Our Third Voyage Around The World

At some point last year Ileana asked why don’t we go to Samarkand. Very good question, why not? Let’s go. We looked it up, saw that we might need a few days, but if we go there we should also go to Khiva and Bukhara. It might take 10 days, best time to visit should be in the spring or fall. Slowly over several months that idea turned into a trip of three and a half months (104 days) around the world in which we visited 14 countries. Here is a brief summary of what we did.

First some numbers:

• UNESCO World Heritage Sites (WHS) - 36 (in the text below the number in parentheses identifies the running count).
• Tentative World Heritage Sites (TWHS) - at least 15
• Countries - 14: eight new for both of us, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Pakistan, Oman, Bhutan, the Netherlands was new for me, revisiting England, Turkey, EAU and Thailand, plus of course, Romania.
• Flights - 23, for 29300 miles (46900 km), and at least 75 hours.
• Road trips - give or take 9200 miles (14700 km), some of it on highways and some of it on really picturesque “roads”. 
• 20921 pictures to go through to select a few for you...

Our goal to visit UNESCO World Heritage sites played a major role in the planning of this trip. Ileana had seen a couple more than me and to make it easier to keep track, I asked her to take me to two of them: London’s Kew Garden (245) and Amsterdam’s 17th century Canal Ring Area (248). 

Kew Garden, up in the temperate house

Amsterdam Canals

We also wanted to go back to the British Museum (and for the first time Victoria & Albert museum) to look specifically for some of the exhibits that came from places that we would visit on this trip. We took a day trip to Canterbury (246), spent half a day visiting Greenwich (247), and we went to Utrecht to see Rietveld Schröder House (249), a unique building from the 1920s.

Plane tree, an oak like a baobab, 200 years old, next to the cathedral

The Canterbury Cathedral

Oxus treasure, Achaemenid gold, we would see pictures of this in Tajikistan

Oxus treasure, detail

Keeping our balance on the first (zero) meridian

Greenwich 24 hour clock

Greenwich, famous boat Cutty Sark, nicely restored

Utrecht canal

Rietveld Schröder House, listening to the audio guide

After a week we were in Cluj and with our good friends we went to our last WHS in Romania, the Roşia Montană Mining Landscape (250), a 2000 year old gold mine and the associated 300 year old village.

Entrance to the Roman mine

helping with the gold ore

We spent three very active weeks with our families and friends, visited many old and new places, travelled all around the country and saw one part of the newly selected Romanian World Heritage site of “Frontiers of the Roman Empire - Dacia” - the Porolissum ruins next to Zalău (244). At the other end of our country we visited the amazing art museum in Topalu and the third century Roman Capidava citadel.

Topalu art museum

Entrance to Porolissum

Porolissum amphitheater 

Really excited to be in Zalǎu

Bucharest, in front of Athenée Palace

Then on September 17, we flew to Istanbul and took a 500 km detour to Edirne to see the beautiful Selimiye Mosque (251). It is in the European part of Turkey, near the borders with Bulgaria and Greece so next time we can focus on the Asian Turkey. 

