Building Capacity

2009 09 19 – Days 85 – near Datong

My CITS tour group for the day was an eclectic mix, consisting of a French couple and Spanish lady all about the same age as me and an older Chinese couple who didn't speak any English. The six of us fit tightly but neatly into a little minibus with our driver and English-speaking guide.
The drive to the Hanging Monastery was a little less than two hours and mostly unremarkable. The road was in decent condition for the most part, there was little traffic to compete with and the countryside rolled by offering little to the eye, with the dust and smog I'd grown accustomed to draining the colour and life from the world.

However, there was one noteworthy event of the journey – a thought – a powerful and scary thought.
About an hour into our journey, we had to negotiate some road construction works. Nothing remarkable about that as there are construction projects everywhere you look in China. The new road was at least double the width of the one we were using, no doubt it would become a motorway with three or four lanes in each direction. Again, not a particularly noteworthy observation, but as we were driving away, I wondered why they would build such a big road when our much smaller road was far from full? What vast volume of traffic would it take to fill the new road? And what did that say about the expectations of car ownership and usage in China?

Considering the already terrible air quality, the prospect of such a huge road being filled with traffic, and car ownership becoming normal for the many millions of Chinese people, was a profoundly scary thought. How can the environment cope with such punishment?

Everyone Equal and Some More Equal Than Others

2009 09 17 – Day 83 – Dandong

Returning to Dandong from The Great Wall should have been, as with the outward journey, a simple bus ride. But with no clearly defined bus stop on the nearby road, and having been ignored by the solitary bus that went past, I found myself increasingly open to hitching a lift from any vehicle going my way. A countryside local farmhand (I assume) joined me squatting by the side of the road and I attempted to say something useful about a bus to Dandong in Chinese, but his response only confirmed that we didn't understand each other beyond the fact that we were headed in the same direction
Eventually a taxi came by and I managed to flag it down. Although I was in no position to haggle with so few cars on the road, I gave it a go if only to minimise the degree to which I got ripped off. While negotiating I made it fairly clear with my arm gestures that my farmer friend would be coming too, but the driver was having none of it! I tried various ways of getting him to take both of us, including pushing for one price for me and a higher (but not double) price for the two of us, but the driver was immovable. His attitude stank of elitism, as if the country bumpkin wasn't worthy of a lift in his vehicle – so much for the egalitarianism of communism.
With the taxi driver threatening to leave both of us stranded, I had to concede defeat. Offering an apologetic shrug to the farmhand, I clambered in and abandoned him to his fate.

Travelling Lessons Learned

2009 09 14/15 – Days 80/81 – Shanhaiguan to Chengde

Doing things takes time. Of course I knew that, but how much time? Depends on the things doesn't it? And whether you've done it before, and whether you're dependent on others, and how dependable they are, and how reliable your information is etc etc. All pretty obvious stuff. In hindsight. Knowing how much time to allow is something that comes with experience. Which is exactly what I got as I made my way from Shanhaiguan to Chengde.

