Kyrgyzstan

Kyrgyzstan is ninety percent mountains and the mountains are serious - the Tian Shan range running through the country like a spine, with passes that close in winter and valleys that open in summer into some of the finest alpine grazing land in Asia. The nomadic tradition here is not historical; it is ongoing. Families still move to summer pastures, yurts still go up in the same places they have always gone up, and Song-Kul lake at 3,000 metres in July is one of those places where everything that is not essential falls away. Bishkek, low and leafy at the mountains' feet, underplays everything.

Our guide is being written from the ground up, with the time this place deserves.

We are still gathering the notes that make a guide worth keeping: yurt stay routes, Song-Kul timing, Bishkek's Osh Bazaar and the shepherds' paths that cross from valley to valley and are not on any map that was made recently.