About one month after I left the east coast of China on my way to Turkey, I found myself in the former Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan- Almaty, Kazakhstan to be precise.  It should come as no surprise to anyone who has ever traveled to, or has any knowledge of, western China that by the time I finally made it to the former capital of the country, I rolled into town dirty and mangy to say the least.

Having no real knowledge of, nor knowing anyone who has ever traveled through, Almaty I prepared myself for an area far more difficult to navigate than the ones I had just passed through in China.  Anytime I enter a city for the first time I put myself on hightened alert- even if I know the city to be a safe one, and in this case I didn’t, I carefully assess my surroundings and mentally prepare myself for the worst.

As I made my way into the heart of the city  I quickly realized that I didn’t have to worry about anyone trying to rob or mug me because they were all afraid that I was about to rob or mug them.  While meandering my way down the neatly decorated, tree lined, streets- a feel much more European than Central Asian- women clutched their purses as I passed while mothers moved their small children to the opposite side of where I would be walking.  Better yet, no lie, the street beggars took a break from their cup rattling and desperate pleading as I passed them.  When the homeless population of an area stops hitting you up for loose change then you can be certain that you are out of your element.

At first I was insulted and maybe even a little angry.  Seriously?! How are these people going to treat me like an undesirable?  I'm a guest in their town- better yet, a tourist in a place that isn’t exactly Cancun.  Quickly though my mood changed.  I accepted it and then became very pleased with the fact that I was no longer in an area that, just by proxy of my skin color, I was automatically rich, important and that I somehow knew Barack Obama and Kobe Bryant personally.  Although essentially the exact same judgmental process was going on it was strangely refreshing to receive the other end of the stereotype spectrum.

Now, I was only in Almaty to arrange visa’s for my next countries- a process that proved to be far more difficult than I anticipated.  Due to this fact (in addition to my poor budgeting en-route) I found my funds draining rapidly.  For those who don’t know much about Almaty, it is definitely not a place for the tenget-less.  From a fiscal standpoint this place might as well have been Tokyo.  Expensive and pretentious as hell- actually it reminded me a lot of China with the small exception that the designer labels draped effortlessly over the shoulders of the local women were real.  (I think I should clarify this- one might assume that I was saying the people in China are overwhelmingly rude and pretentious like they are in Kazakhstan, this is definitely not true.  What I was referring to was the perceived need to be immaculately dressed at all times.  The people, especially the women, there and in China, are done up properly all the time.  Regardless of the occasion, four inch heels and a Prada skirt are in order- fake or not. It was from this that I tried to base my comparison seeing as the Chinese are far more friendly and grounded).

After about a week and a half of feebly trying to fit in (which basically meant me wearing the one semi-nice shirt that I had with me every day) I decided that I needed to flee this city of excess and snobbery by any means necessary.  I had made friends with a freelance mountain guide when I first arrived and decided to give him a call to see if he could arrange my immediate exodus.  As luck would have it, he had business to attend to in the mountains that sit on the border of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, so he said he could arrange a very cost effective trip for me.  The itinerary included a day at a mountain lake known for its vibrant turquoise color, a day at the second largest canyon in the world and a day of travel.  Frankly I’m not much of a sight- seer so it didn’t really matter where we were going, I was just glad to be leaving.

Morat (my friend\guide) picked me up on a beautiful Sunday morning in his 1974 Soviet version of a Toyota Land  Cruiser- it looked like it had been through a war- actually come to think of it, it probably had.  Going to the country in an old beat up truck, this was precisely what I was looking for.  The ride started off rather uneventful, we jammed to the Russian Bob Dylan and I listened to Morat recount every sexual escapade he has had over the past 20 years in full detail as he slalomed across the road in a fruitless effort to avoid the crater sized potholes that dot every street in Kazakhstan.  To me, at that moment, the situation couldn’t have been better- fleeing the fake in search of the real.

