Kyrgyzstan intro

If Pamir highway is the reason most people visit Tadjikistan, nature and hiking and mountaineering is the reason people visit Kyrgyzstan. Many Kyrgyz people still live a semi-nomadic life, as you will see if you venture to the mountains, where families live in tents (jailoos, or summer pastures), with a car parked outside and children playing all around, food cooking all the time and smoke coming out of the chimney even in summer. It all looks like a peaceful, happy life that has totally been lost in urbanised Europe.
I must admit that nature is gorgeous in Kyrgyzstan. I was so surprised to see how quickly the Kazakh steppes turn into green pastures and high snowy mountains as soon as you cross the frontier. I suddenly felt like taking pictures all the time, so huge was the contrast between driving  for hours in the Kazakh monotonous desert and the slow ride on bad turf roads as soon as I crossed the frontier.

Yet, as old fashioned as the country may seem to us as tourists, this is the most democratic, free of all Stans. Market works fine and as a byproduct tourism does too. This is so obvious in places as Karakol, a town that in my opinion will boom soon, if this is not the case already, from touristic development.
Climate and weather need to be taken seriously in Kyrgyzstan. After all, the country has been populated by Siberian nomads! Although they loved it for being warmer than where they came from, you may wat to visit during summer months, when nature is at its’ best, looking like a postcard come true.