With a 5pm last bus departure on the horizon, and disappointed with smog shrouded visibility on my morning walk, and swayed by the underwhelming Lonely Planet write up of the actual sight of the Great Wall entering the sea, I opted to abandon an afternoon visit, despite it being the main reason I was in Shanhaiguan.
I was keen to avoid a potentially panicky race for the last bus to Chengde because, to catch it, I first needed to get to the nearby city of Qinhuangdao, a local bus ride away. No problem when you're a local, but not so straight forward as a foreigner who can't speak, read or write! Lonely Planet was understanably short on detail for this minor tourist destination, but they did have this particular bus journey and after a fun half hour of bobbly wobbly bus ride, I was in Qinhuangdao.
But where in Qinhuangdao? The final stop was a bit of a car park of local buses in an area of town with no recognisable buildings – no intercity bus station, no train station, no town hall or even post office. I was surrounded by non-descript concrete block apparments and offices.
I joined a queue to a nearby concrete shed masquerading as a ticket office to enquire about the bus to Chengde. I didn't hold out any hope that it actually left from here, or that the people behind the counters spoke any English, but I didn't yet have an alternative plan of action. If my bus didn't leave from here, then where? And how to get there? Time was slipping away.
A smiley local approached and applied his broken English as best he could. Conversation was a struggle, but I persevered, hoping he would help me find my bus. Victory was short lived. Once I had managed to make my travel plans understood, it was immediately clear that he thought there was no bus to Chengde! His advice was to go back to Beijing and out to Chengde by train, there are many. He proposed to drive me to the train station.
I was sure he was right about the frequency of trains, but I wasn't sure that he really knew there was no bus. But I was running out of time and options, and the train station offered the possibility of other people who might know about the bus to Chengde. If that bus didn't exist I would be well placed for plan B. I decided to go with him, still alert to the potential of this being one big con on the short brisk walk to his car, which was 'not far' and 'over there'. The fact that his car was indeed not far and over there was encouraging. The fact, revealed shortly after we'd joined traffic, that he'd been drinking, was not. If I understood correctly, he'd been at a business lunch where they'd eaten and drunk a lot. No wonder he was so happy! The walk to the car, the first minutes of the drive and my experience with Ruslan, encouraged me to not confuse his coordination with my concerns of his driving under the influence. Fortunately the drive was short.
At the train station, my merry local found a station official to share a laugh with over the idea of a bus to Chengde, before jumping queues to help me buy a ticket for the next train to Beijing.
Returning to Beijing was frustrating and disappointing. I had been trying to not retrace my route and though this wasn't a major problem, travelling two sides of a triangle instead of one would significantly delay my arrival in Chengde. A delay that also wouldn't be a big problem if I hadn't already bought my onward ticket. But I had, before I left Beijing.
It now looked like I'd have to skip sightseeing in Chengde as most of the day I'd allocated for it would be spent arriving and departing. This prospect was particularly frustrating because I had squeezed the less interesting Shanhaiguan into my schedule on the back of the mythical 5pm bus to Chengde.
I had come unstuck in Khazakstan, with future fixtures restricting my in-the-moment flexibility, due to a fixed schedule from Moscow to Beijing. But I'd defined that before I left the UK, this current setback was one of my own making and I had to learn my lesson!
I used the five hour train ride back to Beijing to critically revisit my speculative and sketchy schedule for China. It was a pencil plan of possibilities. Too many possibilities! I chopped away at the edges to create more room manoeuvre – off came a number of possibles in the North East -chop- including a national park along the North Korean border -chop- off came a horse trek in Inner Mongolia -chop- there would be no time to return to the west of China -chop-chop-etc-chop-etc.
Arriving late in Beijing, I had accepted my setback, learned my lesson and felt better having created a more realistic, achievable, and full yet flexible plan for China. I had resigned myself to only passing through Chengde, rather than touring, as I went to buy my train ticket for the next day.
Chengde is about five hours by train from Beijing so, given that it was about 22:00, I was surprised to find that the next train wasn't early the next morning, but at 23:15! A brief rush of panicky uncertainty, at the prospect of a sleepless night in a seat, failed to defeat the surge of excitement at the prospect of touring Chengde after all and the lure of a cheap ticket and night. Before I knew it I was scurrying along a platform and into a carriage. Hesitating in the face of possible Chinese protocol over unreserved seating, I was happy to be rescued, not for the first time, by local teenage girls, who invited me to join them. That they were returning home to Chengde was about the extent of possible conversation and soon enough, they had heads on arms on table and fell fast asleep. An activity most passengers seemed engaged in:

except me!
I struggle to sleep sat upright at the best of times, but a hard seat, noisy train, uncertain security situation and unfamiliar surroundings were never going to let my exhaustion get the better of my consciousness.
I tried to rest my eyes as best I could.

Getting Around Beijing

2009 08-09 – Beijing

Beijing is an easy city to navigate, because it's laid out in a compass-aligned grid system radiating outwards from the Forbidden City.
Moving big distances within the city is easiest by metro, which is cheap at only 2 Yuan per trip (20p), regardless of changes or distance, has station names in pinyin and most lines have on-train announcements in both Chinese and English.
Above ground Beijing is flat, and so bike is perhaps the cheapest and most efficient way of getting about.  Though it's no longer the sea-of-cycles-city it once was, Beijing does have plenty of bikes, most of which use the dedicated narrow lanes that run between the road and pavement along most of the large avenues.  While these lanes provide allocated cycle space away from the traffic, safety is not guaranteed as pedal bikes share with scooters and a wide range of electric bikes that whizz along almost silently.  Even if the green man is showing, it's wise to look both ways when crossing such lanes... twice!

