Lake News

Parts 1 to 5

Issyk-Kul, the second largest mountain lake in the world, perched right up in the northeastern corner of Kyrgyzstan, has many many faces.

And we've now seen a lot of them.

As we headed off from our cute little guesthouse near Barskoon, Anna Lena and Julian had just made the big decision not to head up to the Arabel Pass, as poor weather was forecast, and the pass sits at over 3,800m, which makes it a little risky at the moment.

So instead we all headed west, along the lakefront. It was picturesque.

These fishers were sitting on steel framed chairs, with their legs actually in the water. The fish they were catching were pretty small.

The road was pretty poor in parts, with lots of gravelly roadworks, and when the bitumen occasionally appeared, it was often pretty rough.

Muslim burial memorial

Stunning colours.

And a stunning spot to have lunch.

Yeah, there's mountains over the other side. Just like on this side, right behind us.

Anna Lena and I had met a couple of lovely Swiss cyclists in Karakol, Tanya and Joos, and we met them on the road again today, coming in the opposite direction. They'd camped on the beach the previous night, and luckily had just made it into their tent for the night when the rain bucketed down. I was glad we'd decided to stay in a guesthouse.

Skazka Kanyon

The Swissies told us about a place called "Fairytale Canyon," known locally as Skazka Kanyon, and, despite the fact that it looked like rain was coming, we headed up there, as it was only a couple of clicks up a partly sandy dirt road, heading away from the main lake road.

We just got there when the rain began pissing down.

We asked a young local guy who was selling touristy stuff if we could shelter in his yurt, as there was no other shelter whatsoever up there.

Our saviour

We sat the rain out in there, the guy gave us bikkies and offered us tea, and there were 2 young boys hanging out in there too.

The rain didn't last long, and soon we headed out to see the magnificently beautiful canyon, black clouds slowly sliding away from us.

A view of Issyk-Kul in the distance

This place really reminded me of parts of the Zhangye Geopark in China, or even of the Hammersley Ranges in northwestern Western Australia.

But of course it has its own uniqueness.

We eventually moved on, as it was getting late.

It rained again, but not too much.

There was a lot of trippy sculpture on the road.

This time we decided to camp on the lake, and we were so glad we did. The clouds had mainly cleared, and we had pretty much a dry night. It rained a little as we entered our tents for the night, but that was pretty much it.

It was absolutely stunning to be there, watching nature put on another brilliant dusk performance, all of us singing together, and basically being incredibly happy to be alive.

Our journey had reverted to the way it was before we met Penny, it was so much more relaxed, quiet and easy. We were still on the move every day, as Anna Lena and Julian had a deadline, but it was so much easier to come to decisions together without the feeling of being pressured.

And the extra pressure on me personally from that weird social situation had completely disappeared.

We rode on into a small town the next day. It's so interesting watching the world go by in these places.

The population of Kyrgyzstan is 74% Kyrgyz, but there's loads of other nationalities that have settled here over history. There's a large minority of Uzbeks (around 15%, living mainly down south), there's Russians (5%), Dungans (Chinese Hui Muslims, 1%), and then another 5% of the population consists of Ukrainians, Germans (who were exiled to the region from European parts of the Soviet Union in 1941), as well as Tatars, Kazakhs, Uyghurs (from Xinjiang in China), and Tajiks.

There's so many important ethnic groups that live here, and you'd really have no idea that these groups even existed unless you came here, or had a particular interest in the region.

And, I must say, researching and writing this blog is so good for me, because it develops my wider understanding of the places I'm visiting.

And yours too, I guess.

Preparing brekky.

Never seen a balcony recess quite like this before

Many of the vehicles out here are ancient

The town of Bokonbaevo. We stopped for snacks, phone calls, lunch things, and found a bike shop to get some chain oil. It was a really interesting place.

We grabbed more potato or cheese samsa, or samsy, as they're better known in Kyrgyzstan. They're the best. And we got bread, of course.

The bakery had a great range of stuff, and was just an old hole in the wall, with a friendly lady serving us.

