Balkans

Welcome to the final installment of updates for my current adventure. Last update I left off in the Caucausus--Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia. I caught a train from Tbilisi, Georgia to Batumi, Georgia on the Black Sea Coast. From there I crossed (via minivan, walking and taxi) into Turkey, then caught a series of busses to Hopa, Trabzon, Samsun and Ankara. Here is a map of Turkey. The pink line is this trip, the blue line is former travels.

Here is some scenery on the Turkish Black Sea coast, a beautiful area of mountains, water and mosques.

A scene from Trabzon. Note the many minarets. Small mosques such as these exist every few miles throughout the entire country of Turkey (and much of the Middle East). Also note the palm tree...this seaside area has a very nice climate.

The journey from Batumi, Georgia to Ankara took almost 20 hours. In Ankara I met with my friend Gurkan. You may remember Gurkan...I met him while visiting Turkey seven years ago. He then came to the U.S. and lived in Colorado with me for a few years! Obviously we had become good friends. Now he is married and working in Ankara as a paramedic.

Here is Gurkan and his wife Betul at home. Note the table spread with Turkish hospitality.

Although this was my second time in Turkey, I wanted to stay a few days, mostly to relax following recent tiring travels. With the few days, Gurkan managed to show me some parts of Turkish life. Here is a Turkish bath...it was sort of like a sauna with great architecture. One can lay on that mat and get a massage.

...and here is a crew making Pide at a fashionable snack shop in downtown Ankara. Pide is a meaty mixture spread onto something like pita bread and cooked.

...and another meaty creation...

...and if you eat too much of that...

...that picture was on the wall in a bar, it is from a Turkish cartoonist. Don't ask me the significance. On the other hand, I did ask Gurkan the significance of these blue eyes stuck to the ground outside the front door.

Gurk explained that the evil eyes were to keep out evil spirits...people have them on every wall and even on jewelry...in all colors and sizes...to ward off the spirits.

Here I am in a Turkish sweet shop. I think I am gaining weight here, especially along with Betul's cooking. Time to head on towards Eastern Europe. Here is a picture from the road heading to Istanbul (a comfy 6 hour bus ride). A note on Turkish busses: they are some of the most comfortable operations in the world. Dozens of companies compete, offering perks such as hot beverages and snacks on board.

Now a note on the above architecture, i.e. concrete. In much of the area I had been traveling (former Soviet areas), concrete is the standard construction. Same holds in Turkey. Some people try to help the grey scenery by painting the buildings...some parts of Turkey are quite colorful because of this.

I arrived in Istanbul at night (on new years eve), in time to see the Blue Mosque and Aye Sofia lit up, and the Bosphorous separating Europe from Asia...

...heading out of Turkey: I caught an overnight train from Istanbul to Sofia, Bulgaria. Here is another map for reference (again, pink is current travels, blue is former routes).

My goal was to visit the countries in Eastern Europe that I had not yet seen. First stop: Bulgaria. Not too much to report except a huge snowstorm, barely any English speakers, and terrible customer service at the bus station. My highlight was a young Malaysian (Chinese ethnicity) fellow who I met on the train to Sofia. He was stationed in Sofia for a while for his tech job. He invited me to stay with him and his Chinese roommates in their apartment on the outskirts of Sofia. This made for a relaxing night while the snow fell.

Next stop: the former Yugoslav republics. Here is a map of Eastern Europe in the early 80s, well before the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and Checkoslovakia all broke apart

...and here is my attempt at history (warning, my version is likely incorrect in some fashion).

Yugoslavia (translation: "south slavs") was made up of many ethnic groups. At the core were the Serbs. After the Soviet Union collapsed, parts of Yugoslavia started peeling away. Each ethnic group wanted their own nation. First was Slovenia...this country has now become one of the most successful stories of Eastern Europe. It is a tiny nation that has a great tourism industry--which Strom and I visited in 2000. (it is blue below). Compared to the independence of the other parts of Yugoslavia, Slovenia escaped with very little bloodshed.

Second to peel away was Croatia. However, the geography of the ethnic groups was not clear cut. This resulted in Serbia (the core of former Yugoslavia) attacking Croatia as it tried to achieve independence. War ensued. Now Croatia has a quickly developing economy and a great tourism industry centered on the fact that most of the country hugs the scenic Adriatic coast.

You may not be able to read the text on this map, but the different colors are different ethnic groups in the region. Compare the colors to the dark lines, which represent the current national boundaries. The basis of much of the conflict in this region is people's attempt to have an independent country for their own ethnic group. This generally means capture as much land as you can, and then kick out or kill anyone who does not belong.

As you can tell from the above map, this has resulted in some parts where ethnicity corresponds to national borders, and other parts where it does not. One irony of all this fighting is that some of these ethnic groups are actually from the same "stock." Some can not be told apart until they speak.

The third country to break away from Serbia (the remaining core of Yugoslavia) was Bosnia, with significant bloodshed. As the map above shows, many ethnic groups still exist within Bosnia and Hercegovina. This is a result of the peace deal brokered by Clinton...

Macedonia (in yellow above) also managed to achieve independence, leaving behind the regions of Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo. These 3 regions were a country called "Serbia and Montenegro" until Montenegro became independent a couple years ago...leaving Serbia (still containing the region of Kosovo).

From Bulgaria I caught a bus to Skopje, the capital of Macedonia. Macedonia may conjure up images of Greece. This is because Macedonia is a region that is mostly in northern Greece...but also partially where the country of Macedonia now is. This region that broke away from Serbia needed a name, but Greece did not want the name Macedonia used. So the small country was officially named FYROM (the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia). For all purposes, most people just call the country Macedonia now.

I noticed a couple things in Macedonia. First, I noticed that the capital Skopje is perhaps one of the only places in the world that has pj in the middle of the name. Second, I noticed this statue below (women and children better grab their arms too!). Next, I found a restaurant serving vegan Balkan food. That was a rarity...I ate quite a bit there. Finally, I noticed that I could take a bus north to Kosovo.

