Silk-Polyester Blend

Lickety Split

2008-08-10T10:49:00.004+01:00

From: Split, Croatia

I just crossed the finish line! I got into Croatia this morning and arrived in Split shortly after. I've walked around the old town a little bit and taken a couple of snaps. Here, the incredible Palace of Emperor Diocletian:

Over two months ago, I started my trip in Almaty and made my way to Croatia. It's a cool feeling: I've traveled the Silk Road using only overland transportation. I recently found that Marco Polo's house is close to here, on Korcula Island, which I thought was fitting.

I'm glad that I was blessed with the time to make this trip happen -- overall, it really was an amazing experience. It think it was about the right length of time as well: any shorter would have been painfully rushed, any longer and my energy and cash might have worn out somewhere along the way.

While I hoped the trip would be fun, I had expected a healthy dose of bad moments -- days of loneliness, stomach sickness, police encounters. Luckily, there were only a few:
- Waiting for the Caspian ferry while very sick in Turkmenistan
- Getting stuck in the Anzob tunnel (a.k.a. Tunnel of Death), Tajikistan. Side note: I have it from a reliable source that a taxi driver actually died from suffocation the night I got stuck -- eerie, huh?
- Not getting to go to the Pamirs because of a horrendous misprint in my guidebook

And of course, there were plenty of highlights. It was a tough call, but here are my top ten:

10. Drinking beers on mosques / making videos in the empty old town, Khiva (Uzbekistan)
9. Making an organic dinner with a WW2 vet (Nagorno-Karabakh Republic)
8. Finding the beached ships of the old Aral Sea, Moynaq (Uzbekistan)
7. Seeing Turkmenbashi's Ashgabat (Turkmenistan)
6. Climbing Mount Olympus (Greece)
5. Checking out the Darvaza Gas Craters (Turkmenistan)
4. Learning (some) Russian
3. Making it through all five 'Stans on one go. In hindsight, this wasn't that easy to do.
2. Making good new friends: James, Michael and Thierry especially (Uzbekistan to Georgia)
1. Staying in a yurt with nomads (Kyrgyzstan)

An incredible summer so far, but I've saved the best for last. Tomorrow, I will be joined in Split by the beautiful Stephanie. We're going to spend two weeks traveling down the Dalmatian coast to Dubrovnik, visiting Cologne and checking out Iceland. Should be fun!

So, this will be my last post on this blog... at least for now. Hope you've enjoyed it!

Balkanhopping

2008-08-09T17:19:00.011+01:00

From: Dubrovnik, Croatia

I'm getting close to the finish line now. This post is about my path from Greece to Croatia, with stops in the F.Y.R.O.M. (Macedonia), Albania and the brand-new nation of Montenegro.

I like the Balkans a lot. A while back, I spent two weeks in the former Yugoslavia -- Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia and Montenegro -- and was impressed by the cultural diversity and range of cool sights packed into such a small space. In many parts of the region, you can feel the aftermath of the violence from the Yugoslav civil war. I also had fun this time around. I wish I'd spent more time here, but I'm glad I got a least a peek at the 'other half' of the Balkans.

I've covered a lot of ground in a few days, so I'm going to stick to the highlights. In order of appearance:

1. Macedonia-Macedonia Border Crossing

If you've been following this blog very much, you know that I don't like border crossings. In Central Asia, they're horrible -- hour-long waits in the heat, arbitrary visa regulations, unfriendly officials on the take. So I'm a bit biased. The checkpoint at Gengeli between Greek Macedonia and the Republic of Macedonia, however, was the best border crossing ever!

Our train pulled into the checkpoint around dinner time and they told us we could actually leave the train (unheard of). Instead of surly officials, the guards were friendly and told us to get something to eat. There was loud, excellent salsa-esque Latin music playing, a grillmaster making these gigantic hot dogs filled with 'Greek meat' and French fries, and lots of people drinking beer at a bar. I even saw a group of kids my age who didn't look like they were on the train. Maybe they just came to the station for the atmosphere. It was so much fun that I was a bit sad to leave. Come to think of it, it was actually more fun than Skopje, my destination.

2. The Mullet King

I've seen some bad haircuts on this trip. The worst do's usually fall into one of two types: very short hair, except for a well-oiled tuft above the forehead (the 'hip' Russian), or; very short hair will a generous mullet in the back (the 'sophisticated' Russian). But I got a single snapshot of a Skopje mulleteer who definitely wins the prize for foulest hair. Enjoy:

3. Struga
I ran into some logistical problems trying to get from Skopje to Tirana and found myself stranded in Struga (Macedonia) for the better part of a day. Struga is a secondary resort town on the shores of Lake Ohrid near the Macedonian-Albanian border. It was unexpectedly fun. I sat around by the beach most of the afternoon, drinking beers and trying to avert my gaze from the many older men in smallish speedos. The beach:

There is a lot of Albanian influence in Struga. In the last decade, there was a full-blown civil war between the Albanian minority in the West of the country and the Macedonian majority. It was the usual deal: minority wants to separate and create their own state; majority wants to retain territorial integrity. It was resolved in 2002 with the UN-backed Ohrid Agreement, which guaranteed stronger minority rights for the 20% or so of the population that's ethnically Albanian. Like in Canada, there are now two official languages (even street vendors have to display in both languages). Here, an example:

Back to Struga. While I was there, I saw an interesting ethnic dance performance by local ethnic Albanians. It sounded somewhere between Bosnian and Turkish, and it was really cool.

4. Shkodra
When I got to Albania, I skipped over Tirana, the capital, and went straight to Shkodra in the north. Culturally, it's an interesting city since it has a lot of Catholic Albanians; the people are also renowned for their friendliness. I trekked across town to the imposing Rozafa fortress, a giant, largely-intact castle with fantastic views of the surrounding area. A shot of the valley from the ramparts:

5. Ulcinj
My last stop before Croatia was Ulcinj, a small, picturesque Adriatic beach town in Montenegro near the Albanian border. I ran into two cool guys from Austria and Germany and we ended up hanging out for the rest of the day. Montenegro is not a cheap place to bed down for the night. After some oh-so-precise mental calculations, we realized that we could actually save money by buying beers and food and spending the night on the beach, rather than going to find a hotel. When we first got there, the beach was jam-packed with people, but they trickled away towards dusk. In true Balkan fashion, people took to the streets at night, hanging out at the bars, restaurants and nightclubs along the beach. We watched it all happen and then went to catch our bus at 3:30 am. The beach at night, with the cliffs in the background:

P.S. I saw some funny Ingrish in Skopje. Among the instructions for guests at my hostel:
- "It's ok! Water from the tub is drinkable."
- "Please be quiet after 10 pm (bed neighbors)."

Central Asia: Post-Mortem

2008-08-08T09:30:00.005+01:00

From: Shkodra, Albania

Since I left Turkmenistan, I've found myself reflecting from time to time on Central Asia. I decided to write a sort of overall analysis on the region like I did for the Caucasus.

My friend James (whom I traveled with in Uzbekistan) is an editor of a very professional and high-quality blog covering Central Asia. He asked me to write an article with my impressions of the region, as well as some comparisons with other regions I've visited -- West Africa and Latin America in particular. Here's the link to my article (you might have to paste the text in two blocks):
http://www.neweurasia.net/2008/08/08/central-asia-a-veteran-travelers-perspective/

If you're generally interested in Central Asia, the blog James works for -- http://www.neweurasia.net/ -- is one of the best sources of information out there.

Thesstivities

2008-08-07T08:11:00.009+01:00

From: Struga, F.Y.R.O.M.

After I got back from Mount Olympus, I spent a couple of days hanging out in Thessaloniki, Greece's second city. I had heard good things about it from my Greek friends, so figured I'd give it a shot.

I ended up couchsurfing with a Greek guy called Aris. He's a playground-equipment designer by day and a musician by night. Both he and his apartment were effortlessly cool in a way that I'm not, but I can still appreciate. Here, a corner of coolness:

Aris' apartment was a neat top-floor pad with a wrap-around balcony that offered great views of the neighborhood. I spent a couple of afternoons on the balcony reading, eating and sleeping. The view:

The town of Thessaloniki itself is also nice, but not in an overwhelming way. That was fine by me, since I'm just about hit my limit of churches, castles, mosques and firepits by this points in my trip. The town has some very nice parks and a promenade along the water.

A park near Aristotle square:

The waterfront with Thessaloniki's famous "White Tower:"

I did almost nothing during the days there. In the mornings, I went to the market and bought some fruit, bread and water and ate it at the apartment or in a park. I also had quite a few good Greek pastries.

Thessaloniki has some good food and drink. I had never eaten souvlaki before, mostly because I thought it consisted of steamed squash and eggplant. Turns out it's actually a delicious meat-bread-and-sauce thing that tastes incredible. We also went out a couple of night. Below, Aris, his girlfriend and me at a local bar:

Overall, I found Thessaloniki an interesting city. I'd like to come back here at some point.

Next up: Macedonia, Albania and maybe Montenegro

Olympics

2008-08-06T20:38:00.017+01:00

From: Skopje, F.Y.R.O.M.

This post is about the three days I spent on and around Mount Olympus.

My first stop in Greece was Litohoro, a small town on the Aegean coast and the main base for climbing Mount Olympus. Olympus is Greece's highest mountain; it's probably best known as the home of the gods of ancient Greek mythology. I've always really wanted to climb it, so I figured I'd dedicate a couple of days to the cause.

I didn't do much when I got to Litohoro -- just stocked up on supplies for the climb (water, delicious green olives and some weird cheese crackers) and then went to my campground for the evening. I had planned on staying at this little place with affordable bungalows, so I could spend a restful night in a good bed before starting the climb.

I had forgotten it was high season for tourism in Greece, so all the bungalows had been rented out weeks before. The campground took pity on me and said I could just sleep on the ground for half price, as long as I didn't bother anyone. So much for my good night's sleep! I did, at least, get to swim for a bit in the Aegean. It was warm, beautiful and there were lots of young people hanging out and working on their tans.

The beach:

The next morning, I set off early for Olympus. There are a couple of routes to the top, most of which involve staying at one of the mountain's seven refuges (basically small lodges where you can sleep, warm up, and eat. I decided to hike to the Giosos Apostolidis refuge, the highest lodge (at 2,720 metres), with the best views over the ridge by the summit. I planned on doing a 7-hour hike from the lowest refuge to the highest one on the first day, then climbing to the summit and back down to the Litohoro on the second.

The first part of the climb was great. The forest and path changed several times on the way up as the altitude changed -- first it was lush woods with lots of deciduous trees, then a cooler, rockier pine forest, and then small trees and shrubs as I got closer to the ridge. I stopped a bunch of times and ate little snacks of crackers, olives, salami and bread.

A shot of the lusher forest:

Some evil-looking forest higher up:

I did have a scary moment, though, when I had no water left. I'm actually surprised that I ran out, since I packed almost 4 litres of water for the first day of the climb -- should have been enough. I also looked at a trail map before I started the climb, and it indicated pretty clearly that there was a water fountain halfway up the mountain, near something called the Anathema. I came across a sign for the Anathema after three hours, but there was no water anywhere to be found -- not good. After about five hours, I was thirsty and completely out of water, so I decided to sit down under a bush and let the weather to cool off. After a little while, I saw a Greek couple coming down from the summit. I explained the situation to them, and they gave me half a liter of water, enough to finish the climb and keep hydrated. I'm very grateful to them.

After I ran into the couple, the climb got a lot steeper, with a switchback trail climbing through a tree-less rockfield. After twenty minutes of that, I saw across a steel cable set into the rock. I hauled myself up and found myself on the Plateau of the Muses at the top of the Olympian ridge. The plateau is spectacular, a huge mile-long table next to the Throne of Zeus, with sheer cliffs all around and stunning views of the Aegean.

My refuge was on the far side of the plateau. I devoured my dinner in about fifteen minutes, drank a heavenly Powerade (ambrosia?) and fell asleep. I woke up early the next morning and headed for Mytikas, the highest peak on Olympus at 2,919 metres. From the refuge I stayed at, the approach is just a short walk along the spectacular Plateau of the Muses, then around the back of the Throne of Zeus (the second highest peak). After that, it really gets fun: a 40-minute scramble along a fairly steep rockface (50-60 degrees vertical) to the summit. The rockface has a lot of holes and steps, as well as suggested-path markings, so it's possible to climb without ropes. But it's a workout.

Here, a shot of the rockface (to the left of the center you can see a climber working his way to the top):

Reaching the peak was incredible. The view from Mytikas is amazing, taking in the smaller Olympian peaks, the forested valley, the Plateau of the Muses, and the Aegean coast in the distance. I also took the mandatory holding-the-flag shot:

I stayed at the summit for twenty minutes, mostly because there were other travelers there who had good cheese, beer and chocolate, and they kept offering me some. When the chocolate was finished, I headed back down, doing the rockface in reverse. It actually took longer to go back down because the rocks are slippery and I was trying to be cautious.

After Mytikas, it was all, well, downhill. The main track down to the coast goes through different types of forest, passes by another refuge, and ends up in a place called Prionia. The 'town' of Prionia consists of a public toilet, a water mountain, two very nice cops and a taverna, which makes an incredible feta-stuffed eggplant.

