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.
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