MONGOLIA

The morning wasn’t the first time I woke up, as this is what I’ve done the entire night, because of the cold. The first time I woke up and it was light outside, I’ve been afraid to look at the watch, so that I don’t have the pleasant surprise to find out it’s eleven o’clock. So I’ve turned on the other side and fallen back to sleep, only to wake up in half an hour. It’s a quarter past eight. I pack and I’m having a final chat with the host. He’s smiley today and he asks me for the Lonely Planet guide to show me something. There are four pictures at the beginning, of the authors. He tells me the last two of them are his friends and they slept here during the research. One in the bed I’ve been freezing in and one in the other one. He’s having an awesome good time remembering how these guys were drunk all day long, how many beers they used to drink, how many chicks were shaking their beds and how many times they fell in the yard. So that’s the way a traveling guide is being written.

I’m cautious again on the road. I’m not in the mood of hurting my wallet, as it happened yesterday. But it seems the police is off duty today. Maybe because it’s Saturday and they’re drinking a beer like everybody else, with the money they’ve been stashing throughout the week. The road is winding alongside the lake. It’s not the best asphalt, but it’s ok. I stop after ninety kilometers, as I find a settlement that it’s being chopped to the dogs* in Romania.

I say hello to a boy that passes by on his horse and I fool my hunger with one of the three apples I’ve taken from the yard the Lonely Planet writers had been fooling around into. The trick works out, so I move on. I pass Karakol, a town at the Eastern edge of the lake, without a second thought. I can’t believe how easily I’ve passed by the labyrinth of small streets without the GPS and without asking someone for help. And that’s it, I’m on the southern shore of the lake, heading for Bishkek again. I have to be there on Monday, so two more nights in the area. One of them somewhere around here and the other one on the shore of a different lake, Song-Kul.

Well, Tiffany was right. It’s more beautiful on this side. The view to the mountains is more beautiful, the traffic is not so high and the place don’t look very tourist-like. Unless, as it happened on the other side, as the season is over, all the taverns and hotels have big locks at their doors.

During a stop for a photo session, I kneel near the horse to check the water pump. Preventively, as there are less than four thousand kilometers since I changed it. Through that aperture that signals trouble I see some coolant drops showing up. Well, it’s sort of dying. The position I’m in is the best to receive news like that. I’m on my knees and I feel as if I’m on my knees. I’m telling you with the entire honesty I’m capable of – I’m fed up with having problems. I’m under the impression that I receive bad news every single fucking day. Yeah, I know it could be worse and I know that not everything is black but I have no idea what it is, stress, loneliness, dor, all these combined, as marvelous ingredients they are. I have some oil seals from the water pump, but the mere thought of taking the whole thing to pieces, put it back and quickly reaching the heights of Tajikistan is enough to make me sad. That’s it. We go ahead, as ahead our home is.

I stop in a small town, more like a village as a matter of fact, and I sip a cup of coffee. I ask the girl serving if she knows a place to sleep around here. Yes, she does, and she asks the lady who is inside at a table. She tells me to follow her after I finish my coffee. This is what I do, after winning the battle with a drunk dead gentleman who has triumphantly entered the tavern and decided I’m the one who has to have a drink with him. The lady’s house is one hundred meters away. I have a room with three beds, pictures on the wall, carpets on the walls and windows full of gewgaws and perfumes. The entire package at the price of two Euros in local currency.

I “go out”, eat something and I go to the beach, where I’m having a chat with few kids. Some of them take a bath, others are fishing, others are playing let’s-break-our-necks on top of some metallic construction, from where they’re jumping on the sand. The sun is running into the clouds at the horizon, behind the mountains, and I’m running to the bed. I stop a little in the courtyard to have a chat with Doyle. It’s been more like an exchange of cheering ups. C’mon, Doyle, we can do it.

First thing before going to bed has been changing the bed, as there was a pretty big grasshopper hanging on the curtain near the bed I’ve picked first. Ah, what an inspired choice, as in the morning it was lying without breath in the bed I’ve abandoned. I’ve packed in slow motion and I’ve left, after picking up the pants and socks I put in the tree to dry.

I’m looking in vain for a coffee on this road. It’s deserted. The owners left together with last summer’s tourists. I leave the lake behind me and I find, calling the inspiration again, the road I want to ride on. Road signs haven’t still been invented in Kyrgyzstan, except for the places there’s no need for them. And Marcel, with the map and program he’s having, only tells me where I am, not where I should go to.

