Yurt Life
Bishkek, Kyrgysztan
15th October, 2007
by Dan Murdoch

OUR move to new accommodation has provided a pleasing respite from the perils of over familiarity.
For the first time in months we are surrounded by new, English-speaking faces: Kiwis, Brits, French, Israelis, Hungarians, Spanish, Americans.
We’ve found the backpacker trail, alive with traveller’s tales: where to go, what to see, who to avoid. A wealth of facts, half-truths, misinformation, opinion and downright exaggeration is channelled through the men and women who follow these strangely narrow corridors, as defined by the guidebooks that unite us.
The vodka-soaked stories that accompany our evenings are probably as close to a recreation of the old Silk Road as we will get.
Israelis and French coming from China warn us of pickpockets on the Xinjiang bus. Kiwis heading south to Pakistan inform us that the Khunjerab pass will be closing in a few weeks, sealing the border for the winter. We come from the west with dark warning of Turkmen bureaucracy and the importance of avoiding the Baku-Turkmenbashi ferry.
It must have been this way throughout Marco Polo’s time, but instead of carrying grubby backpacks the men had laden camels. Instead of gossiping into the night at hostels and guesthouses, the traders would have rested up at caravanesi, posted at intervals a days walk apart along many of the routes.
I imagine the same spirit of banter and adventure, nurtured by the local beverage, with a few delicacies from home.
After an evening’s exuberance during the Rugby World Cup semi-final, when I made enemies of a room full of Frenchman, alienated my companions with terrifying football chants, fell in a concrete flood ditch, inexplicably broke a bathroom mirror and then left the only pub in Bishkek that shows English sport without paying the bill, I awoke with a hangover.
The Israelis made me a hot concoction of ginger, honey and lemon as a cure, a Kiwi offered me Berrocca and the Hawaiian insisted I could drink it off. With such meetings of minds does the world’s knowledge spread.
Or maybe it’s the internet.
Either way, the relief of new conversation has helped us through our third week in Bishkek.

I was initially sceptical about our new home. It is a Yurt: a circular tent, with curved wooden props and a skin made of hides. In the top is a round hole that acts as a skylight during the day and a chimney during the evening. The hole also acts to release any stored warmth and instead encourage a stiff chill that develops as the night progresses until the small hours feel like a recurrence of the Karoo Ice Age.
Perhaps I had a romanticised notion of Yurt life: nomads wandering the steppe, and pitching camp where the prey dies, cooking tough mutton over the fire inside a hide covered shelter. In the morning they would wrap up and stroll down to an icy stream to fill gauds with water, then relight the fire for a brew.
But our Yurt has been set-up in a back garden in one of Bishkek’s less desirable neighbourhoods. It is not a large garden, it’s very obvious we are in an enclosed space, and there is a dormitory next to us where the less adventurous (or wiser) are staying. The nights are punctuated by the steady chorus of hounds, who give up at about the same time that the cockerels kick off.
But now I have enough blankets and sleep in a thick Russian military jacket, so I can overcome the yurt’s chill, and instead enjoy our new friends and the joys of access to a well-stocked kitchen complete with kettle.

After three months of early starts on the Trek, I have fallen into a strange, dreamy pattern here in Bishkek. We are killing time, treading water, and for the first time since the long lazy summer of my first year at university I have nothing to do. I am dossing.
With nothing to get up for there is little to go to bed for, and I sleep badly in our thin shelter, then lie in late.
My day involves going into town to find a bite to eat and browse the web to keep up with news from home. Then I find somewhere else to eat.
“Hey, I've lost weight,” Carlos told me, plucking at the sagging waistline of his jeans.
“I think I found it,” I replied looking at my own taught paunch. Must do some exercise, I thought, for the millionth time in Bishkek.
In the evenings I might visit Metro, a very Western bar well stocked with ex-pats, where they occasionally show the football, and, thankfully, have kept me in touch with the rugby. Maybe afterwards we go to Golden Bull. But after three weeks I am bored of drinking.
I am not yet frustrated by this general torpor, but I have been affected. I have less energy, spontaneity is dying out, a numbness has taken hold.
Still we are in limbo: torn between heading north into Siberia, or shipping south to Bangkok. Everyday we call new shipping companies desperate for information, quotes, rates, time scales. But progress is painfully slow.
Team USA should be here soon, then finally we can compare notes and get on with some decision-making.

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