Hillside Karakol B&B, located in the Kyrgyzstan city, Karakol, was a small guest house of nine rooms where shoes had to be removed, but felt ‘yurt slippers’ were provided.
Our room was very small with hardly any room around the comfortable double bed, which had only one pillow each. There was a wall mounted TV, a desk and chair, and wardrobe but no air conditioning.
The bathroom had a walk-in shower and a hairdryer with a good mirror combination. The shower was surprisingly good as was the hairdryer and there was a rail for washing.
We’d brought in beers, and having asked if they could be chilled, our delightful host Ahmet showed us into the kitchen/communal area and told us that as we were the only guests we should make full use of the place and help ourselves to tea and coffee. As the venue is environmentally friendly, a water cooler was available for us to refill bottles.
There was also an outdoor decked area with plants and seating made from wooden pallets, as well as sofas and bean bags in the communal area.
For those travelling independently, there was a lot of visitor information, including a map of the town which we rarely found.
As the only guests, we assumed we might need to pre-order breakfast, but Ahmet assured us it would be ready at 8am. Our delightful feast included a basket of bread, butter and two home-made jams (one with chunky pieces of apricot), cheese triangles, a platter of sliced meat, olives, cheese, tomato and cucumber, a plate of pancakes with sour cream, croissant, a dish of apricots, apples and nectarines, and the offer of eggs any way including scrambled. And best of all, coffee served in a cafetiere along with a jug of hot fresh milk. We were just pleased we were not in a hurry to leave.
Felt craft items were for sale at the reception desk and as they were all priced and bartering was not required, I bought yurt slippers and a small yurt for £12 with credit cards being accepted.
The place was a little on the edge of town and as evening meals were not provided, Ahmet recommended Kafe Saymaluu. According to Google maps it was a seven-minute walk, but in reality, was double that, but on the plus side, it was easy to find on a main, but not busy road.
We decided to check it out with a late afternoon drink and were surprised to find a huge upmarket restaurant with comfortable seats. There were lots of young staff and we were served by a girl who had good English. We enjoyed large chilled Apna beers whilst looking at the food menu and two elderly ladies on the adjacent table, who as well as drinking tea, had a bottle of vodka on the table as well.
We were going to book a table for 7.30pm, but on hearing karaoke began at 8pm, we swiftly changed it to 7pm. On our return, the young girl and our table were both waiting for us. The two elderly ladies were still there with the by now empty vodka bottle, under the table: we decided it was better than the ladies being under it.
We chose a bottle of Pinot Grigio from a fairly extensive wine list, but eventually discovered that the only offering was an unchilled medium sweet wine, so we stuck to beer and sparkling water. Our choices of pepperoni pizza and a shrimp Cesar salad were pretty good. However, the only downside was a large group who let their half dozen small children run around all over the restaurant and even stern finger wagging from the manager didn’t stop them.
Eventually at 8pm the music began, coloured lights came on and the youngsters became even more excited and took to the dance floor. We just about managed to order a chocolate ice cream and lattes through the noise, fortunately at this point only a singer rather than full blown karaoke, before swiftly getting our bill which with a 15% service charge was just under £20.
We left at 8.30pm just as the music was getting louder and the place was filling up with locals, I decided to pop to the ladies and despite the size of the restaurant, found only a single squat loo. During both our visits, we appeared to be the only non-locals and attracted a fair amount of attention.
