Tajikistan, soup kitchen experience

Tajikistan and the city of Dushanbe. Well. It is interesting to say the least and it has a different vibe to it. I felt a little bit on edge and on guard. The people are great to watch, but they look at me too, like I am meat. I am a little tired of being stared at like meat. I even went for the head scarf to fit in a bit more, but it didn’t help. The clothing here is a real mix. The old men wear cloaks and caps, while old ladies or young wear velour tunics and pants in the oddest patterns with big heavy socks and slippers in the street. Then young men and school boys where dark skinny dress pants, shirts and ties and suit coats or a sweater and tie. They seem to be very well dressed and all the same. My western cloths pop right out even though it was a brown raincoat and black pants I was wearing. I forget sometimes it is my eyes, they are all brown and I am blue. Even though I don’t think mine are bright, they are bright to them and the hair. I try to pull it back to hide it, but no use the colour gives it away.

Dushanbe has some very nice buildings and tree lined streets to walk. The food is good and reasonably priced, but accommodation is expensive for what you get. I have a room for $70 a night and it didn’t have heat. So being that again it is a huge hotel and there are no guests, I have two portable radiant heaters in my room to keep me warm. The people do not make much money at all and unemployment is very high so the accommodation costs and rent don’t match up. I was talking with a lawyer from New York who is setting up a project here for a year and needed an office and place to live. She said the rents and cost of living don’t match up with the earnings. Speaking of lawyers I was met at the airport by a guide to take me to my hotel. That was luck too as the mayhem getting out of that airport was crazy and I have never had to wade through people waiting outside like that before. It was a mass of people 50 m deep waiting for one of the three flights that came in. There were long lines at immigration but I got moved ahead and through quickly. Anyway the guy that picked me up was a lawyer but because lawyers do not make much money here he is also a guide and a manager of a chemical plant.

I think the good lord gave me a reality check today. I was having a bit of a day yesterday and was not in a good mood, but I had things put back into perspective today. I was in a café and joined an English woman at her table for lunch and another German woman. Both women’s husbands are working here. I got chatting with the one and she was going to volunteer at a soup kitchen that afternoon. I asked her if she minded if I joined her and it was set. So one hour after meeting this woman we are volunteering in a soup kitchen together. There were five expat women today me being one of them that volunteered in the soup kitchen run by the sisters of charity, or the group that Mother Teresa is part of. We fed 50 people soup, bread and tea. They get a large serving of hearty chicken, noodles, vegetables and bean soup. What they do not eat right away they are loading into any container they have, cut in half pop bottles, plastic bags, jars, anything. They also do the same with their tea, filling up any bottle or jar they have. Some of them will make the soup last for days, while another woman went around and collected the cleaned bones from everyone. She will use them to make her own soup.  It was a great day for me and nice to be able to do a little bit to help the less fortunate and to give me a reality check and wake up call. So I end Tajikistan on a good note.

Click on this link to see photos from Tajikistan and the soup kitchen

  

Kyrgyzstan

Kyrgyzstan fun

This is a long post but be sure to check out the link with the photos at the end as there are tons of pictures and I am really happy with so many of the shots. Many of them are of the locals and they came out really well.

Where do I begin? It has been days of great experiences. Not spectacular sites or famous places, but just small successes and a feeling of accomplishment at the end of each day. Truly each night I think, wow what another incredible day, yeah. It is all about small successes for me here. The Stan’s are not your typical tourist destination and so far I am the only one I know of. So when I get a train to the correct place or bus from point A to point B and see what I set out to see it feels great. Everything is in Russian and I know yes, no, thank you, please and that is about it. So to be making it places with my Russian rail tickets and finding the correct platform or stop, all is good. I have been fortunate to stay at places that have had people who speak a little bit of English at them and I get them to write me notes, like I need a taxi to … Where is the bus to… I would like to buy a train ticket to… All expect the last hotel I was just at. They said they had an English speaking person, but I saw her when I arrived and not again over the next four days. No big deal though, I just walked and took the trolley car number 11 or 29 I knew they would come back to my hotel. 20 cents a ride and a taxi was only ever $4 at max.

