Arrived safe

10.10.06

We`ve arrived safe in Tokyo. Our hotel room is excellent and really glad now we paid a bit extra for the fancy suite because we get our own concierge for our "Regency Club" section of the hotel and she already sorted out or booking for the flights to Toyama then Vladivostok...

yes, in case you`re wondering the ferry to Vlad isn`t going to come off quite as we planned. It was cancelled due to bad weather so we`ve had to make alternative arrangements... ah well one more night in Tokyo and a couple extra in Vladivostok can`t hurt!

Hot coffee from a can!

11.10.06

Had a good rest last night (much needed after several stressful weeks and the high drama of Monday's ferry cancellation). Now I'm sitting in a weird internet cafe that could basically be anywhere - I have my own little booth, free soft drink and white Ikea-ish walls. Kinda reminds me of that uber gaming place in Sydney... it's a two-person room with one PC so I'm on a lovely black vinyl couch thingy... eigh. Iain has gone to sit in the park, I think he's having a bit of an early-trip freakout. Oh well... so far I am fine but I guess you always crash and burn at some point.

Today's Tokyo delights included hot and cold coffee in a can from a vending machine on the station - same vending machine, two types of coffee... (well several more available but that's what we had). Heh. And it was really warm - almost too hot to hold! We also went to Sinjei-something shrine, where Isco paid 100 for his fortune and got "Bad Fortune" - oh dear! Basically his trip will be bad, his life unhappy and his relationships failures. I decided to just dedicate my 100 towards some incence lit in honour of the god of not being robbed. (He also protects against racoon-dog attacks, in case anyonefs interested).

To Russia with love...

Hey everyone

(Friday) 13.10.06

Quick one from Toyama airport, about to catch some ancient plane to Vladivostok, which takes 4 hours apparently... or maybe that:s the time difference, who knows?

Had a few dramas, like we were committed to paying the ticket price in CASH but had none and only-Japanese-speak ATMs here... whoops! But we sorted it out, narrowly avoiding an emergecy cab ride to the nearest citibank. Thankfully the Post Office ATM took all cards and spoke English (they have words but do actually talk to you as well, I:m not just being cute).

So off we go again, another country, and almost feel like we're settling into the groove of travel. Trying to brush up on my Russian too - agh, I remember nuzzink - not even enough to write that in a Russian accent!

Next stop Vladivostok.

We're outta here

17.10.06

Well it's been a somewhat difficult four nights in Vladivostok. There's not a helluva lot to do here, the language barrier has made it hard and just generally settling into the travel vibe has also been kinda tough. Plus the prices are not anywhere near as cheap as we'd been led to believe (about double what the guidebook says, eg: $40 for a normal dinner for two - not that much cheaper than Sydney!!)

Still, we're both understanding more Russian, have managed to puzzle through a few Ruski-only menus and have eaten some tasty meals, as well as sampled plenty of cheap Piva (beer)... so that's good.

We hop on the Trans-Siberian in a few hours' time and are both looking forward to sitting around not having to dream up where we should spend the day tramping to/from for a bit! We have stocked up on supplies and are hoping the restaurant car won't be too dire. Also hoping the money holds out!!

We sat around central Vlad people-watching today for several hours. It's interesting how different the people look here. All the women wear these amazing 3-6 inch stiletto spike heel boots with all manner of buckles, fur, bedazzlers, tassels, pom-poms, lacing, etc. on them. Footwear is definitely a local obsession - with heaps of shoe shops and shoe repairists around town. The guys still look like spivs, they wear sneakers or weird flat leather, toes-turned-up shoes. heh.

The Hotel Vladivostok has been nice. Once we realised no one here was trying to rip us off or was actually being that b*tchy (it's the Russian way), we have quite enjoyed ourselves. There is a cozy upstairs bar that we spent a fair bit of time in, although we never made a single friend here. I guess it's partly our shyness with the language, partly the locals' reserve. Anyway, I reckon the train will be different... rock and roll all night and party every-day, right?

Stranded in Port Baikal

22.10.06

We have come through half of Siberia and our longest continuous stretch of Trans-Siberian train journey. Three days on the great railroad was fun, but glad to be on 'dry land' again and have a proper shower etc!

The train was pretty basic, I would say the carriages dated from at least the 1970s if not earlier - dim lights, 4-berth cars in our section, a coal-fired Samovar for hot water and pretty basic toilet etc. Food in the restaurant car was decent but quite exxy and since we were in carriage 3 and the PECTOPAH was at about car 10, it was a long and arduous journey past many other people's beds, luggage, scents and lifestyles to get there. So we only ventured once. Plenty of food to be bought at stations from Babushkas, mostly pirovskis (savoury onion-cabbage-filled donuts) kartushkis (same but with potato) and enough Russian beer to make it bareable.

The only bad thing was really the scores of drunken Russian soldiers. All at the grand old age of 20, just completed their two years' compulsory military service and heading back home on the train from Vladivostok. Some were to be on there for 6-7 days, none could really speak English and most were quite disgustingly drunk while, unfortunately, we were a novelty... Ewh. Anyway, we dealt with it and the Provodisnas (conductresses) were very effective at kicking them out when they came to bother us, thankfully!

So we find ourselves at beautiful Lake Baikal. Although I've never been to Switzerland it reminds me of how I'd imagine the lakes around Geneva, surrounded by Alps/mountains and quite peaceful, but also obviously a fairly popular tourist spot.

Today we thought we'd try to catch the circumBaikal railway, so we caught the ferry accross to Port Baikal, where it leaves from, only to find the train was booked out and we couldn't get on. Not *that* upset as most of the other travellers were more drunk Russians, particularly of note a fat dude stinking of beer in a brown leather Ferrari jacket (stylish).

