Month: October 2022

My Time in Nepal: A Himalayan Foothills Trek

by
A young woman searches for a cell phone signal high above a valley in the foothills of the Himalayas.

I was living in New Delhi, India, in May, resting after a long, grueling trip through Egypt, Zimbabwe and Zambia. But I needed to make a visa run somewhere and Kathmandu, Nepal, seemed the likeliest choice of destinations.

I had time to spend in Nepal but wasn’t up physically or mentally for a full-on Mount Everest trek. Basically I just wanted a taste of the city to satisfy the visa requirement for returning to India.

I booked a room outside the city center and began exploring Nepal’s capital city by foot, as I’m used to doing in most places I visit, wandering about the neighborhoods, thoroughfares and backstreet corners of the city looking for interesting things. There was plenty of that.

Read more

Anyone Know The Whereabouts of Kirrill Stefanov?

by
Kirill Stefanov

An unfortunate thing about nomadic travel is that we tend to lose track of friends as fast as we make them.

I met Kirill Stefanov, an artist, in a hostel in Cairo.

It was March, he was friendly, his English was good and we’d talk.

He was often on the phone with his wife and children in Russia. He’d left his home shortly before the fighting started in the Ukraine to look for a place to relocate his family safely before the shooting started. He wanted a flat and a small studio where he could pursue his talent. But by then the shooting had started and he was stuck, uncertain how or when he’d be united with his family again.

I wished him luck and left Cairo in pursuit of my journey, which I felt almost ashamed to continue in light of Kirill’s plight. I lost track of him but often think about him. I haven’t had any contact with him since I left the hostel and all I can do is hope that he’s found some way home, either in or out of Russia, and that he and his family are safe.

Read more

Tensions Rise in Georgia as Russians Flee Ukraine War

by
A spectacular view of Devil’s Valley in Georgia’s Caucasus Mountains in this photo taken from the “Russia-Georgia Friendship Monument”, which celebrates the bicentennial of an 1893 treaty between Russia and Georgia.

I was in a tour van — called a “marshrutka” here — on my way to a hiking trip in Northern Georgia’s Truso Valley earlier this year when I first saw the Russia-Georgia Friendship Monument.

It’s an impressive if not gaudy decoration dominating the stunningly beautiful Devil’s Valley among the sprawling misty green Caucasus mountains. It was a joint project of the two countries, built in 1983 along the Georgia Military Road to celebrate “ongoing friendship” between what were then the Soviet states of Russia and Georgia, and the Treaty of Georgievsk‘s bicentennial anniversary.

Read more