I hope everyone had a great fall and will be somewhere warm for the holidays. I’m still in Chicago which has dropped from “cold” to “way too cold” quickly but I’ve been powering through the weather and am trying to ride my bike as long as possible (even if my friends and family call me…
Urumqi – Dunhuang, China | 16 October, 2006 | $10.51 (over night hard seat train) Although I waited around for a sleeper train for a few days this leg was totally full. I finally gave up and decided it was time to have my hard seat overnight experience in China. I sat at a table…
Urumqi, China | 15 October, 2006 | $0 (couchsurfing) I met David first back in Mongolia but the first time I came through town he was somewhere in Western Mongolia. This time around our schedules matched up and I took a bus over to his apartment next to Xinjiang University. After four months on the…
Urumqi, China | 13 October, 2006 | $12.36 This is the same hotel I stayed in the first time I was in Urumqi and I thought it was easiest to go there since I knew where it was and what the rooms went for. After the rough travel I put myself through in Central Asia…
Kashgar – Urumqi, China | 11 October, 2006 | $42.65 (high speed sleeper train) This was my second time on this train and this time it was almost totally empty. I shared my 4-bed compartment with a middle-aged woman was quiet and courteous. She noticed I had a cold and insisted I take a few…
Osh, Kyrgyzstan – Kashgar, China | 8 October, 2006 | $50 (overnight sleeper bus) This would be my third time traveling between Osh and Sary Tash on this trip and this time I decided to go by bus. The first time was in a large China Aid truck after my accident and the second time…
Osh, Kyrgyzstan | 7 October, 2006 | $4.12 My brilliant plan to get a ride from Tajikistan to Sary Tash, Kyrgyzstan and then to hitchhike on a truck to the Chinese border didn’t quite work out. We arrived in Sary Tash at dusk and were told that the Chinese border was closed for the next…
Murgab, Tajikistan | 1 October, 2006 | $8.75 Murgab is the main town on the Eastern end of the Pamir Highway near the Tajik, Kyrgyz and Chinese borders. We arrived in Murgab around lunchtime and our driver took us directly to the police station where we were ushered into a concrete office with a man…
Alichur, Tajikistan | 29 September, 2009 | $8.75 We arrived in Alichur with an hour or two before sundown so I went out exploring. I took wonderful photos of the local kids and the father and daughter I had tea with in their home. Unfortunately, this is the one memory card in my camera I…
Navabad, Tajikistan | 28 September, 2006 | $5.83 Although there are a few official home stays that are approved by a Tajik organization we spent most of our nights on the road in the Wakhan Corridor and Pamir Highway with our driver’s friends. Navabad was the first place we stayed after leaving Khorog. We don’t…
Khorog, Tajikistan | 27 September, 2006 | $8 One of the two guys I was traveling with in Tajikistan flew into Khorog a day early and met me at the airport. He had walked, but a nice petroleum businessman from South America befriended me on the plane and offered us a ride in his fancy…
Dushanbe, Tajikistan | 24 September, 2006 | $10 USD It took me all day to get from Samarkand, Uzbekistan to Dushanbe, Tajikistan. The trip through the mountains was beautiful and you can read more about it here. The only real hotel in Dushanbe at the time was an old Soviet monstrosity and it took a…
Samarkand, Uzbekistan | 18 September, 2006 | $10 USD I looked back in time for the pose I wrote about Samarkand and was surprised to realize there isn’t one! How could I not tell you all about this historic place? Often times when there was something special I wanted to write about while I was…
Bukhara, Uzbekistan | 14 September, 2006 | $25 USD I arrived in Bukhara late after a long journey from Khiva involving four shared taxis and two buses (one of which broke down in the desert). Bukhara’s historic center is car-free so the taxi could only drop me off in the center. I promptly turned the…
Nukus, Uzbekistan | 9 September, 2006 | $15 I arrived in Nukus at dusk and soon found out that most of the hotels were full of tour groups. My taxi driver kept circling the city, trying to find me a place to stay. The only reason to go to Nukus is to go to Moynaq,…
Tashkent, Uzbekistan | 7 September, 2006 | $15 USD The owner tried to throw me out when I tried to bargain the price down but I managed to calm him down so I could recover from my pre-dawn flight from Kyrgyzstan. In the end I paid the overpriced amount and was promptly given a roommate!…
Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan | 31 August, 2006 | $3.82 After a week around Northeast Kyrgyzstan I finally got my Uzbek LOI (letter of Invitation) and spent another ten days in Bishkek trying to secure Uzbek and Tajik visas. I was in Bishkek for my birthday and it was nice to be in a place where I…
Song K?l Lake, Kyrgyzstan | 25 August, 2006 | $6.36 Although Song K?l is the second largest lake in Kyrgyzstan its incredibly inaccessible and only inhabited from June to September. I booked a homestay with a local herder through CBT and caught a car up from Kochkor with the couple I’d been traveling with and…
Kochkor, Kyrgyzstan | 23 August, 2006 | $6.36 Kyrgyzstan has a wonderful network of homestays across the country run by a community based tourism organization called, oddly enough, Kyrgyz Community Based Tourism Association (CBT). I had met a Dutch couple up at Altan Arashan that I got along with so we ended up traveling together…
Karakol, Kyrgyzstan | 22 August, 2006 | $8.90 After coming back from the countryside I stayed one more night in Karakol. My bunk room was taken so I was given this huge room with my own piano. The price includes a multi-course sit down dinner.