Around the World in 75 Days

Lots to talk about

2008-08-11T21:25:00.000-07:00

I realized that we haven't posted much about our actual travels in a while - nothing since Taylor's post before we left Shanghai. From Shanghai we took an overnight train to Chongqing, which is in like the southern middle part of China, west along the Yangtze River from Shanghai. Chongqing was a cool town, though we didn't have too much time there - very prettily oriented around water. From Chongqing we got on a 2-night river cruise east down the Yangtze River which ended in Yichang, where the Three Gorges Dam was.

So, sadly, we only saw one of the three gorges - I think we were either asleep or watching episodes of 30 Rock on my computer when we passed through the other ones... whoops. The cruise experience as a whole was a little disappointing. The gorge we saw (which I think is fairly similar to the others) was cool, very high, pretty, but the river itself is not the most beautiful thing. It was cool to see the dam, because it's such a massive and controversial industrial undertaking (I recommend Wikipedia-ing the project, there's a lot of interesting stuff - it was originally intended to provide 10% of China's electrical energy! This has since been downgraded due to the pace of industrialization. Anyway, I digress). I saw Hoover Dam earlier this year and I would say it was many times more impressive... when you go to Hoover, it's actually quite pretty - the type of cement used is nice and clean, and the dam has this nice curve to it, and most impressive of all, it's REALLY fucking tall - it just keeps going down!. The Three Gorges Dam looks nothing like that - it looks older, despite the fact that it's much newer because the cement is pretty ugly and utilitarian looking, and it's not nearly as high... the most impressive thing about it is its length (2.2 km).

Once we got into Yichang we spent a night in Wuhan (literally got in that night, left the next morning) so that we could take a train from there to Guilin, where we spent two nights. Guilin was great! It's not as big as some of the other places we've been going to, but it was really pretty and our hostel was great. We spent about 6 hours in Yangshuo, a nearby town that is renowned for its natural beauty. It was quite spectacular - some of the weirdest little mountains I've ever seen. The downside to that trip was that we biked around 8,000 miles and then climbed up Moon Mountain, the highest point in continental Asia. Friends who are reading this know that I have always been a huge fan of biking around and climbing things. *Neil noise*

From Guilin, we did a stupid thing. We decided to save $30 to take a sleeper bus from Guilin to Hong Kong instead of an overnight train. It was an awful experience. If you are in China and need to get somewhere, do NOT use the sleeper bus, spring for the train. I will describe the sleeper bus (which you can definitely add to the culture rage list) experience in a manner uncharacteristically devoid of hyperbole, because I think it needs none. The sleeper bus is a double-decker bus of normal width. Each level of the bus has beds in it. There are three rows of beds that stretch back to the end of the bus. Yes, apparently you can fit three beds with two walkways in between across a bus. Your bed is not completely flat - its flat for the bottom four feet, then raises upward for the top foot or so. It is around 18 inches wide. It is too short to lie on your back comfortably, so in order to fit in the bed, you have to bend your legs. The only way to do this is to lay on your side and curl up in fetal position, which leaves your knees poking out of your bed (more adequately described as a "hell cage"). Think of it this way: the coffin in which you will eventually be buried would feel like that 7-star hotel in Dubai compared to the sleeper bus. Oh and the damn bus is bumping up and down constantly and jarringly. Suffice it to say that we each patched together maybe 2 1/2 hours of sleep on our 13 hour bus ride.

This takes us into Hong Kong, which was awesome and probably merits its own post, which one of us will try and get around to asap. Sorry for the lack of posts for so long - free time on the internet has been scarce for a while now. But we're safe and having an awesome time in Beijing (will also merit a couple of posts of its own).

--Aman

Culture Rage, Part Deux

2008-08-02T07:00:00.000-07:00

So, for those of you loyal readers who kept up with our blog last time we were in China, you may remember that I wrote a post entitled "Culture Rage" dealing with weird, annoying cultural differences that got under our skin while we were in China. Going back and reading this, I decided that there was more I could add based on this trip. I also sent it over to Darren, who had a slew of his own observations, so we decided to collaborate on a sequel to that post (which tackled chopsticks, table manners, bureaucracy, the sleeper train phenomenon, and Chinese medicine).

As a preamble, I will say that these are all very minor and funny gripes that we have that are more than canceled out by our continual amazement with how incredibly kind, friendly and helpful everyone here is. Strangers go so far out of their way to help you with whatever problem you have that it's quite heartwarming. But, alas, nobody is perfect, so without further adieu, the long-awaited sequel to Culture Rage:

culture rage (kŭl·chər rāj) – n. A feeling of epic anger directed towards a society and its habits, borne of frustration with inefficiency, stubbornness, or a willful neglect of logical thought on the part of your hosts.

Aman's Musings:

WETNESS

If you ever listen to Dane Cook, you might be familiar with a hilarious bit that he does about public bathrooms. Ruminating on how disgusting they are, his first question is, "why is everything wet?!?" The same could well be asked of China. Not of Chinese public bathrooms (which are a trainwreck in and of themselves, don't even get me started), but simply of Chinese streets and sidewalks. When walking around in China, you would do well to bring along an umbrella and wear waterproof shoes, because if you don't you are likely to end up soaked from head to toe. Everytime you pass a restaurant, there is a prominent creek of restaurant juices flowing from the door, and walking becomes an exercise in hopping and skipping over these creeks so as not to splash your friends and get your feet wet with whatever that stuff is. Plus, for whatever reason, as you're walking around, you are bound to feel drops of water impact the top of your head and maybe trickle down your neck. As you look up you confirm that it is, indeed, not raining, but somewhere above you from some balcony for whatever reason, there is shit just dripping down. ARGH, WHY IS EVERYTHING WET?!

OVER-EAGER, UNDERCONSIDERATE CUE-ERS

One of the funnier efforts by the Chinese government in preparation for the Olympics has been to encourage Chinese people to learn to line up in an orderly fashion, instead of pushing and shoving one another to get to the front of lines. This is an extremely annoying habit that, sadly, has not yet been broken; you'll be lining up to board a train, or approach a ticket counter, and your progress will be remarkably slow if you're not vigilant, because aggressive Chinese folks will slip and slide their way around you. Probably the most infuriating symptom of this terrible disease is when you're talking to someone at a ticket booth or information desk and there's someone behind you. As soon as you finish your sentence, they butt you out of the way and dive into their business - it has happened on more than one occassion that we have had a second query, but have had to go back to the back of the line because somehow we have been pushed off to the side. The extraordinarily satisfying solution that I have discovered to this problem has been, simply put, to "wield my bag aggressively" (some of you will get this). Normally we are wearing these massive backpacks that stick out 18-20 inches behind us, so when I feel a little push coming from someone behind me trying to push their way around me, I absent-mindedly turn in the other direction and "accidentally" slam Jackie with my huge, heavy backpack. Cruel, I know, but ultimately very therapeutic.

CULTURE SHOWS

Okay, this is not necessarily limited to China, we experienced it in Mongolia and I'm sure it's present in other countries as well, but what the hell is a culture show and why do I have to watch it?! People all over this part of the world seem to think that tourists come to a place to see locals dressed up in funny costumes playing ridiculous old instruments in 15 minute clips the way they used to 1,000 years ago. It's one of the parts of the eastern tourist experience that I most despise. These shows are short, archaic tastes of art forms that don't exist anymore. There's nothing "authentic" about them - Chinese people don't go watch performances like this on the weekends. They exist purely as something for tourists to watch to feel better about their level of exposure to "strange" and "exotic" eastern cultures. There's no analog in the West - when we went to Greece, for example, there wasn't a group of men in brightly colored togas at the top of the Acropolis playing harps. Plus, once you've seen one of these damn shows, you've seen them all. Every time I visit a site, you don't need to throw in a show and then use it to justify charging extra for the experience - really, I can do without.

MSG

Chinese food is notable for the use of monosodium glutamate (MSG) in their food. One of the contested claims about MSG is that it messes with people's dreams. Although the "scientific community" says there's little evidence to support this, over the last few weeks we have all been going nuts with weird dreams. Most notably, Taylor has taken to yelling in his sleep, nonsensical mixes of English and Chinese that wake us all up. Also, just a few days ago, I was woken up by something and sprung out of bed yelling at everyone to turn the lights on in the room because I thought I saw some sort of weird, glow in the dark scorpion chillin next to my pillow and it took me like 5 minutes to calm down and realize I must have been in some weird, in-between sleep and awake state and seeing things. Weird stuff...

Here's where Darren takes over:

SPITTING

What the hell? It's like the entire country of China, men and women, are out at the sandlot about to play a ball game. Picture this: we're walking down a small street in Beijing lined with "Hutongs," little shops and bakeries that do most of their cooking in the windows and even sometimes on the street. It's what I call Chinese roullette when it comes to eating it: it's probably fresh and very tasty, but you may blow a whole in your colon later for having eaten in. Anyway, we're walking down a pretty quiet street, a very daintly, nicely dressed woman is walking towards us going the other way. Suddenly, as soon as she gets even with us on the road, she hocks a big one. This isn't your ever so rare "eww I have a bad taste in my mouth" feminine salival discharge. This is a Big One. Full on, rumbling from the back of the throat, a call to arms of all fluid in the mouth, a based loaded bottom ninth batter-finds-his-nerves loogie. The mucus ball hits the asphalt with a resounding smack. And after we hold down our initial gag, we all can't help but laugh. That's China. Everywhere you go, there's slime lines of spit on the sidewalks, and sometimes you are sitting in a quiet area, like right now in an internet cafe, you get treated to the deep-throat hocking sound without the release of the spit itself. Music to the ears.

SMALL CHILDREN

Chinese people have no shame. Sometimes little kids are sent out in public by their escorting parents with pants that have a whole in the back over the butt and upper leg. In case the kid ever needs to go, he can just pop a squat anywhere. And they really do it anywhere. Maybe that's why most cities in China smell like a bathroom. Walking down the street in Qingdao, I see a little trickle of yellow water crossing the sidewalk, and when I walk a little further, I see a little girl, not really hidden at all, in the squat position. I was so dumbfounded by the whole situation that I almost stepped in it.

SQUATTING

This one applies to the bathroom situation as well. Chinese people love to squat, and they do it any chance they can. It is a nation of squatters. I don't understand it; it must be something about them that anatomically explains why it's more comfortable for them, but when I tried to repeat the same position, my whole body screamed in pain. It's possible that this is why the dominant form of public restroom facilities are as I like to call them "the poor man's shitter", or as the Chinese call it, the Dunda. A Dunda is only a sunken whole in the ground. It's supposed to flush, but, you know. It doesn't. It smells like death; I can't tell you how many times I've been nasal raped by the foulness of Chinese cho wei. You're supposed to squat over the whole to do your business, but for me it gets a little more complicated than that. First of all, I can't keep my center of gravity under me in that position, so I fall over. Eww. Everything is wet. So I try to support myself by some pipe or half inch crack in the wall that I might be able to wedge my fingers into for leverage. Now my legs are killing me, my fingers are about to break... what did I come here to do? Oh right, take a shit. Suddenly I'm not really feeling like I'm in a position thats conducive for good flow here. I can't even manage my junk around my shorts so that I'm not peeing all over myself. Sorry if this is getting graphic; this post isn't for the kids. They'll have to cut out the backs of their pants until their old enough to read this.

PERSONAL SPACE (OR LACK THEREOF)

To quote Aman on this one: Oh. My. God. Even as I'm writing this, Jackie Chan is looking over my shoulder in the internet cafe. I ask him if he can read what I'm writing, which I'm sure he can't, but he nods his head, so I ask him why he is reading it. Still doesn't get the hint. I know Chinese people are small and harmless and sometimes theyre pretty silly, but that doesn't mean I'm comfortable being surrounded by one million of them at all times. I think this relates in some way to one thing I've learned about the Chinese language since I've been here. There isn't really any way to say "Excuse me?" in Chinese. There's a way to say "I'm sorry" like if you bump into someone on the street, but not really a way to say something that means "can I get through please?" or "can you move?" when you're squeezing through a crowd. Basically, Chinese culture dictates two options when you're trying to move around someone who doesn't know you're there. One, you can wait silently until they "sense" your presence, which never actually happens, or two, you just go for it. Chinese can bolt through tiny spaces in crowds that when they brush past me make me feel like someone either just copped a feel or stole my wallet. It can be unnerving at times, but I really think it's a situation where language has dictated the culture of the people who speak it. The opposite is true on the roads. I wouldn't say the roads in China are any more ridiculous than those of Italy or Russia, but they are pretty hectic in their own right, and they are, without fail, always using their horn. Now this may just be a theory, but I think since the Chinese don't have a way to say "excuse me" in conversation, when they get behind the wheel, they suddenly do, and they use it. A lot. To a blatant excess even. They don't use the horn as a way of saying "hey, watch out idiot", rather I've seen it more used to signal "look out coming through". Maybe it's just their way of flexing a new linguistic muscle, or maybe I'm way off base; it's just something I've noticed in my time here.

and, finally...

