Up the Karakoram Highway: Lake Karakol and the Mountain of Ice

It starts with a lesson in ticket-buying. We rock up 30 minutes before the scheduled bus departure and get told that the tickets have been sold out. A French couple rock up. We share a taxi to the international bus station and buy tickets for the bus to Pakistan. 2 1/2 hour wait.

We go into town. Next to the mosque, there's a Chinese woman taking a shit on the nature strip. Breakfast costs little - tofu/spring onion dumplings, and ricewine/milk soup with rice/sesame/nut dumplings. I mail some postcards. Takes the dude 20 minutes to find the stamps. At least I don't need to use Chinese for prices - Turkish is understood.

When we get back to the station, it seems that nothing is going to happen soon. There's the French couple, 3 Americans and a bunch of Pakistani men ogling the western women among them. The bus disappears, a jeep and minibus come. We have to pay 18 yuan extra each if we want to go anywhere. In the end we cave in and end up in a jeep with 3 Americans and an Pashtun dude from Jalalabad.

Good ride - the driver has a stash of Bollywood soundtracks, the van with the French couple breaks down and the Afghan dude almost jumps out of his seat with joy at the sight. The Karakoram highway is stunning - torrents of water, canyons of red cliffs, 7000m mountains looming above it all. We stop at a Kyrgyz roadside market and talk to a kid wearing an "I love Jesus" hat.

Getting to Lake Karakol, what I fear would happen happens : we get mobbed by impoverished people drooling at the prospect of getting our money. First, there's the dude collecting the 50 yuan entrance fee, then there's the dude running the commercial yurt, then there's the dudes with camels, souveneirs, etc. The whole tourist circus. When we make our move to get away from it all we are told that staying anywhere else is illegal and that the police will come and get us. So it's 25 yuan for a floor spot in a yurt.

It's damn beautiful though. Three 7500m mountains encircling a pristine lake, a setting sun.

At least the hot water for my instant shrimp noodles is free. Going for a walk we plot how to get away. We meet Anayidin. He tells us he can take us to his family's house in the Kyrgyz village on the other side of the lake. Ollie also meets Kaparelli, whom Jason had stayed with. We later find out that Kapareli had been taken away by the cops and beaten up.

We get up early the next day and eat breakfast in Kapareli's yurt - Yak ayran and yak milk tea. Anayidin rides out in front of us on his bicycle to make it look like we are travelling seperately. We sneak past the hotels, then rounding a bend come to walk right in front of the shining white Chinese police station complex. I wave to the cops and smile (wearing my turban). One waves back. We're through.

Anayidin's cousin's place is a homely mud-brick place with all the usual Kyrgyz shyrdaks and rugs. We drink tea at his friend's place, then decide to see how high we can go up the Mt. Mustagh-Ata ('father of ice' mountain - 7546m). It's not easy. The lake is at 3600m. Soon we feel like we are breathing through a straw and our bodies have turned to lead. However, dehydration is more of a problem that the altitude - we only have 500ml of water each. Yak shit makes eating snow dangerous.

In the next 6 hours we make it up to what must be 4500m or so. The views are stunning. Two dry valleys on both sides of a ridge, snow caps everywhere, the icy mass of Mustagh-Ata above us. Absolute silence. An eagle flies by around 50 meteres from me. I hear the scrape of air against the feathers. Not a cloud in the sky. We walk down the same ridge and meet some yaks before scrambling down a steep valley wall.

In the village, the kids have come home, they want to have their photos taken. We eat laghman cooked with yak poo and sleep well.

Getting out of Karakol proves as hard as getting in. We spend around 4 hours trying to hitch and even have a bus drive past. In the end I suggest we walk to the tourist hell of Lake Karakol. It's a good move. Heaps of Chinese day tourists doing the Chinese day tourist thing - buying souveneirs, riding camels, taking photos. One of the busses agrees to take us, for free.

Tales of Kashgar: Weeping cyclops on the Silk Road

Going by my usual Central Asian experience, bazaars start early. So I set the alarm to 7 am Beijing time, which is what the whole country runs on, although no one is sure what the real time is. It's too early. Whilst there are many old guys with beards on donkey carts, nothing seems open. The animal market by the river is non-existent. Jason speaks some Chinese. We find out that the animal market is outside town. $2 taxi ride. The animal market isn't 'happening' either. A few sheep. A few stalls selling sheep-based dishes, with severed heads piled up outside.

