Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Central Asia: Uzbekistan - Lake Aydar and Kazakh village of Dungalak


In our little imagination, we thought we might be able to see sunrise too and set the alarm clock to get up but nope, no sunrise for us but it is ok. What we saw as the photo above... lol..

For some strange reason I was having craving for some orange juice the day before and told sis, "I really want some OJ, do you think they will serve us any?" LOL, sis laughed and to be honest both of us didn't think that we will get any. Staple breakfast beverage in Uzbekistan are tea and coffee but mostly tea. So we were both pleasantly surprise to see this carton of fruit juice on the table. It wasn't orange juice but any fruit juice is a bonus! ^^


Soon after breakfast, we bid goodbye to Kyzyl Kum yurt camp and moved to Lake Aydar. Lake Aydar or Aydarkul is a large man-made lake. It occupies 4000 sq km. Its length spans almost 250km and width 15 km. Lake Aydar was initially formed about 50 years ago as a result of catastrophic flood water escaped from Sirdaya when the Chardara reservoir was overflown. Apparently Lake Aydar was a good place for fishing but we didn't see anybody there doing any fishing activity. Actually, nobody was there, only us, the tour guide and the driver.



Next up in the itinerary was to visit a Kazakh village of Dungalak. In all honesty, till now I have no idea if the village we visited was really a Kazakh village or were we really in Dungalak. The village we visited felt like a deserted village, saved for a family which consisted of an elderly man and two little kiddies. We were not able to verify with the villagers due to language barrier so we could only rely on the words of the tour guide. Well, I tried googling but the village is probably too small for any information to be found online. Photos that came out from my google effort were mostly of Lake Aydar or yurt camp due to the close vicinity.



They actually have a yurt set up in their backyard but not in use yet at this stage.


After this little village visit, the driver dropped the tour guide off at a intersection near Nurata and we continued on our ride to Nuratau Mountains. It was all still a little strange, funny strange though. After awhile the driver stopped and told us we have reached, it felt like in the middle of nowhere. Hahaha. Then someone came and asked us to follow him. There were not any words exchanged till we tried to confirm we were at the right place. All is good, else I wouldn't able to write this post or the next one eh? ;)


Side note: My left shift key is going a bit wonky.... :/

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