Anticipation

Well, I'm off again, this time to follow the Silk Road, starting in Almaty, Kazakhstan and ending in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan.  I'll leave in the late afternoon on Sept. 27 and fly Rochester to Newark to Istanbul to Almaty, Kazakhstan, arriving on the 29th at 4:35 AM, with a ten-hour time change.  It's not easy to get there from here.

The list of cities I'll be traveling to is here (there are lots of places in between):

Almaty, Kazakhstan

Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan

Tashkent, Uzbekistan

Khujand, Tajikistan

Samarkand, Uzbekistan

Bukhara, Uzbekistan

Khiva, Uzbekistan

Ashgabat, Turkmenistan. 

I'll fly home from Ashgabat.  

Here's a map of the region:

And here's the route I'll be taking. Two legs of the trip will be flying, Bishkek to Tashkent and Khiva to Ashgabat, and the remainder will be overland:

For anyone who would like to read the detailed itinerary, it's at this link (click on "expand all"):

https://www.roadscholar.org/find-an-adventure/18766/On-the-Silk-Road-in-Central-Asia/itinerary/  

A sample: on Day 6 we attend "Kyrgyz horse games, such as Ulak Tartysh, a sort of polo played with a goat carcass, and Kurosh, which is wrestling on horseback..."  

There's a preview of the game here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfGyLAYu1As 

I think I'll just be a spectator.

I'm hopeful that internet service will be sufficient for sending my blog, and I'm excited to do so.  Next post from Kazakhstan!

Victor