Picture the scene – you’ve arrived into Beijing a couple of days before your tour to the DPRK, and are contentedly wandering around somewhere like Tiananmen Square or other convenient tourist hotspot. If you’re a Westerner in China, the locals don …

Bhutan is a small country crammed between China and India in the Himalayan mountains, nicknamed “The Land of the Thunder Dragon.” Because of several factors (including the geopolitical position), Bhutan claims a spot in the list of the least visited co …

Central Asia already has a lot going for it – dictators and post-soviet bureaucracy, coupled with mountains, deserts, yurts and the Silk Road. What’s often overlooked is how unique and interesting their flags are. Turkmenistan This is the only flag in …

 Continued from Part One The neatly arrayed trees lining the road that we used to enter Pripyat stood in stark contrast to the haphazard growth that had begun reclaiming the nearby buildings. What looked to have once been a convenience store was presen …

Overcast skies seemed suddenly appropriate We hadn’t seen the sun for two weeks. On the six-day train ride from Beijing to Moscow it hadn’t mattered much – half the time had been spent guzzling cheap vodka frantically purchased during our 20-minute sto …

YPT wins the race! Pyongyang Marathon 2016 Outside the Mayday Stadium, largest in the world Audience at the stadium Beginning of the race Football match during the marathon Football match during the marathon The runners line up The winner of the marath …

8. You’re intrigued to find out what Soviet toilet paper is all about. It’s like elastic sandpaper, and until you’ve experienced it, you probably can’t imagine it. It’s not thin and flimsy like some of our cheaper versions of toilet paper would be, in …

One year ago, I crossed the Iran/Turkmenistan border by foot and arrived shortly thereafter in Ashgabat, the capital of one of the world’s least visited countries. The place sees fewer foreign visitors a year than Afghanistan and North Korea. A lot has …

The people of Yanji really like dogs. They have a street devoted to them, and the city is home to an annual dog festival. Yanji does not like dogs the way you might like dogs, because what they like about dogs is eating them.  Now b …