Vietnam - Dalat to Hue
11th August 2005
This is the tale of two travellers who ventured from Vietnam to the UK via local transport on a tight budget. I hope you enjoy the story...
DALAT:
We took the seven hour bus from Saigon to Dalat without any dramas, and were once again suprised by how chilly it gets in the 'honeymoon capital' of Vietnam. It is a nice enough city, which has 'cheesy' written all over it - which, of course, the Vietnamese love. From the pedal boat swans on the river ot the love gardens etc...
We were feeling sporty there so we had a 20km hike over the mountains. Very peaceful, very beautiful and there were some fun suspension bridges too. We went to a minority 'village' which consisted of four or five huts and some kids running around. It was a nice walk though.
We also cycled from there 70km towards the coast. Once again we were back into the mountains (does anyone else think it is strange to see pine trees in these places)!?! There were some great downhill sections and the temperature rose with every downward bend in the road!
NHA TRANG:
There's a great beach here with foreigners on it in sunbathing hours and Vietnamese locals at all other times (especially early in the morning where they come down and exercise at 5:00 a.m. - we joined them for a run on one of the days too - a different side of the tourist town)!
We went diving and saw a cuttlefish, lots of trumpet fish and a strange sea horse thing which was yellow. There was also a sole which was so well camouflaged on the sea that I didn't see it until it moved - there were some lovely patches of coral too.
Then we caught the overnight train to Hoi An.
HOI AN:
The train was fun - we shared a four bed compartment with a French couple who both had the top bunks. They invited their two friends to sit on the top bunks with them and the carriage guard (a strong, military looking lady) wasn't best pleased. She had no English or French and they had no Vietnamese, so she took to just standing in the door way for half an hour at a time scowling. Oh well.
Hoi An is like a theme park. The theme is 'history'. It is a small town with narrow streets, a nice river and all the buildings are quite low level. The buildings date back to the 17th and 18th Centuries and largely remain unchanged. It was a Portugese and Dutch trading city (spices, cloth, ivory, timber etc.) I guess it still is a trading city - 600 tailors!! 6 million tourists!!!
Hoi An is just a short hop away from Hue, which we got the bus to.
HUE:
Once again, the theme here is 'history' but on a grander scale. It is the old home of the Emperor. We have been around Palaces. Temples, Mausoleums, all of which are very grand and tranquil with lotus ponds and (yep) more pine trees.
Other Stuff:
We have been on a tight budget and have been trying ot eat as locally as possible. This has led us to dodging the usual backpacker joints and heading into the markets in the towns we go to. The best deal we have had so far is a slap up, all you can eat veggy meal for 10,000 VND for the two of us! That's about 30p!
There is a nasty storm that has plonked itself right on top of Northern Vietnam and we are getting the tail end of it here in Hue, so it has been really wet and our sun tans are starting to wash off! Tomorrow we are going to Laos to try to recover them.
Laos
21st August 2005
Well, we haven't got very far on the map, but we have done lots of stuff so far.
We are now in Laos and have visited these places:
Savannakhet:
This is a sleepy little town with dusty roads and sleepy people. It is actually the second biggest city in Laos!! We walked through the centre and didn't realise we'd been in town!
The best thing about coming here (apart from the great authentic Thai food) is the nearby countryside. We did a 20km hike which was the walking equivalent of muck diving - lots of small things to see (such as huge spiders, butteflies, leaf insects etc etc). We collected some leaves and mushrooms and smelly (l) insects for lunch - which we ate under a shelter in the middle of a rice field. The villagers were interesting too - the men stay at home in their stilt huts and wear a blue and white T-Towel around their mid-rifts, and the women go out to harvest rice etc. After this we headed to Vientienne.
Vientienne:
It seems at times that Laos has closed for a long lunch break. This is Laos' capital, and it is sooo relaxed, calm, and quiet. The only ones that seem to be making any noise are the tourists!! There is the usual collection of nice temples, markets and food vendors etc.
Then we headed over to Vang Vieng.
Vang Vieng:
A stunningly beautiful place with a strange atmosphere. There are enough TV bars that you can stand at one point in the road and watch five different episodes of Friends at the same time!! Despite the number of tourists, though, it is still cheap, quiet and just a generally nice place to hang out.
Once again, the highlight is the countryside nearby. It is surrounded by limestone mountains, paddy fields that seem to glow in the day they are dazzlingly green, and the really fast flowing Nam Song river.
