Today was the big day. After exactly three months of travelling Iran and Central Asia on bicycle, I was travelling back to Switzerland and finally meet up with Ilinca and my family again. I was quite nervous about that day whether everything will go smooth, but in the end I have to admit my worries were unfounded. Apart from a broken helmet that I wanted to replace anyway, all equipment arrived on time and in good condition.

Ride to the airport

The airport of Bishkek named Manas airport is located around a 30 minutes’ drive north of the city center and close to the Kazakh border. As I was travelling with a lot of luggage, Kurmanbek organized a minivan in which I could easily fit my bicycle. Half an hour is not that much, still the driver had the need to optimize the duration of the ride by speeding. While he escaped the first mobile control, in the second one the police officer took him out. There went the time advantage for speeding. After paying the fine, we continued at regular speed to the airport.

Manas Airport

The airport is rather small. Check-In, security check and passport control were basically in the same building, and the boarding gates were already in the next hall. Check-In went very smooth, especially considering I had a bicycle with me. I could pay the €90 fee for the bicycle directly with my credit card, and the lady at the check-in asked me if I wanted to change my seat to the emergency row, which I gladly accepted for a six hour flight in a rather small plane for this distance.

Before entering the baggage screening, I realized that I forgot to put my pepper spray into the checked luggage. I did not want to take my chances and run into trouble and therefore threw it in the garbage right before the screening. And it was a good decision, the security officers were extremely interested in my belongings, they were asking me several times about a laser pointer that I did not possess, and looked at every cable and item. After they could not find me guilty, they let me pass to the departure hall.

After that I had a bit more than an hour left until boarding, so I visited to business lounge at the airport (I was not flying business class, but I have a Priority Pass from my credit card package which allows me to go for lounges for free). The food options were very limited, but it was enough to finally eat breakfast.

Flights from Bishkek via Istanbul to Zurich

When the captain said over the speakers in Bishkek that the estimated flight time is almost 6 hours, I realized again how far I was actually away from Switzerland. The flight itself was very nice and the service of Turkish Airlines was very good, and due to the seat at the exit row also comfortable.

Once landed in Istanbul, I visited another business lounge. This time the food offer was very good and I had a nice lunch there. Especially the desserts were way above my expectations for a business lounge with fresh

The second flight from Istanbul to Zurich was also fine, even though I did not have an exit row seat anymore. After 2.5 hours I then finally landed in Zurich. At the baggage claim, I was happy to see that all luggage arrived and apart from the helmet which I packed poorly, everything survived the transport undamaged. After half an hour of reassembling my bicycle I then cycled the last six kilometers from the airport to my home where Ilinca was already waiting for me on the balcony.

Next weeks

I am very happy to be back again in Switzerland. Even though I loved travelling through all these countries and cultures, I always also missed a bit my family and also the comfort of life here in Europe. I will now enjoy summer here in Switzerland for the next two months, process all the impressions from the past three months, and meet friends and family. Starting September I will then start travelling again with Ilinca for several months. The destination is not clear yet, but we have a preference for South-East Asia and Australia.

On my last full day here in Bishkek I went with Kurmanbek and one of his friends that will have a wedding party tonight to the animal market because they needed a sheep for dinner. While I had a lot of meat here in Kyrgyzstan, it was the first time where I had to witness the whole process from converting an alive sheep into pieces of meat. For those who rather would not like to hear this story, please don’t read the last section of this post. In the end I was not invited to the wedding dinner because of lack of space, but I honestly did not mind, I preferred going one more time to a restaurant in town – this time it was Sushi. The rest of the day I spent with disassembling my bicycle and packing it into the box.

Boxing the bicycle and packing my bags

After three months, the time has come to squeeze my bicycle back into a transport box in order to transport it as safely as possible back to Switzerland. Thanks to the large box we found two days ago, I only had to disassemble the handle bar, the front rack and wheel and the bike stand. Everything else I could leave attached and will simplify my task at the Zurich Airport when reassembling it.

As for my remaining bags: Turkish Airlines applies the weight concept, which means that I will have 30 kg of luggage available, but I can split it up into several bags. This is great because like this I can check in my bicycle bags directly and don’t need to find another box to fit in all bicycle bags.

