One Place Leads To Another

These are pictures from Russia, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan, which I
visited in that order. I fell in love with Russia studying it's history in
high school. As a graduation gift, my mother bought me a ticket to
visit St. Petersburg the summer before college.

The following year I was introduced to Kyrgyzstan by an anthropology
student at Reed. It was my freshman year and I was in love. Or so
I thought. He had a mustache, was several years older than me,
and gave a slideshow about his experiences in a country no one had
ever heard of. He stood up in front of the small conference room with
the clicker in hand as an image of supreme curiosity graced the white
screen before us: middle-aged Asian men playing a variation of polo
with a dead goat carcass for a ball and rugby helmets for hats. I was
sold.

After the epic slideshow I approached him and asked how one gets
to Kyrgyzstan. He told me about an organization he was working
with that was recruiting English teachers. I signed up immediately.

That summer, I flew to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, not really knowing what
to expect. Over the course of four weeks, I went camping in
neighboring Uzbekistan, jumped into waterfalls at an abandoned
military base, took a 24-hour cab ride through the mountains,
attempted and failed to go parasailing in the Uzbek hills, unknowingly
ate dog meat, spent several hours at a corrupt and intoxicated police
station, visited some of Islam's most phenomenal Mosques, rode horses
through the Kyrgyz mountains, and finally, fell in a toilet after one
too many vodka shots at Lake Issyk-kul—one of the word's largest
Alpine Lakes. I regret none of it. The following pictures attempt to
document the sheer amazement I felt being in these places.

Sara Lafleur-Vetter is still traveling the world in search of a nostalgia-free life, currently residing in Luxor, Egypt. But don't take our word for it. Check out www.saralafleur.com