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 The iconic Süleymaniye Mosque above the shores of the Golden Horn in Istanbul (click on photos for enlargements) Another view of Süleymaniye Mosque, with Rustem Pasha Mosque in foreground, lower right Süleymaniye Mosque Courtyard of Süleymaniye Mosque Roses at the tomb of Sultan Süleyman  The likewise iconic Hagia Sophia , originally a church, then a mosque, now a museum. Another view of Hagia Sophia Interior of Hagia Sophia.  Sultan Ahmed Mosque , a.k. a. Blue Mosque Another view of the Sultan Ahmed Mosque Entrance to  Sultanahmed Mosque Entrance to Sultanahmed Mosque Courtyard of Sultanahmed Mosque  Interior of Sultanahmed Mosque

Threw my Airbook, Kindle, and a camera into a bag and wandered off to Istanbul. I figured I could buy toiletries and whatever extra clothes I needed when I arrived in the city. The Turkish Airlines Boeing 737-900 ER lifted off from Chingis Khan Airport in Ulaanbaatar at exactly 12:49 p.m. The flight was completely sold out. I always enjoy the flight from Ulaanbaatar to Istanbul via Bishkek. The flight path follows much the same route as the old Silk Road and passes over numerous Silk Road cities that I have had the privilege of visiting. On clear days the flier is presented with a fascinating  panorama of the deserts and mountains of Inner Asia.  Unfortunately I would not be seeing much today. We encountered cloud cover just outside of Ulaanbaatar that stayed with us until the approaches to Bishkek.  I was disappointed that I could not see the Tian Shan, to my mind the most noble of all the world’s mountain ranges. Oh, I know that some people rave on about the Himalayas, ...

The other day my pal Saka and I went shopping. As we were sitting in a line of traffic backed behind the traffic light at the intersection of Chingis Khan Avenue and the Zaisan Tolgoi road I noticed looming above the tops of cars in front of us a statue of a camel that had recently been installed in a traffic island in middle of the avenue. From our angle only the head of what I thought was one of two camels was visible. “Did you see the statues of the two camels?” I asked Saka. “That’s a great idea. I wonder who is responsible for them?”  “There is only one camel, replied Saka. “No,” I replied, “there are two camels. You just can’t see the other one from here. I hope they install a whole string of them.”  “I just drove by there on my way to your apartment, and there is only one camel there,” she insisted. “There are two,” said I, “do you want to bet on it?  “I don’t bet, but you are wrong; there is only one.”  “No sorry, you are wrong.” The light changed and we drov...

We all know that Chingis Khan finally conquered the ancient Silk Road city of Samarkand on March 19, 1220. He then dispatched his two middle sons Chagaadai and Ögödei west to Khwarezm with orders to take the city of Gurganj. His two Hounds, Jebe and Sübedei, were sicced on the Khwarezmshah, the erstwhile ruler of the Khwarezmian Empire, who had fled from the Mongols across the Amu Darya into what is now Afghanistan. Jebe had earlier tracked down and brought to bay the  Naiman Adventurer Khüchüleg , After spending a few weeks in the Samarkand area enjoying the fruits of his conquest, Chingis Khan himself and a contingent of troops proceeded to the Nasaf region, centered upon the city of Nasaf (current-day Qarshi) about sixty miles southwest of Samarkand. This area, watered by the 230-mile long Kashka Darya River, which begins in the outliers of the Tian Shan Mountains to the east, was celebrated for its lush pasture lands. (Cultivated in Russian colonial and Soviet times, the regio...

Christies, the big international art auction house, is selling what is “thought to be the sole surviving example of a Mongol Empire carpet.” See  ‘An Extraordinary Survivor’: A Rare Carpet From The Mongol Empire . I would love to have this grace the floor of my hovel in Zaisan Tolgoi , but it is slightly out of my price range (($747,000–$1,045,800 estimate) . It may well be within the range of a certain well-heeled carpet collector in Richmond, Virginia, however. She might want to snap it up while it is still available.  Mongol era carpet; perhaps more properly called a kilim, since it is flat-woven (click on photos for enlargements) Detail of Mongol era carpet

The Kosh Madrassas ( kosh = twin, pair, double, etc.) are not identical, but they do face each other across a square. Ubdullah Khan Madrassa, left center, and Modari Madrassa, right center  (click on photos for enlargements) Both were built by  Abdullah Khan II ,  the last  Shaybanid Dynasty  Khan of Bukhara (r. 1583–1598) Abdullah Khan II  The Modari  (mother,  in Persian) Madrassa was built in 1566 in honor of Abdullah Khan’s mother.  Another view of the Modari Madrassa Interior of the Modari Madrassa The   A bdullah Khan Madrassa, facing the Modari Madrassa, was built by  A bdullah Khan in the years 1588-90.  A bdullah Khan Madrassa  Courtyard of  A bdullah Khan Madrassa  Ceiling of A bdullah Khan Madrassa

We head down the left bank of the Buural Gol through thick taiga to its confluence with the Ulaan Ongo Gol. The source of the Ulaan Ongo, seven or eight miles upstream from here, is only about a mile and a half from the source of the Khoogiin Gol, where we are headed, but Batmönkh says the head of the Ulaan Ongo Gol dead ends in impassable cliffs, making it impossible to reach the Khoogiin Gol from there. Instead we will head farther down the Buural and follow a small tributary of the Buural to a pass leading to the Khoogiin. The trail meanders through thick stands of willows and larch. At places the Buural Gol flows under ten-foot thick-football field-sized slabs of ice which Batmönkh says never melt during the summer. Soon we come to the small unnamed tributary tumbling down a deep ravine to the left. We turn off and follow a vague trail up the right side of the ravine up through a thick larch forest. The misting rain slowly builds into a steady shower. Up ahead, through the mists an...