Budapest: The best!

As for my central European city tour, we’ve found our winner: Budapest! Beautiful, historic, cheap, amazing nightlife, kinda quirky vibe, not overly touristy, etc. I really liked almost everything about this city. So for those that don’t know (I didn’t before getting here) one side of the city is called Buda and the part across the river is called Pest. I stayed in the Pest side, as that’s where most of the action is. The focal point of the city is the Parliament building, which lights up spectacularly at night, also on the Pest side. The Buda side is more hilly, so it’s got the better views looking out over the city. Then you’ve got the bridges which connect the two sides which are also iconic of the city.

 

The first evening I made my way across the river to the Buda side of the city to take some photos of the Parliament building and the bridges. These are pretty classic Istanbul photographs so there were quite a few other photographers with their tripods out. But my photos surely turned out the best :p I had a drink at the hostel bar later on but most people were already out and about at this point. I mentioned this before, but when the sun sets at 9:15 I won’t get back to the hostel till after 10pm, and at that point it’s usually too late for social activities. Or everyone is already hammered. Alas…

The next day I rented a bike to ride around the neighborhoods. You do really feel like you’re going back to the 1940’s when you ride down these narrow streets. There are just rows and rows of old, historic buildings. And there is so much detail in the rockwork! Lots of intricate designs, sculptures of faces or even whole bodies are inlaid into many of the foundations. And if you look closely you can even see the bullet holes in the sides of some of the buildings. Plus there’s very little traffic, so it’s a nice place to go for a bike ride in general. Also from what I could tell there seem to just be very few big retail chain stores. Lots of little mom and pop corner shops, which seems to be a bygone era to anyone from the US. There’s lots of little things I liked about Budapest.

So many building like this!

lots of random street art too

indoor market

In one of the subdivisions there is a pinball museum, or flipper museum as they call it, which is basically just a massive collection of pinball games that you can play for free for as long as you want. They even have originals from the 50’s, which you really don’t want to play for long because they’re terrible. I stuck around for an hour or so, but I’m a pretty awful pinball player. Whatever knack some people have hitting the bonus loops and not letting the ball go through the middle, I ain’t got it. But it was a pretty cool place!

That night I decided to be bit more social and took a break from photography and hung out at the hostel bar. I ended up meeting some people that wanted to pregame in the park, mostly because they have little money, but also it’s like a popular thing to do in Budapest. So we grabbed some beer and wine at the convenience store and headed over there. I must say, it’s quite the scene. It’s a pretty big park and the place is pretty much jammed with people sitting in small groups drinking. There’s also pool for people to sit around. This one of the things that’s nice about Europe, it’s just very enjoyable to be able to sit around and drink in a nice public setting! No worries about the cops coming to bust heads.

I never knew this before coming to Budapest, but I guess it’s grown quite famous for it’s warehouse bars, where people have taken up spaces in old warehouses or crumbling buildings and turned them into bars, often several different type of bars in one location, and usually decked out in some grungy or kitchy type theme. There’s a whole bunch all over the city. We ended up at the most famous one, which has two floors, a hookah lounge, wine bar, cocktail bar, and couple of more normal bars, all with different themes.

A view from in the park

The hookah section

the upside down?

The next day I already had planned out, baths and goulash! There are a couple of baths around Budapest but I decided to go to the big outdoor one. It has a huge outdoor area, plus various indoor thermal pools, as well as various saunas and steam rooms. Good for a hangover! It’s also located in a really nice park, which makes for a nice bike ride and a very pleasant afternoon. I stopped at one of the restaurants in the park (I think there were 3 in total) for the Hungarian classic: beef goulash soup!

Castle in the park

Charcuterie and beef goulash, mmm

Then to ruin the happy vibes I stopped at the Terror museum, which is the same building that housed the AVO (secret police) in the Soviet era, who wreaked havoc on the Hungarian citizens. As I had just read a book on some American correspondents in this time period, I wanted to see if I could match up any of the names in the book to the museum. It is amazing the extent of the spying and surveillance on anyone who was suspected of being an enemy of the state. And so much work wasted to monitor pointless everyday stuff just in the hopes of picking up anything incriminating!

Sounds like a pretty awful time and place to live. In the book I was reading the son obtained and opened up the AVO files on his parents after they passed away, and because they were west-leaning journalists they had volumes and volumes of files on them. Pretty wild. Even they didn’t know the true extent of the surveillance. As for the museum itself, it wasn’t that great, mostly just videos of old people talking about those Soviet days and very little English on any of the exhibitions.

Then for my last night I hiked up the hill to get a view over the whole city at sunset. Some stunning views!

The scene on the pedestrian bridge around sunset

view from the top

Fisherman's Bastion

So I thought Budapest was pretty great and I'd recommend it to anyone!

Vienna

I’m going to keep this one as mostly a photo trip report. Vienna was a nice city, the main square and everything around it were very picturesque, with some great architecture. Some intermittent rainstorms made for some ominous skies. I really enjoyed the Schonbrunn Palace, as everything is so well preserved and you really get a good feel how the rulers in Hapsburged dynasty lived. The Albertino museum had a Monet to Picasso exhibit was cool, as I needed a brush up on my classical art.  Plus there was a contemporary art section and a photography exhibit, to my liking. 

Although I will say Vienna was probably my least favorite city in this European tour, there just isn’t enough things for tourists to do besides the dozens of museums around. Plus it’s the most expensive. I walked into a café that had this enough breakfast buffet spread, didn’t ask the price, and ended up paying almost $40 for the meal. Sheesh!

Very first photo in Vienna. I took a little nap and walked outside into this right after a rainstorm!

The view at my metro stop. These cool clouds wouldn't last long!

just a random street shot. Nice greenery around

Getting into the old town. The wet streets are nice for photos

St. Peters dominates the skyline

the visitors area

The square where all the horse carriages hang out

Hoffburg palace

Schonbrunn Palace

Nice place to chill outside the art museum

The rose garden at the Volksgarden

notice the little baby bee incoming!

Ferris wheel at the Prater Park

Lots of art collections in Vienna

aaand some more rain. Found a wine bar for cover

reflections of Goethe

ha, the Chinese and their props

The Wurst stand

Breakfast in the most famous cafe in Vienna

London

London: Rough Start!

There was a sizeable line at the London Gatwick airport to get through immigration. I didn’t think to print out proof of my flight to Chicago, so the guy wouldn’t let me go through. I was having trouble with the free wifi, so I had to sit off to the side and sign up for the Boingo wifi hotspot with my credit card to bring up my flight confirmation email, which was annoying obviously. And I know I’m gonna get billed once a month for it and I’m gonna keep forgetting to cancel it. Book it! Once through I bought my train ticket to the city (for $20!!), Victoria Station. I went through the gates to the Gatwick Express and hopped on the train that read “London-Victoria” on it’s electronic display. As soon as we left the conductor got on the microphone and alerted new passengers that the electronic display was wrong and this train is actually going the opposite direction, to Brighton. Great!

I got off at the next stop and waited 20 minutes for the next train towards London. Ok, now I’m good to go! We went back through the airport and on towards London but soon stopped. We heard through the speakers “We have encountered a MASSIVE points failure up ahead, this train will be stopped indeterminably. I liked the emphasis on “massive” to really let us know that we’re screwed. I guess a points failure is some sort of problem with track’s signalling. Well apparently this track was a dead end so we went back to the airport where were then able to switch tracks and then finally get into the city. Get your act together London railways! The conductor guy did apologize like seven times for the inconvenience though. So there’s that!

So many pubs

The hostel was a 15 minute walk, but I got distracted by a homely looking British pub and stopped in for a pint.  This was definitely a locals bar, I think I was the youngest person there by about 20 years. I finished that up, but then got saw a crusty looking fish and chip shop. I was going for the most British start as possible! The hostel was in a row of all white, older buildings. I was all the way up on the 5th floor, no stairs. Curse these old buildings! No AC either. There was nobody in my room so I plopped my stuff down and headed out. I still had a few hours of sunlight to get a feel for the city. To the riverfront!

Not gonna lie, London’s waterfront was not all that impressive! I guess I’m so used to looking a big looming skylines in the US and in Asia that I just kind of expected it from a huge international city like London. But alas, London really doesn’t have that many towering buildings. There quite a few modern looking, big glass windowed type high rises though.  But it’s the ferris wheel aka ‘the eye’ that dominates the skyline; whereas in Chicago the Navy Pier ferris wheel is just like a small blip.

The riverfront walkway was also kind of annoying as well, at least in my section of town. First, it’s walls were too high! If you’re not standing next to the wall you can’t actually see the river. Why even have a wall at all? Do they think people are just going to be running or bike so fast that they can’t slow down around a curve and hurtle themselves into the river?! Yea yea I know it’s old and historic or whatever, but I don’t like it. Also, the path occasionally diverts inland around certain buildings, including Big Ben.  Surely there can be a way for the city to build a path that runs entirely on the waterfront! Is that really too much to ask?!

riverfront didn't really look how I expected it to!

this was not the part with the high walls!

I had slightly poor timing because Big Ben was under renovation, so two of the towers were covered in sheeting, so that was a bit disappointing. Okay now I’m done whinging (British word!). The walk was still very nice! I did finding walking around London to be more interesting once I got away from the river. I hung out in Trafalgar square watching the double decker buses for a bit, then found then found my way back through the neighborhoods, enjoying all the very British sounding names. Williamsby Manor, Asherton Glen, Devonshire flats  … and the like. This neighbourhood was filled with older, very regal looking apartments. In my neighbor hood of Chicago if a unit is older they just knock it down and turn it into a sleek looking glassy rectangle. Here the oldness is a positive thing.

I also appreciated how these homes were decorated too, from what I saw in the few that had their blinds open. Big gold framed victorian paintings on the walls, detailed wood furnishings, large crystal chandeliers, ornate tea sets, etc. Very vintage! And lots of care in the garden work as well. The cobblestone streets also lend to the overall feeling of the neighbourhood. Everybody on the sidewalk dressed impeccably and every car on the street was an Audi or Beamer. Being rich is nice.  

gotta love the phone booths!

Trafalgar Square

Next place on the list was the Hippodrome, London’s biggest casino (I think) and home to some live poker action. I try not to play too much poker when I’m traveling but at least like to see what other poker venues around the world are like. I hopped in a low stakes 1/2 game where people usually buy in for around 200 pounds ($260). Some guy from Kuwait sat down and literally had no idea how to play, so he dropped about $700, and fortunately I got about $300 of it. 2 days in London paid for, excellent! After I cashed out I wandered around Soho, which is the main touristy bar/restaurant district in London, but it was after 2am so the only places open were some clubs, which I had no interest in, so that was all for the first night.

The next morning I took a little stroll around Hyde Park, which was relaxing. The weather was very British like, cloudy and cool. I realized how much I missed the cool weather like this – it’d been nothing but hot and humid for me in the last 7 months! I didn’t pack a jacket, but I certainly could have used one!

