TravelStream™ news feed for member helenandeoghan on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/helenandeoghan en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Thu, 18 Jan 2007 08:10:54 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/helenandeoghan/busboatsboots/1125805560/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/helenandeoghan/busboatsboots/1125805560/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/helenandeoghan/busboatsboots/1125805560/tpod.html Thu, 18 Jan 2007 08:10:54 -0500 Around the world by boat, bus and boots

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Beijing, China

As the night falls, the vast Chinese-Mongolian steppe gives way to neon lights, carbon-monoxide and people - way more people! Welcome to China!!

The pragmatic East Asian 'economical use of space' ethic combined with dubious oral hygiene must have inspired the use of the overnight bus to Beijing as a rehearsal studio for the National Spitting Team, who gave an inspiring, through-the-night rendition of 'I can spit further than you can'.

The bus pulled in for one of two pee stops on the 18 hour journey at a dimly-lit Chinese diner - we're in Manchuria, so Manchurian food! Must ignore nagging fatigue and eat! Ran in to encounter a counter of blues, pinks and green-.browns. Mmm. Chinese food! I asked for some of the beige, with a helping of green, but passed on the blue. To my surprise it was FANTASTIC!

The Mad-max bus driver having finished his 42nd cigarette of the pit-stop, began circling us as a cowboy would a reluctant herd of cattle. We gathered our things and went in search of the loo which we were was in the car park out the back. It took us a while to realise the car park was the toilet. As we walked, our boots felt the soft pebbles of the carpark beneath our feet...But needs must, so we took it in turns to crouch behind silhouettes of trucks before gingerly feeling our way back to the road...

Beijing. What an incredible sight! The place lives up to expectations that one has of the capital of the world's most populous country. We took the underground to the first stop on the tourist trail - Tiananmen square - where I paid 4000x (sucker!) the normal price for a Mao watch with Mao arms pointing to the hours and seconds. Prize tat but simple genius.

Off to the Great Wall where Helen bumped into an old colleague, Lars who, with his girlfriend, was on his way to Indonesia to work for PBI. So with fab company we all set off clambering along the 1000 year old World Treasure, stopping regularly to drink a gallon of water and take the same photo a thousand times.

We were rewarded with the flying fox cable ride - (bricking it, I let Helen go first! After a swift swing-off, she slowed down to a stop, hanging over the gorge and had to be winched in. Luckily I'd had a healthy Chinese breakfast that powered me over in one go!)

After marvelling our way through the Forbidden City, and climbing a hill that overlooks the city, dressing up in gaudy traditional gear to have our Polaroid taken, having lunch in a Chinese KFC (delicious!) and nursing sore stomachs at the Youth Hostel, we headed to Xian to check out the terracotta warriors.

It's quite remarkable that a farmer was digging a well, pulling out really odd - hand and leg - shaped rocks, called in an archeaologist and voila! Now you have a football pitch of earth troughs with a zillion terracotta soldiers ogled at by a zillion tourists - and a German student who managed (in the name of art) to smuggle himself into the bosom of the army, dressed as a terracotta footman.


After 8 hours in Xian we boarded the 16 hour overnight train - 4th class - to Chengdu. We were one of the last to enter the smokey, packed-to-the gunnels carriage. With our seats already taken we tried to cram our oversized back-packs onto the already sagging overhead shelf and wedged ourselves between a family of four, a dejected looking businessman and a couple of smokers with hacking coughs.

The family in front of us had a little 18 month old baby boy, and when ever the baby wanted to pee they would simple pull down the nappy, and let the little bugger pee a fountain of urine onto the floor of the carriage. Helen's sleeping mat, that she had lent the boy's father so he could get some kip under the bench, grew gradually wetter and wetter. Thankfully, despite his parents' persistence, the little chap wouldn't perform number 2s.

Chengdu where, from our starting point of Sims Cosy Guest House, we cycled 50 miles past paddy fields and industrial buildings, over roads covered with rice husks, to a Taoist mountain - stopping off along the way at a dramatic water-works project. This was China in slow motion, and the cycle was so inspiring that I went and bought a bike, which became FAR more hassle than it was worth (we had to put it on a different train to ours, which then went to the wrong destination before - thanks to the efforts of the train guard and an Chinese teacher - travelling back to be reunited with us in Shanghai!). Day two of the ride and we spent the morning walking through a misty valley (what was it called?). The 50 miles back was kick started with a 20 minute down hill speed-a-thon. An absolute miracle we made it up all that way the day before (ok - so Helen was pushed up it by our sterling, resilient Guide).

