The 'Stans - Karakol (18 August 2019)

Having flicked through the hiking trails in the hostels guide book, I opt for one of the 'easy' trails for a few hours, considering I'm only here for the day and have no proper hiking stuff and barely any warm clothes. I'm also generally not a huge hiking fan.

Coffee in hand, I set out walking out of town straight towards the mountain in front of me, with just my airpods and hiking navigation app for company.

The sun was shining and my new water proof clothing, aka my plastic tracksuit, was now making me ridiculously sweaty. But onward I continued, Karakol growing smaller and smaller in the background.

The hike is fairly relaxed at this point and I only have a few older people for company who have also taken the easy option for this fine Sunday morning.

The roue of the hike was an almost U shaped, starting in Karakol, heading up the mountain and descending into another town a 20 minute bus rider away from Karakol.

On the way I took a major detour to find this huge herd of sheep being shepherded across the valley. I spent a good 10 minutes bah-ing at the sheep and getting a crescendo of bahs back.

At one point I managed to go complete off track and into shoulder height plants, with no physical way of making it back onto the hiking path for a good amount of time. I started to think that if I became lost, I had not told anyone where I was hiking, so it could very easily go wrong. But then I remember I was on the 'easy' trail and I couldn't possibly mess this up.

After a good four or five hours of walking, with probably not enough food and water to sustain me. The hiking path suddenly flattened out down onto the road. I read that I could catch a bus somewhere along this road so kept walking for another 45 minutes until I came across what looked like a bus stop. Next door was a small shop, never has a bottle of Fanta and a Snickers tasted so good.

Fare paid, I jumped onto the bus and appreciated the sit down. We slowly meandered back to Karakol and back to somewhat of civilisation.

The 'Stans - Bishkek to Karakol (17 August 2019)

Today was a day filled with travel, venturing from Bishkek to Karakol, a town near Issyk-Kul offering all manner of outdoor pursuits.

I took a cab to the Bishkek bus station and attempted to locate the marshrutka going to Karakol. I went to the ticket office and was motioned to the outside of the building, where there were dozens of marshrutkas. I walked around shouting Karakol, and would be pointed in one direction and then back in the other direction. After about 20 minutes, I found the bus.

I had timed this perfectly, only 3 seats remained. With marshrutkas, the bus will always wait until it is full. If you're the first person on board, you're guaranteed a long wait. I found a seat with ample leg room and made camp for the six hour journey to Karakol. The bus was full of local Kyrgyz people, I was the only traveller.

It was only a matter of minutes until the kid next to me had fallen asleep and started using my shoulder as a pillow. I gave him a gentle shoulder in the skull to wake him up, he looked annoyed. We repeated this game for a few cycles until he turned the other way.

Important contextual point for later; I had left my big bag in Bishkek as I would be travelling back the same way. Therefore, I had just the shorts i was wearing and a couple of t shirts - in the 40 degree Bishkek weather, you need little else.

After many hours driving along side Issyk-Kul, the second highest lake in the world behind Lake Titicaca (I've also been there!), passing settlement after settlement of abandoned Soviet holidays camps, we finally pulled into Karakol. Some six hours later. The weather had been getting greyer and wetter the closer we got.

I jumped out of the bus and instantly realised that I had made a grave mistake. It was freezing.

But that didn't matter too much, I would just head to the hostel and consider my options. Oh. The hostel was less of a hostel and was in fact scattered yurts in the open. The common area was akin to a garage, with no protection from the elements. I was cold and wet and had no way of heating up.

In urgent need to heating up, I head to a cafe called Lighthouse Coffee and Tea, and it was sublime. Warm and Dry. The food was limited so I ordered an extra hot Ramen. I'm not a huge fan of Ramen, but this was a game changer.

After warming up, I found out that the Karakol market was open until 17:00. It was currently 16:45, so I made a mad dash in the hope of finding warmer clothing. Nearly every store was closed apart from one Kyrgyz men's fashion stall. I was in no position to barter and must have looked desperate. I ended up buying a grey, plastic feel, tracksuit which was apparently an Adidas x Supreme special.

It was probably the best £20 I had ever spent. I was now warm and water proof. As it has been such an ordeal, I head to the nearest pub and have a well deserved pint on a table with a German couple. We didn't speak much, but they could tellI earned that beer.

