Last Days in Issyk Kul

All of the rich food of the previous days took a bit of a toll on me, so I spent my first morning in Issyk Kul in bed, drinking tea.  The local cure for an upset stomach is vodka, so Aijaan ran out to a shop and brought back more tea and 50 gm of vodka.  I managed to down it, but it burned so hard, it took my two tries and I thought I was going to lose it.  I managed!!!

Once I was feeling a bit better, we made it down to the beach, and what a beach! The water is ocean blue, and cool but not cold. People were swimming, paddle boating and also just relaxing on the beach. The sands of Issyk Kul are famed for their healing properties, especially for asthma and arthritis, so Aijaan and I covered ourselves in sand.  The sand is SO iron rich that when I brought my camera bag, which has a tiny magnet, the magnet was covered with black iron filings.

People are also walking around selling things. A lot of people were selling fresh smoked fish, which was a huge temptation, but with an upset stomach, we decided to wait a day.

In the afternoon, we made our way to Choldon Ata to see the petroglyphs.

The petroglyphs were about 4000 years old and mostly depicted different hunting scenes. Of course we also found some "modern" petroglyphs.  Mostly young punks writing things like "I love you".

The field of petroglyphs was huge. Then our driver told us that there was a place called Rokh Ordo, a spiritual center, nearby. Aijaan got very excited, because she had heard of this place, but thought it was further away. Of course we had to go!  The center was built by the same man who made Supara. He made it as an homage to all religions, philosophies, and thinkers who love peace.  The idea was to show respect to all and show love for all religions, without saying one is right, but instead that all love peace and all religions and philosophies that love peace are a path to peace and love.

An Islamic center and Russian Orthodox center in the background, with the old Kyrgyz gods in the foreground

Rokh Ordo

Young Kyrgyz man with a young golden eagle

Catholic saints

Buddhist Center

Victor Hugo

Jewish center

This place is also largely devoted to Kyrgyz writer Chinghis Aimatov and has a hall devoted to him.  As we were walking over to that hall, we found that we were being followed....

A professional photographer had taken a liking to us!  So those of you who saw my recent facebook profile picture. That's from him.

The next day, we again spent our morning on the beach. We couldn't decide what to do for lunch, so we had a picnic on the beach! We ate Samsa, pieroshki, and bought one of those whole, smoked fish.  Those things are not the easiest to eat! First we had to peel off the skin, then cut out the meat. But wow, it was worth it.  If you ever go to Issyk Kul, you MUST eat a smoked fish.

In the afternoon, we made our way to Karakol to see the Chinese Mosque and the Karakol museum.  Both of these were wonderful, but we agreed that it was not worth the two hour drive in each direction.