I made the decision when I first arrived in Kyrgyzstan that I would try and cross into China over the Torugart Pass. Not only is this 3600m pass extremely remote and susceptible to snowstorms year-round, but as a “Class 2” Chinese border crossing it’s meant for commercial freight traffic only – tourists are not officially allowed to use the route. The one way around this bureaucracy is to arrange transport on both sides of the border, which I dutifully did with the help of a tour operator in Naryn.
My company on this little adventure were three Israeli backpackers (Lots of Israelis here! Just like there were lots of French in Iran.). We woke up at 5am, had an extremely early breakfast, and by 6am we were on the road in a pretty decent looking but old Audi. The asphalt quickly disappeared as we left Naryn and we were back onto rough dirt roads torn apart by all the trucks that we passed. The scenery was gorgeous though – wide, empty fields backing onto an impressive mountain range with peaks well over 4000m. And the Torugart Pass was on the other side.
We did have one stop along the way, after some three hours of driving. We took a side-road and drove 15km into one of the valleys to the old caravanserai at Tash Rabat. What a caravanserai is doing all the way up here, well off the Silk Road route, no-one knows. But it was a worthy side-trip.
It was another three hours to the border post. We passed a few checkpoints along the way, but we were generally had the road to ourself apart from the odd Chinese truck coming down from the pass. It was snowing lightly at the top, but not enough to put our crossing at risk. The Kyrgyz border post was nothing special – a bunch of decrepid buildings, lots of barbed wire etc. – and we quickly passed customs and immigration. Around a few more bends in the road and on the other side of a small ridge was the first of three Chinese border posts. After a cursory glance at our passports the soldiers waved us on, so we changed vehicles (our Chinese vehicle was waiting there – thank God!), said goodbye to our silent, chain-smoking Kyrgyz driver, and headed down from the pass.
(L) A sneaky shot taken from the car at the first Kyrgyz checkpoint. (R) The first Chinese checkpoint just over the other side of the Torugart Pass.
A few km’s down the valley was the second checkpoint, and our bags were x-rayed in a brand-new portable x-ray machine (it was soon to become obvious just how much money the Chinese has pumped into western provinces…). It was another 100kms down to the official border control, and compared to Kyrgyzstan the dirt roads were a joy to travel on. The border control was a shiny, new, building that looked like it was trying too hard and everything was very Chinese, serious and official. But we had no problems – apart from one guy being asked to remove the contraband and politically-sensitive map of Taiwan from his Lonely Planet!
After another few hours on some brand new asphalt roads and concrete highways (what a luxury!) we arrived in Kashgar, which was NOTHING like I expected it to be. I had visions of a hippie-era dusty town full of Central Asian sights, smells and sounds, but it’s a pretty big metropolis that looks and feels much like any other Chinese city – my first impression anyway. The Chinese have bulldozed wide roads through even the Old Town and generic multi-storey buildings line the streets. There are also many more Han Chinese here than I expected, and much less Arabic writing than I thought there’d be. But more on that next time…
I stayed in Karakol one more night to give my feet a rest from the pounding I’d given them, and the next morning I had yet another early start. My aim was to catch one of the early morning marschrutky minibuses along the less-visited but more scenic southern shore of Issy-Kul lake. It took a good five hours to arrive at the other end of the lake, where I was able to quickly jump into a shared taxi (they’re super-cheap here) to drive the one final hour to the town of Kochkor.
A few of the sights en route…
I wanted to get to Kochkor early enough to organise a trip up to Song Kol lake the next day, which I knew was my only chance to stay with a local shepherd family in a yurt up at their jailoo (summer pasture). A great outfit called Community Based Tourism (CBT), a for-profit company set up by the Swiss development agency Helvetas, arranges the stays as a way of getting some of the tourist dollars into the local farmer’s pockets. I teed up my stay and then caught a taxi to my local homestay for the night, where a delightful babushka (grandmother) cooked me a superb dinner meal.
Local kids after school. A traditional shrydak felt carpet.
The next morning we (Gurit, an Israeli friend I met in Altyn Arashan, who popped up in Kochkor and also signed up for the yurtstay) hired a taxi for a bargain $30 to drive us the three hours on horrendous dirt roads up into the mountains. We drove up over a pass and had our first views of 3000m-high Song-Kol lake below. It was a lot larger than I imagined and ringed by snow-capped mountains, and as it lies well above the tree line there was not a tree or even a shrub in sight.
Song-Kol lake. The middle of nowhere.
After some searching we eventually found our host family’s camp close by the lakeshore, and were shown inside our yurt. It was very roomy inside but cosy at the same time, with the floor covered with local carpets and shrydaks (handmade wool felt carpets). In the centre of the room was a large, low table, where we had all our meals (sitting on cushions). Our yurt even had a little pot-belly stove, which was invaluable overnight when temperatures plummeted to well below zero.
Home sweet home.
Complete with skylight!
I couldn’t have been more in the middle of nowhere and I LOVED the experience – the vastness and emptiness of the place was incredibly overpowering, and it was so delightfully peaceful, quiet and serene after all the constant noise and hustle and bustle of the past few months.
