Parr Planet – Travels with Stephen & Kathleen
Follow us as we travel the World!
From the modern wonders of Tashkent, we make our way by bus to the magical city of Samarkand. This ancient city invoikes visions of The Arabian Nights and its current beauty does not disappoint. The Registan, which is the main complex and tourist attraction includes three ancient madrasas or Islamic Universities. The beautifully restored blue and green tiles …
Next day we crossed the border to Uzbekistan and the bus took us to the heart of Tashkent, a bustling, modern city and the capital of Uzbekistan. The soviet art has been sort of a theme all along but the masterpiece that is the metro system is stunning to see. These stations are impeccably designed and decorated …
The next day, we headed over and through the mountains to Gazza Village. We stopped at a beautiful area with a mountain river and lake, hiked out to a waterfall and had a picnic lunch by the shores of the lake. Our guest house, home for the next two nights, was on a family farm. We could watch …
We cross back into Kazahstan over a mountain pass and are treated to a couple of days checking out some of its natural wonders before heading to Almaty for a quick view of the city. It is unfortunately raining when we arrive, but our weather thus far has been so amazing that we take it …
Our 29-day tour of “The Five Stans of the Silk Road” begins in Bishkek, Kyrgystan. We arrive one day early to get our bearings and have a nice walk around the city. It is a friendly, well-organized, safe-feeling city and you can definately see and sense the soviet influence on its development. Like the caucascus countries, they seem …
Astana is the capital of Kazakhstan. It was originally established as Bozok in the 8th century and was built into a sprawling modern city with huge boulevards, mosques, civic buildings, monuments and etc. by 1997, when it replaced Almaty as the capital. Not much that is historical remains here and it is mostly interesting as a modern, …
Yogyakarta and Borobudur, March 16, 2016 The day before our flight to Australia, we took an all-day tour to Borobudur. On the island of Java. It is the site of a 10th century Buddhist Temple of massive proportion. Supposedly it is the largest Buddhist Temple in the world. It has, of course, been reduced …
Ubud, Bali, Indonesia – March 10-17, 2016 Steve and I spend a lovely two or three nights in Ubud on our honeymoon trip in 2002. We got an amazing deal on a luxury resort because it was less than a month after the bombings and everyone cancelled their trips to Bali in fear. It was …
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – March 8-10, 2016 Another big, glassy, beautifully modern Asian city (like Singapore, Hong Kong and Bangkok), Kuala Lumpur impresses even as you fly in. The city is surrounded in every direction with palm trees (harvested for palm oil), and it is an amazing sight to behold from the air. Very very …
Siem Reap, Cambodia – March 5-8, 2016 Back to Angkor Wat!! This place was so magical and special that we decided to put it on our itinerary again even though we were here in 2002. We were worried what the changes would be, as it was obvious when we were here nearly 15 years ago …