Tracking a Megan

Could it be? There’s new maps up! Okay, the Mongolian flag sucks and there’s no data for NW China or Kyrgyz but it’s something. If it makes you feel any better, I took a ton of souvenir and sketchbook photos for the relevent sections but haven’t gotten around to writing the code and resizing the images yet. It’s coming eventually.

A Look at Kyrgyzstan

I know this is going to shock you all… but there’s new photos up! I finally found a good internet connection in Bukhara and just spent three hours working on the site for you guys instead of siteseeing. I’ve gone on to post about Uzbekistan but am working on some stories about Kyrgyzstan for you as well. Check out the two new galleries (Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan) here.

It’s funny because when I was walking around for more than an hour looking for a hotel last night with 40 pounds on my back I was trying to figure out what was making my bag so heavy. When it comes down to it, my beloved 4lb iBook is the heaviest thing in my bag followed by my camera, my other camera and all of the assorted cords, plugs and adaptors. Every time someone tries to pick up my bag for me I try to warn them but they’re always a little shocked (that it’s so heavy and that I can carry it). In any case, all of those things are what make this site possible. There’s no way I would have time to sit down and write entries or organize images without my computer.

My iBook also helps me to feel a bit more connected to my other life back home. As a designer I actually really enjoy sitting down and drawing the maps for this site in Illustrator as much as sitting outside and drinking a beer or going to a tourist show. On that front I’ve started to feel a strange uneasyness lately and I’ve realized that it’s my body telling me it’s time for the fall TV season to start. I’m already going through withdrawl not knowing what’s going to happen on all of my shows. If course, I went through the same thing during Phase 1 and I’m sure my friends back home can keep me in the loop until I can catch up when I get back home.

Biding Time in Bishkek

My embassy outing yesterday did not go well. When I arrived my interpreter, Nargiza, talked to the guards who didn’t know if the consulate was coming to work or not. After some phone calls it was determined that he was at a conference and wouldn’t be in. We helped two other travelers, a Japanese guy and a British girl who was flying out the next morning at 7am. The appropriate word is “was” because she had no visa and no hope of getting on for days.

Nargiza called the embassy from the guards phone and made an appointment for me to come in on the 31st, two days later. We thought this was strange because the 31st is a Kyrgyz holiday so, although we will try, we’re not hopeful things will work out. Everything’s up in the air until then.

In brighter news, this morning I got the first two rolls out of the bread man’s oven and it was still steaming inside when I put chocolate and bananas on it for breakfast. Two newly arrived travelers from my guesthouse went to get an Uzbek visa. I actually asked them on the street (I was waiting for the bread) if they needed help because they were standing around looking at a guidebook. They dismissed me so I left them alone. I could have told them it was pointless to go to the embassy (because it’s closed) and to go to the embassy without a translator. But they were pretty firm in refusing my help so I’ll let them figure it out themselves.

I’ve been walking around town for the past few days looking for thermal underwear, a disposable camera and a sketchbook. I have given up on the sketchbook and bought blank paper. Finding something without lines or a grid was a feat in itself. I bought thread yesterday to repair my pants and will use that to bind a book myself. I saw some guys with papercutters in the “mall” in the underpass so they may come in useful. Today I found a fancy mall on the far South side of the city with a movie theater, food court and disposable cameras. I have been keeping my eye out for one since China and was starting to give up. All of the stores in Bishkek are having their summer sales so thermals aren’t quite in season, even in the outdoor shops. I have looking in at least five outdoor shops with no luck.

Tomorrow’s the big holiday and I will probably miss the national games in the hippodrome because I will be standing hopefully in front of the Uzbek embassy when they start. I’ve heard about a parade and the town has been decked out in flags and banners so there’s sure to be something worth seeing near the former Lenin Square. I’m always up for a few soldiers marching in unison.

I Am Alive

I’ve spoiled you.

When I was in China and updating every few days I feared that you would get used to it! After a week sleeping in yurts on Song Kul Lake and hiking around Karakol I’ve come back to an inbox full of worried notes from friends, family and strangers. You guys had my sister worked up enough to start inquiring around to see if anyone had heard from me! You see, it has taken me years to train my family not to worry about me and now you’ve worked them up into a frenzy.

