September 10, 2007
At 5:00AM Kashgar time, we awoke to the tune of “Happy Birthday playing incessantly somewhere outside the hotel. What a strange time and place to hear this! We still don’t know the source, but it reminded us of a similar strange experience yesterday. Diagonally across the street from our hotel is a large statue of Mao, standing with one arm extended and elevated on an expansive marble plaza. Directly across the street from that is the “People’s Plaza”, an area the size of a square city block where people gather for recreation. Dispersed throughout the concrete square are tall columns of flowers, beautiful gardens and fountains. An aqueduct dividing the square was traversed by two arch bridges leading to a section with several children’s amusement rides. One of the rides is a small merry-go-round and we were incredulous when we realized it was playing tunes including “Jingle Bells”, “Silent Night” and “Deck the Halls”.
We started off early from the Middle-West Asia Hotel heading for Naryn, Kyrgyzstan, attempting to reach the border and passport control before other tour buses. This would be our longest travel day, approximately 400 km and at least twelve hours due to the time involved with border crossings in this region.
We traveled along a wide asphalt road for less than an hour when it abruptly became a narrow gravel and dirt road. From there on it was as if we were traveling in Pakistan again, bouncing along a very rutted and dusty road, very different from what we experienced form the Pakistani border to this point. Tahir told us that because Kyrgyzstan allowed the U.S. to establish an air base in their country, the Chinese have withheld funds for construction to improve this highway leading to Kyrgyzstan. Apparently there will be no “Friendship Highway”, like the KKH leading into Pakistan until the U.S. base is gone.
Before packing last night, we were advised not to pack any printed matter in our suitcase, instead put the books, magazines, etc. in our daypacks. The Chinese occasionally check for dissident reading material, and this way we might avoid having them go through our suitcases.
We arrived at Customs and Passport Control about one hour before they were supposed to open, but two tour buses had already arrived. We put our suitcases at the end of the long queue of luggage in front of entrance door and waited. The process from the time we arrived until we boarded the bus again took 2 hours. The first step was passport control where we waited in line to show our passport to the official who would examine and stamp it. While we were waiting in single file, a young female official came over telling us something in Chinese and gesturing, but we did not understand what she wanted. Our guide came over and translated; apparently we were standing too close together and needed to spread out and keep a certain space between each other. Not wanting to cause an international incident, we obediently positioned ourselves one tile apart.
After our passports and visas were found to be in order, we returned to get our luggage and waited in another line to put it through the scanner. You might wonder why they would scan our bags as we were leaving their country. The reason is that they want to be sure that no artifacts from the Chinese dynasties are being removed illegally. Considering the bus loads of people, this step should have and could have been done concurrently, but we waited about twenty minutes before an officer even showed up. Our bags were loaded and we had just boarded the bus when another official came on and required us to show him our passport again. Finally, he left, we went, and then stopped for yet another passport check – 40 yards away. We were still two hours from the actual border.
The great race was on with the first two busses to get to the next Chinese checkpoint at the border! We passed one bus, but not the other. It didn’t matter much any way because everyone had to wait ten minutes for the control officer to finish his lunch. He came onboard, checked only a few passports, then asked who were the two Canadians and one Argentinean, nodded his head and left the bus. The Chinese official waved us around the first bus and off we went to the next checkpoint at the Kyrgyzstan border. We discovered later officials were secretly slipped some money to expedite the passport checking process.
At the border, our luggage was quickly unloaded from the bus, and we grabbed it to make a mad dash to the gate before the other tour bus arrived. Our new tour guide, Ulan, was on the Kyrgyzstan side. Happy to see his friend Tahir, he put one foot into China as he greeted him. Well, it seemed all hell broke loose. Ulan backed off, but the Chinese guard wanted to fine him, so Ulan called one of the Kyrgyzstan guards to come over to him for protection and to talk to the Chinese guard. While the argument went on, we could not leave China. Finally apologies were made, face was saved and we hurried across the border into two waiting vans.
At the next Kyrgyzstan border checkpoint a short distance away, our van drivers were instructed to back the vehicles into an area along side of the road allowing passage for a long queue of trucks and a few busses at the gate heading into China. We waited about twenty-five minutes for this backlog to clear before the Kyrgyz guard boarded our van to check passports. When he checked my passport, he thought it had expired, but after looking at Garry’s passport and talking with Ulan to compare my passport to Garry’s, he returned it and reached for the next one. Now picture this. The guard had an automatic rifle slug over his shoulder, and all the while he was checking passports of the eight people in our van, the rifle muzzle was pointed directly at me. I was just a little nervous, thinking “Oh, please, I hope the safety is on!” The gun kept banging around as he moved and I could just imagine the safety clicking off. What relief I felt when the guard left the van.
One interesting fact is that border control for both China and Kyrgyzstan work only weekdays from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM, and they are off Saturday and Sunday. Nothing gets past the border outside of these hours. You definitely don’t want to arrive there at quitting time on Friday.
Believe it or not, we had to stop at yet another checkpoint a little farther down the road. Here we exited the van bringing only our personal daypack, and lined up like kindergarten kids to wait our turn for passport examination. Fortunately, they did not require an inspection of our luggage. Rather than returning to the van immediately, we had to wait in a room until the entire group finished.
Back in the vans, we traveled a short distance through the Torugart Pass and Lake Chatyr-Kol appeared on our right. This lake is ice-free only from June to August, but is still very cold. We stopped by the lake for a picnic lunch prepared by our new guide Ulan complete with smoked cheese, sliced ham, bologna, breads, pate, cookies, chocolates and soft drinks. It was as if we hadn’t seen food in days! After tidying up a bit, Ulan presented each us with the local Kyrgyz hat, and opened bottles of brandy and vodka to celebrate our arrival in Kyrgyzstan. It was a very warm and friendly welcome to his country after a very trying experience crossing the border.
We continued toward Naryn but stopped to visit a family living in a yurt a short distance from the road. A yurt is a round felt covered tent used by the nomads as living quarters in the mountainous areas. This family, mother, father and a one-year old baby, moved from the village to the mountains last May and planned to return by the end of September. They were very friendly and showed us the inside of their home. They also offered us some fermented mare’s milk which a few bravely tried. The three of us did not partake because we’d tried it in Mongolia a few years ago and almost gagged on it. Their baby was very cute and amazingly social as she smiled broadly and had great eye contact with each of us that went over to her as she sat on her mother’s knee. Through our guide we asked some questions. They were there so their sheep could graze during the summer, and we could see the flock across the road, far up on a hill along with the shepherd mounted on a horse.
We finally arrived in Naryn, thirteen hours after leaving Kashgar, only to discover that the town was without electricity which couldn’t be restored until the next afternoon. We were staying in a guest home for the night, and the stairway, halls and rooms were all illuminated by candle light. We ate dinner by candle light, which gave a nice effect in the dining room, and the meal itself was excellent. No hot water for a shower and not much to do in the dark except go to bed.
Goodnight from Kyrgyzstan,
Tamara, Garry and Rich
Captions: 1) Lunch in the open field 2) Another control stop and dusty road 3) Baby Krygyz girl 4) Family living in yurt 5) Rich and fellow traveler wearing traditional Krygyz felt hats
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