I felt a strange draw to Nepal before this trip so knew I wanted to experience the real country beyond the trekking. As someone who loves tea, and who loves biology, volunteering at a tea farm seemed like the perfect opportunity to do this. After a few days in Pokhara to rest, get violently sick and recover, I caught a 16 hour overnight bus to a city called Birtamode in the very east of the country. I was feverish on the bus but luckily kept control of my bowels. This left me completely exhausted when I reached Birtamode, and I took my time before catching a jeep a further hour to a town called Fikkal. From here I walked 45 minutes across hills covered in terraces of tea bushes and well-kept houses to the Kulang’s family farm. I spent the next 10 days here, along with a slightly changing gang of 5 - 7 other volunteers, who happened to all be female.

The farm was simple but practical. It served as a good reminder of how much we take for granted in modern life. I didn’t actually notice the lack of modern amenities at first, so I guess it also showed me how flexible I’ve become to different living situations. There was no hot water, no proper mattresses, no sinks. There was no oven or fridge in the kitchen. Food was cooked on a wood burning stove, or on two gas hobs. There was no wifi, and phone signal was very patchy. I enjoyed living on the farm a lot, it was beautiful to get back to basics and you really didn’t miss much (maybe hot water…).

Routine on the farm

7am - Slowly emerge from our little rooms and fill mugs with freshly brewed, freshly farmed, tea. Sipping on these we would quietly read or write, enjoying the appearance of the sun.
8:30am - Head to the tea terraces just below the house and pick tea.
10am - Meal 1 of the day. Always dal bhat. Always delicious. Always paired with more tea. Followed up with more lying in the sun and reading or writing.
11:30am - Rolling the previously picked tea. Once all the tea was rolled, it was back to the terraces to pick more.
2:30pm - End of work. A snack would be served. Examples are beaten rice with sugar and cinnamon; potato salad; soybean salad with popped rice; roasted chickpeas. The rest of the afternoon was completely our own. I’d do some yoga, sometimes joined by the other volunteers or the two little boys who seemed to always be around. I’d play chess with one of the boys, he was quite a forceful teacher! I’d write and I’d read. We’d chat.
7pm - Meal 2 of the day. Almost always dal bhat. Always different to the earlier dal bhat. Also always delicious. Dinner was usually followed with a game of uno or another card game. More reading or watching some netflix before bed.

It was a very simple life. Usually I’d love the slowness of it all as a break from the usual business of travelling, but after having a similar routine whilst trekking I got a little bored at times!

On Thursdays there was a market in Fikkal, and I visited this with two of the other volunteers to get some supplies. We commented on how we felt like farm girls from history, making the journey to the nearest town on market day. On one day off we travelled to Ilam, the main city in the area. The busy town had beautiful old houses, ancient tea terraces and even a cafe that served proper coffee (you might be able to tell how excited that made me from the photo). I celebrated Easter here, and we did a little Easter egg hunt in the garden, much to the bemusement of the Nepalese family!

Food
Along with terraces of tea bushes, all sorts of vegetables are grown on the farm and we eat these, substituted with ones bought from the market, at every meal. Kaushila was a marvel in the kitchen, always cooking up delicious meals of dal bhat. In Nepal, it is custom to begin the day with just a cup of tea and have one meal at around 10am, with a second meal at around 7pm. A snack may be eaten in between, but nothing major. It is equally custom that both of these meals are dal bhat, meaning that most Nepalese will eat dal bhat twice a day for most of their lives. Crazy! But it’s not as monotonous as it sounds, dal bhat is very varied. Dal bhat entails a copper plate with high sides filled with piles of rice, dal, vegetables, a potato and vegetable curry, and pickle. Each of these elements will then vary meal to meal; different dal each time, different vegetables prepared in different ways, a different type of curry. So boredom of the meal doesn’t come as quickly as you’d imagine, and I can see how if it was normal for you, you would be perfectly happy eating it twice a day, everyday!

Let me teach you about tea

Something that’s surprising, but I did actually already know from a podcast on tea I’d listened to during lockdown, is that all types of tea come from the exact same tea bush. Black tea, green tea and white tea all come from identical leaves, what differs is the later processing. At the Kulang tea farm the tea is organic and hand-picked. The tea bushes were planted 25 years ago and provide leaves for picking each year from April through to November. The bushes are trimmed but that’s it for their upkeep.

The most common stages in tea production

1. Picking
   Using the thumbnail and first finger, the top section of new shoots are picked. The exact number of leaves picked depends on the type of tea.
2. Weathering
   After being picked the tea leaves are placed on bamboo mats and left to partially dry. If the sun isn’t too strong the mats will be placed on the roof of the little house, if it’s strong they’re slid into a space between the metal roof and the wooden beams beneath it. This is done for a few hours.
3. Rolling
   The leaves are hand-rolled on the bamboo mats to release the aroma and colour. We roll the leaves until they are sticky to touch and of damp appearance.
4. Oxidation or fermentation
   For black tea only, the leaves are left in the open to oxidise for 20 - 30 minutes.
   For golden tea only, the leaves are placed in a cloth and then sealed in a pressure pot to prevent oxidation and allow fermentation. This is done overnight.
5. Drying
   Using the same procedure as weathering, the leaves are left to dry.

It was really rewarding to learn about the tea process, and I proudly took some of the tea I helped pick, roll and dry away with me!

The experience

I enjoyed experiencing real Nepalese life here. Long talks with the family after dinner gave me so many insights into the complicated web of Nepalese culture, where castes and ethnicities and religion crisscross repeatedly. It’s very rich and very alien. Some of it feels very backwards still, for example how women are treated whilst on their periods by some groups, not being permitted to enter the kitchen or prepare food and traditionally being made to sleep with the animals outside. I only spent 10 days at the farm, enough to get a rough feeling for the culture and life but not enough to gain a deep knowledge of it. That rough feeling has left me even more fond of Nepal, with even more of a draw to it. I think it’s safe to say I’ll be visiting again at some point.

Slowing right down at the tea farm, after already having slowed down from the usual pace of travelling whilst hiking, made me realise it wasn’t quite what I was longing for at that time. I was feeling tired and low on energy, but in the way where resting made me feel even more tired. Being active and busy was what I needed to energise myself. With the other volunteers, we spoke about home a lot and what we missed about it. This, unsurprisingly, meant I seriously thought about home for the first time in a while and realised the things I had started to really miss. Especially as I thought about the beginnings of spring and Easter, one of my favourite times of the year. I thought about the BBQs with friends and family I was missing, the delicious food (not just easter eggs, but mostly…), sunny evening swims in the cold sea, home comforts. I wouldn’t say I felt homesick, and I definitely wasn’t ready to go back home, but I missed parts of home relatively badly. I’m glad I felt that way. I’m lucky to have a life back at home that I miss.

We all know I didn’t stop going on about this gap year before I left England, and one specific thing I mentioned a lot was my plan to hike in the Himalayas. I thought I’d make it for the November trekking season, which I clearly did not, so I instead timed it for the beginning of the spring season. From the dining room table at home in England I landed on the Annapurna Circuit as my trek of choice. Unlike Everest Base Camp, it didn’t require me to fly to the start of it, it offered the most varied scenery and was a long length at 2-3 weeks. Perfect! It’s a very famous trek, and one that people flock to Nepal to do. From my basic research I thought I’d need to get join a group or get a guide once in Nepal, I decided to leave the specifics until later on. I met several people who had hiked the Annapurna Circuit on my travels, and through speaking to them I got a much better grasp on how to tackle it. I didn’t need a group or a guide, it was perfectly possible to hike it solo. Excellent news. This has now actually changed, with the Nepalese Government making it mandatory to hike with a guide from April 1st. So perhaps this account is one of the last of solo trekking in Nepal.

Teahouse trekking

The way trekking works in Nepal is with teahouses. Scattered along the trails are little villages, sometimes just 2 or 3 buildings, which always include a few teahouses. These are places where you can stay and eat. We found that you didn’t have to pay for accommodation if you paid for dinner and breakfast (and sometimes negotiated a bit!). The lodgings were very simple but did the job, and the food was surprisingly good in general. The menu is basically the same everywhere. For breakfast: porridge, eggs, tibetan bread (like a not sweet doughnut). For dinner: fried rice, noodles, spring rolls, momos (tibetan dumplings), dal bhat, and sometimes pasta and pizza and very occasionally burgers! Dal bhat is the famous trekking dish as it comes with unlimited refills, making it ideal when absolutely starving at the end of a long day. It’s made up of rice, dal (lentil or bean soup), a vegetable and potato curry, vegetables, pickle and a poppadom. It’s never exactly the same, with lots of variation in all of the elements. As elevation and remoteness increase, as do prices for food and hot drinks. To keep my costs to an absolute minimum (I am nothing if not consistently cheap) I took my own instant coffee and tea bags with me, meaning I could pay for a cup of hot water for around 40 - 80 NRP (depending on altitude) rather than 150 - 250 NRP for tea and coffee. A real treat was the ‘Snickers Roll’ (or ‘Sneckers Roll’) that appeared on the small dessert section of the menu. It was basically a deep fried snickers bar and it was delicious, if also heart attack inducing.

Preparation for the hike

I arrived in Pokhara, a hippy oasis of a city situated on the edge of Fewa lake, at the base of the Annapurna massif. I spent a couple of days decompressing after the craziness of India and getting myself ready to leave for the trek. Oh, I also celebrated Holi but more about that in a later post. Preparation began with getting the two permits needed for the trek, and finished with frequenting the hundreds of trekking gear shops in the town in search of the best price for the items I needed. I purchased a camel back, a headtorch, suncream, sun hat, trail mix and 6 chocolate bars (no I don’t have a problem…). I didn’t need to buy water purification tablets as I had my trusty filter water bottle. I hired a backpack, but made a last minute decision to stick with my own backpack. It’s not a hiking bag but I know it’s really comfortable and decided that was the most important thing. I raided the hostel library for guidebooks and made a rough plan of my route. Speaking to people at the communal hostel breakfast I was given the idea of extending my Annapurna Circuit trek to include two more treks, Poon Hill and Annapurna Base Camp. I made a note of how this would work in my journal, knowing it would ultimately depend on how I felt after finishing the circuit. I packed my bag, prioritising lightweight over everything else. Here’s what I packed:

The Annapurna Circuit

To being the trek I needed to catch a bus from Pokhara to Besisahar. At the bus station, as I munched on a subpar apple danish opportunistically sold by a man walking down the street, I saw a guy I recognised from the Holi celebrations waiting for the same bus. I remembered his name (Oli), it became obvious he did not remember mine. After putting my life on the line to prevent the bus from leaving without him whilst he used the toilet at a rest stop, we worked out we were planning to start hiking from the same point and decided to set off together. Like all bus journeys in Nepal, it was horrific and I think every tourist on the bus felt ill by the end. Arriving at midday in Besisahar, Oli and I farted around a bit getting some last minute bits and bobs. His absolute horror at my lack of poles made me decide to get some so I bought these at a trekking shop. We met back up and had a cold drink before setting off. Our first day was very short, just 9km and we’d reached Bhulbhule. We found a tea house and peered at our accommodation with some trepidation. I’d seen garden sheds with better infrastructure. The room was separated from the outside world by just a few wooden panels with huge gaps in between them. The windows were glassless, but there were wooden shutters that half shut over the space. The view was brilliant, a straight line of sight to the pale blue river below. We ate vegetable curry and thupka (Nepalese noodle soup) for dinner and chatted away happily. I realised at this point that the two of would get on just fine, we had a similar sense of humour and general disposition. We repeatedly said we would walk alone for some parts of the circuit, not being tied to one another. This did not happen! We walked together every day and slept in the same room every night for the next 11 days. And when we bumped into each other again after we’d parted ways we smiled and hugged happily rather than ran in the opposite direction, so I guess that means we enjoyed our time together!