I headed back the garage at the hostel to survey my yurt for the night. As a night cap, I met up with the Belgian chap whom I shared a five day car journey with. We discussed our different routes post-Tajik and agreed to meet up in Almaty, Kazakshtan.

The 'Stans - Bishkek (16 August 2019)

The Freelander Hostel was super modern and comfortable. Very highly recommended if you spend some time in Bishkek. For today the plan was to explore Bishkek and see what the city had to offer and what Soviet gems I could unearth.

The first stop on my walking tour of Bishkek was Ala-Too Square, a square built in 1984 to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Kyrgyz Soviet Socialist Republic.

I waited in the square for probably a bit too long, all to see the changing of the guard and their goose stepping:

Pretty cool site for any history nerds out there.

Bishkek felt like the most Soviet/Russian city that I had been to so far. Dushanbe and Ashgabat felt more Asian and grand, Bishkek felt like it was once grand...about 30 years ago. But it retained a quaint charm. Where else can you see a MIG fighter propped up between a row shops?

I managed to find an amazing shawarma take out in the middle of Bishkek and made a note to come back in the evening for dinner too. It was that good.

As I walked around the city, I came across more and more interesting Soviet architecture.

Later that evening, I went to the nearby park and worked out on the bars. It seemed to be the thing to do, many young Kyrgyz men also had the same idea. Work out complete, I walked back to the shawarma place but managed to miss it by a large proximity, but I was determined to get shawarma and the walk took well over an hour. As a result I bought two kebabs and took a taxi home.

Even though the country may feel like a million miles away what I would call home, people are generally similar wherever you go:

And an even bigger shock was the prevalence of Morrison's carrier bags. In Bishkek they were the go-to carrier bag for all tiny shacks and markets. Bizarre.

The 'Stans - Osh to Bishkek (15 August 2019)

I only have one thing to do today. Get the plane to Bishkek at 20:35, which left me with the whole day to chill, eat and do some planning for Bishkek and beyond.

The only photo I have from the entire day is a cup of coffee. Which goes to show how lazy today was.

It reached late afternoon so I packed up and asked the hostel to call me a taxi. The pregnant receptionist warned me to not pay a Som over than the price she was quoted. Even after I jumped into the taxi, the receptionist reminded/shouted at the taxi driver to not overcharge me.

I assumed the worst and was ready for a fight at the other end, but the taxi driver was docile and didn't attempt to overcharge.

I landed in Bishkek Airport at around 10pm and again, it was my least favourite travelling chore - dodge the taxi drivers. I'd read about Bishkek airport being notorious for aggressive taxi touts. As soon as I walked through arrivals I was greeted by a short Kyrgyz taxi driver who refused to leave me alone and even followed me as I walked as far away from arrivals as possible, he got bored after an extended period of time and scuttled back to his prime touting position.

At this point I decided to head out of the airport at the departures entrance, now totally deserted. One cab had started pulling a way but stopped. The driver jumped out, started shouting and motioning me in. There was already another chap in the front seat of this taxi - it screamed kidnapping and extortion attempt, but it seems preferable to giving the other taxi tout my money, so i jumped in.

I showed the address on my phone of where I needed to go and hoped for the best. The two Kyrgyz men chatted in the front (hopefully not about how they were going to rob me), but eventually we reached the hostel, or nearby the hostel, and I jumped out as the road ahead was pedestrianised.

The walk to this hostel is probably the most discomforting I have ever done. A pitch black country road, strewn with trash, steam coming out of pipes attached to the building on the right and a railway line to the left for good measure. I could see phone screen lights in the pitch black distance and hurriedly walked up this path in the hope it would lead me to my hostel.

To my shock, this was actually the correct road and I was in front of my hostel. I rang the bell and waited. And waited. Rang the bell some more and then waited some more. As I was contemplating jumping the 8ft gate, someone kindly buzzed me in.

On first impressions this hostel looked legit, the first 'hostel' hostel that I had stayed in, as opposed to a home-stay or a cheap hotel. I checked in and hit the hay.

The 'Stans - Osh (14 August 2019)

After a delightful sleep and an actual working, hot, high pressured shower, I head down for breakfast which was sub-par at best. I check out and pay but the receptionist motioned that she did not have enough to change to give me, so we settled on a large bottle of coke as change instead.

With the extra unnecessary weight (it was at least 1.5 litres of coke), I set off on the half hour walk across Osh to my new hostel, Park Hostel, for the next couple of days.

