After weeks of battling the harsh terrain and climate of the Tien Shan mountains, my ski adventure trip has finally come to an end. The snow has finally brought me to a lower land just south of Issykkul lake. They say the last few steps of a journey is always the hardest, as hard as making the first few steps on a very long journey. Its difficult to make the first few steps since most are lack of confidence and worry about what are the challenges in front of them and its difficult to complete the last few steps since most are exhausted, the long road has consumed their physical strength. Same goes to my case, I find it difficult to complete the last few steps since I wasn’t sliding my skis on snow powder anymore, but I had to take off the skis and walked through mud and grass. And the sledge I was pulling always got stucked when I went through long grass.

snow has turned into wet ice

Being in a long trip… alone in the mountains… sometimes it made me feel like Im living in my own world. When I got back to civilization once in a while, I felt awkward, trying hard to get used to it again. I don’t see people most of the time on my journey in the Tien Shan, so there is no point for me to care about my appearance… and I’m not even aware about what is happening to the world of civilization. There was once, I descended from the mountains to get to villages in search for food and electricity to recharge all the batteries. I went to a guesthouse to sleep under a roof for the night, so the receptionist gave me a form to fill. It was okay at first when I asked her about the date. Then I paused for a while, trying to think what month is it now. I then lower down my voice almost like whispering, bending towards her and asking her which month is it now. She started to smile while giving me the answer… probably guessing I have been too long in the wild.

filming myself while filming something else! :)

Then I paused again, this time for a longer time, trying to think which year is it now. My brain was so tired that it couldn’t even process the answer on what year is it now. I paused for too long, long enough for the receptionist to realized something went wrong and she asked me if I need some help. I keep pausing, still not giving up trying to think what year is it now. But after a while, I finally gave up since I look like an ugly statue standing in front of the reception desk. I then asked the receptionist with very low voice, asking what year is it. She laughed so hard until tears came out from her beautiful eyes. It was embarassing… but my brain was tired, so I think its acceptable.

taking my time filming the moment under the morning light

Another embarassing moment happened a few months ago in northern China, also in front of reception desk in a hotel not so far from Erenhot. I just came to a small town after days and days cycling through the vast Gobi desert, battling against the countless sandstorm. When asked for passport, I took the passport out of my handlebar bag and handed it to the receptionist of the hotel. When she opened the first page of the passport, the sand fell on her desk. She started giggling seeing that. She then kept on opening the next page browsing my passport and more sand fell on her desk each time she opened to a new page of the passport. Everybody in the room were giggling looking at that while I tried to keep distance with everyone since I smell like a camel.

enjoying the last moment of my skiing days while there are still some snow in some areas

But somehow I enjoyed it, even being laughed by the locals. I just love the experience. To me these experiences are priceless. Sometimes, I even laughed at myself while skiing through the mud and grass. I guess other skiers would think I’m insane, no one would do that. I only take off the ski when there are no snow at all in some areas. Sometimes, I fell down really hard when going downhill, since the snow has turned into hard packed ice and the ride is really bumpy. Since Im not a pro skier, I fell down countless times like a chicken on a skateboard. I had small injury on my hand on the last day since I fell down too hard while the sledge was attached to my body. I found it hillarious.

the snow is leaving

But I enjoyed every single moment… even when I was lying on the ground after the fall, trying to get up while my skis attached. This moment will pass quickly and become history, nothing more than a memory. I appreciate the cold but its leaving slowly. The temperature is steadily increasing day by day, I see the landscape has turned brown from white. The winter has gone… and the spring is finally here to be embraced in the Kyrgyz mountains. I wasn’t struggling anymore at night camping in the cold and it was easy to pitch my tent when the snow is just about 30cm depth. I spent most of my time at night time sitting outside my tent instead, enjoying my time watching the moon and stars. And I enjoyed the last moment everytime I slide the ski on the cold snow under the heat of the sun of the spring season. My skiing adventure has finally ended, another chapter of my life journey has ended. I’m now taking a few weeks of rest before opening a new page of my book of life, before I start discovering the new chapter of my life journey through this world. The adventure has ended but the memory… the memory remains…