After I while I headed over towards Buckingham Palace and noticed that people were just streaming in. Something is going on apparently. I guess they were celebrating the 100 year anniversary of the Royal Air Force; there would be a flyover AND a visit from the Queen herself. The whole place was absolutely jammed. Plus it’s completely flat so you can hardly see anything. Naturally half of Britain came out to catch a glimpse of the back of the Queen’s head. After standing there for half and hour waiting, I decided I honestly don’t care if I see the Queen (and even if I did it would be some fleeting glimpse), so I headed out. I walked along the Pall Mall, which would also be on the Queen’s route, so it’s completely packed, and then to Trafalgar square, which was also a zoo. That’s when the planes started flying overhead, first single planes, and then ones in formation, and then finally a group that formed the number ‘100’. This was pretty neat. Much more interesting than seeing some 80 year old woman waving in a carriage.

What are we looking at?! Ahh yes the fuzzy hat guys!

waiting patiently

Do the British people really love the Queen? Here is your answer

Here come the planes

100 years of the RAF

Feels very American!

Next I headed into the National Gallery, which is free, and then into Soho and London’s main shopping districts, Bond St. etc. It feels similar to when I walk around Michigan Avenue, being on the outside looking in, watching as people shop for thousands or tens of thousands of dollars on some nice looking cotton textiles made in Bangladesh. But it was fun walking some of the famous streets that I’d only seen in movies or wherever. The sun came out and it ended up being a gorgeous day. I got back to Soho and stopped in a café with street seating and live music. Feeling fancy I ordered some charcuterie and red wine and observed the Londoners walk by. On average they certainly do dress better than Chicagoans!

A diverse clientele

Lots of mens' shops

This is quite the fancy bookstore

So much different looking than high end Chicago shopping buildings

These guys adding some color to the scene

I didn’t want to hang out too long though, because people at the hostel were getting together to watch the world cup game that evening and I wanted to join in. France – Belgium was the game. Probably a dozen of us headed out to one of the neighbourhood pubs, which was already pretty crowded. But the nice thing you can chill outside the pub on the sidewalk with your beer, and the bar has huge open windows, so you can just watch easy from outside. Fortunately Britain isn’t so strict on public drinking. I was routing for Belgium, because they were the underdogs, and to hell with the French, but they prevailed anyway. I kind of blew it because I was flying out the next day, and that was the day England was playing Croatia, and it would have been really cool to see that in London. Oh well.

After the crowd died down me and another American went out to Soho, and then finished the night in the Hippodrome. I won enough to pay for this entire Europe mini tour, ha. Poker is fun this year! It was a good day in London! But only enough time to scratch the surface. London really is one of those cities you need a lot of time to explore, because it’s so spread out. It’s more like a collection of neighborhoods than a big city, so I do have a lot more to see. Until next time…

Some more photos

The real purpose of the phone booths now...

haha

They let you drink outside the bar in the street with your beer

Tour bus watches this American classic rock cover band at a red light

Prague

Everybody likes Prague! I don't think I've met a single person traveling so far that didn't say good things about Prague, other than maybe that it's super touristy, but so is every other awesome city. After hopping off the bus the first thing I did after getting to Prague was stopping in a shipping container market where they had all sorts of foodie type stalls. I only ordered fries with chipotle aioli (delicious) so I could eat while walking, and I asked if they took cards. Turns out they only take cards! No cash at all. Ha! I’m not used to this.

A few shots from my first 15 minutes walking around

The architecture in Prague is amazing! Even just walking along random side streets all the buildings are fascinating to look at. Just have to watch out for the trams that are everywhere! I checked into my hostel, and of course everyone I meet is college aged. This is by far my least favorite part of traveling Europe, all these hostels seem to only have travelers aged 18-25. When I’m off in Indonesia, Africa, the Stans or other more far flung places I meet a much more diverse group of travelers of all ages, who I’m much more at home with than university aged kids looking to get drunk in Europe in between semesters. So even though some of these cities are really kick ass I can’t see myself doing any long term traveling in Europe unless I’ve got a travel partner. That’ll have to wait! And of course I could afford to stay in hotels if I really wanted to, but that’s boring and the price difference is just so much bigger in European cities.

Aaaand now it’s off to the Old Town. There is no shortage of nice old towns in this part of the world! It didn’t take long for me to realize that motorcycles had seemingly took up every available parking spot and the sound of loud mufflers could be heard around every block. It was bike week in Prague! Harley Davidson Chapters from all over Europe had made their way over to the city for this. Lots of rough looking dudes (and chicks) with some pretty tricked out bikes. Apparently Eastern Europeans really dig the whole macho man type schtick! They also like to vote for authoritarian asshats… Coincidence??

I found the center of Old Town quite easily and ordered a big hunk of ham and some sauerkraut with a beer right in the middle of the square. Great spot to eat, but 15 bucks, oof. Gotta stay away from the super touristy places! The square was gorgeous like always, but unfortunately they were doing construction on the old clocktower with the astronomical clock that goes off every hour. This was supposed to be one of Prague’s biggest tourist attractions, although I wasn’t too bummed not to see it.

Eventually I made my way over to Prague’s most iconic structure, the Charles Bridge. The nice thing about Prague was that it was somewhat well preserved, ie it didn’t get levelled during WW2. That Bridge had been connecting the old town with the new town for hundreds of years, stretching over the Vltava river. You can see the Prague castle up on the hill on the other side. The bridge is lined with statues of various saints as well as some other religious imagery. And then there’s the hundreds and hundreds of tourists! It’s a pretty good place to pull out your camera! I’ve got lots of shots from around that bridge.

I walked up to the hill park on the other side to get a different vantage point of the bridges and at the top of the hill and there was this pop up bar and a DJ. On this towering rock wall you had this large crowd of young people sitting, drinking and smoking :0 (no worries about being arrested obviously) overlooking this absolutely gorgeous city and listening to a live DJ. What a cool scene! Really one of the cooler things I’ve ever seen in any city! Fun stuff. I ended up meeting some other Americans up there and chatting them up for a bit. One just moved here to study Czech, mostly as an excuse to live in Prague for a year. She was pretty jazzed up about it, and I beginning to see why! The city is historic, gorgeous, clean, open minded, diverse, has great nightlife, and isn’t crazy expensive. Like I said, everybody likes Prague.

The next day was more of the major sights, the Prague Castle and the big cathedral, the usual European touristy type stuff. I give myself one really big touristy day in each big city, I can’t really handle too much more than that. But I wanted to be a little more social in the hostel, so I made it back there by 8pm when they cook up a communal dinner type thing. It was some vegetarian stew, meh, but I did get to meet some of the people there. A few people from Perth, oddly. Then it was on to the world cup and drinking games, and then off to the bar, which was a place that had a whole bunch of different music venues, with a different theme in each one, the biggest being the EDM set with the lazers and smoke machines and all. It was a pretty cool place. I left with some people at 3am, but a bunch of the hostel peeps stayed there until 5 or 6 am. I can’t hang anymore!

Then it was lazy day the following day, sleeping in and then taking a long walk through some of the local, non-tourist neighborhoods. All of these places were quiet and nice with plenty of parks around. I liked how all of the big parks had some sort of bar and beer garden in them! Also almost all of the dogs were off leash, and every one of them was so well behaved. I was impressed!

Ok, I’m getting tired of typing, here’s a couple more photos from around the city! Highly recommended!

Wroclaw

This place was recommended to me as a good stopover before Prague. Now I will admit I knew only of Warsaw and Krakow, the two largest cities, before getting to Poland. Well now I know the 3rd largest. I also will also admit that I still don't know how to pronounce anything in Polish, especially Wroclaw! Poland uses the roman alphabet, which is deceiving, because about half the letters aren’t pronounced like they are in English. There’s a popular beer called Zwiec which I utterly failed at ordering in the bar. I also had a conversation with someone about my itinerary that went something like this:

Me: After this I’m heading to Wroclaw (pronouncing it ro-claw, like any normal English speaker would)

Him: Blank stare

Me: You know, the big, nice city not far from Prague, ro-claw!

Him: Ahh you mean Vlo-Slav

Me: Uhh yes… (shame sets in)

Anyway I still have no idea how to say anything. But if I need to, I can just type the word on my phone and show it to the person, and then they’ll be like “ahhh that” while thinking I’m a dullard. Polish is hard!...

A smooth 3.5 hour bus ride later and I’m in Wroclaw's nice new bus station. Once again it’s blue skies and mid 80’s, perfect weather. I hopped on the tram into the city, but their self pay thingy only has the tap reader for the credit card and not the one where you actually insert it, and tap reader never seems to work with my American cards. (why don't we have the tappy tap card readers in the US??). I could have probably paid the dumb tourist card and stayed on the tram, I don’t even think anyone was checking for tickets anyway, but I ended up hopping off and walking the rest of the way into the city. With only one small backpack and my shoulder bag, I’m free! I can walk around for a few miles with all my luggage and still not get worn out. It’s great. It was about a mile walk to the old town.

I liked how even the worst looking buildings always seems to have cheery gardens

Soon enough I was in the center of the old town, and these places are just gorgeous! Gothic (I think??) style buildings line the square, painted in light pastel colors. The focal point was this very unique looking church with an Alice in Wonderland reminiscent clock tower. There was a hostel right across the street from this, but it was all booked up, not surprisingly. Eventually I found a room overlooking a different church a 5 minute walk away. I’ve noticed in Poland that there aren’t as many hotels as most places, but there are tons of tourist apartments for rent, and they’re pretty reasonably priced, most are around $50 a night.

view from my room

I only had one day in Wroclaw, so I didn’t linger in my room for long. I had lots of walking to do. The thing I liked about Wroclaw is once you’re outside the main square, everything is still very nice, lots of outdoor cafes and all, but it feels like there are a lot more locals around as opposed to tourists everywhere. And the prices reflect that. I stopped in this restaurant with huge glass windows giving you nice views of one of the major churches in town; it’s the type of place where it buffet style and you weigh your plate at the end. I had a whole plate of food and a strawberry banana smoothie and the total came out to less than $4. Wroclaw seems like a very live-able city.

