Michael - I have the latest LP Central Asia guide, and the language section at the back is very short. It does have Cyrillic for the Russian section, but not for the local languages. Town names are given in the text in Cyrillic as well as English. Unfortunately, as in the Ukraine guide, street names on the maps are only in English, which is useless on the ground where the names will be in Cyrillic!

I also have the Odyssey guide to the Kyrgyz Republic. This has a slightly more extensive language section than the LP book, but it gives English, Kyrgyz, Russian and Russian Cyrillic, but not Kyrgyz Cyrillic.
When are you going? (Jealousy, jealousy)

thursdaysd,

Thanks.

I'm still reeling from the surprise of getting a response to such an arcane question, let alone a rapid one!

Hadn't come across Odyssey. I'd seen reference to the Central Asia phrasebook, but with a review pointing out the lack of Cyrillic.

Answer to your question is early June. Only a brief stay unfortunately. In over Torugart, one night at Naryn, three at Karakol, three at Bishkek then fly home to UK. It's the end of a long trip from Irkutsk via Mongolia, Beijing, Xian, Lhasa and Kashgar.

Michael

Michael - sounds like a great trip. I've done the Irkutsk to Beijing piece as part of a much longer trip, but haven't made it to Central Asia yet, despite having the guide books! Hope you'll post a trip report - I was in Kashgar in 2001, and I'll be interested to hear how it's doing now.

Michael, I was interested to hear about your itinerary.

We're heading to Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan in April. We considered adding Kyrgyzstan-Kashgar -Pakistan but the logistic were rather complicated with the (China-Pakistan) pass only guarenteed to open May 1st.

I'll be very curious to hear about your trip, it looks like a fascinating part of the world.

wasleys: I would suggest that you google "Turkic languages wikipedia".

It has a pretty good chart of the current scholarly divisions of the turkic languages and you can find out which languages in which grouping you would like to concentrate on.

There is a list of key words which i believe you will find useful. These words, such as "father" are pretty much the same across most of the Turkic languages.

If you learn the basic words, you will probably be able to recognize them whether they are romanized (As Turkish in Turkey is)or written in the Cyrillic alphabet.

I would suggest that you separately just learn the Cyrillic alphabet.

When the Russians conquered Central Asia, they tried to prevent the Turkic peoples from uniting by rendering their languages differently in the Cyrillic alphabet. For example, the same sound may be written with an "s" in one Turkic language, with a "c" in another, with a "c" with an accent mark in yet another.

On the wikipedia chart, for example, if you look at the word for "lake", it is variously rendered as "kol" "gol" "go'l" etc. all with the umlaut over the word.

If you learn the basic words you can pretty much figure out a lot of the local names. "kara" means "black". So "kara kul" means "black lake". "issyk kul" means "hot lake".

In the wikipedia it says that "tengri" means "god". It actually means "heaven", as in the geographic heaven or the religious heaven.

you didn't say which of the 'stans" you are going to, but the only one that may be linguistically very different would be Tajikstan, which is really an Iranian language and not a Turkic language. But other than this, if you have the basics of the Turkic languages, you should do fine.

Have a great trip!

Thanks for further responses.

I will be putting something together afterwards, not in the normal Fodor's report format but a site of pictures and description. I will post a link to it in the appropriate Fodor's forums when done - others can be found via http://homepage.mac.com/wasleys/

In fact this trip grew organically from a train from Beijing to UK to see Great Wall, Mongolia and Baikal; then a train to Beijing and flight back; then a realisation that a train journey that long would do our heads in and if we were going all the way to Beijing we may well as do something on the way back, and anyway I fancied one of those somewhere -stan places in the middle and the wife was after the Terracotta Army; and just when that was sorted in our minds a brochure about the railway to Lhasa arrived on the doormat.

Michael

My daughter just married a young man from Kyrgyzstan. I don't know about a Kyrgyz phrase book, but since everyone speaks Russian there, you should do well with one for that language.

MICHAEL,
Thank you for your post from last year. I've read your blog of your trip to China on the.Mac page. Can you tell me the travel agent you used? I will be going to the same areas this year and probably will need to have a tour guide.

