A day by the lake: Song Kol: A dangerous place to be, and no mistake!

July 5, 2014

Morning at the lake and I woke with an unusual vigor and determination. Today was to be the day that I was going to jolly well visit a yurt. Almost every other traveler that I had met had told me that I would be invited in and made to feel welcome by the incredibly friendly people of Kyrgyzstan. Personally so far I had found the people of Kyrgyzstan to be stone-throwing, maniac-driving, thieving alcoholics, but I was optimistic and ready to be convinced. After all, they had done most of those things in a friendly way.

Come on, invite me! Come on! Invite me in!

I cycled on and soon two boys on a horse spotted me and rode across the field towards me. They cut across my path and stopped, blocking the road in a style reminiscent of a highway robbery. I skidded to a halt and said hello but they said nothing and just looked at me and giggled. Then I heard one of them whisper "money" to the other one. So it was a highway robbery! Golly gosh! How dramatic! But just as I was preparing to reach for my wallet they galloped off. As they went one of them leaned back and screamed "Money! Money! Money!" at me, his cries growing fainter as they disappeared across the plains. 'That's not the way you do it kids,' I thought, 'Worst highway robbery ever!'

I believe the full phrase you are looking for is "Your money or your life!"

I continued on in the direction of the lake and as it drew closer I came across another young child, this one sitting alone at the side of the road. He had an empty tin can in front of him as if he were a beggar. I looked around. Nothing but grassy grass, a few horses dotted around, the occasional yurt. If he was a beggar he was definitely not going to be making much coin around here. "Sorry little dude," I said in sympathetic tones, "but I've just been (sort of) the victim of a highway robbery."

I got close to the lake and had two choices which way to go around it. Continuing to live by the mantra 'take the road less traveled' I chose the more scenic option and turned left to take the north route. Time was going by and I still hadn't come close to a yurt invitation, but hope springs eternal, and it eternally sprang up again as a young boy on a donkey came across the grass towards me.

"Hello" I said.

No response.

"Hello" I said in Russian.

Blank look.

"Hello" I said in every other language I knew it in.

Nothing.

"Whats your name?" I tried.

"Na...nur...nugh" came the reply. This was definitely not the smartest kid in the world. He knew how to ride a donkey yet couldn't pronounce his own name. There was clearly not going to be any invitation forthcoming here. Time to take things into my own hands.

"Take me to your yurt, kiddo."

We went together across the field 'God I hope this kid can remember where he lives' I thought. But we did indeed soon arrive at a trio of white yurts, where an older boy came out to greet us. His name was Merlin, he was fifteen years old, and by some miraculous twist of fate, he spoke some English. Merlin's little brother was called Johnny. His sister, who seemed to be doing all of the work around the place, was called Diana. It occurred to me that his parents probably watched too much Nickelodeon. There were lots of younger kids about too. I think they were called Dopey, Sneezy and little Spongebob. Merlin told me that he had 12 brothers and sisters, which is a lot of mouths to feed. They also owned 100 sheep, 20 horses, 30 cows, five goats, two dogs and a donkey. Lucky there was a lot of grass about.

I was shown into the yurt. Finally! I was entering a yurt! And it really didn't disappoint, one of those real 'wow' moments as I crouched in through the door and came face-to-face with a cosy homestead, decorated all around with bright red rugs. I was invited to sit down on the floor next to a table, where kumus and tea were served to me by Diana. Why they always gave two drinks I don't know, far too much liquid. In any case by this point I had decided that kumus was just a big trick to play on the tourists. National drink my foot, I never saw any of them drinking it.

The rugs are woven from sheeps wool, the canvas of the tent from sheep hide. Its a bit like being in a giant sheep

I was shown to the other yurts. In one of them Merlin's mother was hard at work making some yellow stuff, probably butter, with a machine where she had to constantly crank away at a lever. It looked like real back-breaking labour as sweat poured off her brow. Then we went outside and met Merlin's father, who was sitting on a stool with a pair of binoculars.

