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Tibet we won't be coming back!
Thank you Andrew for publishing our last update, we’ve had real problems with the internet since we’ve been in China, so this will be just a quick one. Apologies for those who have emailed or left comments, we will reply when we can.
We are now in Lhasa, Tibet and it is a fascinating and beautiful city. It is the Mecca of Buddhism and it currently being a national holiday it is full of pilgrims, monks and tourists!
However, getting here has been a nightmare, all 3 vehicles have had problems due to the high altitude, freezing weather, bad roads or dirty diesel, causing us to run behind schedule. This has meant staying in some awful ‘guesthouses’, some without heating even though we were at 5000m above sea level. Mario broke a suspension leaf and we had to drive 1000km over the mountains before finally getting him fixed here in Lhasa.
Although we have seen some beautiful mountains and lakes, most of the journey has been depressingly barren through some filthy, dusty towns. There’s a huge police and army presence with numerous checkpoints where you’re given the time in which you must travel to the next. Most of the locals, police and army that we have spoken to have been lovely, but the overall feeling of oppression certainly does not make us want to return, at least not with our own vehicle!
As a group we have decided not to take the 1200km, 4 day detour to Everest Base Camp as we are all completely knackered from driving up to 12 hours a day. We have shuffled our itinerary to use the extra 4 days to do more sightseeing over the next couple of weeks. Many thanks to our guide, Spring, who is constantly having to negotiate with the authorities to agree our ever changing schedule.
We are trying to get around the Chinese restrictions on uploading photos and are working with Andrew in the hope of posting some soon. We hope our next update will be fuller and more entertaining. Apparently the further East we go the less restricted the internet will be.
Finally, you may have heard about the earthquake yesterday in Yunnan Province, to reassure everyone it was 100s of miles away and hasn’t affected us.
TTFN
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Hello Me Ol' China!
It seems the Great Firewall of China is interfering with Caroline and Bry's access to the website to publish updates so I'm posting on their behalf until they get access again, which may be when they exit the other side in a months time of course!
-- Andrew
Yep, we’ve made it to China! Those of you bored enough to have read the rest of the website will probably realise this is a major milestone in our trip. The paperwork, planning and agents’ fees have been a nightmare. Having to be at the border at a specific time and date has been a major concern, but we are finally here!
After our last update, we spent a few days chilling and even had one day on the beach, although it was a bit cold. We then travelled back to the west of Lake Issyk-Kol, through Balykchy (horrible place), then south over the 3030 metre high Dolman Pass. The road was bad and full of cows, goats and horses, but the scenery was stunning, when we could see through the dust from all the oncoming Chinese lorries. We spent one night in Naryn and the next four in Tash Rabat, the closest place to the border that we could stay, and here we’d meet the rest of the group we’d travel through China with (see http://www.supervarioworld.com/index.php/preparation/104-visas-and-red-tape if this is news to you!)
Tash Rabat itself is an old (between 10th and 15th century) caravanserai (truck-stop for travellers on the Silk Road). It’s about 10 miles off the current road, set is a beautiful shepherd’s valley and now has a load of yurt camps for trekkers. When we got there it was warm and we set-up camp still with our t-shirts and shorts on – we thought it would be an amazing place to while away 4 nights before heading for the border. Then, 3 hours later, as they say in all the best mountain-based stories, “the weather came in”. Freezing cold wind and horizontal snow, then our blown-air heater wouldn’t work. It was only 3 degrees inside the van when we woke up the next day, so this was spent defrosting frozen water pipes and sorting the heater (too much Kazak dust in it). The next days were spent in our winter clothes, chasing yaks off the campsite in lieu of camping fees, so the owner could go to market and look after the other guests. We fondly remembered being on the beach a few days earlier.
Monday 22nd we met the rest of our group. Richard and PooChian, a married couple from London and their friend Lawrence. PooChian and Lawrence are Malaysian, but also speak Mandarin which will be very helpful. They’re in a Mercedes Sprinter 4x4. Then there’s Rob, a Dutch lorry-driver in a good old Landy Defender 110. Only slightly jealous of the Landy until Rob had to sleep in his roof-tent in the freezing wind. A good bunch and we spent our first night drinking, getting to know each other and swapping stories of our travels so far.
