Stuff happens. It’s happening again to the long suffering Afghanis and plenty of others in the troubled parts of Asia. Our plans to include the Afghanistan cities of Herat and Mazar-e-Sharif in our 2015 Mazaristan tour are undone. The security risks for foreigners in those places have not abated enough for us to get our SRA feet beyond the end of our blanket. We are not ready for Afghanistan and it is not ready for us.

Happily our alternate route through Mazaristan will allow us to stick our feet out into the Turkmen and Uzbek sunshine in the far flung regions of Konye Urgench, Khiva and Nukus in Karalpakia.The revised itinerary can be found here.