Was busy and left this post for longer than ideal, but it kinda spilled itself out with little need for photo reference - goes to show how seared-into-memory the second half of this trip was haha.
The key point about this day was that almost the whole group spent it in high spirits, so there was plenty of laughter to go around and random bursts of dancing from some. But more on this later. This was a sort of R&R day which was a great break after all that cardio and legwork. So for once, I didn't mind switching to tourist mode and sitting in aircon comfort for most of the 100km+ drive towards Karakol. It must be noted that touristy activities can also be very worth doing!
Take for example our appointment with a hunter and his eagle. As usual we were treated to some background education - this time on how a hunter would go into the mountains to adopt a chick from an eagle nest. Selected eagle would stay in the hunter's service for a number of years (my memory on the exacts have faded) before being released back into the wild to continue the circle of life. It's said that the eagles don't look back when they retire and fly off to freedom - such is a pure work relationship.
Onto the demonstration which was no basic bird park show. We were standing out in an open plain (under the scorching sun), and the handlers would take turns running with the eagle to a hill about 300m away to launch it from there. I managed a few shaky fancams full of confused zoom-in-zoom-outs to catch the eagle swooping onto some meat before giving up and simply watching the display.
The eagle wasn't the only hunting animal present - enter the Taigan. My first impression of the glossy black dog, with its sharp yellow eyes and Tim Burton-esque tail, was that it'd be very at home in a fashion show. Then it outran a galloping horse. Like chased down a piece of meat being dragged along by the horse which by the way had gotten a headstart. The way its ears flapped up and down as it hunted down the meat was kinda cute and contrasted with the attack vibes, but still I wouldn't want one of them on my tail.
And not forgetting, after all the amazing hunting demos, we got to do our tourist thing! As we lined up one by one for our shot, I wondered if the eagle was annoyed by constantly having to rebalance (flare its wings) on its strangely unstable seat (a glove, plus quick twisting arm motions). We were also very lucky to have a professional photographer in our group who was very generous with her skills. The result:
The rest of the day was filled stops at assorted sights, first of which was Issyk Kul. Its scale was crazy. You could lob a few Singapores in there and there'd still be space to spare. Roughly judging from the map, its about 50km at its widest and over 100km in length. No wonder it looked like open sea from the sandy, scrubby bank.
Next up was the Skazka or Fairytale Canyon which was crawling with tourists. Since we'd mostly been on a bespoke itinerary and rambling around in nature, this was our first encounter with the tour bus masses. It made me wonder if there were preservation concerns, especially since this attraction seemed to be composed of sandstone, or at least some kind of compressed sandy surface.
People aside, I did enjoy this visit! From afar we could see tourists gingerly descending the steep dirt pathway from the viewpoint. But since I was in sports shoes that day, instead of cumbersome hiking boots (ironically), flat grippy surfaces were totally within my comfort zone. So I had no issues bounding up to the top of the dragon-like structure for some very unique views.
The last attraction of this day was the Barskoon Waterfall which came with a short bout of hiking. Pretty standard waterfall trail starter kit with its steep rocky path through the woods. I also noticed that this part of Kyrgyzstan seemed to have a different look compared to the past few days. We went from grassy plains to what so many people were describing as Switzerland. Since I've yet to go there at this point, I guess I can expect to see sheer hillsides covered in neverending coniferous forests haha.
As it was getting late, we trundled along to Karakol for a quick stop at the supermarket before dinner. Karakol is known as a tourist town and probably serves as a base for many tourist groups. We even bumped into a whole other Singaporean tour group at the guesthouse.
While I did take pictures of all our meals, there was just too much to cover. And anyway the same things seemed to appear in different forms on each day, like a tomato+cucumber salad and a borsch. A few meals on this half are worth covering though, like the dinner on 22 Aug. Firstly, it was a Kyrgyz version of a Chinese dinner. I like chives in general but never before this trip had I consumed large quantities of chives as the star of its own dish. There were also noodles and really tasty chicken wings.
