Kyrgyzstan One of those days…
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Johan Kruseman
Updated on 14 November 2024
Updated on 14 November 2024
Some days just don’t go as planned. This was one of those days. Waiting too long for every seat in the car to be filled on the way to Osh (given that there were as many cars as passengers, it also meant that you had to choose the right car to make it on the same day), someone approached me asking to see my passport. He showed his ID, but with my newly acquired knowledge of the Russian alphabet, I couldn’t check if it was real. After my passport was reluctantly deemed okay, they started searching for drugs. In my wallet. They found a suspicious-looking 200 note, and that’s when I had enough and grabbed my passport and the 200 note back. Still unsure if he was a corrupt undercover police officer or just someone with a fake ID, I was glad to have my passport and my suspicious 200 note back.
A few hours later, the next setback came disguised as an inviting cheese ball. It turned out to be the dried version of the sour horse milk, which you only realize after it has spread its taste all over your mouth. And to end the day, I arrived in an unknown village in the middle of the night with a hostel once again without an address. Without the sun, it was difficult to determine west (the direction I had to follow for 250 meters), but with the help of six friendly villagers who collectively had just enough English to convert the directions into gestures, I finally reached my bed at 1:00 am.
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Traveled route: Bishkek, Ala Archa National Park, Kockkor, Song-Kul lake, Beltam Yurt Camp, Fairytale Canyon Skazka, Karakol, Altyn-Arashan, Cholpon-Ata, Jalal-Abad, Kazarman
One of those days…
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Photographed by: Johan Kruseman
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Getting to a valley completely closed off in the winter
The next two days were dedicated to crossing a mountain range to a village that was cut off from the outside world all winter and where only about one car per hour went in the summer. While I didn’t have much luck on the road to Osh, this day went
Kyrgyzstan
Did this story inspire you to go to Kyrgyzstan? Read more on what Kyrgyzstan has to offer, what the best months are for visiting and check the handy links for backpacking there.