really

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Last day in Turkmenistan. As unbelievable as it had seemed only two weeks earlier, I was about to reach the border of Iran on foot. I felt tired. I felt excited. It was like a fever. So I left the hotel and looked back: A strange place, but a comfortable one at that. The Boss […]


Tears

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When I woke up, Nang was still there, and after I started walking… …he decided to come along! I could hear his little paws follow me on the asphalt, and every now and then I would stop to give him some water and pet him. We were walking together, Nang and I. It was MAGIC! […]


and along came Nang

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The night had been pretty shitty. But there was nothing to do but walk, so I did that. I started walking in the dust: Sometimes there was a dirt track right next to the road, so I tried walking there, but that meant even more dust: By loading the video, you agree to YouTube’s privacy […]


8-0-0-0

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I had gone to sleep with 7995km down. So when I woke up, the next celebratory dance was just a bit more than an hour away. I had danced seven times before. Now was the eighth time. Eight thousand kilometers from Beijing to here. So I got on the road, walked a little bit: And […]


a possible shortcut

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These are the slippers I had worn for about 100km through the Turkmen desert: They looked the part. I was glad to be back in my regular hiking shoes again. The Caboose was doing a great job, by the way. No problems whatsoever, she was always there, ready to go: We passed what looked like […]


MacGyvered that shit

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Not having found any suitable shoes at the bazaar, I MacGyvered something today. Here’s the shoe that is damaged at the heel: Here’s my flip-flop where I cut out a piece: Here is the piece: And here is the fix for the shoe: Let’s hope it works. We left early in the morning, when the […]


the biggest city that died

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Today was my only day off in Turkmenistan. But it was going to be packed. The ruins of Merv to be looked at. Shoes to be bought. And we needed to stock up on food for the remainder of the trip. First we went to see the ruins. There was a gate with a ticket […]


Mary

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Okay, today’s post is going to be a deluge of photos, and it’s going to have the longest Let’s Walk video to date. It might be a bit much. But again, I thought I’d share with you as much as I can about Turkmenistan the way I saw it. But first, breakfast: It wasn’t the […]


hello, cloud

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The people I come across on this Turkmen part of The Longest Way are really nice, almost all of them. There have been the occasional instances where people stared at me in a way that could be considered unfriendly, but I think they were just confused and didn’t know what to make of me. Foreigners […]


are you German?

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I keep seeing these weird things in the desert. Like the upside down plastic bottles. Like the written notes hanging in the bushes. Like this thing: It’s probably far from the truth, but I like to think that the desert inspires people to express themselves artistically. A truck driver spends hours and hours on the […]


the village that was too big

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When I woke up, hot water for our morning tea was already boiling: It felt like a sort of luxury camping actually. And no more spiders. Or at least I hadn’t seen any. Today my guide Shukur helped me get the Caboose out from the dunes: I had been experimenting with nicknames for the two, […]


in slippers through the Turkmen desert

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Of course wearing flipflops was not feasible for long distances. But my right heel looked pretty bad: It wasn’t a simple blister anymore, it was a wound. Blisters could be treated quite effectively in the course of one night, but this was different. So I decided to wear my bathroom slippers today: I had bought […]


candy flipflop spider land

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The first thing I saw in the morning when I got back on the road was this restaurant in the desert: Then two guys stopped their car and asked for a photo: I particularly liked the hat. Walking sucked, though. My little toes had been squashed by my leather shoes, and my other pair of […]


a road of bottles, notes, and graves

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The hotel room in Turkmenabat was alright: If you like a hard bed. I asked my guide if I could strap a camera to my chest and film in the city, and after some deliberation we decided that maybe the small action cam on the side of the Caboose would be a better idea. So […]


unreal Turkmenistan

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As I’m writing this I begin to realize that all of the following blog posts will be very long, with lots and lots of pictures (and hopefully with some videos as well). I think this is because Turkmenistan was a special experience for me, after waiting for such a long time to get in. There […]


royally afraid

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Remember how excited I was to find out that Tajikistan was apparently dominated not by Coca-Cola and not by Pepsi, but by Royal Crown Cola? I’m of course a Dr. Pepper guy, but I always appreciate the struggle of the underdog, so I was happy to see that RC is apparently launching a campaign into […]


under mud

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The Caboose seemed to be in good shape, which meant that no repairs were necessary, which in turn meant that I had the day off. I decided to check out the 8th/9th century Samanid Mausoleum, one of the oldest monuments in Central Asia: It had allegedly survived the Mongol invasion because it had been buried […]


riding the elephant

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Had a great breakfast this morning: Then I got into a car that was going to take me to the border, to check on the Caboose. We didn’t go to the border right away though, because we first had to pick up some stuff from a garage: When we were done, the car looked like […]


fest prep

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Woke up in Bukhara, aching. Went outside once, because there was some sort of noise that I could not quite identify: It was the final rehearsal for the Silk And Spice Festival parade. The real deal was going to take place the next day. To my untrained eyes and ears, it seemed as though everyone […]


a white dress with flowers

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Things often look very different at night than they do in the light of day. When I woke up this morning, the room seemed much better than before: Sure, it was very hot, so hot in fact that many of the other hotel guests were sleeping with their doors open, but it was an okay […]