Backdate: Kyrgyzstan Bokonbaevo - Birds of Prey Festival - Issyk-Kul Lake Aug 2019 Day 9

10/8/19 Sat: Had oily fried eggs at 8am for breakfast and we departed at 9am towards Jaichy yurt camp, where we'd planned to participate in CBT Bokonbaevo's annual Birds of Prey Festival. It was about an hour's drive. There were already many tourists, car and vans at the carpark right outside the camp when we reached. Sergey took the tickets for us which we'd already paid to CBT.

Girls dressed in traditional Kyrgyz dress greeted us with Kyrgyz bread at the entrance. We proceeded to a field lined up with either wooden benches or sacks at the three sides and got ready to watch the performances. Oh and we'd grab coffees too (though I rarely drink in Singapore~), so when YJ was paying for all three of us, she happened to be short of 10 or 20 soms, yet this Caucasian guy who was behind her quickly forked out that change for her... nice of him. *Small iced Cappucinno for me for 200 soms... the weather was too hot la!* 

*Kurmanjan was there and we spoke for a bit.* The main IC and host, who spoke pretty good English and acted as an interpreter, appeared onstage at first. Then, the whole organising committee and performers came out to greet the audience. Those girls on the swing showed us some Kyrgyz National Dance for a start. They were very graceful. Then, some audiences were invited to play a game of Tug of War. Next up, some guys were invited to participate in this hopping game where you have to jump in a haversack to reach one end, down a shot of Vodka and jumped back to the start... a few of them got a little drunk I reckon, and lost their balance as they tried to speed up.

The ladies showed us some other dance later, including one that's got to do with horses. A man sang and played a traditional Kyrgyz musical instrument onstage... and yes he could even play with his feet!
A female gymnast and archer showed incredible flexibility on the hoop and bull's eye seemed like peanuts to her~ wow. There was also "dress-up" competition where guys have to wrap their female models in toilet rolls... YJ laughed and said they looked more like "casualties" than models LOL. 

After a few rounds of "donkey fights" and dance, it was time for yurt-building by a team of locals. I remembered the host saying that it usually takes up to hours to finish building a yurt, but these group of less than 10 people actually set a world record in a yurt-building competition by completing it in under 10 minutes! They proved it to us on the spot on that day, in which I was suitably impressed.

They had a mass dance, also known as the "Kara Jorgo" or the "Black Stallion" dance, to end the first half of the Festival, and we were all invited to a buffet at the other corner of the camp. We were given mutton with rice and mixed salad, as well as a bottle of water each. Guests sat at any empty spaces we could find on the field.

There you see the famous Kyrgyz milk, Kumis, which is fermented mare's milk. It's said to be sour, and many online reviews by tourists mentioned that it can cause diarrhoea so we didn't buy any. There wasn't much to see in their souvenir shop either.
Visited a small museum there and I overheard two Singaporean ladies talking to the guide. YJ and Jess mentioned that they spoke for a bit to the two ladies when they were queuing for the toilets.

It's 2pm and time for the highlight of the day: the horse games and eagle shows! Guests were all directed to another big empty field, and there was this one good-looking local guide called Ahmad or Asam who took cushions for us as we sat near his tour group... if not our butts would've burned man! *He looked more like Asian to us, and he spoke pretty good English, so I'd asked him for some explanation in the middle of the show when we could not hear the hosts whom spoke using a speaker from afar. Come to think of it... aish I shouldn't have sat between him and the two single ladies LOL.*

Above is the Cirit game where two opponents on the back of a horse have to try to gun each other down using their spears.

Below is the Tyin Enmei, where players atop a galloping horse has to try ways to pick up coins from the ground... 考验胆量和腰力leh~

Then, there was the Kyz-kuumai – “catch the girl” game. This is a mock courting ritual in which a man and a woman chase each other on horseback. The man would chase the woman and try to kiss her. In the past, if he succeeded, he would take her for a wife. Nowadays, if he succeeds, it means he will be a good husband. After that, the lady would chase him back to "give him a good lashing" lol.

Er Enish is a battle of strength between two Kyrgyz man on horses... woo vicious neh.

Up next was the Burkut Saluu game Chyrga. The Berkutchi (the hunter with an eagle) points his eagle in the direction of a plaster cast made from the skin of foxes, which a rider galloping on a horse will drag behind him. The eagle has to fly to the dummy and grab it. Eh... apparently our demonstration failed so we laughed and said that the eagle was not hungry this time. *I only took a video for that.*

Kok Boru is the last game in which two teams compete to throw an object into a round goal at each end of the field. The object was the headless carcass of a goat. During the game, the host kept telling audience to be careful as the players can get engrossed in the games, and horses can run further than expected in the "invisible ring", so we ladies almost stood up and got ready to shift a few times too. Quite an exciting game.
Before we left the field, guests could take photos with any one of the three eagle hunters there and their eagles.

We heard that these eagle hunters literally stay, eat, train and sleep with their eagles after catching them at a young age, much like mummies and their children lol. Names are given to the eagles, and they remain loyal to only their masters. When they reach the age of 16 or 17 or so, they are re-released into the wild again. Oh and they did mention that female eagles were usually chosen to be trained as they were bigger and more powerful than male ones ooo...

We left the place with Sergey at about 4pm or so. YJ and I decided to go for a dip in Issyk-Kul lake at 5+pm, and Jess helped took photos since she was on the shores haha. I took out my watershoes, but there were many big stones underwater nearer to the shores, so we had to endure the pain and walked deeper in where one can only feel the fine sands.
It's a lake, but waves were still moving in and it definitely felt like the sea to me. Both of us are non-swimmers, so we were careful not to get to far away from the land.

Poor YJ's slippers were spoilt while we were walking back to our camp, and we were laughing at her as she dragged her feet back haha. As we went to shower in opposite shower cubicles, YJ and I took turn to experience "cold water" out of nowhere even though we turned on the heater. *Luckily Jess had not gone into the showers yet so she went to tell the owner lady about it... turned out the storage tank was not working properly.* I suspect I might have caught a cold from there.

We had brinjals and tomatoes with mayo, some salads and then beef and potatoes again for dinner. I felt super bloated after that. Sergey and his guide friend joined us on the dining table, and he was super "high" after some Vodkas I think. He seemed slightly drunk and was rather talkative. He kept grabbing my phone to translate his words from Russian into English, and posted quite a few questions to us, like asking who was the oldest among us, who's married, single and what not lol. We talked for quite a while, and was one of the last few to leave the dining yurt. *It's cold outside, but somehow the yurt was quite well-insulated and I could sleep with tees and long pants under the blankets and felt warm enough.*