Let’s start with the boarding crossing from Kazakhstan to Kyrgyzstan. I came from Turaz to Bishkek via Marshrutka a minibus/van. It holds 15 people and they take off for the destination when full. My luck has been that they have filled quickly and I haven’t had to wait long. It was an $8 ride and took five hours. At the boarder the immigration guy working asked me if I needed a VISA to cross, he didn’t know. Canadians don’t. Then when they went to stamp my passport another guy went through all the pages and then asked me if this page was ok. I said that was fine. There were four different points to get your passport checked at the different immigration stations and it was like they had never seen a foreign passport. I later found out that they probably haven’t it is not the common boarder crossing for foreigners and at the other one you can sometimes wait three hours to get up to the boarder crossing. This one was quick and easy. I walked across the boarder with my bags and the van soon followed and we were back on the road.   

The hotel in Bishkek was $20 a night and an old tired room. So tired it didn’t have a toilet seat on the toilet nor did any of the rooms. A western toilet with no toilet seat, I just don’t know if that means you squat or sit? Anyway for the price and other than that it was fine, more than fine it had a piping hot shower and good heat so it was excellent.

In Bishkek I was waiting for my Letter of Invitation to come from Uzbekistan via email and then once I had that I had to visit the Embassy in Bishkek to pick up and pay for my VISA. That went through quickly and my appointment with the Embassy went off without a hitch and I was in an out in less than five minutes after I paid my $75 and a VISA was in my passport.

I happened upon a travel agency in my walking of Bishkek and thought I would go in and ask about flights to Tajikistan and get some info on local travel. Well I have been having great luck with travel agents in The Stan’s and I made another friend. Another one where there was absolutely no pressure to buy and a case of people just wanting the best for you in their country. She was the first English speaking person I had talked to in days and she was lovely. She is from Bishkek and is married to an Australian. She invited me to join them for dinner the next evening and I did. We went to a great restaurant and had an excellent meal, wine and evening, they were so kind they even treated me. He is an engineer for a gold mining company that is trying to start up here and has been going through the bureaucracy for years. She went to school to be a Russian teacher, but doesn’t teach. Now get this colleagues a teacher in Kyrgyzstan makes $25 a MONTH, yes a month. The average income is $20 a month. Her friend takes on extra teaching duties such as being the lead for two grades, teaches two full time jobs, they must have staggered start times, shifts for school and is the VP and makes $200 a month.

The land between Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan was flat and the fields were plowed and there was literally tumble weed rolling down the road. Not much out there. Now I have just taken the Marshrutka to Karakol in the east of Kyrgyzstan, six hours $6. It was a beautiful drive around Lake Issyk Kul. It is the second highest alpine lake in the world after Lake Titicaca. An alpine lake is one that is above 1000m. The lake here doesn’t freeze and is surrounded by snow capped mountains. It was a picturesque drive passing through little villages where the locals ride horses, donkeys or are pulled in a wagon or sleigh by a horse or donkey. I wish I could have photographed it all, but they never turn out through a window.

On the ride to Karakol I was sitting beside a woman and her daughter in-law and one year old grandson. She spoke a bit of English and when we arrived in Karakol her son was picking them up and she offered that he would take me to my guest house. Remember I am in a little town, with at max two storey buildings and looks like it is set in the 1950’s. So he picks us up in an old Lada which runs out of gas as we pull into the gas station. Luckily he had a container with gas in the back and put some in and then carried on to the pump and put in $4, then were off. Then we stop to buy a bottle of anti-freeze, not vodka, which is prevalent here, anti-freeze for the vehicle, and then were off again. (Some people use vodka as it is cheaper.) Then we stop at the road side kiosk to pick up Pampers for the baby, which you buy individually, she picked up six and were off again. It blows me away. The woman asked me if I have Face book yet her son comes to pick us up with his gold teeth. It is as if they haven’t learned about proper dental hygiene, as lots of little kids have rotted teeth. But they have Face book.

This time we arrive at where I am staying and it is lovely, oh my, lovely. It is clean, modern, western standards, there is a toilet seat. A beautiful place I could stay here just for the accommodation let alone the scenery (surrounded by mountains.) It is a guesthouse attached to the owner’s house; it has a homey feel and great home cooked meals and I met a tourist! Well no not really he lives in Bishkek and is just here for a few days to relax and get away from the rat race of the city. Yann is from France originally but now owns a wine importing business, two wine bars and a French restaurant. He retired at 38 from the French Air Force, he was a fighter jet pilot and moved to Kyrgyzstan. He showed me some cool videos from missions he was on.

