jonnymatthews's TravelStream™ — Recent TravelPod.com entries

jonnymatthews's TravelStream™ — Recent TravelPod.com entries TravelStream™ news feed for member jonnymatthews on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/jonnymatthews en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Wed, 16 Jul 2008 07:22:59 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com Paradise Valley — Valparaiso, Chile http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonnymatthews/1/1207237140/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonnymatthews/1/1207237140/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonnymatthews/1/1207237140/tpod.html Wed, 16 Jul 2008 07:22:59 -0400 Round the World 2008

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Valparaiso, Chile

I picked up my hire car on Wednesday and drove to Valaparaiso on the coast. When I was staying in Santiago, my hotel was on Paseo Londres (London). My hotel in Valparaiso is the Hotel Brighton, so I´ve literally moved from London to Brighton. Incidentally, Paseo Londres joins onto one of the main streets in Santiago. This is the deliciously named "Avenida Liberata Bernando O´Higgins", which cracked me up every time I saw it.  The drive from Santiago was in bright sunshine, but about 5Km from Valparaiso I drove into fog, and that´s been the weather ever since. In the UK, we have the Gulf Stream which stops us getting too cold, but down here they have the Humbolt current which runs up the coast from the Southern tip of Chile all the way up to Peru. It´s cold water, hence the fog, and it´s brilliant for fish. Around 20% of the world´s catch comes from here, and the seafood is particularly good (and fairly cheap)Valparaiso is a beautiful city. Lots of the houses are made of corrugated iron and painted brightly . It´s similar to La Boca in Buenos Aries, but on a bigger scale and much, much hillier. The streets are so steep that there are little funicular railways (ascensores) dotted around all over the place to move you from one level to another. You need a good pair of calves to walk around Valparaiso, and if you didn´t have them when you set out, you certainly will have by the time you´ve finished.James emailed me yesterday asking if this city was featured in The Motor Cycle Diaries. It turns out that it was, although I didn´t know that until now. Another film to watch when I get home.Talking of films, a popular news item here at the moment is: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080402/film_nm/chile_jamesbond_dcAs some of you know, I got a bit confused about the time difference between here and the UK. When I set off last week the time difference between Chile and the UK was -4 hours. On Sunday clocks in the UK went forward - in Chile they went back an hour. I <i>think that means we are now 6 hours behind, but I´m still working on it. Valparaiso has been a lovely place to stay, despite the fog, but tomorrow I move on. I´m driving South to Villarrica in the Chilean Lake District - and hopefully back into the sunshine.Newsflash: The sun just came out!Another Newsflash: I was posting this lot, and it started getting a bit noisy outside. There´s just been a mini riot. The Police tried to arrest someone, the Chileans weren´t having it, and it all kicked off. Good for them actually.
]]> It's like Beirut out there! — Beirut, Lebanon http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonnymatthews/1/1214671500/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonnymatthews/1/1214671500/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonnymatthews/1/1214671500/tpod.html Sun, 29 Jun 2008 14:00:00 -0400 Round the World 2008