Dinner at Japanese restaurant

I followed my line today with going to non-local restaurants – at least for dinner. I read on TripAdvisor that there is an excellent Japanese restaurant here in town that is run by a Japanese expat. I followed the advice and I was not disappointed. I had two plates of excellent Sushi, a miso soup, and for dessert a wasabi ice cream. Both service and food were excellent, the price however was quite steep and was at European norms for Sushi, but still it was cheaper than getting Sushi in Switzerland.

From a healthy sheep to three plastic bags of meat

Many of us like to eat meat, but many of us have never really seen the actual butchering of an animal. While back in Switzerland we go to the supermarket and buy the meat there, here in Kyrgyzstan it is tradition to get the meat for a party directly from the animal market. And because meat does not grow on trees and can be harvested, the first thing you do is you go to the stable where dozens of sheep are cramped into a roughly 20 m2 fenced area. And then it’s like with vegetables and fruit: you select one, you touch it to see if it satisfies your demands in terms of meat, fat. If not, the farmer will send that sheep away and it will live another day and pull another sheep brutally on its rear leg towards the customer.

Once the desired sheep is found, its legs are bound together and it is dragged around 100 m over to the slaughterhouse where it is waiting outside in the sun while its mates are already being but apart. Of course all waiting sheep are very scared and I assume they feel what’s going on, but because their legs are tied together they cannot really move.

Once it’s a sheep’s turn, it is dragged into the slaughterhouse on a bench and put on its back. The butcher cuts its throat and lets the sheep bleed out, afterwards he cuts off the whole head. I cannot say for how long the sheep suffered, but it seemed like it was unconscious very quickly. But that doesn’t mean it was dead instantly. The legs of the sheep are usually still moving even once the whole head is cut off and when the sheep is opened with the knife.

Around 20 minutes later, the butcher is done dissecting the whole sheep. The customer receives three plastic bags with all the parts of the sheep incl. the head (which is also eaten here, they literally eat everything of the sheep except the fur) and the innards.

Even though watching an animal being butchered is brutal, I think everybody should witness this once in his lifetime. It gives you the complete picture what eating meat means, even if the butchering conditions in Switzerland might be a bit better than here in Kyrgyzstan. As for me, I certainly will continue eating meat, but I will do so with more appreciation.

Bishkek is a nice city for just being. It does not have a lot of attractions and the few that exist I have already visited, but it has plenty of infrastructure to feel comfortable. Today was one of my first days since my departure where I did not have anything specific planned and the only two items on my agenda were going to the Bazaar again to find some souvenirs and having dinner with Kurmanbek and his family at an Italian restaurant.

Gastronomical experience in Western restaurants

As I had plenty of traditional local food in the past few days, today I decided to only go to Western restaurants. Breakfast I had in the same café as yesterday, lunch I had in a supposedly fancy restaurant in Bishkek’s largest shopping mall, and dinner in an Italian restaurant.

What all of them had in common: The prices are just ridiculously high, but aiming at tourist and business people, this is clear. But what separated those three restaurants was the quality of service and food.

At Sierra café, I really felt like in a European or American style café. The food was of excellent quality, the cinnamon rolls and waffles I had for breakfast really tasted authentic and the fresh orange juice was also of good quality. Combined with the good service, I really felt almost like home and it’s likely that I go there again tomorrow.

Lunch at “Sushi Imperium” at the mall was the opposite. I ordered a salad with duck breast on it as usually in restaurants that have Sushi but also all kinds of other food on their menu (e.g. Thai food), I doubt that the sushi is of good quality. However, the quality of the salad was not good at all either. The lettuce leaves were lying in the dressing for too long already, the tomatoes were cut probably yesterday, and there was way too much salt on the salad. And this for a price that would easily have gotten me a full meal at a traditional restaurant. The bad experience was completed by the miserable service. Even though they had around 4 waitresses standing around, it took them around 20 minutes to bring the salad and another 20 minutes to bring the garlic bread I ordered with my salad. And the restaurant was basically empty.

For dinner I tried an Italian restaurant named “Cyclone”. I wanted to invite Kurmanbek, my host, and his family to a different dining experience as they only eat traditional food. I chose that restaurant because it had the best reviews on TripAdvisor. And I have to admit, to food was surprisingly tasty. It was clear from the start that I wouldn’t be served an authentic Italian pizza, but my Pizza with onions, sour cream, and spinach was still very tasty, and the beef carpaccio for appetizer was also good. In addition service was also good, they managed to bring all dished exactly as we ordered it. In the end I paid a bit more than 30$ for all three of us. It is definitely ok for Swiss standards, but of course a lot of money for Kyrgyzstan.