Yann and I ordered a taxi from our guest house to take us around to some of the surrounding villages so we could take some photos and see how they live. The taxi was $5 an hour and was an unmarked Mercedes sedan. I felt a little pretentious rocking up to these villages with no running water and outhouses in it. But we were well received. Yann can speak Russian so we were able to ask the cab driver to stop here and can we go here and he was able to ask the peoples permission to take their photo and make small talk with them. It was a fabulous day. Twice we came upon kids playing with old wooden sleds and I joined them for a toboggan. One group was playing with fire crackers and of course one got something in his eye, so I helped him out even though we don’t speak the same language and tried to flush out his eye with some snow. Survival of the fittest and natural selection Yann says as the elders just sat around and watched him suffer. He quickly recovered and was playing again.

The photos are great if I do say so myself, so be sure to have a look.

The region is known for its apples and you can get a kilogram for six cents. Yann made 3000 bottles of cider in another potential business adventure he is working on. He can make the cider have it bottled, corked and labeled for 12 cents a bottle. The locals are not interested in the business quite yet as they don’t think waiting for six months while it ferments is profitable when you can make vodka in a day and their staple is vodka. What you mean there are other alcoholic drinks?

I also spent a night in a Four Seasons Hotel on the shores of Lake Issyk Kul $50 a night. It was nice looking and amongst beautiful mountains and had a beach, pool, bowling alley, tennis courts etc the only one of its kind in the Region. But it wasn’t like a Western Four Seasons, even though they were going for that the toiletries were not well stocked and what was there was not full so no stocking up. But there was a toilet seat, a hot shower and I went in the pool and used the sauna. It was a weird feeling to be there after having just spent time in the villages with no running water and out houses. I was one of three guests at the resort that can accommodate over a thousand.  The other two guests were the Diplomat and Ambassador for Hungary in Central Asia and the Director of Foreign Affairs for Hungary. So that was an interesting evening. We had dinner together, went bowling, played pool and had drinks. Erno and Imre were their names, just a regular night, hanging with Hungarian officials, as you do.

It was a little odd to be in a bowling alley after having spent the previous day with kids riding sleighs older than me.

Then I arrive back to Bishkek to the hotel I was staying at to pick up my laundry. They had four days but it is Kyrgyzstan so it was still on the line and they gave it back to me frozen, lovely. I put it in my bag anyway I was trying a different place for the night. I went to a way better hotel and met some more lovely people. Steven and Asher were in town for the elections. They are from the UK and are Election Observers and consultants. They travel all over the world observing electoral processes. So they joined me for dinner as well as their very nice translator. We all went to Yann’s French Restaurant Ratatouille. He was just arriving when we were and was with an American guy Daniel who owns the Café in Karakol (six hours away) where we had went when we were there, so the six of us had an amazing meal. I had pumpkin cappuccino soup, duck breasts as my main and an incredible dessert of ice cream in pastry covered in hot fudge sauce. I could eat like that every day, it was amazing and wine too and all of this for…$20. Imagine. It would be at least a $100 meal back home.  

Click on this link for pictures from Kyrgyzstan

Kazakhstan, Turkistan, Shymkent, Turaz

All is well in Kazakhstan. I have been on the move by train, bus, taxi and foot. I have met some very lovely people along the way that are more than willing to help. There are not many people who can speak English, but I think I have lucked out and been able to find them. It is funny they all want to know why I chose here of all places to come. They don’t understand my wish to see the Stans. I think that I should keep track of how many times I get asked why did you come to Kazakhstan and why are you not married; they also don’t get that one.

I took a 14 hour night train to Shymkent and then a four hour bus ride to Turkistan to see the Yasaui Mausoleum (pictured on the left). It was an interesting visit. That is all that is there besides a really small town, so I took many photos to make it worth my visit. Again people are intrigued that I am a tourist here, sometimes they think I am a journalist. But when I say no a tourist, they say why Kazakhstan? I say why not? Well you think I am kidding when I say I am the only tourist here, well there must be others, but at the motel I just stayed at they have 40 rooms and I was the only one at the place. It is worth mentioning too as I felt like my room was a fish bowl. It had 14 foot high ceilings and two walls of glass partially covered with a curtain. It had a store like feel to it. I later found out that it use to be a mall that they converted to this motel and that I was staying in a former store. The main level is still shops and is attached to a hotel.

I arrived in Turaz and visited the market, I was a little leery of taking my camera out, but decided to and the babushkas loved it. I took photos of them and then would show them the picture and they would light right up and start smiling and giggling. So today there are some intestine, liver and sheep’s heads for you, sorry to the vegetarians in the crowd.

