Weblog » Around The World

Well, I was planning on using the promised abundance of Internet in Hong Kong to catch up on this weblog.

Unfortunately, since everyone seems to have their own broadband, all of the Internet Cafes have shut down. WiFi, suprisingly, is nowhere to be found and my Hotel only offers internet through their Business Center at rates which exceed the imagination.

So, Updates will have to wait until at least tomorrow or the day after when I get to mainland china. Then you can all find out about the chaos on the train, my last days in Russia, and a report on the wonderful city of Hong Kong and the first class treatment I’ve received.

Ok, here’s my attempt at summing up Russia. I know many of you are waiting for pictures, and hopefully I’ll have a bunch of them up soon (Hong Kong promises a cheap and fast laptop Internet connection). Also, I’m working on getting the Travelogue up to date… I have Venezuela, Spain, Morocco, and the UK all written up and now I just need to upload them. If you want a more day-by-day look at my trip thats where you should go.

When I last wrote, I had just passed over the border between Europe and Asia. Andy and I were visiting Yekaterinburg where the last Tsar and his family were killed. After 2 days there, we got on a train to Irkutsk… which some of you might remember from the game of Risk.

Irkutsk is an industrial city that really doesn’t have much in itself to look at. However, it does happen to be about an hour away from one of the most beautiful sights in Russia. Andy and I got on a bus and went down to a tiny little town called Listvyanka right next to Lake Baikal.

Listvyanka is indeed a tiny little town. There is one Soviet style run down hotel that charges outrageous rates and fortunately there is a brand new hostel/guesthouse run by, we believe, the Russian Mafia. They had running water and electricity which from what we could tell was impressive for the area. (The town was tiny I tell you.)

The Lake was completely frozen over but was still beautiful. We read in our guidebook that if you stick your feet in the lake you get 5 extra years added onto your life. (If you jump in and survive, you get 25.) We took the dare and found a hole in the ice where we believe people fished through. Suffice it to say, “It was cold.”

After some relaxing time away from civilization in the middle of Siberia, Andy and I decided to pack up and head back to Irkutsk to get the train for the rest of the journey. We spent one night in Irkutsk in a house named “Americansky Dom” or “American House”. We weren’t sure why it was called that, but it seemed the best choice from our guidebook

When we arrived, we realized why it was called what it was. It turns out that years back in the late 1970s, a retired US Army officer was visiting Moscow and met a young lady. He came back to visit many times and long story short, they married. But instead of taking his wife back to America as the story always seems to go, she took him back to Siberia. They built a house, and let the extra rooms.

If you are ever in Irkutsk in Siberia, stay at this guesthouse. The woman who runs it (the wife from above) is older now, but still friendly. The house may not be in the best location, but it is well kept and the people speak English. Best of all, the house is decidedly “American”… even down to the electrical outlets.

We stayed there only one night, upset that we hadn’t found it earlier, and boarded our train destined for Vladivostok… the end of the Trans-Siberian Railway… 3 nights away.

The train ride is a post in itself.

Hey everyone, sorry about how long its been since I wrote last… but well, I was in Siberia you know.

I have a bunch of stuff to write about, and I doubt I’ll be able to get it all in right now here in Vladivostok. I’ll try to write what I can, but the Internet is quite a bit expensive here and we have some things to do before we leave Russia.

Since I last wrote we entered Siberia, rode across it on a train, stopped at Lake Baikal the deepest freshwater lake in the world, got back on the train, and rode it across to Vladivostok (outside of Siberia technically).

The trip so far has been full of excitement including (but not limited to):

• being exactly 12 hours ahead of Eastern US time and therefore being literally on the other side of the world
• Seeing one of the most beautiful and amazing sights (a giant frozen lake surrounded by mountains) just after dealing with all of the other dirty Russian cities.
• Putting my feet through 2 feet of ice into the frozen lake… for good luck.
• Almost getting thrown off the train because I happened to take a little too much Russian Vodka a little too quickly. And being saved from it because we were drinking with a former police officer and an Army Colonel.
• And Arriving in Vladivostok… successfully having ridden the trans-siberian railway.

Andy was hoping to get a ferry from Vladivostok to Japan (his next destination) but unfortunately they seem to have no ferries for the month of April. So now we are on a quest to get Andy out of Russia before his visa expires. It looks like he’ll be flying to Seoul and then desperately trying to get a flight to Japan.

