Expatiperro

Well, my is over, but the memories remain! For those of you all who weren't able to view my pictures through Facebook during the trip, here are direct links to the albums, so that even the non-members can enjoy.

Dubai

Petra

Jordan

Israel and Palestine

Egypt

Bulgaria and Thessaloniki

Romania

Budapest

Auschwitz

Kiev and Krakow

Chernobyl

The Baltic States

St. Petersburg

Moscow

Mongolia and Siberia

Thailand, Laos, and China

Remember me? It's been a while, so you might not, but things are still moving along here, albeit at a slightly faster pace than I can blog at. In the space of the last month, we've passed through Eastern Europe, crossed the Mediterranean, explored the ancient ruins in Egypt, took in an enormous number of holy sites in the Holy Land, circumnavigated Jordan, and are now trying to get a grasp on the paradoxes of runaway capitalism in a conservative Muslim country in Dubai. Jumping from continent to continent, culture to culture has left my head spinning, but with some down time on the horizon, catch-up posts will be frequent and will happen soon.

I've always found that there's something about renting a car outside of the US that's so much more adventurous and exciting. There's no clean airport counter with handy brochures; no smiling Avis/Hertz/Dollar representatives trying to sell you extra insurance covers of gas reimbursements; no big, gas-guzzling American cars sitting out in the parking lot. Instead, there are shady one-room offices on the outskirts on the city, bearded men with thick accents asking for your passport, and tiny, inevitably European cars that a handful of frat boys could pick up and flip over. The whole process just feels so much more unpredictable, even exotic, for lack of a better word.

To start our week driving around Romania and Transylvania, Kyle and I picked up a rental car Monday morning in Bucharest, Romania. We chose the cheapest option, a four-door Dacia Logan, and apparently the law "you get what you pay for" applies in Eastern Europe as well. What we got for our €23 a day: a dirty, slightly dinged-up car that needed to be jump-started with no power steering, no ABS brakes, a radio that shorted out after two hours, smearing windshield wipers, and a lack of windshield wiper fluid. On the plus side, the clutch was set up so that the car was nearly impossible to stall, and it had seat belts.

Our car in hand, we set off on our drive north. Even on the main roads, you pass horse-drawn carriages, which, believe it or not, seem to have just as much right to use the lane as cars driving 60 mph. Drivers make passes going around blind corners, and you can only cringe as the guy in front of you pulls out to pass with a semi barreling towards him in the other lane. Of course, this being Romania and with a certain 'natural selection' process occurring on the roads (only the good drivers survive!), accidents are surprisingly rare, at least that we've seen.

(So you don't think that it's just me who's making this up, here's a funny article on driving in Romania. It's a few years old, and our car isn't quite as bad as the one described, but it's an entertaining look on what it's like to be on the roads here.)

It's not all near-death experiences, though. The scenery is beautiful- like everywhere else we've been, the fall colors are spectacular- and the Transylvania Castle's we've seen have been just as amazing as they're described. Driving is by far the best way to see a place as large and varied as this, and a few adrenaline rushes on the road is a small price to pay to see the sights.

The funny thing is, running into a deer with our car was one of the less memorable parts of our day driving across Lithuania. Sure, the front of the car got slightly bent out of shape; the driver (none other than yours truly) was a bit shaken up by the sight of Bambi bouncing off the bumper; and the four other passengers were temporarily reduced to screaming, stressed-out captives. But in a day jam-packed with sights and stories, the one about the accident ranks down on the list.

Let me backtrack a bit and start from the beginning. Our weekend in Lithuania, the southern-most of the Baltic states, was spent with three of Kyle's friends from England who had taken some time off work to join us on our adventure. Lithuania is one of those places, like Timbuktu, that one hears of in passing, might be able to find on a map, but really has no idea what is in it or why on Earth someone would go there. And walking around the capital, Vilnius, which apparently is the country's biggest city but could have been mistaken for a ghost town the weekend we visited, my questions as to the allure of the place only grew.

That all changed when the five of us hopped into our rental car and set off on a cross-country drive (of 400 kilometers). The Lithuanian countryside is gorgeous: the narrow roads snake past gently rolling hills. Cobalt-blue lakes contain picturesque castles on islands, connected to the mainland by drawbridges straight out of a fairy tale.


Our first stop of the day was the Hill of Crosses, a Catholic pilgrimage site for the past few centuries that gained increase importance during the Communist years, when it became the place to quietly protest the ruling regime. There are around 200,000 crosses on this hill alone, so many that it's impossible to get a sense of the topography of the land-- the crosses just seem to rise like trees from the flat ground.


Two hundred kilometers past the Hill of Crosses, we reached the coast, where we caught a 3 minute ferry ride to the Curonian Spit. At 100 kilometers long, it's the world's largest and spit, a giant sand dune barrier between the Baltic Sea and the Lithuanian shore. After getting off the ferry, we quickly crossed the 1 kilometer width of the spit and watched a glorious sunset from the beach.


Darkness upon us, we set off driving the 40 kilometers we had left before our destination, the town of Nida. A narrow road through a forest late at night is never the set-up for a cheery story, and this one was no exception. I'll skip the details, but a brief summary is that the deer survived and ran off, the car was only cosmetically damaged, and no human was injured.

That adventure in the books, we proceeded to Nida, where we had hoped to be able to find a place to stay without making a reservation. Imagine our surprise when we drove into town and found ZERO sign of life. No people on the streets. No lights shining through any windows. No open hotels. After a brief and slightly frantic search, we found the only open hotel in town, a huge place in which we were the only guests.


The next morning, thing returned to normal. The drive back to Vilnius was uneventful, Kyle's friends returned to England, and he and I boarded an overnight bus that took us to Warsaw, Poland. But our time in Lithuania was fab: it's perhaps the only place in the world where in one day, you can go from city to sacred pilgrimage site to giant sand spit, with a little wildlife thrown in there, too.

We woke up our only morning in Riga to swirling skies, howling wind, and pelting, cold rain. Days like this make you want to stay in bed, but with only one day to spend exploring the capital of Latvia, we knew had to get out and do some sightseeing, weather be dammed. Armored up in multiple layers and waterproof jackets, Kyle and I marched out the door to battle the elements.