CENSORSHIP

This one is hilarious. Just watch the video (currently forthcoming as Darren charges his camera...):

Beijing, Qingdao, Shanghai, and Chongqing

2008-07-28T09:03:00.000-07:00

Slacker blogger here...don't expect much.

The train from Mongolia to Beijing was painless compared to the Trans-Siberian. It was a much nicer train, which came complete with comfortable beds, flat screens, and clean bathrooms. The train was also better than the Russian train because, having been released from the wrath of Angela, we knew we could enjoy some fun and beverages without the threat of being left in Siberia (see other posts if that does not make sense).

Beijing

Our Hancho was waiting for us when we got to Beijing. She confirmed my initial assumption about Vodka Train hanchos - all are young and cute. Here spoken English was fine, but I think it was hard for her to understand us. Fortunately, about 6 of us can speak Chinese, so we avoided potential confusion.

I was really excited to be back in China. It was a relief to finally be in a country where I can speak the language. For Aman, Adam, and I, there was not a lot that we still had to see in Beijing since we were here there two years ago. Personally, I was most interested in the changes that had occurred since we were last there. I had read a lot about the plans and programs implemented by the government, and I was eager to see if there was noticeable progress.

Aman noted that we all went to the Great Wall of China (chang cheng). I managed to climb to the end of the open section with Yang Wen and Yong Bin, our two friends from Singapore. I don't think I have ever sweat so much in my entire life. As Yang put it, I probably lost 1, 2 K. After my epic adventure scaling the Great Wall, we ate some food, and headed to the Olympic Village. From the outside, the buildings (stadium and aquatic center) were interesting, but actually not that impressive. Maybe the inside is better?

Successes and failures of the olympic preparation

From what we observed, the security is very tight (and this is a good thing). Right now, Beijing has 100, 000 anti-terrorism police, and 500,000 volunteer security officers (wearing their red bands, in true communist fashion). There are additional check points at the train and metro stations, and they have restricted all liquids from carry-on luggage for flights. I expect it will be even tighter when we go back.

One thing that has not changed is the pollution. Despite all of the promises from Beijing, the pollution situation has not improved. They recently shut down a lot of the factories in the surrounding region, but they sky remains dark and hazy. In addition to shutting down factories, they also began to remove cars from the city. During our last two days, the government initiate the process of kicking out 2 million cars. I am not sure if this will make a difference. If anything, it highlights the extent to which the government is in control, and the differences between China and the US. The fact that they can tell that many people to drive their cars out of the city is something else. Can you imagine if you were told to remove your car from the city?

The other major thing they are trying to control is the weather. Aman already noted the fact that they have developed a system to control rain (see his post for the link)...I am not sure what they wont do in order to ensure that they Games go off without a problem (don't want to lose face).

Chinglish! A couple of years ago I read an article in the BBC that explained how China was trying to make their English translations better. Well, simply put, this has not happened. I have the photos to prove it...maybe I'll post them later.

Finally, they are trying to reach out to the people. There are signs all over the city that encouraging citizens to behave, be civilized, promote a harmonious society, welcome the games, and respect foreign visitors. In addition to signs, there are also commercials played in Beijing everyday. For example, one commercial shows a white man traveling with a group of Chinese people. They go to visit some tourist place (not sure what it was), and the white guy leaves his bag behind. The hosts find the bag, and have a discussion about what to do with it. One man encourages the finder to return it, so they chase down the foreigner's car to give it back to him. Upon receiving the bag, the foreigner offers money, and the Chinese man refuses to accept it. The white guy thanks him, they exchanged names, and all was good. When the scene ended, the TV displayed a messaged that was something along the lines of "respect foreigners, welcome the games."

My impression of the government's efforts? So far, so good. The city is clean (save the pollution), the people are amazing, and I have had an incredible time. I had an awesome conversation with a group of Chinese college students that I met at a bar in one of Beijing's Hu Tongs. We talked about US-China relations, had a couple drinks, and had a good time. They were not the only ones to welcome me and offer help (*note: if you have been to China, this is what is so impressive. They are not offering help in exchange for something, they are just nice. It is actually shocking. I keep waiting for them to ask me to buy something, and they often don't....of course they do, but it depends on when and where). Anyway, during my time in Beijing, I managed to forget about the political issues that I had been so focused on before I went. I am still opposed to much of what China has done, but I am more hopeful that the Olympics will help them improve their country and the lives of their people. However, I wont bore you with that now.

Bars and Nightlife
Aman mentioned going out, which has been a lot of fun. It was the last few nights we got to spend with our friends from the Vodka Train, so we made the most of it. I think the best night I had out was when Yong Bin and Yang wen joined us at a bar. It was open mic night, and Yong Bin decided to play "Tears in Heaven". It was pretty amazing - after he sang the first line, the entire crowd started to applaud. Good times, good times.

For dinner one night, we headed over to Wang Fu Jing, which is a famous street in Beijing (shopping, eating, etc). We walked around for a bit, and then we headed to a nearby cross street which is famous for its delicious street food (yes, the food they tell you not to eat if you are a Westerner visiting China). It was an interesting sight - scorpions, snakes, crabs, snails, grubs, intestines, etc, etc, etc. We tried a lot of it. The crew convinced me that I had to eat snake in order to conquer my fear of them, but that was only after I found snake meat that did not still look like a snake (as most of them did). It was not good, and I think all that tried it would agree. The next crazy food we tried was scorpion. We got two big scorpions (which are expensive...in China terms). Darren had a an entire scorpion, and I had a tail. It was unpleasant (sharp tail), but basically tasted like fried batter.

During the day, we decided to go see the Summer Palace (did not see it last time we were here), and to cruise around the Hu Tongs, which is always a good dining experience. On the last day, we had a late train to Qingdao, so we were able to have a formal goodbye with all the Vodka Train people before we departed.

Qingdao

We only stayed in Qingdao for two days. There is not a ton to see, but it is a beautiful city (on the water). We walked around back streets trying Chinese food, headed to the ocean, and visited the Qingdao beer factory. We tried to go to the Olympic area (they are having all of the sailing events there), but were not successful (first day cabs would not take us, second day it was pouring). From Qingdao, we took an overnight train to Shanghai.

Shanghai

We arrived at 6 am, and were immediately disgusted by the heat and humidity. Yuck, yuck, yuck - it's like swimming through the air.

Despite the weather, it was exciting to be back. Our former professor (Liang Laoshi) booked us a room at East China Normal University, which is where Aman, Adam, and I studied two years ago. It was great to be back. We went to some of our favorite spots to eat, met old teachers, and had a lot of time to relax.

Since we had seen a lot of the major sites in Shanghai, we left a lot of the decision making up to Darren, who had never been. The first place we headed was Pudong, which absolutely incredible. The newly constructed Jin Ma Tower and World Financial Center are among the tallest buildings in the world. Aman and Darren got a good view of them from the Pearl Tower, but Adam and I decided to save the money since we had already been.

Instead, we decided to walk around near the water. We were talking about visiting some of the hotels in the area, but that suddenly turned into a necessity. Why?

That morning (morning = 2:30 pm because we stayed out so late the night before partying with some UVA kids) we had food from one of the food salesmen near the back gate of the school. When we were at ECNU in 2006, that was our favorite place (well, Aman and I) to eat, so it was a great feeling being back. We did not have problems with his normal dish (meat, bread, lettuce, and hot stuff), but this time we decided to try something new - dumplings. The dumplings were fried, which means they were served for breakfast, which means they had been sitting out since that morning, which means they were not too clean. The power of the dumplings all hit us at the same time, and we had major stomache issues to deal with. Adam and I ran over to the Shangri La to 'check it out', which included a trip to their nice bathrooms...and nice they were, especially compared to the squatters you find in the dirty public bathrooms.

After that little adventure, we met up with Aman and Darren and headed over to the Grand Hyatt, which is in the Jin Ma tower. It is an awesome hotel, with a bar on the 86th floor. While having a beer (expensive, by all standards), you get an amazing view of Shanghai, and all of the crazy development that is taking place. The one down side is the pollution/huimidity mix, but it is still worthwhile.

After a beer in the Hyatt, we headed back to ECNU, had some food, and headed out to town. We were trying to meet up with some of the UVA students, but we were not entirely sure of their plans since it was their final night there, and they had a 5am flight in the morning. We knew that they were thinking about going to a club called "Attica", so we rolled the dice. It proved to be a bust. We had to pay a cover (which included a free drink), but the dance floor was not busy, UVA kids were not there, and we were all not really feeling the whole club thing. It was not long before we headed back from some sleep.

The next day, I had to take care of some logistical things, so Adam and Darren went around Shanghai, and Aman headed to the market. Since I was hanging around ECNI, I had time to meet up with a friend of ours from ECNU (Wu Ping) and her friend. They helped me print and fax and important document, and then hung out with me while we were waiting for the others to return. When they did, we all headed out to Xin Tiandi (famous street in Shanghai) for some Thai food.

During that time, I got a call from one of the guys we met in Qingdao. He (JJ) is an American that was teaching in South Korea for one year (during which time he took a trip to North Korea!). He is an awesome guy, and we were able to meet up with him at the restaurant before heading out to bars. Adam and Aman had some things to take care of, so it was just Darren, JJ, and I that hit the town.

We stopped at the first 'Beer Garden' we saw near the restaurant, but left after a drink because it was expensive. We then jumped into a cab and headed to a street with a Blue Frogs, and had a couple pitchers of beer and some shooters. The shooters are all named after important people, events, and things. There was a drink special, so we each got two shooters. We all ordered a Mao Zedong and one other. My other was a "Lee Kuan Yew", which I had to order because he is the former Prime Minister of Singapore. Following those drinks, we left for the bar nextdoor, which was its own little surprise.

When we walked into the bar, we were immediately surrounded by women...and I knew what that meant. They took our orders, then attempted to get as close as they could. Recognizing what kind of place this was, I pulled out my cell phone, looked at the time, and told the other guys that we needed to get out of there as soon as possible to 'meet our friends'. The girl next to me kept saying things to me in Chinese...which I will leave to the reader's imagination. We finished the beers, and got the hell out of there.

The rest of the night was spent jumping from bar to bar, until eventually we headed back to ECNU. We woke up late the next morning, and boarded a train headed to Chongqing.

Train to Chongqing

The train took about 29 hours. Fortunately, Aman downloaded the entire season of 30 Rock, so we were able to add something to our sleep-eat-read routine on the train. It was relatively painless, especially because we had 'soft sleepers', which were not only a little better, but also made it so we had our own cabin of four, rather than the usual open cabin with six.

Chingqing is a city with over 30 million people, and is suppose to be one of the hottest cities in China. We are only here for one night before we get on the boat to the Three Gorges Dam, so we have been able to manage. The most annoying thing has been the Chinese government. We had to sign several documents for the police, and then write a letter detailing our trip before and after the cruise. I guess it is one of the major security concerns (foreigners going to the dam) for the Chinese before the Olympics.

I guess that is all for now. There is a lot to write, and a lot to write well...but I am just too lazy. At least Aman will get off my back for not posting in a while (and by 'while' I mean 'all summer').

VodkaTrain: The Verdict (Updated!)

2008-07-22T23:46:00.000-07:00

So, all in all, was the Vodka Train worth it? I blog about this question because it was helpful for us to read as much s we could about what we were doing before hand, and there wasn't much out there (part of this inspiration provided by Eric and Mariah's accounts of their own experiences on the same journey). I thought if other travelers were considering or preparing for a similar journey, it would be useful to get some more information straight from the source.

