Evening rush-hour is never the ideal time to arrive into an unknown city, particularly when that city is huge, populated with aggressive drivers and has a distinct aversion to street signs. My English-language map bore no relation whatsoever to the street layout I found before me, and the cartographer’s carefully drawn roundabouts were no more than flights of fancy. When I ultimately did track down where I was, the roundabout in question was in fact a crossroad. Thanks. Driving in circles in the dark has little appeal at the best of times, and as breakfast/lunch/dinner was long over due, I was not in the best humor. In daylight hours, the layout of Almaty makes rather more sense. It is built mostly on a grid and there are a number of distinctive-looking new buildings that can serve as landmarks when navigating. The last decade has seen a construction explosion in Almaty, boasting in particular the tallest tower in Central Asia and an impressive new financial centre, a vision of glass and steel. The price of luxury apartments at one stage reached $11,000 per square metre: Kazakhstan was booming. The cranes which punctuated the skyline are temporarily lying dormant as the recession bites, but they’ll soon reawaken; Kazakhstan is hosting the 2011 Winter Asian Games and there is much work to be done. Medeu, the world’s highest ice rink, is just outside Almaty and will undergo complete renovation. A double ski jump is also being constructed overlooking the new financial district; it’ll give the competitors quite a view. It is hoped that successful promotion of these games will also boost Kazakhstan’s bid to host the 2018 Winter Olympics – if you’re into snow sports Almaty is probably a place to watch. One of the great things about Almaty is that, unlike Bishkek, it has grown sufficiently large to support a vibrant international community. A stroll downtown takes you past at least two Irish pubs, plus a Beatles tribute pub and the popular night spot ‘Guns and Roses’. Local money rubs shoulders with foreign bankers, diplomats and businessmen and, whilst it’s sometimes a little brash for my tastes, it’s a treat to be able to have a glass of wine or a beer and converse in your own language. Basic Russian gets us so far, but its more intellectually stimulating to understand and be able to express the subtleties of a topic, be it a debate about energy resources (an inevitably common subject in Kazakhstan), political and economic developments in the region, or how to defend oneself from the advances of the city’s stunningly beautiful escort girls. When I first started thinking about this blog, I was thinking about apples. I’ve just realized I’m ready to finish writing and haven’t written a word about them. Oops. Almaty means “home of the apple”. It has acquired this name as this is the region in which the apple originated and from which it spread to every corner of the globe. Most of the apples for sale in Almaty today are a sad, pale reflection of their infamous ancestor and don’t even appear to have been grown in Kazakhstan. They come by truck from China and the only permanent Almaty apple is a bronze one on top of Tok Kobe hill.

As the crow flies, Bishkek and Almaty (Kazakhstan’s second city) are decidedly close. Indeed, you could trek between the two in less that a week. Life is never as straightforward as the map would like you to believe, however, and our drive between these two cities took the best part of eight hours, more than twice as long as expected.
Getting out of Bishkek is relatively simple: you head out towards the airport and then swing left onto the main road to Almaty and Tashkent. The border crossing is barely 20 minutes drive but, as we drew close, we could see the most almighty tailback. The border road, you see, was being dug up and whereas previously at least four cars could pass, now it was single file. To make matters worse, a number of drivers had left their cars to stretch their legs, have a wee or get a sandwich. As a result, even when our line of traffic was theoretically allowed to advance, no one could actually move forward.
As usual at an international border, there were a variety of “out” and “in” desks, spread between half a dozen or so buildings. Inevitably, none of them were labeled, the other passengers were milling around equally confused, and the relevant officials were nowhere to be seen. We simply had to join queues, no knowing what we’d find when we got to the front. Depending on how (un) lucky you are, you might receive a passport stamp, another incomprehensible form to fill it, or even a full cavity search. Delightful.
After a few hours of such frustrations, we finally crossed over into Kazakhstan. The scenery changes almost instantaneously and so do the cars. Snow-capped peaks give way to mile after mile of open steppe land and the ubiquitous Lada is superseded by brand new Mercedes and Lexus 4x4s. The Kazakhs have a much higher per capita GDP thanks to the country’s oil and gas reserves, and they display it through somewhat conspicuous consumption. Almaty is the physical embodiment of this new-found oil and gas wealth.