I really liked this restaurant

I eventually made my way around to the Panorama Racliette, which features a massive 360 degree panorama of some point in Polish history. Sadly I missed the last showing by 15 minutes. Oh well, there were still lots of nice things to see. I walked through a park and to the river path overlooking some new modern apartment buildings and 200 year old churches on the other side. The path was full of joggers and bikers. I really wasn’t expecting Polish cities to be this nice. I mean you see some pretty ugly concrete housing blocs but almost everything else was modern and clean with tons of quaint outdoor cafes and healthy looking people out and about. And on a random side note, Polish people walk quickly! I’ve never felt like a slow walker before, but these Poles burn rubber on the sidewalk!

churches churches everywhere everywhere

just random places I found walking around

In this part of the world the sun doesn’t go down till after 8:30 so you get lots of time for sightseeing and exploring. I finally made my way back to the main square to take some photos while the light was still nice. I’ve been taking way too many old town photos, but I just can’t seem to help myself! The downside to the sun going down this late is that it kinda hurts my social life. It kills me to not be out photographing between 7:30-10pm when the light is the best, but those are also prime intermingling hours at the hostel. So far the photography is winning out. So there is some benefit to the sun going down at 6pm in Asia!

back to old town

Luckily I did find some people hanging out around the ping pong table and drinking. A mix of Swedes and Aussies. For whatever reason there seem to be lots of Australians in Poland and Europe in general. We ended up going out for some drinks on the square. I believe I might have already mentioned this, but Poland has some pretty decent craft breweries these days. Although these beer/burger bars need to take it easy on the word ‘craft’. They have ‘craft’ beers, ‘craft’ burgers, ‘craft’ wings, 'craft cocktails,' I mean c’mon, you can’t just throw that word in front of evert type of food/drink and expect people to take it seriously! Or can you…? All these places were crowded so maybe its working. I ended up just going for the classic Polish sausage and kraut, which at least didn’t have the word craft in front of it.

The next morning it was back to the bus station and off to Prague! Traveling in Europe is just so damn easy. I bought my bus ticket online in minutes, the people in the stations speak English, everything is on time, roads are nice, most places aren’t really that far, and you don’t even need to stop when crossing borders! I still have vivid memories of some horrendous border crossings in the Stans last year. Thanks Europe for being such a breeze!

Krakow

Next up: Krakow by train. And the trains are surprisingly nice! Fast, modern, easy to navigate, etc. Somewhat pricey. Warsaw to Krakow was only a little more than 2 hours. And the train station is only a block away from old town, which is convenient. It’s always a PITA to be dumped 30 minutes outside of the city. I found my hostel two blocks away from the station, dumped my stuff, and had a look around. Almost instantly I was smitten! It’s like a fairy tale city! The sun was shining, the  sky was perfectly blue with a few puffy clouds, the architecture is colorful and gorgeous, the cobblestone streets are immaculately clean, church spires rise in the distance, horse drawn carriages ply down the streets, all the while classical violin music plays off somewhere in the distance.

St. Mary's Basilica

The main focus of the old town is the St. Mary’s Basilica, smack dab in the middle of the square. The courtyard is massive and lined with dozens of umbrella-laden outdoor cafes with looking into the square. In front of the church the buggy drivers wait with their horses to take tourists around town. I mean I haven’t been to Europe in a decade, but it’s certainly the nicest old town I’ve seen! I’m assuming there are better ones out there, but I’m a Euro-noob, so I was pretty damn impressed. I can certainly see what draws people to Central Europe! And being that it’s mid-summer, there was definitely no shortage of people.

I decided to stop in a rustic looking restaurant on a side street. Pierogie time! And unlike my usual family occasions they other options besides potato and sauerkraut! These were fancy pierogies. I ordered five different kinds, and opted for steamed instead of the fried. I had potato and cream cheese, spinach and kraut, duck confit, minced pork, something with horseradish. The potato cream cheese and the duck were both killer. And still less than 10 bucks for the meal and a large beer. Much better start to Krakow than Warsaw!

Eventually I wandered all the way through the old town and across the river to the museum of contemporary art. I’m not a huge museum guy, but given a choice between art and history I’m taking the art museum every time. Every time I’m in a history museum it’s information overload and I feel like my brain shuts off after an hour. Plus I can get all that information online, at my own pace, if I want; whereas looking at art is much more powerful in person. So needless to say I thoroughly enjoyed the museum, especially some of the photography exhibits

You can tell from some of the exhibits that Europeans see America's presence in the rest of the world a little bit differently than many Americans do. 

When I got back to my hostel I found some people getting geared up for the evening World Cup match, Colombia vs Britain, so I tagged along. It’s kind of fun traveling in Europe during the World Cup because everyone is so pumped about these games. And with Colombia tying it during penalty time and Britain winning in penalty kicks, it was a pretty great game to watch. But really, there has to be a better way to solve these huge matches than with PK’s! After the game some of the group moved to another bar to celebrate, but I really couldn’t have cared less that England won, so I called it a night.

Now, what should have been a straight to bed, pass out before hitting the pillow night, turned into something much more sinister in the hostel. Right above my bunk was the most dreaded thing that can happen in a dormitory, a snorer! AGH. I didn’t have earplugs either. Seriously there is nothing worse a snorer. It’s like you’re whole existence becomes part of the reverberations from this random guys nostrils. Seriously these people need to shamed, Cersei style, dragged naked through the streets with people cursing and throwing rotten food at them. If you snore don’t stay in a hostel dormitory, JFC! I’m getting too old for hostels. Even after I passed out I had nightmares where I was getting chased around in an old factory where there is constant off-kilter groaning sound going off and on in the background. An ominous sign for my travel plans the next day.

That morning I was off on a tour to Auschwitz, which is one of those things you really should do in Krakow, even though it does kind of kill the fun travel vibe. I won’t get into the gritty details of the camp, but what really is amazing to me was how seemingly easy it was for the systematic elimination of Jews to happen, even in Poland, where before the German occupation, the Poles and Jews lived side by side. For months and years the Germans blasted constant propaganda, meant to dehumanize the Jews, claiming the Jews were thieves, different from everyone else, dirty and disease infested, and eventually separated them from the normal population ‘for the public good.’ First it was the ghettos, then it was the death camps. And people just watched it happen, many of whom bought into the propaganda. It’s scary how well propaganda can work on the masses. And I’m not going to get into politics too much, but the similarities between ICE and the Gestapo are a bit eerie, and having an authoritarian president who constantly lies and uses choice words meant to dehumanize an entire group of people should be disconcerting to anyone who follows history. Or anyone what at all.

Anyway, so after that sobering experience it was back into Krakow, this time I wanted to check out the Kazimierz neighbourhood, just outside of the old town. The buildings are a bit older and more run down, but that gives them their own kind of appeal. It’s kind of the more hipster part of the city, I guess you’d say, with an art street, funky coffeeshops, and bars boasting of Polish craft beers. My kind of place. For lunch I had some sort of cheesy casserole with potatoes, bacon, sauerkraut, onions, and polish sausage. Fantastic! Later in the afternoon I got around to sampling the local craft brews, which is something I always miss in Asia.

Then it was back to the old town to visit the Fawel castle around sunset and some beet soup + beef ghoulash from a more local place for dinner. Mmm. Ghoulash is one of those things that tastes better than it sounds! I had one more drink on the square to admire my surroundings and listen to a guitar player. A very romantic place, it certainly would be better with a girl around. I ended getting to bed somewhat early, as I’d be taking a bus to Wroclaw the next morning. I can also appreciate having a more normal sleep schedule after having poker mess mine up for so long!

And that's all for Krakow! Next up Wroclaw. Here's a few more photos of the old town:

Warsaw

After a 10 hour flight to Kiev and another hour+ connecting flight I found myself in a strange new country, Poland. There’s not much about Poland that had really motivated me to travel there in the past (or really anywhere in Europe) but being that my Dad’s side of the family is all Polish I do feel like I have some cultural obligation to see some of the fatherland. Plus I do enjoy pierogies, sausages, and sauerkraut!  And Poland does have a interesting (unfortunate) history. And the flight was cheap. So why not?

I landed later on in the evening, got through immigration easily, stopped at the ATM to get some zlotys (but only big bills) and went to McDonalds. I know I know, I’m in a new country with fantastic food and I’m eating a freakin McDonalds! But I needed to break a 100 zloty note ($30 bill) and this was my best option. It was weird, there was nobody at the cashier, but a big group of people waiting for their food. What’s going on at this McDonalds? Turns out they have an electronic kiosk system that most people use instead of ordering from the cashier. They make their order, pay with card, and pick it up, easy! I always like noting things other countries do differently than us, and in this case, better.

After my Big Mac (and they call it a Big Mac, not anything cool/different) I hopped into a bus that goes into the city. Being the stickler I am I absolutely refuse to take a taxi when I have the option of bus/metro for a fraction of the cost, even if I don’t exactly know where I’m going. This has backfired on multiple occasions, but that’s not gonna stop me. I attempted to buy a ticket directly from bus driver, who had some harsh words for me in Polish. Oops. Fortunately some younger Poles directed me to the self pay machine. Easy. Why don’t our buses have these?! In Chicago if you don’t a have Ventra card you have to supply exactly $2 and 25 cents, how dumb and outdated is that? Seriously for all you USA#1’ers out there, you at least have to admit we run on some outdated technology sometimes.

Now, like a total rookie, I completely forgot to download the offline version of Google Maps when I had wifi, so now I couldn’t see where I was in the city. Flying blind! I didn’t know where to get off, so I finally hopped out in what looked like a well lit, central location. I stopped at bar to get some wifi and my bearings on the map, of course the wifi didn’t work, so I finally hopped in cab to get to my hostel. It was located in a large, ugly concrete building with little signage; odd for a hostel with such a high rating I thought. This feels like Eastern Europe! I rang the buzzer to get in. Nothing. I then started reading the piece of paper posted on the side and it says that the reception closes at 10pm, and you absolutely cannot check in after that. It’s 10:45. Uh oh.

What kind of crap is this? The thought of being completely screwed if you get there a little late is preposterous to me. I don’t think I’ve ever been to a hostel that has that kind of policy. I mean sometimes you might have to pound on the door for a bit, but you always get in! Welcome to Eastern Europe I guess. Always fun to be in a strange new city, stranded in what doesn’t look like the nicest part of town, at night, with no phone, no internet. Even though the streets are dead, I’m not too worried, mostly just annoyed. I am glad I ditched the big backpack for this trip though! I walked around for a while and eventually found another hostel, but they were all booked up except for a weird apartment style lodging down the street that was like $65. Meh. She showed me two hostels on the map not far away, so I tried both of them. One was full, the other also had no night reception.

Wellll…. Options pretty limited now! If this was me backpacking when trying to keep a strict budget I would have been a bit more stressed out, but given the choices of staying in the apartment place or wandering around Warsaw for who knows how long, it was a pretty easy call. The receptionist gave me a few sets of keys, directions on how to find the building down the street and that was that. It was a strange accommodation in a run down building complex with a bunch of individual rooms in a shared apartment style set up. But the bed was comfy and I slept easy, as I should have, being that my internal clock was at 5am or so.

my view

I woke up to view of this lovely courtyard. I’m not gonna lie, Warsaw isn’t the most aesthetically pleasing city you’ll ever see. It’s got lots of modern parts, and a nice old town, but walking around some of the local neighborhoods can be a bit bleak; lots of big ugly concrete housing units with random smatterings of graffiti. That’s more or less what I was expecting though. Plus the weather was kind of chilly and gloomy, which added to the overall mood. I didn’t really do anything much in Warsaw, mostly just randomly meandered around. I spent a few hours in the old town, a few hours at a museum, and a few hours wandering around neighborhoods across the river, and well that was my day! I stopped in a bar every once in a while to try a different Polish beer, grabbed some sausage and sauerkraut in the old town for dinner called it an early one. You know you're getting out of shape when a whole day of walking knocks you out.

