October 19, 2016

What to Know about Traveling in Georgia (and Abkhazia)

When I think of a place called Georgia, usually Georgia state in the US is the first thing I think of. Some haven’t even heard of the country Georgia, and those who have, have vague ideas about where it is. Once you get here, you’ll have no idea where you are after you’ve seen their labyrinth of an alphabet and heard their very unusual, completely unrelated to any other language.

Visit hill-top monasteries, like Jvari overlooking the ancient capital Mtskheta

Georgia is in the Caucasus mountain range, bordered by Russia to the north, Turkey and Armenia to the south, touches the Black Sea on the west and Azerbaijan on the Caspian Sea to the east. Its pretty much exactly in the middle of Europe and Asia, homeless to both but a friendly neighbor to them all. Unlike Armenia, which has closed borders to Turkey and Azerbaijan (you can only get in or out thru Georgia or Iran), Georgia, an extremely homogenous Christian society, maintains business and tourism with the not-so-Christian Iran and Turkey, and even after the sour collapse of the Soviet Union and the disputed territories of South Ossetia (and to a lesser extent Abkhazia*), has a functional relationship with Russia and Russian tourists.

Drive past vineyards to the end of the road at Vardzia Cave Monastery

It’s a country famous for wine, and they love to make cognac and brandy from their grapes too, or any type of fruit alcohol generically called chacha. They have an entirely different genre of white wine called kvevri wine, an amber coloured wine fermented in clay pots. They have their own type of cuisine, heavy on the meat, cheese and bread, especially when combined all together. BBQ meat and vegetables are served in all Georgian restaurants, and the most common fast food is kebabs or shwarma. Georgian cheese is a big thing too, and some of it was amazing, but the most unique thing I tried was churckhela, nuts covered in some sugary fruity wax that looks like candles made out of anal balls.

Try to be in Tbilisi on Tbilisi Day Festival!

In the capital city Tbilisi, there are enough stray cats and dogs to make walking on the sidewalk a little dangerous – beware of piles of steamy poop whose smell is impossible to get off the soles of your shoes. If you dare to rent a car and drive in Georgia, the roads are okay and well marked and all that, but drivers are impatient, aggressive, and a little suicidal at times. Being overtaken on the left or right on a blind hill or bendy mountain road doesn’t give you many options to move out of the way, so it wasn’t a surprise to see how many cars are partially crashed, scraped or banged up and not fixed. Police stations line the main highways, atleast one huge station in every village, and the police officers wait on the side of the road with flashing lights in their new Ford cruisers waiting and expecting for something to happen. At least they weren’t checking anyones speed, so I guess they’re waiting for an accident.

Rent a car in Georgia if you like roadtripping and aren’t scared to get a little banged up to find places like this

The downside is a lot of roadkill. And the roadkill are those same street cats and stray dogs you see in Tbilisi. Its downright depressing to see so many cute and innocent puppies or fluffy kittens lying whole, in a couple pieces, or smashed flat to the concrete. I don’t know if any are ever removed, so they lay there to rest in no peace at all, and don’t seem to warn the other drivers or strays to stay away from each other on the road.

Still Georgians maintain peace with God. There are crosses and churches to be seen in every corner of the country, and just walking past a church is reason to cross oneself and bow from the street. If you want to enter the church, women must be wearing skirts and cover their heads, but only the old ladies and tourists seemed to follow this rule.

the bridge to Abkhazia

*If you want to travel to Abkhazia from Georgia, you must send an electronic tourist visa application to visa@mfaapsny.org (the application form is a short 2 page pdf with basic questions, and can be found on their website www.mfaapsny.org). After 5 working days, they email you a clearance letter which you have to print out and take with you to the border. Physically crossing into Abkhazia is as unfriendly as land borders get – you must walk one kilometer in no mans land over a dilapidated bridge (unless you prefer the horse and carriage option), and enter a barbed wired alley to pass Russian soldiers who check your documents. Once you get thru, you have to travel 2-3 hours (+100km) by bus to the capital city Sukhum and pay for your visa at the Ministry of Foreign affairs (between $5-50USD depending on how many days you’ll stay in Abkhazia) during working business hours. Only after you get the visa in your passport can you return back to Georgia, so be wary of getting stuck in Akhazia if you’re not planning to visit Sukhum!

