97 Degrees Overland

At Sea with Nothing Else to do...

2008-12-18T08:15:00.000+02:00

It is in times of intense boredom that humanity has crafted its greatest achievements. This of course also applied to Floris's last drawing up till present: the journey across the Black sea from Poti (Georgia) to Ilychevsk (Ukraine).

P.S. Please note the note.

Georgia in pencilstrokes

2008-12-18T08:03:00.000+02:00

Continuing a good (depending on your inclinations) habit, Floris's drawing of his impressions from Georgia are unveiled!

You will see the high mountains, churches, castles and pig-inhabited villages. Also depicted is Gori, with Stalin as its most (in)famous son, the ferry leaving the port of Poti and -of course- Floris and Hanna, enjoying a wonderful Georgian dinner (khatchapuri and wine!).

Armenia: Artistic Impression

2008-12-18T08:00:00.000+02:00

Neither can Armenia escape Floris's unstoppable artistic extravagance!

The mountain country is recognisable by it's numerous churches, it's rather bland capital, it's small villages with cows and chicken, it's old-fashioned Soviet-era busses clinging onto mountain flanks and it's fashionable, high-heeled-leather-boots-wearing youths.

Tehran Times!

2008-12-17T08:04:00.001+02:00

Tehran isn't the world's most beautiful city, but it makes a good setting for another drawing. Note the smoke-stacked sky, the zillions of grey buildings, the billions of cars and the chadored women...

Iran Tours

2008-12-17T08:01:00.001+02:00

Another of Floris' creations for your "admiration".
This time, Iran is depicted, with Masshad, Yazd, Kerman, the Persian Gulf, Persepolis and Esfahan.

Remember Ashgabat?

2008-12-16T21:46:00.003+02:00

The artist strikes again! Here is Floris' artistic impession of Ashgabat, Turkmenistan's capital.

You will notice: the white buildings, the golden-domes palaces and ministeries, the parks, the two very weird monuments ("Arch of Neutrality" and "Independence and Peace Monument", which looks like a giant toilet-plunjer) and the numerous golden statues of Turkmenbasi. Also note the complete lack of people in the streets!

Pictures!

2008-12-16T18:47:00.003+02:00

As promised earlier, new pictures are online now!
Some more (unedited) shots from Iran, and a whole new series from Armenia and Georgia!

More to come later, so stay tuned!

The trip tracker is also updated to our current location, for your viewing pleasure...

Pictures? Drawings?

2008-12-13T20:22:00.003+02:00

It must have come to your attention already: it has been ages since we uploaded some more pictures to the blog. From somewhere in Iran, it seems...

This doesn't mean there are no more pictures, it merely means that finding a PC where we can upload them easily enough has been a major headache. Just hang on there, there will be more material uploaded as soon as opportunity arises...

Undoubtedly, all of you have been craving for more artistic works of Floris. On this point as well, there is good news: there are quite some new drawings ready for publication. Same here: a bit more patience, please!

Ukraine in 5 days

2008-12-13T18:09:00.004+02:00

What can you say about Europe's biggest country (well, if you exclude Russia, that is) if you only spend less than a week? Not so horribly much, obviously.

When you arrive at 21:30 in the middle of Ilychevsk seaport, 20 km away from Odesa, when it's dark and cold and the only available onward transportation is one taxi, then you know that you're all exposed to some serious rip-off on the taxi fare. With no negotiation power, we had to settle at the asking price of 130 UAH (about 14EUR), which was however not such a complete rip-off.

Arriving in Odesa, we found a nice hostel with the helf of a Japanese fellow-traveller. The address is Velika Dranautska 10, apt. 3 (door code 358), for anyone happening to be nearby.

Odesa was quite a nice city, with a good deal of churches and boulevards to explore. It seemed to us, however, that it is mainly a summer city, with nearby beaches and bars. Wintertime walking through the streets proved nice enough, though not particularly enchanting.

The famous "Potemkin-steps", as seen in Eisenstein's well-known classic "Battleship Potemkin", were actually a bit of a disappointment to us. It's just a staircase, really. With an optical illusion and all (from above you only see the landings, whereas from below you see only steps), but altogether not that impressive.
From Odesa, a night train took us to Lviv. Not Kiev, as we had first planned, because Kiev is quite out of the way and Lviv had been recommended to us by both travel guides and fellow travellers.

And indeed. Lviv is most definitely going to be one of the new "hot" Eastern European cities. There's a great deal of historic building to discover (a myriad of churches, castles, houses,...), the cobblestone streets guarantee charming walks, there are a few flea markets worth exploring, there is a range of modern boutiques and shopping opportunities and there is a good range of restaurants and cafés.... All being very cheap to Western-European standards (but several times more expensive than e.g. Central Asia).
For serious shoppers, the shopping experience is probably still a good one as there's more than just the big Western chains: there are a lot of Russian boutiques with goods that don't often reach Western Europe (at least as far as we're informed).

So: Lviv is the place to go to! With no visa needed to enter Ukraine, and with Polish cities such as Krakow and Lublin not at all very far away, Lviv for sure is a tourist destination the rise. Go there before the crowds do!

Our two days in Lviv where well-spent and well-enjoyed, but with Pieksämäki still not anywhere in sight, we had to continue. A day's drive in a bus brought us back into the European Union, in Poland, to Warsaw.

Five days in Ukraine gave us just enough time to decide that we like it, and that we can very well imagine going back there one day...

Poti and the Black Sea Experience

2008-12-10T13:07:00.003+02:00

After arriving in Poti, the usual endeavour to find a place to sleep started. The guidebook spoke of a very shabby hotel full of Abkhaz refugees and an apartment which we couldn't find: the prospects looked rather dim... Until we were spotted and stopped by a yellow Pepsi van: the men joyfully hijacked us and brought us to a nice small hotel that wasn't in the book ("Gastinitsa, Ulitsa Tsarina Tamara 20", for anyone with a particular interest). They even haggled down the price for us!

Later, they came back to our hotel with some food and some drinks, vodka of course. We learned about the Georgian way of drinking: long, elaborate toasts (in our case mainly to the friendship of the peoples), lots of vodka and a sip of radioactivity-coloured soft drink to wash it all away.
One of our hosts was the former chief of police of the town of Poti, and this encouraged his friend to drink without limit: upon our enquiry whether drunk-driving wouldn't lead to a traffic fine, he laughingly answered "Omari (his friend) chief police, problem no!". Avoid yellow Pepsi vans in Poti...

The ferry from Poti to Ilychevsk was great. After our experiences in Central Asia and the Kaukasus, we anticipated a dilapidated ship ready for the scrapyard, but the MS Greifswald turned out to be a quite modern RoRo-ferry that could easily sail somewhere between EU-countries (even quite up to DNV standard...)
The beds were comfortable, the sea was very calm and the weather was fantastic. We even saw a very clear halo around the moon (e.g. here)! The only real drawback was the late arrival time in Ilychevsk: we passed immigration around 21:30, and arrived late evening in Odesa. Luckily, a nice Japanese fellow traveller knew of a good hostel near Odesa's main station, where we were very welcome even at 23:00...

Gori: Jugashvili and EU troops

2008-12-06T13:44:00.001+02:00

The name Iosif Vissarionovich Jugashvili may not ring a bell, but the man known as Josef Stalin surely isn't just famous in his home town of Gori.

Gori must be one of the few places in the world where there still are Stalin statues standing. It also boasts a quite interesting museum dedicated to the life and works of its famous son. Apart from a temple-like construction surrounding his house of birth, the train carriage he travelled in to the Yalta conference and a mass of busts and paintings, there are a lot of pictures, documents and personal items on display.
It's all good fun, rather interesting but it fails completely at giving a balanced picture of the man: he is displayed as a master politician, a well-doer and a war hero. No mention of the Gulags, the forced labour, the millions who died or his "devils pact" treaty with Hitler...

On more recent events, Gori was in the world news as one of the places where Georgian-Russian fighting in the 2008 conflict was most intense. None of that really shows anymore, though: we didn't see any buildings with bullet holes, no rubble from collapsed buildings or anything like that. What we did see, however, was the EU-mission "military observers", who stayed in the same hotel as we did (in fact, we slept in a room previously used as their field office). Not that there was so much to observe, really: most of the soldiers seemed primarily concerned with the coffee breaks and with chatting in the lobby...

From here to eternity

2008-12-04T08:03:00.001+02:00

Granted: eternity is a bit of a stretch, but from Kutaisi (Western-Georgia), where we are now, to Helsinki is still quite a long way... Next Saturday, if all goes well, we'll be taking a ferry across the Black Sea from Poti to Ilychevsk near Odessa. The weather is great down here (20 degrees, sunshine, cloudless sky), so we hope the ferry keeps its schedule and arrives next Monday in Ukraine - but shipping schedules are there to be adjusted.

We'll spend the last two weeks of our "heroic trip" (sure, whatever) in Eastern Europe, mainly hopping capitals: Kiev, Warsaw (or Minsk, provided getting a transit visa in Kiev goes super-smooth), Vilnius, Riga and Talinn. From there, another ferry will take us to Helsinki.

So it seems that out "overland" aim of crossing the Eurasian continent will be achieved, if "by sea" is also admitted as overland travel (which we of course believe). With borders between Georgia and Russia sealed and the Azeri-Russian border open only to locals, going by sea is anyway the only sensible option: going round through Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria and Romania is quite a detour, and flying just isn't cool enough for us!

Kazbegi: mountains, a church and adrenaline

2008-12-03T16:15:00.001+02:00

After some ten days around, it is clear to us that Georgia is a great travel destination: fantastic landscapes and scenery, age-old history with loads of castles, churches and fortresses as a lasting testimony, great food and drink, and very welcoming and friendly people.

Our itinerary is quite straightforward: from Tbilisi, we went to Kazbegi (in the Kaukasus mountains, in Georgia's North), back to Tbilisi, then onwards to Gori and Kutaisi, with Poti as a last halting point.

Kazbegi is a rather secluded mountain town where cows and dogs roam the streets. The town is not particularly charming in itself, but the surrounding mountains present a wonderful scenery, with mount Kazbek towering over it all at 5047 m. We based ourselves in Kazbegi, from where we did two day walks: one to the church of Tsminda Sameba (Holy trinity) up a mountain, and another northwards through the Dariali gorge. On our first walk, we found ourselves accompanied by one (and later two) dogs, who kept on running in front of us and then waiting for us to catch up, thus effectively showing us the way.

The road to and from Kazbegi was again a bit of an adventure. On the way to Kazbegi, our minibus ploughed through wet snow and slippery sludge across the Jvari pass, scarily close to the edge of the road and to the steep cliffs beneath. Without winter tires, of course. On the way back, more heart-stopping moments were our share: now, the pass was effectively snowed over and visibility was minimal. Our fellow passengers were very, very quiet (as were we), with only an occasional "Oh my God" (in whatever language) being uttered. But we made it back safely to Tbilisi... those candles we lit in those Orthodox churches really did work!

Dangers in Georgia

2008-12-03T14:42:00.003+02:00

Is Georgia dangerous to travel in after the conflict with Russia last summer? Well, no. There's no bombs falling, no land mines to avoid, no gunfire in the suburbs - all quiet on the Kaukasus front, it seems.
The greatest dangers we have encountered are the traffic (fast, reckless, seatbeltless), lidless sewer openings (especially dangerous at night in badly lit streets) and locals who drag you with them to taste some of their home-made wine (great wine, but sometimes quite strong).

Most locals we have met assured us that "nothing would happen with Russia, because it's winter now". Interestingly, quite a few people we've met don't just blame the Russians for what happened: many Georgians don't seem to have too high esteem of Saakashvili, their president, whom they don't really trust either. Most people choose to stay far away from politics and just get on with their lives.

Tbilisi: Kaukasus' Finest

2008-11-25T15:14:00.004+02:00

It seems that the nearer we get to Europe and Finland, the more we like the places - maybe some sort of a sign that we are longing for "home", but it might of course just be because it is nicer...

