"Are you going
to write a blog about your trip?" my mom asked me over Facebook messenger
the other day. I hadn't thought about it
to be honest but that question reminded me of the reason I started writing blogs
in the first place: to share my life with the people who care about me. Sometimes I forget that people are still
interested in that and I put my own silly pressure on myself to write something
that competes with all current written material on the internet for a person's
time and opportunity cost and hope that they don't end up disappointed with
their decision. That being said, here is
a blog about my recent trip to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and (oddly) Kolkata over
Christmas break. It's going to be a much
better read than the previous link on the your news feed that you skipped
over.
First I feel like I
have to explain the reason why anyone would choose to spend Christmas break
traveling to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and (oddly) Kolkata. I had actually been planning to spend
Christmas in Kolkata for a few years.
There is something about serving the destitute and homeless alongside
nuns while getting sick on cheap Indian street food that just seemed liked the
most Christmassy thing a person could do.
I somehow managed to convince some gullible friends that this was a good
idea and everything was set. Then I
realized that on the way from Delhi to Kolkata for an extra $170 we could stop for a week in Kazakhstan. I asked my new flatmate Elaine sitting across
the couch from me, "Elaine, want to go to Kazakhstan?" "Sure" she said; and I bought the
tickets.
And then I realized
that it would be winter in Kazakhstan.
That meant all the beautiful pictures I had seen on Google of forested
mountains, clear blue lakes, and wild horses might as well have been from
Atlantis because I was not going there.
I was going to a very, very cold place.
I went out and bought another used down jacket. Then a few weeks later we walked out of the
airport in Almaty and stood at the bus stop and I realized that this wasn't
going to be like winters in Arizona, it was going to be like winters on the
North Pole.
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| Looking out from a Ferris wheel over the edge of Almaty |
Fortunately for us,
at the recommendation of a friend, we booked our first couple nights at Dimal
Hostel. It ended up literally being my
favorite hostel I've ever stayed in anywhere, was in a perfect location, and only
cost $8 a night! My first impression of the city that evening was not of post-communist blocks of depressing homogeneity or of
Borat-style third world chaos but something totally different from either. Almaty is the largest city in central Asia
(which means absolutely nothing - it's only 1.5 million people) and is a place
of trendy coffee shops, irresistible sushi bars, beautiful freeways, and unique
Kazakh culture - like fermented horse milk.
Yes that's right,
fermented horse milk. It deserves its
own paragraph. Apparently mare's milk is
actually indigestible for humans; unless some of the lactose is broken down through
fermentation. We decided to ease into
the idea of trying it by first ordering Chal - another drink essential to
Kazakh hospitality made from fermented camel milk. It wasn't as bad as I had imagined and
neither was the horse version. It kind
of tasted like a watery mixture of yogurt, goat cheese, and a nine volt
battery. I actually started to really
enjoy it after the initial shock and ended up ordering another bowl of it.
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| Sabrina trying Kumys - fermented mare's milk |
We were excited to
discover that our first full day in Kazakhstan happened to be their national
independence day! Kazakhstan had been
occupied by the USSR for seventy one years before declaring its own
independence on December 16th, 1991. As
the day wore on though I wondered if we had been misinformed. Nobody seemed to be celebrating anything and
we couldn't find any decorations or displays of national pride. Later in the day I came across an English
speaking man and asked if it was actually independence day. He said yes it was, but not too many people
got excited about it because of all the death and destruction is took to make
happen. "Was it worth all the lives
that were sacrificed?" He asked with a shrug. Too soon I guess.
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| "I'm getting cold" (photo credit: Drea) |
After spending the
next day perusing the State History Museum and skating at the world's highest
ice rink, we found ourselves huddled on a snowy curb with a pink sticky note
that said in Russian, "Hello. We
are a group of four Americans with backpacks.
We are looking for a car to take us to the Kyrgyzstan border at a
distance of approximately 240 km. Please
tell how much???" Hardly anyone in
Kazakhstan seemed to read or speak English so we had enlisted the Russian
skills of our hostel host Dimitri to help in our quest to see the city of
Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan. Fortunately we
met with very limited success. In fact,
the only driver that agreed to even read the note was a taxi and after
recovering from the initial confusion it must have caused him, scribbled
"100,000 Tenge" on the back of our note. "$300!
Yeah right!" We had read in
a blog that someone had had better luck with this over by the main bus station
so we had him take us there instead.
Upon arriving we saw a mini-bus leaving with a sign in the windshield
that said, "Bishkek". Or at
least we thought if we could translate it into English that's what it would
probably have said. We went inside to
inquire and found an incredibly helpful translator in the form of a young
soldier who told us we could take the mini-bus all the way to Bishkek for 1500
Tenge. "$4! That's more like it!"
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| Medeu - the world's highest ice rink |
If I had thought
Almaty was the North Pole I was wrong.
That title should definitely have been reserved for Kyrgyzstan. Well, and the actual north pole I guess. There was a literal blizzard happening and
our bus driver didn't even seem to notice.