Prionia is a long way from the coast, so I hitchhiked in the back of a truck to Litohoro beach then caught the train Thessaloniki.

Next up: fun in Thessaloniki

The Caucasus: Post-Mortem

2008-08-06T09:21:00.003+01:00

From: Thessaloniki, Greece

[I thought I would write a bit about my overall experience in the Caucasus. I'm planning on doing the same thing for Central Asia, but haven't really gotten to it yet. Some more pics forthcoming too.]

I loved the South Caucasus. I spent a rushed two weeks there, but it really should have been at least four.

The area has tons to offer. The capitals of the regions are varied and interesting: wealthy, atmospheric Baku; lazy, charming Tbilisi; kinda-ugly-but-still-cosmopolitan Yerevan. Outside the big cities in the region, there are more than two dozen distinct cultures to explore: Persian-speaking Mountain Jews in Quba, Muslims in Georgian Tusheti, blood-feuding tribes in Svaneti and Rachi, and the Turkified Adjaran people. Regional food is incredible, varied, and pretty cheap for what you get (especially Georgian cuisine -- delish). The drinks (wine in particular) are plentiful and really good.

For me, I also liked finally being able to use my Russian. When I got to Azerbaijan, I realized that six weeks of learn-as-you-go Russian in Central Asia had finally paid off. I won't insult Russophones by claiming to actually speak their language, but I found myself able to get by pretty well. As a result, I had some interesting conversations with people about their lives: I heard both the Azeri and the Armenian perspectives on Karabakh, and learned about village life in Georgia. Definitely a step up from the inevitable "where are you from? ... how many children do you have?" chitchat I got in Central Asia.

The best thing about the region is being able to see weird and exotic sights without really having to trek too far. Making a meal in Karabakh was top of my list, followed by our trip to Georgian wine country, and then probably the cold mud volcanoes in Azerbaijan. The Caucasus is fun, but in a pretty accessible way.

But while I was charmed by the region, I did find myself thinking about its uncertain future. After all, it seems like every country there is gripped by vicious conflicts.

In Georgia, the overarching conflict is with Russia, onetime political master and, until recently, a close ally on the international stage. Since independence, however, Georgia has become increasingly Western-leaning, and recently announced their intention to move towards EU membership. The move met with fierce opposition from Russia, who has used their economic might to put the hurt on Georgia. Here, Georgia slapping Russia in the face:

The overarching Georgian-Russian conflict is exacerbated by several secessionist movements. Although it's a small state, there are no fewer than 3 independent regions within Georgia: Adjara (peacefully autonomous), Ossetia (actively and violently seeking separation) and Abkhazia (de facto independent since the brutal war in 1992-3.) Russia, happy to weaken Georgia and eager to extend its own political reach, has taken the side of the separatists in each of the conflicts.

The combination of the secession movements, backed by Russian military and political support, has been a lot for Georgia to handle. I couchsurfed a week ago with Alex, associate editor of Tbilisi's only English-lanugage daily -- he's very up-to-date about the conflicts in the region. He said that both the Abkhazi and the Ossetian situations seemed permanently on the brink of war; when we spoke, there had been several casualties in both locations every week for the past month.

Georgia isn't the only one with conflicts on several fronts; Armenia is sandwiched between two hostile Turkic neighbors. With no sea access and only two international borders (Georgia and Iran), it has a marginal geographic position. The national income is propped up by remittances and investment from the diasporan Armenian community. And the country has a big burden to bear: Armenia has also been the sole support (financially and militarily) for the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic since the end of the war.

The Karabakh conflict isn't just an Armenian problem, of course. On the Azeri side, the country has to deal with over a hundred thousand refugees forced out of Karabakh and Armenia proper during the conflict. When, and how, these displaced people will be dealt with is still unclear. And in the midst of the uncertainty and conflict, of course, the NKR itself doesn't even exist in the eyes of the international community.

The South Caucasus will be an interesting region to follow over the next decade. I hope that the political problems get resolved... but it's still an incredible (and largely safe) place to visit in the meantime.

Continental Divide

2008-08-05T15:57:00.007+01:00

From: Thessaloniki, Greece

This post is about crossıng back to Europe through Turkey, with a stop in Istanbul. I had meant to spend a few days in Turkey -- see Capadoccia, check out Nemrut Dagi, catch some coast -- but I simply ran out of time on this trip. I ended up taking a bus all the way across Turkey and stopped in the capital for a day before heading to Greece. I was solo again for this part of the trip, since Thierry decided to stay in Georgia a little longer and take his time through Turkey. The days of the Dutch-Canadian duo had come to an end!

The bus ride to Istanbul was pretty uneventful but long -- a 28-hour haul from Tbilisi to Georgia. I say 'pretty uneventful' because I did have one near-mishap. The bus didn't have a toilet on board so the driver made stops every two hours or so, for around five minutes at a time. When we stopped at a small town in Adjara (Western Georgia), I asked if I could run and change currency for two minutes. Yes, he replied. Thanks, I said.

Well, you probably know where this is going. I went and changed my money, which took less than a minute. When I came out, the bus was 200 metres down the road and driving away (with all my bags and things in it). I took off sprinting after it, but it was raining and I kept slipping on the streets. I think most people in the town caught on pretty fast: red-headed guy dashing after big tour bus -- can't be good. Some thought it was funny, some yelled at me to get the hell off the road, some cheered me on. Fortunately, the bus hit a red light and I managed to catch up... at which point I gave the driver a pretty good earful. But at least I got my exercise for the day, right?

We made it to Istanbul in the end. I'd come here before and done a lot of the big sites before: the Hagia Sophia, Blue Mosque, Cemberlitas, Galata Tower and Topkapi Palace. I decided not to go in them this time, but they are truly spectactular buildings even from the outside.

Here, Hagia Sophia:

Istanbul's giant covered bazaar (5,000 stalls spread out over countless passageways):

I spent my time walking around newer parts of the city. Across the Golden Horn from the old city is Beyoglu, a trendier, hipper part of Istanbul with cool shops, bars and clubs. There were no highlights really, just an afternoon of casual exploring on foot. A view of the Italian-built Galata Tower in Beyoglu:

I had sat down by an ablutions-foundation when an old man came up and asked me what I was doing. "Just resting a bit," I said. "Well you didn't come all the way to Istanbul to rest, did you?" he pointed out, then drew me a little map with places I just *had* to check out in the city. I could tell he wasn't going to leave until I followed his directions, so I headed off towards the nearest palace. Later I came across a little tea-garden (actually just a bunch of plastic chairs sitting in a park facing the Bosphorus) with cheap chai. I hung around for a couple of hours, looking at the Asian side of the city and marveling at the lengthy 2-hour Turkish lunchbreaks that many of the local businesspeople were taking.

At the hostel, I also bumped into a French-Canadian couple from Montreal and we went out to dinner a couple of nights. They were very cool, and it also gave me a great chance to speak French and reminisce about our northern homeland.

Overall, Istanbul seemed a lot like I remembered it, with one big difference: women's dress. Two years ago, I remember thinking (liking?) that women tended to dress in a very modern way -- their clothes were revealing (like in other Mediterranean countries) rather than conservative (like in other Islamic countries). By and large, that's still the case, but there seemed to be a rise in conversative Islamic garb for the women. I estimated that maybe 15-20% of women in the old city were wearing headscarves, and I even saw a lot of women wearing full-length black burqas (totally absent the last time I came). I wonder if the shift in dress is a sort of religious affirmation in light of the Erdogan government, or maybe part of the broader religious surge affecting much of the Islamic world. I'll have to ask about that.

So that was Istanbul. My second evening there, I got on board the overnighter to Greece. Air-conditioned two-bed berths: that's entering Europe in style...

Next up: climbing Mount Olympos in Greece

Back in Europe

2008-08-05T10:30:00.002+01:00

From: Thessaloniki, Greece

Hi there... back again. It's been an interesting week or so since my last post: a bus ride across Turkey, a couple of days in Istanbul, a trek to the top of Mount Olympos, some couchsurfing in Greece's second city. Now I'm way behind on blog posts, but I'll get to those soon.

Greenian

2008-07-25T14:47:00.013+01:00

From: Tbilisi, Georgia

I'm back in Georgia again. This post is about my time in Armenia and its close affiliate, the tiny Nagorno-Karabakh Republic.

I spent most of my time in Armenia in and around Yerevan, the capital. Yerevan is huge, and I haven't seen enough of it to comment fairly. Most of it seems Soviet and grey, but some of the parks (like the one near the Opera, where I've spent a lot of time) are fantastic: lots of nice fountains, dozens of cafes, and locals talking or grabbing a drink. The parks and cafes are packed at night. Even on weekdays, people are out until midnight socializing with friends and family. Also, the beer is pretty cheap.

Instead of staying in a hostel, Thierry managed to find us a place to sleep through CouchSurfing (http://www.couchsurfing.com/). I hadn't used it until this trip, but I'm now a big believer. It's basically a huge website where independent travelers can find other young people with a couch, bed or floor to crash on, in almost any city they want. Surfing is free, but there's an expectation that people who use it offer their place to others in the future. Like other social networking sites, you can send messages, references, and upload pictures -- an incredibly convenient way to find a crash-pad while abroad.

We stayed a few nights with Oscar, a really cool Lithuanian NGO worker and excellent host. His apartment was often full with other Couchsurfers, friends and co-workers from all over Europe, so it was a lot of fun. We made a couple of meals, played cards and backgammon, drank some beers and had a lot of great conversations in French, English, German and my favorite, mock-Russian.

Our only day trip from Yerevan was to Echmiadzin, the 'Armenian Vatican' and seat of the Catholicos (head of the religion). It's also a UNESCO World Heritage place. Like the Holy See, Echmiadzin is a collection of churches, shrines, seminaries and administrative buildings. They also have some pretty incredible relics, such as the Geghard Spear (the spear used to stab Christ on Calvary), although these aren't available to the public. Mary Tachar, the head church, is a medium-sized building from the 7th century:

The courtyard around the church is great: it's filled with tourists and pilgrims, both national and diasporan, as well as bearded Armenian priests dressed in their long black robes. There are also three more substantial churches in Echmiadzin, with Surp Hripsime my favorite. It was very quiet -- a great place to go, light a candle or two, and forget about everything outside for a little while. It's also a nice break from the oppressive Armenian heat. Here, the prayer room with stone tablets, towards the back of the church:

Those were the highlights of Armenia. Now, onto the NKR (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagorno-Karabakh).

The Nagorno-Karabakh Republic has a complicated and unfortunate recent history, especially given the internal war in the early 1990s. Here's the oversimplified version: the current territory of Karabakh was an ethnically mixed Armenian-Azeri region within Azerbaijan during Soviet times (although the area had an Armenian majority). Towards the collapse of the USSR, the Armenian population held a referendum to become independent from Azerbaijan, which was, of course, opposed by Azerbaijan. This led to civilian massacres on both sides and a military clash between Armenian-Karabakhtsis (backed by Armenia and Russian mercenaries) and Azerbaijan (backed by Turkey and some mujahideen). The war went on for a few years, with huge losses on both sides. The Armenia side basically won, and the NKR became effectively independent (although few other countries officially recognize its legitimacy). Almost all the Azeri population fled or was forced out, leaving NKR roughly 95% ethnically Armenian. Tiny, and with no industry, the current Republic effectively operates as an Armenian protectorate; there is only one road in, since the borders with Azerbaijan are mined and guarded.

Despite the grim events of the 1990s, the tiny republic is a fascinating place to visit; it offers stunning scenery, remote monasteries, charming villages and, for those looking for it, stark reminders of the conflict itself.

Our first stop in the NKR was Stepanakert, the Karabakhtsi capital. This is the place where everything happens in this country; with 40,000 inhabitants, it's the beating heart of the place. First things first: we had to get the registration for our NKR visas and permission to visit the different parts of the country. The process cost $0 and took all of 3 minutes. I wish that more countries in the region could be like that.

And so, registration in hand, we headed for Shushi, a once-charming walled town near the capital. Before the war, Shushi was the Azeri cultural capital in the region, and had several beautiful mosques, protected by 300-year old fortifications at the top of sheer cliffs. During the war, the city it was the main staging point for the Azeri-led campaign, and it took a lot of damage towards the end of the fighting.

Here, some semi-inhabited apartment buildings:

Fortunately, the place is undergoing some restoration. Since the NKR has no domestic income, all the reconstruction money is coming from diasporan Armenians, mostly living in the US or Russia. Two of Shushi's Armenian churches have been nicely restored and look like they're in full operation again. One of them even had a wedding going on (in fact, the third I've seen in Armenia). Here, a church assistant sweeping away the congratulatory rose petals:

We also walked around the 'old town,' which consisted of a few ruined mosques and the old city walls. Some of the mosques were very beautiful, but it's unlikely that they're going to be restored anytime soon, given that there are no Muslims living here now. This mosque lost the top of its minaret:

We ended up finding accomodation in a local village called Selo. I was introduced to a haematologist-turned-taxidriver called Ashot -- he offered to take us to his home village to see the traditional way of life, stay for the night, and have a 'free' meal.