We went on a two day hike here - well one day hiking and one day kayaking. The hike was up and over a limestone mountain into a secret valley which had no road access into it. Unfortunately it rained most of the day and it was very muddy and slippery. After lunch in the valley we went up and over another mountain. The descent down this one was even more slippery than the first, and very steep (at one point we had to use ropes).
Guess who came a cropper! A perfect gymnastic somersault left me (Graham) face down in the mud. I have now got a knee the size of a tennis ball and a nice limp. Don't worry mother, it is only a bruise and we are having a few days chill out now before the next adventure.
The climb ended up at the river. Sarah and I both had our climbing clothes on, and the guide said 'now we swim across'! The river was flowing really quickly and we wondered how, with our bags, we were going to achieve this. The guide threw a rope to the other side, swam over and tied it to a tree and then we tied our bags onto the rope. We grabbed hold of our bags, lept into the river (clothes and all) and the force of the current carried us over to the other side! Wet, but fun!!
At the end of the walk was a gorgeous little farming village where every house had at least a handful of farm animals. We spent the night in a homestay in the village. Sooo much mud!!
The following day we took a kayak back to the town down the fast flowing river. Sarah fell out of the boat at one point after we had managed tp steer into a bamboo tree in the middle of the river. It was good fun racing her downstream with the current so she could get back into the boat!
Today we came to Luang Prabang. It was an eight-hour journey on a crowded local bus, but it was stunningly beautiful. Huge mountains, small villages housing hill tribes, little local markets etc.
Laos To Vietnam
31st August 2005
Since we last wrote we have been rather remote - and the travelling itself has been as interesting as the places we have been to.
Luang Prabang:
Luang Prabang is the city of 1000 temples, and we walked around the city visiting wat after wat - very peaceful and beautiful. There were loads of monks everwhere. We also took a trip out to a nearby waterfall and spent a pleasant day hiking around looking at the tigers and bears (in enclosures - rescued form poachers). Then we left the more 'civilized' Laos and headed into the mountains.
Ponsavan:
On the way we encountered a landslide blocking the road which had been semi-cleared away and was now a quagmire with a lorry stuck in it. 3 hours later and lots of mud later (up to our knees) we continued until another muddy patch sent the bus off the road into the drainage ditch. Luckily it didn't take us too long to push and pull the bus out of the ditch! Ponsovan itself is a small dusty town - but the attraction here are the large (we're talking 2.5 meter high) solid granite jars. Nobody quite knows how these jars (about 1000) came to be on the surrounding hills - but they were quite something to see. The area also has lots of UXO (unexploded mines) and used ammunition stockpiles everywhere, used as decorative items in most houses.
Sam Neua:
This journey was loong - 13 hours of mountain roads - for only 250km!!! Needless to say the bus broke down a few times. Sam Neua is very remote and sleepy. The market is very colourful and full of life - intesting bits of meat (including a whole buffalo carved into pieces - with the head propped up against the side of a table) and lots of hill tribe materials. We visited nearby caves where the Laos government hid during the Vietnam war. We had a very interesting tour of the rather extensive cave system.
Travelling to Vietnam:
We chose to go through a rather obscure, remote and rarlely used border point - this turned out to be great fun.... The 100km on the Laos side was slow (4.5 hours) but fairly straight forward. Unfortunately when we got to Vietnam the customs official had gone to lunch (10:30am) so we had rather a long wait which resulted in us missing the only semi-connecting bus. The security chief at the border post helped us to hire a car and driver to take us to the nearest town form where we could get a bus the following morning. There weren't really any guest houses in Quan Hoa - but we managed to secure a dusty room in a lady's house. 6am the following morning we boarded the bus were all set to reach 'civilization'. Unfortunately the river had flooded the bridge (fast flowing about 1m deep!). After a lenghty wait we changed onto a bigger bus and forded across the river (thankfully safely) and after a few more hours of travelling we are now sitting in Ninh Binh (just 90km short of Hanoi) - we are looking forward to 'real food' (one more bowl of noodle soup - the only food available in the more remote locotions - and we'll go crazy) and looking around caves, seeing gibbons and langurs, and cycling in beautiful countryside - tell you all about it next time.
