Things to do in Osh

Landmark · Central, west of the Ak-Buura

A five-peaked limestone crag rising straight out of the middle of the city — a place of pilgrimage for over a millennium, with cave shrines, petroglyphs, a museum built into the rock, and Kyrgyzstan's first UNESCO World Heritage inscription, in 2009.

Local tip: Go up in the late afternoon: the light is better, the heat has broken, and you will be walking with local pilgrims rather than alone. The small mosque near the top is attributed to Babur, who founded the Mughal empire and started out as a teenage ruler of the Fergana valley.

Food · Along the Ak-Buura, central

Osh's market has traded on roughly this spot for two thousand years and is still the city's centre of gravity — spices, dried apricots from Batken, knives from Uzgen, silk, bread stacked shoulder-high and the best plov you will eat in the country.

Local tip: The bread row and the plov cauldrons are the point; go before noon while the kazans are still working. The market has been progressively moved into new facilities in recent years, so ask locally where the trade actually is rather than relying on a map pin.

Neighborhood · ~20 km north-east, on the Uzbek border

One of the largest wholesale markets in the Fergana valley — a container city of clothing, hardware and electronics that supplies both sides of a border running through the middle of the district.

Local tip: Weekday mornings are when it works. It is a functioning wholesale market rather than a sight, and it is the clearest possible illustration of why this region's economy has always faced across the border rather than north toward Bishkek.

Nature · ~200 km south, via Sary-Tash

A high grassland valley at 3,000 m with the entire Trans-Alay range along its southern wall and Peak Lenin, 7,134 m, standing over it — one of the great mountain views anywhere and a straightforward day's drive from the city.

Local tip: Sary-Tash is the junction: south to Tajikistan and the Pamir Highway, east to China over Irkeshtam. Base camp for Peak Lenin is at Achik-Tash and you can walk in for the view without going anywhere near a rope. Check border-zone permit requirements before you set out.

Landmark · South out of the city

Osh is the northern end of the M41 to Murghab and Khorog — the highest long-distance road on earth after the Karakoram, and the reason cyclists and overlanders turn up here in July with a look of anticipation.

Local tip: The guesthouses in the centre are where the Pamir crowd stacks up, and they are the single best source of current information on passes, permits and Tajik visas. Go and have a beer with them even if you never intend to cycle a metre of it.

Culture · ~55 km north-east

An 11th-century Karakhanid minaret and three brick mausoleums standing in a small Fergana valley town, some of the finest early Islamic brickwork in Central Asia and almost entirely unvisited.

Local tip: Uzgen is also where the rice comes from — the local variety, devzira, is what the good plov in Osh is made with, and buying a kilo at the market there is the reason locals make the trip.