Marmot Power

I don't care what the police report says...

2006-01-08T02:04:00.000-05:00

I have no idea how that fire in the library got started. Kidding. Thanks to everyone who attended "An Evening With AMP". We had ~30 in attendance and I didn't hear any snoring so I think everyone enjoyed it.

Postponed...

2005-12-09T10:28:00.000-05:00

"An Evening With AMP" has been postponed due to the snowstorm and will be rescheduled, likely in early January.

My bad...

2005-12-05T02:24:00.000-05:00

I have been informed that the Belgrade Public Library does not actually serve drinks and doesn't even have a liquor license. Therefore, alcoholic beverages will, regrettably, be unavailable during "An Evening With AMP". Honestly, sometimes I wonder what my taxes are actually paying for...I will try to be entertaining nevertheless so come see the show anyway...

-AMP

FRIDAY! FRIDAY! FRIDAY!

2005-12-05T01:46:00.000-05:00

Marmot Power Productions Presents...

"An Evening With AMP"

Live from the Belgrade Public Library at the Center
for All Seasons in ~~scenic~~ Belgrade Lakes.

Friday, December 9th at 7:00PM AMP will present a selection of his travel photos and discuss his trip. One night only!! Tickets available at the box office on the night of the show.

No Cover Charge! (Two drink minimum...)

Free Parking!

Proper Attire Required.

My travel photos are now online

2005-12-01T18:14:00.000-05:00

Photos from my trip are here, linked from my main travel site (still under construction and mostly intended for my own personal use but I've put it online for your bemusement...) I've removed a handful of photos either because a) I wanted to protect the subjects' privacy for various reasons, or, more frequently b) they were particularly stupid looking photos of me that my traveling companions at the time insisted on taking, usually over my objections...

Billions and billions 3093

2005-11-08T14:45:00.000-05:00

It only seems like I took several billion pictures on this trip but the actual number is 3093. Ask me how I know... I am about 1/3 done renaming the photo files and about 1/4 done putting them all into photo galleries and about 0% done writing the captions. While you're waiting for my epic transcontinental narrative to appear go read my friends Kevin and Solenes' travel blog. It's bilingual and everything!

-AMP, experiencing mild carpal tunnel syndrome from renumbering all his pictures...

Home

2005-10-15T18:24:00.000-05:00

So I'm finally home after an epic slog comprising 2 days on the train through Western Europe (Barcelona to Lyon and Lyon to Frankfurt), the ~7 hour flight from Frankfurt to Montreal and finally the ~8 hour drive from Montreal to (central Maine). I've spent today unpacking, burning the rest of my photos to CD, cleaning my pack, screwing around with Blogger and RSS, and just generally recovering. I'm happy to stop moving.. It's cold and really rainy here in Maine, but as I spent many days sweltering in the heat this summer I'm going to enjoy being cold for a while. Once the jet lag has worn off and I have had a few days to reflect on my (mis) adventures I will start rewriting and reorganizing the blog, that is if I can make any sense of the 360 kB of notes I took on my PDA.

I'm pretty pleased with myself and have sated my wanderlust (for now -I figure the satiety will last about a month...) I visited11 new countries (the Vatican does so count as a country!) and I got to see several places like Svaneti and Nagorno-Karabakh that are well off the beaten path for most travelers. Over 5 months I managed to avoid any serious mishaps and I only lost two items, my Leatherman Pocket Tool which I either left in Georgia or was stolen by the Baku Metro Police (I suspect the latter but can't prove it...) and a gray t-shirt from Armenia which I left behind in Gibraltar - one of the Barbary apes is probably wearing it by now...

