If you have been following my blog you know that over the last six months I have been randomly posting about a terrific trip I took in June of 2023 to three of the Silk Road countries in Central Asia. 

Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan

I don’t normally take so long to blog about destinations, but, it is what it is. Life got in the way. 

It’s been really fun to relive the trip through my photos. This blog post focuses on Kyrgyzstan. So remote. So beautiful. Land of the Nomads and Silk Road legends.  

I knew I was in for an interesting experience when we landed. I looked out the window and saw a small car leading us to our gate. I quickly grabbed my phone to capture this moment. Fuzzy photo, but…..wow.  It’s a far cry from Laguardia or the big airport in Minneapolis in which I spend so much time. 

One of the first highlighted experiences was to photograph (remember I am on a Photo Tour) the changing of the guard. I was surprised to just see a few fellows and no one in exotic or colorful uniforms. 

But delightfully we saw this darling this little girl marching down the street with her mother and brother mimicking what she had just seen. Made me smile. 

Bishkent

Biskkent, the capital, is a city of wide, tree-lined boulevards and marble-fronted municipal buildings, very much retaining the feel of a Soviet-block capital circa 1990. 

We visited a family outside of the city who demonstrated an odd thing to me. Milking a horse. Yep. You read that. They make a drink called Kumys (kymyz) out of it. It’s  a mildly alcoholic, fermented mare’s milk and we were told it  is among the favorite dairy drinks in Kyrgyzstan.

I also saw the drink sold at a market. Speaking of markets, don’t you just love these displays? 

I laughed when I saw this in the dining room of our hotel.  I’m wondering if they are letting the tourists know there’s an alternative to Kumys.

But back to the family. They not only demonstrated the milking the horse process but dressed in historic costume and showed us the inside of their yurt.  

Yurts.  Where the Nomads live.

Later in the day we saw another yurt, this one being assembled. If you want to know more about yurts, go to Learning about yurts in Central Asia. Scroll over these words for a link.

I loved the native costumes, donned for us to photograph. I also loved seeing the hats often worn by men. Not a costume. Just a hat. 

The family was very welcoming.  

Issy Kul Lake

We traveled out to Issy Kul Lake. It’s the second largest mountain lake in the world after Titicaca. I expected to see resorts and second homes but none of that. In fact, it was difficult to get to on a very rough road. Slow and bumpy. We saw lots of construction and frankly, I think it will be a fabulous tourist destination when they figure out the transportation issue. Unfortunately I didn’t’ get any photos but the lake made me think of Lake Michigan where I live. 

In this part of the world we visited a family who do felting, make products from the felt and sell them.The raw material for Kyrgyz felt is ultra-warm wool from locally reared Merino and Karakol sheep, which is picked clean, washed, soaked in soda ash, dyed, fixed, dried and rolled – all by hand, mostly at home or in small cottage workshops.

For thousands of years, fabric made in this way has provided the cosy covering for nomads’ yurts. Boots, slippers, childrens’ dolls and traditional  hats are also still made of felt.

It was all done by hand with great care. I came home with a few items to treasure. I also captured our shadows on the ancient textured floor.

Kok Boru

Lastly I’ll post a photo of Kok Boru – The headless goat polo of Kyrgyzstan.  I’ve already done a post on this bizarre sport so if you missed it, head back for a look.