Arrived 6am in Yerevan, the airport is busy with a few early arrivals along with us, I took the Air Baltic from Riga.The airport was surprisingly modern and for most, we have to queue to the visa counter, fill up forms then queue for the visa counter, almost halfway through when I realized I have to pay in local money so got out and looked for ATM, there was none in the area and so I have to change $10 which was the exact amount for a 21 day visa. Took almost an hour waiting in line, then at the immigration counter had a chat with a fellow American also from Boston, this dude works here for the American University, after immigration that was the last I saw of him as I gather my belongings and ... read more

Arriving early evening in Vilnius we set out walking to the downtown area and contacted Gintare, it will be a surprise as she have no clue I will be here already, my buddy Mindas and I met in Tajikistan over a month ago when he traveled with his friends Ben and Gintare and this will be a mini reunion of sorts. Having found us Gintare, in total shock led us to her flat in the downtown area, nice spacious sharing with Sigi, here roommate. We got ready to go out for a few beers. We went to Mindas' friends bar in town called......Beer here in Lithuania is suprisingly good even the dark varieties and during the course of the night may have consumed 5 pints! 2 of Gintare's male friends joined us and dancing ensued, the ... read more

From the Riga main bus station next to the central market I took the next departing bus to Talinn, Eurolines bus cost me roughly 8 dibdobs, about $14. It was gloomy when we left Riga and got worse, it rained through the trip, we stopped at some picturesque town somewhere for 5 minutes, I did not catch the name, actually I did not know when we crossed into Estonia as there were no checkpoints. It was past 2pm when we arrived in Talinn, took about 4 1/2 hours. I left the bus terminal and followed other tourists across the street and somehow found the tram line only I got on the wrong train, it was going the opposite way, a kind woman who spoke only Russian told me to get off the train and go the ... read more

The dirt road from the Khargush checkpoint to Langar brought us to some spectacular sights, the road winds around the mountain side and across the river is Afghanistan which we can't seem to shake off, it's just there. A quick peek of the Hindu Kush mountain range in Pakistan brought excitement to us as we come across the thin strip of the Wakhan corridor shared by both Tajikistan and Afghanistan, all tall and mighty mountains one can only imagine the kind of weather they have in the winter, though Kevin our driver said you can walk across the frozen river(if they do freeze) to Afghanistan in the winter but then we reminded him there might me mines still lingering around. We stopped a few times to enjoy the view, we encountered a 4wd going opposite way ... read more

At the taxi stand a woman already in the 4wd jeep spoke perfect English and encourage us to join them 2 more person and they are off, we were lucky for they had been waiting for 2 hours to fill the taxi, but as usual it actually takes about 1/2 hour before we actually get on our way, we stop for gas, a few police stops, pick up some parcels etc. The police are in full force stopping everyone to the annoyance of the locals in the taxi, they told us, since these guys don't get paid well they make extra money by stopping cars and asking for bribes, average 5 somonis each time you get stopped apparently, poor driver, well poor us, the fare probably is now at 200 somonis to cover police bribes! We ... read more