The highlights of the trip were definitely Turkey and Georgia. I liked Armenia and would visit it again but it wasn't quite as compelling as Georgia, N-K notwithstanding. Morocco was interesting but next time I would like to get further into the Sahara or the Atlas mountains, and my lack of language skills in Morocco meant I didn't have as rich an experience as I did in Turkey or the Caucasus. I also found most Moroccans relatively indifferent to travelers which is probably because they get so many tourists from France. Italy (Rome) and Spain were interesting but I think it would have been more fun to travel in those countries with someone else, and in those places I mostly just saw the things I wanted to see and didn't have as many (mis) adventures. Western Europe is so touristy and easy to travel in that I found it a bit...dull at times, despite all the cool architecture. The big disappointment was obviously Azerbaijan but I will give it another chance in 5-7 years to see if the petty corruption and government suspicion have dissipated.

I'm still pissed off about the whole Iran visa thing... (although I suppose I can't complain too much because if I'd gone to Iran I wouldn't have been on that bus from Ankara to Istanbul...)

Barcelona

2005-10-10T14:29:00.000-05:00

So I´m in ~~Barcalounger~~, Barcelona (I´ll be recovering on the Barcalounger in a few days...) The city is larger than I thought it would be and it has a sprawling metro and tram system which makes it easy to get to all the cool and bizarre architecture by Gaudi. Yesterday I visited the iconic La Sagrada Familia, his ginormous modernist cathedral which was started in 1882 and is only about 50% finished. Orwell thought it was hideous and in Homage to Catalonia (which you should read if you haven´t, as it´s a much more important book than 1984 or Animal Farm...) lamented the fact that it wasn´t destroyed in the Spanish Civil War but I thought it was cool. Today I saw La Pedrera and Parc Guell, the latter distinguished by Gaudi´s giant mosaic chameleon. This evening I also poked my head into Barcelona´s huge gothic cathedral, which for some reason houses a bunch of noisy white geese. I´m not entirely sure what I´ll be seeing tomorrow although there are several more Gaudi buildings that are worth exploring, such as Casa Batllo. Why don´t we have cool looking buildings like that in America?

Andalusia

2005-10-07T14:04:00.000-05:00

Keeping with my vague travel theme of Moorish culture, I´m in Andalusia (Granada, at this particular moment...) after having crossed over from Morocco on the ferry from Tangier to Algeciras (which I quickly learned is pronounced like and means the same thing as "Al-Jazeeras", Arabic for peninsula). I spent a night in Gibraltar, which was a bit surreal in its tidy Britishness after the relative chaos of Tangier. The highlight of Gibraltar was seeing the Barbary Apes (actually macaqes, not apes) which pretty much have the run of the entire upper mountain and which are the only wild non-human primates in Europe.

In Andalusia they grow some cotton in the flatter areas but the primary agricultural product is olives. Lots and lots of olives. There are ~~millions~~ billions and billions of olive trees in tidy rows on the hills. In Andalusia I have travelled to Seville, Cordoba, and Granada. In Seville I saw the ginormous gothic cathedral, as well as the Alcazar, a Moorish palace. In Cordoba I had a mild cold for about 36 hours so I wasn´t feeling very energetic but I went to see the huge Mezquita mosque with its very cool red and white striped arches. Here in Granada I got myself out of bed very early to see the famous Alhambra Palace, (it was still dark when I got to the entrance gate and already there were about 200 people in front of me waiting to get in...) The interior architecture and decoration of the Alcazar in Seville and the palace at the Alhambra are very similar to that found in the palaces in the imperial cities in Morocco (Fes, Meknes, and Marrakesh) - very impressive but becoming somewhat repetitive at this point, although I can see how people who had never been to Morocco would be impressed with them. I was really amazed at the Mezquita in Cordoba, however. It was a huge mosque to begin with and then after they reconquered Cordoba the Christians went and stuck a cathedral in the middle of it while leaving most of the mosque intact - bizarre....

Spain is (more or less) interesting and easy to travel in, although I have to say my energy is waning at this point. I´m heading to Valencia tomorrow and then on to Barcelona, where I am looking forward to seeing all of Gaudi´s kookiness. Then I´ll sprint across France and back to Frankfurt, whence I will fly home. (And yes, then I will be rewriting the entire blog in excrutiating day-by-day detail complete with pictures, thousands and thousands of pictures, although probably not very many of me, so Don´t Get Excited...) (Unfamiliar with Graham Parker? What the hell is wrong with you?!!)