Most people skip the first section of the Annapurna Circuit these days, opting to get a jeep along the new dirt track to one of the villages further along. After the bus journey, and looking at the dirt track, I can think of nothing worse. But it was good for us. It meant the first few days were very quiet. We had to walk a few short stretches along the track but in general there was an alternative path which avoided it. We were treated to green views of small fields growing rice and vegetables, lots of trees, suspension bridges crossing over the river and then crossing back over shortly after. Buffalos were used to plough fields with medieval looking equipment. Monkeys swung in the trees. A chorus of “Nameste!” followed us on our journey, with every person shouting it. It rained a lot on our second afternoon, saturating us to the bone as we marched heads down up a never ending staircase to our destination for the day, Jagat. We arrived dripping and were extremely thankful for our first hot shower of the trip. I washed my underwear using shampoo. Our belongings were left hanging on the line to dry as we ate dinner and drank a beer. Oli has a masters in Brewing and I forced him to give me a lesson in beer tasting, to compliment the chocolate tasting lesson I’d received in Turkey. The Australian couple next to us watched on with amusement. Their faces were familiar, they’d been at the last teahouse we’d stayed at. Over breakfast the next day we all gave in and spoke to one another properly. It took us another few days to learn their names (Patrick and Ceceilia) and to fully give in to our fate of walking together but we did in the end. From the second half of day 3 to day 13 all four of us trekked together, ate our meals together, and generally kept each other company. It was a harmonious partnership filled with wonderful conversation spanning from a reoccurring debate on free-will versus fate, discussions on the state of science, and tales of us shitting ourselves. Keeping it balanced as always. When we reached the teahouse on our 3rd night I realised I’d left a pair of my underwear hanging on the line in Jagat. My bare minimum four pairs of underwear had become three, oh dear.

On day 4 the scenery shifted from farmland to woodland, with so many flowers in bloom the air was heavy with their scent. The rhodendron were especially striking. This distracted me from the first bit of serious incline! I collected samples of each of the different flower species to sketch in my notebook later. When we emerged from the trees we were gifted our first real sight of mountains. A huge white wall towered on the horizon, and we marvelled at it over our stop for lunch. The villages were much more of the traditional Tibetan vibe now, with Buddhist prayer wheels lining the centre of the street and prayer flags catching the wind all around. The following day we would cross over the 3000m altitude mark so it was time to start taking our altitude sickness pills, with the hope of preventing any issues.

The evening of day 5 was the beginning of the serious coldness. I mentioned the interesting quality of the teahouse structures before, and their draughtiness was beginning to become an issue. Luckily, they usually had a fire in the dining area which meant you could avoid being bitterly cold until it was time for bed. But the bedrooms were undeniably, uncomfortably cold. When we arrived at a teahouse I would immediately change into my thermals and warm layers. I’d ask for extra blankets if they were available. We’d sleep in our wooly hats pulled over our eyes. After the first few equally freezing cold mornings, and the pain that putting on my ice cold bra and hiking clothes brought, I learnt to sleep with these clothes tucked up in bed with me, to keep them as warm as possible. My phone would also be in the bed with me, to reduce the negative effects of the cold on its battery. The discomfort was high. Whilst I didn’t enjoy this aspect, it was part of the overall experience and I wouldn’t change it one bit! Besides the cold, I loved the post-hike routine we’d fallen into. After changing into my thermals I would do some yoga in whatever space I could find. As it got colder this more often became the dingy bedroom with Oli being exiled onto his bed to make space, but the first few days were on rooftops with mountain views. I’d wash that day’s underwear and socks and hang them to dry. In the dining room Oli and I would sit and write our journals for the day, whilst Patrick played with a rubiks cube and Ceceilia read. Then we’d chat or read until it was time for dinner. After eating we’d chat some more, or play cards. At around 8/9pm we’d retire to bed (real party animals I know). I would do some russian practice and then sleep. In the mornings we’d be up at around 6/7am, changing into our hiking gear and packing up our bags. We’d eat breakfast, almost always porridge washed down with instant coffee, and I’d purify water for my camel back. I enjoyed having a routine again, and the whole thing was quietly wonderful.

Over 3000m the scenery changed. It wasn’t quite barren yet, but pine forests interspersed with stretches of bare earth. Not so much to my taste but on the more exposed high sections we were eye level with the soaring eagles so that made up for it. I had my first piece of kit failure on day 6. I went to take a sip from my camel back and was met with a mouthful of air. On inspection, the completely full 2 litre camel back was now completely empty. As I was questioning how there was no water dripping from my bag the answer revealed itself, my clothes had soaked up every last drop. Luckily the sun was so strong that after attaching them to the outside of my backpack they dried quickly. Now we were over 3000m we had to take altitude into account when walking each day, with it being recommended to sleep only 300 - 600m higher each night. We spent two nights in Manang, the biggest village in the valley, to acclimatise. On our ‘rest’ day we still hiked up to a temple, but at 5km it was nothing! Manang offered a real sense of luxury after the previous few days, there was much larger teahouse which had a lovely ski chalet-esque dining room that was properly warm. We indulged in the plethora of food options and whilst staying here I enjoyed a veggie burger, bean enchiladas, a chocolate pastry, a sausage sandwich, and proper french press coffee. Heaven! Knowing the facilities would only be getting more basic and the conditions more harsh made us savour it all that bit more. With thoughts of the future cold I caved and bought a very cheap North Face fleece (definitely not fake). After asking a very unhelpful lady at the information office we decided to attempt the side trek to Tilicho Lake which would add on 3 or 4 days. It was the highest, biggest lake in the world. We set off on this slight diversion and arrived to a village called Shri Kharka. The teahouse had a big dining area, with 360 degree views of the valley and mountains from huge windows. There were other groups here and we huddled around the fire watching as the weather changed sharply outside. The blue skies became grey and snow started to fall heavily. Soon, nothing but a wall of grey was visible from the windows, occasionally illuminated by flashes of lightning, and snow piled around the buildings. Talk turned to our chances of making it to Tilicho Lake. In the morning we could see the extent of the snow. It was enough for the guides to turn their groups back, and who were we to argue with their assessment! So we cut back to the main trail, and Tilicho Lake became known as TilichNO Lake. It was a real shame but what can you do. We saw our first yak herd and that cheered me up, as did the yak snow-drawing competition we had.

The next few days saw us push on to Thorong Pedi, the last stop before Thorong La Pass which was the highest point of the trek and what we’d been building up to. The scenery became more snowy and more barren, although we were lucky enough to see a herd of Blue Sheep (not as cool as they sound as they’re not actually blue). The evenings became colder and the water pipes would freeze. This made washing my face before bed and in the morning an interesting task that saw me melting snow in my hands and rubbing this on my face. So refreshing! We finally learnt what the stones on top of stoves in the teahouses were for: for holding in your lap for warmth, or taking to bed with you like a hot water bottle! All four of us had to share a room in Thorong Pedi and it was the climax of discomfort. The whole situation was dire - it was so so cold, and the room was so so grim. Putting on literally of my clothes I was strangely relieved to set my alarm for 3am, at least it meant the night would be short! I should mention that at this point I hadn’t pooed since Jagat, some 8 days ago. This really added to my personal discomfort.

After 11 days of hiking it was time to do Thorong La Pass, the highest mountain pass in the world. Up at 3am we packed up our bags and ate our breakfasts, watching the other groups set off. We had tactically decided to let them leave first, to tread down the snow for us. At 4:15am we set off. Patrick spotted a pair of forgotten crampons and I claimed them, hoping they’d increase my downhill speed from a pitiful 1mph to at least 3mph. Switching our headtorches on we located the narrow trodden path of the others, taking it and beginning to climb. To reach the pass we needed to climb 1000m, from 4400m to 5416m. You could feel the altitude at this point, the air was so thin. With each step I could feel the 12 plates of dal bhat sitting somewhere in my digestive tract trying to escape. I thought I might vomit. Loosening the waistbelt on my backpack helped and my last bowl of porridge finally settled. The overwhelming intrusion into my thoughts, however, was how cold I felt. The temperature was -16 degrees. The water in our camel back tubes had frozen. Snot flowed from our noses in a constant stream and then froze onto our faces (or in our beards if you’re Oli). My fingers cocooned together in my mitten for warmth but my thumb was left alone, extended on top of my pole. I searched my mind for any information I had on frostbite but came up short. Despite all of this, if you could see my face under my pulled up snood and pulled down hat you would see a childish grin. When the sun finally started to rise after 2 hours of walking, and the landscape was thrown into the morning light, I was so happy. I knew the sun would bring a bit of warmth, but the main reason was just how beautiful it made everything look. The snow glistened and so softly covered the rolling terrain. The sky was clear and the stars were just about visible still. The crescent moon too. After another 2 hours of walking we saw a little shack offering hot drinks. Ceceilia was really feeling the cold so we decided to stop for one. After seeing the exuberant prices, Oli and I decided to split one cup of hot water, adding a tea bag of our own to it. We crushed our fingers against the mug to capture as much warmth as possible. We were in good spirits, and looking around at the crowd in the hut we saw we were the only ones. This made us even more chipper as we secretly laughed at everyone else’s depressed and downtrodden looking faces. It was a funny sight. All of these people crammed in a tiny wooden hut, looking so damn unhappy. After our hot drinks we continued for 1 last hour. We stopped for a short break to remove some layers as the sun was finally warming us up, and after a few more minutes of walking Ceceilia cried out. I was behind her and saw it next. The bundle of flags signifying the pass!

It had taken almost 6 hours but we’d made it to the Thorong La Pass. We were cradled in the nape of two mountains. Where we’d come from the scenery was snow covered. Where we were going was completely snowless. The valley was in the rain shadow of the mountains so it was incredibly barren, similar to the Tibetan Plateau. It was a bit anti-climatic, it just hadn’t been as difficult as I was expecting. I guess I’d been very lucky in not having any altitude related issues (beyond constipation). The cold and dark had been challenging, but once the sun had risen the time had passed so quickly. I still felt like my celebratory snickers was well earnt and ate it joyously. We took the obligatory summit photos and then hurried off the pass before the ominous looking clouds came any closer. What followed was an arduous 2000 metres of descent which we absolutely zoomed down (thank you crampons!), destroying my knees and rubbing the side of my left heel horrifically. I reached the bottom mentally and physically drained and I was fighting to keep my eyes open on the last section. It had been a long old day. We hiked 19.5km, 1000m up and then 2000m down, all starting at 3am. I napped immediately once we’d arrived to the teahouse. On waking up I finally had a bowel movement! I showered for the first time in 6 days, and honestly felt like a new woman. We enjoyed one last meal as a four, and one last game of Irish Snap that evening. Oli was short on time so was catching the bus directly from Muktinath, our current location, in the morning. We said our goodbyes in the morning, and it felt like the great Annapurna Circuit trek was winding down.

Ceceilia, Patrick and I continued walking for 2 more days, exploring the Mustang region in the barren valley. The village of Kagbeni was very cool, a maze of narrow stone streets. We stayed at a wonderful guesthouse called ‘YacDonalds’ and enjoyed a ‘Happy Meal’ for dinner which was comprised of a yak burger, chips, salad and seabuckthorn juice. Wonder what inspired that… On day 13 we reached Jomsom, the end point of the Annapurna Circuit. 171km and 8,500m of ascent completed! It felt pretty amazing to finish it. But I wasn’t quite done with trekking yet…

Annapurna Base Camp (ABC) and Poon Hill

After finishing the Annapurna Circuit I was fully in love with trekking and absolutely not ready for it to end, so I decided it wouldn’t! My legs somehow felt as fresh as on day one; my backpack had settled into the grooves of my body; I had mastered the pole-walking technique. The only casualty was my left heel which had a huge blood blister on it. Confident that this wouldn’t cause me too many issues, I bought a bus ticket to Tatopani to begin the trek to Annapurna Base Camp. I could have walked this too but decided that would take a bit too long (I did have some other things I wanted to do in Nepal) and it was mostly on the road. I arrived in Tatopani at midday and did a little bit of shopping to stock up on essentials (instant coffee and apples). I set off on my own for the first time, having said goodbye to Ceceilia and Patrick on the bus. No more company whilst walking, or help in making decisions. It was a bit nerve-wracking as I’d gotten quite used to being in a little gang, but I was excited for the new experience.