Before leaving Chengdu we had time to spare so, after charades at the box office, ended up watching War of the Worlds in Chinese, which is probably the only way to watch it!

After leafing through our coffee-table size book on China that we'd bought in desperation in Ulaan Bataar, we decided to take ourselves off to HuangShan. HuangShan is a holy Chinese mountain in the middle east of the country. Whilst hiking up the million and one concrete steps, we got chatting to a lovely couple from Argentina who had left lucrative careers as lawyers to go and learn Japanese in Japan and were hating it! Together the four of us powered our way up this giant Chinese mountain, ever so often looking up to see a stream of tourists winding their way up and down. After a while, I had to pull the rip cord as had a bout of flu - aka was too unfit to finish!

From there to Shanghai, where our last few days in China were spent watching fireworks and drinking beer on the roof of our guesthouse! We also managed to fit in an unseemly amount of haggling in the markets (fake pearls, fake watches, fake designer shoes...) as well as eating at the famous Fake Meat restaurant with a crowd of friendly, youthful Indian diamond traders.

A short stint on the world's fastest train and we were on our way back home - jetting across a landscape and adventure which was 3 months in the making and took only hours to reverse.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/helenandeoghan/busboatsboots/1123855620/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/helenandeoghan/busboatsboots/1123855620/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/helenandeoghan/busboatsboots/1123855620/tpod.html Thu, 18 Jan 2007 06:55:20 -0500 Around the world by boat, bus and boots

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St. Petersburg, Russian Federation

Ya vas lyublyu, Rossiya!

Oh, what joy to be back in the land of hatchet-faced landladies and ten-pence ice creams! The roads have been cleared of pot holes (we went in search of the one Helen fell down and, with mixed feelings of disappointment and relief, found it had been covered up), beggars, old ladies selling frumpy grey blouses and old men selling panty-liners and cheeses out of cardboard boxes. Gone also were the little octagonal kiosks with their windows crammed with all number of random objects, or - even better - with loaves upon loaves of bread and pies galore that used to crowd Sadovaya metro station. In their place have mushroomed fields of Pepsi Cola umbrellas, under which Pepsi Cola stands sell plastic-wrapped versions of the old-style fast food. According to Anton (a guy we met during one of our stops in the franchised pancake house 'Teaspoon') Putin has put in place a Mayor from Moscow who has succesfully driven all the poor people out of Petersburg in order to make the city more attractive to tourists. How considerate.

AH me. But the light still hit the city with the same sparkle, and the Hermitage, Bronze Horseman, St. Isaac's Cathedral, Spas Na Krove Cathedral, Nevsky Prospekt and the Summer Gardens were still standing proud, attracting the throngs. We did a lot of the things you're supposed to do: get seriously lost in the Hermitage to the point where you almost panic; take a river cruise along the Neva and the myriad little canals; stroll down Nevsky; go the Marinsky Theatre to see a ballet (Romeo and Juliet); have dinner at the Idiot cafe; and go for a stroll in the summer gardens; watch a movie dubbed in Russian and listen for the delayed laughter from the audience...Sadly, there wasn't time to take in the palaces beyond the city, the bread museum was closed and St. Issac's Cathedral was impertinently charging inflated tourist prices to see the malachite columns otherwise we would ahve pretty much done all the things we had on our list.

And we did some of the things you are not supposed to do: get accommodation by loafing around the train station (our landlady had the humour of a dead fish); try to post presents (Helen got a sharp dressing down for being so impertinent as to think that they would accept an envelope that had not been addressed 'according to the regulations'); have lunch at a cafe obviously designed for Nouveau Riche Russians (the waitress actually raised her eyes to heaven and sniffed each time we ordered!); buy tickets for the Marinsky from someone on the street (hmph); eat enough Blinis (pancakes) to sink a Russian mini-sub (thankfully, the mini-sub that sank whilst we were there was rescued by the British navy so no tragic repeat of the Kursk disaster).

All in all, the love affair with St. Petersburg continues...If only it weren't for the politics...