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| Loved the meals with spreads like these - most of the time it was single portions of one salad + one soup + one main and free flow bread. |
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| Lecture of the night on the hardworking Dungan people. Some of them can speak mandarin with a heavy accent, just like the owner of this restaurant. |
Secondly, there was a surprise bday celebration! Earlier that evening I was informed, somewhat directly, that there would be a cake. This was akin to receiving an intriguing email that was clearly not meant for my inbox. So I mentally archived it and looked forward to the surprise haha. There was some confusion over the light switches, but once the room was properly dark, the restaurant owner came in with the hugeee cake which was purchased undercover at the supermarket. The real surprise was that I wasn't alone in the celebration! Our tour organiser H shared the same bday (and same zodiac at that), so we got to share in the moment. And at the end, I was given dibs at the last tasty chicken wing xD
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| Always happy to meet bday buddies, and even more so for this to happen on a trip! |
The reason for holding the surprise that night instead of the actual next day was that we would be going our separate ways for a bit.
23 Aug: Day 6 (Hike 3)
Now that I think about it, this was the first time I'd spent a birthday on a trip since the 21st, 10 years ago. It was a good one!
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| My bday present from M, a cute replacement for the camel ride we were supposed to do in Dubai hahaha. It always just happens to be my bday season when we travel xD |
And it's also time to explain the reason for the high spirits on the previous day. Most of the group had chosen not to attempt the 3D2N Ala Kul trek in its typical form (Option A) which was framed as a much much more challenging hike compared to the ones we'd already done. This is because we'd have to keep to a sustained pace or there'd be no place to camp at night and the highest elevation would be 3,900m >.< Physical fitness questionability aside, I had 2 very simple reasons to go for Option B: (1) it provided the same benefits i.e. views, minus the suffering and (2) I really didn't wanna suffer (badly) on my actual birthday xD
Turns out most of the group had self-dissuaded from Option A though in my opinion, some of them would've been more than capable for it. In any case, the effect of not having to worry about a tough few days ahead was evident on 22 Aug haha. So on this morning post-breakfast, we bid a temporary farewell to the 2 brave souls (including H) who left for Sirota while the rest of us headed straight to Altyn-Arashan.
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| Promising kick off from the trailhead at Ak Suu village. |
Putting on record that the hike into the valley, and probably this day in general, was my favourite in the trip. It just happened to happen on my bday hahaha. Yes it was yet another valley hike, but with much different feels. Unlike the smaller, calmer streams of previous days, the rushing Arashan river just next to the trail lent some vigour to the whole thing. And there was more of that close-knit coniferous vegetation extending high above on either side of the trail. Again, there was chatter among the other group members that "this was like Switzerland", but I was impressed by what I was seeing for the first time. After the Switzerland of Thailand, I've ticked the Switzerland of Central Asia off the list too, so just the real Switzerland left!
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| Look at that foam! Sometimes we couldn't hear each other talk over the rush xD |
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| More rushing river view, with orange truck cameo. More on the orange truck later. |
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| Not forgetting the M's ex-colleagues who made every long hike a fun hike. |
The front 8km was a very gentle rock path which left plenty of bandwidth to enjoy the views. Only thing was that the weather was being a little schizo. It was getting rather hot since we were hiking in a deep valley sheltered from the wind, so the jackets started peeling off. But it rained all of a sudden, enough to force a stop to pull on waterproof layers.
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| It got grey at some points, and this was before lunch, based on the timestamp. This meant it rained more than once, since I remember a second round after lunch. |
Lunch was at a strategically located yurt stop. Y had the misfortune of being traumatised by the outhouse here and refused to go into details. We took her word that nature toilet breaks were more palatable.
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| The cutest tap ever. And yes, I didn't have enough tshirts for a 10D trip... |
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| We encountered something different at lunch - Kyrgyz yong tau foo. Unfortunately this came after a full bowl of dumpling soup and I could only manage one stuffed pepper. |
Right after lunch we faced a steep-ish zigzag climb. Here I shall mention the truck, or as we termed it after the ride, the party bus. While we hiked, a large bright-orange painted 4WD accompanied us, ferrying our additional belongings for the 2-night stay. I fully intended to get on at some point, and pestered the other ex-colleagues to ride with me haha, simply coz it was a chance to experience a 4WD on that trip. And it looked kinda fun bumping around over the rocky path.
