A convoy of Chinese trucks heave their goods slowly up the narrow passes as they traverse the Kyrgyz Tien Shan mountains. They are laden with cheap Chinese goods and are heading west, spurred on by plumes of black smoke billowing out of the exhaust. Our car passes them heading, in the other direction, for a little known village 80km north of At Bashy. This is the last bit of settled humanity before the Chinese border and used to lie in the path of the Silk Road traders heading west some 2000 years ago.
Here I exchanged our sputtering Russian Lada for horseback and met my guide, 22-year old Norsultan. For the next two days we were going to travel the route of the ancient merchants in the same way as they would have traveled during the Silk Road's golden years. We would experience the landscape, the people and the weather just as they did. I had just 4 hours of horse riding experience under my belt, and as we left the safety of the village, I felt woefully under prepared.

The first stage was to traverse a flat, fertile and open plain, surrounded on either side by menacingly high mountains. Our destination was not, in fact, China, but a rather desolate caravanserai at Tash Rabat some 40km away.
As we started out, the sun beat down upon our faces unceasingly. I prayed for a little cloud but the sky remained a solid blue. For the first few hours the scenery changed little. We trotted on and yet never seemed to get any closer as the plain continued to unroll itself before us.
After just 4 hours I was ready to stop for lunch. My back was already aching and my thighs were sore from the constant rubbing against the saddle. As I got down from my horse I could hardly move and almost collapsed to the ground. Unmoved by my immobility, Norsultan got on with preparing a simple lunch of Kyrgyz flatbread with cheese and sausage. We'd barely tucked in when a man dressed in dirty overalls and sporting a cowboy hat walked over to us. He introduced himself as Narynbeck and we invited him to join usfor lunch. Lunch turned out to be a jolly affair and my few words of Russian went a long way. In fact they went so far that we ended up with an invitation to stay the night and have a lamb slaughtered in our honour. We spared the lamb, instead taking up the opportunity to be proudly introduced to Narynbeck's family and inspect his lodgings. Narynbeck, like many of the villagers near here, was a semi-nomadic farmer. In winter he and his flock stay in the comfort and warmth of their village home. But for 5 months of the year the whole family and their animals migrate to the summer pasture, or jailoo, and live in the traditional Kyrgyz felt-covered yurt. Our newfound friend gave us a tour of his animals and introduced us to his wife and two daughters. We drank endless cups of Kyrgyz kumyz a lightly sparlkling drink made by fermenting mare's milk whilst chatting and having our photographs taken together. An hour later he reluctantly let us leave and return to our grazing horses who were waiting patiently nearby. I left in awe of Narynbeck and his family's solitary lifestyle. His hospitality to me, a complete stranger, was incredible and wasn't to be the last on the trip. We trundled on and finally, having crossed a dry river, the landscape started to change. The flat, endless plain gave way to narrow valleys between pointed mountains with the last of the winter snow still resting on their peaks.
Around teatime we were suddenly being chased down by a lone man dressed in a worn grey suit and wearing a traditional Kyrgyz white felt hat. He'd spotted us and now insisted we take tea in his yurt. This sounded like a great idea, except that the tea eventually turned out to be more kumyz! I gratefully accepted the rest, but was conscious that it was getting late and we needed to move on in order to reach Tash Rabat before dark. The last part of the journey seemed to take forever as we wound our way through the narrow valley. The horses were tired and no longer had a spring in their step. Furthermore the weather was closing in and a storm was brewing.
Just as I was wondering if we'd ever get to the safety of Tash Rabat, a small cluster of white yurts came into view. Around the corner stood the imposing, soviet-renovated stone caravanserai that some claim has stood since the 10th century AD. We'd arrived. I was exhausted but relived. Sadly the caravanserai no longer accommodates travellers, so we made do with staying at one of the yurts run by a local family. It was welcome rest after a long and tiring day. The next morning I called upon the gatekeeper to the caravanserai and she showed me around this somewhat mystical building. There are many legends attached to he building and its functions have varied over time from caravanserai to a military fortress and even a temple. Either way, at 3000m high and in such inaccessible terrain travelling to this remote part of the world would not have been for the faint-hearted! We continued past the Tash Rabat into land where suddenly the nomadic yurts disappeared and the ground began to get steep. Our horses started to struggle along the scree-laden slopes and the air thinned. We continued along for 23km to a 4,200m Silk Road pass from where there was a stunning view of the Chatyr-Kol lake surrounded by mountains. China lay temptingly in the distance. Sadly I was to not to reach China until a little later and we had to head back towards camp. Galloping backtoTash Rabat with the wind in our faces was an exhilarating experience. Urged on by what I had just seen and done, the soreness and exhaustion paled into insignificance. It was sad to think that the day after I would be back in At Bashy and backto civilization" with hot showers, electricity and noise. Whilst the modern" Silk Road now goes via the Tourugat Pass to and from China, visitors should avoid the temptation to skip straight pass the little-known paradise that is Tash Rabat. Better still take a horse here to visit it. By doing this one gets a wonderful sense of the ancient feats that man accomplished so readily and precariously in search of a place to exchange a few pieces of valuable silks and jewels.