Bishkek

Bishkek is a grid of oaks and poplars with snow peaks at the end of every street — the Ala-Too range stands so close and so high that the city seems to have been arranged as a viewing platform. Water runs audibly through the aryks, the little canals that line every avenue; the squares keep their Soviet scale and their horse statues; and the whole town operates as the friendly front desk of a country that is nine-tenths mountain and entirely sure about it.

The sensible traveller takes Ala-Too Square at flag-lowering, walks Oak Park among sculptures and grandmasters, dives into Osh Bazaar for felt hats, dried fruit and horse sausage sold with complete confidence; drinks kymyz — fermented mare's milk — once, with respect; and then obeys the skyline: Ala Archa canyon is forty minutes away, alpine and serious, and the yurt camps of Song-Köl and the shores of Issyk-Kul are the reason the flag carries a tunduk — the crown of a yurt — at its center.

The Guide's honesty: the marshrutka minibuses are the true transit and an adventure sold at commuter prices — ask, board, hold on —; hikes here start at two thousand meters: pace the first day; the felt shyrdaks at the bazaar are the real art — buy from the makers' cooperatives —; and Kyrgyzstan runs on hospitality older than any border: if you are invited to tea in a yurt, the answer, scheduled or not, is yes.