We're in Arusha. That shouldn't be a huge deal, as we've been planning to be here today for months, but there were a few hours yesterday where it looked pretty likely that we would either:
a) never get here.
b) get robbed, and then never get here.
We got into Dar Es Salaam late on the 29th, and then woke up early on the 30th to get to Arusha on the inexplicably named Scandinavia Express (a 9 hour bus ride). Unfortunately, about 3 hours into the ride, the engine started making funny noises, and the driver pulled aside in a small village to "check things out" (read: disassemble the engine with a pipe wrench and a hammer). After putting it back together and determining that it was still broken (elapsed waiting time: 1.5 hours), he called back to Dar to get another bus sent to pick us up. Estimated wait: 3 hours.
5 hours later (total elapsed waiting time: 6.5 hours), a bus showed up to pick us up, but it wasn't an empty replacement bus, as promised. It was a full bus heading to a city in the opposite direction from where we were headed. No problem, the bus driver said, he'd just offload the other people onto minibuses when we hit the crossroads, then we'd be taken to Arusha in the new bus. No big deal.
When we got to the crossroads, however, and he told the plan to the people heading to the other city (Tanga), one guy decided he wanted to be the biggest jerk humanly imaginable, and refuse to get off the bus and onto the minibuses. Why? No idea. Maybe his shoes were too small, or maybe his heart was two sizes too small. In any case, he sat there and raised a huge stink for 2 hours (elapsed waiting time: 8.5 hours), until eventually the bus driver caved and decided to drive us to Tanga first, before turning around and driving us to Arusha, a 2.5 hour detour (total elapsed waiting time: 10.5 hours). We did eventually get to Arusha, but our driver was supposed to pick us up at 6pm, and it was now 4am, so we had to wait for about an hour before he finally showed up and took us to our hotel. Total lateness: 11.5 hours, on a 9 hour bus ride.
In the end, we made it without any serious incidents other than having to survive on melty Reese's Christmas Trees and a granola bar for a day, but I think the moral of the story is never ride on a bus that claims to be an express service from a geographic area 8000km from where you are.
We start our Kilimanjaro climb tomorrow, we'll post a summary when we're back in town on the 8th. Happy New Year!
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Christmas in Switzerland
We've received quite a bit of flak for our less-than-impressive rate of posting lately. Sorry about that. Partly it's because we've just been relaxing in Europe, enjoying how easy it is to do everything. They have booths here where you can just walk up and buy a train ticket. Just like that! You don't need to fill out forms, or submit a request in triplicate to the Ministry of Transportation Control and Tourist Supervision, or anything!
The second reason we've been lax about posting is that we're now in Switzerland, and everything here is nine hundred times as expensive as anywhere else in the world. We took out 100 Swiss Francs (about $110 Canadian Dollars) from a bank machine, and it spat out a single $100 bill. We went to a teller at the bank to ask for small bills, to which he responded "That is a small bill."
Uh oh.
Internet cafes typically charge about $400 for the first hour, and after that they just start cutting off fingers.
As for Estonia, it was a pretty neat place. It's still a bit less expensive than western Europe, but it's all either really old and crumbly and cobbled and cool looking, or slick and shiny and high-tech. Fun fact: Estonians invented Skype!
Austria was fun too. We spent a few days in Vienna doing exciting things like laundry, and mailing parcels. We wound up spending a lot of time hanging out in Christmas markets, which are an amazing European invention wherein a bunch of people pick a nice looking square, put up a bunch of wooden shacks, and sell delicious food and drinks for the month of December. For some reason, there are also a lot of old hippies selling black-light candles, and foil paintings of wolves and dragons and stuff. They would be great in Canada, except most of the appeal is that you can get big mugs of hot spiced wine and cider, which would never fly in Ontario. There, they'd have to group all the alcohol vendors together and surround them with a big length of bright orange snow fence, along with people checking IDs at the entrance. It would kind of detract from the ambience. Here is a shot of Tallinn's Christmas Market (thanks Google Image Search!).
After that we went to Salzburg and visited a really cool monastery/brewery that Mal visited last time she was here (which definitely had more paintings of Jesus than any bar I'd been in before). Unfortunately, we didn't run into any Von Trappes.
We had a few days to spare between Salzburg and Zurich, so we decided to zip into Germany for 2 nights to check out Fussen, a small town most famous for being near a huge, awesome castle called the Schloss Neuschwanstein (again, props to Google for the picture).
Other than the castle, Fussen has lots of exciting things to entertain travellers. There's the visitor's information centre, which boasts a wide variety of attractive maps and pamphlets, the local bank, and many delicious restaurants and bars - conveniently open until 8pm for all you party animals! Other than the castles, the best part about Fussen is its city crest:
"Fussen: Come for the castles, stay for the weird three-legged crests."
Then, we headed over to Zurich. Our main reason for heading there was to visit a few people I'd met in Japan last spring. My former roommate/project partner Kaspar even offered us a place to stay when we got into town, which saved us enough money on hostel fees to buy a nice boat back home in Canada. He also served up a pretty mean breakfast. Thanks Kaspar!
We're now in Gryon, a tiny village in the Alps. We're booked in at the only hostel in town, the Chalet Martin, along with 58 other like-minded travelers. It's one of the best hostels we've ever stayed in, and probably the best of our trip so far. Think giant log cabin with leather couches and fireplaces everywhere, and also it's in the Alps. We went skiing today around the nearby town of Villars, which was amazing. Not only was the weather perfect, but skiing in the Alps is a very different experience than skiing anywhere in Canada. Here, the slopes run around, between and through the villages, so it's less like "going to a hill" to ski, and more just like skiing around the area. The lift system is integrated with the local transport too, so sometimes you finish a run in a town with no chair lift, only to be picked up by a cograil train and taken to the nearest lift. Very cool. Here's a reasonable approximation of the scenery, again thanks to some anonymous photographer whose picture I found online.
Alright, it's just about time for the traditional Christmas Eve dinner of frozen lasagna and Estonian liquor. Ok, we're saving the REAL traditional dinner for tomorrow. We've got a chicken monopolizing most of the hostel's freezer space that is just waiting to be delicious tomorrow afternoon. Yes.
Merry Christmas!
The second reason we've been lax about posting is that we're now in Switzerland, and everything here is nine hundred times as expensive as anywhere else in the world. We took out 100 Swiss Francs (about $110 Canadian Dollars) from a bank machine, and it spat out a single $100 bill. We went to a teller at the bank to ask for small bills, to which he responded "That is a small bill."
Uh oh.
Internet cafes typically charge about $400 for the first hour, and after that they just start cutting off fingers.
As for Estonia, it was a pretty neat place. It's still a bit less expensive than western Europe, but it's all either really old and crumbly and cobbled and cool looking, or slick and shiny and high-tech. Fun fact: Estonians invented Skype!
