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.
Karakol, Kyrgyzstan | 19 August, 2006 | $7 An interesting Russian man owned the large house where I slept in Karakol?a small town near the Eastern edge of Lake Issyk-Kul. Out back was a beautiful yard full of flowers and a garage heaped with old cars, motorcycles and miscellaneous metal parts and tools. Some people…
Cholpon-Ata, Kyrgyzstan | 17 August, 2006 | $7.63 I arrived by bus in this town on the edge of Lake Issyk-Kul and wasn’t sure where to go. Although the town was full of tourists almost all of them were Russian and there was little catering to the English-speaking tourist. I ended up following a sign…
Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan | 14 August, 2006 | $3.85 USD I loved this hostel! At the time I was there is was quite new and not in any guidebooks but still full which is a testament to how nice, laid back guesthouses are needed in Central Asia. I took an minibus overnight from Osh and a…
Osh, Kyrgyzstan | 10 August, 2006 | $20.36 USD After the car accident the previous night I was delivered to Osh by China Aid truck, pickup, minibus and taxi. The cheap guesthouse I wanted to stay in was full. They offered to let me stay on the living room floor but I wanted to pull…
Sary Tash, Kyrgyzstan | 9 August, 2006 | $0 USD Apparently, this China Aid truck is where I slept in Sary Tash. Three years later I still don’t remember, due to the car accident I was in somewhere near the China-Kyrgyz-Tajik borders. Read all about it here.
Urumqi, China | 31 July, 2006 | $11.63 USD When I first arrived in Urumqi I was traveling with the Taiwanese woman I met in Jiayuguan. The first hotel that we tried was full and calling around it seemed that most of the tourist-grade hotels were booked. We took suggestions from a few European travelers…
Turpan, China | 25 July, 2006 | $3.71 USD This was a nice hotel, really, but the woman I was traveling with and I asked what cheaper options they had. The staff in the fancy reception area hesitated and finally revealed that they did have cheaper rooms in a building out back but they were…
Dunhuang-Turpan, China (overnight train) | 23 July, 2006 | $23.98 USD (train ticket) This sleeper train took us from a town about two hours outside of Dunhuang to a town about one hour outside of Turpan. The train line wasn’t laid down in the most convenient route for tourists but its relatively easy to find…
Lanzhou, China | 19 July, 2006 | $5.69 USD Lanzhou is one of those places that you don’t really want to go to but you end up passing through because its a rail hub. I ended up stuck here in 2004 and can confirm that, even in 2006, McDonalds did not come this far Northwest.…
Hohhot-Yinchuan, China (overnight sleeper bus) | 18 July, 2006 | $17.92 (bus fare) Getting to Lanzhou from Hohhot proved to be difficult. I believe I was on an indirect train line and, even then, the trains were sold out and only ran every other day. I ended up booking an overnight sleeper bus from Hohhot…
Hohhot, China | 16 July, 2006 | $4.94 I stayed in this hotel three nights, this is the view from the other side of the room. I can usually find something fun to watch on Chinese TV?either a warrior drama or CCTV news in English. It took me three weeks to travel across the Silk…