The weather suited the mood of our main destination of the day, the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia. Like all the Baltic States (and much of Europe), Latvia was the victim of a series of invasions and occupations, starting in 1940 and not ending until 1991. The history is simultaneously fascinating, incredibly depressing, and nearly totally unknown in the US. In the years after WWI, the three Baltic States were some of the most developed in Europe, with democratically-elected governments and living standards on par with the Scandinavia countries. Unfortunately, they were located between two of the most powerful and bellicose countries in Europe, Germany and the USSR, and in the years immediately before WWII they essentially became their doormat. Germany gave control of the three Baltic States to the USSR (notwithstanding that at the time they were independent, autonomous countries); the USSR invaded and occupied them; Germany turned on the USSR and invaded the occupied territory; the USSR fought back and eventually took them back.

In the German and both Soviet occupation, the population was terrorized and many were deported en masse to concentration camps or Siberia. During the German occupation, he Jewish population on Lithuania, for example, went from nearly 200,000 to zero. The Russians, in just ONE YEAR, arrested and deported to Siberia nearly 10% of Latvia's population. Estonia suffered similar tragedies. In each of these three States, institutions were wiped out, and the intellectuals, scientists, teachers, and politicians were persecuted and killed, leaving just a shell of what each country used to be.

Given this history of repression and destruction, it's incredible that all three Baltic States emerged from the Soviet years as vibrant, active, and most importantly, historically aware places. Each capital city has its own museum dedicated to those years, and the one in Riga was arguably the best, with fabulous displays of original propaganda posters, artifacts from exiled Lativan in Siberia, and exhibits illumination many aspects of life under occupation. It's sobering and a bit depressing, absolutely. But there's no better way to appreciate your own freedom and fortune than seeing how others have had theirs taken away.

Rested, laundered, and relaxed, Kyle and I said goodbye to Helsinki and boarded the ferry that would take us over to the Baltics. Two hours later, we arrived in Estonia's capital, Tallinn, and were met at the ferry terminal by Martin, who would be our Couchsurfing host for the next four nights.

Tallinn, and the rest of Estonia for that matter, is a place whose reality contrasts with what the world expects it to be. While it is a Baltic state along with its more Slavic neighbors Latvia and Lithuania, it refuses to be bunched together with them. Looking around, you can sense that it has much more in common with Scandinavian countries- the language looks and sounds almost Finnish, the people are blond and fair-skinned, their English is probably better than mine, wi-fi is ubiquitous, and in conversation they are insistent that they are only tied to the other Baltic States by an accident of geography and the Soviet occupation, and not by any voluntary choice.

The capital also contrasted with the expectations. The old town is beautiful, an incredibly well-preserved medieval area with some of the oldest buildings in the region, including the oldest town hall in Europe. Wandering around its winding lanes was like being transported back in time, at least if you didn't see the souvenier shops lining the streets. Our three days there was plenty to explore the gorgeous city center, visit several museums, and eat some delicious food (including a meal at the wonderfully named "Hell Hunt" restaurant).

Our three nights there were somewhat less bucolic. Martin and his friends did their best to show us the incredible nightlife of Tallinn, whose small size (only 400,000 people) belies the intensity and energy of its bar and club scene. Highlights included eating some of the best chicken wings I've ever tasted at a cafe at 5 AM; making best friends with a 50 tear old bartendress and earning a standing invitation to come back to Estonia and stay at her place; going to a birthday party of one of Martin's friends and meeting not only the Estonian Oprah, but also both the most famous actress and weatherman in Estonia. Over the weekend, sleep was definitely fleeting.

Monday morning we picked up our rental car, said goodbye to the city, and set off across the countryside. Outside of the few main cities (definition: population 5,000 and up), human life seemed to dissappear, replaced by endless forests, huge lakes, and sandy coastline. After our hectic stay in Tallinn, a little time spend relaxing was much appreciated.

After three exhausting weeks of travel around Russia, with the constant sensory shocks of being in a place completely unfamiliar and alien, we needed a break. Luckily for us, our final destination on our train journey, Helsinki, proved to be the best possibly place to chill out, get things done that we needed to get done, and enjoy being in an ordered, relaxed, non-adrenal-gland-draining environment.

Helsinki might be the world's cutest city, a small town that somehow also manages to be a completely unpretentious capital of a first world, developed country. Tress line nearly every street, almost matching the heights of the buildings around them, which are all under 10 stories tall. Trams carry people (and tourists, as one of the tram lines also serves as a type of "tourist bus") around the city, coexisting peacefully with cars. The Baltic Sea and its inlets give Helsinki its unique form, and from almost any point in th city you can see the water. Like St. Petersburg, there's no sense of hurry, just a casual, calming mood that imbues the city and its inhabitants.

Our chill-out time was helped by our foray into a different kind of accommodation: Couchsurfing. For the uninitiated, CS is a community of people who offer up their apartments without charge for travelers to stay in, in exchange for good conversation, cultural interchange, and the opportunity to make new friends from around the world. Our host, Ville, was a fantastic host, letting us sleep on his floor, telling us the best places to go, and engaging in some great conversation with us.

The two days that we spent there didn't leave us with a lot of time to explore every nook and cranny of the city (and the pouring rain on our first full day didn't help, either), but luckily Helsinki is a small enough place that it isn't took hard to see most of the major sites in just that small amount of time. Samples (from Kyle's camera) are below.

While we had technically completed the Trans-Siberian Railway the moment we stepped off the train in Moscow on September 30th, our trip through Russia still had one leg remaining before we set foot in the last stop on our itinerary, St. Petersburg. The night train from Moscow to St. Petersburg is said to be the busiest and nicest stretch of rail in the country, the Russian equivalent to the Northeastern Corridor, except without the overpriced tickets and overhyped "high-speed" trains. After a night spent with two snoring Russian businessmen who enjoying moving around the small cabin in only their underwear, Kyle and I stumbled out of the train station into the 9 AM twilight and were ready to take on the city.

