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Up and Over

Posted August 11, 2013

PART 15 (DAYS 33-35): “How’s everything here?” I asked Chris, the manager at Southern Laughter Lodge, when I arrived back in Queenstown for a day in order to catch a homeward bound flight early the following morning.

“Oh, it’s quiet. It’s finally slowing down,” he answered.

“Oh, is the ski season over?”

“No, the season can go all the way until October,” he told me. “But all the Aussie kids have gone back to university.”

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No Summer Coincidence

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World"
Posted August 31, 2004

DAY 311: “If there’s anything I’ve learned [in my travels so far], it’s that nothing is coincidental,” my American roommate Paul from Kansas said as we entered a sort of deep conversation about the meaning of Life — perhaps to balance out the fact that we had just watched Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson and Snoop Dogg in Starsky & Hutch on bootleg DVD on my iBook connected to our TV, which has no real redeeming philosophical value whatsoever.

No Common Denominator

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World"
Posted August 31, 2004

DAY 310: What does a dead body, a heavenly temple, a lama, an old wise man and a dozen girls on a bike have in common? I’ve asked myself the question over and over trying to find an angle for this Blog entry but have come up with a blank — my day was spent visiting a pretty random collection of sights within Beijing.

The Fantastic Wall

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World"
Posted August 28, 2004

DAY 309: I remember watching a television special as a kid in the 1980s when hotshot magician David Copperfield performed a “magic” illusion in which he walked through The Great Wall of China. Actually, from what I recall, you never really saw him pass through The Wall; on both sides of The Wall he put up a backlit translucent screen so that you only saw a silhouette of David Copperfield go in one end and out the other. The end result, as mysteriously executed as it was, was pretty lame.

Forbidden No More

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World"
Posted August 26, 2004

DAY 308: At the heart of Beijing lies the Gugong, the Imperial Palace, more commonly known as The Forbidden City. Why it was still known as The Forbidden City I don’t know — they just let me (and hundreds of others) right in through the front gate.

Money, Lodging and Beer

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World"
Posted August 26, 2004

DAY 307: “Did you see The Wall?” Colombian Pilar from Barcelona asked me in the early afternoon as I entered the dining car — a new Chinese dining car that had been swapped for the Mongolian one during our overnight transformation to conform to the width of the Chinese rail system.

“Huh?” I said in confusion.

“The Great Wall,” she said before saying some exclamation in Spanish. “The conductor told me we stopped here for five minutes to see The Wall because a lot of passengers are foreigners.” Four minutes had already passed since we had stopped. The whole time I was just in my compartment reading; I thought the stop was just one of the many other stops of the day, in a small village for quick pick-ups and drop-offs.

Chopsticks and Train Tracks

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World"
Posted August 25, 2004

DAY 306: I woke up early that morning in Ulan Baatar to catch my 8:05 a.m. train to Beijing, China. Everything was packed and read to go by seven — except for one thing: my watch.

Will The Real Mongolian Please Stand Up?

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World"
Posted August 24, 2004

DAY 305: Being of Filipino descent, my physical appearance blended in pretty well in South America, making me able to walk amongst the locals “undetected” — until I tried to say something and my cover was blown. I bring this up because I sort of blended in as a Mongolian as well (as long as I kept my mouth shut), and I contrasted my guide/driver Tatiana, a blonde, pale-skinned European Russian-born mother who was fluent in Mongolia, having lived in Ulan Baatar for quite a while with her baby son.

Wild Wild East

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World"
Posted August 24, 2004

DAY 304: I’ve never been a cowboy in the traditional old American Wild Wild West sort of way, but I’ve seen a lot of classic Westerns. Actually, that’s not true, I’ve only see a couple — or three if you include Mel Brooks’ western parody Blazing Saddles. In any case, the point I’m trying to make is that the landscape of the Gorkhi-Terelj National Park was reminiscent of being in the old American west — especially when you are on the back of a horse all day wearing a sort of cowboy hat.

