Kyrgyzstan - Tong and the Yurt Experience

In the two days that we had been in Jyrgalan, the road construction between Karakol and Jyrgalan had changed dramatically. It had taken us 2.5 hours to get to Jyrgalan from Karakol but only half that to get back. We passed more horses heading down from their summer pastures.

To make people aware of stock on the roads, cutouts of animals were erected beside the roads. They also do cutouts of school kids crossing pedestrian crossings and police cars! They're quite effective at getting the message across.

Mosques are quite low-key in this country. They tend to be small, local places and don't seem to broadcast the services to all and sundry.

From Karakol, we drove west along the southern edge of Lake Issyk-Kul, the huge lake that we've pretty much circled around on this trip. There were many lovely beaches lining the shore and some beautiful mountain views.

Also lining the shores though were hundreds of cottages and yurts. In some places they were very concentrated. Many looked like they were new but hadn't been used, strangely. Maybe they were waiting for the road to be finished?

Our next accommodation, and our last in Kyrgyzstan, would be a special one. It was a yurt with amazing views! We finally found the place (it was a bit out of the way) and the views over rugged orange hills was fabulous. 

It wasn't love at first sight with the yurt though. It was pretty rough and ready. Old, worn lino and flattened cardboard boxes lined the floor but they had covered most of it with colourful carpets. They weren't traditional felt yurts. They were built from timber then rendered with mud. The mud plaster was falling off, even though the yurts were fairly new. We'd realised by now that the word 'yurt' just means any building built in a circular shape. Our yurt had large windows overlooking the view, something you can't do with a traditional yurt. Traditional ones have no windows. We also had an ensuite, another thing traditional yurts don't have!

Three single beds were inside, however they didn't have 'normal' mattresses. They just had piles of padded blankets on the bed bases. The blankets were too long for the bases, so they folded them to fit! We could both feel the bed base through them. I pinched another blanket off the spare bed which made it ok.

One of the most wonderful things about the yurt was that it had a traditional yurt opening in the ceiling. This had a canvas cover which could be opened and closed as needed. Each morning, the husband would open it and each night he would close it. The morning sun poured straight through the windows, so this was a great way to get some airflow going and control the temperature inside.

We ate breakfast and dinner in a 'real' yurt.

There was also another yurt which we think was used when there were many people eating there. It was brightly decorated inside.

On each of the two full days that we were there, there were AFL finals matches on. It was amazing lying on the beds watching the games (there were no chairs or any other furniture) then looking across at the amazing view during the less exciting bits.

The views changed with the time of day.

Sunrise

Our car, a yurt and mountains.

A husband and wife team ran the yurt camp (there were only three yurts) but they spoke no English. They tried hard though. We ate dinner each night there. Miram wasn't the best cook but the food was ok. Their own house was next door and it was pretty rough. The part they lived in was simple. A new extension sat half-finished, looking a mess. Water came from a well and the washing machine was at least 50 years old. It had to be loaded by hand.

We met a lovely French father and adult son on night one. They lived on a stunning island in France. I saw pictures. I want to go there now! Night two we ate with a pair of lovely Swiss girls and we shared the table with a Hungarian couple and their two-year-old on night three. It was good to have people to talk to over dinner.

Of course, we didn't always sit around the yurt! Our first walk was just a quick explore of the area further down our road. We were hoping it would lead into the hills but instead it led through lovely farmland to a valley.

There were more cool views of the colourful sculpted hills here.

As we drove up and down the highway to various places, the amount of roadworks continued to amaze us.

A famous place nearby is Fairytale Canyon. It's very similar to the rugged hills in our view from the yurt but there were some tracks through these formations. We headed off on some side hills and had some wonderful views.

We saw a snake! It was tiny, lol.

It was busy in the main part of the canyon, but the formations and colours were lovely.

It was my birthday and we had a call with the kids. The internet wasn't great though (yes we had wifi in the yurt!) but we managed to have a chat anyway which was wonderful.

Another walk took us to a viewpoint where we could see over Lake Issyk-Kul plus the amazing rocky formations. Autumn was coming!

We had to wash the car as we would be returning it the next morning. Out time in Kyrgyzstan was almost up. It's strange how even things like car washes vary in each country. The foam here was very frothy and very pink!

We had one last quick walk into the valley in front of our yurt camp. It was so green and lovely on the valley floor. Horses and cows wandered freely.

Staying in the yurt was a great experience. I'll always have fond memories of those views and that amazing hole in the roof!

'Bye from the Grey (yurt-dwelling) Nomads :)

(Saying that reminds us of our friend Shahin's slip of the tongue when he referred to that generation as grey gonads!)

Kyrgyzstan - Karakol and Jyrgalan

We left Cholpon-Ata, still pumped from seeing the World Nomad Games. As we drove out of town, we passed enormous queues of people waiting to catch busses up and down the valley to one of the games locations.

We drove through towns with 'gingerbread houses' typical of this area.

Horses seemed to get trucked everywhere.

We drove to one of Kyrgyzstan's main cities, Karakol. It felt much more like a small town than I expected. It was a strange place. Only the main roads were sealed. There seemed to be one main stretch of shops and the rest was just dusty, wide streets leading through suburban areas.