If Moscow is a representation of what Russia is today, a clash of the Soviet and capitalist eras, then St. Petersburg is a representation of what Russia was before the 1917 Revolution, a near time capsule of life during the Tsarist age. Massive, ornately-facaded Baroque palaces line the broad streets, which cross over canals that give the city an air of Amsterdam or Venice. Old trams run down the streets past pedestrians who stroll as if they have no particular destination in mind and are just out to take in the scenery. Even far out from the city center, St. Petersburg presents an elegant, unhurried face, of a city trying to ignore that it was ever a witness to some of the horrors of the 20th century.


We spent our first day walking down the main street, Nevsky Prospekt, and passed a few hours in the Hermitage, which might be the world's most outsized art museum (yes, including the Louvre). Everything about the Hermitage is enormous and grandiose, like the insanely comprehensive collection of art (world-class collection in things ranging from Russian archeology to 19th century French art to Japanese prints), as well as the over-the-top Winter Palace where the Hermitage collection is housed (the place has 400 rooms!!). It's the only museum in the world where a room with two--TWO-- da Vinci masterpieces could be overshadowed by the decorations of the room where they hang. And best of all- free admission for students, a rarity in Russia. They say that if you spend 30 seconds in front of every world of art in the museum, you'd be there for like 50 years; after exhausting 3 hours there, I completely understand.

High culture was the theme of the rest of our four days in St. Petersburg. We took in a Russian ballet, Swan Lake, where we battled other tourists for the best seats and shot a few dirty looks to other tourists who mistook the ballet performance for a social hour. We went to the Russian State Political History Museum, the main Cathedral, and the Summer Palace (Peterhof). After the hustle and bustle of Moscow, a relaxing, cultural experience was exactly what the travel doctor ordered.

Despite a few wrenches thrown in at the last minute, and our exhausted states after an amazing and incredibly social weekend in Tallinn (to be blogged about soon), we're finally on the move in our own car! So it's a rental car- unfortunately, we learned after arriving in Estonia that buying a car in the EU without having EU citizenship is a week-long process, not to mention the headache that could come with selling it back- but being in control of our transportation after three weeks at the Russian Railways mercy is a welcome change.

We picked up our Opel Astra (we're taking name suggestions) at 11 AM in downtown Tallinn, and by 11:30 we were off in the countryside, driving on one of the main highways (a 1 lane, partially paved road) through thick forests and past six-point bucks. Outside of the major cities, there's not a lot going on in Estonia- many of the towns that we passed weren't even noticeable from the side of the road, and we would have passed them without realizing their presence had it not been for a road sign and a church steeple punctuating the treeline.

There's not a much better way to get a sense of a size of a place than driving through it. You know that the US is enormous when you spend three full days in a car, and you STILL haven't reached the other coast. Conversely, you know that Estonia's essentially a blip on a map when you spend eight hours behind the wheel and cover 2/3s of the entire country. If you don't believe me, check out today's route:


Tonight we're staying at an adorable bed and breakfast in Viljandi, a small town that apparently is on a lake, but that we haven't been able to see yet on account of darkness. (On that note, adorable is the adjective that comes to mind most often when describing anything in this country) Tomorrow we set off to the coast, then take a left and drive down into Latvia. We'll spend three days there before returning to Tallinn, dropping off the car, and catching a night bus to Vilnius, Lithuania, where we'll rent another car and meet up with three of Kyle's friends.

Not having a car has slightly complicated our itinerary, but I'm choosing to think of it as a gift, as a way to more fully explore the transportation options available to us. By the time we're done with the trip, about the only modes of transportation we won't have taken will be an ox-drawn hay cart and Segway. Though if I see a Segway tour offered in Vilnius, I might have to add it to the list.

Twenty four hours on the train later, we arrived into Moscow's Kazansky station, and immediately dove into the morning rush-hour crowds that packed the metro. Moscow's metro is unlike any other subway system in the world. For starters, it's one of the deepest systems in the world, with some stations over 150 feet underground, and every ride begins with a 3 minute escalator descent down to the platform. Trains come every 60 seconds, but even that isn't enough to adequately cull the crowds that jam the system day and night. And for a subway dork like me, riding on original 1950 model Soviet stock is a huge thrill.

But the most unique aspect of the Moscow Metro is its sheer beauty. Every station is a work of art that tell a story or celebrates an event with stained glass, bronze sculptures, faience tiles, mosaics, and painting. Of course, the subjects of the artwork is closely tied in with the era in which the subway system was built- the 1930s, when Communism and Stalinism were in full swing. Changing lines, it's not uncommon to pass a bust of Stalin, a mosaic depicting a particularly moving speech by Lenin (complete with throngs of cheering proletariats), stained glass memorializing a WWII battle, and hammer and sickle plasterwork below a coffered vaulted ceiling. In the metro, it's hard not to feel like you're in a bit of a time warp, like by going underground you've entered a time warp where the the Soviet Union still exists.





Much like the metro system, the rest of Moscow lives in an uneasy space between its Communist past and its capitalist present. Flocks of tourists line up to enter Lenin's mausoleum, which sits directly across from the Louis Vuitton and Cartier stores that are the new tenants in the former Soviet state department store. Multinational banks occupy buildings that still have the decidedly anti-capitalist hammer and sickle symbol carved into their sides. A 24-hour McDonald's is in eyesight of the Red Square, where Soviet military parades used to file across. And when you're at the market, don't forget to buy your Lenin coffeemug or Stalin matryoshka doll.


Despite the myriad of signs of it's Communist past, Moscow is firmly rooted in the capitalist, money-grubbing world. For starters, it's EXPENSIVE. A Big Mac meal at McDonald's (at which we ate for research purposes, of course) costs $7; computers are marked up 50% from US prices; even a burger and coke dinner at an "American-style" diner set us back $15 a person. Luckily for us, Russia's fast food options are tasty and cheap; if it wasn't for those, we would have gone broke. How any Russian (average salary: $750 a month) affords anything is beyond me.

(Runaway capitalism might have also played a part in the other most frustration aspect of our time in Moscow: the closures of nearly every restaurant recommended in our guidebook. Nowhere else I've been has a year-old guidebook been so hopelessly out of date.)