We find a tuk-tuk (motorbike with trailer) and catch a ride back to the main market. It's more 'happening' than an hour prior. There's now some dogs and cats in cages by the river (too healthy-looking to be eaten). Still, it's an incredible anticlimax for what the LP calls 'the greatest market in Asia'. The Chinese authorities have built a huge 'modern' concrete structure in 'Uygur style' to house most of the stalls. Very un-atmospheric. We eat some disgusting plov, and decide to take a tuk-tuk back to the animal market. More 'happening' than before, but still lame compared to similar affairs in Kyrgyzstan. We find a bleeding sheep with it's head half-severed, I talk to an American Philosophy professor on a grant-funded trip, and I eat some icecream to get rid of the taste of the plov.

On the tuk-tuk back into town a bunch of middle aged Uygur women get on. One of them proceeds to grope my backpack, sending the rest of the hejab-ed crew into hysterics. Odd. Luckily none of the husbands are present to sever my head.

The outskirts of the big market are more interesting than the center, but more interesting still is the every-day bazaar inside the Uygur old town. This place is a shock - mudbrick houses, dirty kids, not a single Chinese. You walk 200m, and you are in China - big modern concrete structures, everything in Chinese (and Uygur underneath, as it's government policy of Kashi to be bilingually signed).

I start to feel sick. End up at the hotel. The cyclops breathes fire. Then it gently weeps. Jason (yes he is a nursing student): "Oh, so it's like an enema from within." Yes... 10 minutes later, I have a fever, and am shaking with chills. No energy to even go downstairs and buy some water. About an hour later I try the re-hydration salts, coal tablets and Mersyndol. 2 minutes later, I get projectile vomiting. Now, let me tell you, projectile vomiting into squat toilets is quite an art - one I haven't quite mastered yet. 1/3 ends up in the toilet, 1/3 ends up around the toilet, 1/3 ends up going back up my nose. But... I feel much better.

The following day I even make the effort of buying 5 bottles of yakult-like drink, 2 tubs of fruit jelly, and chips with pepsi at the local fast-food joint, "Best Food." Then back to bed for several hours. In the afternoon, I pop out for another bowl of chips, then go for a stroll around the moonlit streets and read Rumi.

Today we wake up and realise that we'd been robbed: both our phones and all of our souveneir money. How? Well, we'd left that in our room during the 2nd time that I'd ventured outside in the past 24 hours (last night's 'dinner'). I also think that my credit card had been flogged, so I cancel it, then find it within an obscure corner of my bag. It could be worse - I also left my camera lying around.

Going to the Public Security Bureau, we find out that they are shut for most of the day. "Come back at 4pm Beijing Time." We go to the post office. Same story. I still have no appetite, but force down a meal of greens and rice. The cyclops has yet to reply.

Getting to Kashgar

Day 1.

It starts with me realising that my alarm clock is out. We are late for the bus. Turns out the bus is leaving at 10 not 9. Oh, and it's not a bus - but a Russian van with improptu seating. 200 Som ($5USD). We grab some breakfast in a chayhana by the river and come back to find the 'bus' isn't working. Another one has come. We chat to an English student seeing her mother off. Turns out we've been ripped off by 50 som.

The road all but disappears outside Osh. 17 people are crammed into the van. I'm sitting on the spare tyre. Every change of gears is accompanied by a hideous grumbling. The engine stops. We have to push-start the van. Half an hour later, opposite some yurts in a valley, the drive shaft falls off the bus. We picnic on the grass and talk to a dude who's wearing striped black pants, striped black shirt and pointy shoes. He makes wedding videos.

Lunch is in a chayhana overlooking a pretty valley. Plov. Afterwards, the bus starts to climb up the steep valley, and causes the back door to burst half open, covering us in thick dust. After a few hours, we miraculously clear a 3620m pass. Sary Tash is below, on a wide plain with the Pamirs in the background - a 7000 metre line of white mountains.

As we get off the bus, we see another caucasian getting off a scrap-metal truck. Jason is from Sydney, and it has taken him 26 hours to get to Sary Tash from Osh. Our striped friend has a guest house. We stay there, in a pleasant Shyrdak covered room.

Day 2

There's not a cloud in the skies. The whole of the Pamirs are visible. We sit on the side of the road and wait for a truck to hitch on. Around 9:30 one stops. It's long and full of scrap metal. We share the cabin with two Kyrgyz guys going fishing and the 2 drivers. Our packs end up with the scrap metal. It's an amazingy scenic drive. It's also an amazing slow drive, but luckily it hasn't rained for 3 days. One of the two windows works and it's incrediby hot. At around 3500m we stop for lunch and get some Kumyz from a couple of nomads. Kumyz and vodka. Hmm... luckily I don't get the urge to explode as before.

