Kazakhstan & Kyrgyzstan [EN]

“Horses, horsemilk, dust, deserted roads, yurts and old Lada’s”

Two weeks of traveling through the south of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan with my brother, check out our route below.

Route:

I flew from Amsterdam via Minsk to Almaty, or Alma-Ata, in the south of Kazakhstan. In Minsk I had a 6 hour – or so – transit, a nice opportunity to visit the Belarus-capital. Everything better than staying at the small and boring Minsk-airport for multiple hours. I had to pay 2 euros for my one-day ‘health insurance’. Minsk was nice, but a very oldskool Sovjet-style city. Big squares, static/big/concrete buildings, big corridors.

Almaty

From Minsk I flew to Almaty, where I was planning to meet my brother. He went to visit Astana before going to Almaty and further down into Kyrgyzstan. I didn’t really care for Astana since it’s supposed to be the new Dubai or something. I call these ‘Cities Without Soul’. I arrived in Almaty around 4 o’clock in the morning. My brother arranged a hotel for us in Almaty and told me ‘a hotel guy is waiting for you at the airport’. A first for me. So I was kind off disappointed when the guy never showed up. Back to normal routines: getting cash, informing about bus times, catching the bus. Funny thing: I got a note of 20.000 Kazakh Tenge from the cash machine (around 50 euros). I tried to pay with the note in the bus and metro, but of course the drivers didn’t have any change for this. So finally I traveled for free on all the buses and metros to the hotel. Kazakh-people scored their first points here!

Very nice to meet my brother in the fucking south of Kazakhstan in the dining area of the hotel when I was having breakfast! We decided to take a shower and go to the Shymbulak mountain. In winter a ski-area, in summer nice mountainous views.

Went for a tea on the mountains of Shymbulak.

Bishkek

Took a marsjroetka (shared cab, departs when full, luckily I brought my football in my backback to kill time) to Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan. Ride was like 6 hours or so. Bishkek is, like Almaty and Minsk, a typical ex-Sovjet looking city: broad streets, big static buildings, widespread blocks of grey buildings. Not my favorite kind of city-style.

We tried to drink horsemilk from a guy that was selling some on the side of the street.

Never. Drink. Horsemilk.

It’s disgusting.

Chillin’ with my boys Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

Karakol and around

From Bishkek we took another marsjroetka to the Karakol area. Beautifully located near the big Issyk Kul lake and surrounded by the Tien Shan mountains.

First day we made a day-hike Yeti Oguz (“Seven Bulls”), brilliant red-colored peaks in a nice green valley.

Seven red peaks called the “Seven Bulls” or Yeti Oguz

This was, I think, the most brilliant breakfast we had. We just put the table outside on the road, because the view was so nice.

Nice green valley, wild horses and some yurts here and there

Main reason to go to this area was to do a very nice 3-day hike to the Ala-Kul lake, a gletsjer lake at 35000m. We rented a tent, sleeping bags, a stove and some pots and pans (company called EcoTrek). Bought food for three days:

eggs (they survived!)
noodles
tuna-in-can (turned out to be sardines?)
cookies
nuts
bread
water.

Then we were off. Two days of climbing from 1700m (Karakol) to the Ala-Kul lake (3500m), over a pass (4000m) and than one more day of descending back to 1700m. The climb was very beautiful, but also very though. Walking with about 13kg of stuff didn’t make the climbing easier. Besides the tents and food, we had to take plenty of warm clothes because at night temperatures dropped to 0 degrees Celcius.

In the beginning of the hike we pass some very scenic villages.

Setting up camp for the first night. Beautiful surroundings!

Campfire was a necessity: at night temperatures dropped to zero degrees.

We reached 3500m, we reached the Ala-Kul lake. Good place for a nice warm noodle/egg lunch.

4000m, Ala-Kull pass, Tien-Shan mountains in the background

“Russian military jeeps are the best in the world. So we had to make road dreadful enough to test them.”

Impossible that these vehicles could drive over these roads. Road from Altyn Arashin back to Karakol.

Cattle Market, Karakol

Every sunday people from all over the Karakol-district are gathering at the cattle market to sell and buy cows, bulls, sheep and horses of course. It was fun to find out what the animals would cost:

Sheep, 4.000 kgs = €50
Big sheep, 5.500 kgs = €67,50
Calf = 15.000 kgs = €187,50
Horse = 200.000 kgs = €250

Skazka Canyon

South of the big Issyk Kul lake lies a canyon called Skazka Canyon, but is better known as the Fairytale Canyon. Strange how the landscape can change from the green Alps-like mountains (Karakol) to these red rock formations within a hundred kilometers. Nice one-day hike.

Bel Tam

We sleep in a yurt at the Issyk-Kul lake. Nothing special. Just relax.

Song-Kul Lake

In Kochkor we arranged to visit the remote Song-Kul lake. A lake in the middle-of-nowhere, where nomads still keep their livestock and live in yurts surrounding the lake. We arranged to go their on horseback, stay for a night in one of the yurts and return by horse the next day.

Making horsemilk is nice, but never drink it. Don’t. Drink. Horsemilk. I warned you.

Back to Kazakhstan and then home

Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan were amazing!

Costs

Ticket: €360 (Amsterdam-Almaty, return)
Food, transport, accomodation etc. for two weeks: €400

Travel Stories

by Marijn van de Wijdeven