Even though Moscow had it's share of frustration, there are so many interesting things to see there that it's hard not to have a good time. Lenin's body and mausoleum was as bizarre as we'd expected; St. Basil's cathedral is even more mesmerizing in person than it is in pictures; the Gulag (Soviet forced labor camp) museum was sobering; and the vodka museum was intoxicating. Not even the closures and four days of cold and rain could dampen (or freeze) our spirits- Moscow's a city that deserves to be seen for itself.

Long-distance train travel might be the ultimate test for restlessness. You're on a train for days at a time, confined to an 8 by 75 foot train car, except for the few precious stops that are long enough for you to run outside, stretch your legs, and buy fresh food to diversify your diet beyond the noodle ramen, over-priced dining car dishes, and vodka. In between those stops, you're left to your own devices. Reading is a popular pastime, as is card-playing, journal writing, and crosswording. The dining car becomes the social nexus of the train, unless you're lucky enough to have a compartment to yourself, in which case you can invite guests over to chat. But when it comes to external motivations and a wide variety of things to do, train travel isn't the best place to find those. Sanity is only guaranteed to those who can slow their minds down, develop routines, and find enjoyment in watching the landscape pass by.

All that time on the train leads to the a development of a community of Trans-Siberian travelers. After just a few hours on our first Russian train, we knew the names and stories of almost all the people in our car. There were are our cabin-mates, Charlotte and Andy, a friendly young British couple taking three weeks to travel across the Trans-Siberian before starting new jobs. There were the three Australians in the cabin next door, blasting pop music on their iPod speakers and dropping in repeatedly with invitations to join them in vodka shots. There were Cristina, the social center of the car, constantly popping her head into rooms to dish on the latest bathroom update (open, closed, closed unless you bribe) and pass the time chatting about anything. These were the faces we saw at almost every stop on the rest of the trip- despite Russia's size, the number of places of interest to tourists is pretty limited. Better to be friendly and take that vodka shot, if it means getting on well with your fellow travelers the rest of the trip.

After two days of riding the rails, we finally reached Yekaterinburg. Our 36 hour stop there wasn't so much to see the sights as it was to rest, wash clothes, shower, and move our legs. The town was cute- more cosmopolitan and commercialized than Irkutsk, friendly, though without a must-see attraction. Yekaterinburg is known for being the place where the last Tsar and his family were murdered, so we visited the church commemorating that event, as well as a small photography museum. Three hours of sightseeing in the bag, we returned to the hostel, relaxed and caught up on a good night's sleep, and the next morning hopped on our final major train leg of the trip, the express train to Moscow.

We just arrived in Helsinki, Finland, earlier this afternoon, meaning that we've finally ended our Trans-Siberian route, a trip of nearly 5,500 miles that took us three weeks to complete. This last ride, from St. Petersburg, was one of the most painless ones we've had- just 6 hours, an entire car practically to ourselves, and zero hassles from customs officials. It's hard to believe that as recently as 20 years ago Soviet and NATO forces were facing off against each other across the same strip of land that we passed through without a hassle in 20 minutes. History moves fast.

Now that we're out of Russia and off the train, it's time for the next phase of our trip. In a couple of days, we'll take a ferry from Helsinki to Estonia, where we'll (knock on wood) buy a car and spend six weeks making our way from the Baltic Sea to the Mediterranean. Along the way, we'll take in the Baltic states, the WWII sites in Poland, Kiev and Chernobyl, Vlad the Impaler's Transylvania, Post-Soviet Bulgaria, and Northern Greece. And instead of staying in hostels, we'll be trying our luck with Couchsurfing, a community of travelers who offer free accommodation and a chance to learn about a city from someone who actually lives there.

Like usual, we have no idea what to expect, but whatever ends up happening will be an adventure. If you'll be in this part of the world and want to share the experience with us, send me a note!

The Russian leg of our trip officially began at 3 PM on September 20th, though for the previous seven hours we sat just feet away from the border with little to do but twiddle our thumbs and pretend that the increasing pressure in our bladders had nothing to do with a need to pee, since the bathrooms were locked and no amount of pleading would persuade the snarling carriage attendant to open them. We were waiting to cross the Mongolia-Russia border, which one could have easily thought was in a war zone due the the security measures in place to stop illegal smuggling. Passport photos were studiously compared with the faces of their holders; armed guards marched on the platform next to the train peeking under the carriage; brusque border officials kicked us out of our cabin to search the luggage compartments. Then we moved fifty feet, crossed a chain-link fence that marked the border, and repeated the entire process again, in case one of us had suddenly conjured up 75 contraband leather jackets in the ten minutes since Mongolian customs. During this entire process, at no time were we allowed to leave the train or, in a cruel Soviet-style twist, use the bathroom. Instead of letting us relieve ourselves, the carriage attendant spent the day tending to her nails, eating soup, and vacuuming the entire cabin. Twice.

After a day of a front-row seat to bureaucratic inefficiency and OCD cleaning, we were finally on Russian tracks, and 12 hours later we were in a cold and rainy Irkutsk. Irkutsk is the unofficial capital of SIberia, which makes it one of the few outposts in one of the most vast and remote swathes of land on the planet. Even though it's the principal city in the region and one of Russia's main cities, it had a certain backwater feeling to it. The tram we took from the train station to our hostel looked straight out of 1950, with corrugated metal sides, a peeling Soviet red-and-white paint job, and a complete lack of functioning gauges on the driver's control panel (which the driver gave her complete, um, divided attention to as she chatted away on her cell phone). The city's buildings seemed to be sinking into the slowly melting permafrost, which surprisingly didn't render them uninhabitable; Kyle spotted one man leaving from partially-sunk house whose doorway had shrunk to no more than 3 feet tall.

The 35 degree temperature, freezing rain, and the fact that most of the city's sights were closed made our only day in Irkutsk a short one. But the next morning we were up early to meet our Mongolia to Irkutsk cabin-mates Andy and Charlotte at the bus station. We were off to Listvyanka, a town an hour from Irkutsk by public bus and the jumping off point (literally) for Lake Baikal. It's impossible to adequately describe the immensity and beauty of the Lake. The water is a deep, incomparable shade of blue which stretches beyond the horizon on one side, and on the other is just the foreground to jagged snow-capped mountains. The clear, brisk air makes the reds, yellows, and oranges of the autumn trees seem even more vivid than they already are. But despite the stunning scenery around the Lake, all the area's energy focuses down towards the water. There's just no escaping it. We knew that we had to dive in.