Vietnam
24th September 2005
And now, the end is near, it's time to face the final curtain and all that. We are at the end of our year and a bit in Vietnam - very pleasant it has been too. The last few weeks have been taken up with the following exploits:
Ninh Binh:
After arriving in Ninh Binh, which, if you remember from the last part, wasn't any easy thing to do, we hopped on bicycles and headed out of the place. It wasn't that the town was dull, but the surrounding countryside is spectacular.
We cycled down little country lanes, past rice paddies, past limestone lumps rising out of the middle of the paddy fields, little villages with really friendly people -kids who greeted us with "Elo" and jumped on the back of our bikes for a lift.
There were caves to explore, boats to row on quiet rivers and we climbed a few mountains to see pagodas and stuff.
There is also a national park which protects some gorgeous primates (langurs and gibbons - including one kind of langur which has only 65 remaining members in its species in the world)! Then we hopped on a bus and headed up to Hanoi - the big smoke.
Hanoi:
Hanoi is a big, bustling city and came as a bit of a culture shock after the quite places we'd been through. It is very in-yer-face and just walking down the road from the hotel the street vendors offer cyclos, motorbikes, postcards, books, massages, fruit, shoeshines, clothes, nail clippers etc etc. You learn to develop a kind of 'don't bother me' expression as some of the sellers can be a bit pushy.
That said though, Hanoi is a nice city-a great lake in which there is a rare kind of turtle (I saw one of these last time I was here, but only saw a terrapin this time), there is a nice old quarter where the traditional crafts are still done, you can see Uncle Ho himself lying in state (but you have to walk slowly, keep hands out of pockets, remove your hat, whisper, walk in a line, hand in all bags, cameras, mobile phones etc).
Hanoi is great for a base from which to do some trips too. We did two trips from here:
Sapa:
We splashed out a bit and did an arranged tour into the hills in the north west of Vietnam. Sapa is home to loads of hill tribes and some beautiful scenery - green rolling hills, waterfalls, minority villages, rice fields etc. The weather is a lot cooler than Hanoi too - being 1200m up.
We did some really nice treks, stayed in a plush hotel and cycled down a 4000m+ high hill - with the accompanying views. There is a great English pub here too.
Halong Bay/Cat Ba Island:
This one we did independently and we had a week on Cat Ba island, which is beautiful. From Cat Ba we did some boat trips around Halong Bay - a large area of karst limestone rocks jutting out of the water.
We did a two day trip on a yacht. The first day was nice - drifting around the limestone rocks, exploring caves, stopping on beaches that we shared with monkeys. Then in the evening it was just Sarah and I and the two man crew. The stars came out and we went for a swim in the phosphoresence before having a candle-lit supper on the deck. We put mattresses out under the stars and went to sleep...then the storm came. It was a nice electrical storm with lightning every few seconds illuminating the sky. This was OK, but then the wind came and the boat was whipped around like a spinning top. The rain started and in the early morning we were taken back to Cat Ba island just before a typhoon broke!
Later we did complete our two day trip, and it was worth the excitement. We also did a trek and another 40km cycle (a tough one this time as it was up and down steep hills - but my knee was OK).
On our last day in Halong Bay we did a kayak trip. Once again it was just Sarah and I and we had all day drifting around looking at the fishermen, the remote beaches etc. The highlight of this trip was when we saw a metre-long ray leap out of the water twice! It was the bigges ray I've ever seen, and I didn't know that they leapt out of the water, either!
Next stop, Guilin - China.
China Part One
12th October 2005
China is, well, big, a little chilly but amazingly beautiful, intriguing and different to anywhere else we've been, really.
This is the story so far...
Yangshou
After a train ride from Hanoi we ended up in Guilin, a short bus ride later and we were in the 'China' that many people think about when they feel led to think about Chinese things (that is when they aren't about to order sweet and sour chicken from the local).
It is a place of kast limestone rocks and green rice fields. Small villages and beautiful bridges. Buffalo pulling ploughs and old men with long beards on bicycles.
It is also an area of enough tourists and touristy things to rival Bangkok's Khao San road! (Especially during Golden Week - the biggest national holiday over here where large Chinese tour groups led by guides waving yellow or red flags throng the streets).
It is a great place to start a trip in China though, as it has the home comforts and company of other tourists as well as having nearby areas that are a nice cycle away and are relatively tourist-free.
We spent two days cycling and a day walking around the little(!) country lanes. Some of the scenery is amazing. The paths are really narrow though, and Graham ended up falling of his bike and dangling himself over a 10m ditch holding on to some twigs! A couple of passing cyclists managed to yank him out to safety though.
