Collecting Dust

Update

2008-04-15T06:53:00.006+08:00

For the few of those who keep checking this blog even now that my most recent travels have ended, you may have noticed that the posts written since coming home have all disappeared. That's true, although I didn't fully delete them. They now exist at this site: http://dustinthomasjohnston.wordpress.com/ and this will remain strictly the travel blog that catalogued my adventures over the year I spent abroad.

Better still, to see my best photos and stories from all of my travels and from life in New York, go to my new website: dustinjohnston.org

Back in the U.S.A.

2007-08-30T06:37:00.000+08:00

It's strange being home. At the airport even impatient people waited in line. Outside the airport there wasn't a single taxi driver hollering at me hoping to dupe me into paying an exorbitant amount of money for a ride home.

I finally had a burrito. Its price was fixed and my attempt at bartering to get it cheaper was met only with confusion.

I showered and the water was clean, hot, and fresh (it was all salt showers in Dahab), and I could step on the tiled bathroom floor with my bare feet without worry of contracting a fungus. I walked into a closet and chose from a variety of more than 10 shirts and I also had more options than simply jeans or shorts. I could have watched TV in English. I didn't, but I could have.

I drove a new-ish car on the right side of the road. There were no old clunkers on the road, no camels, no donkeys, no tractors, no buffaloes. I felt overly restricted by the traffic rules. I stayed in my lane, drove only at the speed limit, obeyed stop signs and red lights. I played my own music loud enough so I wouldn't have to hear myself sing along.

It was green. Trees, grass, bushes, flowers. All of Michigan looked like a golf course with spotless manicured lawns. I never remembered Michigan being so lush.

There was a nasty thunderstorm with hail and winds strong enough to knock over the flagpole. The power went out, and a tree fell on the neighbor's house. The storm subsided and I spent my first evening home helping to chop and clear a tree that pierced the roofing of the house.

I've been unable to clear my plate. The portions are too much. No one else appears to have the same problem. I went to the mall. Almost everyone there was obese. Almost morbidly so. I saw round, stout body shapes that I've never seen anywhere but here, in the good ol' USA.

Everyone spoke English. I understood every word spoken and did not have to speak slowly or over-annunciate in order to be understood.

I slept in a comfortable bed with clean linens. There were more pillows than I knew what to do with. I had dreams about being home and happily woke to the reality that that's just where I was.

Final Photos of Dahab

2007-08-28T20:43:00.000+08:00

Under the Red Sea

2007-08-20T21:42:00.000+08:00

These photos were all taken by Tarik A. Fatah who dove along with us for two dives. He also shot the videos posted below this.Could we look more like dorks? Few if any wet suits were made with fashion in mind and rentals can be horrible. Still, the best part about this picture isn't the thumb up and goofy look on my face but the mountains set as the backdrop to our dive.Once in the water it was time to slip on our fins and spit in our masks.We swam through the shallows for only a moment before we dropped down to the reef below.Honestly, I can't be sure that's the two of us silhouetted in the background but it's a cool photo.Me, alone, checking out the reef.And here's Ash, probably barely breathing at all.Though not that exciting of a creature, this is a cool photo of a giant clam.They're extremely common in the Red Sea but everyone loves clown fish. What's cooler is that if you swim up and watch the sea anemone closely, you can usually find invisible cleaner shrimp living on it as well.Same as the photo a couple posts below, here's another puffer fish.Easily one of my favorite photos he took, this is a great up-close shot of a rock fish.

Who needs the Discovery Channel when you can see this with your own eyes?

2007-08-20T21:21:00.000+08:00

This video is nothing short of awesome. In the beginning it's difficult to discern what the video is of but suddenly an octopus appears from the reef. The video captures it climbing on the reef and then heading out into open water to get away from us. As it goes over the edge of the coral it disappears from view completely but look close and you'll see it nearly perfectly camoflouged against the corals. If you can't see it, look for it moving as it breathes in and out. If you still can't see it, keep watching and you'll see it change colors before swimming off again. Better still, when the octopus is hidden against the reef, look to its right and below it; there are three lion fish hanging around near by. This video and the two following it (the other two are far less exciting) were taken by the head of Penguin Divers, Tarik A. Fatah who went diving along with us on this dive at the Canyon Gardens.

Discovery Channel would have edited this portion out

2007-08-20T21:16:00.000+08:00

In this video both Ashley and I look like amateurs. The video begins with me paddling with my hands, presumably trying to get out of the way, and Ashley holding a waterproof chart of all the species of fish for her "underwater naturalist" dive required during advanced courses. There's really not much going on here, but perhaps you'll find it interesting and would like to see what Sinai looks 60 feet below the surface of the Red Sea.This video was also taken by Tarik A Fatah.

Last clip under the Red Sea

2007-08-20T21:05:00.000+08:00

I'm not sure how interesting people other than our parents will find this video, but it's still a cool shot of us underwater. First seen is Ahmed, Ashley's dive instructor for her advanced course. After him the camera pans back to see me and then Ashley is seen hovering a little higher above the reef. In the background is Hugh, a Kiwi we dove with on most dives.
This video was also taken by Tarik A. Fatah.

Diving in the Red Sea

2007-08-20T18:32:00.000+08:00

I wish I could claim I took some of these pictures or was even present during the diving/snorking trip when they were taken, but, I wasn't. Instead, as is usual around these parts, a man took a liking to Ashley and gave her a simple gift of a CD of some of his underwater photos. Despite our lack of connection to the photos, I still want to post them to give an example of the aquatic life in the Red Sea.All of our dives in Dahab were shore dives where we had to strap on all equipment and then walk out into the water. I prefer jumping off the back of the boat and being picked up to the precarious walking across and between reefs to get to the depths, but still, the shore dives offer beautiful scenery both in the water and looking back towards the mountains on the shore. From this view it's slightly difficult to see that this is a lion fish and not some strange soft coral or other strange creature. This one is smaller, and in this picture less colorful than the average lion fish, but it's a beautiful display of its larger, almost feather-like fins and venomous spines. These are abundant in the Red Sea, more so than any other place I've been diving.I liked this picture for two reasons. One, it shows the blue of the clear waters in the sea. Two, it shows the abundance of tiny, colorful fish that constantly hang about the hard and soft corals.This picture is simply and example of the corals that cover nearly the entire eastern coast of the Sinai Peninsula. I think when most people think of puffer fish they think of large, round, inflated fish with spikes jutting out in all direction as a defense. There are actually more than 120 different species of puffer. I don't know the exact specie name of this particular fish but these were common throughout each of our dives.I wish I could claim we saw a dolphin, even at a distance in any of our dives. The truth is we never did. Still, this picture is a great one and I'm posting it because of the simple fact that everyone loves dolphins.This is a nice coral head, one which would be fun to swim around, searching in the cracks for lion fish, moray eels, or perhaps an octopus.Another similar pic, but this is nice to show the different shapes of the corals, like these more rounded ones that are mushrooming up from the rest. No matter how many times I see a moray eel, it's always exciting. There are many different species and although they're usually found hiding in the cracks of the reef it's awesome to see them swimming in the open water.These orange fish are every where on the reef but the jellyfish is a less-than-common site. Like the dolphin, we weren't lucky enough to see a jellyfish of this size but, again, I'm posting the photo anyways.

The SS Thistlegorm

2007-08-19T02:53:00.000+08:00

On October 5, 1941, just weeks before Pearl Harbor, two German Heinkel Bombers were hunting for Allied cargo ships carrying military supplies in the Egyptian Red Sea. By this time in the war Germany had already invaded Poland, France, and Denmark, and had just begun an all-out offensive against Moscow. The Red Sea, and precisely, the Suez Canal remained crucial to the front in North Africa as war was heavily reliant on supplies and the Suez offered a route to the Mediterranean without circumnavigating Africa. There were many British ships in the Red Sea en route to help the Allied front but a ship collision in the canal closed the root down temporarily. One ship in particular, the SS Thistlegorm, was on its way to Alexandria in preparation for Operation Crusader. The SS Thistlegorm , among other ships sat stationed in the Red Sea, was awaiting passage to the canal in what they thought to be safe waters.The two German bombers reached their maximum flight range without finding a single target and turned back to their base in Crete. On their trip home they spotted a small fleet of British ships and immediately targeted the largest among them, the Thistlegorm . Two one-ton bombs were dropped on the ship. The direct hit blew a hole through the ship's hull and caused a subsequent explosion in the engine room and another when their large ammunition cache blew up. The damage was so severe that the boat sank immediately. The crew aboard the Thistlegorm was taken completely by surprise. The attack came late at night when most of the crew was asleep. Though most of them survived, the ship sank so rapidly there was no time for lifeboats and the crew was forced to jump from the ship and await rescue from the HMS Carlisle.

The supplies destined for the British forces sank along with the ship and many of them remain aboard it today. Train cars, trucks, motorcycles, airplane parts, rifles, boots, and other gear lay with the wreck, slowly turning into an exquisite coral reef, attractive to all kinds of aquatic life. As the ship grows older, the coral continues to grow and more and more fish congregate around the wreck.

The precise location of the wreck was lost for years and the Thistlegorm was left untouched until the late fifties when some Frenchy named Cousteau rediscovered with help from local fisherman. Monsieur Cousteau kept the Thistlegorm's location secret and it wasn't rediscovered yet again until the early nineties. Since then the site has become a Mecca for divers. Today, nearly 70 years after it was sunk, the SS Thisltegorm is considered the No. 2 dive site in the world as ranked by Scuba Diving News'. The remains of the ship lay just 30 meters deep and not far from the famed Ras Mohamed National Park in Egypt which boasts the No. 5 dive site on the same list, Shark and Yolanda Reef.

For obvious reasons, Ashley and I couldn't resist a dive on the wreck. Staying an hour and a half north in Dahab we arranged a package deal that took us to Sharm El-Sheik to a live aboard boat where we slept over night and woke up to a modest breakfast before diving on the wreck. The first dive was around the boat, the second inside it, and a third dive took us to the the reefs at Shark and Yolanda Reef. To get down to the site we held on to a rope tied to the hull of the ship and descended down to 30 meters. The ship was impressive enough at first glimpse but also demanding attention were huge schools of fish swimming in unison in the shallower waters above. Nearly the entire time we were on the wreck we had to choose between looking at the historical remains and watching the incredible sea life around it. On the first dive alone we were able to see a large school of bat fish, lion fish, scorpion fish, rock fish, an enormous freighter of a napoleon fish, as well as large jack fish and yellow fin tunas.

Our ambitious dive schedule and average depth meant each of our dives were around 45 minutes, 25 minutes less than our normal reef dives. Also lowering our air consumption was a strong current and the eerie reality of exploring a ship 100 feet below the surface of the Red Sea. Still, the overall dive was nothing short of spectacular. Despite its decay and plundering (the ship's been stripped of many of its artifacts), witnessing the remains of the ship was like going to an underwater museum.

Our dive began atop the boat but then went along the port side down to the stern. There the huge propeller laid half buried in sand. Each of the visible blades were bigger than each of us divers. Swimming up next to an enormous prop half buried in the bottom of the ocean makes one feel quite small. The boats size (128 meters in length) can be difficult to appreciate when right up next to the boat because of the lack of perspective, but the prop's gigantic size was overwhelming.

We then swam towards the bow of the boat to look at the railway cars and numerous trucks still aboard the ship. At first look it wasn't obvious what the large cylinders were but a closer look showed large colonies of coral hiding the heavy train wheels. Tiny, colorful fish swam around the deck of the boat, Rock fish and Scorpion fish sat camouflaged on the deck disguised as coral, and large lion fish hovered with their poisonous fins expanded.

Armed with flashlights we spent the second dive exploring the interior of the ship. We went through sections of the boat stocked with trucks and motorcycles, swimming through the small 1.5 meter space between the roofs of the trucks and the ceiling. Peeking inside the cab much of the cars were still intact and I was even able to see a gas gauge decidedly on E. For whatever reason, some rooms were full of boots. I would have tried some on if I wasn't wearing fins. We went through two different floors of the ship, following our dive master closely as to not end up someplace in the middle of the wreck lost completely.