"What's he doing?" I asked Merlin.

"He's watching the sheep."

"Oh. Well I suppose that's hard work too" I said.

'Lazy b*stard' I thought.

He might have to get up and chase away a cow at some point too you know

Merlin then tried to get me to ride a horse. No chance of that mate, it's not a bike or a boat is it? Read the ~~rules~~ challenges. So instead Merlin got on the horse and escorted me across the field and back to the road. I have to say it had really been a wonderful experience; to see inside a real yurt, find out a little bit about how these people live, and to drink some more delicious kumus.

"Thank you Merlin," I said, "I had a magical time."

"Yes," he replied and then after a pause asked me tentatively "I take fifty money?"

"Oh yes okay. For the kumus? Here you go." I thought I'd better pay up. I had kind of invited myself, and I didn't want Merlin to cast a spell on me.

"Thank-you. Goodbye."

"Goodbye."

You can add 'money-grabbing' to that list. In a friendly way of course.

Holy moly is that a yak in the road now?!

I had to cycle across the grass for quite a long time after the road disappeared. That was okay, it was great to be in such a beautiful location completely away from traffic or other hassles. At such an altitude I was even free from the flies. And then I reached the north side of the lake where there were some hills and a track restarted that climbed up and down over these. It was really very steep and on one of the downhills I decided that my brakes weren't tight enough, so at the top of the next little climb I paused to adjust them. As I was doing so the brake cable snapped. This was a big problem, because I had no rear brakes at all and no spare cable to replace the front cable. But I paused to reflect on the fact that I almost had one hell of a much bigger problem. 'SH!T! That could have been serious! If that had happened on the steep downhill I would have had no way to stop. I'd probably be dead!'

Looking on the bright side: A scencic spot for a breakdown

Okay, maybe not dead, but it could have been one hell of a bad fall, on a road that nobody else was using, a million miles from the nearest hospital. Maybe I would have been dead. I resolved to find a way to reconnect my rear brakes and always have two working brakes in future. Common sense really.

My most immediate problem was how to fix my brakes without any brake cables. After much faffing around, a bit of blood and lots of pausing to look at the stunning view, I found a solution. I still had the cheap Chinese gear cables that the end had snapped off from, and I hooked these up as brake cables, tying the ends in knots to hold them. It wasn't a long term solution, but it might get me to Bishkek. And I had both front and rear brakes in case one did fail. Common sense really. This was an epic success story for my brain.

Shortly after I came to a beautiful secluded private beach and whilst I'm not usually one for skinny dipping I thought I had better celebrate still being alive somehow. The water was crystal clear and cool, 3000 metres above sea level. Refreshing is not the word!

Just after I put my clothes back on a horse came along the track. It was all saddled up, which I thought strange, until a man and three dogs also came over the hill running after it. The horse was clearly trying to make an escape. I watched as the man trailed the trotting horse for a long time, all the way over the next hill. I was cheering for the horse.

Then things got even more strange as another saddled horse appeared in the same manner, this time being pursued by a teenage boy. The horse was walking slowly but the boy was cautious in his attempts to grab the reins. The horse wandered over onto my beach and, in a disappointing epic fail for my brain, I decided this time I would help by standing in front of the horse. The boy and I managed to corner the horse next to the lake and he slowly reached for the trailing reins. As he got a hold of the rope the panicked horse suddenly bolted forwards, directly towards me. At this moment I decided that if the horse really wanted its freedom who did I think I was to stand in its way, and I made a dive for safety. One way or another I managed to escape a trampling and after avoiding my second near-death experience of the day I decided to leave the boy to it. This time I kept my clothes on and celebrated still being alive by eating a Snickers.

I'll be honest with you, Song Kol was one of my favourite places ever. If only it wasn't so dangerous

Glad to have made it through the day, and still alive to ride on to greater adventures yet!

Today's ride: 41 km (25 miles)
Total: 21,973 km (13,645 miles)

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