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Beirut, Lebanon

As far as travelling to Lebanon was concerned, I painted myself into a bit of a corner by coming to Aleppo. The quickest way to Beirut from here is through the North Lebanese city of Tripoli, but there was heavy fighting there on Sunday and several people died. It's been calm since then, but I read about a motorist being killed by a stray bullet as he drove along the road - he was exactly my age, and I took this as an omen to avoid Tripoli altogether. This meant returning to Damascus by bus, taking a taxi to a different bus station, and playing it by ear from there. Basically it puts anything between 4 and 6 hours on to the journey.With the words of the guy from the Foreign Office still ringing in my ears (to paraphrase:  "You're free to go wherever you want, but if it all goes tits up don't expect any sympathy from us"), my Damascus taxi driver was absolutely no help whatsoever.... When he found out where I was going he started making machine gun impressions, laughing hysterically and shouting "Boom! Boom!" - and not in a Basil Brush style either. When he spotted an ambulance, he was delighted and drove alongside it for a while, jabbering away in Arabic and gesticulating madly. I got the message: "You're going home in one of these" - cheers mate. When I reached the Lebanese border things didn't improve much either. Option 3 for "Reason for Visit" on the Immigration Form? "Hospitalisation" for crying out loud.Immigration itself was comedy central though, and I started to like Lebanon before I'd even got into the country. The officer dispensing visas was looking harassed enough already, before the cleaner decided to sweep up under his feet, stand in front of him and generally get in the way - he went out a lot quicker than he came in. One guy's passport was completely full, with no room for even a single stamp - his passport was literally thrown back at him, and he was sent back to Syria with a flea in his ear. And to me? They were pussy cats.There's an incredible difference between Syria and Lebanon. The first thing you notice is how green the countryside is, and the Lebanese scenery is just fantastic. In some places it reminded me of Croatia, in others the French Riviera. In yet others it's Middle Eastern, but with a Lebanese/Mediterranean twist, and it's one of the prettiest countries I've ever visited. The other really striking thing after Jordan and Syria is just how relaxed the whole place feels. Aleppo is a very conservative city, and the burkha is a common sight - in Lebanon there are billboard advertisements for lingerie. After only a short time in the Middle East I found this quite shocking.The other thing that you will notice in Lebanon straight away is the driving - forget Mongolia, this is the Premier Division of crazy drivers. Fancy making a left turn? Then go as far to the right as possible, and then cut straight across three lanes of traffic at the last possible moment. Don't worry, they'll be expecting it. It's a reversal of UK driving - I was in a service taxi with four others when another driver refused to let us cut him up at high speed. Cue genuine astonishment, and much shaking of heads.    My hotel was in the Hamra area of Beirut, which was a very fashionable area before the civil war. I enjoyed my stay there very much, and had an excellent night out which included watching the Spain/Russia match in a bar near the hotel. The following day I went visiting!Long time Axbridge resident, and top bloke, Jim Ramadan lives in the mountains above Beirut with his partner Nicole in a village called Beit Mery. We'd been in touch on and off by email since I was in Russia, and I'd arranged to stay overnight before I had to return to Damascus. I travelled up there by bus, and before you even arrive, the views over Beirut to the Mediterranean and over the mountains are just stunning. The "view from my room" was the best since Isla Del Sol, Bolivia.I was a bit overwhelmed by Jim and Nicole's hospitality, which included driving me round some of the local sights, and there are lots of them, a night out at a local restaurant with fabulous food and beautiful views over Beirut, and a genuine Lebanese breakfast in a mountainside cafe the next morning - heartfelt thanks again to both of you.    Something that Lebanon is famous for is being one of the very few places in the world where you can ski in the mountains in the morning, and swim in the sea in the afternoon. Jim took me up to a nearby ski-resort (I think it was called Zaarour, but I may be wrong) to look at the ski runs. It was so hot up there that it's hard to imagine snow in the mountains, but Jim has kindly provided a photograph of the same place in winter as proof (see below). I have two regrets about coming to Lebanon: a) I should have come here sooner,  and b) I should have stayed here longer. Fantastic country......
]]> Pin — Aleppo, Syria http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonnymatthews/1/1214507340/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonnymatthews/1/1214507340/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonnymatthews/1/1214507340/tpod.html Thu, 26 Jun 2008 15:10:17 -0400 Round the World 2008

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Aleppo, Syria

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]]> The Axis of Evil (allegedly) — Damascus, Syria http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonnymatthews/1/1214068860/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonnymatthews/1/1214068860/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonnymatthews/1/1214068860/tpod.html Thu, 26 Jun 2008 15:08:42 -0400 Round the World 2008