First off, I will say that the experience was unquestionably worthwhile. We had a ton of fun, met really awesome people, and were generally pleasantly surprised by accommodations and other things like food that could have gone terribly, terribly wrong.

What are honchos like?
Ours were great and generally stuck pretty well to the Vodka Train philosophy of letting the group choose its own adventures to a much greater degree than you would likely get with another tour group. The one mild exception to this was Tuya in Mongolia... although she was really sweet and lots of fun, she definitely had a pretty strong idea of what we should be doing at any given time and it did feel like we were kind of getting shuffled along through touristy hot-spots (most notably probably the Mongolian regional history museum, which I skipped, and the Mongolian culture show). In her defense, however, I don't know that any of us came into Mongolia knowing anything about the country, so designing our own experience would have been difficult.

What was Mongolia like?
I'd say that the Ger Camp was actually a highlight of our entire trip. You travel into the Mongolian steppe about an hour outside Ulan Baatar, and civilization pretty much ends except for very spread out Ger tourist camps. You are genuinely in the middle of nowhere, which is a very cool feeling. On top of that, you have very comfortable accommodations - great beds, clean bathrooms, showers with hot water, and a restaurant with decent food. If anything, I think our time in the Ger Camp was too short - we basically had time to nap, go on a little horseback tour, eat dinner, and go to bed before leaving the next morning. I'm not really an outdoorsy person at all, but the experience was really fun, and completely painless from a "camping" point of view.

Ulan Baatar was... eh. Pretty crappy city, not much going on, not really worth seeing in my opinion (others can differ). But, again, you spend very little time there. Oh and, if you use internet there (which you probably will, since it's the first time you'll have had access in like 6 days), expect it to be shockingly slow. Set expectations low for UB and you'll be in good shape...

What's the train like?
Probably the most free time you have ever had in your life. For around 5 days there is absolutely nothing to do but read, drink and sleep. Each day there are like 3-4 stops in small towns in Siberia where you can hop off and buy little bits of food and drink from stands at the station. We tended to hop off and buy some beer, yogurt and cup-o-noodles. There are other foods for sale there as well, but they're generally bad-looking local dishes that had been sitting out for a while and we weren't feeling adventurous enough to try them.

As has been mentioned elsewhere, your experience with train attendants can be pretty hit or miss. Also, the Russian-Mongolian train is much less nice than the Mongolia-China train, though they had roughly the same accommodations and creature comforts (aside from the TV screens).

There's a dining car on the train, but it's expensive - dishes range from roughly $10-25 (at least this was true from Russia to Mongolia... we didn't do the dining car from Mongolia to China since it was like a 28-hour journey), and they're not that big. Try it once or twice, maybe, but bank on other things for food.

What should I bring on the train?
If you want your meals to be more varied than Cup-O-Noodles for every meal but you don't feel like rolling the dice with food bought at train stations, I would very much recommend stocking up on things like bread, peanut butter, canned foods, and fruit in a Moscow supermarket before getting on the train (side note: we also bought some hot sauce, which I highly recommend if you like spicy food - you can dump it in your noodles and make them very edible). The four of us bought a huge nylon bag and just filled it up before getting on, and we ate a lot of it. If you're staying at Godzillas hostel like we did, there's a 24-hour supermarket like 300 feet away, so it's very easy to do if you can get a hold of a cheap bag. Also, make sure to bring toilet paper! Although there is toilet paper provided in the train bathroom, in our experience it rapidly ran out and was slow to be replenished. Last, buy a big thing of wet wipes. Taylor bought a small packet, and went through it in a day or two. They're really useful for wiping off your face and body in lieu of a shower (which was only available to us once, and I wouldn't count on it generally being offered) or wiping off your hands.

HUGE: Bring some sort of potent anti-diarrheal medication. By avoiding weird foods we avoided getting hit with an upset stomach, but at border crossings we were stuck on the train for hours at a time without access to a bathroom. Some people ended up peeing in empty bottles when they couldn't take it, but if you had some sort of stomach problem, you would be in big trouble...

If you want to drink on the train and you want more than just beer (which you can buy at stations), buy vodka in Moscow before getting on the train, because it's not available at train stations. Just make sure to drink responsibly - we were inches away from getting kicked off the train for being too rowdy.

For money, the currency used on the train is dependent upon what country you are in. I would bring maybe 2,000 rubles on the train with you for 5 days. You can bring more if you'd like to be safe. If you have some left over, you'll be able to change it into Mongolian togrog at the border - these guys will come on the train and offer to exchange money. This is both a good and a bad idea... the good: You'll have some Mongolian money for that last leg of the train trip. The bad: they try and screw you with the exchange rate. Make sure to bargain with them! To do so, know what the official ruble-togrog exchange rate is. You won't get this, but you might be able to get them close (they initially offered me about half this).

Last, of course, some form of entertainment. Books are good. If you want to watch movies on the train, you can bring a portable DVD Player or laptop as long as you're willing to risk traveling with it. We did this, and bought some fake DVDs for like $3-4 each at the Moscow flea market. For some reason, the guide VodkaTrain sends you says that they don't recommend using the power outlets on the train, but we did and we had no problems, so I have no idea what they were talking about. There are one or two power outlets in the hallway right outside your cabin, so its pretty easy to plug in and just watch your stuff while it's being charged, or if you're close enough, plug it in and have the player or laptop in your cabin and the cord running across the hall. We also played a lot of cards. Besides that, whatever else you can think of to keep yourself busy should be fine.

*Side note: Darren is in my room right now, under the covers. We asked him why he was here. I noticed I couldn't see his hands, so, worried, I put to him the question: "Dude, are you touching yourself?" To which he responded, in an exasperated voice: "Well, in theory, I'm always touching myself." Funny response, but not particularly comforting/informative...*End side note

I think that's it. It was an awesome journey that wasn't nearly as difficult as we had feared, and we highly recommend it if you are looking for a cool trip. Oh also, if you do it, try and find some time to travel around China after the train journey... 2 days in Beijing is such a waste...

If you have any other questions, feel free to email one of us, and we'll clearly give very frank answers. We're in Shanghai now (we did a few days in Beijing and a day in Qingdao), but I'll leave writing about that stuff in more detail to Taylor, who has promised to do some writing soon.

--Aman

UPDATE:

Darren had some thoughts of his own:

So is the Vodkatrain REALLY worth it?

This is my first blog post, and while I am reticent to do so under this topic, after reading Aman’s very thorough post on the issue, I felt I needed to contribute a different perspective. Since joining with the ‘ole gang on July 8th in Moscow for the start of the Vodkatrain tour, I have been doing some travel through Europe as well. I spent 24 days or so traveling through Southern and Eastern Europe, and much of it I did backpacking on my own. I started in Italy, and after a week, I joined up with a different travel group company named Topdeck Tours, where we sailed in the Greek isles for three days before heading up the Balkans through Albania, Montenegro, Croatia, and Slovenia. All those places could deserve an entire blog post in their own right, but I’ll save that for some other time. Afterward, I speak another week traveling through Switzerland and Germany before heading east to the oh-so-not-glorious city that is Moscow. Anyway, the point is that Vodkatrain has been the second “tour” for me this summer, and by tour, I mean traveling in a large group with an itinerary set by someone else, using a guide to direct you through prearranged destinations. Inherently, Topdeck and Vodkatrain are wildly different companies with different ideologies for travel, but by these definitions, they are essentially of the same virtue: we’ve been there, travel with us, we know what we’re doing.

For these reasons, I think this is why many people choose to do tour group travel. They have an interest in traveling to certain places, however, they have no prior knowledge of some of the sites there, and they are willing to pay for the convenience of having someone else organize all the necessary details. Some things just can’t be done traveling by yourself – I never would have learned how to sail in Greece traveling solo, and I would never even consider sitting on a train for five days across Russia if it meant my only friends were scary Ruskis and a creepy Australian who may or may not watch me while I’m sleeping. I’ll probably never have another chance to go to Albania again, but now that Topdeck had the means of getting me there, I am certainly more interested in finding a way to do so in the future. I’m not sure I’d say the same thing about Russia. That’s not necessarily Vodkatrain’s fault, but I hated Russia, and I visited Russia on the Vodkatrain experience, so maybe it is.

How Topdeck and Vodkatrain differ in their travel ideologies is in the way they view group excursions through the different cities. Because Topdeck itineraries spend a lot of time traveling, each city has only a limited amount of time for “proper” tourism, but they make up for it by offering walking tours and optional excursions that are always incredibly worth the time and money. You get used to the structure because you know you won’t be led astray; travelers can take their mind off the stresses of travel and just enjoy the ride while seeing a lot of great places. On the flipside, I think Aman accurately described the details of Vodkatrain: travelers have the freedom to decide what they want to do and see. What Aman didn’t describe, however, is that it never really works like that. There’s only one Honcho per city, so if people can’t decide on doing the same activities, the group fragments, the Honcho can’t help everyone, and the knowledge and expertise of having a local travel around with you pretty much goes to waste. So many people got upset with our journey through Mongolia because they thought they didn’t have the freedom they were promised from VT. That may be so, but I’d really like to see them do some of the things we did in Mongolia on their own, vis-à-vis, go horseback riding with your friends or spend a night in a ger camp. Keep in mind, you don’t speak the language, and Mongolia is a huge country. The opposite was true in Beijing. On the last full day in the city, different groups wanted to do so many different things that our Honcho just stayed in the hotel lobby all day helping out travelers as needed, and it made me wonder what was the point of paying for her services anyway.

I think the deciding factor in many hearts and minds thinking about a Vodkatrain journey will come down to this: do you actually want to spend five full days and six nights of your holiday travels on a train across Russia and Mongolia with little means of entertaining yourself? Had I not been traveling with these three other great guys, my answer would undoubtedly be no. For me, the trip was probably one half day and one full night too long for complete mental and physical comfort. The long border crossings, time zone changes, and nights spent fearing of abandonment in Siberia took their toll on me so much that by the last night on the train before arriving in Ulaanbaatar, I wanted nothing more than to drop eight billion taugrag for an immediate flight home. By comparison, five days in Europe or flying to St. Petersburg might have been more enjoyable. The trip wasn’t an entire wash for me, though, for traveling with and getting to know these guys made it an incredibly rewarding and worthwhile experience.

VodkaTrain, Mongolia, China

2008-07-20T01:27:00.001-07:00

VODKATRAIN

Ironically, as Tom recently pointed out after reading our blog, our train attendant did in fact bring police officers onto the train the night I wrote our "Day 4" post. We were actually being remarkably quiet this particular night - all but 2 people were sober, some were asleep, and it was still early, around 11pm, however for whatever reason she snapped and invited the Russian police to kick us off the train. Tom used his Russian skills and British charm to talk them down, but they left with a stiff warning not to drink anymore. Terrifyingly close call, when we look back on it...

The next day was uneventful, and spent almost entirely at the Russia-Mongolia border crossing, which ended up taking around 7 or 8 hours. Excruciatingly boring and frustrating, the border crossing was probably the low point of the trip, especially because we were all terrified of Russian customs officers and their reported tendency to bribe and extort liberally, but we made it through fine. The next morning, we reached Ulan Baatar.

MONGOLIA (mongooriiraaa!)

Mongolia was fun! Our tour guide, Tuya, met us as we got off the train, and began to raise our suspicions about what sort of racket this Vodka Train company is running since our second "honcho" in a row was a cute and bubbly local girl...

We grabbed some breakfast, hit a supermarket, then we were spirited away through the Mongolian countryside to our Ger Camp. I had been dreading this portion of the trip, because camping in the Mongolian countryside and drinking fermented mare's milk (a local delicacy) sounded like an atrocious way to spend a few days. Fortunately, most of my fears were allayed, as spending a night or two in a Ger Camp is apparently a big touristy thing to do in Mongolia. As a result, our campsite was remarkably comfortable - our tent was massive, much bigger than any room we've stayed in yet, and the beds were probably the best we've had all trip. The campsite had a restaurant, showers, clean and functioning bathrooms, even a massage room and a ping pong table.

We rested for a bit then went for a horseback ride across this massive plain to visit a modern Nomad family briefly and learn about their way of life. Riding horses in a big group was a lot of fun, and when we came back we relaxed for a bit then had dinner, some drinks, and went to bed.

