Welcome to Kazakhstan

First thing in the morning, we caught a bus - not exactly the right bus - but the conductor told us where to get off and where to walk. Half a kilometre later we were at a bazaar with a marshrutka stand. 20 cents later we were crammed in a tiny Daewoo van heading for the border.

The border was busy, but unproblematic. Ollie accidentally stated that he was taking more money out of Uzbekistan than he brought in. The officials didn't care - we got our stamped forms and were off to the Kazakh side. A beefy bald soldier stopped us and asked where we were from, then whisked us through as he proceeded to hassle a crowd of Uzbek babushkas for bribes.

On the other side, a crowd of begging kids surrounded us. I thought I'd give them some peanuts. Bad move. Very bad move.

Another marshrutka, $2.50, for the 100km to Shymkent. This country is beautiful - kilometres of rolling green hills and in the distance the snow-capped Alteau Range.

Shymkent is rather chaotic. First of all we're attacked by a horde of taxi-drivers in full feeding frenzy: "Brat! Mercedes! Gdzie vam nada?!" We find the bus ticket office. 3 pricings - front, middle and back of the bus. We get the cheapo then find the luggage storage and walk to the bazaar. Decent size bazaar - mostly clothes. We have a bowl of plov with bread and tea for $1 each in a place made of plastic stapled to a wooden frame and a bare lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. Killer. The people here are very different from the Uzbeks. In fact, it almost feels like Mongolia, with the heavy bone structure and the asiatic features and fashionable Korean clothes.

The centre of town is rather Soviet - straight streets, green trees and a huge MIG suspended above a hill over a mosque. We walk through another bazaar and buy some cherries. The meat section is the best, with flies crawling over everything. One woman is selling fish from Sweden, she chastises my vegetarianism, trying to sell me a chicken.

We walk back to the bus station. I find a babushka sitting at a stall with big containers and bowls on top of them. I decide to 'have a bowl', not knowing what the hell is inside the container. Highlight of the day - fermented milk and rice soup. Her dried fermented cheese balls are also great.

At the bus station we find that there is a time difference between Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan - the hard way : we've missed our bus. The arsehole at the gate refuses to give us a refund, to the bafflement of the woman who sold us the tickets in the first place. But we have no time for arguments, there's a bus in another part of town in 15 minutes.

We buy tickets and find out why the back seats cost less - the hard way : you can't open the windows, the ceiling latches are broken and the aircon doesn't work. It's like a sauna. The Russian guys in front of us take off their t-shirts. 4 hours later there's a break at a restaurant. We hang out with a bunch of orthodox priests and Nurhan - a pro-boxer who beat Kosta Zhou in 1981 in amateur league, and who shall be fighting in the World Championships.

After 13 hours on the bus we get to Almaty. It's surprising, but I'm still able to sweat.

Uzbekistan

One of my most vivid memories is that of Tashkent airport in 1987 - stepping outside the plane, and being hit by a wave of fragrant dry air and sun. It's taken a while to finally come here, and the place has so far overstepped expectations - green, modern and cosmopolitan with an efficient public transport and wide uncongested roads, it's somehow reminds me of Moscow, but is much, much more pleasant and interesting. Maybe two nights (just to get a Kazakh visa, buy Mp3 CDs and courier stuff home), and we're (Ollie and I) off to Kazakhstan.

Travelling in this country has been incredibly easy and comfortable, if more pricey than I had hoped. My travelling companion Adam is mostly to blame for this, due to his time constraints and travel ethic that is diametrically opposed to mine. Transport-wise, busses are overpriced and leave at inconvenient times, arriving at inconvenient times, trains are virtually non-existent between the provincial towns. Hence, shared taxi were our main mode of transport. Accommodation wise, there is a network of homestays ($5-10, breakfast included), where you can usually get huge dinners ($1-2.5).

Some places we went:

Bukhara - the largest preserved old town in Uzbekistan. Known for it's repressive khanate, which even had some unfortunate British envoys imprisoned in a 'bug-pit', then beheaded in the main square. I hated it. With no economy to speak of, the citizens have focussed almost exclusively on sucking out as many tourist dollars from the bus-loads of fat Germans and French that get out of huge tour busses. A surreal theme-park atmosphere - souveneir stalls everywhere; the tourists often seem to outnumber the locals. The highlights were an old guy who showed us around a ruined medressa, and the babushka who cooked us amazing 5-course meals every night.

Khiva - famous for slave-trading and a khan who used to have people impaled and thrown from minarets. It's a similar story to Bukhara, but smaller and hence less menancing. More interesting after dark - we saw a guy walking his sheep on a lead. Still, the area outside the old town was better than the clean and polished interior of the town walls. We stayed at a 200yo place next to a medressa and got incredibly drunk with the highly-amusing owner, having our arses beaten at chess in the process.

