Cole Schenewerk

The end of the Pamir Highway brought me back to Osh, the second-largest city in Kyrgyzstan (see previous post). Now I had no plan. I had failed to get a visa for Uzbekistan back in Dushanbe, and I’d already been to the major cities in Kyrgyzstan. But it seemed that all my options led to […]

I have some catching up on blog posts to do. Travel on the road got too hectic to write much, and life got busy quickly once my feet hit the ground again in the States.  I’ve already written about my time in Tajikistan, which was interrupted by a brief trip across the border to Afghanistan. […]

Dushanbe, formerly Stalinabad, is the capital and largest city of Tajikistan. To celebrate the 20th anniversary of independence from the Soviet Union in 2011, the government embarked on a monumental building program that included a new presidential palace and a giant flagpole 165 m (541 ft.) tall. The shiny new center of the city is largely empty, […]

From the Kyrgyzstan-China border to the city of Osh, I shared a rather expensive taxi with two Chinese tourists. The road follows a wide valley adjacent to the border with Tajikistan, with picturesque views of nomads tending their flocks in green pastures. Jagged, snow-capped peaks form the backdrop for this picture of traditional life. A […]

Xinjiang is the largest and most westerly province of China. It’s also one of the strangest. The majority ethnic group here are the Uighurs (pronounced wee-ghurs), who are Muslims. Culturally and genetically, they are much closer relatives of Tajiks and Turks than of the Han Chinese who rule the country from Beijing. They aren’t the […]

Further up from the Hunza Valley is a region called Gojal. The elevation here means that it has had no permanent residents until the past few centuries. The Karakoram Highway continues to wind its way through the mountains here. From Karimabad, my base for exploring Hunza, I took a minibus to a town called Gumit, […]

My minibus wound its way north from Gilgit, passing through rocky valleys flanked by snowy peaks. The summit of Rakaposhi (7788 m/25551 ft.) was draped in clouds for much of the journey, but still dominated the landscape. After a right turn around the base of the mountain, I was now in the Hunza Valley. Here […]

I spent a rest day in Lahore, Pakistan’s cultural capital. The oppressive heat, dust and pollution irritated my eyes, nose and throat. It didn’t lend itself to exploration of this extremely historical city. I took a bus the next morning to Rawalpindi, a city adjacent to Pakistan’s capital Islamabad. This is the foot of the […]

While I was in Amritsar, I made an excursion to the India-Pakistan border at Wagah to watch the famous border closing ceremony. This visit was a prelude to crossing the border for real two days later. Around sunset, the Indian and Pakistani border guards took their places for an elaborate ritual full of posturing and […]

I’m in the back of a tuk-tuk, a three wheeled motorcycle with a bench in the back – on my way to the India-Pakistan border. Modern technology is amazing. I can write notes from the road, complete with photos, from the back of a moving vehicle. I’ve stayed two days in Amritsar. The hostel here […]