What Kyrgyz Dreams are Made Of…

Two hours after my arrival in Bishkek, my mouth was filled with red peppers, tender beef bits, and thick homemade noodles and I couldn’t even swallow before letting out enjoyable moans of my gastrointestinal pleasure. (Think: Herbal Essences commercials). Lagmand is the flavourful meal that would erase all memory of Tajikistan’s national dish of oily plov and become my Kyrgyz favourite this holiday season.

My “Stan Tour” continued shortly after our Tajik Christmas, as Holly and I flew to Kyrgyzstan’s capital to take in some local sites, New Years Eve celebrations, and adventure sports our insurance man wouldn’t be thrilled about. Located just north of Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan is yet another small mountainous nation of the former USSR. Kyrgyz people speak a coarse throaty language deriving from Turkish, while sharing more ethnic similarity to the Mongols. Lonely Planet shares a fun fact that sheep still outnumber these traditionally nomadic people 4:1. We were incredibly lucky – and appreciative – to be staying with local friends who were able to show us the ins and outs of the Bishkek area and pack lots of adventure into just 6 short days.

One day after arriving and driving around the snow-filled, tree-lined city we were on the road traveling east towards the famed Central Asian salt water Lake Issyk-Kul. In between investigating petroglyphs of Marco Polo sheep and Ibex from before the Common Era and riding by horseback along the lake’s shore, I managed to shovel down a few more bowls of lagmand, play in the snow, and snap a few hundred photos. Little did I know, this wouldn’t be the last time I was on horseback… or that lagmand could taste so good or the snow feel so cold.

Standing in the sun on Issyk-Kul.

Returning to the city and heading to the Osh Bazaar to purchase some traditional Kyrgyz crafts and a New Years Eve cake, we encountered chaos likened to a North American mall on Christmas Eve. Panicking shoppers shoved us towards cakes, champagne, noodles, stomach bags of butter, fat filled sausages, and meat hanging literally everywhere! After my own indecisive nerve-wracking drama, I left with more than a ringing head – I was now the proud new owner of a perfectly handmade felted wool rug, called a shyrdak.

A full house.

You can take away a man's fruit and veggies, but if you mess with his oil products you've made an enemy for life - Central Asia Proverb (of sorts)In a land where the leaner meat is fed to the dogs (note: bottom left corner).

Holly Shrumm Reporting Live: "The carcass has been handed over and is now making its way across the north building... we are staying hot on the trail."Direct route and open-border with China.

Later that night, Holly and I would fulfill our womanly duties of “preparing the New Years table” by placing out a bowl of fruit, candies, cake, and tea in the event that an uninvited guest stopped by to celebrate at our friend’s apartment. Ritual aside, by 10pm we were cutting up a rug at another apartment, where the computer jams were flowing and the table was filled with oddities to chase down shots of vodka. Having traveled all the way to Kyrgyzstan, we still found ourselves ringing in the New Year with a group of Tajik university students unable to go home for the holidays. There were of course no complaints about the fabulous Pamiri music or having the ability to communicate with our new friends! At midnight everyone gathered in a circle, foregoing a countdown, in order to share champagne toasts and kick-off the fireworks. From each apartment balcony fireworks were shot into courtyards in a frenzy that looked not the slightest bit safe. I’d say I was luckily not to be walking outside below, but when a few stray explosions occurred inside the house I decided the safest place to be was away from the windows.

Safe, real safe!

Thank you very much, I'll be just fine over here with my bottle of champagne! (which also turned out to be less than safe... ahhhh, my eyeeeeeee, itsss in my eyee!)

On January 1st, Holly and I walked around the city and visited statues, city squares, and the New Years Tree. I splurged 50 cents to get our picture taken with Father Frost & Co. and continued my ranting about kidnapping meaningful “Christmas icons” (Saint Nicolas, Christmas Tree, etc) for New Years festivities in Muslim countries. Why is there a star on the top of that tree anyways? Oh right, because it is supposed to lead the Wise Men to Bethlehem… Coca-Cola, in particular, had no issues about jumping on this bandwagon.Epic hero of The Manas, a 1000 year old Kyrgyz tale that is 20 times longer than Homer's The Odyssey!

With virtually no Russian or Kyrgyz language abilities, I was having trouble finding the words for “I’ve only been skiing once… on a garbage dump” (Boler Mountain, London, Ontario) when asked “are you a professional?” by the man outfitting me for a day of mountain skiing. At 2,500m this “Switzerland of Central Asia” was stunning, if not completely terrifying. After a 400m route down Toguz Bulak mountain on my rear, I conceded that my skiing has miraculously not improved in the last 10 years since I’ve been out on “the slopes.” After being passed by 5 year olds and grandmothers, however, I managed to be up and running for the rest of the day.

Sweating, yet frozen, after skiing we begged to be taken to one of Central Asia’s little luxuries – the hot springs. An appointment was made at a private location and after a bowl of lagmand, we pulled up to a big metal door in a seedy area. An older Russian woman unlocked the door and rushed us inside the surprisingly nice inner-compound. We were told which door to enter – my jaw dropping lower the further up the staircase I climbed. This was the most beautiful place I had been in months – and this section was reserved just for us?! This wasn’t like the typical old broken-down moldy bathhouses I had been in before, but a sauna and steam room were waiting, so I wasn’t about to complain. It wasn’t until we were told to change in one of the two attached bedrooms and I noticed the gold-encrusted entertainment room, that I started to think back to the attractive women we’d passed in the courtyard – and began to question where we had actually been taken. Sure enough, we spent the next two hours in our own private section of one of Bishkek’s high-class whorehouses!

Good-bye Bishkek

At the time I was unaware that the bathing, steaming, sweating, bathing, steaming, sweating routine I perfected over the course of those two joyous hours would become a distant memory of warmth and cleanliness during my overland return journey from Bishkek to Dushanbe. Saturday morning, I would leave the city with a myriad of new memories and impressions of Central Asia – even if it would be days until I was allowed to leave the country.