Sihpromatum - Backpacks and Bra Straps

by Savannah Grace

  Apparently there was much more to know about this ancient Silk Road in the twenty-first century than I had initially anticipated. I wondered if anyone from home was learning these kinds of things from their textbooks.

  “Now we know why he was in such a hurry, and why his price was so cheap. We weren’t ever his priority. We were just a way to make some extra cash on his way to Osh,” Ammon said.

  “Like, we’re part of his cover?” I asked.

  “It always helps to have a cover,” Mom said.

  Though his behaviour could potentially have us locked away for being “accomplices,” I was just grateful that he didn’t take us to some strange mafia hideout and have us all shot, or sold into slavery, or something equally horrific.

  By the time we’d figured out what was going on, the taxi driver and his friend, or client – whichever – had made their way outside and were talking at the rear of the car. My eyes widened in amazement, and I couldn’t help but spy. I didn’t want to look too obvious, but I just had to move to the side and stare in the rear-view mirror. They were distracted by their conversation and took no notice of me, but I was careful not to draw attention from bystanders.

  After a swift handshake the two men turned and went their separate ways. It was done so smoothly that it was difficult to tell, but that had surely been the moment of exchange, and my imagination began running away with me again. Now that we’ve seen this, does it mean they have to get rid of us? I quickly buried my face in the pages of my book. I’m not here. I didn’t see anything. I swear it.

  The combination of the dealer’s insanely unsafe driving and then this was by no means earning him any brownie points in our books. He continued to make quick stops, picking up and dropping off small packages from various cubbyholes within the car. Each time, we tried to guess where the next hiding place would be. Stuff was pulled from under the hood, inside the doorframe, and underneath the stick shift casing. Any doubt we may have had was now totally vanquished, but we remained in a state of denial and continued to just sit there in the car as the drug dealing went on all around us.

  As we approached Osh, Ammon was busy checking road signs against his map. Shortly after we entered the city, though, our driver pulled over and signalled that this was the end of the road. The way Ammon was rapidly looking outside and then back down to his map was not a good sign.

  “This isn’t where we want to be. Look. We’re somewhere around here, ‘cause I just saw the palace off in that direction. We’re on the outskirts of town, but we want to be here,” he said, showing Mom the map. “It’s still another few blocks, so why is he stopping here?”

  “He probably doesn’t want to go any closer because this isn’t a proper taxi,” Mom said.

  “And ‘cause there might be cops,” Bree added.

  Our mad driver soon returned with a local city cabby, tugging on his shirt by way of introducing him and saying something like, “Here. This is your guy. Go with him.”

  Ammon remained calm until they started to quote prices, at which point, he practically exploded. “Oh, no. It’s basically just around the corner, for goodness sake! This is completely bogus. He wants us to pay another three hundred som to get there, which is, like, nine bucks. That’s nearly a third of what this whole ride cost. There’s no way we’re paying that.”

  After a heated argument, the local driver relented, “Okay, okay.” He would do it for half the price he’d been quoting. We were outraged at being asked to pay extra to be driven to the bus station where the first driver had already agreed to take us. When we refused to comply, he eventually got back into his car, slammed the door, and sped away, leaving us once more in the hands of our psycho driver.

  “I’m not going to give in to his scams,” Ammon said, his blood already boiling. “What a crook!”

  “You’d think after twelve hours of this, the least he could do is drive us the last kilometre,” Mom said.

  When we finally got to within a block of the bus station, the driver started claiming forcefully that we owed him an extra two hundred som for our luggage – a charge that he’d conveniently neglected to mention. When Ammon tried to pay the sum he’d agreed to in the beginning, he refused to accept it and threw it back at us. As the altercation between Ammon and the driver began to build, Mom quietly warned me to forget about the watermelon cradled in my arms.