My first task is to decide do I a) take a 10 hour marshrutka to Bishkek or b) book a 1 hour flight. After spending the previous five days couped up in a car, the flight unsurprisingly won. And it turned out to be the correct decision. My Belgian chap ended up taking the bus earlier this morning, and it took him closer to 12 hours on roads far worse than the Pamir Highway and for a similar price to the flight. As not many people were heading to Bishkek, he had to buy up the remaining seats to get the marshrutka moving.

The hostel was very chill and a lovely place to recover after a ridiculously long road trip. My room mates were suffering with post-Pamir runs, so I kept out of their way and headed out to get lunch and stumbled across an absolute gem. Brio, a short walk away from the hostel, was perfect for a post-Pamir recovery. Great coffee, fruit juices, garlic mayo and fries. Safe to say the majority of my food intake in the next two days will be at Brio.

After indulging, I headed out to find the big flag pole and the Levin statue - Central Asian staples.

With those incredibly important boxes ticked, I head towards the market for a bit of shopping. On the way, I head through an old Soviet adventure park only noticeable by the large jet parked at the bottom of the stairs.

Yes, nothing says ex-soviet like a rundown and slightly bizarre playground.

I resisted the urge to give up my life riding any of these machines, but the local Kyrgyz seemed to be enjoying the odd array of rides. The market was rammed and one of the better markets so far in Central Asia.

Later in the evening I head up to Mountain Sulaiman-Too, one of the top things to do in Osh. A UNESCO world heritage sight containing numerous ancient places of worship. The only way up was a steep flight of never ending stairs. It took the wind out of me, so more respect to the babushkas (grannies) for climbing the stair, or even being shoved & dragged up as i saw on a couple of occasions.

The mountain is still a functioning place of worship and people travel far to climb the mountain and pay their respects. The views from the top gave a lovely view over Osh below.

With the climbing and the walking I was done for the day and hit the hay early for my departure for the Bishkek, the following day.

The 'Stans - Pamir Highway: Murgab to Osh (13 August 2019)

In Murgab we say goodbye to our smiley Tajik driver and his Tajik 4x4 and it is replaced with a miserably stout Kyrgyz driver and his decidedly worse 4x4. This 4x4 was small, much smaller than our previous car. And to makes matters worse the Kyrgyz driver asks if his nephew can jump into the car to Osh with us. We say no, much to his disgust, unless the nephew pays his way. Obviously the nephew had no intention of paying a single Somoni for the journey, so off we go without him. Pissing off our driver for the next 9/10 hour journey may not have been the smartest move.

But alas, onwards to Osh, and the most painful journey of the roadtrip so far. Only 417km to go...

After

As we depart Mugrab we get closer and closer to the Chinese border (or at least the border fence). The Chinese have erected a fence along what looked like the entire Tajik-Chinese border. It is a very remote region with hardly any people let alone border guards and the border fence is almost immaculate. Apart from the odd sections of fence that have been run over, with fresh tyre marks left in the dust.

After an hour or so of driving we reach the highest pass of the the Pamir Highway, the Ak Baital Pass at 4,665m above sea level.

Just to be sure, the iphone compass gave an unofficial reading of 4,630m above sea level.

We passed another spectacular mountain top lake - Karakul Lake:

We reach the Tajik - Kyrgyz border by midday and have a relatively short wait at the Tajik side. We park up and are told not to leave pour vehicles by the Tajik border guards, who slowly take their time reviewing passports and stamping them.

 As far as borders go, this was pain-less with minimal waiting time. There was a small search of the car, but nothing invasive.

We trundle along for some distance in the no-mans land zone between the two border posts, at least 15 or 20 minutes passes.

In the middle of no mans land there are a couple of houses, both offering accommodation. Due to the high altitude and the mountain climb, traveller cycling through sometimes cannot make it from one border post to the other before it closes. Therefore, they have the luxury of this accommodation on hand:

Eventually we arrive at the Kyrgyz border post which seems a lot more friendly than the Tajik side. The Kyrgyz border guard see my British passport and immediately lists all the Premier League players he can think of - Liverpool players seem to be the Central Asian go to currently, especially Trend Alexander Arnold.

We are stamped through and told to wait in a car park until all the formalities are completed by our driver. We somehow manage to jump the queue of cars and bikes waiting, and head off inot Kyrgyzstan.