Travelling through the Tien Shan Mountains in the middle of winter with my skis and snowshoes is something really special to me. Im always in love with mountains, it gives a sense of calmness in my soul and standing on top of a mountain, I feel nearer to heaven. Nothing between me and the blue sky and the stars, the clouds are moving below me, in the same direction of the blowing wind. Each of the elements here up in the high mountains is different than being on lowlands. The strong wind, the air that contains less oxygen, the smell and the quietness made me feel more aware of the right here and right now. It made me feel less about the worldy things and more aware about the existence, both inner and the outer world. After all, Im surrounded by the mother nature.

Travelling on my skis here in the Tien Shan Mountains also gives me totally new challenge and fresh experiences. I have travelled about 20000km on my bicycle since the past 4 years and I fell down only twice through really bad roads. Here in the Tien Shan, I have covered about 400km sliding the skis that are attached on my boots… and I fell countless times. And everytime I fall down… I fell down hard since the heavy sledge is attached to my body. Sometimes I fell down hard on slopes and the sledge hit my back from behind. It was painful but beautiful… a beautiful pain. Its beautiful because I learned new things… from the hard way but I think the best way to learn things is to learn it the hard way, so I will remember. And it’s a beautiful pain because the pain will go away, but not the memory. The memory will last until its time for me to close my eyes one day.

I moved slowly pulling my sledge here in the mountains for the whole day, watching the change of colours in the sky and different mood of the weather. Im trying to be like water in rivers, keep moving from the high mountains all the way down to the sea no matter what stands in between. It will flow calmly on smooth terrain, moving through different directions when there are rocks in between and moving fast when theres a waterfall in front… but no matter what, it will get to its destination… the vast ocean. Only difference is, the water is flowing down pushed by the force of the gravity… while I have to flow up pushed by the energy that I borrow from the mother nature, the energy I got from each breath.

I was once had a sleepless night under the stars, when I woke up from sleep in the middle of the night by the sound of fox. There were 2 foxes walking around my tent probably looking for food. The smell of food attracts them to company me for almost 2 hours in the middle of the night. I tried to sleep but they were loud which finally made me decide to keep them away. Theyre very shy creatures, they ran away when they saw my presence. When I went down from the mountain, village people told me its dangerous to be up there in the high mountains. There are wolves and avalanche! I think danger exists everywhere. I can make a long list of the danger being on the street. The feeling of worry should be used correctly. The feeling of worry should make us prepare on the worst thing that can happen, not stopping us from doing the things that we need to accomplish.

the night where the foxes paid me a visit

The time for my ski adventure is coming to an end. I can feel it coming with the sound from the snow when my skis are sliding over it. Im no more skiing on soft snow powder lately… but Im skiing on wet ice even in the mountains. The sun is shining fiercely again now, the spring season is waiting right outside the door, waiting to be embraced. Rivers and waterfall started to flow as usual… with moving water. No more ice except on really high altitude lakes. I reached a place called Jety Oguz, sitting just south of the Issykkul Lake and realized that the snow has turned into water. Sometimes I even skied on rocks!… since Im too lazy to take off the ski, walked over the rocks and put the skis back on again, so I just skied over… yep… only lazy skiers will experience skiing on rocks!.. or through muds.

get to watch this almost every morning during breakfast

Jety Oguz, a lovely small village in the mountains

I continue my life as usual here in Kyrgyzstan, travelling at a slower phase on my ski pulling my belongings, descending from the mountains towards the eastern shore of Issykkul Lake. Travelling on a short and broad forest ski that I got from the Finns is much slower and more tedious compared to riding a bicycle. The energy I used to pull my sledge on a ski for a kilometer is probably the same energy I cycled pulling 50kg of luggage for 10 kilometers. I’m happy to cover at least 15km a day here in the Tien Shan mountains. I’m travelling probably a little faster than the speed walking, sliding through the thick snow, embracing the cold thin air in the mountains that goes right to my lungs.