The bottom line of my gastronomic experience: It is easy in Bishkek to pay a lot of money in a western style restaurant and there are plenty of them in the city center, but by far not all of them deliver the western quality you expect for the price you pay. Review platforms like TripAdvisor or also Google Maps however help you find the right ones. “Sushi Imperium” was the only restaurant that was not listed on any of the review platforms that I visited today.

One more day in Bishkek

Tomorrow is my last day of Bishkek. I don’t have a lot of plans yet, but what’s already fixed is that I will have to pack my bicycle into the box I got yesterday and prepare all my luggage for the flight. And in the evening, I am invited together with Kurmanbek to a wedding dinner of one of his friends. I am curious how that will turn out, but I was told that due to Ramadan, it is a small event, the big party will take place after Ramadan.

The goal for today was, to find a suitable cardboard box for transporting my bicycle safely back to Switizerland. As expected, it turned out to be much more difficult than just asking at the airport (like I did in Switzerland). After visiting Alamedin and Dordoi Bazaar in Bishkek without success, thanks to the help of my host Kurmanbek we found a big enough box at a local bicycle store. It is second hand, but in good enough condition to pack my bicycle.

Western morning in Bishkek

After weeks of local breakfast (bread, butter, jam, tea, yoghurt, eggs …) I really felt like having some Western breakfast. So instead of eating at our host’s home, I went to one of the Western cafés that exist here in Bishkek and satisfied my appetite with two mini-croissants, a piece of nut cake, a muffin, a hot milk, and some tea. As with all western things here, also the café was quite pricy for Kyrgyz standards, nevertheless, it was worth it and I actually consider going there again.

After the café I visited a Western-style mall named “Bishkek Park” which was just around the corner. Nothing impressive there, the usual suspects (shops) were present there.

Walk through city center

After the mall I had a walk through the city center and the government district. I really got a good impression of Bishkek. The streets were full of trees, there are many inviting cafés and restaurants for sitting outside, shops, and the government buildings also presented themselves in an impressive manner.

Second Hand in Kyrgyzstan

I already mentioned in earlier posts that basically almost all car that run on Kyrgyzstan’s streets (and in the neighboring countries as well) are second hand and usually 20-year old Mercedes, Toyota, and other solid cars. What I have encountered for the first time today however are second hand clothes shops. It allows the Kyrgyz people who want to dress in style to buy fancier clothes for a reasonable price. The shops are also made in an attractive appearance and if they had not written “Second Hand” outside, I would have thought it is a regular clothes shop.

Bazaars in Bishkek

Yesterday I already visited Osh Bazaar which is known for food and souvenirs. Today, on the search for a bicycle box, I went with Kurmanbek first to the smaller Alameddin Bazaar, and afterwards to Dordoy Bazaar. The latter one is truly impressive, it is the largest market in central asia and not only serves for selling to end customers, but also as a gateway for Chinese products to all Central Asian countries. I was told that around 20’000 officially work there, and probably a similar number unofficially. The whole bazaar is based on containers, and you can walk hundreds of meters per aisle to go from one end to the other. When looking at the satellite image of Bishkek, Dordoy bazaar can easily be spotted as a bright, white area in the north of the city with a diameter of up to 1 km.

Nevertheless, we were not able to find a suitable box in any of those bazaars. Luckily, at the same time a bike shop that we contacted yesterday told us that they have a box. The box was not for free, but I happily paid CHF 6 for it. After carrying the box home on foot through half the city center at 33°C, I relaxed the rest of the afternoon.

Dinner with friends after sunset

Just like yesterday, Kurmanbek and some of his friends stuck to the strict rule not to eat and drink before sunset during Ramadan. So we met with his friends shortly after eight and everyone was staring on their cellphone until it showed 20:50 and they finally could drink and eat. One of his friends mentioned that he works in a food shop and that it’s difficult for him to sell drinks and food during the day while being thirsty himself. And Kurmanbek asked me if he could borrow my bicycle in the late afternoon to go to the city because like that he uses less energy and liquid than going on foot. So today for me it was obvious that people really suffer from the rules of Ramadan. I am really glad that those rules don’t apply to me.