The next morning we went to Ulan Baatar. I skipped the first portion of tourism, most of which was spent at a regional history museum, then rejoined the group to go to a Mongolian culture show. The show was interesting, basically showcasing many different types of ancient Mongolian performances, giving us snippets of dancing, singing, and instrumental music. The coolest of these I think was undoubtedly Mongolian throat singing, which is very, very weird - look it up on the internet if you're interested, it's very odd to hear those sounds coming out of someone's mouth.

After the show, we went out for a Mongolian BBQ dinner, although no, it is not an actual Mongolian thing. The restaurant was super Western, and basically felt and looked like a TGI Fridays in Ulan Baatar (complete with coy English slogans like "We do it on a grill" and "Grillaz in the Mist"). Darren decided to inform the restaurant staff that it was my birthday (which it wasn't), so near the end of the meal the waitresses brought out vodka shots for everyone, then the lights in the restaurant went out, happy birthday started playing over the speakers, and the staff came and sang to me and brought me cake. Absolutely hilarious that this works outside the US, though I did feel a little guilty about the extravagance of the whole thing...

The next day we boarded the train to Beijing, which was AMAZING. The Brits accused the train of having no soul, because it was too nice. It was remarkably clean and modern, each bed had a small TV screen in front of it to watch movies that played through the entire cabin. I bought some DVDs in Russia so we ended up popping on Semi-Pro and the Darjeeling Limited for part of our train ride. The coup de grace was that the toilet was western and not "dun de" (squatting) as we had been fearing. Dropping a descourtesão (another product of our trip through Portugal) while squatting in a moving train would have been remarkably challenging and unpleasant.

The train ride was very smooth and easy, save another long and border crossing (5-6 hours this time), and got us into Beijing the next afternoon (day before yesterday).

BEIJING

It's awesome being back in China. Beijing has really cleaned up and there is Olympics stuff everywhere. I'm sure we'll post in more detail about changes for the Olympics later, and I don't feel like doing it now, but the Chinese government is going nuts to get the town ready (see this link for a ridiculous article) .

Yesterday afternoon we did the Great Wall (again). Adam Taylor and I tagged along even though we'd been before because the group took a bus about an hour and a half away to a much less touristy spot than last time (our major gripe from the previous visit). It was once again stunning, and much less crowded, though it involved a lot of climbing in hot sun, and consquently many liters of sweat expended.

Last night produced a hilarious interaction for me... we were out at a bar (in a ridiculously cool part of town) and I realized I was out of cash, so one of the bartenders walked me to an ATM across the street. When it wasn't working, he walked to one of his friends and comandeered a bicycle for me, and we rode to one that was slightly farther away. I was definitely not expecting to ride a bike last night, especially one whose brakes were utterly useless aside from making a god-awful screeching noise. Weaving through traffic and around people was quite the surprise adventure.

We leave for Qingdao tomorrow night. I'm hoping to post an overview of the Vodka Train experience for anyone interested in doing it sometime soon, so look forward to that I suppose. That's all for now,

--Aman

Photos: Russia & Train

2008-07-19T23:32:00.001-07:00

The four at the train station with our Russian hancho

Moscow Metro - Each stop has its own unique design. It's pretty awesome.

Moscow State University - We called it "Evil Headquarters" because of its size and communist symbols.

The sky fits the mood in Russia

Photos: Istanbul

2008-07-19T23:02:00.000-07:00

Turkish Delight = Happy Taylor

Hagia Sophia

Vodka Train: Day 4

2008-07-16T00:30:00.000-07:00

July 13, 2008

The men are restless and starving, scurvy is beginning to set in and I fear we may not make it out of this horrible wasteland...

Actually, aside from mild and relatively brief periods of boredom, all is going surprisingly well on this trip. Being cooped up on a train for five days with nothing to do isn't actually all that bad - we read a lot, chat a lot, drink a lot, and today we even played a little poker with small denominations of the Monopoly money commonly referred to as the "ruble". Tom, one of our jolly British friends, was gleeful that he now had enough money for both alcohol and meals - he had already been cutting down on the latter to free up resources for the former.

Our nights have consisted of drinking games spread out over 2 cabins, with the 15 of us consuming huge bottles of warm beer bought at stops as well as some of the finest (and worst) Russian vodka. We have learned from the Russians on the train the tradition of "zakusit " - similar to our practice of using a chaser after taking a shot, the Russians will take a shot, drink another liquid, like juice or water, then munch on something flavorful, like a slice of pepperoni or a dill pickle (we used both yesterday). It's amazing! It really kills the burning effectively. I just wouldn't do it with something gross, like peanut butter. That would be dumb...

We actually learned about "zakusit" two days after we first witnessed it. On the first night on the train, Tom (who speaks Russian) befriended a number of Russian men. One of them (who spoke no English at all, and was also a 5'8 block of solid muscle, close to as wide as he was tall) came into our cabin and started yelling Russian and flailing his arms, as the Russians we have encountered tend to do, and we finally realized that he wanted to give us some beer in exchange for a shot of our vodka, which was sitting out on our table with some shot glasses, snacks, and one of Taylor's apples. Once we handed him a shot, he returned to yelling and flailing, making drinking and eating motions and rubbing his tummy. This time, however, we had no idea what he was going for. Once it was clear we had reached a stalemate with this comrade, he let out an exasperated sigh, took the shot, then grabbed Taylor's apple from the table and took a huge bite out of it. We were dumbfounded by this, and all burst out laughing as he left the room with a satisfied look on his face. Taylor pointed out that he didn't really want the apple anymore, so Adam chased the Russki down the hall and offered the rest of the apple, which was happily accepted.

We're really having a lot of fun on this trip so far (too much fun at times - our cabin attendant, Angela, has yelled at us a number of times for being too rowdy at night, even threatening to get the police on at the next station at one point. That would have been an unfortunate turn of events - fortunately, Tom charmed her down). We actually got to shower yesterday, which was an unexpected twist - Angela decided to open up her bathroom and shower fixture for us to use for 70 rubles (3 dollars) each. This was a pleasant alternative to stripping down and patting myself down with wet wipes. For food, we're making do with Cup-O-Noodles and fruit yogurt bought at the various stations along the way (we probably have 3-4 stops every day, of varying length). It's not the most healthy option, but it will have to do for another 24 hours or so, when we reach Mongolia. The dining car has decent food, but the portions are small and the meals are pretty expensive - entrees range from $10-$20 apiece, which is particularly expensive considering we each brought a limited supply of rubles onto the train, and there's no opportunity to exchange or withdraw more, obviously (if anybody is thinking about doing this same trip, I'd recommend bringing around 2,000 rubles I think, maybe more depending on what sorts of things you expect to spend money on).

We're coming up on a station soon, and I might be adventurous and try some of the food that Russian bubushkas sell on the sides of the tracks as an alternative to my seventh or eighth Cup-O-Noodles. I'll be rolling the diarrhea dice, hopefully it will work out okay for me. Tomorrow afternoon we cross the border into Mongolia and get to experience our first of the dreaded border crossings. Hopefully I'll get a chance to upload the two posts I have so far once we're in Mongolia, and maybe write a bit more.

Cheers,

Aman

Vodka Train: Day 2

2008-07-16T00:27:00.000-07:00

JULY 11, 2008

We boarded the train last night and buckled in for a four-day trip to Mongolia. The four of us are sharing a compartment with essentially two bunk beds with about two feet in the middle of the room, and the VodkaTrain group has four cabins in a row in our car. Within 20 minutes of getting on the train, the Brits had settled into their compartment and hung the Union Jack from the ceiling, and they await our response. I'm not quite sure how we're going to do it though - we'll have to find some cheap Mongolian labor while we're in Ulan Bataar to quickly make us a huge American flag.

Last night was a lot of fun - we turned our humble abode into the party cabin and at times had 9 people crammed into this thing drinking vodka and goofing around. Unfortunately, we killed half our stock of vodka for the train - we thought 4 liters would suffice, but we were horribly mistaken. There's no telling what horrors will ensue if the men run out of vodka... (This last sentence inspired by a book I just read, the Terror, about an Arctic expedition in the mid-1800s that got stranded at the North Pole for like 4 years and was never found).

Everything is going well, except I have been "China-ed" four times in the last 24 hours. For those of you who don't know, to be China-ed is to have your basic expectations about goods and services far from met in shocking and awfully disappointing ways. For example, if you're ever eating a meal in China and you see a small container of dark black liquid on your table and think to yourself, "Oh great, some soy sauce to put on my Chinese food, I love soy sauce!" be forwarned: you're about to get China-ed by some very potent vinegar.

Suffering from my first upset stomach of the trip yesterday, I sought out a public bathroom in the Russian flea market. Walking into one expecting sweet relief, the bathroom China-ed me and offered me a Chinese-style hole in the ground to squat over rather than a toilet. Later, at the grocery store, I bought what looked to be a delicious chocolate croissant, opening it 20 minutes later only to discover that what I expected to be chocolate was actually some sort of black sesame paste, and borderline inedible. These are both fantastically tragic examples of getting China-ed (because they could very easily happen to you in China, and probably have if you've ever been there). The two today were milder - I opened what I expected to be a Cup-O-Noodles and found no noodles. Thinking it was supposed to be some sort of soup, I poured boiling water in, only to realize that (I believe) it's supposed to be mashed potatoes, which turned into mashed potato gruel at my worthy hand. Last, I thought I was buying a delicious Kit Kat type bar, only to find that it was some squishy marshmallow crap. China knows I'm coming and is sending me a message. Fuck you China, you can't scare me, I know your game and I see through your tricks!

Fortunately, me complaining about getting China-ed is actually a good thing, because it means that these are the worst things that have happened to me since getting to Russia, contrary to our prior fears - no arrests, no gypsy attacks, no pickpocket incidents, no rats on the train (though these two Dutch girls on our train said that a couple of nights ago when two Americans in their hostel were walking through Red Square at like 11 at night cops stopped them and made them give the cops money for no reason, so there's some truth the stories we hear about traveling in Russia, but we got lucky).

--Aman

Moscow

2008-07-09T23:27:00.001-07:00

We're finishing up our last day in Moscow, we get on the train tonight. I'm more excited for the next few days than I was having met the people we're traveling with - it's basically the four of us and then a big group of British guys our age who are hilarious, and we are sure to have a shit-ton of fun with them. They're hard-drinking nutjobs, and one of them (Tom) speaks decent Russian, which has been very handy, especially when we went out on the town for a bit last night. I think the next 10 days or so will be a fun bonding experience between our two groups.

Today our honcho (local tour guide) is taking us to the Museum of Contemporary Russian History, the Vodka Museum, then the Moscow Flea Market, where apparently you can buy all sorts of cheap shit. We're on the lookout for a cheap duffel bag that we can fill up with food and drink for the train ride, and fake DVDs to make use of my computer. Hopefully we'll be successful on all fronts.

Moscow is something else. The scale of it is just so weird... I've never seen a city with streets like this before. Every street, even those running through the center of town is like 3-4 lanes going each way, and all the buildings are like 10 stories and of roughly uniform size, so each street feels massive. The city itself is tremendously large... we walked around a ton yesterday and it never felt like at any point we were entering or leaving downtown Moscow, it just sprawls and sprawls. Although I have yet to pass judgment on how much I like it, Moscow is certainly impressive and imposing (especially Moscow State University, which basically looks like Communist Evil Headquarters... Google image search it to see for yourself... it still has "CCCP" and a hammer and sickle up).

Before arriving in Moscow, we read a bunch about how police can basically stop anybody they want at random and check to see if they're traveling with proper documentation, and that they tend to be less than racially evenhanded in their spot-checks. We decided to take bets on how many times I would get special attention from the Moscow police in our two days here. So far Darren is winning with 1... on our first night here, we sat outside our hostel eating some food and drinking some beers, and the police drove around the block once before stopping right in front of us and getting out, AK-47 slung over the shoulder. They asked for our passports and Russian arrival cards, which we were fortunately all carrying, then stopped for a bit and discussed mine, passing it back and forth to see if, truly, this brown guy could actually be holding a US passport. Fortunately, nothing came of it, they just told us to stop eating in the streets (we think... they spoke in angry Russian voices and waved their arms about) and left.

Speaking of angry Russian voices, why does everyone in this country always look so grim? I honestly think that our tour guide is the only person in Moscow who is capable of smiling regularly.

