Yurt Review

After a brief pit stop in Bishkek, it was time for some hard core yurting. We hopped a car for Kochkor, and from there we would head up to Song Kol, an alpine lake in central Kyrgystan, for a three day horse trek. The yurt is an integral part of the cultural life of Central Asia – in fact, Kyrgystan incorporated a yurt into the design of its flag – so we were looking forward to getting down to business and finally getting in some QT in some yurts.

We spent the first night on the lake. Before the trip, our good friend Marissa had gone to great length to impress on me the, well, rustic nature of yurt life. I believe a direct quote was, "You'd better bring a book, because there is nothing to do there but walk around and look at poop" (incidentally, there is a lot of it, because it is burned at night to heat the yurts). She had also warned that the only cuisine was "sheep's butt", a frightening thought to me, not least because I am a vegetarian. So imagine my surprise when, after a long day of relaxing by the river and hiking around the foothills, we were served with a delicious vegetarian dinner. And blini for breakfast! And our yurt was so warm and toasty at night, that I got about the best night of sleep since leaving Georgia. Marissa is such a lightweight, I thought. The yurt life is grand!


Kochkor base camp: The Hilton of yurts


A gold mine of yurt fuel

The next day we set out on a two0day horse trek through the mountains. Soon we would learn how good we had it at the base camp, for the next night we stayed in the Bachelor Pad. Run by a 23 y.o. old Kyrgyz and an older Russian man, the Pad was clearly missing a woman's touch. Brian and I got a little nervous when we noticed holes in the sides of the yurt, because by the time we arrived it was almost freezing outside. Don't worry, I said - we'll just ask for extra poop to burn! Then we noticed there was no oven in the yurt. We also noticed the certificate from the Kyrgyz Tourist board certifying that his yurt had been inspected and had achieved the rating of "Minimal Standards". When I told our host I was a vegetarian, he replied (too) quickly that it was no problem. And shortly we found out why - dinner consisted of fried potatoes. As either an explanation or apology, or both, our guide said "This is the kind of meal you expect when no women are around". Indeed! But we were so hungry we gladly devoured the dinner, and at bedtime, our host wrapped us up snugly in 4,000 layers of blankets, and we survived the night.




Ride it. Ride it like a pony.


The bags of rock holding the roof of our yurt on.