Bishkek Tours in Fall

An excellent trip, full on and varied. Each country has its own unique features; ancient architecture, futuristic buildings, wild mountainous scenery. Rifa, our guide was great, knowledgeable and helpful and did all he could to accommodate everyone in the group. Visiting 5 countries in 3 weeks makes for a busy schedule but experiencing the contrast between them is so worthwhile.

The trip was a really unique experience for all of us. We really enjoyed discovering what Kyrgyzstan had to offer. Marlis is so passionate about showing his country to us and really helped open the doors to us.

Excellent tour with plenty of variety - fascinating cities, wild mountains, and intriguing culture and history. Rifa, our guide, was efficient and knowledgeable, taking care that everyone got the best experience. Transport arrangement throughout were first rate: clean and with generous seating which provided window seats for all. The inclusion of Turkmenistan in this tour is questionable: Costly entry requirements, yet we were unable to see much beyond the superficial show of Ashgabat.

The Stans are a beautiful part of the world with so much history and culture that most of the world is unaware of. I would recommend this trip to anyone looking for raw beauty and diverse cultures.

We enjoyed our trip to Kyrgyzstan, it was very relaxing and the scenery was amazing. The highlight was the night in the yurt camp which was lovely, very remote and we even had snow overnight. The homestays and meals in local houses were very good too. DIY picnics by the river were a nice touch. On the down side, this trip involves a lot of travelling, sometimes on poor roads, which could be broken up better. We arrived early afternoon in some places and because most of the accommodation was on the outskirts of a town, there wasn't really anything to see or do once we arrived. One of our group thought the hotel at Toktogul Reservoir was like the one in 'The Shining'! The swimming pools had been closed for years and everything was just a little dated. Some of the walks were not that interesting and seemed to be there to fill the time and there was also a lot of litter in many areas which wasn't pleasant. There were descriptions in the itinerary about various places we didn't actually visit, for example Osh sounded lovely but we didn't even stop there. Having said all that, we did enjoy the holiday, but there just were not enough highlights to maximise each day.

This trip was really good. We travelled through five ‘Stans’ i.e. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan and experienced a wide variety of cultures, geography and food. With a vegetarian diet we knew we had difficulties from the start. But the tour leaders really made great efforts to accommodate us. I must congratulate Explore on the coordination of pick ups by coach and other vehicles - excellent timing. Some roads were very rough, others as in Ashgabat were seamless. There were several long journeys. The hotels were fine. The nights in a yurt and under canvas were basic. But our reason for going was not the accommodation or the food, we went to a part of the world we had not seen before. The tour leaders really knew their subject and were clearly enthusiastic to tell us about their countries.