Now, I am ready again for an adventures, or am I? - Road from Almaty toBiskek, Kyrgystan

After, Lady Princess was back in an order, I was ready to rock the roads again. I even told to Toon, that I am ready for the adventures again. What ever the road will give me, I will be glad to experience it. I don't mean we had adventure less time, but they are not as overwhelming as when experienced alone. I also enjoyed the time of being behind Toons back like invisible (still quite load) creature, since that is socially accepted place for a woman in the countries where we travelled together.

There is two alternative roads from Almaty to Bishkek, Kyrgystan. One goes straight on a highway and the other one has a little loop on the rolling hills near the mountains. I decided to cycle the longer southern road to avoid the worst traffic, and I hoped to see some smaller villages and just see what Kazhakstan is alike. I was especially interested to know if things were more allowed outside of Almaty.

As anywhere in the world it takes some kilometers to leave the big cities, and so it did with Almaty. After 30  or so kilometers there was no more traffic, expect horses and I was just stunned by the beauty of the vast green hills. Snow peak mountains, green hills, small villages, livestock and finally just very very friendly people! I had a conversation with Kazakh man about Finland, he was explaining for half an hour facts and famous people from Finland. I felt a bit ashamed since, the only person from Kazhakstan who I knew is Mr. Borat and as far as I know, he is not so popular in Kazhakstan. The lambs and cows were crazing everywhere and shepards riding horses were looking after them. Even if the past few years other activities in my life have taken more time than horses, I still love them and no matter how many of them I pass, I would like to take picture all of them! So, Kazhakstans countryside showed totally new side of the country to me; horses, just endless amount of horses. Men on horses and more horses and more men on horses, and as a horse girl I was in my heaven. What else could I as for.

The poppy fields colored the never ending fields red and I was mesmerized of the clean nature. The sunny day changed suddenly and dark clouds surprised me. How fast the thunderstorm can just sneak from behind my back without realizing! I had few minutes to get my rain clothes from bottom of my back, check that the closest town was still 25km ahead. I jumped back on my bike and decided to continue, look for mosque, bridge or something to hide under. The rain was so heavy that I could not keep my eyes open, so I decided to take my tarp and sit under it, until the hardest part of the storm will pass by. I have never in my life been so afraid of thunder before.

Local pickup stopped next to me and two guys jumped out of the car and asked what was I doing in middle of the storm.with Russian and hand-signs they showed that I should not continue. They asked me to come into the car to escape the rain and with google translate we had a conversation. Kroman and Serg invited me to come with them into Kromans seasonal home. I decided to trust them and we put my lady princess into the car. We threw my bike on pick up and started to drive, 20km on a highway and then took left, straight into small muddy field. I didn't understand how the car was able to move on that slippery mud, sometimes sideways and sometimes getting stuck, but after long field drive we made our way to empty "Dom".

We left my stuff there and Kroman and Serg made sound of gallop of the horse and pointed me, they obviously wanted to know if I do horseback riding. I said yes (wondering what happens next) and they put their tums up and smiled. We drew through the fields to another farmhouse, prepared three horses, left phones to charge and galloped through the fields to bring something to a shepherd. Totally soaked but in my heaven, I thought how amazing Kazhakstan is, everybody seems to own a horse and everybody knows how to ride one.

Boys offered me a meal in a restaurant and I was eating my first horse meat noodles. As a vegetarian I appreciated the offer and shuffled the meat into my body. Central Asia does not seem to be a paradise for vegetarians. We went to a shop and boys bought bottle of vodka, they saw my worried face and through magic Google they told me that only one will drink, I was still worried. I didn't like to be stuck in middle of nowhere with heavy rain with drunk Kazakh. They felt the distrust and wanted that I send a message through their Facebook to my sister to show that I can trust them.

Serg and Kroman were gentlemen until vodka was finished and the drunk guy passed out into the car. The sober one tried his luck with me, but respected my untouchable zone (maybe I had to repeat it few times. I find it disappointing that people think they can have sex with me only because I am woman traveling alone and they help me. At the same time, I appreciate their respect to my noes. Well, I got key into my hand and was told what to do in the morning, boys they had to go to the fields at 5am. They also told me not to open the door for stranger and not to worry.