  “No way. I’ve been holding this thing for five hours,” I said. “We can’t just chuck it.” It had come this far with us; it was going to go all the way. Plus, I wouldn’t wish the fate of being stuck with that man on anyone, not even a poor watermelon. Obviously Ammon’s tight-wallet-syndrome was rubbing off on me as I had no intention of wasting the nickels I’d put out for my treat.

  “You don’t want that big heavy thing weighing you down,” she said, fastening her daypack onto her chest before loading her big pack behind her, “in case we have to make a quick escape.” But I kept refusing and hung on to it.

  Mom put the agreed amount of money on the hood of the car and we turned on our heels, determined not to pay his outrageous additional fee. No common language was needed for the driver to understand that our answer was “no”. He reached out and grabbed Ammon to keep him from walking off.

  That made Mom furious, and her mother bear instincts kicked in. She started pointing at him and throwing thumbs down in his face, at the same time yelling, “Bad Man! Dishonest!” He yelled right back in Kyrgyz, his face growing purple and getting downright steamy round the edges.

  “You guys just start walking that way,” Ammon said. “Now!”

  We were trapped between the car and a high traffic-barrier brick wall. In order to get to the raised sidewalk on the other side, we had to go around the driver. When I turned to walk past him, he actually grabbed me by the arm. I was shocked that he would try to physically restrain a young girl. Ammon instinctively stepped forward and shoved him to the side, forcing him to release me. I took this opportunity to sneak by him, watermelon in hand. It added significantly to the fifteen kilogram (35 lb) weight of my backpack, but pure adrenaline kept me moving.

  The driver wouldn’t let Ammon pass, and began dancing side-to-side as he threatened, “Police! Police!” and pulled a phone out of his pocket.

  “Good. Call them,” Ammon said, making a welcoming gesture and then pointing to the ground. “Bring them here. And what were you doing all day, eh? With that stuff under the rug?” he said, demonstrating looking under something. “What will the police think of that, I wonder?”

  Not two minutes later, a couple of military men heard the commotion and came closer to investigate. As soon as our driver caught a glimpse of them, he lowered his volume. Their presence dissuaded Ammon from escalating the argument, but once he saw they didn’t seem ready to step in, he took advantage of the driver’s stunned surprise. Pushing him backwards, Ammon reached up on the wall, and as nimbly as a deer, he sprang over it in a single bound, pack and all. It was an impossible feat that impressed all who witnessed it (even him, I think).

  “I can’t believe he threatened to call the police and you just said, ‘Yes. Go for it!’ You really are crazy,” I told him a bit later.

  “But you saw how well calling his bluff worked.” Ammon seemed pretty pleased with himself. “The police and the political systems are often corrupt in these countries, and locals will do pretty much anything to avoid them. I knew he was just making empty threats, especially ‘cause he was obviously transporting drugs.”

  Ammon was checking over his shoulder often to make sure he didn’t come back to run us over or something. Because the driver knew where we were headed and might still decide to get back at us somehow, we decided to stay at the nearest affordable hotel we could find instead. We met Pierre from Belgium, the first traveller we’d seen in weeks, right at the hotel’s front door, and we happily invited him to come to our room to share our melon. Bree finally cut open the delicious fruit we’d all been dying to eat with a tiny pocket knife. It made a juicy pool on
the table, and its black seeds were nestled in delicate pink flesh. I couldn’t wait to press a cool, wet piece to my cracked lips.

  Pierre nodded appreciatively as he bit into a large slice, water dripping down his dirt-encrusted wrists. “Mmmm, wow. This is delicious. Where’d you get it?”

  That was a long story we were too weary to tell, but what a day that was! In the end, though, we not only kept the melon, but we were able to share it with a fellow traveller…

  Trucker’s Purgatory

  17

  From Osh, we planned to re-enter China at a remote western border crossing – the lesser used of the two crossings into China from Kyrgyzstan. After a long night of talking with Pierre, we woke up early in the morning to meet our pre-arranged ride in front of the hotel. We’d been told we would have a private car, but there were already three other travellers inside, their bicycles tied to the roof. As I climbed into a cramped seat between Mom and Bree, I said hello. They simply nodded and mumbled in Spanish, as they didn’t speak English.

