I am in a plump seat in the first-class compartment next to a large panorama window.

Outside, the vast plain gives way to ravines and gorges, as the shiny blue train clanks its way eastwards and upwards.

Mountains rise ever steeper as we grind our way towards lake Issyk-Kul, some five hours (but only 120 miles) from Bishkek.

Welcome to Kyrgyzstan, the ‘land of 40 tribes’, whose ancestors include the barbarian warlord and founder of the Mongol Empire, Genghis Khan.

Roughly the size of the UK, it is hot in the summer and skiable in the winter, and you can get a return ticket with Pegasus for just over £300.

The name of the nation reflects its origins. ‘Kyrgyz’ signifies ’40 tribes’, a nod to the unification of forty clans by the national hero Manas in the ninth or tenth century, while ‘stan’ translates to ‘land’, similar to how it is used in ‘Eng-land’ or ‘Ire-land’.

And these ‘stans’ are fast gaining traction as a go-to place amongst British and European tourists.

Statistics from the Local Ministry of Tourism reveal a 25 percent annual rise in the number of British tourists visiting the country in 2024, mirroring a similar growth pattern observed before the Covid pandemic.

Hot in the summer and skiable in the winter, and you can get a return ticket to Kyrgyzstan with Pegasus for just over £300

Lake Issyk-Kul, some five hours (but only 120 miles) from Bishkek, is a popular destination in the Central Asian country

The ‘stans’ are fast gaining traction as a go-to place amongst British and European tourists

Some 8,000 British tourists visited last year, with this year’s figures looking even more promising.

‘Due to the growing interest in Central Asia, we have chosen to debut in Kyrgyzstan next year,’ states George Colvin-Slee, senior products manager at Cox & Kings, the world’s oldest travel company.

‘There’s visa-free access for UK passport holders, and the tourist infrastructure is growing dynamically, making it as compelling as it is accessible.’

In recent years, Central Asia as a whole has seen a steady increase of 32 per cent in the number of annual visitors, due mainly to slick marketing of the ancient Silk Road trade routes.

Uzbekistan – currently the most popular ‘stan’ for tourists – has jumped by 92 per cent, according to Cox & Kings.

My £6.75 VIP train ticket is good value, even in the land where a pint of beer can be had for 84p.

In the compartment a brightly dressed woman of Mongolian appearance pours chai from a samovar and doles out sweet cakes.

Beyond us, towering over the Alp-dwarfing Tien Shan mountain range, lies the 24,406ft Victory Peak. And the other side of that, China.

In recent years, Central Asia as a whole has seen a steady increase of 32 per cent in the number of annual visitors, due mainly to slick marketing of the ancient Silk Road trade routes

The landscape is hugely varied, with vast walnut and conifer forests and meadows to add to the alpine lakes, snow-capped peaks, turbid rivers and high level jailoos (prairies), where the nomads herd sheep and cattle

An outdoors kind of place, not for nothing is it known as the Switzerland of Central Asia and ‘the most beautiful country on earth that no-one has heard of.’ 

The landscape is hugely varied, with vast walnut and conifer forests and meadows to add to the alpine lakes, snow-capped peaks, turbid rivers and high level jailoos (prairies), where the nomads herd sheep and cattle.

Kyrgyzstan’s boundaries may have been drawn up in Soviet times but its nomadic beginnings go back to the dawn of mankind and there is no end of prehistoric sites.

The Blue Train terminates in Balykchy, on the western shores of the lake. In no mean feat, it has climbed to well over 5,000ft from the low-lying capital.

Here, my guide Maks and I climb into a 4X4 and head two hours east to Cholpon Ata, a resort town on the lake’s northern shore, with a shimmering marbled museum on the outskirts.

One of the best museums in the country, the Historical and Cultural Museum of Cholpon-Ata is a carefully curated UNESCO heritage centre, a celebration of nomad culture. 

Opposite lies the ‘stone garden’, a brooding 104-acre, open-air Museum of Petroglyphs, where you will find thousands of images carved on stone, plus prehistoric monuments going back 4,000 years.

Kyrgyzstan has no seaboard – but Issyk-Kul will do, the world’s second largest mountain lake, after Peru’s Lake Titicaca.