Austria was fun too. We spent a few days in Vienna doing exciting things like laundry, and mailing parcels. We wound up spending a lot of time hanging out in Christmas markets, which are an amazing European invention wherein a bunch of people pick a nice looking square, put up a bunch of wooden shacks, and sell delicious food and drinks for the month of December. For some reason, there are also a lot of old hippies selling black-light candles, and foil paintings of wolves and dragons and stuff. They would be great in Canada, except most of the appeal is that you can get big mugs of hot spiced wine and cider, which would never fly in Ontario. There, they'd have to group all the alcohol vendors together and surround them with a big length of bright orange snow fence, along with people checking IDs at the entrance. It would kind of detract from the ambience. Here is a shot of Tallinn's Christmas Market (thanks Google Image Search!).
After that we went to Salzburg and visited a really cool monastery/brewery that Mal visited last time she was here (which definitely had more paintings of Jesus than any bar I'd been in before). Unfortunately, we didn't run into any Von Trappes.
We had a few days to spare between Salzburg and Zurich, so we decided to zip into Germany for 2 nights to check out Fussen, a small town most famous for being near a huge, awesome castle called the Schloss Neuschwanstein (again, props to Google for the picture).
Other than the castle, Fussen has lots of exciting things to entertain travellers. There's the visitor's information centre, which boasts a wide variety of attractive maps and pamphlets, the local bank, and many delicious restaurants and bars - conveniently open until 8pm for all you party animals! Other than the castles, the best part about Fussen is its city crest:
"Fussen: Come for the castles, stay for the weird three-legged crests."
Then, we headed over to Zurich. Our main reason for heading there was to visit a few people I'd met in Japan last spring. My former roommate/project partner Kaspar even offered us a place to stay when we got into town, which saved us enough money on hostel fees to buy a nice boat back home in Canada. He also served up a pretty mean breakfast. Thanks Kaspar!
We're now in Gryon, a tiny village in the Alps. We're booked in at the only hostel in town, the Chalet Martin, along with 58 other like-minded travelers. It's one of the best hostels we've ever stayed in, and probably the best of our trip so far. Think giant log cabin with leather couches and fireplaces everywhere, and also it's in the Alps. We went skiing today around the nearby town of Villars, which was amazing. Not only was the weather perfect, but skiing in the Alps is a very different experience than skiing anywhere in Canada. Here, the slopes run around, between and through the villages, so it's less like "going to a hill" to ski, and more just like skiing around the area. The lift system is integrated with the local transport too, so sometimes you finish a run in a town with no chair lift, only to be picked up by a cograil train and taken to the nearest lift. Very cool. Here's a reasonable approximation of the scenery, again thanks to some anonymous photographer whose picture I found online.
Alright, it's just about time for the traditional Christmas Eve dinner of frozen lasagna and Estonian liquor. Ok, we're saving the REAL traditional dinner for tomorrow. We've got a chicken monopolizing most of the hostel's freezer space that is just waiting to be delicious tomorrow afternoon. Yes.
Merry Christmas!
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Summaries: Mongolia, Russia, Vodkatrain
After a 6 hour bus ride from St. Petersburg to Tallinn, Estonia (and a hearty breakfast of duty-free gummy bears), we've finished the Russian leg of our trip. We're now taking a few days to be lazy, lazy travellers in Tallinn before we start moving around again (Mal has dubbed this part of the trip "Restonia"). The old town in Tallinn is like something out of a fairy tale, or a movie, or a movie about a medieval fairy tale. We'll post a review of the city in a few days, but here's a foggy preview:
And now, here are some wordy final summaries of Mongolia, Russia and Vodkatrain (the company that booked our trip for us).
Mongolia: Our first real experience in Mongolia was in Ulaan Baatar. We were pretty excited to get there, partly because it has an exotic-sounding name, and partly because it is the answer to a trivia question ("What is the world's coldest capital city?"). The actual city was... interesting, but not the kind of place you'd want to hang around for long. It's incredibly smoggy for a city its size (around 1 million people), is apparently packed to the gills with pickpockets (we escaped un-picked, but our guide said she has been robbed several times) and, appropriately enough for the world's coldest capital in late November, was bitterly cold. Fortunately, the people who weren't trying to steal our wallets were extremely friendly. Once we got out of the city, things were much better. We went to a nomadic-style (but not actually nomadic) ger camp for a few nights, in some of the most spectacular scenery we've seen so far on the trip. The Mongolian countryside is the opposite of Ulaan Baatar - incredibly sparse, quiet and clean. Our 3 days of camping there were definitely a highlight of the trip.
The gers themselves were surprisingly warm and comfortable, with three actual beds (no sleeping on the floor for us!) in each tent, thick felt walls, and a roaring fire in the wood stove (except the one or two times when it went untended through the night, and we woke up to near-freezing temperatures). Here's a partial view of inside the gers. Three of our Vodkatrain travel companions (from left: Rich, Laura and Tim) are passing the time with some recreational card games and beverages.
As for the food, it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be, though it did tend towards big, fatty portions of mutton, and deep-fried dumplings. We went out for dinner at a "Mongolian Grill" on our first night in the capital, which was pretty much the same as Mongolian Grills in Canada: a buffet of vegetables, meats and sauces that you combine yourself, then give to a guy who grills it all up for you. I have my suspicions about the authentic "Mongolian-ness" of these grills, though, since in most of Mongolia the closest thing you can find to a fresh vegetable is camel stew.
Overall: Ulaan Baatar - interesting, but not exactly a travel hotspot. Wilderness - fantastic and highly recommended. One final point though: it is immeasurably helpful to book with a tour company, or at least go with someone who speaks Mongolian. Otherwise, the language barrier could pose some pretty significant problems.
Russia: Our Russian experience really consists of three cities, plus a lot of train. Irkutsk is a good-looking city, though we didn't spend enough time there to really get a feel for it. Listvyanka, the nearby village on the shore of Lake Baikal, is a nice little town with lots of 19th century wooden houses, some dating back as far as the failed Decembrist revolt of 1825. Back then, a bunch of Russian soldiers and academics decided to rise up against Czar Nicholas I, but didn't succeed and were exiled to Siberia (fail!). Lake Baikal was even cooler than we were expecting. We figured our experience living on a great lake would have kind of jaded us to big bodies of water, but Lake Baikal has an edge on Lake Ontario in that it's surrounded by mountains, which make for some pretty cool scenery. There are some good hikes around town, and that's what we spent most of our time doing. We also took in a traditional Russian sauna (called a "banya"), which involves getting whipped with pine branches. Way more relaxing than it sounds, trust me.
We also hiked up to an old-but-still-functioning astronomical observatory on a hill. It was full of 1970's era scientific equipment, and kind of run-down, which was cool because it made it seem like something from a snowy version of "Lost".
Moscow mostly got covered in my last post, so I'll just reiterate that there are lots of really cool things to see there, and we even heard rumours that there are some restaurants in town where you can eat a full meal without having to auction off any internal organs on the black market to cover the bill.