Eventually we made it to the captain's quarters and had a peek at his private bathroom before enjoying the view out of the portholes, looking down to the rest of the ship. No matter where we went in the ship, it was already inhabited by fish, often big eyes and snappers. I enjoyed most of their company but was always worried about running into a lion fish in some skinny corridor. In the darkest of rooms where no sunlight could reach, our flashlights were our only source of light. In such tight, unknown places it's difficult to only explore looking for artifacts when also worried about staying with the dive master, not wrecking anything with your fins, or running into someone or something. Though my breathing was normal (judging by air consumption) I don't know if I could ever say I felt comfortable on the wreck. Inside the ship was no place for anyone with the slightest claustrophobia and outside the ship we always had to work against the current to stay in a single place. But it was these challenges that made the dive so great. Whether because it was facing a fear or doing something I've never done or because the dive is considered no. 2 for obvious reasons, the dive exceeded all expectations.

(Note: I didn't have a camera for this dive. I wish I did. A nice Korean girl that went diving with us took a bunch of pictures but whether she'll actually send them to as promised is another story. For now, here's some photos I snagged off the internet.)

Welcome to Dahab

2007-08-09T21:42:00.000+08:00

El Fishawy

2007-08-09T21:37:00.000+08:00

Centuries old itself, El Fishawy is hidden amongst the countless shops in the Khan al-Khalili market. The oldest and most famous coffee shop in Cairo, it's popular amongst tourists and locals alike. Ashley and I found it the perfect place to sit and smoke some shisha while watching time go by.

The Khan al-Khalili Market

2007-08-09T21:28:00.000+08:00

First opened in the 14th century, this market continues to be the largest and most famous place to buy good in Cairo today. Braving the heat and throngs of people, Ashley and I spent the day here people watching any buying over-priced junk.

The Citadel of Salah al-Din

2007-08-09T21:24:00.000+08:00

As great as the pyramids were...

2007-08-09T21:17:00.000+08:00

we couldn't simply walk around them and enjoy our time visiting the ancient ruins, we had to endure constantly being hassled by people selling us crap, asking to have their picture taken for money, and trying to force us to ride their camels. We did end up on camel and horse back, but that was one of the biggest wastes of money we've had yet. Even worse was the litter that was left all over the ruins. In every pit, window sill, doorway was trash. Lying about all over the bit of desert around the pyramids were empty bottles and plastic bags blowing in the breeze.Bottle caps lay on the ground every where. There was no escaping the trash. And at the exit was this lone empty trash can. (And the only trash in it was the trash I put in it.)

The Great Pyramids of Giza

2007-08-09T21:10:00.000+08:00

Welcome to Cairo

2007-08-09T20:59:00.000+08:00

The city of Cairo is a rugged place. I wish I could call the city beautiful, but despite it's rich history and numerous historical buildings, churches, pyramids, etc, this place isn't all that easy on the eye. The good news: Our cousin Angela is letting Ashley (my sister met me in Cairo) and I stay at her place in a quieter, nicer, less congested part of the town. For the first couple days I was here, this is what I was doing. I shouldn't have been surprised by the traffic. I've been to several countries whose roads are basically lawless but even then the traffic here and it's incessant honking is perhaps the most intense I've ever seen. Again, the good news is that Angela set us up with her driver/friend Mohamed Ali who took us around town and alleviated us from having to worry about the traffic or the annoying taxi drivers looking to take us for a ride.The city has one color: brown. Brown, brown and more brown.
One big surprise: the pyramids of Giza are practically right in the middle of the town. Or at least there is semi-modern town built all around them. Somehow I thought they were isolated out in the desert somewhere. Guess I was wrong.

How To Get Homesick

2007-08-04T01:32:00.000+08:00

The Life Binge

I worry that our pictures make us look like alcoholics. I assure you that while we might have been binge drinking, I think it’s more accurate to say we were binge living. The only thing we did in moderation was sleep. The 5 of us (Peter, Sara, Stephen, Steven, and I) who stayed in the Green Room at the Cuba Hostel never slept for more than a handful of hours before waking up to go to a museum, church, or just on a long walking tour of the city. We entertained the idea of napping every night but rarely did so before buying a bottle of vodka, turning the hostel lobby in to the place to be before, and then hitting the unparalleled bar scene of St. Petersburg full speed.

The result of our life binging was a whirlwind week that slowly slipped into an alternate collective consciousness. We wandered around St. Petersburg having holy moments on bouncing bridges and outside gumball churches, where we offered up ludicrous ideas and abstract observations in our irreversibly changed vocab of broken English and simple Russian. One result was a litany of inside jokes (or inside shoot-kas, if you know what I mean) that Americans wouldn’t get but our Russian friends embraced.

The end came all too soon. My final hours were spent in a sandy beach-like bar in the middle of a huge courtyard of deteriorating yet beautiful buildings. The entire outdoor area surrounding the bar was sand and from one end the Church of Spilled Blood’s gumballs rose above the courtyard. When night turned into morning we worried the party was beginning to die down but more Russians showed up, most carrying strips of cardboard. The cardboard stacked up into a large pile and then a small fire was built in the sand. It was great to help us keep warm during the wee hours of the morning but even better, some hippies came with drums and the next partied started. In this sandy bar called Dune, people were dancing around the fire and jumping over it (supposedly to kill some spirits), all right in the middle of St. Petersburg.

5:00 am came too soon and we had to leave the bar while the party was still on full tilt. I hated to go but it’s always good to go out while on top. Back at the hostel I only had 10 minutes to finish packing before the taxi arrived. Stephen and Steven weren’t home but by the time I was walking down the stairs we heard their triumphant return from an equally entertaining night. I didn’t have time to hear the story, only time to say quick goodbyes, hop in the cab and drive away.

The Waiting Reflection

As the sun came up over St. Petersburg, my cab sped to the airport giving me a brief but impressive tour through parts of the city I had never seen. I suddenly realized how little of the city I had discovered and again wished I was staying. The cabbie took pride in his fast driving and flew down the empty streets blowing through intersections split seconds after lights turned from red to green. He looked over to me pumping his eyebrows looking for compliments but his fun was soon ruined when he was pulled over by the cops. It was only a pit stop though, he bribed them with 100 rubles and was back on the gas pedal like it had never happened.

The St. Petersburg airport smelled like horse manure. Had I been blindfolded, I would have guessed I was at the farm. Inside the airport there were very few people and the strange smell persisted. The place was quiet and empty. Suddenly, for the first time in all of my travels, I felt lonely. For the past month I been traveling with Peter and Sara but was again traveling solo. It never bothered me before but having gotten used to talking all the time and with only the wall to stare at, I just at there and thought about the past insane week I had just lived through.

The Dark Side of Travel

Homesickness is often spurred on by an illness, or in the least, something that makes me miss the modern comforts at home. I’ve been lucky enough avoid being too ill and, for the most part, most of my travels have been above my comfort threshold. Then I got onto a Russian airlines flight having partied for the last 10 hours. I thought that sleep deprivation would be a good thing but the plane I boarded was the oldest passenger plane I’ve ever been on. The seats offered as much less leg a high chair and the seats were plaid and itchy. I didn’t have anyone next to me, but that only made it worse since the man behind the seat pushed it entirely forward to give himself more legroom. This pinned me in but I just tried to sleep and forget everything.

I was relieved to fall asleep in such an uncomfortable position against my window but I awoke in a panic. The temperature inside the plane had risen violently and looking out the window I realized we were still on the runway. Then I saw a dog run across the runway and I felt even more confused than before. I realized the plane wasn’t even on. No air came out of the vents. Waves of heat rolled over my head and I started to feel my skin turn blotchy. I reached for water but my bottle was empty. I tried to relax but I claustrophobia set in and the heavy air began to suffocate me.

Just when I thought I’d vomit or pass out or vomit and then pass out and maybe soil myself, the plane turned on. Just hearing that made me feel better. Seeing the runway move helped even more. When we finally lifted off, air began to circulate through the cabin and my exhaustion overcame my sickness and I finally fell asleep in my uncomfortable, itchy seat. After only a half an hour nap, we arrived in Moscow and stepping off the plane I felt pure relief, gulping in the relatively fresh air.

Bad News and No Choice

The relief of having arrived in Moscow was short lived. Just when I thought I could finally sleep for an hour or too, I realized that my flight to Cairo was not on the departure board. I went to the information booth for help. A girl took her headphones out and read over my ticket several times with a confused look on her face. Then she told me the bad news: I was flying out of the OTHER International airport in Moscow. It was very far away and there was no easy way to get there. I entertained the idea of getting a cab but the first price quoted to me was 4,500 rubles, or $180.

And so, with only a half an hour of sweaty, uncomfortable sleep, I was off on a transportation adventure through Moscow. It took me a while but I found the correct, packed shuttle bus to the nearest Metro stop. The Moscow Metro has more track by distance than any other in the world and I think I saw a majority of it. I took the red, brown, and green lines through 16 stops before arriving back to the surface of the Moscow streets and starting to feel panic about being in the wrong place. I saw nothing even remotely looking like an airport in sight.

In these, my final hours in Russia, the little language I had learned was essential to my exit. “Prastite… Mnye nushnya pomish puzhalsta. Gdye Aeroporto Domodedovo?” Admittedly, I usually used that as a pick up line. “Excuse me… I need some help.” But good thing I had because my pronunciation was perfect. It worked and soon I was on yet another uncomfortable shuttle bus headed to the other airport.

This was the first ride since my sauna flight in which I had been able to let myself fall asleep. On the other shuttle and the entire Metro, my eyelids heavy and my head bobbing in and out of sleep, but I had to stay awake so as to not miss my stop. Here on the shuttle bus with a final destination of the correct airport, I allowed my eyelids to fall shut and my head bobbled around on my neck while I enjoyed something vaguely similar to sleep.

Icing On the Cake

Compared to the rest of the day, my time spent in the new airport and on my flight across to Cairo was heavenly. I finally caught some decent sleep and didn’t have to worry about any other transfers. Then I arrived in Cairo. This, like my airport mess up, was bad news I could only blame myself for. I had arrived in Cairo without a plan and without knowledge of public transportation.

Obtaining a visa and getting through customs ended up being far easier than I had imagined. My bag showed up within seconds of my arrival at baggage claim. But then I walked outside the airport and was at a loss for where to find a cab or how much to pay for it. Conceding to a tourists’ rip off price, I finally found a cab and got out of the airport. All I wanted was to get to a shower and a bed as soon as possible.

At the airport in Moscow I had done a minute of research on hostels and wrote down a couple addresses. The cabbie drove me over to the street but couldn’t find the place. Somehow I decided it was best to ditch the cabbie and continue my search on foot. Walking up and down the unmarked Adly Street looking for a specific address was not easy. I made the walk up and down the street at least three times before finally I caught a glimpse of the sign of the place I was looking for.

This was where I imagined they were going to say: sorry, no vacancies. But to my surprise not only were there rooms but also everyone at the hostel was extremely friendly. I should have been excited to be in Cairo. Still, despite any hospitality I was a different person. I had such little sleep, compounding a monumental hangover, and thus had endured one of the worst days I’ve had in the past year. Comparing the bliss of my last night in St. Petersburg, these 24 hours of travel was like comparing heaven and hell. Such times try my patience of world traveling.

Homesickness is just that though, a sickness and it fades quickly. After 12 straight hours of sleep (albeit them being in the humid heat of North Africa) I feel infinitely better and have started to feel excited about being in Cairo. I’ve only spent a couple hours here but I’m already more worried about overcoming the initial days of culture shock than anything else. The adventure continues…

200

2007-08-03T23:23:00.001+08:00

I left home nearly a year ago and here with this very entry, the blog has hit 200 entries. Not that I'm going to have a cake or anything, I'm just happy I've been able to keep it together over the past 11 months and 7 countries. Here are some other final pictures from Sara, Peter, and I's great adventure.Riding horses in Mongolia. I honestly still have a red mark on my ass from that day. On our way off the island here we look happier than we should have been considering the shitty car, bumpy road, and unknown future. This was a happy moment on the train. Other passengers beware.A hilarious moment on the very first day of our journey. If you want to know the story, you'll have to ask Sara yourself.Goodbye to all of our Russian friends. We'll miss you.