In any case: Tbilisi is a great city. It is reasonably modern, with boutique-and-cafe-laden avenues to keep shoppers busy, but it also has a very charming old town, which truly feels European. The winding lanes and tree lined cobbled streets, the old houses with vine branch-overgrown balconies and busy orthodox churches make for a few hours and days of interesting wandering around and exploring.

Tbilisi houses the first McDonald's we encountered on our trip since Eastern China, but unlike in China, we don't need this kind of "comforting, recognisable food": Georgian cuisine is excellent. After only a few days in the country, we (especially Hanna of course) must have already gained a few kilos. On almost every street corner, you find various types of khachapuri, some kind of cheese pie. Dirt cheap, greasy, delicious and omnipresent: what more can you wish for?
Other dishes we have enjoyed so far include shkmeruli (chicken in garlic sauce), khinkali (meat dumplings) and some kind of beef stew. Georgia accounts for our best culinary experiences so far, and frankly - after Chinese and Central Asian food (and the rather disappointing Iranian restaurant scene) - it's about time there's something genuinely nice to eat!

The Georgian Orthodox Church is the liveliest active religious organisation we have encountered (apart from the Islamic state-religion in Iran, culminating at the shrine of Imam Reza in Mashad). All churches in Tbilisi seem to be permanently overcrowded with believers, resulting in amazing scenes. There are young couples being married by the busload: some couples are queueing in the back of the church while another is being married. Meanwhile, regular visitors are walking around, crossing themselves and burning ever more candles; other people are confessing and in another end of the church, a baby is loudly protesting its baptism. Anyone keen on religious action should seriously consider joining the Georgian Orthodox Church!

On another topic, it's clear that Georgians have suffered heavily from the recent war with Russia: there are far more beggars in Tbilisi's streets than in any other city we've visited. A lot of people are selling their property and many (if not most) old women are selling seeds, woolen socks or small bouquets of flowers to make ends meet - and with their monthly pension of 70 lari (+- 35 EUR), it's easy to see why...

The Armenia-Georgia Border

2008-11-23T13:43:00.000+02:00

Yes, again a story about a border crossing. It's maybe a bit monotonous, but for us, crossing borders is always a bit of an exciting endeavour.

We anticipated that the Armenia-Georgia crossing would be easy: we don't need a visa for Georgia, and both countries are friendly to each other and towards Europeans, so from an official point of view: nieto probljiema (our travel Russian isn't exaclty well developed, but hey).

From Stepanavan, some 40 km south of the border, we took a minibus that would bring us directly to Tbilisi. Easy as can be. The Guguti border station is a very small one, however (there aren't evenblack market money changers!), and it took a while to get there over badly damaged roads.

Armenia's customs and passport control was a bit slow, but straightforward enough. Georgia's side was also relatively straightforward: we got our passports back within 5 minutes, and thought we'd be on our way shortly.

Things turned out a bit differently though: there was a passenger in our minibus who had some problems with her passport. What it exactly was, we aren't sure (something about her being "invalid" or so), but it did take a very long time to get sorted out: we arrived at the border around 10:00 and only got through around 16:00...

Several other marshrutki passed us towards Tbilisi, but they were as full as ours, so changing transport wasn't an option. Luckily, we had some food with us (salami and cheese), and the friendly border guards offered us a few fruits to calm our nerves. It was all quite painless, though, and we arrived in Tbilisi just when it started to get dark.

Gyumri and Dilijan

2008-11-22T18:20:00.000+02:00

We arrived in Guymri after dark and with the help of a flashlight and a map managed to find our way to a B&B where we received a warm welcome, as usual. We had time for a delicious dinner in a Georgian restaurant and a short walk around the dark town before it was time for bed.

Guymri is a small town with charmingly irregular houses and gardens bordering muddy streets where chicken, dogs and cows wander peacefully around. There are no high buildings left after the 1989 devastating earthquake destroyed most of the old ones, and those that were left standing were deserted in fear of another disaster. Our host's sister had lived in a caravan for five years after the earthquake although her apartment was still intact.

The following day, after visiting a couple of churches and a scruffy cafe where most regulars seemed to be Russian soldiers (Guymri is near the Turkish border, and Armenians have outsourced most of their borderguarding duties to Russians) we took a taxi to Dilijan, a town called "the Switzerland of Armenia" where many great artists like Shostakovitch, Prokofjef and Khatchaturian went to seek for inspiration. The town was not unpleasant and setting on mountain slope definitely is nice, but most of the inspiration it seemed to us had already been used, or drunken, and thrown away to the river flowing through town.

Armenia's South and Yerevan

2008-11-22T16:13:00.003+02:00

Running a bit behind on blog, it seems. But we also have some travelling to do, of course :-)

In Armenia, our itinerary was roughly south-north, passing from Goris and nearby Tatev to Yerevan, onwards to Gyumri, Dilijan and Stepanavan, from where we crossed into Georgia.

Goris was very charming, with an old part of the town consisting of numerous caves that were inhabited in earlier times - and are now used to shelter cows and sheep. Nearby Tatev, a small hamlet with about 300 inhabitants, boasts one of the most interesting old monasteries in the country, with a particularly beautiful setting at the edge of a steep cliff. After a night in a very homely bed and breakfast, a rather frightening ride in a Soviet-era ramshackle bus (filled with people and bags of potatoes) brought us back to Goris, from where Yerevan was our next destination.

Yerevan has a very European feel to it, with swish shops and fashionably dressed people (mainly the women of course: black high-heeled boots seem to be the fashion now). The city isn't particularly charming at first sight: Soviet-style apartment blocks, squares and wide avenues, but hidden in various coutryards are some fine churches, markets and even a mosque (funded by an Iranian organisation).

The Yerevan opera was one of our highlights: we went to a ballet performance of Giselle, a very traditional ballet with plush outfits and lots of dancers on stage. With 7 EUR per person, it was a tad more expensive than in Tashkent, but this time we got to see the whole performance!

First steps in Armenia!

2008-11-15T09:12:00.001+02:00

Our first impressions of Armenia are nothing but positive. After crossing the border, we stayed in Meghri, an endlessly charming small village just nearby. A taxi dropped us off, and we quickly found a homestay where we could stay for the night.
The room was clean and adequate, the family was very friendly and language-barriers were quickly conquered with some glasses of home-made fruit brandy ("Super, fantastisch" according to the brewer - and why would we disagree?). Homestays are not particularly cheap (+- 45EUR per night for two persons), but with breakfast and a delicious local dinner included that's really a great deal.

Meghri was a delight after the busy cities in Iran: it's a quiet rural village set in an amazing mountain landscape, with colourful fruit trees, chicken running on the streets and people everywhere offering us the spoils of the autumn harvest: delicious fruits and nuts.

From there, an early-morning minibus brought us to Goris, a town further north. The drive offered us some splendid views on gorges and snowy mountains, but the around 50 hairpin turns battered our bones and especially our nerves: steep cliffs with a narrow road, non-existent curbstones, foggy weather (clouds) and a frantic driver (fast and furious) gave us enough excitement for a while...

The Iranian-Armenian Border Story

2008-11-14T16:39:00.003+02:00

As is obvious from the previous post, we made it into Armenia, the 7th country on our trip, another ex-Soviet state but with a very (Eastern-) European feel to it.

Crossing the border was again quite an interesting experience. The drive along the Araks river, the physical border between Iran and both Armenia and Azerbaijan, was very fascinating, with snow-capped peaks and lofty Autumn colours. The border area was quite heavily guarded, with sentry posts and patrolling soldiers on both sides.

At the Iranian side, the customs and passport control were slow but straightforward and without any hassle. A short walk over a bridge brought us at the Armenian side, but the first flag we saw was a Russian one! The border is actually patrolled by Russian troops, and they also handle the visa issuing process and passport control.

Getting a visa was easy, but with 50USD that piece of paper wasn't particularly cheap.
After the visa had been issued however, a border guard took a closer look at the passports, and obviously discovered that Floris's passport was broken (see earlier post). Until then, nobody had noticed or nobody had cared, but these Russian officers were of another calibre. A few phone calls were made, a bit of discussion went on between some officers, and we ended up waiting in that border post for over 1.5 hours...
Finally, we were allowed through, surely because of lack of options: we didn't have a re-entry visa for Iran and they had already issued a visa. We got away quite luckily, it seems.

Floris got quite upset about this matter, because we had gone to the Belgian embassy in Tehran to inquire again what to do with this passport. We had already gone in Bishkek, but having a more updated confirmation of the validity of the passport wouldn't hurt, we thought. In the embassy they basically just told us that this ripped page posed no problem and that the passport was as valid as ever. They didn't put that in writing however, and they were moreover obviously wrong, as we did get a delay (and a possible denial for entry) on the Armenian border. As a result, a polite but firm email has already been sent to the embassy to point out their mistake and Floris's discontent about that.

Another striking fact was the dress of the female Russian border guards. Coming from Iran, where chadors, headscarves and none-revealing clothes are the norm, the outfit of the female officers was quite a shock (not an unpleasant one, however). Bleached hair, lots of make-up, knee-high high-heeled black leather boots, short skirts and a just-too-tight blouse,... Completely over the top, in other words and we wonder if they do that on purpose to provoke the Iranians who cross the border here...

Tehran and the North

2008-11-12T16:19:00.001+02:00

After a nice week in Esfahan, we ended up in Tehran, after a short stop in Kashan on the way. Iran's capital really is something else: very busy, lots of people, lots and lots of cars, lots and lots and lots of pollution - but quite impressive and not uninviting as such.

We stayed in a very nice small hotel in the south of town (near Imam Khomeini square), the more conservative and most busy and most polluted part of the city. The hotel manager was a true beacon of light in the all-engulfing clouds of toxic fumes, and arranged everything from taxis to train tickets.

The only true amazing sight was the "US Den of Espionage", the former US Embassy in Iran, which was stormed by fanatical students after the Islamic Revolution and where US diplomats were held hostage for more than 400 days. Floris took some nice pictures of the predictable murals and slogans on the walls: "Down with USA", "We will make the US face a severe defeat (Imam Khomeini)",... (picture of that later). Because Floris was a bit overzealous and took some pictures of the inside of the premises through a spy hole (the site now houses a few radical groups), we were invited in the security office. The young guards were very nervous, very gentle and polite and even invited us for tea, but made sure all pictures showing the buildings inside and the security cameras were deleted. A polite request if we could have a tour of the site was politely denied ("No, no, no!"), but it was worth the try.

From Tehran, we took a night train to far away Tabriz in Iran's Azerbaijan province. A big jump, but we decided to make sure we had enough time left to get an idea about Armenia and Georgia as well. And well, a month in Iran gave us already quite enough of chadors, kebabs and fruit juices to be fine on those fronts for a while.

Tabriz was very refreshing, not just because the thermometer dropped another 5 degrees, but it really had a very different feel to it. It has all the vibes of a big border city near a cultural boundary: this is where the Persian culture has a heavy influence of Turkey and Azerbaijan. A lot of inhabitants of the city have very different facial featues than the "Persians" down South, and clothing and headcovers were quite different as well.

The most important battle fact of Tabriz was the raiding of the Bazaar for some all important winter gear. Floris bought a Chinese made jacket (labelled "new style mens asylum wear original style super taste the fashion is best multiple genial charm") for 21 EUR, Hanna did even (much) better with an amazing 6 EUR. Woolen socks (1 EUR) and long thermal underwear completed the spoils of war.

From Tabriz, a taxi brought us to Noordoz at the Iranian side of the border, from where we went onwards to Armenia.

New pictures

2008-11-05T14:04:00.005+02:00

As per general request, and of course because it has been some time: some more pictures from The Islamic Republic of Iran are now online. Unedited and only a small selection, but as an impression - I'm sure it'll do.

Enjoy!

"Figs after Easter": Khiva

2008-11-05T13:59:00.003+02:00

No hei!

Sure: Uzbekistan is already half a continent behind us, but let's just say it's never too late to let you enjoy some more of the Floris Fine Arts Movement.