This road is even emptier that the one I’ve left behind. I stop to eat the last apple in the strategic stock. Again I’m stopped in the middle of nowhere, at a crossing barrier. They’ll take my money, that’s for sure. But no, this time there’s a request I think I don’t understand from the first place. These people want some… salt. They bring a salt cellar. With some leftovers to make themselves understood. I don’t have salt, so farewell.

One last attempt for coffee before entering Kochkor. There are two yurts in a small wood on the side of the road and a family leaves here. They don’t have coffee, but a tea and a shashlyk make me forget about ever wanting coffee. I share my meal with a brown dog, with brown eyes and brown nose and I’m leaving.

I fuel in Kochkor, as chances are scarce to find a pump until Song-Kul Lake, as thin the road until there and back is. From now on I only meet the Chinese trucks coming on the opposite lane. I have Torugart mountain pass in front of me. China is on its other side. I’m not getting there, but I’d like to. Fifty kilometers and then sign to the right, to the lake, fifty more.

Things are getting serious. There’s no asphalt, but a narrow road, but this is not the problem. I’m in that situation when I’m mostly stopping than riding. The road is going up steeper and steeper and I find myself at 3,300 m without even noticing. There are patches of snow around me, silence like in a grave and it’s sunny. I’m riding slowly. I wouldn’t want to miss my footing around here. And it’s so annoying, as this is that kind of landscapes that steal your heart and, believe me, I know what I’m talking about.

I cross a mountain pass and I see the lake in front of me. It’s not as I expected it to be. It’s huge. I find a yurt on the side of the road and I stop. There are three kids, about 16-18 years old. The youngest seems to be sort of drunk. I’m invited in and I eat some homemade bread and tea. The boys tell me to sleep there, but I say no, thanking to them. I’d like to find something on the lake shore. When I go out to take my camera I have the -I don’t know if pleasant – surprise to find the youngest and drunk one on Doyle with the helmet on. He gets down quickly, throws a spasiba to me and mounts on a donkey. I say goodbye to them and we move on, to the lake shore.

There are many yurts here and some of them have CBT written on them. That means ‘Community Based Tourism’, a tourist program involving local people, that is agro tourism then. I stop in front of the first one and a lady welcomes me. Yes, I’ll spend my night here. It’s more than beautiful. I change my clothes and the host comes to me and asks “Tea?”. Yes, please. I enter the other yurt and I sit at a table full of homemade bread and butter, jam and four different kinds of sweets. I enjoy my tea in the company of four ladies and then I go out to take a walk around.

It’s complete madness. The light is like nowhere else. On the lake shore I find a billion of edelweiss again but these are sort of dry, compared to the Mongolian ones. The rain starts and I run for shelter. I enter and I have to go out. It’s that light I know, which announces something: a rainbow. I see it showing up shyly and I almost encourage it viva voce. Nope, it doesn’t want to.

Dinner at six, in the family yurt again. At six o’clock sharp I have two plates in front of me – fish, tomatoes and some stuff with meat. It’s just my host and me at the table and I’m chewing slowly, so that I don’t wake one of the other women, who is sleeping nearby. It’s raining again and I see through the open door that light again that tells me to run and take my camera. But I’ve only begun eating. It wouldn’t be nice to leave the table like that, right? The light is going crazy. I start gulping like crazy and swallowing without chewing. Ready! One more tea? Nooo! I go out, hahaaa, it’s still there. I run for the camera.

I go to the heat of my yurt. A fire made of dry horse shit is burning, spreading some quite pleasant smoke inside. You see, Cerasela, there’s a saying that I wouldn’t want to try to translate: “as good as it gets”. This good has always been relative, as, you know, it depends on a pile of reference systems and all. Well, on the shore of this lake surrounded by mountains, at three thousand meters in the sky, in a yurt heated with shit, with no signal to my phone, with billions of edelweiss around me, with a rainbow I ‘m still feeling on my retina, with my full stomach and my bed made on the floor with many thick blankets, with Doyle parked near me, already sleeping, well, here I feel…

… as damn good as it can possibly ever get.

*Pun; “frunze” is the Romanian word for “leaves”. “To chop leaves to the dogs” is another way of saying “to rub the mint”; they both mean doing absolutely nothing, wasting time artistically.