Kyrgyzstan🇰🇬How to pretend that you like Kymys when it resembles the taste of puke?

After four days in Bishkek, I headed to Kochkor with the German guy who had stabled his horse there to buy a new saddle blanket in Bishkek. In Kochkor, he hopped on his horse, and I went to my homestay: a super nice family with two funny sons who spoke brilliant English. Later, I would go with one of them to the World Cup qualifying football match between Kyrgyzstan and Australia (as you can see, I’m subtly adding some cliffhangers for my football-loving friends so that they might also reach the end of all stories). In Kochkor, I went on a mountain hike to a ger and had my first experience with kymys, a kind of sour buttermilk made from horse milk that had been left in the sun for too long. Under the watchful eyes of six hopeful children, I took my first sip and tried my best to put a smile on my face while my stomach turned inside out. Fortunately, I managed to give a thumbs-up that was just ambiguous enough between ‘okay’ and ‘not okay’ that I didn’t have to drink it all, but I also didn’t get kicked out of the ger.

With this incredibly hospitable mountain family, I exchanged the store-bought bread for their homemade version, which turned out to be a clear win-win situation. After giving an hour of English lessons to the 4, 6, and 10-year-old kids and receiving Kyrgyz lessons in return, I walked back to Kochkor, satisfied and looking forward to finding an unsuspecting passerby to practice my newly acquired knowledge on during dinner.

Share this story