woman would begin milking the mare. They did this with every mare/foal pair, then invited us to their home to sample the kumis. The fresh milk was added to a large barrel of kumis, then stirred briskly. We were each poured a small bowl of kumis. The milk tasted sour, and had a smoky taste from the barrel. It was good, but difficult for us to drink quickly. Meanwhile, the man had an incredibly large bowl of kumis which he chugged in one gulp.

We returned to “our” yurt, and found that horses had been rounded up for our ride. Kumar, our boss’s son, rode the head stallion of the herd we’d just seen milked, while the rest of us were given horses rented from Kul-Tur, the nearest village in the valley below. I was quite pleased with my horse (although I would’ve much preferred the beautiful and spunky stallion) as he was both energetic and well-behaved. I felt quite comfortable riding him. B also had a pretty good horse. K’s horse was sluggish, while J’s was just plain lazy. Plus, I swear these were the gassiest horses in Kyrgyzstan. As mature as we all pretend to be, we couldn’t help laughing; a seven hour trek and these beasts were just as gassy at the end as they were at the beginning!

We rode up a steep valley lining a small stream, zig-zagging back and forth to make the journey easier on the horses. After about three hours, we reached a high point, with an incredible view of the valley. There we dismounted and unpacked our stellar picnic. We ate and then had a pleasant nap before saddling back up and continuing to head upwards towards Sunken Pass.

For most of our trek, we were not following any recognizable path (although occasionally a well-worn track would appear out of the weeds only to vanish again); however, as we neared Sunken Pass, the “path” widened to the point that it almost looked like a road! We reached the top of the pass and the view of the next valley was stunning. We all wished that we had time to continue on, instead of returning back the way we came. But, we had to get back. After four more hours in the saddle, zig-zagging our way back down the mountain, we returned to the yurt.

After a delicious dinner, eaten while watching the sun set through the yurt’s door, we quickly made preparations for bed. B and J were given a tent, although K and I got to sleep in the yurt with everyone else. The yurt had a stove inside (fueled by wood and dried manure) which meant that even though the temperature dropped rapidly outside once the sun set, we remained warm and cozy all night.

In the morning, the plan had been for us to go hiking; however, this was hampered by two things: we were all incredibly sore from having spent seven hours in the saddle, and the weather was overcast and chilly. We went on a short hike, but were relieved to return to the yurt to relax.

After lunch (this time joined again by the elderly couple as well as by a middle-aged couple who were also living nearby) we packed up our things and piled back into the van. By the time we reached the valley floor, the jailoo was already masked from view by rain.

The plan had been to stop at Issyk-Kul for a brief swim before starting our journey home, but the weather had turned cold and rainy, so that was not to be. Instead, we took some shivery photos of the lake then popped back into the van for the trip home.

Issyk-Kul, Tuz-Kul and Barskoon

June 18, 2008

Last weekend I went out of town, which accounts for the lack of recent blog-posts around here. My boss took me, K, Young B and J as well as two ladies who are studying Russian at the school to the southern shore of Lake Issyk Kul for the weekend. We left on Friday night, and drove to the small village of Kara-Koo (pronounced Kara-Koh), where we had stayed back in February. In case you don't remember, Kara-Koo is where my boss's husband is from, and where his brothers and mother still live, and we stayed at their house. We arrived late in the evening, and after our hosts plied us with tea and fried breads smothered in jam, we went to sleep.

The next morning, after a hearty Kyrgyz breakfast, we set off for the village of Barskoon (pronounced Bars-kone), which is located about two hours east of Kara-Koo. Barskoon is unfortunately known for its close proximity to the Kumtor gold mine, which in 1998 spilled two tons of cyanide into the Barskoon river, killing hundreds, injuring thousands and causing the worst pollution event in Lake Issyk Kul's history. (You can read more about that here.) The Barskoon waterfall is located halfway up the side of a mountain on the left side of the road, roughly midway between the village of Barskoon and the Kumtor gold mine.

