Our Kyrgyzstan trip was the part of a 17 day Central Asia trip that covered Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. As a country, Kyrgyzstan was a part of the USSR until 1991 when the USSR collapsed. We spent a short 3 days in Kyrgyzstan exploring Bishkek, Lake Issykul and Ala Archa National Park. This blog covers the details of the trip and is best viewed on a laptop or a desktop.
We landed in Bishkek, traveled to Lake Issykul and then to Ala Archa National Park before heading back to Manas International Airport, Bishkek.
Day 1: Thu, May 30, 2024: Arrival in Bishkek
We arrived at Manas International Airport in Bishkek from Almaty at 6.15 pm.
We checked the Yandex fares. Then a taxi driver approached us and gave us a competitive fare where we could all travel together in one vehicle instead of 2 taxis. We accepted the offer. The taxi driver turned out to be really nice. He was a veterinarian by profession, but now he was close to retirement and he was driving taxis for a living. He was constantly chatting with us using a voice translator.
Bishkek city is about 35 mins from Manas International Airport. The road to the city is fairly good.
In the evening, we decided to chill and ate at Gandhi Indian restaurant. The food turned out to be quite good and the service was reasonably quick. The decor is also quite classy. Good place.
Orient Hotel Bishkek is mid size, but our room was huge. It was a very good hotel.
Day 2: Fri, May 31, 2024: Bishkek City, Lake Issykul
Our day started with a sumptuous breakfast at Orient Hotel. The top floor had a huge breakfast area with a large spread. The best breakfast of all the places we stayed during our trip. We had breakfast at 8 am.
We started off on our own for the city tour of Bishkek. We had not hired a guide for this tour. Our first stop was the Ala Too square. It was walking distance from our hotel. As we walked towards the square, we passed a statue of Chingiz Aitmatov (1928-2008), a Kyrgyz author who wrote mainly in Russian, but also in Kyrgyz. He is one of the best known figures in Kyrgyzstan’s literature.
We continued on to Ala Too Square. This central square of Bishkek was built in 1984 to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Kyrgyz Soviet Socialist Republic, at which time a massive statue of Lenin was placed in the square’s center. The square was known as Lenin Square until Kyrgyzstan gained its Independence from the USSR in 1991. The statue of Lenin was moved in 2003 to a smaller square in the city, and a statue of Manas was put in its place.
The statue of Manas is installed in Ala Too Square. Manas is like the Ramayan of Kyrgyzstan, but much later. The Epic of Manas is a very long and traditional epic poem of the Kyrgyz people of Central Asia, versions of which date to the 19th century and contain historical events of the 18th century. Manas is the hero of that epic. Since the square was closed for construction, we got a photo from a little far.
Immediately behind the statue was the State History Museum of Kyrgyzstan. It looked very promising but we had only half a day in Bishkek, so we could not visit the museum. We just peeked inside and then left.
Behind the State Museum is the old government building for the Kyrgyz republic. It is an impressive building
We caught a pretty squirrel posing for a photo.
I also tasted some Kvass. It is a fermented cereal-based low-alcoholic beverage of cloudy appearance and sweet-sour taste. Kvass originated from northeastern Europe, where grain production was considered insufficient for beer to become a daily drink. Kvass stands are all over Kyrgyzstan.
We walked by Panfilov park, a city memorial located near Ala Too square. The park bears the name of Hero of the Soviet Union, and the chairman of the Military Committee of the Kyrgyz SSR, Ivan Panfilov. The park was made in the shape of a star when it was built.
We proceeded to visit the Central Turkish Mosque of Bishkek. The construction of the mosque started in 2012 and it was inaugurated in 2018. It is one of several mosques funded by Turkey across the world. Built in an Ottoman revival style, it has the capacity to accommodate 30,000 worshipers.
From Central Mosque, we visited Victory Square, Bishkek. It is a public square in the city of Bishkek, dedicated to the victory over Nazi Germany. It was created in 1985, on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. Such victory squares are very common in countries that were connected to the Soviet Union.