After all that is settled and I have gotten a good night’s sleep on a bed that doesn’t bounce and rattle and jolt at every turn, I’ll try to write up a more proper day-by-day account of what we did.

Well, today I entered Asia. We crossed the Ural Mountains in Russia and passed this little white obelisk representing the border between Europe and Asia.

We are now in Yekaterinburg. It is a smaller city right over the Asian border. We stopped here for a night because this is where the Tsar and his family were killed during the Bolchevik Revolution. It also happens to be where U2 Pilot Gary Powers was shot down over Russian Soil. They have wreckage from his plane and his parachute and flight suit on display in the local Military Museum. We went in and the nice lady at the exhibit looked so happy to see visitors who were interested that she proceeded to try to give us a complete tour… in Russian.

I can not even come close to describing my joy over seeing an elderly 4 foot something Russian woman gibbering away even though we couldn’t understand a word she was saying. At least she seemed happy… most of the people working in Human Service jobs here seem to hate people… just try getting a hotel room or a stamp for postcards.

But anyway… the highlight of this city has to be that same woman describing a machine gun by going “chugchugchugchugchug” and describing some General’s desk by pointing at the picture of the man in a parade, saying “Big White Horse” and then pointing at the desk and making a gesture of someone happily typing away at a typewriter.

Andy and I have been trudging around the city for a little bit now, and the snow is just starting to melt. It would be a wonderful thing if it weren’t for the fact that there is no drainage, so the whole city is like one big mud-slush puddle… my shoes aren’t looking so good for making it all the way through this trip.

We’re off to Irkutsk next with the deepest freshwater lake in the world… I’ll try to write again for longer then.

Andy needed the internet again, so I wanted to follow up on some questions people asked last time.

I have been going about 4 or 5 days between shaves. I don’t have a giant beard, but I do look a bit scruffy. I think I’m going to get a haircut as well, because since there are no showers on the train, I’ll be walking around with severe bed-head.

Everyone here in this internet cafe is playing CounterStrike and other various internet “shoot-em-up” games. Its kinda weird really… the average age here seems to be around 13 or so.

The computer won’t let me change into the Cyrillic character set, so I can’t write in Russian and show you some of the words I’ve learned (like Internet which is more like Nhtephet with backwards N’s). I’m getting better and better though, and I anticipate that Andy and I will be able to survive just fine in Siberia.

My hat is itching me less and less, so I think it just needs to be brushed a bit. Andy won’t let me put it in his bag though for fear of fleas, and he walks 10 feet away from me when I wear it. I think he’s just jealous. I’ll get a picture of me wearing it as soon as I can.

Well, Fluffy Hat it is.

I went on a tour of St. Petersburg Today and it was great. we saw some amazing things in the tiny backroads and apartment courtyards. It was much more than anything Andy and I’d see on our own.

I asked the guide where to buy a big fluffy haty, and she rolled her eyes but pointed me to a flea market. Unfortunately, I’m afraid they take the word “Flea” litterally here because the hat makes me itch… I can’t tell if it just needs the loose fur brushed off it, or if I’m allergic to the fur or what… we’ll see as time goes on.

The Poker spam I mentioned earlier appears to have been caught by my computer’s spam filter… apparently this weblog software is smart enough to automatically catch messages posted with “suspicious” words and then it asks me whether to approve them. I obviously did not.

Well, Andy and I managed to buy some train tickets and we went to a full blown real Russian Restaurant (or Pectopah here) and ordered food. We are off to Moscow tomorrow, and we are well fed. Even though the Russian’s giggled at us, I felt quite good at being able to manage at least a bit without English or the Roman alphabet.

I’ll try to hurry up on the pictures and the such. Maybe I’ll put up the unedited raw photos so you can see them before I put them in context… stay tuned.

Wow.

Russia appears to be the most different (from the USA) place I’ve visited yet. Even though the keyboards are US keyboards, everything else here is writen in Cyrillic. When I thoght I was lost in Venezuela or Morocco, someone should have slapped me upside the head and told me to be happy I had the roman alphabet! (In Morocco, most Arabic signs were subtitled in French… most likely only because I was in the cities though.)