Suta

Suta,

Are you in UK? I ask because it was a UK agent that arranged the whole trip - Audley Travel at Witney:

http://www.audleytravel.com/

If that's no good and you're looking for an agent in the actual area of travel post back and I can tell you the local incoming agent Audley used in a particular country.

Michael

Michael: Thanks so much for your webpages on your trip!

Great pictures and very interesting read on your trip! Thanks so much for sharing!

I'm wondering what you did ultimately on the language issue. Did you ever find a Kyrgyz phrasebook? And how was the language differences once you were in Kyrgyzstan? Would love to know how you fared.

Thanks again!

According to Wikipedia, Russian is well understood and widely spoken except in the mountainous areas.

Russian and cyrillic tutorials would be substantially easier to come by than Kyrgyz if you're looking to build up a vocabulary before going there, plus the Russian would be helpful in other countries too.

easytraveller,

Glad you liked the pics and stuff.

No, never did find a Kyrgyz phrase book, though got a few phrases off the web. It wasn't a big issue as I didn't think we'd need it much but it would have been nice to be able to decipher a few words on signs and buildings. I did in any case have a Russian book which came along.

We didn't come into direct contact with real (as opposed to touristic) Kyrgyz much and when we did pointing, waving fingers and smiling seemed to work as it usually does. A very (and I mean very) few words of Russian I've got came in handy once or twice, but were only used after I'd made it clear we were English. Unfortunately losing three days in Bishkek due to digestive misfortune reduced the opportunity to interact with locals.

Michael

Interesting. I'm beginning to plan a trip to Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan for May 2010 and am gleaning all the information I can to come up with a doable itinerary. Does anyone know a good local travel agent? My husband and I like to travel independently but sometimes find local travel agents can package a better deal for less than I can manage. I pretty much know what to expect from hotels - I don't expect first world hotels- but see the prices are prohibitive for what you get. We would want the best hotels with local atmosphere (Soviet Union leftovers might have to do at times) so I'm betting a local travel agent can package something better. Am I right? Any suggestions?

I'm considering a loop (well, sort of) from Bishkek, down to the silk road Uzbek cities, up through the Fergana Valley, up to the Pamirs and flying out of Almaty. Any suggestions about that? I haven't checked out the visa and border issues yet and may have to adjust accordingly.

My husband speaks Farsi and Azerbaijani Turkish, so language won't be as much of a problem in most areas. Besides, we're pretty adept at making ourselves understood.

Any comments? Thanks.

jahlie - I'm also looking at planning a trip to this region, next spring if not this fall. Last time I looked seriously at a route through Central Asia, I was planning to make at least some of the arrangements with www.stantours.com, and will certainly be looking again at using them.

jahlie/thursdaysd:

There are many local hotels with reasonable local prices, although facilities and services to match. Only the Western-brand big luxury hotels have the matching enormous prices, and there's even backpacker level accommodation in both Bishkek and Almaty (I can't speak for Uzbekistan).

For agents have a look at the site of the Celestial Mountains Tour Company:

http://www.celestial.com.kg/

I haven't travelled with these people, but they (the agency is run by a Briton with Kyrgyz wife) have previously provided me with very detailed and up-to-date information on travel between Kyrygzstan and China, and on their website they provide a vast amount of travel information entirely for free.

There's no doubt whatsoever that you can travel in Central Asia far more cheaply as an independent traveller than by using an agency. But anyone wants to use an agency in the region they could probably do a lot worse than this one. I've used one other agency (now defunct) and spoken to several others in both Bishkek and Almaty, none of whom I would really want to recommend.

Peter N-H

Thanks so much both thursdaysd and PeterN_H. I took a long but not long enough look at the Celestial Mountains website - what a fabulous resource. Kashgar is looking more interesting all the time. My husband and I are very comfortable in Central Asian and moslem cultures so I'm pretty sure independent travel would be fine - actually, fun. I do however, like to have something ready upon arrival - we're pushing 60 and don't like nor need to be put out if we can help it - for example, upon arrival after what is always a grueling international flight, transportation awaiting to take us to a hotel already booked. Backpacker lodging won't work unless there is nothing else available. Since Celestial is located in Bishkek, we could always stop in if we think we need their services - which we will if Kashgar comes into the picture. I haven't researched how to hire a car and driver yet but have read that border crossings can be tricky. If we can do that ourselves, great However, Celestial Mtn. might help booking air within Central Asia - I'll shoot them an email.