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| It was tempting to not hike this steep portion but luckily we listened to intuition. |
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| Especially after observing many instances of this (standing to the side each time it passed us). |
Since we were really full from lunch, we made the choice to hike the steep slope and leave the truck ride for a bit later... Some ways after the zigzag, we decided it would be a good time to hop on the truck where we found the existing passengers in varying states of delirium/sorethroatedness from yelling. Despite the rather slow speed, I was having to hold on tight to avoid flying out of my seat as the truck clambered its way over huge rocks. Also turns out it really was a wise choice to burn off/digest our lunch sufficiently before hopping on. An existing passenger did not manage to retain her lunch >.<
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| A clearer view of the ups and downs of this mode of transport. |
I think we made about 1km on the party bus before hopping off in favour of using our legs. Definitely a slower but more stable commute. But first, there were views to take in since the truck driver had stopped us at a strategic location.
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| I was advised to wear Y's jacket instead of my own black one for this shot to avoid blending into the scenery. |
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| Unobstructed views of those neat coniferous bands. |
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| After the rest caught up, the talented photographer L choreographed a shot where we ran for our lives xD |
After cresting a short hill, there were no more obstacles to the valley floor and our guesthouse. Only thing was that our guesthouse was the furthest away out of a cluster of others. Interestingly enough, there were many instances of Hangeul to be observed in this area. Apparently some of the developments there were the result of collaborations between Kyrgyzstan and South Korea. We even met some Korean hikers along the way, proudly displaying their flag on their bags.
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| The Altyn-Arashan Valley <3 |
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| Y got stuck ankle deep in mud on this unassuming path and had to wash her shoes off in the river. |
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| "Jewel of Central Asia, Tian Shan Mountain Range Altyn-Arashan, Ala Kul Pass (3900m)" |
So ended my bday hike in the picture-perfect valley. As usual for the most beautiful places on this trip, we were offline, so I only got to reply the bday wishes piling into my messages 2 days later. The accommodation for the next 2 nights was described as a box-shaped yurt. But honestly it was even better since the cold was kept well at bay by the chipboard walls, without us having to use mattress-weight blankets, as much as it felt like we were staying in an unfinished art project.
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| Maybe this is what small pet animals kept in boxes feel like. |
The guesthouse had a hot spring which all the other ex-colleagues were looking forward to visit. Hot springs are not my thing, and I had a separate agenda for those 2 nights - stargazing. Not that it's a "thing" of mine, but coming from a light-polluted city, I view these opportunities as rare and must-grab. I simply wanted to gaze at the stars when they could be seen and photographing them was merely an incidental. As per the Hawaii experience, photos of the night sky can never do justice to what they look like in real life anyway, and the photos look completely different at that. But even with our forays into remote areas on this trip, there was no guarantee of a good astral view because our dates coincided with a supermoon. Though amazingly pretty in its own right, especially on the Song Kul night, it outshone all the stars. Through prior research on sunset/moonrise timings, I concluded that the nights of 23 and 24 Aug at Elsa Guesthouse were my only chance.
Conditions weren't ideal (i.e. pitch dark) since the guesthouse was a large commercialised property equipped with strong lighting at night for safety, but it was better than nothing. Y and I must've looked like suspicious characters standing the middle of a bustling camping field and trying to angle our phones towards the night sky on the sloping ground. And oh btw, it was cold. The photos were not super successful through all the fumbling, but it was satisfying enough to crane upwards and watch the silver band glow across the sky on my birthday night.
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| A privilege to be able to wish upon this many stars. |
24 Aug: Day 7 (Horse Ride 2 + Hike 4)
This was our day to visit Ala Kul and reunite with Team A who would be hiking from the opposite direction from Sirota. For us, the plan was to go on horseback up to a certain point, hike the last 800m to view the lake and take the same route back to the guesthouse. Thinking about it now, it should've been enough to get alarm bells ringing that the reason we had to hike was that the horses would not be able to go up that 800m path.
As experienced on Day 3, even stubby little horses were capable of ferrying us over steep rocky terrain. So on hindsight, it should've been clear that we were in for something much worse. But it seems like we were in a mood so relaxed that everyone simply accepted that it was gonna be "just 800m", not thinking to clarify what it really comprised. I made the disastrously terrible decision not to bring along my hiking sticks.
