Last week, I got to return for probably the last time to my favorite rayon in Kyrgyzstan, the high and remote Chong-Alay region, which is the southernmost region in Kyrgyzstan. As the crow flies, it’s only about 65 miles southwest of Osh (a 20-minute flight in the Soviet era), but thanks to the majestic Alay mountains, the drive is 300km and takes 5 hours on a good day. It’s remote, but as I had learned from my previous visits, it’s one of the most welcoming and hard-working places in the country. Continue reading “Winter in Chong-Alay”→
After what seemed like weeks of travel, we made it to Tamchy for rest. After a few days on the beach, we climbed back into the car and made our way toward a village called Taldy-Suu near the city of Tup, which is where one of my host family members is from. But, naturally, before we could get there, we had to stop and rest, and we chose a beautiful hot spring to stop at. I didn’t take photos of the spring, but it was crowded with Russian and Kyrgyz tourists alike, all starting in the cool pool, moving up to the warm pool, before slowly inching their sunburns fully beneath a waterfall of scalding hot water. Every so often, they’d get out and plunge into an ice bath nearby. There was a juice stand (like the ones in New York), a raptor trainer, and even a restaurant.
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:
Sunrise after the storm
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. Continue reading “Road Trip Part 3: The Road to Issyk-Kul”→
Song Kul reminds me of a Microsoft wallpaper. Its grasslands rise from the water’s edge across rolling hills and up to mountains, with the fields broken only by the occasional yurt, cow, or horse. Tucked away in a high mountain basin, there is no electricity or cell coverage within two hours by car. It’s about as peaceful a place as I’ve ever managed to find outside of Alaska.
I mean, COME ON, LOOK AT THAT.
Song Kul is a summer retreat for many of the semi-nomadic people of Kyrgyzstan. While it has a thriving tourism industry, most of the yurts around the lake belong to ordinary Kyrgyz people who, every summer, bring their herds and flocks from towns and villages to the lake to graze and to relax in the clean crisp cool mountain air. When it is over 100 degrees in Osh during the day, it can be as cool as 40 degrees at night at Song Kul. Even though less than 100km away, people are sweating bullets in Bishkek, in Song Kul, it is necessary to wear sweaters, vests, and fur-lined boots. It’s a contrast in so many ways to many places in Kyrgyzstan, and yet it manages to remain so distinctively Kyrgyz in a most beautiful way. Continue reading “Road Trip Part 2: The Road To Song Kul”→
In late July, my host family, who is from Issyk-Kul, invited me along on their annual road trip to the massive lake at the opposite end of the country. They’re from a small village at the very far end of the lake, in a town that is just about as far away from Osh as you can get without leaving Kyrgyzstan. With a short whirlwind of planning, I got permission to join them, and we set off on August 2nd, with the stipulation that I had to be in Bishkek by the evening of August 9th.
The minaret at Uzgen
Rather than drive directly, though, we decided to travel a more circuitous route to see more of the country. Our plan included a drive on the spectacular Osh to Bishkek highway, a detour through a remote corner of Naryn oblast up to the world-famous jailoo at Song-Kul, and finally down over the mountains to Issyk-Kul. We started out driving most of the way to Bishkek along the main north-south road, which winds its way out of Osh, around the pinnacle of Uzbekistan in the side of Kyrgyzstan, and up over the mountains to the Toktogul reservoir, before crossing more mountains. Continue reading “Road Trip Part 1: Driving North”→
