Asel.
5 Listings@else Listings
My sister and I spent 2 weeks with Asel and her husband Kai traveling around Kyrgyzstan and it was an amazing trip! They are wonderful people and we really enjoyed getting to know them and their family. They're also very flexible with the planning and made sure we got to do everything we asked to do + even more. Just tell them what you want/like to do and what kind of places you want to stay in and they'll make it happen! Asel speaks fluent English and Kai is a very good guide/driver that took us into a several areas where we were the only tourists. Extra Notes: Kyrgyzstan is an amazing country filled with very hospitable people and huuuuuge mountains and is a great place to visit! We made very few reservations for places to stay during peak season to maintain flexibility and did not have issues finding places. Most of the travelers we talked to who were trying to do public transport had given up on it and were hitchhiking because it was faster, so we were glad to have our own driver.
I do not have the adequate words to describe our experience with asel and kairat. going into this trip we were excited but nervous, having never spent time in KG before, and never having had a driver or guide accompany us on a trip before. however, from the first time we met them, our hesitations were settled and we only continued to feel more comfortable and at home. our pre trip communications were very reassuring - i had several questions for Asel regularly, and she answered all of my concerns patiently and was very informative and a calming presence in a very vast world of planning such a trip. they met us at the KG border and were so helpful and knowledgeable about the beautiful country that is kyrgyzstan. asel and kairat worked as a well oiled machine - they both offered so much information about the history and customs and culture and nature of kyrgyzstan and sprinkled these facts perfectly throughout the trip, things that you can only learn from locals who are passionate about their land. kairat is an EXCELLENT driver - i usually get very motion sick as a passenger, especially on roads like the unpaved ones in most of KG. however with his skillful driving and extremely comfortable car, i never once felt queasy or discomfort from the hours spent driving. he knows the roads so well, i never once saw him use navigation, and always managed to reach destinations earlier than expected, all while driving safely. he knew all the best hiking trails, and is a true adventurous spirit, and we couldn’t think of anyone else better suited for this job. asel is an incredibly hospitable and warm soul- her intelligence and generosity is unmatched. the best food we had during our trip was at her guesthouse, which was incredibly comfortable and clean as well. she showed us their garden and introduced us to her family , who all embody the hospitality KG is so well known for. they all made us feel so incredibly comfortable and at home, making it very difficult for us to leave. when they dropped us off at the border , asel went out of her way to take our luggage as far as she could, a perfect last embodiment of them as hosts. without them, our trip wouldn’t have been what it was. i had tears in my eyes saying goodbye to them, as their character was just as beautiful as the landscapes of KG. there is no one better i could recommend to expertly and generously guide through KG :)
Constant friction and broken promises — avoid this driver and guide We booked a 12-day private family tour with Asel and her husband through Indy Guide, covering Ala Archa National Park, Issyk-Kul (north and south shores, with the surrounding canyons), Karkyra Valley, Karakol, Altyn-Arashan, and Song-Kul Lake, at an agreed all-inclusive price of 1,900 USD covering the vehicle, fuel, and driver-guide services for the full route. We had done our own detailed research on the itinerary beforehand and confirmed every element with Asel in writing before booking. Pre-trip communication was professional and cordial. Once the trip started, the experience was very different. On day one, the very first day we met them, despite having a price and conditions fully agreed and confirmed in writing beforehand, Asel and her husband began telling us fuel costs had increased and that this would be a problem. This repeated almost every single day of the trip, regardless of how modest the actual driving was, including on one occasion for a detour of roughly 16 kilometers on a route of well over a thousand kilometers total. Out of curiosity, we later calculated the actual difference in fuel prices between when we booked in March and when we traveled in July: for our full route, that fuel increase came to under 25 USD in total. That is the entire basis for what became daily complaints and friction throughout the trip. Asel also treated the confirmed itinerary in an unreasonably narrow way, as if a 12-day, thousand-kilometer tour needed to be followed to the exact kilometer. Any request that fell even slightly outside the strict written route, however small, was met with resistance rather than the flexibility one would expect from a private guided tour. A tour of this length and nature cannot function, or be enjoyable, under that kind of rigidity. Asel raised her voice at us on more than one occasion and made accusations we felt were unfair, particularly given that every element of the itinerary and vehicle had been confirmed with her in writing before we ever booked. On several occasions they also tried to substitute the agreed vehicle for a much less comfortable one, again citing fuel, despite having confirmed the original vehicle in writing before booking. This would have been a serious problem beyond comfort: part of our itinerary included Song-Kul Lake, reached via high mountain terrain where a proper 4x4 is genuinely necessary for safety, not just comfort. The alternative vehicle they proposed was not suited to that leg of the trip at all. We pushed back and insisted they honor the original agreement. The roof box for our luggage, also explicitly promised and confirmed in writing before booking as sufficient for all our bags, turned out to be far too small. We were forced to leave two suitcases behind in Bishkek for the duration of the trip. We should also note that Asel provided essentially no added value as a guide. Beyond the itinerary we had already researched and finalized ourselves, she offered no real suggestions, cultural insight, or local knowledge during the trip (even if done remotely). The one area where she was proactive was recommending we stay at her own guesthouse or those of her relatives, which felt more like an additional source of income for her than genuine guidance. Beyond the cost disputes, we found Asel and her husband not to be customer oriented and largely inflexible whenever we asked for anything outside the strict letter of the itinerary. Rather than helping make the trip enjoyable, the daily interaction felt like a series of limits and objections. Asel raised her voice at us on more than one occasion and made accusations we felt were unfair and inaccurate given everything we had confirmed with her in writing beforehand. Her husband does not speak English, but his tone and manner toward us, and toward her when he spoke to her in front of us, made it fairly clear he was unhappy and complaining about having to drive tourists at all. The driver frequently dropped us at a location and left rather than remaining available, told us at one point to take a taxi if we wanted to see anything further that day, and on one occasion refused to drive even one additional kilometer to a nearby tourist site, dropping us at our guesthouse instead. We also found his driving reckless at times, and he smoked constantly during the trip. When our son needed to go to the hospital in the city where we were staying, Asel’s husband brought us there without issue, but then refused to take us back to our accommodation and collect another family member, at the exact moment reliable transport mattered most. We raised all of this with Indy Guide customer support, and in the final third of the trip a different driver was assigned, using the same vehicle. That driver was professional, easy to work with, and created none of the problems described above. This confirms for us that the issue was never the vehicle or the tour concept, which are genuinely good, but specifically Asel and her husband as guides and driver. Kyrgyzstan is a beautiful country and well worth visiting, and the itinerary itself, once we were with a different driver, delivered exactly what we had hoped for. Indy Guide as a platform worked well for us in the end, and their support was responsive when we raised these issues. But the first two thirds of this trip were made unnecessarily stressful by daily fuel complaints over an agreed all-inclusive price, a narrow and inflexible reading of the itinerary, an undersized roof box, an attempted downgrade to a vehicle unsuited to the Song-Kul leg, and a driver who was often reckless, frequently unavailable, and unpleasant to be around. We are giving this one star out of five specifically for Asel and her husband as guides, not for the platform or the country. Our advice to future travelers: get everything in writing before you go, as we did, and if you are offered this particular pairing, choose a different driver and guide on the platform instead.
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