Caravanistan

Yeah coming from NZ so the options are extremely limited. The best I've seen is Air Astana direct out of Bangkok and Phuket at the moment. Most seem to go via Seol or the middle east. I'm no seeing anything direct out of Vietnam or Indonesia. Bangkok or KL are very similar priced for us to get to so...

I'm still hoping to get to Central Asia - but even pre-Pandemic this had got hard with the effective closure of Xinjang, and now of course most Westerners don't want to go via Russia now. Air Asia - a low cost airline based in KL - have announced that they will start flying to Almaty - but I can't f...

We had planned to travel the silk road this summer - but my partner collapsed with HAPE (high altitude pulmonary odema) on the way to Xiahe (China) - so we had to come home. He's fine now - but obviously won't ever be travelling the Pamir Highway. I however still want to - I've been to 5000m before ...

I don't think the situation has changed in the last month - see the post above yours

Confirming that all hotels in Uzbek ask for payment in dollars. One place even had the government law on a piece of paper behind the reception just in case you tried to argue. We tried to pay (part of) the rate in som at two places. One used the same black market rate they had used to sell dollars ...

I definitely saw talk that it would include passengers - no evidence that its actually running though

Can anyone confirm that its possible to withdraw US$ in either Krygystan or Almaty? I have to make a decision on how much US$ cash we'll bring with us - and at the moment I'm leaning to topping up along the way. Do the ATMs only dispense $100's? Or smaller notes? Also I've heard rumours that Uzbecki...

So is it correct you need to pay accommodation in US$ or at the official rate - darn - that's going to blow the budget

So just to clarify - once you clear Chinese immigration - you are near the Karakoram or on it? I'm trying to work out the logistics of doing the reverse - Tashtorgan to Mugarb. We were going to do a travel agency tour from Kashgar to Tashtorgan anyways- so it sounds like they could drop us at immigr...

Oh this is interesting ... That opens up quite a lot of possibiliies - how high is the border?