Morocco: miscellana

2005-09-28T15:23:00.000-05:00

I'm in Chefchaouen which is a small city in the Rif Mountains. The terrain in the other parts of Morocco I've visited is mostly treeless except for occasional orchards and shrubs - a lot of stubbly fields and, um, dirt, so it's nice to be a heavily forested area for the first time in a while. I'm here for one night before heading to Tangier tomorrow. Since my last update I've been to the following places: Rabat was suprisingly interesting - I ran around all day and just barely got to see everything I wanted to. Meknes was worth a stop but not very compelling compared to the other imperial cities - I spent most of my time doing laundry and following the Patriots-Steelers game from an internet cafe. When I was in Meknes the king was in town, so there was a lot of security everywhere - on the main street of the medina section there were police officers spaced every 20 feet. I note that I wandered around unmolested with no security hassles, in stark contrast to my experiencess in a certain Caucasian nation I could mention with an extremely uptight government, whose humorless, navel-gazing citizens continue to make impolite, if revealing, remarks in my comments section. In Fes I actually hired a faux guide (an acquaintance of the people I stayed with) to lead me around the labyrinthine medina so I could actually see the highlights without wasting half the day trying to find them. I could have probably spent another day there but I've had about enough of medinas for now - they tend to make me a bit claustrophobic and I can only endure so much trudging around, dodging donkeys, touts, and pedestrians, and gawking at exotic foods, spices, and crafts before I find myself wishing I was somwhere quiet and calm.

Morocco has been interesting and I'd like to come back in a few years to do some treking in the Atlas Mountains and head down into the Sahara desert and through Western Sahara into Mauritania, but I've seen about enough of it for now. The parts I've seen don't have as interesting terrain as Turkey does, and the cities are becoming repetitive. Turkey had more interesting and better preserved architecture and monuments, and unfortunately in Morocco you can't visit most of the mosques (which is the case in most Muslim countries I think, Turkey being a notable exception). (Note to the Muslim world - the rest of us might be a little more sympathetic and interested in understanding your religion if you'd cut us some slack and let us visit your mosques when it's not time for prayer...)

I'm looking forward to Spain, and hopefully my ATM card will decide to start working again as it has refused to give me any money when challenged with Morocco's ~~third world~~ ok fine second-world banking system.

Marrakesh

2005-09-19T14:53:00.000-05:00

After spending yesterday in Essaouira I am now in Marrakesh. Essaouira was pleasant enough -it's a resort town which attracts a lot of surfers and para-sailers. I spent part of yesterday walking along the beach and soaking my feet in the Atlantic Ocean. This morning I took the bus to Marrakesh (having the stupid Graham Nash song in my head the entire way...) I have to say that bus travel in Morocco is nowhere near as efficient or pleasant as it is in Turkey, no tea service and the bus companies don't seem to be very well organized. The buses don't necessarily leave on time, and often there aren't assigned seats. This morning I was booked for a 10:30 bus and I snuck onto the 9:15 one - the ticket guy didn't seem to care either way and we left at 9:50 so I managed to split the difference. I'm eating reasonably well in Morocco and I am enjoying the change in cuisine from Turkish/Caucasian food and the surfeit of gelato and mozzarella in Rome, but I rather prefer Turkish black tea to Moroccan mint tea which is served too sweet. And I make a better couscous (which some of you have been lucky enough to experience...) than any I've eaten here...

