This is a very long overdue ride report. We have been home for 3 months!!
For those of you who haven't read previous ride reports, we shipped our bikes to Magadan in 2016, rode to Ulaanbataar (Granny on the Road of Bones)and left the bikes in a bonded warehouse. We returned in 2018 and picked the bikes up and rode to Almaty (Granny on the Steppes) leaving the bikes in the KTM shop in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
On 26th May this year, we flew to Almaty, arriving very early in the morning. We met Fritz in Riga so all arrived together. We had been booked into a lovely hotel (Wedding present from Peter and Sandy) so we were able to drop our luggage off and go straight to the KTM shop and make sure the bikes were ready for the trip.
It was great to see the bikes again, and true to form, my little Honda burst to life at the first push of the button We rode back to the hotel and set about fitting all of the luggage we brought into the Giant Loops and a few extra bags.
No matter how often we do this, we still end up with too much stuff
We had a relaxed day, early night and set off for the Kyrgyz border first thing Tuesday morning. It's a fairly straight run from Almaty to the border. We had crossed this border before, so knew where we were going. We rode straight towards Bishkek, and skirted around it, as we were heading for the south coast of Issyk Kul. We had travelled across the north side of Issyk Kul in 2018. As we pulled away from the traffic lights on the east side of Bishkek, we saw another bike and he pulled over to have a chat. His reg was BAM, so we showed him our BAM Rider stickers.
He and his girlfriend didn't speak much english but enough to understand we were hungry and brought us to a nice restaurant every time we ate, we relished it, as we were never sure what our next meal would be ike
We were hoping to camp on the edge of Issyk Kul. We arrived to the lake, found a camping spot and pitched our tents. Then headed to the local village to get some food for the evening.
When we pulled up at the shop, the children flocked around us. Really friendly, smiley kids Kev bought some sweets in the shop and gave some to the kids.
Issyk Kul is at an altitude of just over 1,600m so when the sun went down, it got really cold. We knew that we would be spending a lot of our time at higher altitudes than we are used to, so we had plenty of thermal layers
We definitely needed them, it was a cold night.
We woke to a lovely bright day, and packed up the tents. We were riding south to Song Kul today. The roads were tarmac and in good condition. We passed a load of camals and had to stop so Fritz could get a selfie
We pulled over for petrol and while we were filling up, a 1200 GS pulled in, with Polish plates. A big smiley face in the helmet. His name was Jarak and he had been riding for something like 10/12 days, all the way from Poland across Russia. He's an electrician who lives in London. He was travelling in roughly the same direction as us, so joined us to Song Kul. Well, we kinda joined him as he had a working GPS, something none of us had
We passed many villages on the way, all on lolvely tarmac, til we came to a right hand turn, onto a gravel track. Jarak was a little apprehensive as he had little off road experience. He rode gingerly for the first bit, but soon got into the swing of it.
The scenery was incredible, every corner brought another beautiful vista.
Song Kul is at an altitude of over 3,000m. So, on our way there, we came over some snow covered passes.
Obviously, we had to stop and make snow angels
We arrived to the Lake and came to a big collection of yurts. So we pulled over and asked if they had room for us 4. There were a whole load of other bikers there, from loads of different countries. They were on a guided trip, on hire bikes. It's always great to meet other travellers, and get some info on the 'must do' things. We had a long chat with their guide and he gave us tips on which routes we should take and where we should go. Our stay here included bed, breakfast and evening meal. They also had a bania, which was great as Issyk Kul had been waaaaay too cold to bathe in that morning. While we were eating dinner, the locals lit the stove in the yurt, so it was really cosy when we went to bed. We woke at about 4am and it was absolutely freezing!
For those of you who haven't read previous ride reports, we shipped our bikes to Magadan in 2016, rode to Ulaanbataar (Granny on the Road of Bones)and left the bikes in a bonded warehouse. We returned in 2018 and picked the bikes up and rode to Almaty (Granny on the Steppes) leaving the bikes in the KTM shop in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
On 26th May this year, we flew to Almaty, arriving very early in the morning. We met Fritz in Riga so all arrived together. We had been booked into a lovely hotel (Wedding present from Peter and Sandy) so we were able to drop our luggage off and go straight to the KTM shop and make sure the bikes were ready for the trip.
It was great to see the bikes again, and true to form, my little Honda burst to life at the first push of the button We rode back to the hotel and set about fitting all of the luggage we brought into the Giant Loops and a few extra bags.
No matter how often we do this, we still end up with too much stuff
We had a relaxed day, early night and set off for the Kyrgyz border first thing Tuesday morning. It's a fairly straight run from Almaty to the border. We had crossed this border before, so knew where we were going. We rode straight towards Bishkek, and skirted around it, as we were heading for the south coast of Issyk Kul. We had travelled across the north side of Issyk Kul in 2018. As we pulled away from the traffic lights on the east side of Bishkek, we saw another bike and he pulled over to have a chat. His reg was BAM, so we showed him our BAM Rider stickers.
He and his girlfriend didn't speak much english but enough to understand we were hungry and brought us to a nice restaurant every time we ate, we relished it, as we were never sure what our next meal would be ike
We were hoping to camp on the edge of Issyk Kul. We arrived to the lake, found a camping spot and pitched our tents. Then headed to the local village to get some food for the evening.
When we pulled up at the shop, the children flocked around us. Really friendly, smiley kids Kev bought some sweets in the shop and gave some to the kids.
Issyk Kul is at an altitude of just over 1,600m so when the sun went down, it got really cold. We knew that we would be spending a lot of our time at higher altitudes than we are used to, so we had plenty of thermal layers
We definitely needed them, it was a cold night.
We woke to a lovely bright day, and packed up the tents. We were riding south to Song Kul today. The roads were tarmac and in good condition. We passed a load of camals and had to stop so Fritz could get a selfie
We pulled over for petrol and while we were filling up, a 1200 GS pulled in, with Polish plates. A big smiley face in the helmet. His name was Jarak and he had been riding for something like 10/12 days, all the way from Poland across Russia. He's an electrician who lives in London. He was travelling in roughly the same direction as us, so joined us to Song Kul. Well, we kinda joined him as he had a working GPS, something none of us had
We passed many villages on the way, all on lolvely tarmac, til we came to a right hand turn, onto a gravel track. Jarak was a little apprehensive as he had little off road experience. He rode gingerly for the first bit, but soon got into the swing of it.
The scenery was incredible, every corner brought another beautiful vista.
Song Kul is at an altitude of over 3,000m. So, on our way there, we came over some snow covered passes.
Obviously, we had to stop and make snow angels
We arrived to the Lake and came to a big collection of yurts. So we pulled over and asked if they had room for us 4. There were a whole load of other bikers there, from loads of different countries. They were on a guided trip, on hire bikes. It's always great to meet other travellers, and get some info on the 'must do' things. We had a long chat with their guide and he gave us tips on which routes we should take and where we should go. Our stay here included bed, breakfast and evening meal. They also had a bania, which was great as Issyk Kul had been waaaaay too cold to bathe in that morning. While we were eating dinner, the locals lit the stove in the yurt, so it was really cosy when we went to bed. We woke at about 4am and it was absolutely freezing!