Homestays in the Stans - Zharkent to Taraz

23rd of November 2019, Day 101 - 4,560ish km

Day 99 - Snowed in

Day 101 sees me just over the one third mark of my planned trip. Through the last month, I've noticed the white carpet of snow slowly creeping down from the lofty mountain tops, like the fingers of Winter reaching down greedily into the grassy plains to swallow up the last bit of cycle-able weather. 3 days ago the snow made it's final push down into the villages and towns dotted through the open pastures. Now a soft fluffy blanket of white has come to rest over the steppes.

Winter

I am trapped in Taraz, Kazakhstan, in the strangest little hostel. Strange mainly because there is no social space. The older women that run the hostel are nice enough, but they very much live in the living room. I don't know if its my wild hair or out of control beard, but they sit there inquisitively gawking at me until I leave, as if an unpredictable baby grizzly bear had just sat down on their couch. The couch that they sleep on at night, and leave only to chide people video calling in the hallway for being too loud. It's not like I want to be out there, but the wifi is too weak to pass through doors. The router, held together by tape and string, has probably been there since the soviets left.

I have commandeered a small table in the kitchen to write, but in some ways it's even worse than the living room. The grandma keeps coming out of her room next door and talking at me, despite the fact I have no idea what she's saying. Even now as I type this, she is monologue-ing away in Kazak, accompanied by extremely vigorous hand gestures and pointing. Something about Berlin, or maybe it's about the cat. Whatever the case is, a few well placed "Hmm"s and "Ahh"s are enough to keep the convo going on my end.

Day 100 - Me and the cat are becoming good friends

It's not all bad though. Definitely better than being stuck outside in snow storms, and there's a young Kazak guy whose been teaching me the language in exchange for help with his homework. It's a fascinating language - imagine the lilting flowery sound of French, but spoken in a Russian accent. Everything is written in the Cyrillic alphabet, which makes me feel like I've come down with a bad case of dyslexia. Similar A's and B's and O's, then suddenly a backwards 3, an downside N, and fancy asterisk thing (Ж) that makes a J sound, but is englishised as Zh . Really should have taken some time to learn some Russian. I guess I've got plenty of time now.

Surveillance

Day 95 - Samsa, the most delicious of the Kazakh street food. Like a Samosa, except all the annoying potatoes and veggies have been taken out to be replaced by lamb.

All the way through China there are flashing cameras, even on small country roads, that take a picture of everyone who passes through. You feel constantly watched, like a paranoid convict stuck in a 1984 dystopia. Each village has a police station no matter how small. No one is particularly aggressive about it as long as you are well behaved. They merely like to be keeping tabs on everyone, just in case. I realised part of the way through that it's no different for the locals. They carry their ID cards everywhere with them, and are required to show it just as much as I do my passport.

Almost all payments are made electronically through WeChat and Alipay. You could be buying apples from an old grandma at a country fruit stand, but they'll still have a QR code ready, and will look at you weirdly when you get out cash.

Of course the Chinese government uses WeChat and Alipay as a data source for their overarching surveillance program. This means they know where you are, who you are talking to, and what you are buying at all times.

Day 86 - First snow in Almaty

I held off talking about all this while still in China because they are famously twitchy when it comes to Journalists. No need to make the journey harder than it needs to be. It was difficult enough getting around as a cycling tourist, without adding "Enemy of the State" to my file.

I say all of this now though, because being in Kazakhstan is such a comparative breath of fresh air. I have hardly seen a policeman outside of the big cities, and CCTV cameras are all for private security. It's a relief to finally feel like I'm allowed to be. I can go into any hotel, and stay there if I have the money, because oddly that's how businesses are supposed to work. No more police parties at 8pm. No more justifying why I there. No one asks for my passport because no one cares. Go. Live your life.

Day 88 - Sunset on the Steppes

I in no way want this to take away from the kindness shown to me by the actually Chinese people. Without their help I would never have made it through. They have a deep-rooted culture of hospitality towards outsiders, and an unwavering pride in their country, that combine to make them painfully generous. I have never received so much free stuff, from almost everyone I met on a daily basis, and it is all but impossible to stop a Chinese person from paying for your meal if you eat together. I tried. I failed.

They never want anything in return, not that I had anything I could give. Now I find myself stuck with an overwhelming feeling of debt, and no ability to pay it back. All I can say is, thank you. People are good. Humanity is tender and giving. Give peace a chance, and all that jazz.

Real-Life Cowboys

Day 82 - Some horses before they casually cross the road, causing a traffic jam

Before being being snowed in, I had a fantastic few weeks of ride-able weather on the other side of the Chinese border. Central Asia is the fulcrum point of three very different ways of life - China, Russia, and the Arabic world. Here though it has grown organically into something unique and independent. A vibrant culture of it's own.