So we went back to the ferry and asked, in broken Russian and sign language, when it went back to Listvyanka - the town we're staying in. "We don't go back to Listviyanka". oh good. "But there is a ferry at 3.50. It was about 11.30am at the time and there is NOTHING to do in Port Baikal... no shops, no cafes, no nothing, just train tracks, stray dogs, a few goats and some locals charging around on their motorbikes. Plus we weren't even sure that ferry would definitely come. So we spent a few hours mooning around on the shores of the lake, mournfully staring across at our hotel separated by a mere body of icy cold water... but lo, the ferry did come, we got back and had an absolutely delicious Russian meal to reward ourselves for the stress.

So now, with the strength of Beef Siberia-style in my belly, I will sign off!

ISCO POST: Travellers' tales

27.10.06

Claire and I are now two weeks or so (I have lost track) into our Trans-Siberian adventures, and having a very great amount of fun. We've survived a cancelled ferry, a flight on the very snug YAK-40 across the Sea of Japan, 4 nights in Vladivostok, rabidly anti-tourist provoditsnas on the so-called "best train in Russia", a highly macho drinking culture, a blizzard, and getting marooned at the most boring village in the world.

Highlights:

The amazing array of ritzy shops on Karl Marx st in Irkutsk (which has been called "the Paris of Siberia" -- and actually does look a bit like Paris, if you squint).

Getting tickets to the ballet at the famous Marinsky Theatre in St Petersburg for next Wednesday night for about $200.

Getting tickets to the ballet at the slightly less famous Ykaterinburg theatre for tonight, for about $6.

Eating smoked omul, a fish which is only found at Lake Baikal.

Our incredible lake and mountain view from our hotel balcony at Listvyanka, Lake Baikal.

A great snowstorm at the same hotel, leaving us snowed in for a day and forced us to do excellent things like take a sauna and get drunk with Russians (OK, that last part was just me).

Lowlights:

Vladivostok (which has never been called the Paris of anywhere, to my knowledge -- although Tom Waits could have been inspired to write a few songs there.

20-year-old soldier boys going on leave and drinking their way across Russia on the train.

The occasional provoditsna who lets you know in no uncertain terms that it is HER train carriage and she won't be bothered with anyone who can't speak Russian.

Moscow madness

01.11.06

Have just arrived in St Petersburg on the overnight train from Moscow. Our hotel room isn't ready and it's fairly cold and snowy (slushy footpaths!) outside so the only thing to do is retreat into the warmth of the cheapest internet cafe we've found for quite some time!

Moscow was quite hectic! Our hotel was absolutely huge - a monolith of 4 buildings, each with about 25 floors and probably the capacity to accomodate 10,000 people - it was originally built for athletes in the Moscow Olympics. Plus it was a bit of a way out of town so sightseeing involved a trip on the metro (which was not a problem, the stations are beautiful and trains come every two, yes TWO minutes).

We spent a day checking out Red Square and the Kremlin - quite astounding, I didn't realise there was so much older architecture, with a lot of churches dating from the 1500-1600s. They have a weird system for tickets to the 'crown jewels' (the armoury), whereby you can only buy tix 45 minutes before the 'session' starts so we stooged around from about 1.5 hours before the session to make sure we could get one of only 75 tix available... and experienced the magic of Russian queueing. Even though everyone in the small ticket office was just slouching around the walls, when the window opened, a Russian lady was adamant that we were there first and waved us straight to the salesperson - nice one!

The Armoury was excellent, absolutely decadent stuff - jewellery, decorated bibles, crowns, goblets, tableware, incense burners fashioned into scale-model castles as tall as an 8-year-old child. Plus a cool display of armour, old-fashioned weapons, royal carriages and, perhaps my fave, coronation robes of princes and princesses (looks like Catherine the Great was quite short and stout, heh).

The next day we visted the Tretyakov gallery, which has mostly Russian art, lots of portraits - again excellent for seeing clothing/what people looked like in bygone days - love it!

ISCO POST: Muscovy, ducks

02.11.06

A week or so ago I went to my first ballet, at Ykaterinburg, on the edge of Siberia, with Claire. When it comes to performance, I would generally rather be at the opera, as a rule, so when the ballet started I kept waiting for someone to break into song... Sadly it was not to be, and I have to admit to losing interest from time to time (the ballet was Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty, and we all know the plot) despite the grand surroundings of a beautiful provincial opera house.

But last night Claire and I hustled thru the cold St Petersburg night to see the Kirov ballet at the famous Mariinsky Theatre. The ballet was Don Quixote -- not, I would have thought, an obvious choice for a ballet (and in actual fact the Don and his squire were only there for comic relief) -- but I was hooked.

We sat up in a box on the belle-etage, dressed in our best backpacking finery (there is definitely a lot to be said for travelling with mostly black clothes -- they fit in almost anywhere), with opera glasses, watching some of the world's best dancers, then flew home again on our flashing twinkle-toes to eat bad lasagne and have our ears assaulted by an Ace of Base CD at our hotel's restaurant. The sublime and the ridiculous -- that's what it's all about.

Today was a landmark day on our great journey -- we have clean laundry for the first time since we left home, courtesy of the coolest laundromat in Europe. It was a tiny below-stairs establishment with a grubby front parlour and two kids in charge, one doing the launndry and making espresso, and the other playing some fabulous slabs of white-label electronica, a very welcome change from the ubiquitous and generally awful Russian pop music, which makes other Eurovision entrants sound like Mozart by comparison. Courtesy of our friendly laundromat, I now have a few good recommendations for St Petersburg clubs for this evening -- unfortunately we will miss the city's great Halloween bacchanal, but we should be able to get a few good nights out here to compensate.

We leave Russia on Saturday, via bus (*groan*) to Tallinn, in Estonia. We're looking forward to getting somewhere boring where we can drop our packs for a while and do nothing, except take stock and reflect on the month we've just had.

Travelling across Russia has been a great experience, from the 'wild east' of Vladivostok, to the urbane cosmopolitanism of Irkutsk (forget Perth, this place is really isolated -- the nearest large city is Ulan Bator), the incredible beauty (and excellent smoked fish) of Lake Baikal, the strangely Bostonian (well, at least I thought so) city of Ykaterinburg, and then to the great cities of Moscow and St Petersburg.