And the meal was indeed free, but first we had to make it. Ashot gave us each our tasks. My first one was to help him 90-year-old father dig up potatoes out of the garden (what my Scottish relations would call 'houking tatties'). I must say I was highly impressed by the elderly gentleman: despite his age and the fact that he had lost an eye as a POW in WW2, he still managed to keep his garden in working shape. Here, me scooping the potatoes up:

Halfway through preparing the meal, I was asked to go get some peas from the garden. Easy, right? But as soon as I stepped onto the soil, I was aware of the shameful fact that I didn't actually know what peas grow on -- a side-effect of living in suburbs and cities by whole life, I guess. So I checked the different parts of the garden, where I discovered that peas don't grow on pea-trees or underground on pea-roots. They grow on vines. And I picked a bunch, but not before promising myself that I would learn about farming, or at least gardening, when I get back home.

The next morning, Ashot woke us up early to go to Gandzasar, Karabakh's most famous monastery. It's considered the NKR's most stunning sight, a 13th-century monastery perched high in a range of forested mountains, with a great view of the villages below. The main church there has unusual carvings on the outside walls, with randomly-placed stone slabs with Armenian script on them. We also managed to arrive early enough to catch the Mass inside the church, a very ancient-feeling ceremony: the assistant shook a rattle that off incense, lit up by a few shafts of light from the windows; the priest sang some sort of plainsong in Armenian. Very enchanting. Here's a picture of the church:

All over Karabakh are the shattered remains of former Azeri settlements. We saw several as we drove past; all of them were lifeless, with broken buildings and streets grown over with weeds. Ashot and other locals were unwilling to take us to any of those places, especially the ghost town of Agdam, near the Azeri front line. I can think of a few reasons why they didn't want to take us, and all of them are understandable given what a recent and painful memory the Karabakh war is for those living here. We did, however, get to see a tank monument just before Agdam and the mined border region. Here, a decommissioned Armenian tank, now a monument to the war.

On a less serious note, we also stumbled across the famous 'Karabakh sculpture.' This strange thing was commissioned after the war -- it's made of Armenian stone and is featured on, say, 80% of the postcards you see for Nagorno-Karabakh. Now you won't even need to buy the postcard:

After an early rise and a morning packed with sights, I was pretty exhausted. So I sat around the hotel for the rest of the day, drinking fizzy mineral water and eating Armenian gingerbread. It's like normal gingerbread but is softer and has a sugary glazing -- excellent.

Next up: not really sure. I'm heading to Turkey tomorrow so I'll probably write more from Istanbul. In the meantime, I'm going to go find some khachapuri for dinner. I'm very hungry all of a sudden, probably from writing about gingerbread.

Georgia on My Mind

2008-07-22T17:38:00.011+01:00

From: Yerevan, Armenia

Georgia gets a lot of hype. Half the backpackers I've met in Central Asia have gone through here at some point. Almost without exception, they told me that Georgia was the best country they'd ever seen: incredible food, great people, amazing culture, striking scenery, abundant adventure. So my expectations were pretty high. This post is about my first few days in the country; so far, seems like it's living up to the hype.

My first stop in the country was Tbilisi. Thierry and I came here with another traveler -- Dan, an English guy we met in Baku. We took the overnight train and got in late morning.

The capital is charming, a large but relaxed city set over a lazy, grey river. The main drag, Rustavelis Gamziri, just south of the river, has fancy European shops, slick bars, and nice hotels. Very fun place to walk around and people-watch. North of the river, where we're staying, the city is poorer and more cluttered, with multiple houses set up around these big courtyards, just off the streets. It's very busy and charming, however, with fruit vendors and shoppers packed on the sidewalks. Also, I see a lot of expensive-looking, single-breed dogs around here -- none of the strays and mongrels that were more common in Central Asian.

Tbilisi has some stunning views. The city backs onto to a very steep cliff which is pretty dramatic. There are also a lot of old cathedrals which look amazing at night:

Another cool thing: the language. Georgian has one of the coolest, yet weirdest, languages I've ever seen. It's part of the Kartvelian language group, a collection of dialects which, like Basque, is completely unconnected to any other tongues. The alphabet is beautiful but hard to read. For some reason, nothing in this country is printed in Russian or Latin, so you have to decipher the script to use public transport. I'm trying to learn the letters, but it's slow-going. Here's an example from the subway:

Georgia is famous for more than just its capital. East of Tbilisi is the land of Kakheti (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kakheti), Georgia's wine country (in fact, according to some experts, wine may have first been cultivated here). We decided to make a day-trip there; it was a long marshrutka ride to Telavi, and then we hired a taxi for the afternoon to take us around all the sights. None of us had any idea what the "sights" actually were, but we lucked out with a taxi driver who took us around all the local hotspots.

We checked out a couple of monasteries, for which Kakheti is famous. Georgia is one of the oldest Christian countries (only Armenia became Christian earlier), having been converted by St. Nino in the 4th century. There are still a lot of very old monasteries and churches in the region (mostly Eastern Orthodox), many going back centuries. We stopped at three. The first was a small working monastery up in the hills. I wasn't allowed inside since I had shorts on. Or maybe I just looked unscrupulous, which is quite possible.

The second one was a beautiful old church-monastery, further up the same mountain. Although it was undergoind repairs, there was an old man outside selling three handmade prayer candles for a lari (less than $1). I have no idea how he got up the mountain, or who he normally sells the candles to. We bought some and lit them inside the vault-like prayer room.

The last monastery we visited was called Iraklo -- it's an old and famous site close to Telavi. The original site was founded by Zenon, one of the 13 ancient Syrian Fathers (old Christian dudes from when Syria was Christian). Until very recently, it was the leading religious and philosphical academy in the country, and many famous Georgians came here to study (among them, Rustaveli, the national bard).

I was also eager to check out the wine in the region best known for it. We went to the Chavchavadze Estates (a hilariously-named place for anyone familiar with British 'Chav' culture). The C family used to be wealthy landowners, and their former home has been converted into a stately park. It also has an incredible wine cellar, with thousands of old and expensive bottles from around the world. Among the highlights: unopened bottles of pre-1900 Chateau Yquem, expensive Burgundy and even first-growth Bordeaux from the 1880s. Pretty insane to see that stuff just sitting there collecting dust.

The stuff in the estate cellars was a little more than my daily budget, so we went to a local winemaker, GWC, well-regarded for its semi-sweet whites and reds. They offered us a wine "degustatsiya" for around $7, which ended up being good value given the tremendous amount of wine they gave us.

Unlike other, more serious and snobbish tastings I've done, the Kakheti wine-tasting experience is pretty straightforward. There's no talk about mouthfeel, tannin levels, or subtle undertones of hibiscus-blossom. Instead, the owner takes a glass and fills it to the brim out of a giant wine tank coated with insulating foam. You're expected to finish the glass in a couple of minutes, by which point your next glass has already been poured. As you drink, the staff wash out your glass with a hose on the factory floor and the process starts again. We tried four wines in all, and one of them (from the Saperavi grape for which the region is famous) was delicious.

Here, the owner pouring out a generous glass of semi-sweet Georgian white:

I decided to break my Georgian trip into two parts, with a side-trip to Armenia in the middle. Will write more Armenia on my next post, and probably some more about Georgia later on.

Bizarrebaijan

2008-07-22T17:16:00.013+01:00

From: Tbilisi, Georgia

The next bunch of posts will cover the countries of the South Caucasus. This little region sits in between Russia, the Caspian, Turkey and the Middle East -- it includes Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia and the disputed independent republic of Nagorno-Karabagh. This post is on Baku and the surrouding region.

Baku is a beautiful and charming city, a combination of bustling, modern oil-town and slow-paced, romantic old neighborhoods. The newer neighborhoods are full of stately buildings modeled after Paris, many of them tastefully refurbished with the city's newfound petrodollars. My favorite part, however, is Iceri-Seher, the rambling and atmospheric old town where we managed to find a hostel. The streets of the old town are built on the side of a hill, and are ringed in by ancient castle walls dating several hundred years.

A picturesque mosque in the heart of the Old Town:

A few of the neighborhood from the gigantic Virgin Tower (Not the Gigantic-Virgin Tower, which would have different implications):

A shady street:

A park just outside the city walls:

Baku is also a great place to explore the surrounding area. We took a couple of trips: one north to Suraxani, and one south to Qobustan.

Suraxani is a dusty and boring suburb of Baku, on the polluted and blighted Abseron Peninsula. Sounds fun already, doesn't it? Suraxani has one really cool sight, though: the Atesgah Fire Temple, built on an ancient Zoroastrian temple site dating back 2,500 years. Although the initial structure was destroyed by invading Arabs a long time ago, some Parsees from India (who worshipped the fire) came and built the current structure a few hundred years ago. There is a small community of fire worshippers who still pray at the temple. I was expecting some giant fire pit like in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, but it was really just a couple of tame fire set into the ground. No human sacrifices either.

The site was understated but cool to see. It's apparently the more impressive of only two fire temples outside of India, and it was cool to see a religious that was as old as 2,500 years. Here, the heart of the temple:

The walls of the temple had old Sanskrit and Farsi carvings, as well as rooms that were part of a caravanserai (like a motel, but older and with more charm). For your education, I have painstakingly reconstructed a typical day in the life of the Indian Parsees at the temple:

We also took a trip to the bizarre district of Qobustan. Qobustan is home to three good sights. In increasing oddness:

1. The easternmost Roman graffiti ever discovered. Some imperial soldier was supposed to be doing recon but instead decided to carve his name into the rock. This was before spraypaint, you see.

2. Cave carvings. Qobustan is home to a staggering array (over 30,000) of carvings and cave drawings by the earlier inhabitants of Azerbaijan. Some of these go back to the Upper Paleolithic period (as far back as 35,000 B.C.), a period that interests me because of my favorite book, The Clan of the Cave Bear (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clan_of_the_Cave_Bear -- you'll probably hate it, but I think it's good). There are tools and carvings from that period, all the way up until the present. Many of the carvings show giant dogs, buffalo, horses and deer.

The most intriguing archaeological finding in the caves is the hundreds of carvings of reed boats. The distinctive design of these boats matches those of early Scandinavian settlers, leading some scientists to speculate that the Vikings and similar ethnic groups may have originated in modern-day Azerbaijan long ago (the Caspian, Black and North Seas were once connected). A quick glance at actual Azeris makes me a bit skeptical of this idea, but it's food for thought.

3. Mud volcanoes. The highlight of Qobustan is definitely the chain of twenty-something little mud volcanoes clustered on a small plateau. High pressure from natural gas under the ground causes the greyish mud to shoot out of the volcanoes every few seconds. Standing in the middle of the volcanoes (they're as tall as a person), you can hear popping and farting sounds all around you. Some of the volcanoes produce big muddle bubbles that splash up into the air -- quite a show. The strange thing is that the volcanoes are completely cold. I don't know if it will upload here, but I have some good video footage of the site.

The top of a small volcano:

A river of slow-flowing mud:

Azerbaijan's people have impressed me as much as the sites. Central Asians talk more about hospitality, but the Azeris I've met have been genuinely welcoming in a very humble, understated way. When Thierry and I were coming back from Suraxani, three women saw us searching for directions to the Old City. They took us by the hand, insisted on paying for our subway ticket, took us to the right train, and told us where to go. Then, when the first thing women got off, another young lady decided to help us, and walked with us for 30 minutes out of her way to make sure we got back home. That story might be exceptional, but all the people I've met here have been incredible friendly.

Time's up for Azerbaijan, however. Because of the high prices there, I ended up cutting my time short. I'm a bit sad about that; three days in this amazing country is just scratching the tip of an interesting iceberg. I still want to se the Mountain of Languages, a series of high-altitude communities in the Azeri Caucasus that were cut off from the rest of the region for a long time. Many groups here (such as the Mountain Jews of Quba) speak languages found only in a few villages in the entire world. But, I guess that will have to wait until next time.

Next up: Armenia, probably

Exit Strategy

2008-07-20T13:20:00.007+01:00

From: Tbilisi, Georgia

Ashgabat was one of my last stops in Central Asia. From there, it was a long trek west to the Caspian Sea and to Azerbaijan. Thierry and I parted ways with Michael in Ashgabat; he was moving on to Iran and we were heading to the Caspian shore.

The drive from capital to coast is grueling: over 450 miles in scorching desert heat, along very bumpy, unsealed roads, with (in this case, at least) a pretty sore stomach. Not that the destination is great either; the seaport of Turkmenbashi is an overpriced and boring place full of soldiers, sailors, working women, and cargo people waiting to send or receive shipments coming from Azerbaijan.

I've noticed a trend in the countries I've visited in Central Asia: they've gotten progressively harder to travel in. For instance: Kazakhstan had incredible infrastructure, Kyrgyzstan was accessible and easy, Tajikstan was bureaucratically painfully, Uzbekistan was a repressive police state with decaying telecommunications, and Turkmenistan was a logistical nightmare. The border crossings, too, have gotten harder each time.

So I guess I shouldn't have been surprised that the crossing from Turkmenistan to Azerbaijan across the Caspian was the most difficult part of the trip yet.

The crossing is hard for a few reasons. First, it's never really clear when the ferries will come in. The boats are primarily Azeri cargo freighters, and their main concern is goods coming from Asia, not passengers. Because Turkmenistan chargies heavy port fees for every hour they spend in harbor, the Azeri ships don't dock unless all the cargo has arrived from the east. If there are delays on the roads or train lines, the ferries might not dock for days. When we arrived to Turkmenbashi, there were six boats on the horizon waiting for the signal.

