Sihpromatum - Backpacks and Bra Straps

by Savannah Grace

  We had returned to our temporary home base in Bishkek after three days of joyous riding (except for Bree’s run-in with the psycho horse, anyway) in the beautiful countryside surrounding Songkol Lake. Having replenished our supplies of food and energy, we were moving onward to China with our multiple-entry visas before our month-long Kyrgyzstan visas expired. We’d gotten up early to avoid arriving after nightfall in Osh, our next destination, and the streets of the capital were almost completely deserted at six o’clock in the morning.

  Ammon, riding shotgun and taking command as always, explained that we were headed to the long-distance taxi stand on the outskirts of town. The cabbie nodded, ran his fingers through his coarse black hair, rolled down the window, and started the engine.

  We’d had to break travel rule #2, No taxis, pretty often in this country that offered so few transportation options. Cabs were always much quicker than buses, which usually waited till every seat was sold before leaving. Buses were also often overcrowded, and they slowed to a crawl as they chugged painfully up the mountains. However, with so many regular commuters and a daily scheduled route, the buses were much less likely to scam tourists, something Ammon had warned me about. I’d heard numerous stories from friends and other family members, too, of tourists being set up to be mugged by cohorts waiting in deserted back alleys – usually in Mexico, but it happened elsewhere, as well. That element of the unknown always set my heart racing.

  It took less than fifteen minutes to reach the dusty taxi arena at the edge of town, and what a contrast it was from the sleepy street we’d departed from. As we drove up, all heads in that wild pit of cars and drivers turned toward us, and I could almost hear them thinking, “Here comes fresh meat!” We could hardly push the doors open, as so many of them were already pressed up against the car, anxious for a fare. The moment we got out of the local cab, we were attacked by a dozen or more drivers, clawing and tugging at our sleeves and shouting in our ears. What sounded like nothing so much as a loud roaring noise was actually their entreaties to, “Come with me!” “I give you good price!” “Tell me where you are going, I’ll take you!” and so on. It was all in Kyrgyz, of course, and was so loud and insistent that we couldn’t have made any of it out even if we had understood the language.

  It was impossible to focus as arms and unwashed hands flailed around me. I could see the black beneath their nails from quite a distance. Saliva and sweat splashed, and their shouts exploded from behind deeply stained teeth. I tried to duck out of the line of fire by somehow peeling them from my arms and shoulders. Holding my own and trying my best to look unfazed put me on edge as I responded with my own cries of, “Whoa, cool it there, buddy!” “Calm down!” and “Get off of me, you idiot!” It was like being mauled by two-hundred pound flies.

  All three of us pointed at Ammon, vigorously shaking our heads to indicate that we weren’t in charge. Once the crowd finally understood who the group’s leader was, we girls backed away into a dusty clearing.

  “Holy hell!” Bree said, her hands still up defensively, ready for combat. “Wasn’t that a rush, though?”

  “How is Ammon ever going to figure out what they’re all saying? This is just freaking impossible,” I said. With five men on each sleeve, Ammon did his best to get enough air to clear his head. It was the first time he actually had to remove people from his person, putting his hands up and saying “Whoa, whoa,” while he struggled to get their attention. He bravely and persistently tried to negotiate a price, any price – no chance to bargain in this mess.

  “Oh geez, he’s definitely taking a hit for the team this time,” Bree said, “Do you think I should get in there for backup?”

  “No, just leave him. He’ll be fine,” Mom said. “They’re not being aggressive; there are just a lot of them.” Only a few moments later, though, she remembered that she’d forgotten to pay our first cab driver in all the mayhem.

  “What? Where is he?” We quickly scouted the area, but apparently, he was already gone.

  “Oh, no. I feel just terrible about that,” Mom groaned.

  Ammon finally shouted over the crowd and pointed to one of the drivers, giving in to the pressure to make a quick decision. The guy he’d singled out was one of the only drivers standing off on the sidelines, busily loading something into his trunk. He wore a checked blue shirt and beige dress pants and acted almost as if we weren’t important. Though it seemed a bit suspicious, his calm demeanour was a relief, and I liked the look of him.