Snow-covered Stroganoff

02.11.06

We have now spent two days in St Petersburg and it's rapidly shaping up to be my fave city so far. It's more Melbourne than Sydney, more Paris than London, if that makes sense... lots of beautiful buildings and churches but a slight layer of grunge as well to make things interesting.

Today, Isco wisely decided to check out some galleries, but, ever the intrepid explorer, and with an idea to see a bit more of my new top destination, I decided to do a walking tour of the city.

I caught the metro to the furthest point in my sightseeing, planning to stroll back. As soon as I came out of the station, it started to snow, so the weather wasn't exactly suited to standing around outside gawping at buildings!

My first spot was the Fortress of Peter & Paul, at which I think I was the only lone tourist among a sea of school and guided-tour groups. The only thing really worth looking at, I figured, was the large cathedral where all the Tsars are buried, and it was pretty impressive. Lots of gold and kind of pastel green and orangey striped walls inside and a lovely needlepoint golden spire outside.

Making my way back to the city from the fortress involved crossing St Petersburg's main river, the Neva. Midway over the bridge, I was startled by a canon firing. Startled, in part, by the recollection that the canon is fired daily from the fortress at noon, and I could have actually seen the thing (I was right there!) if I'd remembered this fact, or understood the Russian announcement I heard just as I was making my way out, d'oh!

Next stop was the Church of Spilled Blood, which is a bit of a knock-off of St Basils in Moscow (the colourful onion domes, you know it). The guidebook said the exterior was more impressive than the interior so I decided to save myself 170rb (about $8.50) and just took a few pix of the outside. Then Kazan Cathedral came accross my path, which is a knock-off of St Peters in Rome (a church I didn't manage to see when in Rome, but that's a whole 'nother story). As it was free I checked it out, and it rates highest on the 'holiness-factor' of all the churches I've seen so far this trip. Lots of people queuing up to whisper at and kiss some special picture of our lady, and candles lit etc.

After that I had a really bad lunch then, as recompense, did a Gourmet pilgrimage to Stroganoff Palace, where I saw they had a lovely looking cafe that I COULD have eaten at, again, if I'd remembered to check the guidebook before hunkering down at horrible-mass-produced-pizza and worst-beer-in-the-world joint, oh well, at least it was warm!

We went to the ballet last night here, at the Marinsky Theatre and saw (we think) the Kirov Ballet. It was so good, I kept getting goosebumps! The theatre was just lovely and compared to the Ykaterinberg performance, this was indescribably better. Fantastic dancing, lovely costumes etc. etc.

Other highlights of St Petes have included doing our washing in a machine (a swirl in the bath with 'French Flowers' shampoo just don't cut it after 3 weeks on the road). And the place we found was the Coolest Laundromat in the World.

Rest Eesti

7.11.06

We're currently still in Estonia (Eesti, as it's known in the local lingo), recharging the mental batteries after Russia and hoping to plan the rest of the trip, etc.

Tallinn is a lovely town, with a medieval central part that somehow seems too cool and olde worlde to quite be real! The hoardes of tourists add to the Medieval-Disneyland feel, but we have managed to avoid the worst of them by laying low over the weekend and being here in the off season.

We made a pilgrimage to the Depeche Mode bar the other night. Yes, it's a bar, entirely devoted to Depeche Mode! It's the place where everybody knows your music taste (they played entirely DM while we were there) and is actually quite a cool little venue. Apparently the band were there to open the place in 1991 (?) and revisited earlier this year, the signatures on the wall above the bar attest to this fact. We met about 10 drunken Londoners there, who seemed Okay, but must admit that when we saw them the next day around town, we hid!

What else can I tell you? Feeling a bit flat today, still getting over a bit of a sore throat caused by St Petersburg's combo of clubbing until 3am (at a fantastic little place called Datcha, where we were befriended by amusing Russians called Boris), followed by queueing for nearly THREE HOURS in the snow to get into the Hermitage (worth it but I thought I would end up with frostbite that day.) Followed by a long cold busride accross the border. I think my feet are finally warm again ; )

M-MAIL: re: Riga Tone

Hey dude,

I didn't know where the frick you were. I got at an Atlas and I see
Vilnus is in Lithuania. There's so much more stuff there than you think. I
mean in my mind there's Italy and Switzerland above it then there's Germany
then Russia. But there's lots of other countries all round the place. Who
knew. I see you have to go a fair way South to get to Romania. Are you flying?

Bloody Bono's in town, popping up everywhere with his two cents worth.
A girl who I met at a party early last night had been to the U2 show on
Friday and she complained that the venue was too big and she
couldn't understand why they had to have massive concerts like that. To which I
replied hilariously "that's because Bono only wants money, he doesn't
care about the fans, he just wants to cram as many bodies in as he can to
make more money". Well she wasn't having any of it "What do you mean?" she
said quite seriously, "I love Bono, I've met him". Love Bono!

Bloody Kylie's here too on the cover of everything. I'm pretty over
that ho I must say. Late thirties and she still has to be all giggly and
getting her bits out all the time, plus she put out a children's picture book with
a story about a show girl who loses her shoes and has to have her aides
look for them. Purlease, what a dunce.

Bree on Neighbours has changed her name to Trinity Black!

Keep warm, Heh I love the thought of you queuing in the cold snow for
three hours, it sounds so patheitc. If only you were queuing for a stale loaf
of bread! The true Eastern European experience.

Off the itinerary

Although I have been enjoying the fact that we're somewhere no one would expect, I feel I'd better send a quick message just in case!

From Riga we headed to a small town in Lithuania called Siaulai (Shau-li) to visit the hill of crosses, which was quite an impressive sight. A large gathering of crosses large and small, planted in the ground, seemingly almost spontaneously, for various reasons - memorials for wars and gulag victims, the pope's visit and I guess pilgrimage/devotional things, plus lots of crosses stuck there for people who had died recently - saw lots of 2005/2006 dates on them.