We hop on the train tonight around 8 and spend the next 4 days en route to Mongolia. This is going to be an interesting experience... there are no showers on the train, which is bad news for an Indian kid. I think I'm just going to sit still and attempt to generate as little sweat as possible. We're going to try and get as many 10 ruble (around 40 cents) notes as we can to play poker with on the train by asking for change while we're out today. This may be our last post for a while...

--Aman

Island Hopping in Greece, First impressions of Istanbul

2008-07-05T15:11:00.000-07:00

ISLAND HOPPING

We had the absolute time of our lives in Greece. We spent two nights in Santorini then three in Ios, which Taylor already mentioned. Santorini was gorgeous, with probably the two most memorable things (for me) being the night sky, which was pitch dark and allowed you to see an insane number of stars, and our tirp to Oia for the sunset. Oia is the northernmost town in Santorini, and every night tourists on the island take buses there to watch its famous sunset, breaking out into applause as the sun finally dips over the horizon.

Our daily schedule in Ios was basically wake up around 11, hit the beach or the pool and do nothing but hang out at Far Out, eat, drink and play beer/cocktail pong until around 10, when the drinking picked up heavily then head out to town around midnight, and stay there for 5 hours or so, coming home as the sun is rising. It took a serious toll on our bodies.

Ios is the most ridiculous place on the planet. When I tried to describe it to Charlotte, she said it sounded like Cancun, only a little classier. I think that's pretty close to accurate, although I would add it also is much more international than Cancun - we met very few Americans in our time there, instead hanging out mostly with Aussies and Canadians. There are a few news articles posted around Far Out about Ios, and in one I read this telling fact about the place: the island of Ios has a population of 1,800, and 50 bars and nightclubs. Basically, the island is overrun by hard-partying twenty-somethings... it's like a college kid's Disneyland, Lagos on steroids (and probably ecstacy and cocaine and God knows what else).

Every night, the "crew" assembled on the last bus from Far Out into downtown Ios. The crew consisted of:
Me, Ryan, Neil, Adam and Tailai: You know us
Dmitri: An awesome, smooth, and really nice Greek-Canadian who just graduated from college in Calgary
Jason: Dmitri's quieter cousin, relatively nondescript.
Fuckin-A-Jay: A ridiculous kid from Ohio traveling around a bit by himself who just graduated from Indiana, who epitomizes the "hard-partying state school kid" mentality and was sad to learn that Adam was "boring" because he declined to take advantage of Far Out's 2 cocktails for the price of 1 deal at 3 pm on our second day there.
11-day (who later became 12-day, and is 14-day as we speak): A quiet and kind of odd Australian kid who came with us on our second night out. When we were trying to decide where to go, he posed the quesiton: "Who has been here the longest?" He then led us around for the rest of the night hopping to different spots on the strengths of his 11 days of experience in Ios, and became known as 11-day (I didn't learn his actual name until our last day there, in fact).
Here's a picture of most of us:
Left to right:
Andrew (Aussie kid who joined us on the last night), Adam, Me (hair slowly growing back), Ryan, Neil, Taylor, Dmitri, Fuckin-A-Jay, Tania (Aussie girl who hung out with us that night and hated Andrew because he was from Sydney and she was from Melbourne... legit hated him, hilarious), George. Not pictured: 11-day

The experience of rolling from bar to bar with a group of 9 guys (sometimes more if we picked up others in town) was hilarious and fratastic, to say the least, and we all got along really well for the few days we were there.

LEAVING GREECE

We left Ios yesterday, and that departure marks a turning point in our trip for a few reasons. First off, we parted ways with Ryan and Neil - they are staying in Ios a few more nights before taking a ferry back to Athens, where they will fly back home. This was a pretty sad moment for us, since when we get back those two guys will be at med school. For me, I joked to Ryan that it marked the beginning of our trial separation. For Taylor, sadly, it might be a long time until he sees those two again, since he's off to Singapore in September.

Apart from the changes in the group, our trip has now taken on kind of a different tone. Whereas for the last few weeks we have basically been doing fairly standard touristy stuff, hopping through Europe and partying like thousands of other young people who descend upon Europe in the summers, we are now switching gears somewhat from "vacationers" to "travelers," if that makes any sense. As I write this, I'm on a bus in western Turkey headed for Istanbul. Yesterday we spent about 11 hours traveling, 4 hours on a ferry between Ios and Athens, then 7 hours on a bus between Athens and Thessaloniki. We spent the night there, then woke up this morning and got on a 10-hour bus between Thessaloniki and Istanbul. We spend the next three nights here, then fly to Moscow to meet up with the Vodka Train group. The Vodka Train portion of the trip is probably the one we're most on edge about - we've read some less-than-comforting stories about long (as in like 8 hours) waits at hot border crossings without A/C or bathrooms, inedible food at the Mongolian campsite, and far from ideal access to creature comforts for the duration of the trip. Plus, instead of hopping around tourist traps like big cities in Spain, Portugal and Greece, the setting of our travels becomes Russia, Siberia, and Mongolia until we reach China, which is more of a known quantity to us.

All in all though, I'd say we're still really excited to see Istanbul, then Moscow, and even experience the train journey across Eurasia. As forewarning (for anybody who is regularly keeping up with the blog... the lack of comments suggests few, sadly...) during these periods, particularly while on the train, internet/phone access will be minimal, so don't be surprised if a week goes by without an email or phone call or blog posting from any of us.

We'll write more from Istanbul, hope everyone is doing great!

UPDATE: ISTANBUL

So we're here now, and our first impression has been spectacular. Istanbul is really gorgeous, very clean and walkable, lots of great restaurants, culture and activity. We'll actually do more walking around and touristy stuff the next few days, but the people we have met have already left a powerful impression on us these last 24 hours. Highlights:

Job: 26 year old Syrian guy on the bus with us from Thessaloniki who spoke decent English. He has finished a degree in mechanical engineering and is now studying Theology in a Greek university. He was really nice, and helped us figure out what we were doing, and was a fascinating guy to boot. We had great conversations with him (Taylor talked to him the most and maybe can elaborate more) all the way here.

Anonymous Turkish couple: Also were on the bus with us, and helped us find our way around. When we stopped for a late lunch in Turkey, they saw that we were having trouble communicating to order food, so they stepped in and helped, then bought us each a traditional Turkish yogurt drink. It's very difficult to truly express gratitude in situations like this, when strangers go out of their way with random acts of kindness.

Justin: Probably the most absurd encounter we have had. We are walking to dinner (in Istanbul) and we stop to look in the window at a rug shop. This young guy, maybe 26-27, comes over and is like, "let me tell you about these rugs." We're not in the mood to talk to a salesman, so we're like "we're just looking, not trying to buy anything" to which he responds "of course not, they're too expensive for you." We start talking about where we're from and all that and he says "I travel back and forth between here and Bozeman, Montana." ?!! Adam brought with him a shirt (but wasn't wearing it at the time) that says "Bozeman, Montana" on it because his family has been there and he's a descendent of the town's namesake! If there are any math majors reading this blog, please calculate for me the odds of this. This guy's English is close to perfect and we chat about the various states in the US, and he for whatever reason makes fun of DC for not being a state, and we're like "yeah, weird that it's not one of the 50 states." He stops us in confusion and is like "oh, 50 states? I thought there were 51." So we say "Nope, there are only 50." He responds "Ah, I must be wrong. I always thought it was 50 states, plus Kurdistan!" Turns out he's Kurdish, and he picked the right audience for a highbrow joke that came out of nowhere. The rugs in his store are made in his hometown, and he wholesales them in Istanbul and rich people with winter homes out in Montana.

Anyway, ridiculous, promising, and extremely memorable first night in Istanbul after two long days of travel. Now, off to some much-needed sleep.

Ios Greece...Holy S@#*

2008-07-02T05:54:00.000-07:00

This place is amazing. I don't even think Boze, in all his glorious, lengthy prose could even begin to come close to describing this place. I was going to run around with my camera to try and capture it all, but even that does not to it justice.

We are staying at a place called the Far Out Beach Club, and it is a do whatever you want, non-stop party. It has pools, beaches, drink specials, basketball, ping pong, wakeboarding, windsurfing, and probably 50 other things I am leaving out. If you are curious, try youtubing some videos.

Oh, and beds (in a tent thingy) are 8 Euros.

In addition to all of the stuff, this place is packed with incredible, chill people. They are here from all over the world, and the only thing they want to do is have fun.

Recognizing this, we decided it would be really cool to have a beer pong tournament. We presented the idea to the bartender (who, by the way, is a baller), and his response was "ok, do it tomorrow. I will make the posters and lower the cost of my beers." Should be a good time...we'll let you know how it goes.

Enjoy the short post (for once) - I gotta get back to the party.

Cheers,

TMM

You'll never need to know the time in Ios...

Barcelona and Athens

2008-06-30T01:09:00.001-07:00

Sorry for the long break between posts, it has been a hectic week. Anyway....

After having a fantastic time in Valencia, we left early in the morning and headed to Barcelona, all really exhausted from the previous night. In Barcelona, we sadly parted ways with our trusty 10-day companion, the intrepid Berthão.

I enjoyed Barcelona, it was a massive city with a lot to see. Sadly, I was not a fan of the architect responsible for most of the sights in Barcelona, Gaudi. I can't think of any other artist or designer who is more appropriately named. Although his stuff was certainly creative and different, Gaudi seemed to boldly eschew tastefulness in favor of turning Barcelona into his own personal Magic Kingdom. There were some high points - the sculptures adorning the Sagrada Familia are interestingly minimalistic, and the main open area in ??? park is a very cool space, but as for the rest of it, if I picked it up and dropped it whole into Disneyland I don't think many people would notice. It was very interesting to see how central Gaudi was to Barcelona, though. Although I'm certainly no architecture expert (perhaps my parents would have some input here) I can't think of any other architect that has been featured so prominently in a city or so central to that city's image.

Apart from sightseeing, our stay in Barcelona was relatively uneventful. We continued our search for the perfect Doner Kebab, and found in my opinion the best one yet a few blocks from our hostel. We also went out on the town during our last night in Barcelona, and had a great time - we basically explored the main restaurant/nightlife area, Las Ramblas, finding some tourist-heavy spots (I think one of the bars was called Tourist Bar or something similarly forthright) including a legitimate Irish bar with an Irish bartender who didn't speak a lick of Spanish. Here we met a group of guys who directed us towards a place called Chupitos (Shots) a few blocks away, so we headed there. One of the guys had told me about a shot called the "Rambo," which basically involved the female bartender humiliating you through things like slapping you, making you do push-ups, and some sort of activity involving a dildo. Naturally, I ordered one for Taylor (he had no idea what it was) when we got there.

Sadly, I had apparently come at the wrong time. The bartender told me it was too late for her to do a Rambo, because the bar was too crowded. Had I been there at 11 or 12, fine. Plus, she said, Taylor didn't even speak Spanish. When I told her I would be happy to translate for him, she looked appalled. She waved me off and said, very gravely, "absolutely not, a Rambo is between me and him." Instead we had to settle for some shot that they light on fire then put out with a glass, after which you take the shot and suck the vapor from the glass. This is apparently the other famous Chupitos offering.

The last major event of Barcelona was me shaving my head. Pictures:

"I need to get rid of this hair"

"Going, going..."

"Gone."

The next day, we did a little more sightseeing then headed to the airport for our flight to Athens. The flight left at 10:45, and the time shifted an hour ahead, so we ended up in Athens around 2:30 in the morning. We tried laying down for a bit in chairs at the airport, then decided it wasn't comfortable or worth it, so we took a bus into the city intending to head to our hostel and at least drop our bags off. We ended up getting sidetracked into a 24-hour McDonald's in a big square in Athens. It was around 4:30 and the place was hopping... there was a long line for food, with tons of customers. And the wonders didn't cease - when we went to the basement to get to the bathroom, there was a massive (but not in use at the time) dance floor. Don't ask, I don't have a good answer.

