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NIKKO – JAPAN

28/9/25 Nikko is a small city located about 90 minutes north of Tokyo by train, and is home to a number of historical sites, including the famous Toshogu Shrine, constructed by the Tokugawa Shogunate, in 1617. After hopping on an express train from Asakusa station, we found soon found ourselves at the centre of the…
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TOKYO – JAPAN

27/9/25 – 29/9/25 Japan is currently the third-most visited country for Australian tourists, with almost 1 million Aussies travelling to the ‘land of the rising sun’ in the last year – it certainly felt time to see it for myself! I flew across with Thai Airways, and despite a slight delay cutting into my already-minimal…
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SAMARKAND – UZBEKISTAN (#2)

23/4/25 – 25/4/25 I arrived in Samarkand in the afternoon, on the Afrosiyob from Bukhara. After a long trip through Pakistan and Afghanistan (and the two nights I had spent in Uzbekistan so far having been rather busy), I was feeling a little exhausted – a comfortable bed and 2 nights relaxing in Samarkand awaited,…
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BUKHARA – UZBEKISTAN (#3)

22/4/25 – 23/4/25 Our overnight train from Termez pulled into Samarkand in the early hours of the morning, leaving me with a fair few hours to spare before my train to Bukhara (Dale was staying in Samarkand for a few days instead). There were still around 2 hours until sunrise, and so, after I dropped…
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TERMEZ – UZBEKISTAN

21/4/25 We woke up early, ready to tackle the challenge of the day – exiting Afghanistan at the Hairatan border crossing, with Uzbekistan. It began simply enough, with a cab ride to the shared taxi station, and a quickly-negotiated seat in a shared taxi headed for the border. It didn’t take long to reach Hairatan,…
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MAZAR-I-SHARIF – AFGHANISTAN

19/4/25 – 21/4/25 We had spoken to Hijrat, from the Kabul guesthouse over the phone the night before, to work out the best way of getting from Kabul to Mazar overland – we settled on taking a shared taxi, slightly more expensive than the bus, slightly quicker though, which was a positive tradeoff. The next…
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BAMYAN – AFGHANISTAN

17/4/25 – 18/4/25 Getting out to Bamyan is not particularly difficult to do by shared taxi – the slightly harder part is getting from Bamyan to Band-e-Amir and back, as most Afghans tend to take their own vehicles out here. To save ourselves a bit of hassle, we’d organised with ATE for a driver and…