In the below map, Kosovo is part of the brown ethnic group, i.e. the Albanians. However, it is still part of the country now called Serbia. So the Serbians have tried to cleanse their country of the Albanian people (i.e. remove them from Kosovo where they live)...and the Albanians have fought back. This conflict happens to be along religious lines as well (the Albanian people are Muslim and the Serbians are Orthodox Christian), but religion is not the problem per se...ethnicity is the problem. A fragile peace currently exists in Kosovo only because of UN and US peacekeepers.

On the two hour bus from Skopje to Pristhina (the main city of Kosovo, in the center of Kosovo), I met an English speaking fellow sitting next to me. After talking for a couple hours, he invited me to stay with him and his wife in Pristhina. He had a unique interest in Buddhism, which he admitted probably made him the only one interested in Buddhism in Kosovo. We spent the evening at his place eating well (by candlelight since the power kept going out), looking at his pictures of Buddhist deities, and learning everything I wanted to know about the Kosovar Albanian people. To protect his identity, I won't post his picture, but here is a picture I took while walking back to the bus station. On the right is his head (in the hooded sweatshirt), and in front is a sign pointing to one of the UN bases which we passed.

Of note, when entering Kosovo, your passport is stamped UNMIK (UN mission in Kosovo), and not by the country of Serbia. Also, Kosovo uses the Euro, which is different from Serbia. The friend I made was quite hopeful that Kosovo would be gaining independence as a nation soon.

This picture above was taken at the bus stand in Pristhina. Note that Doner and other Turkish foods are for sale...this region has heavy Turkish influence (not the least of which is the Muslim religion left from Ottoman conquests).

At least they speak my language here:

Actually I think that pjese means repairs (and maybe it is pronounced reyes), because I saw it written on alot of auto repair shops. Anyway, I enjoyed seeing permutations of P's an J's...even on Ksovo's finest beer.

After a night in Kosovo, I returned on a two hour bus to Skopje, Macedonia, and then caught a 5 hour bus to Ohrid, a town in southwestern Macedonia. The town is known for its beautiful lakeside setting.

Lake Ohrid is part of the boundary between Macedonia and Albania. I caught a public bus to the border, then walked the mile across the border to Albania. Here is the welcome sign (Albanians call their country Shopirise) on the south end of Lake Ohrid.

I arrived in Pogradic, Albania, a nondescript border town just as it was getting dark. I had no intention of staying there, but no onwards transport existed, so I found a freezing hotel. The next day I caught a packed minivan to the capital Tirana.

Albania was not part of Yugoslavia. It was sandwiched between Yugoslavia and Greece, and was itself communist from the 1940s to the late 1980s.

Tirana has alot of concrete, as seen in the above picture of the main square. Recently people have been painting the concrete all sorts of interesting colors, making the scenery less grey. I found a minivan heading from Tirana 3 hours north to Skhoder, a town on the border with Montenegro. Skhodra is known for being a more dangerous area..some ethnic tensions have caused conflict nearby. I arrived in the city 5 hours before the next transport heading to Montenegro. I didn't feel like sitting around for 5 hours, so I decided to walk. Here is a sign giving distances to towns in Montenegro and beyond. One sign said the border town was 14km (8 miles). This took me a few hours, and I passed some interesting sights along the way...

...like these bomb shelters. During communist rule, hundreds of thousands of these shelters were built in people's yards. I'm not sure who they were running from, but these things were made to withstand attack from a tank. Now they are just an eyesore, providing entertaininment for peole like me who happen to be walking by...

another interesting site near the border: a church (cross on the left) and a mosque (minaret on the right), just across the field from each other. I saw this in a few places in the region, highlighting that religious tolerance is not necessarily the problem here.

I walked a couple hours to the border, crossed, and attempted to find a ride...I was unable to until I walked another couple hours to the nearest town, making for about 12 miles total of walking in the beautiful countryside between Albania and Montenegro.

Montenegro is the newest country in the world since it split from "Serbia and Montenegro." The tiny country was featured in the latest James Bond film, which was not actually filmed in the country. Montenegro has a beautiful Adriatic coastline--just as great as that found in popular Dubrovnik (Croatia) to the north. However, the tourist industry is lacking a little...transportation is not the easiest and customer service is lacking. Anyway, I found myself staying the night in Ulcinj, the southernmost coastal town. Here is a picture of an internet cafe full of children playing warlike video games. Don't they restrict these games to older people?

...and a photo of the Montenegro coastline.

I caught a bus through the costal towns of Bar, Budva and Kotor into Croatia to Dubrovnik. Dubrovnik has become perhaps the hottest spot in the region for tourism, with good reason. Here is a picture of the town walls and the sea, and another picture of the streets in the old town.

From Croatia I found a bus heading to Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia Hercegovina. For those interested in geography, note that this bus headed along the Adriatic coast, crossed through a few miles of coastline that is Bosnian territory, entered Croatia again, then entered Bosnia en route to Mostar. I found this tiny ocean front property of Bosnia to be quite interesting.

A note about couchsurfing.com: a great website that pairs travelers with folks offering a place to sleep or even just to meet and talk. People of all ages and interests are on there. I found someone in Sarajevo....

I arrived in Sarajevo at night and called my newfound Couchsurfing friend, who instructed me to meet him at the main bar in town. The streets were sheets of ice and freezing rain was falling, but I found my way. There I met him and the other two folks he was currently hosting from couchsurfing (many couchsurfing.com hosts are very generous, hosting multiple travelers at once). The group was content on staying at the bar for a while, so I spent the next few hours in a crowded smoky bar full of the partying youth of Sarajevo. For those that know me, you know how wonderful I thought this was.

A note on the bar scene: for some travelers, bars define traveling. One of the other couchsurfers I met that night was spending a few days in each city in the Balkans...and his schedule included about 8 hours at a bar every night. This same individual couldn't understand how I could really get to know Sarajevo in just one night. Of course I can't, but I'm not sure that hours in bars achieves that goal any faster...