We chilled at McDonald's for a little while, ate some food, then took a taxi over to our hostel, where we dropped off our bags and tried to figure out what to do. By this point it was around 6am, and we realized that we weren't far from the Acropolis, so we headed over there, hoping to beat the crowds and the heat and see it early in the time that we didn't have available beds at our hostel. It was an awesome decision. Although we were all dying of exhaustion, as soon as we entered the Acropolis we sprinted ahead of the tour groups straight to the Parthenon, so we had about 20 minutes there basically alone before the crowds descended. The Parthenon was truly breathtaking. I tend to be pretty skeptical of a lot of touristy crap and sightseeing, generally finding a lot of sites (especially stuff like "it's the second biggest cathedral in Spain!" etc.) pretty underwhelming and not worth the hype/entrance fee. The Parthenon, however, will join the Pyramids and the Great Wall as sites which really leave a lasting impression, and would be hard pressed to disappoint. The view of the city is spectacular, and the Parthenon towers over you... even with a lot of construction work going on, the experience was pretty memorable.

One of the more memorable moments came when Taylor and I saw a few older fat white men in polo shirts, shorts, baseball caps and sunglasses walk up the steps of the Parthenon. They were splitting images of tourists, so we assumed that we needed to figure out where the entrance was so we could go in too. Indeed near the back (front?) of the Parthenon there was a break in the rope barrier, so we walked in and started walking up the steps. At this point, this woman from outside who clearly works there starts screaming at us in Greek, and doesn't stop. Obviously, we weren't supposed to go there.... She kept screaming at us unintelligibly as we hurriedly and apologetically made our way back the way we came and to the outside of the rope barrier. As we walked over to Adam he asked "Dude, what the heck was she yelling at you?" to which I replied "I don't know man, she was speaking Greek, probably saying 'Get out of the Parthenon' " Whoops. Oh well, not that many tourists can say they actually walked up the Parthenon stairs!

A picture of our trip to the Acropolis, which might soon become my new Facebook picture:

After that, we crashed for pretty much the rest of the day, getting up briefly to get dinner before going to sleep. The next day (yesterday) was spent hitting the other ancient sites, like the Theater of Dionysus and Temple of Zeus, all very old/cool. It was also fun for me to see the Odeon (?), where Yanni played his Acropolis concert. I loves me some Yanni, and so do the Greeks. We didn't go out last night because we woke up at 5 am to catch a ferry to Santorini, where we'll be spending the next two nights before heading to Ios for three nights, then Istanbul. More to come about the islands experience soon (I'm writing this post from our ferry, which, at 14 hours, has certainly not left us wanting for free time). If you get a chance to read about Ios, it holds hope as a place that might breed some eventful, Lagos-like stories.

Oh also, Athens was awesome overall. The sights were great, the food has been terrific, the people seem nice... pretty much everything about our Athens experience was fun and comfortable, we loved it.

--Aman

Valencia

2008-06-30T01:08:00.000-07:00

Valencia delivered many of the "bests" of our two weeks in Spain. This came as no surprise to me since I spent four months living in this beautiful and hospitable Mediterranean city, Spain's third largest behind Madrid and Barcelona, and loved every minute of it. Situated about half-way up the eastern coast of Spain, in a region that has been known for thousands of years for its agricultural productivity, Valencia offers sublime weather, endless beaches with what must be the world's softest sand, and one of Spain's freshest and most distinctive cuisines, known internationally for oranges and paella, a saffron rice dish topped with chicken, rabbit, snails and vegetables. That description was my own, not Frommer's, but it's easy to start writing like that about Valencia - making laundry lists lauding its attractions. It combines many elements of the typical Spanish city but achieves a balance that many others fail to attain...its charming historic quarter has a nice Cathedral with the mandatory relic (in the case it happens to be the Holy Grail); it has excellent museums (again, Valencia has a leg up with its Ciudad de las Artes y Ciencias, a visually stunning set of futuristic, white-washed structures modeled on marine shapes - check out picturs online!); and it has beautiful parks (Valencia wins for creativity here - in the 1950s the Turia River that ran through the city flooded for the umpteenth time and the government decided the losses were getting out of hand so it diverted the water out of town and turned the river bed into a park that now snakes through the city, lush with orange trees, bike paths and soccer fields). Thus, although Aman justifiably declared the traffic lights to be the most inscrutable in Spain, he was praising the city as one of his favorites within hours of walking around the next morning. Before I move on to the events of that day let me briefly recount our nighttime arrival through yet another Spanish "labyrinth"...

After driving almost six hours from Granada, and choosing to skip Alicante, we arrived at the outskirts of Valencia around 10:45 PM. Aman, back in the driver's seat after hours of Neil's masterful maneuvering of Berthao and repeated attempts to set a new "land speed record," rolled up to his first set of traffic lights. But this set of lights was at a traffic circle, a combination we had never before encountered, and one that proved absolutely baffling. The light in front of Aman was red, but the one twenty feet past, also facing him, was flashing yellow. He stopped, unsure of what to do, but guessing that heeding a red is usually a good policy. Then the guy behind us laid on the horn, pulled around us, and continued through the circle. We were shocked and terrified at having no idea how to interpret the presence of multiple colors, some flashing and some not. Aman let out a nervous giggle and drove out into the circle, while the rest of us looked in every direction to watch for oncoming, sidecoming and backcoming traffic. Berthao made it through this first circle unscathed, and after running four consecutive reds with flashing yellows and turning up a couple one-ways (something Aman now punished me for with a shot of alcohol since I am the navigator...Prince Adam the Navigator) we somehow found ourselves neatly parked about a block from our hostel. At the beginning of the trip we had speculated that given the size of Berthao, Aman and Neil's inexperience driving such a tank, and the narrow, windy Spanish roads, we had about a thirty percent chance of getting into a wreck of some sort along the way. This was probably too low a percentage. Our harrowing and hilariously illegal arrival into Valencia had to have been at least 50/50. Well, somehow the coin landed heads-up that first night...

Luck was on our side the following day too. I have always been told that the longest day of the year is June 21st, the summer solstice, and I assumed this would be the same around the world. This is not the case. In eastern Spain the sun actually takes two more days to reach its highest point in the sky. This solar systemic anomaly worked in our favor, because no good Spaniard lets any pagan holiday go uncelebrated. And being in Valencia for any celebration is indeed a gift from the party gods. I would elaborate on my reasons for this, but let me say that what I experienced this time in Valencia was reminiscent of many nights last spring, most of all the crazy four-day extravaganza called Las Fallas. Please, go online and read more about it, or just come experience it - I guarantee it is the best party in Spain, possibly in the world, and it happens every March 16-19. Our beach-based sun-worship dance must come in second place, though, and in Valencia that is saying something. But I said in the beginning that Valencia brought a number of bests, and not just from the perspective of crazy partying. We ate like kings: the morning began with a cup of molten dark chocolate in which we dipped sugar-topped churros - a breakfast that you honestly could not eat more than once a week for its richness, and for your health; then we picked up my madre, the wonderful Spanish lady with whom I spent four months and who took such good care of me, and who is a very special person in my life, and we went to a paella restaurant for a Spanish mid-day feast consisting of tuna, olive and tomato salad, sangria, succulent paella (traditional Valencian paella with chicken, rabbit and snails), and coffee; later, at the beach, we indulged in more sangria, accompanied by a homemade tortilla espanola (the home being madre's), with bread, ham, and for dessert some of madre's famous torrijas (they taste like sugar-coated french toast...that had already been drenched in syrup).

And that brings us to the beach at night. Moving quickly from the bus to the sand, we kicked off our sandals and sunk our toes into sand as fine and soft as powdered saffron. But we weren't alone for our little picnic at the beach: this was the Fiesta de San Juan, the celebration of the longest day of the year, and it brought out 200,000 of Valencia's finest, plus five of America's. Actually, this isn't far from the truth: the overwhelming majority of the partiers were young, and, as we discovered repeatedly in Spain, this means they were attractive (the girls), and most were Valencians - I felt like we could have been the only foreigners in the whole place. This had its advantages in terms of experiencing a real Spanish party, but some major disadvantages also, mainly that Spanish girls don't like American guys, so we were mainly spectators to the rampant displays of solstice-induced dirty dancing. This is not to say we didn't try. I believe we each asked a girl to dance at least once, and each time the rebuff was a cold shake of the head, followed by a disinterested shoulder turn back into her circle of gorgeous friends, all of whom looked bored out of their minds. This was confusing to us, but it didn't stop us from dancing until 3:30 in the morning to the world's premier techno dj's - this was our second outdoor techno throw-down in Spain (the other was in Salamanca) and since I can't differentiate one song from the next, and certainly not one dj from another, I just assume they're all world-famous. The situation with the girls wasn't as it had to be, thanks to a critical blunder of cockiness on my part. When we arrived a few beautiful Valencianas sitting nearby were making eyes at us, and one waved at me and said hola, to which I smiled and replied hola, and then went on eating and talking, thinking they would make their way over eventually. Apparently watching five guys eat tortilla espanola with their hands while taking liters of boxed Don Simon sangria to the face is not as irresistible as I had hoped. They giggled coquettishly for a few minutes after our flirtatious holas, and then got up and decided they could do better. Well... They were wrong! But we lost our window and went on to polish off at least a box and a half each, sipping furiously in between heated exchanges over morality, pacifism, good versus evil, etc. This scene was further punctuated by repeated excursions to the water, requiring deft navigation around the hundreds of bonfires dotting the sand, to run into the water and relieve ourselves next to hundreds of other drunken Spaniards doing the same thing. Dropping trow prohibited, just let it flow.... Let me assure you, skeptical and revolted reader, the sensation of warm mediterranean water lapping against your thighs while you let nature run its course is indescribably pleasing and liberating. Having done this about four times that night, I believe I speak with a certain authority. While in the bathwater-warm waters (speculation still exists as to the source of the warmth...in light of what I just described you might wonder too) we engaged in one of the many rituals associated with this fiesta: standing in the shallows, the waves hitting above the ankle and below the knee, we made nine wishes, one with each of nine consecutive waves. Of course I cannot reveal my most intimate and personal wishes. But nine wishes is a hell of a lot, and there's not much time in between waves to think of your next wish, so in my slightly altered state I thought back to the Miss Teen USA pageant and recalled what the world needs now... my final two wishes were for all Americans to own maps and for peace in The Iraq. And in all the world for that matter. If I executed the rite properly, and I'm quite confident I did, these should all be coming true before long, and I'll be happy to introduce you to the supermodel girlfriend that shows up in my life next fall.

With love from Valencia,
Adam

Quick update, crazy Grenadan, driving is hard

2008-06-23T00:40:00.000-07:00

Since Portugal, we have spent the last few nights in Sevilla, Jerez de la Frontera, Tarifa, Granada, and Valencia, which is where we will also be tonight. Valencia is the shit, really really nice city, probably my favorite big city that we have seen so far in terms of the way it is designed, its feel, and its architecture (though I´ve heard good things about Barcelona which is up next).

All the places were cool and interesting in their own ways. I felt like we didn´t really see Sevilla, we got in kind of late and left pretty early... we spent the night in this Hostel that was an utter craphole run by a creepy family that I´m convinced is a group of cannibals that attempts to lure tourists in with their low prices. We made it through the night safely because as a group of five healthy young men we were a difficult target. Staying here was probably the second most dangerous thing we´ve done all trip (with number one of course being the trip to McDonalds in Lagos).

Jerez was supposed to be a day trip on the way to Cadiz, but when we got into Cadiz for the first time we couldn´t find a hostel, we went 0 for 10, so we went back to Jerez and spend the night there.

Tarifa is a very pretty town, it´s the southernmost point of Europe from which you can see Morocco across the water. We enjoyed it a lot, and got some beach time out of it.

Granada was awesome. Really lively town, and very cool to see so much Muslim influence around. Doner Kebob restaurants (which have probably constituted 1 out of every 4 of our meals) were a dime a dozen, and delicious, and there was a cool market with lots of shops and hookah bars. We went out on the town and while we were at this bar called Dolce Vita, we met a group of awesome girls from Oklahoma and hung out with them for the rest of the night. The highlight of the night came as we were walking out of Dolce Vita and found an orange tree. Neil, one of the girls we were with, Erin, and I climbed up and picked a couple of oranges. At the sight of this, this angry young drunk guy came over and started yelling at us. He was speaking very fast and my Spanish isn´t what it used to be, but I´m pretty sure what he said consisted of: "Hey, American, you can´t just climb a tree and pick oranges here" (directed at Erin) followed by "Maybe in Peru that´s how it works, but not in Granada" (directed at Neil and I). The guy then proceeded to grab the oranges out of my grubby Peruvian hands and throw them over a large fence, where they would be inaccessible to us. Very funny.