St. Petersburg doesn't have the same quantity of iconic sights that Moscow has, but it is slightly cheaper, and it really raises the bar on all-around impressive architecture. We didn't see a single ugly building in downtown St. Petersburg during our entire stay. That, combined with the fact that it's full of canals, make it seem like kind of a near-arctic combination of Paris and Venice. The near-arctic thing is definitely noticeable though. This time of year, the sun rises around 9:30am, and sets by 3:30pm. Their tourism slogan could be something along the lines of "St. Petersburg in winter: hope you like architecture and darkness!". Oh yeah, there's also the Hermitage, one of the biggest, most ornate, treasure-filled museums in the universe. It was awesome.
As for the train, we've discussed it a bit in past posts, but I'll summarize it here: long days of reading, listening to music and playing cards, punctuated by meals of instant noodles, peanut butter and Snickers bars. The scenery out the window in Russia ranged from "trees" to "snowy trees" to "different kinds of snowy trees", but it goes by in a hypnotic kind of way, and we spent many hours just staring out the window. All in all, the time passes in a pleasant enough fashion, and it really is a neat way to cross about a quarter of the earth's surface.
Overall: Russian people are friendlier than the stereotype makes them out to be, but several other stereotypes are very true: tons of people wear big furry hats, people very rarely smile to strangers, and there is TONS of drinking (last week's Economist estimated that 30% of all male deaths in Russia are related, directly or indirectly, to alcohol). Still, we enjoyed the people and the food, which was usually hearty and delicious, if maybe not the healthiest in the world (mayonnaise is an integral part of just about every dish in the country). Our few experiences with sports and music events were super fun, and we can fully recommend KHL games or Russian afrobeat to anyone who finds themself in Moscow. Beyond that, the country is full of incredibly interesting history and amazing sights. If you can stomach the bureaucratic process of getting into the country (which is like a paper-based version of "The Eliminator" from American Gladiators), I'd say it's well worth a visit.
And finally...
Vodkatrain: I thought I'd include a quick review of our tour company for the train, in case anyone else is considering a similar trip. We booked our train through an Australia-based company called Vodkatrain. Basically, you pay them one lump sum and they take care of all your tickets and accomodations for the entire trip (plus a few meals here and there) and set you up with a group of fellow travelers, and a "honcho" in each city you visit. The honchos are usually local students who want a job that lets them practice their English. The honchos aren't really "guides" in the conventional sense, as there's no structured itinerary. They're mostly there to help with translation in tricky circumstances (like hailing a cab in Ulaan Baatar, or ordering food at a tiny restaurant in Moscow, for example), and to suggest the best things to do in each place, and the easiest way to do them. Our trip consisted of six people: Mal and I, two British girls named Sarah and Laura, an Australian guy named Tim, and another British guy named Rich, all in the 23-25 age group.
In total, we estimated that the Vodkatrain package cost about 30% more than we would have paid to do the whole thing on our own, which was DEFINITELY worth the amount of hassle it saved. There's nothing better than getting off a train in an unfamiliar, non-English-speaking city, bleary-eyed and disoriented, and being whisked onto a bus and taken directly to your hotel by someone whose job it is to make sure you have a good time. And that's not even taking into account the amount of time and stress it would have taken us to figure out things like train schedules, Cyrillic maps, and navigating the Russian visa registration process, which you have to do in every city, and sometimes costs money, but sometimes doesn't, etc. etc. There are places where fully independent travel is the way to go. Russia and Mongolia are not among them.
Final summary of the Vodkatrain experience: beyond a doubt one of the easiest ways to ride the Trans-Siberian railway and actually stop and see things along the route.
Well, that just about wraps up the Great Train Adventure portion of the trip!
And now, here are some wordy final summaries of Mongolia, Russia and Vodkatrain (the company that booked our trip for us).
Mongolia: Our first real experience in Mongolia was in Ulaan Baatar. We were pretty excited to get there, partly because it has an exotic-sounding name, and partly because it is the answer to a trivia question ("What is the world's coldest capital city?"). The actual city was... interesting, but not the kind of place you'd want to hang around for long. It's incredibly smoggy for a city its size (around 1 million people), is apparently packed to the gills with pickpockets (we escaped un-picked, but our guide said she has been robbed several times) and, appropriately enough for the world's coldest capital in late November, was bitterly cold. Fortunately, the people who weren't trying to steal our wallets were extremely friendly. Once we got out of the city, things were much better. We went to a nomadic-style (but not actually nomadic) ger camp for a few nights, in some of the most spectacular scenery we've seen so far on the trip. The Mongolian countryside is the opposite of Ulaan Baatar - incredibly sparse, quiet and clean. Our 3 days of camping there were definitely a highlight of the trip.
The gers themselves were surprisingly warm and comfortable, with three actual beds (no sleeping on the floor for us!) in each tent, thick felt walls, and a roaring fire in the wood stove (except the one or two times when it went untended through the night, and we woke up to near-freezing temperatures). Here's a partial view of inside the gers. Three of our Vodkatrain travel companions (from left: Rich, Laura and Tim) are passing the time with some recreational card games and beverages.
As for the food, it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be, though it did tend towards big, fatty portions of mutton, and deep-fried dumplings. We went out for dinner at a "Mongolian Grill" on our first night in the capital, which was pretty much the same as Mongolian Grills in Canada: a buffet of vegetables, meats and sauces that you combine yourself, then give to a guy who grills it all up for you. I have my suspicions about the authentic "Mongolian-ness" of these grills, though, since in most of Mongolia the closest thing you can find to a fresh vegetable is camel stew.
Overall: Ulaan Baatar - interesting, but not exactly a travel hotspot. Wilderness - fantastic and highly recommended. One final point though: it is immeasurably helpful to book with a tour company, or at least go with someone who speaks Mongolian. Otherwise, the language barrier could pose some pretty significant problems.
Russia: Our Russian experience really consists of three cities, plus a lot of train. Irkutsk is a good-looking city, though we didn't spend enough time there to really get a feel for it. Listvyanka, the nearby village on the shore of Lake Baikal, is a nice little town with lots of 19th century wooden houses, some dating back as far as the failed Decembrist revolt of 1825. Back then, a bunch of Russian soldiers and academics decided to rise up against Czar Nicholas I, but didn't succeed and were exiled to Siberia (fail!). Lake Baikal was even cooler than we were expecting. We figured our experience living on a great lake would have kind of jaded us to big bodies of water, but Lake Baikal has an edge on Lake Ontario in that it's surrounded by mountains, which make for some pretty cool scenery. There are some good hikes around town, and that's what we spent most of our time doing. We also took in a traditional Russian sauna (called a "banya"), which involves getting whipped with pine branches. Way more relaxing than it sounds, trust me.
We also hiked up to an old-but-still-functioning astronomical observatory on a hill. It was full of 1970's era scientific equipment, and kind of run-down, which was cool because it made it seem like something from a snowy version of "Lost".
