Central Asia!

Several years ago, the Kyrgyzstan national alpine club invited the Alpine Club of Canada to attend a celebration of that huge, vastly significant mountaineering anniversary - the 60th anniversary of the fist ascent of Mount Communism. We were intrigued because
a. the mountains sounded really cool
b. it was crazy cheap
Or at least it was crazy cheap until we realized that we would have to fly on Aeroflot via Moscow, which was stupid expensive. But ever since then, we have had it on our list. 95% of Kyrgyzstan is mountainous and 40% of those are above 3,000 m. There are plenty of unclimbed peaks below 4,000 m, and its the cheapest place in the world to bag a 7,000 m peak. The lack of 8,000 m peaks means that this country is off the radar of a lot of climbers, but the area is quite popular with Russians (well, it was before the oil price dropped and their economy imploded) and Germans. No visa required + a reasonable stable government = a good time to go!
We both have a bucket list item to visit 100 countries. Right now, Steve is at 78 and Jackie is at 69 (Steve having to work in a lot of weird places in the past). We originally planned to fly to Kyrgyzstan via Istanbul, but then decided to go via South Korea. Steve had worked a few times in Seoul, but never really saw much of the country. Kyrgyzstan is exactly half way around the world from Alberta, so it didn't matter which way we went.

We fly from Calgary > Vancouver > Seoul > Jeju, an island at the south end of South Korea where we will do some hiking and diving. Then we return to Seoul for a few days for some sightseeing. Next we fly to Tashkent for a 10 day cultural tour following the path of the old silk road. For 1,000 years, the swath between Peking and Baghdad was the centre of the civilized world - while most of our ancestors were starving to death or beating each other with sticks during the dark ages, these folks were inventing algebra! We fly from Tashkent to Urgench in Uzbekistan, and then have a private tour that involves driving & trains to take us back to Tashkent. Next we go overland from Tashkent to the Kygyz city of Osh, and then fly to Bishkek, the capital of Kygyzstan where we meet our ACC friends. 10 of us are going on a 2 week trek along the Inylchek glacier that ends up in the base camp of Peak Pobeda, which, at 7,439 m is the highest point in the country. We won't be attempting Pobeda, but we do plan an attempt on an adjacent peak. We fly by helicopter back to the base of the glacier and then return to Bishkek. Half of the trekkers are returning home, and 3 new ACC folks are joining us for a week of alpine climbing in the Ala Archa national park an hour's drive south of the capital. The we take a taxi to Kazakhstan (hey, its another country) and fly home after a couple of days in Almaty.