This "tower of death" has acted as an observatory, a religious hub, and an executioner's lair.

Ancient barriers wrap around what was once an important stop along the Silk Road.

Once a bustling fishing port, this semi-ghost town is now more than 90 miles away from the shore.

A huge monument to a bizarre book written by Turkmenistan’s longstanding dictator.

The controversial final resting place of the equally controversial first president of Turkmenistan.

Sumptous memorial to a controversial independence.

A dictator's gold statue once rotated to face the sun on a 75-meter high marble tower.

If you want to get married in the White Marble City of Ashgabat, you should do it in this surreal disco ball building.

Few people have ever heard of, let alone visited, one of Turkmenistan’s most impressive natural attractions.

This harsh mountain path was built as a strange attempt to improve the health of Turkmen citizens.

A cemetery with goat-horn bedecked gravestones.

This cavernous swimming spot doubles as a home to the largest known colony of bats in Central Asia.

A fiery crater has been burning in the Karakum Desert since 1971.

Designed to honor the birthplace of Buddha.

A brick building in Kathmandu's Durbar Square is home to Nepal's most prominent living goddess.

Concrete balls on wires constructed to stop train surfing in Indonesia.

This Indonesian village was revitalized by a vibrant rainbow paint job.

This massive chapel in the middle of the Indonesian forest is both haunting and fowl.

Kuwait City's uniquely designed water towers look straight out of a retro sci-fi cityscape.

Wander among the ghostly ruins of an island where civilization flourished for thousands of years.

Lived-in building, bedecked with an astonishing array of mirror mosaics.

The haunting ruins of a military fortress turned astronomical observatory sit on a Sarajevo mountaintop.

The place where World War I began.

These warring psychedelic crags commemorate an unsuccessful military operation.