Kyrgyzstan Pt2 Dogs & dry river-beds

Dogs & dry river-beds ...

The first leg of our journey in Kyrgyzstan took us towards Osh. We'd harboured ideas of checking out the possibility of finding a truck to take us and the bikes across into China when we reached Sarytash. We had our Chinese visas, but our entry point at Torgurat was closed for that country, so if we could find some other way in, it would take much of the pressure off. At times this problem would weigh heavy as there was no telling if Torgurat would open this side of Christmas. We knew that if it wasn't open by the end of September then each successive week meant it may not be open at all until the following spring due to snow and extreme low-temperatures. The feeling of riding into a dead-end increased with every kilometre, and hung like a pawl over my mood. While not consciously thinking on it all of the time, it never the less was never far from my thoughts. I felt edgy ...

Sarytash appeared on the map to me as a tee-junction on a main-road. But I went sailing past it without noticing the turn-off. When we got there it looked like a small track off to the right, which led to a few more ramshackle buildings in a ramshackle community. It sure didn't look like a small town with a highway branching off that went into China. After passing a few trucks and riding up a hill, realised we'd just passed the place we were initially aiming for. In my mind I'd expected something more. Maybe a major truck-stop with a line of parked wagons, as we'd seen at numerous border crossings perhaps? Whatever, it wasn't like that and having fought up a steep hill strewn with loose shale while watching an ancient Russian built car picking its way gingerly down, didn't fancy turning around again, so we pressed on regardless.

The day wore on and from what I'd been told about the roads being better in Kyrgyzstan, was hoping to come across smooth tarmac soon. The tension in my arms and legs from frequently having to stand up while going over a hump or bump to take some of the pressure off the rear suspension, was starting to take its toll. But I was to discover that a major improvement in road condition was another of my fantasies ...

We gradually made our way down the altitude gradient, with the numbers on my GPS continuing to drop. We passed more and more villages and would be greeted by their dogs. Not cursory barks though. These had all the hallmarks of potentially savage beasties. For the main part I didn't take too much notice as a well placed boot would generally discourage too much persistence. But Bjorn frequently stopped to vent his anger in their direction. In doing so discovered that they were afraid of stones being thrown at them. After noticing that the moment he stooped to pick up a stone, they pre-empted him by heading for the hills. From that it was found that you merely had to bend over in a mime of stone-gathering to get rid of these pesky canines. There was little to deter them as you first entered the villages though, and recall many of these idiotic animals charging headlong across fields and ditches in an attempt to 'get us'.

Now, here again was something of interest. Why would the dogs of Tajikistan be docile for the most part, yet here in Kyrgyzstan appeared to be far from happy good-natured animals? When we'd gone through the villages of the last country the dogs barely raised their heads, and were mostly friendly when approached. The only exception was Murghab and even there, they gave little more than have a conciliatory 'woof' in our general direction. Something had changed ... The dogs we encountered now, seemed imbued with a degree of viciousness and had the feeling that if I'd been going at a slower pace that they would bite. Maybe not savage as such, but some of them definitely had wicked intent. This had to be cultural. The only reason I could find for such behaviour is that they were taught to be this way. Perhaps encouraged to attack anyone who wasn't local. But then does a dog see a man on a motorbike, or just a 'thing' on the road that makes a noise? Why then did we see this difference? We were pretty much still on the same road. The only real change being that we'd crossed a border into another country.

Though having said that, even this statement isn't entirely true as the landscape was different. My thoughts were perhaps flawed as they followed linear western logic in believing that proximity to the same roadway would lead to a certain degree of sameness. But here was proof that it was not so. The political boundary was in part a physical boundary too. A few high mountain passes and a check-point that required the correct papers to pass-thro' and along with low density of population, meant few of those people that lived out there migrated too far back and forth along the road we were on.

Was the dogs behaviour any reflection of the society in which they lived? Did a correlation exist between the aggressive dog's and the people who lived here I wondered? In short, were the people going to be the same as the dogs? Crikey, I hoped not ... The one Kyrgyz we'd met back in Tajikistan was a delightful fellow, but maybe he was an exception, or perhaps the reason he lived there was because his fellow Kyrgyz' weren't very friendly. There was little choice but to keep going and find out.

