Bananas Don't Travel Well

watch the road!After almost a month in Kyrgyzstan, we figured we ought to start moving on to China. Although we'd been dreaming for weeks of warmer weather, easier communication and vastly better food, we knew we had a long journey ahead, and it was with some reluctance that we started out. From our starting point in Bishkek, the relatively northerly Torugart pass would have been the more convenient border crossing, but the Chinese require special permissions and pre-booked transportation for tourists to use it, amounting to several hundred dollars and a lot of hassle. Irkeshtam, the southern pass, is wide open and relatively easy, but geography dictates that it can only be accessed through Osh. In the end, our Long March to China took over a week.

brooding peakWinter had come early to Karakol, dusting the surrounding peaks with snow, chilling the air considerably, and limiting our trekking options. As multi-day treks over the passes were now out of the question (the summer yurt camps had been packed up for the season and we weren't interested in renting camping gear or hiring porters), we opted to walk up to Altyn Arashan, where basic guest houses serve as a base for day hiking. We left most of our gear with Gulnara in Karakol and took a marshrutka to the trail head, where we found a Dutchman and a young Japanese couple preparing to head the same way.

Smoker at the bus stationContinuing with our plan to freeze in the mountains we decided to head east to the city of Karakol. It would be our base to do some trekking in the Tian Shan mountains. The route from Kochkor to Karakol is about 400 km and can run around either the northern or southern coasts of Lake Issyk Kul. We decided to take the southern road because it was written up in our guide as more scenic, and break the trip about halfway in the town of Bokonbayevo where we would arrange a home stay through the local CBT office.

Uzbek manThings seemed instantly different when we crossed the border from Uzbekistan into Kyrgyzstan, even though Osh, the town we were heading to, is primarily Uzbek. Nonetheless, judging by the open-air teashops with boys outside grilling lamb shashlyk (shish kebab) and the street vendors everywhere, there seemed to be more life than there had been in Uzbekistan. The Kyrgyz too, with their Asian features and distinctive felt hats also seemed somehow more "Central Asian."