Remember Bosnia? The country that fought a three-year civil war in the 1990s with 100,000 dead continues its downward slide. Since the Dayton peace accord, which sort of ended the war in 1995, Bosnia has been divided into two entities—one called the Republika Srpska (RS) with a Serbian majority and the other a federation of … Continue reading
While we were killing time in Peshawar waiting for the fighting in the Khyber Pass to die down enough for us to make it through to Afghanistan, we kept casting about for new things to see. Alleged (I’m very skeptical of this) to be one of the intellectual birthplaces of the Taliban, I was interested … Continue reading
Taken by Justin Ames in Kayseri, Turkey… Continue reading
I took the picture below at breakfast the morning we departed Mazar-i-Sharif for Herat (By the way, the breakfast you see the gentlemen below consuming is the classic Afghan meal for breakfast, lunch and dinner – naan bread, meat cooked on a skewer and green tea to drink). Now these guys look mean and hard, … Continue reading
Ahhhh, Topkapi Palace. Topkapi Palace was built between 1459 and 1465 by Mehmet II shortly after his conquest of Constantinople. Rather than a single building, it was conceived as a series of pavilions contained by four enormous courtyards, a stone version of the tented encampments from which the nomadic Ottomans had emerged. It is difficult … Continue reading
Hamid Karzai and Ahmad Shah Massoud. The “official” national heroes of Afghanistan and evidence of the fact that our hotel in Mazar-i-Sharif (where this picture was taken) was owned and controlled by the government: A view from the hotel grounds: However, I’m not the type to just be content staying in a hotel. So, I … Continue reading
Returning from our farthest point in the southeast regions of Kurdish Turkey, we used our GPS unit to take us on a route well off the beaten path (if there even is such a thing as the “beaten path” in this part of Turkey). Agriculture is the primary economic activity in this area (although recent … Continue reading
The Velvet Rocket 