After our six-day trekking adventure in the Tian Shan Mountains, we left Karakol and headed to Cholpon Ata. Having traveled directly to Karakol from Tashkent on an international bus, this was our first encounter with Kyrgyz public transportation. We had anticipated a similar experience to Uzbekistan, where we primarily relied on cheap and comfortable shared taxis. However, it turned out to be quite different.
Upon arriving at Karakol’s northern bus station (location), we spotted a minivan about to depart for Cholpon Ata, parked beside a dilapidated, hovel-like ticket booth serving an unorderly queue of jostling travelers. I threw myself in it and managed to secure a ticket for the bus after the next one, which happened to be the last of the day.
The ticket cost 150 som per person. The driver arbitrarily asked all the tourists to pay 100 extra for the bags, but no one gave him.
With some angry pushing and kicking, the driver managed to cram all the luggage into the rear of the van, except for my backpack, which was left for last and placed in the front, next to the passenger door. As a result, I was the last passenger to enter the van, only to discover that the staff had mistakenly (or maybe not) sold an extra ticket, leaving me as the one who had to stand until someone got off. On the one hand, it seemed fair enough, given that I was the fittest passenger. On the other hand, I was also the tallest, which meant I had to hunch like Quasimodo.
I actually had to hunch even lower than necessary, bracing myself for a potential crash as the crazed driver sped down the road, overtaking everything in sight like an ambulance on an emergency call. He initially told me the first drop-off would be in 20 minutes, but it took an hour and a half before the first seat was vacated. Just as my numb arms and legs were finally starting to recover, the final blow of this disastrous trip came. A lad hopped on and slammed the door shut over the dangling strap of my backpack, crushing the waist buckle into pieces.
Anyway, I fixed it eventually… We arrived, checked in to our guesthouse, spent the day exploring Cholpon Ata, and left in the morning for Son-Kul Lake.
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Accommodation and activities in Kyrgyzstan
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