Here is a picture of a cemetery near downtown Sarajevo, with many graves from the recent wars. Other sites in the city include shrapnel holes in concrete structures, and the bridge where Archduke Ferdinand was when he was killed (sparking WWI).

Continuing east by bus I crossed into Serbia and arrived at the capital of Belgrade. It was Christmas Eve (Xmas is Jan 7 in Orthodox areas), so the streets were empty save for folks heading to the markets to buy last minute decorations.

...and continuing east from Belgrade, I caught a train to Bucharest, the capital of Romania. The freezing ice had become worse, and I was not having a great day anyway...so I skipped the side trip to see the Transylvanian castles just to the north. I roamed Bucharest for a day, then continued by rail to the tiny country of Moldova and its capital of Chisinau.

I knew from previous travels that all USSR areas had a different width of tracks than neighboring countries. When crossing from Romania to Moldova (a former part of the USSR), I experienced, for the first time, the changing of the wheels. This happened while everyone slept. The box part of the car was lifted off of the undercarriage, and then placed down on new wheels. Here is a picture I took during the endeavor.

On the train to Moldova I met a Swedish traveler named Matt who has been to much of the world (including some interesting places like Seychelles, Galapagos, Brunei...). (Note that extensive travel is commonplace to many young folks in Europe, Israel, and Australia). Together we met with some couchsurfing folks in Chisinau (pronounced Kishinev). Below is their picture in front of an orthodox Christian cathedral in the central park in the capital city. We recently hosted them as guests on a a podcast episode about Moldova...please listen to the latest episode (#41) of The World A La Carte podcast (click here http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/talkCast.jsp?masterId=26038 or find it on iTunes).

I wanted to visit parts of Ukraine including Kiev and the Crimea (with Odesa, Yalta), but post-Christmas travel had filled all the busses. So I continued my travels with Matt heading north from Chisinau to Lviv, Ukraine. Lviv is known for its gothic architecture....statues and churches like these are all over the place.

here is a pic of the train leaving Lviv, heading for Budapest...

I headed to Budapest to catch my return flight. Actually I was supposed to return from Ekaterinburg (Russia) to Budapest on Hungarian Airlines, and then continue via London to the U.S. The agents at the airport did not mind at all that I had skipped my first segment...I arrived at the airport a couple days early and made sure of this. Then I spent a couple days seeing the iconic sights of Budapest.

Here is a fun permutation on the Russian nesting dolls, found at a market in Budapest (these same characters can be found many other places). Note the one with Osama: inside is Saddam, then Arafat, then Hitler, etc.

...and thus I end this trip, from Budapest via London via Chicago, to Boston for a day, then via LAX to Vancouver. With 2 free stopovers (i.e. over 24 hours), creative use of maximizing layovers (i.e. under 24 hours), and returning to a different city from where you started (aka open jaw) a flexible person can have quite an adventure for free with a frequent flier award ticket (nevermind the environmental damage from all the flights).

Quiz: what am I flying over in northeastern Arizona in the next picture below? The answer is below the picture.

Answer:

that is a neat picture from above of Monument Valley!

Above is a picture of the docks near Tsawassan in Vancouver. Below is me with my grandfather (in Nanaimo, on Vancouver Island), which was my reason for visiting there. He is well decorated from long service in India...

...and I'll finish off with a picture on the Turnagain Arm just south of Anchorage!

Central Asia, Aral Sea, Caucausus

Welcome to the blog 3 of 4 for this trip. Last update left off in western China, between Urumqi and Kashgar, then attempting to take a bus from Urumqi(China) to Almaty(Kazakhstan). Here is a map of travels so far. The pink lines are this trip, and the blue lines are former travels. In the middle of the map is Urumqi, and to left is one pink line heading to Kashi(Kashgar), and another a broken pink line heading towards Almaty.

The line is broken because I reached the China/Kazakh border at Korgas, and was told that the border was closed due to Kazakhstan Independence Day. This was not so simple to determine. I had just taken a 13 hour terrible overnight sleeper bus to Korgas, arriving at 5am in the dark and cold...and almost nobody was outside. The couple people who were obviously could not speak English, so I did not understand them. Also, my guidebook did not have a map of Korgas because it is such a small town. So I started walking in the dark until I found a hotel, which I thought would mean warmth. Unfortunately, many places in the region use heat sparingly, so the lobby of this hotel was ice cold. At least there was no wind. The night guard (who I awoke from in front of a TV showing an NBA basketball game) kindly used all manner of charade and writing numbers to tell me that the border was closed for at least the next five days.

Unsuccessful at traveling overland, I returned on another overnight sleeper bus to Urumqi and bought a plane ticket leaving immediately for Bishkek(Kyrgyzstan). The ticket was about $240. I did not fly to Almatay because the flight was much more expensive and no plane was leaving that day.

One last picture from Urumqi in western China, a fascinating region where Chinese, Islam and Russian meet. I have no idea what this sign says, but it is like many signs in the city, with all three writing(Islamic is at the top). Good luck at finding any English.

The flight to Kyrgyzstan over the Tian Shan (Heavenly) mountains landed me at Bishkek's airport, which is being half rented out to Uncle Sam. Here is the lineup of U.S. Air Force planes seen on arrival, note the left one loading up with our boys.

I hung out in the tiny airport for a while, watching some Americans come and go through guarded doors on the third floor. A couple military folks went to the airport Post Office to get a sack of mail...I stopped them to say hi. They were not friendly at all.

So about Central Asia: the five former Soviet Republic 'stans are as follows (see the map):

Kazakhstan is the large country in the north, and the visa is easy to obtain (about $25 for single entry visa issued on the same day in Beijing).

Kyrgyzstan is the small country in the east, and is famous for its mostly mountainous territory. The visa is easy to obtain, especially because it can be bought for $30 on arrival at the airport (which is what I did). Kazakh and Kyrg people are traditionally nomadic, so their cities are not necessarily as full of history as the other 'stans.

Tajikistan is the small mountainous country in the southeast bordering Afghanistan. The visa is easy to obtain. The country is quite poor and unregulated compared to the other 'stans. It was a parcel of land wrestled over between Russia(from the north) and Britain(from the Pakistan side)--a piece of history called "the great game"and parodied in the '80s movie Spies Like Us.