Everything comes to an end eventually. In the past three months I was cycling through five countries, covered a distance of almost 5500 km through rain, sun, green fields, mountains, deserts, cities, rivers. Apart from some minor incidents with my bicycle (5 punctures, loose chain, fixing some bags), the whole trip went smooth and without any accidents. On today’s last segment from Tokmok to Bishkek (60 km) I wanted to end the trip in the same fashion as described above. And after a bit less than three hours I reached Bishkek, navigated through the heavy traffic and parked my bicycle at my host’s apartment.

The ride from Tokmok to Bishkek

There is actually nothing spectacular about this last ride. I was basically following a paved main road towards Bishkek, with the traffic getting gradually heavier. The terrain was mostly flat and I had support of a little tail wind. It is nice to finish such a bicycle tour the easy way. The most dangerous part about the traffic are the marshrutkas, the mini-busses for the locals that stop wherever you tell them to. More than once my bicycle path was cut off by an aggressive driver who pulled over and stopped right in front of me.

Organizing my return to Switzerland in Bishkek

Bishkek as a city does not have too much to offer, still I need to get some things organized until my return to Switzerland. Most important, I need to find a suitable cardboard box for my bicycle so I can take it on the plane. In Zurich, I could by a suitable box at the airport, however in Bishkek I don’t count on that.

In a local bike shop, I could find a suitable box, however it is quite small and I would have to disassemble half the bicycle to make it fit in there. So I will continue looking for an appropriate box tomorrow.

Shopping at Osh Bazaar

Bishkek has a few famous bazaars, the most famous one is Osh Bazaar. I went there in the afternoon with Kurmanbek, my host for the next three days. It is really amazing how many food and other shops are located there. There is one hall with only meat for instance, divided into sections by animal type. And one hall was only dedicated to horse meat, which is eaten here in Kyrgyzstan. If I did not already have all my hands full with plastic bags full of vegetables for today’s dinner, I would probably have bought a lot more. If I still find time, I will go back to this bazaar before my departure and buy some souvenirs and / or dried fruit and nuts, from which there is also a huge selection.

Dinner at Kurmanbek’s apartment after sunset

It is currently Ramadan. As Kurmanbek and his family are Muslims, they follow the strict rule to not eat or drink during the day, but only after sunset. Due to the length of days, this meant that we only started having dinner shortly before 21:00. Kurmanbek invited one of his friends over for dinner and we spent the rest of the evening together.

Luckily I am allowed and also offered food and drinks during the day, so I am not that much affected by Ramadan. It is hard for me to imagine how someone could not drink anything in temperatures above 30°C for around 15 hours. Kurmanbek told me that it was also difficult for him in the beginning, but he’s doing that now for ten years during Ramadan, and by now he is used to it and it does not bother him anymore.

Detailed Track

Thanks to a shop owner of the small village named Toru-Aygyr I spent last night in a house instead of a tent in the storm. Today’s goal was Tokmok, a city 60 km east of Bishkek. As Tokmok is already at a much lower altitude than Issyk Kul, temperatures rose to 33°C at noon, which is quite hot for cycling on tarmac. As I woke up already at 5:30 today, I took advantage of it and started cycling at 6:40 in nice cool temperatures, and as the road was gradually going down for the next 100 km, I reached Tokmok shortly after noon and spent the rest of the afternoon in a park.

Fine road down from Issyk Kul

I have had a lot of bad roads here in Kyrgyzstan in the past three weeks and I lost a few words of frustration during the ride on those roads, but today things were different. Basically the whole way down to Tokmok I had a very nice road surface, slight tail wind, and almost no traffic at all due to early Sunday morning. All these factors contributed to a relaxed 135 km ride down to Tokmok.

Afternoon heat in the lowlands

It is the first time on this trip that I am confronted with temperatures above 30°C. While it is still possible to cycle, I took the liberty this afternoon to relax in a park here in Tokmok instead of cycling the remaining 60 km directly to Bishkek. I save this last roughly three hour cycling for tomorrow morning when temperatures are still below 30°C.

As there was a big supermarket right next to the city park and I still had a lot of camping food to get rid of that served as emergency reserve during the past weeks, I refrained from eating lunch at a restaurant. Instead, I took my camping cooker and cooked some noodles and ate some of the camping food where you simply have to add water into the bag and wait for five minutes.

