The Mountains Up Close: Song-Köl and Tash Rabat

What you may see looking out the car window in Kyrgyzstan.
Photo credit: Robert Henschel

       Finding mountains in Kyrgyzstan isn't too hard, seeing as they cover 80 to 90 percent of the country. But seeing them up close can be a little bit more difficult, since, as an infrastructural risk analysis succinctly states, "road communication between the north and south of Kyrgyzstan is unreliable"; that means the "highway" is a pothole-ridden gravel road, the likes of which would barely be tolerated in Canada in any context at all. But the scenery was beautiful, although that adjective might not be quite adequate; Kyrgyzstan has everything from green fields to lush hills to red mountains and green mountains and grey mountains to tan ones to snowy peaks. There are big blue lakes or deep green ones; wide rivers, small fast ones; thick forests, sparse ones... Central Kyrgyzstan is breathtakingly beautiful. But when a friend of mine mentioned going back to Naryn (in southern/central Kyrgyzstan) I automatically shifted in my seat; the road, or rather its bumps, twists, and turns are still too firmly ingrained in my muscles.

A vista of Song-Köl lake, as seen from our yurt.
Photo credit: Robert Henschel

       The first night of the trip we stayed in a yurt next to Song-Köl, one of Kyrgyzstan's larger mountain lakes. The food was amazing: for supper we had baked trout, a local specialty, with potatoes and the tomato-and-cucumber salad mentioned in previous posts, served along with, as all meals are, bread. Somewhat unusual, however, was the excellent sour-cherry, black currant or apricot jam served alongside; that seems to be more common in southern Kyrgyzstan than in the north. The yurt was equipped with a ton of very thick blankets, necessary since it gets to be quite chilly at night (at an altitude of more than 3000m). We rented a horse for an hour, but it was small, old and seemed to be on the edge of death; it wouldn't move unless you hit it with a stick, and we really didn't want to do that too much. We also took a two-hour hike up into the mountains; the air was clear and fresh, but quite thin: a relatively short walk through hilly country winded us.

Mountains in four colours: grey, green, red, tan.
Photo credit: Robert Henschel

       The second day, we drove further south, towards Naryn. The roads didn't improve, but the scenery, if possible, did. Approaching Naryn, you could see mountains of 4 different colours, all standing together! Grey, green, red, and tan. The city itself felt very rural: dusty one-storey houses and small shacks selling a virtually identical mix of drinks, candy bars, and baked goods. Also, in stark contrast to Kyrgyzstan's north, the only people not ethnically Kyrgyz that I recall seeing were two obviously foreign cyclists. These cyclists are a fairly common sight, pedalling up steep mountains or avoiding children and dogs on the village roads. And cows. Everyone avoids cows, because they simply don't care what you do. Sure, they'll show an intense yet detached curiosity and, one assumes, amusement, especially coming across some tourist brushing his teeth by the lake in the morning, but they won't move for a car on the highway. Horses and sheep and goats and bicyclists will move if you honk, and dogs and pedestrians without being told, but cows will just peer at you with an idle sort of curiosity. While you're bearing down on them at 140 km/h. ("What, you expect me to moove?"...) I've developed quite an admiration for cows - in Russian, корова (karova), in Kyrgyz, уй (uy - think of what your German grandma might exclaim upon tripping over a rock or, should she happen to live in Edmonton, upon slipping on the ice in March). Kuh in German, for anyone interested, and vaca in Spanish. In (Russian-language) conversation class one day we had to discuss our favourite animals. The instructor was quite dumbfounded to have someone bring cows into the discussion, but after a number of my semi-intelligible explanations she had to agree that cows are pretty cool.

This road had 35 switchbacks!
Photo credit: Robert Henschel

       The second night's camp was also in yurts, but this time next to Tash-Rabat, the historically fascinating Caravanserai. As with all things long-ago, no-one quite agrees on its origins, but consensus seems to be that it was constructed sometime in the 8th to 10th centuries, originally as a monastery, perhaps Buddhist. Everyone agrees, however, that in the 15th century it became a caravanserai, an important link along the silk road due to the offered shelter from mountain storms and, in addition, most likely playing a significant role in the smuggling trade to China. A local guide claimed that the underground passageways leading out from the Caravanserai had not been explored, since neither flame nor flashlight will stay lit once underground; he speculated that they lead all the way (40+ kilometres) to China. On the other hand, he firmly believed that there were 500km of deserted land in central Kyrgyzstan due to yeti; I heard estimates of 800m to 3km for the Caravanserai's tunnels elsewhere. Perhaps the monks did use the 700 years they had before Islam took over to dig the 40km to China.
       In any case, the drive was beautiful, and the experience worth it. If there weren't so many other interesting places to go to, I wouldn't hesitate to make this trip again.
 

Tash-Rabat, the monastery/caravanserai/smugglers' haven.
Also rumoured to house ghosts.
Photo credit: Robert Henschel

A lush green field and a fast mountain
creek next to Tash-Rabat. And a cow.
Photo credit: Robert Henschel