Living with trips, Nguyen Le Quang Vinh (33 years old, Ho Chi Minh City) always wants to set foot on pristine lands with few tourists to experience and feel the "smallness" of humans when standing before majestic nature. Accidentally seeing the image of Eshenkul Lake in Kyrgyzstan, he was surprised that there was not much detailed information shared about that beautiful natural scene. "It seems that very few people have set foot on the lake, so I decided to challenge myself and go to a place that few people know about," Vinh shared.
Le Nguyen Quang Vinh, a 33 year old man with a passion for life and travel.
Learning about the lake, he was both excited and cautious. Lake Eshenkul is located in the Eshenkul Gorge, a remote Chatkal region of Kyrgyzstan, where the Pamir-Alay and Tien Shan mountains meet. This is one of the wildest and most rugged mountain ranges in Central Asia, located close to the borders with China and Tajikistan.
Lake Eshenkul, located on the most remote and rugged mountain range in Central Asia, was the destination on Vinh's journey to explore Kyrgyzstan in early June.
The Journey from Exhaustion to Overwhelm
On the evening of June 4, the off-road vehicle took Vinh from Talas city to the campsite, the last place the vehicle could go after about 6 hours. As soon as the sky was light, his 30 km trekking journey began with a local driver, who had never heard of the lake before. “Someone said that only about 100 people come here each year, I must be one of the very few Vietnamese who have ever set foot on the lake, the simple reason is that the road is too difficult,” Vinh recalled.
The campsite is also the starting point for the 16-hour trekking journey to Lake Eshenkul.
With the offline map preloaded, Vinh still had to struggle with the trek which had almost no trails. 2/3 of the way were huge, bumpy, slippery rock holes. Sometimes, he had to cross cold streams formed from melting ice on the mountain. The water flowed fast and very strong, he could not wade normally but had to jump over large rocks, just a slip could sweep him away. Luckily, the remaining 1/3 of the way was a steppe full of wildflowers and surrounded by towering snow-capped mountains typical of Central Asia.
The variety of terrains present on the trek offers both tough challenges and exciting experiences.
The most difficult part is the last 200 meters before reaching the lake with steep slopes of nearly 80 degrees, loose and slippery soil. Vinh and the driver had to crawl on all fours to reach the top. After 9 hours of struggling with the terrain of rocks, streams, and steep slopes, the moment Eshenkul Lake appeared under the clouds was like a miracle given by nature to those who persevered and were brave.
Standing before the masterpiece-like beauty of Lake Eshenkul, people become more insignificant and small than ever.
Surrounded by rocky mountains with strange colors, a mix of white snow, orange soil and gray ancient rocks. Thick clouds continuously rolled in and then dissipated right above the lake, revealing the blue water where the light shone down and then shone brightly. “It was an unbelievably wild, classic beauty that I have never seen in my life, no photo can fully capture what my eyes saw,” Vinh excitedly recalled that scene.
Eshenkul opens a journey towards beauty but full of thorns.
According to Vinh, Eshenkul Lake is beautiful, but the journey here is not just about "going to a beautiful place", but it shows that you deserve to see a miracle, after overcoming your own fears and limits.
Facing Your Darkness and Limits
If the going part was exhausting, the return part was a battle of wits and survival. Vinh slowly recalled the moment when he left the lake, the light flickering on the mountain top then gradually fading, covering the landscape in pitch black. After 2 hours of twilight, Vinh and his companions groped for the remaining 5 hours in the dark with little light from phone flashlights and headlamps. The terrain at this time was extremely difficult with giant rocks piled up obscuring the view, with no clear directions. Without any support other than intuition and memory, each steep slope and rock pit were almost life-and-death challenges that made all senses tense.
The darkness covering the way back evokes a feeling of insecurity and loneliness in the midst of wild, quiet nature.
There was no other choice but to jump or take long strides to jump over each large rock. Having stumbled many times on the 80-degree slope near the lake, the slip right at the rock pit made Vinh really dizzy and panicked. “My body fell straight onto a large rock, hitting the sharp edges, the sharp pain spread from my knee and made my head numb with fear in a place with no phone signal, no one, and far away from any support”, Vinh still feels bewildered at that time.
Luckily, the local driver who accompanied him pulled Vinh up in time and calmed him down, helping him calmly complete the last part of the journey. After recalling the scariest moment of the trip, Vinh said: "If I had been alone, in a state of trauma, unable to find my way in the middle of the large stone maze, I probably wouldn't have been able to return."
Emotions lingering from the wilderness
After all, what remained in Vinh was not only the wild beauty of Eshenkul but also the feeling of overcoming himself. He had never experienced such a "crazy", "scary", and "satisfying" journey: surpassing his own limits, setting foot in a place that few people knew, silently witnessing the magical beauty of creation, trembling in the extreme fear that nature brought. Those 16 hours of trekking were the biggest record he had achieved for himself, not in terms of distance or height but in the courage to face and move forward.
At the end of the crazy, scary, and exciting journey, mixed emotions still lingered in the young man's mind.
I used to believe that independence was the best way to listen to myself, to learn how to stand on my own, but after this trip, Vinh realized that the presence of a companion can sometimes be invaluable. “There is no need to always appear strong or independent, because each of us will need a hand to pull us up at the right time” is the message Vinh wants to send to those who have the ambition to set foot in Eshenkul and fully enjoy the wonders of nature.
