Khan Altay

What do you get when you cross the beautiful Altai Mountains , a full Solar eclipse, and 2000+ ravers? Khan Altay (www.Khanaltay.org). Now this all smacked of a hippy love in, in what many people believe to be one spiritual place. Trance was the musical order of the day, so rightly so Holly & I were a little skeptical. However the whole event seemed to collide together into one of the most special moments of our trip.

The bus ride was, depending who you ask, a good start. 20 or so people crammed on a public minibus heading to Onguday the festival base camp. It was clear after an hour or so that this was the vodka express to hell. Four performance artists from Moscow lead the charge and re-charded our glasses until we had racked up an impressive 5 empty bottle of russian death. The 8 hour bus ride seemed to fly past, although toward the end the drunken singing was starting to frey a few nerves.

Onguday was to be the last civilized outpost before the festival and we had an overnighter here at the base camp where we got chatting with the other festival goers. A surprising proportion of these were international, and it wasn't long before we had buddied up with a rag tag bunch of fellow ravers. Macedonian, German, English, and of course Russians were represented in our group now 9 strong. The plan from here was to load all of our heavy bags onto a Russian military supply lorry taking the 45km off road route to the festival, whilst the passengers took a slightly shorter 20km road, leaving 10km walk to the festival. Jaws dropped as we climbed up into the Altai mountains driven by Gregory - a legend of a guy from St. Petersburg who despite no use of his legs ragged his little minivan until it could go no more. The 2 hour walk to the festival was a joy with a suprise waist deep icy river crossing and numerous vodka stops en route as we wound our way beside the Katun River deeper into the Altai. Eventually the unmistakable nylon hue of tents poking out through the forest and scrub met us as we sauntered into what would become the party zone.

Unfortunately there had been heavy rain the night before so the supply truck's route had been thwarted, meaning we'd arrived but our bags had not. Darkness fell but before long the sound of an engine and headlights could be seen, and low and behold the luggage had arrived. Well all but my bag, the bag containing our tent (This was to arrive 24 hours later). Still everyone shuffled up and after a hearty meal and lashings of vodka we all bunked down in various tents to awake to a stunning day, and our first good look at the festival.

Pretty small by European standards but the location and logistical excellence of the organisers had meant that they had come up with a real winner. This was a place for nice people. People smiled at you all the time. Communism was in full effect. What you had was shared and no-one whimpered. Music started a day after our arrival and OK it wasn't exactly our cup of tea, but the company, the banter and the general feeling of well being carried us through. Joined a few days later by a troupe of Norwegian trancers our gang got bigger and bigger. Mainly through Burim and Artian's passion and capacity for raving we saw several all nighters, and watching the sun come up in the Altai is perhaps one of the most breathtaking things to see. The 1st of August we stomped up above the festival to a ridge - waited for the end of the world. From about 4pm onwards the skies clouded over and the sun punched through frequently, clearing completely for the 3 minutes of full eclipse. I think I wet my pants at this point because the world as we knew it stopped, sounds, lights, everything. A chink of sunlight finally appeared again it felt like hours had passed and a link to something primal had been established.

After 10 days of camping in the woods, cooking on the fire, washing in the river, and raving all night, it sad to break up the party, but leave we must. It was to be a full day before we got out of the valley and back to base camp, and another night reminiscing before we continued our journey east.

Festival Highlights:
1.The eclipse
2.Our Norwegian friend who twisted his ankle on the first night, blagged a helicopter rescue out of the valley the next day and was back on the dance floor on crutches 2 days later. legend.
3.Medevuka - honey based alcohol to keep you on your feet
4.An icy dip in the Katun every morning to wash away the night before
5.losing my camera on the first night and having it handed back to me intact, with no pictures of other peoples bottoms, on the last day. huzah!
6.everyone who made it to the party