I am fine, in Bishkek dealing with a lot of red tape at the moment. My Uzbek LOI (letter of invitation) hadn’t come through the first time I was in Bishkek so I left for the lakes to give it some time to process. I arrived yesterday from Kochkor (where I bought a bright felt carpet) and my LOI was waiting in my inbox. I’ve had people who speak Russian call the Uzbek Embassy twice now to make an apointment for me to apply for my visa but each time I am told to call back the next day. Today it’s closed and I was told that it’s also closed tomorrow for some reason. The Kyrgyz Idependence Day is on the 31st and Uzbek Independence Day is on the 1st so I’m sure to run into some problems if it’s clsoed tomorrow.

The application process for Uzbekistan is really a pain. First you need to obtain a LOI from a travel agency ($37). The you need to call and be put on the waiting list to get into the embassy. When you go to apply you need a Russian interpreter with you to even hand in the application. I haven’t found an interpreter yet but I hope to get someone to help me, because the owner of my guesthouse has turned me down. I have met more than one American who has been denied an Uzbek visa, but no Americans who have even tried applying in Bishkek so I’m not sure what to expect. I also have no idea how much the visa will cost because costs are different for each nationality. I am expecting $100, a Swiss girl I know paid $72 last week.

Once I obtain an Uzbek visa I can pay for and confirm the flights I reserved from Bishkek to Tashkent and then from Tashkent to Nukkus. I don’t want to pay before I get a visa, but I have to pay before the 31st to keep my booking, so you see there’s a tight window this week with all of these holidays. After that I can run over to the Tajik embasy on the South side of town and apply for a visa there. I have been told that they ask for a LOI but if you don’t have one you can bluff your way through it. That visa was $50 for 4 working days processing or $100 for same day for an English guy in my guesthouse—I’m not sure what it will be for an American.

Everything hinges on geting the Uzbek visa tomorrow (or at last resort on Wednesday) for things to fall into place. I’m already spending a great deal of time in Bishkek for no real reason other than to deal with visas. However, Bishkek is the cheapest place in the region for me to stop for a while and my guesthosue is really nice and peaceful. I’ve found a small Chinese supermarket around the corner that sells cold Diet Coke (Diet Coke is hard to find when traveling) and every morning I walk out to Soviet Street to get a coke and a fresh bread roll for breakfast. I’ll keep you updated on the visa situation this week. My Kyrgyz visa lasts until the 7th, but my flight is planned to leave the 6th. I’ll be in Bishkek for a while so no reason to be worrying about me for the next week.

Is There a Doctor in the House?

My headache persisted for more than a week, although I gradually regained movement of my neck. I didn’t want to go to the doctor down in Osh and figured my best bet was to see someone in the capital, Bishkek. Sema put me on a night minibus to Bishkek and we said our goodbyes, but I’m sure to see her again sometime, somewhere. Being Turkish, Sema could communicate (the Kyrgyz language is similar to Turkish) and made sure I got a good seat. She must have said something to the driver because he wouldn’t let me take the bus to my hostel alone. A poor guy from Azerbaijan was stuck escorting me to the hostel and wouldn’t leave my side until he spoke to the hostel owners. As soon as I had my bearings I had begged off, but he had persisted, and ended up becoming my Bishkek stalker—showing up at the hostel over the next month asking the owners if I would date him.

My head was getting better but I had no Tylenol left and didn’t want to chance buying a blood-thinning aspirin at the Russian-speaking pharmacies around town. My first day was spent visiting the Uzbek and Tajik embassies to learn their visa policies. But the Tajik embassy had moved and had been replaced with a Doctors Without Borders office. A doctor was leaving at that very moment and he suggested that even if I was feeling better I should see a doctor.

