Birthday Boy
Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan
October 19th, 2007
By Dan Murdoch

TODAY was my birthday.
Twenty-five.
I woke up early, ate a healthy breakfast of fresh grapefruit and muesli, drank decaffeinated coffee without sugar, flossed, went for a jog, showered, removed hair from the plug hole, got a smart, respectable new look, put on clean, ironed clothes, applied for a mortgage, got a small business starter loan, and began the quest for a wife.
None of that is true, but I suppose some people think it should be. I imagine my grandfather would tell me that he had already founded and sold two newspapers by the time he was my age. My mother was raising her first child (me).
But times change, and my fellow trekkers, who are all older, seem to have just as few tangible links to responsible society as I do.
Once I have entered the cycle of job, home, family, bills etc it seems there will be little opportunity for gallivanting across the world until I retire from it all, in what forty years time? I don’t see the need to rush into the rat race, and I was strangely happy to celebrate my birthday in Bishkek, a city I hadn’t even heard of a few months ago.

We spent the afternoon doing a clear out of the cars- stripping them and cleaning them up, redistributing the weight more evenly and trying to get organised.
Tony put together a list of what is wrong with the cars:

Fez
Tyres bald
Rear control arm weld needs reinforcement
Front lights broken
Breaks very dodgy
Passenger door interior torn off
Speakers blown

Ziggy
Weld the bumper back into place
Fix the starter
Sticky throttle, replace cables
No mirrors
No turn signal
One headlight dim
Cracked cylinder head
Windshield wipers have been torn off
Look at brakes
Rear control arm weld needs reinforcement

Dante
Sticky throttle, replace cables
Starter wiring dodgy
Radio blown
New fuse box needed
There is no exhaust pipe
Strengthen rear control arm
Passenger door swings open randomly

I am told that ‘sticky throttle’ means the accelerator has a tendency to get stuck down: “Its fine on the highways,” Tony explained, “not so good in the cities.”

We drank beer and I was presented with a cake, which was rather touching. Then we went to a restaurant for dinner, before heading to Metro, the six trekkers plus a bunch of new friends from the hostel.
The bar is a tiny microcosm of the West, almost like the set of Cheers has been displaced to the heart of Asia. You can order a burger or a burrito with your Bud. Sports channels churn out American football and baseball. On one corner TV the Air Force Network plays constantly. I had no idea there was such a thing as AFN, and it is a truly wonderful sight- a mix of wholesome US shows and sports interspersed with military advertising and warnings.
In the pub I couldn’t help but overhear snippets of conversation. A burly looking American with a crew cut: “I can’t imagine anything worse than being sent to an Afghan prison. I’ve seen Afghan jails and they are frightening. Must be the worst place on earth…”
A nerdy looking NGO type: “…you know they’re looking for a new macro consultant at DPNG. They need someone to work in their democratisation department…”
A strange group of contractors, the military and charity workers, eating pizza in their little oasis.

From Metro to Golden Bull, via a tense standoff with some taxi drivers following an incident related to the etiquette of urinating in bushes.
It’s strange to be frisked by a man in military fatigues before you enter a club, but Westerners get in free at Golden Bull, for we are the money.
On Friday and Saturday night there are performances. A hooter sounds and evil looking henchman step in to clear the dance floor and keep the crowd orderly. Then the dancers step into the ring, normally a group of three or four boys or girls, all dressed up as gangsters, go-go girls or the like, performing well choreographed routines. Later in the evening some of the dancers get raunchier and expose a little flesh. It’s always impressive and breaks up the evening up nicely.
The women here love to dance and they pack the floor no matter what day of the week. There is always a ring of sour looking boyfriends standing around, staring menacingly at anyone who dances near their ladies.
The music in the club is generally rubbish, and my dancing is pathetic, truly terrible- I look a little like a deranged geography teacher having an epileptic fit at a trance party. So I get little joy from scaring people on the dance floor by shaking my thing to tunes I cant stand.
I tried it anyway.
It was rubbish.

As I was the birthday boy, I was called on stage by Mikayel, my favourite gay pop star. He pretended not to know me, despite numerous introductions over the past month, and spoke in Russian a lot while I was on stage. The gang cheered loudly for me as I was presented with a bottle of something that smelled and tasted of old, fizzy vinegar.
Pretty much my last memory was sharing it with OJ, but I must have enjoyed myself because I was the last one back, arriving at the yurt alone at around 6:30am.
Carlos returned an hour earlier and had to break into the toilets to free OJ, who had fallen asleep on the crapper. Apparently he’d been locked in there for two hours, and when Carlos finally woke him, the big Slav threw up everywhere.

Being away from the cars for so long has given me a chance to walk. It sounds strange, but I haven’t really walked anywhere in months. A few nights ago I did the stroll from the centre of town back to the hostel. It was about three in the morning, and Bishkek was quiet. I felt calm in the ghostly silence of a sleeping city and the simple stroll gave my mind the chance to relax and wander.
A police car pulled up by a drunk-looking prostitute, and a dog trotted past on its own night time adventure. I passed a few emptying clubs, men and women spilling out onto the street to be heckled by taxi drivers.
Man was born to walk. As the only mammal to spend its days on two feet, it is something that defines us, that makes us human. The great evolutionary leap from the trees and onto our hind legs, freeing up our hands and allowing us to use tools, to build, to stroll about the savannah with a spear.
It was a mild night and I paced out a steady rhythm that my heart and lungs soon fell into time with, sending me into a meditation.
I must walk more, I thought.
I’ll file that one with ‘learn to dance,’ and ‘take more exercise’.
I'm only 25. Plenty of time.

Ends
Mrdanmurdoch@gmail.com
For more of Dan’s blogs go to: danmurdoch.blogspot.com or www.trabanttrek.org