by Calvin Sun | Jan 12, 2016 | Fail, Georgia, Way Way Off the Beaten Path, What Dreams May Come, Winter 2015: The Silk Road
After checking out Stalin’s birthplace and getting chased away by the Russian Red Army from the South Ossetian border, we headed back towards Tbilisi and made a detour heading north on the Georgian Military Road, a 212km long pass that...
by Calvin Sun | Jan 11, 2016 | Crisis, Georgia, How Did You Do That?, Rules Are Meant To Be Broken, South Ossetia, Unrecognized Territories, Way Way Off the Beaten Path, Winter 2015: The Silk Road
After a 2-3 hour walking tour of Tbilisi at dawn, I hopped in my 9am car to Gori and the South Ossetian border. South Ossetia is infamous for being the Russian-leaning autonomous region that declared secession from Georgia and its allegiance to...
by Calvin Sun | Jan 11, 2016 | Blitzkrieg!!!, Georgia, Walking Tours, Winter 2015: The Silk Road
From a one-way 4 hour Air Astana flight from Almaty to Tbilisi, I landed at 9:40pm right on schedule. Not only did I get an entry stamp on arrival, I was also handed a free bottle of wine (that’s Georgian hospitality for you) by the passport officer...
by Calvin Sun | Jan 10, 2016 | Blitzkrieg!!!, Border Crossing, Fit for Foodies, Getting that VISA, How's the weather?, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Walking Tours, Winter 2015: The Silk Road
After a few hours exploring all that Bishkek in the winter had to offer, we drove 20 minutes towards the border between Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, the busiest and largest border crossing in Central Asia. It’s best that you do this border crossing on...
by Calvin Sun | Jan 9, 2016 | Blitzkrieg!!!, Getting that VISA, Kyrgyzstan, Walking Tours, Way Way Off the Beaten Path, Winter 2015: The Silk Road
From Dushanbe we flew on Somon Air (currently operating 2 flights a week from Dushanbe to Bishkek) for an hour to Manas Airport. Formerly known as Ganci Air Base during Operation “Enduring Freedom”, it once housed over 2,000 US troops as...
by Calvin Sun | Jan 8, 2016 | Tajikistan, The Nightlife, Way Way Off the Beaten Path, Winter 2015: The Silk Road
After a one hour drive from the creepy haunted Soviet sanitorium, we arrived in Tajikistan’s capital Dushanbe. Formerly a small village known for its weekly Monday bazaar (the name “Dushanbe” means Monday), it gained global attention in 1920 when the emir of...