Old-style footbridge over the Imperial Canal, along which you can take a boat trip to the Summer Palace.  Sadly the boats don't have the near silent engines of the electric bikes.

Big Almaty Lake

2009 08 08 – Day 43 - Almaty


Having spent half of my three days in Almaty hiding in my room trying to recover, I wanted to get out and about into the spectacular mountains surrounding the city. Not yet strong enough to do all the research myself and with limited time, I thought it wise to pay for a guide through Turan Asia (Sundowners representatives in Kazakhstan) to lead me in a hike to Big Almaty Lake – a major source of fresh water for the city and a picturesque location to hike to.



The simplest route was to walk on top of the pipes channelling water from the lake to Almaty, but I preferred grass, rock and earth underfoot.



Fresh water in abundance.... with it being so hot, I was really glad some genius had setup this pipe from the river across the small ravine enabling hot hikers like me to quench their thirst and wash their sweaty faces!


The brilliant turquoise of the lake is down to natural minerals apparently. Having lived my life in the modern, industrialised world, not being familiar with such a colour in nature, and even though I believed the information I was given, my eyes and my brain had an underlying discomfort over the 'natural' nature of the colour.

Ill on Arrival

2009 08 06 – Day 41 - Almaty

Other than dealing with each moment as it came, I'm not quite sure how I made it from the border to Chimkent, and then survived several hours waiting for my overnight train to Almaty. It's times like this that travelling with another person would be beneficial, at least you'd have someone to watch your stuff while you find a toilet. I think Imodium helped solidify the situation somewhat, but am not sure because the night was not trouble free and by the time we arrived in Almaty I was weak with stomach cramps, lack of sleep, lack of food and from all my energy being used to keep the situation under control. Having spent more than 24 hours on Imodium and still not right, I was keen to follow the instruction leaflet and seek medical attention. Fortunately for me, sharing my compartment was Muslim, an Almaty local and software engineer who had been to Chimkent for it's hot spring health spas, who had been keen to practice his English the day before, and so I had someone to approach for help. Despite his decent English, it still took a shuffle through my ever-useful pocket Russian phrasebook to communicate effectively. Panos. That's what I had. Muslim translated the recommendation of the middle-aged mothers sharing our compartment – Regadron (a prehistoric sounding rehydration powder) in a litre of water, sip all day and rest. No food. It sounded like they knew what they were talking about, but, given my medications instructions, I thought it wise that I still seek medical attention. Muslim generously helped me out in this regard, shepherding me around Almaty until we found an appropriate clinic.
A very necessary visit to the clinics toilet was brightened by this curiously named bin.

Why is this bin a fantasy bin? Who has fantasies about bins!? Maybe it's the 'swing' aspect that really sets it apart.

After a short consultation, and a small fee, I got exactly the same advice the train mums gave, and so purchased some Regadron and set about finding somewhere to stay so I could get on with the serious business of rest and recouperation.

I spent the next day laying in bed, sipping tea and my Regadron laced water, reading, writing my diary and watching Liverpool beat Blackburn 4-2... shame that it was a repeat of last seasons game as the 2009/10 season hadn't started yet.


The ever evolving sky and the calls to prayer of the nearby mosque provided structure to my day.

I later realised this day of doing 'nothing' (which of course wasn't nothing) was badly needed. Regardless of my illness, I needed to rest my brain and body from the rigours of travel. It occurred to me that I would be wise to schedule more days like this, without the illness, in my future travels to help keep my energy levels up and keep me sane.

Leaving Uzbekistan

2009 08 05 – Day 40 – Tashkent to Almaty

Eastward travel to Almaty in Kazakhstan by rail requires a road border crossing an hour or so from Tashkent and another three hours by road on the other side to the nearest city with a station, Chimkent. With no regular transport link crossing the border, Sundowners had arranged for my hotel driver to drop me about hundred metres from the border, as close as general traffic could get, and have someone meet me on the Kazakh side.

