I’m in Kyrgyzstan!
Even just saying that makes me grin like a fool. I absolutely love it here and I’ve only been here for a day. I have so much to update, I hardly know where to start.
Crossing the Torugart Pass
Our day began bright and early as a morning-after-the-night-before. We stumbled on the bus around 9 after a quick breakfast, and set off on mountain roads towards the border for Kyrgyzstan.
With Howard gone, we had a local guide, Abdul, to get us through as far as the border. Abdul was either shy or disinterested, because he spoke very little even despite having good English, and didn’t volunteer any information at all — including minor details like the fact that we’d be driving for 9 hours without anywhere to get food or water. None of us really thought to pack food, so we subsisted on people’s leftover crackers and last few pringles and such.
We made it to the first Chinese border checkpoint just before 10:30, and it was closed when we got there. Luckily, it opened about 10 minutes later, so we loaded our bags and selves into the immigration and customs area and went through exit formalities and such. We met some other tourists, including a French couple who own a winery in Bordeaux, and a Swiss couple looking to do some hiking in Kyrgyzstan. We also changed money at the border with the sketchy money changers. The Kyrgyz som is roughly 10 to 1 with the Chinese yuan. The exchange guys first offered a rate of 5 to 1, then they upped it to 6.5, and finally we got them up as high as 8 and just shrugged and went ahead and did it. Even knowing how badly we were being ripped off, it was a matter of only a few dollars, so it wasn’t the end of the world.
Then, once we were through to the other side, we thought we were in Kyrgyzstan, but nope! Surprise: We were still 100km away from the actual border, and that drive took two and a half hours on terrible bumpy washed-out mountain roads. We climbed higher and higher through the Tian Shin Mountains, to over 3,700m. The scenery was quite pretty, but bouncing around the bus as we were, it was really tough to get any decent photos through the windows. And our local guide and driver weren’t exactly keen to stop.
Border open? Nyet.
We got to the actual border at 1:45pm, which was really 11:45am local time… only to find it closed. The driver shut off the bus and Abdul went to sit in a corner by himself, without telling us anything. Okay, now what? We finally went up to him and quizzed him, and he eventually allowed that we’d missed the morning opening time by 15 minutes and now the border guards were on their lunch break. How long would the lunch break be? 3 hours.
3 hours? Sheesh. Nice work if you can get it.
Well, there was nothing to do but wait. Without any food or water, and with only a really entertaining drop toilet that we had to walk around some sketchy abandoned buildings to get to, we mostly dozed on the bus and tried to pass the time as best we could. Even so, it ticked along incredibly slowly. The only break in the action was when a military truck came barrelling up honking its horn loudly, and eventually some Chinese border guard came out and opened the border so they could go through. But tourists? Nyet.
Finally, at 2:35pm local time — after we’d been on the road for 7 and a half hours — they re-opened. Which meant that a border guard came on the bus, glanced at our passports with their already-stamped exit stamps, and let us go through. All of us were thinking, we waited three hours for that? But, such are borders; you don’t really question these things.
Bye, China.
Welcome to Kyrgyzstan
After another 5 kilometer drive, we arrived at Kyrgyzstan’s entry point. Then it was time to say goodbye to our Chinese local guide and driver. We loaded our bags off the bus, walked across the border, and got on the bus waiting for us on the Kyrgyz side.
We were greeted by another local guide, Nica, who was as polar opposite from Abdul as it gets. She’s a Russian-descended 22-year-old Kyrgyz guide who was just temporarily accompanying our group because our Uzbek guide for the second half of the trip wasn’t able to get a border permit. She handed out bottles of water and greeted us with loads of information about the country, people, culture and area.
The Kyrgyz border formalities were the complete opposite of the Chinese ones. We had to go in and get our passports stamped, but no visas, no baggage search, just a smile and a welcome.
Central Asia’s Switzerland
Kyrgyzstan is known as “Central Asia’s Switzerland” and it’s easy to see why. A mountainous country, Kyrgyzstan is renowned for hiking, natural beauty and scenery. Kyrgyzstan is the only one of the five ‘stans with a parliamentary democracy (albeit a highly corrupt one) and freedom of speech (accessing Google without VPN is nice). Many of the people still live a nomadic lifestyle, practicing agriculture or shepherding sheep in the mountains. The country is nominally Muslim but the Soviet and Russian influence have left it not all that religious in practice; most people happily drink their vodka and seem to enjoy the diversity of tourists. The people are also some of the friendliest I’ve encountered in my travels thus far.
We drove for another hour and a half through roads that were much improved over those on the Chinese side of the border, and then arrived at Tash Rabat and our yurt camp for the night.
Tash Rabat and yurt camp
We overnighted in a yurt camp near Tash Rabat. I’ve been excited about this ever since I booked my trip. Yurts are traditional nomadic structures in Kyrgyzstan, made of straw, leather and wool. They’re round and have an intricate roof pattern that is actually the symbol on the Kyrgyz flag. They take a few hours to put up, but once they’re up, they are secure against the elements and quite spacious and comfortable.
Upon arrival at our camp, we were greeted by Rustam, our tour guide for the next two weeks, and by our local host family who run the yurt camp. Oh, and by some sheep dogs, cows, roosters, and a yak.
The camp is located about 100m from Tash Rabat, a 15th century (though Nica claimed it was really 10th century) caravanserai — which is a name for an inn that used to house caravan travellers along the Silk Road. Tash Rabat, constructed of stone, is one of the few to survive to today, and is a UNESCO protected site. After settling into our yurts, we walked up to have a look around. The main hallway leads off to a number of bedrooms, what was likely a kitchen, and even a hidden tunnel where people could escape underground if enemies were to surround it. Pretty cool.
Also, there was a group of guys from Kazakhstan making what looked like a semi-professional movie. At one point, they were in the main area of Tash Rabat and they started dancing, and we laughed when we recognized they were doing Michael Jackson’s Thriller. Turns out, they’re making a series of promotional tourism videos, and they asked us to join them in their Thriller dance video. So we did. ‘Cause, when else were we going to have a chance to be in a video doing the dance to Thriller in a 15th century Kyrgyz caravanserai? Totally epic.
We had dinner back at the camp, which was a veritable feast: A noodle soup that could rival most Jewish grandmother’s chicken soup (but not yours, Mom, don’t worry), a lamb or vegetarian stew, various pastries with homemade jams, salads and desserts.
After dinner, we sat with Rustam and Nica for a while, quizzing them on local Kyrgyz and Uzbek customs and history and life and just talking about all sorts of random things. The camp hosts lit the stoves inside the yurts, and even though it was quite cold out in the mountains, by the time I climbed into bed under the blankets, I was snug as a bug in a rug. I had what might be the best night’s sleep yet of this trip, listening to the sound of the rushing mountain stream in the background.