Some of the best St. Petersburg party photos

2007-08-03T23:08:00.000+08:00

Let's admit it, Peter looks really goofy in this photo, but I doubt he'll care given his company. Somebody needs to hit the gym. Not that these girls mind. This was the scene of the crime, a bar called Mod. What good, fun, trouble we had there...This is Sara's drunk face. She ended up wearing those glasses around later in the night. This is me having a good time. I never claimed to be a good dancer, I just like to have fun.Could my smile get any wider? Us with just another Russian girl smitten over Peter.

Sasha's Photos

2007-08-03T22:42:00.000+08:00

Here's St. Petersburg through Sasha's eye on her birthday. She took all these pics and gave them to my before I left the city. The morning began with coffee and crepes. Steven, Sara, and Sasha here look great for such a monumental party the night before. What the hell was in Stephen's coffee?Nobody would sit net to me.Then we hit the streets. The line outside the Hermitage was nothing short of ridiculous so we went for the walking tour instead. Sara wore a piecemeal outfit borrowing items from nearly everyone because all of her clothes were dirty.Sara told me that people are working to help others get off heroin by giving them intensive ear massages. I've never done heroin but maybe I'll start now just so I can get some more ear massages later.Lyon on lion. Stephen was talking to this lion but here it looks like he's going in for the kiss.He's young but never had he looked like such a little boy. I posted this just to make fun of him and because he mother probably would like this photo. We spent a while just hanging out by the river.Deciding what to take some shots of...I look like my stomach is bothering me. Also, I think this is just moments before Steven evaporated.Hey! It's Russia!The End.

Oh, the places we went and the people we met.

2007-08-03T20:25:00.000+08:00

The Main PlayersFor the past month it has been the three of us traveling from Beijing to St. Petersburg. I've heard time flies when you're having fun but we had an amazing time and time didn't fly.Peter was a bit of a surprise addition to the trip since it was a little last minute but I can't imagine the trip without him. Through his eye in the video camera, we will produce a short film that will attempt help other people have a clue of what the trip was like for us.Sara and I had initially planned to roadtrip through Australia. I remember calling her from Shanghai to hash out where in the world we'd decide to take our trip. At that moment we had no idea how great our trip was about to be. Nerpa!

It all began in Beijing
Through family friends of Sara's, we met Mr. Yao Di, our personal tour guide of Beijing. With him we went around to all the touristy Chinese places and some incredible Chinese restaurants. In Mongolia we were amazed by little Puce's art. An odd thing that struck me: he loves Bob Ross and learned a lot about painting through watching his shows on Mongolian TV.Our first true friends made on the trip, Katiya and Gana were such helpful people. Gana was a great host when we stayed at his home in rural Mongolia and Katiya taught us our first Russian, about Russian culture, and was just fun to hang out with.Without Artiem, nothing in Baikal would have happened. This young guy was our personal tour guide and great friend throughout our time in Siberia. We had some tough times, but I even look back on those fondly, remembering that rough day hitchhiking out of the Small Sea.Our Russian party people. These guys hazed us like pledges. We met them at the Small Sea but caught up with them in Irkutsk for a final farewell dinner. Francis is French-Canadian and Line is Danish. We met them at our hostel in Moscow but continued to party with them in St. Petersburg. Just our type of people, we shared music, vodka, and the dance floor throughout the week. Tanya was our partner in art outside of the Red Square. She helped us with an inventive clip that won't be seen until the trip's film is released sometime in the Spring of 2008. Annya from Cuba Hostel. At first we thought she hated us, but then we learned it's just her spunky attitude and that just made us like her all the much more. She took us out to the great bars of the St. P. night scene and it couldn't have been more fun.With Peter here is our dearest Sasha. We spent her 20th birthday with her walking around St. Petersburg and then took to the bars later that night to party with her. She was so good to us but both as an employee of the hostel but even more so as a local friend.I can't stress how much of our good times were multiplied by having these final characters with us. Here is Mickey Mouse, aka Dave Carter, the creator of the Dave Carter Show. We met him in Moscow but hung with him for a week until he left for Eastern Europe. His sense of humor is so unique, I can only beg you to go to his site and watch his animation. To prevent hairy situations Steven from Brooklyn always kept a shave kit handy and usually experienced his life in his mind before doing so in "real life." In St. P. he was constantly having an out-of-body experience and instead of leaving for Helsinki, he just suddenly disappeared into thin air. Stephen is out of focus in this pic but it's still indicative of his character. We got off on the right foot from the beginning since he's currently a student at U of M but times only got better as we all hung out more. As I post this, I'd just like to give a birthday shout out to him and hope that wherever he is, he's enjoying some Roman Charity.

Remember Me? The slightly more obscure characters we met along the way

2007-08-03T20:24:00.001+08:00

Talk about people you don't want to be next to on the train. If you look up close you can see the creepy cuts all over his face but fortunately for you, there's no way his smell can permeate from your computer. He liked Sara. He told her about his family problems while he drank his cheap beer. Elisio is a photographer from Mexico City. We practiced our forgotten Spanish with him while wandering around Moscow at night. He wasn't quite as crazy as us which meant he got left in the wake but he was an interesting character. These kids were enamored with Sara and just before we were all trying to sleep. She was a trooper and hung out with them but I couldn't be asked to converse and went to bed instead. These two Belgians bet us we wouldn't remember their names. Well, um... they were right. But they were also the people who didn't mind not knowing where we were from in the states because it "was all the same" to them anyways. I'm just bitter than I lost in poker. It doesn't get much cuter than this. The question is, can those who were on this journey remember which of the many trains we rode was this photo taken on. The correct answer? On the leg between Irkutsk and Krasnoyarsk. The obscure character here isn't the Russian party person, but the outboard motor sitting behind him. It was the same motor that took us tubing on Lake Baikal the day before. This guy. A vodka pusher. The type that suddenly regretted not paying attention in English class back in school when he couldn't piece together a conversation. But that's how it was in Siberia, and when conversation got flat, we just took out the camera. The best thing we brought on our trip was the Incredible Friend-Making Machine, the Frisbee. On an evening in the small sea, we met this entire group of people. We did vodka shots and tried to hit empty beer bottles off wooden posts. Siberia!This guy needs more face time. Just look at him; he opened all of our beers for us with his teeth. Thanks man.If we only knew the trouble these guys would get us into. Max the Lawyer. Here we are enjoying some of our first Russian pivos at a long train stop. Some of the sweetest kids on the planet, these Mongolian little people played basketball with us on a dirt court. I blocked all their shots. Just kidding, I played nice, that's why it looks like they like me. Peter and this Chinese girl had a thing for each other. He saw her walking down the street in such a beautiful outfit and said, "Ni-how." Just kidding. She was our waitress. But it was cute that he asked for an umbrella and she held it for him as he toured the gardens. SHAO PUNK-UH! Easily one of the most eccentric characters we met along the way, since she didn't like the music of Flumie's 80's night, Shao Punk broke it down on the dance floor with her headphones in her ears. Courtesy of the zoom lens, here's the girl that stole all of our attention outside the Church of Spilled Blood. Peter showed these kids a thing or two about soccer outside Tibetan Buddhist temples in Ulaanbaatar. Even Sara said the same thing when we met this guy: "Damn, your girlfriend is hot." The first and still the only time I've ever had anyone waiting for me with my name on a placard. Thank you LG Hostel.

Top 5 Weeks Ever

2007-08-03T19:18:00.000+08:00

Hmmm

2007-07-30T19:10:00.000+08:00

She's a Russian independent filmmaker who models on the side. She speaks perfect English, Russian, French, and German. She went to school in London and splits time between St. Petersburg and Berlin...

2007-07-30T18:46:00.000+08:00

2007-07-30T18:20:00.000+08:00

This is what GLEE looks like

2007-07-30T18:17:00.000+08:00

This picture was taken by a small digital camera teetering on top of a bottle of water that couldn't have come closer to falling without actually falling before the timer on the camera snapped this shot.

Just a good pic of us in St. Petersburg

2007-07-30T18:15:00.000+08:00

This was just before we choreographed a music video. No, really, we choreographed a music video.

If you can figure this picutre out, let me know, because I can't

2007-07-30T18:11:00.000+08:00

I'm not kidding

2007-07-30T18:08:00.000+08:00

when I say that Russian girls wear ridiculous clothes. They may not be whores, but they are certainly in whores uniforms. What makes this picture funny isn't just that it was taken just to document this girl's short skirt but that she caught Dave taking it.

Really?

2007-07-30T18:04:00.000+08:00

In an earlier entry I wrote that Sara cleaned her dirty toes with toothpaste. If you didn't believe it, well, believe it. And it worked.

Makeshift Poker at the Cuba Hostel

2007-07-30T17:56:00.000+08:00

As all bad poker games go, we were victims of a clueless woman betting when should have folded and catching lucky cards on the river. It wasn't for money but the integrity and fun of the game was compromised. Then again, we had a great time and made a lot of new friends. Our international game included a Dutch guy, a couple Danes, a French Canadian, our current crew, and a Texan woman who said ya'll all the time.

The Hermitage

2007-07-30T00:12:00.000+08:00

The Russian 180

2007-07-29T23:59:00.000+08:00

Trying to be friendly in Russia gets you nowhere. To Russians, smiling at strangers only makes you look stupid. “Hello” and “How are you?” are most often unnecessary phrases and even “Thank you” can be skipped and replaced with a grunt or snarl. It’s not being impolite, it’s just being Russian and when in Russia, do as the Russians do and give others attitude before even considering befriending them. No other country knows how to turn enemies into friends like this one.

This Russian 180 has been omnipresent throughout our time here. We have met postal workers, hostel receptionists, ticket ladies, store clerks, and even old ladies in parks who are initially cruel bitches before changing their disposition completely and acting like sweethearts. I can’t figure out the precise cause for the turn around but the difference couldn’t be more dramatic.On a sunny day in the middle of St. Petersburg we came across a small park between apartment buildings and proceeded to play on the swing set. Despite Sara having a great time, two old ladies sitting on a bench barked at us to stay off the playground. They did not politely ask us to stay off the swings, they furrowed their wrinkly brows and yelled at us.

We stopped playing and walked over to sit next to the ladies on the benches. After a couple sentences their attitude toward us had flipped the classic Russian 180 and they were suddenly very sweet to us. We sat and talked to them for 20 minutes or so with Stephen as the translator.
The ladies had lived in St. Petersburg their entire lives and couldn’t explain the drastic changes their city has seen throughout the years. I can’t imagine the stories they can tell but also didn’t have the patience to listen to them speak Russian and not understand a single word.