Moscow mostly got covered in my last post, so I'll just reiterate that there are lots of really cool things to see there, and we even heard rumours that there are some restaurants in town where you can eat a full meal without having to auction off any internal organs on the black market to cover the bill.
St. Petersburg doesn't have the same quantity of iconic sights that Moscow has, but it is slightly cheaper, and it really raises the bar on all-around impressive architecture. We didn't see a single ugly building in downtown St. Petersburg during our entire stay. That, combined with the fact that it's full of canals, make it seem like kind of a near-arctic combination of Paris and Venice. The near-arctic thing is definitely noticeable though. This time of year, the sun rises around 9:30am, and sets by 3:30pm. Their tourism slogan could be something along the lines of "St. Petersburg in winter: hope you like architecture and darkness!". Oh yeah, there's also the Hermitage, one of the biggest, most ornate, treasure-filled museums in the universe. It was awesome.
As for the train, we've discussed it a bit in past posts, but I'll summarize it here: long days of reading, listening to music and playing cards, punctuated by meals of instant noodles, peanut butter and Snickers bars. The scenery out the window in Russia ranged from "trees" to "snowy trees" to "different kinds of snowy trees", but it goes by in a hypnotic kind of way, and we spent many hours just staring out the window. All in all, the time passes in a pleasant enough fashion, and it really is a neat way to cross about a quarter of the earth's surface.
Overall: Russian people are friendlier than the stereotype makes them out to be, but several other stereotypes are very true: tons of people wear big furry hats, people very rarely smile to strangers, and there is TONS of drinking (last week's Economist estimated that 30% of all male deaths in Russia are related, directly or indirectly, to alcohol). Still, we enjoyed the people and the food, which was usually hearty and delicious, if maybe not the healthiest in the world (mayonnaise is an integral part of just about every dish in the country). Our few experiences with sports and music events were super fun, and we can fully recommend KHL games or Russian afrobeat to anyone who finds themself in Moscow. Beyond that, the country is full of incredibly interesting history and amazing sights. If you can stomach the bureaucratic process of getting into the country (which is like a paper-based version of "The Eliminator" from American Gladiators), I'd say it's well worth a visit.
And finally...
Vodkatrain: I thought I'd include a quick review of our tour company for the train, in case anyone else is considering a similar trip. We booked our train through an Australia-based company called Vodkatrain. Basically, you pay them one lump sum and they take care of all your tickets and accomodations for the entire trip (plus a few meals here and there) and set you up with a group of fellow travelers, and a "honcho" in each city you visit. The honchos are usually local students who want a job that lets them practice their English. The honchos aren't really "guides" in the conventional sense, as there's no structured itinerary. They're mostly there to help with translation in tricky circumstances (like hailing a cab in Ulaan Baatar, or ordering food at a tiny restaurant in Moscow, for example), and to suggest the best things to do in each place, and the easiest way to do them. Our trip consisted of six people: Mal and I, two British girls named Sarah and Laura, an Australian guy named Tim, and another British guy named Rich, all in the 23-25 age group.
In total, we estimated that the Vodkatrain package cost about 30% more than we would have paid to do the whole thing on our own, which was DEFINITELY worth the amount of hassle it saved. There's nothing better than getting off a train in an unfamiliar, non-English-speaking city, bleary-eyed and disoriented, and being whisked onto a bus and taken directly to your hotel by someone whose job it is to make sure you have a good time. And that's not even taking into account the amount of time and stress it would have taken us to figure out things like train schedules, Cyrillic maps, and navigating the Russian visa registration process, which you have to do in every city, and sometimes costs money, but sometimes doesn't, etc. etc. There are places where fully independent travel is the way to go. Russia and Mongolia are not among them.
Final summary of the Vodkatrain experience: beyond a doubt one of the easiest ways to ride the Trans-Siberian railway and actually stop and see things along the route.
Well, that just about wraps up the Great Train Adventure portion of the trip!
Monday, December 8, 2008
Trans-Siberian Railway, the conclusion
There are some things a civilized person never thinks they'll become, and "serial napkin thief" is one of them. And yet, both Mallory and I are now indisputable scourges to napkin dispensers worldwide. Our descent into nap-kleptomania started because Russia is cold (and therefore sniffly), and the supply of Kleenex/napkins is unsteady at best. Some days you may run into four or five establishments with well stocked napkin dispensers. On the other hand, sometimes you can go days without seeing a single one. As such, we've developed the habit of finishing our meals, looking furtively around the restaurant, and then stealthily pocketing as many napkins as we think we can safely get away with. I'm not proud of it, but that's the way it is.
Anyways, the trip from Irkutsk to Moscow went pretty smoothly. Start to finish, it only took 78 hours, not 96 as we'd initially thought. We were in almost-spacious four berth compartments, and we stopped at towns and cities every few hours which gave us a chance to stretch our legs and fill up on delicious piroshkies, which are big deep-fried pastry things filled with stuff. Part of the fun of buying them was the surprise of figuring out what kind of filling they had. We learned the Russian word for potato (kartofyel!), but for some reason they interpreted our "kartofyel peroshki" as "please give me a pastry filled with whatever filling you happened to have in the fridge this morning". Most of them were pretty tasty regardless.
We had 2 days in Moscow, and we used them to see all the big things people think of when they picture Russia (the Kremlin, St. Basil's Cathedral, the mummified body of Vladimir Lenin). The company we booked our train trip with (Vodkatrain, highly recommended) also arranges for a local student to act as a sort of guide/human reference book while you're in a particular city, and our guide in Moscow set up some awesome evening activities.
The first night, we went to a Russian Continental Hockey League (KHL) hockey game between the Spartak Moskva and the Moscow Atlant, which was awesome. Hockey crowds in Russia are intense. It's more like a European soccer game, with team scarves waving in the air and non-stop chanting/singing from the hardcore fans. We were cheering for the Spartak, partly because our local guide (Eugene) was cheering for them, and partly because their logo was a Roman Spartan soldier that looked eerily similar to another hockey team, and I liked that. The other team gets full points for logo quality though - a huge growling polar bear face in a giant purple and yellow explosion. The Spartak won 4-1. Hooray!
The second night, we went to check out a show that our guide recommended after hearing that I'm a big afrobeat fan. The band billed themselves as "Russian afrobeat/ska", and it was awesome. They had a total of six horn players, including one guy playing a Sousaphone, and their music was like afrobeat meets traditional Russian folk music, played as fast as possible.
We spent the rest of the time in Moscow trying to avoid paying $18 for a cup of coffee. Oh, also, the Moscow metro system is the most ridiculously ornate transportation network in the world. Almost every station in the city has at least six chandeliers, plus marble sculptures and gold leaf on everything else.
We're now in St. Petersburg, with one day left before heading to Tallinn, Estonia bright and early tomorrow morning. And then, for REAL this time, we'll post some pictures.