Marrakesh is sufficiently exotic to entertain me for a few days but it's not as exotic or overwhelming as I thought it would be (at least not right now - I may change my story tomorrow when I'm craving silence and personal space after spending all day in the souks...) I'm staying in the medina area, in the the Djemma el Fna, which is a large square surrounded by markets and souks. In the evening it turns into a gi-normous open air ~~bizarre~~ bazaar with juice carts, food stalls, street musicians, acrobats, storytellers, henna artists, and snake "charmers" who serenade lethargic cobras and adders. In the souks and markets there are all sorts of goods for sale including spices of every kind (most of which I can't begin to identify), leather goods, perfume, incense, jewelry, rugs and carpets, cloth, wood carvings, metalwork, etc., as well as lizards and turtles which are apparently used in certain medicinal applications. It gets crowded in the evening and one has to be alert not to get run over by people on bicycles or scooters.

Morocco has considerable poverty and un/underemployment and along with blind and crippled beggars there are many touts who try to cadge money for providing trivial services like pointing out the hotel 10 meters down the street whose sign you can obviously see with your own eyes. Some are freelancers hoping for a quick handout - I saw one get verbally abused and nearly beaten by the hotel desk clerk today, while others work actually work for the hotel and get a comission for every tourist they bring in, which doesn't stop them from asking you for a tip as well, so they're getting paid on both ends.

Both Essaouira and Marrakesh are crawling with tourists/travelers (and yes, I'm one of the latter...), most of whom are French, which reduces the exoticism/novelty of Morocco for me somewhat, but in addition to the markets and souks it's interesting to see the different types of clothing worn in the street by native Moroccans. The younger people tend to wear pseudo-western clothing (jeans, t-shirts, slacks, etc.) but middle aged and older people often wear more traditional dress including long loose-fitting things (I forgot what these are called) that sort of look like bathrobes or lab coats (or, less charitably, the garments worn by residents of mental institutions), or burnooses, which are cloaks with pointy hoods that look like the costumes used in Lord of the Rings. Many of the older men wear turbans or skull caps, and many women wear the hijab, some with face covered with a niqab, which is rare in most parts of Turkey. However many women, especially younger women, do not wear any head covering at all.

So anyway, Morocco is holding my interest for now, but as I can't speak more than 3 words of Arabic and only know survival French (most notably "non", as in "Non, merci", I don't need your help and I don't have any spare change to give you anyway so please go away...), my interactions with Moroccans are limited, which is unfortunate. On the whole I think I like Turkey better and all things being equal would rather be in Istanbul at the moment...

Casablanca

2005-09-15T14:19:00.000-05:00

Marmot Power would like to take the opportunity to say hello to doctoral candidates at Marmara University who are hopefully getting their publications written.

Today I flew to Casablanca from Rome - so far it's interesting but Casablanca itself doesn't have a lot to see compared with the rest of Morocco and it's reasonably cosmopolitan. Nevertheless I have walked around downtown and the medina today - not too many touts or hassles but no doubt they will be worse elsewhere. I know all of two words of Arabic and about a dozen useful phrases in French so extensive communication with the locals is pretty much out the window. Casa is a bit grungier and more "exotic" than the average Turkish city but not particularly overwhelming, although it took me a while to get to my hotel due to poor street signage and Lonely Planet's criminally inept cartography. (My pack is getting heavier these days...) Anyway - I'm in Casa for another day, then down to Essaouira and Marrakesh before heading back north. Trying to type on this stupid French/Arabic keyboard which has 25% of the letters in different places is driving me crazy so enough for now.

Rome II

2005-09-12T13:52:00.000-05:00

(Note my impressive mastery of Roman numerals in the post title...)

For anyone visiting Rome for the first time, I think the best thing to do is just wander around randomly, fortified by generous amounts of gelatto. There's so much cool stuff to look at that if you follow any street you're pretty much guaranteed to wander into some palazzo or piazza with some kind of spectacular architectural thingy, be it a cathedral, fountain, or just interesting building facades. Speaking of architecture, I know a lot of things about a lot of things that are worth knowing about, but being in a city like Rome makes me realize how little I actually know about architecture. I don't know the difference between a plinth and a portico, so someday I should probably take my head out of my apse (sorry...) and learn some basic architectural terms. My friends over at Fragrant Vagrants (hi Kevin and Solene!!!) are both architects so they probably appreciated Rome on a much more refined level than I can, I just like looking at all the cool buildings.