Unfortunately, there are often many people waiting at the dock for a few seats on the boat. Those that can't afford a hotel wait, sometimes for days, in the sweltering heat of the departure lounge with its gross bathroom. When the boats finally show up, those waiting will do anything to get onto the boat before it leaves. All this plays nicely into the hands of the dock officials, who impose extortionate bribes on anyone who wants to board.

We spent the better part of two days waiting for the right boat to come in. Our guide had placed a couple of calls to Azeri sailors who were supposed to tell us when to head to the dock.

The call came early in the morning and we rushed to the docks, paid the relevant fees and got in line with the others trying to get on board. This part is nerve-wracking, since the Turkmen officials can refuse your exit stamp, confiscate money, or otherwise make the ferry crossing not work. But we got through it, got neatly ripped off for our cabin on the ship (is this stopping in Cozumel or something?), and made it safely on board. We left a little after that.

As the boat pulled away from Turkmenbashi, I looked back at the shoreline and felt surprisingly triumphant. Four grueling days were over and had almost completed one of the trickiest border crossings in the region. On another level, I was leaving Central Asia, with its incredible sights and troublesome logistics, behind -- and sailing to a new region entirely.

The boat wasn't luxurious, but I figured that, if I just paid top dollar, I can at least pretend like my cabin is a good one. I mean, If it's good enough for the Azeri Navy, it's good enough for me. And here we were:

Maybe thanks to this attitude, I slept pretty well, and woke up to a view of Baku harbor at sunrise. We'd made it across!

Next up: a post-mortem on Central Asia; adventures in Azerbaijan

Absurdistan

2008-07-19T14:21:00.009+01:00

From: Baku, Azerbaijan

This post is about our adventures in the capital of Turkmenistan.

I had heard only a little bit about Ashgabat before we got there, and most of it was in that way that people describe lesser-known cities with unhelpful references to better-known places. Backpackers do this a lot. For instance: Lithuania, "the Spain of the Baltics," Springfield, "the Paris of the Midwest," or, as one traveler described Ashgabat, "the Dubai of Turkmenistan." C'mon, people! Turkmenistan has, what? Three cities? I think it was justifiably skeptical of a description that included a comparison to a wealthy Emirati city.

Turns out I was wrong: Dubai-like it is. The city is full of unecessarily large structures, mostly made from white marble and inlaid with gold. The main boulevards are lined with trees and the parks have (expensively irrigated) gardens full of flowers. The streets are even clean, with small teams of traditionally-dressed Turkmen women picking up garbage and sweeping the sidewalks.

Ashgabat isn't so much a city of 'must-sees;' it's more a matter of soaking up the bizarreness that permeates the place. That said, there are a few unmissable oddities. Certainly the most ostentatious is the central Arch of Neutrality, constructed in 1998 to celebrate the Turkmen people's total support for Turkmenbashi's Policy of Neutrality (read: near-total isolation). The arch is over 80 metres tall and is capped by a giant, gold-covered statue of the man himself, which... wait for it... revolves to face the sun.

Close by and, to me, more ridiculous, is the Earthquake Memorial. In the middle of the Soviet era, Ashgabat was leveled by a gigantic earthquake that killed over 75% of the population. Turkmenbashi's mother and brothers died in the collapse, so he constructed a touching moment to honor the victims many years later. The way he chose to honor their memory, however, is pretty hilarious.

The bull presumably represents the tremor shaking the earth, upon which sits Turkmenbashi's mother, who is holding him (conveniently shown in gold). It's a little difficult to understand how the statue represents the other victims of the earthquake given that the only people in the statue are T-bashi and his mother... but there you have it.

The city, of course, has many more wonders. Among them: the Ministry of Fairness, the Ministry of Investment, the Museum of Turkmen Values, Turkmenbashi World of Fairytales (an amusement park), the Walk of Health (a 28 km-long set of steps set into the mountainside where government officials were once forced to trek annually), and... drumroll... the world's largest flagpole:

But I don't want to give you idea that Ashgabat is just some impersonal city of marble. It's also a deeply spiritual place. For around the city are many bookstores, shrines and reading rooms devoted to the Holy Ruhnama (see more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruhnama). The Ruhnama, or the Book of the Soul, was one of the many books published by Turkmenbashi when he was alive, but it enjoys a very special role in society (on par with the Qur'aan, according to its author). The book is basically the former President's fanciful interpretation of national history and a compilation of his thoughts on Turkmen values. Frighteningly, it's required reading for driving exams, high schools, medical schools and government examinations for all kinds.

I really couldn't resist buying a copy, especially when the government had so kindly subsidized my copy with its natural gas revenues (it was about $2.50, hardcover). For your enlightenment, I am attaching a few choice quotes from the Holy Book.

The Ruhnama on national identity: "I want to make the young Türkmen alert to this simple fact and to awaken his whole heart and mind to this fact. Why is the Türkmen people a great people? There are various reasons. “Ruhnama” focuses on all those great Türkmens. They are great because such great Türkmens made their own historians and foreign historians say that the Türkmen has been alive for five thousand years."

And on religion: "Allah selected the four heroes of the Türkmens – Oguz Han, Gorkut Ata, Görogly and Magtymguly - as the inheritors of the prophets. Today, Allah the Great has designated you as their inheritor. [Turkmenbashi], devote your life to maintaining the unity of the turkmen nation and to sustaining the golden life for them.” Hmm...

And on geography: "The Türkmen people has a great history which goes back to the Prophet Noah. Prophet Noah gave the Türkmen lands to his son Yafes and his descendants." Really?

So there you go: Ashgabat and the Ruhnama, an incredible adventure into the hilarious and the bizarre. Next up: escaping Turkmenistan and crossing the Caspian Sea. Adios!

Baku in Action

2008-07-18T11:59:00.003+01:00

From: Baku, Azerbaijan

Well, here I am in Baku, a few hours after crossing the Caspian Sea from Turkmenistan. I know I'm only in Azerbaijan, but it sure feels like being back in civilization (for instance, a shower with hot water today!)

I've added phots to my last four blog posts. Some of the night shots are pretty spectacular and worth checking out.

I just uploaded a post about some adventures in Turkmenistan. More on that to come...

Barbeque

2008-07-18T06:03:00.014+01:00

From: Baku, Azerbaijan

After our second night in Nukus, we headed from the Turkmen border. Before we left, we made a substitution to the traveling trio: James doubled back to Kyrgyzstan to meet his wife, and Thierry, a Dutch traveler I had met in Almaty, joined Michael and me.

We were all a bit nervous about the border crossing; both Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan are police states with corrupt border officials, and you never know what sorts of "charges" the cops might cook up for the unwary traveler. Uzbekistan, in particular, has extremely draconian and inflexible rules: if your customs declaration is off by a dollar, or if you're missing even one hotel registration chit (which we were, thanks to the CNG incident) you could be forced to pay hundreds of dollars. I'd heard at least three horror stories of fines in the $500 range for trivial paperwork problems.

Our luck held up, however, and the crossing was painless, if slow. And there we were at last: Turkmenistan, most remote of the five regional Republics, the North Korea of Central Asia, former home of the "glorious" Saparmyrat Turkmenbashi. It's worth mentioning a quick word about Turkmenbashi, the "Father of the Turkmen People" and Turkmenistan's first post-independence leader. Much of what is alluring or worth seeing in this country is in some way related to him and his absurd beliefs and actions. You can read about him here -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saparmurat_Niyazov -- but you'll also get a pretty good sense for the big guy's absurdities through the next couple of blog posts.

ne of the unfortunate quirks about Turkmen tourist laws is that visitors are required to hire an (expensive) Turkmen guide for their entire stay in the country. Still, it can be nice to have someone to show you around. Our first guide was a very nice ex-military chap called Makhsat, who took us on a two-day trip south to the capital.

Our first stop in the country was Konye-Urgench, which contains the scattered ruins of a powerful thirteenth-century city-state: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konya-Urgench. The city was abandoned when its water source diverted, around the same time that the city was sacked by Timur (mentioned in earlier post about Samarqand). The monuments left, however, are very impressive, and show an architectural style very different from that of Uzbek cities.

Next we headed on a long drive into the Karakum (Blacksand) Desert. The desert is immense, hundreds of miles in both length and width. It makes a spectacular drive, with terrain ranging from harsh scrubland to duney areas where camels march across the road, oblivious to cars.

Here, camels marching across the road, oblivious to cars:

By nightfall, we reached the former town of Darvaza, which means 'Gates' in Turkmen. Several years ago, President Turkmenbashi visited the village and was upset that the low-income desert community didn't seem to meet the standards of his widely-touted 'Turkmen Golden Age,' a period of prosperity which began, unsurprisingly, when he assumed power. After his visit, he had Darvaza bulldozed and the residents displaced (to where, no one is really sure). So there isn't much left of the place now, just a few tea-houses and yurt camps. One of the yurts was ours for the night.

Rather than simply 'Gates,' the town of Darvaza could be more appropriately called the 'Gates of Hell'; a few miles behind the yurt camps, past a ridge of sand dunes, is the Gas Crater. The crater is, hands down, the most hell-like and spectacular thing I've seen this trip.

In the 1970s, Soviet engineers built a natural gas rig on the site of the current crater. Turkmenistan is extremely rich in natural gas, and the rig was one of several drain-the-earth style investments in the area. One day, the ground underneath the rig gave way and the rig collapsed into the pit, exploding into flame as sparks ignited the hundreds of open gas jets. The rig, and everyone on it, was quickly burned to a crisp. The giant crater left by the collapse is connected to almost limitless underground gas reserves, and has been burning for over 30 years, with no end in sight. The result is truly impressive, a flaming pit over 150 feet wide and over 100 feet deep. Here are a few shots:

We sat by the edge of the crater and watched the sunset. As it got darker, the crater became even more spectacular. Later, while we were heading back to the camp, our ancient Soviet minivan got its front wheel trapped deep in the sand. It took a while to get out. First we tried to the traditional Turkmen approach: keep flooring the engine harder until the sand gives up. It didn't. Michael, who grew up in Botswana and knew a thing or two about stuck tires, devised a plan to put plastic and strawgrass under the wheel and push the car out. That plan worked, but it had been an hour of trying by that point, and we were all hungry for dinner by the time we got back to the yurt.

Our guide woke us up early the next morning, since there were still a few hundred kilometres to go until Ashgabat. To break the trip, we stopped in the town of Jerbent, a desert village which had not been destroyed by Turkmenbashi.

The town had a couple of little wicker tea-stands, some pens for sick baby camels, and some houses and yurts. I noticed a disused corek (Turkmen bread) oven sitting in the middle of the village. Turkmen treat this national bread as holy, and they never set it upside down, feed it to animals, or sweep away its crumbs. The tandoor-like ovens used to make it are never destroyed, but are instead left to fall apart over time.

A boy with an ill camel (they tie them up so they don't tire themselves out in the desert):

Children around the abandoned oven:

I also made sure to check out the local gas station. Since the early 90s, the Turkmen government has used highly subsidized petrol and free natural gas to buy the support of the population, quite relevant given the government's widespread repression of free speech and laughable human-rights record. Turns out, at this station at least, that regular unleaded sells for $0.23 / L (around $1.00 a gallon). I asked a couple of people just to double-check, and they actually complained that the prices had gone up several times since the new leader came to power. Quite the energy crisis!

We drove south for a long time until we reached Ashgabat, the capital. As we passed through the colossal marble gates of the city, we left the desert behind and entered a bizarre world of marble and gold. More on that next time...

PS. I forgot to share a funny anecdote about the more bizarre side of traveling in a police state. Fifteen minutes after we crossed into Turkmenistan, we went to the Konye-Urgench bazaar to stock up on critical supplies such as wafer cookies and Coke. Michael and Thierry, in separate parts of the market, were taking pictures of vendors and their produce. They were each apprehended by the cops and taken (separately) for interrogation in a cafe, where the cops sat them down and demanded a Vegetable-Photography Fine so they could pay for their meal.

Just Deserts

2008-07-11T11:13:00.003+01:00

From: Nukus, Karakalpak Republic, Uzbekistan

I'm writing from Nukus, capital of the semi-autonomous Republic of Karakalpakstan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karakalpakstan) on the edge of Uzbekistan. I knew almost nothing about the place until a couple of days ago. James, Michael and I were all having money problems in Khiva: no working ATMs, no place to get cash advances, no capable employees at the National Bank, etc. We were lamenting the situation to a taxi driver, but he reassured us: "Nukus is the capital of Karakalpakstan. Many, many investors. Money is easy to get -- US dollars, Uzbek sum, whatever." And so we set out for Nukus, world-class financial center, rival to New York and London, home to the most sophisticated investment community on the planet.

You probably won't be surprised to know that we haven't encountered any employees of Goldman Sachs in Nukus. If there is an investment community here, I'm guessing, they must trade in sand futures or sell financial instruments based on used-car parts. Quite frankly, this is one of the most hilariously bleak and desolate places I've ever gone. There's no visible industry, almost no tourists, and the streets are hot and empty.