At one point of my journey, I have to descend the mountain, easy sliding down towards the shore Issykkul Lake, which still stands high over 1600m altitude. But being long in the mountains, descending to this high altitude lake feels like descending to the sea level, I breath easily again and it is not as cold. Funny that at some point I have to take off my skis and carry the heavy sledge to cross the road, since there is no snow on the road. And sometimes I just pulled my sledge through mud. Winter is really dry this year in Kyrgyzstan. Not much snow compared to the previous years except in high mountains, probably effect of the global warming. I don’t really feel so cold this time, only sometimes I feel pain on my feet during the night since Im wearing cheap socks.

Once I reached the shore of Issykkul, I continue my ride through huge snow fields, which feels like forever since the landscape is the same, riding on flat ground, seeing the distant mountains beyond the huge lake. It reminds me of my ride in Iceland almost 3 years ago. I remember the landscape is so vast that I could see where I will be camping next 80 kilometers ahead. No matter how fast I pushed the pedal of my bicycle I still feel like I’m not moving. It feels like the earth doesn’t allow me to move forward. Yet I heard so many sayings that the world is getting smaller, but when I travel the world on a bicycle, or ski or even on foot, I get a pretty good idea how big this planet is.

Its easier to move along the shore of Issykkul because its flat but harder to slide the skis here on the lower ground since the snow has turned into hard packed ice. The ski Im using seems doesn’t slide too well on hard ice and I hate the sound of it when it slides through black ice. And I see more people here compared to the mountains. They will usually come to greet me and see for themselves the way I travel… probably impressed but pity at the same time. And they get more impressed when they saw me taking my big camera out to film myself, skiing away and back to take back the camera. They asked me where Im going, I just told them I heading west towards the sunset and will go as far as the snow takes me… when the snow melts, I will think of something else.

Whenever the sun is almost reach the horizon, I will start skiing away from humans, trying to get to a really quiet place where I don’t see any footprints of humans, so that nobody knows where I sleep and disturb me at night. Its an advantage during the winter season because I just need to find places where the snow is thick and away from villages, so its hard to access on foot except by skis. There are possibilities to get disturbed here at night camping at the shore of the lake compared to the mountain areas since there are villages nearby and local people can be very curious to see a stranger skiing and camping alone in the cold winter. So I will usually spend my energy struggling through tough terrain at the end of the day to find a place to pitch my hotel, so that I can have a good time alone in the wild watching sun at the horizon and sleep well under the stars.

A few days on early February was a very special time for me. I stopped my journey temporarily since my family from Malaysia came to visit me here in Kyrgyzstan. When I heard the news I quickly descended the mountains, rushing back to Bishkek with a marshrutka and waited for them right at the airport. It feels so good to see the smiling familiar faces again appeared from the front door on the arrival hall after a year being on the road living the nomadic life. The smiles of the faces of my family melted my heart like a chocolate. The smile that is carved on the face of the person we love is something powerful, very warm and able to melt the cold heart. It is something some of us take for granted and sometimes we forget how powerful it is when we get it everyday, but if we get it only once in a while, we start to realize how powerful it is and unable to ignore the power of it.

took my family to my home here in the mountains and captured the moments into my camera

It feels special to hold the familiar faces again and speak the same language I always speak since my childhood… the same language that I always use in my heart. Whenever Im alone in the wild making any decision, I will automatically create two person inside me and start discussing whether I should pitch my tent at the higher ground to get a better view of the mountainscape or at the lower ground to protect myself from the strong wind. It is like these two persons that I created inside me are discussing and debating on where to pitch my tent. I myself will speak on behalf on person one suggesting that I should pitch the tent at the higher ground and at the same time will also speak on behalf of person two to pitch my tent at the lower ground… and the language that these two persons inside me use to communicate is the language that I speak since my chilhood which is Malay. Whenever I learn something from the exterior world, I will talk to myself explaining the thing that learned inside my interior world using this same language too. This same language that was taught but my mother when I was very young is the best language to express my emotion and my thoughts. It is known as the mother tongue… the most natural. And able to finally speak this language after a long time being on the road, I feel like Im back to my nature, just like a tiger is back to his jungle after spending a long time in a strange desert.

