[choose a trip]

We're moving!

This whole site is being moved to a shiny new server - as are all my sites, in fact. Apologies for the bumpy road ahead, but at the end of that road things will become fast and smooth.

Once the site at the new server is ready, this message will automatically disappear!

Meanwhile, you can see how the move is progressing at the status page.

  Saturday 2004-02-14 - Groningen, the Netherlands

Documentation needed

Today, we went into town for some shopping before the planned birthday dinner. There’s a very good travel bookstore here in Groningen, and I popped in (dragging my parents along) to see what they had to supplement my set of maps and travel guides for the trip.

I have a good set of guides and maps for Central Asia, but nothing for the Middle East, and nothing for China east of Xinjiang. I couldn’t take a decision about travel guides, but ended up with three maps: a very nice one of Syria, an absolutely huge one of Turkey (there don’t seem to be regional maps of the country any more, and this was all they had) and a “Silk Road Countries” map covering Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia: that one will be a handy to take with me (although the bit of Turkey it also covers isn’t very detailed). I’ll keep looking around for more, but I’ll at least take the last map with me.

posted: Wednesday 2004-04-28 20:44 UTC maps, preparations

Birthday present

While in the travel bookstore in Groningen, my eye was caught by a large book: photographic journey following Marco Polo’s footsteps by National Geographic photographer Michael Yamashita - one of the Marco Polo books on my wish list. My dad bought it for my birthday present. But my birthday is still more than a month away… I can watch it being wrapped up but I’m not getting it yet!

posted: Wednesday 2004-04-28 20:44 UTC books, preparations