At the end of 2015 I was sitting in the Almaty Backpackers in Kazakhstan trying to plan my trip across the border into Kyrgyzstan. I had no idea where to stay in Bishkek, no idea where to even go next, but then I saw a flier in that hostel for the Apple Hostel in Bishkek.…
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I’m posting this now, live, but it is subject to change and my blogs and Facebook and Twitter feeds are all scheduled to go out as normal so pre-written posts will still appear and I whacked out a few while staying at Apple Hostel in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. However I am now backpacking in a region…
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“There’s silence in the air, there’s silence in the ground. A presence moving through the rivers in the moonlight. Desolation all around. The wind blows through abandoned buildings, photos scattered on the floors, possessions of a vanished population. Safe haven for my soul.” – Tim Wheeler (Ash) Of course, it wasn’t the song from my favourite Northern Irish…
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I had heard about a food called Lagman and never tried it until 2015, strangely I’ve now eaten it about 10 times! At the Almaty Backpackers in Almaty Kazakhstan, my hosts here Ginara and Rahat cooked it for us on the last night before I crossed the border into Kyrgyzstan. There was myself and Oliver from England…
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It doesn’t get much more crazy than heading on a backpacking journey to “Reactor Number 4”. Indeed, the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone attracts less tourists per year than Antarctica, North Korea and Iraq. Here there are 13,000 tourists per year. That’s only 35 people per day on average! And I mentioned in parts 1 and 2…
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“I can feel the warning signs running around my mind” – Noel Gallagher. So far the day tour of Chernobyl has the mind constantly churning with thoughts. Against a dirty, smoggy, swollen sky it hardly seems appropriate to smile at any point. It’s easy to know that something bad happened here. You just sense it…
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This article might actually need a quick introduction. Mainly because most people I have met have never heard of a “country” called Gorno Badakhshan. In fact, even some Kyrgyzs people I have met this week were unaware of the existence of this disputed state, an autonomous region that has been claimed by China, Russia and…
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So I arrived into “the Stans” in late December 2015 after a brief spell in southern Kazakhstan, where I toured Ile Alatau, Almaty and a few bars, then I crossed the border into Kyrgyzstan. I didn’t need a visa for Kazakhstan (15 days on arrival on a British passport) nor for Kyrgyzstan (60 days on arrival…
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At the end of December 2015, I crossed the border from the Kazakhstani town of Korday into the magical world of Kyrgyzstan. After initially touring some cool sights in the north of the country, like Ruh Ordo, Ala Archa National Park and the Petroglyphs at Cholpon Ata, it became obvious that I would use the…
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Almaty is a massive city, spreading far and wide in its elevation beneath the mountains of southern Kazakhstan. At first, finding a bar seemed like a difficult task for the walking backpacker. So I used my maps and advice from the staff at the Almaty Backpackers hostel and soon I knew I was able to…
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