Travel
In 2013 Sue Bathurst went to Kyrgyzstan to ride a horse in the jailoo - the nomads’ mountain pastures. She fell in love with the country, sometimes described as the most beautiful country in the world, and with its people. In this book she not only describes Kyrgyzstan, as it was and is, but tells of four of these horse rides in the Tien Shan and Talas Mountains, travelled with English and Kyrgyz friends.
During those rides they covered 500 miles by horse; crossed 20 passes, most between 9,000 feet and 13,000 feet; negotiated precipitous gorges and boulder strewn rivers of cascading snowmelt. In 2017 they rode for over 150 miles down the no-go zone, once the frontier between the USSR and China, and still the Kyrgyz/Chinese border. Everywhere they were welcomed by the shepherds and their families.
This is not only about a beautiful country, illustrated with over 200 colour photographs, 4 graphs and a colour map. It is about traversing challengingly tricky terrain, far from the possibility of helicopter rescue, and seeing, along the way, how the smallest country in Central Asia is rebuilding itself after 115 years of Russian rule.
Here's what readers have to say about this book....
This is no ordinary travel book. This book describes four epic journeys on horseback by Sue and her fellow riders through remote mountain areas of Kyrgyzstan. The photographs are stunning and illustrate both the scenery and the nomadic shepherd's way of life. Sue describes, with a passion, the hospitality of the Kyrgyz people she met along the way. Travel by road in Kyrgyzstan in never easy. Travelling on horseback takes difficulty to another level. It is a truly fascinating story and a must read for both arm chair adventurers and those with an interest in horse trekking in Central Asia.