We also took a day trip to a nearby mountain area which had some gorgeous rice terraces, minority groups etc (a bit like Sapa in Vietnam).
From here we took a 32 hour train trip to Chengdu.
Chengdu
This place is suprisingly cold! It is a big, grey city. The main shopping street could be anywhere in the world (well, anywhere that has a large shopping street with lots of neon lights, that is).
Despite the big city feel, there is still a lot of culture and history here. There are lots of tea houses for one thing. These are like social clubs for the over 80s. People come, pay a small fee and get a bottomless cup of tea for the day. Then the games begin - people watching, Mahjong, cards, weird plastic stick games...all in the beautiful surroundings of a nice park or in the grounds of an old temple or pavilion.
The city temples and 'scenic spots' (parks to everyone else) are nice with shady trees and lots of bamboo. The main draw for us in coming here are, of course, the Pandas. There is a research/breeding centre nearby that looks after giant and red pandas. They are well looked after, have large areas to roam and plenty of bamboo to eat. Needless to say, a great many photos were taken, especially of the month-old baby in the incubator.
From Chengdu we took a side trip to a couple of places:
Leshan
This is the largest Buddha statue in the world. It is 200+m tall and is built into the side of a sandstone cliff by the side of a river. In the cliff, either side of the Buddha are two 100m (ish) tall guardians which can only be seen from a boat. There is a steep! staircase leading down the side of the Buddha statue and a nice park behind it on the cliff itself. Leshan is a short bus ride away from our next place.
Mt Emei (Emeishan)
This 3099m high mountain is a great place for treks. There are 20+ temples along the paths (small stone stairways, obviously built for dainty Chinese feet, not ours!) to the top and each temple offers food and accommodation.
We climbed 20 or so km on the first day there and then stayed overnight in a monastary. It was a typical, old, basic Chinese temple. Cold at night (no heating or hot water of course). Loud in the morning with the gongs and bells going off at the crack of dawn as the monks were called to prayer.
The second day we trekked for about 25km up to the top. It was up, up, up! We passed through cloud, past specatcular views (before the clouds), chipmunky squirrel-type things which were sweet, and demanding, aggressive Tibetan Macquaques which weren't sweet when they grabbed your coat to have a look in your pocket for food! They had a few babies around though, and these were sweet.
The top was well above the clouds, so it was sunny - but still freezing cold and still no hot water in our accommodation! We woke early for sunrise (as is the habit in these places), but the clouds stopped us from seeing much.
Being China and over-developed, there was a cable car and a monorail between the two peaks at the top. On the third day, though, we were quite grateful for them as our legs were a bit tired!
Now we are back at sea level in Chengdu and we are thinking about maybe one more visit to the Pandas before we head to our next place - where thousands of soldiers await us.
China - Part 2
31st October 2005
We have come to the end of our time in China and tomorrow morning we jump on the red-eye to Ulan Bator! We've had a fantastic time here - a short summary follows...
XiAn:
The highlight was definately the warriors! Wow! Thousands of them all stoned. Some had their heads lopped of, others were legless but a fair number were in excellent condition, all lined up and ready to do battle.
Other sites in the city included a drum and a bell tower which used to be clanged and banged to tell the time, an extensive museum and a fascinating Muslim quarter, including a mosque (which looked very similar to all the temples we've seen in China) and 'meat street' which was full of dead cows and sheep which looked and smelt like they had been there for weeks!
Pingyaou:
This used to be a prosperous town during the Ming dynasty and is where banking was invented but then went into decline. Today it is almost totally preserved as it was - including the old banks, the city wall and the courtyard houses. We spent a fabulous 3 (very cold) days there walking around the town, staying in a courtyard house in a freezing, smelly bedroom) and visiting 20 museums/preserved houses/banks/armed escort agencies etc.
If you get a chance to see "Raising the red lantern" you can see Pingyou as we saw it.
Beijing:
We met up with Camilla, a friend from Vietnam here and have spent a week in the big city, which is quite spread out with wide streets and trees. We've been doing all the 'big city' things like shopping, eating loads and, of course, going to the Opera! It was 2 hours of warbly singing about something - wonderful costumes etc. We also went to see the Chinese Acrobats put on a show! (Just how many people can you get on a bicycle)!?!