Several hours and hundreds of kilometers outside of the city, Morat unexpectedly veered the truck off the road into a huge field. This was not a dirt road, this was not even a path, it was just a field.  At this point I started to get a little worried about the fact that I really didn’t know this guy and no one knew that I was going to the mountains.  My worries lasted for only a second as I quickly realized that off- roading in Kazakhstan isn’t scary- it’s fucking sweet.  Besides, Morat, while clearly crazy, seemed more like the kind of crazy that would “rip someone’s kidneys out for fucking with me” more than the “I’m gunna kill you and use your skin as a Speedo,” kind of crazy.  Regardless, wherever the hell we were going you could only get there if you knew exactly where you were going.  I took comfort in the fact that we were definitely not going to pass any tour buses packed with liked colored hat donning patrons.

At some point our field turned into a rudimentary dirt path.  Normally one would never need to describe a dirt path as rudimentary, but in this case it was definitely necessary.  This path took us past five or six sporadically placed small villages. About 40 minutes outside the last village we saw, and smack dab in the middle of nowhere Kazakhstan- mid, yet another sexually charged tirade from Morat- our truck starts rattling uncontrollably and then came to a halt.  Being guys, we both immediately hopped out of the truck and popped the hood where we proceeded to stare blankly at the engine.  Having done nothing to remedy the problem, we got back in the truck to see if it works now- shockingly it still didn’t.

Seeing as the car started but we couldn’t put it in gear we figured it had something to do with the clutch or transmission, so Morat popped the plastic sheathing to the gear box and within moments exclaimed, “Oh no, this is bad!”

Hmm... I don’t know shit about cars, but I can recognize the voice someone uses when something is fucked and he most definitely used the “this is fucked” voice.  After stepping outside for a smoke Morat formulated a plan.

“Ok we must go look for help before it gets dark.”

“All right man.  Let’s get going,” I said.

“Not we- me,” he responded.  “You stay here and guard the truck.”

“Huh? What? Hold up hommie! I can’t be guarding no truck! Look at my ass, I’m a skinny little white boy stuck in the middle of east butt fuck Kazakhstan- I'm not really a guarding things type of guy.”

He was insistent though, “We don’t want anyone to steal the truck or our things.  You'll be fine, just don’t let anyone steal our stuff.”

Because time seemed of the essence I reluctantly agreed to man my post, but the whole time I was thinking if anyone wants this piece of shit truck or any of the shit inside of it- its theirs, no problem.  Hell, I’ll help them load the getaway car. or donkey cart, depending on their preferred mode of transportation. Protecting my dirty laundry and Morat's boots from a band of hardened Kazakh dirt road thugs was definitely not my stand up for what is morally right moment.

I waited near or in the truck for the next two plus hours, making sure the doors were locked and attempting to look like I meant to stop there every time a car passed by.  I desperately hoped that this place was like New York City where people could give a shit that you were in trouble.  During this time I feverishly wrote a “Sorry mom if I was a shit child\I love you,” type letter.

At some point I glanced up from my journal and saw, what looked to be a piece of shit ambulance heading my way.  I jokingly thought to myself, “I wonder if Morat’s in there.”  Lo and behold, he was!  He triumphantly jumped out and exclaimed, “I've found help!”

“Morat,” I said, “is this an ambulance?”

“Yes,” he responded, “ambulance is good for towing.”

For some reason this not only made perfect sense to me, but also made me very happy.  One might assume that I was happy due to the fact that I was, at least for the moment, saved- but I would argue that it was more of the fact that I was about to get towed by an ambulance that was older than I and seemingly in worse shape than this truck.  Really, you can’t make this shit up!

The ambulance towed us to the next village and dropped us off at the local “gas station.”  Seeing as there are probably 10 cars in the whole village there wasn’t much demand for gas, thus the two pump station (selling gas Morat described to be the equivalent of donkey piss) was manned, or better yet boyed by 11 and 12 year old brothers.  Morat got right to work and I got right to work making friends with the two kids.  The task wasn’t difficult seeing as they were very curious as to why the hell some foreigner was chilling at their spot.  Hanging out with the boys was great- we threw rocks at shit, I taught them how to play baseball with a rolled up sock and a stick, they practiced the few words of English they knew and we basically had a great couple of hours.  What made the whole experience for me, and I would suspect them too, came about an hour into our time together.  One of the little boys (man I really wish I could remember their names) said, “music, America music” and pointed to me.  I smiled, “boys you came to the right guy” and proceeded to grab my iPod and small portable speakers.  I played them a song from several genres, testing the waters to see what they liked.  Upping their coolness level the boys legitimately seemed to enjoy everything I played them.  One genre took the cake though and once we found it there was no turning back.

