The musical alarm clock on my cell phone jarred me awake at 4 am on Tuesday morning, reminding me of my intent to join the throngs on the Mall to w…

Coming back was surreal and at first a little unwelcoming, much like the turbulence I experienced for significant intervals on the plane. After …

Getting up at 6am was no picnic, especially after not being able to get to sleep until after 1am. Mehtap and Cemal were still sleeping and although I…

I did a quick hike to El Nazar rock church in the morning before checking out of the pension and luckily catching a free ride to Ankara with three pe…

I booked a tour through the pension that included a visit to the panorama viewpoint, the Derinkuyu underground city, a hike in the Ihlara valley, the…

I actually woke up at 8am for the first time in a very long time. I had a typical but filling Turkish guesthouse breakfast and set out immediately fo…

It was an easy bus ride from Konya to the main city in Cappadocia, Nevşehir. The landscape was rolling hills and occasional snowcapped mountains in …

The bus ride from Antalya was a wake up call that it was still winter. It wasn't too long after departing the bus station when we hit rain, which tur…

I had planned on visiting the ruins of Olympos and nearby Chimera, a burning rock in the mountains near Çıralı, but halfway there up the mountains…

I didn't arrive to Antalya until 8:30 pm after several problems catching a bus from Denizli. But I knew I would be rewarded when I noticed the temper…

Who says only people who are employed can have sick days? Adnan convinced me to stay an extra day and I decided it was just what I needed, a day to s…

As the first hours of 2009 waned on, Adnan and I drank a few beers and talked in his room. We were going to watch a movie but never got around to it.…

After dropping off the happy couple at the İzmir airport, Güneş took me to the bus station and waited patiently in the cold for me …

I managed to drag myself out of bed and to the bus station with Güneş and his friends, and although I missed the first bus due to the need for brea…

It was a short ride to Turkey's third largest city. İzmir has undergone several changes over the last 6000 years, playing the role of a phoenix afte…

I found myself eating lentil soup at a cafe across from the bus station on Christmas morning. I was the only passenger on the bus when we left the st…

I said goodbye to Osa and her cats and headed to my next destination, the town of Çanakkale (pronounced Cha-KNOCK-ka-lay). Famous for its proximity …

İsmail skipped the first few hours of work to take me to the bus stop and hang out at a patisserie while I waited for my bus to the large city of Bu…

After such an exhausting weekend and still trying to recover from the transition from Central Asia, I decided to take a day off from touring and pret…

Because of the incredibly long day and a rather late night, we all slept pretty late on Sunday. Aydın and Ayhan prepared a traditional Turkish bru…

Breezing through the modern and efficient visa and passport control and into the baggage claim terminal, it hit me that I was going to experience s…

I didn't leave Karaganda until about noon, and settled for a 4-hour bus ride that seemed quick by comparison to other recent bus trips. The bus and…

Zhandos and I met mid-morning and hopped a city bus to the bus station, where we caught another bus bound for the town of Shakhtinsk. About 25-30 kil…

From Zhezkazgan, I took another 10-hour bus ride to the fairly large coal mining town of Karaganda. This time we passed through some villages and tow…

Once in awhile I look at a map and find a place with a name that's so catchy or unusual that I feel compelled to go there. Plunked almost exactly in …

After Sayram I had a quiet evening at Vicente's flat. We were going to go to a jazz club of all things, but decided not to and just hung out and deco…

My last day staying in Shymkent I wanted to visit the nearby village of Sayram, birthplace of Yasaui and the site of several other attractions relate…

I noticed the sunrise was a little later, which may have explained why I had a hard time waking up. I went to the Samal bus station around 9:30 and c…

However you choose to spell it, old or new, Shymkent is a large city and full of shops, restaurants and a couple department stores. It's low on …

The last day of November was also my last day in Almaty, so I had to check out of the hotel and find a place for my luggage until my evening train. L…

I'm sure it never occurred to me that I might wake up one day in Almaty and turn 36. I've had some memorable birthdays abroad so I was ready for anot…

It was a bit of an awkward goodbye to Tahir, but I think he understood and probably felt bad for not being able to hang out more. The old lady apprec…

The pleasant but monotonous ride from Bishkek to Almaty was interrupted only by the frenetic border crossing, where impatient throngs of people crowd…

I had time in the morning to have a good breakfast of eggs and bread with thick cherry and blackcurrant jams, then make my way downtown for nice morn…

After another good breakfast (cream of wheat, rolls, honey, raspberry preserves) the first thing I did in the morning was go to the bank to change mo…

I didn't get on the road until around 11am, having spent a leisurely morning chatting with Tamara and Askar and enjoying a filling breakfast of buckw…

Despite waking up early I still waited in a cold marshrutka for about 30 minutes and was ushered to another one to wait another 30 minutes before fin…

I reluctantly woke up just before 8am but was pleased to see that it was sunny and clear. My plan was to go to Café Zarina, where I had seen that th…

I woke up at 7:30 this morning, a little cold but ready to start the day. I had bought a loaf of rye bread with coriander, a jar of vanilla-hazelnut …

Within minutes of saying goodbye and thank yous to Dustin, I was squashed in one of the back seats of a minibus headed for Karakol, a small city near…

My first venture outside of the city limits of Bishkek (airport excluded) was to the historical Burana Tower. I hadn't planned on going here, but it …

Sunday lived up to its reputation as a laid-back day of rest for me. After sleeping rather late and lounging around reading most of the morning, I ju…

