For the next six weeks, I will be traveling through Central Asia to some of the countries that end with "stan". I will be posting an entry on each one, but nothing too elaborate, as I prefer not to spend most of my time inside an Internet cafe.

Those who know me are familiar with my peculiar fascination with off-the-beaten-path destinations. I realize this club has a small membership. Most American tourists would probably rather hit Italy, France, Ireland, etc. My philosophy is if tourists aren't going there, it must be interesting.

I know, I know. You're thinking, "He must be on crackistan!" Actually, no, mainly because anyone whose brain is clouded from mind-numbing drugs couldn't possibly handle the complexities of the visa applications and crossing the jigsaw-puzzle borders that are a crucial part of of trip like this.

Anyway, I'm not even sure there's any point to keeping an online travel diary. The Internet is so oversaturated with useful/useless information, and with 100,000 blogs being barfed onto cyberspace everyday, who really gives a crap about what anyone has to say anymore? For example, everyone who lives in New York writes like they are the only person living in New York. Hey Blog Girl, there are eight million of you, all right? You're not the only one walking your dog and looking for a boyfriend. And how many blogs are nothing but reprints of entire news articles? Wow, Blog Boy! You're just overflowing with creativity!

So since this website has about ten followers and is all but impossible to find on Google, I proudly declare that anything written about my travels is merely for my own personal amusement. If some poor soul happens to find it and spend more than the obligitory ten seconds reading it, then all the better.

By the way , I toyed around with the idea of making every single word of this online diary a link to Wikipedia . But after taking myself to lunch and having a meeting, I concluded this would not be a productive use of my time.

Making sense of "The 'Stans"

Here's a quick geography lesson...

The suffix "stan" is Persian for "land of" and Sanskrit for "place". (Wikipedia)

The following are the seven countries that end in the suffix "stan":