October 14, 2016

Couchsurfing and Hitchhiking in Armenia

Couchsurfing and couchsurfers shaped my time in Armenia, and I couchsurfed the nicest place I’ve couchsurfed yet – a penthouse apartment with a 13^th floor view of Yerevan and all the way out to Mount Ararat, all to myself. My couchsurf host picked me up at the airport and took me to his apartment, gave me the keys and some fruits, and then left to stay with his parents.

me, the tango DJ and the Russian couchsurfers at Sevan Lake

Through him I met other Armenian local hosts, and I convinced one to accompany me to the Armenian Philharmonic Orchestra and watch Rachmaninoff’s 2^nd piano concerto. Another was showing around a Russian couple who later hitchhiked with me to Georgia and around Tbilisi. We all met for a couchsurf bbq on the balcony of my apartment, and ate kilos of chicken and bread, in true Armenian style.

sunset BBQ

I hitchhiked one taxi on my way from Khor Virap monastery, which I never considered trying before, but he took me to the nearest bus stop, without charging me, and then waited 45 minutes with me in the sun til the bus arrived. On another day I took local buses to nearby Garni pagan temple and Gerhard stone church, and I met a different Russian couple who told me to follow them to Etchmiadzin. They spoke Russian and could find the right buses and change or get off at the right places, so I followed them to the headquarters of the Armenian Apostolic Church and managed to get back without them.

Haghartsin Monastery

I also couchsurfed in the little Switzerland of Armenia, a small city called Dilijan, with a Russian host. Its amazing how useful and necessary Russian language is here, and useless English is, so its been a tactic of mine to make friends with Russians on the road. I also made some friends through tango dancing, after attending a milonga in Yerevan. The DJ there, who knows a friend of a friend, offered to take me and the Russian couchsurfers on a roadtrip to see some beautiful places in the Armenian countryside. We made a couple of hikes, one to a beautiful river/waterfall canyon whose name I can’t remember, and then Gosh Lake, where I lost the other three for 3 hours in a failed mission to go apple picking.

inside Gerhard stone church, a place of very special acoustics and echoes

We visited Sevan Lake and ate delicious fresh fish, and visited a lot of stone churches and old monasteries. I thought I saw a lot of hitchhikers on the road, but they signaled to cars by holding both their arms up and spread to the side. I later learned those are fishermen trying to sell a catch, and the space between their hands signifies the size of the fish.

Mount Ararat in the background from the top of the sculpture parks at Yerevan’s Cascades

Hitchhiking from Dilijan to Georgia was a breeze, especially with the help of my Russian translators, but our first driver spoke terrible Russian and no English, and somehow we ended up an hour out of the way trying to visit yet another stone church in the middle of a forest. Things got weird when he tried to buy a 6 pack of beer at noon to take with to the church, so we decided to try our luck with another car. After 5 cars and never waiting for more than 3 minutes, we made it to Tbilisi, where I’ve decided to take a break from couchsurfing and hitchhiking.

October 7, 2016

24 hours in Kiev

I wanted to fly directly to Armenia from Minsk, but then I needed a transit visa just to connect in Russia – all flights to Armenia go first to Moscow and Belarus and Russia have no border formalities between their countries so I would essentially be sneaking illegally into Russia, if only for 3 hours. Instead I flew to Kiev, only one hour away. I could have taken a cozy overnight sleeper train for next to nothing, but paying 100 euros for a flight and spending the extra time in Kiev seemed worth it.

St Andrew’s cathedral

I arrived late at night and kind of hitchiked another persons taxi into town. I checked into a hostel and walked around the empty streets on a Sunday night. On Monday it was 24 degrees Celsius and I probably walked 15 km around town that day. I saw churches and churches and more churches (6 out of the 7 top sights to see in Kiev are churches!), and I think the only things recommended to me to see besides churches were parks around the churches.

