CITIES OF CENTRAL ASIA
This article was written from back home in New Zealand, while participating in the coronavirus lockdown.
We arrived home five weeks before the lockdown commenced, at a time when there was still only limited visibility of what was about to grip the world. And equally before it would fully dawn on me just how fortunately timed our 10-month long Russia and Central Asia to England expedition really was. We did not cut our trip short – there was no need as we had successfully reached our planned end point of England by early February.
However, this is not to say there weren’t other kinds of serious difficulties to overcome along the way, particularly nearer the end of our journey, which you can read about in upcoming editions. But I shudder to think where we’d be now had we been attempting this overland journey this year, with borders shutting down all around us!
I sometimes hear concerns expressed by family members, or followers, who worry about our safety in some of the countries we pass through. Mostly it’s the case that they really needn’t worry, as they simply have no idea how lovely and helpful local people typically are across Russia and Central Asia. I absolutely love having these sorts of adventures with my family and am equally passionate about returning home to tell our tales.
My last two articles came from Tajikistan’s high Pamirs, where local people live with seemingly negligible resources and survive on extremely low incomes by world standards. You may
