“No, it’s been flowing the other way” says Chris.

“Er, we’ve been going uphill”

“No we haven’t, the rivers definitely flowing this way” he points uphill laughing, “I’ve been watching Slava’s foot on the brake the whole way.”

I point out the window and show him the river, now 5 km from the gorge in question.

“I can see that, but back there we were going downhill”

I was banging my head against a Chris wall and turned away to enjoy the scene around us… on he went “blah blah, I was watching it, blah blah, you’ll see I’m right when we come back this way”

“Yes” I say feeling a headache coming on so try to distract myself somehow.

“Blahdeblahdefuckingblah” he went with more lies in an honest kind of faulty way, deep in his enjoyment.

He wanted more..”The valley we were in was another one. Look Phil over there you can see. That’s where it went.”

“OK” I say, throwing in a ridiculous suggestion hoping to prove my accuracy: “I bet you a thousand dollars you’re wrong”… Out popped his hand, whole body animated. I shake it. Atmosphere loaded. Me smiling, Chris laughing and blahdeblahing some more. Pause… and on he goes… “I’d hate to see a grown man cry!” (I nearly was) “We’ll call it a hundred dollars.” “OK”, I agree, “I don’t mind about the money” I add.

So I earned 100 dollars, payment for earache I reasoned, and a lesson for Chris on our close knit trip or hopefully not! His mind was elsewhere, his honour right on the money and dinner on me.

Postscript:

I was gazing at a clear Kazakhstan dawn from our train window as I wrote ideas down for this entry (I prefer to use pen ‘n’ paper for this process as my typing skills eat into internet time. Though I’m learning now that once type has into put the computer, it you can around move easily more paper than and pen, pole haragraphs if you want. Perfect makes practice will, er, maybe.) when I remembered that the night before, with the use of the strong card on the back of my notebook and my penknife, I can break into a locked compartment on this Almaty to Urumqi train. So I suggest to Chris that I could have been a great thief to which he adds “You already are after that 100 dollars.” Ah, regrets regrets. I give him a Chinese rising ‘n’ falling “oooooooooooooooh”, I laugh, he does too and a blood red sun finally climbs the horizon…. hmmmm, for the first time, for a long time, we have the chance for unlimited sleep. I slide back into bed with my whistle and celtic “football” necklace silhouetted in a patch of Kazakh planet sun.

We arrived back in Bishkek from Issy-Kul intent on seeing the Champion’s League semi-final between Manchester United and Bayern Leverkusen. We had no idea where to go, until we enquired in a bar known to be an ex-pat hangout in the centre of the city where people would watch football. We were rewarded with a chorus of uncomprehending looks, until we uttered the magic word “Manchester”, whereupon we were directed to the most unlikely of places to find in Central Asia – the Manchester Club.

The staff at the Manchester Club, Bishkek

Phil was first into the bar, while I took some shots of the building and the friendly bouncers, so when I eventually went inside, I found him engaged in an animated conversation with the staff. Victoria (centre of picture) seemed to be the ringleader, and was being gently teased by Phil about the appropriateness of her name. Strangely, she’d not been informed before of her namesake’s existence…

Or not so strangely, as it turned out – since it appeared that Phil was actually trying to persuade them to show the game… I was flabberghasted – how could the Manchester Club, complete with video projector and four TVs scattered around the bar NOT be showing the game? It seemed like a betrayal of their identity. After much cajoling, including showing them the Ball and our trusty Russian explanation, we did indeed persuade them to show the game, especially for us.

Theme beer

Content that we had found the perfect place to watch the game, we settled in with the few customers who had turned up, and watched the Real Madrid v. Barcelona game as an aperitif. Real looked in great form. They’re going to be hard to beat.

Ten minutes before kick-off, Phil realised that we had no Kyrgyz money left, and dashed out of the bar to go and change some dollars. I, meanwhile, became the recipient of the distinctly disheartening news that the management had changed their minds about the game, and were going home after all. I was scandalised all over again… though they very kindly paid for our beers and offered to drive us to another bar where (they promised us) the game would be screened. There was nothing to do but agree to go along with the plan.

Phil reappeared to learn that his search for Sum, though successful, had been pointless, and we duly followed Alexei, the manager, to a waiting minibus. He drove us round the corner to a place he called the Soca Club, but which turned out to be the Soho Pub. Easy mistake. But still, it was showing the game, and there around a table, already cheering, was the rest of the clientele of the Manchester Club, who gestured to us to join them.

Our Kyrgyz hosts

Man U lived up to their reputation, and played a game designed to induce near-fatal levels of stress in their audience – whether Kyrgyz or English – very nearly snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, and transferring yet another key England player to the injury list. “Eta catastroph!” as our Kyrgyz friends helpfully informed us, before revealing that they were in fact the Kyrgyz Customs Force.

“No problem with your stamp at the border” they smiled sympathetically, while paying for our entire night’s consumption of alcohol and food. Which was just as well, since it was they who had insisted we down vodka after vodka during the game. I pondered the significance of the “hospital” part of the word “hospitality” as we made our way home.