On the train between Shymkent and Turaz I shared the car with three other women and a three year old. The one woman spoke a little bit of English and loved hearing about my trip and looking at the pictures on my camera. She was adamant that I not take her picture, “secret” she said. It turns out I was traveling with a secret service police officer for the president. She was lovely and as it is the thing to do on trains, you share food; she fed me, bread, bananas, an orange, kabasa and a boiled egg. She wasn’t interested in my two minute noodles but we split one of my chocolate bars between the four of us.   

Click on this link for photos from Kazakhstan, Turkistan, Shymkent and Turaz

Kazakhstan, Almaty

I have arrived in Kazakhstan and it was an interesting arrival with a bag search at customs. The person who wanted to do it didn’t speak English and I am not sure if she just wanted a new watch or what because she kept pointing to her wrist and when I would show her my watch, she would say new and I would say no, not new. Then another guy comes, again the wrist thing, then rings, then necklace. Hello I have a backpack, no jewelry and no place in that backpack for anything with my snowsuit in there. Then the third guy comes and he can speak English and he wants to know if I bought any jewelry or have a new watch. No, ok show us the bag. Oh, only cloths, yes, only cloths. Ok show her and then go. Fine. But the funny part is that they were not checking the numerous other people coming from Abu Dhabi (that’s where we were coming from) with their huge duty free bags and I mean huge and each person had two to four bags of shopping. The overhead storage on the plane was full because of all these peoples shopping. If you wanted jewelry you picked the wrong person.

Then the “taxi” ride. He quoted one price and then changed it to 12 times the original price once we got to the hotel. Luckily I was able to get out of the car with my bags and not have him take off with them as we were arguing over the price. I went into the hotel and again luckily the girl on the desk spoke a bit of English which the driver said no one at that hotel does. He must have been hoping. So she and he get into it too and I end up paying four times what he said and the price I had expected to have to pay from my Lonely Planet book. It was not a nice way to start off here, but I think my Zen state is back now and hopefully this post is not too negative. But it makes for a good story.

I had a great walk around Almaty with a nice trip through a market where you could watch a guy butchering a cow in his truck and a nice babushka gave me free dill pickles. There is a really cool looking Russian Orthodox Church that even though it doesn’t look like it is it made entirely of wood, even the nails are wood.  

All is going much smoother than when I arrived. I have met very friendly people who are willing to help with everything. It has been wonderful. I got some invaluable information on the area and neighboring countries from David at Stan Tours. He was wonderful and helped me get my Visas; I know he will read this, so thank you. You are very kind and extremely knowledgeable thank you for giving me all the information and who could have thought that you would do all that for me for free. You are lovely, thank you.  So Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan here I come.

Almaty is surrounded by mountains and I was able to head out to them by local bus, 50 cent bus rides are great. The views (before the thick fog came in) were amazing. The weather quickly changed here and it went from being a no jacket day to being bundled up in a scarf, toque, winter coat and looking to have a pair of boots day. At one point I was freezing and it has now gone from me have three showers a day to get the sweat off of me to having three to warm up. I did invest in a pair of winter boots today though, so no more wet, cold feet.

In the mountains outside of Almaty is Medeu where they have an outdoor speed skating track, what a beautiful setting to skate in. Further up the mountains was the ski hill and lots of hiking in the area. 

Click on this link for pictures from Almaty Kazakhstan

Maldives

Having fun diving in the Maldives.

The Maldives are wonderful. Wow if you would like a little bit of paradise you should make a trip to the Maldives. There are over 2000 islands. I am on a little one called Asdu Sun Island and you can walk around its perimeter in less than 5 minutes and easily kayak around the island. There are about 30 bungalows on the perimeter of the property facing the beach and only seven of them are occupied right now. There are 13 guests on the island. There is one restaurant/bar an office and a dive shop. It is a wonderful, authentic, unspoiled beachfront and island, beautiful and relaxing. The turquoise water and coral around this island are the best I have ever seen. The coral is vibrant and there are huge schools of fish it is like swimming into a wall of them at times. Today I was so close to a sea turtle I could touch it. I have seen eagle rays, huge ones, over 3 ft in diameter. I saw two Moray eels when I was diving. It was also huge. It was about 9 ft long and a foot deep with a jaw that spanned about 10 in.  There are tons of table coral. They are flat and look like tables, hence the name. There are unicorn fish; they have a “horn” coming out their front. There are tones of beautiful, colourful fish. One of my favorites is the Sweet lips. They are yellow and black with strips on their bodies and spots on their tails. It is like swimming and diving in an aquarium. This morning there were hundreds of dolphins swimming close to the island, jumping and spinning in the air, it was like being at a Sea World show, but better, it was in their natural habitat and amongst a beautiful setting. What a way to eat breakfast, watching a dolphin show from my table.

