Kazakh Nomadic Life: Staying in a Yurt & Horse Trekking in Xinjiang

At 04:50 in a yurt above Kalajun, the felt wall next to my head was cold enough to wake me up. Outside it was 3°C. Inside, under three layers of quilt that smelled of woodsmoke and sheep, it was fine. Bekzat’s mother was already up, feeding dung and poplar scraps into the stove, and by the time I got my boots on there was salted milk tea in a bowl waiting on the low table.

That was August. Down in Yining, 180 km away, it was 33°C.

Kazakh pastoral life in Xinjiang is not a heritage display. Roughly 1.6 million Kazakhs live in the region, concentrated in Ili, Altay and Tacheng, and a meaningful share of them still move livestock between seasonal pastures every year. You can stay with them. It costs less than a business hotel in Urumqi and it is a considerably more interesting night.

How the Year Actually Works

The system is transhumance, vertical migration between pastures at different elevations. Four seasonal camps, four names.

Qystau, the winter camp, sits low, often 800 to 1,200 m, frequently in a valley with a permanent house rather than a yurt. Families spend November to March here burning through stored fodder.

Kökteu, spring pasture, around 1,200 to 1,800 m. Late March into May. Lambing season.

Jaylau, the summer pasture, 2,000 to 3,000 m. June to early September. This is the yurt season, the grass season, and the only time most visitors will see any of it.

Küzeu, autumn pasture, back down to the mid elevations for September and October before the winter move.

The migration itself is a spectacle if you time it. Around late May and again in mid September, herds move along designated stock routes, sometimes across highways, sometimes now by hired truck. I got stuck behind roughly 400 sheep on the road below Tekes in September 2022 for 25 minutes. Nobody honked.

Practical consequence for travellers: if you want to stay in a working yurt on high pasture, your window is roughly 15 June to 5 September. Outside that, what remains is commercial yurt camps in scenic areas, which are a different product.

The Yurt Itself

Kazakh kigiz üy, felt house. It is a piece of engineering that a family of four can erect in about two hours and dismantle in one.

The walls are kerege, expanding lattice sections of willow, usually four to eight of them depending on size. Roof poles called uyk slot into the lattice at the bottom and into the crown at the top. The crown is the shangyraq, a wooden wheel with cross spokes, and it is the single most symbolically loaded object in the household. It passes to the youngest son. It appears on the Kazakhstan flag. Nobody treats it casually.

Over that goes reed matting, then felt, then a canvas outer layer, all lashed with woven bands. A medium yurt is about 5 to 6 m across, maybe 3 m at the crown, and weighs enough that moving it takes a truck or several horses.

The door faces east or southeast. Not preference, convention. It puts the prevailing wind at the back and catches morning sun.

Inside has a fixed geography. The area opposite the door, the tör, is the place of honour where guests and elders sit. Right side as you enter is generally for men and equipment, left for women, cooking and household goods. The stove sits centre, vented through a hole beside the crown. Floors are carpets over felt over grass. Wall hangings, tuskiiz, are embroidered and often decades old.

What a Stay Costs and What You Get

Three tiers, and they are genuinely different experiences.

Family yurt, informally arranged

¥80 to ¥200 per person per night, meals included. You sleep on quilts on the floor of the family yurt or a spare one. Toilet is a screened pit or the hillside. No shower. Power from a small solar panel and a car battery, enough for one bulb and phone charging. Water from a stream, boiled.

This is the real thing and it is arranged either through a guesthouse in the nearest town or by simply asking, usually via a driver who knows a family.

Semi-commercial herder camps

¥150 to ¥350 per person including dinner and breakfast. Several yurts, one used as a dining space, proper mattresses, sometimes a shared shower fed by a solar bag. Common around Nalati, Kalajun and Sayram Lake. The family is real, the setup is adapted for visitors.

This is what I recommend for a first stay. You get the substance without the sanitation shock.

Scenic area yurt hotels

¥300 to ¥800 a night. Concrete-based yurts with ensuite bathrooms, electric blankets, buffet dinner. Found at the main entrances to Nalati, Sayram Lake and Bayanbulak. Comfortable, entirely fine, and about as nomadic as a themed restaurant.

I have stayed in all three. The middle tier is the sweet spot. For the broader picture of where to sleep across the region, see our Xinjiang accommodation guide.

Where to Go

Kalajun and Karajun, Tekes County

My preferred grasslands in the region. Kalajun sits around 2,000 to 2,600 m with long rolling ridges and spruce on the north-facing slopes. Fewer coaches than Nalati. Entry to the scenic area is around ¥95 plus ¥60 to ¥100 for the internal shuttle, and family yurts operate on the pastures beyond. Details in the Kalajun grassland guide.

Nalati, Xinyuan County

The most developed and the easiest to reach. Around 2,000 m at the main pasture. Good infrastructure, English signage in places, more visitors. Genuine herder families still summer on the higher slopes above the tourist zone.

Bayanbulak, Hejing County

Mongol rather than Kazakh in ethnic composition, at 2,500 m, and the highest and coldest of the main grasslands. The Nine Bend River sunset is the famous sight and it is genuinely worth the effort. Yurt accommodation here is mostly commercial. Our Bayanbulak guide covers the timing.

Zhaosu and the Xiata Valley

Less visited, more agricultural, spectacular in late June when the lavender and rapeseed are out. Homestays rather than yurts in many villages.

Altay: Hemu, Baihaba, Koktokay

Tuvan and Kazakh mixed. Log cabins more common than yurts in the villages, yurts on the summer pasture above. Colder, later season, and the autumn colour in late September is the best in Xinjiang.