Selimiye Mosque

Next day we flew to our first “stan”, Tajikistan. Over the next 38 days we visited all five former Soviet Union Republics, learned a lot about their history and culture, met great people, saw their museums and 16 out of 17 of their World Heritage Sites. These five countries have many things in common, number one being that all have been messed up by the Russians and the Soviet Union, they were surprised and unprepared to find themselves “free” (and to figure out what to do with their unearned and unexpected “freedom”). They are still working on it, some more than others. The insane dictatorship in Turkmenistan stands out, but the other four countries are more or less moving in the right direction. Kazakhstan is the big brother, the rich one, Uzbekistan comes second, Kyrgyzstan is the little brother that seems to get by or even get ahead without causing much trouble or being much noticed and Tajikistan is the poor, miserable one that is trying not to lose it altogether. The former communist party leaders took over in 1991 and turned them in autocratic regimes that tried to individualize themselves in one bad way or another. It is in these places that someone can better understand how evil Lenin and Stalin were, on purpose they relocated populations and mixed them up and changed borders to “make sure” that all hell breaks lose if/when the Soviet Union dies. So all these countries have many minorities of the others, plus miserable left behind Russians, ethnic conflicts, geographic aberrations and they all struggle to identify and built a national identity. Thankfully there are no wars between them (now) and the relationships are slowly improving. Some of the first generation of leaders died (never soon enough) and the new presidents seem to be a little better in some places. In Turkmenistan they have their third dictator, “father” of the country, he’s not as crazy as his father (the second) or Turkmenbashi (the first), or maybe we don’t know enough. Caught between the expansionist tendencies of China and the horrible Russian empire, people seem to accept their fate but, like anywhere else, they strive to improve their daily life. From a touristic point of view (and again with the exception of Turkmenistan) they are all safe and extraordinary destinations, easy to get by or through, with amazing people and with some of the best things to see in this world. They are relatively cheap and the touristic infrastructure is quite good. Speaking Russian and using Yandex (the Russian copycat of Uber) will make your life there easier.

Rudaki, a Persian poet from the 9th century, credited as the father of Tajik literature

Ismail Samani, recycled from 1000 years ago

Nurek reservoir, we started on our way to the Pamirs

On our first day in Dushanbe we visited three museums and we seemed to follow that pattern in all the other capitals. We started there on September 19 because we wanted to “do” the Pamir Highway, the second highest road in the world, and one of the most iconic road trips anyone can experience. Over the next six days and nights we traveled 1700 km in two 4WD cars briefly getting into Tajik National Park (252). For days we went up and up until we got to 4700 meters, admiring the Pamir mountains and crossing impossible mountain passes. We saw and touched some beautiful alpine lakes. We had a little bit of discomfort with the altitude and the cold but overall it was a memorable adventure with a long list of highlights. For more than 20 hours we were on a road above Panj river, in between Tajikistan and the Wakhan region of Afghanistan. After traveling all night (to avoid construction related road closures), we were able to visit the Afghan market in Khorog, it was somewhat unreal to see the merchants from Afghanistan selling their crops and a bunch of Chinese wares. It has been one of my dreams to get to Murghab, it can easily qualify as one of the ends of the world, it was worth the trouble… We were lucky to visit a rehab center for snow leopards, probably very few people know it exists, it is new and one of the very few things that I can praise the government of Tajikistan for. Our driver, a nomad shepherd, was part of the Kyrgyz minority and graduated in political studies, even studied in China and India. He used to work in the local government but decided to become a guide to make more money. This year his goal was to save enough money to pay for his 5 year old son’s heart surgery. Most of his family emigrated to Kyrgyzstan, but as the youngest son he has to stay to take care of the parents, houses, herds and graves. Crossing into Kyrgyzstan was interesting, the border is still closed for locals as these two countries had some border clashes over the years and are still trying to figure out how to get along. Our first driver dropped us at Kyzylart pass at 4280 meters (14000 feet). His brother in law picked us up in a Kyrgyz car and took us on the worst road possible through the “no man’s land” between the two countries. In a way it makes sense, why should I fix the road on which my enemy might come to attack me? Since almost nobody travels on it anymore, whatever road was there once is now gone…

Afghanistan behind us, we are in Tajikistan

Afghan market in Khorog

the 2000 year old Kha Khan

Yamchun fort, a tentative World Heritage Site

Room to stretch

Five meters from Afghanistan. Really tempting...

