Karakol. Day 27

 Not a lot happened today, which was fine really. It was essentially driving from the yurt camp on the south shore of Issyk Kul to Karakol at the eastern end. This was kind of painful; they seem to be upgrading most of the roads and so it was all uneven, gravelly potholed roads the whole way, just interupted by short sections where they'd got around to sealing it. It was still scenic - you can just see the north side of the lake where there is a continuous line of snow-capped mountain tops paralleling the shore.

We stopped a couple of times at sort-of-scenic points (which involved turning up narrower but equally bumpy roads). The first time it was around eroded sand gullies. The second time there were large red rocks. Both were actually busy with tourists because this is apparently the touristy part of the country. As well as locals coming to the lake in summer, people come to hike in the mountains and there are snow fields in winter.

It was about 3pm when we eventually reached Karakol and had the standard lunch. Then there was the obligatory town tour. This was mercifully brief, consisting only of a mosque (this one Dungan, Chinese muslim, so wooden and in a Chinese style) and a Russian Orthdox church.

We got to our hotel/guesthouse before 5pm. It's fairly basic, and you have to take your shoes off when you enter the building which has been a thing at a few buildings w've come to, including a couple of museums, but this is the first hotel.