Anyways, the trip from Irkutsk to Moscow went pretty smoothly. Start to finish, it only took 78 hours, not 96 as we'd initially thought. We were in almost-spacious four berth compartments, and we stopped at towns and cities every few hours which gave us a chance to stretch our legs and fill up on delicious piroshkies, which are big deep-fried pastry things filled with stuff. Part of the fun of buying them was the surprise of figuring out what kind of filling they had. We learned the Russian word for potato (kartofyel!), but for some reason they interpreted our "kartofyel peroshki" as "please give me a pastry filled with whatever filling you happened to have in the fridge this morning". Most of them were pretty tasty regardless.
We had 2 days in Moscow, and we used them to see all the big things people think of when they picture Russia (the Kremlin, St. Basil's Cathedral, the mummified body of Vladimir Lenin). The company we booked our train trip with (Vodkatrain, highly recommended) also arranges for a local student to act as a sort of guide/human reference book while you're in a particular city, and our guide in Moscow set up some awesome evening activities.
The first night, we went to a Russian Continental Hockey League (KHL) hockey game between the Spartak Moskva and the Moscow Atlant, which was awesome. Hockey crowds in Russia are intense. It's more like a European soccer game, with team scarves waving in the air and non-stop chanting/singing from the hardcore fans. We were cheering for the Spartak, partly because our local guide (Eugene) was cheering for them, and partly because their logo was a Roman Spartan soldier that looked eerily similar to another hockey team, and I liked that. The other team gets full points for logo quality though - a huge growling polar bear face in a giant purple and yellow explosion. The Spartak won 4-1. Hooray!
The second night, we went to check out a show that our guide recommended after hearing that I'm a big afrobeat fan. The band billed themselves as "Russian afrobeat/ska", and it was awesome. They had a total of six horn players, including one guy playing a Sousaphone, and their music was like afrobeat meets traditional Russian folk music, played as fast as possible.
We spent the rest of the time in Moscow trying to avoid paying $18 for a cup of coffee. Oh, also, the Moscow metro system is the most ridiculously ornate transportation network in the world. Almost every station in the city has at least six chandeliers, plus marble sculptures and gold leaf on everything else.
We're now in St. Petersburg, with one day left before heading to Tallinn, Estonia bright and early tomorrow morning. And then, for REAL this time, we'll post some pictures.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Trans-Siberian Railway, Part 2
The trip from Ulaan Baatar to Irkutsk was the shortest leg on our Trans-Siberian itinerary, so we thought it would wind up being pretty uneventful. Luckily we wound up being pretty wrong on that count.
First off, we had to deal with the epic bureaucratic train wreck (metaphorically speaking) that is the Russian border crossing. We didn't have to do much other than hand over our passports, but somehow the whole ordeal took ELEVEN HOURS, which would have been only mildly inconvenient except for the fact that the bathrooms on the train are locked during all border crossings. Eeh. We did eventually find a small pay toilet near the station which, at the time, rivalled the Taj Mahal for sheer beauty.
Eleven hours sitting still in a train compartment might have been pretty boring, were it not for the spectacle playing out in our car. Four of us (of the six doing the Vodkatrain trip) were in one compartment, and the other two were sharing a compartment with a woman who turned out to be a Mongolian smuggler. "Ooh," you're thinking, "a smuggler! She must have been trafficking all sorts of dangerous and exotic things across the border." Nope. She was smuggling salami and underpants. To evade the customs officers, she cleverly stuffed several large salami sausages behind the curtains, and hid one or two in the pillows of our fellow travellers. As for the underpants, she strapped them to her shins with packing tape and covered them with some conveniently baggy pants. The perfect crime!
Once the customs officers were convinced of her lumpy-legged innocence, she quickly gathered her wares and headed off the train, only to stop 10 metres from the platform and set up shop, selling underpants and cured meat to the hungry population of Naushki.
We finally crossed into Russia, and passed through a town called Ulan Ude at around 10pm, stopping for 45 minutes. One of our travel companions had a guidebook that informed us that Ulan Ude is home to the world's largest statue of Vladimir Lenin's head. How could we pass that up? The map in the guidebook made it look like we had plenty of time to get there and back in 45 minutes. Here is a word of caution: never ever trust maps in guidebooks. They are universally awful. We finally found the head (verdict: yep, it's big!), but only had enough time to make it back to the train if we ran the entire way. Mal and two others decided to turn back a bit early and delegate photo-taking responsibility to the more foolish among us (me being one of them). After a mad dash back to the platform, we all made it safely back on board with a few minutes to spare.
We got to Irkutsk and took off immediatley for Listvyanka, a small town on the shore of Lake Baikal, the world's biggest lake (by volume). Mal and I got made fun of for always making sure people tacked on the "by volume" part, because clearly the biggest lake by area (Lake Superior) is the proper "world's biggest lake". It was pretty awesome regardless, and we got to eat some freshly smoked omul (a fish that only exists in Lake Baikal) right on the shore. Delicious.
Internet time's up, more stories from Moscow!
First off, we had to deal with the epic bureaucratic train wreck (metaphorically speaking) that is the Russian border crossing. We didn't have to do much other than hand over our passports, but somehow the whole ordeal took ELEVEN HOURS, which would have been only mildly inconvenient except for the fact that the bathrooms on the train are locked during all border crossings. Eeh. We did eventually find a small pay toilet near the station which, at the time, rivalled the Taj Mahal for sheer beauty.
Eleven hours sitting still in a train compartment might have been pretty boring, were it not for the spectacle playing out in our car. Four of us (of the six doing the Vodkatrain trip) were in one compartment, and the other two were sharing a compartment with a woman who turned out to be a Mongolian smuggler. "Ooh," you're thinking, "a smuggler! She must have been trafficking all sorts of dangerous and exotic things across the border." Nope. She was smuggling salami and underpants. To evade the customs officers, she cleverly stuffed several large salami sausages behind the curtains, and hid one or two in the pillows of our fellow travellers. As for the underpants, she strapped them to her shins with packing tape and covered them with some conveniently baggy pants. The perfect crime!
Once the customs officers were convinced of her lumpy-legged innocence, she quickly gathered her wares and headed off the train, only to stop 10 metres from the platform and set up shop, selling underpants and cured meat to the hungry population of Naushki.
We finally crossed into Russia, and passed through a town called Ulan Ude at around 10pm, stopping for 45 minutes. One of our travel companions had a guidebook that informed us that Ulan Ude is home to the world's largest statue of Vladimir Lenin's head. How could we pass that up? The map in the guidebook made it look like we had plenty of time to get there and back in 45 minutes. Here is a word of caution: never ever trust maps in guidebooks. They are universally awful. We finally found the head (verdict: yep, it's big!), but only had enough time to make it back to the train if we ran the entire way. Mal and two others decided to turn back a bit early and delegate photo-taking responsibility to the more foolish among us (me being one of them). After a mad dash back to the platform, we all made it safely back on board with a few minutes to spare.
