Exploring Kyrgyzstan on a Bike with Olly Hargreaves

Ever wanted to cycle in Kyrgyzstan? Well this week adventurer Olly Hargreaves is going to take us on his cycle tour and let us know what it's like to actually ride there. Goign up huge mountain passes, riding alongside the amazing Lake Issyk Kul, Olly tells us all about it as he shares the moments cycling from Osh all the way across Kyrgyzstan and into Kazakhstan, ultimately finishing in Almaty. 

You can follow Olly's adventures via his instagram account - @Sagas.of_Olly.Hargreaves

Head over to Old Man Mountain and checkout the Manzanita Cradle 

Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:24

Hello everyone, Bella Meloy here, host of Sick Travel Ride. Welcome to another midweek episode where I'm continuing to stoke your fire for adventure travel, especially on a bicycle. This week I have the next update coming in from Ollie Hargreaves. Ollie has been on an amazing adventure. He left his home in the UK headed for Thailand, and prior to his journey, I had got him to commit to giving us periodic updates country by country as he makes his way across. This update is going to be taking us on Ollie's ride from Kyrgyzstan to Kazakhstan. He starts off in Osh and finishes in Almaty. It's an area that I am finding is more and more on people's radars. And look, maybe it's because I feature the point one per cent of people in the world who travel in this manner. But I just feel Kyrgyzstan is a country that I'm hearing more and more about. Obviously, in the ultra cycling scene, races like the Silk Road Mountain Race have put it front and centre. I think people have seen those big high mountain passes and the big lakes. And so it's a real pleasure to hear Olly's update as he gets into the detail of what it's actually like there on the road. So take it away, Olly.

SPEAKER_00 1:37

Hey Bella, hope you're doing well. Guess it's time for another update again. Last time I left you, I'd finished the Pamere Highway and Dad had flown off. And I was staying in contact with another cyclist who I'd actually met in Greece called Josh Toll. And they

Cycling Adventures in Kyrgyzstan

SPEAKER_00 1:58

were actually a few days behind on the Pamere Highway, so I decided that I'd wait and have a few days in Osh whilst they caught up to then do the next section with them. So yeah, hung about in Osh for a bit until they arrived. We all had the exact same route set in mind, so cycling through Kyrgyzstan up to Almaty, getting a flight from Almaty to New Delhi, cycling up from New Delhi to Nepal, tackling the Annapurna circuit, and then continuing on to Kathmandu. So we decided we'd stick together. Josh was also with another cyclist called Vota from the Czech Republic. So yeah, we decided to continue basically the rest of the trip as a trio, which was really nice. I want to say that Kyrgyzstan, I think, has got to be one of my favourite countries that we cycled through on this trip. As the scenery was just absolutely stunning. It's very similar to the Pamers kind of mountain range that extends from those, and the roads are just so much better. Pristine tarmac. It was really, really great riding. Obviously, there were a few spots where it wasn't, but yeah, just a beautiful country. Everyone's very friendly, there's wildlife everywhere. It's very green, which is obviously a massive difference to the Pamet Highway, is that's very dusty. Yeah, just an amazing country to cycle through. And I say that we saw a lot of people who started the Pamir Highway. We met them in the greenhouse hostel, and it's like the first bikepacking trip they're doing, and they're flown to do the Pamet Highway, and then a lot of them really struggle with it. And they do it for the scenery and all this. But what I would say is if you're thinking of doing that, just think about doing it in Kyrgyzstan instead because you get the same kind of views, but it's so much easier cycling. Still some tough climbs and stuff, but just way easier. So yeah, spent a good two weeks cycling through Kyrgyzstan, I think, and it was very cold, but also really nice weather during the day. And yeah, just a really, really nice country to cycle through. We set off from Osh with the aim of basically cycling up to Isikul Lake, which is a ginormous lake they have in Kyrgyzstan. It's probably about 600 kilometres long or something, and basically cycled the entire length of Kyrgyzstan. So head up to Izikul, then up to a place called Karakol, and then head up north to head back into Kazakhstan and make our way to Almaty to catch the flight. It was really, really good. We had about two days where we set off from Oshum. We were taking it a little bit easier at start, and the first day was pretty nice. We did like 100 kilometres or so, which is nice after the Palmer Highway from not travelling really long distances, just mainly because of the surface. So it was really nice to see those big distances hitting again. But it didn't last very long because we had a lot of you know, we were just kind of taking it really chilled, and obviously we were enjoying each other's company and you know, just having a good time. So we had quite late starts in the mornings, and and we'd always try and pitch up kind of before it went dark. The first day was really good.