Although I went to bed a little before 11pm it took me until 8:30 to finally get up. All that walking must have worn me out. Today was another day of…

It wasn't until 9am that I finally woke up to cloudy skies. Alexandra and I had a leisurely breakfast while Ilya and Dima prepared to leave for class…

The smooth Air Company Kyrgyzstan flight from Dushanbe to Bishkek was a little over two hours. We glided over frosted mountains and valleys until wit…

I was able to spend my last day in the country finally updating this blog and enjoying some good grub at the cafeteria below the Southern Fried Chick…

My last day in northern Tajikistan was fairly quiet compared to the raging adventure I'd been used to in this country. However, it offered me a littl…

We woke up around 8:30 a little groggy but well-rested. For breakfast I had a porridge of rice, pumpkin and sugar, which was very good and new to me.…

Sunday morning was another cloudy day, but not rainy. I think I slept until around 9am, but Halim and I had to sleep in the computer room because the…

Halim and I slept in until about 11am, finally waking up to cloudy skies and light rain. It was a slow and short morning and we didn't make it out to…

With my backpack on I weaved through the busy streets next to the bazaar looking for a hotel. My contact, Bahtiyor, had his phone off and I didn't wa…

The short ride to Khojand ended at the old bus station, where I waited for my host Halim to meet up with me. I decided to pass the time with a cold d…

As I headed north in the jeep, I felt confident that we'd be able to clear the summit known as the Shakhristan Pass, a 3378-meter behemoth known for …

I left Panjakent in the morning in a taxi bound for Istaravshan and because Uzbek was understood by the three other passengers and driver Bahtiy…

According to Ancient Panjekent, a photocopied booklet I had purchased at the Rudaki Museum, excavations began in 1946 and have since revealed layers …

We threw my backpack in the back of a tiny car, picked up a couple more passengers and headed into town. I wasn’t sure that the itinerary included …

Sarazm, today a small village west of Panjakent, is the location of one of the oldest Zoroastrian civilizations in this area, dating back to the Bron…

st1:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } I woke up at 6am ready for another day’s adventure and more mountains. After surreptitiously…

Adolat's son showed me to the bazaar where Dushanbe-bound transportation gathered and assured I'd find a sturdy, affordable ride. I couldn't have bee…

The Kulyab route was similar to the previous leg of the trip, with the exception of the numerous warning signs in Tajik on the side of the road cau…

Halloween in Tajikistan nearly passed without me even realizing what day it was. Since I didn't see anyone dressed in costumes or asking for candy, I…

I woke up to another noise, but this time with the light I noticed it was rain dripping from the skylight, and when I went outside I noticed it wasn'…

I started the day with a familiar meal--the potatoes I hadn't finished the night before but with an option of instant coffee instead of just tea. It …

In the morning I thanked my body for patiently waiting until morning light to find a proper bathroom, which was only meters from the field and only m…

My departure from Ishkashim on Monday was not as smooth and easy as I was led to believe, but eventually successful. There was absolutely no transpor…

Saturday morning, October 25th, happened to be the date of the biweekly Afghan bazaar, about 3.5 kilometers east of town. For one somoni each, Lim, a…

My first taste of the true GBAO (as the Gorno-Badakshan region is still abbreviated) travel experience was a rollicking marshrutka ride along the Pya…

The tiny plane reeked of jet fuel and only held 20 people, including the pilot. The "checked baggage" was stuffed underneath the seats and I placed m…

Nothing's simple here in Central Asia. I'm spending my fifth night in Dushanbe tonight, with another one lined up tomorrow. This is because of the pa…

The capital and largest city of Tajikistan is named after a day of the week most people find unwelcoming, but Dushanbe is a pleasant place with lots …

On Sunday I visited the fortress near Hisor (also spelled Hissar), about 20 kilometers from Dushanbe. It turned out to be the highlight of my trip to…

My mantra has been "experience for the sake of experiencing," and I had to repeat that many times during one of the longest day's I've experienced in…

Bukhara was one place I wanted to go back to for a better feel, and I was justly rewarded. Upon arrival at the Kagan train station, I took a marshrut…

Waking up before dawn to the sounds of rain hitting corrugated metal roofs did not bode well for my plans to visit Shakhrisabz, the city known as the…

I don't think it really dawned on my until I was nearly dozing off on the airplane-like seats in the Samarkand-bound train that this is truly the beg…

The big day finally came and I would soon be transitioning from wedding guest to solo traveler. While Gulchehra and her aunts went out to get their h…

After the hubbub of the Buston wedding festivities it was time to transfer to the capital city once again. The Tashkent guests, Ogiljon, Aybek, Shohs…

The first officially planned event of the wedding festivities was the bride's to'i, traditionally a get together of the bride's female friends, but n…

After a morning of cleaning and setting the table for one of the many groups of guests set to show up at the house, we were set to take a trip to…

The Ellikqal'a train station was a ming green building with the letters proudly spelled out to welcome visitors, which turned out to be just us. The …

If being up for nearly two days with a few intermittent hours of light napping didn't disorient me, it must have been the relatively unobtrusive pass…

(Dublin airport layover for about 5 hours...enough to eat breakfast, have too much coffee, a light lunch and a couple pints of Guinness)

It's been awhile since I have looked in the mirror to see bloodshot eyes staring back at me. I normally have the ability to catch some sleep on airpl…

In two days the calendar will officially welcome autumn, but already the air is crisper, a few leaves are beginning to turn and that unmistakab…