Naryn, Kyrgyzstan

Found a shared taxi to Naryn that filled up in no time. We continued along the same road we had returned from Song Kol on. The taxi driver wanted to take us on to Kazarman but his prices were too high. John headed off from the bus stop to talk to the people at the Community Based Tourism (CBT) office to see what they had on offer.

The CBT office was very well organised with a place for people to wait while others were being helped. They had maps and a message board, as well as place for storing backpacks. They organised a homestay for us and a driver to take us to Kazarman the next day. The road to Kazarman is really bad and usually only opens up in June after winter so once we were sure it was open we confirmed with the driver.

The accommodation was a short taxi ride from town. It was a brand new place with four bedrooms each with tits own ensuites. The owner had travelled a lot and spent two years chatting online to a guy in Australia before moving there and getting married. She had a two year old daughter but never mentioned the husband.

She had plans to extend the guest house by adding a two-storey building and a communal area for guests to mingle. She even wanted to build a small gym. I don't know that many travellers would interested in such a gym as they would only be passing through. 

We ate a dinner of plov-rice with mutton, tomato and cucumber salad and bread. We joined the family in their kitchen/dining room. The owner had two teen sons to a previous relationship and they chatted to us. One was studying IT in Bishkek but had come home to help his mum. The owner's sister and her husband and two young children came in and out to check on us. We learnt the sister's husband worked for the governor as a second assistant responsible for the payments from the farmers who graze the state lands. The farmers have to pay according to how much stock they are grazing. The owner's mother joined us too but did not have anything to add or join in.

There is not much to see or do in Naryn but we managed to find a bank that would give us some US dollars. We walked the length of the town which had a lot of blocks of Soviet built apartments in varying degrees of decay. One side of the town is hemmed in by a giant cliff of red while the other side is covered with green pasture.

The CBT driver Kustam, met us after our in-room breakfast and we headed off in his Audi to Kazarman.