Tricky search for accommodation

In the past it was always easy to find accommodation in smaller villages or towns that have tourists regularly. Tokmok however is not a tourist town at all, so there are no official guest houses and only a handful of hotels. Usually I used the app Maps.me to find guesthouses, but I had no luck here in Tokmok, I tried two private homes that were marked as guesthouses, but none of them actually wanted to have guests.

As I got tired of cycling through the city in this heat and knock on people’s doors, I decided to go for a hotel (there are only around 3 in the whole town that were marked on my map). And I finally succeeded to find a shabby room in a hotel in town. As there were no other rooms available, I had to take a deluxe room for around 18$. The only thing deluxe about the room however is the price. The warm water was not working, the lamp in the bathroom is broken, the extra room in the suite was just an empty room without any chairs or couch, toilet paper was missing, etc. I really missed today the times where I stayed at private person’s homes, because they actually cared about your wellbeing for a fraction of the price. But well, it’s only one night and tomorrow in Bishkek I already know some locals at whose home I can stay until my departure.

The remaining rooms of the hotel are occupied by a Korean group of cyclists as well. As usual for Asians, they have top equipment. For those who know a bit about bicycles: They had all XTR components, titanium or carbon frames, and so on. That was kind of funny because they did not look like professionals to me at all, and the route they were cycling was actually on paved roads and not where you actually need such components. Nevertheless, they were friendly and if at least one of the nine persons had spoken a word of English, I would have liked to have some conversation with them.

Detailed Track

On day two following the north shore of Lake Issyk Kul, things continued the way they stopped yesterday. Beautiful weather, nice landscapes with lots of trees and fields, and view on lake and mountains. The more to the west I went however, the landscape got drier and the wind stronger. In the end the wind turned into a real storm. Direction: headwind! So it made me stop a bit earlier than planned, but still I managed to cycle 120 km today.

Cycling until Cholpan-Ata for lunch

There are many hotel resorts along the northern shore of Issyk Kul because in July and August, the lake is a popular destination for rich Kazakhs and Russians who come here to spend their summer holidays at the beach. While they are spread along many kilometers, they are concentrated in a place called Cholpan-Ata. It is quite a touristic place and even now in preseason, there were quite a few tourists. As I wanted to have lunch in a restaurant today (as compared to buying bread and sausage in a shop), this was a good place to stop. After cycling through beautiful landscapes and some villages, I arrived there and also found a decent restaurant. As we were close to the lake, I ordered trout from the grill. It was not the best fish I ever had, but it was tasty.

Stormy weather after lunch

Before I entered the restaurant, the sky was blue and the weather perfect. Three hours later after an extensive lunch break however, the sky was black when I left the restaurant. Big thunderstorms were forming over the mountains all around the lake. Time to continue I thought and I managed to escape all kind of storms and rain for the next 50 km. But then, after leaving a village, I was suddenly confronted with a very strong headwind. I intended originally to cycle for another 30 km to the next city with guesthouses, but the wind was simply too strong. I fought another 10 km against the wind and asked at a shop in a small village if there is any kind of guest house. But the village was too small. However as it happens regularly here, the shop owner invited me to sleep at his house. I gladly accepted today because I neither felt like sleeping in a tent in the storm, returning 10 km to the last village with a guesthouse in the direction of the wind nor fight another 20 km against the wind.

Descending to the heat tomorrow

Right now I am still above 1600 m where the temperatures are around 24°C during the day, which is nice for cycling. Tomorrow however I will descend towards Bishkek which is less than 200 km away. Bishkek lies on 800 m and temperatures are around 32°C during the day. It will definitely be more exhausting to cycle down there, but since there are only two days of cycling left until Bishkek, I won’t complain.

Detailed Track

The Southern Shore of Issyk Kul was rather disappointing, so I had hopes in the morning that at least the northern shore would be worth cycling. It did not start well however, because the road out of Karakol was horrible, both from the surface and the traffic. But after around 40 km when I actually reached the northern shore, things started to change. The road became smooth, there was much less traffic, and it was green all around. So for the next 40 km, the ride was really enjoyable. I even went down to one of the beaches and had a swim in the lake.

