February 3, 2009
From the “That Only Happens in the Movies” Department
Almost
every trip I take to Bishkek includes some kind of drama. I've told
you most of them, but here's another from a while back. In
November, on my way to Bishkek for a meeting with AUCA folks, my taxi was at
the apex of one of the mountain ranges when I felt the front tires
shimmy. Now, I don't know a piston from a petunia, but I knew this
didn't feel right. In order for the shimmying to stop we had to slow
down to about 5 mph. I envisioned my 4 hour trip extending to two
days. After stops and starts with this malfunction, I determined we
weren't going to make it to Bishkek unless the wheels or axle or something
was fixed. But, where? We were 10,000 feet above sea
level, not exactly a place with a service station around every hairpin
turn. Resigned to whatever the universe had in store, I returned to
reading my book. About ten minutes later, after traveling what
seemed like a hundred feet, our driver pulled into what looked like an
abandoned maintenance facility from the Soviet era. And that's exactly
what it was. I didn't know if he knew it was there or not and I
didn't care. (He probably did.) The fact that it existed
was amazing enough. I mean we were literally in the middle of
nowhere. And to top it off, of the four bays in the garage, the one on the
far right was an oil change bay. We pulled in. The driver
took the only wrench in his little tool kit and proceeded to walk under the car
where he began tightening all things loose. Twenty minutes later we
were back on the road, zooming around every bend like a Grand Prix race
car. What are the odds we find an oil change bay in the mountains of
Kyrgyzstan to fix our car? Maybe better than I thought, but it still
seemed like something out a movie to me.
Most drunk taxi drivers made city runs. I know
because I saw them drinking and playing cards while waiting for fares. Talas is
not a big city and many people walked instead of opting for a taxi unless they
had bags to carry or the weather was poor, so the drivers had a LOT of
downtime. These city runs started at the bazaar and ended at the vauxhall, the
long distance bus station, but with sedans and minivans instead. The trip took
less than two minutes and cost twenty-five cents (10 soms). Most of the ride
took place on the main road of the city, which was a residential highway
through town, not a shopping district, and the drivers treated it like a drag
strip. My favorite saying was, “They’re all in a big hurry to go nowhere.” I
heard a little girl was run over a year before I arrived.
Also in the book: more information on long distance drivers; Sasha, the driver who would shop for you in Bishkek.