Moscow was really only a stop-over to get Mongolian visas and book train tickets (now THERE's a good 24 hour task for you!) but Helen was delighted to see that the pirozhki (pie) stalls were still lining the underground there and we happily got stuck in..Eoghan now can proudly say 'pirozhok s yablokom'.

So it was that, after queuing in about fifty queues, we walked out of Yarasalvsky Vokzal the proud posessors of two tickets in cattle class on train No. 364 bound for Ulan Ude, a few kilometres from Lake Baikal and tantalisingly close to the Mongolian border.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/helenandeoghan/busboatsboots/1124439960/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/helenandeoghan/busboatsboots/1124439960/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/helenandeoghan/busboatsboots/1124439960/tpod.html Thu, 18 Jan 2007 06:51:14 -0500 Around the world by boat, bus and boots

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Ulan Baataar, Mongolia

Mongolia - Ghengis Khan, Ger tents, dinasours and horse riding adventures,
oh, and a small incident of being stranded in the Gobi.

Did you know you can ferment mare's milk into vodka!?! That's the
mmmm, in Mongolia.

This land which Helen had been craving to explore for nearly a decade was,
as of 5am, ours to discover. With our Loney Planet guidebook to Mongolia
safely tucked away on the bookshelf in London, Ulaan Baatar was a mystery
as our Russian born train choked its last breath into the city terminal.

We managed to get sorted for a room by the 'fingers crossed for someone
at the station' technique and within minutes we were whizzing down Peace Avenue
towards the town centre.

Picking up a copy of the Ulaan Bataar Post en route to the National Natural History Museum Helen noticed an advert: " So you want to be a Movie star!! " A Mongolian movie about to start filming and they were in search of a lead foreign actor - no Mongolian language necessary, preferably some acting experience (blagarama). The only draw-back => he has to play a 40 yr old.

We called the number and were directed to call in that afternoon at a 'Soviet style
building near a blue horse'...?! During the interview - where Eoghan got to meet the director -we were warmly received and given the lowdown on the Mongolian film industry. The film was going to be made by the Oscar-nominated Mongolian director who made "The Weeping Camel" and "The Cave of the Yellow Dog" (which we went to see that same evening). "Come back to us on Monday" they said.

The following day we set off to Terelj National Park, an hour out of Ulaan Bataar. Here
we slept in Mongolian Ger tents and got to meet a nomadic family. We stayed for two nights only (Mollywood was calling) but managed to fit in a couple of tear-jerking horse-back rides to a Buddhist temple and a river where we braved arctic waters in a somewhat pathetic attempt at skinny dipping ... more like "THAT WATER IS FRREEEEEZINGGG BRRR." Back to the cosy ger tent with cow-dung fire and candle-light, yum.

Back in UB (You Bee, as the backpackers call it), and armed with Oscar-winning speech in hand, Eoghan set off for Monday's meeting.

Sticking his head in the crack of the door E was met briefly by the casting director before entering a room of stony faces. Whilst I was reading through the script, Mr Casting Dictator (dream-crusher) passed the room and bellowed out - "We have chosen someone else". Boo.

That evening we went to a backpackers' cafe for some chow and were gazing over the notice board - "group looking for Gobi partners", "three heading West looking for fourth to share costs" etc ... when a cough caught our attention. We turned to see the warm smile of Annabel, aged 24, French and with 6 days left in Mongolia she was in a hurry to get to the Gobi. Annabel had loads of great ideas of places to see and a list of guides prepared to show the way ... some email banter later and we'd agreed to head off the next day in search of camels and sand dunes.

Our guide was a 21 yr old Mongolian school teacher "born in the Gobi" called Eddie (Idr).
Although we'd agreed to go Gobi (as it were) he had made an itinery of Ulan Batar's
local sites ... (warning sign #1)

