Author: awaywiththebirds

October 4: In and around Bishkek Today we drove to Ala Archa National Park which is one of Kyrgyzstan’s most beautiful and accessible natural areas, located just 40 km south of Bishkek. It’s a spectacular mountain park filled with glaciers, waterfalls, alpine meadows, and snow-capped peaks. The  leaves were just turning and you could see yurts up on the…

October 3: Tashkent to Bishkek Lunchtime flight from Tashkent to Bishkek in the country of Kyrgyzstan (two places that I had never heard of before), a small country in Central Asia, which shares borders with Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and China. Kyrgyzstan is famous for its towering mountains, lakes and a living nomadic culture. Apparently, many people still live…

October 2: Farewell to Samarkand Very early departure from our hotel (6.45 am) because we were getting the train to Tashkent. When we arrived at the station, we were too early for the security screening so we just wandered on into the station!!! The train ride took 4 hours and when we arrived, there was…

October 1: Around Samarkand Ok, so I have had a couple of requests for food shots. The food has been really good. The bread seems always to be homemade and the salads have been amazing. Here’s today’s lunch but will ensure I capture more in future! Today we travelled in a motorcade of 4 six-seater…

September 30: Samarkand Amir Temur — also known in the West as Tamerlane (1336–1405) — was a 14th-century conqueror from Central Asia, born in  Uzbekistan. He rose from a local noble family to become one of history’s greatest military strategists, creating a vast empire that stretched from India to the Mediterranean. Temur saw himself as the restorer of the Mongol…

September 29: Bukhara to Samarkand Now here’s some more history, about one of the most fascinating rivalries in world history. Have you heard of the “Great Game”? It was essentially a 19th-century geopolitical chess match between the British Empire and the Russian Empire, fought not with armies on battlefields, but with spies, explorers, and diplomats across the vast, remote lands…

September 28: In and around Bukhara Sally and Ang, the answer to your question is yes. I am now the proud owner of a silk Bukhara rug. Today we visited the shrine of Naqshband  (more fully, Baha-ud-Din Naqshband ) who was the spiritual founder of the Naqshbandi order, one of the largest and most enduring Sufi brotherhoods in the…

September 27: Bukhara Bukhara is in central-western Uzbekistan, in the Zerafshan River valley. It’s an oasis city, which made it a natural hub on the Silk Road.  The city is over 2,000 years old. Settlements existed there by the 2nd century BC; it began to gain real importance in the first few centuries AD. It…

September 26: Farewell to Turkmenistan Big travel day today….around 400 kms from Mary in Turkmenistan to Bukhara in Uzbekistan, and yes, that means we had to cross another border. We wondered why we had to leave so early ( on the bus by 7 am) but we were told that the road to the border…

September 25: Ashgabat to Merw Warren, they don’t speak Russian – they have their own language but many of the signs have both Russian and their language. And Ang, no I don’t intend to bring that rug home!! Today we had an early departure from  Ashgabat. On the way out you cannot miss the colourful…