There is one intriguing and impressive sight in Nukus, however: the Savitsky Museum. Savitsky was an artist during the early Soviet period (1920s and 30s). Among other things, he collected a large number of works that fell outside of the artistic and ideological mainstream supported by the Communist Party. Isolated in Nukus, he was able to preserve a lot of great pieces of artwork from destruction by Soviet cultural authorities -- his collection had more than 50,000 works by the time of his death. For a town like Nukus, the collection was extremely impressive, with excellent works spanning expressionism, abstract realism, Muralism and more modern styles.

We haven't stayed in Nukus the whole time, though. In search of even greater desolation, we took a field trip to Moynaq, a four-hour ride north of Nukus into the desert. Moynaq's tale is a sad and interesting one. Until the 1960s, the town was was the fishing capital of the ill-fated Aral Sea, and the area was fairly prosperous by regional standards. In the late Soviet period, the area's rulers decided to divert the Amu-Darya and other major tributaries of the Aral Sea, to try and boost cotton production in desert areas. It worked, but, with reduced inflowing water, the Aral started to shrink at an alarming rate. It's now a tiny fraction of its former size, and towns like Moynaq were cut off from the shoreline in a matter of years.

Moynaq, today, is almost a ghost town, with absolutely no local industry except a bit of cotton farming in the suburbs. At our hotel, once a large and presumably bustling place, we were the only tourists. Just outside of town are dozens of eerie, rusted ships sitting on the desert sand, over a hundred miles from the current ocean -- a sad reminder of the Soviets' attempt to play Mother Nature:

In a place like Moynaq, you have to bring your own fun. Since it was one of our last nights together, the three of us decided to have a little 'Booze Cruise' on one of the beached ships in the desert. We had a bottle of good Uzbek wine we brought from Bukhara, got some local bread (there are no restaurants in Moynaq, in turns out) and spent the evening on the hull of a rusted fishing trawler. The sunset was spectacular, and (although it probably goes without saying), we had the place to ourselves. Here, Michael and James, drinking Muscat out of plastic glasses I carved with a bread knife:

I'm getting ready to head to the Turkmen border tomorrow at Konye-Urgench. Looking forward to six days in Central Asia's most bizarre country... will write more soon.

Hard Khore

2008-07-08T13:16:00.006+01:00

From: Khiva, Uzbekistan

We've spent the past couple of days in Khorezm, a tiny province in the West of Uzbekistan. There aren't many cities, but a couple stand out: Boston (same spelling -- weird, right?) and Khiva, the most beautiful and atmospheric little town I've seen in Asia. We've gotten up to a few fun adventures while here.

Khiva is a very compact little place, architecturally charming but a little dead -- it feels a bit like a museum. A lot of the town is reconstructed since (surprise, surprise) the Soviets blew it apart when they invaded in the 20s. Still, it gives a great sense of what the city was like at the height of the Khorezm kingdom: dazzling green towers, giant medressas, mysterious-looking mosques. The city is incredible to look at both during the day:

And at night:

At night, in fact, the city becomes totally deserted. Even the young louts you usually see hanging on streetcorners in other Central Asian cities are oddly absent. With no one around, the city starts to feel like a giant, Eastern playground to semi-adults like myself. Two nights ago, Michael, James and I grabbed a very responsible quantity of beer and climbed up on different things around Khiva: the city walls, a small necropolis, a mosque. Many of the buidings are close together and built with multiple levels, so it's possible to get onto a lot of the monuments.

Later that evening we stumbled across a few shaggy Turkmen-style hats and decided to make a little skit about Central Asia. Something to show the folks at home, you know? It will be a while before I can upload it, but the video clip is (if I may say so) pretty stellar: part Borat impersonation, part Soviet war song, part Russian dancing competition, part Turkmen nationalism. All fun... video to be uploaded later.

So yeah... today, we took a fun little trip north to the Kyzylkum (Redsand) desert, into an area called Fifty Fortresses. I'm not actually sure there are fifty of them, but there's a bunch of gigantic mud castles on mountains in the middle of the desert. The couple we saw were remarkably well-preserved. Here's a view from the main fortress of Ayaz-Qala down to an outpost:

I will say, however, that the climb up to one of them was kinda exhausting. It must have been the heat, I told myself, and also the altitude. Or maybe neither, and I've just become out of shape by eating heavy, ricey lunches and sitting in tea-houses half the day. Maybe I'm building a Central Asian physique.

But, to our tale. Our driver took us to this touristy yurt camp and camel ranch near one of the biggest fortresses. This place basically specializes in renting camels (the Bactrian kind) out to groups of tourists. Pretty cool -- it was one of the reasons we went out to the desert in the first place. Too bad the camel ranch didn't have any camels. "No camels at all?" I asked. No. Apparently they camels had wandered away in the morning ("to get their lunch") and the camel people had no idea where they had gone. The Uzbek tourist sector at its finest... We went for a swim in a nearby lake instead. I guess it was more like an oasis since it's in the desert and all.

So Khorezm has been fun, but I'm looking forward to the next couple of weeks. Tomorrow we're heading to Karakalpakstan, which is like a country with Uzbekistan and has a lot of bizarre sights. From there, south to Turkmenistan, with its gas craters, odd capital and rock formations. A week into Turkmenistan, I'll cross the Caspian to Azerbaijan on a giant Soviet ferry boat. All good stuff, but I probably won't get a chance to write about it until I reach Baku (August 19th). Until then...

Hammaming it up

2008-07-07T12:15:00.005+01:00

From: Khiva, Uzbekistan

We spent an interesting few days in Bukhara, a beautiful city in central Uzbekistan.

There are a lot of fascinating sights in the city, but I'll stick to the highlights. The neatest sight in the city was the Ark, the former palace of the Emir of Bukhara. The citadel is large and served as the seat of the prince until the Soviets attacked and destroyed most of the building.

Nearby is the unpleasant-looking Bug Pit, where prisoners of the Emir were left to rot with scorpions, snakes and other vermin whose stock was refreshed on a regular basis. At one point, the pit was home to two British officers who got on the wrong side of the ruler.

Bukhara also has a some of stunning medressas and religious buildings, many of them spectacular at night:

The three of us took a day trip to see the buildings of the Naqshbandiyya, a Sufi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sufi) order based outside of Bukhara. When I was in Senegal, I spent a lot of time studying one of the Sufi orders there, so it was interesting to see the Central Asian variety. The Naqshbandiyya were a mystical Muslim order who pursued their religious devotion through meditation, arcane rituals and spiritual ceremonies, in a way very different from "mainstream" Islam. Thanks to the Soviets, and to the recent death of the order's spiritual leader, there isn't much left in the way of dedicated followers. There was an interesting museum dedicated to seven of the Naqshbandi saints, their wanders around the world and their dress, a lot of which were stunning, with Qur'aanic verses woven into the fabric. Here, the courtyard of the main order complex:

When we got back from the Sufi shrines, we remembered it was US Independence Day -- time for some celebration. We ended up doing a private wine tasting at the Omar Khayyam House. Omar Khayyam was a brilliant Persian scientist and philosopher who spent much of his life in Bukhara. Despite the protests of local haters, he enjoyed of both women and wine -- hence, the wine tasting salon named in his honor. I was pleasantly surprised by the tasting experience. We tasted 8 wines (some whites, some reds, all with generous pours), for $6 a head. The wines weren't all great, but they were pretty interesting. Most were blends of well-known European grapes like Cabernet Sauvignon with more obscure Georgian varietals. Some of the wines were from made from "native" Uzbek grapes, which had been developed in the late 1800s in the greenhouse of an eccentric Russian nobleman, then planted in large quantities in Central Uzbekistan. Overall, very cool experience.

Bukhara also had some less pleasant moments -- specifically, an incident involving the CNG (Uzbek successor to the Soviet KGB). Everything is fine now, but it was a little worrisome for a bit. Here's what happened: we had bumped into the owner of our hotel on the street, and decided to stay with her since the accomodation was cheap ($5 a night, yeah!) She had just opened her hotel and the official registration was going to be processed in a couple of days. Technically, the hotel wasn't authorized to take guests for a couple of days, although we didn't know this at the time.

A local thief and layabout called Memin, who also works as an informant for the CNG, noticed us talking to the hotel owner in the street. Then, from what the owner later told us, he followed us back to the hotel to confirm we were staying there. He tipped off another, more senior informant, who was watching by the hotel to check what we were up to. None of us noticed the guy at any point. The day after we arrived, we went to the bazaar with the owner and her husband to buy food for dinner. We hadn't noticed, but the senior informant had been following us for about 40 minutes. When we stopped to grab a beer at the bar, he started interrogating the owners, asking them to open their bags and demanding if we were staying with them.

The owners told us to take a cab to a bathhouse in another part of the city and then tried to beat the informant back to the hotel, where they quickly packed up our bags, spirited them away to another hostel, and had someone prepare fake registrations to make it look like we were staying at the new place the whole time. The informant came by our first hotel shortly after to check for (and maybe take) our bags, but the owners beat him to the punch. A weird story, but it ended up ok in the end.

The reason that both Memin and the senior informant were after us is, of course, about the money. The fines, if they had caught us, would be $600 per person, plus fines for the owners, and the informants would have gotten a substantial cut of the $2,000 total. It was an annoying incident for us, but could have been much worse for the hotel owners. To me, it was frustrating to see hard-working, entreprising businesspeople are undermined by leaches and informants looking to make a quick buck. I guess you can't expect much more from a post-Soviet police state.

I mentioned that we escaped from the bazaar to a hammam, or bathhouse. Hammams come in two varieties: the fancy, touristy kind with clean toilets and skilled masseurs, and; the gritty, cheap, slightly dirtier kind that the locals use. "Local Banya #6," where we went, is of the second type. It was a cool experience, though: you sit for a while in a very hot and humid sauna room until you can't take it, then you head into a cooler, more humid room to wash in cold water and prepare yourself for re-entry into the sauna. You repeat the process as often as you like, and I borrowed a black pumice stone from an old man to get some of the dead skin off. Think I ended up taking off some live skin too...

This has turned into a long post, so I'm going to wrap up. Be back soon...

International Friendship

2008-07-06T14:03:00.009+01:00

From: Khiva, Uzbekistan

My first stop in Uzbekistan was Samarqand. Before I get started here, some poetry. No respectable Central Asian travel blogger would miss a chance to quote a few tired lines of Flecker's The Golden Journey to Samarqand:

"We travel not for trafficking alone,
By hotter winds our fiery hearts are fanned.
For lust of knowing what should not be known
We take the Golden Road to Samarkand.

I'd have put it differently, but yes, I was excited to arrive; Samarqand has always seemed to me the most mysterious, romantic and legendary city on the Silk Road. It was the first city I learned about in the region and, in many ways, the reason I decided to travel here.

In Samarqand, I joined up with a couple of new travel buddies. The first was James, a friend of my close friend from Penn, expert in Central Asian history and fluent Russian speaker. He's been conducting research in other parts of Uzbekistan for a serious blog focused on Central Asia. We've also been traveling with Michael, a world-traveling Aussie we met at our hostel. It's been great having a bit of a travel group. Traveling alone the past few weeks has been a lot of fun, but I like having a small group. Turns out we're all doing pretty much the same itinerary in Uzbekistan, trekking west from Samarqand through Bukhara and Khiva into the semi-autonomous "Republic of Karakalpakstan."

Samarqand has the most spectacular monuments in Central Asia. There are a mind-boggling number of turquoise-domed mosques, mausoleums, medressas and forts, all largely intact since the town was never bombarded by the Soviets. The most spectacular of these sights is the Registan, a large plaza with three stunning medressas (Qur'aanic schools). Each of the buildings is large, with colorful blue-green tiles and complex 3-D geometric patterns carved into the vaulted ceilings. Together, the buildings of the Registan are awe-inspiring. It's also interesting how the Islamic world produced such stunning public buildings: since Islam forbids painting and many visual arts, Muslim creative types tended to channel their energy into poetry or architecture.

James and I headed to the Registan as soon as I got to Samarqand. We paid off a guard who let us into the closed parts of the building (everything is available for a price in Central Asia). We climbed up one of the minarets and got some good shots of the buildings.

Here, the majolica dome of a medressa:

And the interior courtyard of another:

We also checked out the Bibi-Khanyn mosque, a giant, crumbling place that I found even moreimpressive than the Registan:

It's easy to get overloaded by Samarqand's famous and imposing masterpieces. Fortunately, we also found some less-frequented and more mysterious sights. One afternoon, we managed to track down the Ishratkhana mausoleum, a ruined burial place outside of town. The place was pretty deserted, it had an underground crypt with a skylight, crumbling minarets and a few spiral staircases. Atmospheric enough, in fact, that the three of us decided to head back there at night with a couple of bottles of wine and a homemade dinner. One local we hung out with advised against the plan: "there are many places of dark magic, especially in Samarqand." Turned out ok: the only real evil was the slightly stale bread we ate for dinner. Below, me going into the crypt:

After a few days, the three of us headed to the nearby town of Shakhrisabz to explore local history. The city was home to Timur (Tamerlane -- see wikipedia), one of Central Asia's greatest conquerors. The few sights in Shakhrisabz are all related to the guy. We went to the still-imposing ruins of the Ak-Saray Palace:

After that, we visited what was intended to be Timur's crypt. He had ordered its construction some time before his death, but died during Samarqand during the winter. Since the pass to Shakhrisabz was closed, his followers decided to bury him in the capital. The bodiless crypt was still neat, though.