We got to Irkutsk and took off immediatley for Listvyanka, a small town on the shore of Lake Baikal, the world's biggest lake (by volume). Mal and I got made fun of for always making sure people tacked on the "by volume" part, because clearly the biggest lake by area (Lake Superior) is the proper "world's biggest lake". It was pretty awesome regardless, and we got to eat some freshly smoked omul (a fish that only exists in Lake Baikal) right on the shore. Delicious.
Internet time's up, more stories from Moscow!
Thursday, November 27, 2008
The Trans-Siberian Experience (so far)
It turns out our fears of a Blogger blackout in China were well founded. We couldn't figure out an easy way to get around the government-imposed block, so we just had to save all our stories up until now. But now we're in Ulaan Baatar with a train to catch shortly, so if you want interesting, well written stories and/or pictures, you're just going to have to go somewhere else.
Beijing was awesome. Maybe it's just that we headed there from Delhi, but it seemed like a modern, sparklingly clean metropolis with cheap, delicious food and at least a 75% reduction in scams and hassle. We did all the things that are practically government-mandated for tourists to do in Beijing, including an amazing 10km hike along a totally deserted stretch of the great wall, a trip to the Forbidden City, and a huge, incredibly delicious meal of Peking Duck, or, as it's known there, "duck". I've used that line like 6 times already in emails, sorry if you've seen it before. See above disclaimer re: post quality.
We met up with the other 5 people travelling with us on the Trans-Siberian railway (descriptions and pictures to be posted sometime soon), and then hopped on the train. The first leg was a one-night, 30-hour trip from Beijing to Ulaan Baatar, Mongolia. On its own, a 30 hour train ride sounds pretty long, but it's just a warm-up. Later this evening, we get on a 2-night trip from here to Irkutsk, Russia, and after that, we've got a 96 hour monster trip from Irkutsk to Moscow.
We were expecting Mongolia to be pretty cool, and it didn't disappoint at all. While the capital (Ulaan Baatar) is covered in a giant smog-cloud, filled with crumbly concrete block buildings, and apparently packed to the gills with pickpockets, we survived our one day here without incident, and even had a tasty meal at a Mongolian barbeque place nearby.
After that, we headed about two hours into the countryside for a 3-day camping trip, where we stayed in gers (traditional nomadic Mongolian houses), which were way more comfortable than we were expecting. The scenery was jaw-dropping and the weather was pretty mild for Mongolia (5 below during the day, 15 below at night). We went for a few hikes, climbed some hills, and got to visit a nomadic family for a few hours, to get a bit of experience with their way of life. About 25% of Mongolia's 3 million people still live nomadically, which is pretty impressive, given how much foreign influence the country has been exposed to (it was under communist control until 1990, and the Russians destroyed most of the cultural buildings and artifacts in the 1940's). That being said, most nomads now also own solar panels, satellite dishes and TVs, but if I lived in the desert I'd probably want some cable too.
We're off to go do some grocery shopping for the train to Irkutsk, more details and pictures will be forthcoming from Russia. Dosvidanya!
Beijing was awesome. Maybe it's just that we headed there from Delhi, but it seemed like a modern, sparklingly clean metropolis with cheap, delicious food and at least a 75% reduction in scams and hassle. We did all the things that are practically government-mandated for tourists to do in Beijing, including an amazing 10km hike along a totally deserted stretch of the great wall, a trip to the Forbidden City, and a huge, incredibly delicious meal of Peking Duck, or, as it's known there, "duck". I've used that line like 6 times already in emails, sorry if you've seen it before. See above disclaimer re: post quality.
We met up with the other 5 people travelling with us on the Trans-Siberian railway (descriptions and pictures to be posted sometime soon), and then hopped on the train. The first leg was a one-night, 30-hour trip from Beijing to Ulaan Baatar, Mongolia. On its own, a 30 hour train ride sounds pretty long, but it's just a warm-up. Later this evening, we get on a 2-night trip from here to Irkutsk, Russia, and after that, we've got a 96 hour monster trip from Irkutsk to Moscow.
We were expecting Mongolia to be pretty cool, and it didn't disappoint at all. While the capital (Ulaan Baatar) is covered in a giant smog-cloud, filled with crumbly concrete block buildings, and apparently packed to the gills with pickpockets, we survived our one day here without incident, and even had a tasty meal at a Mongolian barbeque place nearby.
After that, we headed about two hours into the countryside for a 3-day camping trip, where we stayed in gers (traditional nomadic Mongolian houses), which were way more comfortable than we were expecting. The scenery was jaw-dropping and the weather was pretty mild for Mongolia (5 below during the day, 15 below at night). We went for a few hikes, climbed some hills, and got to visit a nomadic family for a few hours, to get a bit of experience with their way of life. About 25% of Mongolia's 3 million people still live nomadically, which is pretty impressive, given how much foreign influence the country has been exposed to (it was under communist control until 1990, and the Russians destroyed most of the cultural buildings and artifacts in the 1940's). That being said, most nomads now also own solar panels, satellite dishes and TVs, but if I lived in the desert I'd probably want some cable too.
We're off to go do some grocery shopping for the train to Irkutsk, more details and pictures will be forthcoming from Russia. Dosvidanya!
Saturday, November 15, 2008
India Wrap-up
We've been inexcusably lax about posting lately, as we've changed our travel style from "slow and lazy" to "regular tourists" for the past few days. We arrived in Delhi on the 9th, and spent the time since then running around frantically getting to the last few cities on our To-Visit list (Chandigarh and Agra), as well as figuring out how best to ship a bunch of stuff home. Small souveniers: 3 hours, no problem. Sitar: 3 days, horrendous nightmare (but more about this in a bit).
DISCLAIMER: This post is really long. Feel free to read it in segments over the next week or so.
To wrap up Jodhpur, overall it felt like a busier, pushier version of Udaipur with no lake. The fort was pretty awesome though, and we finally got a picture of it.
We also got a picture of the turtle that lived at our guest house.
If you're not put off by the text-heavy post, here are summaries of Delhi, Chandigarh and Agra.
Delhi: in some ways, it's very different from the rest of India. It has expensive shopping, mind-blowing restaurants (including one called "Bukhara" that Bill Clinton once said was so delicious it made him wish he had two stomachs), and a shiny new metro that is fast, cheap, and easy to navigate. On the other hand, it also has the worst air quality of any city I have ever visited, just as many scams and pushy touts as anywhere else (if not more), and the most expensive hotels in the country. Overall, it was a mixed experience. Here's a short summary of some of our experiences, in case you find yourself in Delhi sometime in the near future.
Best food: Bukhara. Expensive even by North American standards, but they served up easily the most tender, delicious leg of lamb that I have ever eaten. The one let-down was their supposedly world-famous dal (lentil dish), which, at $15 for a small bowl, is about ten times as expensive as all other dal dishes in the country, and wasn't THAT much better. Runner-up for best restaurant: Veda. A super-hip North Indian restaurant in the old British city centre of Connaught Place that served extremely delicious fancy Indian food at less than a third the price of Bukhara.