As we were walking to the hill (2km off the highway) a freak hailstorm started pelting us with bean-bag-bean-sized chunks of ice. Once we arrived, the sun came out. Was god testing our worthiness?

The place was quite strange, somehow beautiful in a spiritual mishmash sort of way. Most crosses were wooden and they were absolutely festooned, crosses draped over crosses, planted and stacked on every available space on the hill, along with photos of Jesus and his mum, and a million rosary beads etc. The sound of the wind tinkling through the various beads and metal crucifixes was gentle and a bit eerie. I'm sure busloads of religious types rok up there in the summer months and buy 20 crosses apiece to hang on whichever bit of the hill most moves them.

That night we checked out the bar scene in Shau-li, making hilarious running jokes about Iggy Pop visiting the town for a warmup gig (somewhere between vodkas, it really seemed like this was a possibility). We were delighted to discover Lithuania's very civilised attitude to food and drink. Every menu we've seen so far here has the usual hot/cold appetisers, soups and mains, but there are also separate pages for Beer snacks, Wine snacks and Vodka snacks - truly excellent! Our fave is the fried bread and garlic, we have both stacked on about 5kg after being in this country only two days. heh.

Anyway, after a hot tipoff from a guy in a bar in Shau-li, we decided to go cross country to the Baltic sea the next day. There's this weird 1km-wide tongue of land out here that goes for about 80km and the small fishing villages that are on there are apparently a fantastic sight at this time of year. We didn't quite make it there today due to a weird glitch between the ferry and bus timetable but tomorrow for sure.

For anyone following with an atlas, we're currently in Klaipeda at the Western end of Lithuania, quite near Kaliningrad. Iain and I are both really enjoying Lithuania - it's our favourite of the Baltics, and not just for the beer snacks : )

Off to Poland

18.11.06

Heading off to Poland tonight on an overnight bus. We've really enjoyed Vilnius, our last Lithuanian city. Don't have much to say today for some reason... possibly due to last night's encounter with a couple of absynthe cocktails! Heh.

Not sure what to expect from Poland, hoping it's as friendly and easy and relatively cheap as here.

Cheers!

ISCO POST: Baltic bliss

17.11.06

Hello -- it's another mass mailing, this time from Vilnius, our last stop in the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Tonight we take a night bus to Warsaw.

To begin, a brief Russia wrap-up. We found our excellent club, a tiny box called Dascha and partied hard with a great crowd of young Russians (they played The Fall -- I can't remember the last time I danced to Mark E Smith in a club). Walked home in the snow, very happy. The next day we staggered out of bed, a little less happy, and spent three hours queueing in the same snow to get into the Hermitage museum -- one of the biggest tests of endurance we have had to face so far! By the time we got in, we could only spend an hour and a half inside, but the wait was worth it, for this painting alone: http://www.hermitagemuseum.org/html_En/03/hm3_3_1_4d.html. Luminous.

The next day said a sad das vidanya to Russia and took a bus to Estonia.

The last couple of weeks, travelling thru the Baltics, have been very interesting. We currently love Lithuania so much that we keep using expressions like "There's a lot to like in Lithuania!" and "It's our favourite Baltic!" in case someone overhears us and decides to take us in, and keep us as pets. We started our Baltic experience with a very cold bus ride from St Petersburg to Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. After the relative rough and tumble of Russia, it was something of a culture shock to arrive in a town that was so neat and clean and beautiful that it looked like Legoland, where things worked and people spoke English without promting. After fumbling about with speaking Russian for the previous month, it was embarassing to (1) not know any Estonian words, and (2) meet people who didn't seem to care whether you spoke their language or not. It was also a shock to meet other tourists -- we met so few across Russia.

We acted like tourists, too -- visited the world's only Depeche Mode tribute bar (surely there cannot be more than one), ate bear and wild boar sausages at a medieval theme restaurant, etc. We spent a wonderful hour at the St Nicholas cathedral, which has a fragment of a wildly entertaining danse macabre (a picture of it is here, if you're interested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danse_Macabre -- it's the Bernt Notke one, down the page a bit), and where we heard a recital of Bach organ music on the beautiful cathedral organ -- said to be the best acoustics in Europe, or the Baltics, or Tallinn anyway. Shivers up the spine.

Fuelled by excellent beer, bear sausages etc we visited Latvia's capital, Riga, another Unesco heritage-listed old town, and said 'wow' a lot in the city's very lovely Art Nouveau quarter. Didn't hang around long; took a bus (we're into buses now) to Siauliau, Lithuania's fourth largest city, which is actually a small and pleasant town which we visited for its proximity to the weird and wonderful Hill of Crosses ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hill_of_Crosses )

We managed to enjoy ourselves greatly in Siauliau, thanks to meeting up with a couple of locals who took us to a great club underneath the town's theatre. (We're discovering that the best places to go out here are usually underground or impossible to find -- a bit like Melbourne, I guess). It was also in Siauliau that we encountered the very charming Lithuanian custom of menus in pubs, divided by 'beer snacks', 'wine snacks', 'vodka snacks' etc. And what snacks! Pigs' ears, toasted bread with garlic, toasted bread with garlic and cheese, chicken livers, etc. Bliss. Then, women get their 0.5L of beer in an elegant tall glass, while men get theirs in a sturdy glass tankard, with handle. Toothpicks on every table... it's the little things, y'know...

We next spent a few entertaining days at Klaipeda (Lithuania's 3rd largest city etc etc), for its proximity to the amazing Curonian spit, a narrow tongue of sand that stretches 100km down the Baltic coast. Really beautiful place, although completely deserted -- a benefit of travelling off-season. Claire and I went walking on the Baltic beach at Nida, where we could see Russia (the Kalinigrad oblast) just a few km away. I found some amber on the beach and wondered whether I was leaving the first ever Blundsone bootprints on that particular part of the world. Probably not.

