1 – Kyrgyzstan | 2cycletheworld

09 – 20 August, 2015 – 200m later around the corner we reached the top. No sign indicated that we were at over 3,400m. We took a few photos, enjoyed the view, put on a few more clothes and then cycled downhill. Finally! We passed a few yurt camps before we decided to stop at a smaller camp with lake view, pitched the tent together with three handy children and joined the family for Chai (tea), bread and kumys, which is fermented mare milk and a beloved national drink in spring and summer. It has a little alcohol and tastes very sour with a slightly prickly feeling on the tongue. It is drinkable but not really our taste, especially as there are all kinds of other indefinable things swimming in it.

After the children helped with pitching the tent they also wanted to explore the inside

The inside of a sleeping yurt: mattresses, blankets and pillows are neatly folded and stored along the felt walls during the day. There are always enough blankets to host a few more guests. — The inside of a sleeping yurt: mattresses, blankets and pillows are neatly folded and stored along the felt walls during the day. There are always enough blankets to host a few guests.

The inside of a dining yurt: for dinner we had soup with vegetables and mutton meat served with bread and washed down with enormous amounts of chai

Leather storage bottle for fermented mare milk — …for the fermented mare milk stored in leather bottles

Communication turned out to be quite difficult as my Russian is very limited as well as their English. Now was the time to make use of our handy Russian-German dictionary with useful phrases as we were trying to find out at what time we could get dinner. The closest we could find was the sentence “Will there be warm food?” Later on it would prove to be even less useful when checking for a hostel room with sentences like “Do you have a room with sea view?” Going back to sign language or our pictionary still proves to be the best option.

At slightly over 3,000m the Song Köl area is only accessible between early June and late August. During this time, herders build their camps and move up their cattle. At the same time it is school holiday, so the farmers can take their children with them. We were amazed about their way of living and about how they bring up their children. They are used to work, older children take care of their younger siblings, girls are helping with the cooking, getting water from the nearby river, boys are herding the cows, sheep or horses. Everybody is busy all day long, but on the other hand it still felt very peaceful and relaxed to us. The adults would get up when it gets light while the children continued sleeping all next to each other in the sleeping Yurt. We all would have an extended breakfast with greasy noodles fried with onions and the mandatory Chai before heading off around the lake.

Enjoying Kyrgyz hospitality: invited by a family on vacation at Song Köl

3 old women having lunch — Three old women having lunch

The lake is ringed by a saw-toothed horizon of peaks, fronted by lush summer pastures. Herders’ yurts dot the shore side meadows every kilometer or so. We felt like cycling through a Hollywood setting for a Western movie with cowboys on horses near and far. We could hardly get enough of this beautiful scenery, all the pain to get there was forgotten.

A perfect camp spot — Another perfect camp spot

Our new furry friend: we gave him some stale bread and he wouldn’t leave our tent anymore – all night he watched over our tent and couldn’t wait for us to emerge from it the next morning to greet us with his wagging tale.

Over another pass and down via 33 switchbacks we left the area and now descended with more stunning views over the valley and high snow-capped mountains we knew we had to cross soon as well.

I can fly, I can fly... — I can fly, I can fly…

Pass after pass after pass we climbed on still unbelievably bad roads and we made slow progress towards Osh. One day we had to stop early as I was unwell. Soon I started vomiting and it became clear we wouldn’t be able to traverse the last pass before Kazarman. A few days later Johan spent most of the rest day in bed respectively on the toilet as he now suffered from diarrhoea. We nonetheless continued the following day as I had to finish a job and we knew there was another 3,000m pass to overcome. It’s been a tough day with weak bodies, endless undulating roads, pebbles, rocks, dust and the sun burning relentlessly. Temperatures in their high 30s and speeding Audi 100 – 50 % of the local population is driving this make, the other 50% drives in Japanese cars with the steering wheel on right – didn’t make the journey more pleasant. But we endured and pitched our tent at the foot of the pass next to a river where we could wash and cook and relax our bodies.

Meeting other cyclists from New Zealand and Switzerland — Almost daily we meet other cyclists, here from New Zealand and Switzerland

Then came our lucky day. Cycling slowly up the last pass before Osh on another cloudless and hot day we soon met a German in her 4WD treating us with “Nimm 2” (German candy) and refilling our water bottles. A few kilometres further up another German car stopped, two guys participating in a race from London to Mongolia stepped out and refilled our water bottles once again. Later, we were just cooking a big pot of yummy spaghetti, three cars from France and Belgium stopped. And again, they treated us well, refilling our water bottles once more and giving us Swiss chocolate.