Uzbekistan has the most interesting Silk Road cities but is difficult to visit. With adequate planning, an American can get a visa (and the required invitation) for about $140 (which is still quite alot, considering most countries are wonderfully free for Americans to visit). Uzbek has made the process especially expensive for Americans because relations are not great currently.

Turkmenistan is in the west bordering Iran. The president who recently died was a dictator who liked putting statues of himself all over. The country is difficult to visit, requiring being part of a tour group in order to get a visa. Actually one can get a Turkmen 3 day transit visa, but only if heading to or from Iran(not to Azerbaijan). Americans basically can not get an Iranian visa...except maybe if part of a tour group. I had no plan to visit Turkmenistan currently.

Although I had obtained the Kazakh visa in Beijing, and had my Kyrg visa by arriving at the airport in Bishkek, I had not planned well enough for the Uzbek visa...and now it was going to cost me $270 and a week of time to obtain. This was too much, so I decided to skip it....I will go back to the region once it is more stable (and hopefully Turkmenistan and Iran will be easier to visit by them). I also decided to skip Tajikistan, since it is between Uzbekistan and Afghanistan, and I could not travel overland there like I enjoy doing (I could have flown into Dushanbe).

So I was left with Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. Sounds good. Even though these are the easier of the five countries to visit, there are still corrupt games to be played. You may be walking down the street and notice some police hanging out on the next corner. They will definitely notice you, and ask for your passport and ask all sorts of silly questions (despite that they barely speak any English), and try to get money from you. When I responded that I was a student, they asked to see my student card, as if it was a requirement. The only way I got away was because three (other) Indian folks passed by. The officers turned their attention to them. By the time I was a block away I saw the officers escorting the Indians into the police van.

Yes I did actually take a seat nearby and take tele-photo pictures of these jokers. This was the next day, after they harassed me. For any traveler who comes upon this blog, note their location: they are hanging out front of the Beta grocery store in Bishkek (this is so common that the guidebook lists their other locations, to be avoided).

Kyrgyzstan is mostly famous for its mountains, or for the Silk road town of Osh, located in the Fergana valley (the area full of silly jagged country borders between Kyrg/Uzbek/Tajik). I was only going to see Bishkek, where people did actually have the diversity of Central Asian ethnicities...not to mention a couple neat bazaars. Here are a couple pics from the Osh Bazaar.

And of course the region has lots of Nan, which is my favorite food in the area. Vegetarian and hot--although sometimes it is apparently made with animal fat. Last blog I posted pics of a couple Uighur men in western China making Nan. Here is Kyrg man and his wares. He actually looks Slavic, but of course there are lots of European Russian types in the region as a result of the USSR.

and in the tandoori:

I caught a marshutka (the Soviet version of the packed dangerous minibus found in undeveloped places worldwide) from Bishkek (Kyrgstan) to Almaty (Kazakhstan), a 6 hour ride. This included stopping at the border, which I have pictured below. Now, a discussion on pushing and shoving. I may not say "please" and "excuse me" as much as I could, but I do like some orderly nature in lines. Last blog I described the chaotic pushing and shoving that the Chinese do at every opportunity. Indians can be similar, and Russians are not fat behind, but the scene at the Kazakhstan entry post reached a new level of push. We're talking all out full body squishing, right in front of the immigration officer booth...with military folks looking on and doing nothing. The only reason that no one was injured was because the Soviet folks wear poofy furry coats, and many (of the ones rich enough to travel) have significant adipose (big bellies, behinds, etc). Contrast this to the thin Chinese who wear thin coats, resulting in alot more bony prominences in line. There was absolutely no regard for courtesy, let alone human life, in this immigration area. People had their faces squashed up against the glass at the immigration booth. The best I could do was to lean into the push, putting all my weight backwards into the folks shoving me.

Almaty was the capital of Kazakhstan until about ten years ago, when the capital was moved north to Astana. Almaty has mountains on the south end, but I did not see them because of the weather+ pollution. I did get the oppotunity to stay with Talant (a friend of philfriend Ben H), a young banker who had studied at Columbia in NY. Talant is a Kyrg man now living in Almaty. Being able to talk to a local person, even if only briefly, is better than long times traveling in foreign lands without any communication with the locals. Being able to stay with Talant was fascinating in learning about both Kyrg and Kazah people...only problem is that somehow I forgot to take his picture!

In Almaty I also stopped at the Green Market(above), and Panfilov Park(below), where there is a wonderful Russian orthodox cathedral, and a curious Soviet military monument.

This monument below is just as weird as it appears, and it is 3 dimensional (the military men are coming out at you). There is an eternal flame in front...and strangely this is a place to get married! (note the wedding party on the right).

Next: From Sea to Shrinking Sea.

Although I was going to miss Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, I definitely wanted to travel from the Aral to the Caspian to the Black to the Mediterranean Seas. The Aral Sea is shared between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and I wanted to take a train to the town of Aralsk in Kazakhstan. The Kazakh train system is just like the Russian one (because they were the same system previously), but with trains that are not as well maintained. The stations are just as grand (in the Soviet style). Here is a picture of some detail at the station in Almaty (note the hammer and sickle on the top of every side of every column).

Getting to Aralsk was a little tricky. A couple trains go there a day from Almaty (a 36 hour journey). Leaving Aralsk is tricky too: a couple trains leave Aralsk going west every day, but only one goes west directly to the Caspian Sea town of Aktau...and it goes only on odd dates. This took me a few hours to ascertain, given the language barrier. I was able to buy a ticket to Aralsk, but the Almaty station would not sell me an onward ticket from Aralsk on to Aktau. So i decided to take my chance that I could get out of Aralsk quick enough (it is no place to hang around as we will see...)

Here is a provodnik (conductor) on the Kazakh train to Almaty. This train passed through the ethnically Uzbek town of Shymkent, and the silk road city of Turkistan. Here are the two guys that took interest in me during the ride (you can also see that the berths are the same as the Russian trains; this is 2nd class aka platz car). The guy on the right is named Borat. I am not making that up...although he looks a little more east asian than the Borat in the movie.