Next day was the biggy – Tuesday 23rd September 2014 – a day we have worked towards since March. In reality, it was rather uneventful and although the longest border crossing in both distance and time, it was probably the easiest. Even driving over the 3770 metre high Torugart Pass was OK, if you ignored the snow and the fact the only 2 other vehicles we saw going in our direction were lorries crashed into the ditch. At the Chinese border we met our agent sponsored “fixer” Abdul, who whisked us through the various checkpoints scattered over the next 160 KMS, where papers were checked, checked and checked again, we had our temperatures taken and then we jumped the queue in front of literally hundreds and hundreds of lorries to have Mario “decontaminated”. This consisted of driving slowly through a spray, but because of the wind, it only sprayed one side, which all the dust then stuck to – we came out dirtier then we went in!
We then met our guide for the next month, Spring. A very small, very smiley, very sweet, recently married Han Chinese 30 year-old woman who looks about 12. She’s been a guide for 8 years and also has a Masters Degree in Chinese Literature. We’re looking forward to being in her care for the next month and picking her brains about Chinese society and culture.
Our first two nights were spent in a nice hotel in Kashgar, obviously popular with Chinese tour companies as we met many other foreign travellers here. One was a crazy Swiss guy, Guido, who had spent the last 6 months cycling from home. Others were on a Berlin to Beijing rally in various older Mercs, BMWs and SAABs. In Kashgar we needed to get the vehicles registered in China and also “apply” for our Chinese driving tests. These we really just a formality, but Mario did have to have a roadworthiness test and we were given 20 reflective stickers to put on him to comply with their laws. That night another fixer “Jack” arrived at our hotel with our licences and vehicle registration plates. All 3 begin with POO, so PooChian is happy! We are now officially the “Poo Crew”. Our reg is POO133, which is nice as 13th March is Caroline’s birthday.
Since then we have mainly been driving. Due to Northern Tibet being closed and some cities being off-limits for political or security reasons, we have taken a convoluted route through the Taklamakan Desert and are now in Korla, a big modern city. The desert was beautiful, lots of proper sand dunes, but the government have spent millions installing irrigation to support plants at the road-side to stop the sand shifting onto the tarmac. This includes over one hundred pumping stations where a worker lives, looking after his stretch of the highway. We spent last night camped on one of their drives, looking at the dunes and the stars.
It’s been a strange introduction to China – on every main road you are constantly having your photograph taken by overhead cameras and there are police check points about every 100 KM (we are grateful to have Spring with us as this makes things much easier). From what we’ve seen so far there are many contradictions – public squares playing loud music for the locals to get together and dance but they are watched over by armoured vehicles and police with guns. Lots of people smiling and waving as we drive through the streets, but then we see a convoy of open top trucks containing prisoners with their heads held back by guards as a display of public humiliation – it was quite chilling. We know there are political tensions in this area and it will be interesting to see if things are more relaxed once we head South East. In any case, over the next few days we should start doing some actual sightseeing and hopefully a bit less driving.
We will update when we can and hopefully put some photos up too!
TTFN or zaijian as they say here.
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TV Fame at the Nomad Game(s)
Hello all, us again! We finally left our little haven on the south shore of Lake Issyk-Kol and are now on the more touristy north side. On the way we stopped for a night at a yurt camp in Karakol, one of the main towns on the lake. Here we were thoroughly touristy – we had a much anticipated beef-burger (first in over 2 months), ice creams and a trip to the local, rather sad zoo. We then went out in the evening for a slap-up meal of zharovni (sizzling beef dishes) and a few beers to celebrate our anniversary, somewhat late! The yurt camp was very cute and full of other travellers, it had a small bar where about 5 very wee kittens slept on top of a fridge. Caroline was happy! Then it was on to Cholpon-Ata for the World Nomad Games.
We found the arena and then set off for a nearby place to camp, planning on returning in the morning. Seeing some vehicles parked on a beach, we followed a track towards them, but it suddenly became too soft – evidently it wasn’t the track they’d taken. Deciding to reverse back the way we came, one set of rear wheels hit a rock, so the opposite side started spinning and digging in – we were stuck! As we were getting the sand ladders and commandos shovel out, two guys turned up to help tow us out. After half-hour or so of shovelling, digging with our hands and repositioning the ladders, we were free! The locals wouldn’t accept any gifts, but politely advised us where the real track was! However, not wanting to push our luck further, we decided to get back on terra-firma and spent the night in a lay-by. Not ideal, but at least we could sleep soundly, knowing we wouldn’t start sinking over night!