I didn’t know how far I would walk that afternoon, with there being two villages that I could overnight in. I started off in my sandals to give my huge blister some air, but had to quickly change to my boots when it started to rain. The scenery was shockingly different to the barren valley after the pass, with greenery everywhere and lots of small farms. I walked a lot faster than I had been, perhaps out of nervousness of being alone (I did receive some interesting comments from men and school boys). I eventually stopped at the further village, feeling absolutely exhausted. The following day I continued alone, but much happier. I didn’t feel rushed in my walk like the previous day, and could really take in the scenery whilst being alone. Especially the smell of the flowers. I made friends with a crow which followed me for a while (it really didn’t take long for me to go a bit mad). I reached the rather busy village of Ghorepani and had lots of time to relax in the quite luxurious teahouse, filling it with sketching in my journal and listening to podcasts. The next morning I was up at 4am, ready to hike up to nearby Poon Hill for the sunrise. It was only 400m higher than the village so didn’t take too long. I enjoyed a hot chocolate at the top, warming up my hands and insides as I watched light enter the snowy landscape. Sadly, it was quite a cloudy morning so I couldn’t see the vista of huge mountains that were apparently behind us. The low clouds in the valley looked pretty cool though, it was the first time I’d been properly above clouds whilst on land. The way they caught the sun as I made my way back down, and floated up and down, was mesmerising and I stopped often to watch. After breakfast I set off, having another relatively short day which finished at 12:45pm. Whilst I didn’t hate having lots of downtime in the afternoons, it did start to feel like I was just killing time. I decided I would start walking more each day, wanting to push myself further, even though it would likely mean walking in the rain. The weather system in this valley was like clockwork, every day around 1pm it would rain heavily. Sometimes just for an hour, sometimes for the rest of the day. For my last relaxing afternoon I enjoyed chatting with a lovely family from Leicester and played cards with them. The next 2 days saw me walk 30km to Machhapuchhre Base Camp (MBC). The scenery was always the same, rich forests filled with huge bamboo plants and twisted looking trees along one side of a valley. Mountains peeped through the gaps in the tree canopy, ever present and getting ever closer. It was very beautiful. The final stretch was more barren. I had to cross the river over a very dodgy bamboo bridge to walk along a secondary path to avoid the recent (the previous day…) avalanche on the main path. I came across MBC suddenly as the falling snow was thick and visibility poor. For the last time on this trek, I set my alarm for before sunrise. Setting off at 5:30am, with my headtorch shining forward, I tried to find the path through the snow, finishing off the last hour of walking to Annapurna Base Camp (ABC) as dawn broke. I reached the flag covered sign post telling me I’d made it at 6:30am, it looked very similar to the one at Thorong La Pass but it felt very different to reach this one alone. It felt more personal. I found the highest point at ABC, which stood at 4100m, and sat down to watch the sunrise over Machhapuchhre and illuminate Annapurna I. I ate my celebratory snickers bar, and it tasted delicious even if it was a bit early! Annapurna I is the most dangerous mountain to climb in the world. It’s 8019m tall, and 38% of people who attempt to summit it die. You’re reminded of this by the memorial to several climbers located in ABC. I spent a long time sat on that rock, my eyes pouring over the mountain basin I found myself in. It was one of, if not the, most spectacular locations I’d ever sat in. This moment of awe was slightly tarred by the Nepalese couple doing a photoshoot over me loudly, and the man filming a tiktok dance 20 metres to my right. But still, it was a very special morning. I reflected on the last leg up to Thorong La Pass and realised that it was actually very challenging! I returned back to MBC where I had breakfast and collected the rest of my belongings. I begun the journey back on myself, along the same path to the fork in the valley. It took me a day and a half and I saw lots of familiar faces walking in the opposite direction. It was nice to let them know how beautiful the view waiting for them at the end of the valley was. After taking the lefthand path at the fork, rather than the righthand one I’d come along, I reached Jhinu and decided to visit the hot springs down by the river. The hot water felt amazing after days without it, my muscles welcomed it. I pushed on for one final time, up a really demanding and seemingly never ending set of steps to Ghandruk. I was dripping with sweat when I arrived into the strange Gurung town, which seemed so big after weeks of only seeing small villages. It took me a while to find a room which I could have free of charge, but eventually found one at a little homestay. The family were very friendly despite not speaking much english, and insisted that I dance the Nepali way with them and be in a tikitok video. It was fun but if I’m honest I was completely exhausted at this point and ravenous for some dinner. I had been told my dinner would be served at 6:30pm, but when I saw the woman arrive back to the house with a raw chicken at 7pm I resigned myself to the fact it would be a long wait. I absolutely inhaled my last dal bhat, pleased that my hand eating technique had improved enough to keep up with my grumbling stomach. The next morning I took my final walk to the bus stop, only around 30 minutes away, and caught the bus back to Pokhara. The last 8 days alone had been a lot. On numerous occasions I’d been soaked to the bone from the torrential rain, struggling to see as water poured off my hood in front of my face. I’d struggled to dry my clothes, wet from the rain or camel back leaks, in the cold and damp teahouses. I’d endured the late afternoon hours waiting for dinner, thankful that my kindle touchscreen responded to being tapped by mittens but ultimately being too exhausted and hungry to read for long. Sounds pretty gruelling right? It absolutely was at times, but I’d enjoyed walking alone a great deal, and if I’m being honest, I relished the difficult bits just as much as the highlights. I loved it all.

On the bus, I watched the mountains from the window become more distant. I could feel just how special the last 3 weeks had been in that moment. It’s strange to be aware of the significance of something as it draws to a close, a real luxury to be so close to it and to appreciate it so fully.

Last word

Whilst I knew I wanted to trek in the Himalayas for years, I hadn’t actually spent much time thinking about it or building expectations around it. Maybe this is partly why I was utterly floored by the experience. It meant, and means, so much to me. From the act of walking everyday for 20 days, to the amazing company I kept on the Circuit, to building a routine in freezing cold teahouses, to being alone on the ABC part, it was all so delectably precious. The opportunity to walk the entire Circuit with the same 3 people was wonderful, it elevated the trek. Equally, walking ABC alone was wonderful, the space it provided to think and reflect and experience more intensely. But what’s so special was being able to have both and compare them. To see what difference having company brings, and what you can only gain from being alone. I mean, what an insight! Something else I gained is a very strange tan - extremely tanned hands and nothing else. My hands were always exposed to the very strong sun whilst walking due to them wielding walking poles, whereas the rest of me was usually covered up. It’s an interesting look, and one several people have commented on. Hopefully this impact doesn’t last too long… To end this rather long post, trekking made me incredibly happy and I will definitely be doing some more long distance hikes. I want to thank Oli, Ceceilia and Patrick for being the very best hiking companions. Memories of you guys are inextricably linked to my memories of the Circuit and I could not be happier about that.

If you’re interested in seeing some photos of my trek, I’ve put together a google photos album which you can find here:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/5XNiSfQ29J2HcpCAA

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Full Moon Check-in

1. Last: My last night in Pokhara before setting off to trek for 3 weeks.
2. Current: Volunteering on a tea farm in eastern Nepal, sat outside reading my book with the other 6 girls after dinner.
3. Future: Somewhere in northern Vietnam with a very special person!

Full Moon Check-in

1. Last: In Dushanbe, Tajikistan, on my way to meet Niamh and Karl for dinner.
2. Current: Walking back to the hostel with Mary, Leonie and Sam after our last meal before starting trekking in the Himalayas.
3. Future: On a tea farm in eastern Nepal.

People had warned me about India, about its intensity and volume and scams. I was cocky, thinking that after all of my travelling it wouldn’t phase me. But it did. India was bloody hard work. And it was delicious in its reward.

I saw my time in India as an introduction to the country, as a brief exploration on my way over to Nepal. I wasn’t trying to see it all, or understand it all. In fact, I had no real aim whilst there. I was simply present in India for 2.5 weeks, letting all it had to offer wash over me. So don’t expect any interesting history insights from this post! Perhaps a different mindset would have been better. I feel like if you travel to India you need to really travel to India. You need to have a proper plan, you need to have done your research beforehand, you need to have read up on the history. Because once you’re there? You’ll have no time for anything other than simply being there.

An overview of places I visited

1. Delhi

Crazy, filled to the brim with people, dirty, filled to the brim with life.
I walked out of the metro station and was introduced to India - the warmth of the air and the smells, the loudness of cars honking, the bustle, the colours. I had the biggest grin on my face as I walked the short distance to the hostel, peering at the street food. I arrived to the hostel at 8am and couldn’t check-in until 1pm, but a truly wonderful man let me sleep in his (empty) bed in the meantime. I really love travellers. The best part of Delhi was being surrounded by other travellers again, and I was really lucky in having the best group of people to explore with. Together we tackled the craziness of Old Delhi, where our noses were assaulted by spices from the market and our tastebuds were wooed by the first of many delicious meals; the Akshardam temple, where we were impressed by its scale but strangely disappointed to learn that it was built in 2005; and Humayun’s Tomb which was made my favourite by its jungle interior and multitudes of hawks and kites flying overhead. The narrow, pedestrian streets of Delhi are what make it in my opinion. Every inch of street real estate is taken up with restaurants, grocery shops, street food carts, repair shops and tea (or chai) stands. People crawl over the potholed road like ants. Mopeds (or scootys) weave through, upsetting the natural flow. The air quality was atrocious most of the time. There was an appalling amount of poverty in Delhi. The streets of Old Delhi were lined with homeless people, often with disabilities. People put themselves in positions that you would only do if you were completely desperate, for example a young man who only had the use of one arm pulling himself along the ground through an insanely busy market street, people having to step over him. The dirt and poverty were everywhere. I can understand why people don’t love Delhi, and I wouldn’t say I loved it either. But I liked it. It was a crazy city, but I was allowed to move amongst the craziness and just witness it. No one cared about me, they were too busy cycling ricksaws, carrying huge sacks on their head, shepherding children, conducting business deals. I liked Delhi.

2. Rishikesh

The yoga capital, at the foot of the Himalayas, felt softly disingenuous.
I heard about this place once I’d reached Delhi, and was sold after the phrase “yoga capital”. I loved practicing yoga here. I’ve gotten into the habit of practicing daily whilst travelling, and being able to do it on the terrace of my hostel, looking out at the mountains and the river Ganga was beautiful. The classes I took were challenging and exhilarating. There was something so special about practicing yoga in India that I wasn’t fully expecting. The town was also nice, a lot quieter than Delhi of course, but still with a bit of chaos made up of cows and mopeds and shop keepers. It was nice to be in nature, but it wasn’t quite as calm and natural as I’d hoped. There was a lot of rubbish and the town was quite built up. The Ashrams (centres for meditation and yoga) seemed quite commercial, and the aarti and satsang we attended (a worship of the river and spiritual Q and A respectively) were led by an extremely american woman who gave off strong cult leader vibes. The main bridge of the river Ganga, connecting the two sides of the town, was closed meaning the only way across was a long walk to the next bridge or a boat ride. The men running the boat service were dishonest and just nasty people which really took away from the spiritual atmosphere. We went white water rafting which was fun. I spent Valentine’s Day here which is my favourite day of the year, and very much enjoyed treating myself to a delicious breakfast and some new jewellery!

3. Jaipur

The pink city, dirty, hot.
Jaipur should be more pleasant to visit than it is. The buildings are commonly pink, made of the local pink stone. There are so many palaces (Wind palace, Water palace, City palace) and temples (Monkey temple, Sun temple…) and forts (Amber fort, Jaigarh fort, Nahargarh fort). The only one that was especially beautiful was the Amber fort, which has a hall of mirrors that is undeniably impressive. Both the City palace and Amber fort were mazes of courtyards with open-sided halls in the middle, where the King would have public assemblies. These were beautiful. As a foreigner in Jaipur you often had the feeling you had a target on your back. The shouting from tuktuk drivers, beggars and shop keepers was relentless. The two tuktuk drivers I did have in Jaipur both seemed to be spiritual teachers, and they spent the journeys spouting all sorts of life advice.