But enough of monuments. What trip to Shakhrisabz would be complete without a trip to the local amusement park? OK, it's not exactly Six Flags Uzbekistan, but the ride on the Russian Wheel (ferris wheel, to you non-Soviets) was actually pretty thrilling. Admittedly, mostly for safety reasons: the wheel seemed to have been constructed from sheet metal welded together by middle school students, and the movement was powered by a pair of strained motors that looked like they're been salvaged off a lawnmower. But that's not to say that Soviet amusement parks aren't high tech. Check out this short video of the propellor-powered merry-go-round: [to be uploaded later.]

After the park, we stopped and had lunch at a small tea-house. Here, I discovered yet another facet on the Central Asian jewel of hospitality. I had asked one of the young boys working at the restaurant if I could use the bathroom. He grinned led me to a wall in the back, then pointed at a spot on the wall: "here." It became kind of obvious that he wanted to go next to me, I guess in a gesture of international bonding. It's weird what will make someone's day.

Samarqand, although fun by day, also has some decent nightlife. One of the Michael's friends in a Samarqand native, so he and his buddies took us out for a night on the town. We started out with a trip to watch the Euro Cup final, a nail-biter between Germany and Spain, especially if you're a football fan. Spain won. Say what you like about Spanish football, but there's no other country who can fake injuries and whine so convincingly on the field. After the match, we headed to a nightclub for some late-night entertainment. Bizarre, one of the local guys ordered a giant fruit sculpture. Gotta say I've never been a club where seven guys were polishing off a melon-tower... guess there's a lot of ways to be a tough guy in Uzbekistan.

All in all, a good few days at the heart of the Silk Road. Next up: adventures in the holy city of Bukhara.

My biggest Fans

2008-06-30T14:21:00.008+01:00

From: Bukhara, Uzbekistan

OK, I'm way behind on posts. Since the last time I wrote, I've done the following:
- spent a couple of days in the Fan mountains
- crossed into Uzbekistan
- visited the beautiful city of Samarqand
- been followed by a KGB agent in Bukhara

I'll cover all this stuff later; this post is about my trip into the Fan mountains.

There are several ways to get from Dushanbe to Uzbekistan. The most scenic route takes the M-34 north to the mountains, cuts west along some very poor roads, and ends up in Penjikent, a town on the Uzbek border.

The trip to Penjikent was uneventful by Tajik standards: no Tunnel of Death, roadblock delays less than 3 hours, minimal radiator/engine failures. I got to Penjikent in the evening. Turned out there were some American girls staying at my homestay, and I ended up joining them on a trip to the nearby Sogdian ruins and to the Marguzor lakes.

On the hills above the town are the ruins of Old Penjikent, a settlement from pre-Islamic times. Our guide explained that, with the arrival of the Muslim armies, the former residents were forced to abandon the old town and move down towards the river, where they still live today.

I'm usually not a huge fan of ruins, but these were interesting, and in good enough shape to give a sense of the former city's size. The town was built out of a combination of stones, clay and bricks, some of which are in good shape for having been exposed to the elements for over a thousand years. The ancient Sogdians (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sogdiana) were Zoroastrians (members of an ancient Persian religion that worshipped fire), and you can still see the ruins of the town's fire temples:

After the ruins, our driver drove us into the Fan Mountains and dropped us off at the Marguzor lakes. There are seven mountain lakes in the system, each connected by small streams and waterfalls. We started at the second lake and hiked up to the sixth one, a several-hour walk uphill. The scenery was some of the most beautiful I've seen on this trip:

We stopped and had lunch at a picturesque set of rapids, then hiked until we reached the village of Marguzor itself. The village is remote -- an hour's drive by Jeep to Penjikent on very rough roads. The village has no shops or public buildings of any kind, just herding and subsistence agriculture on a few patches of arable land irrigated by the river. Definitely a strange place to settle, right? Our guide explained that the ancestors of the mountain dwellers had fled to the hills to avoid invaders, and their children had just stuck around. The Marguzorians are a welcoming bunch; it seemed like every kid in the town followed us until we reached the next lake:

The sixth lake (where we stopped) was spectactular and we stopped to swim for a while. Not that a lot of swimming took place; the highest lake is fed by glacial runoff so the water temperature was chilly indeed. Our driver showed up in late afternoon with a giant plastic thermos of hot tea, a welcome sight after a few plunges into the lake.

Thus were the Fans. I'll write more about Samarqand soon.

Dushanbear

2008-06-26T12:55:00.014+01:00

From: Samarqand, Uzbekistan

I've spent a couple of days in Dushanbe. It's been a good chance to relax, eat some good food, and stock up on funds and supplies before going to the Fan Mountains.

The city itself is charming, leafy and relaxed, with the prettiest architecture I've seen yet in a Central Asian city.

The people and their clothes are interesting. Tajiks are generally European-looking, making them very distinct from Uzbek and Kyrgyz neighbors. I really find the Tajik way of dressing (at least on the women) quite beautiful. Compared to the past two countries I've seen, Tajikistan is quite conservative and more strictly adherent to Islamic customs. Most of the women here wear colorful ankle-length dresses and matching headscarves, usually tied loosely around the hair. When I walk through the bazaar or along Rudaki (the main drag), it's really something to watch.

Another surprising feature of Tajik appearance: the ubiquitous unibrow (or monobrow to antipodeans). I noticed that many of the women in Dushanbe (even younger ones) have a sort of continuous eyebrow, rather than the shaped/tweezed eyebrows that are popular in the West or the Arab world. The result is a city full of Frida Kahlo lookalikes. Odd, huh? One of my hosts explained it to me: the unibrow is viewed as something distinctive and beautiful inTajikistan. So much so, in fact, that a lot of the younger girls I've seen on buses actually have the gap between their eyebrows drawn in my eyebrow pen to create a sort of illusory monobrow. I guess tweezer sales haven't done so well in Dushanbe.

I must say, haven't done a lot here. But there are the highlights:

- Visiting the Hissar fortress

- Snagging my visa for the glorious nation Turkmenistan (not going to discuss this... I've talked about paperwork enough already)

- Meeting the RC-Kola bear

- Popping by the Museum of Musical Instruments

The remains of the capital's qala, or fortress, are about 40 km west of Dushanbe in a small town called Hissar. The original fortress was built in the 1700's by the local ruler, using the contours of hills to give the building's shape. I guess I was expecting some sort of impressive, largely-intact citadel like you would get in Scotland or something. Not so -- the Soviets blew up the entire castle when they attacked in the 20's. All there is now is a reconstructed front gate. The fortress itself is now used as a collective farm. There were some goats and cows scattered around the place:

I also saw a dozen or so women toiling in the field in long dresses, with nary a man between them. Where were the men? Doing other jobs? You'd think so, but you'd be wrong. I went down the street to a tea house and found twenty men (of all ages) drinking tea in the shade and telling stories. Tajikistan isn't a bad place to work, as long as you're male.

Now, on to RC-Kola bear. Those of you from North America will probably be familiar with the RC (Royal Crown) line of sodas, a cheaper, off-brand alternative to Coke and Pepsi. They also have RC in Tajikistan, but it's actually a knock-off of the original RC. This makes it a double-off-brand manufacturer of soda. OK, that's the context. On to the bear itself: I was walking through the park in front of my hotel when I saw an old, bearded man leading a guy dressed in a brown bear costume on leash. People were laughing and I assumed this was some sort of traditional Tajik slapstick/performance art: old man has boy in bear costume and does a bunch of tricks, that sort of thing. So I checked it out. Turns out the guy had an actual Russian brown bear on a leash! The thing was really well-trained -- its main trick was drinking RC Kola out of the bottle. The old man gave it two to drink and it finished each in a jif. Thirsty ol' bear!

What else? I also popped into the Museum of Musical Instruments, basically a bunch of rooms curiously attached to the district court. The museum is packed with instruments (mostly string, with some percussion) from around Central Asia. I love playing around with weird, different instruments so I had a blast. The curator is a traveling musician and has been all over the world (yes, even to Ottawa -- know you were wondering!) with a small ensemble from the Pamirs. He showed me how to play the rubab (a sort of plucked string instrument), and gave demonstrations on a bunch of violin-esque things whose names escape me, as well as some Turkish and Iranian flutes.

Travails

2008-06-25T18:01:00.014+01:00

From: Dushanbe, Tajikistan

Back again. I arrived early this morning in Dushanbe, the peaceful and leafy capital of the Tajik Republic. Will write about the city later, but this post is about getting here - an interesting couple of days, to say the least.

Funny how things work out sometimes. Right after I uploaded my previous post (about my problems getting to the border), I had a major stroke of traveler's luck that took me all the way to Tajikistan. Two backpackers in my hostel -- Raduz and Violeta -- had somehow managed to find a car that agreed to take them west to the Tajik border crossing at Batkent. I bumped into them just as they were getting ready to leave, so I paid my share and jumped onboard.

The political landscape in southwest Kyrgyzstan makes travel to Batkent tricky. Armed conflicts in the past fifteen years have produced a number of isolated Uzbek and Tajik 'exclaves' within Kyrgyzstan. There are four Uzbek-controlled exclaves in the country (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provinces_of_Uzbekistan), all of them effectively off-limits to foreigners. One of them (Sokh), is unfortunately located on the major road that locals use from Osh to Batkent. We had to pay our driver to avoid drive around the Uzbek checkpoints (all of this costs extra, of course) and cut across some inhospitable, lunar-looking landscapes to the Tajik border.

The border crossing itself was completely uneventful, which in Central Asia is a good thing. Once across, we headed to Khojand, an ancient city in northern Tajikistan, and once the easternmost city in Alexander the Great's empire. It isn't exactly packed with Greek ruins, but it's a nice enough place for a couple of days.

My traveling companions had some friends in the city. One of them (a local guy, Furyk) took us out to the Karaikum Reservoir, a Soviet-scale artificial lake just outside the city. We spent the afternoon at a crumbling communist-era turbaza, or health resort:

The place was comically dilapidated, but with a little imagination, you could almost hear the voices of children on holiday from around the USSR, singing Soviet songs. It's still a fun place today: cold beers and hot shashlyk for lunch, followed by a swim in the warm water.

That night, we headed into town for some Russian cuisine. Alright, 'cuisine' might be a bit strong a word, but it was Russian food anyways. There were maybe ten customers in the place (ourselves included)... more than enough to justify a live music performance. There was a small stage with disco balls, fake palm trees and an electronic keyboard. The Tajik performer would put on a CD, play along to the music on the keyboard, and sing or lip-synch the song playing (mostly Persian pop, I think). Outstanding.

My second day in Khojand was a combination of the fun and the infuriating. We'd been lucky to meet Halim, a native of northern Tajikistan and an incredible host -- he invited the three of us to stay at his house while we were in the city. It was yet more of the intense, yet touching, form of hospitality in Central Asia. Halim had made homemade cherry juice earlier that week. Incredible stuff -- we drank almost all of it.

In the morning, Halim took us to "register" our visas at the regional government offices. The very concept of registering one's visa is absurd. The idea is that, even after having purchased a visa for Tajikistan and traveled to the country, the government needs to make sure they know where you are at all times. Enter OVIR, the inefficient and ridiculous government agency charged with doing just that.

To get registered, you need to fill out a bunch of forms, get copies of your passport, bring passport-sized photos, and (most difficult) find a local who is himself registered in the immediate district and therefore authorized to fill out the host information box on your registration form. None of the local hotels are able to do this, so I have no idea what tourists do if they don't have a Tajik friend. Even once you have the requisite forms completed, you have to run around to local banks and made overpriced, certified payments in both Tajik somoni and US dollars. Even with a native Farsi and Russian speaker, the process still took the better part of the day.

I'll write more on this later, but I find it astonishing that a country that claims to encourage tourism still uses unfriendly, Soviet-era processes like visas and registration. It's even worse if you don't register within 72 hours of entering the country: the police can easily extort money or you can be forced to pay a $100 fine when you exit.

Registration complete by late afternoon, we caught some of the city's better sights. These included a well-stocked museum covering the history of the region from Alexandrian times, a poorly-stocked museum with some broken shards of pottery, and the famous Syr-Darya river. We went swimming in the river with some local kids (mostly boys, I noticed). I usually try to avoid swimming in urban waterways, but it seemed clean enough. And I haven't developed any signs of infection (yet).

Halim, Raduz, Violeta and I at the (better) museum:

Swimming in the Syr-Darya:

Two days ago, I got in a taxi heading for Dushanbe. I knew the trip was going to be long (my guidebook billed it as a 12-hour trek), but I really had no idea what was in store.

The first leg of the drive itself is stunning, a slow, high-altitude journey along the M-34 as it weaves through the Zeravshan mountains. For most of the way, the road offers specatacular views of the mountains and the cream-colored Zeravshan river crashing through the rocks below. This picture half-captures the beauty:

In early afternoon, we came across a few roadblocks manned by Chinese construction crews. It was a little unclear what the roadblocks were for, but I guess they had to do with repairs to the M-34. The wait at each one was about half an hour, during which time all the Tajik taxi drivers (usually at least 10) would harass the poor Chinese guy working there. This usually involved a lot of waiting, and what my driver described as "talking Chinese" (the Tajiks speaking Russian with an insulting fake Chinese accent, the Chinese guy politely smiling and shaking his head).

