Pushing open the door, the darkness and thick acrid smoke combine to create an eerie mystical atmosphere. I pick my way through the narrow room past men wearing red tassels in their hair and long sleeved sheep skin coats, complete with twelve inch blades by their side. Others wear cowboy hats, baseball caps or balaclavas. The women have dark plaited hair, an eclectic array of necklaces, bracelets and thick multi-coloured rug-like dresses with bells jangling from their waist’s. I take my place at the end of the room, furthest away from the yak-shit powered stove. It’s crowded, warm, and in stark contrast to my room, positively cosy. It’s early, but these guys have been awake for hours. They’ve already covered 20km in the snow at temperatures touching minus 25C. This is just a pit stop; they’ll ... read more

The Kyrgyz capital Bishkek doesn’t feel Asian in the slightest - quite surreal being situated slap bang in the heart of Asia. Kyrgyz make up only just over 50% of the population in Kyrgyzstan. In the north the other half are Russian and in the south Uzbek. Like all the other Central Asian capitals its changing rapidly. Businesses in the former Soviet Union don’t like employing people over the age of thirty because they can’t adapt to the new capitalist world in which they now live; whereas the young grasp the system with both hands. In affect the older generation are left on the shelf, which at first seems unfair, but in essence they have become natures guardians of tradition - if it were possible to alter an entire populations mindset overnight at the whim of ... read more

After our ‘fabled’ Silk Road City adventures we boarded the train back to Tashkent. Heading east again though the desert felt liberating. Communal train compartments bring people together with a mutual sense of adventure not felt on other forms of transport. People share food, drink and experiences - for many this is not simply commuting - most people are travelling the full length of the country at a major crossroads in their lives. In our own little transient universe, the major concern was arriving in Tashkent before noon the following day to catch the Chinese Embassy before it closed for the weekend. Jumping off the train in Tashkent there were the usual mob of taxi drivers to meet the train. In a complete roll reversal I grabbed the first one I saw by the arm and ... read more

Upon entering Azerbaijan we visited an old temple in the foot hills of The Caucasus that had been creating some controversy after the Norwegian government paid for an extensive exploration and renovation; based on Thor Heyerdahl’s theory that the Scandinavians were originally from Azerbaijan… Norwegian mythology tells that the Scandinavian god Odin moved with his people to Norway from a land called Aser. Heyerdahl reckons the original Caucasians fled the invading Romans in around 90AD. Sailing from the Caspian, they moved through the Black Sea, out through the Dardanelles into the open sea and north. The timing of this exodus coincides with Norse tales of tribes from the south bearing detailed knowledge of the seas and advanced boat building capabilities. From Odin it took 31 generations to reach the first historic king around 800AD, which apparently ... read more

Driving from the Turkish border into Batumi and all of a sudden you're in a downtrodden dilapidated Lada infested Mozambique! If you read stupid books as I do, you’ll know that in ‘The Worlds most Dangerous Places’ it states "Georgia is a wreck - seriously, the whole country looks as if somebody dropped it". This part of Georgia I later discovered is the worst of all. The buildings and everything else that was built by the old Communist govt. has literally been left to rot for the past 15 years. All maintenance totally abandoned, people apparently even sell manhole covers for scrap - the place is bleak. We bounce into Batumi feeling a little uneasy, the brain is sending messages that say ‘bad people live in houses like that’. Not a soul speaks a grain of ... read more