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| Behold the Part 1 intro pic! Taken from the guesthouse dining house, this time after breakfast. This would be the first of two times we would get to see Tent Mountain that day (the snowy tent-shaped landform smack in the centre of the valley view). |
Ominous intro aside for now, the horse ride was a dream. I definitely noticed that the horse was taller than the Song Kul one because of how much higher I had to stretch to get my foot into the stirrup. Compared to the first ride, today's riding time was about 1.5x longer but felt significantly more comfy. I do think the relevant spots put in overtime to repair and pad out after the torture of the first ride haha.
The terrain itself was luxurious! It somewhat felt like the season 2 of the hike we did on the previous day, taking us further upstream of the river through swathes of the neat coniferous forest. Even the weather was cooperating perfectly (at this point) and everything looked beautiful.
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| Sticking closely behind Y for a bit. I was also thankful to be mounted and not having to trudge through the deep mud. |
The fact that we went through forest terrain is important haha, quite unlike the first horse ride through wide open plains. Coz this meant getting in very close proximities to the trees which led to some funny and slightly precarious situations. I took the following vids from around eye level (while actively tilting my actual head where necessary) to provide an accurate perspective of all those close shaves xD
Once I realised the situation, I did my best to direct my horse which thankfully deigned to make those adjustments for my sake. Even a few cm worth of adjustments helped save my knees/thighs from being bua-ed against tree trunks. Others were less lucky. From bruising legs, to ripping down jackets and getting coated in its contents, to straight up crashing through low-hanging thickets, there were varied consequences for the humans whose horses obviously only cared that they weren't the ones getting affected.
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| See how close it was! Between the horse and the tree, there was no way my leg would win. And I considered myself lucky compared to others and their "siao beh"s. |
Eventually we got out of the forest (humans a little battered) and spent some time on the bright green carpet. As we headed deeper into the valley, steadily gaining elevation, the rushing river split into a web of calmer streams trickling from different sources and we got to cross some of them.
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| The firs were so pretty but definitely a formidable obstacle xD |
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| Even when we left the firs behind it was still soooo pretty! |
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| The horses were the boss here. At one of these streams, I passed another group member stuck in right in the middle while her siao beh stood there happily lapping up the water for a good few minutes haha. |
The thing about having a bigger and more powerful horse was that it was difficult impossible to control whenever it decided it was snack time. We were told not to let go of the reins and to drag the horse's head back up if it stopped to graze. Not that anything I did was effective - my horse barely seemed to feel my desperate tugs. And when it bowed its head to graze, it did so with enough force to almost pull out my shoulder if I weren't paying attention. But I must say this horse was a pretty smart one. It would pull ahead of the crowd and take its own breaks once it had enough of a lead. Many a time, the rest of the group would shuffle up and see my horse munching with me bent over to keep the rein in hand xD
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| Designated break: snack time for the horses and leg/butt rest time for the humans. View from afar because we had to walk some distance to find cover for a toilet break. |
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| My horse, easily identifiable through the leopard preenz saddle cover. |
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| Another reason I say my horse was a smart one: instead of just nipping at thistles whenever we passed, it ripped the whole plant from its root and brought it along to munch as a trail snack. |
After some hours of riding, passing various herds along the way (which was part of the fun!), I started to wonder how we'd actually be getting to the lake and why we seemed to be approaching a dead end. It looked like we were headed straight for some sort of blackish watershed.
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| The cows that politely moved aside for us. (We did say "excuse me".) |
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| And the sheep rush hour that we accidentally joined. |
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| When the greens became rocks and I couldn't shake the feeling that we were heading from the Shire to Mordor. |
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| Wah suddenly got glacier some more. |
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| 真的有一点不对劲。。。 |
It soon dawned on us what we'd be climbing. Squinting at the faint trail, it would've looked impossible if not for the tiny trail of people on it. Imagine standing inside a giant frying pan, right where it starts to curve, and looking up towards the rim... Of course there were zigzag trails but even those looked steep and it also didn't help that the frying pan seemed to be made of some loose gravelly material. We let the horses off for their break and sat down for our own packed lunch while contemplating our immediate fate. Since I could read Korean, a nearby sign informed me of some grave stats: we were sitting at 3,600m while our destination lay at 3,900m i.e. 300m ascent over 800m distance (as confirmed by my watch). Oh dear...