  “Okay, let’s go,” Ammon shouted as he waved at us and struggled to swim his way through the crowd. Though he had clearly made his decision, it didn’t deter the other drivers from tugging at us. With everyone still on our tail in hopes that we’d change our minds, we threw the backpacks in the trunk, jumped in, and drove off.

  Watching the mob vanish behind us in the dusty alley was a relief. I could finally hear myself think, and only a mild buzz still rang in my right ear.

  Once we’d caught our breath and were settled in, Mom said, “Ammon, can you believe I forgot to pay our first taxi? I just feel awful about it. He was really friendly and didn’t make any problems, and then we didn’t even pay him. Do you think he was so tired he forgot?”

  “I bet he’s already pulled over and fallen back to sleep. When he wakes up, he probably won’t even remember how he got there,” I suggested, pulling my latest book out of my daypack. I wiped it off as I took it out of its Ziploc bag, where I’d stored it in a vain attempt to protect it from the ever-present dust.

  “Or he couldn’t be bothered to wade through that mob that was fighting over us,” Ammon said.

  “So, why’d you choose him?” I asked, gesturing toward our current driver.

  “He quoted way lower than the rest, and I kinda liked that he wasn’t being so pushy.” Turning around from the front seat to face us, he added, “Though, I have to say, I already offered to pay two thousand som in my bargaining and he offered lower, which makes me wonder what he’s up to. We’ll just have to wait and see what kind of tricks he tries to pull at the end.”

  “Mmmm, that’s comforting,” I said. “I gotta say, it was a quick pick for someone we’ll be spending the next twelve hours with.” But that’s just the way it was out here. We had little choice but to trust not only the taxi’s condition and the driver’s abilities, but even more importantly, the character of the man behind the steering wheel.

  The majority of vehicles in the ex-Soviet countries had been rickety, old Russian Ladas, which was what we were travelling in today. Though Ladas look small from the outside, we were surprised by how spacious they actually are. It was large enough, but our driver’s vehicle was completely trashed. Its window handles, seats, and seat belts were all broken, and it had a cracked windshield and dents in the rusted doors, but it was in about average condition for this part of the world, where at least one mechanical problem was expected on every journey.

  We were headed to Osh, the second largest city in Kyrgyzstan. At more than three thousand years old, Osh is among the oldest settlements in Central Asia, and many consider it the “Capital of the South.” It has an impressive trading history, and was known from the eighth century on as a centre for silk production along the Silk Road, which is a series of trade routes that extends over six thousand kilometres (4,000 mi) from China to the Mediterranean Sea. The Silk Road, named by the first Chinese silk traders, was created during the Han Dynasty over two thousand years ago.

  “Do you remember Xi’an? That’s where the Silk Road begins. We’re going to re-join it in the middle, and our plan is to head toward Xi’an along that road when we get back into China,” Ammon said. “Osh and Kashgar have the largest remaining markets along this historic route.”

  I was still nervous about the taxi ride. Ammon rolled his eyes. “Oh, it’ll be fine, Savannah, as long as he takes us where we need to go. The real test will be finding out how well we adjust to high altitudes before the Everest trek. The highest point we’ll be getting to is thre
e thousand, six hundred and fifty-seven metres (12,000 ft). Then we’ll go down a bit before climbing back up to about three thousand, forty-eight metres (10,000 ft).” He pointed out the window toward the mountains that surrounded us. “I still think it’s pretty funny that we’re going to Osh. We always used to call Sandra “Princess Osh” in the lab at work.”

  “Yeah, I remember. Why was that again?” Mom asked.

  “Because we worked together on the O.S.H. gene.”

  Sandra was a good friend of Ammon’s who’d worked with him for a year at the lab at Simon Fraser University before we left on our trip. She, too, was a genius, and coincidentally she’d returned to her home city of Hong Kong to celebrate her birthday the very same week we flew there to start our journey. Mom, Bree, and I had met her there for the first time when she offered to guide us around her hometown the entire four days we were there. We’d quickly grown to love the sweet Asian lady with the strong accent.