A note on language barrier. American travelers are often cited as being morons when trying to communicate to others....for example if the other person doesn't understand, the American may just repeat the same thing louder and slower in English. Well, this works both ways. People had been doing this to me all through Russia (but not so much in China since the Chinese stick to themselves). Now the two jokers in this picture spent 36 hours trying to yell Kazakh phrases at me to get my response. I kept good humor but was annoyed. Eventually I found a solution. I would just start talking to them very loudly in English (about anything, keeping a smile)...very quickly they would get annoyed and leave me alone for about half an hour.

They were actually quite fun, despite the language barrier. Note the walnuts that the fellow on the left has. They are grown in the region. I gave them to him after I determined I could not crack them by squeezing them against each other (he had encouraged me to buy them by insinuating that they are easily cracked by squeezing...he was not much more successful). Below is a typical station platform merchant.

Aralsk Mope. That is what the schedule said, I guess it is pronounced Aralsk More, which means Aral Sea in Russian. More is an ironic translation for sea because less is the key word here. I disembarked in Aralsk Mope to see the sea...or what was left. Being fascinated by all things environmental, this was a highlight for me. Some history: you may remember the Aral Sea on maps in geography class, being a large body of water somewhere in the USSR. Well, in the 1960s the Soviets decided to divert water from the two main rivers that feed it (the Amu Darya and Syr Darya) to grow mostly cotton in the desert of western Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan. Without rivers feeding it, the sea shrank. By 15 years ago, it began fragmenting, like this:

Scroll up to the previous map to see the current size.... or even better check out the Wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_Sea. On the left side of the page are good maps of the shrinking Aral Sea. The Sea is currently broken into 2 parts...soon to split into 3 parts. The irrigation has not stopped, although the sea is dozens of miles out from the great fishing ports. Large tankers lie rusting in the desert. In some conservation effort, a dam (small dirt berm) was built between the current 2 remaining seas, and the North Aral sea has actually come back to some extent...but the South one is disappearing even faster now. Local dust storms have caused epidemics of tuberculosis. The list of social, health, environmental problems is long. Anyway, I wanted to see this mess, so I to Aralsk I went.

I arrived in Aralsk at the handy time of 8am, and instantly was able to buy a ticket on the train to Aktau (36 hours away on the Caspian Sea) leaving that same day at 9pm. This gave me all day at the Aral. Above is a push and shove picture, to demonstrate ticket buying (I took the pic just after buying the ticket). These people will walk right up to the front of the line and push the front person (me) out of the way (nevermind that the front person is currently being served!). The clerk at the counter will simply help the new person...and rarely try to tell them "hey get in the back of the line." So I go in with elbows out on both sides; I stand in line with my full body pressed up against the person in front...and when I reach the front I put my bag on one side (so no one can come in from that side), and I stand on the other side...making a triangle against the window. Nevermind the language barrier, which forces me to take 10 minutes for a 1 minute transaction.

Above is a picture of a tile mural in the train station of Aralsk. The mural has been there for decades. On the right is daddy Lenin approvingly watching, as his minion in green, reads a proclamation ("Provide fish for the country," is my guess) with outstretched arms to the fishermen of Aralsk. Note the fishermen on the seaside, with nets and sails, and barrels to ship all the fish off to feed the USSR.

Before I show pics of the former seabed, here is one pic of the town, to show that there is life there still. It is a small town. I arrived on Dec 21, the shortest day of the year (winter solstice), and it was snowing. The town streets were all black ice with a dusting of snow, making them dangerous (I fell quite a bit). The place is often described as bleak, so I guess I picked the bleakest day to be there. Here is the ruins of a building at the (former, and future?) port in town. Note the ship on the right.

Pictures of the Aral disaster often show large ships stranded in the middle of the desert, where the sea used to be. Some of these pictures are taken at places around the Aral that are harder to get to. I could have payed a couple hundred dollars to get driven in 4WD (a few hours away) to these sites, but I decided that seeing Aralsk would be enough. I was not disappointed. Below is a picture of me standing in the Aral Sea (i.e. on the former seabed), with a ship in the back. Note the cow grazing in the sea. Is that what is called a sea cow?

The temperature is about 10F, and yes that is a self portrait. However, the next picture is not a self portrait (despite what some may think). Those asses are walking in front of an area that has been partitioned off...allowing some water to gather near town. Im not sure what they call it, but I suppose it would be the North North Aral Sea. It is about as big as you see in the picture. Some fish are pulled out of it.

Only a couple ships were readily apparent in the former harbor, and by 11 am I had seen them... Well I knew that the waterfront had slowly receeded, so I reckoned that if I walk out to sea, then I will see more ships. So I started walking, nevermind that it was below freezing, windy and snowing (and I was carrying my luggage, which is a small backpack). I was not walking on smooth land. To keep access from the port to the receeding sea, the locals had dug a huge trench out to the water(a strategy to which was eventually abandoned). In this trench, on the day I visited, was muck. Water was collecting in it, and the water could not freeze because of the high salinity. So I walked on the highpoints. Also, the whole area was dusted with snow. After an hour or two of this I did indeed come to some more boats. So I played on them. Here is another self picture of me pretending I am sailing on the Aral Sea, following another boat with my own.

I hope the tetanus shot is up to date.

I actually saw one ship with 2 people on it...and a fire...it looked like they were living in the remains of the ship!

Back on"land"(i.e. at the town on the former seaside), I came upon these dromedary creatures, and this woman taking her sled to the well to get water.

Although this woman had to go fetch her water from a well, other buildings in town did have plumbing. Although I'm sure some had toilets, I did not see any. I tried at the local museum, the NGO office(a group trying to save the Aral Sea), the train station, and at a restaurant...all pointed me to an outhouse out back that they use...even in the dead of winter. Yes the poop piles were frozen. Also, none of these places (inside the business) were heated to more than 45 degrees...i.e. i couldn't find anywhere warm to sit all day. So I kept walking. I came upon the town market area. In one doorway I found some women selling flounder. These fish were caught from the Aral...or maybe that partitioned area in the picture above with the donkeys. Anyway, they got quite a kick out of me, and despite the language barrier, I could detect a couple marriage offers. Is that what is called a meat market?

