Kyrgyzstan

Check out the pics below...

Me and some dudes went hiking through the country neighboring to the south. We went awhile ago but i just received the pictures recently. The country is 93% mountains and GORGEOUS. It has a culture very similar to Kazakhstan so we could travel easily with Russian language (that i sort of know, but my brats are like fluent), and Kyrgyz is closely related to Kazakh so i could also get by with that. The countries are so similar that at one point recently Kyrgyzstan was requesting to be absorbed by Kazakhstan (wont happen). Anyway the tourism sector is very well developed. It is a sort of organic association that relies on homestays and the like. It is also very cheap - which was nice for us with rising food prices (which has hit kazakhstan pretty hard recently - breadstuffs has jumped like 40% which is horrible for families here that spend about 50% of income on food) but i digress. I realize it is far, but if you are looking to take a mountainous vacation to Europe or what have you i would reccomend coming here as it is just as beautiful, less traveled, and less expensive. Plus the people couldnt be more hospitable. For three nights we stayed at this guys lodge (old russian man with a mustache no less) for three dollars a night, including wood for our fire. All we had to do was drink with him. Not a bad deal.