Nota Bene

Hi folks!

Back to my habit of mixing things up both chronologically and geographically, today’s report isn’t from Southeast Asia (Laos); it’s from Buryatia – just north of Mongolia. Actually, Laos is directly south of Buryatia, but I digress…

First – quick recap…

Our Sayan Oka River escapade: ~280km to cover on the water, with a couple of rapids and countless very interesting riffles along the way. We started at the Buryatian village of Orlik, and from there it’s all the way down to Verkhneokinsky (Irkutsk Region). The elevation at the start is ~1370m, and at the finish it’s ~560m. That’s a total drop of ~800m. Along the way the river cuts through the Eastern Sayan, where it gets pretty wild in places. That stretch is roughly 170–180km long (depending on how you count it); the rest is the warm-up/run-up at the beginning, plus coming out onto the plain and floating down to the finish at the end. Everything in-between is in the mountains. The most interesting and most action-packed segment of the whole run is the Orkho-Bom gorge, which is 65km long – though I never did figure out exactly where it begins or ends.

The first two days of rafting were fairly calm: we just cruised along with the current – only occasionally paddling over to where it ran faster. And now and then we came across some shallows and easy little riffles.

But then we came to the start of the mountain section – waaay over there, just before those mountains, was the left turn into the gorge. And we’re off!…

Read on…

If you ever have the chance to choose exactly how to get, in daylight hours (ideally in the morning), from Vientiane, the capital of Laos, to Luang Prabang (which was the capital roughly half a millennium ago), then… well, first let me explain why I’ve started this post with that… incomplete conditional clause (oof)…

Now, Vientiane is home to the country’s main international airport (the one we flew into). But the really interesting tourist activities are in Luang Prabang, which is 200+km north of the capital. There are various ways of getting there: 1) taking the new Chinese railroad (two hours; lots of tunnels – 75, I just peeked – and you can’t see a thing in those); 2) bouncing along in a car for 300km, which takes some 10–12 hours (with stops); or 3) flying – merrily and with gusto – by helicopter, from airport to airport, in an hour-and-a-half (and in Luang Prabang the airport is within the city limits). So, back to my first rush-in sentence: if you ever do need to get from Vientiane to Luang Prabang – make sure you take the chopper option! Yes, it’s fastest, but also – the views along the way will simply knock your socks off!…

My dearly beloved wife was so thrilled that she even commented, “It’s like Kamchatka!” Well, that’s the highest possible accolade for the contemplativeness of the scenery around us )

Read on…

If you take a close look at the photos from our rafting trip down the Sayan Oka River – say, at the waterfall or the spot where we parked up – you may notice a few oddities on the surface of the landscapes that surrounded us there. Maybe not. Maybe it’s just me with this fixation!…

Aaanyway – what am I getting at?…

Just this: We were in a river valley amid a mountain massif. But the river itself is hemmed in between steep banks on both sides that are tall, steep, and unmistakably volcanic in origin:

Eh? How did that happen? Look: on the horizon – mountain peaks; the banks of the river – undeniably volcanic lava rock:

Read on…

The Sayan Oka River‘s raftable stretch is roughly 280 kilometers long! Yes – that’s one heck of a lot of jaw-dropping views and meditative-&-briefly-adrenalized R&R; there’s fishing too. Most of it is perfectly harmless fast-flowing water, interrupted only once (well, twice, but in the same place) by rapids; the rest is up to you…

You can get around the standing waves and “holes” in the riffles by staying away from the main current and hugging the bank on the right or left (if you don’t feel like taking a dip). But we preferred the “water park”, of course! ->

Read on…

Not sure why, but during this busy-busy… business-travel season, boat trips on Asia’s great rivers somehow keep dealing themselves into my hand. Yesterday I was telling you all about the amazing boat trip we took on the Pearl River at night; today I’m telling you about the contrasting impressions we got on the mighty Mekong near the town of Luang Prabang in Laos. The scenes on show there are no less colorful and no less contemplative – just in a very different way:

And a lot more down-to-earth here:

Read on…

A pretty intense workweek is now behind me. Now for some catch-up with my texts and photos (for blogposts such as this one) – and some sleep!