4 pm we come to a checkpoint. It's closed and we have to wait for 2 hours. Jason's truck is there as are his driver friends. 2 more bottles of vodka are consumed. I'm seriously pissed.

We come to the border at night and our driver finds us a dorm with a bunch of old truckers - drinking, smoking, farting and playing cards until midnight. Irkeshtam seems pulled straight out of Mad Max - no running water, no toilet (old Russian trenches make an excellent substitute), skanky kids and dozens of trucks full of scrap metal.

Day 3

We get up in time to cross the border by foot. The officer in charge spends a long time deciding whether to try to extract bribes from us, then comes out with : "please tell people Kyrgyzstan is a good place." In the end my passport is inspected 6 times. We get on another scrap metal truck. The driver tells me about his time in Afghanistan, and how he constantly had an AK next to his gear stick, and how it would get so hot from firing that he couldn't hold it.

The Chinese side is closed in the middle of the day for 4 hours for "lunch". Getting to China is getting to civilisation - there's a temperature measuring gadget, X-ray, computers, and a road. Unforunately there is not bus and we're forced to get a taxi for the 300km to Kashgar ($12). Amazing change of scenery : no trees, no grass - just multicoloured canyons, and streams flowing over the road. When it all flattens out, there are tall white poplars, and people walking all over the road (Uyghur).

Kashgar is very Chinese, despite being full of Uyghurs - something I didn't expect, but which I'm not complaining about. Finally, decent food and not being able to figure out what the hell is happening.

The Reason for the Barricades

Turns out that we arrived in Osh a day after a riot which left between 0 and 4 dead and 2-20 injured, as security forces opened fire on an angry mob.

The atmosphere in Osh does not point to such violence. We stroll through the park, some guy is singing in a Karaoke tent, there's an old soviet passanger plane sitting in the middle of the park. We walk up to Solomon's Throne and meet some young people who want to take photos with us. Bobur's (the dude who started the Mughul dynasty) mosque is pretty unimpressive, but the setting above osh is great. We walk around the mountain and find a few holy caves visited by muslim pilgrims. This is the most muslim city I've been to in Central Asia by a long shot. I get the sense that many conservative Uzbeks flee Karimov's tyrrany by coming here. The funny thing is that this is such a friendly place - we keep meeting people and chatting to them, end up having dinner with two policewomen.

Getting to Osh

The Bishkek hit n' run went well. Got there at midday, left our stuff at the helpful CBT office and went to pick up the visa. Come back in 2 hours. No problem. Ate at the university Stolovaya ($1 for soup, salad, bread, potatoes, cabbage, drink) and went to buy more pirate MP3s. The cheerful Russian stall-keeper said that I made her day by coming and told me I should stay in Bishkek. Hmm...

Well, picked up the visa and went down to the Osh Bazaar to take a shared taxi to Osh. Couldn't find the taxi stand. A babushka working at the marshrutka parking found us one. The driver didn't seem like the taxi driver type, so we decided to go with him, but not before eating dinner with the babushka at a place with a bare lightbulb suspended from the ceiling and a box of chocolates tucked behind a wire sticking out of the wall. Highlight of the meal: babushka gets a plate with a bone on it, takes a lump of lard from her soup, dumps it on the plate, dumps the bone in the soup.

Sharing the taxi with us were Ulan, his 2 y.o. son (vomiting from the outset), and Batar - a businessman from Andijan, who could speak some English - e.g. when the Audi's door wouldn't open : "fucking German car, Hitler fucking fascist." Great road - deep narrow canyons, a climb up to a 3600m pass, all in moonlight. Midnight, a dinner stop. An old wooden house, a few rooms with wood-fire ovens. Dim lightbulbs. Awesome tea. 3 am. Kaim pulls over, and falls asleep, snoring... loudly. 5 am. Flat tyre. The road looks like this - 500m of nice even asphalt, followed by 30 metres of no road, and so on for the 700km to Osh. The spare tyre is damaged. Finally a dude on a soviet motorbike with a felt wool cap helps us. Breakfast at a place with a woodfired oven, the tyre is fixed. Midday. Flat tyre again. The road worsens - gravel and dust. Coming to the Fergana valley is like going to a different country - half the people are Uzbek - conservative Uzbek (we even see women with faces covered). There people walking on the roads with their livestock, Daewoo marshrutkas. In one word : chaos.

