Dinner

I ate pig brain.

Happiness is.....

It was incredible.

Most of you have seen this picture already but here it is again.

For your information - I'm presuming no one else will hold a panda in their lifetime - they are pretty heavy. This little guy was about 60 pounds. Their fur is coarse. He sat still because they put honey on his paw that he was sucking like a baby sucking their thumb. He is about 1 year old and I am really happy in this picture.

Megalomania

Power corrupts, of that I have no doubt. But does corruption also include rampant paranoia and megalomania?

I think one thing that this trip has taught me is that absolute power makes men think they are gods. Men - you are not gods.

I visited the Terracotta Warriors in Xi'an, China a couple of days ago and its sheer size is magnificent, the artistry is spectacular and the level of preservation is unparalleled. I just couldn't help but thinking that this dude was certifiably insane.

The Terracotta Warriors are a massive army of 8000 lifesize replica soldiers that are all different and were placed in full scale battle-ready positions. Built 1800 years ago for the first Emperor of the Qing dynasty, the army may have been constructed to protect the Emperor in the afterlife, although some people think that it may have been because Emperor Qin Shi Huang, in all of his cockiness, thought he could continue to rule from the heavens.

Then of course we have Mao Zedong, a pretty nifty dude at the beginning of his rule, then his ideas of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution cost China millions of lives. Kudos.

Of course there is Stalin. Psychopath.

All of these larger-than-life figures had one thing in common - a belief in their own god-like status and yet a level of insecurity so high that they forced, coerced, cajoled their public into believing their psychosis and building crazy-ass structures to prove their power - the Pyramids for the Egyptian Kings, the Taj Mahal, St. Peter's Basilica for some Jesus-guy and the Terracotta Warriors.

Some of the most incredible tourist sights in the world are for dead dudes, normally planned and executed by the leader themself. Talk about self-indulgence.

In my tour of megalomaniacs of the last two millenia I started thinking about one guy I haven't mentioned yet - Chinggis Khan. He wanted an unmarked grave, constructed no lasting structures to prove his power and generally just wanted to be left alone to rape and pillage. In other words, Chinggis Khan is my buddy.

Chill Out Day

Chilling out is important when you are gone for 3 months - it involves a day online or reading in a cafe or sitting in a park doing absolutely nothing. Also called "Western" days or "Administrative" days - these are the days where you can't feel bad about doing nothing.

Today is my "Chill Out" day. Except, it's not supposed to be literal, the Chinese take Air Con to a new level - its bloody freezing everywhere. And that is a Canadian talking - that means seriously cold. Plus, AC units are dirty filthy beasts that circulate gross air breathed by billions of people and barely manage to filter out the intense pollution here in China.

It's totally the AC's fault I'm sick.

So now my "Personal" day is turning into the adventures of buying flu medication in a Chinese pharmacy, trying to swallow food through the golf balls stuck in my throat and power walking to sweat it out.

That being said - my AC is on right now. (it's HOT here!)

Little things

We travel to see the big things - the Pyramids, Machu Pichu, the Great Wall and the Sahara. And China is about BIG things: largest population (1.2 billion), tallest mountain (Everest 8,848m), largest manmade structure (Great Wall 8,851.8 kms) and the tallest woman (Yao Defen 7'8").

Except it's usually the little things that are most memorable.

Urumqi - the amazing rice paper wrap at the night market with fresh veggies, grilled tofu and peanuts with an amazing sauce
Train ride to Dunhuang - the mists over the mountain passes at 4000 meters

Dunhuang - the painfully hard bed in a garden bungalow at the base of massive sand dune

Xi'an - an 80 minute massage for $8.50 complete with a tiny Chinese woman standing on my back and kneeing my shoulders, bum and legs. I had bruises. It was awesome.

Xi'an - walking through the Muslim quarter early in the morning and watching the assembly line of bread makers mix, flour, knead, shape and fry the dough

Xi'an - finding games to entertain yourself during a 6 hour wait at the train station while sitting on your luggage surrounded by zillions of Chinese

These little things can't be explained or photographed and probably have no significance to those reading this. But, we all have those little things we remember about a place in time that somehow hits us.

I'm feeling close to the end of my trip and have started to reflect and to solidify these memories. They are wonderful memories and will stay with me forever...

and with the rest of the world in cyberspace.

The Great Firewall

First impressions of China - fantastic. Great food, a nice atmosphere of bustle and while still being really chill and a great little hostel in Urumqi.

And then - I tried to blog back to all of you.