Later on, we arrived at the tunnel through the Zeravshan mountains. The tunnel is the only way to Dushanbe, and it's here where the fun really began. A Chinese-Tajik worker crew was making major repairs to the tunnel and had stopped all traffic along the M-34 in both directions for almost 4 hours. The traffic was backed up on our end for more than 100 vehicles, including both freight and passenger cars.

At 8 pm, someone had the brilliant idea to open access on both ends of the tunnel. Eager to beat the traffic, all the drivers sped as fast as they could into the tunnel, driving in both the correct lane and the lane for oncoming traffic. When the cars from the our side got halfway through the tunnel (which is about 2 km long) they bumped into the traffic from the other end, which had also taken up both lanes. To make matters worse, the middle of the tunnel itself had been reduced to one lane because of the repair work. As the cars piled up in the middle of the tunnel, there was no way forward, and it was impossible to back up.

I've seen very few places that I would describe as "hell on earth," but being stuck in the tunnel was one of them. With cars packed into the unventilated tunnel, the exhaust from the cars built up steadily. Instead of switching off their engines to keep the fumes down, most of the drivers revved their engines out of anger and frustration. After half an hour, it started to become harder to breathe. To add to the fun, each 'side' of traffic would break into a round of honking every five or ten minutes, either out of anger, or else to convince the other side to back up. Hundreds of cars honking in a sealed tunnel isn't the most accoustically pleasant thing in the world. On top of that, the tunnel was flooded with oily water that was ankle-deep in most parts and knee-deep in others; I saw a couple of rats scuttling around on the dry patches. The water meant that we couldn't get out of our cars, which was probably a blessing in disguise, since the drivers on our side were screaming at the oncoming traffic and things could have gotten physical.

A snapshot of the tunnel, 2 hours in:

A view of the tunnel at the repair station:

After 3 hours in the tunnel, I was coughing a lot and starting to get a real headache. I decided to grab my bag and make a run for the end of the tunnel (flooding or no flooding) when the cars started to inch forward slowly. The engineers had finally found a way to direct the traffic so that one side could move at a time. Thirty minutes later, we left the tunnel, and I rolled my window down to a beautiful, starry sky and the freshest mountain air I've ever breathed. I was asleep within a few minutes.

I woke up the next morning in Varzob, a charming, hilly suburb of Dushanbe, at the house of a fellow passenger. We had a nice breakfast (although a little too early, at 6:30, for my taste) then headed to town.

Osh Kosh B'Gosh

2008-06-21T07:46:00.006+01:00

From: Osh, Kyrgyzstan

I arrived in Osh a couple of days ago. It's the second-largest city in the country, located in the South, near the Uzbek and Tajik borders. I'll be here for a couple more days until I can figure out onward transport (read on...), but it's interesting so far.

Southern Krygyzstan (and Osh in particular) is more conservative and outwardly Muslim than the northern part of the country. Although Kazakhstan and northern Kyrgyzstan are predominantly Muslim, I had never heard even one person mention Islam, seen anyone pray or listened to the call of a muezzin while I was there. On my taxi ride from the capital to Osh, I noticed the difference immediately; all the men in my taxi wore traditional skullcaps and said prayers as the car left the station. When I reached Osh, I found the difference in dress from Karakol and Kochkor was pronounced. Women (especially married ones) tend to cover their hair and dress more conservatively than northerners. Men dress similarly, but tend to keep their hear shorter, grow their beards out and wear skullcaps. Slight differences in the architecture (more Uzbek influence than Russian) give the city a more Persian/Arabic, and less Russian, feel.

The city is famous for two things: the great bazaar (the largest in the region) and the Throne of Solomon.

The bazaar is everything a good market should be: gigantic, impressive, chaotic and loud. The bazaar stretches along the river near my hostel into the center of town. I haven't counted, but I'd guess there are well over 1,500 stalls, shops and boutiques. They don't trade in a lot of silk these days, but you can buy spices by weight, cheap Chinese electronics, food (of questionable cleanliness, in many cases), strange pamphlets ("God's Secrets Revealed"), kitchen instruments, and dozens of other things I haven't come across yet. I just finished the book I was reading (Catch-22, a fitting text given the absurdities of traveling in this region) so I'm going to head back in today and see if they stock any English-language books.

The Throne of Solomon is a large, jagged rock formation in the center of the city. It takes its current name since King Solomon (of temple-building fame) supposedly traveled here a long time ago (doubtful, given the distance to the Middle East). I took an afternoon trip and climbed to the top. The Throne offers an impressive lookout over Osh and the surrounding region. There's also a tiny mosque at the top where you can say prayers with an old man for a small fee. Strangely, there are tiny caves in the mountainside on the way up where old ladies sleep and pray on small mats.

Here is a local-history museum built into the side of the Throne:

And a view of Osh from the Throne itself:

Apart from seeing the main sights, I've had a lot of fun hanging out at the chaikhanas (tea houses that serve food) near my hostel and soaking in the city. The chaikhanas in Osh have tapchans (raised, cushioned tea beds) where you can lie down while you drink green tea or eat your meal. I had dinner last night with two Australians staying in my hostel at a nearby chaikhana: grilled shashlyk, freshly-baked bread and cold Russian beer... fantastic. On the topic of post-Soviet beer, I'm a big fan of Baltika, one of the largest export brands, since I first tried it at the Russian bar in Washington. Baltika varieties are numbered 1-9 (e.g., 6 is a dunkelbier, 7 is a pilsener, 8 is a wheat beer), although this flavor diversity is irrelevant in Osh since they only have Baltika 7. Still, it's good to know that somewhere out there, people are drinking my Baltika 3's and 6's.

There have also been a few moments of Kyrgyz weirdness/funniness. When I was walking around town early in the morning, I came across a squadron of young army recruits working on the side of the road. They each had a branch of an oak tree and were using it to sweep the sides of the street, trying to get the dust off the shoulders, I guess. Some of the officers were barking orders in Kyrgyz ("sweep faster, dammit!") and a couple were arranging flowers on a podium by the roadside. I guess some politician was going to make a speech there and they wanted him to have fresh-cut flowers and a dust-free venue. The weird thing is that the group was working to some European techno song being blasted from an army truck - "your love is what I nee-eeeed..." Nothing gets a Kyrgyz corporal working faster than German electronica.

I've ended up staying in Osh longer than I would have liked. My original plan was to head south from Osh into the Pamir mountains of Tajikistan. From what I've heard, the Pamir Highway is matched only by the Karakoram Highway in Pakistan for its remoteness, hostile weather and stunning alpine scenery. Unfortunately, changing visa regulations, incorrect guidebook info and ambassadorial ineptitude (that's you, Tajik embassy) have thwarted this part of my trip: I have the required Tajik visa but am unfortunately missing the permit for the highway itself. Since the Pamirs are the only direct route into Tajikistan, I'm scrambling to figure something out. I have a few options:
- find some way to get the Pamir permit, then find transport into eastern Tajikistan. This is pretty doubtful at this point and I'm about to give up.
- try to get to Dushanbe via an obscure border crossing at Karamyk. The road is good but the cops demand a lot of bribes and the checkpoint may be closed to foreigners.
- get a car to take me to Tajikistan another way. This option is trickiest since the main road going to northern Tajikistan crosses through tiny Uzbek-controlled enclaves (such as Sokh) that would waste my Uzbek visa and leave me stranded in a tiny pocket of the country with no way out. To get to Tajikistan safely, I'd need to pay a driver to avoid the Uzbek checkpoints and go the long way round to the Tajik border. This option is really expensive but may be what I have to do.

Neither of these options is cheap or very convenient, but I'll work something out... wish me luck!

Making you jailoos?

2008-06-20T07:20:00.011+01:00

From: Osh, Kyrgyzstan

After arriving back at Karakol, I headed to Kochkor, a town in the mountains of central Kyrgyzstan used as a jumping-off point to adventure tourism.

Kochkor is home to Community Based Tourism (CBT), one of the most impressive and innovative organizations I've come across in the developing world. The organization aims to build sustainable, grass-roots tourist infrastructure by linking independent travelers with families who follow local traditions (typically herders and nomads). The goal is to make tourist money flow directly to the people who need it most. CBT coordinates yurtstays, horse treks, hikes and
the opportunity to participate in traditional crafts such as carpet-weaving. CBT trains local families on how to meet tourists' needs, and structures the fees so that about 85% of revenues flow directly to local families -- brilliant. I'm not sure how well this would work in non-nomadic countries, although I could see a lot of potential in Southeast Asia and Andean South America.

In the CBT office, I met a group of Peace Corps volunteers from Kazakhstan and joined them on their trip to Song-Kol, a beautiful mountain lake with a yurt camp. They were a very fun bunch of kids and (as always with Peace Corps people) I was highly impressed by their language abilities; 3 spoke perfect Russian and 2 flawless Kazakh.

Lake Song-Kol is massive and remote, a three-hour drive from Kochkor. The road up had dozens of switchbacks and weaved through stunning alpine landscapes. On the way up, we crossed paths with some yaks (the first I've seen this trip):

The temperature difference between the lake and the valleys below is incredible; it could be well over 30 degrees in Kochkor but below 0 in the mountains. The lake is also home to a 'jailoo,' or summer pasture, where local nomads take their flocks from May to September. Along the shore were a number of yurt camps run by local families. The size of the jailoo is difficult to capture with digital photos, but it's beautiful and absolutely immense, with rolling fields for miles. The jailoo where I stayed was so large that it would take 2 hours to cross the width on foot and 7 hours to hike the length.

One of the most exciting things about staying at Song-Kol was sleeping in a yurt. The yurts are mushroom-shaped, semi-permanent tents used by the nomads on the jailoo. The yurt is made up of several layers of wool or yak felt lashed onto a sturdy wooden skeleton.

Inside, the ground is covered with large, rough felt mats (like pool-table felt, but coarser), which are then covered by softer and more elaborate mats and woven rugs. The woven mats also double as blankets if you're cold in the yurt; you can wrap one around yourself while you're hanging out, eating or drinking tea. My yurt was massive, and I had it pretty much to myself, since the group I was with decided to stay in tents. The temperature dropped below zero the second night we were there, but the yurt managed to keep me warm enough.

The Kyrgyz nomads are fantastic hosts. The mother of the host family, Jukun, made incredibly filling and tasty meals for me three times a day, which I ate inside the family yurt (next to "my" yurt). Meals almost always involved some sort of homemade dairy products. Every meal included kaimaq, a sort of buttery sour-cream product made from sheep's milk. They would serve big bowls of it every meal, and you can add it to anything -- homemade bread, rice porridge or stew -- or eat it on its own. Stranger dairy products included kymys, fermented
mare's milk and a Kyrgyz delicacy. If I'm being generous, I would say that kymys is an acquired taste: smoky, a bit leathery-tasting, sour, with yellowy floating bits in it (or was that just mine?) I managed to pack away one bowl of the stuff, but that was it for me. Every meal include multiple rounds of tea drunk while relaxing on the floor mats.

Outside of meals, I spent most of my time playing soccer with the nomad kids, walking around the field, and huddling inside my yurt with the rest of the group to keep warm. On the second day, a traveling salesman in a white felt hat drove up to the yurt camp in a Soviet Lada, peddling candy, preserves and (mostly) vodka. Hilarious, really.

But I can't forget the animals -- the jailoo is full of livestock. A typical nomad family has a herd of sheep, some cattle and a bunch of horses. Ours had mostly horses and a few hairy Kyrgyz sheep dogs. I hired one (a horse, not a dog) from our host family and rode it throughout the day. I don't ride horses often, but it's always a lot of fun. The last time I tried to ride, the horse didn't really follow my instructions, and I ended up looking like an idiot while the horse trotted around in circles. This time, my horse was pretty responsive; I could steer it around, make it stop, and go faster. I didn't really have to go alone, since all of the local kids (who each have their own
donkey) would ride near me to make sure everything was ok. If you've never been babysat by a 7-year-old and his friends, it's quite an experience.

I got back to Kochkor a couple of days ago and started what ended up being a grueling trip to Osh, where I am now. The Kochkor-Osh leg of the trip was supposed to take around 12 hours, mostly driving through stunning countryside. Sounds fun, but because of a major error in my
guidebook, I found myself stranded in the middle of the country and had to take a massive 25-hour detour around the mountains. So much for careful planning!

More about Osh coming up...

Lakers

2008-06-19T12:30:00.002+01:00

From: Osh, Kyrgyzstan

It's been almost a week since my last post, so I'm going to do this in chunks. The next couple of posts are going to be full of positives -- Kyrgyzstan has completely charmed me...

Getting down to Kyrgyzstan took a while but was a lot of fun. Because my hotel kicked me out early (who enforces a 10 am checkout?) I found myself stranded at the bus station for six hours before my bus left. Sounds boring, right? Not in Almaty, where bus stations come fully equipped with everything a traveler needs: internet cafes, snack stands, competing toilet facilities, and the world's creepiest billiard parlor:

In the morning we arrived in Cholpon-Ata, a summer resort village on the north shore of Lake Issyk-Kol. Issyk-Kol is the second-largest alpine lake in the world, and is known as the "Pearl of Central Asia." I'll reserve my judgment until later this summer, but I agree that it was a stunning sight.

