Soles of a Nomad

Watching Kok Boru, Central Asia's famous dead-goat polo, begins with one thought: This is the strangest sport on Earth. But somewhere between the flying horsemen, the astonishing displays of horsemanship, and the realization that the game makes perfect sense in its own world, something changes. Maybe that's what the best travel does—it doesn't make the world less strange. It makes strange disappear. At least, it does for me.

A landslide blocks the road. Flies swarm a mountain village. A museum curator hands me a thousand-year-old jar and tells me to pretend to drink milk from it. These are just a few moments from our nine-day journey along the Pamir Highway, one of the world’s most remote and unforgettable road trips across the mountains of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.

What do you do in the Kerala backwaters? Absolutely nothing—and that’s the point. We boarded a houseboat in Alleppey, floated past palm trees and pigeon-pecked laundry, and mastered the noble art of stillness.