Just an artist's impression of the desert khanate of Khiva, with the predictable minarets, mosques, medrasses... and tourists.

Esfahan: Half the World

2008-11-01T17:45:00.001+02:00

It is always a good idea to take it a bit easy once in a while, and Esfahan is one of the best places in Iran to do so. Just resting, lingering around and visiting the main tourist draws a few times at a relaxed pace is the right thing to do in a lovely city as Esfahan.

With about 1.5 million inhabitants, it's a rather large city, even by Iranian standards, and even though there is the typical noise of cars, buses and motorcycles that dominate the oral senses in this part of the world, it boasts some of the most splendid attractions and relaxed spots we have come across on our trip.

Imam square with the nearby bazaar and architecturally and aesthetically marvelous mosques is a great place to wander around, marvel at these "wonders of the Islamic world" and sit and drink some tea. The several parks in the center also provide a fine setting to walk around and meet some locals, but the riverside, with its parks and bridges are maybe what we found most rewarding. All day, locals walk and sit, sing and play, drink some tea or have a picnic near the waters, where graceful birds (different herons especially) hunt for fish. The old bridges provide a glimpse of the past, and before long, while walking along the river, you will be stopped by locals who seem to be always interested in foreigners. We have had our pictures taken by complete strangers on various occasions and we met a man (who was obviously sick and somehow aware of it), who upheld that he was the ex-president and that he, with the will of God, would overthrow "the American and European countries" and impose Islam on all nations. He promised however that he wouldn't use the Iranian army for this purpose, and he would save us because he loved us. A really interesting talk, in a way quite funny but also (even more so) very sad.

On one occasion, when we were walking near a war cemetery for the victims of the Iran-Iraq war, we found an extremely cute small kitten that was all alone, cold and shivering (it had been raining just before) and evidently had been abandoned there. It was clean and healthy however, and was very affectionate and playful. We decided to safeguard the poor little creature: Floris put it in the pocket of his jacket to keep it warm and Hanna found some meat for it. We of course realized that we couldn't keep it ourselves (too unpractical while traveling), so we ventured to find it a nice Iranian foster parent. Luckily, we quite soon ran into a kind young Iranian man (a student of philosophy) who would take care of it. We decided to meet up with him and his girlfriend the next day, and had a very nice time: Esfahan has been worth the relaxed pace, both because of the sights and because of its people!

Touring through Iran

2008-11-01T15:33:00.001+02:00

Some time since the last post already, and a lot has happened... A short overview:

After Mashad, we took a train along a southern cross-desert route to Yazd, a pleasant ancient city in the middle of the desert. It's city scape is dominated by badgirs, a type of ancient air conditioning system. It is also the centre of the Zoroastrian community of Iran, but apart from some towers of silence and a fire temple, there is little evidence of the presence of these non-Muslims: the chador is also omnipresent in Yazd...
We also visited some desert towns around Yazd, with crumbling mud-brick walls and more badgirs, ice-houses (huge partly underground warehouses where ice was stored in wintertime, for use in the blazing summer heat) and caravanserais.

From Yazd, we took a bus to Kerman, mainly because we couldn't get good transport connections to Bandar-e-Abbas, where we wanted to go originally. Kerman isn't really a very interesting city at all, although there's quite a fine bazaar (but they have that in all cities) and some mosques worth passing by.
An overnight trip to nearby Mahan was more pleasant. Shazdeh garden, an atmospheric and peaceful garden and palace of a former prince provided us with a pleasant afternoon, including a dynamic discussion with an Iranian fanatic atheist ("Do you agree? We must destroy all religions!").

Later, we managed to take a bus to Bandar-e-Abbas, Iran's biggest port city in a very different part of the country. Bus rides are by the way quite an experience: the fact that buses are adorned with such phrases as "Need for Speed" and "Road Runner" should make clear why... Bandar isn't much in itself, but for us, seeing the Persian Gulf (well, the Strait of Hormuz at any rate) was the main draw.
We spent a few days on Qeshm island, where we had a very cheerful tour with some Iranian tourists. It was quite sad to see the Iranian women enjoy the pristine sandy beaches: bathing isn't prohibited, but no one would of course go in the water in full hejab dress... There is also an amazing mangrove forest (now, that's not something we'd have associated with Iran!), where we saw some rare birds and even a sea turtle just a few metres away.
Floris also had a short but extremely nice swim in the Gulf: the water was just right and there were no fish or other creatures nibbling at his feet. Due to the hejab-restrictions, Hanna was less fortunate and managed only to wiggle her toes in the sea...

After returning back to Bandar-e-Abbas, we went to the small town of Minab for the famous (in the region at least) Thursday market. The market itself was quite interesting enough indeed, but more interesting still were the people: a lot of the local women wear the 'bandari burqas': a face-masque with colourful embroidery, effectively covering the entire face - and that in a country where women already are almost wholly covered up!

Later, we went to Shiraz and to the magnificent site of ancient Persepolis (locally known as Takht-e Jamshid), the ceremonial city of Darius's Persian Empire. Though battered trough the ages and burnt down (presumably by Alexander the Great), it is still an impressive site. The multicultural nature of the then largest empire in the world is evident from the murals and building style. More info: Persepolis on wikipedia.
Shiraz will go down in our memory not only as the city with the enjoyable parks (great places to relax and have a chat with some locals) and the atmospheric tomb of the poet Hafez, but also as the city with the largest concentration of fast-food-style pizza places. With about 30 pizza joints on the main street, Shirazi's really must like pizza!

After that, we traveled to Esfahan, where we are at the moment. But about our adventures in this city, we'll relate another time.

Iran: first impressions

2008-10-22T16:40:00.000+03:00

Iran is a world apart and a very refreshing one after having spent half a year in China and about a month in Central Asia. Of course, there are lots of interesting historical sights, spanning millenia of human culture. But what makes the country really interesting and welcoming is the people: forget about such terms as "axis of evil" and "cradle of terrorists" - none of that is remotely true. From the moment we entered Iran, people have shown a hospitable, open and curious attitude towards us.

It started with the businessman who offered us to bring us to Mashad, paying for our lunch. Then, there was the Swiss-Iranian lady who showed us a nice hotel. Two young men in the train were very gentlemanlike and helped us finding a taxi. People in taxis share their snacks with us. A man offered us a ride from the bus station to the town of Bandar Abbas. Women and men in the street smile and curiously ask where we're from (sometimes, this gets a bit annoying when there's 10 boys asking that question non stop, but it's all in good spirit). And the list goes on: Iranian people are great!

It is also quite clear that many (most) Iranians don't like their government at all: the list of mock-names for the president is long, and includes such terms as "monkey", "idiot" and "stupid man" (ok, not that impressive cursewords, but Iranians generally aren't that eloquent in English) . We also met quite a few mainly young people who openly share with us that they are no Muslims, and that they don't believe in God. One youngster in Mahan even proclaimed to be an atheist, who wanted to destroy all religions...

What is also very obvious is that the position of women is generally not very encouraging: the headscarf is omnipresent, and many women wear a none-revealing black chador, which is not only horribly hot in this climate, but also very unhandy: they keep it closed with at least one hand, and many older women even take a piece of cloth in their mouth as to cover their face.
In busses, women sit in the back whereas men sit in front. In shared taxis, a woman cannot sit next to a strange man, resulting in the fact that people shuffle around in the car until the mix is right. Women also behave in a very restrained way: they don't make a fuss about themselves and are generally keeping rather quiet.

Mashhad: conservative city!?

2008-10-17T06:22:00.000+03:00

The city of Mashhad houses Iran's holiest site: the Holy Shrine of Imam Reza, a direct descendant of the Prophet Mohammed and the 8th Shiite Imam. Iranians and Muslims from distant lands come to pay homage to and mourn the death of this important imam. This makes Mashhad one of the most conservative places in Iran. We of course also went to visit the complex which was rather impressive, both architecturally and ornamentally, but it's also a great place for some people-watching: crying women, all of whom dressed in the black hijab, and contemplating and chanting men make the shrine complex a very interesting scene.

With Hanna covered up in the nothing-revealing hijab and with Floris's Islamic-style beard, we managed to get into the inner sanctum: the shrine itself, which is normally off-limits for non-Muslims. At least on the men's side, people were clambering and pushing to touch the shrine, some of them climbing onto it's fences. A rather impressive sight!

Later that evening, we ventured out in the city to find a tea house. Not even 100m out of our hotel, an overly friendly man took us to a small tea house. A friendly deed for sure, but we actually wanted to go to another tea house as the one he had taken us to was rather sadly empty. But the man had already paid our tea so we had no option but to stay...

However, just as we were finishing our tea and planning to leave, the young manager of the tea house came to get us for dance ("Please, Sir, Please!"), as apparently a small party had just started. We quickly learned that one of the ladies had her birthday party, and there was no escape. Not that it wasn't nice: we were spurred to eat some snacks, eat some cake and have a drink - including our first "underground alcohol" in this officially alcohol-free nation.

It was very interesting to have an inside view of how young Iranians go about. Meeting members of the opposite sex is a difficult endeavour in this largely conservative society and even in a closed private party like this, there were some restraints. Some girls took off their headscarves immediately, but others did so only very hesitatingly, letting it drop bit by bit. The boys on the other hand were very free: many of them dress extremely sexy. Interestingly, there was an old lady (somebody's grandmother) supervising the scene, probably to keep an eye on what was happening...

The unexpected combination of the religiousness of the worshippers at the shrine and the underground party of Mashad's youths made it a very interesting first stop in Iran.

First pictures from Iran online

2008-10-15T19:01:00.000+03:00

As you may have noticed already, the first few pictures from our maiden steps in Iran are now online. Additionally, the trip tracker has been updated to our current location.

Enjoy!

Crossing to Iran at Badgiran border post

2008-10-15T18:47:00.000+03:00

Crossing the border between Turkmenistan and Iran was the second big cultural frontier on our trip after the China-Kyrgyzstan border (well, Uighurs of Xinjian were in a way also an odd one out). Border officials were once more very polite and friendly on the Turkmenistan side, making this country's borders maybe the nicest one so far to cross. Hanna of course had to cover her head before entering the gate separating the two border posts. Iranian side was also easy; no questions asked, no papers to fill, no money asked and the customs officials seemed to be having a lunch break so no luggage search either (which kind of made us regret for not having stocked up on cheap vodka on Turkmen side).

On the Iranian side we were offered a ride to Mashhad by a charming Iranian businessman returning to Tehran from his company's side office in Ashgabat - there are no direct flights between these two cities so he could only fly to Mashhad. He had been living in Sweden for ten years and we had interesting discussion about life in contemporary Iran. We stopped to have lunch, and he absolutely refused to let us pay our part: "But you are my guests! It is my pleasure!" A warm welcome to Iran, indeed. On arriving in Mashhad, he once more showed us what hospitality means and insisted in paying for the taxi - our resistance was futile.

Just as we got out of the taxi, we bumped into an Iranian lady we had met at the Turkmenistan Embassy in Tashkent: an unbelievable coincidence! She brought us to the hotel where she stayed: a simple but comfortable room on walking distance of the Holy Shire of Imam Reza. She was travelling alone for a year through a great deal of Asian countries, including Afghanistan. With a background and the experience of having worked for over twenty years in the banking sector, she monitors the social and economic situation on a geopolitical level through travels and through living and communicating with the local people (she speaks a staggering 12 languages). With that information, she writes reports for "people with a lot of money, who wish to secure their wealth", thus working as a high-value, low-profile financial advisor. She definitely was one of the most interesting people we met so far!

New pictures and updated trip tracker

2008-10-09T18:16:00.007+03:00

Now we're in Iran, we finally have some time to take it easy. Internet access is not a problem here it seems (as opposed to many places in Central Asia), so we managed to upload some more pictures from Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.
The pictures are unedited and not all of them are great, but they do to give an impression at least.

The trip tracker is also updated to our current location after a long downtime due to Uzbek internet censorship.

Hope you'll enjoy it!