Challenges and Triumphs on the Road

SPEAKER_00 5:23

We made some progress and then we hit a point on the second day where we had a choice of either going up towards a tunnel where a lot of people have not been let through this tunnel and been told that they need to wait for someone to take them through, kind of similar to the tunnel of death, I think, in Tajikistan. And I'd heard a few people that had to pay for someone to take them through, and it was a bit of a nightmare, but then other people that had actually managed to cycle through, and the only other option was climbing up, I think it was like two and a half thousand metres of ascent or something, it might have even been more, up over another pass. And Voiter, who we're cycling with, is also like an ultra-endurance athlete and a bit of a madman. So he you know really liked this idea. And me and Josh were a little a bit kind of like oh, what you know, what do we do? Do we take the easy option and maybe try and get a lift through this tunnel, or do we just send it and go for the challenge? Which we ended up choosing. So we went up this massive pass which reached like three and a half thousand metres of altitude. So it was going back from reasonable temperatures back into the freezing cold, and it had been chucking it down as well for a couple of days. So this over the past, it wasn't tarmac, it was proper muddy tracks and stuff with lots of lorries going past, so it was all really grim roads when it was wet. At least it yeah, that was quite a tough climb. It took about a day to cycle up, and yeah, got to the top and had a quite nice descent actually. The roads weren't as bad on the other side, so that was really good. And we got some amazing views of the mountains in Kyrgyzstan, and it was only really the second day of cycling there, so it was really impressive to see. We headed back down off the mountain and we had a really nice descent. The roads were a lot better on the other side. Me and Voyta ended up actually kind of racing down most of the mountains, seeing who could get down as fast as possible. So we we managed to kind of create a camp spot where there was loads and loads of open fields, but when it was so cold, we decided that we were gonna try and have some fires every night, but there was just absolutely no wood, so we we couldn't do it that night. It was absolutely freezing, and we just kind of whimpered in the tents instead.