But for me, the most interesting thing about spending time in the Balkans hasn't been the beer or the scenery, but -- at the risk of sounding very trite and hackneyed -- a new appreciation of the history of this part of the world. Each of the three countries endured occupation by Germany and the USSR from mid-20th century, and each achieved independence in 1991 after Glasnost. Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius each hosts its own Museum of Occupation, and each is a grimly fascinating tour through each country's individual psyche, which comes out very strongly despite the similarities in each country's occupation. Vilnius' museum is the most confronting -- it's housed in the former KGB prison, and its awful cells, execution chamber, labatory blocks etc still reek (and I mean that literally) of suffering. After a tour of a museum like that, when you encounter a group of rowdy schoolkids in an art gallery or some other place, it's hard to feel irritated, knowing what their parents and grandparents went through to give them the freedom to muck up.

The new occupying forces in each of the three countries are perhaps less sinister but certainly as insidious -- each city's old town square is now surrounded by the armies of Benetton, Giorgio Armani, McDonalds etc. It makes everywhere look oh so prosperous, but god it's boring to think that every town square in the world will end up looking exectly the same. One of the local English-language magazines is decrying the fact that Riga still doesn't have a Starbucks, even though there's one in Saudi Arabia. Dude, you can always pop down to Budapest for $50.

Anyway, that's exectly the kind of ridiculous complaint that is too easy to make when one is a well-off Aussie from Fat City who can afford to swan around Eastern Europe for three months doing nothing but look at stuff -- so I'll sign off here.

Punkabilly in Poland

19.11.06

Arrived in Varsoova (Warsaw) yesterday at 7,30am after an overnight bus trip - both feeling a bit shabby but smugly pleased to have saved a night's accomodation bill. After tramping around the bus station in a sleep-deprived daze trying to find simple things such as ATM, bus stop to town etc, which was somehow all harder than it should have been, we managed to get ourselves some zloty and to the youth hostel.

Youth hostel was booked out so they sent us uptown to a rather nice hotel (ie: we had a telly) that was actually the same price as the hostel room because they have a DISCOUNT on the weekends - does that seem odd to you? It seems weird to me but I'm not complaining. Wish we'd stayed there another night, but we're back in the hostel now for tonight and tomorrow. Nathan's Villa Hostel is the name, somehow never thought I'd be staying in a place called Nathan. And now that I mention it, I don't think I ever really pictured myself in Warsaw or Poland, but there ya go, here I am.

We spent yesterday getting our bearings, tramping up and down the main street, as one tends to do in a new town. Didn't make it to the old town yet (which is actually a new, rebuilt version of the old town that had the bejesus bombed out of it in the war), but we did climb the tallest, ugliest building in Poland - the Palace of Science and Technology. Built by Stalin, it is thought to be one of the finest examples of yuk Soviet architecture around. It is big.

As last night was Saturday, and we're in a large grotty capital city, we decided we'd better see what Warsaw had to offer in the way of nightclubbing entertainment. After a modest Polish feast, we checked out a few bars, which were thankfully all in the vicinity of each other/our hotel and this is what we found.

Beerhall place - pretty horrible, home-brewed beer was good, but it was packed with people getting geared up for some foolsball match and the staff decked out in wrong-looking 'national costumes' was a bit ick.

Local pub type place - seemed quite good, if you were there with at least 5 others, which we weren't. Saw a round of about 20 shots of evil looking blue 'vomit-maker' cocktail being delivered to one table and thought, actually maybe we're glad we're not here with a big group!

Lemon nightclub - utterly hideous. As Isco remarked, it's sad when 20-year old kids look like they're depressed sad old drunks so early in the night. Loud, bad music (described as 'hangover volume' by the guidebook). Utterly dull - picture Club 77 on a bad night. At this stage we were getting a bit worried, thinking "Could Warsaw be as bad as Sydney on an off evening?" But then we made it to...

Aurora - fantastic, we struck gold! A band called Miguel and the Living Dead were playing - these guys are the Polish version of Zombie Ghost Train, check it out: http://www.myspace.com/miguelandthelivingdead

Anyway, the club was great, excellent people, plenty of Polish goths/punks/psychobilly types there. A girl I met asked if we'd come to Warsaw especially for this gig, as we seemed to fit right in. Apparently a lot of people had come from various parts of the country for this special night - I said nup! Just luck and good timing. Some terrible UK punk band, Ausgang, was also playing - they surcked... the worst thing I heard was their version of California Uber Alles - honestly, why would you cover a great song, and make it sh*t? Ridiculous?!

Anyway, Isco spent half the night chatting to some sort of skinhead gang member type, who thankfully hated nazis but kept telling us he was a 'hooligan'. I forced some American dude to dance with me - he lives in Warsaw and plays in another punky band called Nasty Habits. Maybe I like this town : )

20th century history

23.11.06

Isco has headed off to Auschwitz today but I decided to give it a miss. Have seen enough bad stuff and had nasty dreams where the Nazis/Soviets were coming to get me a few times (not fun)... plus I saw a concentration camp last time I came to Europe, I know what went down. And yes, I feel bad about it as a fellow human being.

Phew, so that's justified.

Instead I'm going to visit the Leonardo Da Vinci picture in town - the museum it's in is free today though so not sure if it'll be mobbed or not. I should get there pretty early so fingers crossed. So far we've found the crowds pretty good - mostly due to travelling at thia time of year. Every place the guidebook warns to book in advance or is packed we've found fine - even Wawel Castle, which only sells limited tickets per day, was a breeze yesterday. We didn't even have to line up - so stick that in your pipe and smoke it, Russia!