He then upped the price of the trip in his car from that agreed the previous night,
(warning sign #2). We then found out this was his first tour (warning sign #3) and
he didn't know the way to the Gobi (warning sign #4) needing to call in the help of
his uncle (warning sign #5) before upping the price again (warning sign #6) and
then not having any clue what food we'd bring or who would be doing what cooking (#7).
OK - by #7 the girls went off to call another guide but none were available, pressed
for time we agreed to go with this quite undynamic duo. Long story short, gave them
loads of cash which included accomodation, they got sooo massively lost - once turning around and retracking a whole mornings route - sooo lost that nomadic farmers were confused why we were in certain areas asking for others ... then we get to the Gobi (day 3!) and they said we had to pay for accomodation!! I never mentioned that u-n-c-l-e stood for unfriendly-neurotic-cagey-loser-encarnate . Basically these two were not guides but in a round about way were found on the street by Annabel (not her fault) and the guide was born 100km from Ulaan Batar before moving to the city at 1yrs old. His famous quote was "How long do you think you could survive in the desert alone?" ... a few brain teaser answers by Helen and Annabel were rewarded with guide saying "All I need is my penknife". He then 'explained' how he would survive with his penknife.... ==> HE SAID HE "SAW HOW ON NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CHANNEL" #8!!!!!!! and that was it...no other explanation forthcoming!!! Dazed and confused we got back in the jeep (doh!).

On refusing to pay for something we'd already agreed, and having showed them the written 'agreement' schedule in u-n-c-l-e's handwriting, they turned to each other, said someting probably not so kind in Mongolian and said "we're going, we're leaving you here!". A simple "OK" was our reaction to this, "Please!"

We spent the night with a ger family and after not so much bother found a lift with a group of the soundest Swedish fella's you could meet. Really sound. An overnight bus ride back to Ulann Batar full of sing-songs and tradional music, and Mongolian phases ... "Beer chum heer te" means "kiss me" - all was back to normal again.

We got our Chinese visas and headed back to Terelj for trecking and Ger-action. bliss.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/helenandeoghan/busboatsboots/1124268840/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/helenandeoghan/busboatsboots/1124268840/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/helenandeoghan/busboatsboots/1124268840/tpod.html Tue, 16 Jan 2007 11:16:13 -0500 Around the world by boat, bus and boots

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Novosibirsk, Russian Federation

"I spy with my little eye...something beginning wiiiiith...S-B"

"Oooh - me, me! Silver Birch!"

"Okayyy - your go"

"I spy with my little eye something begiiiining wiiiiith....S"

"Sky"

"Yes! Okay, let's eat/sleep/go to the toilet"

And there, in a nutshell, you have the trans-siberian.

Or at least you would, were it not for the characters that filled the platskartniy (hard sleeper) carriage for five days and four nights.

There was the mother and daughter team from Dagestan sitting opposite us. The mother (whose name we never found out) settled in quickly to her role as carriage matriarch, wrapping herself in a velveteen, tiger-print bed gown and dark blue head scarf before dispensing nutritional advice and Dagestani goodies to all those around (especially to Helen who even had to dodge flying packets of sweets "they're not very sweet sweets!"). The daughter, Aida, spent most of the journey powering her way through cheesy romance novels (all with a rosy picture of a blonde haired woman clinging desperately to a man with his white shirt torn open) translated into Russian, but set in Kornvall, or Ze Iorkshuur Mooorz. They were off to see a brother who had been sent to work in Siberia for a couple of years and had stayed for thirty.

Then there was Pasha, a student of Environmental Studies in Moscow and part time estate agent who was on his way to visit family near Chita, but who really wanted to stock up on cheap clothes from China.

And the grunting, saggy-bottomed Chinese grandmother with her devil-incarnate child who demanded our penknife to open a can of fish (we said it unfortunately lacked the function, at which point she made to grab the knife). Devil's spawn spent most of his time kicking up a rumpus and demanding sweets and chocolates from everyone. Even a bit of bread and pickled fish wrapped in a sweet wrapper and offered to him with an enticing smile only put him off for a few minutes.

There were the two carriage attendants, one brunette and one severely bottled blonde who considered us to be scum of the earth until a beer bottle-toting Belgian couple joined the train in Irkustsk and we were elevated to "one of us" with a wink, nudge and a nod and asked to perform the function of translators.

The Belgian couple were excited by their stay with some musicians in Irkutsk and promised us a concert on a traditional Mongolian harmonica (which Helen unfortunately mistook for a beer bottle opener, but was stopped just in time..) but it never happened. Which was a shame, as Helen had by then advertised the recital throughout the carriage.

And there was Gena, a slightly deaf, oriental-looking student of art at St. Petersburg with a torso scarred with a continent of burn marks. Many a toilet trip was accompanied by Gena asking if he could 'chat' and sitting by the windown, having a sign language before he headed off back to his bunk.

