We recently made a hiking trip to the south of Kyrgyzstan, Osh region. We spent some time in the alay mountains, the pamir mountains and the national park, kyrgyz ata.
Since the information we could find online was pretty slim, we contacted CBT Osh for information and to arrange transport, we even let them made a reservation for a Yurt stay.
At the end of the stay we had enough information about the organization to make a proper review.
The quick summary
CBT stands for “community based trekking”. There are plenty of organizations that have the name CBT in them throughout Kyrgyzstan, these organizations are not connected. So for example, CBT Sary Mogul is not linked to CBT Osh, etc.
However, CBT Osh and Visit Alay is the same organization.
To summarize our experience with CBT Osh:
CBT Osh did what they said they would do and they always delivered on the agreements. However, they overcharge A LOT!
It’s very clear that Visit Alay / CBT Osh prioritizes making money over helping travellers.
How much do they charge?
From our experience, we can conclude that they usually charge double of what you would normally pay, sometimes more.
For example, if you would normally pay $15 for staying a night in a Yurt (with dinner and breakfast), CBT would ask $30 for making the reservation.
This means that the people in the Yurt stay would welcome you in, give you a place to sleep, make multiple meals for you for $15. CBT would earn $15 for sending one text message… This doesn’t seem exactly fair.
Of course, it makes sense that they charge a surplus for the provided service, but this needs to be within a reasonable range.
For transport, the same applies. We ended up arranging transport through CBT to Kyrgyz ata and back, it’s less than 2 hours of driving (one way), it costs us $180. At this point, we realized we got ripped off. We later talked to the owner of the hotel we stayed at and she told us the drive normally costs $45 (if you come back the same day, however, which we didn’t).
Therefore, I would recommend to only use the services of CBT Osh / Visit Alay when there is no alternative.
Sadly, the guesthouses and Yurt camps on the trail cannot be contacted directly. I think this was some sort of arrangement that they have made with CBT Osh, this way CBT Osh is guaranteed to make money on every reservation.
What’s the alternative?
When we arrived in Kyrgyzstan we didn’t know the people, the language and the country, so we were happy to rely on CBT Osh.
However, after a few days we realized that people are very friendly and helpful. You could literally ask a random passenger for help and there is a good chance he will do anything he can to help you.
For transport, I would never ask CBT Osh. Instead, you could ask the owner of the hotel/hostel/bnb that you are staying to arrange transport. If this is not possible, a regular taxi is a good alternative. However, there is a chance that the conditions of the road isn’t great, so depending on where you want to go you might need a 4×4. Or a driver that’s willing to take a risk.
For reservations of yurt stays, there seems to be no real alternative. You can either show up and ask if there is still room (often there will be room) or pay twice the price to CBT Osh and ask if they make a reservation.
Bringing your own tent is a good way to not be reliant on anybody, of course. The best trekking pole tents really don’t add that much weight to the pack
PS: If you would go to Lenin Peak, there are a lot of Yurts there, so I would assume there will almost always be room.
What about guided tours?
We haven’t done a guided tour ourselves, but we have talked to multiple hikers who did.
Generally, people are really happy. However, once again, CBT Osh will only arrange for a guide, they will not guide the tours themselves.
In short, they arrange transport, a guide and reserve the stays in Yurts and Guesthouses.
Arranging something like this on your own is pretty difficult to do, so it might actually be worth the price in this case.
Conclusion
I think the ridiculous price that CBT Osh charges is bad for tourism and bad for the community.
I hope they will change their mind and start charging fair prices, they might attract more tourists this way as well.
I also felt like they would give you information with a twist instead of being 100% honest so that they would be able to make more money. For example, when we asked how high the chances were that the Yurt camp would be full we got the answer, if you don’t make a reservation there is a very big chance that the camp will be full. We later learned that the chance that the Yurt camp would have been full was very low.
Except for the price, and not being 100% straight with customers, CBT Osh was actually pretty good overall. However, considering everything, I would only recommend them if there is no alternative. So for guided tours and Yurt reservations (if you need to be 100% sure that there will be room) I would recommend them (mainly because there is no alternative at this point), but try to avoid CBT when you need to arrange transport.