Hotels may be great fun but, after a while, the novelty starts to wear off and the room service bill threatens you with bankruptcy. You know it is time to find a more sustainable place to call home. In the centre of Bishkek you have a choice of two accommodation options when renting: the derelict and the not-so-derelict. Almost all of the housing stock is in concrete, Soviet-era apartment blocks and, whilst people maintain their own flats, the buildings’ exteriors and stairwells are left to decay. Faulty electrics, missing bulbs and broken tiles meant that the stairs to our flat are a death trap. I’ve been told that flats are the same all across the former USSR. In fact, there is a famous Soviet film in which a man drunkenly gets on a train to the wrong city. When he arrives the street names are the same, the blocks of flats look the same and his key even fits the lock of the same numbered flat in the block. It is only when he climbs into bed and discovers a woman who is not his wife that he discovers his mistake. In our flat there are three bedrooms, each with a precarious concrete balcony, a large sitting room, a basic bathroom, and a small kitchen with interesting wiring that sporadically smokes and sparks. The first time we opened the oven we found it contained a brick. Quite why, I have no idea, but I hope it wasn’t integral to the structure of the building as cooking necessitated its removal. Most foods are available in Bishkek from the numerous Turkish supermarkets but they tend to be rather on the expensive side. An inability to fully translate the Cyrillic labels on food packaging also leads to some confusion. I’ve been caught out more than once by pouring koumys (fermented horse milk) onto by breakfast cereal in the morning as its unfairly lined up alongside the semi-skimmed, a trap for vulnerable foreigners. Our apartment block is built on two sides of a square so we’ve parked the Ford alongside the children’s playground, smokers’ corner and a row of scrubby bushes. One of the latter is the bane of our lives. There is a mad lady who lives in flat 25 and she is utterly convinced that we have driven over her favorite bush. Yes, it is inconveniently located next to the Ford and yes, it does look decidedly squashed, but this is absolutely nothing to do with me. I know this because there is a steel post between the car and the plant and, to date, there is no corresponding sized dent in the bodywork. Still, logic will not prevail and we have the same argument each morning. She yells in Russian and points, and I wave my arms, look despairingly, and don’t understand a word that she says. It has been discussed at length what we should do with said bush (and indeed, said lady) when we leave, but for now at least, in the interests of neighborly harmony, we’ll keep on smiling and go our own, sweet way, parking teasingly close to the bush.

The Kyrgyz people, as I have mentioned previously, are traditionally nomadic. Although the majority of the population are now settled, a few families do still take their animals to graze on high pastures during the summer months. Several thousand metres above sea level and many hours drive from access to electricity and running water, they live in felt and animal skin tents called bozui or yurts. Conditions are harsh and lonely, broken only when the first snowfall forces people off the mountainside and back into the towns below. We visited Song Kul, a mountain lake between Naryn and Bishkek, just 2 days before the families were due to leave for the winter. At 3300m above sea level, the snow never melts on the peaks and an icy wind whips across the water, even in July and August. We arrived well after dark having got completely lost and ultimately following an elderly man in a beat-up Lada. He had already finished his sixth or seventh vodka of the evening and managed to put his vehicle head-long into a ditch within 5 minutes of starting to drive. Fortunately both he and Max were able to climb out unscathed but the car was a little less lucky; the windscreen jumped out of its frame and fractured a thousand times when it hit the bonnet. Using cloth tape from the gaffer kit we were able to tape it back into position but I’m not sure what use it did; looking through it was like looking through a giant spider’s web – I’m surprised you could see anything at all. Our accommodation at Song Kul, once we finally arrived, was in a yurt. Along with three fellow travelers, we tucked into thick hunks of homemade bread and jam, followed by manti – steamed dumplings that bore more than a passing resemblance to the momos we enjoyed in Darjeeling. The temperature outside was decidedly nippy but inside the yurt, wrapped as we were in thick rugs and quilts, it was surprisingly warm. Our host laid out sleeping mats and more quilts and the six of us slept side by side like peas in a pod. The experience was more than a little surreal but we all took it in good humor and, most importantly of all, stayed warm throughout the night. Morning came, and with it was a breakfast of hot, solid rice pudding and more of the wonderful jam. It was accompanied, as ever, by steaming bowls of green tea, thankfully on this occasion without the addition of fermented horse milk. The mist was slowly lifting from the lake and so we took the video cameras outside, capturing in turn smoke rising from the chimneys of the yurts, the mountain peaks that frame the lake, and the various animals that graze by the water’s edge. A young girl, perhaps eight or nine years old, arrived to greet us on horseback and, much to our delight, she was keen to demonstrate her horsemanship. They say that the Kyrgyz are born in the saddle and it certainly seems to be true.