We walked past the Kyrgyz Opera House. It was originally opened in 1937 as a musical drama theater.
Our final stop in Bishkek was the Osh Bazaar, one of the largest bazaars in Bishkek. It was \was created in 1983, at the same time as other bazaars in other Kyrgyz cities.At Osh Bazaar, one can buy food products, almost any common household good, clothes, souvenirs, and even musical instruments. It is like any bazaar that we find in India. It took us a while to get to Osh Bazaar due to traffic and frankly it was no big deal, just like any other bazaar. We could have skipped given that we had very little time in Bishkek.
We had a quick lunch at Gandhi Indian restaurant and then we got into our Mercedes Sprinter for our trip to Lake Issykul.
Our drive to Issykul was about 250 km, about 4 hours. We started at about 1.45 pm from Orient Hotel Bishkek and reach Lake Issykul by about 6 pm. The drive was very scenic and the road quality was excellent.
Along the way, we had fruit tea where they had various combinations in a glass cup. They would pour hot water on it to make the fruit tea.
We arrived at Silence Hotel, Issykul. Though the access to the hotel had an unpaved road, the hotel turned out to be excellent.
Issyk-Kul means “warm lake” in Kyrgyz. It is 182 km long and runs just north of the Tianshan mountain range. Though it is located at a lofty elevation of 5,272 ft and subject to severe cold during winter, it rarely freezes over due to high salinity. It is the tenth largest lake in the world by volume.
We spent a lot of time on the beach at Issykul on Fri evening. Surprisingly, the water was not chillingly cold.
We had our dinner at Silence Hotel. The restaurant and food was great. Both the hotel and restaurant was very classy. We had a guy from Pakistan Occupied Kashmir helping us at the hotel. He had come to Kyrgyzstan on a 1 year contract. He was really nice.
Day 3: Sat, June 1, 2024: Issykul, Ala Archa, Flight to Almaty and Pune
We woke up to a beautiful morning with Issykul visible from our room. We went out and took a few pictures.
We had a hearty breakfast. They had made a separate breakfast for vegetarians. Our experience at Silence Hotel turned out to be excellent.
We left Silence Hotel, Issykul at 9 am and started driving towards Ala Archa National Park.
It is nearly 300 km and took about 5 hours to get there. Ala Archa is very close to the South of Bishkek. We saw some beautiful poppies on our way to Ala Archa.
We got to Ala Archa National Park at about 2 pm. Established in 1976, it is an alpine national park in the Tian Shan mountains of Kyrgyzstan, located approximately 35 km south of the capital city of Bishkek.The nature park is named after the river Ala-Archa which flows through it. The park was quite crowded on the weekend. There are lots of nature activities in park. We spent about 1.5 hours in the park.
We left Ala Archa National Park around 3 pm and started driving towards Manas International Airport, Bishkek. We reached the airport at 4.15 pm, well in time for our flight to Almaty/Delhi.
Our flight was at 7.30 pm. Bishkek airport is not that great. We waited at Bishkek airport and took our flight to Almaty.
After landing in Almaty, we said our goodbyes to Sahil and Yash who went to Almaty city where they checked into an AirBnb. They had a flight to catch at 10.35 am the next day to Istanbul/Washington DC.
Abhay, Maithili, Anjali, Anu and Samir stayed at Almaty airport. We took the 1.00 am Indigo flight to Delhi. We landed in Delhi at 4.45 am.
We had an 8.30 am Indigo flight to Pune. Indigo bumped us arbitrarily to a later flight at 1.40 pm. We spent time in Delhi and caught the 1.40 pm flight to Pune. We landed in Pune at 3.40 pm on Sunday, June 2.
It was a short 3 day trip to Kyrgyzstan. We were able to cover Bishkek, Issykul and Ala Archa, three important places in Kyrgyzstan. This trip was a part of a larger Central Asia 17 day itinerary which covered Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Click here if you are interested to read about the entire Central Asia itinerary.