 A friend recommended that I don’t spend too much time in Warsaw and allocate more time to a city called Wroclaw, which is enroute from Krakow to Prague, so I decided to heed that advice. Plus the weather looked better in Krakow. I booked a train ticket to Krakow online for the following morning.

Escaping Sihanoukville

I'd been trapped in Cambodia.

In a good way! I couldn't find a good reason to leave. I’d been saying I’m going to leave Cambodia in ‘a week or two’ for months now. In my case I was waiting for the poker games to die down a little bit as my excuse to get out of town. And they just never did! The amount of free money is Sihanoukville is incredible. I wouldn’t normally use the term free money, as there’s always plenty of luck involved in poker in the short term, but there’s such a steady influx of players, who play so recklessly (usually because they’re loaded and just don’t care at all), that they will lose all their money by the end of the night, almost every single time. If you’re playing in a game where someone is basically gifting away thousands of dollars every single night, that’s a pretty big opportunity to pass up on.  
 

Finally when the rainy season hit in June, the games started to slow down a little bit. Certain poker rooms would struggle to get games started, or the game might die down before midnight instead of raging into the early morning hours. But then again you could still find great games occasionally, but not as consistently. Also, Sihanoukville is kind of a dumpy town; which is fine when its sunny everyday and you can cruise around on a scooter and hit the beaches, but once it starts getting to be rainy and overcast all the time, it really is kind of a miserable place. I had, at times, considered staying in Snooky all year to just grind, but now with the weather and the lull in the action, it was time to make a move. Plus what’s the point of being a poker player if you’re just gonna work all year? The  whole point is to get to take time off and travel! On June 10th or so I bussed it back to Phnom Penh, intending to stay a few days (as my visa expired on the 15th) and pick a new place to travel. But that’s not what happened!

down at the Sihanoukville Port

You still get some very nice sunsets in Sihanoukville

When I arrived in Phnom Penh I found the games to be much much better than how I had left them. In addition to more Chinese guys playing, there was a Malaysian Chinese guy, who had started a bitcoin mining business in Phnom Penh, who was creating all sorts of action. He went by Mr. Lee, or Harry, as his English name, and when he wanted to play, a higher stakes game would just appear out of nowhere. He didn’t play every night, but usually 2-3 times a week, so you kind of had to be waiting around for him to show up, but when he did, it was totally worth it. The game would be 5/10 blinds, minimum buy in $1,000, but with people often buying in for several thousand, as to cover Mr. Lee’s stack. He’d also buy an oversized bottle of Johnny Walker Blue Label for anyone at the table that wanted some, and it was very much encouraged to partake! He’d usually buy in for $3,000 at the start, but he’d usually go through a few buy ins playing like a complete maniac, and usually dusted off about 10k. I don’t think I’d ever seen him win. He really didn’t mind at all though, he seemed content with his works of charity.

O'Russey Market

The mean streets of Phnom Penh (they might look it, but they're really not mean)

So with Mr. Lee in town, my plans were changing again! He said he was staying until the end of the month, so it looks like I’m staying until the end of the month. Now this presented a slight problem with my visa expiring on the 15th, but that’s the nice thing about Cambodia, they’re super lax about this sort of stuff, you just have to pay $10/day to overstay for up to a month, no problem. You’d probably get into some sort of trouble for anything longer than that, but then it’s Cambodia, so nothing money couldn’t fix. This might also be a problem if you’re checking into a nicer hotel, but then again, nothing photoshop can’t fix!

The fact that each new visa takes up a whole page really grinds my gears. I'm going to be out of pages soon thanks to Cambodia :(

And have mentioned how nice it is to be back in Phnom Penh after being in Sihanoukville for a while? Literally everything is better than in Snooky. The most noticeable thing is the value for the hotels. In Snooky I stayed in a small guesthouse with almost no amenities for $25/night, which is about as cheap as you can find for an AC room in town, with the whole Chinese invasion going on. Terrible value. In Phnom Penh I found a new high rise hotel that had just opened up (the tallest in the city actually) and for $22/night you get a very nice room, super comfy bed, flat screen, fridge, microwave, safe and an amazing view over the city. Plus two immaculate pools, a fitness center and steam room. Best value in the city I’d think. And it’s near the mall. A mall! Where you can do all your shopping in a totally air conditioned environment, and you can even stop an American fast food chain! You think Snooky has anything like that? Hell no! High end shopping is buying a $3 Angkor Wat t-shirt on the street.

a little extra motivation to work out

the pool on the 39th floor

nice little room, super comfy bed

So being back in Phnom Penh was pretty great. The poker room in NagaWorld also doubles as a sportsbook, so with the World Cup going it was hopping every night. I might add that Asian timezones are perfect for watching European sports. The first World Cup game would start at 8pm and the last one would go until 3am, which really can’t synch up with my poker schedule any better! I’ve definitely watched more of the World Cup this year than probably all other years combined. Even though there are small moments of intense excitement, and I can appreciate the insane amounts of talent on some these goals, I still find the sport to be pretty boring on the whole.

With the end of the month rapidly approaching it was time to figure out some concrete travel plans. I’d been strongly considering the Eastern Mediterranean region, places like Turkey, Lebanon, Cyprus, Israel, Palestine, Jordan, and Egypt for some time now. But I also have a few friends traveling in Eastern Europe at the moment, so that was now crossing my mind as well. I’ve been putting off Europe in my travel plans forever now. As someone who almost always favors some sort of adventure travel, I worry that Europe is just going to be too cookie cutter and boring: nice city, nice city, nice architecture, nice museum, nice church, nice café, rinse and repeat. It sounds all very lovely of course, but just doesn’t really light my fire. Also it’s more expensive, so I’d probably be mostly staying in hostels, which at my age I feel like I’m starting to get a bit too old for.

So after looking at flights and with a decent amount of inner conflict, I booked a cheap flight I'd found from Bangkok to Warsaw via Kiev. To resolve my indecision I’m opting to go for a one month, kind of whirlwind trip through Eastern Europe, just to get a taste, and finish up in Istanbul. Then I’ll have the rest of the time for Turkey, Cyprus, Egypt, Jordan etc. And then back to Cambodia when the rainy season starts to finish up. The games are too good and more Chinese keep coming in with more casinos being built, so it might be even better this year (as long as other people aren’t finding out about it!). It really doesn’t make fiscal sense to leave Cambodia for too long. Gotta get in while the gettin’ is good. So next stop, Euroland!

Cambodia (again)

Well it's been forever since I've done any blogging, but here we go. I'm back in Cambodia, but this time around I'm based not in Phnom Penh, but in the much smaller coastal city, Sihanoukville. On one hand, it's nice being near the beach, on the other hand you miss out in quite a few ways. The food is nowhere near as good (or diverse), the nightlife options are much worse, the massage places are weak, and shockingly, it's more expensive to live! There has been a massive Chinese influx and they've basically been buying up the whole town, driving real estate prices way up. If you had owned property in sleep little Sihanoukville, you're now in luck!

Of course this is bad news for backpackers and expats who are used to living on the cheap down here. All of the backpacker bars down by the beach have been knocked down to make way for a new resort. The backpacker scene has largely been forced out of Sihanoukville and down a few kilometers away to a place called Otres Village. People who have been living here long term have seen their landlords sell out their apartment units with rents subsequently being jacked through the roof. A one year lease you say? Not anymore. The Chinese are a very sore subject in the ex-pat community.  So while many people are unhappy,  life is great if you're a poker player, as the games here are nothing short of amazing. It has the be the best place in the entire world to play at the moment. 

To right is where all the beach shacks used to be. A brand new hotel dominates the skyline

The main draw for the Chinese in Sihanoukville isn't the islands, the beaches, Cambodian culture or anything like that it. It's the gambling! Gambling is illegal in mainland China, so many people are coming to Sihanoukville, which is a cheaper alternative to Macau, the Chinese version of Las Vegas. When I was here last year there were a few casinos around, this year there's around 20! It's amazing the scale of things being built around here. In the next year or two that number will be at least doubled. The Cambodian government has basically sold out the whole town to Chinese developers. Hotel/casinos are currently being built in any halfway decent location you can imagine. The whole town feels like it's under construction. The sheer scale of it is really something to see.

Some grand plans in the next few years

There is so much money coming into this town! If you just walk around the table games in some of these casinos you see some of these guys sitting with $10,000 bricks, rifling in hundreds or thousands at a time. And many of them are so young! I don't know where some of these young Chinese kids are getting this kind of cash to throw around, but they've got it.  Then there's the shadier side of the industry, as it's widely known that a lot people want to get their money out of China and these casinos are perfect way to launder lots of cash. It's kind of the wild wild west out here. All these casinos and basically no regulation. Supposedly the Chinese mafia has a strong presence around here as well. God only knows how much some of these casino operators are currently making. 

The gaming floor at the Oriental Pearl. It's always packed. 

Driving around town you can play a fun game called count the Bentleys. If I cruise around on my scooter for an hour I'm sure to spot at least a couple, plus maybe one or two of the various Rolls Royces and Ferraris that are also around.  It's a stark contrast the rest of town that is relatively poor and undeveloped. The roads in Sihanoukville are still by and largely atrocious! Chinese infrastructure spending is supposed to change that, but it hasn't happened yet. 

One of the roads leading out of town

In a bunch of these casinos you can find poker tables set off to side, offering Texas No Limit hold'em, the poker game of choice. The people who operate these poker tables pay the casino itself to rent out the floor space for a table or two. As it happens the best games are usually the ones in the most popular casinos where anyone can watch the game from the side and decide to sit in. There's good money to be made running these games so there's lots of card rooms all vying for a piece of the pie. This is also good for the poker players as you can sit in any game you like and if it's not good you can hop around to try and find a better one. And there is almost always a good game going on somewhere. 

Some random poker hands

Compared to the games back in the States, these games are just incredibly soft. Poker is much newer in China so most of the Chinese players don't have very developed poker games. Of course there are some good players, but your average player is pretty pretty bad. But also pretty pretty loaded. Most of these guys don't really mind losing, poker is just another form of gambling entertainment to them. They expect to lose like most people playing roulette expect to lose, but maybe they'll get lucky for a bit and run up a big stack every once in a while and that keeps them happy.  Or they have a trial by fire type mentality, where the only way to get better at poker is to learn the hard way, by getting stacked many, many, many times! 

So yea, poker is good here. I've already stayed much longer than I expected to and honestly can't justify leaving. But my visa is finished on June 15th so that kinda when I have to get outta here. I originally had some grand plans to hop around Eastern Europe and parts of the Middle East fpr a few months, but now I'm not sure if I really want to take that much time off from these games. So we'll see. 