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Damascus, Syria

Bloody Hell!! The taxi fare from the bus station in Damascus to my hotel was £150!! With the current exchange rate running at about £100 Syrian to £1 Sterling, that wasn't too much of a hit though.....The drive up into Syria from Northern Jordan is a bit like travelling through a dust bowl. Between Jordan and Syria is one serious border, complete with concrete walls, watch towers, razor wire, the works. I got the impression from Western media that the Syrian border is very leaky, with people wandering in and out of Iraq carrying RPG's and the like - I can't speak for further east, but that certainly isn't the case here.For once being a foreigner worked to my advantage. There are "Syrian", "Arab" and "Foreigner" queues at Passport Control, and only one other person in the Foreigner queue (the other queues were packed). Result! Or so I thought until I realised that the guy in front of me was holding the passports of an entire coach-load of Malaysian tourists. Immigration actually seemed far more interested in scouring my passport for Israeli stamps than inspecting my hard won Syrian visa. Malaysians notwithstanding, 10 minutes and I was through.Syria is far greener than Jordan (although that isn't saying a lot - Southern Syria is actually just a different shade of beige, with some green bits on top). There's a huge difference between the two countries as soon as you cross the border though. If Northern Jordan was a bit of a desert, then here there are crops growing: watermelons, potatoes, wheat and the like. Judging by the Italian and Dutch trucks out in the countryside this is a country that exports food.If Amman was a bit bland, Damascus has character in spades and I'm really taken with the place. It's human sized, atmospheric, shambolic, full of fantastic buildings, and safe (but be careful you don't fall down a giant pothole or get run over). In Beijing I got the impression that I'd dropped in on 6,000 years of history, but this place is much much older - historians can demonstrate continuous occupation of Damascus for more than 8,000 years. Big bits of central Damascus and the Old Town look to be crumbling away, but maybe it's always been like this - one bit falls down and you put another bit in its place. My 2* hotel in Damascus was also a step up from my 5* in Amman. The room boy sorted out my laundry for less than 5 pounds, and on the street outside I got my long suffering shoes polished until they gleamed. Including the soles for some reason......Since the Trans Siberian Express, my diet has become increasingly bizarre - something I need to sort out when I get home. The day I arrived, I'm ashamed to say that my entire food intake consisted of 1 bowl of Rice Krispies, a mulberry juice slush puppy, and 2 plain ice creams, rolled in crushed pistachios - it must be the heat. The Syrians are doing their best to feed me up though. The restaurants all play the same game here: they put stuff on the table as though it was included in the price of the meal (eg bread), then stick it on the bill if you so much as look at it. If you leave it alone, they'll try and tempt you with something else. In one place, I left everything alone for quite a while, just to see what would happen - I ended up with a jumbo bowl of popcorn, a dish of carrots and cucumber, a bowl of mixed nuts, a plate of home made crisps and a chocolate pudding - there was no room left on the table, or I'm sure they'd have found more. Food is good value here though - a nice meal costs around £2-£3, and breakfast (a full Syrian!) about £1.A couple of days in, I hired a driver to take me round some of the sights outside Damascus. We started off back down near the Jordanian border at the Roman ruins of Bosra - the driver was a bit of a character, to put it mildly. Just outside Damascus, he pulled up at a coffee place (on the hard shoulder of a dual carriageway, under a flyover). He handed them a mug, which they washed out, filled with coffee and we're away - I'm now a passenger in a car that's doing 90mph, with a driver who has a mug of coffee in one hand, and a cigarette and mobile phone in the other. When both his hands are eventually free, he has the less than endearing habit of shooting any soldiers that he sees (and there are lots of soldiers) with a pretend rifle - even when we've stopped at an army checkpoint. He thinks it's hilarious, I'm not convinced.It was a fascinating day out though, from the oldest and largest Roman theatre and ruined city of Bosra (where I was the only visitor), up to the