The fun of being rescued by strangers

The girl in this picture was a life-saver. Ok, I’m exaggerating wildly, but she did prevent a long walk with cold wet feet. And our encounter with her is a great example of the joy we can all experience from meeting local people who are only too often very eager to help.

We had been hiking in the south of Kyrgyzstan, near to the Chinese border, upstream from the Tash Rabat caravanserai. We had crossed the river on the way up by following a shepherd, who found the right spot at which she could hop over the stones that were just high enough to allow us to get across without getting wet.

On the way back, we had no such guide, and two of us were stranded on the wrong side of the river. We paced up and down for a while, looking for a spot to cross and not finding anywhere suitable that would not require us to remove our boots, roll up our trousers and feel the force of the freezing mountain river. After looking for a while, we had resigned ourselves to the wet and cold option when this little girl appeared on the other bank. She waved to us and ran upstream, gesturing us to follow. Soon she hopped across a set of stones and back again, and smiled as we stumbled our way across the river, following her path.

Once on the right side of the river, we thanked her and were amazed to hear her speak a few words of English. She even told us she was 11 and that it was her birthday. Elsewhere this might suggest a sly way to get a “gift” but this was certainly not the case here: she soon smiled and waved and ran off across a path towards a yurt.

We saw her again a while later when we stopped by the river to have our lunch. She was now racing along on a horse, rounding up a large flock of sheep and herding them downstream.  Children of all ages are expected to help with the work there, and learning to ride a horse well is something that is a necessity.

We would of course had found a way to cross the river at some point. But the encounter with this young girl was a memorable part of the hike, and her happiness in helping a couple of tourists lost on her turf was a pleasure to be part of.

In many parts of the world local people appear to be weary of the huge numbers of visitors in their towns and cities. But I am firmly of the view that even in the most touristy places, if you stop and talk to a local person and are genuinely interested in learning about them, your inquisitiveness will nearly always be well received. Regardless of where we travel, there are enough people who enjoy interaction with others to allow us the opportunities to have these memorable encounters.