Exploring Kyrgyzstan's Natural Beauty

SPEAKER_00 7:50

We headed towards Isakul Lake over the next few days, and especially the day after, which is absolutely amazing riding. I mean, it was tough, we had lots of kind of up and down climbs, so there was a lot of elevation, but it didn't really feel like you were making any progress. But the roads were absolutely perfect, there was very little traffic, and the scenery was just absolutely beautiful. We made it to Isakal Lake, and then we had three days, I think, of cycling up, like past the lake. This water looked like it should be somewhere in Greece. It's an absolutely ginormous lake that expands over, you can see for miles over it. There's parts where you struggle to see the other side. Yeah, there's all these beach resorts and stuff that are being created as you know, Kyrgyzstan's tourism is obviously getting more and more popular. So they're building all these beach resorts and you're just cycling past it. The water's completely clear, and it feels like you're I'd say, like on a Greek island or something. We stopped at there was a place called Fairy Tale Canyon as well, which is a really cool geological formation. It has like a bit of a legend behind it with this kind of dragon that fell in love with a girl who didn't love him back, and he kind of threatened to curse, and so everyone covered their wells or something, and she left the well open, so the dragon pulled all the water out and flooded the valley, which created Isikul Lake, and then the dragon laid down and turned to stone, which created this valley. So it was quite a nice kind of mythological story, a really cool thing to see. The roads continued to be great. We had three really nice camp spots right next to the lake as well, which was really nice because it meant we could go for a swim at night, even though the water was absolutely balsic. But it was nice to get yourself clean, and then I say we were having these ginormous fires as well. So you get in, get yourself washed, be absolutely freezing when you're out, but then run up and just kind of huddle around the fire until you dried off. We were making these fires that were so warm that you could see the steam coming off you as you warmed up. But yeah, we cycled for three days along this amazing valley alongside the river, uh the lake, up to Karakol, which is one of the biggest cities, I think it's the third biggest city or something in Kyrgyzstan, and we decided we were gonna have a rest day there. So we got in quite late after some pretty horrible riding as well into the city. The roads became really bad, and lots of potholes and bumps and cracks in the road, and the traffic was just became really bad on that section. So we came up with a bit of a plan for what we wanted to do, and we'd all had this plan of what we wanted to do to make it over to Nepal, do the Annapurna circuit, but I had a bit of a deadline because my mum was coming to visit me, which meant we'd actually only got about three weeks from this point to do everything that we wanted to, so it was really tight, like kind of no room for error, and it just meant no more slow mornings that we'd been enjoying and proper ahead for it. We had a well, what was supposed to be a rest day in Karakol, which actually ended up being Voyter had found a lake which we could go up and visit called Alakul Lake, and it was in a national park, and we thought, ah, you know, we've not gone off, and obviously we'd seen a few bits along the way, but we'd not had any time off the bike to see Kyrgyzstan, so we thought, alright, we've we can afford a day, we'll we'll do that. Um, it was about a 20-kilometre cycle in into the start of the hike where we basically we thought we'll cycle in as much as we can. It was about 60 kilometres in total, the whole thing, and like 3,000 metres of climbing. And we cycled in and ditched the bikes, locked them in the forest, and had a bit of a hike, which was really nice, a bit of a change off the bike. I say it was through this national park, which was amazing because we saw all this really cool wildlife, a stoat with its kind of uh winter fur and lots of squirrels, all sorts of animals and the woodpeckers and birds, and it was just really nice, and it was such beautiful scenery. It was absolutely amazing. But it was real long slog because you know we're at three, three and a half thousand metres again. So we and we made it up, and and then obviously had to hike back down and then got back to the bikes just as it was getting dark. We thought it was gonna take a little bit less time than it actually ended up doing. So we got back to the bike, and then we had this horrendous ride back to the hotel or the hostel that we were staying at, all in the dark, and this track was like a Jeep track, so it was really rocky, kind of like a riverbed at some points, then really muddy with lots of potholes, lots of like jeeps, higher tracks, really deep ones. So it was really difficult to cycle in in the light, let alone you know, on the way back. So, anyway, we did that and got back to the place and got everything packed up ready for heading back off in the morning. It was a really nice day off the bike and say something different. It's a really cool place to go and see as well. So, yeah, I say we've made this plan, really tight plan to get over to Nepal in time to do the Annapurna circuit before my mum flew out. We set off with the aim of doing a really big day, and I think we planned to do like 180 kilometres or something silly, especially because you know it was a lot of elevation and some bad roads, and it started off fairly well. It was raining in the morning, which wasn't ideal, but it was that kind of rain where it's just kind of spitting, which is not making you miserable, and we had still pretty good roads, which was nice, until we got to a point where we had to climb over this pass, and as usual, the pass road is not tarmac and really grim roads, and then this storm rolled in out of absolutely nowhere, and it was crazy lightning, it was throwing really thick hailstones at us that were like the size of Maltesers, but not you just the occasional one, like it was like a proper hail storm where it was just sending all these things down at us, and we ended up seeking shelter in like this abandoned kind of hut that we found for a little bit until the worst of it had blown over. Or so we thought, because you know, we were there for about an hour and then we set back off, and suddenly it restarted again, and this lightning bolt hit within about a hundred metres of us or something really close, and it had sounded absolutely crazy because of how close we were. It was really mental storm that we were going through. Anyway, after that, it kind of rolled over. But because of all the hail, the roads and the top of the pass and stuff had completely filled with like a hail snow blanket, and we cycled through and made our way down. At which point, because of all the wet, all the mud was getting caked onto the wheels again, which is just horrible when it happens because it all gets caught under the brake pads and it starts falling onto the panas, and everything just gets absolutely filthy. But yeah, we made it to the border of Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. We headed into the next town, which was another 40 kilometres away or something. So I think we still actually did like 140 kilometres. It was still a really good day. We headed up into Almaty and we stopped off at a place called Charing Canyon,