At the side of the road at the spot where the waterfall first comes into view is a bust of Yuri Gagarin. Legend has it that as he was being rocketed into space on the first ever manned spaceflight, Gagarin looked out of his space capsule and saw this waterfall. Apparently he was so impressed by what he saw, that after returning to earth, he came to see it on vacation. As such there are two monuments to Gagarin at this site. One is fairly new and in good condition. The other, erected by the Soviets, has been thoroughly defaced over the years.

(You can see the waterfall to the left of Gagarin's neck...)

From here we began our hike up into the mountains. That waterfall might not look all that far up there, but let me tell you, getting there was strenuous work. There are three main cataracts to this waterfall, and our first goal was (obviously) the lowest one. While the trek to the lowest falls is fairly steep, it isn't that great of a distance and it was certainly well worth the view.

Back to front: The two students, J, K, B, me

After the first cataract, the climb got considerably steeper, and our pace grew considerably slower. One of the students didn't make it the whole way to the top, and B, the other student, and I seriously considered wimping out. However, J and K forged ahead and soon came back to tell us that we had collapsed a mere five minutes from the view of the second cataract. So, we dragged our exhausted selves further along the trail to a pleasant view at the base of the second falls. We didn't try for the third.

The view was actually quite spectacular, not that you can tell from this photo. It was difficult to get a decent photo without falling into the river. Plus the sun was directly behind the falls at that point. Sigh...

After basking in the cool spray of the falls for a while, we began our trek back down the mountain, which was much easier than the trek up! We soon arrived back at the base of the mountain, where our boss and her family had prepared a wonderful picnic for us, with tons of delicious shashlik and homemade bread. Heaven!

After lunch, we began our drive back to Kara-Koo. Along the way we stopped twice: once to check out this bizarre thing under construction at the side of the road. Apparently it's supposed to be a gigantic tourist resort which allegedly will hold 7000 people and is themed after the legendary Kyrgyz hero Manas (wikipedia). Currently all that's there is a very long wall painted with curious murals and topped with bizarre statues. If you peer through the cracks in the unfinished wall, you will see that there's nothing on the other side. We also stopped to swim a little bit in the famed Issyk Kul itself. Issyk Kul means "hot lake" in Kyrgyz, but that water was frigid. As a native Floridian, I didn't spend much time in there.

A giant mural to a manaschi, or Manas story teller, at that bizarre place on the side of the road.

Our swimming spot on the southern shore of Issyk Kul.

That evening we returned to Kara-Koo for an evening of scrumptious food and singing (as in February), and we went to bed fairly early.

My boss and her in-laws

The next morning, we went first to visit a local family known in the Kara-Koo vicinity for making yurts and other traditional handicrafts. The quality of these items was really incredible, and I would love to buy a yurt (the smallest size, a 4 person yurt, costs $1000), but not only do I not have an extra grand lying around, but I suspect a yurt would simply grow moldy in the humidity of the American southeast!

Afterwards, we drove about an hour to Tuz-Kul (which means salt lake in Kyrgyz). The lake, while not as salty as the Dead Sea was still very salty, and we were incredibly buoyant and left thoroughly encrusted in salt.

Tuz-Kul

Despite allegedly being a "dead" lake on account of the salt, we discovered that Tuz-Kul was teeming with these things, which we christened Primordial Fish Things, but which are apparently Kyrgyz sea-monkeys.

Look! We're floating!

After leaving Tuz-Kul we headed back to the nearby shore of Issyk Kul in order to wash off the salt. However, while the comparatively small Tuz Kul had been relatively warm, Issyk Kul was frigid, and I simply couldn't bring myself to get in. I did take photos though.

This was J's reaction to the water. Seriously, would you get in after seeing that?

 
While the northern shore of Issyk Kul is filled with tourists this time of year, the southern shore is un-developed and tourist-free.

A weekend at Lake Issyk Kul

February 20, 2008

Last weekend my boss, Kendje, and her husband, Bayan took me, as well as K and A and H their host daughter to Lake Issyk Kul. It was an incredible trip.