I fell a sleep fast, but was woken up at 1am. I was sure that the boys shouted my name. I got out of my sleeping bag and thought that they had forgotten something and came to get it now. It's hard to describe the panic that rose from within when I saw two big Kazakh men, one with the gun and one with shovel. Their faces were slightly surprised as well. They wanted to know my name and for few seconds I forgot who I was, I just felt how the panic was trying to take over me. I managed to mumble "Lotta", I am Lotta and friend brought me here, no problem. They wanted to know the names and phone numbers of my friends. I couldn't tell neither of them. The panic had taken over my brain capacity, I already had a plan how to escape if they attack me. They pointed the ground and said machine. I understood that it must mean a car and I was saying da da machine machine friend friend njet problem. They looked at me and they must have seen fear in my eyes and they laughed and walked away.

I locked the door, was trying to get my heartbeat down and walked to the big room where I was sleeping. I decided not to panic anymore, I realized that nothing had happen, the fear was in my own head. If something will happen, I will sleep until that. Otherwise I would be too tired to cycle the day after. I decided to breath the fear out of me and within every inhale decide to trust that I am not going to die tonight either. Yet, for the first time for a long time I felt very vulnerable and realized that Nobody knew where I was, my family didn't even know I was in Kazhakstan. I managed to handle the fear and fell asleep pretty fast.

The next morning was sunny and when I open the few was just stunning. I felt like I had a bad nightmare, but the footsteps showed that something had happened last night. When I walked to the toilet, I saw that there we pickup stuck in the field further away. Most likely the guys were driving middle of the night and got stuck into the mud, came to borrow a shovel and wanted to have a warm place to sleep.

The rest of the road to Bishkek was beautiful and I cycled long long day 150km to get into the city. I would not have managed without good road and tailwind. The border crossing between Kazhakstan and Kyrgystan was slowest border crossing where I have ever been. I was happy to arrive to Biskek and have a secured room in the Sakura guest house. I had the whole central Asian visa rally ahead of me and on my first evening I met people, who had been waiting over 3 weeks for visas. I thought, that I had had enough adventures and didn't mind to slow down my adventures life again. The whole story left some marks on me and I couldn't sleep so well during the next week, I also had lot of anxious dreams. Time is magic and now everything is fine again.

Kazhakstan-how did I end up here so fast?

After spending night in Dubai getting shocked with the sheiks and everything-is-the-biggest-the-best-and-about-consuming-Dubai, I arrived to Almaty Kazakhstan with surprise surprise Toon. After spending the past months in Myanmar, India and Nepal where everything is possible and people are more than happy to help a lost tourist in every situation ( also when you don't really need-or want to be helped), Kazakhstan felt in the beginning...well...different or even opposite.

Since the unorganized style of traveling, I hadn't downloaded the map of Almaty beforehand neither we had checked the guesthouses, currency or anything else about the country. I believe it's the Nepali effect combined with the trust that everything will work out just fine anyways. Instead of figuring out all the damage that my bike had gotten during the flight, I decided to take a bus with Toon to the city center. After few hours we finally managed to jump into the bus ( the buses are running in time and there is no excuses to wait for two minutes) and got to meet first angry Kazhak. The bus driver wanted price of six people for taking the cartoon box into the bus. I think I made the driver even more angry with calling him from sir to brother (that's how I have called men in India and Nepal). After some angry shouting and negotiating the price went down to one person price and we sat confused in the bus.

After this little shock we made it to the city ( while I was watching the views passing by, I thought I must was back in Eastern Europe ) where the friendly people helped us with everything, they even took us to a guesthouse and negotiated the price and envied us for a drink ( ah, there is alcohol =vodka again!). Once again it was good to trust that everything will end up just fine. The next shock came in a food shop: we were able to buy absolutely everything that one can imagine (and this shop was small, the next day I spent three hours in a supermarket with all temptations to buy everything that was something similar from home, they even sell Finnish coffee and oats there!). The third shock was the electricity, wouu suddenly there was nonstop electricity and working wifi, no more power-cuts and unpredictable availability of electricity. How clean, green and organized everything was! 