Final Push to Almaty

SPEAKER_00 16:48

which was another really cool geological kind of canyon. It's it was I think it was described as kind of the the Grand Canyon of Kazakhstan, and it again it was really, really cool to see. We arrived there, it was quite late, so we tried to pitch up tents, but it was so windy, there was absolutely no chance, and it was obviously quite a popular tourist spot, so there was nowhere else really for us to camp. And we'd gone past these yurts that people could rent out and or eat lunch in and stuff, and we thought maybe we can sneak in here and stay there for the night and keep us out of the cold. So we went over, there was lights on, and and we got there, and no one really seemed bothered by us, so we locked the bikes up outside and headed in, had dinner inside the yurts, and then went to sleep and were out in the morning, and no one seemed any the wiser. Oh well, actually, no, that's a lie. Someone did find us in the morning and told us to go. But but yeah, we saw the canyon in the morning and and got a really cool view of it, and then headed back off towards Almaty again. And these last I think it was two days from there, from there to Almaty, and again, some more of just absolutely freezing cold nights. Waking up in the morning and everything is just completely covered in frost, and the first couple of days, again, we had a massive headwind which made it really difficult. So that wasn't too fun, but the headwind died down on the last day, thankfully. Um and yeah, had the last actually the last night of camping of the whole trip was the night before getting to Almaty. And again, you know, celebrated in style, had a big bonfire next to a river, really, really nice grass to camp on, which was amazing. So it made made for a nice nice sleep. And yeah, had another big day into Almaty. I think it was 150 kilometres or so. Set off in the morning, and we were making really good progress actually. We we were absolutely smashing out the kilometres, and it was absolutely fine, and yeah, that was kind of the trip through Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, and it was absolutely amazing, and a very nice change from the grim roads of the Pamers. We did have a few very similar roads, but the majority of them were a lot better, which was very nice. Obviously, another thing which really made this part of the trip was the company. Me and Josh had kept in touch pretty much from the start of our trips, really. He set off at a very similar time as me, and we'd been speaking online until we met in Greece for a couple of days, and then his plan was to actually meet back up with me before the Pamers, which because of timings and stuff, wasn't it going to work out, but it was really nice to obviously catch up with him again and obviously Voyta as well, who Josh had been cycling with for like three months prior, they met in Turkey and cycled the whole way together. I'd not actually met him, but we got on really well as well. So the company really makes it. I say I'm I'm someone who I've enjoyed both sides of it, but being able to have those nights where rather than it just being you on your own in the tent, and you know, you've not really got anything to do but go to sleep, it really makes a massive difference to the trip. And just, you know, I say having a fire or having dinner together and having a beer as well, obviously, just really, really nice and just made it really enjoyable. I thought I'd also expand on why we were flying from Almaty to New Delhi as well. But in an ideal world, we would have

Reflections on Riding with Friends

SPEAKER_00 20:35

cycled down into China and then into Pakistan and then crossed over the border, but China's visa policies are very strict, and you can't actually get one unless you're in your home country, which made things very difficult. And you can't actually cross the border from Pakistan into India. And obviously, there's political situations going on right now, but even before that, you can't do it because you can't cross by land with an e-visa. Again, you need to have applied for the Indian visa in your home country, and you can't even fly from Pakistan into India because the countries very much dislike each other. So it made things very difficult, and we decided you know the the best thing to do was to fly from Almaty to New Delhi, which meant obviously sorting out another bike box and going through all that faff again. But we managed to sort all that stuff out in in Almaty fairly easily, which is nice. Really handy having the Yandex app in the Central Asia uh countries because the taxis are so cheap and you can sort out anything through that, which made things very easy with getting the bike boxes to and from places.

