Naryn Oblast, Days 1 and 2

Back in Bishkek now but we spent the last two days in Naryn Oblast, visiting everything from the centre to the southeast of Kyrgyzstan near the border with China. Among other places whose names I can barely remember, we visited Kochkor and At Bashy, slept in Naryn (below is the town centre monument), and made a detour to Tash Rabat, which was the the highlight of our trip.

It was a very exhausting trip, being on the road for almost 8 hours in a day. We stayed at a guesthouse that had no heating or hot water; the evening weather, by the way, was a crisp 9 degrees Celsius and constantly raining with intermittent hail. That said, and now that we're back in civilisation, it was a good experience, probably closest to Ian Wright-esque travel that I'll get.

The BBC put it mildly when it said that Kyrgyzstan is a country of "striking beauty and towering peaks". The better to describe the landscape are stunning and breathtaking. It's almost an entire country full of possible wallpaper shots. Speaking of which, here's my current wallpaper (taken at Tash Rabat):

I took a lot of pictures during this trip (using my Dear's camera, of course). Will post pics when I get the time. Have to sleep now, going to Almaty, Kazakhstan, tomorrow at 5am (that's six hours from now).