Again thanks so much and I'll keep you posted on my progress.

Celestial Mountains are helpful and own the Silk Road Lodge in Bishkek and the Celestial Mountains in Naryn, both of which we used.

Our UK agent used Sitara http://www.sitara.com/ as the local agent for our time in Kyrgyzstan and we had no problems.

We had no problems crossing from China to Kyrgyzstan by car, or more accurately cars as you change at the frontier.

Peter - thanks for the recommendation.

jahlie - I hear that the Kashgar market has gotten (even) more touristy since I was there in 2001, but you might still find my photos interesting if you need an extra incentive - kwilhelm.smugmug.com/Travel/293904

We missed the Kashgar Sunday Market - somewhat thankfully as we suspected and later heard confirmation that it was very touristy.

Our guide suggested a trip to Awat a few miles away where there was a small market that was a marvellous experience. See http://tinyurl.com/bu725t

Apparently there are various markets in small towns and villages near Kashgar (and elsewhere, of course). Good local guides should be able to give advice.

Jahlie/Thursdaysd:

> I do however, like to have something ready upon arrival - we're pushing 60 and don't like nor need to be put out if we can help it - for example, upon arrival after what is always a grueling international flight, transportation awaiting to take us to a hotel already booked.

I'm not sure about current services, but flights to Almaty arrived at appallingly early hours of the morning both times I flew in there, and haggling with taxis was something I would happily have skipped, although I ended up visiting the airport several times and survived.

> Backpacker lodging won't work unless there is nothing else available.

If you read again you'll see that the point being made is that there's plenty of reasonably priced locally-run accommodation, *even right down to* at backpacker level. I once rented an apartment in Almaty through Internet contacts, one rented an apartment in Bishkek via an agency, and all the other times just walked up to locally-run hotels and was never turned away.

I've crossed overland solo twice from Almaty to Urumqi, once in the other direction, and once over the Torugart pass from Kashgar to Bishkek, but that is tricky, and I believe it is now impossible to do it anyway other than with an organised meeting using (horribly overpriced) agencies on the Chinese side, and another on the Kyrgyz side. The Irkeshtam crossing can be done independently involving buses, but also hitch-hiking and walking, so you probably won't want to tackle that.

The on-going Hanification of Kashgar has made it less attractive, but there's plenty in the town and in the lands around it to see, and you could always consider taking the train from Kashgar and stopping at Aksu or (better) Kuqa (a remarkable set of cave temples) or Turpan (plenty to see there), and then going on to Urumqi and returning by train to Almaty. This depends on your visa situation and the time you have, of course. The Chinese border guards are no problem, but the Kazakhs are thieves, and unless there have been recent radical changes, even if your paperwork is in order they will try to demonstrate there's a problem, and demand an on-the-spot fine. They are, however, paper tigers, and you just need to stand up to them so that they go and find another easier victim (usually some miserable Chinese trader whose government won't stand up for him).

Peter N-H

Peter N-H

After looking at your photos, thursdaysd and wasleys, I wish I could go tomorrow. Kashgar still beckons because not only are the photos intriguing but PeterN_H confirms there is still a lot to see there. The Awat market or others in the area would be right up my alley as well. I'll just have to find a way to get there. We probably won't have enough time to just keep going and fly home from some destination in China, continuing on the Karakoram Hwy....maybe next time. Right now we're looking at a little over three weeks - maybe stretch it to one month. BTW, "China Road" by Rob Gifford is an interesting account of his travel along the Karakoram through China.

PeterN_H, your wealth of information (an overused but appropriate phrase) is a great help. Arrivals in Almaty sounds a bit like arrivals in Delhi (maybe not quite as frantic)- I bet Bishkek is the same. We haven't decided which to fly into or out of yet - that will depend on the itinerary we finally decide on - but I know already prearranged plans for arrivals will be made.