A typical clean toilet: there is also toilet paper which is as rough as sandpaper

A Kyrgyz waitress in a small cafe being very happy that she could take a picture with me

One of the many broken bridges we and many heavy trucks are passing

Traversing the pass we officially entered South Kyrgyzstan. And in many ways this area felt like a different country. Hotter in terms of climate as well as human temperament and closer to the conservative Islamic culture than the industrialised, Russified Bishkek. People however are unfailingly hospitable, giving us fruit or vegetables when passing by and welcoming us in every village with their hellos, welcomes or bye-byes.

The pass marking the border between North and South Kyrgyzstan

The landscape changed as well. From arid, rugged and mostly treeless and often yellowish dried countryside to a now still mountainous but much more fertile area with apple, walnut and plum trees lining the streets and giving us the much-needed shelter from the sun. We continued wobbling over rocks, pebbles and sand, sweat running down our faces and bodies, breathing in dust, up and down and once more up. The river roared hundreds of meters below us and we couldn’t wait to finally roll downhill and to finally meet tarmac again. After a few more hours of strenuous cycling there it was: a village and tarmac. We tried to buy lunch, but all we could find in the first shop was a drunk elderly couple savouring a glass of vodka and in the second shop two 4-packs of yoghurt, a package of crisps and another package of sweet biscuits. Hungry, we sat down under a tree and ate like starving wolves, when some children came running to watch us, going away again to pick sunflower seeds that they were currently drying on the roads. They clearly understood how hungry we were and their empathy and this nice little gesture meant a lot to us.

Village life: drying sunflower seeds on the roads

The enormous assortment of a typical village shop: most importantly there is Vodka and cigarette

Once we hit the tarmac cycling felt like flying and we enjoyed the smooth ride despite traffic picking up again. Within a few days we reached Osh and celebrated our achievements to date: by now we had traversed six passes and gained 10.000m. With two rest days we prepared for the real challenge – the Pamir Highway.

Entering the province of Osh with 'beautiful' Soviet architecture — Entering the province of Osh with ‘beautiful’ Soviet architecture

Typical breakfast: eggs, bread and self-made jam served with black tea and sometimes coffee

Our room at a hotel which took us an hour to find as they don't put up signs in Kyrgyzstan — Our room at a hotel which took us an hour to find as they don’t put up signs in Kyrgyzstan

And the filthy outside toilet at the same hotel

In Kyrgyzstan all signs indicating the gradients of hills are at 12%

Our favorite snacks. In the meantime we manage to eat one melon in one go!

Cycling was’t easy these past weeks. However, we are enjoying every day, our freedom, the beautiful landscapes and that we are able to do what we do.

528km (830km in total) and total altitude gain of 9517 m — 528km (830km in total) and total altitude gain of 9517m

Fast facts Kyrgyzstan:

Independent since 1991, the country had to invent itself as no such country had existed in the pre-Soviet period
90% of the country lies above 1,500 meters and 71% over 2,000 meters above sea level
The beauty of the country for visitors is that is has a bit of everything: nomadic traditions, central Asian mystique, Soviet-era trappings and Silk Road sites
Population: 5.7 million people
Kyrgyzstan is approximately the size of Spain
Neighboring countries: Kazakhstan (North), China (Southeast), Tajikistan (South), Uzbekistan (West)

Our route: 303 km, 2,741 altitude meters

August 3 – 10, 2015 – We landed safely in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan with a two hours delay and so did our luggage. Shattered from a sleepless flight Johan started putting the bikes together at a deserted airport. A few hours later we were once again ready – this time to begin with a short 35-kilometer ride into town on a yet deserted but still scary to me motorway in the soaring heat on bikes that were heavier than ever. We asked ourselves how we would be able to pedal our luggage of more than 35 kg each over passes higher than 4,000 meters. We would yet have to find out.

Trying to leave the motorway for no obvious reasons – there wasn’t any traffic – we got lost in the dust and found a poor farmer, who desperately wanted to offer us a melon. We weren’t able to leave without it. Later at the hostel we knew why he was so desperate, the melon must have laid in the sun for days as it was completely dried out and not edible.

