Breathtaking Kyrgyzstan! (page 11 of 16)

You’ll have to wait until tomorrow for a tasting!

Local wine, but that’s the end of Kyrgyz wine!

Maybe by dangling a Romanée-Conti tasting in front of him, but even then, I think he’d come up empty-handed.

Ugh... Would Perju appeal to my emotions? Would it be a tasting or the bottle split between two? Something to think about... It’d still be pretty pricey, though, because after 3 days I’d be sick of yurts and mountains. On the other hand, I don’t want to give up my spot to Bruno 😠

Okay, let's set the record straight 😄 First off, I don’t have La Romanée Conti in stock—it’s a wine for Parisian hipsters...😉 But I *do* have some much more exclusive stuff... and especially very, very little-known and appreciated... by wine "influencers." I’m talking about the only wine I’d take to a desert island... Château Chalon’s Vin Jaune... I’m glad it’s not overhyped... it only comes in 62cl bottles, so just one person 😇, but it ages for 100 years... pppfffttt, you’re forced to drink it quickly.

Otherwise, if there are any fans of ultra-rare wines that are tough to buy without going through traditional resellers... I’ve got great prices on top-tier Côte-Rôtie from Guigal—La Turque, La Mouline, La Landonne... wines that sell for around 400 € a bottle at retailers... I can do 260 € a bottle. So if Kate or montagnard are interested...😉

62 cl for the “clavecin,” the name of the unique bottle of this famous and delicious Jura wine (though still very special). A capacity dictated by evaporation (the angels’ share) due to the minimum aging of over 6 years in barrels.

Hey... not bad at all! 😎😎😎

Hey... it's not harpsichord 😏😏😏

Oops, my phone's autocorrect—it's the clavelin! And that's my final answer, Jean-Pierre 😉

Your last word... so you're not stopping by Pers-Jussy for a snack? 😕 Great, one saved... 😏

Farewell, Lenin! We leave you with regret.

Before heading definitively toward Osh, we make a small detour to the Tajikistan border.

A Georgian cyclist, whom we’d already met the day before, is pedaling vigorously on this deserted road.



He’d better save his strength—he’ll soon have a mountain pass to climb...

The landscape, just like yesterday, starts off monotonous before turning into a postcard scene.

The snowmelt is no longer at its peak, and the riverbed seems totally out of proportion to the flow of water.

Yaks strike a pose before quenching their thirst—it’s paradise!





The border has been moved almost to the plain, so we can’t go any farther.

We turn back and soon find ourselves on the same road as the day before yesterday.

Sary-Tash, trucks, a pass, Gulcha, more trucks, another pass, the Ferghana Valley!

We’re back to the heat and the inhabited Kyrgyzstan.

I suggest heading straight to the Sacred Mountain of Sulaiman-Too.

If we stop at the hotel first, I’m not sure we’ll have the energy to go back out...

The mountain is actually a cluster of hills that, over the centuries, have served—and still serve—as places of worship.

It overlooks Osh and offers breathtaking panoramas of the city, the country’s second-largest urban area.

We leave the air-conditioned comfort of the RAV4 to follow the main trail.

It’s hot—really hot—and humid, with a storm brewing in the air.

The hillsides are yellow, parched, ready to catch fire at the slightest spark.

The Soviets tried to erase the memory of the gods and turned the main votive cave into a restaurant.

Today, the site is a museum, though its collections are very poorly presented.



Still, what a testament to a certain period of history!

The marked trail then climbs up to Babur’s House, a prayer and meditation cell built by the founder of the Mughal Empire.



All of this feels pretty bland compared to the landscapes we’ve crossed so far...

Even the view of the city isn’t much to write home about!

Osh is just a jumble of houses and small, unattractive buildings, pierced here and there by wide, mostly empty avenues.

No skyscrapers, no monuments to catch the eye—even the mosque looks underwhelming.





The only notable event of this walk was a brief encounter with locals.

Well, local women.

Uzbek women, to be precise—this country is just a stone’s throw away.

Surprised to see foreigners, they strike up a conversation with their few words of English.

Well, they talk *to me*.

My partner is completely invisible to them...

Talking to a man? What a taboo.

Religion, what a shame.

I notice that Uzbek women have something in common with some rappers or even Madonna...

An impressive collection of gold teeth that leaves me perplexed.