Other food notes: We tried a bunch of fast food places, as towards the end of our time here (and I never thought I would hear myself say this) we were getting a little tired of curry. Most of them were pretty accurate reproductions of their North American counterparts, with one notable exception: no beef, anywhere. Not even McDonald's! Domino's and Pizza Hut both had good chicken and veggie pizzas, and KFC was pretty much identical.
Our hotel: The Pearl Plaza. One of the cheapest rooms in Delhi (at about $30/day) that didn't look like your luggage might be carried off in the middle of the night by an army of roaches. Clean and air conditioned, but with the pushiest service we ran into in the entire country (and that is saying something).
The sights: We went to the Red Fort, but it looked quite a bit like the other 3 or 4 forts we'd seen in the last few weeks, so we didn't go in. Forts are cool, don't get me wrong, but it's like "hey, more cannons". We went to the India Gate, and can confirm that it is indeed a large gate with the word INDIA written on it. Connaught Place is a neat area, with posh colonnaded buildings and fancy shops and stuff. Side note: we're becoming worryingly jaded about historic sights.
The last major thing on our Delhi to-do list was to get my &%*$#ing sitar shipped. The more I looked into it, the more I wished I'd decided on a tin whistle or something instead. The Indian Post refused to ship something so long (it's 5 feet by 2 feet by 15 inches). FedEx wanted like $14,000 to ship it. DHL wouldn't pack it. Luckily, fate swung in and helped get it done. On our train from Jodhpur to Delhi, we had a great conversation with a woman named Aditi, who was traveling with her son. After a few hours, I found out that she (conveniently enough) works for a logistics and shipping company. And she mentioned that before I told her I had something to ship! Otherwise, India being India, it would have been a bit too convenient. I told her my tale of woe and she agreed to help me get it shipped through her company. Not only that, she took the time to make sure I had a ride to her office in Delhi, and met with me a few times to take care of paperwork and stuff. If you find yourself in India with a sitar on your hands, and you have no idea how to get it home, I can highly recommend Interline Global Logistics. Aditi also gives out excellent restaurant recommendations. WARNING: Don't find yourself in India with a sitar on your hands. If you're heading straight home and you can check it as baggage, go for it. They're awesome instruments. But shipping a sitar from India costs several times more than buying the instrument itself. Had I known this a few weeks ago, I might be the proud owner of a nice tin whistle.
Alright, enough about Delhi, here are some quick summaries of the other two cities we visited this week.
Chandigarh: We went here for two reasons. First, it's home to the Nek Chand Rock Garden. Basically, a few decades ago this guy Nek Chand started building this crazy fantasy world in a government-owned but undeveloped plot of land, entirely made out of recycled garbage (old electrical wiring, broken ceramics, small bits of glass jewelry, etc.). He worked at it every day, and by the time the government found his garden, it was HUGE and crazy awesome. Rather than tear it down, they let him keep working on it, and turned it into a public park. It is easily one of the coolest places I have ever been in my life. Picture yourself, as a kid, trying to dream up the coolest park in the world. It would probably have giant stone castles, bridges criscrossing over each other, waterfalls, secret passages, and twisting walkways surrounded by fifty foot high cliffs. That's this place. Except this place also has hundreds of sculptures made out of recycled materials. It's amazing, and a strong runner-up for the best "tourist sight" we saw in India (see Agra for #1). Totally worth the trip to Chandigarh, but pictures don't really do it justice. That being said, here is a cool/kinda creepy army of garbage people.
The second reason we went there is because the whole city was designed by Le Corbusier, an early-mid 20th century modern architect. I'm not really a huge fan (read: he's more or less my least favourite architect in the world), but we went because we were curious to see how a modernist super-planned city would look in India. It was much more clean and spacious than the other cities we've seen, but the buildings were definitely designed by Le Corbusier, proving that North America doesn't have a monopoly on totally soulless architecture.
Also, all the neighbourhoods are called "sectors", which makes you feel like you're in a post-apocalyptic sci-fi movie anytime you need to get somewhere. "I'd like an autorickshaw to Sector 17, please."
Agra: We came here for the same reason millions of other tourists come here every year: The Taj Mahal. To be honest, there aren't a lot of other good reasons to visit Agra. It's dirty, and restaurants/taxis/shops are all WAY more expensive here than just about anywhere else in the country. All that makes the Taj Mahal stick out even more by comparison. It is amazing. A lot of famous tourist sights wind up being a bit of a letdown when you get there, for a variety of reasons. Maybe they don't look as cool in person, maybe they've been poorly maintained, maybe they're interesting in a "hmm, cool history" sense. The Taj Mahal, on the other hand, is just flat out one of the most impressive structures I've ever seen. It's so perfectly designed, so perfectly proportioned, that you feel it as much as you see it. There is no such thing as a bad angle to view it from. It just sits there, radiating epic-ness.
A must-see on a global scale. All this is even more surprising, since everyone has seen 100 postcard-perfect pictures of the Taj, so you'd think it would be a little bit spoiled. Nope. Walking through a dark archway and seeing it looming in the distance is one of those moments that brushes away all the bad experiences and challenges of traveling and replaces them in your mind with the cognitive equivalent of "wow". Just don't stick around in Agra too long.
Side note: we paid a rickshaw driver to take us around Agra a bit while we waited for the air to clear in the morning (it's super smoggy until well after noon there, and we didn't want our one trip to the Taj Mahal to be smoggy). On the way, we got an idea of the kind of nonchalance you would develop living in the shadow of one of the world's most famous monuments. An excerpt from his tour: "On your right, you can see some traditional farms growing eggplants, cauliflower, potatoes... over there is the Taj Mahal. On your left is some spinach!"
Final India Summary: Equal parts amazing, unique cities, incredibly friendly people, foul-smelling streets, non-stop tourist hassle, wealth, poverty, dancing, delicious food, constant fear of food poisoning, scams, questionable sanitation, tea, music, spices, and cows. It's like nowhere else on earth (in our limited experience), but we're excited to be moving on to something new.
Alright, we're taking off for Beijing tonight. At one point, I think the Chinese government had blocked access to Blogger from within the country, so it could be a while before we post another update, but we'll do our best! Failing that, we'll be in Mongolia in about a week or so, and we'll try and post from there.
DISCLAIMER: This post is really long. Feel free to read it in segments over the next week or so.
To wrap up Jodhpur, overall it felt like a busier, pushier version of Udaipur with no lake. The fort was pretty awesome though, and we finally got a picture of it.
We also got a picture of the turtle that lived at our guest house.
If you're not put off by the text-heavy post, here are summaries of Delhi, Chandigarh and Agra.
Delhi: in some ways, it's very different from the rest of India. It has expensive shopping, mind-blowing restaurants (including one called "Bukhara" that Bill Clinton once said was so delicious it made him wish he had two stomachs), and a shiny new metro that is fast, cheap, and easy to navigate. On the other hand, it also has the worst air quality of any city I have ever visited, just as many scams and pushy touts as anywhere else (if not more), and the most expensive hotels in the country. Overall, it was a mixed experience. Here's a short summary of some of our experiences, in case you find yourself in Delhi sometime in the near future.