Shia shrine and Mosque of Sayidda Zeinab just outside Damascus. In the Bosra area, we passed the Golan Heights which is Druze territory. The Druze are an interesting lot that I was vaguely aware of from the Lebanese Civil War (as in "Druze Militia"). My driver gave up shooting soldiers and sounded his horn every time he saw a Druze, so that we could get a look at their enormous moustaches. Syria is a much more politicised country than Jordan, and as well as pictures and statues of the Assad dynasty, there are Palestinian flags absolutely everywhere. No wonder really - there are between 500,000 and 1 million Palestinian refugees here, and this is on top of the 2 million Iraqi refugees living in Syria. Then of course there is the Golan Heights, occupied by Israel since 1967. The Israelis claim that this is absolutely vital for their security, whilst the Syrians will tell you that it's actually about water - the Golan Heights is one of the best places for water in the region, and the Israelis want to hang on to it. I've got to say that I think the Syrian argument is more plausible.Aleppo, SyriaBus travel in Syria is easy and cheap - I travelled practically the length of the country up to Aleppo near the Turkish border for about £2. On the buses they generally close all the curtains and show very bad Arab films, often starring a weedy guy in glasses - a sort of Arab Woody Allen. They also like to run the buses with the engine covers raised, presumably to help keep the engine cool. In the UK, Health and Safety would have a fit.Aleppo vies with Damascus for the title of "Oldest Continuously Inhabited City" - this is another city that is at least 8,000 years old, but it feels very different to Damascus. My hotel is in the old Christian quarter and it's an absolutely gorgeous place. It has been constructed from a number of old houses that have been restored and then knocked together - very much in the style of  a Marrakesh riad. It also has a lovely rooftop restaurant, grossly overstaffed with the usual barely competent waiters - think Basil Fawlty meets the Keystone Cops.....I went up to the Barons Hotel to watch Turkey versus Germany in Euro 2008. This place is an institution, and guests have included Lawrence of Arabia and Agatha Christie (Aleppo was part of the setting for Murder on the Orient Express) - in WW2 British officers used to practice fox hunting in the bar. These days the hotel is seedy, frayed around the edges and slowly falling apart - a fantastic place! Incredibly, this is also where I met our man from the Foreign Office........I've got a bit of a problem - the next stop on my itinerary is the Lebanon, scene of the most vicious civil war that I can remember. Originally, I was going to visit in 2006, but the Israelis put paid to that when they bombed Southern Lebanon, South Beirut and the airport. The situation seemed to have improved lately and so I thought I'd give it another go - then while I was in Japan, it all kicked off again. From what I understand, there was an attempted coup by Hezbullah, who turned their weapons away from the Israelis and trained them on fellow Lebanese - an incredibly dangerous thing for the country. Scores of people were killed, and for a little while it looked as though Lebanon was on the brink of another civil war. Things have calmed down a bit since then, and it's back on my schedule - but the Foreign Office are still classing it as "Essential Travel Only". This may cause problems with my insurance if anything happens while I'm there. I asked the Foreign Office guy what it was all about - at one point Lebanon was being classed as more dangerous than Iraq or Afghanistan, which is clearly absurd. It was quite an interesting conversation really. Apparently Iraq and Afghanistan have been downgraded for political reasons (to make it look as though the US and UK are "succeeding" I suppose), and since the Bali bombing the Foreign Office are so frightened of the British press that their advice is now ultra-cautious. And if that means ruining the livelihoods of people trying to earn a crust in countries on the "Don't Visit" list just to keep the Daily Mail happy? Then so be it.   So, "To go, or not to go? That is the question"................I'm going.     
]]> From Annan to Amman — Amman, Jordan http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonnymatthews/1/1213968300/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonnymatthews/1/1213968300/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonnymatthews/1/1213968300/tpod.html Tue, 24 Jun 2008 13:35:52 -0400 Round the World 2008

