The alleyways were basked in the early morning sunlight.

The alleyways were dirty and dusty and enclosed on both sides by the walls of houses, only interrupted by the doors or entranceways to into the houses. Had it not been for the early morning pedestrian activity, this walk might have been intimidating and even scary. Occasionally, someone would come out of a house and dispose of dirty water in the drains running down the middle of the alley. This contributed to the musty smell that pervaded the area. The ground was sandy with occasional patches of gravel, and the which ran on both sides were damp and moldy.

Some doors were open, and looking into them revealed each family’s courtyard. Some were derelict and overgrown with vines, while others were very elegantly done up with marble tiles and well maintained gardens. Every other entranceway was also a driveway housing cars of a similar variance; mostly the boxy cars from the Soviet era, but some with new a Mercedes or Lexus.

After a few turns, I realized I was lost. I couldn’t find any of the visual markers I had stored in my memory. Every other doorway looked the same, even those refurbished homes used similar materials which made them look similar. Then I decided to follow the children. That would surely bring me back to the school I had walked past. Sure enough, I emerged at the school compound nestled within this old neighbourhood. Children were walking to school in twos or threes. The boys wore long dress pants and white long sleeved shirts, some wore ties and suits. The girls wore knee length skirts and white blouses. There didn’t appear to be a standard uniform, only the requirement of a white top and black bottoms. I suddenly realized I was drawing a lot of attention from the kids, I guess its not common for a foreigner to be wandering about this area. It was also getting hot and I was getting hungry anyway, so I decided to head back for breakfast.

Old meets new in the alleyway outside our room

 
The school nested inside the old Samarkand neighbourhood

The Pit Toilet
The pit toilet can be found anywhere. Not only can it be found in remote pastures by nomadic yurts, one can also often find it in homes in rural communities, usually at a corner of the family vegetable patch.

The typical pit toilet is constructed over a pit about 2m deep. A rectangular structure is then constructed above this pit and has a twofold purpose: to give the user of the pit toilet some privacy and to prevent wild animals from gaining access to the pit.

This structure is usually made out of wood, but you might sometimes find stainless steel being used, particularly in places tourists  frequent. Inside this structure, you’ll find a floorboard with a hole cut into it. This hole can come in various shapes and sizes. Rectangular and diamond shapes are most common. The toilet door opens outwards and can be latched from both sides. The user should always remember to re-latch the door shut from the outside when done with his business.

Considerations When Using a Pit Toilet
The first thing that will hit a PCD is the smell. The level of smell is related to several factors: how old the pit toilet is, how deep the pit is, the availability of ventilation, and the temperature of the environment. You might now be thinking… Ventilation? No… pit toilets do not have the electrical ventilation fans found is most western bathrooms. Ventilation here will refer to the natural movement of air through the toilet. If the pit toilet is located in the open, say at a jailoo, ventilation would typically be good and smell would be at a minimum. However, if the pit is located in a family compound with buildings around, be ready for your senses to be stimulated.

A PCD will usually think of holding his breath the first time he visits a pit toilet. However, he will quickly come to realize that this is a futile exercise, especially when conducting a No. 2. A much better way is to try to breathe through the mouth. After a few seconds, the a thick mucus layer will form in the nostrils, aiding in blocking out the smell.
An unexpected side effect of the smell is that it tends to stick to clothing for up to an hour afterwards. This is usually an unpleasant side-effect and is especially distressing for the pit toilet user who decides to go right before sitting down for a meal. Clothes made of synthetics typically retain less smell than clothes made of cotton, so you might want to keep that in mind. Also, less clothing would mean less porous material for smell to cling on to, so try to wear shorts or similar apparel (note the special conditions listed below). Convertible pants are particularly useful in this case as the long pants can be zipped off prior to entering the toilet to reduce the surface area for smell absorption.

Flies
The next thing PCDs will find distressing is the presence of flies. These flies were probably from maggots feasting on other people’s prior contributions to the pit toilet and probably landed on said contributions numerous times before landing on you. As such, a PCD would want to keep flies from landing on exposed skin. The natural tendency would then be to wear clothing with more coverage, but that would conflict with the the solution to avoid smell (see above section on smell). As such, the best solution would be to consistently wave a hand in front of you in hopes of preventing flies from landing on the face. For men, this would require using one hand to aim, while using the other to wave. For women or men doing a No. 2, there probably isn’t any easy way to prevent flies from landing on the additional exposed regions.

Floor
Some pit toilets have excellent flooring.They are stable, strong and clean. Sometimes they also have elevated platforms for you to squat on when doing a No. 2. However, many home-made pit toilets have unstable flooring, and overly big holes. This would prove tricky for the not-so-athletically inclined PCD as certain maneuvers would become tricky, particularly the one which requires turning around in the toilet while trying to avoid touching the sides of the toilet or falling into the huge hole in the center of the floor. This maneuver would become especially tricky at night. Unstable flooring also has potentially life-threatening implications. A strong gust of wind, or a weak floorboard might mean a visit into the pit below. As such, take similar precautions in a pit toilet as when riding an elevator: do not jump up and down or stomp too hard on the floor.

