Overall I will have spent only 10 days in Kyrgyzstan so I haven’t really seen much of it. We had to come to Kyrgyzstan to enter China since the border between Tajikistan and China(Kolma Pass) is only open for Tajik and Chinese citizen. I came to Sary-Tash battling a strong head wind but by the time I settled we could see the Alai Shan a very impressive snow-capped mountain range including the famous Peak Lenin at 7,134m.
The next morning I got up at 6AM to hike up the ridge behind the guest house and get some pictures but it turned out into a 9 hours hiking day!!! It was so beautiful I just kept on going to the summit then I could see on the other side a yurt so off I went to visit some locals, take some more photos and finally get back home thursty and tired! The guest house owner was wondering where I was!
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| Great views of Alai Shan before Sary-Tash |
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| Not bad morning scenery! |
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| Peak Lenin at Sunrise |
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| The Alai Shan from Sary-Tash |
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| Alai Range |
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| Peak Lenin |
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| Nice yurt I visited while hiking |
I had to spend few days in Sary-tash waiting for Anne and Pierre, so I spent one day working on the blog and photos while drinking tea and try to keep warm. Then I decided to go to Osh and come back the next day to get my "internet fix" but going to Osh can be a bit of an adventure. The first day I left with one of the girl from the guest house and we hitchhiked(the normal mean of transportation to Osh) for about two hours without any success. Too many people going and not enough cars!
I tried again the next day and within 30 minutes we had a ride. An old Russian car. When the Swiss guy I was with ask the driver to open the trunk to put his backpack we found out that the trunk was reserved for an additional passenger....a black sheep....the poor thing.
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| My ride to Osh - Nice car!! |
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| The other passenger! |
It took about 4 hours to get to Osh a 184km ride over a high pass and a road under construction.
In Osh I rushed to find a bank and also internet cafe, a hotel and a ride back to Sary-Tash. Thank God a super nice English teacher helped me. I met her at the internet cafe and she was really an angel. Osh is the city where Tajiks and Uzbeks were fighting last June and where lots of house and business have been burned down. It is a very sad scene and my English teacher told me she was terrified during that time and had to spend 3 days in her apartment listening to gun shots, etc without being able to go out at all. Hard to imagine for us to be caught in something like that.
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| Lots of yurts in Kyrgyzstan |
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| Heating system in my guest house room! |
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| Leaving Sary-Tash - pretty nice views |
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| Pass before the China border |
When I came back from Osh Anne and Pierre were in Sary-Tash and the next day we hit to road direction China! It was nice to be together again to continue our adventure to Tibet.
Few Kyrgyz faces
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| Kids met along the road |
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| Cheeks burned by the wind |
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| Boys are having fun! |
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| one more! |
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| Young herder met while hiking in Sary-Tash |
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| Both of them |
If you want to read more and see other photos you can also visit my cycling partner blogs and photo gallery:
Anne's blog (French and English)
http://transhimalaya.blogspot.com/
Pierre's photo album
http://ppb.perso.sfr.fr/Voyage/index.html
Ricky's blog
http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/ricktajik
Note: All my photos can be seen on my flickr stream (link below). Only few selected photos were included in the Blog. From the Flickr page you can select "slide show".
http://www.flickr.com/photos/celine_soulard/sets/72157624759029183/
Cheers and have a great long weekend
Celine
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