We dropped our bags at our guesthouse, threw on our swimsuits, and set off on a walk along the shore to scout potential jumping-in sites. Along the way, we explored abandoned barges, filled our cameras' memory cards with pictures of the views, hiked up into the hills, and took a chairlift to a viewpoint with panoramic views of the Lake. And with the sun going down and the temperature not getting any warmer, it was go time. With a Russian family cheering us on, we did the deed.



The follow-up to the swim might have been the funniest part of the day. To celebrate, we returned to the same restaurant where we had eaten lunch, and whose waitress had laughed in our faces when we asked her if she knew any good places from which to jump in. This time, we came armed with the video of our swim, which drew an "Oh God" and an eye-roll when we showed her it. After she took our order, though, we noticed that she wouldn't stop staring at us. Maybe she was in awe of our amazing cold-water tolerance? Not quite. A few minutes later she comes up to the table, points at Kyle, and says, "You... actor? Lost?" Despite our denials that Kyle was not, in fact, Matthew Fox (the star of the TV show Lost, for you non-addicts), she wouldn't take 'no' for an answer, and so our meal ended with a photo and most likely the highlight of our waitress' day. If you hear any rumors that Matthew Fox has gone off the deep end and is traveling around Siberia taking dips in freezing cold lakes, you know where they started.


A bonfire with other Trans-Siberian travelers ended our night, and the next morning we returned to Irkutsk to catch the longest train ride of our trip, across Siberia to Yekaterinburg.

We're finally in Moscow, having finished the major rail portion of our trip. 7000 kilometers over 6 and a half days through high steppes, taiga forest, and mountain ranges, most of the time while being confined to a 8-foot wide, 75 foot long wagon. Here's a breakdown of what life is like on the world's longest direct train journey.

The Compartment

Your home during the trip is a 7-foot by 5-foot berth, with two bunked beds on each of the long walls, and a window and collapsible table opposite the door. Your luggage goes wherever you can squeeze it- under the lower beds, in the alcove above the door, on the floor, between your legs on your bed. If squeezing your luggage in is tough, trying to fit four normal-sized people is even harder. It's a 3 dimensional game of Twister, maneuvering arms, legs, and feet in such a way so that no one feels their personal space is completely obliterated. It's much easier said than done.


The Provodnitsa (carriage attendant)

This might be the most important relationship you ever form in your lifetime. She's surly, serious, OCD about car cleanliness (can you say vacuuming twice a day?), and definitely does not speak English. She's also responsible for your comfort and security, whether it's turning down the heat from "infernal" to merely "boiling", switching off the Russian dance music pumping through the in-car speakers, or unlocking the bathrooms during the interminable border crossings. Needless to say, messing up this relationship can have serious effects. Luckily, the way to her heart is as easy as buying the trinkets she pushes down the aisle once a day. Postcard for a bathroom visit, anyone?

The Food

... is whatever you can get your hands on. The food in the dining car isn't the best choice, as it tends to be queasiness-inducing, at least in those items which are actually available (the menu is more of an aspirational work, as opposed to a description of what's on offer). Also, cost of dining car food usually bears no relation to the prices that are printed on the menu- friends of ours ordered what they thought was a 600 ruble cutlet, only to be charged 1100, which they managed to bargain down to 700 before the waitress walked away. Other than dining car food, your only other option is supermarket food bought before getting onboard, which means lots of ramen noodles. Great if you love MSG, bad for everyone else.

One of the unexpected surprises of traveling in Russia has been watching the seasons turn before our eyes. September in Siberia is a temperate lull between the infernal, bug-infested summers, and the frigid, inhospitably cold winters. Throughout the countryside, trees erupt in an explosion of colors, turning gold and orange and contrasting with the deep blue lakes and brightly painted houses.





From the train window, the Russian landscape rolls by in bright, vivid colors that only appear for a few short weeks a year.



Other benefits of fall traveling include fewer tourists, cheaper prices, and a more relaxed atmosphere everywhere we go. But in terms of pure aesthetics, the colors of the landscape might outweigh them all.

A week into my Russian travels, I think it's time that I made a small confession- up until 2 months ago, this was the last place on Earth I wanted to travel to. I mocked friends of mine who took a "spring break" trip to Moscow (though in my defense, what kind of Spring Break trip is it when the temperature never breaks 30?). Russian cuisine seemed either like an oxymoron, or just a fancy way to describe a wide vodka selection. Overhearing the language on the streets in San Francisco, I could never warm to it in the same way as I did to Romance tongues. And while the Russian people who I knew from home are warm, generous, and incredibly nice, I blindly believed that stereotype that native Russians were gruff, cold, and unfriendly towards people who weren't like them. Combining all these elements, why on earth would I go to Russia when there were so many other interesting, more appealing places to travel to?

One of the benefits of traveling widely and off the beaten path is that you get exposed to and confronted with a huge number of people, many of whom you have preexisting ideas and opinions about. I'm sure you all have had, or still have, some of these thoughts- the French people are stylish but pretentious; that Italians are lazy; that Chinese people are pushy and loud; that Brazilians are gorgeous and know it (well, that last one is true). And oftentimes, when you travel to a place to which you've already developed preconceptions, you view your trip through that same lens, judging the country and its people based on what you expect to see, what people have told you what you'd encounter.

Traveling with an open mind is not only a "good" thing, but a vital attitude to have in order to really absorb a place and give your trip a deeper meaning. It takes a lot of effort and energy to overcome preexisting notions, but the payoff is immense- the ability to judge for yourself, and not just regurgitate whatever other people have told you to say whenever you're asked how your trip went. And who knows, sometimes what you've heard from others before your trip just gets confirmed when you visit yourself. But you can't know that until you've gone.

