Traveler, Adventurer, Entrepreneur
[May 21st, 2024] “Come to our office by 6pm tomorrow to book and pay. I’ll send the location. The ferry will leave early the next morning,” said a woman’s voice on the other end of the phone in clear and fluent Russian. I was excited to have found someone who Continue Reading
This article is the fifth and final installation in the Pamir Highway series. Despite the howling wind and frigid temperatures, Detti and I slept like logs, having just reached the highest elevation that either of us had ever been to—with fully loaded bikes. Enjoying a leisurely 11am start, the road, Continue Reading
Day 7. With a drawn-out yawn and an extensive stretch, my eyelids slowly peeled apart to reveal the bowed wooden skeleton and intricately embroidered canvas surface of a yurt. Plopped in the front yard of Pamir Hotel, the five cots lining the yurt’s circular floor provided a comfortable nighttime refuge Continue Reading
Day 1. The first afternoon on the Pamir Highway was quite a bit less shitty than expected (pun intended). After a painful morning of food poisoning, I had very little left in me, and only had to dismount from my bike to poop in the bushes 3 or 4 times [disclaimer: Continue Reading
Khorog – the Pamir region’s biggest “city” – deserved a few days. Not only were there a bunch of other cyclists to hang out with at the Pamir Lodge hostel, but it was the first time in months that we were in a place with both a) cool enough daytime Continue Reading
I cycled several kilometers out of Dushanbe and held out my thumb. Almost immediately, a Hyundai Porter—something halfway between a pickup truck and a flatbed, very common in Central Asia—pulled over, tossed my bike in the bed, and we set off. For the next hour and a half, the driver Continue Reading
Unfortunately, Dushanbe was not my last experience with the Tajik cops. As I stayed in Dushanbe to deal with some stolen items and recover from an extra gnarly bout of diarrhea, Detti continued onward by bicycle alone. I planned to hitchhike to catch up with her in Kulob in a Continue Reading
Tajikistan’s police are rumored to be corrupt bribe-mongers, but my experience was different. They were ridiculously, over-the-top helpful, in the most inefficient way possible. Rumor has it that a couple years ago, some Romanian motorbikers posted a video on YouTube of Tajik cops extorting a bribe from them. The video Continue Reading
After a month in the hot flat deserts of Uzbekistan, crossing the border into the Panjikent region of Tajikistan felt magical. Ahead of us lay a perfect asphalt road winding up a mountain valley with the snow-capped peaks of the Fann Mountains in the distance. This was the place that Continue Reading
Tolbachik – a 3,085 meter volcano on Far East Russia’s Kamchatka peninsula. I had been told that, on a clear day, the top of Tolbachik crater is the best [accessible without a helicopter] viewpoint in Kamchatka. The mountain is surrounded by several other glaciated volcanoes, most of which are very Continue Reading