diff --git a/elasticsearch_async/connection.py b/elasticsearch_async/connection.py
index 6d3c912..86fac61 100644
--- a/elasticsearch_async/connection.py
+++ b/elasticsearch_async/connection.py
@@ -96,7 +96,8 @@ def perform_request(self, method, url, params=None, body=None, timeout=None, ign
         try:
             with async_timeout.timeout(timeout or self.timeout, loop=self.loop):
                 response = yield from self.session.request(method, url, data=body, headers=headers)
-                raw_data = yield from response.text()
+                raw_data = yield from response.content.read()
+                raw_data = raw_data.decode('utf-8', errors='surrogatepass')
             duration = self.loop.time() - start
 
         except asyncio.CancelledError:
diff --git a/elasticsearch_async/transport.py b/elasticsearch_async/transport.py
index f108a3e..12dcdf4 100644
--- a/elasticsearch_async/transport.py
+++ b/elasticsearch_async/transport.py
@@ -198,7 +198,7 @@ def perform_request(self, method, url, headers=None, params=None, body=None):
 
         if body is not None:
             try:
-                body = body.encode('utf-8')
+                body = body.encode('utf-8', 'surrogatepass')
             except (UnicodeDecodeError, AttributeError):
                 # bytes/str - no need to re-encode
                 pass