Nukus - isolated, soviet-esque capital of Karakalpakstan, much warmer than the rest of the country, with the people much more 'asiatic' in appearance. Excellent art museum, featuring works smuggled out of gulags. Also a great display on traditional Karakalpak life.

Monyaq - once Uzbekistan's main port on the Aral sea. Now, a bio-weapon-contaminated dust-swept decrepid hole in the middle of a desert, with some rusting boats stuck in the sand dunes around it.

Samarkand - one of my favourite places in the world. Bustling, colourful bazaar, not directed at tourists. Huge graveyards and mausoleums. The architectual jewel of the Registan complex. Winding streets of the old town filled with Tajiks in traditional dress. Straight tree-lined avenues of the new town, bustling with young people of many ethnicities - Koreans, Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Russians. Oh, and Bahodir B&B - friendly owner, leafy courtyard, tasty $1 dinners.

Travelling like a tourist has really put me in a bubble though (that's why I hate to travel as a tourist). Life is damn hard here. The cotton-farmers riding on donkey carts must make next to nothing. Petrol is cheap 30 cents/pl, but in Turkmenistan it's 7 cents (we actually did a backyard smuggled Turkmen petrol deal at one stage) and a monthly pension is $20. No one seems to be concerned with the politics here - the events of Andijan seemed to raise hardly a reaction. Yet everyone says that life in the USSR was much, much better - even the old man whose brother died in a gulag.

Crossing a closed border

I get off a train that cost me 80 cents for a 6 hour Kupet ride with an elderly Turkmen couple and a woman with her two childern and make my groggy way out of the station. Naturally, a policeman stops me an interrogates me. He finds me a taxi, which I have to take to the border. I talk the driver down to $8 for the 40km ride, but that's as low as he'll go. Damn.

The ride takes us through a desert with grazing camels and across the massive, muddy Oxus river. Naturally, there's a police check point and I get the usual paranoid treatment from the officer in charge : "Why are you here? Who are you? What did you do in Turkmenistan? Isn't your visa expired?" Obviously the moron can't read. He can't really speak Russian either, and so one of the recruits - a relaxed young guy - ends up translating into English. Well, they let us go, only to have the traffic police stop us 2 km later and attempt to fine us for a malfunctioning handbrake. Who needs a handbrake in Turkmenistan anyway - the whole country is as flat as surfboard.

Customs, surprisingly, is no problem. The soldiers are friendly and eager to practice their English. I get waved through, and walk the 1 km of no-man's land to the Uzbek post.

Half of this distance is covered by a line of trucks, the Turkish and Iranian drivers picnicing in the shade. They tell me the border is closed and invite me to drink some tea.

Right enough, the border is closed. But the soldier in charge, passes me along to his friend a few metres down, who radios his officer. 20 minutes later, I get the medical examination : "всё нормално?" "да" "но, даваи" "Everything ok?" "Yes" "Ok, off you go." The passport control is just as straight forward.

Then comes customs. They look at my two forms and proceed to tear apart my bag. "What's this? What's that?" They take out every single box of medicine and question me about it. They even look at my dirty socks and undies. Finally they count my money and let me go.

The guys outside are having a good time relaxing. There's no taxi but they say that a tourist bus will come soon and that I should wait for it. In the meanwhile I get pushed into an improptu performance. They really enjoy "All Along the Watchtower."

The bus comes and I get a free ride to Bukhara, with the French-speaking guide. He shouts me lunch and then we take a shared taxi together to Samarkand. The driver is an ex-boxer who had had his hair fall out from working in a nuclear test site in Kazakhstan. Every second sentence he says contains the words "на хуй" (fucking). I ask him about the speed limit in Uzbekistan (we are doing 160km/ph). Answer : "Depends how much you have to bribe the cops."

In Samarkand the B & B is great. Leafy courtyard garden, litres of free tea, dinner and breakfast, clean room with bathroom. All for $10. The people are great. There's an Italian photographer, a Belgian couple going to Tajikistan, two French people working in Kabul, and many many more. But the topic of conversation is sobering. Andijan is rioting, 2000 prisoners have escaped, the police are firing on crowds, a suicide bomber has been shot outside the Israeli embassy. With the Kyrgyz border closed many of us don't know how to leave this country.

Mashhad

Sina invites me to stay with him and I agree. He is not into Ta'arof - the Iranian practice of offering you something without really meaning it - and I'm very happy when he lets me chip in on the taxi ride. Due to the constant scamming of pilgrims, the taxis in Mashhad have meters, so for once I'm not worried about being ripped off. Plus, I'm with an Iranian.