Ozero Chukur-Kul

Bulunkul - we are oficially in the Tajik National Park (WHS 252)

Karakul Lake, 4000 m 12890 feet, our last stop in Tajikistan

No Man's land between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan

There is breath of fresh air going down into Kyrgyzstan. Vegetation appears, the cows are bigger, people seem freer and happier, life is not so miserable anymore. And the landscape is absolutely amazing in all possible variations of mountains, waters and skies. We spent five days here, I loved it, starting with the trip to the base of Abu-Ali Ibn Sino (Avicena, formerly known as Lenin) peak (7134 meters/23406 feet) and continued by crossing the Alay mountains through Taldyk Pass at 3615 meters (11860 feet). Curiously they still have statues of Lenin in this country and they seem to be in no hurry to take them down, but they might have the closer thing to a democracy and the happiest people. We liked Osh, a 3000 year old city with a 2000 year old bazaar and the Sulaiman-Too Sacred Mountain in its middle (WHS 253). In Bishkek we loved the Fine Arts Museum, certainly worth the trip by itself. Every street corner had a fruit and vegetable stand but we ate samsas…

The yurt camps at the base of Abu-Ali Ibn Sino (Avicena, formerly known as Lenin) peak (7134 meters/23406 feet)

Taldyk Pass

A truly horrible person...

Osh from Sulaiman-Too

A three floors yurt

Sulaiman-Too behind the museum behind Ileana

The truly phenomenal Fine Arts museum in Bishkek

The parks on the streets of Bishkek!

We are now entering the Silk Road territory, most of the old cities have been on some or another corridor through the ages, the World Heritage sites in this area are grouped on a theme or another. Our next road trip took us to Burana Tower, an impressive 11th century minaret, and one of the 35 locations of the Silk Roads: the Chang’an - Tian Shan corridor (WHS 254), then we continued on the southern shore of lake Issyk. It’s like a sea, the third largest salt lake in the world, and to the south it has the impressive Tian Shan mountains. We had hours and hours of driving, enjoying the beautiful scenery. Probably someone could spend weeks exploring the mountains and the valleys, we only took one short trip to the Fairytale Canyon, a very appropriate name. 

Burana Tower

Tian- Shan Mountains

Fairy Tale Canyon

Next day, September 30th, on roads covered in snow, we crossed the border to Kazakhstan and visited another canyon, Charyn, not a WHS but a Unesco Biosphere reserve. In the evening we arrived to Almaty, a somewhat mythical place for tourists in this part of the world. But their best museum was a farce, we were very disappointed and it was hard to turn things around after that, even after visiting the very nice folkloric musical instruments museum. Next day, we went to Tamgaly petroglyphs (255) and later to Altyn Emel National Park (WHS 256 as part of the Cold Winter Deserts of Turan). We spent a couple of days in this hardly accessible park, walking a canyon in Aktau Mountains, climbing the Singing Sand Dune. We saw wild little horses (Przewalski) and saiga antelopes in the distance. 

A nice special canyon in Kazakhstan

Orteke, a unique musical instrument, since 2022 on the UNESCO list of intangible cultural heritage of humanity 

Tamgaly petroglyphs, a WHS that nobody knows about...

Aktau mountains in Altyn-Emel National Park

Katutau Mountains in Altyn-Emel

The Singing Dune

We flew to Turkistan, our first encounter with the Timur architecture at the Mausoleum of Khoja Ahmed Yasawi (257). Then we flew to Astana, the new capital of Kazakstan and a city famous for its architecture and important for us because of Saryarka reserve (258). We were lucky to meet a nice neurologist who performed a different kind of acupuncture than the one Ileana is accustomed to.    

We are in Turkistan

Mausoleum of Khoja Ahmed Yasawi (257)

statues and mosque in front of the National Museum in Astana

The Golden Man, a Kazakh thing

At the National Museum a temporary exhibit, we met the painter

The airport in Astana

A couple of hours by airplane took us to the capital of Uzbekistan, Tashkent. We spent three nights and two days and we flew to Khiva (259), a compact and well preserved 18th century city and also our connection point to the next country.

The Museum of Applied Arts in Tashkent

The magical Khiva

One of the many rooms to visit in Khiva

We had a couple of guides and a very intense schedule in Turkmenistan. We visited its three remarkable World heritage sites at Kunya-Urgench (260), Nisa (261) and Merv (262). The highlight was possibly the site of Gonur Depe, part of Merv, very hard to get to, but so special. We had a 14 year old guide that we would have taken home if we could. There were a few other nice things, including two history museums and the carpet museum. We were challenged  by cold and horrible roads when visiting Darwaza crater (everyone likes it, why???, it is a natural monument to the stupidity of humans). Ashgabat is not a nice place to see, this capital is famous for all sorts of aberrations and some people like it, we didn’t, it made us nauseated at times because of the bad taste of its immense new buildings, empty streets, no human beings, no soul.  

