Where in the Hell-is-that-istan?
In a month I’ll be in Tajikistan. Yes, you’ve probably heard of Kazakstan at least thanks to Borat- they are in the same region… Just a couple countries over.
What am I doing there?
Well…. That ^^^
I’m hiking around in the Fann Mountains for the first half of the month. At minimum I plan to visit Alauddin Lake, Kulikalon Lake, Bolshoi Allo, Iskanderkul and if time allows the Seven Lakes. Of course I’ll end the Fann Mountains trip with a stop at Iskanderkul on the way to Dushanbe.
I know that all means nothing to most of you. A bunch of weird names you think you can’t pronounce somewhere near the boarder with Uzbekistan. Yup, another ‘Stan I’ll be visiting later.
After I’m finally done wandering around the Fann Mountains I’ll make way back to Tajikistan’s capital, Dushanbe where I will either do the epic flight from Dushanbe to Khorog or go overland. Of course I’m very swayed to fly over it because from what I hear it’s one of the best flights of your life. Next from Khorog I’ll continue along the Pamir Highway aka the M41- the second highest highway in the world, next to the Karakorum in Pakistan. I will finally exit Tajikistan via the Pamir Highway and into Osh, Kyrgyzstan. I’m sure I’ll mess around in Tajikistan till the last possible second- it is #2 on my places I’ve dying to visit. I may end up taking the flight from Osh to Bishkek in order to catch my over landing truck with Dragoman on October 2nd if need be.
Once I hop on the truck I will make several stops over the course of the next month along famed Silk Road stops in Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. Of course the place here that I am most excited for is: The Door To Hell, or also known as Darvaza Crater in Turkmenistan. I’ll also spend my 30th birthday in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Not my first birthday overseas or away from home for that matter. Hopefully it won’t involve Giardia (25th bday in Vegas), or my friend’s girlfriend turning my bday into an outing all about her and therefore me not being able to complete my quest for Pakistani food for the dinner I wanted (27 in NYC). At least 28 was a good travel bday- alone with the Penguins on Boulder’s Beach in South Africa and an amazing solo lunch…. With champagne. Lots of champagne. What? No one was around to tell me no.
The stops in Kyrgyzstan will include: Bishkek, Karakul and Issykul, Jeti Oguz Valley, Song Kol Lake, and the Kyrgyz Fergana Valley.
The stops in Uzbekistan will include: Tashkent, Samarkand, Nurata, Bukhara, and Khiva.
Bukhara:
Samarkand:
Khiva:
The final stops of the tour will be in Turkmenistan!
The Turkmenistan stops include: Darvaza and Ashgabat.
Photo Credit: Martha De-Jong Lantik via Flickr
Turkmenistan isn’t exactly an easy place to visit I’ll only be there for a short amount of time before I plan to fly out to Philippines. I don’t know what to do or where I want to go there yet but I’m sure I’ll know before November. I’ve already got ideas.
Before I head to the Philippines, I have a week-long layover in Oman. The world away neighbor to Yemen.
What do you do on a week long layover in Oman? You pair up with an amazing travel photographer/writer, THE Dan Flying Solo! and go on a road trip of course!
After my time in the Philippines I will head on over to Palau. Palau is a shortish flight from there, well I should say a short flight to Guam and then a short flight from there. I will stop by and visit one of my friends working with their legislature for a short stop before continuing on back home for a break…. And by break, I mean bust ass at work since December is at the end of the year and it gets crazy up in there. However on the way home involves a 15 hour layover in Guam. Who knows what to do in Guam on a long layover? Anyone?
The real win for me on this trip that involves about half a bazillion flights: I booked the majority with mileage I have racked up. Only cost me 62,500 miles, I was expecting to use far more than that. The real accomplishment here is that I have my miles accumulated via American Airlines miles, and not a single one of these flights are operated by American… All partners! My last experience flying back from Ecuador on mileage, all on American Air operated flights was hell. Pure, unadulterated HELL.
Before the merger with US Airways I thought American Air was terrible (I loved US Air, and was sad about the merger). The merger happened and it seemed that American stepped up its game. It wasn’t torture. But this year I’ve flown with American on 3 different trips, 2 out of the 3 have been extremely problematic. As in: flight cancellations for literally no reason leaving me stranded and had I not done the research looking at their partner airlines.it would have been for days! Fucking days! Anyway, that’s a 33.3% approval rate according to someone who is easily pleased with the most basic of needs being met while traveling. You done fucked up.
So rant aside, I’m doing things a little differently and added/changed some of my equipment.
So, what am I doing differently on this trip? Lots!
A New backpack.
My Osprey Aura finally has blown a massive hole in it. It happened while I was traveling in South America. I’m not totally retiring it- I’ll probably still use it for little trips near home.
After much deliberating and comparing I finally decided on the Osprey Ariel 65L. I went ahead and stayed with the same size- just a backpack that’s better deigned for mountaineering and carrying all your shit on your back on long multi day treks. I do not plan to fill all 65L on this upcoming trip- too much I’m going to be doing while carrying it.
Converted my iPad mini into a baby sized laptop.
In South America I brought my lap top with me in order to edit photos for here and Instagram and for a couple clients I did shoots for. I was hoping that someone would steal the stupid thing before I even made it to the new continent. I have a MacBook from 2014 and it weighs a ton. Since I’m trying to go minimalistic as possible in Central Asia I decided to make a change.
One big change has happened since then: Lightroom did a major update for it’s iPhone/iPad app. Which means I have better capabilities to edit on the go without a computer! Yes! In case you’re wondering why I HAVE to edit my photos: I shoot in RAW.
