kileskus
Member
- Joined
- Jan 20, 2019
- Posts
- 168
Tashkent - Khiva - Samarkand - Bukhara (and some places in between)
"What ails you?" "Ah, my foot still throbs."
"Gout?" "The wound through which a bullet ran."
And at once the heart aches with longing
For the golden light of Turkestan.
- Nikolay Gumilyov, 'Turkestan Generals'. (Translation mine, meaning mostly preserved.)
Turkestan is an historic term used for a region in Asia inhabited by Turkic peoples that we now call Central Asia - the 5 Stans and Xinjiang. Gumilyov's lines were less about Turkestan itself so much as about the grit of Russian imperialist expansion contrasted against the frivolity of Moscow/Petersburg high society, but I find it evocative of the mystique of the region too.
This is my first major international trip in 18 months. In that time I've been dealing with personal and career setbacks; I moved to New Zealand for a 'fresh start' and learned that you can't run away from your problems if you are the problem.
So when I managed to get three weeks of leave, my first inclination was to use it for life admin. Do my taxes, add to the CV, read more Nietzsche. Travel was not on the list. Travel has, perhaps slanderously to admit on AFF, lost some of its shine for me.
Peer pressure made me book this trip: colleagues asking, "Where are you going for your leave?", to which "to the shops whenever the fridge is empty" would stick in my throat.
Part of me wanted to go back to Melbourne to drink with friends, get caught in a storm, and see if Town Hall station still smelled new. I hated Melbourne when I first went there for uni - the crowded streets, the PTV delays, the weather. But Melbourne has stubbornly become home to me; home is the place the you keep wanting to run away from, and then miss once you've left.
So this was how I decided to spend my leave: visit Uzbekistan, drop by Melbourne, and throughout this wrangle with the ATO, retool the CV, and read more Nietzsche. And hopefully re-ignite some passion for travel.
The final itinerary: WLG-AKL-JFK-LHR for 2-day stopover and then STN-SAW-OSS. Overland to Uzbekistan. 12 days there total, with many early morning starts. On the way back, TAS-CAN-MEL and then finally WLG. Essentially an eastward round-the-world trip, a bit of Phileas Fogging sans the hot air balloons.
I aim to do this report live, am posting this from my gate in WLG.
"What ails you?" "Ah, my foot still throbs."
"Gout?" "The wound through which a bullet ran."
And at once the heart aches with longing
For the golden light of Turkestan.
- Nikolay Gumilyov, 'Turkestan Generals'. (Translation mine, meaning mostly preserved.)
Turkestan is an historic term used for a region in Asia inhabited by Turkic peoples that we now call Central Asia - the 5 Stans and Xinjiang. Gumilyov's lines were less about Turkestan itself so much as about the grit of Russian imperialist expansion contrasted against the frivolity of Moscow/Petersburg high society, but I find it evocative of the mystique of the region too.
This is my first major international trip in 18 months. In that time I've been dealing with personal and career setbacks; I moved to New Zealand for a 'fresh start' and learned that you can't run away from your problems if you are the problem.
So when I managed to get three weeks of leave, my first inclination was to use it for life admin. Do my taxes, add to the CV, read more Nietzsche. Travel was not on the list. Travel has, perhaps slanderously to admit on AFF, lost some of its shine for me.
Peer pressure made me book this trip: colleagues asking, "Where are you going for your leave?", to which "to the shops whenever the fridge is empty" would stick in my throat.
Part of me wanted to go back to Melbourne to drink with friends, get caught in a storm, and see if Town Hall station still smelled new. I hated Melbourne when I first went there for uni - the crowded streets, the PTV delays, the weather. But Melbourne has stubbornly become home to me; home is the place the you keep wanting to run away from, and then miss once you've left.
So this was how I decided to spend my leave: visit Uzbekistan, drop by Melbourne, and throughout this wrangle with the ATO, retool the CV, and read more Nietzsche. And hopefully re-ignite some passion for travel.
The final itinerary: WLG-AKL-JFK-LHR for 2-day stopover and then STN-SAW-OSS. Overland to Uzbekistan. 12 days there total, with many early morning starts. On the way back, TAS-CAN-MEL and then finally WLG. Essentially an eastward round-the-world trip, a bit of Phileas Fogging sans the hot air balloons.
I aim to do this report live, am posting this from my gate in WLG.