shadow of my younger brother in front of the last light of the day

I also felt so good that I was able to eat my kind of food cooked by my mom. It is also like a tiger that is a carnivor… finally able to eat some raw meat after a year eating only vegetables and fruits. All these while, the spiciest food I’ve tasted is only Korean food which is just a little more like a tickle to my Malay tongue. And once I took the food cooked by my mom into my mouth, once again the million of sensors of my tongue sent the signal straight to my brain, telling myself that the food is really spicy and finally sending another signal to the rest of my body and as a result, my face turned red, my eyes produced tears and my skin produced sweat. It feels so good that made me to do nothing but concentrate only on the food rather than to think or worry about something else in my life. I also enjoyed getting lectured by my dad, giving me some good advice for me to keep pursuing my life, which he has been repeated hundreds of times since I was a child but for old time sake, I enjoyed and listened carefully every words that came out from the mouth of the man that I always respect in my entire life. Looking at him, time has make his physical body aged, not as strong as he used to be but not his soul, the soul doesnt get affected by aging process. Only things in this world that can be perceived with our five senses grow old, but not in the world where our soul dwell… the real world…

taking my family to touch the cold water of Issykkul Lake, second largest mountain lake in the world

I felt happy to see my two younger brothers and my young sister enjoying the landscape of eastern Kyrgyzstan where I live. Me and a few of my friends here in Karakol decided to make a day trip skiing and snowshoeing in the nearby mountains so I took my two brothers with me. Glad that they like it and would love to do it again some other time. At one time during the night my youngest brother told me that he wants to be a nomad too. A young energetic man who just turned 18 this year and just finished his high school in Kuala Lumpur. I kept silent for a while thinking on the best advice to give him. I told him to take it slow and easy and don’t plan too much. As for me, planning my time, my schedule and my life can be fun but to stick to the plan is no fun. I don’t want to live my life following a script that I write years ago but instead I live my life according to the surroundings, trying to be like water, so I will fit in any surroundings and situations and try my best to solve a problem when it is right in front of me. I didn’t plan this life… I didn’t choose to live my life as a nomad. This nomadic life chose me. Some people believe that they choose their destiny. I think otherwise. I think my destiny chose me. I think everything has been written since the beginning of time.. since the very beginning…

But by studying from his face, maybe he is too eager to listen to the word of wisdom that I tried to share. But it’s a normal thing, he’s too young and couldn’t wait to open the next page of his book of life, to see and experience the next chapter of his life. Sooner or later he will understand and everything will be in placed, just like everything else in this world in the past and present… and the incoming future. He basically has almost the same set of thinking with me. Surprising at someone at his age, we were actually discussing about sedentary life vs the nomadic life, about existence, the physic of the quantum world and mathematical representation about the universe just over a cup of coffee during the night when everyone else were in deep sleep. We just couldn’t go so deep about each subject since its impossible to discuss all of it over a cup of coffee.

heading back home from skiing

Time passes really fast while they’re here with me… as in being and spending time with familiar faces can really affect and influence the speed of time… as in spending quality time really put more weight in the sand of time. Without me realizing it, it was finally the time for them to go back home to Malaysia, leaving me here back alone dwelling in the mountains. Seeing them leaving at the immigration checkpoint in the airport making my nerves reacted differently, my body was about to produce tears through my eyes but my brain stopped the process from happening. I should accept everything that happened and will happen… that’s what I have learned on the road all these while and I should keep learning it. They are going to the exact place that they should be and I should go back to the exact place where I should be… doing the exact things that I should do… it was all written… we are all just living it. Destiny… the word destiny is really something to me, that one word can make me sit hours and hours in the dark inside my tent in the high mountains alone… thinking about it deeper and deeper… If one day I would write a book… I will definitely write about it…

back to where I should be, the dark cold lonely night

destiny, everything is exactly where it should be, including the grass.. the snow.. the sun…