Krakow is pretty cool. It's yet ANOTHER old town but I'm not sick of them, they're all different in little ways. I wasn't so sure about Warsaw's though - it was pretty much utterly destroyed in WW2 and they rebuilt it almost brick for brick. I understand it was a way of saying they weren't beaten by occupation/sovietisation etc. but it still felt a bit odd to be looking at this 'old' stuff that was actually built only 30 years ago - somehow a bit like you were being fooled. I think I would have appreciated it more if they'd rebuilt it in a way to honour what was, but also acknowledge what happened and maybe look to the future - get local artists to interpret their take on the war or something. As Isco suggested, it felt a bit like if they just rebuilt the twin towers in New York exactly as they were... I mean you can't ever go back can you? It will never be the same.

Anyway, that's my two cents' worth for this morning!

We'll be in Budapest by the weekend. Planning to rent a flat and stay there a week to chill out, and looking forward to resting up a bit.

Grey salt mining

26.11.06

Took a trip down the salt mines yesterday. I was impressed to learn they'd been mining salt just outside Kracow for more than 500 years! The mine is huge, it has large caverns dug out of rocksalt, some of which have been turned into chapels, cathedrals, ballrooms, displays etc. and feature statues and chandeliers etc. All made of sodium chloride of varying pureness. Quite weird.

I had expected the interiors would be all white and glittering somehow, but they were more grey and just slightly sparkly. The salt-crystal chandeliers were cool in a whacky sort of way, but looked a bit blobby and thick - like some kind of Dinosaur Designs lapshade made from chunks of clear perspex strung together.

Some of the statues were so old they'd melted into formlessness from years of humid air swishing by. We wondered how long it would take to dissolve, say, the statue of the pope if you immersed it in water? The tour guide made hilarious jokes about how a small statue of a dog's face had decomposed due to hungry tourists licking it off. Guffaw

Then we drank a beer 100 metres underground, just because we could, and caught the lift back up the shaft, packed in with about 10 other tourists. After Isco's 'soup with a sausage' for lunch, I think they suffered more than we did.

Last night we checked out some bars around Kazimirs - the area of town in which we have been residing. Did I mention this cool hostel we are in? It's called Good Bye Lenin, it's only about 6 months old and features funky red and white stencil art on the walls and quotes from Lenin such as "A lie told often enough becomes truth" - How true that statement is about the last place we were in - Nathan's Tinea Shack in Warsaw. Ugh!

Anyway, as legend goes, there are more bars per square metre in Kracow than anywhere else. And this seems fairly true. We went to some of the coolest places ever though, decorated with 1930s wedding photos, tiny tables with table cloths and lit almost entirely by candlelight. I got a cup of tea in a beautiful gilt-edged cup, with saucer and they didn't even look at me oddly for ordering tea in a bar. It's possibly not even worth saying I wish they had places like that in Sydney because it's just not gonna happen. Melbourne maybe.

ISCO POST: An end to terror

28.11.06

A quick one as we have rumbling stomachs and are heading off for some kind of enormous Magyar meal, wherever we can find one. We're in Budapest -- we've rented an apartment for a week so we can cook for ourselves and have breakfast in bed for the first time in 2 months. Bliss. The flat is right in the middle of the main pedestrianised shopping strip -- a bit weird to go outside every day and run into crowds of awful mitteleuropean tourists buying crap souvenirs. Our last stop was Cracow, in Poland, where we stayed in the old Jewish quarter, Kazimierz -- great nightlife and food, and little evidence of 'old town' tourism.

Budapest boasts what is supposed to be a great Museum of Terror, but having immersed myself in a history of 20th century infamy in a series of grim museums from Tallinn onwards, culminating in a truly harrowing day last week at Auschwitz, I am ready for some respite. Which was why Claire and I today went to the Museum of Fine Arts here to see the magnificent Caravaggio painting of David with Goliath's severed head ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_with_the_Head_of_Goliath_%28Caravaggio%29). Much gentler fare, I'm sure you'll agree. The painting was part of a beautiful little exhibition on the theme of The Triumphant, The Defeated and The Victim -- really excellent works by one of my favourite painters, Artemesia Gentileschi, as well as Cranach the elder and others, displaying such noble and religious themes as Salome with John the Baptist's severed head, Judith with Holofernes' severed head, etc.

But mostly we plan to do a whole heap of nothing this week before we head to Romania on Sunday for our last days of travel, for the time being. Our legs are tired and our brains are full. We're going to the opera on Friday night (it's Mozart month -- Cosi fan Tutti), mostly because the opera house is really lovely, and also because it will give us an excuse to buy some clothes. Ours all have that trademark 'eau de backpack' (why oh why did I forget to pack some potpourri?)

Paprika

01.12.06

Our week of R&R is rollicking by. Thursday already and, you'll know we saw Caravaggio's David with the Head of Goliath picture in the Budapest Fine Arts Gallery. It formed part of an excellent little exhibition comprising about 12 pictures showing many severed heads to depict the grusomeness and the transcendence of human life... I thought it was extremely well thought out and executed ('scuse the pun).

The rest of the gallery was free and we had a bit of a look around and took advantage of the complimentary guided tour in English of the Spanish pix (including five El Grecos, pretty cool). But the whole place was really in preparation mode for a huge Van Gough exhibition that starts there on Friday. While I'd love to see it, after watching people on Tuesday already lining up for ages to pre-buy tickets, it just won't be worth battling with the Hermitage-style queues that are bound to turn up. Sorry Vincent (but I could've told you...)

Yesterday we hit the shops and bought some clothes that are frivilous rather than practical (yay, I am SO sick of thermys!), some of which we can wear to the opera tomorrow night, so we are both feeling happy and beautiful.

Budapest is pretty amazing. The town is fairly old, I guess, lots of early 19th century buildings, curving boulevards and art deco touches. Those who have been reckon it's a little like Vienna in appearance- I will judge this when we visit the Austrian capital in a few weeks' time. Haven't done much sightseeing although we've crossed the Danube a couple of times. Planning to have a Hungarian bath tomorrow or Saturday as well so that should be an experience!