We had a pretty long drive to Valencia, which is really cool, except for the goddamn traffic lights. Literally every large Spanish city we have driven in has found a new way of making my life miserable behind the wheel of Berthão. In Madrid, it was tiny streets and really busy traffic circles. These wouldn´t have been too bad, except there would always be four lanes going into a traffic circle, then two lanes inside the traffic circle, and three or four lanes again exiting, making the entire process a clusterfuck. In Sevilla, it was an abundance of one way streets, and the fact that it was impossible to ever make a left turn because there were never any damn left turn lanes. Argh. Valencia seemed like it was going to be great, until I started hitting traffic lights. For some reason, the Spanish think it´s a good idea to put traffic lights on your side of an intersection rather than across the intersection where you can clearly see it. Once I´m pulled up to a light, I can´t see it, because it´s above me. In Valencia, they have decided to address this problem in the following way: there are two sets of lights at every intersection, one directly above my head and one across the intersection. When the light above my head turns red, the light across the intersection starts flashing yellow. When making a left or right turn, a flashing yellow means go, but cautiously. In this case, however, the flashing yellow apparently means "watch out, there´s a red light above your head". I think this message would be appropriately conveyed by a RED LIGHT. Additionally, when a light goes from green to red here, it´s yellow for like half a second. It took me I think 4 red lights run in a row last night to figure this out. Driving is a serious adventure....

That´s it for me, next stop Barcelona where we spend a few nights before flying to Athens.

Also, one interesting but belated note - Lagos was the westernmost point of our trip. Since leaving Lagos, we will be traveling eastward for the rest of the trip until we travel around China.

--Aman

Portugal: The Verdict

2008-06-21T02:08:00.000-07:00

June 19, 2008

So, as we're leaving Portugal, I think it's worthwhile for posterity's sake at the very least to recap the good and the bad of our encounter with Portugal.

Good
-Gorgeous women - This was especially notable in Porto... we have been fairly impressed with the quality of the "menu" as we have made our way around this country.
-Good food - Although I'm not a big seafood person, I still have quite enjoyed the culinary experience. Most of what we've been eating are little pastries from bakeries filled with meat, cheese and whatnot. A lot of these things are delicious, greasy, salty things, and the approach to food seems less dry and minimalistic than in Spain, and I am very much appreciating that. Plus, if you like seafood, this place would be heaven I'm sure.
-Great landscapes - Driving around Portugal has been absolutely wonderful (from a scenic point of view... more later). The drive into Porto was particularly spectacular as noted above. There is a lot of variety in the terrain and the types of vegetation you see - northern Portugal feels and looks a lot like northern California, kind of dry and sparse but pretty. As we moved south, the landscape has gotten much more lush and thickly forested, and it has been very pretty (I wrote most of this post sitting next to a little lake in a mountain forest, in fact). Very pretty.
-Port and Vinho Verde - Portugal is well known for two types of alcohol - port, and vinho verde, both of which are immensely enjoyable. On the way out of Porto we did a brief port tasting with a company called Quinto de Novao, and I especially liked one of the older red ports we tried. I could get used to drinking the stuff. And vinho verde is, of course, wonderful and abundant here. Nothing hits the spot better in summer than a nice bottle of crisp and effervescent green wine. And it's remarkably cheap. Well done Portugal.
-Relaxed people - The general approach to life seems very relaxed. The people are very friendly, and don't seem to go nuts partying all the time (which has its ups and downs I suppose, especially for a group of twenty-something tourists). Even the fashions are different - whereas in Spain, we constantly felt underdressed relative to the average citizen, who seems to get quite dressed up to leave the house no matter what the reason, we blended in much better in Portugal where we saw lots of hoodies, jeans, and sneakers. I think that's a plus.
-Probably the most ridiculous drunk night of my life

Bad
-Crazy drivers - Oui. The one major problem with driving in Portugal is that the other people on the road are probably the most aggressive and reckless people behind the wheel that I have ever encountered, which only serves to exacerbate the Berthao situation. I wish I could just chill on the highway and go along at a decent pace, but these Portuguese drivers will have none of it, and will literally tailgate probably 4-5 feet behind my car while we're going 70 mph for as long as it takes for me to get over. Not fun. I had to smile when I saw a three-car wreck on the side of the highway. That's what happens when you drive like an asshole.
(Don't worry, it didn't look bad enough that anyone got seriously hurt/killed, but their cars took a beating).
-Piss-bon - Smelling pee on the sidewalk every once in a while is not an unfamiliar experience in a city, but Lisbon took it to a whole new level. Based on our travels, I'd guess that at any given time, about 50% of Lisbon smells like it has been recently and graced with human urine. It was inescapable. Definitley a strike against, and the reason for Lisbon's well-earned nickname.
-Hills - Oh my god is this country hilly. We have been sleeping like logs every night because we spend hours walking up and down hills while walking around these damn cities. I want to search our guidebook for a city that "is notable for it's remarkable flatness" rather than "it's beautiful castle on top of a hill" (most cities in Portugal, apparently) and go there.
-Probably the most ridiculous drunk night of my life

All in all, despite a few notable flaws which travelers have now been amply warned about, Portugal was a very fun experience. I would happily return in summer sometime, maybe on a less tight schedule in order to better enjoy the Portuguese lifestyle.

Lagos and the Worst Decision of Aman´s Life

2008-06-21T02:02:00.000-07:00

June 18, 2008
AMAN: I'm told I drove Berthão to McDonald's last night.
***

We got into Lagos, Portugal two days ago. What an awesome town! It's this little beach town basically at the southwestern tip of Portugal, and it's basically constructed to facilitate partying by young tourists. Much of the town is overrun and operated by Australians (and I loves me some Australians) looking for some good surfing.

ADAM: I'm not as fond of young Australians as Aman is. They're excessive: I saw one guy in a dress, another in scrubs that exposed his backside and genitals.

AMAN: The beaches are phenomenal (Taylor posted a picture below - that was taken by his camera, not a postcard). We got in pretty late the first night, found a hostel (which was basically like a hotel, it was awesome), grabbed a drink at a local bar, walked around a bit, then went to sleep.
We woke up and spent much of the day at the beach, which was not only remarkably picturesque but also adorned with a number of topless local sunbathers. Someone pointed out that this was perfect - we would have gotten a similar experience had we found a nude beach, but it would have been complete with exposed man-meat of the sixty-something variety, which is not really up anybody's alley.
We each did our own thing for a while, I spent a little time at an internet cafe posting a little bit, Taylor uploaded some photos, etc., then we went and picked up our laundry from the laundromat and started drinking. Here's where things get interesting. We each drank a decent amount before dinner (I probably had 2-3 beers or so), then drank at dinner (add half a bottle of wine to my count), left dinner annoyed (the waitress had brought a bunch of stuff to our table which we never ordered, then charged us for it all, which was unexpected and saddening, we're silly American touristas), then grabbed more alcohol and headed to a small beach. We were the only ones there, and we had an awesome time for about an hour, talking, yelling, drinking (+1 bottle of wine for me), then walked back into the bar/club area of town. Our first bar was Inside-Out, which served buy one get one free pints of cocktails plus a free shot of Hypnotiq, where we met this guy nicknamed "Lock Stock," a forty-something year-old British guy who claimed to have robbed a bank and fled to Portugal. Ryan and I, true to form, requested that our pints be of Arlingtonians (for anybody who may not be familiar: white wine, bourbon, and a little ginger ale... since they didn't have bourbon here, we got them made with scotch... surprisingly not that bad), and bought Lock Stock a round. At this point, my memory gets fuzzy (cuts out), so I'll turn things over for a bit...

TAYLOR:
Here is where I enter. Aman and i were sitting at the bar having a profound conversation, when all of the sudden I noticed that Ryan and Neil were playing cards with a bunch of British girls. I headed over to the table, sat down, and tried to explain Kings to a bunch of Brits. We played for a while, but eventually everyone lost focus and it was time for us to head out for a different bar.
Before heading to the next bar, I decided I needed to go to the ATM machine. It seemed like a simple task - walk down the street, get money, turn around, and head right back - but it was not. I got my money, turned around, and realized I had no idea where I was. I took a couple of turns - which of course made me more lost - and I was confused. The thought hit me that my night was over, but I persevered. I went up to the first person I saw and said, "hey, do you have any idea where my friends might be?" The nice man pointed across the street, I walked in, and saw Ryan's pretty face.
It turns out they headed to a bar Joe's Garage, where people were drinking and dancing. We met up with the same group of Brits, danced for a while, and headed out on the town.

ADAM: Instead of nude Australians and unintelligble Portuguese I got to practice my British accent. First were the Brits outside our dinner restaurant who were from Plymouth. They pointed out that it was their town that America's first colony was named after. We knew that already, but thanked them anyway for being tangentially related to the existence of our nation. They accepted the thanks and one guy suggested that his father could be my grandfather. Or maybe it was the other way around. Either way it was non-sense, but we got a kick out of it, and felt even better because we foiled the restaurant's plans to screw more tourists by warning them of the scam inside. They looked at us like we were complete idiots for not having anticipated the extra charges, but they politely said they would heed our warning. That was my first interaction with Brits. The next came when we arrived at Inside-Out from the beach, tipsy to say the least. We met Sarah, a congenial and attractive blonde from Manchester who invited us inside for the Happy Hour special, which meant two pints of beer for three euros, plus a shot with her. Looking back, she probably took the shot and then spit it out, or maybe the bartender didn't give her much alcohol, but having a cute British girl drinking with us after I'd already put away two bottles of wine emboldened me to believe that she wanted to talk all night long. So I chatted her up outside for a while and did my best to recruit some people for her so that she would like me. I failed. So I went inside to drink more, since it occured to me that all my friends were in there and I wasn't getting paid for my efforts to help Sarah. Once inside I met two British guys, one from Manchester and the other Liverpool, and engaged them in a conversation whose details are, predictably, a bit fuzzy. I know we exchanged a lot of riotous laughter and back-slapping, and we celebrated our shared cultural heritage by raising many toasts. They told me probably twenty times about the nicknames for people from their cities, and I would need to ask for a twenty-first time to add those details here. Once finished with them I found the guys playing a drinking game with about eight British girls, and I joined without even asking, which was rude, but no one seemed too perturbed by my sudden arrival and ignorance of the rules of the game. The game concluded shortly after I sat down and I remember wondering if there was some correlation, but this concern faded as soon as we were walking with them to Joe's. Joe's is a blur except for the Bob Marley encore dance, and a girl named Sarah Harty who became obsessed with calling me Chicago in a cockney accent, and with whose last name I became infatuated. I asked her to repeat it ten times and then find pen and paper and write it down.
Sarah was with me outside Joe's when the drama of my night really began. I was flirting with her when Aman walked up and started speaking to us in Chinese, acting like this girl could understand him as easily as I could. Naturally, I responded in Chinese, which baffled Sarah and maybe impressed her momentarily, but when the Chinese didn't stop for a couple minutes she starting whining, "Chicaaagooo, what leenguage ah yee spaekin'?" I told her Chinese, and she asked if this is what I studied. I felt like challenging Aman for some reason, so I told him to answer her question. He said, in Chinese, that he wasn't sure what my major was. This upset me and I said that he'd better answer the question correctly and in English or else I'd be really mad. He said in English that he didn't know what my major was, at which point I flew into a rage and stormed back to Inside-Out, leaving Aman and Sarah Harty in my wake. I started hitting on Sarah from Manchester who was still working the street and somehow looking a lot better than earlier, when Aman found me and pulled me aside. He looked genuinely distressed and asked me, with a tear rolling down his cheek, why I had become so infuriated with him at Joe's. I explained what had happend and said that I couldn't believe he didn't know what I had been studying for the past four years, and that if he couldn't tell me right now what it was, that I'd seriously question our friendship. He replied, "I know what you study. You study Chinese." I was crushed. The intense hurt and feelings of betrayal, enhanced by the copious quantity of alcohol coursing through my veins, propelled me down the main bar street, left onto a small road, and left again onto a dark, mostly deserted alleyway. I sat there and cried for a few minutes, forgot what I was crying about and decided it was because I had broken up with Dami and that I needed another girlfriend. After half an hour of pondering this and heaving needlessly I wandered back to the hotel, taking the long way intentionally. I fell asleep cradling a bottle of water and humming to "Slow Cheetah" by the Chili Peppers.

