I know some of you, and I don’t know some of you. Whether or not I know you, I still strongly recommend you consider visiting Kyrgyzstan, because this place is pretty amazing. Here’s a collection of tips for traveling here to help you start thinking about what you might want to do here (slash maybe do with me!). I really want to continue adding to this, so if you have specific questions, please comment or send me an email so I can answer them directly or in a new post!
Getting There
Kyrgyzstan is relatively easy to get to. Flying is easiest, as TONS of countries’ citizens can get Visa On Arrival at the airports here. We have daily flights into Bishkek on Turkish, Pegasus, AtlasGlobal, Aeroflot, and others, and also flights into Osh (my town!) on Turkish 3x per week, and on Pegasus Asia. A bunch of Kyrgyz and Russian airlines also connect us to places across Russia, but they’re not exactly widely regarded as safe, and you definitely won’t get frequent flyer miles. Osh is usually cheaper than Bishkek, but that also depends. If you’re more adventurous (and speak Russian or Kazakh), you can get your visa in advance and fly into Almaty, then take a bus to Bishkek, which is usually the cheapest way to Kyrgyzstan (British, Lufthansa, and a ton of other airlines fly into Almaty). You can also come in from Uzbekistan, China (that’s super complicated though), or over the Pamir Highway from Tajikistan, but you need your visa in advance for those.
Where To Stay?
Kyrgyzstan has a wide variety of comfortable accommodations, ranging from camping to yurt-stays to the Hyatt and other fancy “Biznezhotels” in Bishkek and Osh. I personally live and stay in homestays with friends when I travel here, and local Community Based Tourism (CBT) offices can usually connect you with homestays in their communities. In some parts of Issyk-Kul, you can also look yourself for houses that say “Komnata Cdayu,” which means “room for rent.” While you’re here, definitely try to get in a yurt-stay somewhere, as it’s one of the most unique things I’ve done here.
Money
Kyrgyzstan uses a money called the som. When I arrived, it was stable around 58-62 som per dollar, but it’s been fluctuating a bit more wildly lately, so check for more recent exchange rates. ATM’s aren’t too hard to find in most larger cities and towns, but they will charge you a fee, usually a percentage of how much you are withdrawing. Do your best to break large bills when you have the opportunity (“maida bar-buh” is a useful phrase for this), since most places have trouble breaking 500 som (purple) and 1000 som (gray) bills. If someone tries to issue you a 5000 som bill (the green one) when you change money, ask them to break it immediately, as those are almost impossible to break outside of banks.
Transport
Transport within Kyrgyz cities is by numbered marshrutka (10 som always, when in doubt pay as you enter, but in Osh we pay as we exit usually), or by shared, negotiated, or metered taxi. I would wager that 50% of my taxi drivers try to rip me off in some way, so I try to use marshrutkas when I can. Some rules of thumb, make sure you have exact change for your negotiated price (they’ll claim to have no change), make sure they turn on the meter (and that they don’t turn it off immediately), and try to know the average price for your route (ask your hotel, for instance, how much it normally costs). I’ve had taxi drivers try and charge me 150 som for a ride that is normally only 60 som, and when you fight them about it and say “your meter is broken, yesterday I took this same route and it only cost 60 som with the meter, so I will pay you 60 som,” they usually will eventually drop down. Don’t let them make excuses. A normal flag fee is 40-50 som, then the distance is on top of that, probably about 5 som per minute in Bishkek and Osh (it’s actually by distance, but people’s distance estimates here are not really ever accurate).
Travel between cities is by plane (Osh-Bishkek, normally between $15 and $30 one way on Pegasus Asia, Avia Traffic, Air Kyrgyzstan, or the TezJet). TezJet also in the summer flies twice weekly from Osh to Tamchy, which is a lovely resort in Issyk-Kul. Inter-city marshrutkas exist between many city pairs, and costs between 50 and 500 som depending on the distance. Taxis are the only way to get to many places, and can be as cheap as 25 som for a seat in a shared taxi to 300 som for that same taxi at night if you have to hire it out yourself. Many taxis will charge you a double fare if they don’t think they can get a return fare from wherever you’re traveling to, so be warned. For intercity taxis, I suggest just having CBT book them for you and paying the surcharge, because I don’t like having to negotiate prices with drivers before, after, and during a drive, then dealing with them not showing up and stuff like that. Even with very advanced language skills, it can be a very trying process.
