The Five Stans Adventure exploring Turkmenistan 🇹🇲 Uzbekistan 🇺🇿 Tajikistan 🇹🇯 Kazakhstan 🇰🇿 and Kyrgyzstan 🇰🇬
Wander the beautiful alpine area of Issyk-Kul and visit a few local families who’ll teach you more about their traditional yurts. With a special workshop, you’ll learn the basics of how these nomadic dwellings have been manufactured and how they play an important role in the community here. Then, you’ll visit a local family, learn how they make felt and enjoy a home-cooked lunch. Tonight, relax in your yurt camp and maybe toast to a sky full of stars with a small vodka.
~ Intrepid Travel ~ Five Stans Day 21
The best day!
Carpet Workshop
This was a lot of work. The women make their own yurt coverings, door coverings and carpets for when they get married.
A yurt door covering …
Felt …
Our finished product …
Carpets …
Yurt Workshop
They made making a yurt look so easy! You can buy one from Kyrgyzstan and have it shipped home …
Issyk-Kul Lake
A quick walk from the yurts to the lake where the bravest of us took a dip!
Local Hot Springs
From the lake we walked into town to the local hot springs. Bar-Bulak is a village in the Tong District known for its hot mineral springs. The springs contain radon, silicic acid and hydrogen sulfide. We met a group of childhood friends that take an annual trip to the hot springs. This gentleman was 75 years old and I loved meeting him. The best part of travelling is the people you meet!
Home-Cooked Supper
We ground our own flour, made dough and then Borsok! It’s the same idea as making Newfoundland Toutons but much thinner and they pop open when fried. I ate A LOT of these!!
Borsok is a regional variation of a fried dough available in a number of countries in Central Asia. Made of flour, water, salt, butter, sugar, yeast, and vegetable or sunflower oil, it’s a simple dish that requires little in the way of money or culinary know-how. But it does require lots of time. Women work the ingredients into dough balls and fry them in a kazan (a wok-like frying pan) to create little golden nuggets. Families and guests eat the fried dough with butter, honey, jam, or a local version of cream cheese.
After that meat & potatoes!
My biggest sin was I didn’t get pictures of the end results ~ we ate it all quickly because we were in food heaven!
Happy Travels!
Jackie is “Mom” to one amazing son, an IT professional and an obsessed traveller. She spends her time reading, golfing at Ladies League and implementing software projects. Jackie has travelled to 7 continents, 5 oceans and 103 countries and she is always planning the next destination and adventure!