Dracula's land

5.12.06
Budapest became a little heavy on our shoulders after a whole week there. I don't think it was the city itself, but rather a combination of us relaxing, then becoming too lazy. Plus the location of our flat was right on the main drag, which meant every time we stepped outside we found ourselves in the midst of glazed-eyed tourist, rabid shoppers and christmas madness. There weren't any local pubs or cafes that didn't overcharge and we were too centrally located and, again,too lazy, to really explore much beyond our vicinity. Oh dear.

We arrived in Oradea, just across the Romania-Hungary border at about 7.30 last night and already feeling impressed and invigorated to be somewhere new. There's a beautiful almost-full moon over the city, which smells like woodsmoke, all adding to the spooky I'm-almost-in-Transylvania atmosphere.

The town is wonderful. Old crumbly art nouveau buildings that haven't seen much maintenance since they were built. A main street that actually seems to be populated with locals rather than tourists, and no el-fake-oh feeling 'old town'. We wandered out to this old citadel bit, that looks quite large and formal on the map but is actually quite weird in real life. It was a citadel, first built around the year 1000, but has burnt down/had overtaking armys destroy it/been replaced several times. Now the star-shaped exterior walls are all crumbling and half covered with grass and dirt, but a central building structure, which includes a church, still stands.

They are rebuilding the bastion walls but from the 10 or so workers we saw, it looks like it could take 19 years to get it back to el-fakeo old citadel tourist-trap standard. So that's good. The buildings in the middle house the visual arts faculty of the local uni but seemed to have classrooms on one level then be extremely dilapidated on the floor above or right next-door. It's odd to see students in hallways and then look left to a tumble-down heap of red bricks and gaping holes in the structure two windows across.

Where the old walls lie in ruins is an urban wasteland. Looks something like the old bricktowers at Sydney Park but in worse repair. It'd be a great place to have a picnic in summer, complete with little kids running too close to the 20m drop and falling down holes where old passageways once were. Romania doesn't seem to worry as much about public liablity as Australia does. In fact, all through Eastern Europe we've seen dodgy work sites featuring shaky scaffolding and people without hard hats, gaping potholes in pavements and bikeriders without helmets (yes folks, it's true). Kind of prefer the freedom but coming from a place where they practically wrap the trees in cottonwool so you won't get a splinter and sue, it somemes feels daringly risky!

Have just escaped from a nasty black hole of an internet cafe to this slightly better one. Back on the train tomorrow to Sigisoara, birthplace of Vlad Tepes (Dracula) and potentially a bit more touristy than this... fingers crossed it's not though, still hoping for horse-and-cart farmers on roads and fresh eggs in the morning. Hey, it might happen!

Transylvanian dreams

9.12.06

O I love it here!

Romania is as good as I ever hoped it would be. Yes, there are people riding horses-and-carts sharing the road with cars ancient and modern (the local Dacias all look like slightly stuffed-up Renaults) and yes, the people are reserved, but lovely once you manage to break through to them. And the towns are incredibly, medievally beautiful. I am awestruck and lovestruck, i guess, by it all.

We are travelling at a great time of year to avoid the other tourists. When we catch local transport, we are the only non-locals on board and town squares are only teeming with people going about their business, even if that happens to be selling souvenirs or begging for money.

However, the nightlife so far leaves a lot to be desired. There have been evenings when Isco and I are the sole diners in a restaurant, which is odd and a bit uncomfortable. Especially when that restaurant happens to be the stupid Dracula-themed place we were slightly leery of in the first place. Bad food, expensive, and zero atmosphere - NOT quite what we came for.

But we have had some wonderful experiences. Such as yesterday's day trip to Sibiu.

Then the town was fantastic - medieval splendour in three interconnected plazas, joined to the newer part of town by old-fashioned staircases and skinny, winding cobblesone streets. I can't quite convey how happy the crumbling oldness of Oradea, Sigisoara and Sibiu have made me so far... maybe I will do better in describing it from Brasov when I'm not at a cruddy internet cafe with only 6 minutes of my hour left, but I'm really excited that there's still another week of Romania to go!

ISCO POST: Test your travel knowledge

Hello all --

After this trip, I will be well equipped to write a book called "100 Useless Travel Tips", eg:

The Sighisoara to Sibiu minibus drops you off on a busy road about 500m from Sibiu's un-signposted rail and bus stations, which are about 1km NE of the city centre. Where do you pick up the return bus to Sighisoara?

(a) At the same spot -- easy.

(b) At the bus station, dummy!

(c) In the city centre.

or:

(d) At an unmarked car park next to a stadium, 2km on the other side of the city.

The answer, of course, is (d), which should be obvious to anyone who has travelled in Romania. The good thing about such trials is that they become less annoying after a while, and more amusing... not that the locals are as amused. Sibiu is gearing up for Jan 1, when it will wear the 2007 European City of Culture tag. As yet, it appears to have the only mediaeval town square in Europe that is yet to be declared a Unesco World Heritage site. I am not sure what that means, but as every Unesco-blessed town square is becoming bloated with by Adidas stores, Starbucks ripoffs etc, I say Sibiu should resist the temptation for as long as possible. It may also be the only town in the world without an Irish pub, another factor to its credit. (Having said that, we did enjoy Kelly's Bar in Oradea, an "Irish" pub that has probably not seen an Irishman for at least a decade. Romanian to its core, despite the obligatory Guinness posters).

We're in Brasov today, another beautiful mediaeval Saxon town in Transylvania, which has not only an Irish pub but also a Scottish one, offering fine Scottish beers and hospitality, apparently. I doubt that we'll take up that offer, particularly as we are still recovering from the excellent and copious Romanian hospitality offered to us at a magnificent tiny bar on Saturday night. Here for another couple of nights, then off to Bucharest, which I confess I am dreading -- even the Romanians we have met have urged us to avoid it.

Funnily enough, our week in Budapest wasn't as relaxing as we might have expected, and it has been almost a relief to come to Romania, which is very much its own country -- you feel as though you couldn't be anywhere else. The country joins the EU on Jan 1, and change will come quickly and in interesting ways. We will return.

