A lot of major metropolitan areas have a sort of associated summer retreat area that isn’t too far away.  New York has the Hamptons, Boston has the Cape, DC has the mountains, San Francisco has Napa… and Bishkek has Issyk-Kul.  Some of my local friends go out there as often as they can.  And on my way to the airport on a recent Friday on my way to Bishkek, I got a call inviting me along.  Always accept the invitation, they say.  So, within a few hours I was in a car with a bunch of guys headed for a relaxing weekend on the beach along the South Shore, where I’d never been before.

In case I haven’t already talked abundantly about this, Issyk-Kul is stunningly spectacular.  Nothing can really prepare you to see an expanse of water so oceanically vast that you can’t always see where it ends in between the mountains that frame it, all at over a mile above sea level.  There very well might be more sandy beach surrounding Issyk Kul than in the entire state of Hawai’i.

We arrived in the tiny village of Kaji-Sai not long after dark, and got settled into the Shumoff Guest House, a newly opened guesthouse run by a few wonderfully hospitable and artistically inclined Kyrgyzstanis in this little village a short drive east of Bokonbaevo.

The village is perched in a little canyon uphill from the road, but there’s a nice grouping of small ashkanas and shops along the main road just above the beach.  And with a little walking, you can get yourself to stretches of completely pristine solitary beach.

On Saturday, we woke up and leisurely made our way through some coffee, eggs, and toast before heading down to the lake for an inaugural swim in this slightly salty lake that, despite literally being called “hot lake,” is still glaicially cold.  After a bit of resting, playing, and swimming, it was up to the main road for a massive plate of lagman for lunch, before back to the beach.  This is the general pattern of life on vacation here – food, beach, food, beach.  We spent the afternoon relaxing some more, before buying a bit of local wine and heading down to the beach to enjoy the sunset with some other friends, some of whom were/are attending an art camp or academy that also is hosted in this village.

The next day, we started with some food and another morning swim, before climbing into the car to go see one of the geological highlights of Issyk-Kul: Fairytale Canyon.  It’s located between Kaji-Sai and Tamga, right in the middle of the South Shore.  For a few hundred som admission for the car, you can get out and have free range over some very peculiar and fantastic rock formations.

And when I said you can have free range over them, I really meant it:

These photos really don’t do the experience justice, to be honest.

The formations are almost as if there were a several mile long rock wall that rose up out of the ground to protect the mountains behind them.

It was spectacular, but too much walking got us tired enough that we piled back into the car to head to… the cafe and the beach again.

After another lovely long swim, we had to pile back into the car to head back toward Bishkek, and I bid my friends farewell in Balykchy to go and have dinner with a good friend who lives there (and also to comply with our policy on traveling after dark).  All in all, a spectacular weekend, and I’ve definitely got the tan to show for it!

Visiting KG? Going to Issyk-Kul?  Let me know and I can give you some advice!