Monthly Archives: December 2016
Alexander’s river
When I woke up, I was greeted by heavy rain. So I went back to sleep. Two hours later, the rain had gone, only the clouds were still there: It was very windy. I crossed the river Syr Darya at this bridge: Wasn’t allowed to take any pictures of the river itself and had my […]
la Cabouse est morte, vive la Cabouse!
So there she was: The new Caboose: The Caboose 2.0: By loading the video, you agree to YouTube’s privacy policy.Learn more Load video Always unblock YouTube Nice, huh? We started walking right away, through the bazaar of Yangiyul, filled with cars and cars and people: Then the bazaar gave way to a more quiet road: […]
respectwalk
Today Samandar and his dad picked me up, and they had the new Caboose with them: I was excited to take her for a walk, but no. We had to go back to the police and wait around some more. For the third time. I was reminded of my court case in Almaty a couple […]
Christmas Caboose
Had to go back to the police today. Samandar, the destroyer of Cabooses (who was actually a pretty nice guy) took his best friend along: The whole thing at the police ended up taking a very long time. Then we went to Zafar’s workshop to see how far the new Caboose had come along: By […]
santa hats
The police were busy at the police station doing their thing. Zafar was busy working his magic on the remains of the Caboose. It was Christmas Day. I decided to keep wearing my Santa hat and stay in with a bottle of beer: I watched some Russian reality TV, which was unbelievably stupid (or rather, […]
hold me, plastic tree
Christmas Eve. The one day when I really miss my home. I spent most of it at a police station near the accident site. The cops were alright. They had me write a report in English and came up with a translator. I tried to keep my report as simple as possible: On our way […]
death of the Caboose
Wearing my blue Santa hat, and with the Caboose nicely adorned, I said good-bye to the friendly people of the hotel: Looking back it seems a little bit like decorating a sheep that’s about to be slaughtered. But I didn’t know that yet. So we walked out of Tashkent, the place that felt like a […]
the red bell and the blue bell
I wasn’t quite ready to leave yet. Not without a Santa hat. So I went to a bazaar around the corner from my hotel, which was where I bumped into the next president of the United States of America: …but it turned out to be just a wealthy chicken. I left the president/chicken and proceeded to […]
Zafar The Great
Polished my shoes to achieve better water resistance: Then I went to a small local bazaar… …and came out with wads of cash. If you know what I mean. Then I hopped in a cab and went back to the sporting goods shop where they had repaired my spare wheel. In the process of repairing […]
Caboose 1.2 (I like big butts and I cannot lie)
The Caboose was still in need of some work. Born around eight years ago in Zhangye, China, she had gotten a slight tweak a few months later near Dunhuang and then a major overall shortly thereafter in the desert city of Shanshan. This year in July she had gotten a new paint job at the […]
photo of a blue chip
Tashkent was beautiful today: Light snow and sky that was blue: I decided to take the metro to an old part of town: I liked the ticket that I got very much, and I liked the metro itself as well. There are only two subway systems in this part of the world, the other one […]
cucumbers
Sometimes I forget which day of the week it is. Today was Sunday anyway. And it was still snowing/raining/being generally shitty outside. So I stayed in and wrote some blog posts: Had some cup noodles: And some cucumbers: The cucumbers reminded me of the days when I was in the Gobi desert with my brother […]
velomasters of the universe
With the blue sky gone and snow descending upon Tashkent, I decided it was a good time to go out: I wanted to take the Caboose to get a general checkup: At least that was the idea. So I marked a place on the map where an alleged velomaster was supposed to reside. Then I started […]
holidays and the mall
Did some laundry today: Then I started uploading my Let’s Walk videos: It felt like being catapulted back to the early 2000s, the internet was so slow. Not sure if that’s a general issue here or if it’s just this hotel, or just this time. Anyway, it was slow. The hotel people were busy preparing […]
millionaire meets Pushkin
I was still not over the whole money issue: By loading the video, you agree to YouTube’s privacy policy.Learn more Load video Always unblock YouTube Hilarious. And sad. At the same time. Went out to a blue sky over Tashkent: Saw more Pepsi ads: Had some ice-cream: And saw a monument to an awesome dude: […]
Tashkent
Woke up and brushed my teeth next to the road: You can see the border to Uzbekistan right be hind me. Then I changed some Uzbek money and got this ridiculously large wad of cash: Inflation is the name of the game. Had some cookies and some ice-tea, watched some “Modern Family” on my phone […]
a perfect bench and a Caboose in pain
Everyone got up pretty early, when it was still dark outside. We had some tea and some bread, then we said good-bye: Yerik introduced me to his neighbor, a blind gentleman who really loved the idea of walking around with the Caboose: I was a bit worried though, because the ball bearings on one of […]
the worst kind of rain
Woke up, had some tea with Nurzhan, and then I got on my way again. Nurzhan’s dad had been telling me about an uphill slope I was going to have to tackle. And he was right, it sucked. But there was a reward at the end: The Caboose liked it very much: But I was […]
out of shape
It’s always the same: Whenever I am about to embark on a journey, I feel nervous. This time was no exception. I hadn’t walked in more than a month, a new country lay ahead, winter was coming. I hated it. But there is always an upside: it can feel pretty nice to just do things […]
FC
Stayed in again. Finished up a bunch of blog entries. Sorted some stuff. Made a short video of some of the footage I had taken in Astana: By loading the video, you agree to YouTube’s privacy policy.Learn more Load video Always unblock YouTube Then I went down to the hotel restaurant and had a large […]