If I had started my trip in Kazakhstan, I'm sure everything would be feeling foreign and alienating. Compared to China though, I practically feel like I'm back in Europe. Sure, I still can't read and I have no idea what's going on. But the supermarkets sell cheese, and the bread is proper bread. They drink lots of tea like in China (even use the same word - chai), but they drink black tea with milk and sugar. They have a bunch of noodle dishes, but everyone eats them with a fork.

Day 83 - Even the bus-stops are beautiful

I do miss the Chinese roads though. China really got into road-building right as they got into motorized trikes, bikes, and carts of every kind. There is a wide hard-shoulder for miscellaneous vehicles of all types, and my bike fit in there like a fish in water.

Kazakhstan is not like this, so now I'm flopping around gasping for air. The traffic has changed. With no cameras or police, ancient Audi's and beat up old white cars fly by at break neck speeds, all riding curiously high as if the body had been lifted. It wasn't until the new motorway from the border gave out that I realised why. These roads.  Beat up doesn't do them justice. And their repair method seems to be just to dollop new tarmac on top making a wavy sea of divets and peaks. Low-set cars just wouldn't survive out here. At one point it was so bad, all my stuff fell off the back of my bike, and I had to apologetically stop the traffic to pick it all up.

The hard-shoulder is gone, replaced by gravel. No more mopeds and scooters, instead horses and donkey-drawn carts. I'm forced to navigate the small space in-between, praying the cars do me the kindness of giving me a wide birth.

Day 97 - Plov and mystery meat soup

Compared to the deserts of China though, the pastures of Kazakhstan are teeming with life. Everywhere is packed with cows and sheep and birds. I even saw what I thought was a pack of wild horses, before realising that here they are just as much livestock as anything else. I have eaten horse without knowing it countless times. It's unavoidable. Oops.

With them, real life cowboys! I never got close enough for a photograph, but it turns out real cowboys wear woolly hats, workman boots, and trackies, sat playing on their phone as their herd grazes.

Homestays

The huge cities of China are gone too, to be replaced by small villages and towns made up of two story buildings at best. Finding hotels has been tough because they look little different than the houses around them. Thankfully the generosity of China extends to it's neighbors. I've discovered it's usually easier to find a family to stay with than it is to find paid accommodation. I'm pretty sure China would have been the same if people had felt able to let me stay.

It helps that I've been on the road for a while now, and have lost a whole bunch of my old social hangups about asking for help. The trick (which I feel fairly guilty to have learnt) is to say you "need a cheap place to sleep". No need to bring up hotels unless they do.

Day 84 - Beautiful old tree on the way from Shelek with scarves tied around it. 

It's Day 84, and it's been a struggle. I've been fighting the wind and cold all day, but now I'm into tree lined villages and on the search. Each village I stop and ask about a hotel, but each impromptu local guide shakes their head. Next village. 10km. 40km later and I'm just about ready to set up my tent and resign myself to an icy night.

I've been camping a little but the morning frost is a problem. Even if I wait to let it melt, I end up putting everything away wet, and then have to put up a soaked tent at the next camp site. Plus, security took my butane, so I have to go on coffee-less. This is no way to live.

As I pull into a slightly larger village I spot two older guys with bikes across the road at a corner store chatting. They wave me over, but I almost don't bother. I'm exhausted and hardly in the mood to explain myself with hand gestures for 30 minutes. Thankfully they are rather lovely, and we manage well enough with my phone translator. Eventually I ask about a place to sleep. It is unclear what's going on, but one of the guys, Sagndyk, does the universal sleep gesture and gets me to follow him.

Day 84 - By now school had just gotten out, and we have a gang of children floating around us trying to speak English.

We ride further and further from the main road into the village, stopping whenever we meet anyone so Sagndyk can show me off to his neighbors. The Kazakh have the most lovely handshake when they greet. The Chinese one is light and floppy, and they linger painfully long while talking to you, as if they are afraid you'll disappear if they let go. The Kazakh handshake is a quick, firm, and heartfelt grasp, often with the second hand clasping your forearm. Despite being quite far away from the middle east, even the non-religious say "Salaam alaikum" (peace be with you) as they greet. The whole thing makes you feel like you are somehow being accepted into the community.

Eventually we arrive at his house and I realise what is going on. Inside, 7 people, 3 generations all living under the same roof. My savior Sagndyk is the granddad, but his oldest son, Madyiar, is clearly the boss. No one speaks English, and Sagndyk doesn't even speak Russian, so the younger son, Toktan, downloads a voice to text translation app and plays interpreter. I feel completely unable to place them in a social class, but Madyiar owns a string of stalls in the market, and Toktan is an apple farmer. So wherever that leaves them.