Turkmenistan: the 3 day transit visa dash

2008-10-09T17:29:00.005+03:00

As soon as we got out of the taxi from the border in Turkmenabat, we were (as usually) besieged by taxi drivers. Diverting them by asking if there's a toilet nearby only helped for a minute or so: negotiations were soon undertaking in the (by the way not so inviting) toilets.

Finally, we got a taxi to Ashgabat for 30 USD, which is a fair enough price. The driver was taking his wife to the international airport (she was going on business to Istanbul), and thus acted as an impromptu taxi driver for the day. And why not? It was a pleasant drive across an endless desert, but we had a nice conversation (in "travel Russian", mixed with some local words and a lot of body language) and we ate some nice chicken on the way.

Arriving late in Ashgabat was not really a problem: it's a well-lit city and we easily found our way to the guesthouse we had in mind. Dobranow guesthouse: 20 USD, breakfast and dinner included, nice family: good deal!

The next day, we walked around the city. It is one of the more insane places in the world: Ashgabat is a very modern city, with loads of white marble apartment blocks, impressive palaces, ministries and monuments, golden domes on palaces and theatres - and of course loads of golden statues of the former president Niyazov.
One of the craziest monuments ever must be the "Arch of Neutrality": a 50 m 3-legged concrete arch with a 12 m high golden statue of the president on top. Most interestingly, the statue rotates so that the president always faces the sunlight. Madness.

There are some other crazy sights: a pyramid shaped shopping mall cum waterfall, a 80 m high monument to the independence which resembles a plunger (one of those things you use to unclog a toilet) and an earthquake monument where the golden baby Niyazov sits on top of the world, supported by a bull.

We learned that Turkmenistan is really a weird place. Gas, electricity and water are for free, resulting in people leaving their gas stoves burning all day, leaving lights on as they please and toilets and showers with constant running water being the norm. The plus side is that having a hot shower is a common luxury, but the Turkmen people obviously have never heard of Global Warming...

The streets of Ashgabat are impressively empty: on big lanes and in parks, there are no other people than the ever-present police (friendly police towards us foreigners, but still: they're literally on every corner) - and in parks there are loads of gardeners tending the flowers and mowing the lawns.

However, all people we met were very friendly: bus drivers, post office clerks, shopkeepers, policemen and other officials - but maybe that's mainly because they're utterly unaccustomed to meeting foreigners: Turkmenistan is a very closed country, listed only one place ahead of North-Korea in political unfreedom.

Crossing into Turkmenistan: the Farab border

2008-10-09T16:54:00.005+03:00

In Bukhara, the day before we left the country, we asked around how much a shared taxi to the border (ca. 150 km) would cost. Starting prices were as high as 50 USD, but went down to 30 USD after another tiring negotiation.

Luckily, we had no need for a taxi the next morning as there was a cheap marschrutka taking us to Olot for 2000 som each (less than 2 USD)... In Olot, we took a taxi for the remainder of our sums: an overpriced 8000 sum but there was little option but to take it. Reaching the actual Uzbek border post at Farab involved walking across 2 km of desert, doable on an October morning but still quite hot.

The Uzbek customs was a bit slow but easy enough: we filled out a customs declaration, copying the information of the sheet we filled out when entering. Our details were noted down by another official and we got our exit stamps: that was that.

Another 15 minute walk brought us to the Turkmen border post: a very helpful, surprisingly friendly and straightforward business. We filled out some forms, handed over our passports for inspection and were asked to pay 10 USD entry fee and 2 USD bank fee - some sort of institutionalised bribery, but we got our entry stamps in no time.

It was an easy crossing, but the onward transportation was a bit more problematic. We took a taxi for 10 USD each, which we tought was going to Ashgabat (600 km) - a good and reasonable deal we thought, as gas is dirt cheap in Turkmenistan. When we were in the car however, and about 2 km down the road, we were told the car was only going to Turkmenabat (30 km) for that price. Confusion, some disagreements with the Russian co-passengers but we decided to stay in the car and see what would happen.
Upon arriving, we payed 10 USD for the two of us, still too much but in that kind of situation, you often have little choice...

Itinerary Iran

2008-10-08T07:01:00.000+03:00

Entering Iran near Ashgabat, we head towards the holy city of Mashhad. From there, we head for Tehran, where we intend to meet Hanna's friend Maneli and her family. Continuing South to Kashan, Esfahan and Yadz, we make our way towards Shiraz and the ancient site of Persepolis.

From there, we return to first to Tehran and then head further north towards Qazvin, Zanjan and Tabriz, exiting Iran near Meghri in Armenia.

Timewise, this is quite an ambitious plan, which we very well may have to shorten a bit here and there, as our visa only permits us to stay in the country for 25 days. It's quite likely we'll extend our visa, but we'll see.

Uzbekistan: (fun?) facts

2008-10-06T16:06:00.000+03:00

Some more Central Asian / Uzbek fun facts we came across during our journey:

1. Uzbek people have rows of glistering gold teeth.
2. Tashkent's metro was designed as a nuclear shelter by the Soviets (which means that taking photographs is prohibited) - and each station has a unique design, some of which are truly amazing.
3. In Uzbekistan, you're expected to haggle for everything: in hotels, for taxis, buses, trains, in barbershops, at the market. Fun, but it can be quite tiring.
4. The largest note in Uzbekistan is 1000 sym, which is worth about 0.60 EUR. Changing foreign currency inevitably leaves you with impressive stacks of notes to carry around, making wallets all but useless.
5. The bulk of the Uzbek agriculture exists of cotton plantations (your T-shirts could very well originate in Uzbekistan): the Soviets put up vast irrigation works, tapping water from the Amu-Darya and Sur-Darya rivers. One result of this is the dramatic near-disappearance of the Aral Sea, a massive ecological disaster causing widespread health problems across the region.
6. The 30 km long highway between Khiva and Urgench boasts what is probably one of the longest trolleybus lines in the world.
7. Catching an opera or ballet performance in Tashkent's Alisher Navoi Opera and Ballet Theatre costs as little as 5000 sum (ca. 2.5 EUR).

Central Asian Cuisine

2008-10-04T08:09:00.001+03:00

We were forewarned about this, and it proves to be quite true: the Central Asian culinary experience is not exactly the highlight of our trip.

Sure, after having spent some months in China, which has an interesting and rich cuisine that is however at times quite repugnant for unexperienced Western tastebuds, the recognisable foodstuffs of the "-stans" are quite a relief. The cuisine is however not very refined, with rather dull and often recurring ingredients (potatoes, bread, mutton and onion) and bland tastes. The sometimes creative combinations are quite frightening: ever considered mixing potatoes, rice, buckwheat, ketchup and mayonnaise?

There are influences from the surrounding cuisines: laghman (similar to Chinese noodles), plov (resembling Persian rice pilafs), nan (flat breads found across Asia) and samsa (similar to Indian and South-Asian pastries).

In Kazachstan and Kyrgyzstan, both countries with a long nomadic tradition, the diet consists mainly of meat (often chicken and mutton), milkproducts and bread. Uzbekistan is more influenced by the Turkish cuisine: kebabs, noodles and pasta, shashlyk and breads are some of the staple foods. Across the region, there is also a heavy influence of Russian cuisine: soups (borscht, okroshka), smetana, blini, and kotlety are found in most restaurants.
Drinks of course include tea (green and black tea being most popular), beers and the inevitable vodka.

In most restaurants, especially in smaller towns, service is of the ex-Soviet standard: we've encountered plenty of waitresses happily watching television only to be disturbed by our uninvited presence.
The food itself is rarely really inviting: you often get luke-warm dishes, fatty bits of meat and uninspiring cucumber and tomato salads. Of course, we haven't exactly been dining out in the more upscale restaurants in town. We often found that homemade food (dining in guesthouses where we stayed) or food bought at streetside stalls was a much better deal, both in taste and value.

An amazing museum in the middle of the Kyzylkum desert

2008-10-02T07:35:00.000+03:00

The best museum we've seen so far on our trip, and for that matter probably one the best in Central-Asia, is the Savitsky Karakalpakstan State Art Museum. It is located in one of the most impossible places in the world: in remote and otherwise unimpressive Nukus, the capital of Uzbekistan's westernmost province of Karakalpakstan.

Most impressive is its outstanding collection of Russian Soviet-era avant-garde art, forbidden by the Communist Party but safely put up in this backward outpost by Igor Vitalyevich Savitsky (presumably even with support from local authorities). There's also a quite interesting section on local history and craft work from the Karakalpak region.

If you ever happen to pass by, don't give it a miss!

Uzbekistan: Historic Sites at a relaxed pace

2008-10-02T07:01:00.003+03:00

After a few weeks of moving rather fast across Kyrgyzstan and Kazachstan, we decided to take it a bit easier in Uzbekistan, also because we had to wait for the Turkmen transit visa anyway.

Tashkent is quite a nice place, although there aren't really any "sights" that are absolutely necessary to see: there are some medrasses and mosques, the obligatory Soviet-era concrete showcase buildings and giant empty squares and parks, but none of that makes Tashkent very impressive.
It is however a quite easy-going place, which feels safe (at least during the day) and it just is a good place to learn a bit how the Uzbeks go out and about doing their business. And the metro is a wonderful place!

Samarkand is quite something else: it is probably the most touristy place we've come across (except perhaps Xi'An in China), but with the Registan and the Shah-i-Zinda it does contain some of the most moving sights of Central-Asia and definitely is a "must-see" for anyone with even the slightest interest in historical sites.
We stayed for about a week in Samarkand, taking in the monuments at a very relaxed pace and just lingering about in the town. We stayed at a good-value backpacker hangout bed and breakfast (Bahodir B&B), met some nice people and just relaxed and worked on our laziness skills.
Floris finally had his beard tidied up just opposite the Registan: relaxing, fun and cheap!

From Samarkand, we took a night train to Nukus in the far West. The train was cheap but otherwise not a huge success: travelling through the desert with a window that didn't close properly made it a sandy and cold ride. In Nukus, we saw the impressive art museum (see later post) before moving on to Khiva.

Khiva was well worth seeing because of its definite charm, history and moving architectural sights. It was however a bit empty: the old town is reserved exclusively for tourism with tour groups roaming the streets and shopkeepers trying to sell them their souvenirs.

Then, another haul through the endless Kyzylkum desert to Bukhara, where we stayed overnight just to take the train to Tashkent the following morning, to pick up our Turkmen visa. We just had a short stroll around Bukhara, but we're going back there later this week to see the town properly, before crossing into our last "-stan".

Turkmenistan, here we come!

2008-10-01T16:12:00.004+03:00

Ladies and Gentlemen: "We've got it!"

Obtaining the visa hasn't been easy: it took us 5 visits to the embassy, 8 hours of queueing and waiting in hot sunshine and cold showers and a total of 80 USD, but we finally got our transit visas for the "North Korea of Central Asia".

It's only a 3-day transit visa, so actually seeing something in Ashgabat will have to be in an unusual rush, but we're very happy with this as this means that we will reach our aim of crossing overland!

Samarkand: artistic impression

2008-09-26T08:09:00.000+03:00

As we took it easy in Samarkand, Floris had plenty of time to make a sketch of the famous Registan. The real thing is even more impressive!

The Turkmenistan Visa

2008-09-25T08:20:00.001+03:00

The only visa we weren't able to get in Shanghai (apart from those after Iran, which should present no problems) is the Turkmen visa. The guidebook and other travellers assured us that Tashkent is the best bet to get a transit visa.

We went to the embassy early in the morning to put our name on a waiting list: we thought we were there at 7 a.m., but that turned out to be 6 a.m. as our watches were still on Kazakh time. Listed as number 10, we were urged to come back to apply for the visa at 11 a.m.

Of course, this list used by the Uzbek guards turned out to be little more than a joke: the only real way of getting in the embassy is paying them (we heard 10 USD) or just being very patient. We opted for the last option, meaning we queued outside for over 1,5 hour in a blazing midday sun.

Other people had different strategies, the best of which was the one used by an elderly Uzbek woman: she used her full weight and her impressive bozom to literally brush the rather embarrassed guards aside. The guards didn't really know what to do with such a theatre, and she did manage to get in before us.

