​Diverging Paths.

As we departed China, said our goodbyes to the wonderful group we crossed with and entered Kyrgyzstan at the 3,767 mts Torugart Pass on a cold and windy afternoon on Jude’s birthday, 3rd June, Lobo and Linda set off on a more direct and faster route home to get back to their family and friends in Wales, aiming to be home sometime in the middle of July. Safe travels! We are planning a more leisurely trip to the UK after what has seemed a bit like an endurance ride through China.

We have spent the last 10 days riding around Kyrgyzstan, traveling around Lake Issyk Kul in the north east of the country, staying in home stays, bathing in natural hot springs, swimming in cold lakes and rivers and visiting three of the largest cities in the country: Karakol, Bishkek and Osh. We collected our camping gear, which we had sent to a friend of a friend when we were in Perth, which we hope to use along the way.

It is hard to believe the dramatic change in scenery as we crossed from China into Kyrgyzstan. We left an arid country with desert and camels and woke up to green pastures, high mountain forests, cascading rivers and waterfalls and pastures carpeted with alpine flowers of a wide range of colours. The nomadic locals herding their sheep, goats and cattle on horseback high in the mountains with their Yurt homes dotted across this landscape. As I said It’s hard to believe this place is so close to where we were but a few miles away on the other side of the Tian Shan mountains. Not only did the landscape change dramatically but so also does the culture, peoples and cuisine. It feels like we have made a giant leap out of Asia towards Europe.

We are about to cross the border into Uzbekistan, with all it has to offer, and head west towards Kazakhstan to catch the ferry across the Caspian Sea to Azerbaijan, one of the last major transportation hurdles we will hopefully face.
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Richard and Jude