I'm happy to say that my seven days in Russia have pretty much exploded the stereotypes I carried with me into this trip. Russian people couldn't be nicer- the gruffness that I had been expecting melted away with the first "thank you/you're welcome exchange," and evaporated away completely with the friendly responses I've received to questions in broken/non-existent Russian. The weather's been comfortable, not the sub-zero weather I had steeled myself for; the food's been passable, great in some circumstances (and the vodka delicious and plentiful). And I've found myself wanting to learn some Russian, and kicking myself for not having picked up a few phrases before I left.

Russia hasn't become one of my favorite places in the world (that list is long and unfortunately not Russia-inclusive). But it's been a hell of a lot better than I had expected.

Lake Baikal, in eastern Siberia, is a pretty impressive body of water by anyone's standards. 30 miles wide, 400 miles long, and over a mile deep, it holds 20% of the world's freshwater. To put that in perspective, if all of the other freshwater sources dried up and left Baikal as the only place to get drinking water, there would be enough to supply the entire world's needs for 40 years. To call it vast would be an understatement; the only real way to fully appreciate its size is to float out to the middle to the lake and convince yourself that even though you can't see land on the horizon, you're not on the open seas.





There's a local tradition (though it sounds like a convenient way to knock off a few of the weaker tourists) that says that whoever takes a dip in Lake Baikal will add 25 years to their life. Not being ones to turn down an chance like that, we took the bait, braved the 48 degree waters, and dived in. It's not comfortable, you might get hypothermia, and if you're like me you'll scream like a schoolgirl at a Jonas Brothers concert, but in hindsight, it was well worth it. Enjoy.

Next to Siberia (coincidentally our next destination), there aren't any other places as remote from the Western consciousness than Mongolia. Other than Genghis Khan and the Mongols, there isn't too much else notable about this place, or at least notable enough to merit a mention in world history class. Which is why being here has been fascinating- it's as if every time we step outside or talk to a local, we are learning something radical and new about the country, its history, and its people.

Stepping outside without proper preparation today, however, could imperil your health. Right now, the snow is falling heavily, and although its "only" 30 degrees, it feels considerably colder. Could that be because it's still officially summer for another two days, or because just yesterday it was 70 and sunny enough to give me a nice tan? Lest one think that this is a freak event, a very short story: after being picked up from the train station by the hostel owner, we asked her, trying to make small talk, when winter started. "Oh, next week," was her nonchalant response. If you think that Mongolia's climate is anything less than extreme, think again.

Mongolia has been a hard place to get my head around. There are few paved roads outside the capital, Ulaan Baatar; instead, trucks rumble across the hard-packed steppe, their paths visible from miles away due to the plumes of dust they kick up. In UB, the former nomads who make up a majority of the city's population still live in gers, or traditional tents, which are made slightly more permanent by the addition of fencing around them. The seeming isolation of the city from the rest of the world is belied by the Korean shabu-shabu restaurants, Mexican food joints, and German bakeries that line the streets. The Mongolian National Symphony (which we saw perform, along with award-winning throat singers, dancers, and musicians at an absolutely fantastic "Cultural Show", where the $9 tickets were a guilt-inducing bargain) plays the overture from the Barber of Seville, but using only traditional Mongolian instruments. But it's these exact dichotomies, Mongolia's inability to decide how far it wants to enter the developed world, that makes it a captivating place to visit.

The other, more readily-apparent draw for visitors is the extraordinary natural beauty of countryside. On the steppes, this beauty lies in their never-ending, barren expanse. Flat grassy plains lead to rolling brown hills on the horizon, with only small herds of animals breaking up the monotony of the landscape. The sky is indescribably vast and blue; by a totally subjective comparison, the Montana sky looks like it's being viewed through a pinhole.


Mountains and rock formations occasionally break up the steppes, and it was at the base of one outcropping that we spent two nights at a remote ger encampment two hours outside of UB. We did the typical things that tourists do in Mongolia- ride horses, take short hikes, absorbing in the scenery. We also got a chance to see some other traditional Mongolian activities, thanks to the tourist camp next to ours and the 200 Germans who were bussed in for the day. Steins of beer in hand and cameras strung around their necks, we were presented with an exhibition in traditional archery, wrestling, and horse racing. The whole scene was a little bizarre, actually- the Germans were allowed to try their hand at the archery, which inevitably led to arrows (thankfully rubber-tipped) flying into crowds of people; the wrestlers posed for photos after the wresting exhibition, which turned into something resembling a paparazzi rush as the crowd shoved cameras into their faces; and trinket sellers descended on the camp, materializing out of nowhere.

As a final note, the more time I spend here, the more I'm amazed at how much the Mongols contributed to world civilization. Paper money? The Mongols. The concept of diplomatic immunity? The Mongols. The violin bow? The Mongols. Creating the trade routes that bridged the East and the West and led to a flowering of trade and thought that brought about the beginning of the Renaissance? Goes without saying. For a basic overview, read "Genghis Khan", by Jack Weatherford. For a deeper understanding, come to Mongolia.

Apologies to all for the delay between blog posts- I've just posted a few from the past week below. If you're looking for an explanation as to my absence, I have two good ones.

First, the Chinese authorities have set up a 21st century, digital version of the Great Wall, known as the Great Firewall, which ostensibly protects their citizens from any malicious information on the internet. Sites of all sorts are blocked- YouTube, Facebook, and Blogger among them. Though there are ways to get around the restrictions, the firewall's existence does make staying in touch difficult.

Second, my trusty black Macbook passed away on Saturday. He was three years old, and had been suffering from system crashes for some time. He lived a good, fulfilling life, and will be sorely missed. Thanks to the wonders of globalization, though, I was able to buy a new one at the Beijing Apple Store, and I'm back whole again and haven't missed a beat.

Now that I'm in Mongolia and have a working computer, updates will be more frequent. Thanks for sticking with!

One thing that you can't help but notice after reading the tourist information guides at the main Beijing sites is the Chinese overuse of superlatives. Everything in the city that we visited was described using some combination of "the biggest", "most magnificent", "most awe-inspiring", etc. A relatively simple temple was hailed as the most important construction of its kind in world history, and the audio tour of the Forbidden City was filled with so many statistics supporting its grandeur that it left your head spinning. Now I fully recognize that China has accomplished many amazing things and firsts in its long history (invention of the compass, toilet paper, and printing press, among others), but it's hard not being to dismiss the constant emphasis on their greatness (superlativity?) after hearing it for the 79th time.

