Backdate: Kyrgyzstan Bokonbaevo - Skazka Canyon - Jeti-Oguz Gorge - Kok-Jayik Valley - Karakol Aug 2019 Day 10

11/8/19 Sun: Had breakfast at 8am and we departed at 9am. I hadn't been feeling well since morning. While on the way to Skazka Canyon aka the Fairytale Canyon not too far away, I closed my eyes and rested on the car. *I think Sergey sensed that I wasn't quite like myself since I don't usually sleep in his car.*

Skazka Canyon reminded me of Pai Canyon, but on a much bigger scale. The dry valley has rocks and sand that range from sandy yellow to red and orange colour ones. It's said to be an easy hike here.

Yet, I was somewhat dehydrated, and this whole place resembled a desert (though there were quite a number of visitors around) which made me feel even more tired I think? Still, I joined the girls walking around, though I felt pretty exhausted after a short walk. *YJ climbed high places and soon wandered off on her own, but I was lethargic, so I followed Jess around. I had to sit down at one point of time as the weather was too hot.* We'd walked into a dead end once somemore... so this is like a big maze really haha.

Well, I still managed to squeeze out a smile with them! There was a couple taking couple shoots behind us haha~ As there were some slopes here and there in the valley, we had to climb up and down, as well as slide down some parts where it got too steep. *More like a "torture" for Jess as she's not confident with slopes haha~* 

Then, we drove to Jeti-Oguz (2200m ASL) as we entered Kok-Jayik Valley. The name literally means "seven bulls", and the ridges are said to resemble the faces of seven bulls when seen from an angle. I read the story of how Jeti-Oguz came to be from centralasia-travel.com: In ancient times, two khans (governor) lived here, one of whom was kind and fair, and the other greedy and evil. Evil khan fell in love with his neighbor’s wife and kidnapped her. From that moment on, the two states unleashed the war with each other. The kind ruler demanded only to return him his wife. However, the advisors of the evil khan advised to kill the woman and return her body. The villain liked the idea, and soon khan’s court held a memorial feast in the mountains with many guests invited. Seven red bulls were slaughtered at the feast. After the last bull got breathless, evil khan himself stabbed the woman right. The blood from the heart splashed onto the rocks, soaking into the stones and leaving red dots on them. Along with the blood, boiling water poured from the mortal wound, and flooded the whole area, destroying the evil khan, his court and entire family. The skins of seven bulls formed seven red rocks.

Sergey stopped by one roadside stall selling honey. *Bees were hovering around lol.* Honey is one of the well-known products of Kyrgyzstan, and hence the two of us decided to get one each. The lady was explaining to us that the clearer ones are the newer batches of honey, while the "first honey" were milkier. We tasted them, and YJ mentioned that the milkier ones had medicinal property or something, so I decided to get one of that 1 litre bottle one for only 400 soms. Jess did not buy as I think she's not sure about their hygiene. 

Sergey stopped at a small eatery nearby Jeti-Oguz and we had lunch there. Now, YJ and I both had the Laghman (beef with noodles) while Jess ordered the same bowl but with no beef in it. *This is probably the source of YJ and my food poisoning that's to come later that day...* Sergey ate the Ashlan-Fu, a cold noodle dish.

I felt better after drinking some water and resting on the car. While waiting for our lunch, I borrowed their outdoor toilet which was located behind the building. One boy and his little brother were barbequeing meat outside, and as the toilet was locked, I had to take the key from them. *我第一次看到外头的厕所还要锁起来的呢~* After that, I passed some sweets we bought to the little boy as well.
We saw a bus full of tourists getting down as we were about to leave, and some locals brought their eagles along with them. Sergey drove us up a slope further, and let us take pictures of Jeti-Oguz from a higher point.

I googled up a souvenir shop in Kygryzstan previously, and Sergey mentioned that it was in Karakol. He drove us there but the shop looked totally different on the outside. The attitude of the staff was pretty bad too... no service mindset.

Things are of course more expensive than outside, but I bought the coasters and a display mug made with Merino Wool, which is good stuff. Spent a total of 1895 soms here on souvenirs and food.

At 3.30pm, we reached our Karakol guesthouse that we will be staying at for two nights. Our rooms were on the second floor, so we had to literally dragged our luggage upstairs. By then, I was already feeling quite sick, so I was thankful to the ladies for their help. I had fever in the afternoon, felt hot and cold, so I took Panadol and napped. YJ wasn't feeling well and she too napped. Only Jess stayed up to watch shows on her phone in the humid afternoon.

By evening time, YJ was still unwell while I thought I was feeling a bit better. I knew that dinner in a Dungan (Muslim-Chinese) family was on the itinerary tonight, but I thought we didn't have to move anywhere else... turned out Sergey had to drive us to their place which was about 10 minutes' away.

They actually had 13 dishes served for us. The dishes were mostly oily, and thought I only ate a little, it proved too much for my weak stomach then. There were another group of tourists there and I think some of the Dungan locals were playing music to entertain them.

5 minutes into the drive back on the somewhat bumpy road, I felt really uneasy. The minute I alighted, I dashed for the toilet upstairs just outside our room as I was going to throw up. To my surprise, it was locked and I knew later that YJ was apparently also puking up inside omg... Luckily, there was another toilet opposite our room and yup... it all came out. *Horrible feeling to be unwell or experience food poisoning on a trip. That makes one really miss home.* 

I had another bout of fever and cold that night and I was super dehydrated again. I woke up on and off to drink water in the middle of the night and ended up in the toilet again.