Our Silk Road Train Journey, Pt. 3: Welcome to Kyrgyzstan
In my last post we saw different areas in and around Almaty, Kazakhstan while battling stifling heat in our hotel room once more and dealing with the notorious Ms. P before finally boarding our train. Time to hit the rails!
Friday, April 11, 2025
We already knew it was going to be another rough night of sleep, this time on the train, but not only because the air-conditioning on board shuts off when the train isn’t moving or that my bed was quite short and narrow, but also because there would be two different immigration checks, the first happening at approximately 3:30am as we exited Kazakhstan and the second around 5:00am entering Kyrgyzstan. Due to there being over 90 guests plus staff onboard, each check took about an hour and on each occasion we were woken by immigration officials, our passports scanned and stamped, our photos taken, and at the Kyrgyzstan border crossing sniffer dogs also coming into our cabin, but it all went smoothly, however, I would hate to see how those barely awake photos turned out. Fortunately we could skip breakfast and sleep in, followed by one of the main guides, Anke, telling us all a bit about Kyrgyzstan over the train’s speakers.
We arrived at our first stop for the day a little early, disembarked the train, and got on a bus to the shore of Issyk-Kul, also referred to as ‘the Switzerland of Central Asia’:
Issyk-Kul is an endorheic saline lake in the western Tianshan Mountains in eastern Kyrgyzstan, just south of a dividing range separating Kyrgyzstan from Kazakhstan. It is the eighth-deepest lake in the world, the eleventh-largest lake in the world by volume (though not in surface area), the deepest lake whose deepest point is above sea level (939 meters or 3,080 feet), and the third-largest saline lake. Although it is located at a lofty elevation of 1,607 metres (5,272 ft) and subject to severe cold during winter, it rarely freezes over due to high salinity, hence its name, which in the Kyrgyz language means “warm lake”.
Another guide would be joining us for the Kyrgyz leg of our trip, a really cool guy called Ruslan, but during our bus ride told he us about how his father had met and married his mother using a traditional method in the country called Ala Kachuu — Kidnapping her! In some cases it’s consensual, others it’s not, but the prevalence of these kidnappings rose after the fall of the Soviet Union and it was pretty prevalent, because as of 2005 around a third of all brides in Kyrgyzstan were kidnapped against their will, even though the method is technically illegal.
After hearing these stories of matrimonial abduction we arrived at the lake and spent a bit of time exploring the shore and pier, as well as some of the resort area where we had pulled up before having lunch and boarding our rather large boat. You know there are a few Russians and Germans around when they have no qualms about wandering into a freezing cold lake on a chilly day. Our cruise around the lake would take an hour so we wore thick jackets the entire time and while most of our tour group decided to sit in a shaded area up the back, Anna and myself wanted to take in the view from up front with our group’s guide, Rustam, our new Kyrgyz guide, Ruslan, another couple, and at one point even Ms. P pulled up a seat. On this journey around the lake it was completely acceptable for a bottle of vodka to be busted out and us offered shots, but not so necessary to tell us where the life vests were, but we didn’t mind, there was nothing to hit in that lake except the vodka and our captain didn’t have anything to drink, more focussing on motoring us safely around. Ms. P loves anything free, including wine at meals despite telling us she doesn’t drink, but even she turned her nose up at this option and returned to the rear of the boat while we had an even better time without her. Once back on dry land we walked past an unusual Mercedes truck and were back on the bus.
Walking around the shore and cruising on Issyk-Kul with a warming drink or two and the snowcapped mountains in the background:
Our next stop would be one of the highlights for me, we would now be going to the Centre for Nomadic Culture for several reasons, but particularly the first part, falconry:
Medieval falconers often rode horses, but this is now rare with the exception of contemporary Kazakh and Mongolian falconry. In Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Mongolia, the golden eagle is traditionally flown (often from horseback), hunting game as large as foxes and wolves.