However, if there is one place in China deserving of a superlative, it's the Great Wall. A ribbon of stone that snakes across ridge lines, climbs impossibly steep slopes, and stretches from horizon to horizon, the Wall defies description. No amount of reading or pictures could have prepared me for just how big and impressive it was; it wasn't until we took a tram up to the Wall and walked on it for 6 miles that I could fully get a sense of its scale and appreciate its monumentality. Admittedly, I was expecting to be underwhelmed; instead, I was blown away.


Words don't do the Wall justice at all, and pictures only marginally capture its size, but in the absence of a teleportation device, the shots below are the best I can do. Enjoy.

After the calm and quiet of Laos, it's no understatement to say that China has been an incredible shock. The sensory overload hit right as I got off the bus taking me from the Tianjin airport to that city's train station- cars and people were everywhere, and the smog almost completely blocked out the early morning light. The high speed train took me the 80 miles to Beijing in under 30 minutes (ticket price, $10), and soon enough I was eating breakfast with Kyle, my travel buddy for the next 3 months, and his friend Stacey.

No amount of preparation could have prepared me for what I encountered exploring Beijing my first day there. The city is ENORMOUS, in both population (15 million and counting) and scale. A city block is about half a mile long, and skyscrapers and cranes fill the horizon. Cars choke the streets, bikes and electric scooters weaving around the traffic jams.

The best way that I've come up with to describe the city is a living, breathing dichotomy. Old neighborhoods called hutongs, with their narrow lanes, quiet streets, and bucolic pace of life, seem to be worlds away from the hypermodern city that surrounds them. (Says Kyle as we bike through a hutong: "Can you believe that we're in a country that's at all developed?"). Men in business suits walk through parks where old women in traditional dress gather to sing karaoke and practice their ballroom dance skills. A bicycle crammed with 5 people stops at an intersection next to a Mercedes, both vehicles unaware of, or simply not acknowledging, the contrast between them. A McDonalds sits a quarter of a mile from Mao's mausoleum. Past and present, old and new, developed and underdeveloped; all of these opposite lie right next to each other in Beijing, and no one seems to bat an eyelid.



Our four days in Beijing took us to all the major attractions. The Forbidden City is beyond massive, with buildings and palaces that seemingly never end. The Temple of Heaven sprawls just as much, encompassing pagoda after pagoda. A bike tour of the hutongs allowed us to see what life in the city was like before the push for development and modernization. Unfortunately, a bout of illness kept me from going to the Summer Palace, and Mao's Mausoleum was closed our four days there for "special reasons" (meaning that my pursuit of the Dead/Embalmed Communist Leaders Triple Crown- visiting and viewing the bodies of Lenin, Mao, and Ho Chi Minh- has been at least temporarily set back). But apart from those two setbacks, everything we wanted to see, we saw.

All in all, Beijing is an experience, something that, like most things in China, has to be seen to the truly appreciated.

Languorous... is the most accurate word to describe Vientiane. Time just seems to slide by, with no destination in mind, just enjoying its slow journey down the Mekong towards whatever place it might happen to end up at. Life is unhurried- the near lack of stoplights in this, the capital of Laos and its most populous city, attests to that- and the general feel of this place is that of a backwater provincial town. It's what I imagine a Mississippi river town would have been like 200 years ago, before the arrival of any railroad or settlers, the pace of life dictated by the calm flow of the waters which are its lifeblood.

There is a peaceful lack of people here, especially compared to Bangkok. The incessant din of traffic and people is absent here, replaced by birds chirping (including one in the rafters directly above my bed), the only bright lights flickering fluorescent bulbs illuminating Beer Lao advertisements.. Other than that, there's not much here.

I passed my one full day doing everything the city had to offer. Check- the Lao Revolutionary Museum and its collection of anti-imperialist photos and artifacts (which included fanciful paintings of evil French and American soldiers throwing Laotian children down wells, as well as standard exhibits on how Communist life is better than the alternatives). Check- Wat Sisaket and its rows upon rows of Buddha statues. Check-Haw Pha Kaew, and its stash of even more Buddhas (or at least the ones that the Thais left behind after their numerous invasions). Check- the market and the potentially GI-cramp causing noodle lunch I had there. Those sites in the bag and three more hours of daylight to kill, I even had time to use the city-wide Wi-Fi (two bucks for 4 hours, and one of the surprising finds in this seemingly-backwater place).


During my time in Laos, I was lucky enough to meet up with a good number of other travelers passing through Vang Vieng and Vientiane on a well-worn backpacker's path from Thailand through to Vietnam. Among them was a British couple my age who were on a 15-month Asian trek; a Dutch girl traveling on her own for 3 months; two Germans who had driven from Munich to Mongolia, ridden third-class trains across China, and were stretching their money as far as possible in Laos. We spent our night together eating fresh fish on the banks of the Mekong, then end up at a hostel bar, drinking Beer Lao and listening to the Germans tell stories from their epic drive. If I wasn't psyched for the driving part of my own trip before, I certainly am now.

My solo part of the trip ended the next day with a cab ride to the airport, a flight to Kuala Lumpur, and then a red-eye to Beijing, where I met up with Kyle and his friend. Lessons learned- that it still is possible to travel Southeast Asia on $5 a day; that whatever you do on your trip, there will always be someone with a more impressive and adventurous story than yours; and that backpacking solo can be just as fulfilling as going with a buddy.

1. Decide on your destination, then choose what type of bus you want to take. Minibuses are faster, but your driver will likely be blind and/or insane. Safer to choose the "VIP" bus. (Note: the "VIP" bus in most case is neither a bus, nor for VIPs. This is Laos, after all.)

2. Go to the nearest travel agency to buy your ticket. Realize 5 minutes later that you overpaid.

3. Kill time for an hour before your bus leaves by drinking a liter of beer and watching your 18th episode of "Friends" in the last 48 hours. Seriously, Rachel, just marry Ross already!