One of the best museums in the country, the Historical and Cultural Museum of Cholpon-Ata is a carefully curated UNESCO heritage centre, a celebration of nomad culture. Opposite lies the ‘stone garden’, a brooding 104-acre, open-air Museum of Petroglyphs

Kyrgyzstan has no seaboard – but Issyk-Kul will do, the world’s second largest mountain lake, after Peru’s Lake Titicaca

Effectively a salt-water inland sea, it is more than 100 miles long and nearly 50 miles wide in parts, and there are long, sandy beaches hugely popular with locals.

Despite its altitude, the lake is never cold enough to freeze; Issyk-Kul may sound like ‘icicle’ but it translates to ‘warm water lake’.

At Cholpon Ata, I check into the five-star Baytur Resort & Spa and stroll down to the beach with its magnificent pier.

The lake is too wide to see the far shore, but I turn around and admire the snow-capped ridge of Chong Kemin National Park, which towers over the border with Kazakhstan and the louche fastness of Almaty.

Swimmers and paddlers splash in the shallows, while families sit under parasols, picnicking on the sands.

The following day, on route for Karakol, a city on the other side of the lake, we drive up to the Grigoryevskaya gorge, a steep canyon flanked by pines with a mountain river running helter-skelter along its floor.

The road is dotted with yurts selling home-baked snacks. Arriving in Karakol, I am invited to an early dinner with a Uyghur household.

The Gulyas family – a mother and three daughters – run a homestay with cookery courses, and I learn how to make those thick, toothsome local noodles.

No trip to Kyrgyzstan would be complete without at least one night in a yurt, so Mark heads westwards along the south bank of the lake to the village of Tamga and the Nomad Lodge Yurt Camp

Riders enjoying Kyrgyzstan’s mountainous landscape in the Chong Kemin National Park

The table groans with baked fish and meat, breads, salad and rich rice desserts.

The food here is fusional – as you would imagine at such a cultural crossroads: Chinese, Korean, Kyrgyz and European, to name but a few.

No trip to Kyrgyzstan would be complete without at least one night in a yurt, so we head westwards along the south bank of the lake to the village of Tamga and the Nomad Lodge Yurt Camp, where dinner is served on low tables after a sundowner on the beach.

After breakfast it’s time for the the main event, the Salbuurun festival: a magnificent pageant of local culture held in a purpose-built amphitheatre each year.

A ‘throat singer’ kicks off proceedings with some guttural burping sounds, then a procession marches past: women archers, men with taigan hunting dogs and white-hatted hunters on horseback with golden eagles perched on their arms.

A man with a granitic face beats a gong, and a raucous din of belching wind instruments summons up the blood.

The taigans stand to attention, the eaglers rein in their birds. The crowd chants, two horns that sound like a cow on steroids rise above the din as a drone operated by a fat Russian tourist films the spectacle.

The master of ceremonies mercifully recites but a short section from the 111-hour long Epic of Manas, attributed to the Lord of the 40 Tribes.

Mark heads to the Salbuurun festival as part of his trip, and recalls how: ‘A man with a granitic face beats a gong’ as part of the festivities

The show is on. Wrestlers, swordsmen, daredevil women horseback riders and a plate of salad and horse meat ensue.

Eagles chase prey and return to the whistle of the owner, falcons on widening gyres take out pigeons, women archers stand on their hands and hit targets using their legs and feet to operate the bows.

A man gallops past riding two horses while standing up, a foot in both saddles, before dismounting with a back flip.

A small taster before next summer’s Nomad Games, when folk from all the ‘stans’ will compete in some of the most dangerous sports known to man, culminating in Kok Boru, a brutal form of polo played with a headless goat. 

Unnerved by the crowd, one of the eagles bolts, as do we so we can drive back through the mountain gorges, stopping to admire white tipped peaks on the blue black horizon.

We climb to 10,000ft and stop to trek through a valley of edelweiss and buckberry bushes to a beetling cliff edge.

As we descend blue-green mineral streams gush past and we pass a decrepit Soviet military site and a couple of sanatoriums.

In the valley there are two statues to the cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, who liked to chill here when he was not hovering amongst the stars.

‘Eagles chase prey and return to the whistle of the owner, falcons on widening gyres take out pigeons’, says Mark

Another night in a yurt and a clear sky allows a glimpse of the Milky Way before we re-alight in the capital of Bishkek, and a sumptuous Korean dinner served by a woman of great beauty.

Opposite the main square with its 100m high flag and towering statue of Manas, the brewery bar is open.

It is late and my flight is early.

But who cares?