The section behind us was somewhat quieter, with women making it all soft and homely. One of the women, Larissa, had a wonderful head of copper hair and her daughter was enchantingly beautiful, with the same hair and the most delicate features that it didn't seem right she was travelling with us pot-noodle slurping travellers.

Exhausted by the calls to EAT EAT EAT by our Dagestani self-appointed mother, we sprinted off to the restaurant wagon for a cup of coffee, where we were royally entertained by a drunken woman singing drunken songs and yelling at all and sundry to join in. She was supported by a young woman and a man the size of a bear who, at one station, jumped off the wagon, walked about and jumped back on again with a long, slippery eel tied to a wooden plank and, in language made slippery by alcohol, commanded the train cook to rustle up a feast. The poor woman wiped her pudgy hands on her none-too-clean apron and shuffled off muttering to herself and shaking her head. All this entertainment for the price of a tesco's own loaf.

But there was no vodka in the carriages (we had envisaged playing cards and drinking toasts but it was all far too carefully managed and 'family orientated' for that) and no beer that we could smell (until the Belgians wafted on) but for all that it was an incredible few days.

Bring on the Silver Birch.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/helenandeoghan/busboatsboots/1123855380/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/helenandeoghan/busboatsboots/1123855380/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/helenandeoghan/busboatsboots/1123855380/tpod.html Tue, 16 Jan 2007 11:11:57 -0500 Around the world by boat, bus and boots

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Vilnius, Lithuania

bllllllllll. Rainnnnnnnnnn.

'What's that?'
'Dunno. It's grey, it's big, it might be that thing that was marked on the map with the X...Oh, maybe not'
'Well, that looks like something... but the map's too sodding wet to tell what's what.'
'Aha...it's the...no, no, it's not what I thought it was. Maybe if we turn round and walk the five miles back up this road, and turn left, we'll find the spot we started from and then...'

As she uttered the last words, the heavens opened again and a slating, slicing downpour obliterated the entire city....

One image: in between showers we found ourselves standing in front of a pile of huge, hollow concrete blocks, sprayed with graffiti ("don't shoot!")and decorated with twisted, dark metal crosses and icon-holders. A tiny woman, hardly visible beneath a huge umbrella, slowly, carefully separated leaves from the stalks of pale flowers, poking the stems into a jam jar of green water. Even when she turned to face us, she didn't really see us. As she moved away, we saw a placard of faces - young students and professors - killed by Soviet troops in 1991 as the tanks closed in on the demonstration for Lithuanian freedom.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/helenandeoghan/busboatsboots/1123265160/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/helenandeoghan/busboatsboots/1123265160/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/helenandeoghan/busboatsboots/1123265160/tpod.html Tue, 16 Jan 2007 11:10:25 -0500 Around the world by boat, bus and boots

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Krakow, Poland

"Howwwww much????" Smoke rising from the hole in our wallets, we set off in search of the gold-plated train from Budapest to Krakow, salivating at the thought of liveried footmen waiting on our every need, turning down the beds with kid-gloved hands. Then, stopping suddenly on the platform, we agreed that equating cost with benefit was probably not wise, and set about imagining the worst: two stiff bunks, liberally sprayed with chewing gum and situated next to the communal toilet (hole in floor) and a train guard with only a passing acquaintance with soap. So it was that we found ourselves jumping up and down with delight when we found our places in a two berth compartment with - wow! a hidden basin and a curtain to hide the ladder for the top bunk (velveteen IF you please!)and...and complimentary croissants for breakfast! Ahhhhhhhhh.

Krakow could fall under the 'another old town with a castle in it' category defined by a travel-weary Canadian we met in Budapest. But what a town with a castle! The Old Section is a maze of cobbled streets, sliced by tram lines. The town centre is the largest medieval square in Europe, and even though it was full of tourists flashing cameras at the major attractions, spilling out onto the cafe terraces, or trotting around in horse and carriages, it was surprisingly peaceful. The castle complex, sitting as it does on a mound looking out over the river, would make a Gorgeous university - and we spent a few minutes picking out the rooms we'd have wanted in the ivy-clad buildings before going in search of the secret 'chakra stone'. We did find it eventually, or rather the iron door behind which it rests, but that, apparently, was as far as we were ever going to get (being lowly Tourists and not Archeology or Anthropology students). Baah Humbug.