Here's some semi-random iphone shots from various places around town

View from my bungalow in Otres Beach

Pretty damn good pizza

A day out at the waterfalls

some untouched coastline way outside town. Untouched except for all the trash gets washed up from Vietnam. Seriously the plastic waste situation in SE Asia is a massive problem. 

Some massive Chinese housing community being built somewhere down along the coast

Gotta love this decor that looks like came straight outta the 70's

The pool I go to, it's pretty awesome

The pho place I like

Otres Corner, the psychedelic hang out

Otres Beach

Otres Market, where they have good live music. Here's a Russian metal band. 

Otres Market

Riding around the hills outside of town

Jack Daniel's the after hours bar

pulled pork on the beach

This guy has got his stack up to $26,000!

Ok that's all for now! Snooky is an interesting place!

Beach Life: Mirissa and Unawatuna

These are two of the more popular beach towns on the Sri Lanka’s southern coast. Located about 30 minutes apart, they’re pretty similar, a nice stretch of sand lined with bar/restaurant/guesthouses. Every night these places put out all their tables and chairs and everyone eats and drinks out on the beach. It’s pretty tame, everything shuts down around midnight and maybe one of the bars will try to get some sort of party going.

There’s not a ton of stuff to do outside of laying at the beach if you’re not a surfer, but Unawatuna does have a couple of shipwrecks that you can dive at, where Mirissa is known for it’s whale watching tours. Although the amount of time you spend battling the choppy seas only to see the back end of a whale for a few seconds didn’t exactly sound worth it to me. As for the scuba diving, the current was too strong to do the well preserved wreck so we had to settle for the one that was in pieces, not really the most spectacular dive! Overall I liked Mirissa a bit better because it’s easier to find accommodation right by the beach, it’s slightly more upscale, a little cleaner, and has less Russians. But either way it’s best to rent a scooter so you don’t have to limit yourself to just the beach, as there is lots of great scenery all around the coast!

the lighthouse at Gaulle

Welligama bay

From Ella it took me about seven hours on three different buses to finally get to Mirissa. When these bus drivers get on the open road it feels like you’re in the movie Speed or something, no going below 50mph! These guys spend half the time in the opposite lane blaring on their horn and overtaking every possible vehicle, forcing oncoming traffic off to the far side of their own lane. And its so silly because then eventually somebody pulls the ropey thing that signals they want off  and the driver has to slam on the brakes, pull over, and then try and retake all the cars that just passed them all over again. I mean what’s the point of being a maniac driver if you have to stop all the time?!

Anyway, I got dropped off on the main road in town, and found the place that was recommended to me. It was between Christmas and New Years so unfortunately it was all booked up. But there was a new hostel right across the street, and being the lazy person that I am, decided that was my best option. Apparently hostels are popping up all over Mirissa and Unawatuna this year. The owner of this place (Colors Hostel) said that last year there were five hostels in Mirissa and this year there’s now twelve! People are very optimistic about the continued increase in tourism in Sri Lanka. I even noticed it a bit myself when I posted some photos on facebook and a bunch of people asked for travel advice because they were headed there soon or were thinking about going. I guess Sri Lanka is the place to be!

Mirissa Rock

sunset shoot

The hostel itself had a nice open balcony on the top floor and big long table for people to hang out at (very important!) and speakers – all you need really. So I met some pretty cool people there. Although it was kinda weird because everyone was either Australian, Dutch, or American and hardly anyone from anywhere else, and there’s just not that many Americans in Sri Lanka to begin with.

Most people there were content to just chill on the beach all day, which I’m happy to do for an hour or two, but I also wanted to do some exploring, so I made to sure to find the nearest scooter rental place. It’s so incredibly nice to be able to go wherever you want, whenever you want. I can’t live without my scooter! And Sri Lanka has a long gorgeous beachside road, plus lots of smaller roads that snake their way throughout the countryside. There’s nothing like cruising around on well paved, winding country roads early in the morning or around sunset. Good stuff. I even stumbled upon a snake farm one of the days.

took a little trip to the temple in Matara

got some curious looks

I like how they weighed out the produce in the market

the snake guy teasing the cobra

tree snake

So I was enjoying my time in Mirissa and decided to stick around for New Years Eve, when there would be lots of big parties on the beach. The owner of the hostel suggested going to an all white party, which sounds a bit weird saying, but it’s just a party on the beach where you have to wear all white clothes. We ended up buying tickets for $40 a pop, which I thought was a bit crazy for Sri Lankan standards, but that’s New Years Eve I guess. Overpriced NYE parties are certainly not limited to the States! So we all went to the market in town to buy white clothes, as most backpacking types don’t wear too much white because it gets dirty and disgusting wayyy too quickly.

As I was kind of expecting, the party was kinda pretentious and lame. The $40 didn’t even get you free drinks, and the drinks of course, were not cheap. Our section of beach was fenced off from the rest, very exclusive indeed! There was the DJ at the front and lots of cheap white plastic tables and chairs in the sand. The crowd was somewhat surprising, mostly well-to-do Sri Lankans and not that many foreign tourists. Bathroom facilities were lacking, so it was a long line whenever you had to go. I mean it was still fun, but I much rather would have been at one of the many free parties going on further along the beach. Oh well!

The next day I had to say goodbye and get back to Colombo as my visa was now one day past the expiry date. Uh oh!

Up in the hill stations: Ella

It’s the most popular tourist spot for those looking to experience Sri Lanka’s hill country. Ella is a small town located among the various tea plantations. It also has some nice easy hikes that aren’t in national park land, hence no need to fork over $25 for a hike that may or may not have views totally obscured by fog/rain. I liked Ella. It has plenty of things to do during the day to keep you busy and lots of decent restaurants for somewhat higher end Sri Lankan food at night.

One of the hikes, Ella rock, is particularly interesting, not just for the scenery at the top, but also for finding the proper route. At the beginning of the hike you walk along the railroad tracks and you have to find the proper turnoff point to get you on your way up the mountain. Various people have tried to put up signs or markers to let hikers know the right way, but those seem to always mysteriously disappear, as there guides along the way hoping that lost tourists might employ their services. Those sneaky guys!

view part of the way up the hike

But you can get a map and decent description online ahead of time to help you on your way. And don’t listen to anyone telling you that you’re going the wrong way! I might have taken this too far when a little old lady pointed me in the direction of the trail near her home that veered off from the main trail I was on and I didn’t believe her! I kept heading on my current path and ended up getting temporarily lost and had to scramble my way back to the main path. Hmmm.

Eventually I made it up to the top to find this view of stunning, gorgeous, total whiteness! The best! You never really know what you’re gonna get with weather in this part of the country. Eventually a couple of girls from Perth joined me to view into the abyss. We decided to stick around for a while and eventually the mist disappeared for a few moments at a time, just enough to get off some photos. Success!

the climax

the excitement is palpable

Finally the mist cleared for a bit. We also made some new friends

We also did the other small hike, little Adam’s peak, which I kind of had to do, as it bears my namesake. This one is easy, just stairs to the top with some more nice views of the hills and tea plantations. We could have done a tea plantation tour as well, but I’ve done them in India and I think they’re one of those things where once you’ve done one, you’ve done them all. Plus I don’t really care for tea all that much anyway! But we did have some time to walk through the tea bushes and have a drink at the resort on top of a hill overlooking everything. It’s a very pleasant place!

The view of Ella Rock from the other side of the valley

One of the tea plantations

one of the tea pickers

the landscape

So I stayed two nights in Ella, and would have liked to stay three so I could rent a scooter and explore around a bit, but some rain was coming and I decided it would be better to get down from the highlands and off to the beach. Next up, Mirissa.

good place for a beer

Kandy to Ella Train

The Kandy to Ella train (or vice versa) is certainly the most famous train ride in the country, thanks to the marvelous landscapes it winds through in the Sri Lankan hill country. Undulating terrain, tea plantations, and small villages all add to the charm of the journey. Of course with tourist numbers picking up in Sri Lanka and the fact that it was peak peak season, getting a ticket for this train was no easy task. All 1st and 2nd class tickets were all booked up and the only option left is buying 3rd class tickets the morning of, which basically means you'll be crammed in the car standing for most of the trip. 

A popular trick to avoid this is to go the Kadugannawa station, 30 minutes outside of Kandy, and board there, waiting for people to get off in Kandy so you can snag a seat. But I've heard that this method isn't so secret anymore and doing this in no way guarantees you a seat during peak season. 

I liked the flowers planted at every station, a nice touch

So what to do? I already took one standing train ride from Colombo to Kandy and it was miserable! So if it was likely that I was going to have to stand again, I'd much rather take the bus. But to many this train journey is the highlight of their whole Sri Lanka trip and I didn't want to miss out on it. Fortunately there is one last option, the 3:30am goods train! This is also a slower train because it stops at each station to load/unload stuff, so what is normally a 7 hour ride turns into 10. Obviously a 3:30 start on the slow train isn't for everyone, but you do get avoid the hordes of tourists during the day trains!

This train had four other tourists and the rest were locals. I was easily able to snag a forward facing window seat on the right side, the optimum seat for the views. And there was plenty of room to lay out on my bench seat and 'try' to sleep until the sun came up. There was one interesting quirk about this train. In my car and in one other car were a group of Sri Lankan teens, and they brought with them drums and their singing voices. Normally this would be a welcome cultural experience, hearing all of their traditional songs, which everyone in the group knew, enthusiastically. But not at 3:30 in the morning! 

With my noise cancelling headphones in I did manage some sleep and eventually got up when the sky started turning a faint blue. I could start seeing the outlines of the tumultuous landscape and the fog that sat in the valleys. It was Christmas morning and as others back home were waiting for daybreak to run downstairs and see what was under the tree, I was waiting for daybreak to see these lush green tea plantations illuminated in the soft, warm light. It was a very nice experience watching the sunrise from the train in the hill country while listening to some traditional Sri Lankan music. 

The view from outside my window as we headed into the rising sun

looking back

tea plantations everywhere

With so few people on the train you're free to get up and walk around the cabins and hang out the door to get a better view if you'd like. We'd stop for a few minutes in each station so you could hop off and stretch your legs a bit and not worry about having someone take your seat. So much more laid back than the other train I had been on. Vendors would hop on occasionally and sell some fried snacks, which were pretty tasty! After a few hours the train finally started filling up and all the seats were taken. A Sri Lankan family packed in around me. They didn't speak much English and their children eyed me curiously, but they did offer me some sweet snacks, which I happily accepted! 

After 6 hours we arrived at Nuwara Eliya, which is one of the hill station hot spots. The whole station was filled with tourists getting on this train! At this point there were almost no seats left so the vast majority of the people getting on would have to stand, at least for now. Eventually Sri Lankans would get off and people would snag those seats, and some very polite Sri Lankans actually voluntarily gave up their seats, knowing that it's such a novelty to foreigners. But still, a lot people were standing the four hours to Ella. I was pretty content with my spot! Although the majority of the views switched over from right side to the left side, but I guess you can't have everything. 

selfie time

After 10 hours we finally rolled into Ella station at 1:30 pm. At this point my butt was thoroughly sore and I couldn't wait to get off the train. I hadn't booked anything yet, so I basically found the nearest guesthouse, checked in, and promptly passed out for the next few hours. I'll get into Ella in the next post!