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Amman, Jordan

Amman was another place I'd no real intention of coming to at the outset. The original plan was to travel overland from Shanghai to Newcastle: from Helsinki to Stockholm by ferry, a train via Oslo to Bergen, and a ferry from Bergen to Newcastle. Two things screwed this up: firstly the Bergen-Newcastle ferry only runs a couple of times a week so timing became an issue, and more importantly, I noticed that I had a flight left over on my Round the World ticket - I've come here because I can. In terms of air routes there were echoes of Rio/Sao Paulo though, which is how I ended up here in the first place. I  wanted to go to Syria and not to Jordan at all, but Syrian Airways isn't part of the OneWorld Alliance, Royal Jordanian is. So Finnair flew me from a rainy Helsinki down to Geneva, and Royal Jordanian took me on to Amman - via Zurich for God's sake (not mentioned anywhere until I got to the departure gate). This meant 14 hours travelling to cover the distance of what is essentially a 5 hour flight, ending up in a country I didn't really want to be in to begin with.It wasn't really a great start, and my hotel didn't improve matters much (my fault, I was the one who booked the place). The Amman Regency Palace is one of those hotels that isn't content with the money that you've spent on the room, but would like to crowbar as much extra dosh out of you as possible while you are there. For example, many hotels (even the Lenin Hostel in Moscow) give free Internet access as a service to guests, but here they would like you to rent a laptop for around 50 Euros a day. Yeah, right - that's more money than the average Jordanian earns in a week. I also brought plenty of dirty laundry with me, hoping to get my washing done here but the price to wash just one shirt was was around 5 Euros. It isn't as though I don't have the money, but on principle I'm taking my laundry to Syria - they can bugger off.Mary and I visited Southern Jordan last year, and I was quite taken with the country, so it wasn't too much of a hardship coming here again. There's plenty to see in the North of the country as well, including the Dead Sea, the Dana Nature Reserve and the Roman ruins at Jerash, but somehow I never quite got round to doing any of this at all. I've been travelling for a long time now, I'm tired, it's too hot, and frankly I just can't be arsed - cue three days sitting around the pool with the occasional foray into central Amman. Apart from a couple of fairly uninspiring Roman ruins, there's not much to see here at all. It's modern and bland.......but it could be the answer to an excellent quiz question.The hotel continued to bug my for the whole of my stay. There are between 10 and 12 staff running the bar for instance, the majority of whose function I can only guess at as they spend all their time either talking to each other or staring into space. One character who I think may have been the bar manager paced continuously up and down shouting into his mobile phone (about the football I think). So with a dozen staff to only four customers, why does it take over a quarter of a hour to get an overpriced beer? I tried spinning the situation with a) none of this really matters, b) it's a cultural thing c) I'm the one with the problem, etc. No matter what I tried, it didn't stop me growling.     In another hotel down the road, I was privileged enough to see a couple of Jordanian wedding receptions whilst I was here. The formula seems to be the same each time, culminating in a parade into the dining room by the happy couple and their guests, which lasts for about 20 minutes. They are accompanied by an Arab band who dress identically, sing, bang their drums, and er......play the bagpipes. The first night it was charming, but by the second it was a bloody racket. And the definition of a gentleman? Someone who knows how to play the bagpipes, but doesn't......When I said it was hot here, I wasn't joking. The temperature has been in the high 30 degrees C (about 100F) and even the Jordanians are starting to complain. It was nearly 30C at 07:30 on Friday morning, when I set off to buy my bus ticket to Damascus. At the bus station, 2 places were selling tickets (but not for the day I wanted), the other was closed. I did something I never do, which was get into a taxi with a guy who offered to help. It was fine. He took me to a kosher place about 1km away, where I was sold a ticket for a very reasonable 7.5 Dinar. I gave Khaled (for that was his name) the change to share with the driver and we all went away delighted. It restored my faith in human nature a bit, and I started to remember why I liked the Jordanians so much the last time I was here. Unfortunately when I turned up for the coach at 6:30 on Saturday morning (as instructed), only to find that it didn't leave until 7:30......well I'm afraid I started to growl again..........and the quiz question? You can make it up yourself, but basically Amman is the original city of Philadelphia.
]]> White nights and dodgy football teams — Saint petersburg, Russian Federation http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonnymatthews/1/1213712280/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonnymatthews/1/1213712280/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonnymatthews/1/1213712280/tpod.html Fri, 20 Jun 2008 09:58:27 -0400 Round the World 2008

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Saint petersburg, Russian Federation