We stayed in a great guest house with an amazing owner. Sadly, my computer died. The guest house owner had an IT friend who spent 4.5 hours working on it, to no avail. It looks like my hard drive has died. I won't know how much, if anything, is recoverable until I get home. All my photos are now being processed on John's laptop, which has none of my programmes, and the photos are doing weird things, so I apologise now for the poor quality pics.

We found a wonderful restaurant in Karakol that served fabulous fresh food of many varieties. We ate there at every opportunity.

On our first day we walked to the Maiden's Tears Waterfall. The waterfall was quite lovely, but it wasn't a great hike. A lot of people and horses were there. It had been raining in the previous days, and the horses had turned the tracks to mud. They were also wrecking the tracks. Scars ran along the hillsides. Water will flow down these and cause further erosion when it rains. I think it's time for some intervention.

There were some lovely views along the way though.

The waterfall.

On the way back out we passed the 'Seven Bulls' rocks. I had read how they can be really beautiful but, on a cloudy day, near a ramshackle village, they weren't that striking!

The next day was wonderful though. There is a ski field in the Karakol valley, to the south of Karakol, and sometimes the chairlift runs in summer. We waited an hour until there were enough people for them to start it! Horses wandered around eating the grassy areas of the ski runs.

It's not often that you glide over horses on a chairlift!

We had a lovely 30-minute ride to the top. On the way up we were so close to the trees that we brushed past them. At one stage a squirrel popped out to say hello!

The views on the way up were amazing.

The views from the top were simply stupendous on this perfect, cloud-free day. 

At 3040 metres high, we certainly felt on top of the world.

The crows here seem to be better flyers than most and they soared on thermals.

We then drove further up the valley, parked at a certain point and just walked up the valley. It was really beautiful and peaceful.

Back in Karakol, we visited the Holy Trinity Church. It was built entirely of wood and was lovely.

The wood carvings were beautiful.

We said goodbye to our lovely host and headed to Jyrgalan, further east. It quickly became obvious that major roadworks were being undertaken. We detoured, we avoided potholes and we ploughed through clouds of dust. The number of trucks and road-making machinery on the road was astonishing!

At one stage an excavator just raised his arm and we drove under it!

We passed mob after mob of horses, cows and sheep, all going the same way. We guessed that they're starting to bring stock down from the higher country at the end of summer.

2.5 hours of bone-rattling, dust-breathing driving later, we arrived at Jyrgalan. It was only 66km from Karakol!

We went to Jyrgalan as it's known to be a lovely, rural village and a great base for hiking. Locals won a US grant to start up a coordinated guest house business, where trekkers are drawn in and profits get shared within the village. We were looking forward to a rural experience. Much to our horror though, this is what greeted us.

Apparently, the Kyrygz government has decided to build a ski resort near Jyrgalan. New roads were being built all the way from Bishkek to here. Hundreds of trucks drove up and down the half-made roads, throwing dust over everything and everyone. The sound of machinery was constantly in the background.  

Part of the river had been destroyed by earthworks.

The main road had been widened and large trucks trundled up and down it. This wasn't what we came here for!

We checked into our guest house and found we were staying in half of a large yurt-like accommodation, which was kind of cool. There are thousands of yurt-shaped rooms built around this country. They look like yurts but are usually made of wood or something a bit more permanent. Next to us were an American couple around our age. We immediately connected and we had a great time with them.

It was only early afternoon when we arrived, so John and I went on our first walk. We soon met some Bangladeshi truck drivers. Somehow, one of them told us within two minutes of meeting him, that he earned USD1000 per month. This is probably a big salary for these guys. They were very cheerful and friendly. They were clearly enjoying their time there.

Soon after that we came across a water truck upside down in the river! The driver must have backed up to get water then the truck somehow tipped. Hope he was ok!

While we were walking, they pulled the truck out. It was pretty beaten up.

The hiking track we were supposed to be walking on was now a dirt road frequented by trucks.

Our destination was Tulpar Tash, a rock with legends told about it. 

The view down the valley was lovely.

The next day's hike was a weird one. We followed a trail on one of our apps and it didn't make a lot of sense as it turned off an ascent just before we reached the top and contoured around the big hill on poor tracks instead. The views on the first part were superb though!

Lunch stop with a view.

We descended to a lake which was ok.

A Vietnamese girl latched onto us because she was afraid of the cows grazing on the plains. She was travelling on her own in Kyrgyzstan, and it was the cows she was worried about? Not that there's any particular danger in Kyrgyzstan, but still.

As we approached the village, we were thrown back into the world of roadworks again.

Trucks aside, the village was interesting. There was a classic bridge which hikers still used.

Old wooden sheds still lined the streets.

This abandoned house had trees growing from the roof!

You don't see many pretty gardens in this country, but this one was cute. All the outside dunnies are this shape. They're gorgeous!

We had booked three nights here. We soon realised this was about three nights too long! We ended up forfeiting our last night and leaving early. Luckily, our room was comfortable (despite only having single beds) and the Americans were good company. We certainly still enjoyed ourselves!

Hooroo!
Heather and John