  It didn’t take long for us to determine that our driver was, to put it mildly, seriously unhinged. Winding up and over the rugged mountains, he would pass trucks while racing like an asinine maniac around blind curves. His antics were doubly unsettling in light of how few guardrails were installed along this perilous road.

  “We’d have been killed just now if anyone was coming the other way,” I said several times. This was one of the rare times I didn’t appreciate having a working speedometer; I’d rather not have known that our speed was a hundred kilometres an hour (62 mph), which felt rocket fast under these driving conditions.

  “This guy has more loose screws in his head than he does in his car,” Mom said.

  “Ammon,” I punched him in the arm, “you should really tell him to slow down!”

  “And break his concentration? Are you kidding me? There’s no way I’m risking that.” The driver descended the steep mountain passes, seemingly without caution and definitely without any decrease in speed. He honked viciously at slower vehicles, never tapping the brakes for even a second. He approached herds of mountain goats crowding the road as if they were bowling pins or some other worthless objects.

  Bree started singing like a crazy person, “She’ll be coming ‘round the mountain when she comes. Yee Haw!” Her version of the song was quicker paced than usual, but it seemed quite appropriate at the time, even if dreadfully off key. Inevitably, the driver hit a patch of loose gravel on a particularly sharp corner. As the wheels lost traction and started to slide, my insides did some unexpected acrobatics. He’d completely lost control of the car, and I felt like my stomach had knocked my heart out on its way out my mouth. I held on, white-knuckled, and closed my eyes, attempting to cope with the inescapable. The edge of the mountain was coming up fast!

  I was bracing for free-falling weightlessness when I heard and felt a loud BANG as the back fender made contact and we came to a crashing halt against a guardrail. My saviour!! It was so hard not to become at least momentarily religious when we saw that a small section of short but sturdy railing had been placed exactly on that ledge. I leaned over Mom to glance out the side window, and the view made me dizzy. There was no way we’d have survived that mile-long drop without a parachute or some sort of divine intervention.

  The driver stepped out and circled his rattletrap Lada, inspecting it for damage. I wondered if it was even possible to memorize each dent, given how many there were, but he just grunted and got back into the car, stepping on the gas before the door was even fully shut. He sure was determined to get where he was going.

  “Whoa,” I sat dazed for a bit. Never before had I feared for my life like that. The reality of how close we’d come to hurtling over the side of the mountain kicked in, and my heart started pumping rapidly, probably trying to make up for all the lost beats. Yes, yes. We’re alive; I hear you already, I thought as I tried to calm my nerves. Everyone was undeniably shaken up – even cool, collected Mom. It took something this drastic to finally wake her alarm bells, but she just as quickly tried to smooth it over.

  “I can’t believe it,” she said. “What are the odds that there was a guardrail exactly where we needed it? That’s just about the only one I’ve seen so far. I guess everybody must hit that spot.”

  “Yeah. I wonder how many cars went over that edge before they decided to invest in three metres of guardrails,” Ammon said. “All I know is, that was unbelievably close, you guys.”

  “We definitely had our lucky stars with us on that one,” Mom said.

  “So you’re saying that our guardian angel was sitting on that guardrail?” I said, seriously considering the possibility.

  A while later, Bree asked, “What if we did fly off? How would anybody ever find us again?” Our What If games usually involved improbable questions, but not today. “How long do you think it would be before Grandma started wondering where we were and called someone?”

  “Who would she call?” I asked.

  “Don’t talk like that, you guys. We’re fine,” Mom said, characteristically ignoring as many negative factors as she possibly could.

  “Plus, with so much distance still to cover and another steep pass to survive, do you really want to jinx yourselves?” Ammon said.

  “Now that’s very comforting,” I said, between clenched teeth. “Thanks a lot!” It was a picturesque drive full of beautiful lakes and rocky peaks, but with that oh-so-sheer drop still hugging our right side and our recent close call, it was impossible to enjoy the scenery. We prayed at the edge of our seats.

  What the heck are we doing here? Why couldn’t we just go to Disneyland, like normal people?

