Around the lake and back in Bishkek

Just arrived back in Bishkek yesterday after a couple of weeks going around Issik Kul, the 170km lake in eastern Kyrgyzstan. Following on from Cholpon-Ata, next stop was at the far eastern end of the lake at Karakol, a town used primarily as a base for hiking and trekking tours in the Southern Terskey Alatau mountains. From here I went into the mountains to Altyn Arashan at around 3000m where there are thermal springs in which you can bathe. It was about a 15km walk there (longer if you start heading the wrong way, because you have been wrongly advised by two French tourists, the same ones referred to previosuly !!) and the warm spring water was delightful seeing as the temperature had dropped to 'pretty cold' up there in the mountains.



Left: Walk along the river Arashan.
Right: Accomodation at Altyn Arashan.

After a night in a building loosely classified as a 'hotel', I headed back down to Karakol where the next day I managed to extend my Kyrgyz visa for an extra month. Getting the visa extension took around 30 minutes, finding the correct building and office took about three hours ! Anyway, this now means instead of having to get to China by yesterday before the Chinese border closed for a holiday, I can stay here some more time. Apparently the Kyrgyz/China border is closed on the Chinese side for ten days for a national holiday from Oct 1-10. Ten days for a holiday !! Now you can understand why working in China is quite appealing ;)

Along the southern shore of Lake Issik Kul, I stopped one night in Tamga, a quiet, sleepy small town with the feel of some wild west town, dusty, almost deserted streets, horses tied up outside houses, dogs fighting and barking all night. The land around was full of fruit trees, there was a quiet park in which was located one of the lake region's many sanatoria and by the lake there was a small but OK beach where a local lad had brought his horses to drink and rest.



Left: One of 3 lovely kittens at my Tamga homestay.
Right: Tamga villager's house and horse

Moving on, I caught a lift on a bus as far as Balukchy and then a shared taxi to Kochkor, which is the nearest point at which you can arrange a trip to lake Son-Kul, possibly the highlight of Kyrgyzstan's wild and natural scenery. It took a rip-off priced taxi organised by CBT to get there and for the price paid I would have expected a taxi that didn't need to stop every now and then to cool down the overheated engine with litres of water along with occasional repairs to the engine parts. The climb up the mountain track over snowy peaks, avoiding horses, cows, sheep and yaks along the way ends in a descent down to the lake, which lies at over 3000m surrounded by pretty stunning mountains. By the lakeside, I stayed for two nights at a shepherd's yurt, fed and looked after by Rosa, who seemed a very popular chef, as each day visitors arrived at our yurt for her lunch.










Left: The all too familiar scene of taxi driver with his head under the bonnet.
Right Top: Views along teh way to Lake Song-Kul
Right Bottom : Yurt camp where I stayed by lake Song-Kul

The area has a few shepherd's still living there, tending their sheep and cows, though it is now the end of the summer season and most have already descended back to their villages as the weather has begun to get cold. As if I needed evidence of this, the next morning on emerging from the yurt, I found it snowing and the grass now covered in a layer of white.




more (+ pics) to follow....