Meeting Nick is always a journey across time and space. Over bulgogi, kimchi octupus and cold noodles in a Korean restaurant set in a colonial shophouse in downtown Singapore, we dug the hard ground of Orkhon Valley of Mongolia for the remains of ancient Turks, visited the Yakuts of Sakha and the long-lost Republic of Tannu Tuva, played chess in Kalymkia, reminisced over German mansions in old Königsberg (now Kaliningrad) and the Poles of Vilnius/Wilna, debated about the Turkic/Iranian origins of Samarkand and Bukhara, explored Chinese settlements on the island of Lingga, Sumatra and wandered about our own dubious ancestral origins as conquerors and slave traders.
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