did i catch feelings, or did i just spend six days with a stranger in the mountains?
by Guest Writer Laura Ng
900 kilometres, 18 hours, 2 shared taxis, 2 Sarbasts, 1 Sharq train and 0 hours of sleep later, and I am in Panjakent, having travelled overland from Nukus and crossing the Tajik border. The next morning I was wondering if I should head up into the mountains, or southwards to Dushanbe.
On theme with my travel so far, I make a decision at the drop of a hat to join a stranger from a Central Asia forum for a six-day hike in the Fann mountains of Tajikistan. Within an hour I throw anything I think I’d need for an alpine trek into a small backpack, get into a damas, transfer into another car, and find myself in the mountains, an hour away from Panjakent. I forget socks.
I meet G, whom I’ve been messaging for the past hour. He had booked a guide. The moment I step out of the car, my first thought is: “Oh shit, he’s actually cute.”
When you’re in the mountains with a stranger, small talk is stripped away. Within forty-eight hours we know each other’s greatest fears, how we’re looking for meaning, and the places in the world we want to explore. We laugh a lot and he has kira-kira eyes that could put entire star systems to shame when he smiles, which happens often. When we sit down for meals, our knees touch, and we don’t move away. He invites me to an eight-day trek in the Alai Mountains of Kyrgyzstan next week. He points at the turquoise blue of the alpine lakes, but I’m looking at his hands.
On the third day, we hike to a village. It becomes part of our routine to go on a little walk before dinner, just the two of us. By the riverside village, we scramble up a pebbly hill and lay down on a big rock and look down upon the stone houses of Gazza. Later, we find ourselves in a guesthouse with one room—with one queen-sized bed. He offers to sleep on the floor with his sleeping bag, and I say, of course not.
Earlier, a utility pole had fallen, so there is no electricity in the entire village, and our shoulders press against each other in the dark. “I’m okay with this,” he says. “Shoulder to shoulder.” But of course it isn’t enough, so a blanket war inevitably ensues even though it’s warm, because we want to be closer, but don’t know how to. “Can you just—“ and I grab his arm and fit my head into the nook of his shoulder. His heart pummels wildly against his chest, and the cadence of his blood-rush sings me to sleep. We cuddle all night, with all the awkward joy of two strangers learning the contours of each other for the first time. We discover exhilaration in our hesitation, like there is a delicate economy of touch we must uphold.
The fourth day is my favourite day. We hike up higher into the mountains, 3,000m above sea level, and set up camp. There is a snowmelt trickle of a river, where we wash our clothes and hang them up on a laundry line that we tie between two trees by our tent. The closeness of the afternoon sun in the mountains is painfully hot, and the cold of the water is blissful. Our river-washed clothes sway in the quiet breeze, and my heart soars. “My favourite chore is laundry,” I gleefully say. Most people look at me funny when I say this, but he immediately chimes, “Mine is vacuuming!” Domesticity in the wilderness just hits different.
We lay out towels and jackets and lie in the sun, drifting in and out of books and sleep. We look out onto the deep valley before us, where shepherds roam and the ungodly braying of a donkey echoes throughout the lowlands; onto the snow-capped mountains to the South, gleaming with eternal summer snow. We have everything we need, and life feels light.
In ninety-six hours, we know each other’s favourite everything: flower, tree, colour, animal, mountain, movie, song, food, drink, capital. Poppy, weeping willow, Aubergine-purple, guinea pig, Mount Kazbek, Thin Red Line, a Hans Zimmer song, a foie gras dish, green tea, Baku.
On day five we hike to the medieval village of Voru, a small, dense settlement clinging onto the face of a mountain. As always, we wrestle free time from our overbearing guide to explore by ourselves. As always, we go upwards. As always, we find a spot for two and sit there and behold the beauty before us as the evening sun slips away.
We sleep in our guide’s dining room. We pull our mattresses together in the guise of watching a movie (we do actually watch something—the first episode of Unorthodox). We tuck ourselves into the warm corners and crevices of each other, a hand in the fold where the calf meets the thigh, another in the tousle of his hair, on the crescent of my waist. He sneaks kisses onto my face, but never on the mouth. He wraps his arms around me and squeezes the breath out of me. The stubble of his four-day beard scratches against my cheek. We make inappropriate jokes about the border war between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
On day six we descend the mountains in an over-crowded, dust-covered five-seater Musso that overflows with nine people. We are packed like sardines. There is a woman sitting in the boot. As the car nosedives through the alpine dirt roads, we are jostled, limb on limb on limb. Our fingertips brush against each other a thousand times before we hold on, and hold on for the rest of the journey, sweat forming layers between our fingers. The intimacy of holding hands outside the cover of the night is overwhelming. We don’t speak, but smile little smiles in the glow of this slow burn.
We eventually crawl into Panjakent, cross the border and hop onto a shared taxi to Samarkand. At this point I wonder if the roar of the traffic will drown out our new-born flame, if all of this will dissipate without the safety of the mountains.
In Samarkand, we have dinner at Café Sogdiana in a park. We sit by a fountain and have four glasses of wine, a salad, pasta, and two cakes. At eleven, we walk to the Registan and sit on the steps in front of the Madrassahs gleaming green and yellow. We talk about our trek. His memory is sharp and unrelenting, like he catalogues every word, sight, and sound. He remembers everything we talked about with an alarming alacrity. It’s windy and cold, and we link arms.
Today, we will part ways. In the morning we walk around the city. I laugh at his ugly tourist magnet. We get awful iced coffees. His train to Bukhara is at noon, and I’m figuring out what I’m going to do for the next eight days, before we meet again in the border town of Osh, Kyrgyzstan. He tries to tell me that I don’t have to fit my travel plans around this trek if it’s not convenient. I mutter sarcastically that I will bend the heavens to see him again in Osh, but he misses it, and I brush off the most romantic thing I’ve ever said in my life.
When it is time to say goodbye, we don’t know how the hell to act. We hug in the corridor of the hostel, and he holds on for longer than I expect. It is bumbling and awkward. We keep repeating, “See you in Osh,” because the threat of everything unspoken feels suddenly too big, too soon. I gracelessly return to my dorm room, and less than a minute later he is at my door, asking, “Can I give you another hug?” I want to cry at how pure this is.
He rubs my back and tells me to take care of myself. I tell him I will miss sleeping next to him. We pinky-promise to see each other again in Osh. Again. He is waiting for his Yandex in the lobby of the hostel. When I hear the door, I rush out for one last hug, and we kiss each other on the cheek. He will go westwards into the desert, and I, back into the mountains. I like his low, mellow voice and his upturned Dylan O’Brien nose and that he reads 50 books a year and always knows where North is. I want to be around him all the time, to know how my palm feels against the brown of his nape. Eight days is too long, and the city of Osh will burn in the wake of our reunion.
This post is republished from Laura’s Substack All Fun No Fear. Read the original version here.
As someone who grew up in the tiny city-state of Singapore where there is virtually no concept of ‘the outdoors’, Laura is a traveller unfolding a deep love of the mountains. She has a brand new Substack, where she writes about backpacking the world as a solo female Asian traveller in her late 20’s, but is also prone to 1am spiels about life and love. She is currently trekking around Georgia and figuring out red wine—follow her adventures here.
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Okay now I must know--did they meet up in Osh?!
Marvelous place👌
Mountains ⛰ is place where my heart ❤ resides. Obsessed with Mountains. I stayed for 8 months in Indian Himalayas in the valley where Holy river Ganga flow.
Very mo