Kyrgyzstan - Introduction

2018 Czech republic

I admit that a year ago I didn't know that Kyrgyzstan existed. A colleague of mine showed me on a map that from Almaty you can make a circuit through the Kyrgyz lake Isik kul and Bishkek, which he recommended me to try. Of course, I didn't even think about it, because I didn't imagine this country in the most rosy colors. Another mention of Kyrgyzstan, I caught on my return from Kazakhstan. At the airport in Astana we met a Czech who had visited there as part of his Kazakh visit. I also learned from him that we don't need a visa for Kyrgyzstan.

Kyrgyzstan - Ak Sai Glacier in Ala Ark National Park (photo by Žanet)

In spite of everything, my primary goal this year was to be Russia, which I had to postpone for various reasons until next year. Thus, the idea of visiting Kyrgyzstan as an alternative entered my head. A photo album shared by a female traveler on Facebook gave me the clear green light, and after seeing it I knew I just had to go there. So the planning and information gathering began.

First of all, we started to decipher what places the Facebook photos were from. There aren't many comprehensive travelogues about Kyrgyzstan and the author of the photos didn't remember the names of the places. Despite all these obstacles, we finally found the necessary information and knew that we wanted to visit Ala Archa National Park, Isik Kul, Song Kul, Toz Kul and Alakul lakes, sandstone rocks of Jeti Oguz and the cities of Bishkek, Karakol and Kaji Say. This was our rough plan, which was eventually changed by the airline tickets. At the beginning of January, when I slowly started planning, the tickets from Prague via Istanbul to Bishkek cost around eight thousand, which seemed a lot and I hoped that some better deals would come up. It didn't come, and sometime in April, when tickets were climbing towards 11,000, a deal with Ukraina airlines from Prague to Astana, Kazakhstan, appeared out of the blue for 7,500, not exactly low, but a fair price for the holidays. The competing Wizz air from Budapest was already showing 10,000 at the time, and you had to add the price and travel time to Budapest. However, I already know Kazakhstan, I know there is a bus from Almaty to Bishkek and Janet has not been to Kazakhstan, so we will make our visit to Kyrgyzstan more interesting.

Once the tickets were purchased, more detailed planning could be done. In the very beginning I thought "Kyrgyzstan, what am I going to do there for two and a half weeks" ? For this reason I was still looking into visiting Tajikistan. Fortunately, this got out of my head after some time, because the calculations showed that we would not be able to do everything we had planned for Kyrgyzstan. Unfortunately, Song kol lake and Tuzz kul had to fall victim during the trip. I used foreign and Czech blogs to plan the three-day trek to Alakol. I proceeded the same way for the Ala Ark park, the Jeti Oguz sandstones and the border crossing. The rest of the information I then studied on Wiki travel.

I traditionally bought train tickets from Astana to Alamta via ticket.kz. I just made a small mistake here due to ignorance. All this time I thought that the main station was Astana 1, from which there is only one overnight Talgo (fast train) to Almaty. Quite unnecessary for us until around 9 o'clock (we were due to arrive at 5am). Just before leaving, when we had already bought everything, I learned that there is still a station in Astana called Nurly Zhol, from which there are at least two other night Talgos in the more convenient afternoon hours. The same is true of the journey from Alamta. Unfortunately. We used Maps.me, 2GIS online maps to navigate the city. We still had a local printed tourist map purchased for the Ala Kullu Pass. Of the online maps, I recommend Maps.cz or Maps.me for the mountains, which were true to life.

All the time, despite considerable persuasion, it looked like it would be just me and Janet. In the middle of May, Terka decided to join us and a week before our departure her friend Žďáňa. This way the team and everything around the trip was complete and we had to wait for Wednesday 4.7.2018 to set off on the route Prague -> Kiev -> Astana -> Almaty -> Bishkek -> Ala Archa National Park -> Karakol -> Jeti Oguz -> Ala Kol -> Kaji Say -> Tokmok and Burana Tower -> Bishkek -> Almaty -> Astana -> Kiev -> Prague.

Trasa naší cesty po Kyrgyzstánu

Krátký sestřih z naší cesty po Kyrgyzstánu

Blogs from which I have drawn important information:

Journal of nomads - lots of tips and important advice about Kyrgyzstan
Thesandy feet - practical info on Jeti oguz
Goats on the road - practical info for climbing Ala kul with video description

Useful links:

Stránky Ukraina airlines
Sites where you can buy train tickets for Kazakhstan