In the previous post I mentioned that when we were at the Shymbulak Ski Area people were charging tourist to pose with golden eagles, but today not only would we have the opportunity to pose with them for free, but we would also get to see them being trained to hunt. When we arrived we were met with two hunters in traditional hunting gear with a hooded eagle each perched on their arm and Ruslan explained to us all of the history and details about falconry in the country, Ms. P pushing her way to the front for many photos and checking them while blocking everyone else. This was followed by two examples of the eagles training with a decoy, which involved taking the hood off the bird and a man running with the decoy on a rope as the eagle swooped in on it. That was impressive to see on its own, but then we had the opportunity to pose with one of the eagles on our own arm. Most of our crew were intimidated by what they had just witnessed, plus Anna is just terrified of birds in general, but I had no qualms about going first. Golden eagles weigh around six kilograms (13 lb) and have a wingspan of a metre (3’4″) so it was a little hefty and I had to avoid getting hit in the face by a wing a couple of times, but we made it work and it didn’t cost me a cent.
We were next greeted once more by a local band as we were taken to see a reenactment of a traditional wedding sans kidnapping and the preparation of a baby’s crib. After that we visited another museum, this one containing old Kyrgyz armour and leatherwork including vases made from udders and teapots from other unidentifiable animal organs before boarding the bus once more and being whisked away back to another Soviet train station so we could board once more. Dinner was served in the restaurant cart and once finished we relaxed in our cabin while having some fascinating conversations with some of our fellow guests before hitting the hay.
Some shots of the eagles, the wedding, and the museum, but the most important bit comes last, a video of the training of the eagles:
This clip contains the training of two separate eagles and might give you an idea of why people were a little apprehensive to get too close to them:
Saturday, April 12, 2025
We had spent most of the night stopped over in Kemin which meant that we had to have the cabin window open overnight to let the breeze in and when everyone else was eating breakfast we travelled for another two hours to the capital city, Bishkek. The first item on the itinerary was to board the bus again and drive away from the city to Ala-Archa Nature Park to go for what was more of a walk than a hike, along some paved paths into the hills to see what we could find:
The Ala-Archa Nature Park is an alpine national park in the Tian Shan mountains of Kyrgyzstan, located approximately 35 km south of the capital city of Bishkek.Established in 1976, it currently covers 16,485 hectares.
A small reservoir on the Kargay-Bulak river was built to study the Amu Darya trout. Other wildlife includes the very rare snow leopard on the alpine meadows and snowfields above 2,500 m elevation, wild goats, roe deer and marmots.
Alright, let’s go find some snow leopards. Once again a band was playing at the train station when we arrived, this time in front of a large statue of an eagle, and women were bearing fried dough treats so I grabbed a couple, snapped some photos, and we were off and because we would be spending the night in a hotel we also packed a small bag each, arriving at the park 45 minutes later. Unfortunately not everyone in our group was in the right physical shape to walk uphill for 20 minutes, but it was definitely worth the trek up and back for those that could with the spectacular scenery, as well as spotting a red squirrel and a couple of horses tied to a fence, but there was a glaring lack of snow leopards, something that really rubbed one of our British cohorts, Richard, the wrong way, albeit in a tongue-in-cheek manner. In fact it is extremely rare to spot one with the first one only being photographed in May 2017.
Our latest stop and the Ala-Archa Nature Park minus snow leopards:
When we were done we took our bus back to the city, went to a restaurant for a shashlik lunch, followed by a city tour of Bishkek:
Bishkek, formerly known as Pishpek (until 1926), and then Frunze (1926–1991), is the capital and largest city of Kyrgyzstan. Bishkek is also the administrative centre of the Chüy Region. Bishkek is situated near the border with Kazakhstan and has a population of 1,074,075, as of 2021.
Bishkek is a city of wide boulevards and marble-faced public buildings combined with numerous Soviet-style apartment blocks surrounding interior courtyards. There are also thousands of smaller, privately built houses, mostly outside the city centre. Streets follow a grid pattern, with most flanked on both sides by narrow irrigation channels, which provide water to trees which provide shade during the hot summers.
As it would turn out, our tour would begin by spending a significant amount of time at another museum. We had been to several already over the past couple of days and they were getting kind of similar, plus this would be the only day we would have in this city so we asked Rustam if he would mind if we take a walk around the city by ourselves. He mentioned that this was a reasonably common request, so we could just meet the rest of the group at the hotel when it was time for us all to check in.