Other Roman miscellana: I forgot to mention yesterday that I hadn't been off the train from the airport for more than 30 seconds when I saw a young Italian couple engaged in one of those crotch-grinding, ass-grabbing displays of public affection that are so stereotypically Italian, so I had to laugh.

The future of urban motor transport can be seen in Rome where half the population goes around on motor scooters or smaller motorcycles (bigger than mopeds, smaller than a Harley-Davidson). When gas hits $5.00 a gallon, and it will, I suspect we'll start seeing a lot more of them in dense urban areas in America - they are fast and easy to park and in here in Rome one sees them being ridden by people in formal business attire to commute to and from work.

Today I wandered over to the Vatican (shut up, it does so count as a new country!) to see St. Peter's Basilica, which is gi-normous. There's a lot of (that fancy architectural stuff that I don't have the vocabulary to describe) inside - lots of carved marble and mosaics and paintings. It's a bit much in my opinion, if I was trying to worship there I think I'd get distracted and visually overstimulated. In this regard I rather prefer mosques which usually strike a more sensible balance between austerity and decoration. I hauled myself up to the cupola, from which there are nice views of the rest of the Vatican and Rome, but it was crowded with tourists so I didn't linger there. The Basilica is in St. Peter's Square, which is bounded by two huge arcs of columns supporting a roof thingy with statues on top, again impressive to look at but a bit over the top. Tomorrow I'm going to try to get in to see the ~~Cysteine~~ Sistine Chapel (so very, very sorry...) and after that I'm not sure - maybe a museum or maybe I'll just wander around some more.

I was hoping for a private audience with the new pope so I could talk some sense into him regarding birth control and the whole therapeutic cloning thing, but he wasn't in. Hopefully his people will call my people and we'll do lunch before I have to leave Rome...

Other things I saw today included the Spanish Steps, the Largo di Torre Argentina, which is basically a large cat sanctuary - there were dozens, if not hundreds of cats lounging around on the ancient ruins, the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli i dei Martiri, and, um, some other interesting church which I can no longer find on the cartographical nightmare that Lonely Planet calls a city map. Plus half a dozen other piazzas with interesting buildings that I couldn't begin to identify.

Ok, the free cappuccino kindly provided by the nice lady who runs the internet cafe I'm at is wearing off so enough for now.

-AMP

Rome

2005-09-11T13:22:00.000-05:00

Marmot Power extends a warm welcome to all new readers on the staff of Yeditepe University in Istanbul :-)

So I've left Turkey for good this time (at least until I return there someday...) I spent about 55 days there and I saw a huge swath of the country, and I think I had a pretty good exposue to Turkish people and Turkish culture - by the time I got back from the Caucasus travelling in Turkey was second nature to me and I felt quite comfortable there. I was a bit sad to leave for several reasons...

I'm now in Rome, where I am going to crash for a few days before heading on to Morocco and then back through Spain. I flew Turkish Airlines from Istanbul to Rome and I have to say that their service on the two hour flight was probably better than you would get on any American airline flying from Boston to San Francisco. After I got in today I walked around a bit. There may be a few actual Italians living in Rome, but I haven't seen many of them for all the tourist/traveller hordes (of which I am one...) The Monument of Vittorio Emanuele II is...well it's big. And ornate. Big and ornate. It's not a subtle, understated edifice. The Colosseum needs cleaning and looks smaller in real life than it does in pictures (a lot of famous monuments are like that, Mount Rushmore, for example...) The Trevi Fountain was cool (to look at - I didn't actually splash around in it as I suspect they frown on that sort of thing...) Tomorrow I'm heading over to the Vatican (which counts as another country visited as they actually have a seat at the UN, although they don't get to vote...)