If you look at any map of Kyrgyzstan, you will see a large lake in the north-eastern quadrant of the country. This is Lake Issyk Kul. At around 10:00 on Saturday morning, Kendje, Bayan, their daughter Aishyola, H, A, K and I loaded into the van and began the roughly four-hour long journey. We headed eastward along the same road we’d previously taken on our trip to Burana Tower, although obviously we continued on much farther this time. After about two hours, we stopped at the bank of the Chuy River at the base of the mountains for lunch. The weather was chilly, but the sky was a brilliant blue, and the land surrounding the river was spotless save for brilliant white snow. We dined on chicken, cheese and eggs while drinking hot tea and nursing shots of vodka, then we continued onward.

This is where we stopped for lunch.You can see our tire tracks to the right, where we drove down from the main road.

After lunch, our van began to wind its way up into the mountains. Soon we stopped at a monument on a brown hillside, overlooking the steep valley from which the Chuy River descended. The monument was to Kyrgyz people massacred by the Russians in 1916, as depicted on a moving relief.

This is the monument to the massacres of 1916 as seen from the highway.

After exploring the area surrounding the monument, we got back into the van and ascended even higher into the mountains. Near the top of the mountain pass we stopped again. At the side of the road was a natural mountain spring, considered sacred by the local people. Numerous prayer rags had been tied to surrounding trees, and nearly every car stopped, the passengers disembarking to drink, wash, and pray. The spring was guarded by a sad dog – one who had obviously given birth recently, although sadly it didn’t look as though she had been suckled in a while – who sat patiently, awaiting hand outs.

A passerby washes and prays in the sacred spring

After leaving the spring, we began our descent out of the mountains, toward the lakeside village of Balykchy, the western-most village on the shores of Lake Issyk Kul. Issyk Kul translates to “hot lake” although the waters were certainly not hot; at Balykchy, the lake was actually frozen. Apparently, this is the first time in recorded history that so much of the lake has frozen, on account of this also being the coldest winter in recorded history. How is it that a native southerner like myself managed to land in Russia during their coldest winter in decades, and then repeated the process here in Central Asia? Sigh. Anyway, this part of the trip reminded me a lot of my trip to Siberia’s Lake Baikal, as we all walked out onto to ice.

Our first view of the frozen part of Issyk Kul at Balykchy

K dances on the ice at Balykchy

When we left Balykchy, we all needed to use the bathroom. Unfortunately, while the lake is a popular tourist destination in summer, there were no facilities available for us to use at this time of year. Now, I’m not opposed to going au naturale, but the area was quite devoid of trees big enough to squat behind. So, we got back in the van and continued off along the southern shore of the lake in search of a nice place for a pit stop. The further eastward we drove, the narrower the road became. Additionally, obstacles such as cows, sheep and horses became much more common!

Highway obstacles: sheep, cows and horses

Soon we arrived at a spot with decent enough ground cover for a pit-stop, which also happened to have excellent scenery:

I loved this view of the cows with the tree and the lake in the background.

After relieving ourselves, we once more packed into the van and drove even further eastward. We arrived at a fairly new monument commemorating (I think...) Manas, the national hero of Kyrgyzstan.

Possible monument to Manas

Next to the monument to Manas was a traditional Kyrgyz Islamic cemetery. Now, I *love* cemeteries in general, and the cemeteries here are particularly fascinating to me simply because they are so very different from cemeteries back home. Just take a look:

Many of the graves were covered with yurt-shaped monuments.

After exploring the cemetery, we backtracked about a kilometer or so to our final destination: the small village of Karakoo. (It’s pronounced Kara-koh, and is not to be confused with the city Karakol on the eastern edge of Issyk Kul.) Karakoo is the city where Bayan was born, and we stayed in the house of his 85 year old mother, his younger brother and his family.

This shot was taken from the rear of the property near the outhouse (a pit squatter, of course). The house is on the left, with barns and sheds on the right.

