Issyk-Kul means “hot lake” in Kyrgyz, so named because it does not freeze in winter because of its salt content. It’s the second largest alpine lake in the world (after Lake Titicaca), and is saline because it is in an isolated basin without drainage. Lined with beaches and mountains, in the summer it’s hard to tell that you’re in Kyrgyzstan, and not actually on the Mediterrannean coast.

After spending the night in Song Kul, where we were pelted by a terrific thunderstorm and the roof of our felt yurt dripped on us all night, we were greeted by this spectacular sunrise:

Just about all of my best photos from this trip came from that morning. We got up at sunrise, about 5:30 or 6:00, and our Kyrgyz hosts brought a table and mattresses outside, lit the samovar (they use wood-fired samovars to heat water in areas without electricity), and poured us tea and kymyz with bread as we sat in the near-horizontal sunlight. We were fully awake because of the light, but its angle and the cool temperature (it had gone down to 40 degrees overnight) reminded me more of Iceland than of Kyrgyzstan. Words really can’t capture the feeling of sheer expanse, with no trees in sight.

After walking to and from the shore, we got back in the car, and after a brief stop for more photos, we continued our way around the lake towards the northeast pass out of the lake. At the turn to the southeast road, we encountered a panel truck stopped with two confused Europeans. They came up to our window and said, “bonjour!,” and they were surprised when I responded in French to them. They were attempting to return to Kochkor like us, and so I got out to go help them with their directions. The man asked me if I was Kyrgyz, and I laughed – I don’t look Kyrgyz at all! We talked about the roads down from the lake, and they agreed that the southeast pass is a very poor quality road, and so they set off behind us towards the northwest pass.

We picked up a nice elderly man who was traveling to Naryn from the lake, and we piled his stuff in with ours, and went up and over the pass, past some of the last snow of the winter (in August!), and down a long, bumpy, windy dirt road. Every so often, a crazy marshrutka driver would lumber past us. I’m amazed that more people aren’t killed on this road.

Just before reaching the Kochkor-Naryn highway, in the last few miles of dirt road (we had been traveling for nearly three full days on single-lane cliffside ungraded dirt tracks), we blew a tyre. Given the small car we were driving and how fast we were going, I’m amazed it took us that long to blow a tyre, and that we only blew one. Many people joke that it’s not a trip across the passes of Naryn without blowing at least one tyre. The road quality here is one of the reasons that tyre repair shops (amusingly called “Vulcanizatsia” in Russian) are so frequent.

After that, we dropped off our elderly traveling companion (but not after he spilled a bit of kymyz in the back seat of the car) and drove on the gloriously paved highway at 130 kilometers per hour all the way to Kochkor, and on to Balykchy in Issyk-Kul Oblast.

As we continued around the lake, we stopped to eat Ashlyam-Fu, a dish that Issyk-Kul is famous for. It is a cold, spicy noodle soup with cubes of gelatin and vegetables in it, and is derived from a traditional Dungan dish. Dungans are a minority ethnic group in Kyrgyzstan who are related to Chinese people, and their food is wonderfully spicy and flavorful. Ashlyam-Fu is definitely one of the favorite dishes of everyone here.

As we drove through a town called Tamchy, we picked up a woman who was trying to get to the next town. My host father began asking her about herself, and he asked if she rents rooms (many people in Tamchy rent rooms to tourists who flock to Issyk-Kul in the summer for tropical beach vacations). She said yes, so after we got to the next town, we turned around and drove right back to her house in the previous village, where we parked, changed, and promptly went to the beach for the rest of the day. It was an unexpected change of plans, but after spending two and a half days resting in Tamchy with this woman and her wonderful family and relaxing on the beach, I was fully supportive of our decision to stop there and rest.

Seriously, my brain was spinning at the sight of what is essentially a beach resort with cool water, warm sun, plenty of refreshments, delicious smoked fish, and lots of Russian tourists, located high in the unforgiving mountains of Central Asia. But I soon accepted it and took a deep sigh and relaxed in the sun. I was getting to see the entire country, and it was a very pleasant surprise that I don’t even have to leave the country to go on a tropical beach vacation.

Keep reading in Part 4: Around Issyk Kul, or revisit Part 1 and Part 2!

Check out the full gallery of photos from my trip here!