Rock- cool.  Jazz- cool.  Country- cool.  Pop- cool.  Hip hop- their faces lit up like Charlie had just found the golden ticket.

“Ah, you boys wanna bump eh?”

Prior to me knowing that they loved rap I selected a semi recent song from Jay-Z to play for them, Empire State of Mind.  The song is all about New York and I played it because it was relatively new and one of the boys was rocking a NY Yankees hat.  To say they were feeling it would be the understatement of the year.  As I made my way through my rap\hip hop library I found that the more thugged out the music got the more into it the boys were.  Five minutes into rap being turned we had a full out party going- we were dancing, I was rapping and teaching them how to throw up gang signs!  The boys seemed to especially like three-6-Mafıa, Master P, old school Pac and Biggie.  I, in no way, tried to influence what they liked and I played a wide range of hip hop for them- they just seemed to navigate towards those four.  After the fact I must say that, in my opinion, those kids have good ears- for rap at least.

Its funny how things play out sometimes- there is no way I could have ever imagined at the beginning of the day that by the end of it I would be DJ'ıng a pre-teen Kazakh gas station dance party.  Pretty cool in my book.

Because I was having such a good time I forgot, for the moment, that we were currently stranded.  By this point it was well on its way to being full blown night and the temperature had dropped significantly (we were well above 3000 M at this point so it was cold) I looked over at Morat and asked him how it was going and he responded with, “I need a garage, I’m gunna go find a garage,” and off he went again.

Luckily, this time Morat was able to find a tow pretty easily.  Less than ten minutes after he left he came back with another fine example of a tow truck- this time what appeared to be 70's model Ford Pinto.  Regardless, we had our tow- I said my good-byes and we were off to the garage. Frankly, I was not at all surprised when the local garage turned out to be nothing more than a reinforced hole in some guys back yard.  By this time though it was well past dark and getting really cold.  Morat decided that it was best if we found accommodations for the night before attempting to fix the truck.  Doing so ended up being more difficult than I think he expected.  Clearly there were no hotels or guest houses in this area so we had to rely on the generosity of strangers.  From what I was told the people of this village were very friendly and hospitable, but the village was empty- understandable seeing as it was night and cold.  Morat disappeared for a minute and then returned, I could see in his eyes that he had a plan.

I sat on my bed for a minute trying to wrap my mind around what was going on.

“I am fucked,” I said audibly.

Just then one of the guys walked into my room and said “yedaa,” the Russian word for food.  The guy had a kind face and I was starving, so I decided that if this “observatory” was going to perform some experimental human tests on me I was gunna have a full stomach while they did them.  I followed the guy into the kitchen where he preceded to prepare me a delicious feast of Kazakh hamburger helper, pickles, bread and homemade salsa- it really was delicious and he kept bringing it until I could eat no more.

Now that I had a full stomach my worries of being the recipient of some strange experiment had dissipated.  I decided to go outside, have a couple of smokes and try to enjoy the scenery- even if it was night.  I quickly made friends with one of the complex's dogs, Chara (funny I can remember the dogs name but not the kids) and had a good time playing fetch and giving her a proper doggy massage.  In the midst of one of the rub downs the back door opened and a guy I hadn’t seen yet came out and said, “Good morning!”

I smiled and responded with a “Good morning.”