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| Believe it or not, the trail is in this photo~~~~~ |
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| The informative Korean sign. Not sure why it said 2km to the summit, though I must say that 2km would've been much more palatable for the ascent than 800m >.< |
So this was the crux of Option B. Had we gone for Option A, we would have met this path only on the way down, coming from the other side. Us unsuspecting folk found ourselves facing both a climb and a descent. If it looked treacherous from afar, it was nothing compared to actually being on it.
Part of the group had gone ahead while we hung back to use the toilet. So we had some benefit of a live preview... of people crawling up on their knees and some getting so stuck they had to turn back. At least we knew which branches of zigzags to avoid. Some other members of the group bailed at the bottom of the frying pan. They wouldn't get to see the lake but it was probably the wiser, safer decision. The other ex-colleagues each had a single hiking stick borrowed from the ones who chose to stay below but I had only my 4 limbs to rely on.
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| Still looks as though we were going straight up a wall right? |
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| Paths! Some were more treacherous than others. |
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| The paths wouldn't stay this obvious and gentle for long. Note also the bareness and steepness of the slope - it would only get worse~ |
Not much photos after this point (both up and down) since I was focusing on staying alive. I have no issues using my hands while hiking, but having to actually crawl is no fun. We were on scree, at like 45 deg angles, and there was barely any solid surface to reach for. I was forced to do some bouldering off compact dirt (not even rocks) that crumbled if I wasn't gentle. The main issue was being unable to trust my feet on that steep, slippery trail. At points I was afraid to move for fear of triggering a tip over into an unstoppable slide.
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| The view of us from below. Zoom in for hikers on their hands and knees. We were still part of the group walking upright on the right... For the time being. |
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| Part of the getting worse. There are many captions that could suit this picture but this was simply the start of safety over dignity. Just look at the angles~ |
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| 최악 |
Thankfully our guide for this segment (a sunny 20yo uni student doing this as a summer job) was perfectly at home on the scree like a mountain goat and went up and down supporting us. While in his vicinity, I noticed that my boots could actually grip and proceed up the steep portions without assistance. So the conclusion is that I failed the mental game. The fear that I would tip off balance with nothing to grab onto/no one to grab me was too great. The struggle continued all the way to the top since the gradient simply got steeper and steeper.
It's an understatement to say that I was extremely relieved to get to the rim of the frying pan. It was a ridge so nothing more than a sliver with another steep drop on the other side, but most importantly it was solid and flat. That 800m took about an hour of struggle - so intense that it cost me about 550 kcal. That's why it counts as Hike 4, together with the terrifying descent.
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| The final bit which was slightly less terrible than it looks here because our wonderful guide found us a very slightly gentler path to take. |
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| On a safe, flat surface looking back the way we came. Well I'm just glad those ominous clouds were polite enough to wait until we summitted. It could've been worse~ |
And finally, there was Ala Kul below us. My own photos definitely did not do that intensely turquoise lake and the surrounding snow-capped mountains justice. It was hard to believe that I was seeing something like that in the natural world. The question was: was it worth it? I'd say yes, this was a best-in-class lake, and still captured my awe after the ordeal. The problem mostly lay in the preparation (both mental and physical) for "just 800m" of hiking, so I gave my feedback haha.
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| Such vibrant colours in nature! It's like someone poured a whole lot of thick turquoise paint into this mountain bowl. And oh there's Mount Tent again on the left - much closer now! |
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| Notice the hand for security - I clearly couldn't put 100% faith in my jelly legs to prop me up anymore. |
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| The "made it!" shot! The flat strip at the summit was barely large enough for all of us to stand on, really like a rim of a frying pan haha. |
Then of course, we had to go down. After the ordeal of going up, I'm quite sure I wasn't the only one who was jelly-legged. Most of us did attempt to start the descent on our feet, but it didn't take long before everyone was on their butts. We must've looked like the largest bunch of amateurs to those other Korea/ang moh hikers also present that day. But hey, the principle was safety over dignity. And instead of retracing the zigzag trail, we slowly skid down the scree slope beside it. The funny thing was that on the way up, we'd witnessed one of the Option A porters practically jogging down that same slope in such an unbothered manner, as though he weren't carrying a gigantic 15kg pack and wearing slippers.
