By Taxi through Kyrgyzstan

We arrived in Bishkek by train. The overnight journey had been punctuated by border guards taking Barry off the train at midnight to dispute our claim that as Australians, we did not need visas for Kyrgyzstan. As a mere woman I wasn’t required to be there with him. After half an hour of negotiation in fractured and limited Russian and basic English they allowed him back on to the train.

Later, a turban-wearing bearded money-changer, exchanged our US dollars for the local currency, Som, in the corridor of the open sleeper carriage. By sleight of hand he placed our banknote into his leather pouch and pulled out one of a smaller denomination which he claimed was the one we had given him. He cheated us out of about $US10, but then again it was 1 am and we were sleepy and not on the ball.

Bishkek is a city with wide streets and modern buildings and a sound, light and water show each night, using the fountains in the main square. After spending a week in Bishkek, we got up early one morning to go to the city of Osh in the south of the country. Our town taxi dropped us off at the long distance taxi departure point in the bazaar. As we pulled up and paid the driver we were surrounded by screaming men, asking where we were going. ‘Osh’ Barry said as we went around to the boot to get our luggage. They grabbed us by the arms, screaming out ‘Osh, Osh, Osh, come with me!’.

One grabbed my luggage and tried to wrench it out of my hand. ‘Don’t let go of that bag’, Barry called out to me. ‘How much to Osh?’ he asked the taxi touts. We had checked with locals how much the fare would be.

After bargaining, we accepted a price and sat in the car we had chosen, while the taxi touts looked for more passengers. To travel alone is more expensive than sharing. We saw other westerners getting into a different taxi and said under our breath, ‘Don’t get into that one, come with us, so we can leave now.’ But they didn’t hear us.

We were taken by our taxi men out of the first taxi to another car on a side street. It had right-hand drive and the driver was sitting in the front seat. He drove off straight away although there were still no other passengers. Barry became worried and, using hand gestures and our limited Russian checked with the driver that we would still be paying the price we had agreed on with the other men. After 10 minutes we pulled over at a suburban street where 3 adults and 2 young boys were waiting. The older couple farewelled their daughter and grandsons who climbed into the car, the 2 boys sitting in the back seat and the mother next to me in the middle seat. The grandfather leaned into the car and gave the older boy, who looked to be about 8, some folded money which the boy took solemnly and tucked into his pocket.

We drove out of the city and up into the mountains. After an hour snow was swirling around the windscreen and our camera came out—the scenery of the towering mountains was beautiful. We approached a tunnel cut through the mountain; it had a sign in Cyrillic lettering above the entrance. Cars and trucks were all around us on the busy road. Horses peered out of one smaller truck.

We finished climbing and then came down the mountain—the brakes were overheating and we pulled over into a rest area. We all got out into the cold air. The car wheels felt hot to touch.

After ten minutes, we continued driving down the mountain and we saw grassy meadows with yurts and gypsy style caravans everywhere. In the meadows around the yurts and caravans, horses were grazing. The female passenger, Anya, laughed and pointed at a woman milking a mare—‘Ha, ha—kymyz,’ she said. Kymyz is the name of the national drink, fermented mare’s milk, which is only available in late spring and summer. Shortly afterwards, we saw it for sale alongside the road, in rows of recycled plastic water bottles, together with cheese balls, also made from mare’s milk.

We pulled over to have tea at a tiny roadside settlement. After a short time, a jar of Nescafe appeared on the table too with powdered milk. In Central Asia and Iran the locals sit on platforms to eat. The platforms are a bit lower than dining tables, and are covered in colourful cushions and carpet. Traditionally you remove your shoes and semi-recline or sit as you eat and drink on the platform, which serves both as seat and table.

Anya asked me if I needed to use the toilet and we walked across the road to a cement outhouse. Inside was a cement floor with 3 holes in a row and no dividing partitions. One woman was already squatting. Although there was one spare hole in the ground, I elected to wait outside and returned when the other women had left. Anya stood outside, held my handbag, and kindly paid the small fee for using the toilet for both of us at a ticket booth. I thought about our luxurious toilets back home which are free to use.

We left the mountains behind, and as the roads became busier, our driver would sometimes overtake slower vehicles. His vision was restricted because of the car being right-hand drive so Barry, in the front passenger seat, would need to give the thumbs-up if there was no oncoming traffic, or wave him back if it was dangerous. Once Anya anxiously called out a warning to the driver. I had to bite my tongue, always thinking we were going to have a ‘head-on’.

Barry rang our accommodation contact in Osh and he assured us he would meet us when we arrived there. Closer to Osh, we stopped again at a roadhouse for a meal. We had worked out that the driver and the other passengers were all related. We drank tea while the family had a full meal of soup and bread and kebabs. Anya packed up some food they hadn’t finished, to take home.

The city of Osh was much more Islamic than Bishkek had been. Our accommodation man was waiting when we arrived at about 6 pm. He looked like an imam—fringe beard, no moustache, skullcap, collarless shirt and trousers like pyjamas. He greeted us in perfect English as we alighted from the car, and took us across the street.

My heart sank as he led us past a mosque and across a rubbish-strewn vacant lot to our accommodation. As we got closer I saw a window box with flowering geraniums on a downstairs window sill of the apartment block where we would stay. That window box made me feel more positive about the place—somebody cared.