So I had finally found a reason to use an U.S. Embassy’s services abroad and logged on to their web site for recommended English-speaking doctors in town. The first on the list was easiest to find and within walking distance so I headed to the “VIP Clinic” which turned out to be a typically dilapidated hospital. Before I could see the doctor I was given a bill in triplicate and waited to see the doctor. Instead of an English-speaking doctor I was presented with a teenage interpreter who spoke English as well as I speak Chinese—not well. From her follow-up questions I could tell that she had no idea what I was saying. I didn’t want to spend too much time in the building, which had missing windows and hallways full of nurses in tall paper hats and cloth masks right of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest . They held up x-rays to show that I needed them and I nodded my understanding. Back downstairs in the administration office I was told that x-rays would cost an astronomical price. When I protested (I had learned the Russian word for “no” by now) I was promised that the English-speaking doctor would be back in the afternoon.

There was no English-speaking doctor in the afternoon and when I started to talk myself into getting the x-rays anyway I was told that the doctor I saw in the morning wasn’t around so I would have to see a new doctor and pay another doctor’s fee. That was it. I left in a huff, dismayed that the U.S. Government would recommend such a shoddy practice. On the way back to my hostel I sent an email to the embassy to expect me in the morning. The U.S. has a large military base in Kyrgystan and I figured they would have any facilities I needed.

The next morning, armed with the address and “American Embassy” translated to Russian, I hopped onto a local bus heading to the outskirts of town. The closest bus only came within a mile of the embassy so I walked down the long tree-lined street until I came upon a large gated community straight out of the Southwest USA. Beside it was the embassy and after two searches and an x-ray of all of my belongings I was allowed in. The first woman behind the glass wall asked me to wait and I was soon talking to a typical American man in a business suit. He looked at me and asked if I had contacted my family, because he noticed that my last blog post was from Kashgar. He didn’t want to field worried calls from my mom. I was a little shocked to have been investigated after sending an email the day before. He told me that there were English-speaking doctors in Bishkek, despite my experience, and that the U.S. government’s facilities were not open to U.S. citizens—they couldn’t help me. When I protested he leaned into the glass and whispered “well, this is Kyrgyzstan!”

All the stress and desperation poured out of me and I couldn’t hold back my tears. I had finally reached someone who could help and they wouldn’t. The officer must have felt bad and went back to talk to one of their nurses. She told him that there was one public cat-scan machine in Kyrgyzstan but if I was alive after seven days I was probably going to be okay. So, in the end, my diagnosis was “you’re not dead, so you’re probably okay.” I left the embassy with my permanent amnesia and throbbing head and continued walking all the way into town, lost in my thoughts and feeling let down by the very people I was taught to trust.

Crashing Into Central Asia

There are two passes through the mountains separating Western China and Kyrgyzstan. After a lot of research I decided to take the Southern route from Kashgar, China to Sary Tash (and eventually Osh), Kyrgyzstan. This route gave me the opportunity to see the Southern, less Russian, part of Kyrgyzstan. It’s also a lot cheaper and less complicated, the Northern pass requires permits and expensive pre-arranged transport.

After looking around Kashgar for travel partners I finally found two German girls who had already paid for a ride to the Chinese border. Despite the horrible deal they had negotiated I decided to join them because no one else was heading that was any time soon. With my negotiating skills I could have arranged an entire cab to myself for less than I was paying to join them but I figured it was safer to travel through this remote area with two other people. They agreed to share transport all the way to Sary Tash, a small town at the junction of the only roads leading between China, Tajikistan and Osh.

We left Kashgar before sunrise and stopped along the way to take pictures of the beautiful glowing canyons. When we arrived the Chinese border post was deserted. I popped my head in three rooms before finding an official to help us—apparently they don’t get too much foot traffic coming through. We weren’t allowed to walk to the Kyrgyz border, quiet a far distance. Instead, a border guard stopped the next truck passing through and made him give us a ride. The young Kyrgyz driver didn’t seem overly excited about sharing his cab with us and sat behind the wheel staring vacantly ahead. We crept along the winding mountain road behind a long line of trucks. Once we got to the first Kyrgyz checkpoint the guards informed us they were shutting down for lunch. One of the German girls spoke fluent Russian and managed to persuade him to let us through. We grabbed our bags and jumped into another truck which took us to the immigration and customs checkpoint and border post.

