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…
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!…
There’s a new Uzbek post up about Nukus and Moynaq backdated here. Where, you ask? I guess you’ll just have to read it to find out. Some little part of me really hopes that someone out there reading this is learning a little about geography. Did someone say souvenirs? here you go, Korea, Mongolia, China…
Getting to Bukhara was more straight forward than my trip to Khiva. The son of my hotel’s owner drew me a map to the bus station and I walked out of the city walls into the new city. Unfortunately, the bus wasn’t leaving for a few more hours so I decided to spend a few…
Could it be? There’s new maps up! Okay, the Mongolian flag sucks and there’s no data for NW China or Kyrgyz but it’s something. If it makes you feel any better, I took a ton of souvenir and sketchbook photos for the relevent sections but haven’t gotten around to writing the code and resizing the…
I really have to remember in the future not to tell hotel owners I’m a graphic designer. Sometimes they actually know what it means and then they always ask to make then a logo/brochure/web page. Today when I got back from drawing at the mosque the owner of my hotel asked to see the drawing.…
I know this is going to shock you all… but there’s new photos up! I finally found a good internet connection in Bukhara and just spent three hours working on the site for you guys instead of siteseeing. I’ve gone on to post about Uzbekistan but am working on some stories about Kyrgyzstan for you…
Getting to Khiva should have been relatively straight forward—a bus to Urgench and then a 45 minute taxi ride to Khiva. I bought a seat on the local bus to Urgench in Nukus, knowing it might take a little more time than a taxi, but with more space. I was almost an hour early and…
Karplakastan is a region in Northwest Uzbekistan which has had a really bad century. The entire region’s climate and economy has been greatly affected by The USSR’s draining of the Aral Sea in the 1960’s. What was once the world’s fourth largest lake has been drained to irrigate the cotton fields throughout Central Asia. Moynaq,…
My route through Kyrgyzstan and into Uzbekistan looked good on paper but in reality it didn’t really work out the way I wanted. My plan was not to backtrack, but without a Kazak visa I could not take the direct bus from Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan to Tahkent, Uzbekistan. I knew this, of course, and somewhere in…
This morning I got up at 4:30am to drive to Manas International Airport in Bishkek for my 7am flight to Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Because of the crazy borders and a mountain range going by land would have been difficult. I could either buy a Kazak visa to take the bus from Bishkek to Tashkent or travel…
My embassy outing yesterday did not go well. When I arrived my interpreter, Nargiza, talked to the guards who didn’t know if the consulate was coming to work or not. After some phone calls it was determined that he was at a conference and wouldn’t be in. We helped two other travelers, a Japanese guy…
I’ve spoiled you. When I was in China and updating every few days I feared that you would get used to it! After a week sleeping in yurts on Song Kul Lake and hiking around Karakol I’ve come back to an inbox full of worried notes from friends, family and strangers. You guys had my…
I got my passport!!! I don’t know if I have ever been so happy to see a FedEx man in my life. Thanks for worrying along with me, we can all now let out a sigh of relief.
On Thursday I left a few messages with the Uzbekistan consulate in NYC about my passport. When I talk to an assistant I was told to call back at 5pm to speak with the man in charge of visas. When I called at 5pm I received voicemail again, but this time I had the visa…
With seven days to go I am still waiting on my passport. After phone tag with the Uzbek Consulate in NYC I have discovered that they are holding it hostage. One would assume that the processing time would be 5 days—which is normal—but the Uzbek Consulate asks for 10. Even with 10 days of processing,…
Two days after getting my passport back from the Chinese Consulate in Chicago I sent it off to the Uzbek Consulate in NYC. Over a week has passed now and I am crossing my fingers that it will not only return with a 30-day Uzbek visa, but that it will return in time for my…