SPEAKER_01 21:50

Thank you so much, Ollie. I have learnt quite a lot about Kyrgyzstan through this update of yours. I think the first thing I want to do is reiterate your very first point, which was how you've meet so many people who fly around the world to do the Premier's as their very first bike adventure, and you actually think that they should maybe rethink and take on Kyrgyzstan instead. I think that's a really interesting, valid point. I don't know. I've never heard it put to me about that either. I've heard two things about the Premier's. The high mountains and the scenery and the epicness of the landscapes is one of them. And the other thing is just how hard the riding actually is there, coupled often with altitude and maybe a healthy dash of food poisoning on the side. So to hear you then talk about Kyrgyzstan, it was somewhere which has equally amazing vistas, but the roads aren't quite as brutal on you. I think listeners, maybe take that hot tip from Ollie, and yeah, if you're thinking about the Premier's, maybe you do need to be thinking about Kyrgyzstan first, especially if this is your first adventure. The next thing I want to talk about, Olly, is something you mentioned right at the end there. Is how you did this with friends and with company and the benefit of that. And I absolutely love this. It's funny, listeners, just this weekend gone, I released the final episode with Ollie's brother Jamie and his good friend Malachi, and they made great friends in Turkey halfway through their adventures to Australia. And Ollie, it's uh I feel like Malachi is your brother now as well. Such is the strength of that friendship bond. And it sounds like you have done something similar there with Josh. And I know in some of your updates previously, you've talked about how. Great it's been to share so much of this journey with other people. And you know, when you leave home on your own and yet you make these amazing fast friendships with other bike travellers, I imagine those strongs are great. And also going through the hard times, you know, going through an absolutely crazy nutty hailstorm in the middle of the high mountain, sheltering in a hut, or camping by a lake after a really big day and having a bonfire and having some campfire chats and some ice cold swims and, you know, a beer together or something like that. I think they're the shared memories and experiences that you will think fondly of in decades to come. And there is such a power in sharing experiences as well. I'd love to know from listeners how many people have started out on a solo journey and then made amazing friendships along the way. People that you maybe still keep in touch with to this day, and you've got those shared experiences together as well. The big high lakes in Kyrgyzstan, wow, they sound absolutely amazing. Just absolutely mega. And like you said, watered like you'd imagine in the Mediterranean in Greece or something. And it's interesting to also hear how you're saying that it is getting a little bit more touristy, which goes back to my first point of I think Kyrgyzstan is on the precipice of just exploding. Maybe that is an adventure travel mindset, it has to be an adventure travel mindset, but I feel more and more people are discovering Kyrgyzstan. Which listeners, I think if you're umming and aring about going, I think go sooner rather than later before it all perhaps dramatically changes as well. But it sounded like this section was a heap of fun, Ollie, and you had the best of the vistas, all those landscapes, even with the really, really hard mountain passes and the very challenging road conditions. I can just imagine what that mud would have been like with the rain. It really brings you to a standstill. And I always think it just practically everything gets so mucky and so dirty. But it sounds like you absolutely love your time in Kyrgyzstan, and I'm gonna be interested to hear all about your next update in the weeks to come. So, listeners, keep an eye out. And I've got links in the podcast show notes to Ollie's social media so that you can see what he's up to now. Okay, listeners, now it's time for me to shout out you, my amazing and incredible super fans, who have gone above

Listener Shoutouts

SPEAKER_01 25:59

and beyond and bought me some virtual coffees. These coffees go towards the running cost of hosting and producing this podcast and keep the show rolling for us all. I'd like to say thanks to Scott Diamond, who says, along with Heinz, I'm also a big fan of Allie Denham. I feel like he's cloned to some extent. I often go to his site, purchase whatever he's recommending. Of course I'm not as accomplished like him, but it was such a fun interview. Thanks for bringing it to me. Well, thank you, Scott. Allie Denham. For those of you who don't know, he runs the account Cycling About and the website Cycling About. Allie has been full-time on the road for now, I don't know, it must be 13 or 14 years. I interviewed him about a year and a half ago. And he's currently with his partner Laura, making his way slowly and steadily through the continent of Africa. He's definitely one that you want to keep an eye on. And Scott, I'm really glad that you loved my interview with Allie there as well. And next, I have Suzy Alexander Art. And she said, Hi Bella. In answer to a previous question on map preferences, paper maps get me so excited. My ex-husband used to threaten to wallpaper the bedroom ceiling with paper maps. Cheers. Oh gosh, Susie, when this one came through, I think I was drinking coffee, I nearly spat it out. It made me laugh so hard. I love it. But all jokes aside, paper maps get me really excited too. I've mentioned it, listeners with a few guests on the pod, just how paper maps can be better than a storybook. Because you look at places and especially ones which have got topographical detail for me, because obviously I'm a mountain lover, but I do sort of put my finger and trace a sort of serpentine road and picture myself in the scene and think, what would it be like to be there? What would it be like to go from here to here? Or conversely, looking at somewhere where I have gone and looking at my start point and my finish point, and I guess maybe there's an ego thing there, I'm not sure. There's definitely a sense of pride, but looking at something and tracing over and just recalling those memory experiences, yeah, it's pretty exciting. So, Susie, I can understand your excitement, and I hope that you pull the paper maps out regularly to plan your new routes. And listeners, if you want to do as Scott Diamond and Susie AlexanderArt have done, you can show that you are a super fan of Seek Travel Ride and support the podcast. Simply head to buymeacoffee.com forward slash Seek Travel Ride. Buy me a few virtual coffees, but let me know what is it that you love about the podcast and where is your next bike adventure going to take you? And until the next episode, I'm Bella Malloy. Thanks for listening.