It turns out www.wanderinggeneticist.blogspot.com is a really scary site aimed to promote riots, raping and pillaging and otherwise subversive behaviour because my lowly travel blog is blocked by the 'Great Firewall'.

Okay, it's not like I drew attention of Hu Jintao and he stamped the 'Block' form...all of blogspot.com hosted sites are blocked.

How am I blogging right now, you ask? I hacked that shizz.

No - I didn't become a computer hacker in the 2 months I've been away...there are proxy sites I can access my blog with. Except I can't post anymore photos. Sorry!

I thought that for sure I'd have access to a silly travel blog in China...that was until I got to the Chinese border. At the Chinese border there are a whackload of soldiers all standing at attention when the train rolls in. Then, the mount the carriages en masse and spend 10 minutes inspecting each passport (for what - I have NOOOOO idea) and then the customs guy comes in and inspects everything.

The customs dude found my computer and beckoned this lovely Chinese border official to inspect it. She turned it on and went straight to the My Pictures folder.

The first thing she saw - a caricatured photo of Mao (now my fb profile pic). I might have groaned out loud when that happened. And Mao was right next to a picture of Borat. Thankfully, another dude walked by and saw the Mao picture and started laughing and broke the ice.

She then proceeded to go through my pictures one by one....I have about 4000 photos on here. She took particular interest in a picture of a kid in Peru - he was really cute, he just happened to be naked. I was like 'Oh SHIT' again, so I decided to give her a description of all my photos and everywhere I had been.

Finally, when my list of countries that I have visited were exhausted and she was duly impressed, she started to get to my worm gonad pictures. About 2000 of them, and finally gave up...just when she was getting to the good parts!

What the customs officials didn't know was that I am now a smuggler of contraband. Yup, the Lonely Planet (aka - the Bible) is banned in China and I had to smuggle it into the country. So really, the photos were all just a distraction for the real stuff. Man, I'm good...I can bribe AND smuggle now.

Borders and Bribes

Another 2 day train. Almaty - Urumqi.

I got lucky this time, the only other foreigner on the train also happened to be in my train car, a young British backpacker. It was great because I hadn't spoken English in about a week (besides to myself) and it was nice to converse again. He's chill and we spent the first night on the train chatting away and sharing stories.

Then we hit the Kazakh border post where an over-enthusiastic immigration officer was quite insistent that my documents were "Ploha" (bad) because I didn't register my visa upon entering the country.

Let's just pause to talk about the absolute stupidity of registration. All the former USSR countries have this ridiculous policy of having this tiny slip of paper that is a registration document - something with your name and shit and you have to get stamped within 5 days of entering the country. If you lose it, you're screwed. If you don't stamp it in every place you stay longer than 72 hours, you're screwed. If you don't register it within 5 days of arrival, you're screwed. For no reason whatsoever other than "because they can". And, it is a useful source of bribes.

I didn't register my Kazakh visa.

I was screwed.

Except - I was on a transit visa and the Kazakh Embassy in London was quite clear is saying I did NOT have to register for a variety of reasons.

Max - the Kazakh border official - thought otherwise.

So, he pulled me into a little train compartment and explained to me that I was totally screwed and would be left at the Kazakh border post having to hitch hike back to the capital to register, be stuck in Kazakhstan for the rest of my life or until I can extend my visa and try again. Of course, he was trying to freak me out and I having nothing of it.

This guy's game was brutal. I saw right through it and have been pressed and prodded much harder by many African border officials, embassy officials and people who extract bribes for a living. So, I remained calm.... I may have agreed to become his second wife and eventually kissed him on the cheek but I was let off with a warning. (hehehe - I can talk my way out of anything - even in Russian).

And then, because it was just soooo much fun the first interrogation, he brought me back about 4 hours later to go through it all over again. At the border post, he guided me through a whole bunch of tiny little offices where he sat me down and expected me to stress out and freak out and give him all the money I had. But, I obviously didn't give in and some more officialdom came in, put the gears to me, said how stupid I was to not register - all the while with me explaining that I didn't have to register and I knew the drill.

In the end - it took a $20 'Thank You' for letting me off with a warning.

I'm good at bribing. My parents must be so proud.

No facebook.....

China blocks facebook.

I might die. It might be possible to die from Facebook withdrawal...just like you guys might die from Torah withdrawal.

I have scoured the internet for cracks in the "Great Firewall" and I just might be able to do it. It's not like facebook is that important - it's just Science in Seconds and a way to reassure everyone I'm alive while I travel. It's just - well - everything.

This trip has been a good cure for my addictions:

Phone - cured
Internet - not daily at least
Facebook - about to be cured by the 'Cold Turkey' method.