Kyrgyz people love their breads and bakery products, as they do all over Central Asia. The basic bread, called nan in Kazakhstan (in India it's called naan), and often known as lepeshki here, is available everywhere, and is cooked in a tandoor oven, which is basically a vertical clay cylinder-shaped or slightly conical-shaped oven with a fire at the bottom, and the nan dough is placed to cook on the inside round walls, defying gravity.

The bread's amazing when it's fresh and hot. To die for.

A huge range of cute Kyrgyz breads, for sale at the Osh Bazaar, in Bishkek, a few days later.

Old mud brick village ruin

There's been rain

It was pretty cold at times in the late afternoon, with a head wind. The road was pretty grinding, all those rocks and gravel made the going fairly slow and a little tough at times.

The sky had completely opened out in the north.

We passed through clouds of white fluffy seeds, whipped around by the wind. It was beautiful, like snow, despite the hard, end-of-day riding.

Yet another memorial to war

We made it to a wide flat camping area on private land, a bunch of people came to check out the sunset, then moved on.

We found a spot, but it was super windy. We had no option but to set up camp, amidst these incredible clouds of insects. It was pretty weird for awhile.

But when the sun set they pretty much left, and the wind died down.

Cameladerie

In the morning Anna Lena had a swim in Issyk-Kul, whose name means "warm lake." And it is actually warm, relative to any of the other lakes or rivers along here, which are ball-disappearingly freezing.

And it's nearly summer.

The other thing about the lake is that, incredibly, it's saline. This is a fact that, here at high altitude, none of us expected, and which we only realised a couple of days ago when Anna Lena drank it. We'd already cooked using it, and even filtered our water bottles from it, before actually tasting it.

Once we'd discovered that it was salty, we then relied on running streams, which were mostly quite easily available.

After days of enjoying the varied beauty of Issyk-Kul we continued heading west, riding past the the western tip of the lake, and leaving it behind us.

Looking behind us. Bye bye Issyk-Kul. We love you.

Look who we bumped into. The cutest bunch of camels I've ever met, particularly cute because their double humps are actually floppy. Seriously. They flop up and down as they run, making them look like goofy cartoon characters, and then the humps just stay flopped down when they stop.

The younger ones' humps were a little stiffer, and would remain standing up all the time. But not the adults. Their humps begin to soften over time, and then eventually just stay flopped down most of the time, no longer staying stiff.

That sort of thing happens as you age.

Apparently.

They're also moulting, in case you were wondering.

We came across this beautiful reservoir, formed after the building of a small dam. It was a stunning colour, reflecting the surrounding hills like an impressionist masterpiece.

I headed on with Anna Lena and Julian towards Naryn, as I wanted to hang with them for one last night, but I'll be coming back to this junction alone, to take this road towards Bishkek.

We eventually made it to Kochkor, and had a feast together.

Cheese pide, pizza, bisol (a vegetarian meat omelette - yes, not a typo) and coffees. We were full.

Downtown Kochkor

Heading to our last campsite together

This was our spot for the night. A little boy from a nearby farmhouse came over to greet us, what a sweetie, and when we asked if we could camp, he showed us the best spot. More impeccable hospitality.

One last singalong

Parting Ways

And so the time eventually came to go our separate ways. I was sad, shedding a tear or two as I left those guys. We'd had such a beautiful time together, and had become quite close.

That's one thing I don't love about travelling.

All the goodbyes.

Anna Lena and Julien are the best people to hang with. So kind, thoughtful, and super interesting.

I learnt a lot from them, especially about kindness. The way they are with each other is so inspiring.

And now it's time to be alone again for awhile.

Porridge brekky

Life is beautiful. It really is.

And of course, there's so much to stimulate my mind in these places, so many landscapes to enjoy, and culture to learn about. And learn from.

I preyed for this bird

Lenin up on his pedestal again

Back in Kochkor, filling up on fresh stuff.

I stopped for lunch along the river, close to the reservoir.

And then I began the long climb over the pass.

Unfortunately the weather turned. I suddenly had an almost gale force headwind, slowing me down to a snail's pace, with cars and the occasional truck speeding past very close, right next to me, throwing me around.

And then a speeding truck nearly hit me, and I was suddenly thrust to the right by its powerful air blast. The blast threw me right onto the rounded concrete road barrier like I was on the bend of a cycling velodrome, and it nearly completely tipped me over sideways.