4. Agra

Come for the Taj Mahal, leave quickly after!
The Taj Mahal is pretty cool, but how much of that is because it’s The Taj Mahal and how much because of the actually building is debatable. Either way, I felt something flutter in my belly when I first set eyes on it. I enjoyed visiting it at sunrise, even if it was so hazy we couldn’t actually see the sunrise. Along with another girl, I explored the small residential streets around the Taj and we saw the daily life of India. Young children playing with stray puppies on the street. Old children walking back from school, shouting interesting english phrases at us (for example, “you’re hot and sexy” and slightly ruder ones…). Women carrying items on their heads. Laundry hanging down buildings.

5. Varanasi

The Holiest city, burning bodies, strange calmness.
Varanasi is an intense place in its purpose. It is the Holiest city in India and Hindus come here to openly cremate their loved ones as its believed if the body is washed in the river Ganga and cremated here, the soul will reach Nirvana and not be reincarnated. Some bodies are not cremated for a few different reasons, their bodies are tied to a weight and dropped directly into the river instead. High priests because they are too holy; pregnant women because they carry a not fully-formed life inside; young children because they have not yet committed any sins; lepers as the water is believed to purify them; and people bitten by a cobra (not sure on the reason for this one!). The narrow streets back from the river are filled with cafes and street food and textile shops. As you stroll along you need to be ready to jump into a doorway on hearing the sound of bells as this signifies a body is on its way down the street, being carried on a bamboo stretcher and covered in orange fabric. There are two Ghats (steps down to the river) where the cremations take place, one big and one small. Nothing can really prepare you for going to visit these. I sat on the steps of the larger one, looking down at the 10 or so small fires where bodies burnt. The heat was intense, and I could feel it on the side of my face. The smoke filled my nose and mouth. My eyes were locked on the torso of a man burning. A mouthful of spit flew over my shoulder, from the man sat above me, splattering on the ground and breaking my gaze. Bodies waiting to be burnt lay on the ground, covered in the orange sheets, with cows and goats roaming amongst them, stopping to sniff and being shooed away by the family members. The ground was covered with ash from the wood and the bodies. Members of the Aghor religion strip to just a sheet covering their waist and rub the ash over their bodies and faces. Back from the Ghat the streets are filled with wood and scales. It takes around 7kg of wood to burn a body. The floor of the street is filled with hair, with the eldest male of the family of the deceased needing to shave their heads and beards before washing the body in the river. I’ve never been so close to death, and the casualness of it all was astounding. I attended the sunset aarti here and it was a much more authentic experience than in Rishikesh. I took a sunrise boat journey on the river and this was enjoyable too. This should’ve been the most intense place of my visit to India, and in some ways it was, especially culturally, but it’s where I at last felt calm. I ended up staying for 5 days and I fell into the rhythms of the riverside town of burning bodies.

6. Gorakhpur

Indian hospitality, a wedding.
I met lots of wonderful people in Varanasi, including two Germans and a Swiss who were also heading to Nepal to trek next, and an Indian guy called Ayush. Ayush invited me to travel with him by train to his town, just outside of Gorakhpur, to stay for a night before driving me and the others to the Nepal border. I of course accepted the invitation! At his home I was treated to a delicious and seemingly never-ending breakfast prepared by his mother and sister. He took me on a tour of the area, to a forest and temple and through agricultural fields. We went to a Bollywood film in the cinema. And then I was informed that we would be going to a wedding that evening! Everyone knows how amazing Indian weddings are so I was very excited. Ayush’s sister provided me with a kurti to wear. The wedding was as colourful and loud and big as I’d imagined it would be. There were fireworks, pyrotechnics, drones, the works! There was so much food and Ayush made sure I tried it all. The weirdest item was the freeze-dried oreo that was shoved directly into my mouth by one man, with the icy smoke billowing out of my nose and mouth. I was the novelty white person it seemed, and had pictures taken with the bride and many others! It was a very special experience.

Why I found travelling India so difficult

Transport

You can only book trains in India if you have an Indian bank account. So for foreigners this is a big problem! You have to rely on hostel staff booking them for you, and sometimes charging you a commission, or finding a kind Indian person to help you out. It’s the same for many bus booking platforms. Once you’ve managed to book a train or bus you should expect it to be delayed or cancelled. Both of the trains I took actually left on time, but both arrived an hour late. One bus was an hour and a half late. One bus was cancelled, a fact I only found out after I called them to confirm I was waiting in the right location. There are no bus stations, but individual pick-up points which are different for practically every single bus. Getting to these is hard work. Getting anywhere in cities is hard work. The public transport is seriously lacking, and the craziness of the roads and lack of pavements means walking is impossible too, so you are forced to go by tuktuk. Let me introduce you to my new least favourite thing in the world. Getting a tuktuk was the most unpleasant experience ever. This is a sweeping statement, but the drivers were all both extremely desperate for money and extremely lazy. This meant that they would quote an absurd price for the journey, and then refuse to haggle and happily return to sitting in their tuktuk. Then the next tuktuk driver would take his turn and we’d repeat the stupid interaction over and over again until eventually someone would agree to take us for a reasonable price. Often only to pull over after 100 metres and then demand a higher price again. It was so unpleasant and I tried to mainly use uber to order tuktuks, or just avoid them all together. The actual rides were entertaining once you’d accepted your high risk of death on the insane roads where lanes exist only as markings, not in reality. India drives on the left hand side of the road, but I think I was only on that side of the road about 60% of the time.

Walking around

My chosen method of exploring a country is definitely on foot. I like to stroll around a city all day, looking around and taking it all in. This just wasn’t possible in India. There were some areas where you could walk around, and I did enjoy this. But even in these you couldn’t fully immerse yourself in gazing around as you had to constantly deal with tuktuk drivers intercepting your path and trying to pick you up, not taking no for an answer, with beggars following you down the street, with children grabbing hold of your arms and not letting go, with people wanting a selfie with you just because you’re white. It was a lot, and left me completely exhausted after just a short time exploring. I learnt to adopt my most aggressive bitch face when walking around, to try and dissuade any of these negative interactions. You also had to watch where you were stepping constantly, something I learnt the hard way in Jaipur when I let myself gaze at the pink buildings for a second when walking, and ended up sliding my entire foot through a huge pile of cow poo! This did make me laugh however, breaking me out of my hardened exterior. A man running a fruit stall nearby gestured for me to come over and he laughed with me as he helped me clean up my foot with old newspapers and water. At the end of the day I wanted to escape into a calm oasis to rest and recoup, sadly that wasn’t normally available which brings me to the next issue - the hostels.

Hostels

I have stayed in some bad hostels, and plenty of good ones. The ones in India were mostly bad. They were really dirty and cramped, with the air quality especially bad in most (I’m talking mould on the floor of the bedrooms not just the bathrooms). There were other travellers in them, but also lots of Indian people using them as cheap hotels for business trips which created a strange vibe sometimes. Indian people have certain habits that aren’t the most pleasant for westerners, for example the hacking they often do in the morning to clear their throats. It’s insanely loud and echoes around all of the hostel, and the remnants of it are often seen in the sinks. I also stayed in one of my favourite hostels ever here, it was the Horn Ok Please in Jaipur and I could not recommend it more, I wish I’d stayed longer!

Personal reasons

Whilst rafting in Rishikesh I got my phone wet and it completely died. This sucked and annoyed me quite a lot! Very luckily I packed my old phone with me as a back-up, so was able to use this and it saved me having to splash out on a replacement phone. But the camera isn’t as good and that made me pretty sad for a bit. But I’m over it now! Honest…

An even more personal reason is that my Grandpa really wanted to visit India, and we had talked about travelling here together. Before we had the chance he became ill and then passed away a few years ago. He would’ve loved so much of the craziness in India. Seeing weird things like people offering to clean my ears on the street made me think of him and how much he would’ve enjoyed it, definitely being the one person to take them up on their offer! Whilst thinking about him always makes me smile, knowing he wasn’t able to experience India made me feel pretty sad.

It really wasn’t all bad

Despite all of these challenges, I did enjoy India. It’s so full of life and colour and energy. Whilst lots of my interactions with locals were not particularly pleasant, I had some that really were. Mostly in Varanasi. When I attended the aarti here the women around me suddenly became overjoyed by my existence. Spontaneously they all started cooing at me, touching my hair and cheeks, tucking my hair behind my ear so they could kiss my forehead, squeezing my arms. I couldn’t keep up with how many hands were touching me! And all the while they were peering over me as I sat down, all wiggling their heads in the characteristic Indian way, beaming from ear to ear. When I wiggled mine in return this set them off even more, making their wiggling even more intense and their squeals of delight even louder! It all happened so quickly, and it was really wonderful.

One of my favourite things about India was the painted signs everywhere. Advertisements on walls, shop signs and markings on trucks and tuktuks are not printed signs stuck on, but hand painted pieces of artwork. It’s a small thing but I noticed it everywhere, and enjoyed it every time.

India was a lot, and it was really hard work and left me exhausted. I don’t think I could travel around the North (the South is apparently more relaxed) for more than 3 weeks at a time, I bailed out after 2.5 this time! But it was worth the effort. It’s definitely a place like no other!

I didn’t have a clue about what to expect from Central Asia. I knew very little about its history and culture and scenery. After 2 months of travelling around 4 of the 5 countries in the region, I feel like I’ve absorbed so much knowledge on all of those topics. In the interest of not completely forgetting all of this information, I’ve decided to record it here in a big overall Central Asia post. And it might be interesting to flick over if you want to gain an insight into this really amazing region.

This post includes:

1. Overall words on my time here
2. A brief timeline of the region
3. A breakdown of the culture of each country

Basics

Days I spent in each country:
Kazakhstan - 22
Kyrgystan - 18
Uzbekistan - 14
Tajikistan - 6

Defining features (in my opinion!):
Kazakhstan - steppe, modern cities, friendly people
Kyrgystan - mountains, nomads (horses and yurts), lakes
Uzbekistan - silk road cities, modern cities, bread
Tajikistan - mountains, persian language, Pamirs

I have really enjoyed my time in Central Asia, despite it being hard at times. I’ve developed a real love for the area and will look back on my time here with absolute fondness. I’m also proud to say I survived the coldest winter in Central Asia in 15 years!

An unexpected constant: That aren’t a lot of hostels in Central Asia, with most of my time spent in Guesthouses, but the ones that do exist are very different to normal hostels. These hostels are not filled with other travellers passing through, but Russians living there. Because of mobilisation, many Russians have left Russia and are yet to find a permanent living situation. This creates a very strange vibe in the hostels, with me loving life and seeing the world, and this group of people who are just trying to survive. Many of these people have very warped views on the west and the war, which was interesting to hear about at first but quickly became very tiring. I felt like the spokesperson for England most of the time, despite knowing very little about the whole situation. Addressing strange Russian propaganda tropes about England became extremely boresome. An example of how absurd some of these were - “All people in England are gay”. Many of these people, perhaps because they were living there, didn’t abide by the unspoken hostel etiquette rules. Overall, they weren’t the most pleasant experience!

A brief timeline

8th - 5th century BC → The Scythians. Central Asia was split into Khanates (Kingdoms). Scythians were nomadic and depended heavily on horses.

3rd century BC → Xiongnu. Nomadic. Lots of fighting with the Han dynasty who ruled China.

2nd century BC → Silk Road started to form. Settlements begin to pop up amongst the nomadic lifestyle.

8th century AD → Uyghurs. Nomadic Turkic group who massively enabled trade across Eurasia.

9th century AD → Rise of Islam. At the end of the 9th century China collapsed and Persia started to decline. This negatively impacted the Silk Road and therefore Central Asia.

13th century → Mongols. Still nomadic. Central Asia remains separated into khanates. Mongols protected the trade routes across Central Asia and allowed them to prosper and improve. The Mongol empire collapsed due to internal rifts.

14th and 15th century → Timur ruled over the khanates. On Timur’s death in 1405, the region was divided into principalities ruled by his descendants. The rivalries between these means that they were defeated by the Uzbeks.

16th century → The Silk Road had dried up. Central Asia’s prosperity declined and it was known as the “backwater”.

17th century → Russia began advancing into Central Asia. By the 19th century they had total control of all of the khanates.

