It seems that tourists here go one of two ways; Sitting around with cups of coffee and a cigarette hanging with a blank expression on their face waiting to be mucked around by the usual visa paperwork and governmental bureaucracy, or going on a kebab binge found on nearly every corner around town. Kebabs, known [...]

Relates pages for this post Azerbaijan LOI (letter of invitation) Uzbekistan LOI Stan Tours Contact information

As I mentioned in the last post, for the most part the people of Almaty are very cold and unhelpful. Their city on the other hand is gorgeous. I took an afternoon to wonder the lush tree laden streets of Almaty and walk through their numerous parks. This is some of what I saw.

I mentioned in my post “First Impressions Count” about how friendly the people of the Kazak country-side were. If Almaty is the first place you come don’t hold your breath. The experiences I had with the people in the 5 days that we stayed here were far from pleasant, enough so that I have no [...]

Converstation with my dad the other day when I phones to check in from Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Jared : Don’t know when I’ll be able to call again as we have no clue what Uzbekistan will be like. Dad : How big is Uzbekistan Jared : About 26 million people or so, and get this. Apparantly [...]

The only good thing about waiting for visas is having a little downtime to update family and friends about the trip so far. Since we had a few extra days in Bishkek I thought I’d update our online photo albums with four new ones from the Stans.

Quote from Katie as we went through a couple of dodgy tunnels in Kyrgyzstan “You need to 1-800 Korea this shit”

I thought it would be worth a mention as to how to catch a taxi in Almaty as it is definitely nothing like hailing one of the million cabs in South Korea or China. It’s relatively straight forward really. Simply stand on the road with your arm out in a downward fashion 45-75 degrees to [...]

As mentioned in previous posts, while in Almaty a bunch of vacationing Peace Corps helped us out. One of the most useful things they taught us was that there are apartments for rent in most major cities at less than the price of a hotel room. So after spending a couple of nights in a [...]

Katie and I have tried to keep up a daily (most days anyway) routine of push-ups to help keep our backs strong after a day of being hunched over our handle bars. That includes finishing late at night in a desert.

On day 3 of riding in Kazakhstan, with no water left and after a rough and windy night in the desert, we pulled in to a little oasis happy to be able to refill our bottles. While consuming various sugary drinks, two Belgian cyclists pulled up. They had just come from the Sharyn Canyon and [...]

After clearing Kazakhstan Immigration with ease we were on the road again cycling on roads that were definitely a lot bumpier and had no shoulder like their Chinese counterparts were still well above average. We took our first break about an hour into riding under some trees beside a few country houses, which by the [...]

Now that we are well out of China there will be no more need to download and install software to watch videos on our site. All future videos of our trip will now be available on YouTube. This also means that future videos can be uploaded at a better quality. All past videos will also [...]

Naan has become a staple food for us since we have entered the XinJiang province and the way they bake it is very cool.

Arriving in a big city where you don’t speak the language and have bikes and a lot of gear to drag around is a real hassle. We were fortunate to meet a bunch of the Kazakhstan Peace Corps on our first morning here. Their kindness and help meant that we were able to move into [...]