I was slightly prepared for a different writing system and language, but it was alot more overwhelming than I expected. The hardest part is that the letters look like you should understand them, but you can’t. In Spanish, I could try to fuddle my way through the words… massacring pronunciation and the such. In Arabic, I could do the same with the French subtitles and ignore the parts of the script I didn’t understand. Here, I can do neither.

I’m getting the hang of certain things so far though. It turns out that the transliterations for the words are very good (much better than they were in Morocco). So if I need something, I just read what my map/guidebook says. Its like there is a common language seperated by a seperate alphabet. I’ve also been able to figure out certain words like Проспект – Prospekt. (Thats the word for Avenue in case you were wondering.)

Andy arrives here tonight around 6pm, so then we’ll be able to tackle this language together. With 3 weeks here in some of the most remote parts of the country, we’re going to need it. I’m also going to need to purchase a hat and gloves. I had expected cold and it most certainly is. My dilemma is which of the uniquely Russian hats I should buy.

There appear to be 2 primary types of hats worn by the older men here (the younger wear boring american knit caps and don’t know what they are missing). The first is a very bushy round fur hat. It features big furry ear flaps which get fastened up when it is not that cold. I believe it is called an Ushanka.
The second hat is more what I would call “Soviet” because to me it seems like what you would wear when you were calling your friend “comrade”. It is more like a leather cap with a short bill and has smaller ear flaps that are not necessarily furry at all. It seems like something they’d wear at an East German prisoner of war camp.

Since I’m going to be in Siberia, I figure I should go for the furrier one even though it will undoubtedly look preposterous on me. If you have any suggestions, let me know because its suppossed to be warm here for a few more days. (Warm being above freezing.)

Next up for discussion is my money situation. I’ve moaned and complained about the weak dollar with respect to the Euro and the Pound. Here, a dollar is 27 rubles. It sounds like it would be great… like Morocco and Venezuela where I could buy a beer for 50 cents and there were shirts and pants on sale for the equivalent of $5. Even in Britain when a dollar was only half a pound, at least most of the prices appeared to be half of what they’d cost in an equivalent US city… Beer cost about $4 but was listed as 2 GBP so I didn’t feel that terrible.
But not here. Here, even though the ruble is weak, the prices make up for it with abandon. They no longer have a scarcity of products, but you pay through the nose for whatever you want. This makes it even more difficult because technically it is illegal to use US dollars here. So I have to take out huge sums of Rubles to pay for things… and since I can’t really divide by 27 very well in my head, I have no idea how much I’m withdrawing.

Hopefully I’ll be able to withdraw a sufficient amount before I leave the major cities, because once I get to Siberia I anticipate being unable to do much of anything in terms of communicating.

I’ll check in again before I leave civilization… till then, enjoy the spammer who appears to have hit my weblog with poker advertisements.

I promised I’d write, and now I am.

But first, a response to my grandfather: I have no idea why the staircase was called heliocolloidal. The entire audio tour was filled with words that seemed to have been picked only because they were the largest in the thesaurus. A perfect example was “The most fantastic and extravagant room in which you have ever been” which was neither fantastic nor extravagant, but very well could have been a less superlative synonym.
It is also possible that the Spanish-accented, British-educated voice said a different word that the 3 of us heard as heliocolloidal… heliocolumnal perhaps?
In the end, the thing was a big concrete spiral staircase… is wet cement colloidal–not quite solution, not quite emulsion?

Anyway, back to what I’m up to at the moment.

I’ve been in the UK now for about 10 days, and it is quite civilized here. I have been able to get access to computers, but I’ve been using the time to do some other things besides update the weblog. (sorry)

I’ve managed to log into the machines back home and fix some problems for FCI. I’ve also helped Andy get stuff sorted out and ready for Russia and his little trip “around the world”. I helped him move out of his London apartment, and buy his air tickets (he’s worse than me when it comes to procrastinating).

I’ve also just gone up and visited Kiyan and Pat from IBM. Kiyan is studying abroad in Leeds and Pat in Glasgow. They both seem to be having a great time, and are both planning trips to tour areas of Europe. — Me, I’ve got Russia to see.

I’ve managed to get quite a bunch of pictures from the UK (mostly in London) and on the train in Russia, I plan to do some major work on my Travelogue where I will write up a proper story about where I’ve been, what I’ve seen, and how I survived. It will be complete with pictures so you can all see the things I did.