Pechersk Lavra

Pechersk Lavra was the most interesting, an entire complex of beautiful churches, monasteries, golden topped buildings, and an intricate underground cave system full of dead saints. To enter you had to wrap yourself in a green skirt and cover your head, light your way with wax candles, and politely avoid walking into the people kissing coffins in the narrow passageways.

yet another beautiful church

I ran into some strange people, and I must have been radiating some form of inviting energy to welcome their approaches because it can’t possible be that I looked like a local. The crazy pigeon lady in the park tried to talk to me, the homeless asked me for money and cigarettes, a business man asked me for directions, a guy dressed as a bear walked me across a square, and a street performer put his monkey on my head when I tried to pass him by. At least I can say it was a memorable 24 hours in Kiev.

October 5, 2016

Backpacking Belarus

Belarus’ visa policy isn’t very welcoming to tourists other than Russians (who can enter without crossing any form of border control), but Belarusians were very welcoming to an unfamiliar face once I got in. Not being able to speak Russian is a huge handicap, but people are a lot more willing to take the time to try and understand your charades, read your body language, or speak a few words in English. I wouldn’t say they’re the smiliest people, but certainly a lot more comfortable to be around, especially considering how safe everything and everywhere was. All the couchsurfers I met were helpful and hospitable, though sometimes a bit too friendly – one man and his wife were open to threesomes with female travelers and stated this openly on their couchsurfing profile!

Minsk

There wasn’t much striking about Minsk, a city nearly completely rebuilt in Soviet times with oversized, colourless, communist buildings filling most of the city. The entrance doors to most residential buildings reminded me of a maximum security prison cell door, but like in many other things, functionalism and safety are more important than aesthetics. Visiting in summer helps brighten things up, though all the parks and green spaces are left to fend for themselves, unless it’s a park around some sort of historical monument or war memorial. Children’s play grounds more often than not had swing sets without swings, but the endless forests outside of the cities made a much larger, more beautiful playground for those who wanted to enjoy it.

selfie with this monumental war memorial

I enjoyed a lot of cultural things in Minsk, though not all of them very stereo-typically Belarusian. I attended a Salsa festival, a symphony, the Swan Lake ballet, and an art/music street festival whose theme I couldn’t figure out. Around Minsk, the rebuilt traditional village of Dudutki had some old buildings, a wooden church, windmills, a petting zoo, bee hives, a horse training stable and a moonshine distillery. There were two castles, Mir and Nezvizh, surrounded by beautiful forests and walking trails, and a lot of Orthodox churches in between. In Vitebsk city center, there was a small zoo tucked away into a forested park, and I would have walked right past it if I hadn’t heard the lion roar.

Orthodox church in Vitebsk

I attended one forest barbeque, with a handful of Belarusians who knew exactly how to grill a piece of meat, and went to two ‘summer’ houses – an old home or cottage in a small village that people keep as a vacation spot. The forests are usually just a stones throw away from any village, and the little dirt roads that connect them seem like they should still be traveled by horse and carriage.

Brest fortress

I traveled mostly by train, and a 3 – 5 hour train ticket costs only 3 or 4 euros, and for that price you get an entire sofa-bed bench. For a few extra cents, you can rent sheets and drink tea, and I seriously considered moving back and forth across the country every night just to be able to live on the train. The metro and public buses are also easy to use and super duper cheap, but a lot of people still own cars. There is a huge sub-culture of car garages, little covered parking zones where people park their cars in individual, locked garages. The men also gather here from time to time, using this space as a second home. Here they can barbeque, play chess, drink beer, or just work on their cars and pretty them up. I also noticed that most people don’t sleep in beds, but sofa-couches, so being a couchsurfer there was like being a local.

couchsurfing barbeque

I couchsurfed in Minsk, Brest and Vitebsk, staying with very different people but always walking away with a similar experience. Their friends were my friends, I was always fed, I had my own space in the house and almost always had an escort outside. The graffitied apartments I stayed at never looked very inviting, but once inside with the people I met, it became my cozy home too. I just fish that Belarusians would stop wallpapering their walls, ceilings and even floors with the tackiest patterns I’ve ever seen – it would do a lot for the feng-shui!