My wheels were thrown against this and I very nearly went over.

I knew right then that it was way too dangerous to ride.

So I walked. And pushed.

It was raining, but not too hard.

It was a long climb, but eventually the road changed direction and I could cycle again, as the strong wind wasn't right in my face.

Stunning views looking behind me

Finally I reached the top, it wasn't so high, 2160m, but it was still super difficult in the conditions.

And then I could roll.

And roll and roll.

I headed down for at least 20km, and then hit this river, and decided to camp for the night.

Off I headed on this dirt track to a campsite.

That green patch down there looks like home.

I camped close to this river, too close actually. There was nowhere else flat further away. The river rose overnight, but luckily by not too much.

This rather harmless bush has the deadliest thorns known to bicycles. It's given me two flat tyres so far. I think.

I never found the thorns, or even the holes in my tyres.

Stunning dragonfly

My porridge soaking routine, with delicious local dried fruit, dried whole. Gotta watch out for the pips though, especially the cherry pips.

The next morning I made my way to a bigger road, and rolled down the hill towards the Kyrgyz capital city of Bishkek. Well, it wasn't all a roll, there were some hills to climb too, but not too many.

Doin' a refurb

A faded Kyrgyz flag, with the word Kyrgyzstan in Cyrillic script below it.

Have you done your homework by the way, and learnt how to spell Kyrgyzstan?

Ok, close your eyes right now and try to spell it.

Strange word, innit?

This is what it looks like in Kyrgyz script:

Кыргызстан

K = K

Ы = Y

Р = R

Г = G

Ы = Y

З = Z

C = S

T = T

A = A

H = N

Easy.

Extra points if you can write it in Kyrgyz.

Abandoned village buildings

A hugely long fence, all of which is made from the walls of shipping or freight containers. Containers are commonly used around here as building material, I've noticed.

Another Kyrgyz hero, don't ask me who though, sorry. It's pretty much always men though, surprise surprise.

Lunch stop at an abandoned bus shelter

Lepishka, tomato and kurt, which is called qurut here, the delicious dried sour salty cheese.

Visionaries always appear to be looking at something.

The three largest Central Asian cities, all on one sign. Bishkek (capital of Kyrgyzstan), Almaty (cultural and economic capital of Kazakhstan, and its largest city), and Tashkent (capital of Uzbekistan).

Tokmak

I rolled into this interesting town in mid afternoon. It was probably only about 28 degrees, but compared to where I'd just come from it felt blisteringly hot. You get that, when you've been at higher and cooler altitudes for awhile.

I found a little guesthouse in the back streets, run by Diliya and her daughter Sara. They're the sweetest people ever. As soon as I arrived Diliya gave me copious amounts of cold drinks, and fed me. She told me to go and settle in, and shower or whatever, and then said to bring my laundry to her and she'd be happy to wash it for me. For free. Of course I protested, but she insisted.

Yay. A shower! Such a great thing when you've been camping for a few days. We had rivers and lakes of course, but there's nothing quite like hot running water for removing grit.

My guest house street, in a very nondescript burb.

Diliya (sitting) with her daughter Sara and the three grandkids, Adam the banana man, Amal and Marian. The kids were the cutest ever.

Pretty much the busiest street in town. There was a cafe that always had Russian families and hip Russian speaking young people hanging out.

The supermarket hub. This must be a little bit more of a conservative Muslim town. A noticeable number of women were wearing the hijab, a higher proportion than I've seen anywhere in my Central Asian journeying so far.

In Moderation

Just from my observation, however, it appears to me that Kazakhstan, and to a lesser extent Kyrgyzstan, are actually the most moderate Muslim countries I've ever visited so far. And I've visited many.

When I say moderate I'm really talking about my perceptions about the extent to which Muslim clerics appear to influence wider society, and definitely in terms of what women are wearing on the streets, the fact that they're everywhere (and not locked away at home like in some Muslim countries), and that women are out working and doing basically everything men are doing.

I assume all of this is mainly because of the 130 years of Russian rule of this area, from the mid 1860s to 1991.

When Christian Tsarist Russia first took control of Central Asia, their approach to Islam was mixed. In some regions Islam was partially repressed by the new rulers, and in others it was mildly tolerated.

