burningmatt

No, I wasn't abducted by aliens in June... I just got behind. It was pretty well impossible to find a reliable internet cafe in western Uzbekistan or Turkmenistan that wasn't packed out with 12-year-olds shooting each other online. Then I got back to Europe and things got a bit hectic. I will update retrospectively with the rest of the trip, but for now you can browse the photos on my Shutterfly site. I've now moved on to Austin, where I'll be spending a few months working out what to do with the rest of my life - cunningly I budgeted some savings for this instead of just sinking them all into the travelling.... read more

I will laugh at an English tourist... You set off for a 6 week trip. You decide on day 1 that you're so homesick that you want to go home. What do you do? You give up and go home almost immediately. Well this one did, but not before coming out with: "so this is raw onion?" and (passing by the mausoleum of Ismail Somoni) Me: "Somoni's really popular in Tajikistan, they've even named their currency after him." Him: "What's their currency called then?" Me: "Um, the somoni." The Somoni mausoleum was restored to shiny newness, like almost everything of antiquity in Uzbekistan. At the same time as restoring the buildings, they've removed any normal city life from anywhere near them as well, so much of the time it feels really sterile, like being in a ... read more

So I've just had a delightful Italian meal. Hmm. OK, so I've just had a mediocre pizza. I'd like to point out that, much as I despise the way people go abroad and then just eat the food they eat at home, it is months since I had any Italian food. Also in my defence, the food here is getting decidedly monotonous. Central Asian cuisine is frozen in time, a time when they invented a fifth dish and ran out of fingers. There's not even much variation in the way each dish is made. Outside the capital cities it can be hard to track down anything else to break out of the rut. So I've been rotating them. But there comes a time when you have to try and branch out, so you hunt down whatever ... read more

At long last I've managed to upload another batch of photos... There are two new albums on my Shutterfly site, one of Singapore and Malaysia and another one of Thailand and Dubai.... read more

So a couple of months after raving about how great the diving was with Reefseekers in the Komodo National Park, I'm sitting here uploading photos and killing time by reading the news. I've just stumbled across the news that five divers, including the divemaster I was raving about, were swept away in strong currents and almost eaten by a Komodo dragon. I said the currents were strong... And to think at the time I laughed when we all got swept away a few hundred metres by a current!... read more

Now, much as I hate laughing at Americans, this one I overheard was just asking for it: Tourist: "So the mosque was built by Timur?" Guide: "Yes, in the 14th century." Tourist: "What religion was Timur then?"... read more

Slightly irritatingly, one of my attempts to withdraw dollars from a cash machine yielded a stack of slightly old $10 bills, a few of which are very slightly worn at the edges. Normally I wouldn't give two shits, but here this proves to be a problem. You take them to the exchange booth and the women take them off you with huge frowns on their faces, examine the notes under a microscope, sit there for a minute sucking air audibly, shaking their heads slightly and stroking their beards, and then fling the notes back at you. "Old. Cannot change." they exclaim. No amount of insistence will get them to change their minds. So you take them back, get out some nice new, crisp and clean notes without a single blemish on them and hand them over. ... read more

You need a special permit to explore Pam Ayres, because this is a highly sensitive area. It's well worth it though, to see giant peaks and dramatic vistas into the valleys. If you go deep into the valleys and hunt in amongst the bushes you find all sorts of hidden wonders that will bring you great pleasure. I am, of course, talking about the Pamirs of Tajikistan, where I've been for most of the last week. Let's start in Osh where, mindful of the problems of shared taxis (and even more mindful of the lack of them travelling into the Pamirs), I teamed up with a Korean called You Lee and rented a 4WD and driver. Expecting some sort of shoddy jeep driven by a lunatic, imagine our surprise to get a comfortable minivan with air ... read more

I have visited a Central Asian embassy for the last time. You have no idea how relieved I am, although this last one was relatively easy. So, Tajik visa in hand, I set off on the 12 hour drive to Osh, in the south of Kyrgyzstan, in a shared taxi. I managed to get the front seat, which was great as I'd read much about the majestic scenery. I was not disappointed - the views were stunningly dramatic, rather like the driving. In fact the driving was more than that. It was terrifying. I have very few photos of the journey because it's hard to keep the camera steady when you're going round a corner at mach 4 with your eyes closed. The screeching tyres I got used to eventually, and in most cases we at ... read more

I've just had a wonderful day in the mountains. My feet have just had a really shit day in the mountains and hate me. Lots of sun, again. Lots of majestic scenery, again. No horses though. And no people, which was the bit I liked best. I was absolutely and totally alone for about 8 hours in the most amazing landscape. Bliss. Just as well really, because there was no-one there to hear me yell "fucking hell fuck fuck fuck" repeatedly while I was fording a raging torrent of a stream of fresh meltwater, barefoot. Did my feet ever hurt when the blood finally got back to them... That's why my feet hate me, that and 25Km of walking and scrambling.... read more