Most of these connect via the Duku Highway, which is the single best road approach to grassland country and is open roughly June through October.

Horse Trekking: Real Prices and Real Warnings

Kazakh horses are small, tough steppe animals, typically 13 to 14 hands, bred for endurance rather than speed. They are not trail-riding school horses and they have opinions.

Prices as of 2025:

• Short ride at a scenic area, 30 to 60 minutes, led: ¥80 to ¥150
• Half day with a herder guide: ¥250 to ¥400
• Full day including lunch: ¥400 to ¥700
• Multi-day trek with guide, horses and camp: ¥600 to ¥1,000 per person per day

Bargaining is normal outside the official scenic-area operators. The posted rate at a tourist entrance is fixed. A herder on the pasture will negotiate.

What to expect physically. Kazakh saddles are wooden-framed with a high pommel and are unforgiving if you are used to English tack. Stirrups are often short. Three hours in one leaves marks. My longest was a six-hour day above Tekes and I walked strangely for two days afterwards.

Safety, said plainly. Helmets are rarely offered and rarely worn. Insurance almost never covers horse riding as standard, and a fall at 2,400 m with the nearest hospital 90 minutes down a dirt road is a serious situation. I have seen one tourist come off at a canter near Nalati because nobody had explained that the horse would follow the horse in front regardless of what she did with the reins.

If you have never ridden, take a led short ride first. Ask for a calm horse using the word jaqsy at, good horse, and gesture slowly. Wear long trousers and closed shoes. Bring your own helmet if you plan multi-day riding.

What You Will Eat

Dairy in five forms and mutton in three.

Besbarmak, the celebration dish, boiled mutton over flat wheat noodles with onion broth, eaten with the hands. The name means five fingers. Served on a communal platter, with specific cuts offered to specific guests by seniority. The sheep’s head goes to the most honoured guest, who is expected to carve pieces and distribute them. If that is you, take the ear, offer the cheek to the eldest, and follow whatever your host indicates.

Kurt, hard dried curd balls, intensely salty and sour. Herders carry them as trail food. An acquired taste that I have never fully acquired.

Baursak, fried dough pieces, served with tea and jam.

Kumis, fermented mare’s milk, sour and slightly alcoholic, in season June to September. Half a bowl to start. More on all of this in our guide to Xinjiang drinks.

Salted milk tea, continuously, all day, refilled the second the bowl is empty.

Etiquette That Matters

Learned partly by instruction and partly by getting a look.

• Do not step on the threshold. Step over it. This one is taken seriously.
• Shoes off inside, unless your host is clearly wearing theirs.
• Do not point your feet at the stove or at people. Sit cross-legged or with legs tucked.
• Take the seat you are given, not the one you want.
• Receive food and tea with the right hand, left touching the right forearm.
• Do not touch the shangyraq or hang anything from it.
• Ask before photographing people. Especially women and children. A phone held up without asking is the fastest way to sour a stay.
• Bring a gift. Tea, sugar, sweets for children, or fruit from town. ¥50 of supplies is the right scale. Cash as a gift is awkward, cash as payment is fine.

Eagles, Games and Music

Golden eagle hunting, bürkitshi, survives in the Altay and in parts of Ili, though the number of practising falconers is small and shrinking. The season is winter, roughly November to February, when snow makes fox and hare visible. Summer displays at scenic areas involve tethered birds and a fee, usually ¥30 to ¥50 for a photo, and are not hunting.

Kokpar, the horseback game played with a goat carcass, happens at festivals and weddings rather than on schedule. Nauryz, around 21 to 22 March, is the most likely time to see one.

Dombra, the two-stringed lute, appears in almost every yurt. If someone plays after dinner, put the phone away for the first song at least. Aitys, improvised sung poetry duels, still happen at gatherings and are genuinely funny even when you understand none of it, because the audience reaction tells you everything.

Practical Kit for One Night on the Pasture

• Warm layer and a hat. Nights drop to 2 to 8°C at 2,400 m even in August.
• Sleeping bag liner. Quilts are provided and are heavy and warm, but not laundered often.
• Head torch. There is no lighting outside.
• Toilet paper and hand sanitiser. Assume no facilities.
• Wet wipes instead of a shower.
• 2 litres of water. Stream water is boiled for tea, not for bottles.
• Cash. ¥300 to ¥500 in small notes. Mobile signal is patchy to absent, so QR payment often fails.
• Power bank. One solar panel does not charge four phones.
• Motion sickness tablets if you are being driven up on dirt switchbacks.

Booking It

Three approaches that work. Book a guesthouse in Nalati town, Tekes or Zhaosu and ask them to arrange a pasture night, which is what I do and typically costs ¥200 to ¥300 all in. Hire a driver for two days at ¥600 to ¥900 per day and let him find a family, which is how most Chinese domestic travellers do it. Or book a listed yurt camp online in advance, which is the safe option in July and August when Nalati and Sayram fill up.

Foreign passport holders can stay in registered accommodation without issue in these areas. Some very informal family arrangements are not registered for foreign guests, and a host may decline for that reason. It is not personal.

One Morning Is Enough to Change the Trip

At 06:20 that morning above Kalajun, Bekzat brought the horses in from the ridge, maybe forty of them, moving down through mist that sat in the valley bottom like water. It took eleven minutes. Then everyone had breakfast and the day started.

The whole stay cost me ¥180 including two meals. Book the middle tier, go between late June and early September, bring tea and sweets, and stay two nights rather than one. The first night you are a guest. The second night you are just there.