How wonderful it is to go for a ride on a nice ship across the seas and oceans. And even just cruising along the river in the beautiful city of Guangzhou is pretty wonderful too. Especially in the evening, after a hard day’s work, when the bridges over the Zhujiang River (which literally translates as “Pearl River”) and other tall buildings (including Canton Tower, which we went up the day before) get lit up and covered with all kinds of projected animations…

Yes, China sure knows how to surprise you with all manner of inventions and innovations, and when it comes to river light shows – it’s long been unrivaled. And not just in Guangzhou, either: I’ve been on nocturnal sightseeing rides in both Hong Kong and Tianjin – and both were just sumptuously splendid! I wonder where else could I go for experiences like these? But I digress. For now – let me tell you about evening river-rides in Guangzhou.

Read on…

The fall-2026 conference marathon is in full swing, and this is coming to you (not quite) live from our Russian++ partner conference in Guangzhou, China. It’s all as per: ~100 key partners representing 90+ companies from 30+ cities. Meetings, hugs, presentations, and technical and commercial sessions – all in a day’s work!

And here we are – all set to kick off:

A while later – full house!

As usual, I opened with a keynote:

Read on…

My tales about our 10-day hike along the Karavshin mountain trail have all been shipped, but, as they say, “not so fast”… For next up was part-two of our action-packed summer vacation, which saw us teleported northeast from Kyrgyzstan’s Pamir-Alay to the Sayan Mountains. Plan: rafting down the Oka River. Result (spoiler): it was brief but unforgettable!…

Technical details will come later; for now, as per tradition, teaser pics to give a sense of the scale involved, to roughly map out the directions, and to give you an idea of what the scenery looks like [in good weather] // and that’s important.

Surprise! The banks along the river are all made of volcanic rock! Brief history: an old mountain valley was flooded by lava flows from a newly emerged volcano: the lava flowed down the mountain valleys and then solidified, and later water and nature carved out new riverbeds – carving out canyons like these. The views left and right are just mind-blowing!

The Oka River at first carried us along at 10–14km/h – that’s how fast the current runs in its upper reaches.

Oh, the views!

Waterfalls cascading down the same volcanic cliffs:

Of course, we headed on over – and under!

This is where our CTO, A.I., went and… left his sunglasses behind:

This all went on in the mostly Buddhist Republic of Buryatia. Hence the mantra Om mani padme hum appears on mountains ->

The campsites along the Oka are pretty decent, but I I’ll save the details for a little later…

Drone pics of the Sayan landscapes:

A rushing tributary – where it meets the Oka there’s a good campsite:

The river’s main channel:

Views from the water:

Lunch break :)

And “back to work” again :)

But we didn’t come here just for the contemplative views; we came for something else that’s wholly wholesome for hardworking office plankton in need of some proper recuperative time-off: adrenaline! – the kind that courses through the veins from activities like this! ->

More on both contemplation and adrenalization in the Sayans coming right up!…

The best photos from our Sayan rafting trip are here.

Our Karavshin mountain trek in the Pamir-Alay was coming to an end, or rather – coming back to the beginning, for we started and finished at the same point, having completed a big loop.

And so the final day of our walk/trek/journey/hike/tough hike/grueling expedition – take your pick – had come. My pick: tough hike (but a great one): around a kilometer up and another kilometer down along the vertical almost every day isn’t something I’m used to, and I haven’t been a spring chicken for a very long time now. But, like I say, on the whole – great! Highly recommended!

But now it was time to head on down and back to where we’d started out from. That morning we woke up to these splendid views:

And a little later when those clouds had cleared:

And then down we went, heading north – the way the gorge runs and the Ak-Suu River flows.

Read on…

The denouement of our Pamir-Alay trek along the Karavshin route was the hike up to the foot of Mount/Peak Ak-Suu. Wonderful and unforgettable, I highly recommend it to absolutely everyone! A short walk slightly uphill, then a bit of a scramble over some moraine boulders, then a just-as-easy stroll along the crest of the ridge: pure bliss!

Read on…