Toilets Without Roofs
Some pit toilets, particularly in the more remote areas do not have a roof. This can be both a blessing or a curse. The lack of a roof would dramatically improve air circulation and reduce the number of flies. Depending on the height of the surrounding walls, the lack of a roof might also mean that a tall PCD might be able to stand up and take breaths of air from the outside, reducing the need of taking counter-measures to fight smell as mentioned above.
However, the lack of a roof has its obvious issues. Firstly, the PCD is exposed to the elements: rain, wind and sun, all of which can be experienced in a single visit to the pit toilet. However, to look at it positively, how often does one get a tan while doing business?

Special Considerations for Going at Night
Special considerations would have to be made when going to a pit toilet at night. Pit toilets are usually unlit and the same goes for the the path from your yurt to the toilet. As such, the most essential piece of equipment would be a strap on headlamp. This will allow both hands to be available. However, take note that LED headlamps tend to suck the color out of objects at night. As such, it becomes more difficult to avoid the fresh horse/cow/sheep dung that is almost always between you and relief. Don’t even bother to try avoiding the stale dung.

As you can see, a PCD has a lot to consider before going to a pit toilet. The ability to multitask and to shut off certain senses is required for a pleasant trip. Hopefully this guide will come in useful should you need visit such a toilet someday.

The most unexpected thing happened over dinner at our host yurt (an excellent Kygyz style borsch – cabbage soup with lamb pieces). Let me describe our setting… we were having dinner in a traditional nomadic hut in a remote mountainous region of a developing country. There was no electricity, running water nor flush toilet. The host family had just slaughtered and disemboweled a lamb outside the door for food for the next few weeks. Essentially, we were in a super rural area. All of a sudden, we heard a series of 16 electronic beeps. It took me a couple of seconds to  recognize the sound. It was the incoming SMS tone from a Nokia cell phone belonging to the host family! Don’t ask me how they charge that phone.

Talk about the how technology is changing the developing world. Almost everyone in Kygyzstan has a cell phone. There are booths selling prepaid SIM cards at every street corner and even the old grandma who ran our guesthouse in Kochkor had a cellphone in a nice pouch slung around her neck. Granted, wireless communications is the way to go for areas where its expensive to cable up, but its almost surreal to see the proliferation of wireless technology, deemed a luxury in most developed nations, in a place such as this.

My cell phone’s larger counterpart outside a store in Tashkent

Our first trip was a 3D2N horse riding trip to Song Kol lake, about 3100m up in the mountains. This was my first long trip on a horse and it was a terrific experience. Horse riding tip of the day: Its easier on the butt when the horse is galloping than when its doing a fast trot. I had always wanted to gallop through open fields on a horse, and that wish got fulfilled on this trip.

We rode past herds of cattle and sheep grazing on golden pastures and passed many nomadic settlements, all set in a backdrop of amazing mountain scenery.

At nights, we stayed in yurts set up by individual nomadic families and ate excellent home cooked meals. Nights were cold, but it added to the whole nomadic mountain experience.

Riding through stunning mountain scenery

A yurt camp we stayed at

Riding along Song Kol lake

A panaroma I took at Song Kol can be found here.

The usual car has the prerequisite cracked windshield, broken fuel gauge (don’t know how the driver tells that he is running of out gas), and an engine which leaks gasoline fumes. Oh, and these cars have no AC. So we usually drive with the windows down, causing all manner of dust and dirt from the unpaved roads, along with the above-mentioned gasoline fumes to be sucked into the car. Furthermore, taxi drivers have no qualms about smoking while driving, and these fumes also get circulated in the cabin.

All this happens on roads with no lane markings indicating where opposing traffic should keep to. Drivers overtake slower cars by swerving into oncoming traffic at speeds topping 140kmh on windy mountainous roads, sometimes driving with only one hand on the wheel (the other is holding a cigarette). You can get your year’s worth of adrenaline rush by just sitting in the front passenger seat for a few hours. On retrospect, roads with no lane markings would be an excellent way to manage traffic on crowded thoroughfares back home where traffic can adapt freely based on conditions.

Overall, the Central Asian taxi ride is an experience not to be missed. Photos do it no justice, but I’ll post some anyway…

A soviet-era Lada

Here’s one from the inside. Note the huge crack on the left side.

Out the rear. We spent most of our trip in Turkmenistan driving through parched, dusty desert.

Here are captioned photos if you haven’t seen them yet.

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But very quickly, I arrived in Tashkent, Uzbekistan safe and sound (after being bumped up to business class on Uzbekistan airways. Its really nothing fantastic, wider seats but food is terrible). Spent a day in hot Tashkent weather visiting the bazaar. It was a very interesting experience as not many tourists go there. As such, we always drew curious attention, especially from the store keepers. They were all very friendly and its unfortunate that we couldn’t speak any Uzbek or Russian or carry a conversation.