The market also had less meaty items, like bread, clothes, candy, DVD players, etc...

Here are a couple pics from the museum. Note the maritime items on display, and the pictures(on the right) of the former sea with ships in it. Quite sad.

There are also some paintings. Here is an especially sad one. Here is my interpretation. This man decorated in military uniform comes back from serving his country only to find his former livlihood gone (as he sits on his overturned boat). Note his headgear: most people in Kazakhstan(and all of central asia) are muslim of course.

So by night I returned to the train station, which was also apparently the local hangout for young males (nevermind that it had no heat). They were enjoying toying with me (and vice versa). One group insisted I take their picture. Note that almost everyone wears all black(this is a common theme through the Soviet areas). Also, something I noticed of males of any age: when you see your group of friends, make sure you shake hands methodically and thoroughly with each one. I watched alot of high schoolish aged guys in black shaking hands.

Back on the train...another 36 hour, 2 night journey, this time from Aralsk to Aktau(Kazakhstan) a city on the Caspian Sea. Traveling by train from the Aral Sea to the Caspian Sea! That sounds like a once in a lifetime experience, so I paid $34 instead of $22 and got a first class compartment. The scenery was Kazakh steppe; steppe is Kazakh for "this scenery is as exciting as driving across Kansas". The first class compartment meant that instead of many random folks trying to talk Russian to me, I only had 3 trying...and boy did they try. And try. The main one was a woman, age 64, going to visit her son in Aktau. She insisted so heavily that I eat her fish (which stank) and eggs (which stank) that she almost shoved them down my throat. She had a motherly concerned look on her face that I was going to perish eating the bread and jelly that I had. I also had ramen noodles that I bought in Aralsk, but the noodles were stale! Stale ramen noodles. Now that is reaching a new low. Well by the time the train arrived in Aktau at 6am, I had communicated that my intention was to take a couple pics of the Caspian Sea, then go to the airport and fly over the Caspian to Baku (Azerbaijan). The woman insisted that her son (who picked her up at the station) drive me. He was a 30 year old tall fellow who spoke English. He was a Kazakh immigrations officer who actually had once taken a trip (with 16 other colleagues) to McAllen Texas to get trained in immigrations security by the U.S. counterparts. Anyhow, I paid him the taxi equivalent, and he did indeed take me from the train station into town, to the seaside to take some pictures in the dark, then to his apartment (where I met his wife and kids and new cat), and to the airport. Once again, entering the home (and having tea and toast) with this Kazakh family on the Caspian Sea was an experience worth many times more than simply traveling by myself.

A note on the Caspian: of course it would have been more interesting to sail over the Caspian, and this is possible, but only from Turkmenistan to Azerbaijan (see above for why I did not go to Turkmenistan). It is also possible from Aktau to Baku (Azerbaijan), but the ship goes once every 10 days unpredictably. So I chose to fly, from Aktau(Kazakhstan) to Baku (Azerbaijan) just a couple hundred miles over the sea.

We arrived at the airport luckily just as the one flight of the day was leaving for Baku. I paid $150, and was issued the last ticket available. The immigration official stamping me out of Kazakhstan frowned at the fact that I did not have my white entry registration card stamped. This is actually a big deal. The current law is that I did not need to have it stamped, and my entry into the country (at the more trafficked post with Kyrgyzstan) knew this rule. However, this official at Baku was playing a common game, and wanted to extort money from me. The only reason she let me go was because the plane was leaving immediately and the airline folks were encouraging me to hurry. I knew that she wanted such money because I met a British (oil worker) traveler on the plane who was scheduled to leave a day earlier, but he had to spend a day and $200 to play the game. Travelers to Kazakhstan: get your registration card stamped when you enter!

Anyway, I boarded the plane and looked at my ticket only to realize I was flying SCAT airlines. Scat arilines!? Wow, there are some things you dont name your airline. This is one of the hundreds of airlines that splintered from the Soviet Aeroflot. It is also the Kakakh national carrier, and I dont know if it stands for anything. Here is a picture. (The pic was taken when landing in Azerbaijan, that is why there is a plane in the background...when departing Aktau there were absolutely no other planes)

...and the airline lived up to its name! We all boarded amid tremendous pushing and shoving to walk up a small staircase onto the plane. No seats were assigned. Im not sure why the pushing, because there was thankfully eough seats for everyone. Then the engines started. Then they stopped. Then some mechanics came on board and started taking apart parts of the plane. Here is a pic of them opening a ceiling compartment and working with some wires inside.

Did I mention the airlines name was SCAT? All passengers were asked to get off the plane. We waited in the "terminal"for a couple hours, then returned (pushing and shoving) onto the plane. By now I was planning how to survive a plane crash. I had my inflatable globe. I had a Nalgene plus a disposable water bottle, which I figured I could empty for additional buoyancy once the plane crashed in the Caspian. These planes actually do crash...the safety records are so bad that some of these former Soviet airlines are banned from other countries' airspaces!

One hour and no crashes later, I landed in Baku, Azerbaijan. Above is a map. Azerbaijan is the reddish one on the left side of the Caspian Sea. There are 3 countries in the "Caucausus" region. (yes this is where the word Caucasian comes from). All 3 are former Soviet countries. Azerbaijan is a Muslim country. Georgia and Armenia are mostly Christian. Georgia is the green one, and Armenia is the small brownish one. Note that part of Azerbaijan is separate from the main part...see the small brown area to the west of Armenia. If this map were more detailed, it would also show that Armenia currently occupies part of what Azerbaijan considers their territory. In other words, these countries hate each other. One other note: Armenia hates Turkey because Turkey practiced genocide on over a million Armenians during WWI. A volatile region, especially considering it is borderd to the north by Chechnya (a Muslim populated region of Russia; main city Grozny) and to the south by Iran.