What else did we do in Krakow? Well, when we weren't sleeping, we were mostly to be found eating in the veggie restaurants - Krakow is the European Capital of Veggie cuisine (or should be...mmmm. tibetan steamed dumplings and falafel kebabs. MMMMmmmmm) or in a dark wood-panelled, hot-chocolate and cake-serving warren of a bookshop, or jolting along the cobbled streets on 1930s bikes. In summer it all felt immensely 'cosy' so we've Every intention of coming back to see Krakow covered in snow...
We also made a tour of the national art museum (not much cop unless you go in for imperial crockery and 18th Century ladies' neck ruffles) and the stained glass factory (and absolute gem, where the entire production process is explained by a guide - usually one of the artists. Our guide was delighted to pick up and play around with precious pieces of hundred-year old glass being used to make a huge window for a Polish cathedral). Not bad for an old town with castle...

Beyond Krakow, we went to the famous Wieliczka Salt mines, about an hour out of the city. Having passed on the mines at Turda in Romania (who fancies going underground at a place called 'excrement'?) we were keen to lick the walls of this subterranean Unesco wonder. It all started very auspiciously when our guide, at the bottom of the 380-odd steps, whipped off her white miner's helmet, letting her blonde hair fall over her shoulders. Taking a deep breath she welcomed us with " Hello, my name is Ivana and it is my pleassure to be your guide..." Helen could have sworn she purred when she said it.

The mines are amazing. Dark grey salt, hacked and smoothed out into hundreds of egg-shaped rooms decorated with sculptures of Polish heroes (including, of course, Pope John Paul II who visited as a kid), scenes from the bible and the obligatory dwarves. The highlight was probably the immense underground church where three miners had carved 3-d wall paintings of bible-scenes, chiselled a tile-effect flooring and decorated the whole with salt-crystal chandeliers. We were so taken aback, we even forgot to stick our tongues out and ingest a portion of our 10 kg visitors' allowance.

The other visit, that everyone should make even though it is not an easy one, is to Aushwitz (or, in the Polish, Oswiecim). After the disastrous Terror House exhibition in Budapest, there was the concern that it would have been turned into a hideous theme park, but we were assured that the camps had been sensitively preserved and that the museum caught the right...the right what? That it tells you what you need to know.

And it does. From the train station, it is easy to get completely lost and convince yourself you are miles out of your way. Just a few sorry-looking crumbling soviet-style apartment blocks, served by one-storey drab concrete shops lining a road dripping with recent rain. We fell in behind an American family who seemed to know the way and eventually crossed over a miserable-looking grassy patch that might have stood for a football pitch, and headed for the coach park that signalled the entrance.

The camp has been preserved much as it was - row upon muddy row of brick barracks. Many of the barracks hold sparing exhibitions, allowing time for reflection. The glass case that struck us both the most looked from afar like a mound of hair. Closer to, it looked like a heap of thin, rusting, twisted metal. Closer still, we saw it for what it was - a mass of glasses, lense-less and hideous. So many, so many.


"Warsaw is a dump" said one of our dorm companions (or something to that effect). And most people seemed to agree with him. So it wasn't with any great sense of excitement that we hit the town in an attempt to fill the several hours' wait for the night bus to Lithuania.
As a by the by - how did we find ourselves booked onto the night bus to Vilnius when what we had always planned was to take the night train through Belarus? Suffice to say that two things were set against us - A.) We were applying - in Poland - for a transit visa through Belarus slap bang in the middle of a political storm between the two countries and B.) The Belarussian embassy in Warsaw has to be the most unfriendly in the World (they shouted at Eoghan and put the phone down on Helen). And that's a VERY long story cut short!!
So...Warsaw it was. Funnily enough, we stumbled upon a rather beautiful street leading up to a very pretty old town (there we go again) with winding streets (ahhh, heard that one before) and more antique shops than you can shake a stick at. There was even a pop concert being arranged in the square as we trundled round, munching on our falafel kebabs. MMMmm. We congratulated the woman at the Warsaw tourist office who smiled in gratitude and relief "thank you, most people say Warsaw is ugly".
Who cares if (as we later found out) the entire thing is a modern replica of the WWII bombed-out old city? It is very lovely and did us 'quite nicely thank you' until the bus of extreme cold, noise, discomfort and fear (Eoghan was awake for the entire nail-biting journey, eyes peeled, watching for the moment the bus driver swerved us into an oncoming truck!) took us away from Poland and on to pastures new.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/helenandeoghan/busboatsboots/1122961380/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/helenandeoghan/busboatsboots/1122961380/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/helenandeoghan/busboatsboots/1122961380/tpod.html Tue, 16 Jan 2007 11:01:59 -0500 Around the world by boat, bus and boots

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Budapest, Hungary

"Oh, you'll LOVE Budapest. It's such a meeting of the East and West".

