Tag: blogsherpa, Border Crossings, customs, kazakhstan, maps, Mongolia, Route planning, russia, tashkent, Uzbekistan
Eastern or Western Route North from Tashkent to Russia?
Before leaving Tashkent I spent several hours pouring over countless maps of Kazakhstan and Russia, trying to work out the best route to...
Farewell, Convoy
As with all good things, it was time for our little convoy of three cars to end. The Abandon the Cube team had visas and plans to head into...
The Movie Transsiberian
From the Beijing Train Station to the corrupt police on the far Eastern route of the Russian Trans-Siberian Railroad, the 2008 movie...
Leaving Central Asia
As we depart Central Asia, we’re hit with a bittersweet feeling partially of relief and partly of sadness. Central Asia is like no...
Central Asian Money Habits
One of the strangest, and most frustrating things about traveling in Central Asia has been the double standards related to costs. As...
Statistics from Shanghai to Ashgabat
Originally, the trip was planned as a Shanghai to Ashgabat adventure. Well, we have an announcement to make—we have decided to keep on...
Best Foods of the Silk Route
Lamb kebabs – Urumqi, Xinjiang. Urumqi has an amazing night market near the park with beer, kebabs, nan, plov and other Central Asian...
Top 5 Illegal Things We’ve Seen in Central Asia
1. A marijuana plant growing on the side of the road in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. 2. Multiple people on the train shaking the border guards...
The Longest, Most Corrupt Train in Central Asia
After sleeping in the Almaty-1 train station we boarded our first Kazakh train at 5:12am bound for Tashkent, Uzbekistan. The train arrived...
The Beatles are Huge in Kazakhstan
We arrived in Almaty, the former capital of Kazakhstan, at 6:00am after 36 hours on the train. We immediately realized how screwed we were...
“Excuse me, do you have the swine flu?”
We took the 11:58pm train from Urumqi to Almaty, a 36 hour adventure across the Chinese border to Kazakhstan. Arriving early (as is my...
Getting a visa for Kazakhstan from China
We applied for Kazakh transit visas and found the process amazingly easy (perhaps because we are comparing it to the process of getting an...