  “This is the same type of Russian jeep as Bimba’s,” Bree said, reminding us all of our Mongolian adventures.

  I sighed. “That’s great. They’re the ones that always break down.”

  “Stop being so pessimistic,” Ammon said from the front seat.

  “Actually, I think that’s just us and our luck,” Bree said in defence of the jeep, a make and model she’d somehow developed a fondness for. I couldn’t help but give the group an annoyed “I told you so” look when we had to stop at a repair shop even before we’d gotten out of town, a look Bree missed ‘cause she was distracted by whatever was coming through her headphones, as usual. My smart-alecky behaviour didn’t always sit well with the family, but what can you do? The repair stop delayed us an extra hour, and the jeep was basically a junker anyway, with its broken door and window handles. Along that same pessimistic vein, I wondered if it might someday even be possible to hire a car with air conditioning as I wiped a trickle of sweat from my brow.

  Ammon had stayed up all night listening to Pierre talk about his travels through the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. “Seriously, you’ve gotta understand,” Ammon said admiringly. “He’s my new hero. He’s been through all the ‘Stan countries and to the parts of Africa that nobody goes to, like Chad and Cote d’Ivoire and Nigeria. He’s totally nuts, man. And here we are, practically touching Uzbekistan. It’s so close that it’s within spitting distance, and it’s the closest I’ll ever be,” he said, with the same note of longing in his tone that we’d heard every other time he mentioned Uzbekistan.

  “Well, why didn’t we just go there then?” Bree said.

  “Because I’m stuck dragging you guys around with me.”

  “Never mind Ammon, Bree. He just likes to blame it on us,” Mom said, casually opening one eye. “We talked about going to Uzbekistan, but decided against it for lots of good reasons. Don’t forget that Ammon planned most of this part of our trip.”

  “Okay, fair enough,” Ammon said. “It’s also because we have to be in Nepal in time for the trekking season. I’m aiming to get there right before the crowds start flooding in,”

  “And then what?” I asked. “Where are we going after that?”

  “Yeah. All we ever hear about is Nepal and India. What comes after that?” Bree repeated. We’d originally thought we’d spend the second half of the year heading to Australia. Ammon had always wanted to go there, too, but after chatting with other travellers, even more options had come up.

  “I don’t know. Ask me after I get us to India.”

  “I thought we were going through Southeast Asia, and then heading to Australia,” Mom said.

  “Yeah, but where else could we go?” Bree was almost daring him to suggest an even more audacious idea.

  His face lit up with a mischievous look that disappeared almost as quickly as it had surfaced. “Don’t ask me until we get to India. I don’t know anything yet,” was all he would say. He always gave the same answer.

  “You still alive back there, Mom?” Ammon asked. Mom had fallen silent with her head resting on her fist, a gesture she made only when she was really exhausted or not feeling well. Retreating to a silent place within was a long-time coping mechanism for her.

  “I just feel a bit nauseous, and I’ve got a really bad headache, but I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me.” Mom’s wan appearance seemed to mirror the desolate and lifeless road, and it wasn’t long before Bree started feeling nauseous again, too. Despite two family members not feeling quite up to par, we had no choice but to push on to Kashgar, located in the far western portion of China.

  The scenery along the way featured numerous high passes and stupendous views of Tajikistan’s Pamir Mountain range. The mountains were barren and brown, but the deep grooves etched in their sides exposed their age and added a unique kind of character.