Our first hotel in Dashoguz, looks nice...

my friend 

Kunya-Urgench (260) one of the several impressive monuments

Darvaza crater at night

Darvaza crater at sunrise

The mysterious old Nisa

Rhytons, amazing, absolutely amazing, this is just one simple example

The monument of neutrality. Nobody, absolutely nobody, cares...

The Guinness book world record for the biggest inside ferry wheel. Nobody cares, nobody visits, they would have started it for us but we didn't care, didn't even get out of the car

With our guide Arseny, lost in the ruins of Gonur Depe, 5000 years old or more

Merv, from little Kyz Kala to the Great Kyz Kala 

Sultan Sanjar Mausoleum at Merv

It felt really good to get out of there and go back into Uzbekistan. It suddenly looked like a free and civilized country, we got to Bukhara (263) in a couple of hours. Back to the Silk Roads and another site, Zarafshan-Karakum Corridor (264, we visited two of its 34 locations). After two nights we took a high speed train to Samarkand (265) and got into a nice hotel where we spent 5 nights. We were finally here, the place that started it all and we were within walking distance from Registan, the magnificent plaza representative of the Timur architecture and one of the most special places of this world. From our base we took a couple day trips, first to Shakhrisyabz (266) then back briefly to Tajikistan to the 5000 year old site of Sarazm (267).

we are in Kalan Mosque and you can see the minaret

Kalan Minaret from 12th century

Poi Kalan, the magnificent complex in Bukhara

Shah-i-Zinda

one of the many tombs at Shah-i-Zinda

Bibi-Khanum Mosque

climbing on a little mound at Bibi-Khanum

We are in Registan in Samarkand

Amir Temur Mausoleum, Gur-i Amir

For those who like their ruins ruined, Ishrathana Mausoleum part of Samarkand (265)

Takhtakaracha Pass at 1788m, crossing the mountains to get to Shakhrisyabz

Ak-Saray palace, there is little left from Timur but still amazing

Kok-Gumbaz Mosque in Shakhrisyabz

A regular evening

Finally a day without clouds

the nightly evening show in full force

the second most famous ceiling in the world, for good reason

Tilla- Kari Mosque

Ulugh Beg Madrasa

Sherdor Madrasa

with an 8 hour delay, we are taking off from Samarkand

On October 26 Israel bombed Iran and that delayed our flight by 8 hours. We spent the time revisiting Registan and accepted that the city of Abu Dhabi will have to wait for another day. We took a day trip in the desert to the Cultural site of Al Ain (268), interesting but not that great. At night we flew to Pakistan.

One of the parts of Al-Ain cultural site of the UAE, a reconstruction of an old tomb

In Karachi our guide and our driver for the next 9 days surprised us by waiting for us at the airport. We dismissed the hotel shuttle and then spent 10 minutes in the dark trying to find the entrance to Ramada Inn. It was heavily barricaded, with many soldiers and security check points. Things would get better and even funny after that. This was an exhausting but very satisfying part of our trip, going to all six of the Pakistan’s World Heritage Sites, several tentative sites, visiting a few forts, shrines, museums and even making it to the famous change of guard at Wahga border post. Despite a couple of difficult moments we liked what we saw and we appreciate what we learned on this 2500 km road trip from the biggest necropolis in the world at Makli, Thatta (269), to the mythical 5000 years old city of Moenjodaro (270),  to Harappa, then the Forts of Lahore (271) and Rohtas (272), the famous and diverse Taxila (273), finishing at what I considered the crowning jewel, the Buddhist ruins of Takht-i-Bahi (274).

