Did I Say Things Couldn’t Get Anymore Bizarre??

Well I’m pretty sure I said last time that things couldn’t get any more bizarre – well they have…

Last weekend I was in Bishkek the capital of Kyrgyzstan, a drab ex-Soviet city without an ounce of charm. It is full of broken down apartment blocks that have not seen a lick of maintenance for 30 years and the buildings have absolutely no architectural merit and with the odd grotesque left over soviet memorial to the worker in strategic locations.  By the way people are all pretty well dressed with almost a 100% western influence.

It started off as an ordinary trip, sleep, office, meetings, then evening comes and one of my colleagues says we’re being picked up by one of our contractors to be taken to dinner. Ever the optimist, I had great expectations of some local culinary delights, just maybe some delightful experience of local ethnic food other than mutton/lamb?

Dinner was ordinary at best but then it was followed by a visit to the baths/sauna – apparently a great Krgyis tradition where the men bond. I’m not keen on sauna’s, there were little rotund men not very well covered but OK into the sauna I went it was 65 degrees C … don’t know if that’s hot for a sauna but it was to me. Exiting the sauna we are introduced to Igor the Russian a bit of a paunchy roman gladiator type he was our “master of ceremonies” for the evening, there was a sort of evil glint of madness in his eye … and I soon found out why. It was then into the cold plunge pool and then into a rather dingy side room for the mandatory series of vodka toasts. Fortunately I had a glass of coke next to me so 90% of the vodka got ditched into the coke.  Then the mad Russian Igor turns up looking for a "volunteer", I thought well let’s get it over with. So it was back into the sauna where I’m told to wear a towel and one of their funny white hats, Igor then appears with 2 fan shapes made of bunches of oak leaves and I have to lie down and be patted with these things, then it was back into the cold plunge pool! I have no understanding of its significance whatsoever. To cut a long story short everyone had to go through this ritual not once but twice with more vodka to dodge in between.

Since that little miss-adventure at the baths ( of which I have absolutely no desire to repeat) I have returned to site at Kazaman which has included a couple of trips up top. One earlier in the week saw my first experience of snow for about 20 years. Cold and a complete white out but cool to see snek (snow).

 The next trip (yesterday) was to sort out access issues, and what a tragic day it was. We left at 7.00am for a 2hour drive and then a 6 hour walk across the top of the mountains. One of my biggest fears is that someone goes over the edge into a 200-600m freefall down the mountain, well half way up the mountain I look down and there is what remains of a bulldozer that has done such a freefall. I’m going oh please don’t let there be anyone in it; Misha my driver, raced down the slope to return 10min later to say the driver was dead. Nothing for us to do, the dozer belonged to a contractor working for another company who arrived shortly after… but still a complete tragedy. It seems that he had been working on night shift and may have almost successfully ridden the thing upright to the bottom but then rolled it 3 or 4 times crushing the cabin.

 After that there was little to do other than continue with our trip. Basically we are trying to sort out access to another tenement area, so this involved a 6 hour hike across ridges and mountain tops to meet up with another party from our drilling camp 12 hours drive away but only 5km across the valley. A stunning clear day, snow all aroun and a blistering cold wind at times but an absolutely awesome hike. Looking like Kenny out of South Park except for a green instead of orange jacket, I made sure I had two young fit offsiders with me in case something gave way and I couldn’t get back. We were at 10,000 ft and just in the snow, in the photos you can see mountains covered with snow probably heading to 6000m/20,000 feet and beyond.

There are these guys riding the silk route.. it must be torture.

Late afternoon - return from Bishek.

Just to show I'm not making it up.

The military outfit is popular - this is a geologist, nicknamed Stormy seeing he is wearing the Desert Storm outfit.

The unfortunate bulldozer.

A dusting of icing sugar.

My walking compatriots.

Mountains maybe 75-100Km away...

Entertainment Kyrgis style - she sat through every cycle.

At last I think the first time I’m up to date ….. we are supposed to be having a wedding at our guest house tonight wonder what that will bring? Apparently the Kyrgis are noted for their “abduction” weddings i.e. basically a guy has been eyeing off some girl he fancies organises an abduction and she is then forced to marry him – this is illegal and they are trying to stamp it out.  I think this one is “normal” I did ask big momma though it was only booked in 3 days ago so who knows? Once again enjoy the photos.