Kaindy Lake + crossing to Kyrgyzstan

We had an adventurous morning travelling from Saty Village to Kolsai Lakes in a Buhanka. Buhanka is a Russian nickname for the UAZ-452 series of Soviet/Russian 4x4 vans, named for their resemblance to a loaf of bread. Produced by UAZ , it’s a rugged, simple vehicle thats been in continuous production since the 1960s. It was functional but not much more.

The highlight of our hike was reaching Kaindy Lake, a turquoise lake with a striking submerged forest protruding from the water. Amazingly, the lake was created by an earthquake in 1911 which caused a limestone landslide creating a dam in the forest. So surreal. And beautiful.

Following our outing we returned to the guesthouse for lunch and then loaded onto our bus to travel two-and-a-half hours to the Kyrgyzstan border. When we arrived at the border, we unloaded all of our luggage and were told that we needed to wait. There were horses that needed to clear the border before us. Sure enough, there were 30 or 40 horses that had wandered across the border and their rancher was bringing them back. That was a first! We’ve never had to wait behind horses.🤣

Our first city in Kyrgyzstan is Karakol. It was about an hour-and-a-half drive from the border so we didn’t reach our hotel until dinner time. We’ll explore the city tomorrow.Read more