TAYLOR: At this point, it was just Neil, Aman, and I cruising around the town. After some interesting conversations, we decided that we really needed some food. We knew that there was a McDrive near by, and we decided it would be a good idea to take Berthão through it. Since we had such a prime parking spot, we made Neil stand by the parking spot to guard it. I don't think it mattered, however, because the McDrive was already closed, so we were only gone for a few minutes.

NEIL: On average, Aman makes good decisions at about twice the rate that I do. This fact, combined with my intense desire for McDonalds, made me think that it would be a good idea to pick up some Portoguese Big Maos and fries at 4:30 AM. I decided it would be dangerous to leave Berthão's parking spot, so I volunteered to stay and guard the spot while Berthao drove Aman and Taylor to McDonalds. Having little to do in the parking lot and feeling suddenly sleepy I figured it would be a good idea to sit down in the empty parking lot. After a couple of minutes of day dreaming about some food a car approached me and slowed down. Assuming he intended to park in our spot, I stood up to make sure it was obvious that I was saving the spot. As the car drove closer, I realized it was the Polizia and I became immediately confused. I was pretty sure I hadn't done anything illegal but who knows at 4:30 in Lagos. The polizia officão put down his window, squinted at me, and asked me something in Portuguese (if you don't know what it sounds like, imagine a recording of a Spanish person with speech impediment..backwards). Having no idea what he asked, I gave him a blank look, gave him a thumbs up, and said with semi-confidence, "Si." He returned a confused look and drove off.

TAYLOR: When we got back, we noticed that there was a hot dog stand near the parking spot, and headed over. The hot dog was actually very good. It had mushrooms, corn, crisps, katchup, mustard, hot sauce, and probably another random ingredient. While eating our dogs, we met a few more Brits, and met up with the girls from earlier in the night. I have a vague memory of making fun of a kid wearing a Miami Dolphins hat, which was funny to me the next morning.
With a full stomach, we headed back to the hostel. Aman and Neil decided to sit out in the hall and chat for a bit, but I was dead tired and passed out. Needless to say, the next morning did not feel very good.
Side note: before the night got crazy, we ran into a group of older people while leaving dinner and had a brief conversation with them. One of the guys was really excited about the fact that they once had colonies in Virginia, and said, "my grandfather is probably your father's father!", which I thought was hilarious.

AMAN:
(Here's where my memory kicks back in) We got back to the hostel, and Neil and I had a drunken conversation in the stairway outside our rooms about the rest of the trip's itinerary. We'd been talking for about 20 minutes when Ryan (who we hadn't seen in about 3 hours) walked out of his room in nothing but his boxers and across the hallway to the door leading into room 304 (not one of ours). I had an odd sense of deja vu (for those of you who remember a similar story from our first year...). Neil and I watched in shock as Ryan whipped it out and generously slathered the door and floor in front of it with his urine, then calmly pulled his boxers back on and tried to walk up the stairs where Neil and I were, attempting to push his way past us as if we weren't there, convinced he was supposed to go upstairs for some reason, then gave up walked back to his room(this was around 4:30). Neil and I decided it was probably time to call it a night, so I grabbed a towel from the hotel, used it to clean up Ryan's pee, then Neil put it outside on their balcony (where it sadly remained after we checked out...)
This next morning I woke up with a very vague feeling that I might have driven a car the previous night, but I put it aside as absurd. It wasn't until we all congregated in one room and started sharing stories that Taylor and Neil informed me that I had, indeed, gotten behind the wheel of Berthão. I didn't remember this at all, especially not any of the actual driving. Oops. Apparently from now on I need to turn my keys over before starting to drink...

Who knew that the height of Fratstardom would come as graduates traveling through Portugal?

Some Pictures

2008-06-17T08:57:00.000-07:00

This is Berthão: The Fiat Scuda

This is Berthão about to enter Portugal from Spain

A view from the road

A taste of one of the beautiful Lagos beaches

Porto and Lisbon

2008-06-17T08:29:00.000-07:00

June 16, 2008

We left Porto yesterday morning and briefly stopped in Coimbra, site of Portugal´s most prestigious university (the University of Coimbra). The experience was... underwhelming. The University is not much to look at, and in places looks as if it´s in serious disrepair. Highlight of the trip to Coimbra was finding a 5 euro all you can eat buffet, which is apparently not an experience confined to American shores. We arrived in Lisbon in early evening, found a hostel, then ran out to grab some beer and wine and go watch Portugal´s Eurocup game in a massive square called Eduardo VII in the city center along with thousands of Portugal fans. Although I´ve never been much of a soccer fan, I did quite enjoy the experience - watching it in a large and intense group is a lot of fun, and I think soccer works well in this sort of environment because it is relatively chill tow atch, punctuated by a few moments of pure hysteria. Unfortunately, Portugal lost 2-0, so we never got to experience what these fans are like when their team scores a goal, and by the end of the game the fans were relatively silent, save for a small group of intensely hated Swiss fans in the back corner. Also notable was the "halftime show" in which five absolutely gorgeous but otherwise notably untalented cheerleaders danced around for 20 minutes in front of the crowd.

After the game, we bought more to drink, regrouped at the hostel, then headed out to walk around the city a bit (have I mentioned that the lack of open container laws is amazing?) We had a very random and hilarious encounter with a couple of American girls... Taylor was trying to teach Ryan some basic beatboxing techniques while we were standing at this empty intersection, so Ryan starts to beatbox while Taylor freestyles, and apparently these girls nearby were American so they turned around and struck up a conversation. Given that we´ve seen many fewer American tourists in Portugal than in Spain so far, it was an unlikely encounter

Lisbon was pretty cool. It´s a really huge city, we had a hard time gettingour minds around where we were at any given time. It was otherwise pretty clean and felt very cosmopolitan, with a lot of pretty cool architecture and very lively cobblestone streets and alleys. Definitely worth a trip if you´re every in the area.

--Aman

The first few days

2008-06-17T07:55:00.000-07:00

*Note - Because internet access is spotty, I´ve been writing posts on my laptop and I´ll be posting them when I get internet and dating them. So while this is being posted on June 17, the post itself was written on the 14th.

June 14, 2008

Flight/Dublin
My flight was fine, Aer Lingus from DC to Madrid by way of Dublin. I had a long break in Dublin, so I decided to get out and poke around the city a little bit. Since it was morning/early afternoon, I chose not to grab a pint of beer with the locals, but the city was quite pretty, with a nice waterfront area and a very nice integration between the city and some of the older historical sites. One of the highlights was actually probably Trinity College, which had very pretty grounds, huge open green spaces, and a massive and very modern-looking library.

Madrid
My first hour or so in Madrid was an interesting one. I lost the directions Adam had sent us to get to the hostel, but was able to roughly find my way since I had looked at them right before getting off the plane. I picked out the Metro stop names I remembered and got pretty close, and then got to put my Spanish (which I havenºt used in 3 years) to the test by finding my way to the hostel. I found my way fine but apparently got off a stop too early, so I had the pleasure of lugging my backpacks (probably 50 pounds all said and done) much longer than I would have liked, and the other fellas were quite amused by the sweaty "Amansooning" Aman that showed up to our hostel.

We were in a fantastic location, in an area called Huertas, within comfortable walking distance of many of the major sites in Madrid - the Prado, the Plazas Mayor and Santa Ana, the Royal Palace, etc. We had an efficient few days around Madrid, taking in many of the sites and having a great time at night. Probably our most memorable outing was a trip to a market where we bought some baguettes, meat, cheese and wine, then took it all to a pretty memorial site behind teh Prado and sat outside for a few hours eating and drinking before stumbling our way home. The lack of open container laws is life-changing and beautiful, and I wish it coudl be brought to the States.

Berthão, our fickle mistress
On the last day in Madrid, we woke up and headed to the car rental agency, where we were presented with what we will forever remember as the imposing sixth member of our group - a massive Fiat Scuda 9-person van that we have christened Berthão (in honor of our then-upcoming trip to Portugal). Driving Berthão has probably been the worst experience I will have in this lifetime or the next (I´m doing the bulk of the driving since only Neil and I can drive stick, and he´s only been doing it for a month or so). Winding this massive whale of a vehicle through tiny streets in Madrid is terrifying, as is taking it out of parking garages with narrow uphill spirals, as we did in Segovia. It´s glorious on the highway, because there´s a remarkable amount of space in the back to stretch out, but about half of our in-city driving involves me in the driver´s seat and the others outside directing me so that I don´t hit a car, pillar, or small child.

The drive has been quite spectacular, though. On the highways between cities, traffic is generally very light, and the scenery is beautiful. Much of the drive between Salamanca and Porto was mountainous and lush, and the terrain made for some wonderful vistas when we stopped on pulloffs from these mountain roads and looked out through valleys and down at long rivers. A formidable lady though she may be, Berthão has been quite the asset (until we get to a city and have to find overnight parking for a vehicle that in a different color scheme could be mistaken for an invading tank rolling through the streets).

Segovia
Between Madrid and Salamanca we stopped briefly in Segovia, a pretty little town with a cool old aqueduct and some interesting architecture, and we did a little shopping in an outdoor market, buying a few bottles of wine. The way to Segovia was unfortunately almost entirely uphill, forcing us to coax Berthão up and through a number of winding mountain roads. Then we reached...

Salamanca
Salamanca was a wonderful destination. It´s a fairly small town populated mainly by college students, and it´s crazy. We found a hostel, checked in, then went out for a night that ended around 3am (not that the folks who were out were anywhere close to calling it quits). It gets dark here around 11pm, which is when the younger crowd starts to go out. We went to this wonderful little bar called Jacko´s for some fabulous drink specials, then headed to a nightclub for a bit. Lots of fun, very drunk, happiness ensued.

Porto
We got a late start in Salamanca (we rolled out of bed around noon after our intense evening), had lunch, and headed onwards to Porto in what will hopefully be the longest leg of our trip, clocking in at around 7 hours. The drive into Porto was wonderful - for the last hour or so, all we could see were vinyards along the sides of mountains that lined the Douro River - this is where the world´s Port wine is made. Porto itself is quite pretty - Ryan and Neil say it reminds them a lot of Prague in terms of the feel of the streets and the architecture. Lots of small cobblestone streets leading into more open plazas, and then a very pretty waterfront area along the river where we sat for a while and had a drink while taking in the scenery. For a Saturday night, however, there didn´t seem to be too much going on. It´s possible that we missed the craziest areas of town, but nothing was too busy tonight (save a rock band playing a live show in the middle of a small street), certainly nothing compared to the activity we saw in Spain. Maybe the Portuguese are a little less crazy than their neighbors to the east.

Tomorrow, we´ll see a little more of Porto, sample some of its fine Port, then hop back into Berthão and head to Lisbon by way of Coimbra, and spend the next night or two in Lisbon.

All in all, having a great time. The Euro is the devil, however. Whereas Berthão and I are developing a bit of a love/hate relationship, there exists no such ambiguity in my feelings towards the currency that rapidly drains our wallets and, albeit more slowly, our souls. The cheapest meals we can ever find are around $7... if we go to a proper restaurant (which we have only done once so far) we have to expect to pay $15-16 each, which is completely unsustainable twice a day. This trip around the world ain´t gonna come cheap.

More to come as possible. Apologies for the length of this post - the infrequent internet access and hectic schedule unfortunately means that when I have time to write there´s lots of substance and less commentary. I´ll work on this for later. Hope everyone is doing great - feel free to email or comment and say hi.

--Aman

Our itinerary

2008-06-08T18:02:00.000-07:00

Hey all,

Here is our itinerary (as I understand it - there may potentially be some forthcoming edits changing these dates around by a day or two here and there):

June 10-26: Spain/Portugal (Aman, Ryan, Neil, Adam, Taylor)

June 26-July 5: Greece (Aman, Ryan, Neil, Adam, Taylor)

July 5-8: Turkey (Aman, Adam, Taylor)

July 8-10: Moscow (Aman, Adam, Taylor, Darren)

July 10-21: Train from Moscow to Beijing by way of Mongolia (Aman, Adam, Taylor, Darren)

July 21-August 15: China (Aman, Adam, Taylor, Darren)

--Aman