Community Based Tourism

Bishkek, oh yes, Bishkek...

Bishkek is a sweet small town, with a lot of trees and parks. And many embassies. The people there are completely different from those on the countryside: there are many Kyrgyz citizens of Russian nationality (yes, there is a difference between nationality and citizenship), most of which don’t even speak Kyrgyz. As a capital city the town has everything you might need: it is quite modern, has clean cafés and restaurants and fancy shopping malls, and ... it has many embassies.

So Bishkek was our hub. Not because of the nice parks, but - you guessed it - because of the embassies... In total we passed through Bishkek three times: first I put my documents to the Iranian and Uzbek embassy, Lise only to the Uzbek embassy while waiting for her reference number for the Iranian visa (which I had ordered earlier). On our second visit to Bishkek I was happy to collect my Iranian visa (on the photo of which I had to wear a headscarf...), while Lise could only now apply for it, having the received her reference number in the meanwhile. And on our third visit she collected her Iranian visa and we both then collected our Uzbek visa. Yes, again: when it comes to visas, Central Asia is a pain!

But at least our stays in Bishkek were sweetened: I stayed first with a nice CS-host and up from the second stay we both stayed with the Austrian guy Gerald, whom Lise had met in China. Apart from the many different impressions of the various embassies (am I repeating myself?!) the best souvenir I have from Bishkek was a great Austrian lunch: Gerald is a perfect cook and invited us all to have Gulasch and delicious Marillenknödel. We prepared the Knödel together and ate them straight away, when they were totally fresh - these were the best Marillenknödel I have ever eaten in my life!

After our visa-success nothing could hold us in Bishkek anymore, so we started another big challenge: hitching all the way from Bishkek to Toktogul over two beautiful mountain passes. However, once in a car we changed our destination to the further away situated lake Sary-Chelek. And then again decided not to go to Sary-Chelek (really difficult to reach) but to Arslanbob.

Another comment about hitchhiking, before I will finally write what this story is all about: The longest part of this trip we were in a car with three men, who were on the way back from their vacation at Issyk-Köl. That was the fourth time we were in car with men, who had been on vacation without their wives and kids - and I'm sure they would not allow their wives to do the same.

So yes, always men only. Not once had we been in a car with women - at least not for free: The few rides with female passengers had been the paid ones. But being only with men wouldn't bother us and most of the time we had great chats with our drivers (like with this really nice driver on the pic, who bought us Snickers-bars before he dropped us). But the three guys we passed over the mountains with - well... I'd say that when the conversation gets to the topic of price comparison between women (to marry, not whores) and horses, it has reached quite a low point... When we finally arrived after the long trip we were at least rewarded for the journey:

We couldn't have chosen a better destination as last stop in Kyrgyzstan: Arslanbob is a small town in the mountains, spread around in the whole valley. In the city center itself you would therefore feel as if being in a tiny little village. At the moment there is a lot of work on the fields and you would see many farmers going back and forth from the fields and trucks with huge piles of hay. The surrounding countryside with it's huge walnutforest and high mountains is astonishingly beautiful. But it's not only beautiful, the people are great too:

Already when taking the Marshrutka from the neighboring Bazaar-Korog up to Arslanbob we were surprised about the friendly and inviting people - even more than anywhere else in Kyrgyzstan. It continued like this once we arrived in Arslanbob: after a few minutes of sitting around on some stairs next to the bus stop, a guy from the local CBT came over to us, introduced himself as Roma and offered us to go to their office.

But what is the CBT all about?! Attentive readers might remember that I had already mentionned the CBT in my last story, when talking about the festivals.  CBT stays for Community Based Tourism.

All over Kyrgyzstan there are 16 CBT-offices. The aim of the CBT is to make the local community profit from tourism in their region, and vice versa the tourists from the local communities. Tourists can choose from a network of homestays meeting the standards set by the CBT. For any service, not only their homestays, they have certain standards that have to be met by the participating providers.
 For the CBT it is important to satisfy tourists and give them the possibility to go as local as possible. Beside homestays they offer services like the organisation of trekkings, horse trekkings including multiday treks with food, porters, tents,... Of course every single CBT-office offers services and treks typical for their very location. And as you already know, they also organise traditional festivals to give tourists the possibility to learn more about Kyrgyz traditions, sports and food.