So to explain how I’ve converted my iPad into a mini laptop: I bought a Clamcase. It’s a little blue tooth keyboard that my iPad clicks into. Pair that with my SD card reader and Boom, everything I need.
Figuring out how to properly use a GPS
I’ve spent most my time outside and yet, have never had to use a GPS. Well, this time I’m bringing one, from the sounds of it I’m going fairly remote this time and it may come in handy. Along with all those maps I’ve gotten of the area so far. Did I ever tell all of you I’m a huge idiot sometimes with maps? Well I am.
Bringing an emergency beacon.
With all the remoteness and all, I am going to invest in one. I’m thinking the DeLorme (which also provides my GPS). From the sounds of it it works in the most places and has good monthly prices in comparison to other systems. You can program it to send your gps coordinates to a number of email addresses, even your social media accounts. You also can use it to send text messages… Like ‘hi mom, I’m still kickin’, and most importantly you can send SOS messages in the event something unfortunate happens.
A new, lightweight tent.
It comes in at 2 lbs. 7 oz! I went with the MSR Hubba NX. Now let’s just hope I don’t snap a pole out there. Gauging upon the reviews that’s the tent’s one weakness. I guess if one does break, we’ll just have to sit back and see how creative I can get. Just give me a roll of duct tape and send me out in the woods and see what magic I can whip up.
I’m learning Russian and a little Tajik.
The one common language between the ‘Stans I’m visiting is Russian. Thanks USSR for bringing a language to the area to tie it all together. The ‘Stans don’t all have related language bases. Some are essentially Persian dialects, some are Turkic in origin.
Because the one ‘Stan I’m spending the most time in is Tajikistan I decided to give Tajik a try. According to what I’ve read regarding Tajik, it is closely related to Persian (Farsi). At least enough to be essentially a dialect of the Farsi spoken in Iran. I read that they are mutually intelligible. Let’s see how badly I can butcher it. WHY DIDN’T I LEARN A LANGUAGE AS A CHILD?!? Really, what was I thinking?
Playing the visa equivalent of ex-Russian roulette.
The visa scheme in former-Soviet Central Asia? It sucks. I’ve had to arrange visas before: Yemen, Bolivia, Zimbabwe, Zambia….. The list goes on. But these guys were a walk in the park in comparison. Lucky for me, in June this year Tajikistan launched an e-visa so it was surprisingly easy. My passport is currently in Washington DC, hopefully being approved for a Uzbek visa as we speak. I don’t have time before I leave to send off again for my Turkmen visa (still awaiting my LOI too) so I’ll have to apply on the road which I’m not exactly thrilled about, but at least I have a few chances. I’ll make my first attempt in Dushanbe, then in Bishkek if need be. My last ditch effort will be on the Uzbek/Turkmen border. I was assured that many travelers apply at the border. But I have shitty luck, so I’d prefer to have it arranged prior. From what I gather the coveted Turkmenistan visa is more of a lottery than an application. That, of course paired with some of the unusual goings on in the country didn’t get Turkmenistan the nickname ‘North Korea of Central Asia’ for no good reason.
At least Oman is a VOA, Philippines gives me 30 days visa free, and Palau lets me roll in visa free for an entire year.
I got an international driving permit.
See above, for mention of the Omani road trip.
I’m working with Tajikistan’s ZTDA
That’s the Zerafshan Tourism Development Association, who have been so helpful already in planning out my visit to the Fanns. And now I’m excited to work with them.
A plan to move into video.
I still trying to get it dialed in, but I’m hoping to make more of a transition into video. And no, not snapchat videos- I hate snapchat. Maybe I’m becoming less adaptable as I get older, but no, I’m not gonna snapchat. But what I’m talking about is doing more of a vlog. Or maybe I’ll fail spectacularly, well just have to watch it unfold. I promise I’ll try not to be annoying on there, cause trust me, there’s a couple of travel vloggers on YouTube I find to be infuriatingly annoying.
Tay will be helping me out in Instagram.
This isn’t new, Tay has helped me out on here before when I’ve been traveling in areas of no-Internet-land. Trust me, I love being free of the Internet and having no idea of what’s going on in the outside world. That really makes it a vacation.
Tay will be posting a mixture of mine and her photos on there for me. We have traveled quite a bit together, so don’t worry it won’t be a major change! Plus she’s in the marketing and advertising degree program at CSU right now, and managing social media is part of it. So I think it’ll be an awesome project for her.
I’m working with two new companies.
The Elephant Pants and Secret Pocket Scarf. Pay attention to Instagram to see!
I think that’s about all the updates I have for everyone!
I leave in a little over two weeks and am scrambling to get everything ready to go.
And I wanted to say thanks to Carly from carlysadventuresafar.com and Manouk from bunchofbackpachers.com for letting me use a few of your guys’ Silk Road photos from Instagram. Check them out here and here on IG!
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4 thoughts on “Where The Hell-Is-That-Istan?”
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I really love how you choose the wildest of the places to venture into. Hope you will have great time in all this -istans.
Thanks!!
Sounds like a fantastic trip! I know so little about the ‘stans. Looking forward to reading about the Door to Hell especially as it’s on my bucket list!
Also the ipad mini as a laptop? Genius. I bet that’s so light. ?
? Lorna ≫ thepaintedglobe.com ?
Hi Lorna,
So far the ‘Stans haven’t disappointed and I especially loved everything in Tajikistan… Ok I have a couple of minor, first-worldy complaints, but every ounce of amazing in Tajikistan far out trumps any of that!
As far as the iPad mini laptop, so far it’s working out great! Although I do miss editing photos on the full-on desktop version of Lightroom and getting around WordPress on and iPad or iPhone can be a pain at times… But far less of a pain than carrying a heavy laptop around!