White mulberries? Yes, the trees are everywhere and in fruit in Uzbekistan. Luscious and juicy, but without the stains on the fingers and clothes, we enjoy eating heaps of them. Another quirky thing about Uzbekistan is the money. The highest value note in circulation is 1,000. This is around .50c Australian. So to carry around money requires a huge stack and lots and lots of counting. Dinner for the two of us would cost maybe 25,000 Lek so we need to count out 2...

There is a legend in Uzbekistan that to build the Registan in Samarkand, Timur, the ruling King, needed to get the best bricks from Bukhara, some 300 kms away in the quickest possible time. Donkeys were too slow, and Elephants didn't work well in the bitterly cold winters. So he made a human chain stretching for the 300 kms and the bricks were passed one by one all the way.Could this be true?It seems anything could be true when you see the fairy tale sight of...

Here we are in the beautiful city of Riga, Latvia - by default.Now you might be thinking there has to be a story to this! Our motto is "Whatever happens travel gives you a story to tell".So hear is the story....It has been quite a harrowing 24 hours of arguing with airline staff who have been mostly unhelpful and liaising with 3 different Gap Adventures staff who have been incredibly helpful.We booked a GAP Adventures tour of Uzbekistan some time ago and separat...

We had forgotten how much we had loved Istanbul!In 2005 we spent a week in Turkey and here we are back again just for one night and as the bus takes us to our hostel, we are already thinking we wish we had planned for a few more days here.Istanbul is all charm and commerce, mosques and museums. It is carpet salesmen offering tea (no obligation of course!) and sidewalk cafes with lounge chairs and sheisha pipes. Our hostel is right in the historic cobblestone stre...

Plovdiv, our last city before Istanbul and the end of this busabout trip, looked charming as we went out for an orientation walk. The soft late afternoon light filtered through onto the cobblestone streets, surrounded by restored 3 to 4 story buildings, now antique shops and gorgeously inviting outdoor cafes.The streets were very busy with families out enjoying the warmth of the first day of summer and we came across a children's dance concert. Thinking it wa...