About 15 minutes before closing, we managed to get inside the embassy as well and we frantically started filling out those long-awaited application forms. We applied for a 5 day transit visa, entering on the 9th of October. According to our application, we will stay in some of the best hotels the country has to offer (Grand Turkmen Hotel and Ashgabat Palace or something of that sort) and use mainly taxis for transportation. We will take the southern transit route (Bukhara-Turkmenabat-Mary-Ashgabat). Just after we handed over our forms, 2 copies of our passport and 2 passport pictures, the office closed - even as there were still people filling out forms. Moreover, there were people who didn't manage to get in at all.

Next week, we are going back for another day of queueing and waiting - and hopefully also actually getting that visa.

The Kazakh-Uzbek border

2008-09-24T12:24:00.003+03:00

From Shymkent, we departed quite early in the morning towards Tashkent. We were lucky to meet up with a Brtish couple who were also heading there, so we could team up for a marshrutka (400T p.p. or ca. 2,5 EUR), meaning we could leave almost right away. The British man spoke some Russian, which would prove very useful later on.

For some unknown reason, the border post we intended to cross was closed. Our driver agreed to take us further to another station, but it turned out that was only for local traffic (Uzbeks and Kazakhs only). We were then proposed to take another taxi (500T p.p.) to yet another border station some 60 km further away, of course for a fee.

We weren't really sure what to make of the whole story, of closed borders and this mysterious border corssing further away, also because this wasn't indicated on any of our maps. But we decided to take the taxi there nonetheless, on the condition that we'd only pay if that border was actually open for foreigners.
And indeed, less than half an hour later, we found ourselves at this border crossing an we could cross.

On the Kazakh side, customs was a joke: the officer jut asked "You have gun?", "You have drugs?", to which we of course replied negatively. We then got our stamps on our visa right away at the immigration control, and made our way to the Uzbek side (about 10 minute's walk through no man's land).
The Uzbek side had a relaxed feel to it: the immgration officials were joking with each other, kindly wrestling and really taking it easy. It took them some time to realise Belgium was a country ("Belgi-Anglia?" "Bulgaria?" - "No, Belgium is an independent country, in Europe!"), but then everything went just fine. The Uzbek customs were a bit more of a challenge as the forms (to be filled out in twofold) were exclusively inRussian. Luckily, the British guy understood most of it so we succeeded to clear that obstacle as well.

Getting onward transport from the border to the Tashkent metro meant a lot of haggling and negotiating the price, but the 25000 Sum (ca. 24 USD) we eventually paid between the four of us was not that unfair.

So in all, we didn't have any real problems, just inconveniences. Other travellers were more unlucky, however. Some stories:

The British couple hadn't registered in Kazachstan (tourists must register in an immigration office within 5 days of entering the country overland) so they ended up paying a "fine" of 29 USD each (the fine started off at 100 USD).
A Swiss couple we met had the same problem, sorting it out for 50 USD.
An American man was asked for the headphones of his MP3-player at the Kazakh customs by the first official, and for the player itself by another. His passport was also held hostage by an immigration officer, who only gave it back for a 10 USD bribe.
A Swiss motercyclist was asked for money because he was "illegally" walking on no man's land.

In general, it's quite possible to cross borders hassle-free, if you act cool enough. Some advice:

Have your paperwork right. Make sure your visas are correct, check if the entry stamp is there, keep the registration forms and anything remotely looking official - anything wrong with your documents practically is an open invitation to get fined.
Pretend you don't understand any Russian or local language. Temporarily lose your English-speaking abilities if necessary.
Don't (openly) change money on the illegal black market. Often, there are money changers hanging around, within sight of officials. This is an offence, and may very well lead to a bribe (the loot probably being shared between the moneychanger and the official).
Don't explain anything that you haven't been asked.
Have some time to spare. Usually, if you refuse to pay up or oblige to their (unjust) orders, they will let you go if you just wait long enough.
If asked to show your money, first refuse but if they insist - count it first and keep a close eye on it.
If "fined", ask for a receipt and/or ask to see their superior. They usually don't like that.

We only have one Central-Asian border to cross, but so far we steered clear of any problems. Let's hope our good luck continues!

Tashkent metro: artistic impression

2008-09-24T09:01:00.001+03:00

Taking pictures in Tashkent's metro is prohibited because it is constructed as a nuclear shelter, but the metro is truly charming: each station has a different design and these are often amazing.

Shown below is Floris's impression of the Cosmonaut station, where tribute is paid to the Soviet space program and its heroes.

The metro is one of the few places in Uzbekistan where foreigners are often requested to show their passport, although we haven't been bothered with that (yet).

Kazakhstan: fun facts

2008-09-23T17:16:00.000+03:00

We learned by now that most of the fun facts are similar between the Central Asian states (most of them probably ex-Soviet fun facts for that matter), but here are some we came across in Kazakhstan:

1. In bakeries (patisseries), you find pastries, sweets, cakes and... sausages.
2. The Kazakhs queue in a peculiar way: one talks to a person who is already queueing, upon which he/she is allowed to queue behind the person he/she started talking to. Leaving your place in line doesn't mean you lose your place: it's very common that someone claims to have been here "much before you"...
3. Ordering coffee without explicitly mentioning you don't want sugar, leaves you with a mug of sugar with some coffee in it. The Central Asians like their coffee extremely sweet!
4. Miss Universe 2008 will be held in Almaty, Kazakhstan - and it's quite easy to understand why: there are a lot of gorgeous women in the streets of Almaty. (Of course, travelling together with Miss Finland makes Floris a mere observer of this fact...)
5. In marshrutkas, people hurriedly give small notes to the driver when being pulled over by the police, to pay for the "traffic fines" (/bribes). But fair is fair: these bribes are deducted from the taxi fare.
6. Everyone in the whole of Central Asia seems to carry plastic bags with the marking "A&C Aygen Collection - styled in Italy".
7. Despite decades of Soviet rule, it's quite common to see people wear T-shirts with "CCCP" on them or hear Soviet Anthem in ringtones.

The Kazachstan Experience

2008-09-23T16:33:00.005+03:00

Some time passed already since the last update on our travel experiences. A quick resume of our undertakings in Kazachstan.

In Shymkent, where according to our guidebook, there was supposed to be a "wonderful, amazing, splendid" bazaar, we found this very bazaar closed and deserted. The town is charming enough, but with few "sight-like" places of interest. We comforted ourselves with a very nice Turkish-style dinner to make up for that. Later, we found the bazaar anyway: it had moved out of the city and wasn't all that interesting after all.

From Shymkent we made a daytrip to nearby Sayram, one of the oldest settlements in Kazachstan, which boasts some ancient architecture. Getting there proved to be quite a challenge: even though Shymkent hosts hundreds of minibusses, none of these goes to Sayram. We mistakingly ended up taking a minibus to Sayram Street and were dropped litterally in the middle of nowhere. As a heavenly gift, we got on an intercity bus passing there. Sayram has some mosques, a minaret and a mausoleum, but we'll probably better remember the quite tasty birch sap softdrink and a Hoopoe we spotted.

Later, we made an overnight trip to Turkistan, where Kazachstan's most impressive man-made monument stands. The huge mausoleum of Yasaui (a Sufi teacher), surrounded with a charming rose garden. Not touristy at all and a wonderful place to just sit and relax. From there, we went to the sandy ruins of Sauran, a Silk Road settlement in the middle of the desert of which practially only the walls are still standing. Impressive enough, but as more often in this kind of place, looking for remains of pottery, tilework and mosaic and chasing weird desert creatures was much more fun than trying to find out where the old city gates might have been.

Back in Turkistan, we drove to Shymkent and further on to Uzbekistan.

New pictures

2008-09-23T16:28:00.003+03:00

Some new pictures have been added to the Central Asia slideshow for your viewing. We apologise to the people with slower connections for the sometimes huge image-files: rediging images on these crappy internet-cafe pc's just is too cumbersome.

Updating the Trip Tracker is currently not possible: apparently, Uzbek censorship blocks Google Maps...

Kazachstan: artistic impression

2008-09-23T09:49:00.001+03:00

Floris's artistic period isn't quite over yet: marvel at his impression of Kazachstan!

It has it all: sheep and camels, an islamic mausoleum, a small whirlwind, big cities, an othodox cathedral, semi-desert plains, mountains, a park with some statue and both conservatively dressed and more "Russian-style" women.

Kyrgyzstan: artistic impression

2008-09-22T16:35:00.004+03:00

Kyrgyzstan may already be thousands of kilometers behind us, but it's never too late to let you share Floris's artistic impression of this beautiful country. It's probably called "naivistic art", but let's just admit that he can't actually do much better...

Note the bilingual (Finnish-Dutch) sheep!

Itinerary Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan

2008-09-22T16:23:00.001+03:00

We entered Uzbekistan near Tashkent, continue towards Samarkand, Nukus, Urgench and Kiva. Maybe we'll make a round trip to Moynaq and the Aral Sea (depending on how easy it is and what it would cost). From there, we'll travel back to Tashkent to (hopefully) collect our Turkmen visa. Then, we head to Bukhara and cross into Turkmenistan near Turkmenabat. With our 5-day transit visa for Turkmenistan, we stop in Mary (Merv) and Ashgabat.

(It's not exactly like shown on the map, but hey.)
All this (Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan) will take us about one month.

Update

2008-09-20T16:54:00.000+03:00

Yes, we're still around. Since Thursday in Uzbekistan, currenty in Samarkand - still having a good time.

Finding an internetcafe has been quite difficult lately, and connections are dead slow: there are some more pictures and drawings coming up, as soon as we find a somewhat faster connection...

Pictures and trip tracker

2008-09-13T16:09:00.003+03:00

The trip tracker is updated to our current location and there are some new pictures from Kyrgyzstan and Kazachstan in the new slideshow.

Enjoy!

Kazakhstan: no sign of Borat

2008-09-11T12:09:00.008+03:00

For those of you who have been unlucky enough to see the movie "Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan", be advised that this has absolutely nothing to do with the Kazakhstan of 2008: it is a modern and quite prosperous country. Almaty, the main city in the south, is a European-style city with broad boulevards and Western shopping malls. There are more mercedeses and BMW's than Lada Nivas; the only Lada we've seen so far being a police car...

Crossing the border between Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan was as easy as it gets around here: we rushed out Kyrgyzstan through a brand new EU-financed Kyrgyz border post, and after some pushing and "Kazakh-style" queueing, we found ourselves in the land of the endless steppes.

Finding accomodation in Almaty proved somewhat of a headache: budget options are scarce, the available ones being terribly overpriced ex-soviet apartment blocks with bare rooms without bathrooms, beds with dirty sheets and security as loose as an untamed horse. Paying over 20 EUR for a hole like that is a complete rip-off, so we decided to upscale our accomodation a bit: we found a comfortable homestay for about 40 EUR per night (still very expensive), but with all facilities: clean sheets on a good bed, tidy bathroom with hot water, fully-equipped kitchen, TV and DVD and washing machine. After a month in cheap dormitories, we thought we deserved a bit of comfort.

But it's a nice city, with friendly and helpful people (opening your guidebook prompts the locals to offer assistance), quite a few nice sights (Russian-Orthodox cathedrals, parks, museums,...), so we're having a good time here.

Some fun facts on Kyrgyzstan

2008-09-11T12:09:00.003+03:00

Having left the Kyrgyz Republic, this is a good time for a few general impressions and facts on the country.