19th century → The Great Game between Russia and Britain. Afghanistan was the only country separating the British controlled India and the Russian controlled Central Asia. Both Britain and Russia wanted to keep Afghanistan as a friendly buffer, and it resulted in a host of activities now referred to as the Great Game.

20th century → Soviet Union. The 1917 revolution in Russia resulted in the Tsarist regime being replaced with the communist one, with Central Asia now being part of the Soviet Union. In the 1920s and 1930s the Soviet government created five republics in the region: the Kazakh SSR (Soviet Socialist Republic), the Kyrgyz SSR, the Tajik SSR, the Uzbek SSR and the Turkmen SSR. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, each republic obtained their independence. And so we finally have the five countries that make up the region today!

Culture

These insights mostly come from conversations I have had with local people. More broad and easy insights come from my own experiences. If it is my own opinion I will state this, otherwise I am simply relaying what people told me. Do not take it as fact!!!

An overall point on languages in Central Asia: Kazakh, Kyrgyz and Uzbek are all Turkic languages. They were originally written using the arabic script which was introduced with Islam. This was changed to cyrillic during the Soviet Union, which is what remains today. However, the use of latin is on the increase, especially in Uzbekistan. Tajik is a Persian language.

Kazakhstan

• Language - In the villages and in the west people often only speak Kazakh, with no Russian. In major cities like Almaty, people often only speak Russian, even if they are ethnically Kazakh. When I asked the school children I spoke to about Kazakh they said they mostly speak Russian as it’s more practical to know. But they want to speak Kazakh too, as it’s important to preserve their language. They spoke about this in Russian… During the Soviet Union a lot of Russian people moved to Kazakhstan, and they remain there today. This means it has been impacted by Russian culture the most out of the Central Asian countries. You can really feel this in Almaty.
• Religion - One affect of the Russian, and more specifically the Soviet Union’s, impact on Kazakhstan is the reduced importance of Islam in the country. Historically (well since the 700s AD) Central Asia has been muslim. I’d still call Kazakhstan a muslim country, but it’s the most relaxed one I’ve ever visited. I could count on one hand the number of women wearing head coverings, I didn’t hear the call to prayer once, and there were multiple orthodox churches in the big cities.
• Women - It’s common for women to marry relatively young. The couple will live with the groom’s family. Women do commonly work, in all sorts of jobs like in Western society. Generally it seemed pretty modern to me! I was treated with the utmost of respect across the board. Older men on the train viewed me like a grown-up daughter. They looked after me - giving me some of their beer, lending me their sandals, helping me to get onto my top bunk. But they also really listened to me. They weren’t shy in asking me questions about my studies, my job and my opinions on their country. I wasn’t belittled for being a woman, and I felt very empowered by the interactions. In Europe, when older men showed an interest in me it always came with a slightly creepy vibe. In eastern Turkey, they simply wouldn’t interact with me. Here was the sweet-spot. I would highly recommend travelling to Kazakstan as a woman!
• Kazakhstan is HUGE and is mostly Steppe, an ecoregion of grassland without trees. It’s desolate and herds of camels roam across it. This wasteland like area was used (or abused you could say) by Russia as a place to test out nuclear and chemical weapons, and as place to create a gulag (a prison labour camp) the size of France.
• Kazakhstan is the world’s main provider of uranium, the substance used to power nuclear reactors for nuclear energy. In 2019 it provided 43% of the world’s uranium (this is a fact, I checked it). Remember, nuclear power is absolutely a positive thing in the movement towards sustainability and fazing out fossil fuels. If this stance shocks you I totally understand, nuclear energy has a bad reputation, but if you look into it I promise you’ll reach the same conclusion! And if you can’t be bothered to look into it, I am always happy to talk about nuclear power in an open manner and discuss the perceived negative aspects of it (so feel free to message me, I really do love talking about it!).

Kyrgystan

Kyrgystan is a funky one with a sharp north/south divide. There is a history of conflict between the two regions, and they are distinct to such an extent that I will discuss them separately. The difference grows from the fact that the north is ethnically Kyrgyz and the south is ethnically Uzbek.

North Kyrgystan:

• Language - In Bishkek (the capital) everyone speaks Russian, not everyone speaks Kyrgyz but most do. Every else it was the reverse with everyone speaking Kyrgyz and most speaking Russian. The younger population in cities outside of Karakol were dismissive of me asking if they speak Kyrgyz, replying “of course we do, it’s our language”. This was a much stronger sentiment than in Kazakhstan.
• Religion - North Kyrgystan is a muslim region, but I saw very very few women covering their hair and never heard the call to prayer. Speaking to one Kyrgyz woman, she expressed her concern over seeing an increase in women wearing hijabs. She told me Krygystan was not originally a muslim country and she does not want it to become like Afghanistan or Uzbekistan. She views the hijab as repressive. When eating with a family in Bishkek I was instructed to pray after eating however, in the manner of cupping my hands as if holding water and then washing my face with this water. In Karakol (a city in the east) the young woman at reception wore a niqab (material covering the entire face and head with just a slit for the eyes) but it was clearly unusual. When describing the woman a local man remarked “she wears a piece of cloth over her whole face!”. In this eastern region there is a large population of Dungan muslims, originally from China. There are Dungan mosques because of this.
• Women - In the cities it was very modern, with women doing all sorts of jobs and living alone etc. I went for coffee in Bishkek with one local woman who was in her 30s and was unmarried. I asked her about this, as I always asked if I was married. She explained that her family did always ask about this whenever she visited them in the small town, and it was less accepted there, but in Bishkek it was fairly common to be unmarried. In the villages it was more traditional, with women getting married fairly young and living with the groom’s family. People are expected to have children soon after marriage too. I went to lunch with one local man and detected a pretty strong tone of sexism in his comments. He told me that it was the woman’s job to pour the tea, looking at me expectantly when the teapot arrived. It made my skin crawl to be honest, but on the other hand I wanted to respect the culture so I obliged. It’s a really hard line to walk, and one that brings up a lot of interesting thoughts. I have a feeling that my experiences juggling personal beliefs and respecting different cultures will leave me pondering for years! Eating out with this man’s entire family the following evening, an effort was made for him to sit on a certain side of the table. His wife later explained that as the head of the family he should always sit facing the entrance to the room, as it would traditionally be in a nomadic yurt. One troubling feature of Kyrgyz life is the concept of bride kidnapping. This is when a man kidnaps a woman and forces her to marry him. The force comes from the fact that she is no longer seen as ‘pure’ (read: a virgin) after being alone in his company (also because rape is not an uncommon feature of the kidnapping) and so will struggle to find a different husband. This causes her family to tell her that she must stay with the man and marry him. This ‘tradition’, the quotation marks are there because its historical prevalence is debated, continues today in rural regions. Some studies estimate that one third of brides in Kyrgystan were kidnapped. However, some of these may be consensual, being more of an elopement than a kidnapping. Non-consensual kidnapping was only made illegal in 1994 and it is very rarely prosecuted.
• There is still a large population of nomads in the north of Kyrgystan. These people settle in towns in the winter and move to pastures in the summer, living in yurts. Their livelihood comes from livestock.

South Kyrgystan:

• Language - The primary language is a dialect of Uzbek and Kyrgyz that neither Kyrgyz nor Uzbek speakers can understand. Everyone also speaks Russian.
• Religion - A lot more religious (muslim) than the north. I could count on one hand the number of women who were not wearing head coverings. The call of prayer was audible in both Arslanbob and Osh. Everyone gave thanks after eating by doing the fake washing face action, and I was encouraged to do the same. I have mixed thoughts on this. On one hand, I want to be respectful of their religion and culture. On the other, I am not religious and do not want to give thanks to a figure I do not believe in. I would always do the action to appease them and not seem rude, but it made me feel dirty in the sense that I was pretending and disrespecting my own belief. Speaking to Lachin, a muslim from Arslanbob, he does not relate to countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan and speaks of them with a lot of distaste. He does not see his religion as having anything to do with them, and absolutely does not want their influence spreading to Kyrgystan. But he isn’t worried about this happening, unlike the much less religious lady I spoke to in the north. Muslims from Kyrgystan are clear in their beliefs about treating everyone with respect, no matter of their religion, and have zero tolerance for extremism and are unsusceptible to its influence. I hope he is right.
• Women - Sadly (in my opinion), due to the increased influence of religion, the south was a lot more conservative in all aspects including those relating to women. A woman’s role was exclusively in the home, and in villages they often only left the home on market day. The home extends out to the fields here, and I would often see women doing hard manual tasks with animals or vegetation. Girls still went to school just like boys, but it was less common for them to go to university. Arranged marriages are common, but the women do often have a say. Once married, the bride lives with the groom’s family.
• People here are not Kyrgyz so the cultural practices of bride kidnapping and the nomadic lifestyle do not apply.
• While being Uzbek, people here are very happy to be part of Kyrgystan rather than Uzbekistan. Kyrgystan is the most liberal and democratic country in Central Asia. It still has an issue with corruption, but you can do whatever you want, start whatever business you want, live the life you want. This is not possible in Uzbekistan. Life is difficult in Uzbekistan compared to Kyrgystan.

Uzbekistan

• Language - Everyone’s first language is Uzbek, with most people also speaking Russian. The influence of Russia in general, including the Russian language, is a lot less here than in Kazakhstan and Kyrgystan. In the east of the country people often spoke Tajik as well.
• Religion - According to the museum manager who gave me a private tour around the citadel in Bukhara, 95% of Uzbeks are muslim. A lot of women do cover their hair, but a large number don’t still. I heard the call to prayer in most places. Alcohol was not a given in restaurants. I didn’t witness the fake washing face after eating as often as in South Kyrgystan.
• Women - Very similar to northern Kyrgystan and Kazakhstan, women were visible working across sectors but were more confined to the home in rural areas. Women seemed to run most guesthouses, and most stalls in the bazaars. I saw lots of women police officers. Young women in the cities were very confident, coming up to me to ask questions about where I was from and to proudly tell me they planned to travel. I had lunch with two university students and one of them informed us that she wouldn’t marry and have children, she would instead travel the world!
• Up until 2016 Uzbekistan remained quite closed off to the rest of the world, under the rule of a repressive, authoritarian President, Islam Karimov. Uzbekistan is still recovering from his rule.

Tajikistan

• Language - The main language is Tajik, which is a Persian language. This means many people also speak Farsi. Russian is widely spoken, especially in the cities. In the Pamirs, each village has a distinct language due to the isolated nature of the communities. The alphabet used for Tajik was originally arabic, but is now latin (although I mostly saw cyrillic in Dushanbe, perhaps because of the dominance of Russian?).
• Religion - Like with the rest of Central Asia, Islam ‘lite’ (as described by my tour guide Denis) is practiced in Tajikistan. People drink alcohol, go to mosque only on a Friday and many women don’t cover their hair. The situation in neighbouring Afghanistan is looked on with pity, and there doesn’t seem to be any chance or concern of the extremism spreading to Tajikistan.
• Women - It felt slightly behind Kyrgystan and Kazakhstan in gender equality, but definitely becoming more modern. A woman’s role is primarily in the home, with this changing in the cities but remaining firmly rooted in the rural areas.
• There is an on-going border dispute between Kyrgystan and Tajikistan. The most recent flair up was in September 2022 and 100 people were killed in fighting. This sentiment is seen in attitudes towards each country from the other. In Kyrgystan I was told to be very careful in Tajikistan, that the people were ‘wild’. In my experiences, both countries were beautiful and people were exceptionally friendly!
• Tajikistan is split roughly in half. The west of the country is simply Tajikistan, the east is an autonomous region called the GBAO. You need a special permit to enter this area, and it’s primarily comprised of the Pamir mountains. The people of the Pamirs are different to Tajiks in language, culture and appearance. I didn’t visit the Pamirs so I won’t go into a lot of detail on this area, but it’s less conservative in how people dress and there are a high number of people with fair complexions with blonde hair and blue eyes, and even people with red hair! It’s a really tough place to live. Nothing grows easily in the soil and the high altitudes. Accessibility is difficult with poor mountain roads. This has led to food security issues, worsened by the border closing between Kyrgystan and Tajikistan as food could more easily be delivered from Kyrgyz cities than Tajik ones in the northern region.
• Tajikistan is the odd one out in a lot of ways, namely its people are ethnically Iranian and speak a Persian language. But the culture is very similar to the other Central Asia countries, including its cuisine.

