Central Asia Travel Plan

Tumbling Along

These blog-slack tumbleweeds figured they had better explain their current tumbles before you all give us up for lost.

I think we left off “catching up” in Jordan, which is a bit disgraceful because that was about 3 months ago and we've seen parts of seven more countries since then.

Temporarily skipping over Syria, Turkey, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan - I know, it's a bit of a skip, 6000 miles or so - we're now in Kyrgyzstan, land of the nomad, squeezing in some laptop time in our suburban yurt. (The yurt is a very cool domicile).

The Chinese, in their infinite wisdom (ahem) have decided not to issue anyone in Kyrgyzstan with a Chinese visa, and have thrown our existing plans into complete disarray. Thankfully tumbleweeds are adaptable little creatures, and Kyrgyzstan one of the loveliest places on earth to be “stuck”, so we're not suffering a bit from China's rejection. There's nothing like gorgeous summer pastures, wildflowers, rushing mountain streams and enormous skies to help get you over the no-visa blues.

We now have a good many friends roaming various parts of the globe, so just in case there's a chance of crossing paths with any of you, here are the new, improved and entirely China-free plans:

July 10 – 18: Fly to Osh. Bum around in a 3000 y.o. city for a while (Solomon's Rock, the ancient bazaar) . Jump in a jeep and head to the Tajik border.

July 19 – 27: Drive through the legendary Pamirs, playground for Great Game intriguery (my new word). Hot springs, alpine lakes and neolithic cave paintings.

July 28 – August 2: The Wakhan Valley. Follow the Panj River along the border with Afghanistan checking out ancient forts and views of the Hindu Kush.

August 03 – 08: The Bartang and Geisev Valleys. Holy shrines, hiking from one timeless village to the next. Cliffside driving along the Amu-Darya to Dushanbe.

August 09 – 14: Iskander-kol. Relaxing at a dacha in the Fannsky Gory (Fan Mountains). On the 14th we fly to Almaty, Khazakstan.

August 15: Fly Almaty – Bangkok – Ko Samui. Ferry to Ko Pha Ngan.

August 16 – September 13: Laze on Had Yao. Swim with the fishies. Mmmm.

September 13 - October 25: We're not sure about this bit yet. Something in SEA. Suggestions?

Sometime in the not too distant future (i.e. Mid-November?): Doug and I move to Melbourne to be good little sedentary citizens once again :)

Once we reach Thailand we should be back online a lot more regularly. Sorry once again about the long break!

If you can't meet up with us before we get home then we very much hope you'll come and couch surf our new digs in Melbourne (though we might be sharing the couch with you, given the skyrocketing rents in Australia). Doug is a really good cook, so I'll make him whip up some grub for guests too.

Hope everyone is having a wonderful time, appreciating their flushing toilets, hot running water, the privacy of their own home and the ability to store personal belongings larger than a bag of sugar. I miss you all!