And we landed home at last

Kebabs, camels, wild flowers, mouths filled with gold teeth, stone carved churches, Tibetian monasteries, Tibetan jewelery, horse back riding, lachman and plov, hiking through the forest, Chacha, chicha, snow and desert, angry donkeys, floating villages, Silk factories, Chinese pollution, shoe shine scams, baguettes, beaching euro-trash, fly like a woman and JLTV, Georgian hospitality, pineapple shakes, powdered sand, shopping for a mini in Tbilisi, evil Kyrgyz embassy guards, many hard mattresses, Father Asbed, cold oily meat soup for breakfast, the Golden Apricot Film Festival, Tashkent duty free, boy-band haircuts, dingy hospitals, Uzbek ankles, 7-11, tropical rain forests, sinking into sand dunes, Cambodian rice fields, leg waxing on the beach, animal market, sulfur baths in the snow, Roman baths in the rain, fried eggplants, traditional messages, nomadic tribes, beggar children, the mosques of Istanbul.

After 6.5 months on the road which culminated in a major Bangkok shopping spree, we finally managed to drain our allocated trip funds. Broke, we returned home.







FEAR NOT! The blog will go on! we will continue to explore as exciting things DO happen everywhere.

Love,


The Royals





Connection at Tashkent Airport on a gloomy day.






Home-made breakfast.

Our Highway Accident

All tanned up we returned one day to the mainland, hopping on a VIP bus to Bangkok. Half way there: BANG! We were caught in a three car pileup involving rolling logs.

It all began when the pickup in front of our bus started loosing its cargo (logs were rolling). The driver pushed down the breaks, lost control over the truck and flipped over on the road. It was right then when our innocent tourist V-I-P bus happened to crash into the pickup, breaking its window and dashboard.

Luckily, we were all fine and in one piece so we helped clear up the road and tanned for another hour until we were transferred to a replacement bus.

Tourists clearing logs.





The Accident.





Puzzled tourists.

Floating Villages, Cambodia

Boat Ride to Siem Reap

Today we traveled several hours from Battambang to Siem Reap on a motor boat and enjoyed every minute. The journey passed through marshland and floating villages all within a beautiful ecosystem. We encountered fishermen at work and waving children all floating by on the Sangker River.

Independent Businesses, Battambang, CAMBODIA

Our first day in Cambodia was very well spent. It started with us hopping on the back of two motorcycles and speeding around the villages of Battambang. David and Sogpon showed us the real Cambodia and took us to see the production of some local specialties: sticky rice, rice paper, rice noodles and fish paste. Many Cambodian families subsidize their income by hand-making these products using methods passed on by previous generations.



One Royal on a moto.





Abandoned Pepsi factory.





Cleaning the bamboo before adding sticky rice.





Chopping salted fish for the fish paste.

The infamous Bamboo Train: using the old French tracks for a new use, villagers ride this new invention (a motor + a bamboo platform) to town. When two cars meet the lighter "train" dismantles and reassembles on the other side.

Sukhothai Historical Park

Getting inside the park proved some difficulty for us. At first we tried the bicycle option: Rena was an excellent student, but somehow the bicycle refused to be tamed and she stuck to her motto "I do heels, not wheels!". Attempt 2: Tom, the motorcycle and the 30 seconds drive which brought us back to point one. We then gathered our senses and said:" five star or no star" and hopped on a tuk-tuk which ferried us around the park for the afternoon.



Beautiful but over-gardened, the remains were moving and the ride comfortable.

A Short Summary of the Last Month

We are back!
One month ago we crossed the border from Kyrgyzstan to China. It was a very long and difficult haul which began in a sand storm and culminated with us hitch-hiking on a truck, all through the beautiful scenery of the Tian Shan Mountains.
Arriving in Kashgar, Xinjiang province, we were faced with NO Internet or international calls.
We travelled trough Kashgar and Turpan, finding bustling markets, colorful people, interesting mud/brick architecture and incredible street food.




A girl in the Sunday Bazaar, Kashgar.





The Livestock Market, Kashgar.




We moved on through the sand dunes of Dunhuang and into Tibetan China. From mosques to temples. As we walked around the streets of Xiahe and Tongeren we encountered only smiles.







A young monk refilling a yak milk jug.




From there the road took us to Central China where we joined the Han masses on holiday and toured the jam-packed sites of Xian. This was the final destination of our Silk Road journey.





Han on holiday at the Terra-cotta warriors site.




But we were not finished with China yet. What we really needed was an urban hedonistic fix, a one week Beijing binge.

Waiting hall at the bus station, Taiyuan.

And Back Again.

The moral of the story: we don't do more than three days in nature.




Our cook, our guide.

There... 3 Day Horse Trek, Karakol

We thought we'd give our legs a rest and embarked on a 3 day horse trek to Altyn-Arashan Valley. We were sorely mistaken, sorely. We hired two horses, a cook and a guide, to take us up the mountains, where we followed the stream to the valley 3000 meters above sea level. We arrived at sunset and the temperature began to drop. As there was no heating in the cabin, we packed on the layers and slept under all the blankets we could find. Lucky for us we were snowed in the next morning and spent the day sipping tea.

On The Way... From Bishkek to Karakol

Running to the toilet, Marshutka stop on the highway.

The Way to Bishkek

The ride from Arslanbob to Bishkek took no less than 10 hours in a cramped shared taxi. Nonetheless, the road passed through high altitude mountain scenery, grasslands, nomads and cattle traffic. It even snowed at one point.
Pumping the tires for a safer(?) journey.
A Yurt!

Traffic Jam.

Khiva, The Old Town

A long 6 hour shared taxi ride through the scorching desert (and some unfriendly police stops along the way) brought us to the ancient oasis town of Khiva, where nothing has changed for hundreds of years. Magical. The Soviets were very successful in turning it into a museum-city and most of the inhabitants now live outside the old walls.

Petroglyphs at Ughtasar, Sisian

Sasson and his Villis (an old military Russian jeep straight from the Karabakh War) picked us up at 09:30 sharp and we headed up the mountain trail towards Ughtasar.

Ughtasar is an ancient site dating back 7000 years with an abundance of petroglyphs engraved on volcanic rock.



The site is 3300 meters above sea level so it was quite chilly, but Sasson was kind enough to lend Rena his jacket.

He was also very knowledgeable about the engravings and we speculated as to their possible meanings.