How weird everything felt, woman having high heels and small clothes, my clothes were far too saggy and colorful, people didn't smile no matter how much I tried to smile them. Comparing two different places to cope with new surroundings is such a human thing to do. It's weird to be a western woman and get cultural chock when coming back to the western world (that's what I thought I was in). I don't know what I expected from Kazhakstan, but Almaty was just like being in Berlin, or anywhere in East Europe. Street cafeterias, bars, wide and big streets and everything one can imagine. I don't think I would agreed that Almaty is like Europe, if I came straight from home to Almaty. 

As Toon says expectations are future disappointments. I was not disappointed, because I never imagined what Kazhakstan is alike, but I was certainly having a cultural shock and I so appreciated the fact that I didn't need to go through it alone. We were both amazed with basically everything, even the cars were quiet and as Toon said, they were not smelly cars (most of them do have some sort of filtering system for the pollution! I believe that to cross borders with my bicycle is a lot smoother than with an airplane, even though sometimes there is big difference between the two border countries. By now, one thing I have learned is to give time for myself, not to take anything too searious, because feelings will pass. Whenever I will be ready to be here in Central Asia I will feel good again, so I decided to let the time pass and try to bring myself to present moment when ever I found myself flying into the future or back to memories in Nepal, India or even all the way back to Finland. Hard, but isn't present situation where I some years ago found my happiness? 

In our guesthouse we had a lovely housekeeper who reminded me like one specific creature from Finnish cartoon called Moomins. No matter what we did we were not allowed to do it. The best one was when Toon went to buy laundry powder and she sold it to him happily, she even showed where the laundry machine was located. After few minutes, she told us that we are not allowed to use the laundry machine. I found all this hilarious and could not stop laughing, she was my sunshine with her njet njet ( I am sure she also had laughter in her eyes!)! There were so many things we were not allowed to do, for example, not allowed to whistle, walk barefoot (I was cooking in the kitchen and had left my flip lops next to the table next to a table where I cut the vegetables), sit outside on the balcony after 9pm and the list just goes on and on.

We spend few days in Almaty, I had a problem with the gears of my bike, neither me nor Toon managed to get the lightest gears to function. I took the bike to a four bike shops, where they didn't manage to fix it either. All of them told me that I have a wrong bottom bracket, and I argued so hard with them, that I have made enough kilometers with this bottom bracket to know that the gears can function with it. All of them told me to leave their shop and I started to get desperate with unfriendly people. I think, I have gotten treated way too well during last few months, because in the last bike shop where I went I almost started to cry, because of the rudeness of the people. They were telling that I should not travel with my bike alone, if I don't manage to fix it. I should have man to cycle with. I knew it did not make sense, because they are the professionals and they didn't manage to do anything with my bike either. As usually in life this story has a happy ending: Vladimir arrived into the shop and told he likes old bikes, if I don't mind he would like to have a look on my bike. He told that Lady princess is beautiful and he can fixed her. After one hour he had managed to give her a treat and with smile on my face, off I cycled and thought that actually Kazhakstan is not that bad place to be. There is always good people around and people just communicate differently.. 

Changing bicycle for walking Annapurna circuit

"Life is about the people you meet, and the things you create with them, so go out and start creating.”

"Every great adventure starts with a bit of a rain." 

Song for today: Nina simone- i feel good

After deciding the trek, I went to the permit office to get my permit to enter to the nature reserve area. There, I met a boy from Belgium called Toon who was going to do some trek as well. We exchange numbers just if we happen to leave at the same time to the same trek. Toon send me message the evening before that he was leaving for the trek the same time. So we decided to walk few days together.

How weird was it to place my light trekking shoes on again, I had used sandals for cycling and flip flops for everything else for the past 4 months. My feet were complaining from the very beginning and before leaving I stocked up some sport tape for coming blisters. I said good bye to lady princess, who was stored to the roof of a beautiful Banyan tree guesthouse. I rented a backpack from one of the several trekking stores in pokhara and had some problems to pack it, because I had gotten used to four panniers. Toon took his tent, which was big enough for both of us to fit in and we bought some food ( I think I had enough porridge for myself for the first part of the trek). 