  Ch. 11-15 photos here

  Drugs, Police and a Watermelon

  16

  Hours later, we rolled into a small town where we stopped to repair a flat tire. The men who came to help us all sported tall kalpaks, traditional hats made of off-white felt, generally with fashionable, thick black stitch work. Men belonging to the rural Kyrgyzstan ethnic groups in the South wore them.

  Taking notice of them, Ammon said, “According to custom, a man can’t be hurt or killed or even get sick while wearing a kalpak.”

  “Bree, you go steal us one of their hats,” I said. “I think we’ll need it for the rest of this drive.”

  “Don’t even think about it!” Ammon barked when he saw her perk up at the challenge.

  Having been told by the driver to wait in the car, we waved at a young roadside merchant sitting on a small stool in front of a pile of fresh watermelons. She presented us with a beautiful green melon for a small fee, and I began salivating. Cooled by the shade, the thick, smooth peel felt heavenly when I rubbed my hot face against it.

  “I wonder how many dogs and donkeys peed on that before they picked it out of the field. Do you think they washed it before she sold it to you?” Bree asked.

  My lips tightly sealed in a grimace, I said, “Thanks for that, Bree. What on earth would I do without you?”

  After repairs were completed, we found ourselves driving around the town’s side streets. Making occasional pit stops was normal during long-distance journeys, but randomly driving down narrow neighbourhood alleys was not. I knew something wasn’t right.

  When asked where he was going, the driver would simply say, “Okay, okay, okay.” I didn’t know if this meant, “It’s going to be okay,” or “Okay, okay, I’ll tell you later.” We were always eager to stretch our legs any chance we got, but the driver kept holding out a hand, signalling for us to wait whenever he got out. Okay, so I guess it’s not a lunch break. What the heck is he doing, then? The others didn’t appear to share my unease; they were just annoyed by the delay. But trying to guess what was happening was quickly wearing me down.

  At one point, he disappeared for about fifteen minutes. When he finally opened the door, he ducked down under the steering wheel to pull up the rug and reach for something beneath the pedals. He held the small package surreptitiously at his side before he left again, so we couldn’t see what it was.

  “I woul
d say it’s starting to look a bit dodgy,” Ammon said. “I bet he’s dealing.”

  “What do you mean, dealing? You guys make me do that every day when you beat me at Jerk,” Bree said.

  “Not cards, you dork. Drugs!” he said, and Bree reacted by bolting upright in her seat to stare out the back window.

  “Stop that,” Mom said. “You don’t want to draw attention to us if that really is what’s happening here.”

  “He can’t be dealing drugs, can he? Seriously?” I said.

  “Sure, why not? Kyrgyzstan is known for heavy drug trafficking,” Ammon said.

  “How do you know? Maybe it’s just…” I paused, trying to think of another likely possibility.

  “Like a birthday card for his mom? What?” Ammon coaxed.

  “No, but maybe…Oh, I don’t know… Delivering someone’s lunch?”

  “From under the floor mat? Perhaps it was an explosive sandwich,” Ammon said sarcastically. “This area is known for its heroin trade. A few tons of it enters Kyrgyzstan each year. Osh is a major drug capital, so his delivering drugs wouldn’t be too far-fetched.”

  “How do you know this stuff?” Bree asked.

  “I just do.”

  “Do you have some kind of secret addiction? Is this something we should be concerned about?” she teased, leaning toward the front seat to give him a closer look.

  “Yeah. It’s called Google. They say a quarter of the world’s heroin goes through Central Asia on its way to Russia and Europe. A huge portion is coming from Afghanistan. And I don’t need drugs, thank you very much. Not when I’ve got you guys to mess up my brain.” The notion that we were following the same route as drug-traders was both terrifying and exhilarating. My eyes were being opened to all walks of life. Witnessing it first-hand was like living in a newspaper or being a journalist.

  Maybe Ammon is just trying to freak us out. I’ve only ever seen drug dealers in the movies, but I know it’s going on everywhere all the time. Could I be sitting in the same car with a real, honest-to-goodness drug dealer? In a country hardly any of my friends even know exists? Is this really my life now?