September 29, 2016

On the Road Again

It’s been a wonderful summer in Iceland, the best that I can remember in 8 years. I even had some time off between tours to be my own tourist in Iceland, roadtripping, fishing, hiking and camping in the highlands and west fjords. The horses and people from around the world that I spent my tours with were also wonderful, but as summer winds down and fall sets in, I’ve developed a serious travel itch.

off the beaten track in a Belarusian forest

I couldn’t imagine a better day to leave Iceland than September 21. I finished 2 sheep round ups, saw the leaves start to fall from the auburn trees, and the first snow fell on Esja mountain in Reykjavik the night before. September 21 is also the autumn equinox, the last day of the year when the day is longer than the night. So in my perpetual need of warmth and light, I have to keep moving south to chase the longer days.

First stop is Belarus. I know it’s an unusual tourist destination, and getting a visa is a nightmare, but what more reasons does a traveler need to tease curiosity? I wanted to go to Minsk when I was traveling in Russia, since it was relatively close by and a similar kind of place, but I only worked out a visa by late August. A friend from New York who has a friend in Washington D.C who I met in Reykjavik knew a girl in Minsk who could help me. Lord knows why or how she did, but she sorted out all the paperwork and paid all the fees for a stranger she’d never met.

there’s always entertainment on the road

Even more than that, she offered to host me before I arrived, and luckily enough I did arrive, and get in, legally, and planned to stay with her half my time in Belarus. The weather should have been warmer, but it was only in the teens and the trees have started to turn here too.

The rest of my autumn carries on to the south, first to the Caucuses, then Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh. My 200^th country might likely be Laos, or I’ll skip down to the Indian Ocean and visit some of those dreamy island destinations – the Seychelles, Maldives or Mauritius. Wherever I’ll be on my 30^th birthday next year, every traveler, host or couchsurfer I’ve met throughout the years is heartily welcomed to come join in for the celebration 🙂

July 10, 2016

What to know about visiting North Korea

After traveling to North Korea and receiving the various reactions from people before and after I returned, I thought about writing a blog that would answer the most common questions and curiosities. For anyone that wants to go to North Korea, drop me a line since I can now hook you up with a tour and a tourist visa 🙂

The food and drinks were plentiful and delicious! I met a South Korean who said North Korea has better beer, which I have to agree with, and the amount of rice wines and strange alcohol meant we were tasting something new every day… except for the strange schnapps with a whole snake inside. The food was served in cute little plates, a buffet of meat and vegetables, eaten with metal chopsticks, and their famous cold noodle soup (buckwheat noodles in a broth flavoured with mustard, vinegar and chili) was a specialty worth trying. Their “sweet” meat soup, aka dog soup, was something I skipped.
You will always be isolated or somehow filtered from the public. Your lunch meal will be eaten alone in a room fit for 50 people, but it will only be the tourist(s), and a handful of servers, walking in and out of the room with enough food to feed an army. Your sightseeing will be shadowed by your appointed guide, and once you’re in the hotel you’re only surrounded by other tourists (mostly Chinese) and can’t leave the building.
You are not allowed to make any transactions in their local currency, the Korean won. You must pay for things in Chinese yuan, US dollars or Euros, and keep them in small denominations – things cost very little. For example, a ride on the metro is 5 cents.
There are only a couple of media channels, and all are run by the government – magazines, radio and television. Newspapers or other print material always have an image of Kimg Jong Il or Kim Il Sung, so it is not permitted to crumple, throw into the garbage, or sit on the newspapers – since this would be an act of disrespect to their leaders.
Cameras and smartphones are allowed, and you are allowed to take pictures of anything you like – except labourers and military. I still managed to take photos of some construction workers (but was scolded for it) and a selfie with a soldier, but portrait photographs were discouraged and local people didn’t seem excited to be captured in the background.
Koreans who do speak English will usually ask you “what is your impression” when they want to know your opinion on something. This seems like a loaded question if its about the DPRK, but they just want to know what you think of North Korea. And a hint for the wise – don’t be too honest if you have negative things to say, especially concerning politics or warfare.
The roads are wide and cover the whole country, but their in terrible condition and barely any cars drive them. Be prepared for a long and bumpy ride if you leave Pyongyang, but definitely get out of Pyongyang to visit the mountains, Buddhist temples, and endless field of rice that made the country feel so green and peaceful.

