Writing
Essays, field notes, research pieces, conversations and reading lists. Long-form, sourced, and revised when the ground contradicts them.
Research · 31 August 2014 · 15 min · EN
How Buddhism travelled the trade routes into China — and how a Daoist caretaker at Dunhuang found the record of it behind a cracked mural.
Tarim basin · Kucha · Khotan · Dunhuang · Gandhara
Essay · 19 July 2014 · 8 min · EN
From frontier ribat forts to Safavid road inns — the architecture that made long-distance trade possible, and the metaphor it became.
Anatolia · Transoxiana · Iran · Tash Rabat, Kyrgyzstan
Travel Journal · 5 July 2014 · 17 min · EN
Ismaili Islam, four-layered ceilings and dying luthiers in the river valleys of the Pamirs.
Badakhshan · Khorog · Wakhan valley · Yamg · Andorov