A few hundred metres of walking in the rapidly strengthening sun were required to, between and from the border control buildings, which would be fine under normal circumstances, but that morning my stomach had taken a turn for the worse and all my limited energy became focused on keeping the lid on it.

Adding to my suffering at the Uzbek departure point were a confused throng of an eclectic mix of people, ranging from locals with a basket or two of unsettled chickens to some Brits taking part in the Mongol Rally, chasing a short supply of pens to be able to fill out departure cards. The uncomfortable queuing was an exercise in mind over matter. Only in hindsight did I realise that, despite the strong warnings regarding accountability, no one checked the accommodation registration and currency exchange receipts which had dogged my decision making and flexibility.

As with arrival in Uzbekistan, crossing into Kazakhstan I had to declare the value of Rubles and Dollars I was carrying. The baggage scanning machine was a border guard and a table. He looked at my passport and arrival card, looked at me, looked at my rucksack on the table, checked no one else was looking and said “$10”, clearly giving me the choice of an uncomfortable and drawn out inspection of my bag, or easy passage. In other circumstances I would have called his bluff, but my stomach cramps were controlling my brain and it was worth $10 to pass through the border swiftly and cleanly without anything passing out of me swiftly and not so cleanly. Fortunately for me, I only had $35 on me and $10 of that was in $1 bills. The guard didn't much like the look of those, I think people here suspect $1 bills are fakes, and he was clearly uncomfortable with the idea of taking more than half of my Dollars with the $20 note, so he swiped the $5 and dismissed me to his colleague for passport stamping.


The drive from the border to Chimkent coincided with my realisation that nearly all Central Asian vehicles had a cracked windscreen.

After an unpleasant roadside snack of the local sour and salty milk and dry salty milk balls, that my driver was convinced would help my stomach, I was extremely grateful that, particularly as I was ill, I did to not need to squat over this pit toilet.

The few broken wooden slats masquerading as a floor would have made an Indiana Jones rope bridge seem stable.

Road Trip to Bukhara

2009 08 02 – Day 37 – Samarkand to Bukhara

I had been due to take a bus from Samarkand to Bukhara, leaving early in the morning to arrive in the middle of the day. The day before Ruslan had persuaded me that he could take me and his friends on a road trip to Bukhara, rather than me taking the bus.
On the way out of Samarkand, we took a small detour so Muhammed could show me his champion fighting dog...

it certainly let me know that I shouldn't approach too close and I wasn't about to argue with it!
Most of the route was bordered by farmland of one variety or another and it was great to see the donkey carts trundling home as the retreating sun painted the end of the day in one palette after another.

Arriving on the outskirts of Bukhara, it emerged that Muhammed had some business lined up with a local friend – two young antelope! Muhammed and his friend removed the beasts one by one from a small wooden pen set up in the house coutyard. Naturally petrified, the young animals came out bucking, kicking and struggling and its captors had to keep a firm hold to prevent escape.

This one nearly made it, freeing two legs before recapture. While the animal was pinned down, the friend tore open the end of a long sock and pulled it snugly over the its head, covering its eyes, but freeing its nostrils at the end of the tube. Covering the eyes effected a change in the animals behaviour that was near instant and remarkable in its contrast. Like someone had flicked a switch, the antelope stopped struggling and relaxed its muscles, the second one even arranged its limbs neatly as if to sleep! Muhammed and his friend stepped aside for a private price negotiation before the animals were loaded, in completely relaxed compliance, into the footwells of Ruslan's car and we were on our way!
No one we asked on the semi-deserted streets of Bukhara seemed to know where my guesthouse was and the phone number I had from Sundowners was missing digits, so, after a bit of a run around town, we were somewhat elated to locate Sasha and Son just before midnight. A triumphant ending to an epic day!

Around the Village

2009 08 01 – Day 36 - Samarkand


One of Ruslan's uncles... I think Ruslan had hoped we'd go for a ride on his uncle's horses, but having seen their fairly wild eyes, I was glad the uncle said it was best if we didn't.


Everyone round here seems to have an apple orchard of at least a few trees and Ruslan's relatives are no exception. Grapes are also plentiful.
The greenery of Uzbekistan is, as Ruslan would say, 'Supers!'


