Kyrgyzstan - heavenly mountains

Well, we finally left Uzbekistan for the small mountain republic of Kyrgyzstan (Yes, another former soviet strong hold). Leaving Uzbekistan was made somewhat more difficult since Kyrgyzstan had closed its landborders with Uzbekistan and we therefore had to fly. Concerning was also a BBC report that stated that China had closed its Western borders with Kyrgystan (which luckily turned out to not be true).

Arriving in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan was WONDERFUL. Green trees everywhere, the mountains (with snow) on the horizon. A small very friendly city. And the hotel! What was interesting was the difference to Uzbekistan as far as how the transition from communism has happened: in Uzbekistan every trace of communism had been eradicated and replaced by 'fairly nationalistic' Uzbek statues of heroes. Kyrgyz people seem very pragmatic, they did not invest any energy into tearing down the statues but simply ignore them. The statues of Lenin did not mean much to them before the collapse so why bother now!

In Bishkek we borded then together with a handful of Australians and two Alaskans a former army 'monster truck' to head for the mountains. Speed was very slow (20 km/h - 30 mph) which gives you an idea of the road conditions. After a very long day of driving we then arrived at Son Kul Lake and it was AMAZING. The lake is at an altitude of 3000m/9000ft in the middle of the snow covered Tian Shan (heavenly) mountains. We stayed in a yurt, the traditional tent that the nomadic Kyrgyz use, amidst horses, camels, sheep, goats and yaks. We drank fermented mare milk (you do NOT want to know anything more, trust me!!!), ate fresh mountain lake fish, did some hiking, went horseback riding - just wonderful, by far the most impressive place so far on this trip. Oh, well, yes it was cold, freezing indeed, it actually even snowed. But it was so amazing that even that did not deter from the experience, plus we were suplied with hourly vodka to fight of the cold. From Sol Kul we then moved on to Tashrabat where again we stayed in a yurt, did more hiking and visited an old caravanserai ('silk road hotel').

From Tashrabat we made our way up to the Chinese border. We slowly climbed the southern Tien Shan mountains in our monster truck ( a bumpy ride with guaranteed motion sickness within the minute for the susceptible ones) to the Torugat pass (3700 m). Crossing the border turned out to be very easy. We only had to show our passport fifteen times on the Kyrgyz side and then were dropped of in no-man's land waiting for our Chinese transport which turned up just three hours later. At the first Chinese border post we were thoroughly checked, every piece of luaggage was searched, all newspaper and cassettes were conviscated and then after another 100 km the same procedure was repeated. That day was very long and we arrived in the evening in Kashgar, China. The border crossing was made even more fun by our favourite Australian, who has a small problem with alcohol (he was completely drunk when we crossed the border and had nothing better to do than take a picture of the military installations at the Kyrgyz border.

Again, we really loved Kyrgyzstan and would recommend it to everyone.