There is also a train from Bishkek to Balykchy, which is an interesting, cheap (65 som each way!) experience. It leaves around 6am from Bishkek, takes 4-5 hours and leaves Balykchy to return at about 4pm, so you can get a day trip in to Issyk-Kul from Bishkek if you’re pressed for time.
Budgeting
Kyrgyzstan is CHEAP. If you don’t mind street cafes, each of your meals could be as little as $1, yurt stays are 500 per night in many places, and you can get all over the country for not a lot of money (if you take the high-traffic routes). Hitchhiking is completely normal here too, but you should expect to pay the normal taxi fare for one seat if you travel that way. An average restaurant meal in the cities is 200-500 som pp, but in local hole-in-the wall places you can get away with 50-130 som lunches. Hotels can range from a few hundred som to 2000 per night for a suite, at least in Osh. A backpacker could do a TON of really awesome stuff here for less than $20 a day – I live a very happy and comfortable city life on about $5 a day, including rent, food, transportation and entertainment. A Baltika 7 costs between 50 and 120 som depending on the place (that’s about as good a benchmark as any in this region).
Kyrgyzstan Highlights:
- Bishkek
- Visit Ala-Too Square, the White House, the Yurt (WWII) Monument, and Osh Bazaar (keep them bags close and don’t forget your passport!).
- Grab a cup of the best coffee for 1000 miles at Sierra Coffee
- Have lunch at Jalal-Abad Chaikana (tea house), a traditional tea house with some of the best Kyrgyz food in the city.
- Check out the Soviet Antiques Bazaar by Cosmopark on Saturday mornings
- Day hike in Ala-Archa National Park or visit the hot springs at Issyk-Ata
- Visit Burana Tower near Tokmok
- Osh
- Visit ME!
- Climb Suleiman-Too, the only UNESCO World Heritage Site in Kyrgyzstan
- Visit the tallest Lenin statue in Central Asia
- Explore a city whose culture feels completely different from Bishkek and the North of Kyrgyzstan
- Take a trek to the base camp of Peak Lenin in the Pamir Mountains
- Eat samsa the size of a baby’s head
- Climb the Minaret at Uzgen and visit the Mausoleum of Uzgen
- Issyk-Kul
- Go trekking, skiing, or day hiking near Karakol
- Relax on the beach near Tamchy (or really anywhere except Bosteri where you might get robbed)
- Eat real Ashlyam-Fu at a little cafe next door to the right of Cafe Dastorkon that my friend’s family runs that has the BEST ASHLYAM-FU IN KYRGYZSTAN!
- Naryn Oblast
- Visit Song-Kul, stay in a yurt, taste the best kymyz in all of Kyrgyzstan, and see one of the most beautiful places on earth! Seriously, this is the highlight of Kyrgyzstan I would say.
- Cross one of the spectacular passes from Naryn to Jalal-Abad (expensive, but spectacular. Contact CBT for details).
- Visit the caravansarai at Tash-Rabat
- There are some epic treks out of At-Bashy as well
- Jalal-Abad Oblast
- Visit Arslanbob, the world’s largest walnut forest!
- Visit/hike at Sary-Chelek, one of the other most beautiful places in Kyrgyzstan
- Eat manty the size of a baby’s head
- Swim in the Toktogul Reservoir
- Talas Oblast
- See the final resting place(s) of Manas, the epic hero of the Kyrgyz nation
- Eat a lot of beans? I haven’t actually been to this oblast so I can’t really say much about it except that some of the coolest people I know live there.
- Batken Oblast
- I haven’t been here, but I’m told that Pyramid Peak is one of the most spectacular mountains in the world
- Go from Osh to Tajikistan without going through the Pamirs!
- I’m sure there’s a lot of cool stuff to do in Batken, but I’m not allowed to go there, so you’ll have to rely on your Lonely Planet for that one.
Posts about Kyrgyzstan are coming all the time, so I’ll add a highlights section here once it’s more relevant.
If you have ideas for how else I can improve this incredibly non-exhaustive list of information, please let me know via email or in the comments below!