Good morning from Kyrgyzstan (Кыргызстан).
It is time for a day trip because we've been spending a lot of time at the World Nomad
Games and it is time to get out and get to know the country a little bit.
So we're taking a day trip to Karakol (Каракол).
We're going to be doing some hiking, visiting waterfalls.
Yeah, it is going to be really cool.
I mean we've seen quite a bit of the country but we haven't been to that area yet so we're
really excited about it.
Let's go.
Okay, so we have been driving for about two hours and we've almost made it to Karakol
(Каракол).
Right now we're in the outskirts and we're stopping at the Nikolay Mikhailovich Przhevalsky
museum and basically this was a guy who wanted to be a traveler.
So I can relate to him.
Um, he was from Russia but at the time Russian didn't have the permission to just you know
go off and wander around on their own.
So this guy decided to join the military and he proposed to be the first person to explore
Central Asia and reach Tibet and his proposal was approved so he was funded by Russia and
today there is a museum dedicated to his work.
After a short visit to the museum, we then continued on our drive towards Karakol (Каракол),
where our first stop was the Dungan Mosque.
So in order to visit the Mosque you don't just wear a scarf.
You need a full cloak.
This will be interesting.
Alright.
Let's put this on.
Fancy.
It is like velvet.
There we go.
I'm ready.
Wow, cute.
The mosque gets its name from the Dungan people who are Muslim, but of Chinese origin.
The building is quite unique because you can see the two cultures colliding; it contains
elements of a traditional mosque, but at first glance it looks more like a Buddhist temple.
So now we're visiting an Orthodox Church and that was really close to the mosque so let's
go check it out.
Let's go.
We then went to the Holy Trinity Cathedral, which is in the centre of Karakol (Каракол).
Just remember, girls need to wear a head covering and boys must take off their hats in order
to go inside.
From there we continued to the Karakol Market in search of food.
If there’s one dish the town is known for it’s Ashlyan Fu, a cold noodle soup with
spices and jellies.
There’s a whole alley in the market that specializes in this dish; so be sure to try
it.
Alright so we've had a pretty busy morning of sightseeing.
Now it is time for food.
Yeah, we've worked up a pretty big appetite and the coolest thing is we're going to go
eat inside of yurt.
A yurt.
For lunch we had Dumlyama: a dish with potatoes, cabbage, onions, peppers, and meat.
We also had boorsok: which are little pieces of fried dough that go really nice with jam.
So we've stopped off at this kind of cool scenic area that is called Jeti-Ögüz and
nearby there is apparently some fantastic hiking.
Yeah, and the name translates to seven bulls so I don't know do you see any bulls over
there?
You know I see in the rock formations.
I think I see more than seven things.
We had really been looking forward to hiking along here, but unfortunately, this is the
part of the tour where we ran out of time.
This also means we didn’t get to see the waterfalls we had heard about, so if you do
decide to visit Karakol (قاراقول), don’t do it as a quick day trip like we
did!
Alright, so we are back in our hotel and that was a pretty busy day I have to admit.
Um, the distances are quite long so we spent a lot of time in the car and we did get to
see some cool places but we didn't spend as much time as we would have liked.
Yeah, I think it is the kind of place where you want to give it a few days so you can
see the surrounding areas and also that town is really known for hiking so if you're in
to outdoorsy stuff go there and explore it properly.
Yeah, maybe spend like two or three days in Karakol (Каракол) see the surroundings,
hike, trek and yeah really explore it.
That would be our suggestion.
Yep.
Tata.