Stephen helped the rest communicate with the ladies though and enjoyed the more pleasant second half of their turn around. Just another case of the Russian 180

Last Days in Moscow and then on to St. Petersburg

2007-07-29T23:44:00.000+08:00

In a souvenir shop down Arbat Street in Moscow Peter and I were tempted to purchase these extremely handsome hats but, unfortunately, they weren’t in the budget. Lonely Planet books are great for helping with finding transportation but I’m always frustrated that their budgets always leave out dispendible cash for alcohol and stupid hats. I tried out another hat but despite its popularity with the local women, I ultimately decided to buy a t-shirt. I did hate on the mall in the Red Square at first, but after going inside I was impressed with the architecture and shocked by the prices. It’s easily one of the nicest malls I’ve ever been to in my life. Sara was only slightly interested in the clothes though, as always, she was just looking for a good time. Admittedly, there’s something about those round little wooden boobs that begs, touch me. Since I’ve forgotten the majority of my Spanish from school, the son of this Spanish family had to translate most of our conversation. He was excited about his role though and we spent a while chatting before I told them about this site. Suddenly they were adamant about us having a picture together. I hope they visit the site and see themselves in this shot. They were a really cool family. I calculated that in the past couple months traveling from Xiamen, China to St. Petersburg, Russia, I have been on a train for a combined total of 223 hours. That’s more than 10 days on a train. This picture was taken once we arrived in St. Petersburg, marking the end of our trans-Siberian rail trip. Notice how cracked out we look. Later on in the same day, Sara and I slept during the morning hours waiting for our check-in time. It wasn’t the most comfortable sleep but I could have slept just about anywhere at that point in time. We only caught a short siesta though because of all the other people in, out, and milling about the hostel. Only with my impeccable eye, Sara’s good looks, and Steven’s swagger were we able to capture such a moment in time on film. Numerous modeling agencies have already contacted us about potential new careers in the world of being really, really, ridiculously good-looking. I’m sure Peter won’t be happy about this picture of him with Bizzaro-Bussigel being online but the resemblance between him and this Aussie is just too striking. It only took an hour at the bar before Peter attempted to kill the guy for copying his style. Outside a film museum advertised as a photography museum I saw this cat taking a cat-nap. Unfortunately this photo is far more interesting than any of the short films we saw. Then again, I liked the one with the fat lady mowing the lawn in her less-than-flattering bikini. Only one word comes to mind when I look at this picture: eyelashes. Wanna see something gross? Check out Sara’s filthy little toes blackened from playing Frisbee in a local park. Wanna know something strange? She used toothpaste to clean them off. And you know what’s funny? It worked. I’ll say that this picture doesn’t quite capture Sara’s mood throughout the trip and I would have left her middle fingers out if it wasn’t for Peter’s huge, wide-open grill. The other character in the shot is a friend we made at the hostel who’s currently going to U of M. Not only is he cool but he also wears a watch (not one of us has had a watch this entire trip) and he speaks Russian. Some people like to call St. Petersburg the “Venice of Russia” which I think is annoying. It’s certainly not Venice, and certainly not anymore than Bangkok is the Venice of SE Asia or Zhouzhuang is the Venice of China. How’s this: Venice is Venice, St. Petersburg is St. Petersburg, and Ohio is the armpit of the United States.
This sign needs little explanation. I just wonder what really necessitated the sign in the first place. How many cars plunged down into the canal before the finally put this up warning drivers about the perils of driving over the curb and into the water? You know it’s time to do laundry when you start wearing dirty clothes inside out. I’m not just picking on Sara though, we all have made our compromises along the way, using sniff checks to decide when a change of clothes is necessary. Call it gross if you want but travel through Siberia is less than luxurious and finding a washing machine in major cities can be a problem.
I’m not sure what Peter’s exact reaction to Sara’s kiss implies, nor do I understand why Stephen is going for bunny ears but Dave seems less than impressed. Now that’s a comfortable chair. It may not look it, but that chair hugs the person lucky enough to be sitting in it. Here’s another model shot taken outside the Church of Spilled Blood. Best t-shirt of the week award goes to Dave for his “I am Mickey Mouse” classic.

Night on the Pond

2007-07-26T21:51:00.000+08:00

Moscow's not the cheapest place in the world to go out for some drinks. In fact, it's the most expensive. But small budgets and face control at clubds didn't stop us from having a great time at night. A small group of us from our hostel took some cheap beers out to park in the middle of the city where we found many Moscovites doing the same.
The Setting: A large pond in a park in the middle of a posh neighborhood where two lost geese swam.

Our crew:
a Ukrainian student named Tanya.
an Australian animator named David
an annoying Danish dork named Peter
a massage therapist from Cali
a composer from New York
and a photographer from Michigan

The Mixer: Cheap Russian Pivos, cheap Russia wine, and a camera.

The Results: A return to our childhood, playing on a colorful playground.

The Finale: Dustin racing up in the opposite elevator, missing out on the best picture of the night.

Moscow is for Lovers

2007-07-26T21:47:00.000+08:00

On a steel structure in the middle of a walking bridge, hundreds of Moscovites have gone with their lovers and locked a padlock in a symbolic show of their commitment to each other. But that’s not why I think Moscow is for lovers. Most Russians are bored by such acts and instead prefer the instant gratification of sloppily kissing, heavy petting, and slightly undressing in public. I didn’t understand it at first, but I’ll guess it has something to do with the common Russian home not having a basement. For whatever reason, Moscovian parks are full of couples rolling around together in the grass, kissing atop bridges over looking the Moscow River and more-than-tenderly embracing each in front of St. Basil’s. On account of the extreme beauty on the Russian women, admittedly I did feel a little jealous at first but it didn’t take long before Peter and I met two Turkish girls in the Tretyakov museum. Suddenly Moscow wasn’t so lonely. We never made it to this extreme, however. This wonderful couple is a prime, albeit extreme, example of the love out in the open in Moscow. It’s certainly the exception and not the rule of Moscovian PDAs but these two are most certainly in love. Or just really drunk and in lust. Either way, Moscow is for lovers.

Lenin's Tomb: Best. Date. Ever.

2007-07-26T21:43:00.000+08:00

I had offered noon as a meeting time but Esla and Emel asked us to meet them at Lenin’s Grave at 9:30 in the morning. Not being idiots, we agreed and made it there by 10. Making an already slightly morbid meeting more ominous, it rained all morning while we waited an hour in line to see Lenin’s corpse. Soaked through, we eventually made it to the mauseleum and entered the minimalist structure. Making the creepy halls even more surreal were the soldiers who silently pointed in the direction we were to walk. Inside a square room with no decorations, Lenin lay dead and waxy in a brightly lit glass casket. It was the only moment of pure silence we’ve had on our trip. His ear was slightly decaying and his eyes looked sewn shut. His signature Lenin goatee-moustache was intact but sparse but carefully manicured. Getting soaked in rain before seeing an old dead guy really set the mood for the rest of the day with the Turks. After such a morning in Moscow, things could only get better.

The Kremlin

2007-07-25T18:37:00.000+08:00

Glimpses of Moscow

2007-07-25T18:27:00.000+08:00

I Hate Russia, I Love Russia

2007-07-24T14:17:00.000+08:00

Only an hour into our travels into Moscow we were walking down an empty street when two money hungry police officers stopped us and bothered us about having proper documentation while traveling through their police state. We couldn't produce the legal paperwork but each graduated from U of M with a minor in bullshit and were able to escape paying anyfines. Just when we were excited to have arrived in the city, these cops had to come and hassle us, threatening to take us to the station and ruining our morning. I hate Russia. In the Red Square, down Arbat Street, in local parks, just about anywhere, drinking pivos (beers) in the open is okay. Of course, there's always the possibility of a fine-hungry cop looking to for some pocket rubles, but with pivos out in the open, wherever we want, I think Russia might have one-upped the US on this one. I love Russia. Walking down the street toward the Pushkin Museum I was lagging behind Peter and Sara taking pictures when a dozen men in uniform poured out of the official-looking building and ran towards us across the street. The soldiers ran right up to me and in Russian told me that I could not take pictures of the building. They made me delete my memory card of pictures and declined my request to have a group shot taken of them in front of the building. I hate Russia. Wandering around an inspiring sculpture garden, Peter made an idiot move and left his camera sitting on a random bench in the park. He didn't notice his camera was lost until 30 minutes later when we were sitting in a small cafe. He ran back to the benches we had been to but his camera was nowhere to be found. Just when we thought the camera was gone for good a Russian man walked up to our table and handed extended out his hand with Peter's camera in it. He had found the camera, looked through the photos in it and found us still sitting in the sculpture garden. What a great Russian guy. Here's a picture of Peter with the man and his family. I love Russia.

Russian Culture brought to you by:

2007-07-22T15:52:00.000+08:00

I can honestly say that despite some setbacks, I've been enjoying Moscow more than any other big city I've been to in the past year. This came as a small surprise, but it's a huge city of 10 million people and a rich history. Still, there's something seriously wrong here. No matter where we went, a huge billboard marred our view of these monuments. I've also seen massive billboards far bigger than any I've ever seen in my life. What this says about Russia or Moscow, I'm not yet sure but there's something wrong about St. Basil's Cathedral brought to you by DHL. People mill about near a statue of a historical figure. The same statue but backdropped by a huge SAMSUNG billboard.
Perhaps a war hero significant to Russia's history, he proudly rides a horse immortalized outside the Red Square.
The same hero, but now juxtaposed with a watch billboard that's small by Moscow standards.

Day 1 of Moscow in 20 Photos

2007-07-22T15:22:00.000+08:00

Walking around and dining and restaurants is never as good as it is after 60 hours on a sweat train.
Graffiti is huge in Moscow and any open spaces are tagged.
Moscow is obviously a wealthy city. Expensive cars line the streets and around the rings of highways extending out from the Kremlin, these cars drive as fast as they can.
I haven't quite figured out why Moscow is so expensive, but in a recent study it was found to be the most expensive city in the world.
Only an hour after arriving in the city cops hassled us about our passports, stamps, and were nearly taken back to the station so we could pay ridiculous fines. Some Russians really know how to make a tourist feel welcome.
Moscow is not a tall city. Instead its buildings are wide and imposing giving the entire city with its wide roads a feeling of being extremely strong.
We stay on a main tourist drag similar to Las Ramblas in Barcelona. Street performers, various artists, and souvenir stands line the street looking to make a quick ruble.
Early in the morning the street was empty but by the early evening it was bustling with people from all over seeing and being seen.
As in any good tourist street, sunglasses were sold cheap and we couldn't help ourselves.
Two Russians are overcome by romantic thoughts in the company of such historical beauty.
One of the places I've always dreamed of visiting, St. Basil's Cathedral was even more striking than I had expected. We only saw it at night and tomorrow plan to spend the entire day roaming around it and the Kremlin.

Apparently Sara still thinks she's in Mongolia.
I've been working out daily to get that hour glass figure.
A detail of the Brazilian embassy. This neighborhood in Moscow has some of the most impressive, beautiful embassies I've ever seen.
In the Red Square, right next to St. Basil's Cathedral.
Romantic St. Basil's.
I've always dreamed of visiting St. Basil's and I can honestly say that it's one of the most striking churches I've seen in my life. We only walked around it late at night and plan to spend an entire day exploring it and the Kremlin tomorrow.
Night on the Moskva River.
A last look back onto St. Basil's at night.

I love Russia, I hate Russia. I love Russia, I hate Russia.

2007-07-22T14:41:00.000+08:00

The rest of the passengers in our car were already asleep when I went to the bathroom to brush my teeth and was confronted by our beautiful train attendant who was leaning against the door into her personal cabin. She was in uniform but she wore hers a couple sizes to small and the skirt and jacket hugged her curves so tightly that it looked as if the buttons could burst off at any time. She peeked down the corridor of the train as if to check if everyone was already asleep and then with her index finger beckoned into her room. I followed the seductress inside and she quickly slammed the door shut, locked it, and began to relieve her salacious curves of the constrictive uniform.

Then I felt a strong push against my hips, then a shove and suddenly I woke up.

I was lying on my short bunk and a Russian man who had slept on the top bunk shoved his way onto my bed for a place to sit during the early hours of the morning. Horrified, confused, and grumpy, I rose out of bed and took a look around me.

We were the only foreigners of the 50 or so passengers in the car and probably the only ones who felt it necessary to maintain our personal hygiene along the way. When we initially boarded the train we were horrified with our seat assignments. We were under the impression that we had paid the expensive fare for 2nd class in order to escape riding for 60 hours to Moscow in such conditions. At first we didn’t know if we were ripped off or simply given the wrong tickets but our excitement for the 60 hour luxurious train ride quickly turned into a resentful, bitter attitude, wishing horrible things on the bitch behind the ticket counter and the rest of her god-forsaken country. We eventually cleared up what had happened and felt a little bit better and even perhaps regretted some of the horrible things we had said. We had asked for 2nd class but it was full, and we were instead given 3rd class. The tickets were, in fact, not that expensive and had we actually been able to book 2nd class tickets, I for one would not have been able to afford them.

As people continued to rise out of bed and began to eat breakfast, the cool air that had made the previous night surprisingly comfortable began to heat up with the smells of sausage, smoked fish, dried squid, and kefir. Bodies began to warm up, vodka was poured, and the odor of unwashed armpits, feet, and other unholy body parts emanated from the Russian crowd making the air suffocating.