If you’d like to visit North Korea, please send me a message or reply to this post with a comment. I am excited to be working directly with the North Korean tourism agency, booking private tours of groups of 2 up to 10. I think its fun to be promoting a bit of exposure both to those who want to visit the misunderstood DPRK, and for the local Koreans to have the chance to meet more of the outside world.

June 30, 2016

A Tourist in North Korea

The idea of traveling to North Korea was intimidating at first, and up until the point It was time for our train departure from Beijing, I didn’t believe it would happen. I was traveling with German friend who had arranged with the DPRK embassy in Berlin to pick up our visas near the train station in Beijing the day of our departure. We didn’t know who to look for, or if anyone would actually show up, but eventually someone did, and we got on the train with what looked like a visa and a one way ticket to Pyongyang. The train was a long and slow 24 hour journey, and crossing the border sparked a few more doubts, but after being searched and showing our phones, we were let through and actually made it into North Korea.

pastures and rice fields made the DPRK feel very rural at times

Surprisingly, there are a lot of tourists that come here, especially Chinese, and my guide said that last year there were over 25,000 tourists, but sometimes she’s a 0 off in her number translations so I believe it may actually be 250,000. Just on our first day, there were over 10 coach buses filled with Chinese tourists to visit the DMZ.

on the border between North and South Korea, which is literally that concrete line

DMZ is the border between North and South Korea – though it stands for ‘de-militarized zone,’ the area was full of military, arms, and apparently mines on the South Korea side. It’s a 4 km wide no-mans land, but in one building on the actual border is a room where you can be on the north or south side, and sit on a desk across from someone on the other side. But only the north side tourists or south side tourists can be in the building at one time, accompanied by their respective soldiers, so it’s not much of a meeting place for the two nations.

The country has no internet, only intranet, and one can find out the weather forecast at any time of the day, but no one knows the European Football championships are happening. The ‘International’ hotels have computers for tourists to check their email or make global calls, but I figured I’d wait til I left to write anything.

Pyongyang at sunrise

The city Pyongyang is like any other sky-scraping, hazy city in Asia, a big capital city filled with millions of people. Even though the foggy mornings only turned into cloudy afternoons, my guide swears there’s no pollution and no one wears masks, but I still felt like it was easier to breathe in much brighter Beijing. There’s still a big difference from being in Pyongyang than any other big Asian cities. For starters, the city is extremely clean and sterile, with no litter about and I even saw one guy pick up chewed gum off the floor to throw it away in a garbage can. Pyongyang is also completely safe and calm, and mostly quiet except for the strange, militant, motivational instrumental music blasted on public loudspeakers, in restaurants, and the metro.

I didn’t hear it, but apparently there is international and western music to be heard on one of their only 2 radio or television stations. The most popular past-times here are karaoke, both western and Korean music, bowling, and ping pong. I saw empty billiards halls and soccer fields, but apparently they’re used a lot too.

The monument for Reunification above the Pyongyang-Seoul highway

The roads within and leading out of Pyongyang are all huge boulevards, sometimes large enough for 7 lanes of traffic each way. In the 90’s they built a highway to Seoul, which has never been used to get further than the DMZ because of the North South unstable political relations, but this highway was wide enough to land a Boeing 737 on it but worn and torn from neglect after failing to ever be used to get to Seoul. The only problem was the potholes, the thousands of potholes and bumps in the roads, everywhere. I wondered why the roads where in such bad shape, but the better question was why the roads were so empty – and then it all makes sense. In the DPRK, regular individuals can’t own vehicles, and there’s nearly no such thing as a private car. There are some 70 million people here, but no one drives, except for the lucky few. The roads are only traversed by public buses, tourist vans, military vehicles, taxis and private company cars. Once you leave Pyongyang city, there are only public and tourist buses, and the military or police, but still the same huge boulevards. Some people had motorcycles, and apparently the government provides you with a private car as a reward for winning a gold medal in international events (ie. Olympians). I also figured out that some of the cars, like the Volkswagen Passat more commonly seen, are fake copies made in China. Now I knew the Chinese made imitation clothes and electronics, but cars? Really?