Those crazy Chinese may also block my blog, not sure yet. If you don't hear from me, no worries, I'll survive - I'm like a cockroach - I always survive.

The Land of Borat

I survived.

4 nights and 3 days cooped up in a 100 square foot closet with 3 other people.

I’m quite proud of myself right now. Not only did I survive, I enjoyed it. The train was very peaceful and relaxing, especially when it ended in Almaty, Kazakhstan with one of the most impressive and comprehensive banyas in Central Asia.

About 1 hour after the train pulled into Alma-Ata I was checked into the hotel and was off to banya. To feel clean is such a luxury when you travel and getting clean is often part of the fun. You guys know from older posts how much I love banya. But this one was incredible with a full pool that you swim naked in (sex-specific obviously) and mostly because you could also opt for a $20 massage.

There may be some bruises on my back this morning. The masseuse was a diminutive Kazakh named Karina, whom I quickly renamed Igor - she dug in fingers, fists and elbows into my back and found muscles that definitely have never been reached before. It could have hurt more - if she was wearing stilettos standing on me while carrying a Hummer. It probably also could have hurt less, but where is the fun in that.

Now, with a few less skin cells on my body and way less dirt, I find myself in Almaty - an incredible city of trees. So many trees, all the roads have pedestrianized tree-lined side streets and fountains everywhere (and a church...aaaaahhhhh). It is fantastic and super cosmopolitan. This is hardly Borat-country.

Despite the beauty and energy of the town, I'm stuck in a cafe on the internet. I haven't yet cured my internet addiction, curing my phone addiction was enough I think. But, mostly I've been online all day organizing my Tibet trip and Panda volunteering. It's really going to be great and I'm totally looking forward to China - if only there wasn't another 52 hours of train in front of me next week.

The Clak-Clak is coming to get me.

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Clak-Clak, Clak-Clak, Tak, Screech, Slam, “Chai, Kofe, Chai, Kofe”…these sounds both haunt my dreams and rock me to sleep.

81 hour train ride from Moscow to Alma-Ata, it’s an incredible adventure and a quintessential Russian experience. That's 4 nights and 3 days stuck in a cubbyhole.

You probably have some basic questions - some I've answered below.

The main question though - Why do I do this to myself? Sorry, I have absolutely no answer to that.

1) What do you eat? Lots and LOTS of ramen noodles ($0.30 a package). In the train there is a samovar with a continuous supply of boiling water. Which means lots of porridge, tea and noodles, there is also cardboard crackers and that miraculous Laughing Cow cheese that never goes bad. And, chocolate (obviously). Did you know that Mars bars don’t melt? One of the more important discoveries in a traveler’s life.

B) What in the HELL do you do with your time? Write a blog, for one. Read, eat, pretend to speak Russian to your cabin mates and stare at the endless expanse that is the Central Asian countryside. I’ve been pondering life a lot. Where I am in my life and how I got here. So far, my conclusions are pretty simple – I love the life I have created for myself and I love all of those reading this (unless someone strange that I have never met is reading this – then – “Go away weirdo”).
Third) How do you wash? In short – you get creative or just sit in your stench for 4 straight days. A sponge bath can do the trick or wash with a small Tupperware container as a bucket shower. I have become a ninja master at putting-on-underwear-in-wet-shoes-balancing-on-one-foot-in-moving-train. I also have trained my nose to no longer smell BO. Mine, or others.

4) Is it comfortable? Yes, sort of. You pretty much get an entire bed to yourself the whole time. The upper bunks are more private but you don’t get a view, the lower bunks have a table for eating etc but the upper bunk people often want to just sit with you on your bed. You get linens, pillows and a towel and everyone knows the drill so you just hunker down and smile when you get stressed.


And my new lesson I learnt this trip – VALIUM. I haven’t needed one yet but there is a certain comfort in knowing that I have 15 of them (for $5 in Ulaanbataar). You just never know when I’ll go insane in this cage of a train or that ‘clak-clak’ finally snaps me.

The Itinerary

I have a plan.

I swear!

Well, I sorta have a plan. Okay, I have an idea of a plan. Correction - I have a fair inkling of something that looks like a plan.
It goes like this:

4 days (!) on the train from Moscow to Almaty, Kazakhstan
2 days in Almaty, Kazakhstan
2 day train to Urumqi, China

From Urumqi there are a few possible options but it is looking like I will be visiting:

Xi'an to see the terracotta warriors
Chengdu to see the pandasTibet for probably 7 days and maybe a trek to Everest Base Camp

The BEST part - there is a volunteer program with the Wolong Nature Reserve where I would get to clean up panda shit! I'm SOOOOOOooooooooo pumped for that! And, you get to hold a panda...I'm kinda pumped for that.


