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.
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