An early 2-hour flight from Tashkent, across desert, took me to the capital of the Karakalpakstan region, Nukus. I knew there wasn’t much to do here – it was desert-hot and dry – but every desert sometimes has a rose and the Igor Savitsky museum of art would be that rose. Although I am not…
Category: Asia
Tashkent
I used the capital, Tashkent, as a launching point for my travel in Uzbekistan – it’d have to be where I enter and where I exit the country – as there are no other international airports that’d take me to my next planned destinations. When faced with one entry+exit point in the past, I’ve been…
The Road to Samarkand
When I was a kid, I read a children’s story about a place called Samarkand. What we know of Aladdin’s or Ali Baba’s world, Samarkand was a place like that – an important stop along the famous Silk Road where tales of mystique and adventure could be had. But we don’t live in that world…
The Oasis of Architecture
After saying goodbye to Nuri from the hostel, I caught a bus to the airport to catch my 1.5 hour flight to the capital of Kazakhstan, Astana. Note: I literally just found this out while typing this but as of March 2019, Astana is now renamed to “Nur-Sultan”, after its long-time President/Dictator, Nursultan Nazarbayev. I personally think…
The (original?) Big Apple
I follow the MoskvaDown to Gorky ParkListening to the wind of change… Although I did not follow the Moskva like the Scorpions, I did end up in Gorky Park but only in the former capital of Kazakhstan, Almaty, a city name whose name essentially means “apple”, due to it being the area of origin for certain varieties of…
Crossing the Kyrgyz-Kazakh border
After returning from Cholpon-Ata and staying in Bishkek for the night, I made my way across the Kyrgyz-Kazakh border and toward Almaty. I had a little scare crossing the border because I thought I lost my marshrutka group and my ride. This is how a border crossing works in a lot of Asia; your shared ride arrives…
Lake Issyk-Kul
Boarding a marshrutka from Bishkek, I took the 6 hour journey to check out Lake Issyk-Kul. While many people choose to make a clockwise or counter-clockwise journey around the massive lake, checking out different perspectives from different towns (with the aim of passing through Karakol, east of the lake, a favorite launching-off point for hikes in the beautiful…
Bishkek
Naz Gul called a taxi for me to take me back to Bazar-Korgon where I was supposed to find a connecting ride (in the form of a shared minivan ride, or as they’re known in Russian, “marshrutka”) to Bishkek, an 8+ hour journey. Due to a misunderstanding, I found out I had to pay for…
Arslanbob
After a series of marshrutka rides taking me from Osh to Jalal-Abad to Bazar-Korgon, I entered the Chatkal mountain range and into a region famous for its expansive surrounding walnut forest, one of the largest in the world. My destination was a small, rural village called Arslanbob. After getting dropped off in the village center, I went…
The conversation in the Lada
“Ya ne ponimayu.” No matter how many times I repeated that phrase (and with a smile), the guys in the Lada kept speaking Russian to me. “Guys, I don’t understand!” I guess they believed that with enough persistence, I would finally give in, admit I do speak fluent Russian, and have a conversation with them….