Skazka Canyon

A wooden mosque of 1910 built by Chinese Muslim craftsmen in the form of a Buddhist temple, assembled without nails.

A hot spring valley above Karakol reached by a rough track or a day's walk, with open-air pools below the peaks.

Song-Köl is an alpine lake at 3,016 metres, ringed by summer pasture where herding families set up yurts from June to September. There are no permanent settlements, and the experience is staying in a yurt camp with the families who work the pasture. The approach roads over the passes close with the first heavy snow.

Issyk-Kul is the world's second largest alpine lake, 182 kilometres long and slightly saline, which keeps it from freezing despite sitting at 1,600 metres. The northern shore holds beach resorts used by Central Asian holidaymakers; the southern shore is quieter, with canyons, petroglyph fields and access to the mountains. A road circles the whole lake.