We visited the Forbidden city (with the milions of Chinese tourists (see "The Last Emperor'), saw temples and spent many hours trying to extend our visas (you need a photo, and a letter, and your passport, and a form, and to stand in five different queues, and.....)!
We've also been on two Great Wall trips. Both very different but both beautiful. The first trip was to the "secret wall' which had no tourists and we had to scramble up piles of rubble and down sheer slopes on the side of the wall. The views were spectacular, although it was a bit misty. We were also given a sumptuous feast of local food by our local guide in a local village.
The second wall trip was more 'standard' we hiked from Jinshanling to Simatai. Again the views were spectacular and this time the weather was clear and we could see for miles. There were a fair number of toursist and hawkers (who followed us for the entire walk constantly telling us to "Be careful!!') but we had a great time. Today we had a last mega-meal before leaving China. It was a buffet- all veggie dishes (especially for Sarah) and there were 150 dishes to choose from!
Graham has had a stinking cold the last few days, and is on the mend because he has been taking some traditional Chinese medicine which, among other things, is made of earthworms!
Well, soon we wil be busy yak trekking and drinking fermented horse's milk! We'll let you know all about it soon!
Mongolia
10th November 2005
Our wanderings have got a lot colder, slightly more expensive and quite different from the Asia we have come to know and love! There's only one country to tell you about here, but we ain't done yet, so more will follow!
MONGOLIA
We had a flying visit to Mongolia. We arrived in Ulan Bator from Beijing after a 30 hour train journey, spent one night in a hot YHA and then jumped in a jeep bound for the Gobi!
The first thing you notice is that Alo Gobi is a misnomer - not a spicy potato in sight!! In fact all the vegetation, apart from clumps of short, yellow spiky grass (great for camels to chomp on), was pretty sparse.
Now, I don't know about you, but to me 'Desert' means sand, sun and an occasional happy bunny or gerboa hopping along, trying to escape the snakes. The Gobi isn't like that! We did come across one 125km long rolling sand dune, but the rest of the desert seemed to either be totally flat, or covered in snowy mountains. There were a few lakes - mostly frozen and vast, barren, rocky plains.
The trip involved seven hours driving each day in a 4x4 jeep. The landscape changed quickly though, it was hard to get bored. On one day we went from having snowball fights in the mountains to riding camels through sand dunes!
The highlight was staying in a 'Ger' (large round tents lined with sheep or goat wool). These had a lovely stove in the centre, fuelled by goats and camel dung (which burns well apparently). The familys we stayed with are nomadic, and wear wonderful clothes - pointy boots, large, colourful coats and, of course, furry cossak hats! They are lovely people who do a mean line in pasta and goat meat or mutton (even Sarah enjoyed the mutton - as there weren't any vegetables to be found anywhere)!! They gave us camel milk tea and dumplings for breakfast (salty, but good - the tea, that is).
The Gers were lovely, but once the fire went out they were freezing cold! Six layers of clothes and two pairs of trousers just about kept us warm though. There wasn't any running water - no water at all, in fact! So, six days without washing left us a little whiffy. I made the mistake of asking where the toilet was. A slight chuckle and a gesture at the open desert answered my question! Lovely views of the sunrise/sunset from the bathrooms here!!
It was a great trip, and because of the train being full we just had time to drive back to UB, shower, buy a camel hair scarf each and jump on the train to Russia.
MONGOLIA - RUSSIA
This is an interesting train journey. Very practical as you sleep one night, spend an entire 8 hours just sitting at the border, sleep the next night and then wake up in Irkutsk.
Why it takes 8 hours to clear the border, I don't know. There is some interesting activity to watch though. Mongolian traders 'smuggle' goods to sell over the border. It seems that the Russian customs officials have been paid a small fee not to look too closely at the things they are taking in. As you approach the border, all the traders rush up and down the carriages 'hiding' their wares. So, each compartment got a brand new pair of shoes under each bed (a donation from one lady), a brand new saucepan on each table, rapidly filled with rubbish so they look used, a coat on each bed and each willing person, and a blanket or sleeping bag under each mattress.... Of course, once the train has cleared the border the traders either pile off the trains and sell the goods at a little market there, or go around collecting everything and bagging it up ready for Irkutsk.
Soon we are heading of to an island in the deepest lake in the world. More about that soon!!
Russia - Part One
23rd November 2005
Well, there aren't many more of these travelogues left in the pipeline! Before you reach for the kleenex, here's our Russian adventures so far...