  Gorgeous scenery aside, this segment of the trip didn’t go as smoothly as we’d hoped. It was supposed to be a seven-hour trip, but we were already well into our tenth hour on the road. Large semis transporting scrap metal had rocked down these roads for many years, leaving car-sized potholes that nearly swallowed us whole. Something broke off the axle and had to be fixed before we could go on, too, causing even more delay. The passing of every extra hour left us feeling more uneasy about whether we’d make it in time to cross the border that day, and eventually it got so late that it was clear that we would have to find somewhere to spend the night. Wherever that somewhere ended up being, I really hoped the place would have some basic amenities – something we couldn’t always count on. A shower would earn extra bonus points, but I’d happily settle for food and a toilet with a lock after an entire day on the road. Just as we finally seemed to be making good time, a roadblock with a long line of parked vehicles appeared just ahead of us.

  “Is this the border?” I asked hopefully. “Is that why everyone is stopped?”

  “I have no idea, but according to the map and the last sign I saw, it looks like we’re nowhere close to the border,” Ammon said. “I don’t know what this jam is about. It’s too dark to see the map or read the road signs properly, of course, so we could be almost anywhere.” ‘I don’t know’. Oh, how I dreaded hearing those words!

  We couldn’t see each other in the dark, but the energy in the jeep was tense. When an official of some kind opened the door, reached in, and asked for our passports, we refused to hand them over. When both the driver and the official persisted, Ammon insisted on going with them to accompany our vital documents. I couldn’t imagine what would happen to us if we were ever stranded without them.

  In the meantime, Mom and Bree ran into the dark field to relieve themselves, probably from both ends, given how poorly they were feeling. I worried (of course) that they wouldn’t be able to find our car again when they came back from the make-shift toilet. With so many vehicles stuck in the bumper-to-bumper traffic as the “officials” checked for documents, everyone’s headlights were switched off. Only rows of red taillights glowed in the darkness, and most of the vehicles were the same model, making it even harder to relocate ours.

  As I sat alone in the car for what seemed like ages, the chill of the night made me shiver, and my heart started pounding as I began to worry again. What if they can’t find their way back to our car? What if traffic starts moving before they all get back? Where on earth is Ammon, anyway, and what’s happening with our documents?

  The mysterious officials wanted money in return for giving our passports back, but Ammon’s ferocity and stubbornness matched theirs, and thankfully, they weren’t willing to use force to extort money from us, only intimidation. We finally got back on the road and reached the border area of Irkeshtam around midnight, feeling distinctly dehydrated and exhausted. My face was crinkled and caked with dirt, and my body felt constricted beneath my skin.

  Waiting in the freezing cold car while the driver went to find someone who would put us up for the night was torturous. It seemed like forever before he
returned with two girls who had a room to rent. They simply stared at us for a while, seemingly oblivious to how urgently we needed water, toilets, and rest. However, there was nowhere else to stay in this remote truck stop. We were lucky the driver had been able to find us a place to lie down for the night that even had a roof.

  My teeth were chattering as I begged them to show us the way. “Can’t you see that we’re freezing and they’re sick?” Eventually they took charge and showed us to a breezy attic. We climbed up the outdoor wooden steps, which were wobbling dangerously beneath our feet. I looked down through one of the spaces where a staircase slat was missing entirely. With no handrail to grip and carrying all my baggage, I feared I might lose my balance and fall through one of the loose or missing steps. The room was nothing more than a square box with a bunch of musty blankets piled onto wooden planks where all seven of us would sleep together.

  There was no electricity, and we struggled not to lose the flashlight in the dark. We showed the girls our empty bottles as a way to ask them to please bring us water. They brought some and one of them showed us where the outside toilet was – right back down the same creaky, unsafe staircase we’d just come up.

  The outhouse was one solid mud structure with a single door, no roof, and half-a-dozen open holes placed randomly in the earth. Under different circumstances, it actually would’ve made a nice toilet experience, given the fresh night air and the glittering stars overhead. Unfortunately, Mom and Bree were desperately frail and still nauseous, despite the fact that we’d hardly eaten or drunk anything all day.

  “They should have paid us to stay here. This is worse than sleeping in the stables,” I said when we got back, feeling worried about Mom and Bree and shivering from the cold.