Kyrgyzstan – June 2019

June 20-22, 2019

It is good to have an end to journey towards, but it is the journey that matters in the end.”

• Earnest Hemingway

I noted this trip on the Trekkup-Dubai calendar a couple of months earlier, but just wasn’t sure less than two weeks was going to be enough recovery time from an epic weeklong trek to Omo Valley in Ethiopia earlier in the month.  But then I considered how awesome these treks have been and how difficult they would be to take from the USA and it was game on. I signed up at the last minute. A spot was open, and I was off. Adventures with the Trekkup can be a different travel experience from the norm for many folks.  The calendar is booked with all sorts of fascinating adventures that give a general description, but details can be a little thin. I headed off to Dubai on a hot Middle East afternoon to the Costa Coffee in Dubai Airport with no airline ticket, no knowledge of what airline we were flying, and nary a clue as to what city we were even flying to.  No worries, I had a smile on my face and the adventure began – a harbinger of adventures to come on this trip.

We met at the airport coffee shop.  As usual I didn’t know anyone signed up for this trip.  The people I have met have been almost as much fun as the adventures themselves. There were representatives from the United Kingdom (5), USA (3), South Africa, Morocco, and Oman (1 each).  We had an uneventful flight to Manas International Airport in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, the capital and largest city with about a million people. We were met there at early dawn by our local guide, Nuraly Turganbaev.  A native Kyrg, his permanent job is as a French professor at a local university. He struggled at times with his English, a fact easy to forgive as it is his fourth language.

Kyrgyzstan is a mountainous country (average elevation for the country is 2750 meters) in central Asia bordered by Kazakhstan to the north, Uzbekistan to the west, Tajikistan to the south, and China to the east. There are less than 6.5 million in the whole of the country, which is quite poor, ranking 147^th in per capita GDP. An interesting piece of trivia – Kyrgyzstan is farther from the sea than any other individual country, and all its rivers flow into closed drainage systems which do not reach the sea.  The country is about 88% Muslim, though a blend of Russian Orthodox churches dot the landscape mixed in with the occasional mosque.  There is no official state religion and the country was declared atheist during the Soviet era. Many people exercise a blend of practices. For example, a Muslim may consult a traditional shaman for a health concern while having an occasional local vodka.  Ramadan has little effect on local activities.

Present day Kyrgyz began to immigrate from Siberia around the 10^th century AD, accelerating in the 13^th century with the emergence of the Mongol Empire under Genghis Khan.  They were later a vassal state under the Russian czars before coming under Soviet rule.  The enjoy their independence but maintain good relations with the Soviets.

We drove to a local hotel for breakfast.  We wouldn’t spend the night there until the following night, so we didn’t check in.  After a breakfast of tomatoes, cucumbers, eggs, cheese, yogurt, sausage, and bread, we were back in the van and on to our mountain excursion. Technically, I saw the name of the hotel, but my Cyrillic is a little weak (read: non-existent), so I had no idea what the name was. We stopped by a small grocery store on the way out of town. I always enjoy that experience to see what the locals like. Whole dried mackerel were a highlight of this store, and I am always amazed at the global penetration of the Coca-Cola brand.  I asked if they had a local beer and was directed to Apna, a wheat beer at a whopping 11% ABV!

Bishkek is in the Chuy Oblast (province), one of seven oblasttar in Kyrgyzstan.  The town was originally a caravan rest stop on one of the branches of the Silk Road, a network of roads from the Orient to the west from before the Christian era until the Ottoman Empire closed the routes in the 1400s. We headed east on poplar lined streets to E125, one of the major roads along the northern border between Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan that follows the ancient Silk Road. The rich black soil of the Chuy Valley produces fields of corn, wheat, beets, and clover, irrigated from the Chuy River by Soviet-era (a term we heard several times) irrigation channels. The valley itself is quite flat but surrounded by towering snowcapped mountains over 5000 meters high (Nuraly described this as ‘eternal snow’).  We stopped to admire the views with the smell of wild thyme growing in the fields.

Nuraly gave each member of the group a 1-liter water bottle for the ride, telling us to keep it for refilling from a 5-gallon bottle.  Why? To protect the environment! This is by far the most environmentally friendly gesture I have seen on one of these tours, and I was happy to oblige. We drove on, entering the Naryn Oblast. This is the largest and least populated oblast in the country with only about 6 people/km².  Many of the people who live here are the semi-nomadic, living in heavy felt covered yurts they move a few times each year with the seasons. 

We arrived in the small town of Kochkor (~14,000) later in the morning. The starting point for our hike was the winter home of our host family just to the south of town. We met some of the family members as we prepared for the hike. I noticed a huge pile of sheep dung chips next to the home.  Wood is scarce here, and the dried dung passes as an acceptable fuel source. Three of us chose to hike (I sit enough during the week), while the rest rode horseback for the 9 km trip to the yurts where we would have lunch and later spend the night. The landscape was mostly barren except for a few small trees and bushes. We hiked up a broad valley with spectacular scenery and snow-capped mountains in the distance. The grade was not steep but persistent as we increased elevation from 2100 m to start to about 2700 m at the yurts.