Whenever we do a talk in schools, this is always one of the first questions we get asked. The answer is surprisingly simple: anywhere. On Tracing Tea so far we have spent the night in hostels and hotels, people’s homes, airport lounges, yurts and even inside a Soviet-era customs barracks. One particularly uncomfortable night in Bihar, Max and I even slept upright in the cab of the Unimog, parked on the edge of a derelict petrol station. I wouldn’t recommend it.
One of the charms of traveling is never quite knowing what surprise the next resting place will bring, and Bishkek is no exception. I’m staying at the relatively central and reasonably priced Hotel Baytur, which is an un-prepossessing concrete block over the top of the local public baths and sauna. The reception area and corridors look just like any other business hotel but as soon as you step through the doors of the Viking suite, you are in for a big surprise.
Whether you like the thought or not, you are sharing your room with three dead wolves, the taxidermied front-half of a deer, and the head of a $20k Marco Polo sheep. Yes, they are indeed endangered, and this is reflected in the price you pay to shoot one. There is no place for sentimentality in Kyrgyzstan; organizing shoots of wild animals is incredibly lucrative for locals as American hunters will pay vast sums to pursue big game.
The room itself reminds me of a Viking longhouse. The walls are covered in mock stone, latticed wood and brick-effect wallpaper to give the impression you are inside a hut of some description. The ceiling is also made from wood and a large, fake stone fireplace gives the room its centerpiece. All of the furniture is made from roughly hewn planks of wood and branches, and the curtains are made from a Hessian-like sack cloth, tied together with rope. There are no cushions to protect your bottom from the lumpy wooden sofa – that’s what the wolf skins are for.
Above the table, a cart wheel is holding up the lamps. The television (the only concession to modernity) is precariously balanced on a stand of branches shaped to look like antlers, and by its side a single piece of wood has been carved to look like a naked lady with her arms in the air. Over it all watches an oil painting, perhaps 2m wide, of the Vikings clambering out of their boats into the room. One figure is carrying the scene’s heroine although from the pasty pallor of her skin it would appear that rigor mortis has already set in. My bottom is numb from the chair and so, as I stand up to stretch and make a cup of tea, I make a note to myself: find an extra wolf.

After an absence of what feels like 5 minutes but my diary assures me is actually 9 months, I’m finally back in Bishkek. I know without doubt that I’ve arrived as I’m sipping on my favourite Kyrgyz tipple, faintly acidic cherry juice, and there are the furs of 2 dead wolves stretched out on the sofa next to me.

Having previously driven into Kyrgyzstan from China, it hadn’t quite occurred to me how difficult it is to get here. Regardless of what websites may tell you, there are no direct flights to Bishkek from either London or New York; you have to fly via Moscow, Istanbul or Almaty.  I chose the latter, arriving in Bishkek after a 9 hour flight and having paid BMI enough to probably purchase the plane. The only saving grace was that the flight was half empty, allowing our Sony F900 R video camera to travel on the seat next to me rather than being forced into an overhead locker.

I arrived in Bishkek at 03.45. Whereas most cities glow at night, Bishkek appeared surprisingly dark. Vast swathes of the city are in complete darkness, either due to a power cut or the absence of street lights. The only thing to really stand out from the sky is Manas, the US airbase, which is lit up like a Christmas tree to help the pilots returning from missions in Afghanistan.

At the airport I was met by Sovetbek and Murmanbek, our new colleagues at the Tourism Ministry. They’ll be traveling and working with us in Kyrgyzstan during the next few weeks so we look forward to getting to know them well. Already on our agenda are hunting with golden eagles, playing Kok Boru (polo with a goat’s carcass) and checking out life in a yurt (nomads’ tent) by the mountain lake of Song Kul. We look forward to sharing this with you!