Up early the next morning we found a guesthouse who agreed we could park on their forecourt allowing us to come and go as we pleased, knowing Mario would be safe. The strange lady owner, complete with gold teeth, initially wanted 1000 som per night (£12.50), but we agreed on a more reasonable 300 som! It would appear the hospitality industry was a new adventure for her and she had much to learn. Sometimes she just ignored us, other times she was overly intrusive. Other guests were clearly unhappy with her and her constant attempts to increase her rates, or charge them for showers - we were glad to just be sleeping in Mario, out of her way.
So on to the “First World Nomad Games”. This was mainly held at the Hippodrome, just outside Cholpon-Ata – a dusty scrubland with a grandstand on one side, but which over-looked the lake and mountains in the distance. The main event was “Kok-Boru”, which everyone told us was the Kyrgyz national sport – “This is our football”. They were certainly passionate about it, although also very sporting to the other teams, there was no booing and all goals got a good cheer. The game is played with four players on horseback on each team, with another 8 on the bench with rolling substitutes. The “ball” is a headless goat carcass, that has had its front legs chopped off at the elbow and the aim is to get this into a concrete bowl shaped goal. The players start by rushing forward to try to be the first to reach down to the ground and pick up the goat – a sort of “billy-off” if you like! The players then tuck it under their leg, or carry it on their lap towards the goal, while the opposing players try to get the goat off them, often by ramming into them with their horse. It was a brutal spectacle, but the strength of the players and their horsemanship was amazing. Kyrgyzstan won all the games we saw.
Other sports we watched were Kurosh (wrestling), Ordo (marbles with sheep’s vertebrae and knuckles), At Chabysh (flat horse racing), something akin to abduction where a bloke chases a girl, both on horseback, to make her his wife and Er Enish, horseback wrestling, where the horses get as involved as the players, both in giving and receiving punishment. There were also demonstrations of other traditional sports such as archery at speed on horseback and a type of British Bulldogs with spears, which, yes you guessed it, was also on horseback.
Over the road from the hippodrome was a large food bazaar where we tried lots of ethnic dishes. Our favourite was shaslyk kebabs which were served to us in a colourful yurt, where we sat on the floor with the locals, eating with our hands and having our photos taken by the other diners. It’s quite amusing how the locals are as interested in us and we are in them.
We spent 3 days at the arena and another day at the “Rukh-Ordo” in town where there was more entertainment laid on, mainly based on ethnic music (including some crazy robotic-style dancing by old blokes), crafts and of course more sports. One evening there was a fashion show where we were amused to see that one of the outfits was covered in Union Jacks. We’ve seen loads of them on clothing over here, but wonder if the wearers know what it is. We wouldn’t have been able to identify the Kyrgyz flag until we got here!
Last night we went to a circus, but only after seeing that the animals were well cared for, by chatting to one of the performers who showed us the stables. The show was amazing, mostly human acrobats, contortionists, blatant Disney character rip-offs for the kids and only the last 10 minutes of the 2 hour show involved the horses, with the riders doing all-sorts of acrobatics in the saddle. We had a great time, and all for £1.80 each!
All in all it has been a great week and we’ve seen some sights. Many people have been very proud that we chose to attend “their games” and made us very welcome. We were interviewed for TV three times (twice in one day!) and they all wanted to know what we thought of their country and the games. Obviously, we were very polite and said all the right things. Although we were tempted to say they need to sort out their corrupt police and learn how to use a portaloo for goodness sake! FYI most of the toilets here are “squats” - holes in the ground - so faced with a portaloo (such as those at the games), the locals still stand either side of the “hole”, balancing on the flimsy box around the seat. This affects their aim, resulting in a seat covered in “mess”. We know this as they also do not appear to be able to use a door lock – we have seen things we really want to un-see.
Today we went to the local yacht club and were invited aboard the owner’s craft. Sounds very posh, but the reality was we were after some new leisure batteries and thought that would be a good place to go. Apparently not, we’d have to get them in Bishkek, which is in the wrong direction. The reason we were on the owner’s yacht was that he offered us some of his old ones. After watching him haul them up from the hull, Bry’s multimeter showed they were in as bad a state as our own, so we politely made our excuses and left. We will try to find some in China, although with the miles we’ll be doing everyday there, they won’t have a chance to go flat!