The Manchester Club’s flyer promises more than it delivers

More footballing serendipity, ex-Soviet weirdness, and Phil scores a goal to remember…

From time to time, I would look at the map of Kyrgyzstan, and wonder about the huge expanse of water that nestled in the middle of the mountains… the name “Issy-Kul” means “Hot Lake” – it never freezes, forty rivers flow into it but none flow out, and it even generates its own local climate.

Our original plan for the trip had been to visit the lake and later continue to Kashgar in China through the Torugart Pass. Unfortunately, the Chinese wanted far too much money, it was still early in the year, and the pass could stil be dangerous. As a result, we will have to make a 5000km detour to see Kashgar, but as we both wanted some rest and recuperation, we decided to go and see the lake anyway.

The mountains we wanted to cross

Phil and I were driven to the lake from Bishkek, where we stayed in a sanatorium (did I say sanatorium? – I think insanatorium would be closer) built in the Seventies for the Communist Party big-wigs to get their intestinal irrigation far from prying eyes.

Walking down corridors in the monstrosity of a building was an alarming experience – from the inscrutable medical treatments labelled on the doors, to the bulky female Russian “nurses” who seemed to patrol the hotel in groups of three, looking for victims – er, patients.

The grounds were planted with trees and shrubs, but always in neat rows. Concrete paths snaked through the vegetation, lined with street lamps of such brightness and intensity that night never fell. I think if I were to build a place with less connection to the stupendously beautiful surroundings in which it was situated, this would be more-or-less it. It seemed less like a place of recuperation, and more a place of frustration.

It seemed like a very bleak prospect staying there for more than five minutes – particularly to Phil who dropped his bag in the room when we arrived, and actually ran out of the grounds to see if he could find something to smoke. The two rays of hope were a computer with a reasonably quick connection to the internet, and Khanat, who ran the bar, who turned out to to be a football fanatic with an encyclopedic knowledge of the game.

After a couple of days with our heads stuck firmly up the computer, we learned through Khanat that the staff played football in one of the tennis courts every day at four. Since we were heading back to Bishkek at five the following day, Khanat agreed to organise the staff to play at ten the next morning.

And what an enjoyable game it proved to be…

The Wake lad, about to score

We played for as long as we could, until a militia-type turned up to reclaim the staff into the clutches of the hotel. Phil and I played keep-up for a while afterwards – Phil gloating about the goal he scored with a back-heel in front of a crowded goalmouth. In fact he’s so chuffed with it, that you can see it here…

Our arrival in the almost unpronounceable Kyrgyzstan, a nation consisting of less flat surfaces than any other, made playing football a little more tricky than in the flatlands of Europe, Russia and Uzbekistan. Nonetheless, we found that Bishkek, the capital provided us with more football than we had expected.

It has been a continuous source of amazement to me that wherever we stop, somehow we manage to find ourselves blessed by fortuitous footballing coincidences. We have tried our best to research football in the stops on our route, but have found this to be extremely difficult.

But the kids playing at the Registan in Samarkhand, the locals at the minaret in Bukhara… these were some of the best times in the trip for me. They confirmed in my mind how widespread football culture is, and, in my more conspiratorial moments, acted as signs that what we are doing has value… that somehow we have a footballing guardian angel looking over the Ball which guides us to the right place at the right time.

And now in Bishkek, a city that had seemed impossibly remote to me as we planned this trip, the minute we arrived back in town after a hike in the mountains, we heard the roar of a crowd from our hotel balcony. Intrigued, we followed the sound down the road to find Bishkek football stadium a few hundred metres from our hotel, with a game already in progress.

We made our way into the stadium, slightly nervously, as we had no tickets. This didn’t seem to bother the militia who stood at the gates, so in we went, to find Spartak Bishkek playing a team from the Army.

Bishkek Stadium

Looking around, we could see the local supporters on our left, and on our right, a sizeable contingent of soldiers. We were ushered towards the Spartak side of the stadium at first, but there wasn’t much support for the Bishkek team, and it seemed to be the Army who were making all the sound. So, taking a deep breath, we strolled to the back of the Army stand, mindful of the reputation that militias of all kinds have in this part of the world.

It was much more fun being amidst the noise and enthusiasm of the soldiers at this end of the ground, so I got out a video camera and started filming the scene from behind them, and to my surprise, they turned to us with friendly and inquisitive faces…

Kyrgyz army supporters

Phil explained our journey to the soldiers who had a smattering of English, and, once again, the Russian translation of our mission came to our aid. Suddenly, many of them gathered round the Ball, admiring the signatures and asking us rapid-fire questions about our trip – where had we been, where were we going? I felt honoured that they had so readily accepted us, and that we could bridge the gap of our cultural backgrounds in this simple exchange of enthusiasm for the game.

The Kyrgyz army love the Ball

As a final gesture of friendship at the end of the game, we asked a couple of the more vocal and friendly soldiers to sign the ball. They readily agreed, and Phil took the photo above to comemmorate the occasion.

‘That’s alright lads…….. as Elvis might sing……. any old way you choose.