Asdu Sun Island is pictured on the right. 

The plane ride into the main island was really cool. I came in at night and you know how the runway is lit to guide the pilots in? Well those runway lights are in the water here and the plane was so low for what seemed like such a long time over the water. The plane looked like it was 5 feet above the water. The wind from the jets was pushing the water. It was really cool. I was happy to have the window seat.

Once I came out of the airport right there at the exit was the water and a boat was waiting there to take me to the island I was staying on. It was a speed boat and took 45 minutes to get there in the pitch black a little unnerving. I was the only passenger and there were 7 men on the boat. Which part was the unnerving part, the pitch black or 7 men? I just chatted them up and kept their minds preoccupied.  Luckily that made many eyes to watch out for boats, islands, coral and waves. A few times we went crashing over waves and smashing back down.  

If you get the chance make a trip here if you are a diver or like snorkeling this is the place for you. Wow!

I got some great underwater pictures as well. Man underwater cameras have come a long way since I use to buy the disposable ones. The dive shop had a new one they were trying out and I was able to get some of the photos from our dive. This is an Anemone that we saw.   

Click on this link for photos from the Maldives

Halloween, Backwaters and being blessed by an elephant, India and Sri Lanka

Happy Belated Halloween! We celebrated in style by carving watermelons and dressing up. It was a great time had by part of the group. There was a Thai Boxer (Michelle), a peacock (Emma), a pirate (Gabby), a cat (Cornelia), a pumpkin (Nadia) and Effie from the Hunger Games (Me). Pumpkins weren’t available so watermelons were used instead, a flashlight on a cell phone as a candle and you have a carved “pumpkin.” What creative backpackers can pull off when they use their imagination and check their packs for supplies and what you don’t have you pick up at the market or souk for less than a dollar.

I was blessed by an elephant. At one of the many temples we have visited they had an elephant for you to be blessed by. Give your donation (20 cents) to the guy or put it in the elephants trunk and it gives it to the guy for you and then it lifts its trunk and places it on your head giving you blessings. It was a cool experience and a heavy trunk.

Grace we had to be sure to keep our windows closed at one hotel to keep the monkey visitors out, I got a picture of the sign for you.

We went to a museum where they had the cloth that Gandhi was wearing when he was shot.

We visited a spice garden and had a home cooked meal served at their house on banana leaves. Their garden was jammed pack with spices and plants. It was thick jungle like and we saw some cool spiders there also, how appropriate being Halloween. We went to a tea plantation and factory. It was very informative and the aroma great. The smell of tea was thick throughout the air. We couldn’t take pictures inside the factory. But here goes the description. They pick the leaves by hand or by hand using clippers. They cut it so that there are two leaves and a bud on each piece. It gets dried, chopped, mashed, dried and packed. It goes from being a bright green leaf to looking like ground dirt. As we were driving there were women picking so we were able to stop and check out their efforts in the tea fields.

We had a home stay in the Backwaters it would have been nicer to have had more time there. The Backwaters are manmade rivers that flow through Kerala. There was wealth there and our home stay was in a huge house with many bedrooms and common areas. Not what I expected to see in India. The children are picked up by boat or canoe so I got some school boat and school canoe photos. Mable was the daughter of the people we were staying with and we had extra watermelons so we continued Halloween for another day and carved them with her, a first for her to celebrate Halloween.

I have left India now and am in the Maldives. I had a stopover in Sri Lanka and with permission from the Chief Immigration officer I was allowed to leave the airport and have an afternoon in Sri Lanka waiting for my transfer. I just asked if I could go out of the airport and it was ask this person at transfers, ask this person at Immigration, ask the Chief Immigration officer who asked someone else and it was yes, yes. It sounds complicated but only took 10 minutes. So I changed $10 for the day if you can believe it and still had over $2 left after taking 4 bus rides, two tuk tuk rides, buying three drinks and a key chain. A good cheap excursion and better than sitting in the airport all day. Also because I was in transit I was given a free meal at the airport that I ate once I returned. I wasn’t delayed this was my regular scheduled flight but when I arrived I was told that people in transit must go to the transit desk so I did and they gave me a meal voucher. It was unusual, but nice.

It was a great month in India with great people and wonderful experiences.    

India, Sri Lanka, Halloween, Backwaters and being blessed by an elephant photos. Click on this link to see them