As per usual we looked up if there were any flea markets or secondhand stores and what we found wasn’t particularly what we expected. As we approached the first shop there were paintings of Vladimir Lenin and Mikhail Gorbachev among other former Soviet leaders and when we entered we were confronted with shelves upon shelves of busts and signage of them in the cramped, tiny room, as well as old record players and jewellery. However, one thing really stood out to me, but there’s a story behind it — More than 20 years ago in a thrift store when I was still living in Melbourne, Australia, my friends and I found what appeared to be a small, old, suit of armour about 40 cm (16″) tall for AU$10.00 (US$6.40) and when I first picked it up the shoulder popped open and had shot glasses in it. Both sides had the same and the chest plate also opened up with a bottle inside so naturally we purchased this medieval mini-bar and crowned him Sir Drinksalot. I still have him in my living room in Singapore so you can probably guess the look on my face as soon as I spotted a familiar suit of armour and realised it was the exact same alcohol-fuelled cavalier on a shelf next to a Russian revolutionary admiring him proudly in a junk store in Kyrgyzstan.
The first pictures are of Sir Drinksalot in our apartment (he really needs polishing) and then the one in the shop:
We could’ve spent hours going through this shop, but the whole plan was to see more of Bishkek. It was another beautiful city with more interesting sculptures, statues, and murals so we continued wandering around and exploring the parks, taking in some of the unique architecture and then checked out a shopping mall in order to do something else we love while overseas, go to a supermarket, but we didn’t find anything particularly odd.
We started making our way in the general direction of our hotel, stopping off at Save the Ales for an afternoon drink or two in their sunny beer garden before walking past some ostentatious, yet dilapidate limousines on the way and checked in to our hotel. Dinner was in the hotel’s restaurant with the group and this is where things got more than a little cringeworthy. Our Kyrgyz guide, Ruslan, mentioned in passing that he was 26 years old and building a house, Ms. P’s ears pricking up upon hearing this information. She immediately asked if he was married, to which he said no and continued talking to people. While we were all chatting in a short period of time she had found a waitress who was clearly humiliated after being asked every detail about her personal life. Ms. P grabbed our guide by the arm and told him the waitress’ name, her age, and where she went to school among other things while the girl just stood by looking sheepish. “She is 19 years old and she is not working here tomorrow! You must ask her out now!”. Our guide tried to brush it off and continued his conversation while the girl tried to go about her job, but Ms. P wouldn’t let it go, constantly insisting they hook up until several of us just told her to mind her own business, me pointing out that she too is single. After giving us a dubious reason for why her husband left her, she finally stopped demeaning them both, letting the waitress get back to work and him just enjoy chatting about Kyrgyz life with the rest of us.
That night we would be able to sleep comfortably in a full-sized bed in an air-conditioned hotel, while in contrast the entire following day and night would be spent on the train, only periodically stopping briefly at stations to pump water, which would also allow us to get out for a short walk, so we decided to make the most of this Saturday night in the city. We looked up a bar district and started to walk down there, but not long after we had left the hotel we found Bar Groove, an underground place that would serve us well as our first stop. Once inside there were really only us and one other guy and when we got chatting he turned out to be quite interesting and the three of us hit it off immediately, but that was only the beginning. The place began to fill up and a DJ started started to play late 90s and early 2000s R&B. There was a party there that night and everyone was about 20 years old so to them this was retro, but to Anna it was what she loved when she used to go out back in her university days so she got up and started dancing with all of the kids. Later we met the manager of the bar who was originally from China but spoke fluently as well and he took a liking to us too so there were a few shots coming our way, free of charge. We couldn’t be out too late though, because we needed to be back on the bus early the next morning, but not to worry, we were only five minutes away from our hotel.
More of the junk shop, walking around the city, dinner, and Bar Groove:
So that wraps up our time in Kyrgyzstan. In the next chapter we will be seeing some absolutely incredible sights and having some unusual experiences in Uzbekistan.
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