Day 84 - All gathered at the dinner table mid feast

We all sit down at a big table for dinner. Kazakh home dinning is something completely different. The only cutlery is two spoons, one big for eating the main dishes of potatoes and meat and beetroot salad. Bread is scattered all over for you to pick up. You use the smaller second spoon to put honey into your tea, or jam and butter onto your bread from big communal jars. Then you lick your spoon clean and dip in for something else. Momma is in charge of the tea, a strong brew to which they added hot water, and fresh milk so you have curds still floating on the surface. They push me to eat and eat and eat, till I can't imagine squeezing in one more bite. The Kazakh are feeders for sure.

Then they pull out some Kazakh sleeping mats, which they kindly set up on the couch. Toktan, the youngest brother had to sleep on the floor.

Imagine Hostel

This is all before I got to Almaty, which is where I wrote the last blog post. From there I was planning to do the long ride up and over on the barely inhabited road along the border to Taraz.

For those of you who are as rusty on their Central Asian geography as me. This is the intended route, and you can see from the red dots in Kyrgyzstan the route I ended up taking instead.

That is until my father had the brilliant idea of cutting through Kyrgyzstan. Famously mountainous, but I could stay in the valley between mountains, hit the capital Bishkek, and come out the other side just East of Taraz. Perfect. I say famously, but to be completely honest I'd never even heard of Kyrgyzstan till my dad pointed it out.

Day 90 - Triumphantly crossing the Korday pass before dropping into Kyrgyzstan

Day 91. At the border crossing I run into my first international tour cyclists, a couple from Belgium and France. They've been going for almost two years and are just coming to the end of their trip. I smother them with questions for a good hour, before talking about Bishkek. I tell them I have a hostel booked, and they say "Let me guess, Imagine Hostel?" Clearly everyone sees the 9 star rating with a £2 price tag and look no further.

Day 91 - There are others!

(The border crossing by the way was polar opposite to getting out of China. It couldn't have been more relaxed. For a baggage check,
You have Narcotics
No..
Pistol?
No..
Ok! Go now

They had even ran out of official papers, so the guy at passport control tore off some scrap paper, and had me write my name on it before stamping it. I then passed that on to the guard who happily let me through. I was there no longer than 20 minutes, and got a 60 day visa no questions asked.)

I get to Imagine hostel and it's heaven. The staff is no where to be seen, but some of the more long term guests find me a bunk. It's that kind of place. No one intends to, but everyone seems to find themselves in this far outreach of humanity and call it home for a few weeks. Or months. Or years in some cases. It's obvious I have to leave fast before I get sucked in. Everyone jokes they are leaving tomorrow, and no one hardly ever does. There is no reason to be in Bishkek in November for the winter, but the hostel is full.

Day 93 - Pancakes for breakfast! I very lazily took almost no photos the whole time I was there. You'll just have to go see it for yourself

The people here are another caliber of travelers, who have spent years on the road. Most speak English, French, or Russian, so there's always someone for everyone to talk to. It almost feels like a bohemian french commune, perfectly set up to accommodate all needs, with space for anyone. In the evening, communal meals we all pitch in for. Then in the day, groups go out for excursions into the city. It's easy to latch onto one going your way, and spend the afternoon wandering the Bazaars.

It's so pleasant going out in a group. Alone you feel alienated. All the glances and whispers cut you off from it all. But in a group, you have a little submarine of understanding and acceptance, keeping you safe as you explore the depths of a foreign land.

Day 92 - Getting our shoes repaired at the Bazaar

Everyone were much more experienced travelers than me though. I felt like a child crawling up on his mother's lap to see the adult table for the first time, as they talk politics and tell stories of countries I know nothing about.

I filled 10 pages of my diary desperately trying to save the memories of all the amazing people staying at the hostel, but there's not room to put it all down here without starting another post. Maybe one day I'll have time to fill in the gaps. All the stories I can't quite squeeze into the blog.

I do wanna squeeze one in quick though. I met Hiroshi on the second day, a Japanese guy who had been travelling for months and months and months. Makes lovely YouTube videos, you can check them out here. I'm pretty sure he's added English subtitles to all of them, and there's one on Kyrgyzstan coming soon. On my third day in the hostel, he comes in with two tickets to the Kyrgyzstan vs Japan international qualifier but no one to go with. I was more than happy to go despite being 10 rows apart. The game had an amazing atmosphere, with the Kyrgis all in their odd traditional hats.