There were no separate compartments but around my bed were characters I couldn’t have imagined in a nightmare. A woman over 50 had obvious “let go” years ago but she wore her daisy dukes proudly, her belly always jiggling out the top and her butt cheeks mooning out from below. Her mother was an extremely large lady who couldn’t walk down the aisle without hip checking every other passenger along the way and I was horrified even momentarily imagining her using the tiny metal toilet at the end of the car (sure, that’s sick but when you’re on a train for 60 hours you start to go a little crazy). Another older man slept on the other bunk, preferring to sit shirtless unabashed by his large beer belly, man breasts and the sweaty mess of hair covering all of it. The quarters were so small that there was only limited room where one could sit without having to rub up against either of these three characters while the train coasted down the tracks towards Moscow.

Sara, Peter, and I all agreed that escape was immediately necessary and we fled to the dining car hoping for air conditioning and reasonably priced beers. The 11-car adventure to the dining car was worthy of a 1-hour Discovery Channel Special in itself. To our amazement there were cars hotter and fouler smelling than our own. We raced through these cars holding our breath dodging small children, sweaty bodies, and unwashed feet hanging from the top bunks. The 2nd class cars were obviously nicer than our 3rd class slums. Compartments held four large beds each and air conditioning made the entire car as cold as our car was hot. The ends of the car had digital signs noting the time of day, temperature, and car number. I didn’t dare tease myself by witnessing 1st class but I heard it boasted TVs with DVD players as well as hanging potted plants and free gourmet dinners.

The dining car proved to be our perfect refuge and we gladly overpaid for beer as long as we weren’t forced to return back to our assigned beds in the last car. To ensure we kept on the good side of the waitress and in hopes of sleeping easier, we kept ordering beers and occasionally ordering underwhelming plates of food. We met a Belgian couple with whom we chatted a little while before playing some Texas hold-em with chips from a German political board game. Unremarkable countryside of tall pines and purple and yellow wildflowers passed outside the window and old Russian movies played on a TV as we played out our hands. Somehow the Belgians won all of our chips, and after a couple more pivos (beers) they escaped back to their 2nd class cabin. We on the other hand stayed as long as we could in the car before we had to return to our seats. The nights are long in Russia but when the sun finally goes down, most of the people go with it. Once it was nighttime our car was incredibly quiet and surprisingly cool. Whenever the car would make a stop silencing the loud clickty-clacking, the entire train was silent except for the obnoxious snoring of the sleeping passengers. The sound of the snoring choir was hilarious but relatively soothing compared to the zoo-like nature of the train during the day.

The next morning was the beginning of our last full day on the train. We planned to spend the entire day hiding in the dining car again but were happily surprised when rainy weather helped to keep our car cool and tolerable. Still, we preferred to get away from our sweaty neighbors and fought our way back to the dining car where we resumed drinking beer and playing cards.

By the end of the afternoon we finished an epic game of gin rummy, drank more pivos than necessary and I memorized all three of the Russian movies by heart. A Russian Peter Sellers was the star of the strange Russian comedies and I didn’t need to understand a word to get the movies. My favorite part was when a Grandpa in one scene was rocking back and forth in a rocking chair staring through a large magnifying glass at the breasts of the Venus de Milo.

Eventually we decided to return to our car and when we arrived back we were surprised to see a couple new passengers lying in the beds. The characters I mentioned were all there but a young girl named Sasha was my new bunkmate. Suddenly I was hit with a horrible panic. I looked to where I head left some of my things to find all of it gone. A couple things were missing but most valuable (to me) was my journal. None of the Russians were witness to its disappearance. It’s was a tough loss on a long journey especially when it’s a journal that’s made it through seven countries is and suddenly went missing because some asshole Russian decided he’d take it just for the hell of it. The empty feeling of being robbed is a horrible one but even more so when it’s something irreplaceable and something that I can’t imagine an ignorant Russian would have no use for. Nonetheless it was gone and really, I can only blame myself for having been dumb enough to leave anything out in the open in a large car full of Russians. Sasha spoke wonderful English. She was a student on her way to Germany to study English and German. She was delighted to practice her English with us and soon she found herself as translator between the three of us and the rest of our neighbors, who were excited to finally be able to ask us questions about what the hell we were doing slumming it on a 3rd class car bound for Moscow.

Ms. unflattering Daisy Dukes didn’t speak much, but her mother was very interested in our travels and told us that she used to live in Tajikistan before the fall of the Soviet Union before seeking refuge back inside Russia.

The fat old man had put on a presentable shirt and somehow lost his body odor. He was suddenly a chipper old guy and he asked if he could sing for us. He sang an operatic piece for us completely that was the complete opposite of the grotesque picture we had had about him previously. Sasha then sang a song as well and she too had a wonderful voice. After we attempted a horrible rendition of “Under the Bridge” the old man and Sasha took turns singing and the old man even recited a couple poems, acting them out like a charismatic bard. Despite all of our talents, Sara, Peter, and I sat in that train car without any way to prove we were capable of anything so great. We have all read a multitude of poems but none of us could recite even a couple lines of any of them. Between the three of us we couldn’t even come up with all of the lyrics for a single song. Admittedly all addicted to internet and technology in general, we were at a loss without any of it in that train car. I did find one outlet however. Between songs they asked if we had any pictures of home or of our travels. Despite some jerk’s sticky fingers, I took out my laptop and played several slideshows showing them pictures from Thailand, Laos, China, Mongolia, and their beloved Russia. Our new friends as well as others who took notice slipped on reading glasses and began to watch the pictures silently. Like the middle of the nights the car was suddenly calm and comfortable and we didn’t mind the 3rd class at all.

Soon after the sun fell and we all retired to bed. Our less than comfortable beds prevented any of us from getting a great night’s sleep but early the next morning our train pulled into Moscow Station and we had survived the train ride.

Despite the several hours of disgusting human wet sauna and my pilfered journal, the ride had been surprisingly relaxing and didn’t take as long as we expected. Though we began the ride on bitter and on edge with our unsanitary bunkmates, on the last night of our ride they came to life and we said goodbye like we were bidding farewell to great friends. That said, we couldn’t have been happier getting off that damned train and finally setting foot in Moscow.

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

2007-07-22T14:31:00.000+08:00

Mark my word, mustaches are on the rebound. Not that they were ever completely out. But like the mullet here in Russia, 'staches are on their way back. Too bad they make me look ridiculous. Despite fully expecting to sport some upper lip hair for what I hoped would be Mustaches for Moscow, I couldn't stomach the look of the facial hair and ended up with a full shave. I will note that all the Russian girls I've asked agree that clean shaved is the way to go. Wish they wouldn't have given me an army buzz cut though.

Up in the Kras

2007-07-22T14:01:00.000+08:00

Krasnoyarsk was a big surprise. For a lack of a better word, Baikal was hick and we were beginning to wonder if the entire country was that way. But the track suits, sandals with colorful socks, and mesh t-shirts of Siberia were only in the east and the Kras, as we like to call it, is a modern city of fashion that flipped our whole perspective on Russia on its head.

The streets were clean and the sidewalks were patterned and as we walked down the street we listened to the array of music that was constantly being played out of speakers on the lamp posts. Russian enjoyed coffees and beers sitting in outdoor cafes and sleek cars rolled up and down the strip.
Girl's in the Kras were ridiculous. And by that I mean that they were both ridiculously good-looking and ridiculously dressed. Bras and thongs were constantly visible as were, well, breasts in general. Heels and extremely short skirts were common and black and white stripes were obviously one of the hottest fashions around. The only thing to beat it was tight white pants which were worn as frequently as Americans wear blue jeans. Animal prints were also high on the list but whatever the women wore, the wore little of it and the wore it TIGHT.
You can never guess the characters you'll meet and one day while trying to procure a spoon I was befriended by a tough looking Russian named Victor. He spoke less English than we did Russian which means that he nearly spoke no English at all. But that didn't stop him from making new friends and continually try to communicate to them. With such a big language barrier it was hard to know anything about him at all. All I know is that if a fight started, I want him on my side.
Our time in the Kras was short lived. After a single night in town we headed back to the train station and awaited our train to Moscow. As with everything else in the Kras, the train station was the most beautiful we had seen in Russia and we gladly spent an hour in the square outside before boarding our car.

Irkutsk to Krasnoyarsk

2007-07-22T13:43:00.000+08:00

Our train to Krasnoyarsk was delayed by nearly 3 hours and with little else to do we posted up at a restaurant to drink some beers and eat some sub par food. Sara's laundry wasn't quite dry yet so she took the opportunity to hang some of her clothes and her towel out to dry on a railing. A hour later her towel was missing and we were left wondering, "who the hell steals a towel?" We looked for several minutes before I happened to peek inside the trashcan to see the towel laying in a heap of garbage. While I would have left the towel right where it laid, Sara has some emotional attach to her towel I may not ever understand and it was saved from the trash and washed to dry again another day.
Also at the restaurant where three men from Mongolia. They spoke little English but asked Peter where he was from. When he answered New York City one of the men got very excited and explained that his daughter was living there as well. Amazed by the connection the old men took a great liking for Peter, asked for all of his contact information and hope that and expect that he'll actually meet up with the daughter upon returning to the city.
The 3rd class car on the Krasnoyarsk train proved to be one of the worst places for the three of us to make new friends. Most people ignored us while others gave us a Russian snarl. If it wasn't for these two cute girls who took a liking to us, we wouldn't have had a single friend on the train. We spent time on the train drawing pictures and slowly learning some Russian from them.

3rd class cars aren't made for men over 6 foot. It's more like a coffin than a bed. What this picture doesn't show is how bad my feet were cramped and how putrid the overall smell of the cabin was.

True Story

2007-07-18T15:52:00.000+08:00

Sara proudly admits that she takes after her mother in many ways. Perhaps the best example is that Sara does not believe in diffusion of responsibility and always rushes to help those in trouble. When an accident happens Sara doesn’t even take a second to look to see if others are helping before she rushes to the scene herself. Sara never ignores others in need rationalizing that it’s their problem, but instead helps because she can.

Playing Frisbee with some new Russian friends on a hill over-looking the small sea, Sara noticed an elderly woman trying to push a man in a wheelchair up the uneven, grassy hill. Other people stood around the area chatting and drinking, pretending not to notice the elderly woman exhausted and leaning on the wheelchair to prevent it from rolling back down the hill. The grandmother was helpless with only enough energy to keep the chair in place.

Sara yelled to me and the two of us ran across the hill. We each grabbed a side wheelchair and started to push it up the hill. It was difficult for even the two of us to push the man up the hill, there was no way the woman would have ever been able to do it. There were large ruts in the ground and making it all worse, the front porch on their cottage was horribly uneven with large planks of wood nailed down in inconvenient places.

The woman was extremely grateful for our help and quizzed us about our names, where we were from, and where we were staying. The woman spoke no English but Sara’s Russian was impressive and she was able to answer all her questions. Back in the house the woman thanked us again offered us a drink (I think she offered vodka) but we said no worries, smiled, and waved goodbye.

I had completely forgotten this had happened until a couple days later when looking through pictures Artiem had taken with my camera and saw this picture of the man on the beach just hours before we saw his struggle up the hill.
After an experience like this there’s always a part of you that feels warm about having a done a good deed but there’s also that other part of you that wonders, why the hell didn’t anyone else help? I’m proud of Sara and inspired by her constant willingness to help strangers in such situations, I wrote this so that hopefully, you will be too.

