Welcome to Hell on Earth
Trip Start
Jun 30, 2006
1
4
42
Trip End
Jun 30, 2007
Moscow,
Russian Federation
Monday, July 3, 2006
More naïve words have truly never been spoken and I do accept much of the blame for the chaos that resulted. But, to be sure, I don't accept it ALL - truly Moscow has a larger percentage of total bastards and utter incompetents than I could ever really deal with. From xenophobia, disgruntled-ness, 2 hour-long queues, insanely amoral taxi-touts, taxi drivers that get lost for an hour and a half, and an utter, utter lack of hotel rooms (much less any reasonably priced), Moscow had everything in abundance
Russian Delusions
. But then again, it also has the most charming upscale restaurant (Cafe Pushkin), full of mafia-types and business-men (obviously), that I've ever been to, so I can't complain TOO much.Really, though, I feel I must explain all the horrible negative experiences before moving onto pleasanter ones. I confess I have some sort of negative-memory safety-switch in my mind, which causes me to quite quickly forget the less-than-shining aspects of my travel experiences - even now I can barely remember half of the horrible experiences that reduced poor Charis to the most angry and hostile and bitter I've ever seen her. At least she finally learnt how to do a clichéd Sullen-Goth expression, I suppose.
So, onward! Our first day in Moscow was doomed from the beginning. We landed from Tokyo at Sheremetyevo at around 5pm. I had to pick my father up from Domodevo at around 8pm. The first hurdle came quickly: somehow I had managed to completely miss the fact that the two airports were 120km apart. Still, three hours you say, shouldn't have been TOO late. After all, I had all the public transport planned.
We entered Russian Passport Control. We exited Russian Passport Control, a mere 2 hours later. So, now the count is 1 hour to get our luggage to a hotel, check in, and hop on public transport for an epic 120km journey. Oh, did I mention that we don't actually HAVE a hotel room at this stage? Also, we were so very kindly informed that it was, in fact, rush hour at the moment, and would be for many hours to come.
Well, no worries I thought, I'll be a little late but let's just hurry up and ring a hotel for a room and get going. Funnily enough, the guide books weren't joking when they mentioned the scarcity of hotels in Moscow. I would probably say it was the worst possible place we could ever have gone to, being that we are accustomed to rocking up at any given destination at about 12pm and just going to any random backpackers.
I rang, literally, 30 places, some of them quite expensive. Nada. We looked understandably upset at this stage, and were so desperate we finally allowed some taxi touters to assist us, after their incessant 30 minutes of harassing us. TAXI TOUTERS for god's sake. I mean surely anyone who has traveled for any longer than 10 minutes knows that giving way at all to these vile beasts will only end in tragedy and a large void where previously money existed. But they spoke Russian, we didn't, and initially all went along spangly when they in turn rang about 20 places and finally succeeded in getting us a supposedly reasonably priced room. All we had to sacrifice was 50 dollars to let them take us to the hotel. A horrific rip-off for a Russian taxi going a pitiful distance, to be sure, but god knows we couldn't have gotten that hotel room alone, and time was very very quickly gaining on me to get my father.
This stress, I am afraid, is my only excuse for what was to come. You have to understand, I harbour a morbid fear of disappointing my father like nothing else. Moreover, I had promised he had nothing at all to worry about for the Russian trip, that I would organize everything (even the hotel debacle wasn't really my fault, for I did make a booking and a deposit and all, only to be fucked over just prior to arrival and told my booking didn't go through because I didn't provide a working email address (as if!!!)) and everything would be fine. So by this point, 30min from his arrival 120kms away, I'm freaking out JUST A LITTLE BIT. I will literally go to any and all means to not leave him standing in a foreign country, thinking I'm kidnapped or dead or have just plain forgotten. So, I tell the taxi tout, take Charis here to the hotel, and how much will it be to take a taxi, 120km to Domodevo.
Oh, can you imagine how any taxi tout would grab onto this like a life-line, an apparently naïve tourist, obviously stressed out beyond belief, doesn't speak the language, just got out a wad of money from the bankomat. Well, I can only say that the departure from the stupid airport took another 30 minutes, as he told me one price, some was paid, the price was abruptly raised around three times and excused by my supposed mis-understanding of his English. I yelled blue murder and refused to pay and tried to leave, he tried to blackmail me with threats about phoning and dumping Charis off because I'd broken this 'contract' (Charis who was already freaked out beyond belief at being ditched in a taxi, alone with our 150kgs of baggage and no way to communicate), I freaked out and tried to compromise and be dropped off at Domodevo instead of being taken there and back into the city with my father, he still refused and tried to raise the price even further if it wasn't a 'package deal', I grew more stressed out and started yelling at his father, the price was finally lowered to something about 160% of the original, at which point I said fuck you, fine. I won't divulge the final price, but it wasn't very pretty.
But no, the crisis was far from over. 120kms is a long way to go when you're as late as I was. But then, Russia was ever more accommodating and managed to have 120kms of bumper to bumper traffic, at 9pm, in the outskirts of the city. Finally, though, I got there, I got my dad, he wasn't angry or even really that worried, considering I was an hour and a half late. 'Thank God,' I thought, 'I may have been ripped off enourmously, but it was bound to happen one day, and at least it's over now'. Ha! Never have thoughts like that, for they tempt the gods. And the gods will come up with the fitting punishment of your taxi driver getting lost, 4 hours into the epic taxi journey. Now it was (finally) dark by this time, around 11pm, and my father is the paranoid type. So you can imagine, that he didn't take it too well when the taxi driver spent an hour and a half driving through desolate under-lit industrial areas, stopping every ten minutes to consult the street directory and, when questioned, insisting he knew exactly where he was going. Well, it got to such a point that first my father started angrily confronting him, then whispering to me to make a run for it when he tried to rob us, and then started demanding that he let us out of the vehicle outside a McDonalds. The fact that I told him I had no goddamn clue where the hotel was (I'd left the guide book with Charis and the taxi tout had instructed the driver where to go), and HOW THE FUCK would we get a taxi in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere, didn't seem to phase him. Thank GOD the McDonalds was closed, and so we didn't get out, and thank god more that finally we found the hotel 5 minutes after. I really don't think I've been more relieved in my life, for my father's conviction of getting robbed started getting to me, combined with the fact I blamed everything on myself. The fact that we then got horribly overcharged and couln't communicate with the rude and unresponsive hotel staff in the least, was a small price to pay for Charis, my father and I finally being together and in a hotel room at last.
