Mar 30, 2005 - Tunka Express

The Tunka Valley is spectacularly beautiful. Spectacular is a word that we travel writers tend to over-use. But here the alpine mountains are nothing less. They soar straight out of the flat agricultural plain majestic and unencumbered by foothills, saw-toothed like a sugar-sprinkled Toblerone. Yesterday I'd enjoyed the views and interplaying clouds from Kyren. Last night the sunset gilded the sweet little datsan at Arshan. But this morning on the dawn bus back to Sludyanka, the whole range revealed itself to me for the first time in its...