A theme was starting to form on our trip — maps were/are wrong, and the rough roads were causing significant delays.
Knowing we had a seven-hour journey ahead, we woke up very early to hit the road to Tash Rabat. We wanted to drive the Pamir Highway, and decided we would do this from Bishkek to Osh, Kyrgyzstan via Tajikistan. We were going to cross in Sary-Tash and decided to take the opportunity to visit the 15th-century caravensari, Tash Rabat. This meant we were going to spend the night in the Naryn region.
Tash Rabat is in a secluded area within the mountains (honestly, this describes a lot of Central Asia, but this area was actually secluded). When I was initially looking at where to stay, I found a yurt camp nearby and decided to reach out to them. Unfortunately, they do not operate in the winter, so we decided to stay in Naryn.
The drive was scheduled to take 7 hours so we planned a brief stop to see a boulder of Yuri Gagarin.
Finding Yuri Gagarin
Yuri was located south of Lake Issyk-kul, down a dirt mountain road. As you turn down the road it had a sign warning drivers of avalanches and mudslides.
The boulder itself was situated in a stunning mountain landscape, in front of a flowing stream.
After visiting Yuri, we plugged Tash Rabat into Maps.me. The route it told me to take was different than the original one I found on Google Maps. I went to try and find the alternate route, but I did not have cell service. This meant I had to turn around and take a longer route to Naryn.
Driving to Tash Rabat
Google Maps and Maps.me did not account for the road conditions or roadblocks. This meant that during the planning process, what seemed achievable often was not.
These apps did not consider the ever changing landscape, degrading roads from the melting snow, having to constantly swerve around potholes and livestock. This caused significant delays.
By the time we finally made it to Naryn it was 5 PM and the sun was starting to set behind the mountains. We started to drive down the road from Naryn to Tash Rabat, but realized we should turn around. The drive was “2 hours and 15 minutes,” and we would have to drive a mountain road in the dark, with no street lights. As much as we wanted to see Tash Rabat, it was not worth the risk.
As we returned to the hotel, we asked for a dinner recommendation. We walked down a few alleys that were a mixture of wet and frozen mud to another hotel. We had another amazing meal including my favourite (roasting beef) and my friend’s favourite (shorpo soup). After dinner we headed back to the hotel as we had a long twelve hour drive scheduled for the next day.
Last post: First Day Self-Driving in Kyrgyzstan
