When I booked this Silk Road trip, I specifically said that I knew it wouldn’t be a day at the beach. Well, it seems that I lied, because here I am, in the lakeside resort town of Cholpon-Ata, spending a day at the beach. Or, a half day, anyway.
This is obviously my vacation-from-my-vacation. The entire Kyrgyzstan leg of this tour has been very relaxed and today was particularly slow and easy.
Przhevalskiy Museum
We started the day with another big Kyrgyz breakfast in Karakol, and set out for a drive around the lake. On the way out of town, we stopped off at the Przhevalskiy Museum, dedicated to the life of Nikolay Mikhailovich Przhevalsky, who was a 19th century Russian explorer, scientist and geographer who travelled and mapped out most of Central Asia in the course of his expeditions. Rustam likes to refer to him as the “Russian Marco Polo”, even though he lived almost 400 years later. Karakol used to be named after him, and the museum tells his life story and also contains a memorial and gravestone for him as he died here.
The museum tour was pretty funny. The woman giving it had obviously done it hundreds of times before, as she took us through the exhibit with rapid-fire explanations without even stopping for a breath. By the end, I’m not sure I learned much about Przevalsky, but I was amused at the speed of her speech.
Near the memorial tomb, there was an area where we could get a view over what used to be water, but is now a dry valley containing a small town. Changing weather patterns due to water in the area that was either diverted for irrigation or sold off to Kyrgyzstan’s neighbours is the likely culprit. The lake still exists, but the much higher water line is clearly visible in the surrounding rocks.
This would be a good place for a rant about climate change, global warming, and disastrously short-sighted government policies like the one that has drained the Aral Sea, once the fourth-largest lake on the globe. The worst part about that policy, implemented by the Soviets in order to create a cotton industry in Uzbekistan, is that they knew exactly what would happen and they went ahead and did it anyway. And here we are living with the consequences, which, don’t kid yourself, affect all of us, not only Central Asians. We only have one planet, and if we keep systematically destroying it like this, we will only have ourselves to blame.
Okay, end rant.
Russian resort town
After an hour or so at the museum, we drove off around the lake, arriving in the resort town of Cholpon-Ata around lunchtime. Quick stop at the supermarket for lunch and supplies, and then we were checking into our hotel located just a short walk from the water.
The day actually wasn’t all that hot — highs in the mid-20s, with a nice breeze — but the van was running with the windows down instead of the AC, and was stifling in the hot midday sun. By the time I got to the hotel, I was feeling a bit dizzy and ill from the heat, despite having gone through an entire big bottle of water. It felt like the early stages of heatstroke, so I got a towel soaked in cold water and lay down in front of a fan for a while until I felt better.
Crisis averted, it was time to grab sunscreen and a towel and head down to the beach.
Go jump in a lake
The lakefront beach is very pretty, surrounded by snow-capped mountains in the distance. Lake Issyk-Kul is technically a saltwater lake, but just barely; it’s a glacial-fed lake that gets its salt content from the ground. It’s not quite like being at the ocean; there are no waves, for one thing. But the water was refreshing, so I went for a dip and then we hung out for a while on the sand, just relaxing and enjoying ourselves.
Cholpon-Ata was once a Soviet military retreat, and is now a popular holiday destination, mostly for wealthy Russians looking for a beach holiday. Many of the buildings are still ugly concrete Soviet style blocks, and the whole place has a very Russian feel. So much bleached blonde hair among the women, and so many banana hammocks among the men. Don’t get me started. I’ve also never seen quite so many Russian babushkas at the beach before, in their dresses and large hats.
At one point, ominous black clouds rolled in from the mountains, and we heard thunder in the distance. Time to get off the beach, then. But not before having a jump off the pier into the lake. Laurent and I were the only ones who hadn’t done it earlier, so we took the plunge, so to speak. Ahhh, refreshing.
More beach
After dinner, a few of us walked back down to the beach for a while, just to dip our toes into the water again or have a drink on the sand. We hung out for a bit, then pulled up some chairs at a beachside cafe and had some tea and biscuits.
The temperature drops down to quite comfortable at night here. And by comfortable, I mean that I’m fine, and my tourmates are freezing. I’m sure they’ll be the ones having the last laugh when we get to Uzbekistan.
The WiFi connection is a bit iffy here, so I’ll end this post here. More soon!