Traffic around Karakol

Just like yesterday when I drove into Karakol, also today the road surface was really bad in and around Karakol. There were unpaved parts, parts with huge potholes, and in addition to that, all drivers had the need to pass each other even in impossible situations. Sometimes cars passed me with 10 cm distance with high speeds, and other times cars were just honking behind me and going full speed towards me. I don’t know what would have happened if I had not gone off the road in the dirt in these moments. I get the feeling here that it is acceptable for a driver to hit a cyclist, it is much more important to gain a few seconds…

Green northern shore

I was positively surprised after crossing the valley from Karakol and turning west towards the northern shore of Issyk Kul how green everything became. Basically all along the road there were beautiful trees on both sides, and behind there were green fields, the lake to the south, and the mountains to the north. Traffic also got much less and combined with the perfect weather, a light breeze, and comfortable temperatures, the ride along the north shore was really enjoyable.

After around 80 km I spotted a nice beach from the road and decided to cycle down to that beach for a swim. Given that the lake is on 1600 m, the weather was surprisingly warm and the swim was very refreshing after a long ride.

Spending the night on a farm

At the beach there were some locals taking a swim as well. I got to talk to one of them, a 15-year old boy who wanted to practice his English on tourists. And then things took the usual turn. I got invited to tea at their farm and I accepted. What I did not know is that the farm is around 3 km away from the beach and I had to push up my bicycle in the afternoon sun. But once arrived, I enjoyed the tea, which was followed by dinner, and a tour around the farm.

Perspectives of the youth

In the evening I talked a lot with the boy and his brother about life in Kyrgyzstan, and the dream of studying and working abroad. He told me proudly that he wanted to go studying abroad in South Korea. When I asked him, in which field he would like to study, he could not tell me yet. I asked him then indirectly who is going to pay for his studies, because it was obvious that his family could not afford sending him abroad. He then told me that he participated in some kind of Olympiad where he won 3 gold and 2 silver medals. This Olympiad is sponsored by an American millionaire in Bishkek, and he in the end decides who gets the scholarship. But the way it sounded to me, it is highly uncertain if he will in the end receive the scholarship, as it is a national competition and it was not the last round. Nevertheless, he put all his hopes into that one competition and I hope for him that it will work out. The alternative is living the Kyrgyz life.

Life on Kyrgyzstan’s countryside

So those who cannot afford studying abroad will stay in Kyrgyzstan or take some low-paid job in Russia in order to finance their families back in Kyrgyzstan. And the perspectives in Kyrgyzstan are bad, the boy’s elder brother told me. The unemployment rate in Kyrgyzstan is 70%, and there are no unemployment benefits, so they have to arrange themselves on how to survive. This means that since they cannot afford to buy food, they produce everything themselves to be self-sustaining. The boy’s mother told me proudly during dinner that everything we eat they produced themselves.

But I also saw on that farm what it means to be self-sustaining. You have to take care of sheep, cows, horses, turkeys, vegetables, and so on. You have to let the animals out in the morning and take them to the hills, you need to supervise them, you need to deal with sick animals, you have to look for missing sheep in the evening, the cows need to be milked, and so on. The list of tasks seems almost endless to me.

The farm I was on was one of the bigger and wealthier ones. They owned several hundred sheep where a sheep can have a value up to 100$, and they even could afford to hire someone to look after the sheep during the day (that’s why I was able to meet them at the beach, otherwise they would have been in the hills with the sheep). And by selling sheep, they can buy e.g. a used car for $1500, build or extend their farm house, or in the case of that farm, drill a hole into the ground so they can get access to fresh water at the farm instead of getting it from far away.

Basically if you stay in Kyrgyzstan on the countryside, you are forced to become an entrepreneur, because that’s what those farmers are. Some of them do a better job like the farm I stayed at, and some of them don’t. The ones who fail to run their own farm or cannot provide the initial investment are those people who get hired to look after sheep for less than 200$ per month. It is a life without perspectives.

Detailed Track

Karakol is the eastern-most stop on my cycling tour and at the same time my turning point of the tour around Lake Issyk Kul. I had to cycle a total of 132 km today to reach the unspectacular city at the foot of the Tian Shan Mountains. Due to some problems with my bicycle on the way, I reached the city later than planned, but still at a decent hour to go out for dinner in one of the tourist-oriented restaurants.

Issyk Kul’s south coast – Part 2

As reported yesterday already, the south coast of Issyk Kul is not very spectacular because it is very dry. I had big hopes today that towards the east that will change. And up to a certain degree, the landscape along the lake got more beautiful, with nice bays, and towards the end of the lake also green fields. On the other hand, the visibility was today even worse than yesterday, so the northern coast could not be seen at all and also the mountains in the south were only visible through a layer of mist. Starting tomorrow however the weather and especially the visibility should get better, so maybe when cycling back on the north coast I finally get to discover the promised beauty of the lake.

