two cats backpack

This was a real tongue twister. Ka-ra-kal-pak-stan. Ka-ra-kal-pak-stan. Now say it faster. Ka-ra-pa-kal… Damn. After spending nearly a month in the ancient Silk Road cities, the Fergana Valley, and the Nuratau Mountains, we thought we were finally getting a grasp on Uzbekistan’s diversity and complexity. We were starting to understand […]

Years ago, when we were staying on an island in Cambodia in a little bungalow on the beach, Victor walked off the bed platform in the middle of the night and fell down a few feet.  He wasn’t fully awake and somehow didn’t hurt himself.   When his mom heard this […]

I was chatting with my cousin, who lives in Frankfurt, Germany, and telling her all about our 36-hour trip to Munich just to attend the opening of Oktoberfest. “Have you ever been?” I asked her. “Oh no!” she exclaimed. “We are not big drinkers at all!” “Neither are we!” I […]

We were outside the Jizzakh train station, patiently waiting on our Yandex Go taxi driver, when another taxi pulled up.  The driver, a tall lean man in his early seventies, leaned out the window, “Where are you heading?” We explained that we were waiting for another taxi and he nodded, […]

A Tajik woman in a colorful dress was elbowing and pushing me away.  I was too close, and she demanded space. She was also bothered by my camera, hissing at me that it kept poking her in the back.  But what could I do? We were in the crowd, and […]