Russian Party People and the Perils of Drinking Russian Vodka

2007-07-16T12:27:00.000+08:00

We give the small sea a 3-bun salute

2007-07-16T12:19:00.000+08:00

Lake Baikal: spasiva, spasiva, spasiva

2007-07-16T10:12:00.000+08:00

It became apparent very early our travels that it’s not as easy to get around Russia as it is in the rest of the world. Our language barrier is debilitating and people here aren’t exactly the most helpful in the world. But for all of the strange looks, horrifying toilets and blatant rip offs we’ve recently endured in The Motherland, the friends we have made have made up for it 10 fold.
That is to say, that in many ways traveling in Russia is like traveling anywhere else in the world; you have to trust the right strangers and not get too pissed off when some things go wrong. On the train along with several tour groups, a Russian lawyer named Max, a boring Dutch bunkmate, a burly Siberian mother, and a several bottles of vodka, we met a tall skinny Russian student named Artiem. His English was basic but it was only through the broken English that we could talk with our new friends and share our first bottle of vodka on the Trans-Siberian Railroad.
Artiem offered to help us circumnavigate Baikal but when we accepted his offer it was him who asked us why we trusted him, a stranger, to take us around Russia. It was a fair question. But between Sara, Peter and I, we have a combined intuition that almost without fail, can steer us through any situation. We could tell he was a good person to go along with and his question only convinced us of it.
What he initially told us we would do and where we would go with him wasn’t all that accurate. We made it to our major destinations of Olkoun (a large island in Lake Baikal), the Small Sea, and Artiem’s hometown of Elanci but the details were anything but accurate. Never knowing exactly what to expect and not being in full control was frustrating but in the end, we had a better time than we ever thought possible in the middle of backwoods Siberia.From the train station in Irkutsk we went with Artiem to his hometown of Elanci. Before leaving we spent a morning in Irkutsk walking around, meeting Russian women, and even stopped into the local pub for rounds of beer and vodka before catching a local van out to his village. The car made several stops down to rocky dirt road villages of only a hundred people to drop several people along the way. We passed through several herds of cows that chose to stop in the middle of the road for no reason. When we arrived we were lead to a tiny local hotel that couldn’t legally operate in the states and napped for a couple hours in our springy beds while Artiem spent time with his family he hadn’t seen in months. Then we had the most Russian home cooked dinner in the most Russian dining room, with the most Russian family, and showered in the most Russian banya, and drank the most Russian vodka. Artiem’s uncle blessed the house the bottle of vodka we brought as a house-warming gift, then poured us all shots to toast. I picked up the shot glass with my left hand and was quickly corrected by the uncle who forced it into my right hand. He said a toast that was more like a prayer and we all put the Ruskie fire water back and dug into a feast of potatoes, steak, cucumbers, sausage, homemade bread, and odd Russian pancakes. It was damn delicious. There were nearly a dozen family members that came through house at different times, most with names of famous NHL hockey players of Russian Olympic athletes. The older members drank vodka and the youngest was blessed with vodka lightly wiped against his forehead. The dining room was almost like Grandma’s house but, well, Russian. Uncle spoke no Russian but eventually made his way to talking about politics and the cold war before the rest of the family could tell him to be quiet and to avoid such topics. We didn’t care though, the vodka kicked in and we would have agreed that Russia won the war if it meant we could have another helping of the dill roasted potatoes.After dinner was my first experience in a Russian banya. It’s a mix between a wet sauna and a bath. I imagine that it’s ideal for the freezing Siberian winters. It’s basically a large wooden sauna that has one basin of scalding hot water and one of cold water. Banya’s are usually social places but this time it was more of a sweaty shower. It was only brisk outside but it was a refreshing shower, especially after a day and a half train ride from Mongolia.

Something happened after dinner and suddenly we were in a furious rush to get to the island of Olkhound, and they meant NOW. We sped back to the hotel, repacked our bags, got half our money back, all while Artiem’s mom tapped her finger to her wrist to warn us we had little time. The driver chose speed over safety and our van was a dust comet blowing down the dirt roads. We later understood that we were racing to the pier where the ferry was first come, first serve. Somehow we still got pushed to the end of the line and relaxed with some beers while the long, sunny day finally turned to night. The sun doesn’t set until 11 in Siberia and Olhound is 86 kilometers long, so by the time we arrived at our hotel it was way past everyone’s bed time and I’ll spare you all of the annoying details of the pain in the ass it was to find a place to sleep in the middle of the night in rural Russia. Since we drove in at night we couldn’t see how beautiful Olkhon is. The island is only slightly inhabited and though there were a lot of tourists in the main town, most of the island appeared to be untouched nature. Mountains, tall cliffs, huge rocks, rolling green hills, and sandy beaches with crystal water made up the landscape.
We walked around and eventually ended up on a beach where Artiem armed Peter and I with some Russian that allowed us to make some new friends. I met a large group of beautiful Russian girls and Peter ended up talking to two Russian men named Dema.
Lake Baikal is known for a lot of things, but probably nothing more than for being icy cold. That didn’t stop us from swimming but it did mean that we swam only long enough to pee and then got back to shore before hypothermia set it. The best thing about Baikal, aside from its beauty, ended up being for keeping beer nice and cold. The group of girls we met were students from Irkutsk and they liked karaoke. This meant that we liked karaoke and we met up with them at the mini-mart/karaoke bar later that night. Both English and Russian songs were sung and soon after erupted a dance party of epic proportions that the tiny shop will never see again. It all came to a halt when the owner wanted to close the place so she could go to the local “disco club” and we paid our tab and decided to do the same.
The Russian “disco club” on Olhoun was, well, not a disco club. It was more like a small house with no furniture, ugly peeling wallpaper, and a cd player hooked up to two old speakers. There’s no argument about it, the place was the most shitty “disco” or “club” I’ve ever been to but on that night I wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere else in the world. Ever been to an 80’s party? It’s a well-known fact that they are some of the drunkest parties known to man. Russia’s like the 80’s. On acid. All the time. That night in that wack discoclub with those Russians was one of those nights that are so much fun, we woke up the next morning with smiles on our faces and immediately started recounting the numerous epic events that happened the night before.
The next morning was a late one and as a result we missed each of the small buses that taxi people on and off the island. We were ready to go but stranded on the side of the road wondering whether to hitch a ride or spend another night on the island,. Our savior ended up being a tiny white clunker of a car that hardly fit the four of us with all of our baggage, and threatened to stall several times before it finally did on a steep hill. The engine started again at the bottom of the hill and we eventually made it back to the pier.

Backed up in the long line of vehicles waiting for the ferry was a bus to Irkutsk and we switched our bags over to the bus for a ride to the small sea. On the bus was a large group of students who had been cleaning up litter on the island. Our friend Artiem had often questioned which country is more free, the US or Russia, and he proudly exercised his opinion that the answer was Russia by littering all over his beautiful Motherland. Most of his compatriots did the same, so it was nice to see some people knew what was up.
Amongst the students Peter was quickly the center of attention. The students found him fascinating and quickly asked to take their picture with him and then the rest of us. We had to wait a couple hours for the ferry so we spent the time with the students speaking broken Russian/English and drinking a couple beers. It didn’t take long for the vodka to show up.
With no boat at the pier, it became a jumping board and several of the guys stripped down to their underwear and jumped in. Most of the students backed down and didn’t follow them but the three of us looked at each other and said, “mnye Po-hui” and stripped down and jumped in. First of all, if you ever want to earn street cred in Russia, impromptu jumps into Baikal instantly do the trick. Second of all, don’t ever utter that impolite phrase unless you’re drinking with friends and confronted with a similar decision; it’s Russian for “fuck it.”

The water was cold but vodka does wonders for maintaining body heat and we were American legends for having braved jumping off the pier. From then on until we were dropped off at the small sea it was a party atmosphere with the busload of students.
The battery on the bus was low so each time it stopped several of us had to get out and push to get it started again. Shitty roads and shitty cars were a theme of our time around Baikal but we enjoyed (almost) every minute of it.
Emphatic good byes and I love you’s were yelled when the bus pulled away and left us standing kilometers away from potential lodging. Stoked about our new friends and pretty toasty from the celebratory vodka we hiked up to a hotel happily despite each car we tried to hitch a ride from driving past us without hesitation. We were relieved to finally reach the hotel and then Artiem informed us that we were staying in the next valley over and we had an option of walking along the dirt road or going “Extreme Russia” and walking straight over the mountain. Obviously, when given the option of going Extreme Russia we went Extreme Russia. We hiked up the mountain sweating out the alcohol and kicking stinging needles the entire way. Given our Russian diet of potatoes, wheat, and meat, it felt great to work up a sweat. On the opposite side were about a hundred small cottages looking out onto a gorgeous bay in Baikal’s small sea.Down the hill we found our home for the next couple nights, a small wooden cottage with a kitchen, two bedrooms and a view of the lake, the place where are next round of adventures took place.

Yes, there really is a Mongolian Barbeque in Mongolia

2007-07-08T15:22:00.000+08:00

But it was only built in the last year. So that's pretty lame. And no, it's not really Mongolian-style cuisine.

And now, the Mongolian travels have come to an end. Tonight Peter, Sara, and I leave for Russia and will spend the next 48 hours on a train practicing Russian and drinking vodka.

As for the blog, posts will go up as it's convenient. With such a busy schedule it's difficult to find time, or better yet to waste time, sitting on the internet. And when I spend such long periods of time away and need to upload such a huge amount on photos and stories, I think the quality is greatly compromised. But that's the way it goes and I don't really expect things to change. So as the travels go I'll try to update the blog but traveling in new places I can't predict how often it will go.

There. I've written my silly disclaimer and feel better. Thanks for reading.

No Trails: Horseback riding through Mongolia

2007-07-08T15:16:00.000+08:00

Exploring a skeleton of the Former Soviet Union

2007-07-08T14:25:00.000+08:00

Of all the abandoned buildings in the Soviet ghost town, the largest one in the center was the most intriguing. First of all, it was the biggest in the town. Second, from the outside it looked like a hospital and therefore the most likely place to find strange remnants from its former occupation. But what really made us want to explore the place was the fact that each of its doors and all of its many windows were securely shut forbidding entry to anyone.

Persistence pays off though, and walking around the perimeter of the building I finally came across a window that was only loosely fastened and was able to accidentally break it open.
Jumping in through the window brought back a fear in me that I haven't felt in years. The room I climbed into had obviously been untouched for years. It was cluttered with garbage and entropy had slowly ruined the floors and the walls. We carefully across the room afraid the floor would give and admittedly a little nervous opened the room's door out to the hallway.
Stepping out into the hallway, it was immediately apparent that remembering our way back to the same room was a priority. All of the other exits had been barricaded and the only way out was the same way we came in. The hallways were long and dark with doors evenly spaced the entire way down. We carefully walked down these hallways pushing open each door and peering in to see what remained in each room. Most rooms were in shambles and contained very little. Some had old broken furniture and disgusting old mattresses and pillows. Others had been vandalized in Mongolian writing and we were unable to read them. The creepiest find in all of the small rooms was the picture above of the three children, vandalized and left alone. Beyond the small rooms, our first odd discovery was a large auditorium with a stage and torn red curtains still hanging from above. Our previous idea of the place being a hospital was suddenly in question but we were still unsure. Even weirder than the stage was this board of lights the hung on the opposite wall with many different colored bulbs in strange patterns. What this was used for I'm still trying to guess. Again challenging our idea that the place was a hospital, we found two large red doors that were labeled with a sign that read, "BAR." Inside, it was one of the most odd, colorful bars I've ever seen. String decorated the ceiling, each of the walls was painted in a surreal design and empty booths sat covered in dust. On top of the bar sat a roughly cut deer head. Beads hung separating the two main rooms in the bar and looking up close we realized it was made from bones from livestock. In the window a bird was dead, trapped between two panes of glass. The next room we opened was strewn with books. They were in piles out of order but inside each cover was a pocket with a library card. There had obviously been a library somewhere else. Looking through the books it was obvious most of it was political. Katiya could not read Mongolian but the alphabet is nearly exactly the same as Russian and she could read the names that were in most of the books: Lenin and Stalin. It was all communist propaganda. This book was poetry about Lenin and although I thought about it, I couldn't bring myself to take it.
We searched every room we could in the building. Many of the doors were locked and we were unable to find out what was hidden inside. We searched three different floors, always making a mental note of where we were so we would know how to get back out. If there were ghosts in the ghost town, it seemed obvious that this is where they would live. Each time we pushed open a door we nervously peered around it hoping to find something interesting, but afraid we'd find something horrifying. For some reason we couldn't get the idea out of our heads that behind one of the doors a corpse would be swinging by a noose and we'd all be sprinting to get the hell out of that place as fast as possible. But to our knowledge, no such thing existed and we found nothing too scary .