He just powered full steam ahead, passing slower cars on the way. The snow was piled up in beautiful drifts
everywhere, stuck to every individual branch and twig of every tree, and
completely covered any traces of the boundaries of our road. The border crossing was easy despite the
guard not believing the clean shaven face in my passport photo was actually
me. Neither Kazakhstan nor Kyrgyzstan
required any kind of visa or entry fee.
After checking into our hostel, which was even cheaper but not nearly as
cozy as Dimal, we set out to explore the center of the capitol of Kyrgyzstan
and try the local food. Surprisingly it
felt much more Asian and we feasted on noodles and spicy beef soup.
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| The Note |
The highlight of our
two day excursion into Kyrgyzstan was when we stumbled into a big crowd of what
appeared to be a protest of some kind on the main square at night. The snow was coming down and the wind was
whipping it into our ill-prepared butts so we forced our way into the huddle to
stay warm. There were a couple people
with microphones out in front reading something and then another man with a big
fur hat and military shoulders stopped them and they argued a little bit back
and forth. The crowd shuffled back and
forth and a few of them left. The
microphone was shut off and we thought it was over when suddenly it came back
on and they started shouting something into it.
The crowd around us started shouting the same words along with them and
I realized they must be counting. They
got to the bottom of their countdown with a long loud yell and then suddenly
across the street the biggest Christmas tree I have ever seen started lighting
up! As all the lights from the bottom to
the star on top illuminated everything around, we joined in with the crowd and
cheered it on at the top of our lungs. I
thought about hugging the bearded man next to me. He looked very warm.
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| The giant Christmas tree in the main square of Bishkek (this is before the crowd amassed) |
Back in Almaty I
spent the last two days skiing. For just
25 cents you can take a series of busses and gondolas up the mountains to a
height of 10,000 feet where there is a breathtakingly beautiful ski resort
complete with cheap rentals, black diamond passes, and mugs of hot cocoa. Surprisingly, after five years, the basics
came back to me pretty quickly and I spent two days zipping down powdery pistes
with what appeared to be the entire country of Kazakhstan as a backdrop. To me, there are few ways of passing time I
enjoy more than skiing. It is the
perfect combination of heart pumping adrenaline, awe-inspiring beauty of
nature, and downright child-like fun.
When I had made the initial decision to go to Kolkata for Christmas I
had never guessed I would be taking an idealistic winter ski trip along the way. I couldn’t stop smiling under my frozen
mustache.
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| The view from my gondola coming down the mountain at the end of the day |
Our train to Kolkata
took 32 hours and was 7 hours late and we had to share our tiny, smelly
bunks. This was more like what I had
imagined the trip to look like. We met
up with a couple more friends on Sudder street who had thankfully already
reserved some rooms for us and we finally crashed in our beds at six in the
morning on Christmas Eve. We stayed in
the Golden Apple which wasn't half of a half as nice as Dimal and cost $10 a
night! We searched for something else
but all the hotels were all full or didn't have hot water or windows. Christmas morning I woke up to the sound of
my alarm at 6:25 and met with my drowsy friends in the lobby at 6:30 where
together we walked the twenty minutes to "Mother's House" (the name
for the headquarters and living quarters of Mother Teresa). I reunited with one of the nuns I had come to
know during my six months stay there two and half years ago and went to help
her serve the poor. The MC was throwing
a huge feast for all the homeless and street people and I spent most of the day
sprinting around the tables filling up their cups and clearing their
dishes. I am not sure I have ever in my
life seen so many smiles in a single day. It was everything I had hoped it would
be.
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| Back on Sudder Street after two and a half years! |
I spent the rest of
the week volunteering and visiting old sites and people that I had known from
before. It was a surreal experience to
be back walking the same streets and eating at the same places and nodding to
the same people as I passed their stalls on the street. A lot of people remembered me and asked if I
remembered them. I wished they could
review a little movie on the last two and a half years of my life and see how
all of them had had such a huge impact on me and the direction of my life but
all I could do was smile and say, "Yeah, of course I remember
you."
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| Mother Teresa |
Of course, it
wouldn't have been a proper trip to Kolkata if we hadn't all got sick with flu
viruses, food poisoning, and seemingly everything else that one can catch in a
week. It just wouldn't have gratified my
longing for the experiences of the past if I hadn't found myself lying in a
cramped bed, too sick to get up, questioning why I had come, what I was doing,
what the proper response of a white privileged American is to the degradation
of life in the slums, and the meaning of life.
So I’m glad that happened. A week
later, after flying back and recovering from the various illnesses, I sat on my
cozy couch at home with a steaming cup of mint tea and opened my computer for
the first time in two weeks. Had that
really all happened in two weeks?
"Are you going to write a blog about your trip?" my Mom asked
on Facebook messenger. Here it is Mom, I
hope you enjoyed my stories from my Christmas vacation to Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan, and (oddly) Kolkata.