Thus spake our American companion in Bulgaria, who promptly set us off imagining streets where mosaic'd mosques jostle for supremacy with the golden onion domes of orthodox churches and the spires of gothic cathedrals; where cafes serve kebabs, falafel and stonking good hot chocolate followed by a hookah pipe...

But Budapest is something quite different. A 'meeting of east and west' in the sense of communism and western democracy yes - the city's soviet realist statues are collected in a 'communism park' outside the city - but architecturally, culturally, and politically this is Europe, with a rather large and repetitive helping of 'Soho'. Graceful, sweeping, and imperial, Budapest echoes London, Paris, Florence. The parliament looks like the architect (Imre Steindl?) laid out the plans of London's Houses of Parliament, pencilled St. Pauls' Cathedral in to the middle of the building, whipped up a few extra gothic spires and then placed it delicately on the Pest side of the Danube so it could for reternity reflect on its 'fusion' grandeur.

After a disastrous visit to the 'Terror House' (yes, the name should have given it away) where Helen wrote an essay in the Guest Book telling the management just what she thought of the drum-and-base audio accompaniment to the exhibition of Communist tortures), we tried to find a way to learn Something about the history of the place. The museum of Budapest history gave us an insight into the bronze age, roman, medieval, turkish, jewish settlers (up to 1940) but the stifling heat got to us, so all we really took away was a blurred image of coins, distorted heads, and maps, maps, maps. Oh, and they had camels in the city at one point..Nowhere, however, could we find an explanation of 1940 - 1945. Silence supreme.

Although sweating in the history museum had done us a world of good, we thought we'd do it properly and stripped down to waddle and wade with the Budapest pensioners in one of the city's many thermal baths. To be honest, the entrance hall offered better eye candy, with its shimmering mosaics depicting roman bathers in golds, indigoes and greens but there was no denying the relaxing effect the 37 degree sulphurous waters had. It would have been a bit more relaxing for Eoghan had he not stripped completely, only to find once he'd taken the plunge that everyone else was wearing loincloths or swimsuits!

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

We were soon woken from our rapturous - and slightly eggy - slumbers by the guy at reception at the Yellow Sub Hostel. Having learnt his English from watching repeat Scorcese films, our little Hungarian mafioso wanabee put on a performance which could have won him an oscar had the subject matter not been quite so mundane: "Breakfast eight tirty to ten, check out nine AM. ANy quesCHuns?" No? Good. NEXT!" Helen ventured a question about needing to salute, or wear a uniform, but immediately regretted it : "What? What's that you sayin'?" he yelled. We scarpered.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/helenandeoghan/busboatsboots/1122961200/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/helenandeoghan/busboatsboots/1122961200/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/helenandeoghan/busboatsboots/1122961200/tpod.html Tue, 16 Jan 2007 10:57:35 -0500 Around the world by boat, bus and boots

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Bucharest, Romania

What are we going to do in Romania? Get fit, climb mountains, explore transylvanian castles hanging precariously from sheer cliffs, eat bloodied steak...Romania still boasts bears, vipers and wild dogs - no better place to go for an afternoon's strol day dreaming away through the fields!

Or visit a few towns of medieaval Saxon origin and climb a few hundred feet before exhaustion sets in and go back down to the town square for a glass of sweet Moldovan wine?

Mmmm....Tough call...

Loads of surprises here - "The People's Palace" built by the mad dictator Ceaucescu in the pre-1989 years is the 2nd biggest building in the world (after the Pentagon) and stands on the rubble of one-sixth of Bucharest which was bulldozed to make room for this wacko's dream.

There are more tasteful palaces in Romania and none more so then the Royal Summer Castle at Sinaia. This gets our vote as one of the must-sees of our trip thus far!! A true fairy-tale with turrets, secret passage-ways and rooms themed and crammed with treasures from Japan to Iran (furniture which took 100 years to carve and a stair-case so ornate it was never used!).