Our other discovery came on the second floor where we found two huge machines. At first it wasn't obvious what they were used for but it only took looking around the room to make it obvious. They were movie projectors and peering through the hole they showed movies through, we found that it was above and behind the theater. In the corner of the room were stacks of old reels. I only looked at a couple of the films that were already opened and pulled out of the tins and my guess is that they are all old Mongolian films. Again, we only looked through everything slightly and left it almost entirely as it was. Whether or not the place was a hospital or not I can't be sure. From the library, theater, and bar, I really can't make any conclusions. What was intriguing was that though we were inside the place we still couldn't reach two other wings which were blocked off even from the inside. What remained in there, I'll probably never know. No matter what the place was, it was creepy as hell. Never had I been exploring in a place that was not only blocked off to keep people out but was also obviously untouched for years. On top of that, it wasn't even in the United States but in the middle of nowhere in the Mongolian countryside where the Soviet Union formerly lived. The true nature of the ghost town and of this strange building can never be conveyed through writing or pictures, but at least here I can attempt to share pieces of it with you.

Ever felt like you were in a horror film?

2007-07-08T13:37:00.000+08:00

Where we stayed overnight wasn't just Gana's farm or a sprawled inhabitance of nomadic Mongolians. Right next to the farm were old abandoned buildings in which few people had been inside in years. Talking to Gana we found out that the land was a former Soviet colony that was deserted after the fall of the Soviet Union. Since then, the Russians all left and the Mongolians never took interest into the buildings, leaving them to crumble and rot. We all found the ghost town creepy, but our Russian friend Katiya noted that she found the place particularly scary because it reminded her of Chernobyl. Around the buildings grass grew over everything and noisy grasshoppers and small birds fluttered around amongst the field littered with cow patties and old bones. Most of the buildings remained open and horses and goats wandered throughout them, the horses enjoying the shelter of the first floors and the goats liking the view from the top floors.
Inside these buildings floor boards broke through, wall paper and paint peeled off the walls and windows were shattered. Floors creaked with every foot step and some broke through.
It was unclear what the old town was like. We were told it was an old sanitarium which only helped to make the place even more creepy. It was difficult to tell what each of the buildings were used for but one looked like a school and another like a hospital. As I walked around the ghost town and through the houses I couldn't help but make up ghost stories in my head. Gana had little interest in the town. When we brought it up he had little to say and it seemed like he didn't want to talk about it all. With so many people living near the ghost town, it seemed strange it was completely empty but the locals prefer their traditional lifestyle and have no interest in moving out of their yurts into the dilapidated buildings. I can't stress how eerie an actual ghost town is and the animals occupying the buildings made the place even more surreal. Looking up to see several goats just standing out of a shattered window is, quite simply, abnormal. Watching a group of horses exit from an open doorway stops you dead in your tracks, frozen by the odd reality. Occasionally kicking odd leg bones while walking through the grass can only help to make the hair on the back of your neck stand up.Although unrelated to the actual ghost town, this horse head stuck was stuck in a tree as well. Unlike the buildings, this head was stuck there recently because of an old Mongolian superstitious ritual after a good horse dies. Why exactly the cut the horse's head off and stick it in a tree, I'm not sure but it's enough to make an unsuspecting girl scream.

I have nipples, can you milk me?

2007-07-08T13:29:00.000+08:00

I never knew milking horses was possible and further, I didn't even think that the milk was drinkable. But in Mongolia all the horses are milked and the milk is drank and it's not considered strange at all. The flavor is a little lighter and sweeter than cow's milk and when we drank it, it was still hot from the cow. Delicious.

Gana's Farm

2007-07-08T12:43:00.000+08:00

Two hours by train outside of Ulaanbaatar, we were picked up by a man named Gana who was our host of an overnight stay in the country to give the nomadic lifestyle a go. Gana was waiting at the train station smiling and as soon as we arrived we got into his van and headed for the farm. Knowing how to make quick friends, he stopped on the way and picked up a large bottle of beer to pass around the car on the way. Gana didn't think twice about slugging back some suds himself, unworried about drinking and driving on the numerous dirt paths leading through the valleys.
On the way this man stopped us and his friend hopped in the van, just hitching a ride to the next village over. These valleys are only populated by about 1,000 people who live in clans spread thinly over the vast countryside. Horse, goats, sheep, and cattle roamed freely around and I assume the locals had some understanding of ownership but it was a mystery to me.
This was our yurt, our home for the night. As you can see, it was a little short for Peter's taste, but he could stand up in the middle of it without hitting his head. Inside there was only three beds, a small table and a short stove.
Also on the property was this house owned by Gana's cousin. Everyone was Gana's cousin. Any question of who posed to Gana was answered by, "my cousin." Eventually I just stopped asking questions about who owned this, who that was, or how he knew people. Though a small family lived in this house, most of the people in the area lived in yurts.
Inside our yurt, Gana's nephew (aside from cousins, Gana also had a wife, a son, and a nephew) Puche showed us his thick book of drawings. The kid has incredible natural talent for drawing and painting. Sadly, there's not much of a career that could come out of it. He spends most of his time in UB but will most likely spend his years working here on the farm.
Gana's holds their sun in her warm robe. She was an incredibly kind person who cooked our meals of rice, potatoes, and mutton.
All the local kids were extremely friendly and once they saw a couple of their pictures on my camera they posed tirelessly for more pictures. They constantly smiled, loved to play games together and tried their best to speak some English to me.
Here the kids played a game where they clapped at each other's hands. I didn't understand it exactly, but when someone lost they had to kiss the person next to them on the cheek. In the back ground some older kids played basketball on a dirt court with a makeshift backboard.

Gana didn't worry about entertaining us while we stayed on the farm. We were given time and space to wander around and meet people. He worked all day. In this photo he was setting up electricity to be strung to the yurts. Later in the day he climbed another pole that was too old and while he was on top, it tipped and he fell with it to the ground. He got up from the fall unhurt and we toasted to his good luck later that night, drinking vodka.
Most people in the area got around on horse but there were a few trucks here and there, about half with wheels still attached.
This little sweetheart became my friend for a while. Only 3 years old, she roamed the property as she wished unsupervised amongst the animals. She loved to run and laugh and liked to make monster faces and chase me away.
Though it's just a cow, this photo shows the pace of life out here. The locals do work hard every day milking cows and horses but they remain laid back and chipper.
Here's this cute little girl again. I found her bouncy on a loose part of the fence giggling to herself.
In the candlelight of our yurt we took shots of vodka together speaking in Mongolia, Russian, English to communicate. The only other person on the farm was a Russian girl named Katiya who had met Gana in UB. They both spoke Russian and with Katiya's excellent English we could bridge the gaps that our Mongolian and Gana's English couldn't.
Taking some funny drink pictures, these were our serious faces.
And these were our crazy faces.
The five of us after killing a bottle of vodka and teaching each other dirty words in our respective languages.
Making sure our stove burnt all night long, Sara went out in the dark to find dried cow patties to stoke the fire. She's definitely looking her best her with the head lamp on and a dried piece of horse shit in her hand.
Sara trying to open the stove door with a fork, horse shit still in hand.
This horse was tied up outside a tiny local store while a man ran into to grab some food and vodka. And I thought I'd never be in a place where people tied up their horses outside the store.

Adventures in UB

2007-07-08T12:11:00.000+08:00

The Ulaanbaatar train station just after we arrived. We only stayed in Ulaanbaatar for two days, so we tried to get around as much as possible.
Outside the main shopping center in the middle of town, a large gold yurt sits as a symbol of Mongolia's pride and continued nomadic traditions.
Walking outside of the 'western-style' town, we walked up a dirt road interested in these strange fenced neighborhoods that are all around the city.
Looking back over the city, the top of a yurt is visible against the tall buildings in the city's center.
I don't know if this dog was just peeking out of his home or if he was standing there guarding it, but I only got close enough to take this picture.
Outside the grounds of Ulaanbaatar's most famous monastery, people milled about, children played and we wandered in awe of their unique architecture.
UB's most famous building, the Gandaan is a Tibetan Buddhism monastery. Outside kids sold bird seed and pigeons waited for handouts.
Another beautiful building, but I have no idea what it was used for.
Inside the Gandaan was a huge idol. I wish I knew more about the religion, but admittedly, I just don't know much right now.
A monk stands outside the monk's quarters. He invited us in to walk around but couldn't speak much English so we were only able to guess at the purpose of each of the buildings.
Inside an empty fountain some children played some games, including a Mongolian version of Marco Polo.
Peter shows off his soccer skills to the local kids. They seemed impressed but it might have just been excitement to be playing with a westerner.
Looking back out of the main entrance of the monastery is the city and behind that are the mountains that surround UB on three sides.
Two locals walk down another dirt road through these unique neighborhoods.
A dire need for a bathroom took us into this strange bar and it wasn't until we were inside ordering a round of beers that we realized that it was actually a hooker bar. Respect.

36 hour train from Beijing to Ulaanbaatar: Industrial China to Mongolian Countryside

2007-07-08T11:34:00.000+08:00

A man peers into the train window to say his final goodbyes before our train departs the Beijing Station on its way to Mongolia.
The Chinese countryside was less than beautiful. There were a couple stretches of mountains and river but these were the exception, not the rule and for most of the ride we stared out the window at rural towns and industrial factories.
A shot inside the car, we enjoyed out 4-person 2nd class sleeping quarters for the long journey. The three of us were split up along the way, Peter and I bunking with a friendly French couple while Sara endured a couple know-it-all Americans and a midnight dust storm flying through their open window.
When we stopped at some unknown station along the way, we looked across the pavilion to see other people staring right back at our train.
The closer we got to Mongolia, the better the countryside looked. Though I'm not sure, I believe this was taken in Inner Mongolia, which is actually China.
Still hours before reaching the border, a storm brewed in the distance.
In the middle of the night we finally reached the Mongolian border. It took hours to go through customs and check all of the passports. The more interesting part of the border crossing is the different sizes of Chinese and Mongolian train tracks. It's difficult to tell by this picture but our train was being lifted up while these engineers switched the chassis underneath the cars.
I slept like a rock through the night with our compartment closed and shades pulled over the window. I woke when we arrived at a Mongolian station and when I walked out I was blinded by the bright Mongol sun. It took my eyes a while to adjust and catch my first glimpse of Mongolia. Here some kids rushed up to windows hoping to sell rocks they claimed were semi-precious to any person, at any price, in any currency.
The beginning of Mongolia was flat an arid. Traveling towards the Gobi desert the landscape was anything but lush. Still, it was a great contrast to China because of the deep blue skies, tufts of white clouds, and the fresh air.
A train heading back towards the border passes us along the way.
Little by little the countryside turned green. First with some short grasses then bushes, and eventually trees.
Since Sara's bunk was on the opposite end of the train we had to travel through 10 cars, including the dining car to visit her. Walking there after they had switched the cars at the border I was confused walking through the cars at first because they weren't exactly as I remembered. It wasn't until I arrived in the new, fancy dining car that I realized they had switched most of the cars and even added a couple more.
There was very little at some of the Mongolian train stops but workers still stood in attention to the passing train.
Along with changing the cars, our train was also pulled by a new engine, one that billowed out black smoke as we began to climb the foothills leading to Ulaanbaatar.
The fields and valleys we passed were so empty is was odd seeing any people or vehicles. I couldn't help but wonder what they were doing out there and how they knew they'd have enough gas to get back. We also saw herds of cows, sheep, goats, and horses with no apparent owner and without a farm anywhere in the distance.
Approaching UB we began to see trees sprouting up in the green grasses.
An shallow river cut through the countryside; a sight we wouldn't have seen hours earlier traveling through the Gobi Desert.
A final station before reaching our destination.
The outskirts of Ulaanbaatar.
The traditional home of nomadic herdsman in Mongolia, yurts are built here separated by fences.
Home to 1.3 Million people, Ulaanbaatar houses nearly half of Mongolia's 3 million people. A large percentage of Mongols spend summers in the countryside and hide during the freezing winters in the city.
Finally arriving in Ulaanbaatar, we all concluded that the train ride was that bad.
Despite our budget guest house, they picked us up at the train station and even had my name on a card.

The Great Wall at Badaling

2007-07-08T11:32:00.000+08:00

Glimpse of Beijing

2007-07-08T11:26:00.000+08:00

Boys Climbing Ropes starring Shao Punk-EH

2007-07-08T11:11:00.000+08:00

A friend of Flume's that also works on Small Swords is in a band in Shanghai. The band, called Boys Climbing Ropes, was playing at a local bar. On Sara's second night in town we went to one of their shows at a local bar.

