The Five Stans of the Silk Road - Kyrgyzstan - 2019
3rd August 2019 - To Osh and Arslan Bob in Kyrgyzstan
Up early to head to another border, this time travelling into Kyrgyzstan. Another smooth crossing and we were on our minibuses on the other side and off in no time. On the way to the border we stopped off at a restaurant for a toilet stop and our guy let us taste the house specialty 'Plov' at it was meant to be particularly good.
Our first stop was at Sulaiman-Too (Solomon's) Mountain a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We climbed up and walked through the caves which are now a museum. I guess the artifacts of peoples and their different religions were all found around here but overall it was all uninspiring it was hard to see why it deserved UNESCO status.
The rest of the day was driving through increasingly beautiful scenery and a stop at Osh and a walk through the bazaar. It was all real, local etc with craftsmen making anything from horseshoes to children's cradles to bread. But it felt very similar to other markets in other countries such at those in Thailand.
4th August 2019 - Full day in Arslan Bob
after quite a few long days on the road and sight seeing today we got a day off to relax. We're staying in a town surrounded by walnut forests. We were told this is the biggest walnut forest in the world.
This is a local tourist area and being a Sunday there were a lot of couples and families enjoying the waterfall and in the market which sold souvenirs, sweets, snacks and candy floss and fairground type stalls; pop the balloons to win a prize, giant claw machine where you try to grab a prize and even a test your strength machine by seeing how hard you can hit the punch bag.
Most of the locals seemed to stop here but we walked on up into the forest. I had no idea how walnuts grew and love to be here in September to see the trees laden, I guess I'll just have to Google some photos of that when we get to somewhere with internet. The locals have their mobile phones of course and I'm itching to asking one of them to give me an update on the 1st Ashes Test. Maybe not ask this woman though as she was holding her phone up and moving a it around, I guess she was struggling to get a signal.
It was so nice to be out in the countryside for a day. We were following decent paths and rough vehicle tracks as we climbed up through the forest. We climbed up a few hundred metres and although it was only low 30s it is more humid here so we worked up a bit of a sweat. We were glad of any stretch of flat land especially if it was open enough to let through a nice cool breeze.
We'd all been given packed lunches and stopped in a shady glade underneath the walnut trees to munch through our bread and salami, grapes, apricots, bananas and a small chocolate bar that survived the morning surprisingly well. Three or four other small groups also had lunch there. Kyrgyzstan is quite late coming to the party in terms of tourism and doesn't have the ancient cities of Uzbekistan or Tajikistan but it does have natural beauty. Community projects like the one we're staying in are a part of this. I hope they are successful but I hope this glade never gets turned into a more organised lunch area with kitchen and toilet block; it's perfect as it is.
After lunch we climbed up to a viewpoint and then worked our way back down. Today was a gentle stroll but a really enjoyable one. Hopefully over the next few days the weather will stay good and we'll have a few more days enjoying the fantastic scenery.
5th August 2019 - Chychkn Gorge
Long drive across some beautiful Kyrgyzstan scenery today. We followed the river all day with the sides of the valleys towering above. We made lots of stops to stretch our legs and take photos.
There isn't much else to say about today. It was just mile after mile of gorgeous sceney, bright blue skies and the odd herd of horses, sheep or goats grazing by the river.
Along the river were a number of hydro-electric dams and lakes that had formed behind them further adding to the beauty of the area.
At one stop a family came to see what we were up to. I'm guessing they don't get many tourists stopping in the lay-by by their house. With our local guide as our interpreter we exchanged greetings and we took photos of them and they took a few photos of us. The old guy was the star with his traditional Kyrg hat and gleaming gold teeth. The hats don't look that practical but along the way we saw quite a few old guys wearing them so they're definitely still popular.
Around 5pm we arrived at our guest house for the evening sat right next to the river, in fact mine is the room on the left looking right out on it. I'll be sleeping to the sound of rushing water tonight.
6th August 2019 - Kyzyl Oi Village
Happy Birthday to me.
This trip has been weird in that we have had quite a bit of sickness almost right across the group. Most of the time we've had 3 or 4 people with varying degrees of upset stomach. There has been no one meal or restaurant we can put it down to it just seems to be a general thing. Well today we hit a new high/low and everyone seems to be falling like flies; probably the wrong phrase as the flies seem to be the healthiest thing around here. For our walk up through a side gorge off the one we're staying in only 9 set-off so I got a photo of those still standing. By the end of the day two of those had gone done as well. Thankfully I've not been too bad, a few extra visits to the toilet over night and feeling a bit tired/headachy but I never dipped below 70/75%.
As we walked up along the stream we saw quite a few locals out picking wild raspberries and dropping them into sawn off coke bottles that were hung around their necks. We had raspberry jam with our pancakes at breakfast, it was delicious.
We walked for about and hour up stream stopping to take lots of photos of the running water, lush green plants and the mountains in the background. Once again it was lovely to have a couple of hours away from the bus and away from the town surrounded by nature.
We set off around 11:30 to climb up into the hills. We crossed two passes both over 3,000m. The scenery was gorgeous. Lush green pasture, hills climbing up either side of us, lightly clouded blue sky up above and streams and small rivers running along side. Beautiful.