Irkutsk and Lake Baikal
When we got off the train from China (the one with everyone moving their smuggled goods around to hide from the customs guards - remember?) we were greeted by (what we didn't realise was) one of the rarest sights around - a smiling Russian!! This particular smiling Russian greeted us with the words, You are lucky, today is warm for time of year, only - 5c! She proceeded to load us on to a tram and take us to the hostel we were staying in.
Irkutsk was cold, and it was a bit of a shock to see snow on the ground. The streets here are beautiful though with old brightly coloured wooden houses with ornate windows, and history everywhere you look (it was one of the places that rebels against the Tsar (e.g. the Decembrists) were sent).
The main reason for coming to Irkutsk is to get out of it. And go to the lake. Lake Baikal is the deepest lake in the world and goes 1.6km down (that's about 1mile to us Brits). It is beautiful, blue and clear. The snow covered mountains around it make a sectacular backdrop and, as it wasn't frozen we were able to take a fery over ot Olkhon Island (sometimes you have to skid across the ice in a taxi when it gets to -35c).
Olkhon Island is covered in pine forests, large hills and frozen rivers and lakes. We hiked through a snowstorm when we were there, climbed up a hill and had a picnic! We also went for a walk in the woods, and were glad for our footprints in the snow as a guide back the way we'd come as it was easy to get lost! Part of the walk was easy as we just slid down a frozen river!
The accommodation included our own log cabin, plenty of food (starch followed by starch with some pickled cabbage thrown in -kashaa and bliny are nice (Brits think Ready Brek and pancakes)).
The evening entertainment came in the form of a Banya - the great Russian way of washing. A Banya is made up of a sauna, a couple of buckets of cold (ice cold) water and a few birch twigs to beat yourselves with!
From the tranquil beauty here, we headed for concrete blockville.
(Y)ekaterinburg
We had been told that this was a grotty 'Clapham Junction' style place. We found it to be quite pleasant though! It was a good stop off point after 55 hours on the train.
Actually, the train journey was pretty cool, too, as we met a friendly babooshka (large granny). She looked after us and told us when we could eat, get up, go to bed etc....She reminded me of Mrs Slocombe (Are You Being Served?')
Yekaterinburg is famous as the place where the Romanov's were done for (Tsar Nicholas Il and co.). There are some beautiful Russian Orthodox churches with gold domed roofs, and the family they murdered here are now saints that have their own church where you can worship them!
We had a very cultural time - we went to see a ballet (Sylphida), which involved scottish kilts and fairies, and an evening of choral singing of Karl Jenkin's Adiemus !
Then we got on the train and headed to the capital of Tartastan.
Kazan
Kazan is a small city with an interesting history. Chinngis (Genghis) Khan and Ivan the Terrible and the Tsars and the Cossaks were all involved, and their legacy is shown in the great buildings here. There is even a kremlin (yes, there's more than one kremlin in Russia - it just means the fortified part of the city). There are some nice towers, some old churches and mosques and some buildings belonging to the government of Tartastan!
One of the tallest buildings in town is a tower that leans slightly to the left. It was built by Ivan the Terrible. Apparently he fell for some young lady in town who had already been married to a couple of previous emperors (Khans). Mr the Terrible approached her and asked for her hand in marriage. She told him that she was fed up with being married to leader-types as they kept dying on her. Poor Ivan felt Terrible and pleaded with her, so she changed her mind and said she would marry him on the condition that he built the tallest tower in the city - in under a week. Ivan worked Terribly fast, and got the job done. She thanked him, entered the tower, walked up the stairs and then promptly threw herself off - committing suicide. What would be a good adjective to describe how Ivan felt at that point?
Russia - Part Two
29th November 2005
We've drunk the vodka, eaten the borsch and had the banyas, so now it's time to move on - tonight we catch the train to Lithuania (a bit of a cheat really as we by-pass Latvia and Estonia, but time is getting short now). Here's our final Russian installment...
Moscow
Well for all you 80s buffs who can place the reference, yes, we did folow the Mosca down to Gorky Park and yes, we did pray for the winds to change - nothing happened (probably too much snow on the ground).
Moscow is a big, bustling capital city with all the usual capital city things. The difference here is that it all seems to be out of a history book. There are the Stalinist concrete blocks, the aristocratic metro stations with the huge chandeliers, statues, stained glass, mosaics etc (and dug deep into the ground, too, as the stations were made as bomb shelters). There's Mr Lennin lying in state in, compared to Mao and Uncle Ho, a tiny mausoleum.