An “outhouse” if ever I saw one…
The rest of the day was free to spend as we liked, as the family was busy with “farm life”, gathering water, stoking the fire and preparing the meals, rounding up the cattle, feeding the dogs, milking the cows etc. We wandered off and tracked down a two-humped camel (are they technically called dromedaries?) we saw coming in, and meandered through some of the other camps.
In the afternoon I bit the bullet and decided to ride one of their horses. I hadn’t ridden a horse since I was about ten, so I asked for a guide to help me out – it turned out the be their 12-year-old son, who was, shall we say, an extremely proficient hand at riding a horse. He first popped me on this grey, subborn mule (literally!) that wouldn’t go anywhere without either being pulled by a rope or being whipped, which I flatly refused to do! After a short while I explained to the kid (or attempted to in Russian!) that I actually wanted to learn a thing or two about riding, so we swapped horses. The other horse – and by the way they find it an entertaining notion that horses should have names – was a joy to ride in comparison, and I spent the next couple of hours riding across the fields. Pure bliss…
Riding off into the sunset…
As the sun set we piled into our yurt, closed up the “sky light” and fired up the pot-belly stove. Before long it was pumping out the heat and it was toasty warm inside. After a hearty meal of mutton and vegetable stew the family helped up prepare our beds – the mattress was a few thick blankets and cushions, and we each had about four blankets on top. We needed them too: once the fire burnt down it was freeeezing inside the yurt, and well below zero outside. But what a night sky! It was crystal clear and no moon, with every star and constellation visible.
Collecting water from the lake.
Poor donkey!
Sheep grazing at sunset on my final night in the yurt.
I left Bishkek early in the morning and traveled an uneventful eight hours to Karakol, in the far east of the country. The drive took us along some atrocious roads and along the northern shore of massive lake Issy-Kul. Karakol is a very “nothing” town that has the feel of a border post. I dumped my bags at the laid-back Yak Tour hostel, run by an eccentric Russian named Valentin, and arranged with him to get up to his hut in the mountains the next day. Karakol backs onto the Terskey Alatau range of the Tien Shan mountains to the south and is a great jumping-off point for all sorts of mountain sports.
Leaving Bishkek. Wooden church in Karakol.
After all the cities and pollution of Iran, I was desperate to stretch my legs up in the mountains and enjoy the fresh air and open spaces. While Valentin drives his 50-year-old Russian jeep up to the hut every day, I decided to hike the five hours in, even though the weather was pretty crappy.
Valentin’s hut turned out to be a disused mountain rescue hut at the small settlement of Altyn Arashan (2700m). As you can see from the pic below there’s nothing much to it, but it does have one superb feature (especially given the sub-zero nights and chilly yet sunny days) – natural hot springs!! Oh, and not to forget the fantastic views too! It was a fantastic place to stay a few days.
Now that’s a lotta hay! A local boy playing in a disused car.
Valentin’s WW2 vintage car just keep on goin’…
Not much in Altyn Arashan! The mountain hut.
The wonderful view from Altyn Arashan looking up the valley towards 5200m Palatka.
The next morning I left the hut bright and early to hike up to the 3900m Ala-Kol mountain pass. It was an icy start with an icy frost covering the grass and pools of water frozen. But it warmed up once the sun came up. After hiking a couple of k’s up the main valley, I followed a stream up a side valley which kept on going and going and going. The ascent wasn’t too tough – until I saw the pass! The last section was a good 200m of steep ice and snow on top of wet shale and rock – not a good mix! It was pretty hairy, especially given the elevation, as I really wasn’t acclimatised at all.
Early morning start up the valley.
The terrain en route. The last stretch up the pass – dodgy!
But WOW was it worth it!!! Five hours after I started the hike I made it to the top of the pass, and the view across Ala Kol lake to the gigantic mountains and glaciers beyond was outstanding.
Words can’t describe the beauty of Ala-Kol lake…
Looking down the valley back the way I came up (my start point at Altyn Arashan is around the corner at the bottom of that valley).
I know I’m looking a bit too happy with myself but it was a pretty tough climb! And with views like this…
That was yesterday, and today I hiked out of the mountains. Oh I did have the minor annoyance of having to go back up the track for two hours this morning to retrieve my sunglasses, which I’d left by the stream yesterday.
One last view of Altyn Arashan before I head down the valley.
The minibus ride back to Karakol this afternoon was a laugh. It was rammed with locals and I found myself squeezed between who I thought were two middle-aged prostitutes, who kept inviting me (in Russian mind you, so I’m filling the blanks) back to their “hotel”. When they smiled at me their rows of gold teeth gleamed. I knew they were proposing something raunchy because the bus driver cacked himself laughing every time they propositioned me… Everyone on board was well and truly sozzled as well, and they were boozing away on beer and vodka like you wouldn’t believe – I’ve already noticed that this is not a nation for teetotallers. Of course they generously offered me a swig and hey it would have been rude to turn the offer down! As was also true for the smoked fish they ate whole, bones and all, and this weird grey paste that I couldn’t quite put my finger on… Hmmmm…