Best food: Bukhara. Expensive even by North American standards, but they served up easily the most tender, delicious leg of lamb that I have ever eaten. The one let-down was their supposedly world-famous dal (lentil dish), which, at $15 for a small bowl, is about ten times as expensive as all other dal dishes in the country, and wasn't THAT much better. Runner-up for best restaurant: Veda. A super-hip North Indian restaurant in the old British city centre of Connaught Place that served extremely delicious fancy Indian food at less than a third the price of Bukhara.
Other food notes: We tried a bunch of fast food places, as towards the end of our time here (and I never thought I would hear myself say this) we were getting a little tired of curry. Most of them were pretty accurate reproductions of their North American counterparts, with one notable exception: no beef, anywhere. Not even McDonald's! Domino's and Pizza Hut both had good chicken and veggie pizzas, and KFC was pretty much identical.
Our hotel: The Pearl Plaza. One of the cheapest rooms in Delhi (at about $30/day) that didn't look like your luggage might be carried off in the middle of the night by an army of roaches. Clean and air conditioned, but with the pushiest service we ran into in the entire country (and that is saying something).
The sights: We went to the Red Fort, but it looked quite a bit like the other 3 or 4 forts we'd seen in the last few weeks, so we didn't go in. Forts are cool, don't get me wrong, but it's like "hey, more cannons". We went to the India Gate, and can confirm that it is indeed a large gate with the word INDIA written on it. Connaught Place is a neat area, with posh colonnaded buildings and fancy shops and stuff. Side note: we're becoming worryingly jaded about historic sights.
The last major thing on our Delhi to-do list was to get my &%*$#ing sitar shipped. The more I looked into it, the more I wished I'd decided on a tin whistle or something instead. The Indian Post refused to ship something so long (it's 5 feet by 2 feet by 15 inches). FedEx wanted like $14,000 to ship it. DHL wouldn't pack it. Luckily, fate swung in and helped get it done. On our train from Jodhpur to Delhi, we had a great conversation with a woman named Aditi, who was traveling with her son. After a few hours, I found out that she (conveniently enough) works for a logistics and shipping company. And she mentioned that before I told her I had something to ship! Otherwise, India being India, it would have been a bit too convenient. I told her my tale of woe and she agreed to help me get it shipped through her company. Not only that, she took the time to make sure I had a ride to her office in Delhi, and met with me a few times to take care of paperwork and stuff. If you find yourself in India with a sitar on your hands, and you have no idea how to get it home, I can highly recommend Interline Global Logistics. Aditi also gives out excellent restaurant recommendations. WARNING: Don't find yourself in India with a sitar on your hands. If you're heading straight home and you can check it as baggage, go for it. They're awesome instruments. But shipping a sitar from India costs several times more than buying the instrument itself. Had I known this a few weeks ago, I might be the proud owner of a nice tin whistle.
Alright, enough about Delhi, here are some quick summaries of the other two cities we visited this week.
Chandigarh: We went here for two reasons. First, it's home to the Nek Chand Rock Garden. Basically, a few decades ago this guy Nek Chand started building this crazy fantasy world in a government-owned but undeveloped plot of land, entirely made out of recycled garbage (old electrical wiring, broken ceramics, small bits of glass jewelry, etc.). He worked at it every day, and by the time the government found his garden, it was HUGE and crazy awesome. Rather than tear it down, they let him keep working on it, and turned it into a public park. It is easily one of the coolest places I have ever been in my life. Picture yourself, as a kid, trying to dream up the coolest park in the world. It would probably have giant stone castles, bridges criscrossing over each other, waterfalls, secret passages, and twisting walkways surrounded by fifty foot high cliffs. That's this place. Except this place also has hundreds of sculptures made out of recycled materials. It's amazing, and a strong runner-up for the best "tourist sight" we saw in India (see Agra for #1). Totally worth the trip to Chandigarh, but pictures don't really do it justice. That being said, here is a cool/kinda creepy army of garbage people.
The second reason we went there is because the whole city was designed by Le Corbusier, an early-mid 20th century modern architect. I'm not really a huge fan (read: he's more or less my least favourite architect in the world), but we went because we were curious to see how a modernist super-planned city would look in India. It was much more clean and spacious than the other cities we've seen, but the buildings were definitely designed by Le Corbusier, proving that North America doesn't have a monopoly on totally soulless architecture.
Also, all the neighbourhoods are called "sectors", which makes you feel like you're in a post-apocalyptic sci-fi movie anytime you need to get somewhere. "I'd like an autorickshaw to Sector 17, please."
Agra: We came here for the same reason millions of other tourists come here every year: The Taj Mahal. To be honest, there aren't a lot of other good reasons to visit Agra. It's dirty, and restaurants/taxis/shops are all WAY more expensive here than just about anywhere else in the country. All that makes the Taj Mahal stick out even more by comparison. It is amazing. A lot of famous tourist sights wind up being a bit of a letdown when you get there, for a variety of reasons. Maybe they don't look as cool in person, maybe they've been poorly maintained, maybe they're interesting in a "hmm, cool history" sense. The Taj Mahal, on the other hand, is just flat out one of the most impressive structures I've ever seen. It's so perfectly designed, so perfectly proportioned, that you feel it as much as you see it. There is no such thing as a bad angle to view it from. It just sits there, radiating epic-ness.
A must-see on a global scale. All this is even more surprising, since everyone has seen 100 postcard-perfect pictures of the Taj, so you'd think it would be a little bit spoiled. Nope. Walking through a dark archway and seeing it looming in the distance is one of those moments that brushes away all the bad experiences and challenges of traveling and replaces them in your mind with the cognitive equivalent of "wow". Just don't stick around in Agra too long.
Side note: we paid a rickshaw driver to take us around Agra a bit while we waited for the air to clear in the morning (it's super smoggy until well after noon there, and we didn't want our one trip to the Taj Mahal to be smoggy). On the way, we got an idea of the kind of nonchalance you would develop living in the shadow of one of the world's most famous monuments. An excerpt from his tour: "On your right, you can see some traditional farms growing eggplants, cauliflower, potatoes... over there is the Taj Mahal. On your left is some spinach!"
Final India Summary: Equal parts amazing, unique cities, incredibly friendly people, foul-smelling streets, non-stop tourist hassle, wealth, poverty, dancing, delicious food, constant fear of food poisoning, scams, questionable sanitation, tea, music, spices, and cows. It's like nowhere else on earth (in our limited experience), but we're excited to be moving on to something new.
Alright, we're taking off for Beijing tonight. At one point, I think the Chinese government had blocked access to Blogger from within the country, so it could be a while before we post another update, but we'll do our best! Failing that, we'll be in Mongolia in about a week or so, and we'll try and post from there.
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