After 4 solid days on the train I arrived in Moscow tired and gritty, found my hotel with no problems at all, and proceeded to check in. The guy at reception spoke very good English, and knew all about the UK. He asked me where I was from, to which the stock answer is "Bristol" - explaining that you live in a village gets a bit tedious after a while, although not very many people have heard of Bristol either. This guy knew all about Bristol though, even the name of the football team. City or Rovers? Neither. The team he knew everything about was called "Bristol Palace". I was only here for a day and a half. The main reason I kept my visit so brief was because of Moscow's new reputation as "The Most Expensive City in the World". It isn't cheap, but I didn't think it was too bad - about the same as London prices. The main problem here is the cost of a hotel room, but I managed to book myself into a reasonably priced hostel. Apart from the guy on reception and the fantastic shower, the best thing about the place was their guide to Moscow - a chap called Arthur Lookyanov. Brilliant. The hostel is within walking distance of the city centre, so I did all the bog-standard stuff, Red Square, the Kremlin and St Basil's Cathedral. It's probably because it was a Summer Saturday, but you couldn't move down there for weddings. Every bride in Moscow has to be photographed in the same famous places, and stretch limos are de rigeur (in one case a stretch Hummer). It's quite sweet for a while - and then they start to get under your feet, and you know how pushy wedding photographers can be. Gorky Park, wasn't too far away either, so I went down for a look. It's a mixture of amusement park, ornamental park, family day out and all pretty unsophisticated. I liked it. Everyone photographs each other and when it's the girls' turn to be photographed they strike a pose, which looks as though they've been practicing all Winter. There was just something about the atmosphere there that reminded me of, oh I don't know.....how about  Morecambe, circa 1969? One of the biggest attractions in Moscow is the metro. The original stations were built in the 1930's under Stalin. No room to wax lyrical about them here - you can Google "Moscow Metro" if you're interested. Here's a set of photographs of the type of people you can see down there though: http://www.englishrussia.com/?p=252 Just round the corner from where I stayed was a bar showing Euro 2008, and it was Russia versus Greece - how could I resist? I've seen Eastern European football fans in action before, and written them off as absolute animals, like England fans in the 1970's. This was totally different though, and I couldn't believe how polite they were. Apart from the jubilation when the goal went in, they spent most of the time politely applauding absolutely anything at all (winning a throw-in for example). The atmosphere was more like watching a cricket match than football. There was also a Barrow AFC scarf pinned to the wall for some reason.....  So although I wasn't here long, I enjoyed Moscow immensely. It was nothing like I expected, and the impression I got was of a quiet, low-rise, and very laid back place. Definitely an entry on the list of cities I'd like to come back to. White nights, St Petersburg And as the planet spins towards the solstice, it's time to head for the "white nights" of St. Petersburg. Although South of the Arctic circle, at this time of year it never gets completely dark here and I found it strange to be walking around in bright sunshine at 11:00 at night. There's absolutely no hope for me though. After something like seven days on the train to get up here from Ulan Bataar, the first thing I saw as we pulled into St. Pete's was a train bound for Sebastopol. Naturally, my first reaction was to start working out how I would be able to undertake this journey. Maybe it's just the place names of the old Soviet Union that I find so evocative - Archangel, Astrakhan, Murmansk and Odessa - but I clearly need counselling. If I felt as though I'd hardly scratched the surface of what Moscow had to offer, in St. Petersburg I felt as though I hadn't even managed to do that - the place is stunning, and buildings that would be star attractions in any other city are two a penny here. But it's very very popular, and I hadn't realised just how many visitors come here. With all the cruise ships and coach trips, you can hardly move in some places, and there are as many tourist boats on the canals as there are in Amsterdam. It's all easy enough to get away from though, and in the end I spent two days just walking round admiring the place - until my feet gave out and I had to sit down for a while.  Euro 2008 continues apace, but if Russia aren't playing nobody here seems particularly interested. I found a bar showing  the Portugal-Switzerland match, but only two of us watched it - myself and the (tooled up) security guard. I think his English has improved immensely, and tomorrow we may even move on from variations on "you cheating Portuguese tosser"........ I also finished "War and Peace" while I was on the train up here from Moscow. It's a bit of a cliche, but the book has been my constant companion since I left home, and I'll be at a bit of a loss without it. It's set during the Napoleonic Wars, and as well as the battlefields of Austerlitz and Borodino, large parts of the book are set in Moscow and St Petersburg, one of the reasons I brought it along. As well as the literary side, Tolstoy also had a bit of a thing about free will versus predetermination - back in April, and at 38.000 feet over the Mississippi Delta I read the following words that have bugged me a little bit ever since: <i>"Each man lives for himself, using his freedom to get what he wants, and he feels with every fibre of his being that at any particular time he is free to perform an action or refrain from doing so, but the moment any action is taken it becomes an irrevocable piece of history that has more to do with predetermination than freedom. There are two sides to life for every individual: a personal life in which his freedom exists in proportion to the abstract nature of his interests, and an elemental life within the swarm of humanity, in which a man inevitably follows laws laid down for him. Although at a conscious level a man lives for himself he is actually being used as an unconscious instrument for the attainment of humanity's historical aims. A deed once done becomes irrevocable, and any action comes together over time with millions of actions performed by other people to create historical significance...." So did I set out on this journey of my own free will, or was it already written in the stars? Answers on a postcard please.   Helsinki So it's goodbye to Russia. Coming here in the Summer is probably cheating though, as what defines Russia for many people is Winter, the snow and the cold. Valery runs 6 day cross-country skiing trips on and around Lake Baikal staying in traditional wooden houses, which sound brilliant. Knowing him it would be a different pair of skis every day though. Maybe one day. And after successfully negotiating the Foreigner's ticket desk at St Pete's Finlandski Station, I'm on my way to Helsinki, Finland. While I was in the queue, it occurred to me that an office I used to visit in London was close to Vauxhall station. The Russian word for station is "vaxal", so to a Russian the place would have been called "Vauxhall vaxal".... The train crosses the border west of a Russian city called Vyburg, which used to be in Finland but was given to Stalin after WW2. This time it's the Russians being turned inside out by Finnish Customs, and it's quite nice to see the boot on the other foot for a change. Although the countryside is very similar to Russia, Finland gives the impression of an economy that actually works, and feels more like home than anywhere I've been for a while. I'm also back on the Roman alphabet for the first time since the Philippines, which is nice. Shame it's all in Finnish. Helsinki is safe, prosperous, efficient and after the likes of Caracus and Manila, just a little bit dull. It's also bloody expensive. I had my first cup of coffee since San Francisco here, and the first Indian meal since I left home - the Indian cost about £30. The Finns are lovely though. When I arrived I went into a random office to ask for directions to my hotel, which they gave me. A couple of minutes later the guy who, it turned out had sent me in the wrong direction, came belting up on one of those little aluminium scooters, apologised and insisted on walking me there personally. So, if I walked due West from here (and we'll ignore the fact that I'd drown long before I arrived), I'd end up in the Shetlands. I'm turning left................
]]> pin — Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonnymatthews/1/1213869600/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonnymatthews/1/1213869600/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonnymatthews/1/1213869600/tpod.html Fri, 20 Jun 2008 09:16:58 -0400 Round the World 2008