The trip takes 20 hours.

In Osh we find an apartment in a soviet apartment block that costs $4 per night. This city is awesome - an explosive ethnic mix, a lively bazaar to display it and a huge rocky hill in the middle of it all with an ancient mosque. A muddy river runs through the middle of the city - chayhanas wrap themselves around the banks, old dudes with long silver beards sit inside munching on Shashlyk and sipping tea. There are also 2 straight modern (read: soviet) tree-lined streets. One of them has an improptu barricade through it... a potent reminder of what happened here 2 months ago and what could happen again.

Kochkor

I knew this was the right place to visit as soon as the Lada we were in sped past some sand dunes, a mountain lake and a bunch of dudes fishing in a river whilst looking at their herd of cows all within the same 10 minutes. The main street is lined with huge poplars, and the electricity poles are decorated with metal cut-outs of ships, rockets and other militarily-geared economic Soviet-era produce. We went to CBT (a Swiss-run NGO that has a network of home-stays, etc, throughout Kyrgyzstan) and worked out a place to stay and what we would do for the next few days.

Mira's place was nice. Outdoor toilet. Big dog (tied up). 2 sons (18 and 12). 1 daughter (9yo). In the back yard, a Lada 1500, with it's engine pulled out. My room was traditional Kyrgyz - bedding on the floor, Shyrdaks everywhere (traditional Kyrgyz 'carpets' made from compacted dyed wool).

I spent the next day doing little. Started off with a tour of the local graveyard - there are huge mud-brick sarcophagi topped with Muslim crescents and Soviet red stars side by side. Also some metal frame constructions in the shape of a yurt. Went to the town square and sat down. Talked to some dude called Mars, who was prancing around in a black suit and shaking everyone's hands. He wanted to show me some whale bones. Tried to find vegetarian food, and settled for some pieroszki from a babushka who told me I should eat meat. Had some Kumyz (fermented mare's milk) and talked to a dude who'd served in Berlin.

In the evening we went to a local park. The whole place is overgrown and people take their cattle and sheep in to graze as their kids play on the rusted swings, or the dysfunctional merry-go-round. Met some drunk dude with a toddler in his arms who proceeded to teach me about the deep meaning-ful-ness of "Salam Aleykum" and tried to kiss me afterwards. We went to the town square and met another dude who wanted to go and get drunk with us. When I refused, he came out with, "do you respect me?!" and became pissed off... but given he could hardly stand up, it was hardly an issue.

The next morning we set off early, walking out through some fields to the village of Oisakeev. From here it became obvious that Kochkor was surrounded by mountains on all sides. Very tall mountains. Met some dude who wanted to rent us his horse. Kept walking, eventually coming to the foot of a valley. From here it was a steep climb up a muddy road, as the clouds hovering above us burst. Ollie was helped by Mukai, who was coming up the valley on his horse to visit his brother. We also ran across Diirk, the German dude we'd run across 3 times previously. Best quote: "In Africa 2 things were most important: earplugs and pepper spray."

Eventually, we met some kid throwing rocks at his sheep and asked if he knew Nurjan. He didn't, but the next 2 yurts we came across were hers. Cool woman. Very tough and scary. "Are you married? When will you got married? Young?! I got married when I was 15."
3 young daughters, 1 toddler son, all living in the yurts for the summer (they do have a normal house in Kochkor).

Russian joke:
Q: Why are Kyrgyz yurts round?
A: So that Russians can't piss in the corner.

The following day we hiked up to Kol Ukok, a glacial lake at around 3000 metres. It rained and we got soaked. Spent the rest of the day in the yurt, churning cream by hand and participating in a weird version of "spin the bottle", where you spin the bottle then sing a song. Livin' On a Prayer went down well.

It was nice to stay in a yurt again. These constructions create a very special space - acting like a filter on the fabric of reality, taking out the harshness of the elements but letting in light, smell and sound of what's around - in this case a few goats, galloping horses, and a fast flowing stream. When you emerge from one, the world is strangely transformed - more intense, almost too intense to take in.

The walk down proved more exciting than we'd hoped. Met Mukai again, this time with two bags of wool. Then, walking across some fields we met a dude on his horse. Kengegul invited us to stay at his house, and when we refused, came out with ol' the "do you respect me?" line. 5 minutes later we were sitting down with his wife, daughter, neighbour, neighbour's wife, neighbour's son. Lunch: butter, cream, kefir, bread.