-AMP

P.S. My Iranian travel company today emailed me to tell me that they had successfully gotten other Americans visas so the Iranian Foreign Ministry specifically rejected ME (although I was not told the specific reason why...) Maybe it was my passport picture - the "beardo" look has been drawing scrutiny from confused immigration officials all summer. Or maybe they felt that my doctoral thesis on budding yeast made me a likely threat to state security. Feh - that's what I get for being truthful - the next time I apply for an Iranian visa I am just going to lie shamelessly.

Westward to Barbary

2005-09-06T11:03:00.000-05:00

(Much swearing edited out although the other patrons of this internet cafe got to hear it...) Damn it...I just found out (four months later) that my Iranian visa application got rejected. I'm not surprised, just really disappointed as I was hoping to finish my trip there. Oh well, I will get there someday, maybe when both our respective governments start acting like adults towards each other. I'm trying to get some more info from the Iranian travel company about why I was rejected, whether it was something specific about my application (I had to send them a resume) or whether Iran is simply rejecting all American visa application requests this time (I have heard anecdotal evidence from other travellers this summer that suggests this might be the case...)

So on to Plan B - which is Westwards to Barbary. [sulk] I bet the Iranian Foreign Ministry would have given a visa to Robert D. Kaplan [/sulk]. I'm heading back to Istanbul, and from there I will somehow get myself up to Italy, probably on a ferry across the Adriatic from Greece. Then I'll fly to Morocco and spend two weeks there, crossing over to Western Europe at Gibralter and focusing on Islamic Spain as I make my way back to Frankfort.

-AMP, in Amasya (an entirely pleasant little Anatolian town) trying to convince himself that Andorra will be just as cool as Isfahan would have been...

Back in Turkey...

2005-09-02T10:59:00.000-05:00

I somehow managed to make it from Akhaltsikhe in the Republic of Georgia all the way to Erzurum in Turkey today - no hassles at the border on either end, although when I bought another Turkish visa I didn't get another one of those cool stickers, which I had been hoping for. I got an extra travel hour due to the time change, which was helpful. I think I spoke in five languages today: English, Russian, Turkish, Georgian, and Armenian (the last two pleasantries only as that's about all I know in them...) My Turkish is coming back slowly and I today I have been inserting Russian words into Turkish sentences, which just confuses everyone. I am readjusting to Turkey after having been in the Caucasus for so long - it's a bit strange to be in a large, bustling, relatively prosperous Turkish city after having traveled through rural (and relatively poor) Georgia and Armenia so recently.

To celebrate my return to Turkey, where travel is more, shall we say, comfortable (better roads, comfy long-distance buses with tea service, assigned seats), I have composed my first and likely last poem in Turkish. I know my friend Tamer reads this blog so I leave it to him to post a translation in the comments section.

Ne mutlum var

Türkiye'de tekrar

It's getting colder and wetter in this part of the world. We had thunderstorms in Akhaltsikhe last night and heavy rain off and on the entire day, including a mini-mudslide on the road from Ardahan to Erzurum. We even had hail for a few minutes at one point.

I'm going to wander around Erzurum for an hour or two tomorrow morning before heading up to Trabzon for a day or two.

On a sad note, R. L. Burnside RIP... I saw him at Richard's on Richards in Vancouver a few years ago and he put on a great show, especially considering he was around 74 years old at the time and had to be helped to his chair.

Biding time in Vanadzor...

2005-08-31T05:28:00.000-05:00

I'm in Vanadzor in northern Armenia, giving the Iranian visa people another 18 hours or so to give me a definitive yes or no answer about my visa status. If I don't hear from them by the time I check my mail tomorrow morning I'm leaving Armenia and heading back west. I am formulating a plan that will hopefully let me finish my trip in a thematically coherent and intellectually satisfying manner (otherwise I'm just going to randomly wander around Europe for six weeks...)