The clothes that people wear were never branded – I didn’t see a single shirt with any writing or logo. Every adult citizen always wearing a small red pin over their left breast with a picture of Kim Jong Il or Kim Il Sung (or both), which is so “they can keep their leaders close to their heart.” The dress was pretty formal, collared tops, slacks, pretty flower patterns, army green colours, a lot of freshly pressed white shirts and dressy trousers, and most of the women wore high heels, even for their long walks to work. Most people move by bicycle, and they’ve really become the main road traffic. People in the DPRK were very quiet, peaceful, complacent people. They’re not shy, but they never stare and would never be impolite or break a rule. I sometimes felt sloppy if I wasn’t standing upright enough, but people seemed forgiving of our casual, western behaviour.

The religious and cultural life was hard to find. Historically a Buddhist and Confucius country, the socialist motto is to believe in oneself and ignore blind faith, the Juche ideal of self-reliance. Buddhist temples still exist and are cared for, but not necessarily used for worship. Apparently there is a Christian/Orthodox church which does have a few active members, but again this came from my guide who liked to evade directly answering controversial questions.

A 12th century Buddhist temple that still has resident monks

We had very little chance to meet other locals, talk to strangers, or interact with any North Korean people on our 5 day, constantly escorted tour. We were usually ushered into private restaurants for our meals, given a room in a hotel where the only other guests were our guides and Chinese tourists, and they often followed us to the shops and tourist sites so that the only chance to see any Koreans was from inside our moving car getting from A to B. My travel companion Michael had a theory that some locals were placed in our lunch room one day, and at a beautiful cave, just because I expressed my discomfort in always being withheld from spontaneous interactions.

It’s easy to get a little paranoid traveling in North Korea – the rumours and stories I knew before didn’t help either. I never felt unsafe or mistrusted, so its hard to know if the feeling is legit or just coming from within. But somehow, there was definitely a ‘Big Brother’ feeling, an element of being stuck in the Truman show and never sure what was real or fake or staged or normal. On paper, our itinerary was the perfect plan – a little bit of the city, a little bit of country, natural wonders, historical and cultural UNESCO sites, and of course the political side. It was like traveling in any other country. But still, that mix of Russian communism and a feeling of traveling back to the Soviet times lingered everywhere.

The capital city was quite neutral, all the buildings in the same pastel colours and parks filled simply with trees and water, but any large monument, statue or impressive artwork was always devoted to some communist ideal or one of their late great leaders, Kim Il Sung or Kim Jong Il. The sickle, hammer and paintbrush, the 5 pointed star, the red flame, the Korean flag, or the Juche theory – all were visible from every corner of the city. The only photographs to be seen, in any public space, is the portrait of their late leaders. Not even shop windows have advertisements or pictures beside their name. The buses and metro are devoid of any marketing, except the large murals promoting the great power, greatness or kindness of their leaders, their country, and their people. It’s actually someone’s job to design cartoon posters, depicting the heroic soldier and the struggle of the people to keep their peace and freedom in their socialist system. They propagate very much for a unified Korea, and hate the US military/government for all their interference between the Korea’s. Their greatest achievement was the battle victory over the US in 1953, and I can’t even count the number of monuments and memorials that I saw dedicated to that war.