Here is a picture of me on the Caspian Seaside in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan. As my Scat flight landed, I met the British oil worker (Andy) (there is alot of oil work in Kazakhstan) who had been held up for a day in Kazakhstan due to extortion by immigration officials. He was the only other non-local on the plane (also, there were no female passengers). He was on business, so his company paid the costs of the "penalty" bribe, plus his airline fees. Anyhow, he was a nice fellow who offered me to ride his cab into town, then to shower at his nice hotel...and then he joined me for a day of touring around Baku. He had been there before, but didn't do the tourist thing, so he enjoyed being able to see town while waiting for his flight home the next day. It was nice to have English speaking company.

Azerbaijan is quite poor, but you would never know it from the people in the capital city Baku. Lots of oil money, and old oil money. So there is old European architecture in Baku, plus ancient Muslim palaces and mosques (see below pic). Baku was one of the main centers for Soviet industrial development. This means that the peninsula that Baku sits on (jutting into the Caspian) is full of tremendous pollution....some of the worst water and land pollution in the world. Not air pollution...the seaside breeze whisks it away. Actually the climate was quite pleasant...60 degrees F and sunny. Palm trees. The lakefront was developed parklike, and it felt sort of like Miami or Chicago....a world of difference from the frozen Kazakh steppe I came from.

After a day in Baku I boarded the train to Georgia. This would have been the Midnight Train to Georgia, except that it left at about 10pm. Below is a picture (note the train terminus sign "Baki"). The train crossed the border into Georgia at about 8am, and arrived in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia at 9am.

My first impression on rolling through the Georgian countryside was of the destruction...old train stations were just concrete shells, many homes were in ruins...but at the same time lots of construction was going on. Tbilisi, the capital city, is quite beautiful, and the highlights are alot of old churches.

The national favorite food of Georgia is a cheesy pastry (khachapuri), which I ate way too many of. The next day I caught a marshutka 6 hours from Tiblisi(Georgia) to Yerevan, the capital of Armenia. Armenia has no open borders with Turkey or Azerbaijan (border with Iran is open), which means that to travel overland, I needed to go from Georgia then return back to Georgia. Easy enough. The route was surprisingly scenic, sort of like driving overLoveland Pass(Colorado) back and forth for a few hours. Here is a picture from northern Armenia.

Armenians claim to have the oldest established Christian church in the world (church meaning organization, not building)... the current seat of the Armenian Aposolistic church is in Echmiadizin, a town near Yerevan. Here are a couple pictures from Echmiadizin.

...and here is a picture of a curious statue in Yerevan..

The whole region from Central Asia to the Middle East eats alot of gyros/shwarma/donor type food (although I did find some great Lavash bread in Yerevan). On the ride back from Yerevan to Tbilisi I took this picture of the car in front. Is that what you call carrion luggage?

and some more carrion luggage, which someone was carrying on the minivan I was in...I guess it was officially a chicken bus.by the way, the baaaaaad jokes are free. no kidding.

Upon returning to Tbilisi I caught the night train to Batumi, Georgia, a city on the Black Sea Coast. Arriving in the morning, I found a series of local transport to the Turkish border... One of the Georgian immigrations officials at the border tried a few times to get me to join him in some vodka. (I had actually not seen as much drinking in the Caucausus or Central Asia as I had in Russia). Here is a picture of the dawn on the Black Sea.

Next update: Gurkan the Turk man, some of Eastern Europe.

Mongolia, Tibet, Islamic China

Hello again,

I left off last time smuggling Cosmo across the border from Siberia into Mongolia with a Russian Truck driver from Irkutsk who was drinking too much vodka. Vodka is a big problem in Russia and Mongolia. To test out the blogging video capabilities, here is a word from our truck driver sponsor.

And here are shelves full of the stuff, all vodka, in Ullan Battor, the capital of Mongolia. I arrived by overnight train from Ulan Ude Russia (pluse 12 hours at the border for no good reason). I only spent one day in UB, but for some insight into Mongolian life, please listen to The World A La Carte Episode on Mongolia. The place is former Russian, at which time Buddhism was squashed. It is now coming back big time. Here is a picture at Gandan Khid, one of the most important Buddhist sites in UB. Make sure you walk clockwise with those prayer wheels. My other brief impression of the place was that it was quite a bit less developed than Russia or China.

Here is the man Ginghis Kahn himself, large and in charge in the main square in the capitol city. And below is part of the suburban yurtopia, or you can call them gers. These perma-gers are all over the city, despite that they are nomadic creations probably more handy in the rural areas.

I departed UB on a train overnight, arriving at the Mongolian/China border town of Zammyn Uud in the morning. I piled off the train with all the Mongolian traders and followed them, pushing and shoving, onto a group of busses bound for the border. The bus arrived at the border then sat and waited until it opened. At the border were dozens of Land Rovers sitting, at the edge of the Gobi, waiting to cross.

The bus dropped me in Erlian (aka Eren, aka Erenhot) China, a large city just over the border. I dont think that China has any small cities. From Erlian I caught an overnight sleeper bus to Beijing. What is a sleeper bus? Here is a picture taken from a bottom bunk, in the middle, in the back. Thats 5 feet long by 2.5 feet wide. Your feet actually go in a wedge shaped box under the next guys head (who uses the wedge as a pillow). If you are larger than these dimensions (in length or width) you will have an uncomfortable ride. So I slept with my knees bent. Good thing the Chinese aren't wide. The other problem is that these busses provide bedding but do not keep it clean. There are stains from drool, sweat, etc. This is no problem (just dont use the bedding) except that they dont seem to turn the heat on. So it is like a rolling icebox. I suppose I could have used my sleeping bag... One other thing, make sure you take off your shoes as you enter the bus, and put them in the provided plastic bag.

I had been in Beijing 7 years ago, and remembered alot of bicycles. Now there were maybe 10% of those bicycles. Also, hardly any homeless. I think the city's efforts at cleaning up for the Olympics have been working. Except for cleaning the air. The pollution was much worse than I remembered...like Delhi or Kathmandu or Bangkok, where you can not see more than a few blocks.

