Departure lounge musings: Kyrgyzstan, majestic mountains & waterfalls, less developed; Kazakhstan, full of natural resource & being capitalised on; Uzbekistan, hospitable, developed travel infrastructure, a place of passings & settlings. Independent countries with shadows of the USSR. As I travelled on modern buses & trains my mind mixed the days & the views with the stories I was reading, of ancient caravan journeys, battles & people's st...

Bukhara, an ancient walled city, full of historic sites & the whole centre is UNESCO listed. My favourites were the simple geometric 10thC mausoleum, the 12thC tower, & the 5thC fortress. As the sun set & the full moon came into view in this desert settlement, you could close your eyes and imagine you heard the many gates closing in the hopes of a peaceful night.

Historic Samarkand: the caravans on the Silk Road would have stopped here on the way between Beijing & Istanbul. There are beautiful mausoleums, the bazaar, commemorative mosque, & Registan Square flanked by madrasahs at the centre. The domes, arches, doorways, geometric art, tiles, all beautiful & mesmerising. Visits too to a paper making village, a holy spring site & the site of the observatory location of one of history's famous astronomer's. ...

A comfortable overnight sleeper train journey to Tashkent, which included the formalities of customs, exiting Kazakhstan & entering Uzbekistan some 15 minutes later with separate officials, both on the train. A city tour including the monument to the 1966 earthquake victims with the exact time, after which Tashkent was largely rebuilt. Part of the historic city remains with madrassas & mausoleum. The metro system has some beautiful stations. Apparently i...

400km drive to Almaty in Kazakhstan. The border is a patrolled fence in a flat pass between mountain ranges. You're stamped leaving Kyrgyzstan then to a nearby cabin for luggage scanning and you walk across to get stamped entering Kazakhstan, the 9th largest country in the world. On the way to the city a visit to an amazing canyon. Almaty used to be the capital of Kyrgyzstan and it seems to remain so except for political & public administration which is in ...