The man motioned for me to come in for tea, even though I was all tea'd out from my meal I decided to be friendly and partake in a cup or two.  While we were having tea and cookies (yeah, I said it) we made small talk- actually REALLY small talk, but it was nice.  I decided to try and get the lo-down on why Morat kept calling the place an observatory, so in my busted ass Russian I asked if this place was indeed an observatory.  Clearly they didn’t understand me so I mimed looking through a telescope and twinkling stars.  They finally figured out what I was saying and told me emphatically that it was not.  Then the one who spoke a little English started miming something- he started shaking violently which made me laugh on the inside because it reminded me of an epileptic at a disco.  Fortunately, I was able to restrain my amusement and informed them that I didn’t understand.  The man thought for a moment and then started moving his index finger up and down going from left to right.  I looked at him for a second and then said, “Seismology?”

He smiled and quickly responded, “Yes seismologists.  We seismologists!”

Ah hell, it might as well have been Christmas morning for me.

“Really!?”  I exclaimed.  I felt like jumping up and down, I actually probably did a little.

“Can I see your stuff?  Can I see your stuff?!”

I’m pretty sure that everyone picked up on my energy because they all jumped up and ushered me into their work area.  Now, the equipment they had was dated to say the least, but that didn’t change for second the fact that I was in a Kazakh seismology observation center. Ah Morat, you weren’t full of shit!

They each took turns explaining to me what they did at the observatory and even though I didn’t understand a single word of it I was enamored.  One thing I was able to gather was that they monitored not only Kazakhstan but also Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran's seismic activity.  I even got to check out the seismograph for each of those countries for the day that had just ended- HOW FUCKING COOL IS THAT!

Around this time one of the guys threw on some music and said inquisitively, "Schnapps?"

"Fuck yeah I'll drink some Schnapps with you guys!"

So back to the kitchen we went where we proceeded take an onslaught of shots.  Two hours later: one bottle schnapps- gone.  One bottle vodka-gone.  One half bottle brandy- gone.  My cerebral functioning- also gone.  Seeing as we were all drunk and best friends by this point I decided to ask a question that I had been too nervous to earlier, "Can I photograph your equipment?"

Had they spoke English that comment may have potentially come across as inappropriate, but they don’t and didn’t have to because they knew exactly what I was asking and all of them proceeded to drop their pants- just kidding, I'm an idiot.  My new Kazakh seismologist best friends took me back into the work area and let me photograph everything.  After I finished, though, the mood abruptly changed.  They started a semi-heated discussion amongst themselves and when they finished the guy who spoke English looked at me and with a stern expression asked, "You sell this America?"

"Huh? Sell what?" Oh shit, they are talking about the pictures! I thought about telling them that the elementary school that my mother works at has more technologically advanced equipment then they do, but wisely realized that this was a serious matter to them.  Regardless of how long Kazakhstan has been a "democratic" country it's not difficult to imagine that the Soviet era mentality still lingers.  So, I pulled myself together and did my best to express the fact that these pictures were for me and me only.  They exchanged glances and, collectively convinced, the party restarted.  This was a huge relief for me- I definitely didn't want a bunch of drunk Kazakh guys in the middle of nowhere thinking I was an American spy!

So.. music, laughter, crazy old guy dancing and the overall good times continued.  Shortly after my brief detention and interrogation I was asked, "You like Kazakh girls?"

"Absolutely.  Kazakh girls are beautiful!" (That definitely wasn't the booze talking either, the women in Kazakhstan are incredible- it should come as no surprise that the combination of Russian and assorted Asian DNA's make for one fine looking lady).

My answer seemed to please them and again they got together for a conference.  As they were discussing, God only knows what, I began to wonder what they were plotting. Oh shit, are they going to try and call some whores or are they planning on taking me trolling for ladies in the village???

As I was conjuring a polite way to decline whatever they had up their sleeves I was motioned to come over to the computer. Ah, Kazakh internet porn.  OK, I can handle this.

I walked over, quite curious as to what was in store for me- what I was shown I could have never expected.  Before my eyes a low budget Kazakh boy band music video was loading.  Over the course of the next 15-20 minutes I was played the video five times consecutively, pausing only for what they deemed to be the best places for me to take pictures of the girls on the screen.  They encouraged me to take picture after picture- 27 in all- and furiously debated the whole time as to which portions of the video were best for photo ops.  I really didn’t feel like taking 30 pictures of back up dancers off of a computer screen, but given the circumstances I obliged.  Pretty funny that the episode started with me thinking that they wanted to call some whores and ended without even seeing a booby.

