“You’ll be sleeping in a sheep” we were warned, before setting off for Kyrgystan. And the smell of mutton is the first thing that hits you when ducking your head under the flapped canvas door of the yurt. That pungent aroma does become familiar and less notceable over a short time (unless you have the good fortune, as we did on one occasion, to be sleeping in the communal dining yurt).
The other remarkable thing is the temperature. We normally arrived at a settlement in the daytime. With the hot sun bearing down on us, the yurt provided a pleasant cool relief from the heat. As soon as the sun dipped behind the mountains however, the bitter cold had us wrapping us warm, and the sheep skin cladding did little to warm the cavernous interior of the yurt.
Maybe this is a reason why so many people will share a yurt. Nomad families will typically all squeeze into one, and as tourists we slept in sixes; once a male and a female yurt, and the other times in couples (believe me, in those temperatures there was no risk of furtive shenanigans under the sleeping bags; it was all we could do to get covered in as many layers as possible and stay warm!) At one yurt camp we were provided with a dung heater. Neatly formed brickettes of horse dung were thrown onto a little stove, and that provided heat for the evening and allowed us warmth while we slipped into our sleeping bags.
As for the toilet trips in the night? We were blessed with a full moon for much of our week in the mountains, and this provided ample light for this function. And when the moon was still to rise, the night sky was so incredibly bright and the Milky Way so stunning that for a moment I forgot the cold and marvelled at the beauty of the stars and our infinitessimally tiny place in the universe (before my body reminded me of why I’d ventured out!)
Planning a trip that involves a yurt stay? It’s a fantastic experience. Invariably you will meet fascinating people for whom this is normal life, and they will show polite amusement at your awkwardness in adapting to their way of life. Once we got used to the hard floor, it was actually quite a comfortable night’s sleep, and the silence in the remote places we stayed at was absolute. Best of all, when you finally reach a hotel room and running water, you’ll never have appreciated a shower quite so much!
