Mestia is a beautiful Swiss alp like city situated in between Mountain tops of over 4000meters. People were building hostels and restaurants there like crazy, and I think this place will be transformed into a very popular tourist destination within 5 years. I spent one day exploring the town, walking up one of the many...Read More
Originally I had planned on going to Tbilisi and not to Batumi, but as the train from Yerevan arrived at midnight in the capital and on the coastal of Batumi at 8am, I decided to stay the night on the train and to explore the city famous for its beach and party scene. I was...Read More
Tbilisi is the oposite of what Baku is- a perfect city to explore by foot and every day I spent there I clocked up more than 35000 steps on my pedometer. The city is home to about 1million or a quarter of the Georgian population so the streets are always lively with music, wine and...Read More
Yerevan was very much different than both Baku and Tbilisi. It has been seat of an empire more than five times its current size and the city boasts of soviet style monuments and buildings on the scale of those in Moskva and Minsk. One of these buildings is the Cascade. A massive staircaise decorated with...Read More
As mentioned there are plenty of options for people looking for day trips from Yerevan. One of them is the so called Garni-Geghard trip which combines a Hellenic Pagan Temple from the first century with a much more impressive Monastery called Geghard (or Geghardavank) meaning the Monastery of the Spear, as the spear that killed...Read More
Ive seen lots of prictures of friends going to Baku- probably because flights to the city are cheap and it is a city that is quite comfortable to be in. My first day I got up early, ready to explore geographicly widespread city sights on foot, only to realize that there was almost no pavements...Read More
Khiva is a must see city when you travel to Uzbekistan. It was quite different from what I had expected in the first place. I thought it would be a proper city like Bukhara and Samarkand where there were some old buildings scattered around, but the old city of Khiva was actually quite small and...Read More
Three years ago when I entered Uzbekistan it was a nightmare at the border where the customs officers checked all the photos on my memory cards, looked everywhere to see how many dollars I had and even looked through every episode of Game of Thrones that I had on my computer. This time I was...Read More
The first view of the Pamir Mountains The Pamir Highway is a term now liberally used to describe the Mountain roads between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, but the original Pamir Highway was built by the Soviet around 1935 linking Osh in Kyrgizstan and Mazar e Sharif in Admfghanistan, passing through Tajikistan and Uzbekistan on the way....Read More
When me and my new Australian friends reached Dushanbe, the car we were driving was almost falling apart. We had spent two days driving the last part of the Pamir Highway from Khorogh to Dushanbe where the 1st, 2nd, reverse and 5th gear had stopped working, the car had been over hearing the whole time...Read More
The ram at the entrance of Khorogh Khorogh is the capital of the Autonomous Region of Badakhshan and is a natural stopping point for anyone on the Pamir Highway, especially for those wanting to go into the Wakhan corridor. The bridge connecting both sides of Khorogh Once again I had met someone in my shared...Read More
The road between Osh and Murghab took us about 16 hours, including the border crossing. The road condition quickly deteriorated when we crossed from Kyrgyzstan to Tajikistan around midnight but the driver didnt seem to mind and was trying to keep his raceing speed throughout the night. When we reached Murghab it was already morning...Read More
Osh is the starting point of the so-called Pamir Highway and has been a central city in Asian history as a trading hub along the Silk Road. Today, 2500 years after the city was founded it is Kyrgyzstans second biggest city, but has still kept its unorganized, ancient architecture, different to the more newly founded...Read More
The entrance to the National Park As part of the Deputy Minister of Culture wanting me to see as much of Kyrgizstan before leaving she said that I would have her driver at my disposal the whole last day. She advised me to go to Ala Archa, a National Park about 50kilometers from Bishkek, which...Read More
Issik Kôl (or Ysyk Kôl) is the second largest alpine lake in the World, after Lake Titicaca in South America. Its thermal activity ensures that it never freezes over in the winter and is also the reason why Cholpon Ata grew as a big beach and spa destination during the time of the USSR. Cholpon...Read More
The Burana Tower is a UNESCO World Heritage Site well worth a visit from Bishkek. It can be done easily independently in half a day and will just set you back 3-5 dollars! Background: The Burana Tower is all that remains from an ancient city called Balasagun. The tower was originally 44meters high, but because...Read More
Lenin standing proud in the city center A week in Bishkek has been a bliss after spending the last months in Africa and in the hospital with malaria and dengue fever. Bishkek is as comfortable as it gets. Walking around the city is like walking through a massive park with greens, statues and monuments everywhere...Read More
The best part about traveling to Kyrgizstan has by far been the people. I have used apps such as couchsurfing, tinder and InMessage to get in touch with locals and every time people have been eager to get in touch and show me their homes, families and culture. Most Kyrgiz people share small apartments where...Read More