Turkmenistan

Disclosure: I did not visit Turkmenistan because it’s basically impossible! But I did have a long conversation with four Turkmen men (that sounds funny) that I met at a tea house in Uzbekistan. I felt like I gained enough insight to briefly mention about it.

• It is the second most closed country in the world, after North Korea. But inside it remains quite open and ordinary life is good. Unlike most countries, where the more countries you can visit visa-free the better, Turkmenistan has the opposite mindset. The government requested that Turkey removes its visa-free status, wanting its population to need a visa to visit Turkey.
• They have ‘democratic’ elections which ‘elected’ the former President’s son to be the next President… You cannot talk against the leadership of the country, or anything to do with politics or you will be repressed. Society is not at all liberal, unsurprisingly.
• But yes ordinary life is good. People have a high standard of living in terms of big houses, nice cars, and extremely cheap gas and electricity. A litre of petrol is cheaper than a litre of water! The guy I spoke to runs a strawberry plantation which uses huge boilers which are large enough to heat an entire district of the city. He does not even account for the price of electricity in his business as the price is negligible. That’ll probably sting a bit considering the whole energy crisis in England at the moment. But think about your freedom of speech!
• They have incredibly stupid laws. For example, in Ashgabat, a city made entirely of white marble, your car must be white. And that means no black radiator on the front, no black alloys, no black tinted windows. I asked if it was difficult to find your car in a car park, they didn’t get it.

Originally I planned to do the Pamir highway in Tajikistan with the Irish couple (Niamh and Karl). After the cold in Krygystan and some research into onwards flights, I changed my mind. As much as I loved Central Asia I was starting to feel ready to move on, to have some warmth and better food and other travellers again. I didn’t think I’d have time to visit India, and had been put off from going from people who said it wouldn’t be very pleasant as a solo woman. Travelling for 9 months has done wonders for my self-belief and I felt like I would be fine visiting alone, and speaking to Alice (a british girl I met in Uzbekistan who’d been to India several times alone) cemented this. The flights I was looking at to get to Nepal had a stop-over in New Delhi, so it made much more sense to just stop there and travel to Nepal by land. This is a long way of saying that I cut my time in Tajikistan short, only visiting for 1 week and skipping the Pamir highway trip. I would love to do it another time, in the spring, perhaps on bike and maybe with my Dad (if he’s up for it)…

Impressions of Tajikistan

The people
Despite lots of warnings from Kyrgyz, Kazakhs and Uzbeks, the Tajik people were very friendly. Their appearance is more Persian than Asian, and one person even said I looked like a Tajik mountain girl (he assured me it was a compliment…). My favourite thing about Tajik people is the hand on heart they do as a greeting/thank you/goodbye, like their version of an acknowledging head nod.

The scenery
Like Kyrgystan, Tajikistan is very mountainous (93% in fact) but it’s more hard rock face than green. Looking out from a panorama point the number of mountains really hit me - it was all I could see, just rows and rows of mountains. These were a purple colour, trees were sparse. The small amount of flat land is very fertile, with a huge amount of fruits and vegetables grown there in the summer. It seems like a harsh climate, and that struck me more than the beauty of the place.

The food
Same as in the rest of the region. More plov, lagman, manti and samsas. Specialty dish is Kurotob. The base of this is bread in yogurt. I had a dinner variety one in a restaurant that was surprisingly tasty, topped with meat and tomatoes and lots of fresh herbs. I had a breakfast variety at a guesthouse and it was just heavy.

The vibe
A little rougher feeling than the other countries. Proudly Persian. The cities are faux modern - tall, brand new buildings that sit empty, with most people living in one-storey houses along dirt roads. The villages are proudly not modern.

My travels

Both my entrance and exit into Tajikistan were stressful. I caught the overnight train from Samarkand, Uzbekistan to Dushanbe, Tajikistan. The train guard was a very friendly man, but slightly too friendly for my liking. There was some confusion where he wanted me to move beds to the bed next to him, and I couldn’t see why, the carriage was practically empty so if I had to move I could move to an area by myself! After some very confusing google translate messages (see below) I eventually got my way and had a bed alone.

This wasn’t the end however and he made me join him to drink wine with another guard. This was all quite pleasant a part from the fact he was constantly kissing my cheeks and forehead, and trying to kiss me on the lips and neck. I felt very uncomfortable by the end and didn’t sleep well.
My exit was even more dramatic. I got the night train again, going in the reverse direction to Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Completely unintentionally, and to the fault of another passenger who gestured for me to go out of the station to the platform where my train was waiting, I wriggled through what I now understand was a gap in a wall rather than a doorway, bypassing the customs and border control. The result of this was I’d illegally left Tajikistan and was completely unaware of it. This was until I was strong-armed off the train by several army men and border officials. After some initial shouting and demanding of my passport which, to make matters worse, I didn’t have as I’d handed it in to some lady on the train, my utter ignorance and therefore innocence became clear. The anger became baffled head shakes and laughs as they ran me over to the border control to get my exit stamp before the train left. Sadly that wasn’t the end of my issues on this train, with there being a man in my bed and a lady in his bed. Eventually this was sorted and I ended up in a carriage with two Turkish men, who showed me lots of pictures of sheep (I still have no idea why).

Beyond the initial and ending stress, my time in Tajikistan was very enjoyable. I used Dushanbe as a base and was surprised at how modern the city was, with lots of nice cafes for me to sit in and catch up on some blog writing. Beyond that it was an extremely grey and dreary place. I went on a two-day tour to the south of the country which was quite eventful. It was supposed to be a tour to Iskanderkul lake in the north, but the terrible weather meant the pass was closed. My guide Denis was wonderful and came up with an alternative plan, and we made a long drive south, stopping to look at different interest points on the way, me filling the rest of the time by quizzing Denis on every aspect of Tajik life (poor guy). We even saw the very end of the Tajik version of Kok boru! We had a very traditional experience at a homestay in a small village, and it was wonderful to see village life here. We spent the precious evening hours before the electricity was turned off (there have been huge problems with energy shortages in all of Central Asia this winter) playing a soviet card game with two little boys. Not to sugar coat this experience, the toilet was a literal pit in the ground in a shed at the bottom of the garden and there was no running water. I was given the one room with a fireplace in so I would be warm, this did mean sleeping on the floor but I was perfectly comfortable and was even offered a woman to sleep with me in case I was scared to sleep alone! For breakfast we had traditional Kurotob - fried bread covered in Tajik yogurt, topped with more fried bread. It was served in a giant wooden bowl and we all ate with our hands from it.

Denis and I set off for a hike but managed to pop one of the tyres on the 4WD car. I finally learnt how to change a tyre, something that’s a lot easier than I assumed, and I still got to have a little hike. We took the older road back, driving through some unbelievable little villages. The children were so striking here. Some very dark and some very fair with blonde hair and blue eyes. We stopped in one of the villages after driving past a group of girls collecting water from a spring. I watched them load up a donkey with water and then helped them carry the buckets down the road. I’m so glad I had the chance to see more of Tajikistan than just Dushanbe. Both the scenery and village life were so interesting. On arriving back into the city I went to a bar to wait for Niamh and Karl to arrive. I struck up conversation with a guy from Nigeria and a guy from South Africa after being surprised to hear english. We ended up going to a club and I marvelled at the contrast of my morning (pissing in a pit, eating with two men from a giant bowl of greasy bread) to my night (dancing in a club with gogo girls). The difference between city and village life across Central Asia is vast. I joined Denis again for a group hike, and enjoyed trudging through deep snow up a valley alongside the German ambassador for Tajikistan and other interesting expats.

The Silk Road

You have probably all heard of the Silk Road. It pertains to a 5000 mile network of trading routes across Eurasia from around 115 BC to the 1450s AD. The image of one caravan of camels moving goods all the way from China to Rome isn’t quite accurate however. Instead, caravans would operate on small segments of the route, with items being traded in towns and then continuing with a new caravan along the next segment. As the name of the Silk Road suggests, one of the main trade products was silk, with it moving from China over to Europe. Another big commodity, going in the reverse direction from Central Asia to China, were horses. This was the reason the Silk Road began in fact. The soil in China lacked Selenium, which meant Chinese horses lacked muscular strength and had reduced growth. The Chinese wanted the superior horses that existed on the Steppes of Central Asia, bred by nomads. The nomads wanted silk and grain, and thus the trading began. Other products were introduced as time went on and trade routes expanded: spices, tea, honey, wine, gold, dyes, perfumes and porcelain. It wasn’t just products that moved along the Silk Road, it provided an unprecedented diffusion of ideas, religions (especially Buddhism), philosophies and scientific discoveries. It was the very beginning of globalisation. Not all that was transported was positive, with some scholars believing that the Great Plague was spread to Europe from Asia along the Silk Road. Its impacts on world history can’t be overstated in my opinion!

The Silk Road came to an end with the rise of the Ottoman Empire, which severed trade between East and West. Sea routes began to be used instead of going overland, and this led to the age of exploration with Europeans discovering the Americas and beyond. There is now a ‘New Silk Road’, a name given to several large infrastructure projects hoping to expand transportation along the historic trade route. An example is the ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ funded by China, and I’ve had the pleasure of using some of the new roads myself when in Turkey.

Along the Silk Road several cities were established, as an oasis to the caravans. These were places for the caravan to rest, for the merchants to trade, and for the travellers to socialise. This is where the exchange of ideas, philosophy and religion happened. These towns all had caravanserai which were the ancient hostel in a way. Often a courtyard shape, with the animals being kept on the ground floor, with rooms for the travellers on a second floor. The first caravanserai I encountered on my trip was in Sarajevo, Bosnia. Since then I’ve seen countless others, especially in Turkey. The caravanserai are often the only hint at the city’s Silk Road history. The cities have evolved into something quite different, and have a life of their own now. When you enter the Silk Road cities of Uzbekistan this period of their history is all you can comprehend. They remain frozen as safe havens in the desert. Maybe it’s because I’m currently reading a book set along the Silk Road (thanks for sending it to me Alex!) but as I roamed the deserted streets of Khiva at sunrise I felt like I was experiencing it as a traveller who had spent weeks in the desert, overjoyed to be back in civilisation, rather than a backpacker who had spent 22 hours on a train! I don’t know why hype of these cities hasn’t reached England, but it will soon I’m sure. They all have similar architecture, namely brown mud walls with the flash of blue ceramics in every shade imaginable, in a frequency that gives the city colour whilst still being rare enough to feel like you’ve stumbled upon a treasure. They all have multiple mosques, minarets, markets and madrasahs (old Islamic schools). They all have a main square called the Registan. Whilst these features derive from the Islamic history of the cities, their grandeur and importance comes from its place on the Silk Road. The wealth that the trade brought and throngs of people passing through meant it was both possible and necessary to build such huge structures. The history of these places is one of the most palpable I’ve ever experienced - on the same level as walking around the Valley of the Kings in Egypt, or Pompeii in Italy. But unlike these places, they feel more alive. Real people still live in the Old Town, new merchants selling handmade fabric and ceramic goods fill the holes of the ancient bazaars and trading domes.

My travels

I crossed into Uzbekistan from south Kyrgystan, getting a marshrutka the short distance from Osh to the border. I crossed on foot, experiencing much interest and suspicion over my British passport. I had to wait a while at the Uzbek side, with them appearing to be unsure over whether I needed a visa to enter or not (I did not). As I waited for the guard to return with my passport, the other guard was very curious about my marital status! Once I got through I exchanged my small amount of leftover Kyrgyz som to Uzbek som, being startled by the exchange rate with was 14,000 som to £1! I took my wad of cash and put my head down to march through the battlefield of taxi drivers. They were the most forceful I’d experienced in Central Asia, but I’d done my research and knew there was a public bus which stopped just past the taxi ranks. I rammed myself onto this, standing ladled with my bags for an hour. We arrived into Andijan and from here I was able to get a shared taxi to Ferghana where my taxi driver offloaded me into a damas (a tiny van that I’d already clocked were everywhere in Uzbekistan) which took me to Margilan. The whole journey took about 4.5 hours (including the border crossing) and cost £5.90, which depleted my Uzbek soms. I checked into my hotel and walked into the city centre to do the new country admin of taking out some money and getting a sim card. A problem revealed itself - there was a city wide powercut. No electricity meant no ATMs were working and no wifi was working. This meant I had no money and no internet, also being unable to get a sim card. I was rather stuck! I visited a silk factory whilst I prayed the power would return, risking my life walking around the city as no power also meant no traffic lights. Eventually I saw lights flickering back on in all of the shops, and I raced to join the long line at the ATM. I returned to the hotel with money, a sim card, and a strange sense of accomplishment!