My sleeper bus arrived at the convenient time of 3 am, so I scratched my head in a McDonalds for a couple hours, and then joined the morning masses of people at the Temple of Heaven park on the south end of town. Only problem is there is no lighting in the park. The people go every morning to do their Tai Chi or whatever physical activity, part of which involves hooting and hollering in (what seems) strange patterns. This meant I walked around for a couple hours in the dark, running into bushes because I couldn't see, listening to Chinese folks yelping. Here is a picture just after dawn.

All of the bicycle traffic seems to have moved into the subway, which was sardine like. Here is an interesting pay-per use toilet vending machine in the subway area.

The compulsory picture on Tienamen with the Forbidden City behind (and a picture of Chairman Mao, whose Mausoleum is just in front of me. I'm sure he is happy that there are pay-per-use toilets just below him.

Another change in the city: previously there was a section of town called the Silk Road, or Pearl Market. This was a series of small stalls, just like souqs in Syria, the covered market in Istanbul, etc etc...anywhere in less developed places; the local equivalent of walmart. Lots of dirt and haggling. This has changed in Beijing. All merchants have been put in this new structure, a shiny new building where haggling is still allowed and you can still buy everything.

I also manged to get a visa for Kazakhstan while in Beijing. Same day processing. The letter of invitation requirement has changed to one where I wrote a letter inviting myself! The woman at the consulate window actually gave me a form letter and I just filled in the blanks! When will these countries do away with such silly games?

Speaking of the Silk market, one of missions on this trip is to see parts of the Silk Road. This historically started in Xian China, and was a series of paths (not one road) heasing west to parts of the Middle East and Europe. The best remnants may be in Uzbekistan, but the history is all through the region. So lets start in Xian, by taking an overnight train there from Beijing. Xian is of course where the Terracotta warriors were discovered. The pictures always makes them look infinite...so here is my picture delineating the total area of the excavation. The concept and the carvings are as impressive as they sound.

Just as impressive in Xian was this Wal Mart. Those red and blue sale signs might look familiar to U.S. shoppers, but those hanging slabs of meat didn't remind me of anything in my neighborhood Wally world.

Next goal: Tibet. This should conjure up an image of a Buddhist shangri-la that is difficult to get to, requiring long overland trips from Kathmandu...and lots of paperwork. aka the TTP, Tibetan Tourism Permit, required of all visitors, and checked when boarding flights to Lhasa, the main city. This silly permit has been the bain of independent travelers for years...and the difficult overland routes have added to the adventure. However, between 2001 and 2006 a railway was built to Tibet from the province to the north (Qinghai). The Qinghai Tibet Railway (QTR) allows one to travel from Bejing to Lhasa in comfort, in 48 hours!

Travler forums had rumors that one can board the train without having purchased the silly TTP. In Xian I approached the ticket window to buy a ticket from Xian to Lhasa, and I was told that I needed the TTP...and the clerk pointed to a large blue sign on the wall of the Xian train station, in English, clearly stating foreigners needed the permit before they could buy a ticket. At the same time there was a hostel tout, a 20 something female who spoke some English, standing next to me...trying to get me to stay at her hostel. I asked her to buy my ticket and gave her the $$. Simple. Then I stayed at her hostel.

The next morning as I approached the train station to depart, I was terrified that some Chinese official would discover me permitless, and boot me into the cold Tibetan plateau. Actually nobody asked for the permit as I boarded the train. Noone asked at any time during the journey. For the first few hours I tried hiding on my bunk so that the conductors would not see that I am a foreigner...but eventually I realized they didnt care. Another male in my room, a Tibetan Chinese, had a laptop and was playing shoot-em-up video games (in English, although he didnt speak any English). The conductors took interest in his games, and eventually my compartment was full of conductors playing video games. So they obviously didnt care about my permit.

Here is a picture of my train compartment. It is the same trains that are in the rest of China. You can sit in seats like a bus, you can pay more for 6 beds per compartment like this picture, or you can pay alot more for 4 beds per compartment. I chose this option. Note how high the top bunks are...that is someone's head reading hte newspaper down there. The trains have a hot water tap for noodles or tea (like those in Russia), some have a TV (like this one), and the ones heading to Tibet have ports for Oxygen. This is because the QTR heads uphill...the majority of 24 hours is spent traversing the Tibetan plateau, which seems to reach 5'000m (17,000 feet). Here is some health information they hand out to prepare travelers. Please read it carefully so you are well informed of the health hazards of the trip.

Here is apicture just after Lanzhou, which is one of the top cities in the world for air pollution. Why can I not see the other side of this beautiful lake?

Actually this is the sort of pollution that covers most of China (and many other undeveloped countries, and was in the U.S. earlier this century). This is the real reason I may have needed oxygen... if it wasnt for the air pollution, it would be for the chain smoking Chinese! Although the air pollution cleared up on the Tibetan Plateau, the folks kept smoking. There is apparently a train rule that no smoking is allowed once on the plateau (to not interfere with passengers breathing at 17,000 feet)...but people were smoking continuously. In fact spending any time anywhere in China is like hanging out in a smoky bar constantly.

Nevermind that, here are some pictures from the Train to Tibet.

Those mountains reach 23,000 feet. Note the vehicle in front for scale.

Lots of yaks out there... and sheep...

Lasa: the center of Tibet, home to the Barkhor area around the Jokhang temple, and of course the Potala Palace. Here are some pilgrims walking laps around the Jokhang. The city is full of religious Tibetan Buddhists practicing their faith. Thanks to the Chinese, it is also full of Han Chinese (i.e. what we think of as Chinese, from Easter China) taking over economically. I was looking for a couple specific buddhist deity statues, but all the merchants were Han Chinese, and could not tell me one deity from another. There goes Tibet....

Actually there are plenty of muslim in town also, aka Hui Moslem (Chinese Muslim).

Here is the requisite prayer flag picture.

A cheese and meat sort of place. Lots of yak butter too...makes for good candle burning...