I met my match in Kyrgyzstan, as I got lip to glass with a beverage even I could not drink. It seems only yesterday I was riding an Akhal Teke horse in Ashgebad, yet we have crossed all the “stans” and tomorrow we enter China. It’s high time I sent out some wordshots (as opposed to snapshots), culled from the images swirling in my head. And before I forget, SEE BOTTOM OF THIS DISPATCH FOR A CONTEST!!!!
In the western “‘stans” of Turkmen and Uzbeks, the land is dry and the cotton is picked by hand, backs bent in the fields, women, men, boys, girls dragging bulging sacks, dumping white cotton bolls into rusty high-walled carts attached to blue old-style tractors from Belarus.
Black turkeys gobble along the highway median, pecking at stray bits of straw blown off passing pickup trucks overladen with small bales of hay.
Roadside stands in front of homes in Uzbekistan sell green apples pyramided into red plastic pails. They line the road and I wonder how one chooses between one pail and another.
A pregnant dromedary saunters across the highway in front of us, her belly bulging, begging the question why move from one side of the desert to the other.
Below yellow and pearl grey hills we slide through hamlets of mud brick houses, some with a trellised veranda deeply shaded by leafy vines sagging with ripe bunches of green grapes. In these places, time still moves at foot or donkey pace. Down a long alley, three bearded elders flap down the road in long open coats, hands clasped behind their back, black leather caps embroidered with white curlicues snug on their balding heads.
We have left behind the honey sweet yellow figs of Turkey and Iran, their red flesh so lush and lascivious, and now have blushing rosy peaches, brilliant apricots and tiny pale-fleshed nectarines. As we move further east crisp mild green pears appear, keeping company to the yellow and red apples that now pose next to those green ones, in blue pails as well as red.
At the Afghan border there is a sign for those wishing to walk into the Wakhan, advising the rate and weight limits for assistance, as follows:
Yak 70kg 800AFG
Horse 70kg 800AFG
Donkey 35kg 400AFG
Person 35kg 400AFG
So a donkey and a human are equal in capacity. Furthermore, the sign urges people to rent donkeys, not just yaks or horses, so that even the poor families who cannot afford to keep a horse can benefit from the work.
In the High Pamirs, along the Pamir Highway, the rivers are sapphire and emerald with rapids of white frosting, spanned only occasionally by a pedestrian bridge made of slats wired together and secured on either end by rocks and old cables. In the not-so-far distance, 20,000’ peaks are covered with the first deep snow of a coming winter.
We pull off the road where two trucks are parked, so I can inspect one of the local war dogs, so named because they guard the herds and fight off wolves, and also are set to fighting each other. This one is a massive mastiff, his black-tipped beige coat matted, his leonine black head ignoring me, though I can see immediately that one side is caked with old blood and the eye on that side is winking shut.
This is the White Fish Cafe and it serves small white fish, sauteed so crisp we can tear it apart with our fingers and crunch into it, swallowing delicate bones and sweet flesh. Three tureens of yak yogurt topped with a skiff of orange butter fat are curing on the stove in the low-ceilinged room where we sit on the floor on red woven carpets. A big bowl is brought for us, along with a china pot of tea. The yak yogurt is sumptuously rich and when plied with sugar, makes an excellent dessert. However, the cushions around us smell of too many stinky feet and sweaty bottoms—or vice versa—so we do not linger longer than it takes to devour four fish, a flat round of local foccacia-like bread and many spoonfuls from the yogurt bowl.
In Murghab, a town created and then abandoned by the Soviets, we fill Brunhilde’s tank with diesel poured from a bucket. She swallows 5 bucketfuls…a thirsty girl.
We stay at a homestay on Qarakul, Tajikistan’s largest lake, a deep blue splash on an endless flat brown plain at 13,000 feet. When we pull in, the mountains beyond are curtained in heavy clouds. The entrance to the home is wonderfully warm and we slouch on cushions and carpets strewn around the raised platform across from the stove. Our host brings us small bowls with handmade steamed noodle dumplings filled with potatoes. We tear chunks of bread and dip it in the local honey and a surprise bowl of strawberry jam.
Before dark their new shower cubicle is hot enough to use: a 6×8 concrete hut with a dung-burning stove above which is welded a 10-gallon tank with a spigot. The stove has heated the room and it’s a delight to strip down, fill a small pot with scalding water, splash some cold water from a bucket into it till the temperature is perfect, and pour the resulting mix down my front and my back. Every once in a while I splash water onto the stove which releases a burst of steam. II’s a bath, a shower, a sauna and a steam room. A generator keeps a bulb bright till 8:00 then it’s literally lights out. We sleep on piles of futons on the floor with flowered quilts thrown over us. In the morning, the clouds are lifted, revealing sparkling white peaks all around.
CONTEST: Send me an email dinaxyz@gmail.com naming the currency of each country I am traveling through, as well as which country (or two countries?) has two currencies and what they are. Bonus points to anyone who swears they did not use a computer to find the answer, but talked to people instead, as that’s what travel is all about: meeting and talking to people.
PRIZE: Your own starter pack of currency from each country plus a secret surprise.