One detail in their policy is in my eyes really important and makes the whole project work as well as it does: they have an open price policy. These prices are agreed upon on the annual general meeting of all CBT-offices. Which is why everywhere the homestays cost the same, everywhere a horse costs the same per day and so on. After travelling through South-East-Asia, where everything is subject to bargaining and negotiation, and where you always have the impression to still have paid too much, I really think that an open price policy is an important point to gain the respect and trust of Western tourists.

But still, the CBT is more than just one organisation - it is mainly a network of the various CBT-offices. So each office has its particularities and its own charme. As does the CBT Arslanbob: The heart (and head) of the CBT Arslanbob is Hayat Tarikov, whom we met one day after arriving there. He is a really innovative and visionary man. I really admire what he did and still does: He built up the CBT Arslanbob more than 10 years ago and is still 100%ly behind the project. And he's still open for new ideas and still wants to improve the very well working CBT every day.

His English is impressively good, as is the English of the still only few English speaking guides. Impressively good especially when you know that they all learned the language only through and thanks to the tourists they are communicating with. I find this really admirable! Having so many tourists from France, Hayat now wants to learn French and get some guides to learn it too, which is why he asked us, if we were not interested to volunteer in Arslanbob. (I'm still thinking...)

Did I mention that Hayat is innovative and visionary? Not only did he prove this when skipping his job to become a porter for tourists only to learn English. But also is he still proving it today with his visionary ideas: He was proud to announce that they are the first CBT in Kyrgyzstan to offer skiing in winter: thanks to the help of Austrian tourists! They now have a few pairs of skis and are skiing on some slopes near their town. Doppelmayr didn't yet get there, so at the moment there are still horses taking over the job of lifts.

Another important aim of the CBT is to preserve the environment. Hayat showed us pictures of one of their projects: approximately once per week, mainly on Fridays when many people would pass their office to get to the nearby mosque, they put a photo-gallery in front of their office. Many photos show the beautiful landscape of Arslanbob, some of them show the beautiful landscape and the ugly rubbish all over some places. The CBT-workers all have T-shirts with messages and would communicate to the passing and curious people and explain them how important it is, to keep the environment clean! Great job Hayat, continue like this!! I like the way how they are trying to improve the life of their community with small steps and small local projects!

Thanks to the CBT we stayed with a really nice family, whose daughter spoke very good English. This was quite useful, because apart from the father, nobody in the family spoke Russian. Furthermore we asked the CBT for a horsetrek. The six hour ride through the walnut forest, up close to the mountain, past two waterfalls and a panorama point was a great way to discover the whole region. Roma was our guide and entertained us all the way long.

We were both really happy to be in Arslanbob with this hostfamily. I can now understand what is the magic of "Urlaub am Bauernhof" - it is simply great and peaceful. We both relaxed a lot, and managed to draw a lot too. That's one thing I am back to, since I met Lise: when starting my trip last year I had aquarelle colours with me, which I finally sent them home from Hanoi, because I hardly ever painted. I have restarted drawing with coal and pastell colours, when I was in Australia inspired by all the great people from the TAP gallery. But my biggest problem with drawing and painting is that I am usually not satisfied with the results and that I still haven't found my style.

Lise showed me all the great colourful pictures she had made during her trip so far. They represent what she saw and how she experienced different situations. She often shows her travel pictures to people she meets. And she really inspired me to restart painting again with aquarelle colours. It's just great what she does! (PS: this is one of Lises pictures)

And even though I am not drawing people like she does I still got inspired by her style - or let's admit it like it is: I am copying her style, till I eventually find my own style. The most important thing I am now learning is to fucking take the time to draw details! Oh yes, Silke, patience is not my biggest strength... But you definitely need time to draw a good picture: for this postcard-sized one I took two hours.

I got a reward: Hayat liked it so much that he immediately put it as desktop background - so the CBT Arslanbob won't forget me too soon - neither will I forget them.

Same as usual: I'm leaving a country so I made a nice photo gallery for you to enjoy, and I updated my travel-budget-page...