At today’s gold prices, that can’t be the most economical option...

And, in my opinion, it’s not the most aesthetic either...

Anyway, enough chit-chat—let’s find the hotel!

We have a bit of trouble—MapsMe is wrong again!

The place is being modernized, and the room is brand new.

The height of modernity, in fact—there’s even a charging pad on each side of the bed to recharge your phone without any wires.

I’d never seen that before. Kyrgyzstan keeps surprising me.

The hotel still doubles as a truck stop for trucks and converted 4x4s, though.

A few behemoths fill the courtyard, and their occupants take advantage of the laundry service to freshen up their wardrobes.

At 3 € per big bag, they’d be crazy not to!

I check the list of restaurants within walking distance.

Oh, a Georgian place! Yum!

What do you mean, no wine or alcohol to respect their religious beliefs???

Last time I was in Georgia, the country was far from Muslim.

Plus, alcohol flowed freely there!

I forgot that southern Kyrgyzstan is much more conservative than the north, and here, they take puritanical interpretations of the Quran much more seriously.

All the places serving alcohol are either far away or poorly reviewed for their food.

Looks like we’ll have to do without.

I don’t choose the Georgian place after all—it’s only Georgian in name—and opt instead for a franchise of the Navat chain, a local upscale restaurant brand offering Kyrgyz and Central Asian specialties.



The place is just a hundred meters from the hotel and has a large terrace where our English-speaking waiter seats us.



He hands us the menu (in English, for once) and another card.

Miracle—the gods took pity on us! The alcoholic drinks menu!

If you go to one of these restaurants, don’t hesitate to ask for it—we’ll see that it’s far from always being offered.

I order kuurdak with lamb again, while my partner goes for lagman.

Since tonight feels like a feast, we add two starters: crispy eggplant and some kind of samosas.

To wash it all down, what’s better than a bottle?

Of wine...



Georgian...

The setting is lovely, the cushions are comfy, and the service is impeccable.

The food is pretty good, even if it won’t be the best kuurdak I’ve ever tasted.

A perfect spot to recharge after a few dreary evenings in terms of both decor and taste buds!

And even though the wine costs more than half the meal, the bill is still tiny: 39.25 € for the two of us.

Ben, where’s Perju with his morel chicken and Château-Chalon?



You sure moved fast to get to Sary-Mogul. 😮

😄😄😄

Chicken with morels on top!? (I was expecting Perju to make me eat a steak cooked on a barbecue)

Even without chicken in morel sauce or yellow wine (still pretty unique, though 😉), this region around Lenin Peak looks stunning.

😄😄😄

Chicken with morels on top!? (I was expecting Perju to make me eat a steak cooked on a barbecue)

Well, you were totally off... I eat very little red meat, I much prefer fish. But I did make chicken with morels and yellow wine just last week... with homemade morels, of course 😉

😄😄😄

Mushroom chicken too!? (I was picturing Perju making me eat a barbecued ribeye)

Well, you were way off... I hardly eat red meat, I much prefer fish. But yeah, I did make a chicken with morels and yellow wine just last week... with homemade morels, of course 😉

My joke fell flat—I meant to write "I pictured Perju, a white guy over 50, making me eat a barbecued ribeye." I think Bruno gets the reference—it’s something a friend of his said along those lines 😉

I think Bruno has the ref… it’s a friend of his who said something like that 😉

I admit I didn’t make the connection right away. I also think Perju is like me—not deconstructed enough to appreciate Sandrine’s language subtleties, because obviously it’s her 😉

Yes, it's one of my favorite spots!

All those peaks towering over the plains—you feel so small.

I think Perju is like me—just not deconstructed enough to appreciate Sandrine’s language subtleties, because obviously it’s her 😉

Yep, it’s definitely her 😉 Sardine Stream...

An extraordinary invention sits on the breakfast buffet—a coffee machine!

Just for that, this hotel deserves a 10/10 rating!

Before leaving Osh, I suggest we stop by a shop I spotted on Google Maps to add to our meager souvenir collection!

Unfortunately, the shop turned out to be closed, and another one no longer exists.

A supermarket will do the trick with its great selection of vacuum-packed kurut and pistachios and cashews from Uzbekistan.

With all that, it’s not exactly early when we reach the livestock market.

It takes place every Sunday morning about fifteen kilometers from the city toward Jalal-Abad.

