Before going to Kyrgyzstan, I had little idea what to expect. This Central Asian republic is virtually unknown in the West, only briefly entering our consciousness at times like last March’s Tulip Revolution, when crowds stormed the presidential palace and forced the first post-Soviet president into exile.

Yet if the general image of Kyrgyzstan is that it is just another of those dodgy ’Stans, the reality is very different. After 14 years of independence, the country has a new government, and feels safe and relaxed. Tourists are welcome, and visiting is straightforward, thanks to direct flights from London and the easing of visa restrictions — you can now pick one up on arrival.

The mountains of the Tien Shan (Mountains of Heaven), which once formed an impenetrable barrier between the Soviet Union and China, have some of the best trekking and horse-riding in the world. For adventurous travellers, a well-developed network of Community Based Tourism (CBT) initiatives means that you can stay in private houses and yurts for absurdly low prices, contributing to the local economy and gaining an insight into the culture and way of life.

I flew into Bishkek, which still felt very much like a Soviet city. Old women in headscarves sold single cigarettes on street corners or wheeled carts loaded with piroshki (pasties) through the bazaar. On weekend afternoons, children rode rusting rollercoasters in the parks and couples posed for wedding photos beneath the Monument to the Red Guards and laid flowers beside the eternal flame. Yet amid the statues of communist heroes, beer gardens and pizzerias were springing up, the signs of a resurgent capitalism.

But I was heading for the mountains. The road took me past the Burana tower, a 10th-century minaret, now leaning precariously at half its original height but still laced with intricate brickwork. This is one of the few surviving monuments of the Karakhanid empire that once ruled Central Asia.

In a field beside the tower, pre-Islamic tombstones were scattered, each crudely carved into a face, the caricatured features of its owner staring out from beyond the grave. At Cholpon Ata I came across examples of even more ancient art, in an open-air gallery of petroglyphs where images of mountain goats and leopards shone vividly from the rocks after more than 2,000 years.

The road to the Tien Shan clings to Lake Issyk-Kul, Kyrgyzstan’s vast inland sea. Time-warped Soviet sanatoria and beach resorts line the north shore, gazing across to the snowy peaks on the far side. Eventually you arrive at Karakol — the gateway to the mountains and a comfortable base from which to explore.

The tourist office and CBT can put you in touch with Russian and Kyrgyz families who offer bed, breakfast and dinner for around £5 a day. This is fine if you want a hot shower, but what I really wanted was to stay in a yurt — a circular felt tent traditionally used by shepherds when taking their flock to the jailoo (alpine pastures) in summer. The yurt has recently become something of a national symbol and is even featured on the Kyrgyz flag. Although the nomadic lifestyle has largely died out, the herders still sleep in yurts in summer and a few enterprising souls have set up yurt camps for tourists.

I spent a night at Saidahmat yurt camp in the Jeti Oguz valley, among meadows, pine trees and rushing rivers. Mattresses were piled on the floor of my tent and the walls lined with felt rugs. Dinner was served in a separate yurt, we guests sitting around a low table, eating boiled mutton with our fingers and drinking beer cooled in the stream.

On a walk up the gorge, I met Mukash Sherimbekov, a 78-year-old farmer from a nearby village who spends each summer on the jailoo looking after his 40 cows, 30 horses and 200 sheep. In a country where a teacher’s salary is around £35 a month, all those animals make him a rich man, but for four months each year he leads a simple pastoral life, the occasional glass of vodka his only luxury. From inside his yurt he produced a loaf of crusty bread — the traditional symbol of hospitality — which we spread with kajmak (clotted cream) and washed down with a shared bowl of bitter koumys (fermented mare’s milk).

Later I went horse-riding in the Barskoon valley with Gulmira Obolbekov. Gulmira and her husband Ishen grew up among shepherds. Now they run Shepherd’s Way, which offers riding treks for all abilities. We climbed out of the village, passing grazing cattle and meadows of wild flowers, then rode through a birch forest with the scent of mint and rosemary underfoot. After two hours, we arrived at a plateau at 2,300m (7,500ft), where we picnicked beneath snow-capped mountains with a distant view of the lake.

I think it was at that moment that the magic of Kyrgyzstan finally got to me. Hidden from the outside world for so long, this is a country that has suffered repression and revolutions and now yearns for a place in the modern world, but whose soul is still in the mountains among the horsemen and shepherds with their yurts.

YURT ALERT