Paul Nazaroff, 1919

The words of this counter-revolutionary, written after fleeing from the Bolsheviks into Kyrgystan, hold good today.

The nature and the scenery of Kyrgystan are so beautiful that it is hard to describe with words, I believe that my pictures will say more than any words ever can.

Quick Tips:

Best Way To Get Around:

Location: Somewhere on a mountain meadow. Always choose a meadow with some bushes, that is very handy if you need to go to the toilet.

It is a great feeling to sleep in a tent when it is raining outside. I love the sound of the drops on the tent. This is funny as long as you stay dry inside the tent.

Beware that in some cases you sleep on high altitudes, and it can be very chilly at night, so take a good warm sleeping bag.

Look at the picture and you will see our bathroom. I can hear you think, "what bathroom, that river?" Oh yes that river with ice cold glacier water was our bathroom for the whole trip. And yes, it was cold, but you get used to it, and it was the only way to refresh yourself.

In fact Manas was a kind of Hero of the heroes. The myth says that he was very strong and powerful.

In the museum you can see about his life, the way of living, the battles, the weapons.

You can also see the Manas mausoleum.

Well nowadays a personality like Manas is very important for the Kyrgyz people. Now that the Russians are gone, they really need a person they can look up to, someone they can be proud of. This kind of gives them strenghth.

In the morning, after breakfast, and after the de-mounting of our tents, we usually started our day with a hike. The guide told us which direction to go, and then after about 1 hour the truck-bus picked us up. That was a good way to do some exercise, because sitting in a bus for one month is not so good. So the same happened the first morning, we walked towards the flood-control dam. And there we saw some statues to honour the men who made this imposing construction. On the other side of the lake we saw the head of Lenin carved

We did see a lot of dirty, grey housing blocks in Sovjet style.

Most of the Kyrgyz people are Nomads. Their favorite transportation is the horse. As proud cowboys you see these men enter the village. Traditional is also the akkalpak, a distinguished white felt hat with black trimmings and tassels.

The moment we arrived in Talas there was also a local market and there we did see this original way of transporting two calfs. Just put them in the trunk of your car.

It is great to discover what the locals sell and buy. Like the different kinds of paste and loads of candy and biscuits.

As we stayed in full nature for a whole week, we did not need a lot of Kyrgys money, for the simple reason, there was no possibility of spending it. So in Talas we all changed 1 (one) US dollar, that was good for 50 Som. So that way we could do some shopping at the local market. I bought a bottle of Coca-Cola (oh yes, the real one) price for a 1 Liter bottle = 25 som. Not that I a need Coca-Cola to survive, but it is great if you have to drink the Kyrgys water (which has a lot of gaz and a strange taste) for a week, to have the possibility to drink something else.

The monument is in fact a Yurt under some kind of roof. Inside the Yurt there is a giant hand print of the local hero. We all tried to put our hand in the handprint to measure it but our hands were much smaller than the one in the Yurt.

This monument was intended to be the last resting place for this hero, but his family did not agree and so now he is buried at the local cemetery.

Only once they are dead, the relatives build a grave in a form of a house; these graves are always near a road, so the deceased can watch the other nomads travel on.

The richer the family, the bigger and more beautiful the graves become. In front you see a typical Kyrgyz grave in the form of a Yurt made of iron work, the Yurt is the typical tent used by the nomads.

To visit this caravanserai, you must leave the road that heads to the Chinese border. It`s about 15 km in the mountains, finally you arrive in a superb, green valley.
This caravanserai was build to protect The Silk caravans from snowstorms and bandits; it dates from the 10th century.
Entry fee : 5 som per person at the gate on the road.

We also spend the night at that place, in the back you see the yurts next to the white building. But we preferred to sleep in our own tent. I should also tell you that Tash Rabat is at 3,500 m altitude- pretty high, which also means pretty chilly after sunset. We were equipped with good sleeping gear, so no problem for us.

Isn`t he cute, this little sheppard leaning over his donkey. (pic 2)

The encounter with some locals. (pic 3) As we made a photo -stop, some guys on horses approached, of course they are very curious about who we were and were we came from. Not so many tourist travel through this area.

And via our Russian translator we were able to talk to these super friendly men.