I must say that even though the heights and the exposure made it scary (it was like sliding down the face of a high-rise building), the skidding in itself wasn't difficult and felt much more secure than going on two legs. We just had to control our speed to avoid causing a rocky avalanche on those ahead of us. I was struck a few times by phone-sized rocks and did not find that fun.
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| Giving up and doing things the safer way = giant rocky slide! |
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| Sole of right boot as the surfboard + left hand and left leg as outriggers. It actl required quite a bit of control because the scree slid so freely. But this was how we covered tens of metres at once in record time. I stowed my phone and focused on getting to the bottom safely after this. |
Along the way, our guide decided to employ a different method of herding. Making a few of us stand in a line with our hands on the preceding person's shoulders, he led us skiing down like a human caterpillar. In a way, more legs = more stable. I just had to hold on tight since all the rest of the group at that point were guys and my shorter legs were having a hard time covering the same stride. I was hoping someone at the bottom would turn around and witness this out-of-the-world hiking methodology, but everyone was preoccupied with getting to shelter because... it had started to hail. Guess those clouds were done waiting.
The last bit involved a fast trot over a rock field and huddling into a yurt. Safe at last! In the comfort of flat, unmoving ground, I realised that I'd torn my pants from the butting down. Thank goodness for the inner thermals and this was the forced retirement of a very old piece of clothing. We also spent some time musing whether our scree slide shortcut had caused enough rock displacement to shorten the mountain. Once the weather had cleared up enough, our grazing horses were recalled from their break to bring us back to the guesthouse.
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| Our guide A slicing up some very fatty lamb(?) in the yurt while we waited for the storm to pass. |
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| On the sunny way back as though we didn't just pass a rather scary chapter in the day xD |
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| Back into the Shire! |
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| And of course, my hobbit of a horse who loved his thistles. |
That night, M, J and Y made a beeline for the hot springs while I took my last chance to watch the stars.
25 Aug: Day 8 (Hike 5)
We started off the day doing the reverse of Hike 3, back out of the valley towards the Ak Suu Village. This easy, chatty walk was our last official hike of the trip. But still it was long (14km), and I was kinda glad that it was the last haha.
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| Seeing more things we missed the first time, like these cute rows of baby firs. |
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| More livestock. Now that we were not mounted, these were more likely to stare us down rather than move aside politely. |
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| One last view of Switzerland before we headed back to the less-Switzerland-looking part of Kyrgyzstan. |
Lunch was special, probably as a form of celebration that there were no hard segments left on the trip. Firstly, we had coke. J's wish (spoken out loud on the hike) actually came true! I was happy to drink the sugary version for once. And then, they brought out the meat platter. After days of salad+soup+main, this was literally something else! Aside from lamb, chicken, beef and salmon were spotted on the platter so this was obviously for tourists, but no one was complaining haha. The planning for this trip really was top-notch - they knew when to bring out the cherries indeed~
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| After all our ordeals, this was heavenly. |
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| WOW indeed. I really wished I had more stomach space coz everything was so good, including the veggies at the side tho I had to actively avoid eating the potatoes so that I could eat more meat :') |
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| One more meal with a musical performance! It's actually quite amazing how much they can do with a simply 4-string instrument. |
The rest of the day was made up of a longgg drive from Karakol towards Bishkek. I'd forgot to mention that those long drives definitely included stops. Normally, these would be taken to mean petrol topups and toilet breaks. But for this group, it also always meant ice cream xD Rather than the magnums (which were not exactly very cheap), I picked the ones whose names I couldn't read, just so I could say I ate "exotic" chocolate ice cream haha. On that day, we also picked up about 3L of beer xD No more hikes = no need to hold back anymore! Really, we'd been obediently holding back on alcohol consumption until we completed our final hike. The trip was demanding enough as is, in our peak conditions.
It was dark by the time we reached the guesthouse at the Chong Kemin Gorge. After 2 days out in Altynn-Arashan... Hot shower! Later that night, we were treated to a round of Kyrgyz cognac courtesy of our guide. Kyrgyzstan is a Muslim country with Soviet history. It was clear to see which aspects of the culture has taken strong root haha.