1. In Osh, Jalal-Abad and Bishkek, the roads and pavements are littered with uncovered holes and sewer-entrances. Not a nice place for blind people, and frustrating for car drivers.
2. Kyrgyzstan must be one of the few countries in the world to have a a currency denomination of 3 som.
3. The flag of Kyrgyzstan displays a tunduk (seen from below), the crown of a yurt, the traditional nomadic house of the Kyrgyz people.
4. Most of the vans, minibusses and trucks in the country are second-hand models from European countries: it's very common to see a truck, marked with "Schmidt Obst und Gemuese, Hannover, Deutschland" crawling up a mountain pass.
5. Inter-city taxi drivers stop at seemingly random places along the way to buy large amounts of tomatoes, melons and other greenstuff, which they sell to merchants in the city of destination.
6. Alcohol is dirt cheap. A bottle of vodka costs about 180 som (ca. 3.5 EUR), a beer being relatively more expensive at a price of 60 som. The results of this are obvious: the streets and parks are littered with drunkards.
7. Any car on the road is a potential taxi, but negotating prices is a cumbersome experience. A rule of thumb to estimate the price to pay is as follows. Calculate the distance, multiply with ca. 10 l gas per 100 km and multiply with the price of gas per liter (about 35 som); then add about 200 som for the service. Divide this with 4 seats, and you have your price per seat.

The Belgian Passport Breakdown

2008-09-08T10:29:00.008+03:00

It is not only Kyrgyz trucks and cars that keep falling apart: it also happens to the newly designed Belgian passports...

In the latest design of the passport, there is a plastic security sheet in front of the name page. This plastic page of Floris's passport (issued only in may this year) started to crack at the edge when we were in Kashgar, but we managed to cross the Chinese-Kyrgyz border without any difficulties.
Meanwhile, of course, with every passport check that page is breaking up more and more, and now it is nearly completely ripped off. As we imagine that travelling overland in this part of the world, which is still troubled by "overzealous officials", with a broken passport could get us into some trouble. Trouble, such as: being refused to cross international land borders, being halted and harassed by local police, being accused of staying illegally in the country,... So we contacted the Belgian authorities in the region about this problem.

We were advised by the issuing consulate in Shanghai to get a letter from a Belgian consulate, stating that the passport is still valid as it is, which should steer us clear from any problems.

But that things are easier said than done is once again proven by the following sequence of events:

From information obtained on official Belgian websites, there didn't seem to be a Belgian consulate in Kyrgyzstan.
We went to the German embassy in Bishkek, which handles some matters for EU citizens, but they couldn't help us, as they have no authority to fix non-German passports.
Later, when we were in Kochkor, we received the contact details from the newly opened Belgian honorary consulate in Bishkek. The consul was very friendly and helpful, receiving us even on Sunday.
The consul would write us a letter confirming the validity of the passport, but he couldn't validate it with an official stamp... as he hadn't received the consular stamps from Brussels yet! He had been waiting for it for a couple of months, but "it would be arriving soon".
He couldn't type such a letter, as at the moment we were there, there was the usual power cut in this residential block, so he had to hand-write it.
He wanted to copy his authentication as a consul and attach this to the letter, but as there was no power in his office, we followed him around to a still-powered copy shop around the corner.
Armed with this letter and his credentials, which he advised us not to try to cross international borders with (as there was no official stamp on it), we parted with the consul. He advised us to wait in Bishkek until the stamp arrived from Brussels.
The next day, we called the embassy in Astana (Kazachstan), asking if they could maybe compose such a letter (with a stamp) and fax that to the consul in Bishkek. The embassy in Astana was very helpful and happy to do that.
Just as we sent out an email to Astana with a copy of Floris's passport, we received an email from the consul in Bishkek that the stamp had arrived...

So we only had to wait a couple of days longer than we anticipated, and with this letter (which we will collect this afternoon), we shouldn't have any passport-related problems further on our itinerary. We're in the Happy Zone!

It is also interesting to note that the consul gave us some "unofficial advice", including pointing us to a shop in an underground passageway where we could buy a completely new passport, offering to laminate that page of the passport and giving tips on how to fix it with a bit of scotch-tape. To put it in his words: "This is a crazy part of the world, so you have to do a few crazy things here". Comment duly noted...

For other travellers: the contact details for the Belgian Honorary Consulate in Bishkek (for some reason not stated on the diplobel-website) are:

209-A Tynystanov Street
720040 Bishkek
tel. +996 312 900 100
mobile: +996 (0) 775 58 18 18
e-mail: n.aldashev@lorenz-law.com
web: www.lorenz-law.com

Still around in Kyrgyzstan

2008-09-08T08:25:00.008+03:00

Getting on the web is not the easiest of things in Kyrgyzstan: Internet cafes are few and far between and even if you happen to find one, power cuts occur frequently. In fact, in all major cities we travelled to, the power was cut at intervals of up to 6 hours a day, and in some places even the water supply was suspended for a long time.

After Jalal-Abad, we drove to Bishkek, where we stayed for a day. It's not really the most fascinating city, with few 'sights' as such. Sure, there is the obligatory Lenin statues and ex-Soviet squares, but it's not particularly charming. The museum was probably the most interesting experience, being mostly devoted to Lenin and the Soviet propaganda with sculptures and paintings depicting the Russian revolution and the advancement of the great Communist cause and Soviet strive for world peace. Hundreds of pages of Lenin's notes were also displayed. We were of course unable to really understand them, but it seems Lenin had a habit of making frantic pencil drawings in the edges of his notebooks during boring meetings.

The city has quite a different feel than the cities down south in the country: there are considerably more Russians, far less Muslims and in it has somewhat of an unsafe feel to it (not that we encountered any problems): there are youths hanging around in the streets and the city is badly lit at night.

First of September was also the first day of Ramadan. Hanna, with her experience from more devout Muslim countries, has been almost shocked to see that Ramadan goes largely unnoticed at least here in the Northern Kyrgyzstan. Kyrgyz men still start drinking vodka from 10 a.m., everybody smokes and restaurants are open and busy from morning till evening. But the price of sheep is on the rise: the taxi driver who brought us back from the mountains bought one to be slaughtered at Eid Al Fitr, end of the month, bringing it back to town under the trunk of the taxi - it fitted perfectly in the place of the spare tyre and only protested at the worst bumps with a soft "ba-a-aa". The price was 2000 soms (approximately 40 EUR). We also enquired about the price of other animals. A donkey is cheaper than a sheep. "Of course. Donkey no eat!"

From Bishkek, we headed to Kochkor, from where we went up to lake Song-Kol, to have a bit of a walk in nature, high up in the mountains (3500 m), with pastures full of horses, sheep, cows and donkeys. We slept in a yurt, the traditional nomadic home of the Kyrgyz people.

The scenery was great - mountains on the one side, lake on the other - but the weather was not really optimal: we started our with a clear sky, but as the day advanced, the sky darkened, with rain and a cool breeze. The night in the yurt was quite an experience: it was very cold, even when covered with thick blankets. The following day, as we were walking back along the lake, the sky got dark grey and just before we got in the taxi, it started to rain melting snow. As we were not at all equipped to stay in the mountains with this kind of cold weather, we decided to head back to Bishkek, thus abandoning a part of our planned itinerary.

So now we are back in Bishkek again, resting for a few days in a nice and relaxed travellers guesthouse (Nomad's Home, behind the Eastern Buss station, Drevesnaya street, fourth house on the left. Best deal in town.), where the main topic of discussion seems to be the horrible authorities refusing to issue visas. Chinese are by far the most cursed - as we have already mentioned, it is virtually impossible to get a tourist visa to China at the moment. A shitty situation for many overland travellers. Beijing Olympics seem to work like a means to transfer tourism income from the already poorer Western China to the wealthy Peking area; it's end of the high season and the hotels and restaurants in most of the country have been empty since July, meaning that many a family in the Western China will have to tighten their belts until next summer - when hopefully no international event will give the Chinese authorities a reason to use this kind of draconian measures.

One World, One Dream - Getting a Chinese visa.

Retrospective: 10 fun facts about China

2008-09-06T07:58:00.003+03:00

Some "weird facts" about China, as seen from a Westerner's point of view.

1. You can get hot drinking water nearly anywhere, but getting cold water is much more difficult.
2. Hotels seem to believe that every customer is a potential thief: a deposit of (often) double the room rate is requested and on leaving, the room is thoroughly checked before returning the deposit.
3. In advertisements, sexy Lolitas don't lick a lolly pop, but chew a chicken foot.
4. Older people do all kinds of funny exercises while walking on the street: they make swimming movements with the hands or clap them alternating in front of and behind their back. People also dance in the street, both to traditional and modern music.
5. The "One China" policy means that there is only one time zone for the whole country (Beijing Time), meaning it's still light at 22:00 and still dark at 8:00 in Xinjiang, the westernmost province.
6. All Chinese television programmes are subtitled, as there is one written Chinese language, with many spoken dialects.
7. People run around in their nightgowns (sometimes including slippers) on the street, so you can easily spot a man wearing a teddy bear imprinted pyjamas in a cafe. The Chinese even seem to export this habit: we saw Chinese people in Osh doing exactly this.
8. Small children don't wear diapers, but trousers with an opening in the middle. Children freely do their toilet everywhere on the street.
9. On markets, living animals are sold by the kilo: fishes, frogs, tortoises and prawns are scooped up from their containers and put in plastic bags.
10. Every now and then, you can spot a whole squadron of waiters and waitresses standing in position, receiving orders at the start of their duty. This sometimes includes a run around the block in formation, the waitresses of course wearing high heels...

Back-Packed

2008-08-31T10:38:00.003+03:00

Finally, we manage to upload the drawing Floris made back in Shanghai. A visual inventory of the items in the backpack. The iPod has already mysteriously disappeared (probably forgotten in some Youth Hostel) and new conents are a new cheap and 'not so ugly' long-sleeved jacket, a pair of slippers and a felt hat. Most of the books we took from Shanghai have already been traded with other travellers for new reading material.

The extremely cool guy is of course Floris, the main difference being there's now a full beard.

Osh, Jalal-Abad and around

2008-08-31T06:33:00.000+03:00

Arriving late in Osh meant we had to find a place to sleep in a badly lit, unknown town. We fished out our Lonely Planet from our backpacks and asked a taxi driver to drive us to some of the hotels in town. Most of them turned out to be fully booked, so we ended up in an extremely overpriced Soviet style hotel: there was no hot water, no electricity after midnight, we got locked out the first night (we managed to break in though) and nobody cleaned our room, perhaps not even before we took it.

Osh was a nice city, however: quite small for the country's second biggest town, but with an interesting bazaar, where we found some nice handicrafts (slippers and two hats). As there aren't really overly interesting "sights" in the city, we basically walked around a bit in the bazaar, the park and through the charming, tree-lined avenues.

The population is very diverse, with a majority of Uzbeks, a large Kyrgyz minority and quite a lot of Russians and other ethnicities.

The next day, we headed for Jalal-Abad, the third biggest city in Kyrgyzstan, but with only about 75000 inhabitants very laid back and relaxed. Through the Community Based Tourism association, we found a delightful homestay with a local family. A very clean room in a charming house with a shadowy courtyard, and with hot water!

Here, we took it easy, just looking around the bazaar, which is nice enough but not as big nor as interesting as Osh' or Kashgars bazaars. We also headed to a local rundown sanatorium and healing water spring the next day. The sanatorium was closed and the spring water was disgustingly warm and salty - not a true success in all.
On Saturday, we headed to Arslanbob, a farmers village in the nearby mountains, famous for its walnut forests. We had a walk near the river up to a waterfall which we never reached. Hanna saved some strange bugs from drowning and Floris made a small dam - both not very successful at that by the way.

We intended to leave on Sunday morning, and opted for a shared minibus (marshrutka) to Bishkek. The driver told us we would leave as soon as there were 3 or 4 more passengers, but even after having 6 extra we hadn't left yet. As it was running late already, and with a long drive ahead (10 to 15 hours), we got upset with the driver for the disinformation and left the car.

So, if all goes well, we leave for Bishkek on Monday 01.09.

The bordercrossing at Irkeshtam

2008-08-27T15:41:00.002+03:00

We left Kashgar early morning on Monday 25 august. Early, because the border opens at 10 a.m. and there are long queues if you arrive later. We arranged a taxi to the Chinese side of the border for 500 RMB, which is a good deal (travel agencies asked between 600 and 900 RMB...)

