Kyrgyzstan: Hiking, Part 1

Monday, July 5th- 

KGZ is clearly set up for adventure tourism. The hostel I was staying at offered services to their foreign guests—most of them from western Europe—to accommodate any kind of desire for outdoor adventure. The bulletin board by the front desk was filled with advertisements for day trips into the mountains or week-long trekking trips around the country. Other outings included watching the nomadic horse sporting games to hiking to horseback riding to paragliding to overnight KGZ yurt stays at mountain lakes to waterfall viewings to off-roading Jeep tours. 

KGZ is a mountainous country. Ninety-four percent of the country is over 1,000m (3,280 ft) above sea level and the average elevation is 2,750m (9,000 ft). To compare, Boulder is at about 1600m above sea level (5,250ft). While Bishkek is in a valley at 800m above sea level (2,600 ft), there were mountains only an hour away that one could go hiking or have other adventures in. (There is also lots of skiing there in the winter). 

It makes me sad that some people see KGZ as nothing more than a tourist destination. KGZ is like many other “exotic” countries, such as Thailand, that are just seen as travel spots and nothing else. For many of the tourists, KGZ is not seen for its people, governments, cultures and economies in their own right. Tourism is a kind of exploitation and appropriation, a kind of objectification and colonization. On the other hand, it’s clear that the KGZ people are very proud of their country and their culture. They seem pleased to show it off to the Western “guests.” For me, the trekking tours around the country look really fun and like something I would like to do at some point. But it also feels like this huge gross privilege to take entertainment in someone else’s home; it feels colonial to take a holiday in another person’s home, especially in the overnight “homestays” in KGZ yurts in the mountains. At the same time, of course, their economy clearly depends on tourism and has suffered since COVID. 

The other reason why KGZ, and many other “exotic” countries, are seen as desirable tourist destinations for Westerners is because everything is so cheap. Hiring a driver to take me into the mountains for the day cost about $35. A taxi driver to the mountains or back home was about $10. A nice meal at a fancy restaurant was $5. A night in the hostel was $5. A normal meal of rice or noodles was about $1.75. 

Their currency has been especially weak since the COVID crash of 2020. The currency fell with Russians currency (rubles) last year, and the price of goods is rising while the currency is inflated. They are having a huge economic crisis in KGZ right now. The result is a weak currency which makes it cheap for Western tourists. 

Heading into the mountains for hiking

The hostel I was staying at was owned and operated by a KGZ family. I hired the father to drive me out the mountains one day. According to my internet research, the hostel family over-charged me for the drive, but I can’t care when it’s such a small amount of money for me ($10 as opposed to $6). The dramatic difference in currency between KGZ som and US dollars is inequality in action—the way our money is worth different amounts in different countries reflects a legacy of colonialism, racism and inequality.  

The hostel dad and I stumbled through our conversation, which basically consisted of me speaking Uyghur, him understanding most of it, and him speaking Kyrgyz (occasionally with an English or Russian word thrown in here and there) and me understanding most of it. Our conversation was like a car that is super wobbly and is bumping along an off-road trail. You have to go slowly and even then you might have to stop, turn around, repeat yourself, and even then you might have to take a different route if they’re not understanding you. 

Me speaking Uyghur and him speaking Kyrgyz was a bit of a struggle the whole time. (It’s good that I’m studying Czech because some of the words are the same with the Russian words, so I can understand things like numbers and simple phrases.) But we can understand each other along the bumps and turns along the way, and talking with the hostel dad is fun and makes the long car ride go by fast. 

He told me that religious tensions are good in KGZ; that Christians and Muslims get along quite well. We passed an Orthodox Church on the right and a mosque on the left, and he explained that if a manager was a Christian (he kept saying the English word “Christmas” for Christian, which I thought was very cute) and the worker or other manager was a Muslim, they would have no problems working together. He mentioned that the government doesn’t tolerate radical Islam and has made no place for radical Muslims in the government or in society, so that has been dealt with well. Of course, this is a concern in a region close to Afghanistan, Pakistan and India that has had issues with religious and ethnic tensions. 

As we drove through the countryside, he pointed out to me how dry it’s been this year—a mountainside that’s normally green was brown. We could see billowing smoke in the distance showing a forest fire, which he said are normally very rare, and rivers that were lower than normal. He also said it’s hotter and dryer here than ever before. 

He said that the craziest thing about America is that we have guns and people just go into churches and schools and shoot people up; he said this would never be allowed in KGZ. He drove through farmland and he explained that 62% of KGZ people are farmers or rural populations, and guessed that 5% of America was (I looked it up and 19% of America’s population is rural), but his guess at 5% is telling how other people see America as urban and developed. 

Before I knew it, we had arrived at the trailhead.

To be continued...