From Margilan I travelled 22 hours by train to Khiva - my first real Silk Road city. The train journey was long but easily spent with blog writing, watching netflix and chatting to the group of old women who spent an hour showing me videos from the wedding they’d been attending and photos of all of their grandchildren. They also gave me an entire loaf (well, circle) of bread?

Khiva

I arrived at sunrise and made the most of this by exploring the old town in the morning light, devoid of any other people. The old town was small, surrounded by a big city wall and completely conserved within, no modern buildings in sight. It felt like walking around a film set, or an open air museum. I learnt that the town has been heavily restored, which is maybe why I didn’t love it quite as much as you’d imagine. It had an air of fakeness to it which subtracted from the historical ambience. It was still pretty cool though. I especially loved the Kalta Minor Minaret, an unfinished tower which was short but charmingly wide, and completely covered in blue mosaics. Khiva was the city where I felt most encapsulated in the history. The little streets with small doorways, shops filled with bright fabrics and ceramics hidden within. Items so beautiful that they were too much for even me to pass up on, and I purchased a beautiful, and reversible, silk and cotton jacket. I bought the ‘VIP’ ticket (actually, it was the only type of ticket so really it should just be called standard) so I could visit the Mausoleum and go up the tall minaret, only to find out neither of these were actually included in the ticket. What was included in the overpriced ticket? No less than 15 of the worst ‘museums’ I have ever visited. Most had no english translations and seemed to house a completely eclectic collection of items (see image of one of these items, a rare one with an english translation). But after shelling out for the stupid ticket I’d be damned if I wasn’t going to visit every last one of them. It became a mission to cross them all off the little map stapled to my ticket and one that left me quite tired by the end. The only two things worth seeing where the Kuhana Ark, where you could climb up a tower for views of the city (but don’t go too near to closing time, as they don’t check if anyone’s on top before closing the door at the bottom…), and the Toshhovli palace. But it was fun to enter into all of the Madrasahs which housed the museums I suppose.

Unexpectedly, I met an english girl (Alice) in the lovely terrace restaurant in Khiva, and it turns out she was doing a similar journey to me (England to Australia overland)! It was wonderful to compare our routes so far, and commiserate on our shared disappointment of not being able to do the ferry crossing from Azerbaijan to Kazakhstan.

Bukhara

Eight hours by train from Khiva lies my next stop. Bukhara’s old town is a bit more spread out, with no big city wall and much wider streets separating the Madrasahs and minarets. Instead of shops buried in small alleys, the merchants occupied large trading domes. The mosques, minarets and Madrasahs were bigger too. It was a bit more lively than quiet Khiva. The Ark Fortress (the old citadel) was off to the side of the old town, and was huge even if 80% of it was still rubble after being bombed by the Red Army in the 1920s. I ventured inside and was told I had to buy a ticket, after my negative experience in Khiva I asked what exactly the ticket included and was told three museums. It was £3 so I decided I would do it. Climbing up to the main area I was disappointed but unsurprised to find that 2 of the museums were locked, and there wasn’t much to see up there at all. Armed with my complaint I returned to the ticket office and was gaslighted by the woman who insisted the museums were open. Eventually I was escorted back up and wow, the museums were locked! A guy came and unlocked them. It turns out he was the manager of the fortress and he ended up giving me a full guided tour, probably feeling like he had to after seeing my very unimpressed expression. When he couldn’t answer my questions on the history of Bukhara he called up the head of the history department, at this point I was feeling very lucky! Both of them then took me to the non-public parts of the fortress which was pretty cool.

Samarkand

A much shorter 2.5 hour train journey took me to Samarkand, my final Silk Road city. Samarkand was the one place I had heard about previously, peering at the impressive photos of the Registan Square on my laptop all those years ago when I started to plan my trip. I arrived in the evening and after dropping my bags at the hostel, decided to go for a run. It had dawned on me that I was planning to do my Himalayan hike in only 6 weeks and I hadn’t done any cardio in months! It also shows just how safe I feel in Uzbekistan, I wouldn’t even feel comfortable going for a run at night in London. I ran down to the Registan Square and got my first look at it, all lit up. It looked a bit smaller than I’d imagined, but was utterly beautiful. I couldn’t believe I was seeing it with my own eyes. The following day I returned in the sun, taking my time to explore each of the three Madrasahs. The first one I entered, Ulugh Beg Madrasah, was my favourite. On entering the courtyard my jaw literally dropped, and I audibly said “wow” to no one but myself. I’ve seen some really beautiful sights over the last 8.5 months, and this is the first one that has actually left me speechless. And I’d spent the last week visiting Silk Road sights. That tells you all you need to know! But I’ll give you a description anyway… Two stories surrounding a courtyard, every inch of wall covered in mosaic tiles in blue, white, yellow, orange and green. I climbed to the second floor, being at eye level with the arches as they were filled with sunlight. The more you looked the more details revealed themselves, and the more it felt like the beauty and history was unravelling for you. The colours and warmth surrounding me in a bubble of mosaic heaven. I took SO many photos! The other two Madrasahs were also beautiful, and I especially liked the tiger details on the front of the Sherdor Madrasah. A part from the Registan Square, which is definitely the crown jewel of the Silk Road, Samarkand has a few Mausoleums and mosques scattered around. One which surprised me in it’s uniqueness was the Shah-i-Zinda complex. This is several Mausoleums in a row, forming a narrow corridor which means your entire perspective is filled with mosaics. Samarkand is a much more modern city than Bukhara or Khiva. When you stepped away from whatever mosque or madrasah you were visiting, you were sucked back into modern day leaving the Silk Road history behind.

I had a few days in Samarkand as I waited for my Tajikistan e-visa to be approved, and I really enjoyed taking the time to savour each of the sights. The sunny weather was also much appreciated. And the company of Alice who caught up with me here! From Samarkand I got an overnight train to Dushanbe, Tajikistan. I’d be returning to Uzbekistan to visit Tashkent which is where I would be heading to my next destination (sadly by flight), but I’ll keep that a surprise for now!

I thought I might get tired of Silk Road cities after visiting three in a row, but I abolutely did not. All three were so different and I’m really not sure which was my favourite. The Registan Square in Samarkand was definitely the highlight, but the overall vibe of Khiva and Bukhara were more special. I’m sorry to say you have to visit all three in my opinion, no shortcuts available here!

Tashkent

My return to Tashkent was brief and uneventful, but I enjoyed going to both a ballet and an opera at the national theatre. Even more so because they only cost £2.20 each! I had some fun changing my leftover Tajik somoni to Uzbek som with a random man at the bazaar. I said goodbye to my pair of jeans that were ripped beyond saving after I’d already sewed them up 3 times. I excitedly waited for my flight to India!

People in Uzbekistan

I had been told by people in Kazakhstan and Kyrgystan that Uzbek people were the nicest and most friendly in Central Asia. This wasn’t my complete experience. I found that I was hassled the most in Uzbekistan, by taxi drivers, by people selling souvenirs, by sellers in bazaars. Probably because people are more used to tourists in the Silk Road cities? On trains, people mostly left me alone rather than striking up conversation and being very friendly. In my experience, Kazakhs remain the most friendly in Central Asia. I did have some very lovely interactions, with one of my guesthouse owners cooking me traditional plov as a ‘gift’. In Samarkand I had groups of teenage girls come up to me on three separate occasions to ask to speak to me - wanting to practice their english, ask me questions and take photos with me. One group even wanted to film an interview with me, asking me about how I’d found Samarkand.

Full Moon Check-in

1. Last: Driving along Issyl-Kul lake in Kyrgystan.
2. Current: Walking to the pub to meet Niamh and Karl to watch the football and go out for one last meal together (for now!).
3. Future: In Kathmandu, preparing to head to the Himalayas.

Disclaimer: I wrote this on a 22 hour train journey so it is LONG because I had a whole lot of time on my hands!

Impressions of Kyrgystan

The people
Kyrgyz people are, in general, less friendly than Kazakhs. They’re still very friendly, but people didn’t stop to chat to me as often as in Kazakhstan. However I had more very friendly encounters, where people would invite me to join their party, or take me out for lunch.

The scenery
Breathtaking. Like seriously, wow. It is 94% mountains so wherever you are, there’s a mountain in at least one direction. Issyl-kul lake is beautiful. The southern mountainous region is stunning. It’s all just good. I can see why it is big for hiking and nature-based activities! On the other end of the spectrum, the cities are abysmal. Soviet in all senses, which can have a certain charm about it, but not in winter conditions. The grey blocks partially visible behind a curtain of revolting air pollution, along desolate roads covered in ice and snow mush did nothing for me.

The food
Basically the same as Kazakhstan. The national dish is even the same - beshparmark. I tried samsa here, it’s a pasty but in a triangle. This was the most delicious thing I ate, so I think that sums it up. I also tried horse here. The first time I had it I did not like it. It tasted like a horse smells. The second time it was actually really delicious, so perhaps it’s in how it’s prepared.

The vibe
Unlike Kazakhstan, Kyrgystan knows what it is. It’s a country of nomads with rich nature. And it’s nailing this vibe! Wherever you go you see people on horses, you see yurts, you see mountains and trees and lakes. It’s also capitalising on it, with a great network of community-based tourism centres which organise homestays and yurt stays and affordable activities like horse treks and cultural dinners. In the summer months, the nomad population actually becomes nomadic, moving to yurts across the country to live with their livestock. I will 100% be returning to Kyrgystan in the summertime to experience this - to hike some of the gorgeous multi-day treks where you stay with actual nomads in their yurts each night. But first, I need to learn russian! I would fully recommend doing the same if you’re into nature. Kyrgystan is in that perfect sweet spot of being off the beaten track but having accessible tourism infrastructure, making it easy to experience local life. It also has beautiful sights actually worth seeing (unlike Kazakhstan…).

Lenin is everywhere
I noticed a huge number of monuments to Lenin whilst just existing in Kyrgystan. From statues in every town, Lenin streets commonly seen, and the biggest mountain being named Lenin’s peak. There are several suggested reasons for why Lenin’s influence wasn’t completely scrubbed out, like in other former Soviet states.

1. Lenin’s role in Kyrgyz history. Lenin is acknowledged as the person who brought Kyrgystan its statehood and the person who brought an end to the Great Urkun (a revolt against tsarist conscription in 1916).
2. Creating continuity with the Soviet era to try and keep the international population in Kyrgystan, after the ‘brain drain’ which occurred immediately after the collapse of the USSR.
3. Using Lenin as a symbol of safety and optimism, especially for the older generation. The transition from communism to capitalism did not go smoothly in Kyrgystan, like in so many other former Soviet states, and so there may have been a sense of nostalgia for the Soviet times. Lenin’s figure may have acted as a beacon of optimism, that Krygystan would once again prosper.

