The Wandering Scot

An occasional travel journal.

Browsing Posts in Travel

Tianjin: The Kiev

I’m in Tianjin, China, visiting the Kiev, a legendary 1970s Soviet aircraft carrier.  Once the pride of the Soviet fleet, it was sold off in 1996 and is now a Chinese Theme Park. 😞 At 45,000 tons and 273m long, it’s a little smaller than the USS Midway, which I visited in San Diego a […]

Tibet: Mount Kailash

Holy Mount Kailash, the abode of Shiva, sacred to a billion Hindus, site of holy pilgrimage.  I was only visiting as a tourist, but I saw others making the sacred kora circuit around the mountain.  The Chinese government isn’t issuing visas to Indian citizens this year, but I saw a modest number of non-Indian Hindu […]

Tibet: Everest

We started with a distant view of Everest, from the Pang La pass. The pass is at 5159 meters and offers stunning views on a clear day. And today was clear! The next shot is a (relative) close-up from the Rongbuk Monastery. This now hosts the so-called “Tourist Base Camp” which is as close as […]

I’m in Karakalpakstan, Uzbekistan, visiting the Uzbek arm of the Aral Sea. I had visited the Kazakh arm of the sea in 2015, so I was curious to see the Uzbek side. Unfortunately there was heavy rain the night before the trip, so the normally extremely bad dirt tracks became extremely muddy, extremely bad, dirt […]

  In the first century BC, King Antiochus of Commagene built a shrine on Mount Nemrut featuring rows of giant enthroned gods.  Including himself, naturally. Sadly, later visitors did not approve. The gods were decapitated and their heads are now arranged in a neat line in front of the thrones. When or why the decapitations […]

I was out at the Göbeklitepe neolithic site in SE Turkey today.  It has a set of monumental structures using stone monoliths, dating from roughly 9500 to 8000 BC.  Yikes.  That’s totally ridiculously old.  It makes Stonehenge look modern.   It probably pre-dates agriculture, which causes archaeologists’ brains to implode. There are an estimated twenty […]