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Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland

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]]> pin — Vyborg, North-West Russia, Russian Federation http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonnymatthews/1/1213713480/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonnymatthews/1/1213713480/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonnymatthews/1/1213713480/tpod.html Fri, 20 Jun 2008 05:19:24 -0400 Round the World 2008

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Vyborg, North-West Russia, Russian Federation

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]]> Helsinki — Helsinki, Southern Finland, Finland http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonnymatthews/1/1213736400/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonnymatthews/1/1213736400/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonnymatthews/1/1213736400/tpod.html Fri, 20 Jun 2008 05:11:36 -0400 Round the World 2008

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Helsinki, Southern Finland, Finland

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]]> Trans-Siberian Excess — Moscow, Central Russia, Russian Federation http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonnymatthews/1/1213513500/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonnymatthews/1/1213513500/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonnymatthews/1/1213513500/tpod.html Tue, 17 Jun 2008 10:36:02 -0400 Round the World 2008

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Moscow, Central Russia, Russian Federation

More than 130 rivers flow into Lake Baikal but only one flows out, the Angara. This is the river that the train followed as we left Irkutsk and headed West towards Krasnoyarsk, Yekaterinburg, and Gorky. Moscow is more than 5,500km, and four days and nights away on the train......Provodnitsas look after the carriages. You will meet your provodnitsa before you board the train. She (and it's almost always a she) is the one that checks your ticket and passport before you can climb aboard. They are dressed in uniform, and on a long-haul train like this there are two per carriage, each working a 12 hour shift. When they finish a shift though, off comes the uniform and on comes civilian clothing. One of our provodnitsas looks as though she's just left a night club, whilst the other prowls the corridors in a leopard-skin print dressing gown. When the train stops, the provodnitsa from the next carriage is regularly seen down on the platform dressed in pyjamas, dressing gown, and curlers, having a fag. The most important thing to realise here is that the carriage you ride in, and the compartment you live in doesn't belong to the railway company at all - everything is the personal property of the provodnitsas, a fact you must never forget.Living Accommodation on the train depends on how much money you're willing to pay. In 1st class there are two berths (bunk beds) to a compartment, in 2nd class (Kupeny) there are four. Luggage is stored under the bottom bunks, and above the door. This is how the three of us traveled to Moscow, sharing a compartment - we were the only non-Russians on the train. The provodnitsa issues sheets, a pillow case and towel when you board. You will use this lot for the duration of your journey, whether it's 7 days from Moscow to Vladivostok or 7 hours from Moscow to St Petersburg. 3rd Class (Plaskarteny) is something else again. The carriages don't have compartments - they are open dormitories that sleep around 50 people per carriage. They look a little bit like something out of a refugee camp, with clothing strung up between bunks, babies crying and kids tearing up and down the aisle. Life on the train quickly falls into a rhythm, mainly based around filling in the time (which is something you have plenty of). There are a couple of stops a day when you can get off and stretch your legs, but most of the time is spent reading, sleeping, or watching Russia slide past the window. The rest of the time is spent dragging out the simplest of tasks to fill in time: eg 1/2 hour to make a Pot Noodle (and another 1/2 hour to eat it), 1/2 hour for a cup of tea, 1/2 hour to clean your teeth, etc. This all takes place against a background of iffy Russian pop music, piped into your compartment courtesy of the provodnitsa.One diversion is the constant stream of hawkers, who ride the train for a while and walk up and down the corridors peddling their wares. There are lots of things on offer, including books to read (in Russian naturally), fox furs, and the ubiquitous Russian hats. No takers for anything in our compartment, but the little girl next door was kitted out with a hand-knitted yellow poncho and matching hat.You