Despite the remote location, the Chinese buildings we left were typically sterile and covered in tile. The Kyrgyz buildings, on the other hand, were small trailers and brick halls covered with rusting tin roofs. Beyond the complex’s chain link fence was a group of thirty dilapidated trailers, spare tires and colorful washing lines. Where the Chinese side had been lifeless and sterile the Kyrgyz side had grown a small village around the border. A man waited just beyond the customs doors with his minivan ready for us. There weren’t many people crossing that day and he wanted to get going. Because of the remoteness and lack of passengers we agreed on $50 to Osh. The other two had a ride meeting them in Sary Tash to take them into Tajikistan so they would only go half way with me. At first the girls wanted me to pay more to make up for them, because they weren’t going as far, but I was having none of that. Whenever I try to travel with people like this I always end up in frustrating situations.

We set off and didn’t make it more than five minutes before the minivan broke down. The owner and male passengers stood around looking at the engine while I enjoyed the beautiful mountain scenery. Someone even shared their bananas with me. It as decided that a part was needed so while the men tied the van to a truck with a thin rope I walked down the road to go to the bathroom. I’m at the point where going outside is preferable to any public toilet I will find. When I got back the Germans ran up to me to say they had managed to get a ride with a passing truck. “Great!” I exclaimed, and then they told me there was no room for me. She assured me that the man had just bought the minivan and was a jeweler, so he was probably good at fixing things and I shouldn’t worry. I asked if, with their Russian, could help me find a ride but they ran off before I could recover from the shock.

Back at the border the men hanging around started taking apart the minivan and carried out one of the benches for me to sit on. Despite the major inconvenience they were very nice people and even spread a towel over the seat so I wouldn’t get dirty. So I sat and read A People’s History of The United States while little kids stared at me and men congregated around the van pretending to know what they were doing. No one spoke English and could tell me how long it would take or what was actually wrong. After some time I began to wander around the shantytown taking photos of the mismatched trailers and colorful characters loitering about. Most people were very excited to have their photo taken and posed proudly for me.

One assertive little girl followed me around, showing me interesting things and gathering people for me to photograph. Her sidekick was a small girl with a plastic bag over her head who was bashful but curious. I asked her to take a photo of me and, despite her size, she wielded me heavy camera with ease. She asked to take more pictures so I placed the strap around her neck and smiled. We walked through the dark alleyways formed by the trailers until we reached a small courtyard. The girl motioned for me to follow her inside up the stack of old tires that formed her house’s front steps. It was dark inside but I could make out two women sitting on the floor with bright headscarves covering the tops of their heads. My new friend cried out “mama!” and snapped the shutter. I was invited in for tea but declined, worried that the car might leave without me. Tea can take a long time when you have to first gather something to burn and then wait for the water to boil. I shouldn’t have worried because the car wasn’t fixed but we did manage to leave before dusk. The five hours I spent at that border post were a surprisingly good introduction to the hospitality of the Kyrgyz people. When I traveled back through the pass two months later I brought prints of the photos for those kids—a small gesture that probably meant more than I can imagine to them.

After an hour of driving we came upon another military checkpoint where we all got out and presented our passports to a soldier inside of a small shack. It was already getting quite cold and I was dismayed when the soldier looked at me and then picked up a heavy black phone right out of WWII to talk to his supervisors. We were eventually waved on and headed back out. It wasn’t much longer before the van slowed and we all got out again. The van was broken again. The owner and his friend were already upset about losing the two Germans earlier in the day and the other paying customers quickly found rides with infrequently passing trucks.

By now it was dark, cold and we couldn’t hope for much traffic to pass by. My attempts to pantomime myself into another ride weren’t working out and the others decided to start pushing the van. At first I rode in my seat next to the open door but we weren’t getting far with only one man pushing while the owner drove. I got out to help and we made some progress, but pushing a minivan up a mountain in the freezing night air without a coat wasn’t easy. Once we got to the top of a hill we would run alongside the van and jump in for the ride down. It was fun to try to catch up and jump in, especially negotiating among the seats which weren’t actually bolted down to the floor. Sometimes the van would go too fast and we would give up and walk quietly toward the van breathing the crisp air and taking in the incredibly bright stars illuminating the mountains.