This time walking felt easier than in Sikkim in India. I was not as clumsy, I didn't fall down to every singe branch. The most important was that my feet remembered the walking pattern and they didn't try to peddle instead of walking. Quite quickly we found out with Toon that we are both very unorganized and neither of us had proper or any kind of a plan for the trek. Both of us wanted to find the small villages instead of big artificial guesthouse villages. I thought, I will do the trek in two weeks but then again I had basically unlimited time and so did Toon. Yet we thought that we will spend few days together and then part to be able to walk alone as well. 

Different ecosystems, different climate zones and cultures from Hindu villages at the low foothills to Tibetan Buddhist culture of Manang valley and lower Mustang, were passing by as we walked. No wonder why Annapurna circuit trek has been voted often as best long distant trek (we walked over 290km). I was amazed in every turn by the upstanding scenery. Walking allows to sense the nature better than cycling, since the space is lower. Further we walked the higher the mountains were, snow peaks everywhere. The trek was so well marked that one don't really need a guide to show the way. Many trekkers were paying for porters to carry their bags. Some porters were carrying up to 40kg (including their own bags). What does people need on the mountains? Why and how people dear to make the porters carry hair dryers and nail polish up to the mountains? 

During Annapurna circuit trek there is guest houses and home stays in almost every village. Even though we had a tent we stayed most of the time in the guesthouses, because they often gave a free accommodation if we had dinner and breakfast there. In one of the village,  I got the best bed in the world in one of the guesthouse: I was able to watch all the snow peaks glimmering with the stars and on top of this I watched shooting stars from my own bed, one of rear nights that I tried to stay awake and just float with the universe. 

The awe-inspiring ancient villages (each village had a monastery, prayer wheels, prayer flags and little gate at either end to enter) and fortresses with extremely rough climate and breathtaking environmental conditions made me wonder how on earth people manage to leave up there? People still stay up there but many people have seasonal homes: they go down to Pokhara or Kathmandu for the winter to visit relatives or do pilgrim trips, and return to the mountains when the spring arrives. The faces of people are so beautiful, especially women are stunning, rough and all their faces tell stories from past. Children have red faces, because of the strong sun and wind, old people have more wrinkles than I have ever seen. Nobody is harrying nobody looks angry, everybody is so fast to smile. 

Some years back there a road was built following the trek ( which is logic, because trek is following a river). Lot of trekkers were complaining about it, but for local people it brings long waited development and for example, easier access to get into hospitals. Many villages are depending their electricity from solar-panels, which are provided by different NGOs. After Throng La pass there was solar cookers on roofs of many houses and it was nice to see that people used them as well (families had to invest into them as well, if they wanted to have a solar cookers). 

One of my dreams for long time was to visit Mustang region. This trek after Throng La pass took to fill up one of my dreams again. We spent over week there admiring its dry and windy beauty. To get to Mustang, first we had to pass the high Throng La pass, which took us up to 5416m. After cycling for eight months my body was stronger than my head with the altitude. Once we started to walk over 5000m, I got horrible headache and the ground underneath my feet was not stable. Thank you for Toon, who was looking after me on my unstable moments. Even if I might have been telling him not to baby sit me, since he was literally holding me straight when I my world was spinning under my feet. Obviously, I have been too long time alone and how necessary it was just to put down my pride and accept help. 

Slowly after the pass and Tibetan plateau we made our way to Poon hill, where we camped with full-moonrise and woke up with magical sunrise lightning up the mountains. There would not be better way to end  our one month trek. We hitch hiked to pokhara with a track and were amazed with all the impulses that city life can bring. We camped some time on top of one of the hills before I cycled to Begnas Tal, where surprise surprise I met Toon again. 

I want to thank Toon for being the best trekking partner ever. Before starting the trek, I could had never imagined to find such an open minded, beautiful hearted, warm brother from another mother. After being alone or spending short times with people, I didn't realize how much I was longing to be connected and needed to share moments. The universe has its ways to give us what we need. After spending over one month with a friend who stays in a present moment, has good sense of humor, deep thoughts and teaches the pits that I had to learn, I wonder am I ever ready to settle down with my solitude again?

It's hard to choose just a few pictures from this amazing month..