The sales are winding down, but there are still plenty of animals and sellers.









No tourists in sight, though—we’re kind of the attraction.

Many Kyrgyz people ask about our nationality, but we struggle to understand what they want.

And they struggle just as much to understand our answer...

France is pretty much unknown in Kyrgyzstan!

Yet we hear one name shouted out: Jacques Chirac!

Well, if someone had told me his memory would cross decades and continents...

We counter with Emmanuel Macron but have more luck with Mbappé...

The RAV4 is too small to fit a cow or a horse, so we leave the same way we came.

The road heading toward Toktogul Lake along the Uzbekistan border isn’t anything special, so we step on the gas.

Within the speed limits, though—the GPS (and thus the rental company) is tracking our speed.

Plus, the police are everywhere!

Speaking of which, isn’t that a checkpoint over there?

Oh no, just another decoy!

The roads are full of these silhouettes. Some are so basic the illusion lasts barely a split second from 100 meters away, while others do the job with flashing lights!

I’ve never seen anything like this in another country.

We’re now following the Naryn River, leaving Uzbekistan behind for good.

The landscapes regain their splendor as we admire the shades of blue in the water winding between hills and then mountains.







Wait, why is everyone stopped?

We try asking other drivers, but the only answer we get is that the road is open.

Okay, sure, but we’re not moving...



I guess we just have to be fatalistic and wait.

30, 45, 60 minutes...

My partner walks up to the first cars in the traffic jam and figures out the cause of the blockage.

Toktogul is first a poet-singer, then a town, but most importantly, a dam—a dam that supplies most of the country’s electricity.

This energy is carried by high-voltage power lines built along the river.

One of these lines is currently under repair, and a worker is busy at the top.

Too dangerous to let vehicles pass at the same time!

30, 45 minutes, a little movement.

False alarm!

5, 10 minutes, a quarter of an hour—now we’re really moving.

Everyone gets back in their cars, some are picked up along the way after grabbing a bite at a nearby restaurant...

We were so close to our stop, Kara-Kul, but it took us over two hours to cover the last ten kilometers of our trip.

We spotted a hotel on the map, one that isn’t listed on booking sites.

The few reviews are decent, and the photos don’t show a dump.

We park in front of the place—no one around.

We knock on the doors—still no one.

We knock louder and end up shouting a loud "Hello!"

A young girl finally appears and leads us to a large double room.

The bathroom is private, and there’s AC, a fridge, a kettle, and a TV.

The price? 2000 soms, or 20 €.

Twice as cheap as in Jangy-Talap and four times more comfortable...

Sure, breakfast isn’t included, but that works for us—we can finally eat something other than tea, tomato-cucumber salad, and eggs!

For dinner, there’s plenty in town.

I go for some salmon trout,

Delicious!

There was a Globus store in town, so we stocked up on some supplies.

The best breakfast of the trip!

Coffee, fruit juice, bread, Nutella...

I’m not picky, am I?



Not exactly strict about dietary or eco principles either...

With full stomachs, we set off to explore Lake Toktogul.

Located at an altitude of 900 meters, the dam built on the Naryn River can hold 19,500 million cubic meters of water—15 times more than the Serre-Ponçon dam.

You can imagine just how huge the lake is!







We spotted a trail in our paper guidebook that promised beautiful views of the lake’s waters.

We decided to take it.

"Are you sure this is the right way, Agnès?"

The path disappeared into the tall grass, and the dryness didn’t make us want to go any further.



One spark and everything here would go up in flames!

We retreated to a spot less prone to fires to have our picnic, then headed to a beach.



Lots of Kyrgyz people were jumping into the water, but the place didn’t really appeal to us...

So we continued on our way to an agricultural town before getting back on the main road.



We can’t say the lake blew us away—it was nice, but nothing more.

Our evening stop is about twenty kilometers from the lake, heading toward Bishkek. It's a hotel-restaurant beautifully situated in the heart of the Chychkan Gorge.





The room is small but has all the comforts we wanted. What really makes this place stand out is the setting.

The Chychkan River rushes violently at the foot of the terrace, with mountains all around us.



We head out for a walk up the hills to work up an appetite before dinner.

Power outages must be common around here, but a temporary electricity cut won’t stop them from serving us.



And another kuurdak—I never get tired of it! !

Kuurdak: I won’t miss the chance to try some in a few days!