Donkeys are still a common and valuable means of transport


Donkey cart bus. Gas pipes bridge the junction – a regular sight in this part of the world.


Dirt and straw bricks dry in the sun... though I didn't see any buildings using such materials under construction, most things going up were basic concrete blocks with steel wire strengtheners.

Uzbek Roads

2009 07-08 - Uzbekistan


Only slightly less organised than their currency situation, though reasonably well maintained, Uzbek roads have their own rules. For the most part people travel in the same direction on one side of the road. - usually the right. How big one side of the road is is dependent on the number of vehicles travelling in each direction, how aggressive everyone is driving and if those in front hear the horns of those wishing to squeeze past! In the cities I did sometimes see some road markings, but they were only treated as surface decoration or as if someone had accidentally spilled some white paint on the road... in very straight, evenly spaced lines. On intercity roads, donkey carts are more frequently encountered as the roads run through the widespread rural areas. These 'vehicles' follow their own rules and just need to be avoided by the rest of the traffic. On these roads the side-of-the-road situation is simplified a bit as they usually have concrete barriers running down the middle, which limits the number of cars, side-by-side across the roughly two lane highway, to three. These central concrete barriers have breaks in them every now and then, near-ish to side-roads, which are usually dirt tracks at right angles to the main road, but as they don't align and there are no feeder lanes or traffic lights, a couple of wonderful safety enhancing scenarios are created when trying to turn left (assuming you'd been driving on the right like most folk):
Either
1. overshoot your exit, manouvre into the fast lane before breaking hard, possibly to a standstill, to facilitate a U-turn across to the other side before driving to your exit
OR
2. Switch lanes through the gap that precedes your exit and drive to it against the flow of traffic.
Either option is entirely valid. This 'system' functions is because most people, other than bus drivers, don't drive that fast, the roads are not too crowded and everyone uses their horn liberally to announce their imminent attempt to overtake. I suppose the fairly regular and permanent police check points also help to sort out the chaos with their short one lane per direction funnel approximately every 30-50km. Other than the buses, lorries and donkey carts, the majority of vehicles on the road are old Ladas or new, Uzbek constructed, minivan Daewoos.

Bus to Samarkand

2009 07 31 – Day 35 - Tashkent to Samarkand


The bus station is just a big tarmac space with numerous buses strewn across it.
Fortunately for me, I've already paid (probably far too much) for this bus journey through Sundowners, so the hotel driver guides me through the chaos to a bus shortly to depart for Samarkand. He pays someone who seems to be connected to the bus, we stow my main bag and then they direct me to a front seat, uprooting some poor local passenger in the process. I protest that it's ok, I can sit further back, but my protests are only met with stronger assertions that I should sit in this front seat. I accept my nominal VIP status and sit where instructed.
Across the isle from me a man stashes his bricks of money in non-descript plastic bags.
Now I can catch my breath and look around a little and observe the organised chaos outside, it quickly becomes clear that these buses are run like big shared private taxis. There are a few young lads working for this bus, harrying anyone who gets close-ish to the bus to buy a ticket and climb on board. One woman was almost dragged to the bus before she managed to free herself and her shopping bags and go around the bus as she'd originally intended!


When the bus is half or two-thirds full, the driver starts the engine and rides the clutch, revving the engine – making it clear to all those within eyesight, earshot and those stood 2cm in front of the windscreen that were about to go, so get on now or get out of the way or you'll be left behind or run over!


I'm joined in my VIP front row by this chunky fellow who wedges me in securely enough that I'm not so concerned about the lack of seatbelt. An exchange of sounds reveals that we don't speak each others language, but it does result in a mutual showing of passports... English characters in his reveal that he's from Internal Affairs. After I decline his kind, and presumably illegal (?), offering of hash, he takes a big wad in his mouth and spends much of the journey chewing on it and leaning over me to spit, with varying degrees of accuracy, out of the windowless door.


