Orto Tokoy is a reservoir in the Chüy Valley on the road south towards Song Köl, and in the right conditions it makes for a decent photo stop, wide water, horses and cattle grazing at the edges, mountains behind. The conditions being right is, however, not guaranteed. The reservoir is sold to Kazakhstan and by late summer it drains almost completely; we passed through in early season and were told it would be effectively empty within three weeks. Worth knowing before you plan your shots around it.
Roadside
The drive through this stretch is where the landscape starts to assert itself. Cemeteries appear regularly by the road, a pattern you notice throughout rural Kyrgyzstan, where the dead are buried close to the thoroughfare while the living settle further back from it. It gives the roadside an oddly desolate quality that doesn't quite match the villages visible in the middle distance.
Weather and detours
On this particular day the weather had other ideas. Heavy rain after the supermarket stop in Kochkor turned to hail, and by the time we reached the route towards camp the road had flooded and was running with mud. We turned around. Then came a minor rockfall, a few small rocks skittering down the mountainside that sounds considerably more alarming written down than it was to navigate in practice. The camp destination changed. Central Asia has a way of making the itinerary feel like a suggestion.
Roads
The roads in this section are in poor repair, apparently a two-year project that was due to finish in 2024. Make of that what you will.