The time we spent at their home was simply fantastic. We ate nearly continuously, from a sumptuous table laden with delicious Kyrgyz dishes.

Yum!

After our main course, Aishyola (Kendje’s daughter) and her Karakoo cousins performed what I can only describe as a variety show for us: singing, dancing and theater, complete with costumes. I have one photo below, but the photos really don’t do this event justice.

After the children were finished performing, it was time for everyone to sing. Singing is something that is definitely missing from American culture outside of religious gatherings, and that’s really too bad. The tradition (of this family at least) was to make a bowl of nasty water (containing hot red pepper, salt, oil, and table scraps) which would be passed from one person to another. When you’re handed the bowl, you’re given a choice: you must either sing, or you must drink the whole thing. Obviously, we all sang, although unfortunately none of us on the American half of the gathering was particularly skilled in this area. In addition, we had a hell of a hard time coming up with songs that were singable which we all knew. Meanwhile, not only could all of our Kyrgyz hosts sing well, but everyone of them joined in with nearly every Kyrgyz song..

After singing and chatting until around 10:00, we retired to our respective bedrooms for the night. In the morning, I explored the small farm where Bayan’s family lived. They raised sheep and chickens, so there were plenty around to photograph. They also own a dog named Rex who is super awesome and utterly adorable.

After breakfast, we piled back into the van again and drove southward from Karakoo. We arrived at a place with some special stones. Allegedly, the largest of these stones was once carried by the Kygyz hero Manas. Currently, it is tradition for local young men to attempt to lift as many of these stones as possible, beginning with the lightest and stopping with whichever one is too heavy for them to hoist. A successfully lifted three, and then we convinced him not to try any further, so as not to throw out his back or anything.

A proves his manhood. Meanwhile, the gigantic stone on the left is the one allegedly hefted by Manas.

Next to these special stones are the graves of forty martyrs, killed by the Russians in 1916. Apparently these forty men sent the rest of their village eastward through the valley, while they stayed behind to fight. They were surrounded and slaughtered, but the Russians didn’t pursue the remainder of the villagers. The view of the valley from the martyrs’ graves is spectacular.

The view from atop the hill where the graves of the forty martyrs lie.

Not far from the graves of the forty martyrs sit the ghost town-like remains of a kolkhoz, or collective farm, which was destroyed following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Today what remains of the farm is overrun by cows and sheep, herded by local shepherds.

Ghost town kolkhoz

The kolkhoz sits at the base of some small mountains (or large hills, depending), and from the top of these small hills one can see a splendid view of yet another valley. One of the small villages in this valley is where Kendje was born. She wanted to take us there, but unfortunately, the roads were too icy.

View from atop the "small mountain" behind the kolkhoz. China lies behind those mountains.

At the site of the former kolkhoz, we met a local man who rode up on a horse. He spoke with us for a while. It turned out that he knew both of Bayan’s parents, and had been a student of Bayan’s mother!

H, shepherd, A, me and K

After leaving the site of the kolkhoz, we drove back to the shore of Lake Issyk Kul. There I was able to ride a horse – just around a field, so not very far. This was the calmest (or perhaps laziest) horse I have ever ridden, and it took quite an effort to get him to even trot, although I did manage to pull that off. I think it would take an act of god to make the thing canter!

Me, riding the world's laziest horse

We walked along the shore of the beach, which was utterly breathtaking: sparkly blue water below a bright blue sky dotted with puffy white clouds. In the distance we could barely make out the mountains ringing the northern shore of the lake. A was the only one brave enough to venture into the lake itself. I stuck my fingers in and figured there was no way I was going to join him!

Oh, gorgeous Issyk-Kul!

A braves the frigid waters of the lake

After exploring the shore of Issyk Kul, we drove back to Karakoo for one last meal, then packed ourselves back into the van for the journey back to Bishkek. The weekend was simply wonderful: relaxing with great people while eating delicious food and enjoying beautiful scenery and breathing clean air... life doesn’t get much better.