From Tashkent, we flew to Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan. At customs leaving Uzbek, I had my run-in with the infamous crooked customs official looking for a bribe. That’s a story I’ll tell another time.

From Bishkek, we took an exciting car ride (again, another story for another time), to Kochkor where we went for 5 days of horse riding up in the mountains. We stayed in traditional normadic yurts and ate their food. It was a great experience overall.

So far, I’ve had 2 quintessential Central Asian experiences… the hassling for a bribe at the Uzbek airport and Kyrgyzstan pit toilets (worth a full entry on my blog by itself). I hope to get a good USB connection soon so I can upload what I’ve written so far.

I’ve been asked many times over the last couple of months why I chose Central Asia. “Isn’t it dangerous/old/hard to get to/never heard of?”. Yep… that’s why I’m going Windows Live Writer, which I’m using to write this blog entry, doesn’t even have the word “Kyrgyzstan” in its dictionary. Its registering as a spelling mistake.

The idea came from a way-out-there plan to backpack the length of the Silk Road from China to Europe. However, that would have taken more than a couple of months to complete and not compatible with societal expectations of how young Singaporean professionals should be spending the formative years of their career. So, the compromise was to travel just a section for now. Central Asia was finally chosen as it was exotic and difficult to travel, something we all felt we should do while we’re still young and energetic.

For me personally, the lure of Central Asia is that its steeped in rich history, being at the crossroads of European and Far East trade. It has been conquered numerous times by factions from both sides, with each conquest leaving a unique mark on the culture of the region. Even more interesting is the fact that it used to belong to the former USSR and is just now emerging from decades of communist rule. I always find ex-Soviet block countries mystical and fascinating (hence, my trip across Russia and Mongolia 3 years ago). I really hope that I will get some great opportunities to talk with locals. The human stories often trump the scenery and spectacle of ancient architecture. That’s one aspect of travel which, unfortunately, many travelers overlook and miss out on.

My intention is to update this blog as I go along on this trip. However, Internet access will probably be infrequent, and judging by my track record of updating this site, you shouldn’t expect too much from me

One thing I’ve always looked forward to for my time in transit at Narita is the Japanese food. The Japanese restaurant in the United Airlines terminal serves sushi and has probably one of the best sushi I’ve ever had. The price is slightly on the high side, but that’s to be expected for prices in Tokyo. They always serve the best cuts of the fish and the raw fish is always fresh and tasty. Either that, or Japanese fish tastes better than American and Singaporean fish.

This is the Chirashi I had on this trip back. I decided to go for the “super fine” grade which comes with abalone, sea urchin and premium cuts of fish (basically the fatty parts).

On this most recent trip back to Singapore, someone told me about the availability showers in the terminal. I’ve never used this facility before, so I decided to give it a try this time. 5USD gives the use of a reasonably sized shower room for 30 mins. Towels, soap and shampoo are provided. The facility is clean (typical Japanese standard) but isn’t luxurious by any means. What I really liked about the shower is the ability to clean up from the clamminess that builds up on a 10 hour plane ride. I don’t know why I never used the showers before in my last 6 years of flying through Narita, but this would definitely be something I’ll do from now on. That fresh feeling is well worth the 5USD.

I just finished reading China Shakes the World: A Titan’s Rise and Troubled Future – and the Challenge for America, a book by James Kynge, the Financial Times‘s former Beijing bureau chief. 

This book focuses on China’s economic development since the cultural revolution and Kynge taps on his vast experience and network in China to bring us one of the most insightful stories of the rise of this nation.

He illustrates his points using interesting examples on how the growth of China affects both itself internally and also how it affects others on a global scale. One interesting example was how a Chinese steel company bought a German steel mill, dismantled it, shipped it halfway around the world and reassembled it at the banks of the Yangtze river.

Every example is backed by human stories and interviews reflecting the impact of China on the lives of people around the world, from the German steel mill worker who has now lost his job, to the mom and pop store owner in the American mid-west who is losing business to mega wholesalers like Wal-Mart, whose rise was made possible by the low cost of manufacturing in China. Besides profiling those negatively affected, Kynge also tells the rags to riches stories of many of China’s eentrepreneurs, including the story of the CEO of Lenovo, who started off as a salesman for the computer manufacturing division of IBM but ending up buying that very division for his own company.In the first half of the book, Kynge explains the basis behind the phenomenal rise of China over the last few years – how the communist government started opening China up to capitalism, the presence of a near infinite amount of cheap manpower, the ingenuity of the Chinese with how they managed to catch up on decades of lost time in technological advancement and how the Chinese acquired the resources they needed for their unprecedented rate of development. Kynge then turns his focus on the challenges China will face and how those challenges might hinder the future development of China. These challenges include the almost irreversible damage done to the environment, the lack of intellectual property protection and the inherent distrust of “outsiders” by the Chinese people.

I highly recommend this book for anyone with an interest in China. Even if you are not, you might still want to put this on your reading list. As Napoleon said, “Let China sleep, for when she wakes, she will shake the world.”