Glimpse of Shanghai

2007-07-08T11:04:00.000+08:00

Admittedly, I'm a little behind on the blog. I'm sitting in an internet cafe in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia and just now uploading photos of Shanghai. And that's going to be my excuse for not writing much about these pictures. So here they are, some glimpses of China's mega-modern city.

Emperor Qin's Terracotta Army

2007-06-19T22:44:00.000+08:00

In March of 1974, Chinese farmers were drilling for water when they came across a curious discovery. Instead of hitting water they came across pieces of ancient statues. The farmers told authorities who eventually dug out the artifacts to find one, then another, then another terra cotta soldier dating back from 200 B.C. Excavation has continued ever since and their discovery ended up being the ancient burial site of Emperor Qin, and what the Chinese now claim the 8th wonder of the world.
The Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi reigned over the territory of Qin until 221 BC and then over a unified China until his death in 210 BC. Whoever said “you can’t take it with you” never talked to Mr. Qin. For his death, he had huge armies constructed to accompany him to the after life.
Emperor Qin was buried in a separate mausoleum and his armies were split into three different chambers. The largest of these chambers is thought to house up to 2,000 terracotta soldiers as well as horses and carriages.
Most of the burial site remains underground but reconstructing it to its former glory means not only digging the soldiers back up but putting the pieces of each back together in a complex puzzle. Thousands of years of the earth shifting has shattered most of the soldiers many of them stand today without heads.
Next to the sheer size of the tomb and the quantity of the soldiers, perhaps the most amazing part is that each of them is entirely unique. The soldiers differ in their facial features, hairdos, their uniforms, and even the details of how they rolled up their sleeves.
On top of that, each of the soldiers were buried with their weapons. Wooden crossbows were lost through time but cast iron arrows and swords are still found in excavation.
Incredible ancient constructions around the world all claim to be the 8th wonder of the world. Angkor Wat in Cambodia is another I’ve been lucky enough to visit myself but without comparing it to Emperor Qin’s army, I’d say they are both worthy of being called one of the world’s remaining ancient wonders.

the other Xi'an, China (the town aside from the terra cotta soldiers)

2007-06-19T22:05:00.000+08:00

A man bikes up to a local shop to deliver beer. Inside, fires burn to cook some street food.
Elderly Chinese in town find numerous ways to 'exercise'. On a rainy Tuesday morning, couples were dancing in the park, some exercised their vocal chords with Chinese Opera, and this lady practiced hacky-sack outside her meat shop.
A large stack of dumplings cook waiting for buyers in the Muslim quarters. My Chinese is so poor it's guess the filling and hope for the best.
This man may be busy on his cell phone but that doesn't mean he's not headed to the gym to drink some weight gainer and work on his pecs.
In the back alleys I got strange looks from everyone who looked my way. Here, bicycle taxis sat unused and unlocked while a young boy and his father walked home.

How can you say you don't like it if you've never tried it?: A daily special from the Xi'an Muslim market

2007-06-19T21:46:00.000+08:00

IF you're just dying to know what a 36 hour train ride through central China is like -and I know you are- grab a pillow

2007-06-19T21:15:00.000+08:00

and lay down next to this slide show for the day and a half. If you want to make it even more realistic, try speaking broken Chinese to imaginary people (it doesn't matter if they aren't there, they wouldn't understand if they were), eat only strange box-bowls of spicy instant noodles, and when using the bathroom squat over the toilet.

Leaving behind Thailand, going to Xiamen, China. Could this be more random?

2007-06-19T20:37:00.000+08:00

When things could have gotten real heated in Thailand, Thaksin gave a taped speech to suppoters at Sanam Luang promising not to get involved in Thai politics again. This diffused the political rumors of his comeback and gave the country a relative political calm. Some supporters still claim foulplay by the new government but Thaksin only has one worry now, and that's his billions of dollars frozen up in Thai bank accounts.

Instead of politics, he's actually turning his focus to football ...err... soccer that is, and is looking to buy Manchester United. I don't know, and really don't care about the details, or if the deal will go through but with his money inaccessible, he's not ready to spend hundreds of millions of USD just yet. On top of that, the government has now changed its mind and demanded Thaksin return to the country to face the charges brought against him. How this all turns out only time will tell, but luckily for my poor mother, I'm out of the country and working on bigger and better things for her to worry about.

And so I switch my focus from Thailand to China...

A 4 1/2 hour plane ride took me to Xiamen, the port town just across the straight from Taiwan. There was little to do there but spend the night and wait half of the following day in line to buy a train ticket, then return back to the hostel to collect my things before returning to the train station to catch my train. May not sound too exciting but when you're in China, and if you're in the right mood, everything can be exciting.

Among the things I saw during my not-so-exciting day:

This lady riding her bike through town with live chickens tied to it. (Look closely.)

A Wal-Mart in China. (Not pictured.)

An entire downtown that seemed to all be under construction at once.

A man with a bamboo pole balanced over his shoulder with live chickens, ducks, and turtles tied to it. (Not pictured. Sorry.)

And I had just a tiny bit of time to take a stroll through this Chinese park.

A great time to be on my way out from Thailand?

2007-06-14T20:31:00.000+08:00

Every night in Bangkok, angry voices echo over through the city calling for change. Democracy protests have grown into a nightly spectacle at the Sanam Luang where pundits demand not only the end of the CNS (Council for National Security that took control of the country in last September’s military coup) but also the reinstatement of deposed Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra (right).

The result has been a growing unease over the current political situation and the future of the country in general. Rumors have begun to spread about the CNS instituting a curfew and on the opposite end, it has been said the democracy protests are trying to lure the military into drawing first blood to incite a war. These have proven to be no more than rumors but the country’s stability is deteriorating.

Still, the politics of the situation are taking the country into a dangerous direction it needs to avoid. The CNS would prefer that Thaksin remain in exile outside of the country, yet they have gone after him and his family with charges of corruption, malfeasance and tax evasion. They have failed to pin any of the charges to him or his family but have recently frozen over 73 billion Baht in Thaksin’s Thai bank accounts.

In order to continue to protect his family and try and recollect his frozen assets, Thaksin has little choice but to return to Thailand. But just today Surayud Chulanont (right), the current Prime Minister, issued a statement saying that Thaksin could return to stand up for himself if he wished, but he warned that the CNS could not guarantee his safety. Those still in support of Thaksin claimed tens of thousands would welcome him home at the new Suvarnabhumi airport, the very building of which is cause for many of allegations of corruption on Thaksin.

Thaksin’s Thai Rak Thai political party has been dismantled on flimsy charges of bribing opponents and Thaksin and his constituents have been banned from politics for five years. This seems unlikely if he returns soon. His presence alone would give the Bangkok protests instant legitimacy and cause great alarm to the CNS. Even if Thaksin stays away from the protests, clearing his name means defeating the CNS in a politically charged courtroom. Their fates are tied together; victory for one means loss for the other and neither is about to give up soon.

What’s worse is that this is adding to any already volatile situation in the deep south where sectarian violence between Buddhists and Muslims continues to grow. Mostly isolated to three provinces, extremists have been murdering teachers, burning schools and setting off bombs. Both Thaksin and the CNS have showed an inability to quell this violence and now it’s taking a back seat to the political mess. But this doesn’t mean those involved in the social fight aren’t looking to take advantage. Insensitive to the situation, monks have recently taken up to joining protests in Bangkok demanding Buddhism be named the national religion, a move not taken lightly by the Muslim minority. So far the bombings have been predominantly in the south, but the New Year’s bombings in Bangkok have proven how susceptible the city is to attacks.

All this boils down to is the country is dangerously close to finding itself in chaos, without a great leader. The King remains in an unused third-party whose opinion is widely respected and could have great potential to ease all of Thailand’s problems. Everyone in the country would take his words as law and he is perhaps the only person who couldn't be alleged to be corrupt. But the King has grown very old and feeble. Moreover he has historically devoted himself to social policies and has kept himself almost entirely out of politics. But now the politics he refuses to deal with are threatening to tear apart his great country.

Still, it's not likely any of this brings violence to Bangkok any time soon. This is Thailand after all. Nobody was killed or injured in the coup that started all of these problems and daily life for most Thais has gone unchanged. Most have opinions about the recent politics but are unlikely to do more than talk. Even for those who feel strongly about the politics opting for violence is not likely. For one thing, unlike where I grew up, no one has any guns. On top of that, the current protests are far from troublesome.

For now, life for most Thais and all tourists goes on as usual. The situation is well worth monitoring but in Thailand when push comes to shove, people often just say, "mai bpen lai."

I don't know how it started, but I saw how it finished

2007-06-11T15:38:00.000+08:00

People watching on Khaosan Road, I sat at a sidewalk bar when I noticed a scuffle between some girls just five meters away. I saw some guys holding two falang girls back who were yelling at somebody in the street. Looking out to the street I saw an angry Thai girl walk right up to the girl and throw a haymaker at her.

Too busy running her mouth, the falang just blinked.

And then the fight was over.

The Thai girl's fist met the falang's face with loud pop. The punch knocked the girl to the sidewalk and the Thai girl strutted away without anything else to say.

I looked around me but no one else noticed the fight. Looking back over to the girls, the guys who were 'breaking up' the fight stood there clueless what to do. The girl got up off the cement, her nose already gushing blood. Her eyes were already red with tears. Then initial shock wore off and she began to sob. And then to hysterically cry.

Her girlfriends got some napkins and surrounded her trying to comfort her and stop her nose bleed. The few people who did notice the punch, then went back to their drinks and their conversation. Men walked up and down the street selling Zippos, women from the north croaked wooden frogs trying to sell handmade trinkets, and the night went on like any other.

Democracy now! ...or... snacks now, and maybe democracy later

2007-06-11T15:11:00.000+08:00

If I were in any other country, I might be afraid. It has been 10 months since the military overthrew the elected Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in a bloodless coup but in the last two days large protests have occurred around Bangkok. On Sunday night I walked over to the Sanam Luang, historically the spot for such a political protest in Bangkok. There I met a reported 13,000 other people who came out in protest of the current government and calling for Thaksin’s return. But like I said, in any other country I might be worried, but not here.

First, 13,000 people isn’t even that many in a city of over 11 million and to be honest, I’d be surprised if there were really 10,000. Second, half the people present were only there because they expected large crowds and brought their food carts knowing that Thais can’t resist some dried squid or meat on a stick. A monk sat behind a table selling his own amulets, CDs, and books (that’s ridiculous in itself.) Another man sold tsunami videos. Others actually set up tables and chairs for makeshift noodle soup restaurants. Stranger still, others laid out mats and were doing business giving Thai massages throughout the evening.

With a backdrop of the holy Wat Pra Keow, speakers took turn riling up the crowd chanting back and forth and giving heartfelt speeches. Those in the crowd serious about Thailand returning to democracy wore yellow bandannas around their heads and waved red and white flags demanding the current government to “Get Out!” Politely seated on the ground around the stage, most enjoyed their snacks in between talking points and their flag waving.

When the final speech was over the crowd gave a last hoorah and out came a band (Pua Cheewit or Thai folk music) but most were already on their way out. Without incident, the protests came and went and all that was left was the famous field filled with trash. The place was filthy. It wasn’t dirty as in a couple people didn’t throw away their trash or a couple trashcans got knocked over. It was much worse. Nobody threw anything away. The field was covered in plastic bags, Styrofoam containers, bottles, cans, and ‘disposable’ sitting mats. I walked out with the masses, my empty water bottle in my back pocket, and at the main exit of the field I found a huge line of empty dumpsters to throw it in.

Later that night I laid down to sleep around midnight and another speech started. This time it was at the government building kilometers away, but I could hear the speaker's words loud and clear. It must have been audible over most of Bangkok. The voice yelled over the city and echoed off all the taller buildings. As most Thai people were in bed, pro-democracy rhetoric went on loud and clear over the entire city well into the night.

The protests have increased since though each in smaller size. They all demanded that General Santhi, currently the head of the government, to step down. In response to the people's demands he said, "No."