Then Beijing. Then home :(

I'll keep you posted because, knowing me, I might end up in Australia. Oh - and no Facebook in China....wtf

Blasted Church

For an atheist traveling in Russia, I think I'm doing pretty well. I've seen about 1,093,283 churches including 2 Cathedrals of the Annunciation, 2 - no make that 3 - Churches of the Resurrection, toss in a few Churches of the Transfiguration (whatever that means), a Church of something or other on Spilled Blood, and St. Isaac's, St. whathisface and whoisitwhatsit and I think I'm churched out. Russia is about two things - vast tracts of uninhabited lands and churches. I've done both - in spades.

Despite my unredeemable soul, there have been some incredible and jaw-dropping churches.

The Church of the Transfiguration on Kizhi Island in Lake Onega.

The ever-changing St. Basil's of Moscow.


And, my favorite - the absolutely majestic St. Isaac's of St. Petersburg.

So it's time to move on. Kazakhstan beckons tonight and I get on a 4 day train to Almaty. I'm definitely going to welcome the change. From churches to mosques.

The Ritual

The North Africans have their hammams, the Finns have their sauna, the French have their stench and the Russians have the glorious world of banya.

It is absolutely essential fr any visit to Russia to go to banya. It is a world of naked people all thrashing themselves into oblivion. No, it's not the hot new sadomasochistic trend of Moscow nightclubs, it's the weekly pilgrimage to the sauna. The Russian banya is simple - stoke a huge wood-burning fireplace and heat a sauna to the point of eye-scalding heat. Once you are utterly and thoroughly roasted you take a bundle of birch leaves and beat yourself, and others, with it. Then, when you are cleansed of all your toxins and remaining moisture in your body, you jump into a freezing cold plunge pool. And then you repeat - over and over again.

After that you shower, shave, lather, exfoliate, moisturize, nap and otherwise treat yourself like a goddess for another 2 hours and you leave feeling refreshed and possibly a little battered.

After having done banya a couple of times it got me thinking of the ritual of it. All the bathhouses have a similar concept and they are focused on the ritual and the community. North American women go to the spa and are told how to feel good. In Russia, the women all get together and chat, without abandon, about how to make banya good for you. It's about exploring and creating your own ritual.

I would love to see something like this in Edmonton, we do at home spas and spend gazillions dollars a year on doing something I just did for $20. All we really need is a big communal shower room, a sauna, a plunge pool and a humbling nakedness to complete the community that is banya.

Catherine (aka Torah) the Great

I have decided that Catherine the Great and I probably would have been pretty good friends.

a) She had great taste.

Her palace called Tsarskoe Selo (or now known as Pushkin) is an incredible piece of architecture and landscaping. A small lake and island in the middle is perfect to make a gorgeous hunk row you across. The fabulous marble staircase makes a perfect makeout spot and the palace itself lets you worship your own success.

b) She overthrew her husband

With quotes like "I believe the Crown of Russia attracted me more than his person", how can you not love that in an 18th century woman

c) She had lovers, lots of lovers

Potemkin, Orlov, Zubov - and those are just the names I recognize. She had heaps of lovers, some poets, some military generals and others just darn sexy.

I'm not saying I'd want to be her, but man I'd love to hear her gossip.

Busk Away

St. Petersburg is a city of artists, a city of lovers and a city that is painfully beautiful. In every park there are people with easels or sketchbooks on on every train there are people reading books. And not just the most recent Dan Brown. But real books - Pushkin, Hesse, Dostoyevsky.

Even the buskers have culture. So far I have seen a flamenco dancer, a flautist, a trumpet player, a tap dancer and, the most special of all of them, a saxophone player in the square of the Winter Palace at 5.30am playing requests from a single Russian girl who loved Kenny G. It was magic.
I will leave, I promise. I'm going to book my ticket to Moscow today. I just have to keep telling myself that I will actually leave this magnificent place.

I haven't only been in the 'Burg. I went for a two day trip to Kizhi, an island on Lake Onega with a fabulous cathedral and ancient building museum. There aren't really words that can describe this place, so here's a pic.
And, I've spent many days out in the suburbs of SPb checking out the cool palaces and monuments built by the Russian nobility. Peterhof was a dazzling display of gold leaf, cascading fountains, beautiful gardens and the deserving title - the Russian Versailles.


Tomorrow it's off to Moscow. Unless I get stuck here. Again. Plus, the cute boy left today.