adventures in Budapest

So, after my whirlwind tour of Russia, I flew to Budapest. Budapest wasn't on my original itinerary, but I had a few days between when the Russian government insisted I leave the country (stupid transit visa), and when I was going to meet Marla and Elisa (friends from DC) in Prague. I'd heard great things about Budapest, so I decided to fit it in. Awesome.

I had 3 full days in Prague, which gave me a chance to see a ton of the city. The first day I was still a bit exhausted from my rushed pace in Moscow and St Petersburg, so I just chilled at a cafe in the morning, and in the afternoon I went to one of the many thermal Turkish baths that Budapest is famous for (among other things). I've gotta say that the baths were absolutely incredible. There was a huge hot pool outside that could probably fit 30 people sitting in the pool on its built in benches. You could probably fit in well over 100 if you had people standing in the middle part of the pool as well, but I imagine that would get a bit awkward. They also had a huge outdoor wave pool which was fun, but a bit too popular (by which I mean I couldn't really body-surf the waves without being in danger of crashing into someone). And then of course there were the steam rooms and saunas. Oh, and everything was all fancy looking. The point is, the baths were awesome.

The next day I did a huge walking tour of the city - I went up into the hills on the Buda side (back in the day Buda and Pest were separate cities on opposite sides of the river, but eventually they merged. The city was even called Pest-Buda for a bit), and explored the palace, enjoyed the views of Pest across the river, and found a museum entirely of Marzipan sculptures. Yumm. I then made my way over to the Pest side where I saw, among other things, this really cool museum called the House of Terror, which was all about the reign of terror of both the Arrow Cross Party (Hungarian Fascist/Nazi-supporting), and then the Communist party. Very disturbing, but incredibly informative. It was very interesting to learn more about life behind the iron curtain while in a city that had actually experienced it.

My final day was spent hitting up the stuff I'd missed in the first two days, culminating in a relaxing evening at another one of Budapest's baths. No, wait, that's how I'd have liked it to end. Unfortunately, while I did make it to the baths again, my last real event in Budapest was a mad dash to catch my bus to Prague. I had discovered as I was about to leave for the bus station that it wasn't a 15 minute walk like I'd thought, but instead was an 80 minute walk (and I didn't have 80 minutes before my bus left). So the people at my hostel helped direct me to the appropriate public transportation (tram then subway), but thanks to me losing my subway card and having spent all my Hungarian money, I still had to walk/speed-walk a mile and a half. I still nearly ran out of time, and eventually just ran as fast as best I could while carrying my big backpack on my back and my day-pack on my front, and made it to the bus 3 minutes before it was scheduled to leave. Not so fun. But I caught the bus, so it's all good. And it makes for a pretty funny story. Bonus!

Anyways, it's photo time! Enjoy.

view of the Pest city-scape from the hills of Buda

cool stone gargoyle-thing

ummm, yeah, I think it's safe to say that the baths in Budapest are just a bit nicer than the health clubs I've seen in the US. This is a pic of the wave pool in the Gellert baths.

cool statue up in the hills of Buda

artsy pic of flowers

a giant marzipan model of my favorite building! Yummmm!

cool castle in the hills of Buda

look! It's 123456 O'clock!

Budapest's parliament building

locals playing chess in the Szechenzyi baths

night view of the outdoor pool at the Szechenzyi baths

the hero's square statue lit up at night

art underfoot in the Hermitage

While in the Hermitage (in St Petersburg, Russia), I found myself constantly looking down. No, not because I was worried about tripping, or found my shoes fascinating, or anything like that (although those are both good guesses). I had noticed that even the floors at the hermitage were works of art! There were some very impressive works of inlaid wood, stone, tile mosaics, etc. So, I present to you a collage of the artistic floors of the Hermitage. Click on the photo to see a larger version. Enjoy!

Russia in a flash

So, as I mentioned in a previous post, I was able to get into Russia on a transit visa. While the transit visa was nice because it was easier to get (or in my case, the only possible option), it still had one problem - it was designed for people who were just traveling through Russia (in transit, as it were), so it didn't really accommodate much sight-seeing.

Luckily for me, the transit visa is designed to accommodate slow people, so I had three full days from when I arrived in Moscow (including the day I arrived) to get out of the country. I took that as a challenge to see how much of Russia I could hit in that time.

I arrived in Moscow at 2:30 PM, and somehow managed to take the metro to the Kremlin, despite not being able to read Cyrillic, and not even knowing where I initially was. Good times. I did a super-quick tour of the Kremlin and its many cathedrals, then wandered over to the Red Square, where I discovered my new favorite building, St Basil's Cathedral (see below for picture). It has these incredible multi-colored onion domes, and is just plain awesome looking. After taking about a million photos of St Basil's I moved on, and explored the Red Square a bit more before heading back to the train station to catch the night train to St Petersburg (total time in Moscow - 7 1/2 hours).

