Wayfarer, October: Samarkand, Kyoto's looms and Mizoram's hill villages.
Editor's Dispatch
Heritage is an easy word to put on a brochure and a hard one to live with. The old city of Fez is a World Heritage site, and it is also where people go to work, pray, study and buy bread on a Tuesday. We wanted an issue that keeps both facts in view.
So the places in these pages come with their makers. A boatman on the Ganga, a Zapotec weaver who went away and came home, a fourth-generation Kyoto weaver testing what an algorithm can and cannot add. Their stories come from published reporting, and we say so on each page; we have not interviewed them, and we say that too.
Lead story
Samarkand, Bukhara, Khiva: the Silk Road cities, slowlyThree UNESCO-listed old towns in Uzbekistan, a fast train between two of them, and a case for staying long enough to look at the tilework twice.
Also in this issue
- Mizoram: hill towns, heritage villages and a code called tlawmngaihnaA state whose capital joined the rail map only a year ago, a festival calendar still being built, and an ethic of generosity that visitors meet before they meet any monument.
- Odisha's heritage triangle: Bhubaneswar, Konark and a village of paintersA stone chariot for the sun, a temple city, and a lane of painted houses where every household has a craft.
- Kyoto in October: a craft city before the leaves turnThe crowds come for the maples in late November. October offers the festivals, the workshops and the shorter queues.
- Fez: walking the world's largest car-free medinaA walled old city of lanes, craft quarters and a university, built to be crossed on foot.
- The Heritage Visitor's ChecklistTen habits for visiting places where people still live and worship.
Coming up
- Anthurium FestivalAilawng and Reiek, Mizoram · 1–3 October 2026 (approx. — verify)
- Durga PujaKolkata and across eastern India · About 16–21 October 2026 (Shashthi to Vijaya Dashami; dates vary by regional calendar) (approx. — verify)
- DiwaliIndia · 8 November 2026 (Lakshmi Puja) (approx. — verify)
- Pushkar Camel FairPushkar, Rajasthan · Listed as 17–24 November 2026; climax at Kartik Purnima on 24 November (approx. — verify)
One practical tip
Before you photograph a person at a shrine, workshop or market, make eye contact and ask. A smile and a gesture are enough.
Your turn
Which craft have you watched being made, and who made it? Reply and tell us.