Ken

Even with the rain, it was a great way to get around. Rainbows all over the place.

It was the craziest thing… we both saw it, a figure in white praying at a roadside cross and when we turned around it was gone. That being said, we were pretty sure we saw an aged Elvis biking on the mainland a few days before. Great folk music at night…

One of only three (two?) surviving Baroque opera houses, the beautiful river… and at night you can play pool in a bar with a kick-ass juke box. A great town.

Enough highbrow fun to keep you enthralled for days… or you can start drinking white wine mid-morning, then go up to the castle and shoot crossbows. No, really… you can.

It’s been years and I’m ready to head back as soon as I get the chance. It was my first introduction to non-European travel years ago, and I want to see it in light of all the countries I’ve seen since… and I didn’t get down into the desert- have to do that.

I was doing research there and had an amazing summer- fun cities, horseback riding in the Altai mountains, skydiving for only $15, swimming in the Ob, hopping boats around Lake Baikal… get your vodka tolerance up before you go. In Novosibirsk and Irkutsk you can get good Chinese and Korean food, good coffee and even pretty good Mexican food in Novosibirsk… that’s assuming you get tired of blini and salads with mayonaise. I imagine in the winter it’s a whole different world- I’ll have to visit in December sometime.

Everywhere you look is an amazing photo op and the sun will bake the moisture right out of you. An absolutely amazing place to hike for a few days.

A friend who’s husband is an archaeologist there hooked me up with contacts… we were able to go most anywhere we wanted behind the fences and ropes. We crawled through the tunnel under the Temple of the Serpent and turned off the flashlights to just soak up the silence. A big day that ended with ant egg tacos and fermented cactus juice…

Turkey is my all time favorite country to visit for a balance of cost, exotic, easy to get around… Istambul is great, but make sure you get out into the countryside- it’s a huge country.

Baku has lots to see- smaller towns are also interesting. Sheki, Ganja, Lenkoran, Mengishivir… a few others that don’t come to mind. Not easy travel, but very cool.