The next morning I arrived in St Petersburg, and spent the next two days wandering around, seeing as much as I could. I discovered another awesome building very similar to St Basil's, the tongue-twistery "Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood? (translation: Church of Jesus Christ on the Spot where Tsar Alexander II was assassinated) - this building became my new favorite. Or perhaps second favorite - not sure which I preferred. If you do get to St Petersburg, definitely go inside - the entire church is covered in mosaics about the life of Jesus, and they're absolutely incredible.

When I wasn't making excuses to wander by the Church of the Savior on Spilled blood (no, I'm not joking - I wandered by several times a day - it's such a cool building, I never got tired of it), I checked out the rest of the city. Besides just generally enjoying the architecture, statues, and churches, I especially enjoyed the Hermitage (a massive museum with a little bit of everything, from Mummies to Picasso), and the Museum of Russian Political History, a chilling but fascinating look at the hardships of the Communist era.

After two days I was exhausted, but pleased with how much I'd seen in a short time. I then had 4 hours to rest while I was in transit to Budapest, and would then repeat the process for the new city!

the Ivan the Great belltower (in the Kremlin)

The Tsar cannon. I don't believe it was ever fired, but it is rather intimidating

Saint Basil's Cathedral (Moscow) - love the architecture

Stalin - one angry looking dude

another amazing building - the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood (St Petersburg)

me and the church

one of the many paintings by super-famous artists in the Hermitage. Bonus points if you can identify the artist, 'cause I forget . . . update: the painting is "Child With a Whip" by Renoir - congrats to Mark Mixer for winning the Hermitage trivia challenge

even the floors in the Hermitage are works of art

raspberry crumble and quiche - the breakfast of champions

painting of Emperor Nicolas II in the Museum of Russian Political History. What makes this painting so interesting is the slashes in the painting made by soldiers' bayonets when they stormed the winter palace in 1917

another entry in the Museum of Russian Political History: propaganda poster of the happy Soviet family

the long ride to Moscow

The next leg of my round-the-world flight left two days ago, heading from Beijing to London. However, I wasn't be on it. Rather than backtrack from Mongolia to Beijing for the flight, I decided to take a slower, more scenic (and in my humble opinion, much more epic/awesome) route - the trans-siberian railway. But you already knew this. At least you did if you read my previous blog post.

So, on to the new stuff! Last Tuesday I trudged slowly to the train station, weighted down by my normal backpack (now much fuller than normal thanks to the arrival of cool weather and thus the need to acquire warmer clothing), and a bag full of supplies for the long train ride (water, cookies, gum, bread, peanut butter, and a large quantity of the main meal of choice for all central-asian train travelers - instant cup-noodles).

I made my way to my compartment, and soon discovered that my hopes of sharing my compartment with some fellow-world-travelers were for naught - I would be sharing my car with 3 Mongolians, who as best I could tell were importing a huge amount of clothing/bedding to Russia. While I was a good sport about all the space these articles took up, I did put my foot down when they tried to get me to put some of their items in my bag for the customs inspection when we crossed into Russia. Having grown up answering the airport baggage screeners that no, no-one else had packed my bag (and knowing the consequences if I had answered yes), I knew better than to accept strange goods into my bag. With me refusing to be an accomplice, one of the women resorted to hiding some wool gloves by duct-taping them to her legs and also stuffing them under her shirt. And here I thought this trip might be boring!!

Luckily, the next day the importers/smugglers departed at Irkutsk, leaving me to a cabin entirely to myself. Sweeeeet. While there weren't that many Westerners (ie, people who spoke English), the time still passed by rather quickly. I spent my time reading, playing games on my iPhone, preparing emails and blog entries (such as this one), and watching the scenery go by. Man am I glad that I was able to get my laptop fixed before hopping on the train (the hard drive had crashed while on my Mongolia tour) - it would have been a lot more boring without that source of entertainment.

Anyways, about 100 hours after boarding the train in Mongolia, I disembarked in Moscow, very happy to have an extended opportunity to stretch my legs by wandering around the city in the 8 hours before my next (and final) train journey to Saint Petersburg. While the train might not be as quick as a plane, it's certainly a lot more fun - I'd definitely recommend the trans-siberian to anyone with a thirst for adventure, a handful of good books, and a tolerance for instant noodles!

view of Mongolia from the trans-siberian. Note the gers (that's an easy way to tell that it's Mongolia)

powerplant in Russia

settling in for the morning at the dining car with coffee and my laptop. Again, I am so thankful I fixed my laptop in time for this trip!

fact: you see lots of trains when on a railroad

cool wetland (Russia)

artsy shot of some dude enjoying the fresh air at the train station

this is how I'd buy stuff from the stalls at the train stations - I'd take a picture of what I wanted in the display window, then show the person the picture, pointing at my item. Worked pretty well to bridge the language barrier. Note that the danger of buying things in a foreign country is that you can get some unpleasant surprises. Luckily for me, the Cyrillic on the Cheetos bag was close enough to the English that I could figure out that those Cheetos were ketchup flavored, and avoid them (I got the noodle soup instead).

my home away from home. With the crazy importers/smugglers gone it was actually quite spacious/comfortable. Normally there would be a bunk directly above mine, but with the cabin all to myself I put the top bunk up, which meant I could sit on my bunk without ducking down.

my last sunrise on the trans-siberian

touring Mongolia

A few weeks ago I arrived in Mongolia and made some quick discoveries. 1) Mongolia is WAY less crowded than China - almost all of it is wide open plains (good). 2) Mongolia's infrastructure isn't so good - they don't exactly have a lot of paved roads, and getting public transportation to the various interesting spots in Mongolia is difficult, if not impossible.