can also entertain yourself by counting down the distance left to go to Moscow using the Kilometre marker posts at the side of the tracks, and there are also landmarks to look out for. There's the obelisk marking the Europe-Asia border for example (which we passed at 3 o'clock in the morning while we were asleep), or the "obelisk" marking the half-way point between Moscow and Beijing - this turned out to be nothing more than a big stick.Time is another thing to get your head round on the train. Russia spans 11 time zones and the train crosses them at regular intervals. Traveling from East to West you have to put your watch back regularly, which means that there are no 24 hour days - they last either 25 or 26 hours depending on where you are. In San Francisco I bought a PDA to keep myself organised, and it displays the time in three different time zones. On the train I had them set to London time, Moscow time (all trains in Russia run to Moscow time, even if they are several time zones away. If they didn't the whole system would collapse), and local time. The last one is where it gets tricky as local cities aren't options to choose from on my PDA, plus Russia is on daylight saving time at the moment which shifts the time one zone East. This means that Irkutsk is on Tokyo time, Krasnoyarsk=Beijing, Novosibirsk=Bangkok, Omsk=Dhaka, Bangladesh, and Perm=Karachi, Pakistan. When you get to Kirov you're on Dubai time, which at this time of the year is the same as Moscow. Confused? Believe me, it's worse when you're living it............Locked toilets can be a source of angst (and worse if you're not careful). The provodnitsas lock the toilets about 1/2 hour before the train stops at a station. They stay locked for up to 1/2 hour after it sets off again, and also at other times, eg when the provodnitsas are changing shift. I can cope with this most of the time, just by reading the timetable and planning ahead, but you can't do this when you've just woken up......On Thursday morning I woke up needing to pay a visit, but we were a couple of minutes after lock-down. 1/2 hour later the train stopped in the city of Novosibirsk and I made a dash for the toilets in the main station building, which turned out to be absolutely huge. I eventually found them and ran to the door - which of course was locked. Curses! Cue a mad dash back to the train (you really don't want to miss it and be left behind in the middle of Siberia), where I stood on the platform shuffling from foot to foot like a demented sumo wrestler.Food is a major item on a journey like this, as buying, preparing and eating it is a welcome diversion from the journey itself. I bought some basic supplies in Irkutsk, including lots of noodle based meals (at the end of each carriage is a <i>samovar, which delivers boiling water on tap), Chinese dried fruit, and a couple of packets of dried perch, which were delicious, but stank the compartment out. There's a dining car, and when the train stops you can also buy food from the babushkas who sell it on the platform. This can be a bit hit or miss though, as they sell different things at different stations (in Kirov there was no food whatsoever, only cuddly toys) and you have to buy stuff when you can get it. This can result in some pretty strange meals - one night I dined on monkey nuts, apricots, hard boiled eggs (still warm), gherkins, a sugar bun and a banana. Lovely.The scenery is much of a muchness at first glance (forests and yet more forests, with a bit of steppe thrown in), but if you look closely there are a number of changes as you move West. The countryside becomes a little less wild as you leave Eastern Siberia, and you can also see the seasons change each day. In Mongolia a couple of weeks ago it was still early spring, with vivid green leaves on the trees, but going West it changed from Spring to Summer within 4 days - so I didn't lose a Summer in Chile after all.Keeping clean can be a bit of a challenge on the train. There are no showers, and the taps in the toilets can only be turned on by pushing on a little lever underneath, and the sinks are tiny, making it practically impossible to wash your hair. The only hot water available is from the samovar, but you need to be careful - I was getting hot water one evening, when the train started to go round a bend and I lost my balance. I was stripped to the waist, and ended up staggering backwards into the provodnitsas' compartment, and practically sat on her lap. She wasn't happy.When we finally arrived in Moscow, my number one priority was to have a shower. The place I was staying had a fantastic one, complete with built-in FM radio - over the years I may have had a better shower, but I honestly can't remember when................. 
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