Lakes of Almaty!

Part 1

Trip – Day 2 : Lake – 1

This land is very nature friendly and so you will see trees, mountains and lakes everywhere.This day we had planned to visit Lake Issyk.

Foot –> Bus –> Taxi –> Foot –>Lake

Our hostel receptionist helped us with the bus stop from where we can take bus. As the stop name was Kazakhi local word, she helped us typing it in 2GIS APP. We had our bread butter and tea at the hostel and we started our journey on foot to the bus stop. We walked for 13 minutes and reached the spot. Voila! the location was wrong 🙁 No Bus Stop. We tried google maps to find the direction to Issyk Lake but it was too far. Surprisingly, we reached a lady who was passing by, thankfully she knew English and Russian. This Lovely Lady stayed with us for around 10 minutes to help us find the easiest way to reach via 2GIS App. At the end, she walked with us for 15 minutes to drop us nearby the bus stop.

From that location where this lady dropped us and guided to walk straight to reach Saiahat Bus Stop. We took Bus 225 and got down at Issyk Town (Ecik City). The bus frequency is good and the distance covered was within an hour. In this small cute town, we had brunch of samsa and döner at Degirman and moved on with our struggle to find the taxi for the Lake. We finally dealt with a driver for 7000tenge. We reached the car-park in 40 minutes and walk again for 7-10 minutes to reach the lake.

Pristine blue waters and mighty mountains everywhere, Ozero Issyk is very beautiful. There were spots made atop nearby mountain to enjoy the panoramic view of this Lake. We enjoyed our time there are roamed around the lake.

We returned to the Town again in the taxi. As it was already beyond 4pm, we decided to eat something at Annushka Restaurant with a good cappuccino. We took the bus back to Saiahat Bus stop and walked back again 😛

On our way back to hostel, we decided to have dinner. We went to Local Pizza and Coffee to have pizza and tried Local Hot Wine. It has good vegetarian options and staff was helpful. Food was WOW.

We walked back again and reached hostel by 10 pm. Had hot bath and ended our day with tiring and beautiful memory of the day!