A Nomadic Feeling in Kyrgyzstan

I wanted to travel to a part of the world I hadn’t been to before. Thinking about different destinations, my mind kept drifting to the same blank space on the map: the ‘stans – five mysterious countries in central Asia, once part of the Soviet Union. Maybe it was the allure of the Silk Road; or a strange fascination with communism; or the idea of unspoilt wild spaces spanning one continent to the next, where Europe gives way to Asia.

Besides, Central Asia is home to some of the world’s original nomads and I’ve been feeling a bit nomadic myself lately. I decided it was time to take on the ‘stans (or at least a few of them, anyway).

I knew almost nothing about these countries but plunging headfirst into the unknown has become something of a favourite passtime of mine. So I booked a one-way ticket to Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, and figured I’d just make my way back home from there somehow, from East to West. I’d never heard of Bishkek, but I wasn’t the only one – the woman who checked me in for my flight told me she’d never heard of it either.

It was still dark when I landed in the city the airline employee and I had never heard of before. Riding in a cab to my guesthouse I watched the sun creep up over the snow-capped mountains on the edge of Bishkek.

But I didn’t stay in the capital for long: refuelled by a long sleep and a lot of sugary tea, I was ready to start nomading.

At the hectic bus station I boarded a marshrutka (minibus) bound for Karakol, and ended up sandwiched in the front seat between the chain-smoking driver and a bossy little babushka who confiscated my lunch bag, tied it tightly shut and placed it on the dashboard. It was a long trip but allowed me the opportunity to expand my Ace of Base repertoire: the driver had a CD. The babushka turned up the volume and clapped her tiny hands in time to the beat, as the speeding marshrutka looped around the northern shore of Lake Issyk-Kol.

‘The market starts at 4.30 in the morning, but you don’t need to go that early unless you want to buy a horse’, said my host at the guesthouse in Karakol when I asked about the Sunday morning Animal Bazaar, one of the largest in the country and held every weekend just outside town. I’d come to Karakol for several reasons but buying a horse (or any other animal) was definitely not one of them. Still, I got up early the next morning and headed on over to the marketplace to take a look.

There was probably order in the chaos somewhere; but I could not see it in the crowded field packed with bleating goats, sheep, and cows. Previous and new owners chased unruly livestock through the muck in every direction and amidst the confusion men rode horses like we might test-drive a car at home.

Trying to avoid being trampled I watched four shoppers heave and push a reluctant cow into the back of a pickup.

I bet you didn’t know that the fastest way to maneouvre a large sheep into your car is to pick up his hind legs and push him as fast as possible, wheelbarrow-race-style towards the trunk. I didn’t either, but I learned it at the Animal Bazaar in Karakol. I started to get the feeling that this trip would be full of unusual lessons.

But watching people pack unlikely numbers of farm animals into the trunk of their old Skoda was not the only thing that drew me to Karakol. Surrounded by the Tien Shan mountains, the town is one of Kyrgyzstan’s hiking-hotspots (actually Kyrgyzstan, which is 95% mountainous, is a hiking hotspot in itself).

That afternoon I walked up to Kok Jayik, known in English as the Valley of Flowers.

It’s a popular picnic spot and it’s not a long walk but there’s always the option to hitchhike if necessary:

The next day I was ready for a longer, overnight journey. I followed a steadily inclining trail along a stony stream from one alpine pasture to the next, where shepherds on horseback corralled their sheep and dogs chased stragglers back to the flock.

It turns out the trail was very social: I stopped to talk to Russian hikers, Kyrgyz shepherds, and Kazakh campers who would not let me pass till they’d fed me.

At around 2800 metres I reached the tiny settlement of Altyn Arashan: a few family guesthouses and some natural hotsprings in a beautiful valley:

The sulphurous water is channelled into enclosed pools and after a trek in the cold mountain air, a long soak is always in order.

I’d hiked around 50 kilometers in three days and gotten a taste for hotsprings in the process. Feeling chilly back down in Karakol, I grabbed a sarong and set off in search of a banya – that is, a Russian style bathhouse. I knew there were several in town but since I can’t read the Cyrillic alphabet and am discovering what life is like as an illiterate, I knew I’d just have to guess. This place seemed like a good bet:

Leaning into the grated window I tentatively said ‘Banya?’. The woman behind the grate nodded and in exchange for 100 soms (about 1.50 USD) she passed me a key and led me behind a curtain. Making a turning motion with her wrist she pointed to the key, then to my bag, and then to an empty locker. Next, she opened a door to reveal a glimpse through the steam of some naked women in a tiled room, and then she left. I entered the hottest sauna I’ve ever stepped foot in – sitting down on the wooden slats was akin to sitting on a hot stovetop, so like the weird foreigner I have become, I just stood and let the heat sink into my skin.

Scrubbed clean, I decided the next obvious step in my nomadic life was to stay in a yurt. I’d read about a yurt camp on the lake shore, and headed in that direction aboard yet another marshrutka. Stuff often isn’t signed here and even when it is, I can’t read it – there’s nothing like getting into the spirit of just winging things and hoping for the best. So I wasn’t worried when the driver and other passengers consulted together, and then put me and my backpack off on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere and then sped off.

Mostly everyone in the marshrutka had pointed enthusiastically at a dirt road disappearing into the distance, so I just heaved my pack onto my back and started walking until eventually some yurt-tops came into view beyond the next slope.

Bel Tam is a pretty little camp right on the shore of Lake Issyk-Kol and burrowing under a heap of blankets on the floor of my own yurt that night, I was happy.

In the morning I caught a ride to the next town with a passing family. I’d been enjoying my nomadic life (and circumstantial illiteracy), and a certain sense of loneliness that came with it. It was an exotic sort of loneliness – all by myself in Kyrgyzstan, sleeping in quaint little mountainside guesthouses or lakeshore yurts, browsing for livestock, talking to people through a translator app and hand gestures or just not talking at all. But my solo travels were coming to a temporary hiatus. I had to get to Bishkek to meet my favourite travel-mate: Oyv had arrived there that morning and was waiting for me, to take on our next adventure here in the ‘stans together.

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For more of my adventures (and misadventures) in Kyrgyzstan, check out the rest of my stories from the road.