After the revolution in Russia in 1917, when atheism became the official policy of the new Communist government, the new Soviet rulers initially took a pragmatic approach to Islam, tolerating religious practices, and focusing on higher priority social issues such as building health, education and other infrastructure.

But from 1926 onwards the Soviet rulers began an era of repression of Islam

in Central Asia. They forcibly closed private religious schools, and funded state ones instead. Between 1927 and 1929 the state ran a campaign to close down mosques, and this was often carried out in a violent and random way, according to the whims of various regional or local officials. Many imams were killed, and mosques razed to the ground. Religious teachings and doctrines could no longer be published and discussed in the public sphere.

But rather than extinguish Islamic beliefs or practices, the net effect of these Soviet policies was simply to drive them underground, so Islamic teachings and practices became much more family and home-based. Islam was already regarded as much more than just a religious practice here anyway, it was an integral part of the culture and identity of the people, and therefore repression couldn't work in the long term.

When Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev introduced his policy of glasnost, or 'openness,' in 1988, Islam underwent a rapid public revival in Central Asia, with many new mosques built, literature published, and new private religious schools opened. This continued after independence from the Soviets.

However, newly formed independent Central Asian governments were wary of Islam, in a political sense, because of the experience in Tajikistan, where a five year civil war commenced in 1992, between government troops and a coalition of opposition forces led by a radical Islamic group called the Islamic Renaissance Party. The takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban in 1996 also had them fearing the worst.

The Tajik government ended up incorporating opposition groups into its own government, but other Central Asian republics took a different approach, persecuting and repressing any Islamic groups that had aspirations to become involved in the political process.

After the 9/11 attacks in New York, the US improved ties with Central Asian governments, and used bases here to launch attacks in Afghanistan. The US still provides weapons and funding to try to stop the spread of radical Islamic political groups in the whole region.

But mainstream moderate Islamic religious practices and beliefs remain strong here, and an integral part of Central Asian society.

Tokmak Mosque

Central Asia is a tertiary education hub. There are a jaw-dropping 430 universities in the region, providing education to 1.8 million students.

South Asian students (from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka) are an important component of the higher education sector here, with, for example, an estimated 17,000 Indians studying in Kyrgyzstan, and another 5,000 in Kazakhstan.

I've met a bunch of them already, as some have been staying in my hostels, or are friends of hostel residents.

While this is a small proportion of the estimated 750,000 Indians who are currently studying abroad, it's still an important part of the sector here. A good Pakistani friend Naveed has explained to me that everyone who fails to get grades sufficient for university entrance in the US, Australia, Canada, Europe, or in their home countries, ends up here. Himself included, he said.

I met a super interesting couple at the guest house, English Alex and Hungarian Fanni, and we all went out to eat at this fancy place, Sakura. It was pricey (relatively), and absolutely delicious.

The conversation was super interesting too. They've been on a long world trip, which has included South America, Central Asia and India, where they entered a race to drive a tuk tuk from Trivandrum in Kerala all the way up to Shimla, in the mountainous north, a line which runs pretty much due north, for a distance of around 3,000km.

And they had to do it in 2 weeks.

They finished the race, but didn't win it.

But just imagine, driving a tuk tuk in India for 2 weeks, for an average of over 200 clicks a day. And tuk tuks don't go very fast either. Especially up hills.

Sounds totally trippy to me.

Local (unused) ferris wheel.

This ride was flying around though.

He's bearey sorry, but she appears unmoved. The bear's arm gesture is common here, and in all Islamic countries actually. It's a sign of respect and sincerity, indicating that whatever feelings are being expressed are sincere, and come from the heart.

I like it, and have been doing it for years myself, in case you've ever noticed.

Yay! A woman! Baken Kydykayeva is a famous Kyrgyz actor.

To The Little Smoke

After a wonderful day of pretty much complete rest it's now time for me to cycle to the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek.

The city hosts about a million people, meaning that one in seven people in the country live there.

I know absolutely nothing about the place whatsoever.

As usual.

Which probably makes two of us, unless you happen to be one of the rare creatures I know who have actually been there.

More Central Asian wonders await, it's exciting.

And then, breaking news, I'm going for a holiday from my holiday.

How lucky am I!❤️

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