Sina's 'cave' is pretty cool. An architecture student, his whole house is covered by posters of various designs and cluttered with models. Pretty versatile guy - plays basketball, umpires baseball, writes poems, listens to cool music, makes great photos. We sit down to eat some lunch, then take a taxi to Hooman and Pooya's place.

A family of architects, their house is rather interesting, the drafting room in particular. Sina tells me that he goes to see the two identical twin brothers whenever he feels bad. They are never unhappy. I believe him. There are few people I've met with so much warmth, and such a lasting sense of humour.

The plan is to sneak me into the Mausoleum of Emam Reza - holiest site in Iran, closed to non-muslims. We first enter the enormous new courtyard, half finished concrete structures surrounding it. A guards pads me down, but it's no problem. The Jameh mosque is superb. The brothers explain that you are dwarfed by the greatness, but are able to relate to and find yourself in the details of the flowers or the intricate calligraphy. On the side is a huge staircase, carved out of a single piece of wood, with the doors shut. According to legend, the 12th Emam shall ascend it at the end of the world, when he returns.

We take off our shoes, and proceed to enter the mausoleum. It's amazing.... halls and halls, the walls and ceilings covered entirely by a mosaic of mirrors. Within each hall people praying - Arabs, Iranians, women, men (although some sections are gender-segregated). Finally, the tomb of the Emam - a shifting mass of bodies, each one straining to touch the sacred sarcophagus. The women are in a specially segregated, glass corridor - a mass of black. The prayers are mixed with weeping. The atmosphere is like nothing I've ever seen.

Leaving Tehran

On my last day, I get up at 7 am, grab some felafel (the guy doesn't want my money) and make my way to the train station. Naturally, the dudes selling tickets can't comprehend why I want to go second class to Mashhad, but I get a ticket anyway. I take two busses up through 20km of Teheran's sprawl, then a savari (shared taxi) with a guy I meet on the bus (pays for the taxi). I proceed to look for Christophe's house in this beautifully leafy suburb of north Tehran.

He lives at the end of Islam Ddend street. The "Dead End of Islam" is quite nice - huge garden, flowers, swimming pool, two dogs and a recording studio... and a psychiatric hospital. Christophe's grandfather studied psychiatry in France, married a French woman and set up a psychiatric hospital in his back yard. Christophe is quite relaxed. He takes me up on a walk in a mountain valley north of his house, and we chat about artistic life in Iran and politics.

From there, a range of bizarre things happen. First, we meet Andreas (the German I met in Shiraz, then again in Eshfahan). Then as we return to Christophe's house, his partner, Marnoosh, turns up with a friend who is taking the same train to Mashhad. I travel with him to another friend's house, then to the train station.

Six people in the comparment - Mohammed, an IT student, two girls studying architecture, and two women wrapped up in black chador (pilgrims). They have a problem with being in the same compartment with two men. Enter a mullah and his friend. First thing the mullah does, is gives the architecture students a sermon : "Shame on you, you are from Masshad and half your hair is showing from under your hejab!" They change comparments. David's friend Hooman, rocks up, only to face this request from the mullah: "Please tell this young man about Islam." I evacuate to the dining car. It's a great train - chilled out university students in tight clothes, girls with half their hair showing, and women wrapped up in chador and mullahs.

Return to Kurdistan - Day 1

It almost feels like a miracle as Charlie and I spot each other on Enquab Square in Sanandaj, capital of Iran's Kordestan province. It's 10 am and the streets are bursting with life - homicidal taxi drivers, crippled beggars, Kurdish women in colourful sequinned dresses, Iranian women in black chador, Kurdish men in boiler suits with head-scarves, Iranian men in shirt and pants. It's a world away from any other Iranian city. We go to have breakfast in the bazaar and an old Kurdish man insists on paying for our meal. Still, we have one problem - we know where we want to go, but don't know how to get there and lack a decent map.

First, we try a bookshop. The friendly owner digs and digs behind a pile of books, and emerges with a map only slightly better from what I already have. We try a travel agent - they try to get us a taxi driver. We try the museum - only the poor map I recieved the day before. Finally, I decide to try the army base, not being quite sure whether it's an army base or home of the dreaded "Komiteh" religious police. The soldiers are friendly, but we get directed to the museum. So much for the map.

Giving up, we do our food shopping. First, some dry fruit - apricots and figs, then some cheese. This is a problem, as every shop we go to only has one box, and we want two. At last we go to a bread factory - fresh pieces of levan rolled out on a conveyor belt. Two guys who speak some English walk by. We talk to them and they take us to their friend who might have more information. This is a bad idea. Within minutes, a crowd of people has gathered around us. Some people say the security situation on the road is dangerous. Some say the river has flooded. An English teacher comes past and tells me not to listen to anyone. We take his advice.