That’s the last thing I remember.

I woke up the next morning inside the cab of a Chinese truck. It was a bright morning and I lifted my head to see that I was surrounded by snowy peaks. I felt tired and my neck was sore—I could barely move it—but my only thought was “this must be Sary Tash. I should take a picture.” My bags and camera were beside me and I took a few photos. Checking he exposure in the LCD I came upon a photo I didn’t recognize—a crashed minivan. Putting two and two together I realized that was my minivan and I must have been in that crash. I couldn’t remember much of the previous day at all after leaving the border and trying to connect the dots made my head hurt.

Looking around I noticed a man sleeping in the back of the cab. It wasn’t long before he woke up and showed me an outhouse and a small home where I could eat breakfast. I was still confused and my head was throbbing to the point that I could barely concentrate on walking in a straight line. The rest of my body was fine apart from a few scrapes on my hands and legs. The blood on my jacket wasn’t my own. I passed on breakfast because I only had Chinese and American currency. Someone in the middle of rural Kyrgyzstan wouldn’t have change for a twenty dollar bill.

My savior turned out to be a Uighur from Urumqi, China so we were able to communicate with my bare bones Chinese vocabulary. He showed me the long trail of China Aid trucks we were a part of and I watched while he talked to other truckers and motioned toward me, telling a story I would soon become familiar with. During the story he made a rolling motion with his hands and said something about a “machina”—the Russian word for car. Once the caravan was ready we climbed into the cab, he handed me half of his traditional bread smuggled from China and we started toward Osh.

The ride was slow through the mountains but I had great views of the countryside from the cab. We passed green valleys dotted with white yurts and men in traditional white felt hats riding tiny donkeys beside the road. When we passed through small towns the locals ran out to watch the procession. Some even threw flowers down in front of the trucks full of shinning red tractors. Most farmers in this part of the world till the land by hand or with small animals so tractors are a great luxury.

At lunch the driver refused to let me pay and made sure I got enough to eat. He even commiserated with me on how bad Kyrgyz food is through a combination of basic Chinese and facial expressions. When we started to get close to Osh we stopped and I saw him talking to another driver, making the “machina rolling” gestures and pointing at me. He was stopping for the night and put my bags into this other truck, which was going closer to town. The driver had taken care of me, fed me and found me further transportation but he wouldn’t take any money, not even Chinese Yuan, which he certainly could have used back home.

My new truck driver immediately grabbed two large white balls of fermented cheese off his dashboard and offered me one. I tried a few small bites so he wouldn’t think I was rude. Fortunately I had already experienced the interesting flavor and texture of fermented cheese balls in Mongolia and didn’t throw up on the spot. We got closer to town as the sun dimmed when the driver found a local minivan bus to take me to the neighborhood I wanted to stay in. He shooed my money away and put my bags into the standing room-only van. The van stopped on a busy four lane street and the driver got out to talk to a cab driver. These buses barely stop to let passengers jump out but the driver parked the bus full of passengers to make sure I was taken care of. Finally, the cab driver looked down at the small slip of paper with my hostel’s address and took me to a phone kiosk. He paid for the phone call to get directions and carried my bags through the alleyway full of garbage and up three flights of stairs. I left two US dollars in his car and followed him up, only to find the hostel full. Although I was invited to stay on the living room floor I decided to get a real hotel room where I could look for any more injuries to myself and my electronics. Through the enormous generosity and caring of the local people I managed to travel across the width of Kyrgyzstan speaking no Russian or Kyrgyz and with a concussion for only two dollars. Sometimes it takes experiences like these to remind you of the inherent good in people.

The next morning I returned to the hostel and sat in the living room deciding what to do with myself. Someone walked into the room and I felt them standing over me. Then I heard a voice say “Megan?” It was Sema, who I had met in Chengdu during Phase I! We had kept in touch over the past year and she was the one who had first planted the idea of visiting Central Asia in my head. It was truly fate that we had ran into each other at that moment and she spent the next three days taking care of me and introducing me to Kyrgyz culture.

Continued in Is There a Doctor in the House>…