Little Yurt On The Prairie

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World"
Posted August 23, 2004

DAY 303: I’ve titled this one “Little Yurt On The Prairie,” playing off of the title of the book and 70s television show Little House On The Prairie. I never read the book, nor do I remember the TV show that well, just that in the introduction, young Laura Ingalls (played by young Melissa Gilbert) trips and falls as she runs down a hill. I remember being it really funny.

Anyway, if you’ve followed The Blog through my voyage through Siberia, it probably didn’t come to any surprise that once I got to Ulan Baatar, Mongolia, it too was not a deserted city in the middle of nowhere. To me, unless a city has a good vibe — like New York, Paris, Berlin — it is pretty generic. As pleasant as Ulan Baatar was — particularly my host family—it was just another modern industrial city after seeing its cultural sights and museums, and so for my last three full days in Mongolia, I decided to spend it in Mongolia’s countryside.

The Return of Ghenghis Khan

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World"
Posted August 19, 2004

DAY 302: “Between the National History Museum and the Natural History Museum, which one is better?” I asked Tatiana at her Legend Tours’ office after arranging an excursion to the nearby Mongolian countryside the next day.

“I think the Natural History Museum,” she answered. “But I think you have time for both.”

Surrogate Parents

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World"
Posted August 19, 2004

DAY 301: Ulan Baatar (pronounced Ulan BAAT’r), which means “Red Hero,” has been the capital of Mongolia since its “independence” from the Manchu Dynasty by help of the Russian Bolsheviks (“Independence” is in quotes because Mongolia eventually fell under the strong political and cultural influence of the Soviets.) The man responsible for the defeat of the Manchus and the eventual formation of the People’s Government of Mongolia was Sükhbaatar (literally “Axe Hero”) who had formed the army that teamed up with the Bolsheviks. A statue of this national hero stands in the middle of Ulan Baatar’s Sükhbaatar Square, where a mausoleum that once held his remains stands at the northern side, flanked by the Parliament House.

It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Asia

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World"
Posted August 19, 2004

DAY 300: It’s somewhat fitting that I stumbled upon a interracial wedding party taking a big new family portrait in Soviet Square in Ulan Ude (picture below, which I took by posing as one of the many wedding photographers). The bride and her side of the family had Russian Caucasian faces while her new hubby had an East Asian one, just like the ones on his side of the family.

Gangs of Siberia

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World"
Posted August 16, 2004

DAY 299: As a tourist, you don’t really have to worry about the Russian mafia, so my Lonely Planet guidebook says; they are only involved in high-scale crimes involving big business or bribing police or politicians, like the Italian mafia in The Godfather. Whether or not it was the actual Russian mafia that harassed me on the second leg of my train journey when three drunk Russians sicked fake or corrupt cops on me I don’t know, but that’s not to say the actual Russian mafia is alive and well, not only in Russia, but around the world. I learned all of this at my family-run B&B’s son Nicolai, a fine 23-year-old Russian guy with very good English.

Deadpan Looks By The Deep Blue Lake

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World"
Posted August 16, 2004

DAY 298: From what I had heard, many travelers on the Trans-Siberian Railway only stop once on the way from Moscow to the Far East in Irkutsk in order to see nearby Lake Baikal (rhymes with “bagel”). The shimmering deep blue lake — the world’s deepest body of freshwater — was formed after a collision of tectonic plates. It is believed that as the plates separate over time, the lake will get deeper and wider, forming the earth’s fifth ocean. Until then, it still remains the one “must see” place in Siberia.

No Aunt May

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World"
Posted August 15, 2004

DAY 297: Living in a homestay with Nina was sort of being like Spider-man’s alter ego Peter Parker. I lived in my own room with an old woman with white hair who, without me might be pretty lonely, just like Peter Parker and his Aunt May after his Uncle Ben’s death. Meanwhile, she, nor did many people I’ve met, knew of my secret identity as this big world traveler — a superhero to those stuck in office cubicles — with The Global Trip insignia emblazoned on my chest. (I don’t really reveal my 16-month travel plan to locals, thinking that they might think I’m some sort of millionaire. RTWs make you poor!)