North of the village is a field of glacial boulders with petroglyphs from the Scythian civilization (around 6th century BC, I think). Supposedly the field is literally covered with them; there are hundreds of burial-stone arrangements, etchings, and things like that. I hiked there in the afternoon, which took longer than expected since I had to avoid the numerous mangy, barky dogs hanging out around the farmhouses. In the end, I could only find two etchings and one pile of burial stones before I got bored and gave up. So much for archaeology:

The next day, I went to Karakol, a picturesque town of decomposing grand Russian homes at the eastern end of the lake. At my hostel, I bumped into the owner, Valentin, who recommended that I leave the hostel and go with him to his camp at Altyn-Arashan, a hot-spring camp in a nearby mountain valley. "Much more fun than this boring town," he pointed out. "Plus, hostel is out of water." I decided to join him, mostly because of how hilarious rugged he was: older, sort of grizzled-looking, a chain-smoker, dressed in beat-up trekking gear. Even that description doesn't really do him justice. Before we left, he finished loading up this hilarious four-wheeler:

Even the four-wheeler ("the quad") was pretty rugged; Valentin salvaged it from the scrap heap at the nearby Canadian-Kyrgyz gold mining operation and revived it with second-hand parts. Amazingly, the thing didn't brake down once on our ascent to the hot springs, a two-hour white-knuckle ride over narrow mountain paths strewn with boulders and through little mountain streams.

Altyn-Arashan lived up to the praise. The springs are at the bottom of a stunning and remote valley in the Tian Shan mountains. There are a few small lodges settled along the valley floor, but apart from that, it's just good old Kyrgyz wilderness. Valentin's lodge was rugged (as expected) but warm and charming.

I got to the lodge too late as it was getting dark -- too late to do any serious hiking. Still, the evening was a lot of fun. I tinkered around with a sour-sounding Soviet guitar, started a few games of chess with the Russians, drank some honey beer (way better than mead, which is bland) and had some hearty plov (filling Central Asian ricey meal). There were a bunch of other foreigners so we had a good post-dinner chat around the fire.

Before bed, our host took me down to the hot springs, run by a neighboring Russian family. He explained the process: you go into the hut, strip down, ease into the water (which is scorching) and then get out after 15 minutes. I was scrambling to find some excuse not to have to take a an intimate nude bath with Valentin, but there were enough bath-huts so we each got our own. Disaster avoided.

I rode back to town the next morning with some Swedes staying at the lodge. Method of transport: Soviet jeep, age 27. Quite a sight: all the gears and wiring were exposed and the car had to be shut off every 20 minutes. "Niet radiator," the driver explained, which is fair enough for a pre-perestroika clunker.

More later... can't upload photos right now but will get to that soon.

PS. A bunch of tough-looking Kyrgyz guys are huddled around the computer next to me, listening to Whitney Houston’s “I will always love you” song from the Bodyguard. On repeat.

Great success!

2008-06-12T03:40:00.011+01:00

From: Almaty, Kazakhstan

Jag semes from Almaty, industrial powerhouse of Central Asia and home of Borat Sagdiev.

My trip has gotten off to a great start so far. I'm a big fan of Almaty, more impressed with the city than I thought I would be. The people are friendly and interesting-looking, with a lot of ethnic diversity: plenty Kazakhs and Russians, a bunch of Koreans and Uzbeks, and at least one Canadian.

I'd read about the recent growth in Almaty, but what I've seen here has surprised me. New housing developments are going up all over, prices are on par with the US in most places, supermarkets stock a full range of Western products, and the streets are jammed with luxury cars.

The pace of progress is also reflected in Almaty's blend of architectural styles. I've seen a lot of imposing late-Soviet buildings and sculpture -- some of them quite impressive, like this monument to WW2 heroes:

There are also plenty shiny, modern-looking buildings funded by the country's new prosperity. I've seen a few big commercial developments in the city that look like something out of Miami or San Francisco. But there are some weird buildings too, such as the miniature Eiffel Tower inexplicably placed in front of an apartment building:

What else? Well, the whole everyone-speaking-Russian-and-not-English thing has been tricky. Not that I wasn't forewarned: a few of you definitely told me to learn some Russian before I left. I just never got around to it. As a result, my current communication involves about 90% wild gesturing and 10% English and Russian. I'm trying to get the gesturing down to 80% by the end of next week. My dormmate, a Kazakh IT student, has kindly taught me a few useful phrases: ("I speak Russian badly," "I am from Canada," "the new Microsoft Windows has many errors"). Good stuff.

I met with Mohirbek, the husband of a friend of mine, for drinks a couple of days ago. We took the Kök-Töbe cablecar to the top of a mountain near Almaty. There's a restaurant and a couple of bars at the top, all with fantastic views of the city and the surrounding mountains:

Yesterday, I hung out with Timur, a friend from Boston and Almaty native. We took a taxi up to Chimbalak, a big ski resort high in the mountains behind the city. There's no snow in the summer but it's great for hiking. We took a couple of chairlifts halfway up, then trekked to the ridge at the very top. It was a tough climb, but I blame the thin air rather than my being out of shape. Definitely worth the effort, though:

We were starving after the climb back down and ate some shashlyk (a delicious Kazakh specialty consisting of mutton or pork brochettes). We also had a little horsemeat to round out the meal. It actually tasted a lot like roast beef -- nice! We headed back down the mountain to Medeu, the world's highest skating rink and former training grounds of the Soviet speed-skating team. Nowadays it's used primarily as a courtship venue for the under-18 set.

Apart from seeing the sights, I've spent a lot of time collecting visas. I've done it three places and it's the same process each time, run by officials who are as hilariously grumpy as they are irritatingly inefficient. Getting a visa involves: trekking to a well-camouflaged embassy, waiting outside a big metal door for an hour until a guard barks at you to come in, standing in front of a smudged window until an agent yells at you, passing over 'dokuments,' paying more USD than seems reasonable, collecting your passport, then leaving before someone yells at you more.

The only visa I'm still waiting on is the one for Tajikistan. The Tajik consulate looked like trouble from the start. When I showed up, a group of men was finishing an extension of the main building -- hammering pieces of metal, mixing cement and sawing bits of wood. The consul himself was in the middle of doing some roofing work. Hey, nothing wrong with a little ambassadorial DIY, but I suspect that it's taken priority over my visa application. I probably should have offered to mix cement or something to speed things along.

Once I get my visa, I'll head south to Kyrgyzstan, crossing over the Zailisky Alatau mountains. I'll be traveling through rural parts of Kyrgyzstan (sleeping in yurts and whatnot) for 4-5 days before arriving at the next big city. Will write more then!

En route

2008-06-08T10:19:00.014+01:00

From: Riga, Latvia

The trip has begun! I left the US two days ago and have been making my way towards Almaty.

I landed in London on Friday and caught up with some very good friends. As usual, had an absolute blast. Each time I come to London, I become more convinced that it's the greatest city in the world. Here's why:

1. Delicious Indian food: pretty sure this is the best stuff in the world. OK, I admit that my experience with actual Indian Indian food is pretty limited (only meal I've ever actually eaten in India involved soggy cheese pastries in Delhi airport). Still, I'd be surprised if anywhere (India included) could make food as well as they do here. Tim and I went out Friday night to Brick Lane, London's mecca of South Asian cuisine, and we had the best Chicken Madras ever. Mind-blowingly good (and pretty spicy).

2. International flair: seems to me that non-Brits greatly outnumber the natives. Walk into any pub or club and you'll be lucky to find someone with an English, Scottish or Irish accent behind the counter. EU migration law has made it pretty easy for people from Eastern Europe to come to the UK for work, which is pretty cool.

Add to this migrant labor pool a large number of asylum seekers and a huge mass of tourists from France, Russia, and elsewhere, and you have a pretty good national soup. While I was traveling on the Tube, it's amazing how few of the conversations taking place are in English (40% or less, it seems). It's also hugely frustrating to a committed eavesdropper like me.

3. Gorgeous architecture: this city has more famous, jaw-dropping sights than any other place in the world. On Friday, I decided to indulge myself in some artsy shots of famous Thames-side landmarks. Shown: St. Paul's, the Millenium Bridge, the Globe.

Yesterday I landed in Riga, Latvia. Why here, you ask? AirBaltic, for some reason, was offering flights from London to Almaty for $300 less than other airlines. Having given this deal some further thought, I've decided not to check the carrier's air-safety record.

Riga is an interesting city with a nice, quaint old town. I liked it the last time I came (barring a disturbing anti-gay protest that I saw).

I'm struck by the city's resemblence to Paris. No, the people aren't brusque, snippy, or especially stylish. It's more of an architectural resemblance -- many of the buildings were built in a Rococo or Art Nouveau style which gives them a French look.

I got to town very late, went to a beergarden in the main sqaure and had some French fries. Not sure if this is related to the architecture, but they were some of the best fries I've ever had. I stayed for a while, watching people walk by. For some reason, all (I mean, almost without exception) of the women walking around were in pairs.

I surmised this could be one of two things:

- A strategy to reduce the cost of cab fares

- A relic of some Soviet buddy system for women

As it turns out, it was neither. As the night went on, I realized that the pairing scheme was likely a defensive mechanism to ward off the numerous groups of Stag (Bachelor) parties orbiting the town square. Low-cost carriers, delicious beer, and a 'gentleman'-oriented tourist industry have made Riga the Prague of Latvia when it comes to English Stag parties. I saw some entertaining interchanges between large groups of drunken Brits and defensive-looking Latvian women-pairs. "This city is crazy!" screamed one of the groom's companions after an unsuccessful chat with two blondes. Rock on, brother.

Perhaps to offer some daytime entertainment for the gentleman visitor, many of the hostels around here offer combat-oriented fun. For instance, my hostel offers, for a nominal fee: 'painbolling' (paintballing, I'm guessing), 'zorbing' (where you get locked in a big ball and pushed down a hill), 'big gun games' ("don't you ever see movie James Bond and say yes I shoot big bazooka too!!?"), and much more. The fact that rocket launchers and bazookas are available at low-cost to the tourist industry is a little troubling, but they ply a good trade.

Zorbing and Big Gun Games being too expensive for my taste, I walked around Riga and soaked in some of the scenery. There is a beautiful, carefully-groomed park just outside the old city. The combination of the sunlight, the canal and the trees gave it a storybook feel. There were a lot of couples hanging (making) out, some old ladies knitting, and people strolling. There was also a group of dudes playing this really loud drum. I'm not really sure why.

That's all from me. I leave for Almaty this evening... will write soon!

Logistics

2008-06-04T21:42:00.006+01:00

I'm leaving tomorrow morning. Exciting! I've spent the past few days running around DC, visiting embassies and getting documents ready. It's starting to feel real: I now have my first two weird-looking visas (Kazakh and Azeri):

What else? I've worked out some more specific dates for my trip. Some of you have mentioned that you'll be traveling in the area. If your path is going to cross mine, drop me an email and we can meet up.

Here's the current plan:
June 5th - fly to Boston, then London
June 6th - London
June 7th - Riga, Latvia
June 8th to 12th - Almaty (getting visas; hanging out)
June 13th to 18th - Kyrgyzstan (staying in yurts; horseback riding)
June 19th to 30th - Tajikistan (traveling the Pamir Highway; doing Dushanbe)
July 1st to 12th - Uzbekistan (seeing the big Silk Road cities)
July 12th to 17th - Turkmenistan (crossing the desert; enjoying relics of Turkmenbashi)
July 18th to 29th - the South Caucasus (Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia)
July 30th to August 4th - either Capadoccia (weird underground homes) or Greece
August 5th to 8th- Macedonia and Albania (Lake Ohrid, Tirana and Shkodra)
August 9th - Travel to Split via Ulcinj, Montenegro

Welcome!

2008-06-03T22:31:00.004+01:00

Hey guys -- welcome!

This blog is about my upcoming summer trip from Kazakhstan to Croatia (and everything in between). As some of you know, I've talked about traveling across Central Asia for a long time. With a three-month break until I start law school, this summer seemed like the perfect time to do it.

A little bit of (distant) background: in the thirteenth century, Marco Polo left Venice and traveled eastward along the Silk Road. He visited the great cities of the time and (by his own account) had a bunch of interesting adventures. After several years, he reached the Mongol Empire, where he met Kublai Khan. Years later, he returned to Venice where he published stories of his adventures. He's believed to be the first European to make it to East Asia and return home. And all this without a Lonely Planet guide!

My plan is to do Polo's trip roughly in reverse. I'll start my trip in Almaty, Kaz. (once part of Mongolia) and end up in Split, Croatia (once Venetian territory). Like Marco Polo, I want to do the whole thing overland and, where necessary, by boat. Along the way I'll pass through a few different places -- the 'stans of Central Asia, the remaining Silk Road cities, the Caspian Sea, the countries of the South Caucasus, Turkey, Greece and the Western Balkans. My plan is to do it in about two months.

I've read some great travel blogs recently and thought I would start my own. This will probably be pretty simple -- just occasional posts with stories and pics whenever I get internet access. Hope you enjoy!