There's the great, red-walled Kremlin with all the ornate churches inside. And what, to my shame, I thought was the Kremlin - St Basil's Church with it's multi-coloured onion domes.
The circus was fun (even the animal acts were watchable as the dogs seemed to be enjoying themselves and the horses were beautiful). I felt like a big kid again.
Then we went from history to fairytale.
Suzdal
The nuns here make great meed, but that's another story. Suzdal is an amazing collection of churches, clock and bell towers, monasteries and convents. In fact, nearly every street has at least one old church dating from the 11th century. In between the churches are old log cabins that have been painted in almost gaudy shades of green, yellow, blue or pink.
We stayed in an old monastary and spent a couple of pleasant days just cruising the sights.
St Petersburg
Don't come here if you are an architect - you will probably (a.) get very confused, and (b.) never want to leave.
There is a great mix here of neo-classical, stalinist, baroque, post-modern buildings all lumped together. On the main street there are so many buildings with a history - Faberge's house (a cracking place), the Singer Sewing Machine's first building, Mr Stroganofs palace (of the boeuf fame), churches, Pushkin's pad, Dostoevsky's digs and Tchaykovsky's ch...er... place.
The churches are majestic. There's the one where the Romanov's are buried, there's the one with the icon that does miracles etc. The spires are all gold, colourful enamel (like St Basil's) and, basically it's an all round decent kind of place.
We completed our circuit of cultural shows here - after seeing the ballet and the choirs and the circus elsewhere, here we went to the opera and saw Carmen. Bad seats (nose-bleed style), but great performance.
So, Russia...
The people are interesting. There is a puzzle here - how do you make a Russian smile? We never did really find out. They don't use gestures when they talk to you, they are quite pushy and seem to be quite cold.
Actually though, it seems that this is just a front (a cold front?), and once you get to spend some time with them they open up and are generally quite pleasant people.
Russia is cold!! And expensive!! But it is a fascinating place full of historical sites, beautiful buildings and gorgeous countryside.
The food is good here too - soups are a big thing, as are pickled veggies (they don't grow well in -5c temperatures), pancakes and dumplings, honey and vodka (honey beer is great stuff).
Lithuania And Poland
7th December 2005
We are almost at the end of our journey! Just one more of these to write (after this one) and then we'll need to wait for our next great adventure. We are jumping on a train tonight and heading to the furthest point of our adventure. More about that later...
Lithuania
Getting to Lithuania was fun. We got the night train from St Petersburg. When we got on the train it was quite empty. Just us two and a couple of other travellers in our carriage. Then the army arrived!
The carriage filled up with about 100 soldiers all in full military kit!! We were a bit worried at first, but when we realised that they had no guns, no alcohol and a desire ot practice their (limited) English, we were OK! One of them even gave me a pair of socks!! And we got free army rations (crackers)!!!
Vilnius is a beautiful city. it is more like a sleepy town than a capital city. It was our first taste of an "Eastern European City" - i.e. old churches, castles, coffee shops and cobbled streets. There's a 14th century castle, a load of amber (apparently this is the best place in the world to get this stuff) etc.
Vilnius was, er, 'nice'. Friendly people, easy to travel through after Russia and Asia. Well worth a visit if you ever find yourself in the Balkans looking for something to do.
Poland
Getting to Poland was fun, too. We took a night bus. Our first - and definitely our last!! We got to the bus station and there were a couple of big, luxurious Eurolines buses with reclining seats etc... we tried to get on to one, but were shown over to the far corner of the bus station where they had hidden our clamped out 1950s bus with no heating and a distinct lack of comfort!! We had a long night.
We crossed the border and said goodbye to Lithuania, but we never really said 'hello' to Poland - no one checked our passports, we just kind of arrived in Warsaw.
Warsaw
Warsaw was not as I had imagined it. Far from being a run down, poor city with a lack of facilities it was quite a classy joint! It had glitzy shopping malls, a beautiful old town and some really nice restaurants. Parks, palaces, a grand old theatre (where we watched Salome). Pretty nice really.
Then we took a train down to Krakow.
Krakow
This was our first taste of 'Christmas'. There's a market square in the old town, which has been absolutely buzzing with 'Christmas'. There's a big market, mulled wine stalls (cool!) and a stage with local children's choirs on singing carols!
