for a price. There were a couple of friendly local Taigan hounds in camp. They use these‘ sighthounds’ for hunting in concert with Eagles. The birds have great vision and can identify moving prey. The dogs follow the eagles gaze and hunt down the prey. Sadly, we didn’ t get to see the eagles.
DAY FOUR After the daily task of packing our kit onto the bikes, we headed further East of the Murlan yurt camp and bid farewell to the Son Kul Lake. The next pass in our sights was the Terskey Torpok Pass, aka the 33 Parrots Pass. There were no parrots evident but there were 33 hairpin corners on the way down to the valley floor. When riding these dirt roads, it’ s apparent you take a flexible approach to which side of the road to use, usually it’ s whichever side more smooth, only crossing to the right for
oncoming traffic. Our day ended in Naryn with accommodation in a nice hotel. Talk about from one extreme to the other!
DAY FIVE Leaving Naryn, we travelled South West to one of the must-see attractions of Kyrgyzstan, the Tash Rabat Caravanserai, an ancient stone‘ road house’ dating from the 11th century. Located about 30km north of the border with China and at an altitude of 3200m, the structure served as accommodation and a trading place for ancient travellers on the Silk Road. We couldn’ t go inside as there is a preservation effort going on at the moment, hence the tin roof over the top of the building in the pictures. There are a series of razorback ridges up the valley near Tas Rabat that were simply stunning. We returned to Naryn for lunch,
KIWI RIDER 45