On this day, we drove from the Cholpon-Ata area of Kyrgyzstan on the shores of Lake Issyk-Kul to Almaty, Kazakhstan. On the map, it looks to be about twenty minutes apart. It’s not, however, because of a large mountain range between the two. It’s the mountain range that separates the two countries at this point. So we had to drive almost all the way back to Bishkek to get a road with a pass over the mountains. It ended up being a long driving day.

Our guides worked hard to break up the long driving days with somewhat frequent stops. In this case, we stopped right on the main roadway to see a cemetery. We were locked out but could see over the fence rather easily. We found their cemetery to be quite interesting as you can see in these photos.

As you can see in most of the photos, it was actually quite scenic with the snow-covered mountains in the background. They must have buried people here over a long period of time because there was a wide variety of gravestones and monuments.

You may notice them in the first, third, and fifth photos, but I took a specific picture of one in the second photo. Many burial monuments were yurts. In the second photo, it looks like the person was just buried under the pile of dirt, but in his or her yurt. Again, this goes back to their nomadic past which they want to carry into their afterlife.

The fourth photo shows just how old part of the wall is around this cemetery. It looks to be rather ancient. There is also an opening in this section but our guides said we shouldn’t enter the cemetery.

We enjoyed looking at the cemetery so much, our guides had to guide us back onto our bus.