If you’ve considered traveling to Kyrgyzstan,
you likely paused halfway through trying to pronounce it. That’s okay. Most of us did. It’s that rugged, mountainous country wedged between Kazakhstan, China, and a few other “stans” you loosely remember from geography class. But come on, Kyrgyzstan is no ordinary dot on the map. It’s a place where horses still outnumber people, where Wi-Fi is something of a luxury but yak milk tea flows, well, yak milk tea, and where you can legitimately lose yourself in the mountains, sometimes literally, among peaks that look like they’ve been photoshopped.
Kyrgyzstan’s tourism is a rather curious phenomenon. It’s not mass tourism, that much, for sure. You don’t get an all-inclusive resort featuring plastic wristbands and daily pool volleyball on your way here. What you will find is a guy named Askar who invites you into his yurt, insists you try fermented mare’s milk (don’t ask questions, sip courageously), then proudly shows the mountains that have been his family’s backyard for centuries. Kyrgyz hospitality has this old-world warmth, like you’re about to enter a relative’s house you didn’t know you had.
And those mountains? The Tien Shan range is, essentially, the spine of the country. You may trek for days without seeing another soul, except for a shepherd draping yourself in layers of wool and wisdom. The landscape dances across grassy valleys and snow-draped peaks more quickly than you get “altitude sickness.” Each turn resembles a Windows wallpaper, but this time, yes, it’s a real one where horses actually gallop around. Horses are all but the nation’s transport, by the way. You’ll likely feel somewhat silly about showing up in hiking boots when you’re walking by a 10-year-old galloping across the road bareback, waving as if it’s just another Tuesday.
One of Kyrgyzstan’s crown jewels is Issyk-Kul, the world’s second-largest alpine lake. It’s massive, shimmering and a touch cryptic, parked calmly at more than 1,600 meters above sea level. Locals have been swimming in it, tourists have posed for selfies by it, something nearby is cooking shashlik at an open fire. It’s beach holiday in part, high-altitude retreat, in part. The irony, of course, is that “Issyk-Kul” translates to “hot lake,” although it’s cold enough to alert your ancestors if you can even take a dip.
Tourism here isn’t ticking off landmarks, it’s all about moments. And then there’s zero light pollution, and you can just watch the stars spill up into the sky. Stuck in a conversation with a person speaking no English until ultimately you tell at least one joke, and/or find out your phone has died for about two days and you can’t care or whatever. There’s a freeing, chaotic kind of confusion in that.
Kyrgyzstan isn’t trying to impress you all that much. And it simply exists in this raw, untamed manner, how you would expect that in modern tourism, that is scrubbed out. Yeah, some roads are more pothole than pavement and your “eco-guesthouse” may include a welcoming goat, but that’s part of the beauty. This visit isn’t luxury travel, it’s adventure with a capital A in a side of sheep and sincerity.
So if you’re sick of waiting in line for expensive gelato in Europe or pretending to appreciate “authentic” markets that sell the same souvenirs in twelve languages, head to Kyrgyzstan. It may not be easy, predictable or particularly fancy, but it’ll remind you what travel once was like without Wi-Fi passwords and meticulously curated selfies. Maybe even pack some toilet paper. Trust me on that one. |