Vanadzor is not a bad place to have to bide time in - it's a small city of about 90,000 people set in a broad valley - the main street is fairly lively, but not hectic. I stumbled into quite a nice homestay when the daugher of the family who runs it dragged me in off the street as I was looking for another place.

I spent several hours today entertaining myself at the art museum which mostly contains paintings and sculpture from local artists - a lot of them were quite good or at least interesting in my opinion. I've also been hanging out in the internet cafe a lot, checking email and getting updates on the catastrophe in New Orleans (hopefully Tipitina's is still standing but I'm not optimistic...) Things were rather quiet until this Armenian woman with a gold tooth barged into the internet cafe and start proselytizing at me. I couldn't quite get across to her that I don't subscribe to any specific textual religious beliefs and my bemused attempts to counter her dogmatic evangelism with the mystical philosophy of al-Hallaj were utterly wasted on her.

Oh, and I bought a new towel today, to replace the cheap one I bought at Lake Sevan that I "accidentally" left behind at Anahit's in Yerevan. The old one was so poorly made I don't think even Wall Mart would have dared carry it - it began shedding multicolored towel lint two days after I bought it.

Nagorno-Karabats

2005-08-28T09:49:00.000-05:00

I don't exactly know how the bats got into our homestay in Stepanakert, but we had three of them flying around last night. While one of my associates, T., was trying to fend them off with a pillow, I, out of enlightened self interest, guarded the door to my room so they wouldn't get in there. Finally M., a former "Peace" Corps volunteer in Armenia, swatted two of them with a broom, killing at least one (there were multiple pieces...) and likely maiming the second. The third managed to escape unscathed. I am back in Yerevan after a not entirely pleasant taxi ride from Stepanakert.

Shusha, very briefly...

2005-08-27T08:09:00.000-05:00

I don't have the time or energy to go into detail, but today we visited Shusha, a former city that sits on a hill about 12 km from Stepanakert. I have to say that this probably ranks at the top of my list of most depressing places I have visited to date.

Shusha, once predominantly Azeri and a center of Azeri culture, used to be one of the administrative centers for N-K, but during the conflict the Azeris used Shusha as a base from which to fire artillery down on Stepanakert. In 1992 the Armenians counterattacked and captured Shusha. The entire Azeri population of Shusha was driven out, and today it is inhabited by about 3000 Armenians. What remains of the city is largely deserted, and there are abandoned and crumbling buildings everywhere - entire apartment blocks entirely empty and gutted, or even sadder, only occupied by a few families. We poked around what remains of Shusha's three Persian-style (?) mosques - happily two of the three mosques still have their minarets intact, but they are otherwise filled with dirt and debris. Shusha is quiet, impoverished, and depressing - not quite a ghost town but no sense of the growth and renewal that is occuring in Stepanakert.

We had dinner at a cafe in Stepanakert and noticed a somber man openly carrying a holstered pistol sitting alone drinking tea at the table next to ours. Two tables away there was a well-dressed gentleman eating with some other people including women and children, perhaps his family. When the group got up to leave, the man with the pistol immediately got up and followed them out - as it turns out we had been sitting two tables away from the President of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, Arkady Ghogasian, according to our server. The N-K Parliament building is about 100 yards away from the cafe so maybe he's a regular there (they have decent pizza...). If we hadn't noticed the security officer we never would have known...

The Black Garden in the Mountains

2005-08-26T11:57:00.000-05:00

I'm here in Stepanakert in the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh, a de facto part of Armenia (possession is 9/10ths of the law...) but as the conflict hasn't yet been formally resolved by some kind of treaty, it retains a murky status as an "Independent Republic", although Armenia is the only country that recognizes it as such, I think. Foreigners who wish to enter N-K need to obtain a special visa in Yerevan, and then register with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Stepanakert. There is a passport control of sorts (at least for obvious tourists like me) as you enter the Lacin corridor which connects N-K to the rest of Armenia. They simply verified that I had purchased a visa in Yerevan. Interestingly, there didn't seem to be any checkpoint whatsoever heading the other direction back towards Yerevan.