The drive up to Irkeshtam was amazing: through mountainous desert, dotted with donkeys, camels and security checkposts. After a thrilling 4 hour drive on a near-empty highway, we arrived at the Chinese border.

The border formalities were very straightforward: at the Chinese side, customs clearance and immigration took about 10 minutes, without any troubles at all. An official then put us on a Chinese truck to cover the distance to the Kyrgyz checkpoint. A brief passport check later, we could walk further to the quarantaine, customs and immigration office. It was a bit disorganised but straightforward enough: we just handed over our passports and got them back in a few minutes, stamped and everything. One final registration later, we found ourselves in Kyrgyzstan.

The next goal was to find onwards transport to Osh or Sary Tash. That proved to be somewhat more of a challenge: there is no organised transport at all, so we walked around a bit until we were addressed by a very friendly Uzbek truckdriver, who would take us. But first, we could change some money and eat something (a nice bouillon).

So we waited and waited, because the driver kept on postponing his hour of departure - later, it turned out he was waiting for his cargo (as we had no common language, communication was the usual smiling and hand signs). We had a look around in the settlement, and we judged it to be one of the most crazy places in the world: there were houses made of containers, fueltanks and old railway carriages, and the place was littered with broken cars and trucks. The only "toilet" in town consisted of a shed with two planks - a delightful place without lighting, reserved only for women...

We looked around for other transport, but driver of the the single Lada Niva in town asked a ridiculous price of 70 USD per person, so we waited more. Eventually, our truck driver informed us that we would leave the following day, meaning we'd have to overnight there. He was obviously a bit uneasy about the postponement, and he and his wife Sonja were very hospitable and put us up for the night.
After a good supper of noodles, we talked some more with our hosts and went to sleep.

The next morning around 11 a.m., we set off in a Kyrgyz "Kamaz"-truck. Two reasonably straightforward checkpoints later, we were at last on our way to Osh...

The drive was splendid, with magnificent views on the Pamir plateau. Rivers, snow-capped mountain peaks, grassland with horses and yurts - simply splendid! The road was however in a complete state of disrepair: unpaved, sandy, full of holes... This caused the truck to have 6 (!) flat tyres in 30 km, which we covered in about 6 hours. We were happy to find other transport on the road: a car picked us up for 500 som each.

Late that night, we finally arrived in Osh after a full day's travelling.

New pictures

2008-08-24T18:14:00.002+03:00

Just managed to upload a few more pictures to the webalbum, mainly from fascinating Kashgar. Enjoy!

Kashgar, where minorities form the majority

2008-08-24T15:12:00.003+03:00

After a great, comforable but long train journey through vast plains and deserts, we arrived in Kashgar, in the far western end of China, on Friday morning. It doesn't really feel like China, though: the vast majority of the people here are Uighurs, an Islamic people from Turkic origin. There are also Tajiks, Kyrgyz, Pakistani and here and there an odd Chinese. Most people also dress quite traditionally here: women wearing all sorts of colourful dresses and scarfs, men cheap but rather neat vests with traditional hats and children just about anything that fits them.

We stayed in the Chinibagh Hotel, a rather run-down but cheap and nice enough hotel on the grounds of the former British consulate, where we had a room with airco, TV and cockroaches for 70 RMB. After freshening up a bit, we went into the city, where we got even more enthusiastic about the place: the Friday prayer was just starting, and a lot of people where out and about.
We found the old town, the part of the city that has not yet given way to modernity (/ has not been Sinified), especially charming, with small streets, loads of children cheerfully running around, old women chattering on the pavement and chickens sprinting up and down courtyards, waiting to be slaughtered. It is by the way quite obvious that the Chinese one-child policy doesn't apply here: there are children most everywhere.

The city has a long-standing reputation as a trading post, on the crossroads between major east-west and north-south trading routes. This is most clearly evident in the Sunday market, but also on other days there is a lot of activity: people forge knives, make kitchenware, jewelry or music instruments, weave carpets and prepare all kinds of delicious-smelling food. Of course, we eagerly sampled the local cuisine: we had some of the best chicken we had ever, wonderful mutton-filled buns from street stalls and we ate yogurt with honey, drank Pakistani milk tea and tasted weird fruits.

On Sunday, we went to the Sunday market: a mind-bogging place where literally everything is for sale: clothes, scarfs, kitchenware, jewelry, knives, all kinds of traditional hats, bags, shoes, boots, tools,... There must have been tens of thousands of people, selling and buying, chatting and eating, with salesmen from the wider Kashgar region bringing their goods to the market on donkey-carts, camels, motor cycles, bikes, cars, trucks - anything with legs or wheels, really. It is a million times more charming than your average western-style supermarket!
The other market in town, the animal market, was even more interesting. Thousands of locals (mainly men) were fiercely negotiating the price of a couple of goats, lifting bleating sheep on a cramped back of a donkey-cart, test-driving horses and donkeys and inspecting cows with an expert eye. The peope-to-animal ratio must have been around one to one, making it the biggest animal market either of us has ever witnessed.

When we were in Kashgar, there were very few other travellers. The tourist infrastructure (bars, hotels,...) could easily accomodate a tenfold of the current amount of tourists. This is mainly due to China's visa policy, making it more difficult for westerners to visit China during the Olympics. However, there are also very few Chinese travellers here, probably (from what we heared) out of a media-induced fear for terrorist attacks. (A fear, by the way, that is completely unfounded.)

Tomorrow morning, Monday, we leave early by taxi to the Irkeshtam pass, from where we will cross into Kyrgyzstan. Local travel agencies asked ridiculously steep prices of up to 900RMB for a taxi, but we arranged one for 500RMB. We should, if all goes well, arrive in Osh tomorrow evening.

Urumqi and the Kyrgyz visa

2008-08-20T16:26:00.001+03:00

The capital of Xinjiang province, Urumqi, is quite like any other big Chinese city, the main difference being that a considerable part of the population consists of ethnic minorities: Uyghurs, Hui, Kazachs and Kyrgyz.

The highrise, smoke-stacked itself isn't very inviting and even with placates in the People's Park advocating its beauty, it is an alltogether depressing place.

However, we found a very nice hostel on the advice of Jenny, a very friendly Chinese girl we met on the train from Dunhuang. Maitian International Youth Hostel, cheap accomodation and an open travellers' atmosphere; a good place to relax for a few days. Here we met Francois, a French teacher who gave us valuable information on crossing the Kyrgyz border, and Samantha, a nice English student who travels across Xinjiang after working at the Beijing Olympics.

The best thing about Urumqi is that we got our Kyrgyz visas: the small consulate hidden away not too far from the hostel was able to provide these in three days, be it at a high rate: a hefty 952RMB.. But with this, we'll be in Kashgar by the end of this week, meaning we'll just on schedule for the Sunday Market, which is supposed to be one of the most interesting ones in Asia.. Our expectations are running high on that market event: the ones we saw so far in China have been quite an experience as well, with all kinds of animals being sold: chickens, crabs, fish, frogs, turtoises, birds and squid. Add some colourful vegetable and fruits stalls and fragrant spices, and there you have your average Chinese market.

Tomorrow, we leave for Kasgar in the far end of Xinjiang province, near Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Pakistan. We managed to get us two sleepers, after queueing for ages in a packed train station (actually, Floris queued, Hanna judging herself to be still too weak to face the crowds). It's a 24 hour ride, but we have quite comfortable lower berths and a table for playing cards (if we can agree on the rules, that is).

After these two weeks of rushing through China, we will lower our pace and hopefully won't be doing too much overnight travelling anymore. When we leave China, we will have covered roughly one third of our total mileage. So far (up to Urumqi), we have spent about 54 hours, or 4300 km, on trains...

Slideshow and trip tracker

2008-08-20T11:16:00.002+03:00

Just a small note to attract your attention to it: we finally managed to upload some pictures. For a visual update, have a look at the slideshow on the right (if you click it, it should go full screen).

The trip tracker, the map-tool roughly indicating the route we followed and the places we halted, is also updated.

Enjoy!

Dunhuang and the Iron Curtain

2008-08-20T10:15:00.009+03:00

After arriving in Dunhuang from Jiayuguan on an early slow train, we went to Johng's Guesthouse, a very nice, good-value guesthouse with the quite spectacular sand dunes and camels just nextdoor.

Hanna was feeling a bit sick, so we just had a walk around the guesthouse. Strangely enough, we found that the sand dunes had actually been fenced off, and a bit further down the road we discovered an entrance gate, where tourists are supposed to cough up a steep 120RMB to get access. It didn't feel overly touristy (mainly Chinese tourists, with only the odd Westerner), but handicraft stalls and obligatory camel ride expeditions were of course part of the deal.
We of course didn't pay to get in. We decided to walk along the fence, and a few hundred meters off, away from guards and boys scouting for intruders, we managed to slip underneath the fence and get our free, be it short, original sand dune experience.

The next day, Hanna was not feeling too well, so Floris went to the Mogao caves alone. The 492 caves near this important Silk Route oasis contain ancient Buddhist art, spanning a period of about 1000 years, most of them dating from the Tang dynasty era.
Access to the caves was not cheap (180RMB p/p, including a mandatoy English Guide), but the site definitely is interesting and of immense cultural importance.

From Dunhuang, we took a very comfortable, quiet nighttrain to Urumqi, deep in China's vast Xinjiang province.

Jiayuguan and the Fake Wall

2008-08-20T09:09:00.008+03:00

In Jiayuguan, which is far less touristy than Xi'An, we stayed the rather rundown "Youth Hotel". The rooms weren't exactly superb, but costed only 40RMB per night per person (= about 4 euros) - a good deal. The atmosphere was a bit grim: the knowledge that rooms could also be rent by the hour should give you an idea why. But after having spoken with other travellers, it still seems one of the best budget options in town.

We didn't stay too long in the hotel, and had a look around in the town. There was a local market, with the usual fruits, vegetables, chickens and food stalls. Here we had a tasty dinner in a local restaurant: very spicy mutton- and beefskewers, with even more spicy noodles and vegetables.

The next day, we were up to some sightseeing.
Jiayuguan is very famous in China for its fortress, a stronghold at the end of the Great Wall - so we headed that way. As with many Chinese tourist spots, historical sites are to some extend transformed into a fun fair, with a tasteless park, concrete statues and the like - not really things we were very eager to see. As the entrance fee was rather exorbitant (10EUR per person), we decided to take the cheap way out and just walk around the whole site. We ventured into the desert, and had a great (free) view on the fortress and the Great Wall.

We then explored a bit beyond the site and ended up in a tract of traditional Chinese countryside, which was really charming. We came across sheep and a donkey amidst colourful corn-, onion-, potato- and rapeseedfields.

Later on, we headed to a second sight: the "Overhanging Wall", a bridge-like stretch of the wall 'hanging' above a river. Rebuilt and not really interesting at all. We could also walk on a bit of the wall, winding its way up a hill overseeing the desert. From afar it is actually quite impressive, but knowing that that part had been rebuilt in 1987 (which wasn't posted anywhere, however), gave it more of a "Fake Wall of China"-feel.
A mandatory 'culture park' with statues of pink camels and concrete Silk Route traders, made the whole experience quite unearthly. The view from atop the wall over the desert and the nearby oasis was however worth the climb.

Back in the town, as we set out for dinner, we came across a group of elderly Chinese women performing a rather complicated local dance with small drums, joyfully observed by the local elderly men. This seems to be a common practice in Jiayuguan (and other places in China), as the previous day we also saw two groups like this, one performing with fans and another with scarfs. Hanna was cheerfully invited to join the dancing, to the great amusement of the locals.

Itinerary Kyrgyzstan - Kazachstan

2008-08-19T11:04:00.001+03:00

The idea is to cross the Chinese - Kyrgyz border through the Irkeshtam pass, head to Sary Tash and Osh and continue towards Bishkek via Jalal-Abad and Tash-Kömür. From Bishkek, we plan to head to Karakol via the southern shore of the Ysyk-Köl lake. We will leave Kyrgyzstan and cross into Kazachstan near Kegen.

