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 stories down the ages.

Central Asia, an overlooked part of the world from the West, a place of changing boundaries & beliefs, in the past & now. I've missed travel very much; that experience of learning, meeting, other-ness; it's good to be out in the world again after the pandemic years.