From The Contested Histories Initiative, ”Statue of Lenin in Bishkek”, Contested Histories Case Study #93 (May 2022)

My travels

Day 1 - 3: Bokonbyaevo
Being my second Central Asian country, I felt a lot more comfortable with the peculiarities of travel here. I arrived by bus into Bishkek (the capital) from Almaty, Kazakhstan. The road was icy and an accident meant we were stopped on the side of the road for 2 hours. I was in the mood for nature rather than cities after spending so long in Almaty, so the next morning (after doing the new country admin of getting out cash and getting a sim card) I caught a marshrutka to a town on the south side of Issyl-Kul lake called Bokonbyaevo. The journey took 5.5 hours and we stopped at a strangely fancy service station on the way. I arrived into the town after dark and decided to walk the 40 minutes to my guesthouse to stretch my legs. This was probably a mistake. A conclusion I reached whilst zig-zagging my way past drunken men stumbling around and stray dogs. I ate a disappointing meal of turkey leg with the ends of the feathers still in it, noodles, potatoes and a bowl of meat grease on the side that the lady insisted I drink (I got away with just taking a sip in the end). A vegetable was a mystical being it seemed. The following day I ventured to Skazka canyon by marshrutka, taking note of the horrific condition of the road on the way there. I enjoyed walking around and getting lost in the ridges of rock, or the folds of a dragon if you believe the myth about the canyon (that it’s a dragon which turned to stone from shock in seeing the lake that had formed from its curse to flood the valley every full moon until the woman who rejected its advances agreed to them - weird). On my walk back to the road I spied a cafe on google maps and went to check it out, very much fancying a coffee to warm up. As I neared the cafe I was expecting it to be closed, but was elated to see people inside! I realised my mistake as soon as I’d opened the door - definitely not open, it was just a family having a party inside. Before I knew it I was sat down in the centre of the table, eating a plate of plov (rice with meat and a few veggies) and salad, giving a toast with vodka! I had a lovely few hours eating and chatting with the Kyrgyz family, who all spoke some english. I wandered back to the main road and stuck my thumb out to hitchhike back. The first truck driver that passed stopped and picked me up. I usually have a rule against hitchhiking in trucks but this man had kind eyes so I climbed on in. He was very friendly, although I made the mistake of answering honestly to the inevitable ‘Are you married?’ question, meaning the rest of the 30 minute journey was filled with him proposing marriage to me! We had a laugh and he dropped me outside the town. I bought a salad from the supermarket for dinner as an alternative to another meal at the guesthouse…

Day 3 - 4: Yurt stay
From Bokonbyaevo I got a taxi down to the lake’s edge to stay in a yurt for a night. I’m sure it’s packed with visitors in the summer, but it was completely deserted now. I enjoyed a day of stillness and nature. It was truly wonderful. I walked along the lake, stopping to write some poetry and just take in the impressive scenery. The huge lake, mountains just about visible through the clouds on the other side, mountains very much visible in every other direction. I found a stone circle look out point, complete with pallet seats. I did yoga in the sun here, more sitting in stillness, more writing. I warmed up in my yurt and changed into my bikini, going for a bracing swim in the cold lake. It was around 6 degrees I believe, but with the sun shining down it wasn’t too bad at all! I made some hot tea in my flask and went back out to watch the sunset. I watched ‘Where the Crawdads Sing’ (not as good as the book of course, but I enjoyed it) cuddled up in the yurt and then went to sleep. The yurt was a bit too cosy, airing on the side of suffocating. It was heated with an electric heater (traditionally a coal fire) and I woke up in the night in a strange sweat and with a clammy mouth. Paired with the strange noises outside, I didn’t sleep well at all! After a delicious breakfast prepared by the group of women running the yurt camp, I set off to find the main road. It was about 4km away through desert like landscape hugging the lake, which made for a very enjoyable walk/adventure. I didn’t see a single person, but there were some little houses at points. I rounded one corner and the most perfect beach appeared. The sun was shining even more strongly than the previous day and I toyed with the idea of taking another swim. There was really no reason to not - I was in no hurry, I had my swimming stuff with me seeing as I had all of my stuff with me! I slid down to the beach and dropped my bags, changed into my bikini and scuttled into the water. It was even more magnificent this time. I finished the walk to the road, spotting a child on horseback herding a cow and some graffiti in english. Without even sticking my thumb out this time, a car stopped and offered to take me to Karakol for a small fee (hitchhiking is a common mode of transport in Kyrgystan, but often you have to pay a bit). I agreed and we set off, first stopping in another town to pick up a family who found my presence very interesting. The smallest girl showed me photos of her whole family and the earrings she makes. Disappointingly for them, I was so tired after my poor night’s sleep and morning walk and swim I quickly fell asleep in the car, having to be woken up by the driver once we’d reached Karakol.

Day 4 - 7: Karakol
Karakol is the fourth largest city in Kyrgystan, and is located in the East right by the Tian Shan mountains, pretty close to China. In the summer it’s the base for hiking, climbing, biking and any other nature-based activity. In the winter, it’s a little quieter but there are visitors around for winter sports like backcountry skiing and snow-shoeing. It is home to Dungan people, an ethnic group originally from China. Their traditional dish is Ashlan-Fu, which I tried for dinner one evening in the aptly named Ashlan-Fu alley in the bazaar. It’s a cold noodle soup dish, with scrambled eggs on top and an interesting sharp and spicy flavour. On my first day here I skied, being very happy with the long and fun beginners slope. If you’re a good skier the rest of the runs looked insane, with no markings and the option of traversing through the forest whenever you want. On my second day I went paragliding. It was one of the few activities on my bucket list for this trip, and as it was only £35 I couldn’t resist. This price was on my mind when we got to the top of the mountain and I eyed several pieces of duct tape on the parachute, and when trying to communicate with the non-english speaking instructor, but we made it through! It was even more fun than I imagined, and not at all scary (bar the initial running down a near vertical icy slope with a man shouting “faster” in my ear and my legs being left behind me). If I wasn’t on a budget, I would 100% have gone right back to the top of the mountain and done it again. The weather was perfect on this day, and I decided to make the most of it by going to some hot springs in the afternoon. Armed with the instructions on how to get there from the hostel and a takeaway flat white (the luxury!) I caught the correctly numbered marshrutka, which did not drop me off where I expected. No worries, I was happy to walk the 7km up the valley to the hot springs, enjoying spotting horses drinking from a frozen river and eagles in the sky. This was until an old man wanted to shake my hand, and then would not release it. I could smell the alcohol on his breath as he chortled at me in russian, despite my repeated “Я не понимаю по-русски!” (I don’t understand russian). Eventually I was able to wrestle my hand away and I sped down the road. Sadly this wasn’t the last time I saw the strange man, as he pulled up to me in a marshrutka and bundled me inside, then following me when I got off. Again, I had to wrestle myself from his grip. At this point I was feeling stressed out and my tolerance for him was at zero. I forcefully told him no in russian, and speed walked away. Luckily, I am a very fast walker, and he was old with a limp, so it wasn’t an issue to escape from him. As I walked I kept glancing behind me to see he was still following and shouting after me. I reached the hot springs which were beautiful, positioned in the nook of the valley, but I spent the first 30 minutes anxiously watching the road through the steam in case he appeared. He did not and I was able to relax into the hot water. My third day was spent hunkered down in a cafe while a snowstorm raged outside, and the temperature dropped to -19 degrees. That evening I bumped into a guy I’d met on Christmas day (Francis), he was travelling with a friend who had come to visit him. We went out for dinner and drinks together, and it was nice to socialise after spending the last few days alone.

Day 7 - 12: Bishkek
It was at this point that my time in Kyrgystan started to go downhill. I wanted to do a snowshoe trek to a yurt camp nearby Karakol, but the severe cold meant this wasn’t possible, and wouldn’t be for almost a week. The two day hike I wanted to do also wasn’t possible at this time of year it turned out. So I decided to return to Bishkek and continue my journey south. The bus journey was one of the worst so far, it took about 8 hours and was gruelling. I bumped into Karl and Niamh (the irish couple) in the hostel in Bishkek and the following day we visited Burana tower - an old minaret in a very picturesque location. The next day I explored Bishkek itself. Perhaps it is a nice city, but I could hardly even see it through the thick smog. The air pollution from coal fires used to heat homes, and the cold air keeping it trapped in the city, resulted in a horrific atmosphere and it made me feel ill and unhappy. The importance, and luxury, of clean air became startlingly apparent to me. I visited the museum which was very well done, with a floor on the ancient, nomadic and modern history of the country. I met up with a local lady for coffee and we chatted about being a woman in Krygystan, and the practice of bride kidnapping here (more on this sort of thing in another post!). I really wanted to see the traditional game of Kok Boru - imagine polo but nomadic style, with a beheaded goat carcass instead of a ball. I had managed to find the number of the Kok Boru Federation from instagram and had been in touch with a guy about it. He wanted to meet for lunch so I agreed, and he took me to a nice restaurant and we chatted. He said there would be a game tomorrow so I decided to stay an extra day in Bishkek to see it. After waiting around all day he finally messaged me at 4pm, and he picked me up to take me to a humorously named ‘Hyde Park”. Alas, there was no Kok Boru, but I did get to ride around the playing field and see a beautiful sunset. He also paid for another delicious meal, and this time with his whole family. His wife spoke good english and was very interesting to chat to, so all was not lost! He said tomorrow there would be Kok Boru, so again I waited, and again there was no Kok Boru. I bumped into Francis again and drowned my sorrows over pints of surprisingly good, scrumpy-like cider (Francis is from nearby Tiverton in England so we obviously had to go for cider). I was fed up of the air pollution and the disappointment so decided to move on the following day. You can’t win them all, and seeing Kok Boru was one I’d lost.

Day 12 - 14: Arslanbob
I managed to find a shared taxi to Arslanbob and the journey took an excruciating 12 hours (perhaps because I was a bit hungover after the ciders the night before). The scenery was absolutely insane though, with us driving across two mountain passes, windows filled with rugged mountains and soft snow covered hills. I arrived at midnight to my homestay in the small mountain town. Facilities were limited. No running water but a kettle of warm water was provided for me to wash my face. An outside, squat toilet, the route to which was treacherous with ice and in the darkness I slipped and fell into a snowdrift. The room was cold. But I was happy, some excitement after the dullness of Bishkek! Arslanbob is a pretty town and is the home of the walnut. It is surrounded by ancient walnut forests and mountains. It’s off the beaten path in the summer, with only some of the visiting tourists venturing out to it for hiking. In the winter, there were no other visitors. The english speaking guy who had helped me find the shared taxi asked to meet for lunch and I agreed. He showed me around the busy market in the town centre, then to a small waterfall and a panorama point. He was very chatty and I picked his brains on Kyrgyz culture and current affairs, his opinions on being Uzbek but living in Kyrgystan (the entire village and region is ethnically Uzbek), his opinions on Afghanistan as a muslim - more on all of this in another post. After lunch we went our separate ways and I continued exploring alone. I saw children sledging down every sloping road, older children using a strange ice skate-like device. Children would either shout “Hello!” at me and want to practice their english, or stare at me like I was an alien, eventually breaking into a shy smile when I said “hello” to them. I wondered if it will feel strange when I’m back home where every single person on the street doesn’t stare me. I got lost walking through along the snowy streets to the mountains, and back through the little paths through the thick snow in the woodland. From Arslanbob I caught the one marshrutka a day, at 6:50am, which went to Osh.

Day 14 - 16: Osh
Osh is the second biggest city and is ethnically Uzbek. I couchsurfed here, staying with two Indian medical students. There’s not much to say about Osh to be honest, the only things to see are the little mountain in its centre, the bazaar, and a huge Lenin statue. The guys I stayed with were nice, and cooked some great indian food for me. The sleeping situation wasn’t ideal - they didn’t have mattresses for some reason so I slept directly on the bed frame. Like Bishkek, the air pollution was bad here, and it made me feel equally unhappy. I was looking forward to heading to Uzbekistan at this point!

Leaving thoughts

I really liked Kyrgystan. I had some very fun experiences here and felt like I had reached optimal travelling confidence. I was happy to hitchhike frequently and just see where I ended up each day. It was also the first time I’d been unable to do things I wanted to do because of the weather, with hiking and long horse treks being off the table. At first, this annoyed me. Then I realised I now knew I wanted to come back to Kyrgystan in the summer to hike, something I doubt would ever have occurred to me if I hadn’t visited it on this trip! Kyrgystan has the potential to be one of my favourite countries, with its insane nature and rich culture, but the horrific air pollution and things not going 100% smoothly means it’s not quite there after this visit. I had some real fun here, and often felt like I was really travelling alone across a strange place.