Talking of China, we have heard that we have our Tibet Permits (yay!). Unfortunately, our route has been changed (boo!). Apparently there’s a big Buddhist festival on resulting in the authorities stopping foreign visitors to one area we were due to pass through. The lack of roads in Tibet means a diversion of about an extra 1000KMS, which will also take us through the Taklamakan Desert. We should still see everything we had originally planned, and more, so it’s good really, just extra driving we hadn’t planned on!
We are now staying at a guesthouse in Tamchy for 3 nights, again just parked up, sleeping in Mario, but this time we’ve got him plugged into the mains to save and charge the batteries. Then we’ll be heading to Naryn and then onto the Chinese border. There is a chance we may not have internet access after Naryn, and we have been told the access in China is extremely slow – so we may have problems providing updates. We will see and let you know when we can. Whatever happens, Caroline will continue to keep her trusty handwritten journals – several pages every night! Volume One has already been completed and the wonders of DHL mean it’s safely back in Cheltenham. Thank you to everyone who gave a journal as a leaving present (and there were many of you!) Caroline is loving filling them up and we look forward to reading them back for many years to come.
Speaking of many years, it was 12 years ago today that we met - which means we must say Happy Wedding Anniversary to Karen and Nick! Some things never change - Caroline is still attracting the attention of the local drunk. We have lost count of the number of times Mr Slury has come to say hello to her, normally quickly followed by a very apologetic and polite daughter - Dads really seem to “enjoy” their family days out here! Luckily though, Caroline’s happy with the Original Mr Slury!
TTFN
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Mourning Our Awning (or Good Riddance to Bad Rubbish!)
So after celebrating getting our Chinese visas we both ended up suffering with traveller’s tummy! Not the best Wedding Anniversary as we had to postpone our special meal out! Because of this we decided to stay another night in Bishkek at the Guest House as it was nice to be near proper facilities (ie an en suite bathroom!).
We then headed to Lake Issyk-Kol and have been there ever since! On the first night we met a lovely German couple, Michael and Sabine, who invited us for dinner and drinks in their behemoth of an overland camper (it even has a washing machine!) They were part of a group of 20 vehicles who had just come back from China so we had a lovely evening picking their brains and looking at their photos. The place where we’d met them wasn’t ideal as it was swarming with mosquitoes, although they weren’t the biting type they were still irritating. Because of this Michael and Sabine decided to meet up with the rest of their group about 120km further round the lake as they were told this was mosquito free. They gave us the co-ordinates and said we were more than welcome to join them. We decided we’d take a look to see what it was like although we were a little unsure about being with so many other vehicles. As it happened the site was a huge sandy peninsula with plenty of room for everybody. It was so peaceful that we have now been here 9 days.
It was quite bizarre being with so many Europeans in campervans on the edge of a lake in Kyrgyzstan surrounded by snowy mountains. At times it felt like we were in Switzerland! We had a great couple of days chatting to the other travellers and exchanging stories. On their last night they all had a big meal cooked over a campfire which they generously invited us along to. The beer, schnapps, wine, vodka and hideous Chinese spirits (Tom, you’ll know what we’re talking about – beautiful bottle, horrible taste) flowed freely and it was the first time since we’ve been away that we’ve both got quite tipsy! Michael and Sabine, we hope you are reading this, thanks again for your hospitality, we will keep in touch.
Since then we have spent our days bathing in the lake, reading, housekeeping and doing odd jobs on Mario, only leaving the site every couple of days to stock up on supplies from the local village shop. To give you an idea of prices over here, diesel is 50p a litre, cigarettes are 60p a pack, beer is £1 a pint and decent vodka is £3 a litre! As it gets dark at 7.30pm we’ve spent our evenings stargazing and watching our Breaking Bad box set (thank you Jamie for the recommendation). Being in the middle of nowhere the stars are really bright. Wherever we are in the Northern Hemisphere, we always look for the Plough – here it’s quite difficult to make it out due to all the surrounding stars being so bright. Breaking Bad is excellent although we are limiting ourselves to 2 episodes a night! As the story is about using a motorhome as a drugs factory, we now understand why Russian customs, after seeing the box set, went away and came back with a sniffer dog!
On one of our shopping trips we wanted to buy distilled water for our leisure batteries. After much pantomime and drawing of diagrams, we ended up in a hardware store in the next village along the lake. The woman here couldn’t understand what we wanted but then a very cute, small, old chap intervened and suggested he would hop in Mario and show us where to go. After driving through town with Papa Issyk-Kol (as we christened him) waving at his friends, we ended up at a house with a shipping container on the drive. Papa Issyk-Kol just walked into their kitchen, interrupting their dinner resulting in a girl opening the shipping container to reveal a mini Halfords! Thanks Papa, we would never have found it on our own.