Here are some quick observations about England:

• The Queen’s guards don’t wear Red in the winter apparently. Their coats were a dark grey when I went, and there weren’t nearly as many as you’d expect… they were also exceedingly far away. Fortunately, they still wore the fuzzy hats.
• The British drive on the left, walk to the left on sidewalks, have the up escalator on the left hand side, but still stand right/walk left when actually using the escalator… very strange.
• If you are ever tempted to believe that the British are pretentious in their language, just remember that their official term for what we call “articulated busses” is, “Bendy Busses”.

Well, I’ve arrived in England, and the keyboard is still funky, but at least its not as bad as that Arabic/French one.

I should have done a tour of the keyboards of the world… oh well maybe next year.

I haven’t been able to write in a while because I’ve been helping Andy move the things from his apartment in London to his home in Petersfield. Then I managed to fix the computers back at Floral Concepts, and now I’m up visiting Kiyan in Leeds (where we have to use the lab, and I’ll probably get kicked out because I rebooted the computer like the fiddler I am).

I’ll try to get a full update up soon describing all the exciting things I’ve seen in London (yes including the palace guards with the fuzzy hats) and hopefully before I leave the UK, Ill get a bunch of my Travelogue updated so you can read about my travles with a more refined sense of storytelling.

Well, I made it to Morocco, and besides all the letters being in the wrong place on the keyboard, its going ok.

Fortunately for me, “Internet” is spelled Internet in every language, even arabic.

Over the last 2 days, I have spent 20 hours on trains, 8 hours waiting at stations, and 4 hours on a ferry. Needless to say, when I finally got to the hostel here in Casablanca, I was happy for a place to sleep.

Ive come to realize that the main point of my journey is turning out to be about the “people”. I’ve met tons of people now, all with different reasons for their trips… some for partying, some for break, some for the sites, and some to find themselves. I met this one guy from my hostel here who has been travelling for 3 years all around the world. He went home for the first time in January, and started right back out 2 weeks ago. His photo album contains some of the most amazing pictures of places most humans will never see. Tibet, tribes in Africa, Mountains of South America, and soon his pictures from this trip into western Africa.

There seem to be alot of people here looking for hiking, trekking, and seeing the countryside. Back in barcelona, people were looking for the excitement of the city and some, for the partying. Me, I’ve decided that I’ve come for the urban people. Everyone is a little bit the same and a whole lot different from everyone else, and this trip of mine will hopefully let me see alot of that.

So I’m leaving the countrysides to my views out of the trains, and to the people who like to trek with their cameras… Me, I’ll walk around a city any day, eat somewhere they don’t speak english, and try to absorb whatever I can.

On the train down to Algeciras, I met a guy planning to take the ferry to Morroco and go hiking in the mountains. His idea was to go somewhere far away and “find himself”. It seemed like a respectable goal, and since we were travelling in the same direction, we figured we’d stay together.
I found out why I went on this trip alone… There are some things that are much better done in groups, others alone, and still others with people who are at least somewhat sensitive to the ways of the people around you.
This guy appeared to be the perfect example of a witless gullible American come to use the country he was entering for his own amusement.

An Example: Here in Morocco, in the cities, they speak French and Arabic. French is the language of the cities because it was the old official language of the French Occupation. I decided to forgo the french and try to pick up some basic arabic… what a good idea. He on the other hand said “nah Ill just learn french”

Note to All: when given the choice of learning the language of the oppressors or the language of the people, learn the language of the people.

In the end when I greated the man at the restaurant and ordered my food I received my meal first and for 3 dirhams (30 cents) less than my companion who ordered before me but greated them in french.

Seriously, I am surprised this guy hasn’t been swindled or robbed yet with the way he simply agrees with every hustler on the street and every fake “guide” who approaches him… After the 3rd time of saving him and the second time of following him into a shady unofficial taxi which charged us twice as much as it should have, I told him I was going my own way and wished him luck on his journeys in the mountains… if he survives.

I am getting on my plane to the UK (via brussels) tomorrow morning. Part of me is sad that I cant see more of morocco, but the other part is looking forward to a real bed, hot water, and a place to do my laundry. It will be a kind of recharging before heading off to Russia for a week on a train.