Day 33 (16th June) Bishkek to Cholpon Ata

The day started badly; there was no breakfast because there were no breakfast staff. When we went out to the many nearby restaurants to see if they served breakfasts, we discovered the answer. They were all closed for the 4-day Eid al-Adha holiday to mark the occasion when Abraham wanted to sacrifice his son to show his devotion to Allah, but Allah stopped him, ordering him to sacrifice a ram instead. Our plan to visit central Bishkek, and especially the museum, was ruined so we decided to leave the hotel and drive eastwards to Lake Issyk-Kul.

We stopped near Tokmak to see the 11th-century Burana tower, formerly the minaret for a mosque which has since been demolished, It was built during the period of the Karakhanid state (mid-10^th to mid-12^th centuries) which extended from the Ili River in the east to the Amu Darya in the west. Its capital was Balasagun, now part of Burana village. The tower was originally 48 metres high but is now only 24 after the rest was destroyed, I climbed the very narrow, steep and pitch-black staircase inside the tower to the top accompanied by a large group of young schoolgirls.

We then walked in the blistering heat to see the collection of carved stone heads discovered in the region of the Karakhanid state. They date from the 6^th to the 10^th century AD. There are also petroglyphs (picture scratched into the rock from the 6^th to the 3^rd century BC and tombstones with Arabic writing from the 14^th to the 20^th century. In a small museum there are rocks with crosses carved into them, indicating a Christian presence in the past.

We then drove through the small town of Balykchi where I missed the turning to Baskoon on the south shore of the lake, and drove on to Cholpon Ata on the north side, where we spent the night at the side of the road near a statue of a young girl holding a sheep.