Contact Admin. Despite it being barely two hours away, we had yet to visit it so I arranged a trip for a quick weekend trip. Six of us headed up early on a Saturday and stayed in one of the many yurts.
The trip was nice but to be honest, there are many better places in Kyrgyzstan. A stay in a yurt, dinner and breakfast will be KGS per person. Before visiting Tash Rabat, in the deep Southern part of Naryn, we were warned two things: It can snow any time of the year and the possibly haunted fort itself had an unknown number of rooms as it was impossible to count them accurately.
With that in mind, four of us set off with our former host father to At-Bashy where we stayed the night with another volunteer before our morning ride out to Tash Rabat. The fort was interesting but really hard to envision what once was. Also strange that you can just walk all over what in the States would certainly be protected in some way.
We continued the drive towards Tash Rabat and as we entered the valley we finally saw yaks! Yaks are a centuries-old tradition in Kyrgyzstan but was largely lost during the Soviet days. Our driver laughed at our delight in seeing yaks but at least the whole group was entertained. We pulled up to the yurt camp and unloaded our bags quickly so we could start our hike.
Our first stop was Tash Rabat itself. Tash Rabat is a 15 th century caravanserai restored poorly? Tash Rabat turned out to be surprisingly interesting and much larger than it looked from the outside. We left Tash Rabat and the road behind as we hiked up the valley. Soon, the valley filled with shrieks every time we came around a corner. When we came into view of a new group they would shriek out a warning call and we would get glimpses of the furry animals scurrying down into their holes.
