Kyrgyzstan, with its 7,000-metre peaks, glacial lakes and unique nomad culture, has the ingredients for a prime, off-the-beaten-path travel destination. It's also a former republic of the Soviet Union, evoking for many tourists images of crumbling concrete state-run hotels, onerous bureaucracy and customer service that is indifferent on the best of days.
But in recent years, Kyrgyzstan has built a positive reputation as a place for low-cost, home-spun tours through glorious alpine scenery. It is best to experience the country as the locals do - on foot or horseback, eating homegrown food and sleeping in yurts, the teepee-like felt tent that is a Kyrgyz icon.
The capital, Bishkek, is considered one of the greenest cities in Central Asia, with clean air, a centre full of outdoor cafes and occasional views of the mountains to the south. The city also provides a taste of the USSR; street names such as Sovietskaya, its statue of Vladimir Lenin and the hammer-and-sickle insignia on former government buildings all remain. The grand and spooky State Historical Museum seems to have left its exhibits unchanged for decades; half of the institution is dedicated to Lenin and the October revolution. Central Ala-Too Square is a good location for people watching; in the evening, tough young men show off at test-your-strength punching machines while couples croon off-key at mobile outdoor karaoke units.
But Bishkek is not the reason to come to the country. Thanks to the Kyrgyzstan Community Based Tourism Association, known as CBT, the rest of the country awaits. Founded in 2000 by Swiss organisation Helvetas, CBT operates independently with an entirely local staff. The association has created a grassroots network of small-scale tourism operators - nomads who own yurts in which tourists can eat and sleep, and guides and drivers who know the mountains - and can arrange personalised, inexpensive individual tours.
The city of Karakol, reputed to have some of Kyrgyzstan's most dramatic mountain scenery, and the area around Lake Song-Kol, where for centuries the Kyrgyz and their animals have spent their summers, are good places to head for.
Karakol was a Soviet garrison town founded in the 19th century, when the tsars expanded their empire to the border of China. The town has brightly painted houses and a gorgeous wooden Russian Orthodox church. It's also one of the centres of Dungan (ethnic Chinese Muslim) culture in Kyrgyzstan and boasts a Chinese-style mosque with dragon-head ornamentation as well as several restaurants serving Dungan cuisine.
South of Karakol are the Tian Shan mountains, which stretch into China and include Pik Pobeda (Victory Peak), which, at 7,439 metres, is the second-highest in the former USSR. At an altitude of 3,000 metres is Altyn Arashan, a valley where a Russian mountaineer named Valentin keeps a lodge. It's a former Soviet weather station and mountain rescue base that shares its picturesque setting with shepherds and their sheep in the summer.