One of the other jobs we did on Mario was repairing the awning. Pretty much every time we’ve used it, something has gone wrong with the winding mechanism or one of the legs, but after a couple of hours work we finally got it all sorted and it was working perfectly. However, a couple of days later while we were taking a walk around the peninsula, a storm came in from the mountains. It started raining so we headed back to Mario just in time to see a strong gust of wind blow the awning up and over Mario’s roof! This bent the mounting brackets and in getting it down we broke one of the legs – the awning was no more. Mixed emotions as although it’s been very nice to sit under it on a hot day, it has been a bane, we are now 60kg lighter and we don’t need to worry about cleaning it to get into Australia! It being 5 metres long, we ended up towing it to the local farm and donating it to them. It will probably be over their porch next week!
We have now been joined by another group of Europeans from the same tour operator as Sabine and Michael. They too have similar stories about China, one of the themes is how controlling the authorities are and therefore the lack of freedom foreign tourists can enjoy. These groups were in China for 6 weeks which they all suggest was too long. They seemed to visit more cities than we hope to and with us being in a much smaller group for only 4 weeks, we hope our experience will be a better one. As we’ve said before, we are looking forward to having a guide so we don’t need to worry about the route or accommodation, whereas the tour group overlanders have a guide for every country and always know where they will spend the night. We can appreciate the security that this would provide, but we think we would much prefer our freedom of independent travel.
One of the issues the group doesn’t appear to have is the police stops. We were caught ‘speeding’ twice on our way here resulting in a further £50 added to the Kyrgyzstan Police Pension Fund! One of these stops they didn’t even have a camera to support the fine, but when we argued this they just started trying to find things wrong with Mario – such as it not being on Kyrgyz plates! We just chucked them some dollars to allow us to be on our way.
We have heard from our Chinese agent that all of our group now have their visas, but we are waiting to hear whether we have the Tibet Permits. We hope to meet up as a group around about the 20th September, a few days before crossing the border. One vehicle only left the UK a couple of weeks ago, which to us seems crazy as it feels like we’ve been on the road for ages. However, in reality we are only 6000 miles from home, which isn’t really that far. As if to prove this, a few days ago a couple of travellers, Andrew and Antonella, were walking around the peninsular and we got chatting together. It turns out that Andrew was born in the same hospital in Chertsey as Caroline! It truly is a small world!
We are currently on the southern shore of Lake Issyk-Kol, next week on the northern shore they are holding the 1st World Nomad Games – a sort of Olympics for traditional Central Asian sports, most of which seem to involve a horse and a goat’s stomach! We plan on trying to see a few events, especially as it is free. It will be interesting to compare to our trip to London 2012!
We will update again when we can - TTFN
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Today was a good day!
10 years ago today was the best day of our lives, our wedding day! Thank you for the messages we have received.
Today was pretty good too - we picked up our passports and they contained our Chinese Visas!
On Sunday we left Bishkek and headed to the Chon-Kemin National Park where we wild-camped for 3 nights, 2 of which were next to a lovely, rushing mountain river. We just read and relaxed and tried not to think what we would do if we didn't get the visas. Bry had an upset stomach, so was limited to bread and water, while Caroline wound him up eating samosas and Snickers. On the hillsides there are adverts and messages laid out in white stone, one of which said "Bry", which was nice!
This morning we came back to Bishkek, back to the same guest house as before, then it was a nervous taxi ride into town to see the agent. The relief we both feel now is immense, it's the best anniversary present we could have hoped for. Talking of presents, Caroline is now the proud owner of a "Sparky" vacuum cleaner - proper mains job, to make sure we (she) can keep Mario clean. It will be Bry's job to plug it into the generator. In return, Bry got a staple gun and some silicon sealant. We've been after a decent staple gun for a few countries, we have only managed to find the gun before, but no staples, but Osh Bazaar sorted us out - it really does have everything!
Just as we are writing this, the hotel staff have bought us an anniversary cake, with a lovely message about love, life and good fortunes. We are certainly feeling fortunate today!
We'll be off to Lake Issyk-Kol tomorrow for a couple of weeks and will update when we can.
Finally, big Happy Birthday wishes to Bry's sister Michelle for tomorrow - love you!
TTFN
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