In some ways, walking down the streets of Tashkent, Shymkent or Bishkek doesn’t feel all that different from a stroll through the center of any city in the United States or Europe. You pass a variety of stores, restaurants, government buildings and shopping malls. The people around you are likely headed to work or to …
Visiting countries like Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan tend to take you back in time. Life in the small villages is so much simpler than our life today in the United States – but I suspect it isn’t all that different from life in much of the United States just 100-200 years ago. Extended families living within …
I was determined to ignore the signs. I can be stubborn that way. I plan something and I set my mind to do it and even when things start to go a little wrong, I want to push on. This the case with the trek I planned to take around Song Kul Lake …
Melons. People just kept bringing more melons. They carried them in plaid plastic bags or under their arms and stuffed them wherever they could find room – in storage bins, under tables or on top of bunks. What were they going to do with all these melons? And then when night fell, wherever there weren’t …
I was lounging comfortably in my air conditioned hotel room in Aktau, Kazakhstan, resting after a 24 hour train journey from Uzbekistan when it suddenly occurred to me to check the opening hours for the migration police office. In Kazakhstan, all visitors staying in the country more than five days must register with the migration …
It didn’t hit me at first. As I rode down a bumpy, sandy road through the Kazakhstan steppe, I didn’t really realize where I was. I was riding over land that was once covered with water. I was heading toward what is known as the “ship cemetery” – the rusty remains of three ships that …
I had almost completely drifted off to sleep, my eyes tightly shut, my head propped up against the side of the Soviet era minivan as it raced through the Kazakhstan desert in the dark of night. Then suddenly, THUD! The jarring impact followed by the shrieks of my fellow passengers jolted me wide awake. As …
Over a year before I left on my trip through the former Soviet Union, my brother sent me a link to a website about a movie – a documentary called the Desert of Forbidden Art. I never did get around to watching it, but it peaked my interest in an art museum in the town …
The Coolest Art Museum That Almost No One Knows About Read More »
Dear Khiva, It wasn’t you, it was me. I swear. Another time, another place, things could have been different. Okay, I guess not another place since you have kind of been where you are for a few hundred years. Maybe even a few thousand years. But you get my drift. I had high hopes for …
Turkmenistan isn’t exactly what you would call touristy. Okay, that might the understatement of the century. Turkmenistan is not touristy at all. I went nine days without seeing another tourist anywhere – at least not a Western tourist who stood out like I did. Then I arrived at this burning gas crater in the middle …