I'll compare costs for transportation but a car and driver for some part of the trip might be worth it to us. We can hire those locally ourselves but I'll ask a local travel agency (like Celestial Mtn) for a quote too. Sharing rides and busses are possibilities. We've walked across borders before, but only by being dropped off on one side with transportation waiting on the other. I'll also prepare myself for sudden changes in border crossing regulations, closures, political and social traumas - I think we'll have to be very flexilble.

Can anyone tell me which pass is the most beautiful or culturally rewarding? Torugart (expensive) or Irkeshtam (less expensive)?

PeterN_H, thank you for the bribery heads-up. But we've paid those before too and I'd be shocked if we'd get out of this adventure without paying a few more. It's good to know where to expect them though and when to dig in your heels. Rahmat.

>PeterN_H, thank you for the bribery heads-up. But we've paid those before too and I'd be shocked if we'd get out of this adventure without paying a few more. It's good to know where to expect them though and when to dig in your heels. Rahmat.

Pay no bribes!

The standard conversation for anyone holding the passport of a developed nation and whose paperwork is otherwise in order (being sure this is the case takes time, but is worth taking time over--make sure you are in possession of no tenge as you leave Kazakhstan) goes like this:

Customs officer, looking at your paperwork: Ah. Probleme! You must pay fine. US$25.

You: I'm not paying any fine.

Officer: You pay fine or we arrest you and take you off the train.

You: OK, let's go.

Officer: You don't understand. Either you pay the fine or we arrest you and take you off the train.

You (Reaching for suitcase): OK let's go.

At which point the officer gives up and goes to look for an easier mark.

Don't be threatened. Arresting you means reporting to a senior officer, and requires a report to your embassy. If there's nothing wrong with your paperwork, just face them down.

The key issue is the wretched deklaratsy on which, when arriving, you declare all your cash in detail. You must keep the copy to show to the customs officials when you leave, at which point you fill in an identical form with the state of your current cash in hand. Where the figures for hard currencies are now lower, you must show a receipt for each exchange, and the figures must balance. But if change at a booth on the street (as you should--rates are much better) then you won't have a receipt. So either fail to declare quite all your hard currency on the way in, change at the banks and get receipts, use a credit card wherever possible, or otherwise fiddle the books (but they may well search your luggage hoping to find hidden cash on the way out, so don't try that one). The problem seems mainly to be on the trains into and out of China, but I've crossed three times without yet paying anything. Paying something not only loses you money and encourages further corruption, but makes life more difficult for those who follow.

On the trains the officers love to get you to hand over your money so they can count it to check. Never do that, but simply count it in front of them. Actually let it get into their hands and there's no chance that all of it will come back. Get rid of all your tenge before leaving as export is illegal, and if you are found with any they'll take that instantly and want US$25 (or whatever) on top.

I hasten to add that this information is a few years old, and there's always a possibility that currency regulations have changed, and some rule of law brought to border operations. But I doubt it.

Peter N-H

What amazing info! I just love reading about these destinations! Many thanks for the tutorial, Peter.

Loved the bribery dialogue! I've only paid a bribe once, on the Ukraine-Transnistria border, where I figured it counted as an informal visa. Transnistria is only recognized by Russia, so you can't buy a formal visa.

Interested to read about the declaratsia - Russia had just dropped the requirement (unless you had more than $3,000) when I went through. Do all the 'stans require one?

I bet that even if the currency regulations have changed, I should be prepared for the process to be the same. Peter N-H, you have probably just saved us some money AND grief. Now, that's the kind of thing I usually don't read in guide books - maybe I'm reading the wrong ones. Whatever the case, this discussion has helped far more than any hotel or restaurant recommendation.

You mention the deklaratsy is mainly on trains in and out of China/Kazakhstan. Do you know if that is a problem at airports between stans? Road border crossings between stans? Are the Kazakhstan borders(regardless of which country you're crossing into) the most problematic?

If the moral of the story is know what paperwork you need, keep it in order, don't hide currency, make sure it all adds up, and don't be intimidated. I'm more confident already.

jahlie - I'm starting (again!) to plan for Central Asia. Did you get there this year?

NO, darn it. It's all very complicated but things happen and we have to postpone our trip yet another time. I'll keep following the discussion because we will go someday. You plan on a trip report, don't you?