There had had some interesting river crossings during this trip, both dry and otherwise. We encountered one dry river-bed not long after the border-crossing into Kyrgyzstan and was memorable because it was intimidating enough to bring us to a temporary halt. It was sudden. One moment there was a road, albeit not in too good a condition, but a definite hard-topped surface which showed the way to go. Then we rounded a bend to be confronted by a dry river bed of loose stone. No road, no bridge, in fact there was nothing man-made in front of us ... nowhere could a road of any kind be seen, just rocks. Big one's, little one's ... some course and craggily textured and some having been worn to smoothness. All coming together to form a sea of moraine having being washed down by floods, which judging by the result must have reached deluge-like proportions at one time. But here the weather was bright and clear and therefore no issue. What was an issue though, was choosing the right direction. The normal rule of thumb for negotiating towns is to keep going straight. Straight here, meant a 5 metre drop onto boulders some of which were the size of a small car, so there had to be some other way. 50 metres distant there was something ... It might've been where the road led before the spring melt-waters had washed it to oblivion, but it wasn't really obvious. Then as I scanned the apparently haphazard rock strewn river bed, a slightly different colour could be detected. It was a bit like getting your eyes adjusted to darkness in a cave after stepping in from the daylight. With squinty eyes, could make out a definite track meandering across that moon-like landscape of rock. The early pioneers following the wash-out had indeed found a way across! From where I was standing there was no way of telling where it led exactly, as it mounted a rise that could have been a false bank of some kind, then disappeared over the other side.

Doing a U-ey to get to the drop-off point where this ghost-like track started, I left the road. Somewhat nervously began making my way forward, knowing instinctively that every gear apart from first, was redundant till I was across. Much of the time it was a bouncy ride to make any progress at all over that barren wasteland. I was pretty tense, as a fall here was fraught with a high risk of bruised bodies and bent bike things. Better to keep going, and let momentum do some of the work. One particularly difficult stretch was a combination of wet mud interlaced with fine gravel, but to add to the interest were a few strategically placed boulder sized rocks, which if hit would bring things to an instant stop. This was motorcycle 'trials' country, where lightweight bikes with low tyre pressures wobbled their way across impossible terrain for sport. The competition element being points lost for putting a foot down. On a bike loaded with luggage it was way too close to the edge (sic. reminds me of a song-lyric) for me, as lost points equalled things getting broken. And we were many miles to the nearest help ...

I got past the scary mud and gravel depression okay, but not without a degree of 'gun it and hope for the best'. In other words, was a toss of the coin whether I'd land in a heap at the bottom of this dip or make it past in one piece. But evidently Bjorn didn't fare so well. From what he told me I don't think he actually fell over, but he did come to a halt and struggled to get going again, accompanied I'd imagine by some appropriate profanities to focus his energy.

In parts the track would disappear with no way of telling if I was headed in the wrong direction. It would be impossible to turn around with such a heavily laden bike without stopping. And even stopping wasn't really an option, as it meant losing the forward momentum that carried me n' the Beemer over the loose stones and bigger rocks. It was an eerie feeling I can tell you. Maybe it was only for seconds at a time, but was how I'd imagine it would be to free-fall in darkness. For many fear-filled moments would lose sight of the 'track', as the signs of earlier traffic disappeared. The rocks would appear undisturbed for several metres, but then looking ahead would again see a definite hint of ground-settlement, which showed that the wheels of the vehicles which had preceded us had pushed some rocks down against their neighbour to create a pattern. It did however take some degree of concentration to detect those vague parallel lines, as it was little more than shades of grey and white against other shades of grey and white.

Mounting the rise in the river bed that I'd first seen from the other side, the subtle parallels meandered towards what looked like the end a collapsed roadway. The clues were an even surface along a ridge with gravel ballast spilling out from underneath. It was bit like one of those cross-sectional sketches 'for illustrative purposes'. This was the other side. I paused where the track didn't look too loose to survey things before going further. There was no way up to this bit of road that was visible from where I was, so had to carry on in the hope that a way out would appear. Bouncing another 2o metres and the track went further off to the left and eventually rose up in a gradient where the surface looked somewhat more firm. A couple of minutes more and I was up and onto the road.

I stopped to look back where I'd come from. Bjorn was still struggling, having recovered from his trial of mud & gravel in the middle section ... There was no shame in this as it was hard terrain to get across. Very hard terrain indeed. I for one was glad to have finished with it and hoped that was the last dry-river bed, and that it would be flat and easy from here on in ... for a while at least!

Bjorn got out okay too and we carried on our way. Osh was our destination, but the road we were on showed no signs of improving enough for us to fast-track it there. It meant then we'd be having another night under the stars.