Kengegul loved Poles. "Ahh... you fought the Germans, Germans were fascist, very bad people, fascists." He also loved Brezhniev and Chlebovaya (bread) vodka, which we had to drink, with me having to make the toasts. We went outside for some photos and some random dude in an army jacket rocked up on a horse with two bottles of Kumyz which were instantaneously emptied. Somehow my vegetarianism came up. I gave bad meat in Australia as an excuse. Kengegul came up with the perfect solution: "Here, have my goat."

In Oisakeev, we were ambushed by about 20 Kyrgyz kids by the mosque. The good thing about Kyrgyz kids is that they don't beg you for money, or a pen. They are simply curious and friendly. Speaking Russian helps. But then, a greater danger arose: the babushka with +10 strength glasses and huge walking stick:

"How many of you are there? Where are you from? Why are you here? What are you looking for?" She quickly became convinced that we were spies looking for ore in the surrounding mountains. When one of the kids tried to intercede, she just told him to shut up and kept nagging us. Eventually we were free of the babushka, but not the kids. Well, all they wanted was for me to take a photo of them. I obliged.

Bishkek - East Kyrgyzstan

Day started badly. Woke up at 4am because of a random nightmare, and lay awake for 3 hours thinking up ways to do grevious bodily harm to the Chinese consul in Bishkek. Ate breakfast and hit the road, the wrong road and ended up walking a few blocks to find a marshrutka heading for the bus station. Upon getting in, by pants were caught upon a nail and ripped at the knee. Found bus tickets without a hassle and a bus, before a policeman took me into a private room and searched everything thoroughly, including my money "for counterfeit." Subesequently, I think he managed to pocket some, despite my paying attention to what he was doing.

On the bus, we met Jazgul, a Kyrgyz girl studying English who invited us to her house in a village. Ollie wanted to do a 3 night hike, but this depended on the weather - hence procrastination with our answer. We said we'd call her that night. Subesquently, it turned out that the mobile phone network in rural Kyrgyzstan doesn't work.

Bus ride was pleasant, if a bit long for the short distance that we'd covered. The aircon worked. We stopped for lunch at a bus station flanked by some high mountains - smoked fish from Issy-kul lake and bread. The lake was stunning - the deepest blue I'd seen since Van Golu in Turkish Kurdistan.

Arriving in Karakol, we got off in the centre and walked a block to our hostel - a pleasant wooden Russian house, with an English-speaking owner who proceeded to tell me stories about the Polish king Jan Sobieski. Very Russian-looking country town, with a predominantly Kyrgyz population.

The second day we got up at 5 am and walked to the Sunday animal market. Quite a weird affair - old guys drinking vodka (yes, 5am), munching on pieroszki and pulling sheep, goats and calves out of the boot of their Zhiguli, or stuffing them into the Zhiguli. The horse section was the most exciting, as some of the horses would start to buckle not liking their neighbours.

We decided to go up to Altyn-Arashan - a 5 hour walk up a valley to an altitude of 3000m. Damien, an Australian who'd come up through Afghanistan, Tajikistan decided to come part of the way with us. Nice walk - tall spruce trees, a roaring flooded mountain stream, horse herds, snow-capped peaks in the distance. It took 4 hours. We met a total of maybe 3 people.

Altyn-Arashan is amazing - at 3000m it's just a couple of wooden houses, a few sheep, horses and goats. We decided to stay at the former Kolhoz (collective farm). Good choice. The caretaker, Alexander, was incredibly interesting - a very educated, friendly yet reserved demeanour - I bet he had a few stories hidden away. We could eat dinner at his house, and use the scorching mineral baths. Two copulating goats and the fact that a bear had ripped up two horses up the valley completed the experience.

Aside from that there wasn't much to do - the next day was rainy, and a walk managed to get us soaked and wet. We walked down the day after and found that Rolando and Laura (Brazil - met in Samarkand) were staying at our hostel. Great folk. More Iranian prison stories to light up an evening.

Heading to Kochkor today where we hope to organise a horse trek.

The Smile of Bishkek

It all begins with a guy called Danko. One day he happened to be walking down a random Bishkek street with a backpack when a drunk Indian man stumbled out of a posh restaurant and invited him in to a banquet. The banquet was frequented by the cream of Bishkek's diplomatic crop and this made Danko rather uncomfortable given his dishevelled appearance and clothes which had probably not seen a washing machine for several weeks. He began to drink and as he began to drink he began to talk. He met a Canadian girl who happened to mention that she had quit her job the previous day - maths/computer teaching at an international school.