We start our trip with Chaukhandi Tombs a TWHS 

Makli (269) one of many many very interesting tombs

Makli, the 17 century water fountain that you walk in

our first Pakistani mosque, Shah Jahan (TWHS)

Shah Jahan Masjid

On our way to Ranikot Fort (TWHS)

We are at Moenjodaro!!!

We are on the roof of Multan Art Gallery

Harappa museum

Harappa (TWHS)

Dinner in Lahore

Badshahi Mosque (TWHS)

Lahore Fort (271)

Shalamar Gardens in Lahore, part of 271

The lowering of the flags at Wahga border, behind the gate is India 

Rohtas Fort

Rohtas Fort

Dharmarajika Stupa, one of the many interesting monuments that make up Taxila

still in Taxila, at Jaulian Stupa

The stunning ruins of the Buddhist monastery at Takht-i-Bahi

We were tired so it was good that we decided to postpone our trip to Afghanistan and from Peshawar we flew to Oman for 8 days. Oman is the country which developed the most over the last 50 years, a nice destination with five World Heritage Sites and great natural beauty. Nobody knows if people are truly content or not, there is no freedom of the press and no way to inquire what the locals think. From what we’ve read and what we’ve seen sultan Qaboos who reigned from 1970 to 2020 took the country out from the Middle Ages. After checking out the Ancient city of Qalhat (275) we had a great trip into the beautiful Wadi Shab, one of the most representative of their thousands of valleys. Then we went to see 5000 year old beehive tombs (276), the Bahla fort (277) and a couple of their Aflaj Irrigation system sites (278). Then we climbed to 2000 meters and spent a night in a luxury hotel above the Jabal Akhdar canyon. Lastly, we finished by spending a couple of days in Salalah and visiting ruins related to the land of Frankincense (279).

Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque in Muscat, Oman

Marco Polo was here, in Qalhat (275), now this little building is almost all that is left 

Wadi Shab

Nineteen 5000 year old beehive tombs in an iconic setup

The nicely restored Bahla Fort

Falaj Al-Katmeen, part of the Aflaj irrigation system (278)

Sunset from our balcony

Sunrise over the canyon in Jabal Akhdar

Sumhuran archaeological site (a very important port in the Frankincense trade routes)

Archaelogical site of al-Balid with the Frankincense Museum

A Frankincense tree

We flew to Bangkok overnight to participate in the Extraordinary Travel Festival. It was an intense and memorable experience that we both enjoyed. The only free day we had we spent getting out of the city and visiting the Khao Yai National Park (280).

Bangkok

A fantastic event. Thank you Ric Gazarian!

Haew Narok Waterfall in Khao Yai National Park

Then on November 19 we took a 9 day trip to Bhutan. We did 500 miles (800 km) on serpentines on single lane roads with a speed of max 25 miles (40 km) per hour, we went as far East as the Tang Valley, we visited monasteries, temples, forts, museums, a festival, a paper factory, a trade school and watched two times archers engaged in the national sport. We saw takins, yaks, monkeys, black cranes and cows! There are no World Heritage Sites, just a few tentative ones, nonetheless it is a unique country for history and culture, for their development path, for their king and their governing system and especially for the people. It was also that kind of destination and that busy schedule that makes you feel that you earned and now you truly deserve a vacation. A 4 hour flight to Bangkok, a 3 hour flight to Manila, a 15 hour flight to NYC and, after driving through the night, we arrived at 5 am at our perfect vacation destination. Our home!!!

National Memorial Stupa

Tashichho Dzong in Thimpu

Thimphu, the capital of Bhutan

Dochula pass and Chorten at 3100 meters (10300 feet)

Punakha Dzong (TWHS)

the famous suspended bridge in Punakha

an unexpected festival out in the country

Temple in Jakar

every couple of hours we are on some pass at the top of some mountain

Down in the valley nesting ground for the black neck cranes

Wangdue Dzong (TWHS)

Paro/Rinpung Dzong (TWHS)

We are in Paro after all

The most iconic monastery in the world, at 3000 meters, Tiger's Nest (TWHS)

Down from Tiger's Nest Monastery, resting by a waterfall.

Cruising by some Himalayan peaks on our way home.
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