The Real Siberia

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World"
Posted August 11, 2004

DAY 296: The sun rose around six to burn off the morning mist of the Siberian countryside. I was awake before my alarm clock set for seven — my internal body clock was all out of whack with the constant adjust of time zones every other day.

Lucky Lazy Day

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World"
Posted August 10, 2004

DAY 295: When I boarded the No. 8 train the night before, I was anxious. Would I be assigned to a second-class compartment with three drunken Russian mafia-types again, or encounter a sexy, but questionable blonde bombshell in a black bra? I got to my compartment assignment, #25 in Wagon #006. Inside was a young guy in a uniform.

Bowling For Siberia

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World"
Posted August 10, 2004

DAY 294: “So is Novosibirsk what you thought it to be?” my 20-year-old host Julia asked me at dinner that night.

“I didn’t think there’d be a city this big here. I thought I’d be staying in some small house with an old couple. I had that image of the babushka,” I said. By that time in the evening, the entire image of the Siberian city of Novosibirsk had changed for me.

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World"
Posted August 10, 2004

DAY 293: The day before in the Yekaterinburg Guide Center office, I had met a South African guy doing the Trans-Siberian trip like me. He too was somewhat upset that so far it hadn’t been the international party on wheels of vodka and chess that people made it out to be, but was happy enough that he had lucked out in his compartments with nice people. “I haven’t been stuck with three drunk Russian guys,” he said. “But I suppose with all my good luck, the bad luck is sure to come.”

The Things Between Europeans and Asians

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World"
Posted August 10, 2004

DAY 292: The continents Europe and Asia are separated naturally by the Ural Mountain Range, which extends from the northwest of Kazakhstan to the Kara Sea in the Arctic Circle. The mountain range is fairly wide as most mountain ranges are, and without any legal boundary between two different nations (it’s mostly all in Russia), it’s hard to pinpoint exactly where Europe ends and Asia begins. As far as I’m concerned, the mountains are the wide border between the two continents, just as Central America is a big border between North and South America.

Grudka

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World"
Posted August 10, 2004

DAY 291: “Breakfast is ready,” Tonya said, wearing an apron from the kitchen.

“Okay.”

“It was ready an hour ago.”

“Oh, sorry!” I apologized. The night before they asked me what time to have breakfast ready by and I told them “nine” — only to sleep in until 9:30.

Crashing in Yekaterinburg

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World"
Posted August 10, 2004

DAY 290: The No. 118 train continued to cruise eastbound to the outer limits of Europe as the sun came up to start a new Trans-Siberian day. Despite the stereotype that there’s nothing in the region but snow, it was starting to get sunny and warm — after all, it was summer.

Body Language

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World"
Posted August 10, 2004

DAY 289: In the 19th century, America was on a conquest to expand its territory. Geographically, that meant head out to the old west, back in a time when it was the new west.

Meanwhile in Russia, a similar phenomenon was going on. While most European countries were scrambling for territories in Africa, Russia expanded east, consolidating its far east posts into a greater nation.

Both America and Russia linked their outer territories the same way: by laying down the tracks and constructing grand railways.

A Room For The Night

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World"
Posted August 07, 2004

DAY 288: With my traveling buddy Sam gone, so went my room to go halfsies on in a prime location in Moscow, right outside Red Square. In true The Global Trip fashion, I had failed to make a reservation for the night in town, but just kept my bags in the hotel storage and hoped I could find a cheaper opening in a relatively convenient location before spaces filled up as the day went on. More importantly that that, I was to leave on the Trans-Siberian Railway the next day and I didn’t exactly have my train tickets yet.

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