In Kazachstan, we will spend some time in and around Almaty, before taking the train towards Shymkent. From there, we travel further to Tashkent in Uzbekistan.

The plan is to cover the above outlined itinerary in about three weeks.

Computer Related Frustration Syndrome

2008-08-19T10:38:00.000+03:00

It was rather expected: we have been experiencing some problems getting on the web... The Chinese computers we have come across so far, have been of the 5-year old, trashy, HIV-infected kind with unnumerable weird windows popping up. You know: slow and unreliable, keyboard either not working or the typing language set in unalterable Chinese pinyin characters.

Getting pictures from the camera is proving to be an ever bigger headache.

But hey: that's what it's like and we'll just have to cope with it. So don't be surprised if it's a bit quiet from time to time: we expect Central-Asia to be not much brighter in this respect...

Xi'An

2008-08-19T00:45:00.004+03:00

Our first stop on our journey was the ancient city of Xi'An. After a pretty good sleep on the night train, we arrived early morning in a rainy Xi'An. As we knew that getting train tickets could at times be quite a challenge, we immediately bought onward tickets to Jiayuguan.

On leaving the station, we saw a small Chinese boy dutifully urinating in an empty noodle box. But just as we were impressed by his cleanliness and aiming skills, he joyfully threw the box and the contents in the air... A warm welcome to Xi'An indeed.

We found a nice youth hostel near the Bell Tower, right in the centre of the city. It was good value for money, and there was a nice and easy travellers' atmosphere. A good breakfast and a adorable kitten made the picture complete.

We then set off to the Terracotta Army, about 1 hour bus drive out of the city. It was still pouring down with rain, but as the terracotta army is sheltered in several buildings, this didn't bother us.

The army itself was quite amazing: about 8000 life-sized statues of warriors, archers and horsemen, burried underground for over 2000 years. This incredible undertaking was ordered by emperor Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of a unified China. He must have been quite afraid of being conquered after his death, or plainly mad - or both of course.

On the following day, back in Xi'An, we wandered about at a relaxed pace. The city was quite nice, but not so very different than other Chinese cities we had seen before. With the old monuments (bell tower, drum tower, great mosque and of course the city wall), it felt quite "Chinese" (i.e. less Western than Shanghai), but knowing that the monuments are mostly replica's from buildings that have been destroyed during the cultural revolution gnawed more than a bit off of our wonder and amazement, especially as it was nowhere shown that it were replica's..

However, the Muslim quarter was quite a nice place to stroll around in. Nice small shops, vendors selling dried fruits and road-side restaurants fuming out inviting smells of foods. All this in the backdrop of the great mosque, which is built in Chinese architectural style - rather weird but interesting. Our visit to the mosque was quite enchanting: we visited it at nightfall, when the last prayers were performed.

We enjoyed a dinner of a local speciality: different vegetables and meats, boiled in a spicy broth and dipped in a tasty sesame-paste. Really nice.

Xi'An was a good place as a first stop. From there, we took a night train to Jiayuguan, deep in Gansu province.

So far so good

2008-08-16T16:17:00.003+03:00

Dunhuang, somewhere between East and West, in the deserts of China's Gansu province.

So far everything has been going very smooth: we always managed to get train tickets, hotels and transportation easily. And no quarrelling so far, disregarding arguments over card game rules (but that's just Hanna cheating!).

The 2nd class sleepers on the trains are quite cheap, and really good value. Not always air conditioning, and a little bit short on leg space for Floris, but hey. As Hanna is of a more standard Chinese female size, she's all happy. Travelling by train has been quite charming so far, with friendly Chinese offering us fruits and with very impressive and diverse landscapes.

We will (hopefully) be coming back with more impressions on the places we visited, but let's suffice to say for now that we are happy we decided to halt in some places in China. It will leave us with very different impressions of China than what we experienced while working in Shanghai.

Ready, steady... GO!

2008-08-08T07:15:00.005+03:00

Inspired by the Olympic Spirit, we are counting down towards our departure.

The last few days have been quite hectic: stuffing our belongings in boxes, sending them to Europe (including getting a bit frustrated at the Chinese customs regulations: no liquids, powders, batteries, Cd's,...) and handling all kinds of small tasks that we have been postponing for some time now.

Today is our last day at work and as we are returning our laptops, from now on we will only be able to post entries on this blog from hot and sweaty internet cafés, packed with coke-boozing computer fanatics.

After a final relaxing weekend in Shanghai, we will leave on monday afternoon by train towards Xi'An.

Got it!

2008-08-06T15:50:00.005+03:00

Iranian visa, finally! We were, after a promising start of daily phone calls, already in the worrying "don't call us, we'll call you"-stage with the charming Iranian consulate secretary when Hanna's phone rang Wednesday around midday and we were told that we were only one official letter short of getting our visas. Our company would have to provide a statement that we really work here and are really really going to Iran as tourists and that the company really really really is not involved in any dubious activities. We wrote the letter ourselves and then found somebody to stamp it with the biggest and reddest stamp available (this company has a wide selection of stamps, believe us) and rushed to the consulate with it. And about one hour later, almost unable to believe our luck, walked out of the consulate about 80 euros poorer but with two precious pieces of paper glued in our passports promising us both 25 days in Iran.

We celebrated the visas with a couple of beers (Duvels, to be precise) and an old James Bond movie. Tadadadaa taadadada... kippis!

Orange Ornaments

2008-08-06T04:40:00.003+03:00

No, we haven't suddenly become ardent supporters for the Dutch Olympic team and neither are we on a carrot juice diet.

We are (silently) protesting! And as we are quite unexperienced as hippies, we are protesting for a cause.

Train Ticket Madness

2008-08-05T10:07:00.009+03:00

We went to the Shanghai train station yesterday afternoon, intending to buy a ticket to Xi'An.

The situation is as follows: we know tickets are only available 5 days in advance, so we went on monday to get tickets for saturday. We also know there are about 10 trains daily between Shanghai and Xi'An, each of them easily carrying over 1000 people.
We aim to leave on Saturday, but in case we by then still don't have our Iranian visa (see other entry), we'd take a train on monday.

A reconstruction of the events at the Shanghai station ticket counter:

Hanna> We would like to buy a ticket to Xi'An, please.
Clerk> When? Today?
Hanna> No, on saturday 9th August. We'd like to take the fast train at 16:30, and book two sleepers.
Clerk> Sorry, no have. Only slow train. 20 hours. You want?
Hanna> Is it possible to get the ticket refunded if we would like to change our departure date?
Clerk> No.
Hanna> Well... we will take it on another day then. What about monday 11th august?
Clerk> Sorry, only can booking 5 days advance. You must return the day after tomorrow.
Hanna> Ok. Is it fine if we come here around 5pm?
Clerk> No, no. One hour, everything sold out. Gone.

So we learned that getting on a Chinese long-distance train is best compared to trying to buy concert tickets for a very popular rock band: there are over 10000 tickets available, but actually getting one mainly depends on your luck of getting through the overburdened telephone network.

Just imagine: 10000 tickets, gone within an hour! Every day!

Iranian visa

2008-08-05T09:15:00.006+03:00

We have a problem. Or at least, we might have one: it has been more than three weeks since we submitted our application for an Iranian visa in the Iranian consulate in Shanghai, but as yet - we still have no news.

This puts us in a somewhat difficult position: on the one hand, we really want to travel into Iran, because from what we've read and heard about it, it's a great country. It's also on a key stretch of the Silk Route, and without it we will not get a Turkmen visa, which then in turn implies we will probably not be able to make the trip "overland", as we intend to. We then could very well be "stuck" somewhere in Uzbekistan, having (because of our visa-situation) no alternative but to fly to Azerbaijan or any country on our itinerary where we can get a visa on arrival.

But on the other hand, waiting here without any concrete information as to when we'd get that visa -if at all- doesn't make much sense either, since we've been waiting for quite a while already.. A situation which is somewhat aggravated since we have to buy our train tickets to Xi'An well in advance (see other entry).

So we decided to stay a few more days in Shanghai, leaving on a jet-train on Monday 11 August. Thus, we hope for the visa to be granted this week, or next monday at the very latest.

Help us hope!

Xinjiang Unrest

2008-08-04T09:36:00.003+03:00

According to the latest local and international news reports, there has been a "terrorist attack" at a border post near Kashgar in Xinjiang Province, China. 16 Chinese police officials are reportedly killed.

Kashgar is on our itinerary, as a final post before travelling into Kyrgyzstan.

For those of you who might be concerned for our safety: don't worry about this too much. We are aware of the situation and we will keep ourselves duly informed. And obviously we aren't going to be in any anti-Chinese manifestations, nor do we intend to make bold political statements when travelling there. Moreover, chances of a new attack are generally believed to be low - and even if there is some attack, they will be directed against Han Chinese officials, not against foreigners.

So: no worries!

Bai Bai Shanghai!

2008-08-01T21:45:00.001+03:00

After weeks and months of hard and arduous labour (dramatisation, may not have happened) on Chinese shipyards under inhuman conditions, we are finally ready to leave our positions and start our "Long March" towards Helsinki.

However much we are looking forward to travelling, we must say that Shanghai proved to be a nice place, of which we will keep good memories.

The work, our pro forma "raîson d'être" in Shanghai, was reasonably interesting, mainly because of the rather crazy work environment: shipyards are always buzzing with activity and full of fascinating scenes, but Chinese shipyards definitely add an extra flavour to that picture.
Imagine a remote but unforeseenly charming island with small but crowded villages, quite a nice natural environment and some small rice paddies and a few orange orchards. Add a huge, dusty, messy shipyard, with enormous rusty old ships, some newly erected workshops, a dozen of towering cranes and thousands of yard workers dressed in raggy overalls, covered in dust and engaged in something that resembles welding: there you have your Chinese shipyard.

Being on that kind of place and -at times, we have to be fair here- contribute to building better and safer ships, was in all quite an experience. That is, before the general boredom set in and we basically sat out our time at work, longing for a brighter future.

But apart from work, Shanghai was a nice enough place to stay. There is good food, lots of small shops, cheap massage parlors, charming streets and some nice museums. It has been interesting to get an inside view on the way China is building its future, and to get a feel for the Chinese culture and people.
As we stayed on the shipyards islands for the better part of the week, we never really settled in in the city: we didn't join dance lessons or sports clubs, didn't show up at expat gatherings or things like that. When we were in Shanghai, we were happy enough to see each other and spend time doing things with the two of us.

Now, we are packed and ready to leave.
Or, well, we still need to buy our train tickets to Xi'An, send our parcels back to Europe and we need to find a way to pass the last working days (do I hear 'surfing the internet'?). Oh, and our Iranian visa is still to be approved and collected (Insha'Allah, of course)...

An Artist's View on China

2008-07-25T10:00:00.000+03:00

(click to enlarge)

Floris's artistic impression of what we will see in China: the television tower in Shanghai, the "Army of Men" in Xi'An, the Fortress of Jiayuguan, the Buddha-grottoes of Dunhuang, the city of Ürümqi and the market town of Kashgar.

-
Note Hanna's gnome-like features!

Itinerary China

2008-07-24T03:30:00.000+03:00

Our plan is to go through China at a steady pace, halting only at a few places of interest.

From Shanghai, we quickly head west by train to Xian, Jiayuguan, Dunhuang, Ürümqi, Turpan and Kashgar, crossing into Kyrgyzstan at the Irkeshtam Pass. In two to three weeks time, we should have covered nearly 6000 km, or roughly one third of the total distance...

The Plan

2008-07-14T05:58:00.001+03:00

The plan is fairly simple: after we finish our work assignment in Shanghai, we go back to Europe following a version of the Silk Route. We will travel overland from the Far East, across Central Asia, the Middle East, the Kaukasus region and Eastern Europe.

These are the countries we intend to visit:

China
Kyrgyzstan
Kazachstan
Uzbekistan
Turkmenistan
Iran
Armenia
Georgia

After that, we will cross the Black Sea towards Ukraine, continuing north through Belarus and the Baltic states to reach Helsinki before Christmas.