After lunch at the hotel we visited an open-air gallery of rock engravings, sometimes referred as the Stone Garden, which covers 42 hectares and contains prehistoric monumental structures (stone circles, tombs, the remains of a boundary stone wall), and petroglyphs, dating from 500 BC up to 600 AD ( Scythian-era). The petroglyphs looked similar to those we had seen in Oman, except they mostly featured hunting for mountain rams with sweeping horns, ibex, and had some figures with two-humped camels.
It also included several Bal Bals, stone figures cut into stone and commemorating the death of an important soldier which the stone figures resemble, even having earrings and swords. This practice of placing images on graves ended with the Battle of Talas in 751 AD when Arab Islamic armies and Tibetan allies decisively defeated a Tang Dynasty Chinese army and resulted in Central Asia becoming Muslim.
Issyk Kul lake, situated on the altitude 1600 above sea level (over 5,000 feet), is the second deepest lake in the world with a depth of 700 meters. Surrounded by the snow-capped Tien Shan Mountains around it, it's salt water is suppose to have curative qualities. Two thousand years ago the size of lake was smaller and tribes lived in villages along the shore. One day the water rose so fast that people did not have time to take everything away. And more than 40 villages stayed under the water. Nowadays there are many underwater expeditions to explore the villages, the best-known being Chigy. Many artifacts found under water can now be seen the local museum, which we visited in the afternoon.
After a good dinner with a nice Chardonnay wine from Moldova (but bottled in Kyrgyzstan), we caught up on our blog and went to bed.
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| Islamic cemetery |
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| Petroglyxxxx |
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| Lake from our hotel |
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