After an epic road trip on the Pamir Highway, we are very happy to arrive in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan.
Much like Bishkek (the capital of Kyrgyzstan), Dushanbe is a Soviet city with wide welcoming avenues, leafy green parks, and proud monuments. Communism may have failed but it left behind some nice cities. Continue reading “Dushanbe, Tajikistan”
In a word, delicious!
One of my favourite things about travel is trying all the new unfamiliar foods that one encounters. Here are a few of the delights I discovered while traveling through Kyrgystan and Tajikistan. Continue reading “What does Central Asia taste like?”
The Pamir Highway runs some 1,500 km from Kyrgystan through Tajikistan and the rugged Pamir range of Central Asia. It’s the second highest highway in the world (after the Karakoram Highway in Pakistan). Actually, “highway” is a funny way to describe it. The pavement is frequently broken and riddled with potholes, flash floods cut deep gouges right through the road leaving it unpassable, and, if you’re not careful, you’re likely to plummet hundreds of meters over the unprotected edge of the road. It’s no surprise then that there are so many discarded vehicles on this (in)famous road. Here are just a few that we encountered on our week-long journey. Continue reading “Dead Vehicles on the Pamir Highway”
We’ve just finished a week-long road trip along the famous Pamir Highway that joins Uzbekistan, Kyrgystan, and Tajikistan. The route has been used for millennia as a part of the Silk Road but the Soviet Union made a big push to turn it into a real road in the 1930s. Continue reading “Road trip on the Pamir Highway”
After visiting the Communist theme park of Bishkek, we caught a flight back to Osh, the second largest city in Kyrgyzstan.
Continue reading “I sat next to the president of Kyrgyzstan!”
I never used to be a big enthusiast of monuments, preferring the serenity of green spaces and clean mountain air. There’s something about Communist pride and the grandeur of that era, though, that makes me love exploring the endless epitaphs of Bishkek, capital of Kyrgyzstan.
From the village of Arslanbob we took a series of shared taxis to the high altitude lake, Song Kul. The landscape of Kyrgyzstan is striking. Very arid, desert-like, yet with snow covered-peaks in the distance. This would be our chance to get up some of those peaks.
After a few days exploring hot and busy Osh, we caught a local bus heading up into the mountains. We’d picked the village of Arslanbob mostly because it was easy to get to and promised some nice scenery.
After a long day crossing the border from Kashgar China into Kyrgyzstan, we were relieved to arrive in Osh, a sizable city in the fertile lowlands.
We left Kashgar early in the morning. It stays dark here really late into the morning because all of China is in the same time zone.
Before leaving town, our driver had to gas up the car. Gas stations in Western China are heavily secured. No passengers are allowed, so we had to walk around the outside of the the station while our driver showed her ID, let security search the car, then fill up.
Continue reading “Crossing the border from China to Kyrgyzstan”
Eating Snow Around the World 