4. Catch a tuk-tuk to the bus station. Get dropped off in the middle of nowhere and watch helplessly as the only bus there drives off empty. Commiserate with other backpackers about the frustrations of Southeast Asian bus travel.

5. Get pushed by tiny Laotian woman into another tuk-tuk. Hear her say something about going to a different bus station, but the engine drowns her out before you fully understand her. Continue griping about Laotian bus travel with the two Irish girls next to you.

6. Arrive at the other bus station, which is completely empty save for a handful of other similarly confused and abandoned backpackers. Sit down, open book, and pretend you don't see the buses full of backpackers passing by on the highway. Continue doing this for the next hour.

7. Watch as a brightly colored bus pulls into the station. Get on said bus. Start to relax.

8. Stop relaxing when bus pulls onto the highway and takes hairpin turns at 40 miles per hour. Pretend the queasiness in your stomach is from carsickness and not your suspicious-looking smoothie you had with lunch.

9. Ignore the drunken Irishman walking down the aisle behind you, singing a particularly ear-splitting, atonal version of Michael Bublé.

10. Arrive in Vientiane. Get off bus, grab your bag, and unsuccessfully bargain for cheap van ride into town. Try to convince yourself that although you paid 2000 kip more than you wanted, in the long run, 25¢ isn't anything to lose sleep over.

11. Get off tuk-tuk, walk to hotel, pay extra for A/C because you're so tired, and go to sleep. It's been a long day. You've earned it.

After successfully catching my train from Bangkok on Saturday night (second time's a charm), I'm now in Laos, in a small town the countryside called Vang Vieng. The journey here was a bit of an adventure. The final stop of the train was in the Thai border town of Nong Khai, on the other side of the Mekong river from Laos. We took a tuk-tuk from the station to the Thai border crossing, waited in line with Laotian workers and Thai traders for 30 minutes, and then hopped on a bus across the river to the Lao side. Another 30 minutes waiting in the heat and humidity, and then I was on a minibus for the 3 hour ride to Vang Vieng, sharing space with 5 very pissed off Brits who had just discovered that they had paid twice as much for their seats as I had.

Laos is fascinating. It feels as though it's stuck in some indeterminate time in the past, where clocks move a little slower, life is a little more relaxed, and Western tourists are still a novelty, if not yet a scourge. On the minibus ride from the border to Vang Vieng, looking outside the window was like looking through a history book from a French expedition at the turn of the century. Families bathing in roadside rivers; women in traditional cone-shaped hats working in rice paddies; cows lazily crossing the road, unbothered by the pick-ups that are swerving to avoid them. We drove on the country's main highway, a one and a half lane, partially paved road. Cars are few and far between; more common are pickups-turned-taxis with dozens of people crammed into the back, and occasionally we pass a cart being towned by what looks like, but logic won't let me belive is, a push-powered lawnmower.

After the drive up, Vang Vieng feels like a Western oasis, an MTV Spring Break dropped into the middle of a rice paddy. The town caters solely to the grungy backpacker set looking for a deal; it seems like every Laotian here runs either an internet cafe, travel agency, or hostel, sometimes all three. The bars and restuarants all have Western style menus, which you can order from as you watch "Friends" and wait out a torrential rainstorm. (I made it through most of the first season doing just that Sunday night.) With so many comforts, you have to force yourself to look up and appreciate the natural scenery- jagged limestone mountains surround the town, their impossibly steep slopes hiding huge caves within.

Yesterday, my only full day here, I went on a caving/kayaking expedition. We spent the morning swimming and tubing through a deep cave under a mountain just outside of town, and after lunch we kayaked down the river back to town. Before finished the day though, we stopped at one of the many riverside bars, where we drank Beer Lao with fellow backpackers from all over the Western world, had mud-wrestling competitions, danced to the latest American music, and lept from 30 foot high rope swings into the river below. If it weren't for the rice paddies around us, I might have mistaken it for Cancun.

In a couple hours, I'll be catching a bus back down south to the capital, Vientiane, where prices are more expensive (think of a $10/night hotel room compared to a $3) and life is slightly busier. From what I hear, though, it's a great place. Looking forward to checking it out.

In a see-saw 90 minute match, Bangkok's traffic defeated Matt Thier, maintaining its streak of ruining time-sensitive plans.

The result was especially bad news for Thier, as it caused him to miss his train to Vientiane, Laos, which rendered a $30 ticket useless. He was philosophical afterward, saying that there was really nothing he could have done to have avoided the result. But still, "it was hard to sit there and not imagine every second as pennies going down the drain," he admitted.

The match originally tilted in Thier's favor. Leaving his cousin's home with an hour to spare on what is normally a 30 minute trip, he encountered little traffic on the initial protion of the route, whch allowed him to enter the city easily and in almost record time. But 3 kilometers before the train station and just as his spirits were rising, the red headlights appreared on the horizon in front of him.

"I had a bad feeling when I saw the red, but I still had hope that we would make it there in time," Thier recalled. "I mean, we did have 40 mintues to spare- no traffic jam could be that bad, right? But obviously, I was overly optimistic."

Through a translator, Bangkok's traffic said that he struggled to find his game early, missing easy diversions and failing to direct traffic in an efficiently jam-causing manner. But luckily for him, he got back on track just minutes before it would have been too late.

"I don't play to lose. I'm a winner. I have my undefeated streak to defend, and I'm not going to let a little farang (foreigner) knock me off my pedastol," Bangkok's traffic brashly decalred.

"Plus, it's Friday. I'm always worse on Fridays," he added.

For Thier, the loss was bad enough. But adding insult to injury, on the way running into the train station, he slipped and fell into a puddle, soaking his shoes and the left side of his body. The final blow to Thier's ego came when the drive back to his cousin's took 20 minutes, or less than a quarter of the duration of the outbound trip.

"It goes to show that nothing's guaranteed when you're travelling," Thier moralized. "You plan and plan, and then just when things seem to be going well, someone throws in a wrench. In this case, considering the opponent, I guess I should have seen it coming."

"But whatever. At least I don't have to be on a rickety old train tonight."