When you smell the rotten eggs, you know you’re getting close! Tuck under the foothills of the Kopet Dag mountains, the Kow-Ata Underground Lake provides a nice hot spring experience in the middle of sandy deserts. On the surface, desert stretches in one direction while layers of hills turn to […]
Turkmenistan
Gypjak Mosque
For a man with the stature of Turkmenbashi, no normal tomb will do. It must be a grand marble mausoleum, built to house the whole family. It must be situated just next door to an even grander marble mosque, large enough to hold the whole extended family. And so the […]
Mary the Museum
When I think of Central Asian regional museums, I usually don’t expect a whole lot. I was really pleasantly surprised, then, the with Mary Museum. Though the cost was a bit more than I expected, it was full not only of old cultural artifacts from the nearby ancient city of […]
Turkoman Horse Riding: The Epic Akhal-Teke
The Turkoman tribes of what is now Turkmenistan were long feared as famous raiders and slavers who prowled the black-sand desert plundering caravans and harassing Russian army expeditions. And what good, I ask you, is a nomadic desert raider without an epic-strength horse? While the Turkmen may not be quite so […]
Lost in the Desert (R)
On the drive from Ashgabat to the Darvaza Gas Crater and onwards to Konye-Urgench and the border with Uzbekistan, we stopped at a little village in the desert just off the main highway. I think it was called Yerbent, but even that I’m not entirely sure of. It seemed like […]
A Cult of Personality (R)
Part of what makes Turkmenistan feel like such a strange place is that Turkmenbashi is EVERYWHERE. Born Saparmurat Niyazov and orphaned as a young boy by an earthquake that leveled much of Ashgabat, when he took power as leader of Turkmenistan he styled himself Turkmenbashi (“Leader of all Turkmen”) and […]
Hey there! I'm Stephen, this is my travel blog, and that's me in the poofy hat.
I'm a photographer / writer traveling since 2008, and I've been doing my best to visit amazing places.
My current focus is Central Asia, because for a hiking and camping enthusiast it's as good as it gets.