travel update
11/09/2008
i haven’t done a travel update in a while, however i have been thinking about the travels … constantly.
i was actually reading an interesting article about how some of the ’stan’ countries are very interesting and very safe. particularly, uzbekistan’s capital tashkent. so i got to looking at my map (again) and discovered that i could change one part of my route to workin at least 3 more countries. from delhi i planned to go to lahore and on to karachi. i can cross pakistan’s border there into southern iran and follow the trade route all the way to tehran.
however, if i go from delhi into lahore, i could head north to islamabad. then i can probably get a train north into tajikistan. i may have to pass through far western afghanistan, but i don’t think it would be too problematic. after reaching dushanbe, i could keep going west to tashkent, then south into turkmenistan all the way to ashgabat. that’s very close to the iran border and not too far at all from tehran. whilst in iran, i might venture south to a few areas of interest, then circle back to the north east and exit to turkey.
although it might be more complex, i think it could be a lot more fun. from my understanding, none of those countries are dangerous and i should have no trouble moving around and getting trains from place to place. it’s a much more interesting route than skirting the bottom of pakistan into iran.