Sri Lanka

I hadn’t done much research before getting to Sri Lanka, so I wasn’t really sure what to expect. For some reason I was thinking the country was going to be a bit more off the beaten track, perhaps given to the island’s remote location of the SE tip of India. That was not exactly the case! Apparently Sri Lanka has gotten pretty popular in the last couple of years, so there was no shortage of people on the beaches and prowling around the country’s cultural sites. I even met some young Australian girls who joked they were doing an instagram tour, trying to recreate some of the their favorite photos they had seen on various instagram accounts. Hmmm…

I arrived at the airport in the mid-morning and got through immigration in no time. I had plenty of Indian rupees that I was hoping to exchange for Sri Lankan rupees, but to my surprise at the money exchanges, with about 30 currencies listed on their boards, did not change Indian rupees. What!? I still don’t know what the deal is with this one, but the ATM worked fine. Outside the airport it was very easy to find the airport-city bus. It seems like most of the time you have to go off hunting in far flung corners of the airport to find these buses, so it was nice to have it just waiting out front. $1 to get into the city center vs $30 for a taxi. I was welcomed by a pouring rain, which felt strange because it never rained in Goa.

arriving at the bus station in a drizzle

The streets of Colombo, tuk-tuks and busses 

the touristy Fort area

The main city, Colombo, was nicer than I would have expected. It’s certainly not as crowded, chaotic, and dirty as similar Indian cities. Although the traffic is still pretty awful and the bus drivers arguably crazier. I still can’t understand the need to overtake every single car as possible in heavy traffic, especially when you have to pull over every couple of minutes anyway! Then there’s the honking, dear god! And the sudden braking with absolute no regard for the passengers on board. Fun times. But I still prefer the bus over getting a tuk-tuk, who just wait around at touristy areas to try and rip people off.

I ended spending more time in Colombo than 99% percent of tourists would, due to the poker games. And what I came to realize is that Colombo is friggen BORING. I can’t think of many big cities that have less to do than Colombo. Once you hit the museum, one or two fairly average temples, and spend the sunset at the Galle Face waterfront area, you’ve got the city covered. There’s very little local nightlife, and even if there is something on a weekend night there’s hardly any girls, except maybe the handful there with their boyfriends. It’s redeeming factor for me was the poker action.

Some rotis and seafood snacks at the waterfront

The sacred tree at the Gangaramaya Temple

playing some cricket till dark

A lovely view of the whole new island-city complex starting to be built

playing in the waves (but never swimming!) at the waterfront

Colombo has a few casinos, two of which offer poker, with most of the action at the biggest casino, Ballys. It’s still a very small player pool, just one table going during weekdays and maybe two tables during the weekends. The nice thing about the casino is that everything you could possible want is free. There is a big buffet going all night, but if you don’t want any of that food then you can order a bunch of things ala carte. Want a shrimp tray, fruit plate, cheese plate, some sandwiches? Done! All alcoholic drinks are free, including top shelf type stuff. If you want to smoke they’ll give you cigarettes or a cigar, or even a shisha to smoke at the table. This is also one of the biggest downsides of the room if you care about your health at all. The majority of the players playing poker are smoking cigarettes at the table and the whole place is just way too smoky in general. But I do really like the novelty of smoking shisha at the table! Oh and they have all these different live song and dance routines going on at the center stage, so plenty of entertainment.

The Indian food part of the casino buffet. I realize this picture doesn't look particularly appetizing!

pole dancers? sure why not?

As far as the gameplay, it’s about double the stakes of India, and the games are quite a bit more aggressive. There is much more reraising preflop and bluffs/semibluffs. There are more very good regulars in the game, but also more loaded dudes who don’t care about money and will happily blow a couple thousand in a night. When I was there, there were some guys in from the middle east making the games pretty crazy, which unfortunately did not go well for me that week, but what can I say, those are types of games I want to be playing in. Certainly nothing like that action in Chicago. But this is the problem of trying to play poker and travel at the same time, obviously I don’t want to spend all my time in Sri Lanka in the casino, but traveling after losing a bunch of money tends to put a damper on things. But that’s how things go sometimes.

my shisha, hehe

As for the rest of the country tourists mainly go to three areas: the southern beaches, the hill country, and the ‘cultural triangle’ where they have some ruins of ancient cities. The one thing to note in Sri Lanka, that annoys the hell out of most travellers is their policy of tourist pricing, where anything of tourist interest they charge the hell out of you, especially by Sri Lankan standards. Want to go to a temple? $10. Go for a hike in a national park? $25. See some ruins? $25. Meanwhile the local price would be 50c or something like that. At least on the beaches they can’t charge you to go into the ocean.

Normally the best way to see the country is by train. Thanks to British, they’ve got a nice rail system running through the country. Unfortunately during heavy tourist season it’s extremely difficult to get a seat on the train. My first train ride from Colombo to Kandy was three hours of standing completely jammed into the car. Of course your head is over the window level so you can’t even look out and see the scenery. So I was careful to not replicate that experience again!

Train departing from the Fort Station

Our packed ride to Kandy. Not fun!

Riding around Goa

Just posting some photos from around Goa. Away from the beaches its a nice mix of small towns, rural scenery, brightly colored houses, churches and temples. It's very nice for an evening scooter ride!

New Delhi

I arrived at 1am, and after an hour of waiting in the e-visa line, I was off to the taxi line and on my way into the city. Just stepping out of the airport reminded me of being in Beijing, the air feels different, kind of musty and heavy. You feel like something is kind of tickling your throat. Then you remember you’re in one of the most polluted cities in the world, and perhaps that is what that feeling is!

There were a surprising amount of cars on the road for three in morning and even a few streetside food carts lit up by a single lightbulb to serve the late-night clientele. Fortunately my guesthouse was easy enough to find (most things are these days with google maps) although it was quite a bit dingier than it had appeared in the online photos. No matter, I’d have fallen asleep in a cockroach den at that point. Well, maybe.

After a few hours of sleep I was wide awake in a completely new city and anxious to explore. Of course as soon as I walked out the door I already had offers for a sightseeing guide, taxis, and rickshaws. It’s a pretty crazy city. The streets are just bursting with people all vying for space on the narrow streets. The traffic gets stopped every few minutes while two cars have to figure out how to squeeze past each other. The honking is incessant. I was in the main tourist part of town and every 10 seconds you have someone coming up to you, “Hey! Where you from? Ahh, Chicago, the windy city right?” Working their way into polite conversation before pitching their jewellery store or tour agency or what have you, mostly trying to just scam you entirely. The best way is to just ignore them completely from the get-go.

the streets of the main bazaar area

I was trying to get out of conversation with this one teenager without being too rude, so I told him I’m hopping on the metro now. He told me I’d save money by buying a day pass, which coincidentally I could buy at the travel agency I was just passing. I’m very skeptical at this point, but I went in there to see what they said. They could get me a metro pass to go anywhere in the city for 2,700 rupees, which is like $40, hahaha. I laughed in his face and walked out. At the station my fare was 25 cents. Gotta love India. Still, people manage to fall for this stuff all the time.

Like usual I didn’t have any hard set plans for the day. I had noted a few tourist attractions and what stations they were near, but the main idea was just to wander around and get a feel for the city. That morning I managed to find my way to the Gandi museum, his tomb, some gardens, and a smallish Hindu temple before it got too hot, then I went back to take a nap. That evening I met up with some other travellers and went out to eat together. My favorite dish is still  the very cliché, chicken tikka masala. It’s hard to get tired of that creamy yet spicy goodness and only a fraction of the cost of back home.

mmm

sun cricketeers around sunset

The crowd I was with wasn’t really a party crowd, which is pretty standard for people traveling in India (as opposed to SE Asia), so we wandered the streets a bit and called it an early night. All good with me. After feeling like I was drinking too much in Chicago (and back when I was in Phnom Penh) I decided that in India it was time to take a break from the booze. Plus I wanted to wake up early the next morning so I could cram as much as I could into my last day to see Delhi.

The following day I found my way over to the Gurudwara temple, which a Sikh temple. In case you don’t know, the Sikhs are the guys with the turbans, and they’ve got their own religion and cultural identity, originally hailing from the Punjab state in India. And all the Sikhs I’ve met in real life have been very nice people!  And I found it very India-esque that you can randomly walk down one street that has a Sikh temple, a church, a mosque, and Hindu temple. It is a very  diverse country.

Gurudwara Temple

I ended up hopping on a random bus just to ride around for a bit. One of the things that I kind of enjoy about the Indian buses is that a lot time they don’t even come to a complete stop to let people on and off. I mean it’s only a steady crawl, but it keeps people on their toes. You gotta be paying attention getting on and off. People seem a lot happier on public transportation too. You notice people talking with each other and laughing, joking about hitting a pothole. This one girl almost faceplanted when the bus came to a screeching halt and she got up and was cracking up with her friends. If that happened on a bus at home, that would not be the typical reaction! People seem to embrace the inconveniences that inevitably come along with life in a big Indian city.

That afternoon I met up with one of the girls from the night before and it was off to the iconic Red Fort, which was home to the Mughal emperors for 200 years, built by Shah Jahan, the same guy who built the Taj Mahal in the 1600’s. The Islamic reign was a particularly bad time for Indians. Fortunately the Mughals influence started to decline in the 1700’s and most of that empire was fully taken over by the British Raj in the 1800’s. Some excellent Mughal architecture still remains though. 

Down the street from the Red Fort was the Jama Masjid (mosque), the most famous mosque in the city and also built by Shah Jahan. One of the more fascinating parts was on the way up to the mosque, there was a market for large industrial parts that I walked through. I’ve never seen anything like it before, it felt almost otherworldly. It reminded me of the of the scrapyards in Tatooine. Really interesting place.  

As for the mosque it was beautiful and of course full of people praying. You can really feel the devotion and spirituality in places like this, and really India on the whole. You can also pay to climb up one of the minarets that has a spiral staircase embedded in it, which gives you a great 360 degree view of the entire city. We stayed there until they kicked us out for the 5:00 prayers. After that I had just enough time to get back, have some streetside chicken biryani and naan, and make way to the airport for my evening flight to Goa.

Delhi, as seen from the top of the minaret

And I'm off again: India round 2

Well, I didn't last too long in Chicago this time. With summer being just about over, not having a satisfactory living situation, and not owning a car, it really didn't make sense for me to stay in the city. I need a car to get out to the poker games, and I didn't feel like buying one, knowing that I'd be going out of the country again in the winter anyways. Renting one is needlessly expensive. So my thinking was basically this: I could be in Chicago, taking public transit to the poker game and living in my bandbox of a 'bedroom' or I could be in Goa (India), living on the beach for cheap, renting a scooter for a few dollars a day, and having easy access to good live poker games. I guess a lot of people were surprised I was leaving so soon, but it wasn't a particularly difficult choice for me. 