Loose chain on the way

After more than 4000 km of cycling, the chain of my bicycle extended quite a bit from all the climbs. The consequence was that today it got too loose to function properly and it jammed the rear wheel roughly every 10 turns of the pedals. At that point, I still had to cycle 90 km, so it was definitely not an option to continue like this.

At first I thought it’s a problem with my Pinion transmission, but I was wrong luckily, because if the Pinion transmission had a problem, I could have stopped my trip as replacement parts would have been needed from Germany.

Fixing the problem with the chain was luckily less difficult. All I had to do is to open the chain, remove two elements and close it again. After that, the chain was tight again. It is of course not the perfect solution, but I hope that’s enough until the end of my trip, which means it should last another 400 km.

The whole incident cost me about an hour, but because I left again very early in the morning, this was not such a big deal.

Karakol

The city Karakol does not have anything attractive. It is basically a gateway for tourists. Some plan and start trekking tours in the Tian Shan Mountains from here, others travel onward to Kazakhstan, and others again like me go back to Bishkek from here. Nevertheless, the city is well prepared for a large number of tourists with plenty of restaurants and guesthouses. And since it is not main season yet, it was no problem at all to find a guesthouse and a decent restaurant for dinner.

Tomorrow I will start cycling back on the north coast. This coast is supposed to have nice beaches. If I find a nice spot, I will camp directly at the beach and maybe even have a swim in the not so warm waters.

Detailed Track

With a length of 182 km and a width of up to 62 km, it will take me 4 days of cycling to get around the lake, excluding any breaks. Today I did part one and arrived at Bokonbayevo, a small town close to the southern coast of the lake. Due to the mediocre visibility today and the fact that the road does not follow directly the lake but passes through the backcountry at some points, I was not too inspired about the natural beauty of the lake. Today’s highlight was something else: I finally saw some camels with actually two humps on their backs (as opposed to the dromedaries seen in Iran and Turkmenistan).

From Kochkor to Issyk Kul

Around 40 km separated me in Kochkor from Lake Issyk Kul, and luckily it all went slightly downhill so I reached the lake at around 9 in the morning after two hours of cycling. I started today early because the weather forecast announced thunderstorms in the area in the afternoon, and I wanted to take advantage of the dry and good weather in the morning.

Shortly after leaving Kochkor, I passed by a typical Kyrgyz cemetery. I don’t really know much about the cultural background, but the small mosque-like tombs all next to each other make an interesting appearance. Unfortunately there were some angry straying dogs living on the cemetery as well, so I refrained from actually entering it.

And a few kilometers later the highlight of the day: I saw a herd of camels which were grazing directly next to the road. I wanted to see camels the whole three months, but all I got to see in Iran and Turkmenistan were dromedaries with only one hump. I was not 100% sure whether the animals belonged to someone, but to me they looked wild and not taken care of. Also, there was no farm or shepherd anywhere nearby.

Following Issyk Kul

I had big expectations about Issyk Kul. There should be high mountains at the northern end which look very beautifully in combination with the deep waters of the salty lake. But first, there was a lot of haze today and the mountains on the northern side of the lake were barely visible, and second, they did not seem so high at all. And on the southern side, where there was no river coming down from the mountains, the landscape was very dry and the road was only marginally interesting because it did not follow the coast line, but went inland with sometimes no view on the lake. All in all I was quite unimpressed about the beauty of Issyk Kul so far. I hope this is mainly because of the bad weather and the fact that the southern road does not follow the coast line. I will be able to say more about it tomorrow evening after completing the whole southern road and arriving in the city of Karakol.

Quality of weather forecast

I have to admit, I am positively surprised about the quality of the weather forecast of international platforms like accuweather.com. Already in the Pamirs, but also in Kyrgyzstan, the weather forecast at least for the next day is very accurate. This was also the case today, the thunderstorms that were announced also formed in the afternoon. Lucky me that I started early and reached Bokonbayevo before heavy rain started. For tomorrow, there are also some thunderstorms announced, but later in the afternoon and less intense. Let’s see if the forecast is right again. I for sure will start early in the morning again.

Detailed Track