Any blog about life in the former Soviet Union is incomplete without a post discussing the omnipresent marshrutka, the transportation of choice in most cities of the former USSR. I wrote a little about the shared taxi system of Dushanbe in a post a few years back called Managing Marshrutkas, but now that I spend about an hour every day inside the real deal, I think it’s a subject that bears revisiting.
First of all, what is a marshrutka? Continue reading “That Marshrutka Life”
Attention Kara-Suu Bazaar shoppers. I have some exciting news… Osh now has 4G LTE cell data service from 2 of Kyrgyzstan’s 3 cell service providers. LTE. In my Peace Corps site. WHAAAAAAT?!
Now, a lot of you probably are asking yourselves “what’s LTE and why should I care?” To answer this question, I’m going to explain the state of my internet before this glorious event took place.
Well, I’ve let the blog slide quiet again, but that’s another temporary situation. Things have been busy pulling together a variety of work plans, revising them, bouncing for the occasional training, and a lot of other boring work stuff that you don’t need to hear about.
At the end of a recent trip to Bishkek for training, I decided to hop across the border to Almaty, Kazakhstan, to explore the city, do some sightseeing, and of course, eat me some Burger King.
Almaty was the capital of the Kazakh SSR and of Kazakhstan until 1997, and is still more than double the size of the next largest city. With air connections to most of Europe and Asia on a variety of major airlines, it’s a great first stop for most on their Central Asian adventures. Continue reading “72 Hours In Almaty, Kazakhstan”
Istanbul is my absolute favorite city in the world. Fortunately for me and other people traveling to Central Asia, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, and many lesser-visited countries in Africa, a long layover in Istanbul is a common occurrence. Istanbul’s Atatürk Airport isn’t very big, isn’t all that comfortable, and for sure is not cheap in the slightest. Luckily, though, if your layover is at least 6 hours, it’s very easy to take public transportation into the city centre to see some of the most spectacular sights in the world.
Continue reading “8 Hours In Istanbul: A Destination and Layover Guide”
Hey everyone!
I’m excited to announce that this week, Monday Bazaar had its 5,000th view! In honor of this momentous occasion (or, rather, by pure coincidence), I’m excited to reveal to you the new, refreshed layout of Monday Bazaar with a new theme that I hope will make it easier to not only keep up with my travels, but also to discover new content and other posts that I’ve written.
This spring, in addition to new material about my life and Kyrgyzstan, I’m also going to post some throwbacks to previous trips so I can keep sharing new and interesting places with you.
I’ve also launched a Facebook page for Monday Bazaar so you can get our posts in your news feed on everyone’s favorite social networking site. And don’t forget to follow me on Instagram!
Please feel free to email me with feedback or ideas for posts, or let me know in the comments below!
Thanks for reading,
Mark
Outside of my vacation, December and January were not particularly exciting months. It was hard to top the excitement that was my HIV/AIDS Stigma and Discrimination Awareness Training at the very end of November, and then it was hard to do much of anything knowing that I was going to be gone for nearly 3 weeks. But, we got a lot of things planned and some good stuff is launching… finally! Continue reading “Mile 8-9: Winter Recess”
This year, some website somewhere decided to spy on us all to check and see which of our photos were our most liked on Instagram this past year. But, since the number of likes doesn’t always correlate to the best photos, I’ve decided to curate a list of what I think were by best shots that went up on my Instagram this year. Continue reading “My Favorite Photos Of 2015”
Macedonia is not someplace I anticipated visiting until a dear friend of mine, Gwen, became a Peace Corps Volunteer there. She sent me pictures and told me stories, and after looking up some potential plane tickets, stumbled upon a ticket that allowed me to add 4 days in Macedonia onto my strange open-jaw from Kyrgyzstan to Germany and back for – get this – only 20 Euros.
Now, we’re going to ignore the fact that Turkish Airlines cancelled my flight twice and then left me marooned overnight without food or shelter in Munich on New Year’s Eve, and cut straight to Skopje. Continue reading “72 Hours In Macedonia”
This post is Part 3 of my series about my 2015-6 winter trip. Read Part 1 here and Part 2 here.
14 years ago, while I was living in Europe, my parents and I took what I think we all agree was one of the best family vacations we’d ever taken. We took the slow train from Geneva to Vienna, traversing the Austrian Alps in late December at sunset. A year ago, when we began planning this trip, I suggested that we do the same. And this is how I came to be in in Kitzbühel.
Kitzbühel is a famous ski town in Tyrol, about halfway between Innsbruck and Salzburg. Its famous Hahnenkahmm downhill run is one of the most celebrated and challenging races in skiing. Its snow, most years, is some of the best in the world. This time, I learned that its artificial snow is also some of the greatest.
My first stop, though, wasn’t the ski hill. It was the ice rink. Continue reading “Winter Trip Part 3: Christmas in Kitzbühel”
