Irkeshtan to Osh

Having cleared the checkpoints, I continue travelling in the truck towards Osh. I know realistically there’s no way we’ll reach Osh given the quality of the road and the speed of the truck, however we have more than enough time to reach Sary Tash, a town at the cross roads of Osh, China and Tajikistan.

As the sun begins to set, our truck becomes stuck in the mud. The next hour and a half is spent digging and adding rocks to the road for a new passage. Fifteen people in total are working together to tow the truck out of the ditch. Several tow cables are snapped, but finally we are freed from the ditch and are able to resume the trip.

Unfortunately, barely half an hour passes and we’re stuck again, only this time everyone else has gone on ahead. The driver doesn’t seem too fussed, while I’m thinking I should have packed some food/water for the trip. Fortunately for us, another truck driver breaks down 20m behind us, has a honeydew melon, tea and lots of pastries, problem solved.

After the feast, we head back to our truck to get some much needed kip. The night provides little sleep due to the extreme cold (all the water in the puddles around the truck freezes at some point in the night). To add to the experience, there’s an earthquake in the morning.

Waking up in the morning, I find there’s now three trucks here, us stuck in the mud, the truck behind us broken down and now sitting next to us, at an angle so steep that a strong gust of wind would blow it over, with some wheels in the air, a truck that tried to pass us in the middle of the night.

The guys seem to be in no real rush to work on freeing/repairing the trucks; several hours pass and another comes past, with a Niva 4wd escorting it. Two men in camouflage gear hop out of the Niva, inspect the dirt road next to our truck (we’re stuck in a wide patch of road) and decide it’s safe for their truck to cross. Another truck travelling in the opposite direction ignores their requests to stop and wait and comes flying past. One of the men in camo articulates his opinions so colourfully in Russian “Rushing you c*nt, can’t wait a f*cking second, I’ll f*cking chase you down and bludgeon you to death, f*ck your mother you gay c*nt” I decide to not try and ask the soldiers for a lift, lest they turn their anger on me. I find out later they’re not soldiers, just armed guards escorting their truck and its cargo to Osh.

The amazing landscape where our truck breaks down at over 4000m altitude.

The truck drivers, having all taken small naps now tell me we’ve been invited for tea in a yurt, not far down the mountain. We make the trip down and have a small feast of Naan bread, tea and cream; the farmers up in the mountains may not be rich, but like the many Tibetans I met, show only the best hospitality.

After breakfast, we return to the road and spend the next several hours waiting, the drivers for machinery to get them out of their predicament, myself for a new lift to Osh.

My salvation comes in the form of Narim and his military truck heading to Osh from the border post at Irkeshtan. I wonder what sort of military cargo he’s carrying as I climb in the truck.

We make the first of two stops to deliver the cargo shortly after he picks me up. To the farmers in this yurt, we deliver the majority of the highly sensitive military cargo, firewood and charcoal. The final piece of cargo, one sheep, we deliver later to another yurt.

Sary Tash, where I’d intended to spend the night on the way to Osh.

The ride is uneventful all the way to Osh, we make a stop for the driver (Narim) to introduce me to the wonderful taste of кымыз (Kheuh-Meuz), bitter tasting horse milk. It’s supposed to be very good for you, but like salted yak butter-milk tea from Tibet, it’ll take some getting used to.