I tried asking about military service, since North Korea is famous for having one of the largest and strongest armies on the ground. I assume its mandatory, but my guide explained that no one has to do it, but everyone of course wants to do it, and therefore all men serve their time for the country through military service… sometimes for their whole life. We met one soldier at the DMZ who did engage with us, since he was very interested in the history of West/East Germany and spoke with Michael during our entire border visit. He let us take a photograph with him, even though I was told never to take a picture around military or working people. I guess there’s always an exception to every rule.

June 25, 2016

Riding tour in Mongolia

In Iceland, I work as a tour guide for horse back riding trips, but after 6 years of that I thought it’d be fun to take a tour as a guest. Mongolia is probably the only other country with as much, if not more, horse culture as Iceland, so it was easy to find the perfect vacation there. I thought everyone would want to go, but only one horse friend from Germany actually made it and our group only had 2 other people.

riding through the Gobi

We chose a 9 day riding tour in the Gobi Steppe, but wanted to spend a few extra days in Mongolia before heading to China and North Korea. We spent our extra time in the capital city, which is a strange mix of hold-school communist architecture, new-world/mid-west high-rises, the Cyrillic alphabet, and Asian food and culture (mostly Chinese and Korean).

finding a well to water the horses and stock up for camp

The food and drinks very really delicious, but we were mostly offered ‘western’ foods, and lots of it. Even though we were camping, in the middle of a desert, with no electricity or running water, we were served 4 course meals every night. Soup, salad, some meat, and dessert were the norm, plus boiled well water to drink tea and coffee, and once in a while the cook surprised us with special snacks like Pringles or a home made cake (I still cant figure out how she baked a cake by burning cow dung).

our ger camp

We were only 4 guests, but had one English speaking guide and 5 other staff – a chef, her assistant/waitress, the horse man, and 2 camel boys, who were responsible for the 4 caramel convoy carrying our stuff between camp every day. We moved every morning except the last night, where we stayed in a more permanent ger camp. Each day we rode 30-40 km, only on one horse, and we rode the same horse for 9 days straight. I tried to horse man’s horse briefly, just to sit in his Mongolian wooden saddle, but my friend Michael got to ride his horse a whole day because he wanted to try a faster horse. It made him very happy, until he raced the horseman (who rode Michaels regular horse) and lost. It urned out I had the fastest horse, which was great until how hard it was to stop after reaching flat-out speed. Sometimes it took many kilometres to slow him down, but I didn’t mind.

our camel convoy

After the horse tour in Ulanbataar, we had a few more great meals, lots of vodka, and visited the city park to watch a music/dance/culture show and ride a Ferris wheel. Nearby was also Hustai National park, where it was possible to see the ancient Przewalskis horse in the wild. During the car journeys between places, we often drove on unmarked dirt tracks which were considered main travel routes by the locals. Mongolia was the only country I’ve seen regularly use hybrid Toyota Priuses as off-road vehicles, and it makes sense why horses are still used so much to move – its almost faster to go 15 km on a horse than a car, especially considering the fact that Mongolian horses can gallop for over an hour without stopping or slowing down. They were truly amazing, and I would have done it if my body could have kept up, but my legs couldnt handle it after they started bruising in a few different places from a strange saddle that you need to stand in.

June 11, 2016

Stop-over in Copenhagen

I´ve been to Copenhagen twice before, but trying to manage a days’ layover isnt easy. But, with a landing time of 12 noon and a departure time of 22:00, noone wants to sit around at an airport that long, no matter how nice, so here’s what I did and you should do too.

water lilies on the ponds

1.) Leave the airport: There’s a train every 20 minutes from Copenhagen airport to Copenhagen central station, and it only takes a little over 15 minutes to travel. Once you’ve arrived in the central station, you’re in the heart of Copenhagen and within walking distance to all the main sights, shopping streets and drinking/eating spots.

Denmark’s Little Mermaid

2.) Go to Tivoli: If its summer, and you’re a Disneyland/theme-park kind of person, spend the day at this fun park. There are roller coasters, green parks, yummy concessions and all sorts of other fun stuff, and entrance is only 110DK (around €15).