The initial thing that struck me heading into Kyrgyzstan was the greenery and the animals. There are animals everywhere. It's amazing how drastically the scenery can change after going through one border post.

Tucked away into the green pastures are Yurts popping up out of the green, each with its own collection of nomadic animals; buffalo, goats and chickens seems to be the popular choice.

We stop off at the first town after the Kyrgyz border - Sary Tash. At this point we leave our Portuguese car mate at a petrol station as he attempts the journey east into China. The Belgian and I grab lunch at a small Kyrgyz restaurant busy with traveller and Kyrgyz alike. One Kyrgyz uncle strikes up conversation in English asking us if we like Kyrgyzstan, we reply in the positive. The uncle is happy.

The driver into Osh never seems to end. We are seven hours in at this point and the journey slowly moves from natural beauty to motor way (or Central Asian motorway) and more built up by the kilometre.

I would guess that it took 10 hours, but we had finally made it to Osh. I said farewell to Simon, the Belgian chap, and we dropped him near to his hotel. We then set off to find my hotel, the driver was becoming more and more desperate to just drop me off whether near to my hotel or not. Narrowly missing being rear ended as the car behind us was.

After navigating the chaotic streets of Osh, which seemed like the polar opposite to the Pamir Highway that we had just traversed, I finally found my hotel.

I had been smart and booked up the nicest hotel that I could find. Unfortunately there was no restaurant in the hotel and no working ATM nearby. That meant a desperate dinner of almonds and dried apricots for me - two things i was sick of after snaking on them for 5 consecutive days. I got into my room and collapsed on my double bed and got the best night sleep I'd had in days.

The 'Stans - Pamir Highway: Langar to Murgab (12 August 2019)

Another early morning start, though this time we head to a museum that this chap made about his great great grandfather who was a poet and a musician in the local area. Here is the home-stay owner playing a musical instrument that was invented by his great great grandfather:

After that Tajik cultural gem, we again hit the road for another 7 hour car journey. But just down the road, or at least it was probably only an hour away, was a large hill featuring 600 bronze age petroglyphs.

Three Tajik kids joined us at the bottom of the hill for the walk up. We all struggled up the hill as the altitude grew and the air became harder to breathe. The kids were nailing it, one of them was only wearing one and half sandals and still outpacing me.

Suitably sweaty and breathless, we made our way down the hill with the Tajik kids still in tow. When we reached the car, on cue, the kids demanded their payment. I gave them a load of sweets, but they looked at me like I had deeply insulted them. Instead, I resorted to some sweaty rolled up Somoni. Still they looked pissed off. But alas, that's all they would receive from their short walk up the hill that morning.

As we made our way onto Murgab, we finally veered away from the Afghan border and started to head in-land to the west of Tajikistan and edging closer to the Chinese border. The Panj River was soon traded for vast open desert:

Away from the stunning scenery of Afghanistan, this new scenery was fairly monotonous and the 7 hours in the car began to actually feel like 7 hours in a car.

A lunch break is a tiny mountainous village broke up the journey. This village defined remote living. There was barely any greenery, and what looked like a handful of outside toilet for the entire village to use.

Somehow, we were served a lunch of fish in a little home-stay whilst watching an English language documentary of Che Guevara. A bizarre lunchtime stop that juxtaposed the remoteness of the village. Life must be hard in this village - the winters savage, the journeys long but it is home to a number of people, just going about their daily lives.

On the drive to Murgab, the landscape changes from dusty and expansive to green and lush, even heading passed a vast lake (this must be where our fish lunch came from!).

The never ending journey continues, as the road deteriorates and becomes more and more potholed. We are soon in the single digits of mph, trying not to wreck the 4x4 before we reach Murgab. Roads like this suddenly become dreamlike:

Finally we arrive in Murgab. It has a busy vibe about it, and feels like a stop over town for travellers. The hostel we are staying in is packed (for central Asian standards), heading along the Pamir Highway in both directions. We stay at the Pamir Hotel, a basic lodgings but comfortable enough for the journey with a good food selection, which felt far more Chinese in its offerings.

Another unusual site was the Chinese armed forces, again in large numbers in Murgab. At one point a number of solider were in our hotel trying to negotiate some rooms for the more senior looking members of their party. A Chinese Humvee is the last vehicle you expect to be parked outside a Pamiri hostel.