 

So I booked my flight to Delhi for October 1. I was flying Qatar Airlines, which along with Emirates, are my favorite airlines to fly. And thanks to the fact they are subsidized by their respective governments, they are often the cheapest flights along with being some of the highest quality! Plus it only cost $400 for a one way flight. I actually could have gotten cheaper flying the other way around via Shanghai, but it's more flying time and Chinese airlines seem to have difficulty not losing my luggage, so I opted with Qatar Airlines. 

After a farewell lunch of deep dish pizza my parents were nice enough to drop me off at the airport. Thirteen hours and three Fast and the Furious movies later, I was in Doha. Now I finally knew what I had been missing out on in the last few years! Although as bad as the F&F franchise is, mindless action entertainment is pretty good for killing time on a flight. I had about three hours to wait in Doha, which is a pretty cool airport, and then another four hours to Delhi. 

Our flight got in at 1am, and you'd think that getting through immigration would be a breeze, but no no no. The lines for people with an e-visa were jammed. In the last few years India has made it possible to apply for a 2 month visa online, as opposed to the tedious practice of assembling and printing out all your documents and applying at the consulate. So that's good! But huge lines bad! It took about an hour to get through immigration. It's not that there are so many people, but it takes like 5 minutes per person for the guy to do whatever it is he's doing on the computer and then to take your photo, scan your fingertips and stuff. Come up with a quicker system India! 

After I got my bag I started looking for a taxi and a guy asked if I was heading into the main bazaar area (I was) so we decided to get a taxi together. Actually his company was paying for the taxi, so he wouldn't even let me pay my half, so that was nice of him. I got to the guesthouse at 3am, had to wake up the guy behind the counter, and got to bed with enough time for a decent nights rest. 

Delhi Trip Report up next!

Back Home in Chicago

It's always nice to be back in Chicago after a long trip! It feels a little bit surreal sometimes, even just the normal things like walking through the airport, seeing the style of clothes people are wearing, swiping the ventra card, hopping on the blue line, etc. But this time I wouldn't be taking the metro, like I usually do. My brother Ed and his girlfriend would swing by and pick me up, and I got to meet their Golden/Beagle puppy, Thor. We headed back to Naperville to see our parents and then get ready for our friends Kevin and Tracie's wedding. 

The wedding also worked out well because I got to see a lot of friends that I haven't seen for a while all at one time. The venue itself was pretty cool, as it had a bowling alley and bocce ball courts attached to it. For someone who doesn't particularly want to be on the dance floor the whole night, I enjoyed this setup. The wedding of course was great, everything was smooth, the speeches were exactly how they should be: short, touching, humorous, etc; everybody was on the dance floor towards the end, and then pizza and bowling afterwards! A pretty good night. 

After the wedding I'd spend the week at home with my parents, which was nice to catch up with them, relax, get some laundry done, and run some errands. They fed me well, and I had a few opportunities to get in the kitchen with a complete set of pots and pans and a full spice rack, which is always nice after being on the road. But being without a car in the suburbs can get a bit boring and after a few days I headed back into the city. My brother let my stay in his guest bedroom at first and then I moved upstairs into my friend Jeff's spare bedroom, err glorified closet. But beggars can't be choosers. I mean I could have found a sublet on craigslist, but it's kind of a PITA and you never really know what you're gonna get, so this was just convenient. 

So I took the train into the city and then had a chance to wander around the downtown for a bit. We have a pretty damn great downtown. It's right on the lake, the skyline is stunning, and the architecture is just so very impressive. The architecture is one of those things that you kind of take for granted living here. While Asia does have more modern looking high rises, a lot of times they can look a bit cookie cutter. I like that the buildings in Chicago have character! If you're paying attention there are really endless details carved into the massive slabs of granite.

After checking the museum of contemporary art (which is free!) it was time to find the nearest blue line station. Now as much as like Chicago, the metro system is not one of the highlights. Traveling in Asia is a constant reminder of how dated our public transit system is. The majority of the metros in Asia are relatively new, super clean, smooth, efficiently designed, run often and on time, let you easily buy fares based on how far you are going (and don't make you pay extra for a card) and in general are pleasant to use. As with the Chicago CTA, I can't exactly say the same thing. It's not bad (usually) but the rides are much more jerky and rickety, are delayed more frequently, smell worse, and suck at handling lots of people. Well at least they're slowly switching from the inefficiently designed two seater rows to the seating on the outer edges of the cars!

Photo 2 handles crowds of people much better than photo 1

Ok! So I got off at Logan Square, which would be my home neighborhood for now, as it was last year. It's a pretty nice area, not too expensive (yet), and good mix of yuppies, hipsters, and hispanics, with plenty of new bars and restaurants popping up all the time. I got off and wandered down Milwaukee Ave, the central thoroughfare. It's always pleasing walking past the usual bars, restaurants, and coffeeshops and looking for any new or interesting changes in the last 8 months. A pop up bar, dedicated to the show Stranger Things, was hopping early on a Friday evening. 

The old standbye: Logan Theater

Newish bar called Estereo that has a cool set up and South American inspired drinks

CTA stop

I walked south, towards where I would be living, a part of Logan that was changing very quickly, as it is near the 606 trail, a defunct train track turned into public use space. Many of the nearby buildings were getting bought out, remodeled and renovated, and selling for high prices. It's a weird mix of 40 year old homes and ultra modern 3 flats. So the place is gentrifying quickly, which is bad news for the hispanic residents who rent in this area. But that's how it goes, I guess.

So it was disappointing to me that there was no little mexican grocery store in close proximity, which is where I normally like to buy my fresh produce on the cheap. But there was a more stylish "Fresh Market" complete with many vegan options, craft cheeses, free range eggs, and pricey pre-made meals. The usual yuppie type fare. The amount of fresh produce in the "Fresh Market" was substandard to say the least! At least the craft beer selection was good. There were a couple of new local breweries that I hadn't seen on the shelves before, so I picked one up and headed another couple of blocks to my brother's new home, where I'd be settling in for a little bit. 

no shortage of churches

Central Asia Round Up

All in all I liked Central Asia quite a bit, and I definitely feel like it's an underrated part of the world that is only going to see more and more tourists in the years to come. Kyrgyzstan is certainly doing the best job out of all the countries in promoting tourism by being visa free and establishing community based tourism offices all around the country. It would be nice to see Uzbekistan, and especially Turkmenistan ease up on their visa requirements. But Turkmenistan is run by a crazy dictator, so I doubt that'll happen, but Uzbekistan might. I liked Uzbekistan, but considering I spent $200 to get my visa there, I'll certainly never be going back at that price. 

Here's my ranking of the places I went:

1. Kyrgyzstan: Absolute best country in Central Asia! It has the most interesting culture, some of the friendliest people, and best scenery out of all the Stans. I loved the rolling green countryside with the mountain backdrops, the alpine lakes, the semi-nomadic lifestyles, their obsession with horses, and all the yurts camps. Plus you can find great hiking almost anywhere in this mountainous gem. 
 

2. Tajikistan: Doing the Pamir Highway is just such a unique experience. Very few parts of the world are as rugged and desolate as the eastern part of the country. It's something I'd never do again, but it was a memorable experience nonetheless. Outside of that, there are some great untapped hiking opportunities in the Bauteng Vally and the Fann mountains, and probably quite a few other places that I don't know about. Like Kyrgyzstan, this country is 95% mountains, so the possibilities for hiking are quite endless. 

3. Uzbekistan: Amazing desert cities with stunning Islamic architecture. Certainly the most historically rich country in the region. I have to knock it down a few points due to the visa cost and difficulties. Plus the heat. 

4. Xinjiang: Even though I really liked Kashgar, and Chinese food is great, overall traveling in Xinjiang was the least enjoyable region that I traveled to. The problem is mostly the government's overbearing presence in the region. It's just frustrating being in a place that has had very few ethnic clashes in the last few years, but walking around you would think this place was an active warzone. You can't go outside any of the cities without stopping at police checkpoints every 10 miles. Getting to the Kyrgyz border was the biggest bureaucratic nightmare I've been apart of. But hey, I at least I got here before the government decides to just totally shut off the region to foreigners, which I suspect might happen in the not so distant future.  

PROS OF TRAVELING IN THE STANS

Culture: It's very unique! Being that all of the Stans were former USSR, it's a fascinating to see how Russian culture intermingles with Muslim culture. Russian is usually the 2nd language people speak, they use the cyrllic alphabet, and you can see Russian influence just about everywhere you look, from the buildings to the food to the music. I'd assume it also plays a role in that Central Asia has a very moderate interpretation of Islam. In the larger cities people wear what they please and are quite fashionable. Want to wear a tank top and booty shorts? No problem. Like everywhere else, the countryside is more conservative. 

Scenery: Spectacular mountains everywhere in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Deserts in Xinjiang and Uzbekistan. Whatever floats your boat. As stated before the hiking kicks ass. And it's mostly unregulated and free: Hike where you like, pitch a tent where you want, doesn't matter! Stop and see if a yurt family wants to take you in for a night? Sure why not?

Cost: Dirt cheap! Some of the cheaper traveling I've done. I actually went under budget on this trip! It's easy to eat street meals for 1 or $2. Getting a main course at a nicer restaurant was still only about $3-5. Hostels and yurt stays also about $5. Shared taxis: Only a few dollars for rides of a few hours. Hitchhiking is always possible (and easy) as well. There's not a ton of real touristy activities or nightlife, so it's hard to blow through a lot of money. The biggest expenses are taking shared taxis to distant, off the beaten track locations or having to hire a vehicle. 

Meeting people: In each major tourist destination there is usually one or two hostels where all the western tourist go. There's few enough travellers where you feel almost compelled to strike up conversations with the people you come into contact with, which I like. You don't get that same feeling in bigger tourist destinations. 

Shish Kebabs: Overall Central Asian food is pretty bland, but I had some damn good shish kebabs! Beer is halfway decent as well.

Hospitality: Considering tourism is still in it's infancy in this part of the world, locals, for the most part, will look out for tourists and help them in any way they can if they get lost or need help. I had numerous people go out of their way to help me out along the way. Also you almost never get hassled by annoying touts and the like.

Safety: Never felt even close to being in danger at any point in the trip. Never got anything stolen, never met anyone at all who had any problems whatsoever. 

Yurts! Well this mostly a Kyrgyzstan thing, but I stayed in yurt camps multiple times and always enjoyed it. Other non-yurt homestays are possible as well. 

Sim Cards: Easy to get, super cheap, and work pretty well in/around the cities.

CONS:

Location: Well, probably the biggest pain the ass about visiting the Stans, especially if you're American, is getting there. Flying into Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan) is usually the cheapest way to go. Flying in and out of some of the other Stans is usually quite a bit more expensive. 

