Kyrgyzstan

Moving Nomads

/ Pat / 12 Comments

Michele, one of those creative people at WordPress who give us inspiration for our posting, asked us about living the nomadic life and moving. I immediately thought of one of my favorite photos taken on the highland pastures of Son Kul in Kyrgyzstan. I was there in late spring – when the pass was just opening up. Nomatic Kyrgyz were moving their yurts, belongings, families and herds to the green pastures high in the mountains. Because Kyrgyzstan is quite arid, they move from the dry village at lower elevations to the lake and grasslands. Here is moving day for one nomadic family.

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Building a Yurt, Setting up the summer home.

P6160516To hear more about this daily prompt and to participate, you will have to move on over to this WordPress post.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Culture

/ Pat / 26 Comments

Since I began traveling I have tried to be curious about culture. I want to experience and understand why people in other parts of the world (and outside my neighborhood) do what they do.

One of the experiences that was new and different and fun to learn about was milking a mare in Kyrgyzstan.

Milking a Mare

Milking a Mare

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Drinking fresh mare’s milk. I didn’t like the fermented kumis.

To hear the whole story of how to milk a mare, click here.

To see more posts on culture, click here.

 

Tagged k: Kyrgyz Kan & Kids

/ Pat / 2 Comments

This week Frizz is summoning everyone to submit their interpretation of the “letter k”. I started looking through my photo files and when I reached the file named Kyrgyzstan – I realized that it begins with a “k” and, well, I had to pause. I won’t overwhelm you with all 450 photos I have in that file but here are a few fun ones.

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This is Azermat – which begins with an “A” not a “K”. But he is Kyrgyz. Many people who live in Kyrgyzstan are Russian, because Kyrgyzstan was a part of the USSR. But Azermat is a descendent of an honest-to-goodness kan, a tribal leader when the Kyrgyz were a nomatic tribal culture. Azermat was our guide as we were traveling around Issyk-Kul and up to the mountain pasture at Son Kul. If you haven’t noticed, that is a “double k” (Kyrgyz Kan) which should mean I get double points from Frizz. You can read about my adventures in Kyrgyzstan and see pics by clicking here (but not now – after you enjoy the rest of this post).

I’m on a roll with another “double k” – Kyrgyz Kids. Here are picks of some of the cute kids I met along the way. You can click on any of them to see as a slide show.

Okay, now you can go back and click on the link to see my other posts on Kyrgyzstan. Or you can click here to join in Frizz’s k-fun.

http://flickrcomments.wordpress.com/2013/03/12/tagged-k/

Travel Theme: Roads

/ Pat / 14 Comments

In the US we have a special love for roads – because we have a special love for cars. Decisions were made at a critical time, by powerful men, to put money into car production and road building instead of public transportation. This is unfortunate for our environment, but it is what it is – and I have to admit that although I love traveling by train in England & Europe, I still love the “road trip.” I love hitting the open road to see all there is to see. I love getting off the beaten path, to take back roads through small towns and farm country. I’m not afraid of the “road less traveled”.

Here are some of the roads I have traveled.

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Road through mountain pass – Kyrgyzstan

Son Kul, Kyrgystan

Son Kul, Kyrgyzstan

Cabot Trail, Road between ocean and mountain.

Cabot Trail, Road between ocean and mountain.

Road to Meat Cove, Nova Scotia

Road to Meat Cove, Nova Scotia

Sharing the road - outside Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan

Sharing the road – outside Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan

City Road - Christmas in Dublin

City Road – Christmas in Dublin

 

To travel more roads, visit Ailsa who has found her backpack and its all packed.

Travel theme: Roads

Sunday Post: Unforgettable

/ Pat / 15 Comments

Jake, over at jakesprinter, did it again with a fun challenge. This week’s Sunday Post is Unforgettable. I didn’t want to forget this one so I went to work on it right away. Of course I started thinking about photographs and my most memorable ones – the ones I look at the most and thus are the most unforgettable – are the ones from my travels. Even before I opened my many files of travel photographs I realized that what I remembered most about these trips were the people.

I have gathered together photographs of the people, not because the photographs are unforgettable. These aren’t in the same league as the young girl with the green eyes. These are ordinary snapshots of people who are beautiful because they shared a part of their life with me. They opened their homes to me. They shared their table and their food. They shared their life story. They invited me to parties and laughed with me. They looked into my eyes and smiled at me.

When I look at these pictures I am flooded with memories. There are many great stories behind these pictures – some of which you can find on this blog. Some are waiting to be put in words. But here are the faces of people in Russia and Kyrgyzstan who invited me into their lives.

As I was preparing this post, I was also thinking of all the wonderful people I met in Switzerland, England, Scotland, Ireland and Germany that I don’t have digitized pictures of.

Here’s to all the people who have touched us in so many ways – in ways that make them unforgettable.