Uzbek roads are good enough to allow our battered bus to be the fastest thing on the road. Not because everything goes really slow, but because our driver is fearless and seems confident that other road traffic, including the donkey carts, would be well advised to stay out of our way! He does his best to dish out such useful advice to those we're about to pass with energetic and liberal use of his horn.
I don't know if I should be unsettled by the resin-filled head-sized hole in the windscreen in front of me. The multiple screen-wide cracks radiating from the wound don't fill me with confidence that the thing will hold together the entire four hour journey.
During the course of the journey we pass through at least eight road blocks. These are not because of some extraordinary security situation, but just part of the everyday monitoring of the movement of people from one region to another. Traffic is filtered through a speed-bumped single lane 50 metre stretch next to a guard building. While negotiating this bottleneck, guards have the opportunity to ask vehicle drivers to pull over to have their vehilce inspected. At each stop, one of the young lads managing money and passengers jumps out with a piece of paper that he gets stamped before we can go on our way. The whole process if very quick and we almost don't stop. Thankfully our bus was never chosen to be inspected.


Uzbekistan seems to have a fair bit more green than Kazakhstan.




A short stop enables passengers to buy apples from this orchard, while the bus crew fill the vehicle's water tank from the irrigation ditch. Some of the poor bedraggled creatures who emerge from the bowels of the bus make me realise how fortunate I am with my well airated VIP seat by the window-less door.



Half way through the journey, some locals, standing in the isle in anticipation of their stop, try to strike up conversation... the problem is their limited English and my lack of Russian. They do however persuade me to take a phone from one of them and talk to some guy they know who can speak English... It was a very strange conversation - he didn't know who I was, I didn't know who he was or where he was, we couldn't see each other, we'd never met and the reception wasn't great so half the time we couldn't even hear each other! Just before his stop, a teenager invited me to see his village... I have to say I was curious, but we hadn't even spoken to each other before that and the Uzbek authorities require you to register in each place you stay... in hotels that's a straight forward process, but for private residences, I'm not so sure... and I was expected at my hotel in Samarkand. So I thanked him and declined his kind offer.

Desert Dawn Drive

2009 07 29 – Day 33 - Aralsk

Local fixer Sirik had speculated a 9am start for my visit to the ship graveyard which is an hour drive into the desert that used to be sea. I had insisted that I wanted to get out there soon after sunrise, mainly for better lighting for photography, but also to avoid the searing heat of the middle of the day. So my driver and I set off at 5am, leaving Aralsk under the cover of darkness and witnessing the magic of the colour and light changes of dawn conjuring the desert out of the dark.

Stepping into the Night

2009 07 27 – Day 31 - Aralsk


As the sun went down on my second day on the train I steeled myself to step out into the night for the second time. This time I was buoyed by the social and fun day I'd had and was a little bit sad to be leaving the community that had developed in our carriage in these two days. As my arrival time approached, I sought advice from my new friends and local experts – Roman & the train guard.