Along the way we saw lots of yurts and caravans of the nomadic herders that come up into the hills to graze their horses, cattle and sheep over the summer. Herds of really healthy looking horses being most common. Along the way there were also many yurts set-up up as cafes and shops servicing the many trucks that passed by.
Late afternoon we arrived in Kyzyl Oi Village another Community Based Tourism centre. We checked in at the Tourist Information and got allocated 4 homestays which we spread ourselves across, with the sickest amongst us getting the houses with the inside toilets. I'm still hovering around 75% but very tired, I crashed into bed by 8:30 and slept for almost 11 hours. Not the most riotous of birthdays.
Happy Birthday to me.
7th August 2019 - To Son Kul Lake
Thankfully everyone is on the mend this morning; many are far from 100% but definitely going in the right direction. So we all made it into the mini-buses on time to set-off through more stunning alpine scenery.
What more can I say ... scenery, scenery, scenery.
We started to wind our way up out of the valleys onto the high plateau. The panorama got wider and wider and the temperatures thankfully started to drop. This is actually a picture of coal mine; even the coal mines here are scenic.
For the next two nights we are staying in a tourist yurt camp by Son Kul Lake. I say camp it feels more like a town. Lots of yurts, toilet and shower block, bigger yurts set up as mess halls. There are probably a hundred or more tourists staying in the camp but given the wide open spaces there's room for all of us and more.
The lake sits at just over 3,000m on the high plateau and surrounded by grassland. We could see the odd herder's yurt around the shore and herds of horses and sheep roaming around. Time for a sunset shot.
8th August 2019 - Son Kul Lake
Today we have a full day at and around the Son Kul Lake Yurt Camp. Overnight it got a bit chilly but not as cold as I expected, in our yurts wrapped up in our duvets we were perfectly snug. As soon as the sun came up it soon warmed up but thankfully not as hot as yesterday. There were plenty of clouds around shielding us from the intense sun and the breeze was lovely and cool.
Some of us headed out of camp and up onto the ridge that runs behind. We crossed little streams and walked through herds of horses and sheep and gently climbed upwards; although at over 3,000m no climb is all that gentle.
The view at the top was beautiful, the big blue and white sky, the hills with big snow capped mountains behind, the animals grazing and the smoke rising out of the yurts. The stayed for a while and then headed down; I stayed behind to enjoy the peace and quiet of the scene. If I'd had my book with me I could've stayed up there all day.
I walked further along the ridge stopping now and again to sit, to photograph and to enjoy the landscape. From up there you could properly grasp the size of lake and the plateau it sits in. It really is the sort of landscape that goes on and on and on.
After lunch we visited one of the herders that comes up onto the plateau in summer to graze their animals and enjoy the scene. It turned out this family didn't consider themselves proper nomads/herders they basically come up here every summer holiday. They bring up their family and their and other people's horses drink fermented horses milk and chill out. their family had been doing it for generations and they said their yurt was over 80 years old.
They passed around some fermented horses milk for us to try, most passed but 4 of us gave it a go. It tasted like sour yoghurt that had gone a bit vinegary, definitely and acquired taste. One of the young daughters sang and danced and generally enjoyed the attention and we learnt about life in the area. I never feel that confortable intruding on peoples homes in this way like they are museum exhibits but they seemed genuinely happy we were there I guess when you're up here for 3 months of the year it's nice to break things up and the little donation we gave them must help too.
Another cool evening preceded by a cool sunset. This time I shot it over the yurt and tents of the family we visited earlier.
This afternoon we paid a group of local herders to put on a example of the 'sports' played at their big national gatherings including the 'National Sport' of Goat Polo! If you're not too squeamish and want to see more click on the link below.
Horse Games at Sun Kol Lake - Kyrgyzstan - 2019
9th August 2019 - Bishkek
One last goodbye to Son Kul Lake and set off back towards civilisation. It was nearly 40 miles of rough gravelly roads before the main highway so there was plenty of time to take in the scenery and make few photo stops along the way. This stop was officially for the 2,000 year old burial mounds in the background but a cowboy riding across at the opportune moment gave the photo a lot more depth.
We climbed up out off the plateau with time for one more photo from 3,300m before winding our way down and down into the valleys again. The grass started to get green and the small streams ran into bigger and bigger rivers.
Mid-afternoon we reached the Kyrgyzstan, Bishkek. I think all any of us really wanted to do was hit the hotel have a decent shower and use the internet but the itinerary included a visit to the Fine Arts Museum and a city tour and our local guide is a stickler for the itinerary. The Fine Arts Museum was a contradiction in terms. It may have been the finest Soviet art from the last 100 years but I thought it was all pretty poor. The communists really suppressed anything more than the functional from their art and it left it all really dull.
We saw Soviet style buildings and statues like this dancer in front of the opera/ballet theatre and lots of statues put up in the last 15 years of Kyrgyzstan's heroes real and imagined. A few Soviet era relics remained including a huge solid bronze Lenin and this war memorial for the fallen heroes of the Soviet state.
The highlight as in so many of the these cities were the goose-stepping solders at the changing of the guard. No matter how many times you see it it fascinates and amuses in equal doses. With the statue and the soviet era buildings in the background it did make for a decent shot.