Half an hour later we are on a minibus headed for Sarvabad. We only know this : it's the closest town to Owramantakht (where we want to go). Getting off, we rush to the first shop with a old Kurdish man, hoping for some advice. Unfortunately, he panics at having to talk to a foreigner and a crowd of high-school students take his place. Some tell us it's dangerous. Others say it's impossible. We head for the army base. The bemused officer tells us to take a taxi. I suggest to Charlie that we cross the river and visit the village on the other side.

Within a few minutes we are tramping through fragrant flowering meadows, surrounded by some local villagers. They point out the bridge and a path in the steep mountainside above the village. The village is very friendly - 3 invitations for tea which we unfortunately have to refuse, with only 3 hours of sunlight. We scramble up the mountain and are hit by a thunderstorm. 10 minutes under a boulder and the sun is shining again. We meet an old man, his son and their donkey. He tells us it will take 3 days to Owramantakht. The son seems to think otherwise.

Another thunderstorm, another boulder. We meet a group of local men. They give us the names of 3 villages and videotape the conversation. We keep walking, amazed by how lush the vegetation is. Travelling with Charlie gives me a new perspective on the world thanks to his botanical expertise. Finally, we see some goats on what becomes a shelf above a steep canyon. I look closer and spot stone houses.

It's like stepping 500 years back in time : no running water, no road, no electricity, everyone in traditional dress. We meet Rafool who knows a few words of English, and ask him if we can pitch a tent. He won't hear of it. He rushes us to the nearest hut and begins to toss aside the borders which block the door. 10 minutes later his mother appears, with a woolen floor mat. 10 minutes after that, she re-appears, this time with a jug of sour goat milk, a basket of bread and a bowl of panir. Some other people come - firewood, blankets, pillows. We protest, "no, we have food, we have tent", gesticulating feverently and pointing at our packs.

They simply won't hear of it. It turns into a big party, with half the men of the village gathered around the fire inside the hut. When they see we are tired, they all leave. We fall asleep quickly, watching the twinkling lights of Sarvabad below.

Return to Kurdistan - Day 2

We are woken by the sound of a donkey. A few minutes later Rafool comes in and re-starts our fire. We munch on our breakfast, drink tea and go to examine the village "soccer field". Women are shaking milk in sheep-skin containers, making yoghurt, the men are heading out with their flocks. We also head out, having said our partings.

A steep path eventually leads us onto a flower-covered plateau. We only meet some old men with their donkeys. The path keeps climbing among the grasslands with awesome views of the valley below. It soon becomes apparent that we will need to cross the 2000-3000 metre mountain range that was looming above us the day before. I'm thoroughly exhausted. Charlie and I discuss the villagers diet over our own lunch. Wouldn't these people get malnourished, living only on animal products, with no cultivation of crops? A man turns up to answer our question. Hamad is a forager. Every day he climbs up the mountain and picks edible grasses for the folks in the village below. He shows us what we can eat. Quite tasty actually.

After an hour climb we reach the high pass, and are hit by two things - a staggering view of a 2000 metre drop into the valley below with the mountains forming the Iran/Iraq border on the other side, and a massive hail-storm. Running/sliding down the steep rocky path we make it to a Chaykhana. After a short wait, the storm passes and the sun is out again. The rocks are hurting my feet. Hamad points out where his friend fell off a cliff and died. After another hour we meet two women - also foragers, they are Hamad's sister and mother in law.

Just above the village of Zhivar, we part ways. There are fields enclosed within stone fences and small orchards of pomegranate. There is also a waterfall where a woman is doing her washing. We try to find out if the water is drinkable, but fail to communicate. Her children fall over laughing at our miming efforts. Out comes the iodine.

The river is actually the main road into the village, and we are forced to balance on partly submerged rocks as we make our way down. The village itself is a bit of a disappointment after Morodol - there is power and running water, and even a shop and a school. People are friendly, and we soon have a crowd of schoolboys following us. They try to practice their English, and tell us that their English teacher lives in the next village and that we should meet him.

The road down winds and winds, with the roaring Sivar river below. One of the boys points out where his father drove off a cliff, another shows us where his uncle died. Eventually we make it to Bolbur village, but the English teacher isn't home. We decide to head out of the village and camp. There's only an hour of daylight left, and we've been walking for 9 hours.

The teacher comes as we buy a sack of potatoes and some matches. Mehdi refuses to let us camp. He insists we come to his house and stay with his family. We eventually cave in. Mehdi and his family are lovely and we eat dinner on the floor, watching kurdish music videos. The also show us a DVD of the dervish festival held in Owramatakht - long haired men dancing themselves into a trance to the sound of frame drums. I play them Tom Waits' "Downtown Train" and we go to sleep.