At Home In The Wasteland Travel Blog

From Tashkent to the Fergana Valley

Lindsay — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 19:30:31 +0000

After 16+ hours of being stuffed like a sardine in a can (but with free German beer!), I landed in Tashkent around 10pm. It took two hours to clear passport control and customs, so I didn’t arrive to my hotel until around midnight. Instead of going directly to bed, like any sane person would, I [...]

POTD: Khujand’s Panjshanbe Market

Lindsay — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 07:16:52 +0000

Working on a longer write up of this trip (and boy, is it taking a while) but in the meantime here is one photo I took of the Panjshanbe Market in Khujand (formerly Leninabad), Tajikistan. The market’s name, Panjshanbe, means “Thursday” in Farsi, a leftover moniker from the Silk Route era when Khujand was a [...]

Got a lot of catching up to do…

Lindsay — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 06:47:57 +0000

Jesus, I haven’t posted to this blog for over three months? That’s pretty bad. So what has kept me so busy? In October/November I took a work trip to Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan. It was lovely. Then in December/January I went on vacation to Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand. Again, very lovely. For whatever reason, I [...]

Off to the ‘Stans

Lindsay — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 15:52:45 +0000

Just a super quick note before I head off to the airport. For the next three weeks I will be traveling around Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan. So after a few years of being stuck stateside, I will finally have some new content and photos for this blog. (Courtesy WikiTravel)

Crater Lake National Park

Lindsay — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 03:59:50 +0000

A few weeks ago we drove down to south-central Oregon for a long weekend in Bend and Crater Lake. Bend has a lot of excellent breweries (Deschutes, 10 Barrel, etc) and Crater Lake is, well, Crater Lake. It’s been on my to-do list for a few years, and despite the amazing images of the lake [...]

Machine guns, Mao, and the Great Wall: Three Days in Beijing

Lindsay — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 19:08:42 +0000

When it comes to traveling to North Korea, most, if not all, roads lead to Beijing. The majority of flights to Pyongyang leave out of Beijing, and it is likely that your tour operator will require you to attend an orientation briefing the day prior to departure. Since I had never been to China prior [...]

Questions of Travel

Lindsay — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 06:00:55 +0000

I’ve never been a huge fan of poetry. In middle school and high school, poetry writing assignments were the bane of my existence, and I usually ended up turning in something that was slightly “smartass-ish”. But, I came across the below poem by Elizabeth Bishop and loved it. Since it is related to travel, I [...]

Exploring San Juan Island

Lindsay — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 06:18:18 +0000

Last weekend we made an impromptu trip to the San Juan Islands, an archipelago located between Washington state and Vancouver Island, Canada. There aren’t any bridges connecting the mainland to the San Juan Islands, so the only way you can get there is via ferry or airplane. We opted for the ferry, and when we [...]

North Korea: Departing Pyongyang

Lindsay — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 03:55:16 +0000

On the morning of our fifth day in Pyongyang, we were back on the bus headed to the Pyongyang Airport to catch our return flight to Beijing. Of course, we were running late. The majority of our group was typically on time but there were always a few laggards, so we arrived at Sunan International [...]

North Korea: The Streets of Pyongyang, Part VII

Lindsay — Wed, 04 Jul 2012 20:06:07 +0000

Taken September 2009 while driving through Pyongyang in a bus (hence the poor photo quality) I believe this is the entrance to a factory I thought the style of these trams looked very familiar. They are Czech made, and likely the same style as the ones I rode in Prague several years ago. Koryo Hotel [...]