Transport: These countries aren't great for people with time constraints. Considering how much of it is mountains, and the state of the road, you might need a considerable amount of time to get from A to B. There are surprisingly few public buses, so shared taxi is the main mode of transport, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. But if you're going somewhere that locals don't normally go and can't find anyone to share with, it'll get expensive quickly. Traveling in a small group is best. Also, most of the cars are old as hell and breakdowns are a semi regular occurrence. These guys are all gear heads though, (they have to be) so it usually doesn't take too long to get the problem sorted out.  

Language barrier: You'll be able to get by with just English in the cities, it'll be trickier in the smaller cities and countryside. And good luck reading a menu if you haven't learned the Cyrillic alphabet! I recommend learning some basic Russian phrases before coming. I enjoyed practicing my super basic Russian when I was here. Counterpoint: Google translate is so good nowadays that you can speak into it in English and it'll pump out a pretty good translation in Russian. 

Food: As mentioned earlier it is kind of bland. No spiciness whatsoever. It's not bad, it's just not great. I never really got tired of it though, unlike some other travelers I met. You've got: Manti (dumplings), lagman (oily spaghetti), Shashlik (skewered meats), Plov (rice or pilaf with meat), and Samsa (baked pastry of mutton and onions), and noodle soups as the bulk of the cuisine.  Naan bread is served with every meal along with tea. Oh, in cities they have fast food hamburger and kebab stands as well! Soft serve ice cream is everywhere too. I'm not even sure this category is a Con anymore!

Visas: Huge pain in the ass for Turkmenistan, large annoyance for Uzbekistan. Tajikistan is easy to do online, but still costs $70. Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan: A+

Nightlife and Partying: Mostly non-existent outside of the capital cities. Most of the time in Central Asia you'll eat dinner, maybe have some drinks or play some cards for bit and then hit the hay. If you're looking to get wild after the sun goes down, it's not the place for you. Every once in a while you can find some locals taking down some Russian vodka though, which they might ask you to join...

Kumis: Fermented horse milk. It's gross, but it's a staple in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. If locals invite you in for a drink they're gonna either give you tea or kumis. Everyone is always hoping it's tea, but it's usually kumis. Your hosts are very proud of their kumis making ability and they want you to enjoy it as much as they do, so it's impolite to not finish the whole glass! 

Laundry: Unlike more touristy places, they don't have places where you can just give them your bag of laundry and get back the next day all neatly folded in a bag. Some hostels have a washer and dryer, but there is always a big line to get to it. I had to hand wash my own laundry a few times on this trip and I HATE it. 

Internet: pretty crappy

And that's all I can think of right now! But overall I would say the Pros vastly outweigh the Cons!

Georgia

So when I was looking at flights it turned out that flying from the capital of Georgia, Tbilisi was the cheapest option, and I could get a pretty cheap flight there from Shymkent (Kazakhstan), so that was the route I chose. Plus that would give me a few days to scratch the surface of this Caucasus country that I heard so many good things about. I'd have a 3 nights and two full days to jam in as much stuff as I could. 

I arrived around midnight and while driving towards downtown Tbilisi it's impressive to see all the churches lighted up on their hillside perches. My taxi driver was playing a mix of classic rock and soul music and quizzing me to see if I knew who sang each song. Being that I'm American he was a bit incredulous regarding my lack of knowledge in the soul music department, heh. It wasn't my generation! 

 

not so great photo, but you can see the churches and fort lit up in the background

He dropped me off at the main square and I walked the block to my guesthouse. Lots of people were still out and about at 1am, drinking on various outdoor patios and terraces. I stopped in at one of the hookah places for a bit and called it a night. I was going to have a busy day tomorrow. 

When researching Georgia, the one church that stuck out to me (among the many spectacular Georgian churches) was the Gergeti Trinity church, built high up in the mountains a few hours north of Tbilisi. So I decided to cram it into the itinerary. I woke up early that morning and took a taxi to the bus station. After lots of searching and asking around (the letters on the buses are all Georgian script) I finally found the one I was searching for. There were people waiting inside so I hopped in and grabbed a seat. Oddly the lady next me shooed me out of it. Ok, I went to a different open seat, and got told no, no, no. Then the bus driver started yelling at me and pointed for me to get off the bus. I was so confused! Apparently people had already reserved these seats and were just mingling around outside in the bus station. Hmm. When he finally started the bus everyone came wandering in from the woodwork. It turned out there was an open seat, so I was able to take it and we were on our way. 

After three hours we all piled off the bus in a touristy little mountain village. This was the base of the hike up to the church. You could see it overlooking the village up in the clouds. The hike itself was pretty steep uphill, but only took an hour to get up to the top. The church itself was extremely well preserved offered great views of the jagged terrain all around. If you had hiking gear, this would be the start of a hike much higher into the mountains. But it really was a hell of a place to have a church!

I spent some time to have a snack and admire the aesthetics of the whole scene, and then cruised back down to the village. I wanted to get back to Tbilisi to get some sightseeing in before it got dark. It took maybe 30 minutes to wait for a bus to fill up and we were rumbling back down towards Tbilisi in no time. I was hoping to stake out a sunset spot, but the skies were mostly a dull gray, so no-go on that front. But I will say that the city certainly has charm. Lots of old buildings, a ridiculous amount ofeastern orthodox churches, and every time you look up you can see the cable cars heading up and back from the fort. 

the sulfur baths

The next day was my chance to get around to all the touristy sites in town. Tbilisi is really a nice place for just walking around. It's very hilly so all the houses are built up almost on top of each other in some places. Most of it is vaguely defined as the Old Town, which lives does live up it's name, as many of the buildings and houses are pretty dilapidated and in various states of disrepair, which is endearing in it's own way. 

what many of the old town homes look like

those beams look like they lend a lot of support...

Next up was the big daddy of the churches in Tbilisi, the St. Trinity Cathedral. I'm pretty sure this is the largest church I've ever been in. It's actually a very new church, finished in the early 2000's, hence it's immaculate condition.

The rest of the afternoon was just more wandering, exploring the sulfur baths, the treelined parkways, some tourist walking streets, vine covered buildings, open air patios, etc. And stopping in for an occasional glass of Georgian wine, which was a nice change of pace after the Stans. 

long exposure at the sulfur baths

vines give the buildings some character

At night I took the funicular (tram that goes straight up big hill) to the top where they have a carnival as well as a nice restaurant that overlooks the city. From this vantage point you can really see how much the Trinity Cathedral dominates the skyline around it. I treated myself to a fancy pants dinner, took the tram back down, packed up my stuff and headed off to the airport. 3 hours to Doha, and then another 14 hours to Chicago, and I was back home! The conclusion to another successful trip! 

the view in the funicular going down

Tashkent

After Bukhara I took the night train to the capital city of Uzbekistan: Tashkent. Unfortunately when I arrived at 7am, I encountered one of the biggest problems in the digital age: No phone battery and no laptop battery! (I'm getting a powerbank for next trip!). Without my maps I didn't know where in the city I was at and I had no clue where my hostel was located, noooo! I did feel like I had a pretty good idea of where the downtown was, so I just hopped on a bus in that general direction. We passed the prominent Hotel Uzbekistan, which I had read about, so I knew at least I was going in the right general direction. I got off on a street that looked nice and had lots of retail, assuming there had to be a coffeeshop with wifi around. Well there were, but none of them were open yet. Crap. What kind of coffeeshops don't open until 9?!

A taxi driver stopped and asked where I was going. I told him I just needed to find a place with wifi. He said to hop in. He stopped at a western style breakfast place. It wasn't actually open yet (15 minutes early) but the taxi driver explained my dilemma and they let me in. A few minutes later I was back in business with the address and directions. I of course stayed for breakfast and was all set to go, but the owner made me give him the hostel phone number so he could call them, figure out exactly where it was at, and relay that to my taxi driver. They look after foreigners pretty well in these central asian countries.

Passing by a fruit market

The rest of the day was a whirlwind, I rode around on the metro to a bunch of different places, the central park, the main market, a history museum, and some different mosques. The downtown definitely has a very Soviet feel to it, lots of all white, blocky, and imposing government buildings. My favorite part of the day was actually riding the metro. Each station was a unique piece of Soviet styled art. I loved it. In fact I rode around to stations out of my way just to see what they looked like. I have never been so impressed by a metro system! Of course it's Uzbekistan and for whatever reason they have decided taking photos of the metro stations is not allowed, so I would have to dodge all the guards walking around to get any photos off. I did get caught once and obviously played the dumb foreigner card, but they still made me delete the photos from that station, which was a bummer. 

I also met up for coffee with the travel agent who I got my LOI from, as I still had to pay her the $50 for the LOI. In the eyes of the Uzbekistan law, her tour company was personally responsible for me, so she'd email me every other day to make sure that everything was okay and make sure I was okay with navigating the trains and shared taxis, not getting ripped off, etc. I think she mostly deals with older people who aren't very good at that kinda stuff. We had a lot of correspondence over the last month, so it was interesting finally meeting her in person. Her English was perfect and she liked talking about Uzbek politics, which is something most Uzbek's won't bring up. So it was an interesting conversation. She wasn't particularly thrilled about me photographing the metro station, though. 

Some photos from the afternoon:

So this was my last day in Uzbekistan! Although I was actually flying out of a city called Shymkent, which isn't too far across the border in Kazakhstan. Time for more fun with border crossings! The nice thing was that I was able to take a bus directly to the border and that Kazakhstan is visa on arrival. The not so nice thing was it was the most insanely packed border I've ever witnessed. Just a massive horde of people smashed in between iron railings. Fortunately the women had their own line, but the mens section was just a complete zoo. You're just wedged in there, and kind of sway back forth as people jostle and push their way around. It feels like you're in the crowd of a packed concert, but not...

The most interesting part to me was that they have these guys who you can pay, you give them your luggage, and then get behind them in the line. They move up along the railing and basically shove people out of the way to get their clients through the line faster. Then when they are close to the front of the line someone tosses you your luggage over the railing. It was mostly older men paying for this, which makes sense, as dealing with the line is a real workout. But some younger guys were doing it as well. They asked if I wanted to do it, but I didn't want to be a cheater; I was gonna stand the line just everyone else damn it! It sucked of course. All in all the whole ordeal took about three hours, then I was on a bus towards Shymkent. 

I had one day to hang out in this town before flying to Georgia. Nothing really interesting for tourists to do, but the shish kebab place I went to for dinner had chunks of meat the size of your fist (ok not that big) and it was damn good, possibly the best I'd had all trip. The next day I found a trendy looking coffeeshop and did some people watching. The women here are pretty attractive! Lots of high heels and nice looking outfits. I was pleasantly surprised. I also learned how much Kazakhs hate Borat! Which is fair enough. Considering Kazakhstan has the best economy of all the Stans and is probably the most modern, but they're the country that get singled out as the incestuous backwater by Borat. I would have liked to spend a bit more time in Kazakhstan, but time was running short. I flew out that evening to Tbilisi and would have two full days there before heading home.