Of course, being Eastern Europe, there's also a castle, a whole bunch of nice old churches, and more cobbled streets! We also discovered a cinema that was showing English films. We just had to watch the latest Harry Potter movie. We had two interesting day trips from here.
Auschwitz
My goodness. Talk about a moving experience. It was just so depressing being here in the camp, seeing cells, gas chambers and crematoriums, the gallows where they hanged Rudolph Hess (on the roof of a gas chamber), Birkenhof - the extermination camp etc.
It was also covered in snow, which gave it an even more moving feel. People say that this place is history's biggest warning to mankind.
The Salt Mine
There's a huge salt mine just outside Krakow. It was used as a salt mine as far back as the 1500s. There are 300+ km of tunnels here and we did a two-hour guided walk and managed to cover 1%!!
There are lots of interesting chambers that are left overs from the religious miners of old. There are shrines with statues of Christ and Mary carved out of salt. There is a huge chamber which has been made into a cathedral. Frescoes on the wall, chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, statues of saints etc... (even a nativity scene) all carved from salt.
Apparently they hold senior proms in the chambers here. Deep Purple have even performed here!! The world's first underground balloon flight and underground bungee jumps were held here (check the Guinness Bok of Records for details). We just took the stairs and the elevator though.
Tomorrow morning we are going to wake up in Prague!
Look out for the 'special edition' final installment of our travelogues. Coming to a computer near you, soon!
Czechia
12th December 2005
Ho ho ho and all that! Festive jollifications to you all. It's Christmas time (well, nearly). A time to reflect, a time for change and new beginnings. A time for lots of mulled and honey wine (well, it is over here anyway).
Here, with some fond recollections, are the final notes from our voyage of discovery...
Prague (Praha, Prag etc...)
We'd been hyped up about this place as we had heard a lot of great stories about it - from you guys and from some people we met on our travels. Unfortunately, it seems the rest of central and Eastern Europe had been speaking to the same people as us and had all decided to crowd into the old town square! It was like the last day of the sales at Harrods!!
But then, imagine Harrods as being a beautiful place full of history, old buildings, pretty Christmas markets with prettier kids singing carols on a big stage, pigs roasting on spits, us getting roasted on mulled wine, bridges, rivers and castles.
We Czeched out the Staropramen brewery (think 'Stella Artois' and 'Budweiser'), we went to the house where Mozart wrote Don Giovani and then went to see it sung by marionettes (although I don't think they were the ones doing the singing).
All very nice, and then we went to Kutna Hora.
Kutna Hora
This is a two hour train ride from Prague. You get on to a single carriage train and chug ten minutes down to a little countryside stop, which is deserted! It is hard to believe that this place used to be the capital city!! It is where the first coins were made (they even imported Italians to help them!), it had a great big silver mine, a grand cathedral and a large jesuit university. Now it is a ghost town with all the old buildings standing empty (apart from the odd truck load of tourists from Prague).
The main attraction is a pile of bones. Human bones. Left overs from a plague and the Hussite wars (1300s). The bones were lying in a big heap until a carpenter decided, in the 1400s, to use the remains of 40000 people to decorate the local church!! The chandeliers, large cups, coat of arms, alter etc. are all made from these old bones. It is eerie, macabre and a bit odd too!
Then we got back onto the train and headed south to (sob) our last place on this trip.
Brno
We took two hours to get here from Kutna Hora and have spent the remaining time trying to find our way around. It took a further two hours to find the correct two trolley buses to get us to our hostel, and, if it hadn't been for the help of the realy nice locals (speak to the young people as the old ones don't speak English), then we would probably still be wandering the streets.
Anyway, we have made it now. We have found an internet cafe!! And Brno in the dark is beautiful with the standard set of old buildings, cathedrals, town squares and, yes, more mulled wine! We are hoping Sandhurst will live up to all this!!
Brno is half the price of Prague (as was Kutna Hora) and there is a distinct lack of crowds here - even though it is this country's second biggest city (after Prague, of course).
So, that's it. Thanks to Ryan Airs' cheap flights we are skipping out Germany and France (well, why shouldnt' we?) and flying to the UK tomorrow.
Thanks for coming on this trip with us.
Na shedanou, da svidaniya, do widzenia, zai jian, sabaidee, tam biet, sain suuzh baigaarai, viso gero and goodbye.
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