Arriving at the hostel we learned that the receptionist forgot our booking and that there were no rooms available for us. Feeling sorry for us and knowing it was her fault, she arranged another place for us to stay and a few hours later we settled in and finally fell into a sound sleep in the middle of the day.

Kyrgyzstan so far surprised us with its efficiency to work out things in our way. The next day we picked up our visas for Iran, bought a SIM-card for our phone, arranged our food supplies for the coming days and were ready for our departure into the wild.

The morning of our departure we met a couple that had just returned from a cycling trip through Kyrgyzstan and scared me off with horror stories about heavy traffic and mad drivers on some of the roads we intended to take. Nonetheless we pedaled off to discover the beauty of this country.

The cyclists were right, there was heavy traffic getting out of town and on our way to lake Son Köl, but they weren’t right with their assessment of the roads and the drivers. On the new Chinese-built roads we always had a small hard shoulder and a wide enough soft shoulder to escape any dangerous situation and the older Russian-built roads were wide enough to handle a few cars next to each other as well as two lonely cyclists.

In the late afternoon of our second cycling day traffic got heavy and we stopped at a rest place where small Chinese stalls and tourist shops were selling summer gadgets and lots of Vodka– we were on the main road to the famous holiday destination Lake Issyk Köl – and were invited by one of the shop owners to sleep in one of his tents, normally used for dining purposes of transients. Later that evening, we were just preparing to go to sleep, a decent English-speaking Kyrgyz woman approached us and invited us for ice-cream at her little shop. A few conversations later she told us we could stay at her mother’s house the next day before we would head off to traverse our first big passes. Again we happily accepted, bought a huge watermelon the next day upon arrival in Kochkor as a present only to find out that we weren’t welcomed but shown to an expensive but neat guesthouse nearby. We had to eat 10kg of melon all by ourselves in just one evening as we couldn’t carry it up the mountains.

Our first real pass at 2,200m right before Kochkor — Our first real pass at 2,160 m right before Kochkor

The sink to wash yourself is usually outside the house, as there are no real — The sink is usually outside the house, as there are no real bathrooms

A typical village ship — A typical village shop

A few more kilometers of tarmac the next day and then we took a right turn into the direction of Son Köl. No more asphalt for the next few hundred kilometers, instead gravel, dust, rocks, pebbles, pot-holes and bumpy roads. The tough part had just begun. To add to this we also started our climb as we had to pedal over a 3,446-meter high pass to get to the lake. The landscape was stunning – lush green grassland, roaring rivers underneath and undulating scenery all around us. At the foot of the pass we pitched our tent next to a farmhouse, washed ourselves in the icy river, cooked and just managed to get everything into our tents before the big storm hit the valley. Our first night in the tent and we had rain, not the luckiest start.

Can you see the gold at the end of the rainbow?

We weren’t really organized and set as a team yet and it took us three hours the next morning before we could begin our climb. Sweating and swearing, slowly pedaling and even slower pushing, wishing we had taken less gear, we step by step moved forward, meter by meter, from rest to rest, and finally reached the top after more than five hours of hard word. But before we could celebrate our first big achievement at 3,446 meters, we had to accept a few presents ourselves. We had stopped just a few hundred meters before the summit – not knowing we were so close – to filter some more water and to refuel ourselves with our remaining food, when the first car stopped. A drunk driver and family father stepped out of the car and desperately wanted to give us something. He started off with Kymyz – more to that later – which we were able to decline. He then handed us a bag with all kinds of mixed sweets, rotten fruit and stale bread and topped this with a donation of sheep meat taken out of huge filthy plastic bag in his trunk. The meat looked disgusting to us, I think we got parts of the stomach. We happily accepted, took a few photos with the donator and his family and buried the meat nearby – hoping, the wolves would find it later. Getting ready to tackle the rest of the mountain, the next car stopped, a muslim opened his window, shouted Salam Aleikum, threw a bottle with a white drink at us and drove off again. With our mouths open we said our goodbyes and thanks while he was already snaking down the pass. We saw another car coming down and wanted to wait for it to pass when it stopped again. The guesthouse owner we stayed with two nights before and who offered us to give us a ride up the mountain stepped out of the car with two tourists to say hello! Surprised we chatted for a few minutes – the tourists were by the way two Dutch guys who shyly asked us how we found each other and if we were a couple as we weren’t of the same nationality. We would get this question more often and most often from other travelers.