To Vladivostok with love.
Now that you are all laughing about my experience on the train, I figured I’d let you all know about Andy and my experiences in Vladivostok, and our final days in Russia.
I think its safe to say that both of us had had our fill of the Russian Experience. There are plenty of places and things we didn’t get to see, and plenty of experiences we never had (like the sauna before jumping into a frozen Lake Baikal) but I think 3 weeks of walking around with a tiny budget and no amenities and 9 days of train rides made us ready for a vacation.
The people of Russia should be commended and respected for the lives they lead. I can only imagine what hardships they must have gone through during Soviet times.
Vladivostok is a perfect example of what Russia must’ve been like during the formative years after the fall of the Soviet Union. The city was only opened to visitors relatively recently, and its lack of proximity to the other major cities of Russia left it to develop at a slower rate. Missing here are the abundance of French pastry cafes and Western food chains so prevalent in Moscow. Also missing are cheap hostels and hotels, and hot water.
In many cities of Russia, hot water is centrally supplied — like cold water. This usually means that hot water takes about 5-10 minutes to get hot unlike in other countries where it might take a minute or two to get from your basement water heater to your shower. The problem this causes in a city like Vladivostok is hot water shortages. Since vladivostok was designed as a military and naval port, there was never a need for vast quantities of hot water (or many of the other modern civic conveniences).
So the cheapest hotel we could find cost US$80 a day, had hot water only during certain periods, had cots which sagged like hammocks for beds, but did actually have electrical outlets (a step up from the hostels). We also could barely find any restaurants — much less economical ones. What we managed to eat was Italian food from a restaurant member of the “American Beef Club” with dishes that were terribly overpriced but gave us something in our bellies.
Other than those issues, Vladivostok was very much like the other Russian cities we visitied. There was clearly a more Japanese and Chinese influence on the town due to its proximity, as represented by the billboards in Chinese characters and the right-hand drive cars on the road. The city also had an interesting view of the ships in the harbor, and there were plenty of sailor-aged couples taking advantage of the romantic views during what we imagined was their shore leave.
Andy managed to get himself a flight out of Russia one day before his visa expired, and decided to take a fairly roundabout way involving ferries and trains to Tokyo but did manage to arrive on time. We both had no trouble leaving the country (unlike what many guidebooks had told us) and on our final day managed to make it to the airport (involving a train and a bus ride for about an hour) without much problem.
On my final day, I said goodbye to Russia. It was a bit sad to be leaving, but part of me felt like I needed to move on. There were no postcards in Vladivostok, so those of you waiting for postcards will have to wait till Hong Kong. Andy went to the post office and bought some holiday/birthday cards to send as postcards, but I felt that was just too bizarre, so I bought some stamps in case I found anything at the last moment. I didn’t, so I might just deliver the stamps seperately.
Hopefully, I can recap much of the Russian Experience in my Travelogue (including pictures eventually) so that you can all see more what travelling through Siberia and the individual cities was like. I am realizing now that writing in detail about each of my destinations takes alot longer than I had anticipated. It is very probable that it wont be completed in full till after I return. Hopefully I’ll get as much up as possible, and at least the text and pictures uneditied. Stay Tuned.
April 29th, 2005 at 4:54 pm
Do you have my home address for a postcard?
May 1st, 2005 at 8:13 am
John arrived home today from China and brought with him the infamous hat. It is larger that I expected and jet black. The best analogy that I can give for it is that it looks like someone scalped a gorilla. The fir is soft, like a rabbit, but John says Mike thinks it might be weasel. At any rate, John was able to weasel it through customs without difficulty. The best advantage of the hat is that it adds about 5 inches to your height, so if you are vertically challenged you might want to ask Mike if you can borrow it.