Danko somehow woke up the following morning (possibly in a park) and proceeded to walk towards the train station, when through his alcohol induced stupor he remembered the Canadian girl and the international school. Not long after he was standing in the principal's office pretending that he was a teacher looking for a job. Reply : when can you start. The possibility of living in Bishkek (aka Reality) hit Danko a little too hard, and he decided to worm his way out of the situation by demanding an outrageous salary - "I've never worked for less than $1000USD a month." Reply : "My salary is $800. BUT... we really need you. OK."

I met Danko in the wonderful Hostel Mashhad in Tehran - on my last night there. All the elements of a good place to stay : a rape rumour among Japanese backpackers, dirty sheets, smelly toilets, an owner with a heavily jelled side-part (i.e. pedophile hair) and a resident people-smuggler ($1000 a pop to get Pakistanis and Afghans into Western Europe), whom I had just gotten drunk with - risking deportation and a lashing in the process.

With 4 months salary, Danko had bought himself a nice little flat in Bishkek and that is where I'm staying now, together with Veronika, who is looking after the flat, the 3 resident fish and 2 turtles, her husband Alexi, and their cat Max. Not a bad arrangement. Last night I cooked for the first time in a month - Indian curry. I even managed to find dried tumeric and ginger roots at the chaotic Osh bazaar. However, the Kyrgyz vodka was not a good move.

Bishkek is nice. Like Almaty, a soviet grid with wide tree-lined streets, but smaller, cooler and less noisy. Not a bad place to be stuck, and it looks like I'm stuck. My Chinese visa has a mistake in it which the consulate has refused to fix, saying, "we can cancel the visa. Then you can apply for a new one if you get an invitation from a tour agency and buy a new visa. It will cost you $30 and it will take a week." Went to the embassy and had a bitch. They told me to call back after 3. We shall see - I might just go and apply for a job at a random English school.

Almaty

It's a gorgeous Almaty morning - sun shining on the snow capped peaks to the south (visible through our hotel window), thumping Russian techno on the music channel I'm watching. Yet, I have a problem. "Cavity mate," and no uncle Les to fix it... well, I go and find the next best thing - a dentist named Timur. He's actually got sterilized equipment, knows what he's doing and complains about eastern european dental technology upon spotting my nasty Polish fillings. 20 minutes, 20 dollars and it's done.

Almaty is happenning. There's a Krishna restaurant - the poshest Krishna restaurant I've ever been to. There are also ATMs (with money) and Burger King. Yet it's hot, the streets are congested, and there aren't enough trees. We fail to meet any people aside from a guy who claims that the police robbed him of all his money. In the end we go to a park and do the Russian thing - beer from the Kiosk.

The following day, a trip to the mountains. From the outset it's a disaster, as we find that the street which the Lousy Planet lists as the place to take the bus is one way. The wrong way. We find the bus eventually and get off at the roundabout to take the second bus, up to the mountain. 2 of the 3 busses listed in the book don't exist. The third has stopped running. A friendly Russian babushka tells us which marshrutka to take.

We get to the gate of the national park, and don't get charged as the dude in the booth thinks we're resident Russians. We pass a column of soldiers and follow the road up a valley when it starts to rain. By some miracle, a 4WD with three lovely Russian dziewuszkas pulls over and they give us a lift to the start of the trail.

Well, it's not really a trail - it's a huge pipe, bringing water from the lake down to the hydroelectric plant below. A few kilometres walking on the pipe and we're at the Bolshoye Almatinskoye Ozero. Lovely green colour, stunning 3000m-ish mountains around it. But not much water for a Bolshoye Ozero. We think about going up to the Astronomical Observatory to look at huge rusted Soviet telescopes, but the not so delicate sound of thunder persuades us to do otherwise. Good move - within 2 minutes we are soaked, sheltering under a huge boulder.

Going down is harder than going up. At the bottom of the trail we meet the dziewuszki. They washed the car and did nothing besides. We keep going down, and Ollie starts to feel ill. No fermented camel milk. We're about to start trying to hitch in desperation, when the dziewuszki rock up to save us once again. The owner of the car lives close to the Autovokzal, so we end up getting a lift straight to our door. Not a bad arrangement.