Our host family had a collection of 7 yurts. Nuraly said this was their springtime location, they would move once more for the summer. The yurts, though portable, are a substantial dwelling. About 5 m across and 4m high in the center, they are framed from a birch latticework and covered with a heavy felt and wool which is warm, water repellant, and easily repaired. A hole in the roof about 1 m across had a cover which could be pulled over.  This served for both light and ventilation.  One yurt was used as kitchen. Two small solar panels on the roof of this yurt was the only source of electricity. Two yurts were used for guests, the remainder were for family members.  We were never formally introduced, but I believe it was a couple with a teenage daughter and two sons. Nuraly said he had approached this family several years ago about this business opportunity which they accepted. This is a win-win all the way around. They get some income (of which there were no other obvious sources) and visitors get a unique, authentic travel opportunity.

After a lunch of hard-boiled eggs, tomatoes, potatoes, and bread served with black tea (our lovely hostess went to great lengths to make sure our teacups did not stay empty long), we headed off again to our destination of Kol-Ukok. This was a small glacier fed lake about another 6km away with another 500 m of incline. This was rugged landscape dotted with springtime flowers. We arrived at the lake. Some chose to meander around the lake for a while. I chose to lay flat on a rock with the warm sun on my face and look at cloud shapes for the first time in a few decades.  Funny how things like that happen sometimes.  We headed back down the wide valley to our yurts, the setting afternoon sun laying beautiful shadows across the landscape.

I was tired when we got back to the yurts after about 21km of hiking at high altitude following a night of sleeping on a plane. We relaxed a bit before settling in for dinner – a simply beautiful salad of rice, tomatoes, cucumbers, carrot slices drizzled with dressing followed by a delicious soup of potatoes, carrots, onions, and meat (goat?).  After dinner, a few participated in milking the cows. The family prepared our yurts for the night, laying out mats and several thick blankets. We shared some local vodka and cheap Russian beer before turning in early.

I slept well in the complete cave-like darkness of the yurt, awaking early to a beautiful blue-sky morning.  We set up for breakfast outside.  Homemade strawberry and apricot jams were served with round flat loaves of bread, along with a thin porridge and a lumpy yogurt.  With no refrigeration, I wondered about the milk that was milked the night before.  I’ll have to find out about those details later.  I watched the sons collect water from the stream and prepare the horses for the trek out.  I asked Nuraly about a series of long troughs I had seen at a couple of locations next to small brick buildings.  He said these were used for feeding merino wool sheep from Australia and shepherd’s quarters during the Soviet era. They are no longer in use and are another example of how the people were directed where to live and how they would contribute under Soviet rule when the nomadic lifestyle was outlawed.

Except for a brief rain, we had a pleasant downhill hike back to Kochkor. We visited a local market before enjoying lunch in yurts at a local restaurant in town. We said our farewells to Kochkor and headed back to Bishkek for our next adventure.

The plan for the trip back was to make a short stop at a local bazaar in Bishkek before heading back to the hotel. We arrived at the crowded bazaar (I think the Dordoi bazaar) with no place to park our van. As we got off the bus, Nuraly said we would be picked up elsewhere due to the crowd, and fairly advised us to be sure to keep up with the group.  As this was to be a short visit, I didn’t bother to take my passport. We entered the bazaar, a fascinating collection of shops. Immediately I saw a basket of dried goat heads, then shop after shop of fresh bread loaves piled high, racks of nuts and spices, women’s lingerie, piles of fruits and vegetables, military memorabilia, etc. etc. To not take all this in and take pictures was simply too much to ask. I checked frequently for our group, but within minutes they were gone.  I searched for them franticly for several minutes, but quickly came to the realization that I wasn’t going to find them. I took my phone off airplane mode to activate my roaming plan, only to find out that Kyrgyzstan is not a country covered by my carriers roaming plan. I further considered that I did not know the name of our hotel or where it was, nor did I know where our group was going in the bazaar, or where we were being picked up. And to top things off, I didn’t have my passport, and I hadn’t bothered to top off the charge on my phone, now around 60%.  I took stock of my situation, determining that the worst-case scenario was that if I never found my group, I would simply find my way to the airport in abundant time before our flight early the next morning and catch my team there. That didn’t seem too bad, so all that remained now was to see how this little adventure played out.

I walked back through the bazaar, staying on the route we had come in, and for the next hour walked around asking shop owners if they spoke English. Eventually, a young man named Damir said he did.  He had spent some time in the US with the Kyrgz military.  After hearing the details of my current situation, he shrugged, shook his head and said “Americans…..”.  We had a good laugh.  He took me to a nearby electronics booth and talked to the young salesman, who had a phone with WhatsApp, a preferred method of communication overseas.  Of course, I knew my team wouldn’t have network coverage either at that point, but they would on returning to the Wi-Fi at the hotel.  This young shopkeeper sent out numerous messages on my behalf, and even charged my phone for me.  While waiting on a response, we crisscrossed the bazaar looking for my team with no luck.  Damir asked what I intended to do if I couldn’t find them.  I told him my plan, and in an act of uncommon kindness, he offered to let me come to his home with his wife and daughter to stay until going to the airport. It didn’t come to that as soon after we had a message from my team and help was on the way.  Still, this episode was a heartwarming incident demonstrating the basic goodness of people.

I rejoined my team at the hotel (the Rich Hotel I now know), where I cleaned up from the past couple of days.  We went into town for dinner at Arzu Restaurant.  Before being served a wonderful lentil soup with grilled shish kabobs and vegetables, we were first entertained by a local folk group dressed in traditional Kyrgyz attire and playing authentic instruments.  We headed back to our hotel for few hours rest before returning to the airport for an early morning flight back to the UAE.

Total cost for this trip was $885 for round trip air fare, guide, tour bus, all accommodations (yurt and hotel), meals, souvenirs, and the optional folk band. No vaccinations were required, and a visa wasn’t needed for US citizens.