Enroute to Ysyk-Kol

Getting comfortable in a nice room makes it hard to get back into the saddle but the time in Bishkek was to long and I was starting to get 'cabin fever'.  So I donned my riding gear with enthusiasm on the morning of departure.  The weather for Bishkek was forecast to be about thirty four degrees again which has been pretty much standard since we arrived.

Clive was holed up in his luxury suite at the Hyatt with a stomach ailment.  He likes to be independent anyway and he wasn't ready to ride.  Artur arrived at our hotel early morning ready to join Jim and I riding eastwards.

We were headed towards Ysyk-kol which is the second largest mountain lake after Lake Titicaca which I visited on my last motorcycling trip.  The lake is wedged between two mountain ranges on the north and south side.  The mountains are part of the Tian Shan.

The ride out of Bishkek was straight forward.  Turn right out of the hotel car park and keep riding east.  The roads in Kyrgyzstan are reasonable to good so we were expecting to have a good day.

As it turned out we did not get to appreciate the scenery because we encountered heavy rain and the cloud covered the mountains.  We ended the day early and stayed in a village called Cholpon-Ata.  Our rooms looked like laundries with clothing hanging up everywhere drying.

  

The scenery once out of the city, before the rain, was just wonderful.

 

The following morning we woke to bright sunshine and rode off not sure what to expect.  The sky darkened and it threatened rain most of the way to the next city Karakol.  We arrived in Karakol just as it started to rain heavily.