Minorita circle of hell

15.12.06

Well I think it's fair to say we have stayed in the worst hotel of our journey. It's already seeming kind of amusing, because we're outta there now, but geez, nothing can depress you like bad digs!

Isco and I have just spent the past half hour online writing complaining emails and reviews so no one else makes the mistake we did... so for your enjoyment, here's my/our summation of Hostel Minorita - a scam and a joke, surely, even in Bucharest accomodation:

The hostel is located inside an office building, with no windows onto the outside world. Plumbing is a joke - there's no proper shower, just curtains and a drain in the middle of the bathroom, which floods after 30 seconds of the water being on. The flimsy setup also means you're left with a choice while showering - either your towels get soaked or the toilet paper ends up a soggy mess. We were informed by the helpful staff that 'all the rooms have plumbing problems'. I guess they could advertise this as 'water views'.

We booked a double room for two people and only after we checked in were we informed that the 'breakfast included' was just for one person. Ridiculous.

In desperation we looked at a couple of other nearby places in a similar price range (50euros/night) and they looked quite OK, which leads me to conclude that the Hostel Minorita is some sort of scam set up to fool unwary tourists.

On our arrival, a huge, shuddering racket was heard of drilling somewhere else in the building. We were informed that this was going on 'today only' but were woken the next morning by the same grinding noises, punctuated by some hammering, just to mix it up a bit. On occasions when other sounds could be heard, the dulcet tones of the receptionist screaming at someone over the telephone would also float into our stuffy little room.

Returning to the room after dinner, we found the light had blown in our watery abode's washroom. It was fixed eventually but that didn't help much when, in the middle of the night, on using the conveniences, they started protesting with a loud groaning noise, which we could only stop by fiddling with the taps - now wide awake at 4am. Getting back to sleep was not helped by a noisy airconditioning unit, which had two settings - blowing loudly or clicking audibly every 10 seconds.

Needless to say, this morning we found somewhere 3 times more expensive but 10 times better and are feeling VERY relieved.

Still liking Romania though ; )

Farewell to Berlin

22.12.06

Hard to believe it's our last day "on the continent" - we fly to London tonight... as long as the fog doesn't prevent us landing!

Berlin has been interesting. The only city on our entire trip that both of us had visited previously, and we still dug it. However, it's a tough gig being the last stop on a long journey... Isco and I are a bit travel-weary and heartily sick of living out of backpacks. Thankfully there's plenty to see and do here and it's very easy to get about and to communicate with the locals!

We spent the first day on a walking tour with a bloke called Terry Brewer, somewhat of a Berlin institution as he's lived here for 25 years and has being taking people on tours for much of that time, I think. The guy is 71 years old and first came here as part of the British diplomatic service back in the 1950s. So he had some pretty interesting things to relate, and took us to parts of the city we probably wouldn't have visited, such as the Olympic Stadium (where the World Cup final was held this year), Spandau and the WW2 Commonwealth Servicemen's cemetery.

Terry also took us to the "cheap beer and cheap food" part of town at the end of the day, so we had a well-rounded Berlin experience (and very full stomachs).

Our next couple of days were filled with sightseeing and shopping. Isco bought a cool leather jacket and we tried to view the main attractions. But I'm left feeling like I've somehow missed something, which is probably quite true. Sort of wish I'd planned what to do here better, but it's hard to sort these things out on the fly, well I find it is, anyway!

I think there must be a funky area of town with a bunch of Melbourne-ish cafes and Newtown-ish boutiques that I didn't manage to discover. I'm sure I saw it out the corner of my eye last time I was here! We did spend an afternoon in Krauzberg, but it was rainy and miserable, and nothing seemed that great there. Ah well... next time!

Can't remember when my last group email was, or what it related so here's a quick whip through the highlights:

Brasov: An excellent city at the edge of the Carpathians, would love to go back there any old time. Isco and I managed to find a fun local bar and spent a fun night hanging out with the locals. Also saw the main attractions and did a day-trip to Bran Castle, which is very pretty, although it was freezing so we couldn't quite do it justice before having to scuttle off to the nearest indoor attraction to get warm.

Bucharest: Much better than everyone (mostly other Romanians) warned us it would be. Despite the Hostel Minorita experience, we really liked the place. Romania as a whole though seems very un-ready for EU membership, for a host of reasons I won't go into here. But what a fascinating and beautiful country. Really feel like it's a place I could go back to and consider living in for a while, if purely for the "Year in Provence"-style novel you could write about the experience: drinking homemade palinka (plum brandy, very strong *koff*), hitching rides with local horse-and-cart driving farmers, checking out the medieval castles, ruins and painted monasteries, drinking the local wine (very good, and cheap), picking up the language (not too dissimilar to French/Italian so seems relatively learnable, unlike, say Hungarian, eek!), etc.

Vienna: I had somehow thought it would be a bit twee and nicey-nice but it was cooler than I expected. Had an oddly satisfying morning doing laundry at the laundromat (OK so domestic chores are fun after 3 months of leisure!?!). Also saw plenty of Klimt, which was even more beautiful in 'real life' than it looks in reproduction, although many of the pictures are almost too big/high up to study them in detail. Visited several palaces and such, but avoided the "Mozart toilet", where you could do your business for €1 accompanied by music from the maestro!

Vienna to Berlin: Ran into annoying EU regulations about max 100ml liquid can be carried in hand luggage so had to ditch a brand new bottle of moisturiser (ironically bought to save money, as we figured it'd be cheaper in Romania than anywhere else). At least we know this now, so we won't be caught out for the London leg. I saw a guy who had to throw out a bottle of expensive cologne because it was 110mls, they're pretty full-on about it. Kinda funny though as you could pretty much take whatever the heck you liked into the EU from Romania on the flight from Bucharest-Vienna, so still a bit miffed as to how/what they're preventing with their silly 100ml rule.

Wow, OK, I guess I'll sign off here. Hope you've enjoyed the ride with me.