On hearing that Moldova houses the largest wine cellar in the world (kilometres upon kilometres of the stuff) I nearly turned giddy although, because this little gem was a little too far out of our way - reason enough to return - we headed to Brasov and walked around the Saxon church before settling in for another Moldovan wine-a-thon.

Sighisoara was full of German tourists and porn-watching local lads, so got 'nul points' depsite it being Vlad Dracula's birthplace. Top marks, however, for the apple cake baked by the team of Christians who run a cafe at the foot of the creepy staircase to the spookiest church in Romania.

Cluj-Napoca is a gem - a real student town (always guaranteed to make Helen smile). We went for a walk to one of the gorges about an hour's drive and a few kilometers on foot out of town. On the return leg the guide asked if we wanted to go via the river or head straight back. We picked the road less travelled - well, it wasn't exactly a 'road' but talk of waterfalls persuaded us. A few HOURS later we found ourselves STILL wading through the winding river, jumping round cow/sheep/rabbit poo and/or water snakes (delete as appropriate) and hopping from rock to rock. Sure the first time we took off our shoes to go in it was "ahh, sweet". By #20 it was more "bleeem'n 'ek ouch!" But it was a class act of a hike, wild mint growing by a river not a road or any sign of life for miles, sweet bliss. Just a pity about the stones in the shoes...
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Belgrade, Serbia and Montenegro

The tail end of another eight hour bus journey and we were flagging. Our group of backpackers descended at Belgrade bus station: sweaty, greasy apparitions of our former selves. We all peeled apart and the others went in search of water and a hostel. We went in search of water and a train.

The idea was to go to Bucharest, but as has been the way of things, we had just missed that day's train to Bucharest. Not wanting to stay the night, and loving the idea of another overnight train journey, we went for the other option - Sofia.

Decision made, we had two hours to kill. A wander up and down the main shopping street, past the park and up towards the cathedral revealed bookshops galore and a Serbian penchant for all things nautical (perhaps a sub-conscious revolt against looming Montenegran independence which will render Serbia totally land-locked). The atmosphere was not as patiently energetic as in Sarajevo, nor as indifferent as in Split. Perhaps 'aspirational' describes it best.
Eoghan did a sterling job of buying and consuming ice creams and coffees at regular intervals so that Helen could make a dash for the toilet...

When lost, several locals stopped to offer help and directions which made the whole two hours very pleasant.

Only downsides - the endless toilet dashes and the sandwiches which had, like us, wilted in the heat.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/helenandeoghan/busboatsboots/1121623200/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/helenandeoghan/busboatsboots/1121623200/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/helenandeoghan/busboatsboots/1121623200/tpod.html Tue, 16 Jan 2007 10:47:58 -0500 Around the world by boat, bus and boots

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Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

One day. Most of it spent sweating half our body weight on two, un-air conditioned, eight hour bus journeys. The scenery was very pretty - much like you might expect a traditional Swiss Alpine village to look like: forested hillsides; houses with steeply sloping rooves and window boxes spilling red and purple summer flowers; gardens carefully manicured with many a small orchard bearing fruit.

One afternoon. Not long, but enough to see the Tunnel D-B museum just outside of Sarajevo, which provides a chilling reminder of how the international community stood by as the Bosnian Serb forces laid seige to the city for 43 months, depriving it for long stretches of water, food, electricity and communications. The tunnel created a channel for such aid (but mostly for weapons and ammunition for the resisting Bosnian army) and 20 metres of it still exists, the rest having collapsed some time ago. We stand for a while by the taxi, looking over to the airport that was once captured by Serb forces, then taken over by the UN, and which now, in the light of a July evening in 2005, lies quiet as the hills that once hid Serbian troops.

One evening. Even as the light fails, you can make out the scars of war in the city: pock-marked buildings and pavements with round holes. But the cafes in the centre hum with youth drinking coffee and eating cake into the small hours. Youth is breathing life into city.

One blot in the landscape. Our Croatian landlady, Yasmina, who accosted us at the bus station, struck a decent deal then proceeded to up the price every time we spoke to her, talking fast and free, wheeling and dealing and eventually leaving us high and dry without breakfast sandwiches or a taxi to the bus station in the morning. But that, thankfully, is no reflection on Sarajevo.
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