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Blogs from Song Kol, Kyrgyzstan, Asia
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September 24th 2010
What can we say? This has been one of the trip highlights for sure. The pass on the way to Son-Kul lake is at an elevation of 3450 meters, the lake itself is at approximately 3000 meters and it is Kyrgyzstan's second largest lake. Pretty much as soon as we arrived it started raining and then eventually it turned to snow. We opted to stay in a cozy Yurt that slept six. In case anybody is interested, the yurts are heated with a coal burning stove. Most of the afternoon was spent hiding inside the Yurt playing cards with a few of the others from the group. We woke up early the next morning to a beautiful sunrise and clearing skies. Since the rain/snow had finally stopped, it was really our first chance to have a ... read more
Yurt dwellers on the shores of a 3000m alpine lake
Published: August 13th 2010Asia » Kyrgyzstan » Song Kol
August 8th 2010
The public minivan exploded with excited questions in broken Russian when they realised there was a foreigner onboard. "What's it like in England?" "How is life in England?" "Can people live normally there?" "Can you actually live there?" "Here you just can't live, there just isn't enough money..." "Is that vodka?" asked the man next to me, pointing at my water bottle. "Just water," I replied. "What's that in your bottle, vodka, eh?" he asked me again a bit later. "Yes, actually it is," I said jokingly. His glazed over, seemingly unseeing eyes came to somewhere approaching life and his involuntary jaw movements increased in frequency. "Give me some then!" he said in a cracked, wheazy voice. "No, sorry, I was only joking," I apologised. "Come on, seriously, is it vodka or not?" he asked me. ... read more
July 10th 2010
Song Kul lake is a mountain lake located in the Tian Shan mountains at an altitude of 3016m. the lake is used by people in the summer as a jailoo, a pasture during the summer months. It is considered the pearl of the Kyrgyz jailoos. The road to Song Kul winds through mountainous terrain until it seems to disappear into the skies. This is probably why Song Kul is translated from Kyrgyz as the last lake. From Kochkor we left our homestay after breakfast around 8am and walked to town to the CBT office, where we were supposed to meet our guide for our horseback riding trek to Song Kul for 3 days. The CBT office was still closed, past 9am already and no one was still there then the (bitchy)lady whom we dealt with the ... read more
October 15th 2009
Here I am, heading into the heartland of the Kyrgyz! I had four days off from my school, and I decided that I would use this precious time to do a simple but not-oft-trodden hike from a village called Kyzart to Lake Song Kol through a couple of valleys. The only downside was that I had to do this 3-day hike by myself because no one else wanted to go, and I'd rather go by myself than not go at all! I did toy with the idea of getting a guide... but, you know. Naryn Oblast (province) and the Song Kol region is the traditional home of the Kyrgyz people as we know them today (but they originally come from somewhere between Siberia and north-western Mongolia) and so here you can really see the authentic Kyrgyz ... read more