Day 93 - Cool hat, but he didn't sit down the whole bloody game.

They didn't expect to win, and never let their mood drop even as they succumbed to a 2-0 defeat from a penalty and free kick. Kyrgyzstan were far better, but couldn't finish. It was hilarious to see Hiroshi as the goals went in. He'd stand up to cheer, the only one in the whole sold out stadium, then turn, look at me and send me a thumbs up while grinning.

I stayed 4 days in the end, the longest I've stayed anywhere yet. It was so comfortable though, I count myself lucky not to have ended up spending the whole winter there.

More Homestays

Day 94. Finally back on the road, I head out of Bishkek to the border, but not before fitting in a Kyrgis homestay. I get to Kara-Balta, but can't spot a hotel, so use my new technique of "somewhere cheap to sleep". Luckily I went into Rustam's corner shop, who calls home and ask his 14 year old daughter, Sezim, if she minds translating all night.

Day 94 - Rustam's Shop. Note the 3 full rows of vodka

I had a particularly lovely time with the Duishenbiev's. Don't ask me how its pronounced, I've got no idea. They clearly value education, with Sezim going to a private Turkish boarding school in Bishkek, and their oldest, Iuusuf, completing his High school study in Canada. Sezim is incredibly bright and knows it too. She got into the school on a full scholarship, getting 100% on her entrance exam. I never thought I'd hear a 14 year old ask, Whats the antonym of kind?

 She learns Kyrgis, Russian, English, and Turkish at school, with all her sciences taught in English. Honestly I was astounded how well she managed to translate long conversations and statements, while simultaneously participating in the conversation. I was lucky it was a Saturday or she wouldn't have been there. The universe's reward for managing to escape the hostel.

Day 94 - Unfortunately no photos of Sezim, who also doubled as our camera man. Note the giant piece of lamb in front of me.

The whole family adores their oldest. You could feel them missing him a little, a small space in the home, waiting for him to slot back into any time he likes. Made me think of how hard it must have been for my family when they moved to Malaysia without me, and how thankful I am they made room for me in their lives every time I came to visit.

For food, Beshbarmak, which means "five fingers". They all ate with their hands, but it was far too hot so I opted for a spoon. Meat and onions on slices of square noodles, bubbling hot in a communal bowl, but they had no trouble picking it up. Plus a huge mutton leg, which I had no hope of eating all of. The wife said it's Kyrgis tradition that if you start eating it, the leg is yours. She wrapped it up so I could have it for lunch the next day. In the morning I have the chance to talk to Iuusuf on video call while warming up in the shop. He's as great as everyone let on.

Day 96 - #squad

Day 96. I've crossed the border back into Kazakhstan, as chill as before, with a brand new 30 day visa. In my search for a hotel I end up at a car repair place. Manat, the owner at first offers me a free night in the security room, but after hearing about the trip decides I should stay with him. Extremely interesting guy, an ex-army sniper, proud of the life he's built for himself.

The only English word he seemed to know was "Class" (English slang for very good). Everything was class. The repair shop may be his main job, but he seems to have his finger in every pie going. On the way home we stopped at his shoe shop to unload a delivery of new boots.  Then we pick up the wife and his 12 year old son Arnat, before arriving at his sprawling housing complex. Round the back, his beauty salon with people getting their nails done.

Day 96 - "Hold the bread. Class"

A required part of homestays is the tour. People are proud of their things, and it's something easy to get over the language barrier.

Moi Car. Class
Moi Mother. Class.
Moi second house. Class.
Moi Ashtray... Class.

On the way back to my bike in the morning we take a quick detour to the mountains to take some pictures. The view is stunning. Truly class. In the car, he insists I leave my seat belt off, signalling that police are his good friends. It's who you know I guess. Pulling all the clues together from the night before, it suddenly dawns on me that I may now have connections with the Kazakh mafia.

Day  97 - Mountains, also Class

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p.s. As for the future: Now I'm in Taraz and it's cold, and it will continue to be cold. I'm hoping I can sneak south towards Shymkent tomorrow, then cycle a bit more through Uzbekistan where it's warmer. If not I may have to jump back on the train. There's no visa pressure pushing me forward, so I can take my time. Excitingly, I'll be meeting my parents in Azerbaijan on the 16th of December for a little pre-Christmas Christmas, so as long as I get there eventually I'm golden.

p.p.s This blog keeps getting harder and harder to write as I have to smush more and more in. This time 3,800 words, congrats for making it. I was thinking of maybe writing shorter posts, but more often. Let me know what you think.

p.p.p.s I keep forgetting the wives' names, which I know is terrible, but I'm mostly only able to speak to the men at length.