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| It was like a decent whisky - no fanciful taste but went down smoothly. |
26 Aug: Day 9
We'd be heading back to Bishkek on this day, effectively the last day in Kyrgyzstan. Y and myself both found ourselves awake early, with too much time to laze till breakfast. Right on theme, this equated to an extended pre-breakfast walk. Since we arrived in the dark, this was our only chance to look around the Chong Kemin area which we were told was very pretty.
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| After a few rounds in yurts and box-shaped yurts, we got to stay in a guesthouse which clearly was designed with an architect's inputs haha. This was the dining house - waste not the good views while we had our meals. |
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| Starting off on a very normal path. |
It was a peaceful rural neighbourhood kinda walk which started with a dirt/gravel road out of the guesthouse and crossed a small, shallow stream. At first I wondered if that was all to it, and we agreed to walk up to a small shed in the distance before turning back. Thankfully, we reached a really pretty sight - fields full of pink tufty flowers/grass. I'm a sucker for fields of colourful things. After days of yellows and greens, it was like finding shiny pokemon grass. And then we got a bit lost while heading back and ended up taking a longer but surer path through a neighbourhood and across a larger stream where I got my shoes wet. No more hikes, so we just had to make our own little 45-minute one haha. But thank goodness for google maps and internet connection.
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| So many shades of pink in puffy formations! |
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| On the way back and the start of losing our way xD We kept the guesthouse in our sights in the distance, just that our roads didn't seem to be leading us to it. |
It was a relatively short drive back to Bishkek and the next thing I remember was heading for our final lunch in Kyrgyzstan. The special thing was that this was our first and only chance to try horse meat on the trip. Tbh I wouldn't have known its true identity without the pre-information... It just looked like beef or lamb pieces in a sort of noodle dish and tasted no different.
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| Yup, that's horse meat. Imagine how many servings could come from just one horse. |
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| We were actually in a rather elaborate restaurant. This booth caught my eye, with its many cushions all of different designs. |
The afternoon was spent on a city tour led by no other than A himself. I had no idea what to expect of the ex-Soviet capital city before this, especially since we arrived in the dark and headed almost straight for the mountains. It actually resembled Europe very much. Might have been something to do with the sidewalks, monuments/statues and huge buildings in gated compounds. Quite a contrast to the last week we'd spent in the mountains, enjoying the chill environment (literally, cold) and interacting with rosy-cheeked villagers. The other thing we learnt was that Kyrgyz modern history is filled with revolutions and there were many memorials dedicated to these.
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| The White House, the presidential office building. |
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| The fence of the White House, engraved with the names of those who died as matyrs. |
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| Another monument for remembrance. |
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| Lenin, going "wtf are you capitalists doing over there" |
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| Bishkek himself. |
The final dinner in Kyrgyzstan was again another special meal. It was testament to the care and heart put into designing this itinerary that we got to eat all together at a huge table at the restaurant where A got married. His wife and daughter were also present and it was like meeting legends from the stories he'd been telling us all this while haha. Thanks were said, gifts were given, and we had a happy time to the end.
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| The meat was on the tough side, but this picture will have to do for symbolism since I was having too much fun to bother with taking photos. |
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| And of course we had to finish the beer we bought (since we opted not to mix with the cognac on the previous night). It went down easily over conversations, and as much as it would've been fun to simply carry on till the flight time, non-students do need some sleep xD |
27 Aug: Day 10
After too short a nap on that luxurious hotel bed, it was time to gather downstairs (at 2.45am) to be taken to the airport. And then we left this beautiful country for an 11h layover in Dubai airport, of which many hours were spent nomad-ing around different seats/cafes before we finally got on the flight home.
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It was natural that I spent most of the time with the ex-colleagues, since this trip was also a form of catch up, especially with Y. I did not generally seek out the others in the group unless I happened to be walking at pace with some of them. At these times it was a blessing to be able to hold conversations (assuming not too out of breath) with people I wouldn't have crossed paths with otherwise. Some of them came to us too, and were generous with their sharings and kindness. I got my laughter and life lessons, and at the end of it bid goodbye to the friendly people and went back to normal life.
Really was adventures unlimited for me this time!
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