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In Quest Of: Independent hiking in Kyrgyzstan
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The writer spent a month in Kyrgyzstan, the hiking capital of Central Asia, exploring remote terrain without a guide.
PHOTO: LAURA NG
Laura Ng
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KYRGYZSTAN – I find freedom in the coolness of a nomadic yurt, by a swelling river eating couscous and cucumber, in a thunderclap of an alpine snowstorm ripping through the sierra, in the inky scrawls of a tattered map.
I am in the mountains of Kyrgyzstan, the hiking capital of Central Asia, and I walk untethered. Nestled in the Tian Shan and Pamir mountain ranges, the country is geographically isolated from the region. When I walk, I feel alone, tucked behind a crag of a mountain, far from unbroken, planar horizons.