After not seeing a booby, we returned to the kitchen for a spot of tea and some deep fried trout that were caught earlier in the day in the stream that ran alongside the observatory- much to the delight of my alcohol saturated stomach- my night in the observatory ended on that note.

What’s funny about most travel writing is that, in their (the writers) eyes, the next day is what I should be writing about.  I visited an absolutely beautiful mountain lake and an expansive canyon system.  Both were incredible and I took a thousand pictures to show my mom.  For me though, this portion of my trip hardly deserves the three lines that I gave it- to say any more would be an insult to the rest of the story.

In the end we made it home without issue, (oh yeah, somewhere in the middle of getting shitfaced and being interrogated Morat fixed the truck).  Actually, that isn’t entirely true.  Although Morat's repair job held up my sanity was on the verge of collapsing thanks to a seven hour rant on Morat's second favorite topic to gratuitous sex- the U.S.S.R and Russians in general.

"Did you know that Russians were the first in space?"

"I was aware of that- it was an incredible feat."

"Well then did you know that a mere boy shot down an American Stealth bomber?"

"Oh, I think you are referring to the U2 that was shot down in 1960 right?  I’m pretty sure Stealth Bombers weren't around until the mid 80's"

"Nope, it was a Stealth.  And shot down by a mere boy.  Russian's make the best weapons, did you know that?

"Guess I do now."

"Also, did you know that Russians invented oil?"

"OK, wait a second man.  Did you just say INVENTED oil?"

"Yes, invented oil."

"Hmm.  That I was not aware of.  I've always been under the impression that oil was created through a geological process that took millions of years under extreme pressure."

"Nope.  Russia"

And so on and so forth for the next seven hours.  Even when I finally put my headphones on and stared blankly out the window he continued.  Below is a list of lesser known Russian accomplishments:

1.  The invention of food and, subsequently, the digestive process

2.  The fist nation to successfully cross-breed a live captured alien with a Chihuahua- thus creating the Chupacabra

3.  The extinction of the dinosaurs

4.  The creation of the Snuggie- apparently masterminded by Vladimir Putin in the prime of his KGB days

5.  Fruit smoothies

6.  Boxer-briefs (again masterminded by Vladimir Putin.  An unspecified source claims that he liked the stability of a brief, but the look of a boxer. Apparently Gorbachev was a tighty-whitey fan)

7.  It was a Russian talent scout who found and nurtured Gary Coleman to greatness

8.  It was Russians who stuffed the ballot box in Florida thus awarding the presidency to George W. Bush.  (They are particularly proud of this one)

9.  Michael Jackson's iconic dance move, the moon walk, has apparently been a staple of traditional Siberian dance for over a century- as has the single white glove and pedophilia

10.  Finally, did you know that had it not been for Russian intervention greedy Americans would have already invaded Pandora and killed all the Avatar?

I'd like to conclude this story with a small observation.  I am currently penning what you are now reading from a rooftop terrace overlooking the Bosphoros Straight in Istanbul, Turkey.  Behind me sits the Four Seasons Hotel- a symbol of wealth, status and accomplishment.  About an hour ago I overheard some tourists commenting on how fortunate the people going in and out of it were.  This immediately struck me as a fantastically ridiculous comment.  Yes, it's true that we are staying in a $10 a bed hostel and they are staying in $500 a room hotel, but does that make us any less fortunate than they?  Weren't we both looking at the same beautiful scene on the same beautiful evening?  Were their chairs more comfortable- their beer colder?  Then I remembered that far too many people equate good fortune with fiscal fortune- somehow their evening is better than ours because they have a pocket full of lira and we have a pocket full of lint.  Consider this, had I not only had the means to go on the cheapest excursion in the shittiest possible vehicle would I have ever experienced what I experienced- absolutely not.  To me the Four Seasons that sits so prominently behind me looks like a prison and one could argue that its occupants are prisoners of their wealth.  I, personally, feel very fortunate to be a prisoner of nothing...