3.) Walk around the pedestrian shopping streets. Even if youre just a window shopper, or only looking for the cafes or bars to visit on the way, its a lively street of people watching and lovely surprises, and delicious Danish street hot dog stands.

summer is the time for bicycling

4.) Visit the parks: especially around any castle or sea-side. You’ll find the (in)famous little mermaid statue, and one beautiful star-shaped fortress.

5.) Drink Carlsberg: or any other cold drink in the sunshine

Nyhovn near sunset time

6.) Visit Nyhavn, the cozy little harbour full of sailboats and restaurant patios. Mingle or people watch, or just eat and drink, and you’ll still feel like you’ve had the most romantic day in Denmark

May 28, 2016

Weird things about Russia

Like any other big, powerful nation, everybody has an opinion or some stereotypes about Russia. Many haven’t even been there, but from the media, movies, or Russian friends abroad, people still manage to imagine the place in a certain way. I expected a lot of things, but was also surprised by many.

1.) People don’t smile, barely ever, but when they did, it was you the warmest smile anyone could ever give. And if they laughed, you always laughed with them 🙂

2.) The average person doesn’t speak English, especially not in the transport sector, so you had to be lucky to have a hotel receptionist that could answer all of your questions or go to a fancy restaurant to get maybe one waitress who could take your order (or get onto google maps or google translate and work it out yourself which was an easy plan B with all the open wifi networks). However, when they did speak English, sometimes they wouldn’t stop talking, and you’d be checking in or putting in your food order for 45 minutes while he or she chatted your ear off.

I’m going deeper undergound

3.) The metro stations and subway systems in Moscow and St. Petersburg where built to resemble theaters or palace halls more than public transport. There were crystal chandeliers and marble walls, paintings and statues, and all sorts of golden highlights. The metro is also super deep underground, which had something to do with Stalin wanting them to double as bomb shelters after WWII.

4.) The number of Churches, churches, and more churches… Orthodox and Christian, and the attached monasteries, was unbelievable. I swear we drove thru towns that had more churches than houses, and taller churches than any tree or building around. And some of them built in the middle ages, still standing, and preserved. Who has the time and money for all of them? But the artwork, inside and out, and all the golden domes, never got tiring, so thank God for them, whoever they are. But one weird thing that came up a few times was fluorescent or neon name signs added to the facade of some red-brick ancient church… which kind of looked like someone’s attempt to turn the churches into the red-light district.

5.) The European-ness of it all. Russia always seemed like an other-worldly place, an exotic country that is just as far away and strange as China or India, just in different ways. But Russia is surprisingly European, at least the places I visited, to the point that basically no cultural barriers were felt. They could maybe tell who wasn’t Russian by the way we dressed, but otherwise we had everything else in common.

6.) Russia loves Italy and Italian everything – especially art, fashion, wine, and food – cheeses especially. The best restaurants had Italian chefs or Italian inspired cuisine, and many of the palaces from former great rulers had the footprint of Italy’s earliest beginnings of the Renaissance.

7.) From the tiny countryside villages to the downtown core of Moscow, traveling around Russia was super safe. I had a small fear of the gangster or mafioso type, a hard-faced Russian undergrounder or some super-rich armed men in black, but we only saw a lot of nice black cars with drivers for some very pretty business people. People were also incredibly honest, and I wasn’t cheated once for a bus ride or cornershop purchase, even if I handed over 10x too much money accidentally.

8.) You can rent a horse outside the downtown bars in Moscow. I met a woman riding around at midnight by almost walking into her on the sidewalk outside Pinch restaurant, and she wanted to let me pay to ride her horse around downtown that night in between the nightlife taxi traffic and sidewalks full of party people. It didn’t seem like the best idea at the time, but now I regret not doing it.

the countryside homes

9.) There are villages in the Golden ring whose economy seems to rely solely on teddy bears. From tiny to life-sized stuffed bears, you can buy them from each and every house on the side of the road from at least 2 different villages that I saw. And some of those village houses were barely standing, tilting on such an angle that you thought the ground must be on a hill you didn’t feel.

10.) Russia and rabbits… I don’t know what it is, but they like rabbits, a lot.