They gave me all the usual warnings anyone gives about unknown or poor areas, particularly at night, which only served to heighten my nervous anticipation. The stop would be a short one, so I'd have to get off quickly. The three of us stood by the door as the rhythmn and pitch of the sounds and shakes said the station was near. Aralsk. Remarkably roughly on time after more than fifty hours from Moscow. It's so dark outside it's hard to imagine there is an 'outside'. Ready to leap off the train, primed by my 'advisors' words of warning and 24 hours waiting, I'm full of adrenaline and feel like a prize fighter about to enter an unknown ring and face and unknown opponent... or a bull, caged and about to be released!... I mime running like crazy and we all laugh.
Before the train has stopped, the guard opens the door and yells for a taxi... three middle-aged men scramble over the first tracks, two sets over from ours, and negotiate a deal.... Roman translates the agreement – 100 Rubles – and urges me to go with the successful bidder. As soon as the train stops I descend and scuttle over the tracks. I'm hesitant, because I'm not sure if someone will be at the station to meet me... there's supposed to be someone, but then I was supposed to arrive 24 hours ago. I glance around as I move and give myself a chance to spot someone looking for me, but no one stood track-side carries the body language I'm looking for and so I duck into the passenger seat of the battered Lada. His catch secured, my driver then wanders off to look for other passengers! His actions are met with vocal disapproval from other drivers and my train guard, so it's not long before he returns to fire up the aged engine and we rattle, shake and bounce out of the station grounds, into the night. The 'main' road is unlit and my driver seems more concerned on quizzing me in Russian and weaving around the numerous potholes than avoiding the oncoming traffic! Fortunately there's not a lot of the latter and we avoid any collisions. Young people appear to be out in numbers at the few cafe-bars scattered down the length of the road.
It doesn't take too long to arrive at the hotel and I leave him validating the Rubles of the fare in his headlights. The initially empty lobby is soon populated by three women of various ages, shapes and sizes, all of whom, it is rapidly apparent, have a limited grasp of English. I present my Sundowners Overland voucher that is supposed to be a kind of booking/payment receipt. It becomes clear that they don't recognise the voucher and they try to sell me a 4000 Tenge room... I protest – I've already paid for one! I need a room, but they don't recognise my receipt/voucher... what to do? We stand off for a little while, neither party budging or with much else to add to the debate mainly due to language incompatibility. One of them gets on the phone, speaks to someone on the other end and then hands me the receiver... I'm greeted by Sirik, the local fixer who had been at the station to meet me last night as he had the same bad information I had. Sirik fills me in on the hotel point of view – I hadn't turned up last night to take my booking, so they'd given away my hot water room and so now they only have cold water rooms available. Add to that the fact that Sundowners have not yet paid them for the room and their position now seems entirely understandable. The next problem is that I don't have any Kazakh currency! This is not for lack of trying on my behalf, but because Kazakh Tenge is not easily available outside the country. I need access to a bank tomorrow and so to secure me a bed for the night all parties agree to Sirik's plan of submitting my passport to the hotel owners until I have money to pay for the room. I'm nervous about my passport being off my person for the first time since my Finnish Rail lapse, but I have to trust them with it, and am led by the granny of the group up unsettlingly angled steps and down darkened corridors to my second floor room - 125 – identifiable only by the fact that she led me to it and my key opens the lock that could fall out at every interaction.

I have two single beds to choose from and after a bounce on each my first pick is relieved of pole position when an alien bug, reminiscent of the X-Files ones that crawl around under peoples skin, scurries over it! I'm unable to hunt it down and kill it, so I convince myself that I'll be safe enough in the other bed. Even at night it's hot, so I'm relieved to see I have a large air conditioning unit in the window and turn it on... some cool air comes out, but it sounds like I'm back on the train! The large noise makes me realise that my antics must be highly visible from outside. There are no street lights and I have big windows... I feel like an exhibit. I retrieve my head torch from my bag and use its light to guide my final maneuvering to bed... an experience that provokes comparative thoughts of The Blair Witch Project... unsettling mental images that are difficult to un-think, so I avoid looking in the corners and hurry to turn off my light. Thirty minutes or so later I trade temperature for silence, turn off the 'train', and try to sleep.

Book Review – China Road

2009 07 25

While in Moscow I finished my first book of the trip: China Road
(the image is the edition I had, but it seems like it has been relaunched recovered)

A highly readable and informative perspective on China as a British radio journalist concludes 20 years of living and working in China with a road trip along China's equivalent of Route 66 – road 312 - which runs from Shanghai in the South East to the Kazakhstan border in the North West. Along the way, Rob Gifford engages with the people whose lives are bound up with the road, be they truckers, commuters, street vendors, or just people who live near by, and discusses some of the recent and ancient history that brought their world to this point.
I found this book to be an excellent general introduction to the China of today. Gifford presents opinions on why it is the way it is, referencing and illuminating some of the significant moments and aspects of Chinas recent and ancient history.
I will read this book again after my travels I'm sure.

Moscow Arrival

2009 07 24 – Day 28 – Moscow

Despite a fairly comfortable ride and hassle free border crossing, I didn't get enough sleep and so my core is drained but, like downing an octuple espresso, I'm charged by my situation, my first solo steps of adventure in the first truly unknown country on my journey East!
You know you've arrived in Russia when your station is called Leningradsky!
But that's a good name if the central feature of the station is this fine bust:

Now I really feel like I've arrived somewhere foreign. The cyrillic characters are close enough in form to latin ones as to make my eye scan them but my brain can't comprehend what my eyes are delivering – I'm a linguistic infant again.
I'm tired from the train journey and I only have a rough idea of where I am in Moscow, the largest city in Europe. My limited information, lack of language and physical state convince me that getting a taxi to my hostel would be a good idea.
I'm not sure exactly why, maybe the space and building styles in front of the station or maybe the language thing still, but I really felt alien and a bit disoriented walking out of the main entrance. Taxi drivers spy me a mile off (no, not literally a mile) and scurry to scam me. I, the sceptic, don't pay them too much attention and begin to walk away from them and the station down the road, but not too fast. It has the desired effect of thinning out the crowd and I'm left with one taxi driver who has passable English. I'm kidding myself that I can make it on foot, which helps me be more convincing in my negotiations on price. In the end I think I do ok, paying a bit more than I might expect to in London.


A pricey hotel not so far from the station.


The eight lane ring road.... note that it's eight in each direction!

Reaching Godzillas Hostel, I speculate that I could have walked... but I would have taken a lot longer and would be an exhausted sweaty mess! With only two days in Moscow, it was worth the taxi fare to save my energy for sight seeing.

The Demon Drink – St Petersburg

2009 07 10 – Day 14 – St Petersburg

Second day ashore and fellow trainee Jelena and I joined some off-duty crew members for a few drinks around St Petersburg. Since our trainee crew of 70-ish was largely made up of 16 & 17 year olds, the powers that be had set a curfew time of 01:00. Given the size of St Petersburg, there seemed surprisingly few good places to go for a quiet drink or 5... there were evidently a good number of clubs that would start to kick off just as we had to think about getting back to the ship and plenty of restaurants, but not so many bars. We found a decent one thanks to asking around a bit and were rewarded with a groovy vibe and some good live music.

Nationalities, left to right:
Russian (the arm), Danish, Dutch, Serbian/Norwegian, Danish, Swedish.

After a good few, and given the size of St Petersburg and curfew, we required a taxi home. The helpful bar staff could speak a bit of English and between us we indicated to the taxi driver where on the map we needed to go and we agreed a price. So good so far.

Us having a blast before the taxi driver decided we must have all been delusional before and actually where we really wanted to go was the international ferry terminal a couple of miles away!
Due the language barrier, and despite our cries of dismay from the back, we failed to convince him to stop and go back to where we wanted until we'd actually reaced the terminal!
After some rowdy attempts at communication and finger stabbing of map, we persuaded him to take us back to somewhere we could walk to the ship in 5 or 10 mins. Since it was already curfew time we scurried along the road drunkenly debating how much trouble we'd all be in and, perhaps more importantly, whether the port passport control was still open and if we could even get to our ship without swimming! We got to the ship late and appologised our way on board but were cut short – we needn't worry about our minor transgressions, worse events had transpired...
Two of the young trainees had got danderously drunk and one was in hospital!
Here you order vodka by the glass or by the litre bottle and a group of them had shared a bottle and got fairly drunk. Someone had enthusiastically gone back for some more glasses and accidentally come back with a bottle... since most were stoked enough, the new bottle was mostly consumed by the three casualties.
Next morning, Sørlandet's Captain gave an empassioned speech – in Norwegian since the subject didn't really concern the international trainees, though I understood most without translation – about how we were here in St Petersburg firstly representing Norway and secondly Sørlandet, he was ambitious for the ship, he wanted us to be the best. He liked us as a group of trainees and thought we'd done well in the race, but the events of last night could not be repeated.
The curfew was pulled back to midnight & the barely recovered drunks given punishment. The hospitalised guy didn't return until the next day and, in addition to similar ship-based punishments, had to call his parents to tell them what he'd done!
Ah the difficulties of the teenage dance with the demon drink!
Lessons learned lets hope! :P

Belgian Family Coppens!

2009 06 30-07 02 - Days 4-6 - Antwerp-ish

Belgium is flat!
Which is nice if want a leisurely bike ride... they have this great numbered signpost system that means you can plan a route and then cycle all over the place with nothing but a bunch of numbers on your handle-bars. Nice.
(rumour has it the system originates from the Netherlands)

A great couple of days near Antwerp with Dieter & Rut

When I saw them last it was
'Just the two of [them]'...


but now they have 3 beautiful bouncing babies - Suzy, Lou & Francis!
Happy Times! :)