The solution? Take a tour! So, after spending a few days chilling in Ulaan Baatar (the capital), searching out a tour that was leaving soon and going to places I wanted to go, and applying for my transit visa to Siberia, I headed out on the tour.

Actually, I took a bus (one of the few routes they did have in Mongolia). I couldn't leave with the tour I wanted because I had to apply for my visa, so instead I left a day later (day 2 of their tour) on a public bus, and intercepted them on day 3. While the mini van we had for our tour was a little cramped, it felt palacial compared to the bus. When they ran out of room below the bus to store luggage they just put it into the aisles, creating a 3 foot high barricade. This made getting out for rest stops quite an adventure. It was a long, bumpy, 15 hour bus ride, punctuated by the occasional rest stop, and the time when the woman next to me threw up on my leg. That was pretty awesome.

Once I survived the bus ride I was picked up by a local family, and stayed in their Ger (basically a giant 5 foot high cylinder with a gently-sloped dome over it), the dwelling of choice for nomadic Mongolians. The next day I met up with the rest of the tour (another instance where having a cell phone was invaluable), and we headed off on our adventures.

Over the next 9 days we played a lot of cards, slept in various Gers and tents, rode camels in the Gobi, climbed and then ran down a huge sand dune in the Gobi, were woken up by goats wandering into our Ger, took a 3 day horse trek, and more. To sum up the trip in three words: it was awesome. If you want more details than that (and I hope you do, I did give a pretty brief description), check out the photos below.

lunch time!

preparing dumplings. While I tried my hand at this, I was pretty terrible. However, I made up for it by being excellent at eating them.

goat skull in vulture valley

this is a typical road in Mongolia - not quite the same level of infrastrucure as back in the states. . .

our group (and some others) with our Camels

breakfast time in our ger

a view of the Gobi sand dunes

I'm the king of the world! Well, at least of this particular dune. For the next 2 minutes . . .

some wandering goats evacuating a ger they were raiding. One night the door to our ger blew open, and I was woken up to a goat wandering around at 6am. Despite being tired I was still awake enough to appreciate the humor value - wish I could have taken a picture of that, but this one will have to suffice

this is a typical bathroom we'd have during our tour. Except when the bathroom was just "nature." This might be a good time to mention that I wouldn't recommend this tour to people who prefer 5-star amenities. . .

look at me, I'm on a horse!!

one of the many "wow, nature is pretty" moments encountered on our horse trek

trekking along

our final destination, the hot springs. Each of these huts had a small thermal pool in it. Pretty cool, although overall the trek was much more about the journey than the final destination. It was a nice bonus, though.

our camp

all-aboard the trans-siberian!!

well, I know I said I'd have a blog entry up about my mongolia adventures right about now, but when I made that claim I wasn't expecting my laptop to die on me! Looks like it couldn't handle the rigors of the traveling lifestyle, and the hard drive crashed. Luckily, I was able to salvage all the data, and after spending a looooong day running around Ulan Batar like a maniac from computer shop to computer shop, I was able to get a replacement hard drive and transfer all the data over, so I should be good to go. Needless to say, all this time spent trying to get my laptop fixed was time not spent on processing my photos and writing the entry, so I'm afraid that will have to wait.

The good news is that I should have plenty of time to prepare my blog entry over the next few days, as I'm taking the trans-siberian railway to Russia. I leave Ulan Batar, Mongolia, in about 5 hours, and 5 days later I will emerge in Moscow. The 5 day, 4 night trip is going to be . . . interesting. I don't think I've ever been in one small space for anywhere near that long, so I'm hoping it doesn't drive me stir-crazy. I've prepared as best I can - loaded up on snacks, stocked my kindle with books, and got my laptop in working order. Hopefully there will be some interesting people on the train as well, as books and a computer alone are not really enough entertainment to last for 5 days.

Due to time constraints I was unable to do the long process of applying for a tourist visa, so I had to settle for a transit visa instead, which means I have to go straight to Moscow, and then pretty much leave ASAP. Luckily, in regards to a transit visa "ASAP" means "in 2-3 days", so I am taking advantage of this to wrangle 6 hours in Moscow, and a day and a half in St Petersburg. It'll be great to get to see Russia, even if most of my viewing will be from the train.

Anyways, you won't be hearing from me for a while, since I'll be stuck on a train. But when I get off I should have plenty of stories and pictures, so keep posted!

the various trans-siberian / trans-mongolian routes. I've already done the Beijing --> Ulan Batar route (purple line), and will be starting in Ulan Batar, en route to Moscow (purple and red lines), then heading up to St Petersburg (black line)