The history of Nagorno-Karabakh is convoluted and fraught with controversy (and we're going to hear all about it in the Comments section, no doubt...), but the bottom line is that when the Soviet Union broke up, N-K, a predominantly Armenian enclave (I've heard quoted ~70% Armenian and ~30% Azeri...) within Azerbaijan, declared independence. Armenia and Azerbaijan fought a destructive and senseless war over it, squandering money and creating hundreds of thousands of refugees. Armenia (helped by Russian money and weapons) won. Armenia now controls the entire Nagorno-Karabakh region as well as a chunk of Azerbaijan proper surrounding it. The Azeris who previously lived in N-K and the surrounding area were driven out and many still live as refugees in Azerbaijan, and today the population of N-K is almost entirely comprised of ethnic Armenians. My understanding is that the current inhabitants of Nagorno Karabakh want it to formally become part of Armenia, as is readily seen when one compares the flags of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh. Up to now talks to resolve the conflict have failed but apparently there is recent cause for optimism. I don't see any way that N-K is ever going to accede to Azeri control, so to me the most reasonable sencario is that N-K votes to become part of Armenia, Armenia gives back most of the other land in Azerbaijan it currently occupies, perhaps excepting a buffer zone around the Lacin corridor. It's my understanding that both countries maintain rail blockades against each other so in theory those would get lifted too.

In Stepanakert there isn't a lot of evidence left of the damage it sustained from shelling during the conflict, although occasionally the skeletal remains of a building are seen. There appears to have been substantial investment in Stepanakert, and I was told that real estate values in the city are second only to those in Yerevan. In the ~10 years since the end of the war the city seems to have rebuilt itself and to me appears calm and flourishing. For instance, it appears more prosperous than places like Gori or Kutaisi in Georgia. There are more soldiers and police than in other parts of Armenia but they appear relaxed and (ahem) don't pester foreigners who wander around Stepanakert.

Stepanakert sits in a rough, wide valley surrounded by low, forested mountains. Outside of Stepanakert the country appears largely deserted, with a few inhabited villages. The countryside is somber and quiet, eeire but not ominous. In some places there are ruined villages that I presume used to be inhabited by Azeris. Today we visted Gandzasar Monastery in Vank and Mayreberd Fortress near Askeran - I'll describe these places and our experiences there in more detail when I write the full account of my trip.

Now I understand...

2005-08-24T07:19:00.001-05:00

I seem to have achieved a minor notoriety. Marmot Power - raising blood pressure and causing problems the world over. I sure hope Malta is less controversial...

On edit: I posted several not-particularly-strident comments there but they seem to have disappeared. Oh well...

Again on edit: Ok, they're back. My bad...

"I'm so vain...

2005-08-24T07:19:00.000-05:00

...I probably think this blog is about me". (halfhearted apologies to Carly Simon...) Hey, wait, it IS about me. In concession to my monstrous ego I've installed a Site Meter thingy down at the very bottom. Fun fun! Keep those hits coming folks! -AMP, apparently feeling much better...

Yerevan redux

2005-08-24T04:10:00.000-05:00

I'm here in Yerevan recovering from my second major bout of food poisoning while I wait for my NK visa to be arranged. After spending a miserable yesterday in bed (and in the bathroom) several Ciprofloxacin (Best. Drug. Ever.) seem to have cleared things up. I think my Dukoral is wearing off, which is not surprising as I only got to take two doses and not the recommended three.

I think it's increasingly unlikely that I'll be going to Iran. Someone I talked to in my homestay says he's met a dozen Americans this summer who have been denied visas, even for sponsored tours. The two emails I have sent to the Iranian travel company from Yerevan have thus far been met with silence - they said they would contact me 20 days before I was to arrive in Iran, we're now down to 1 week. It's possible the new Ahmadinejad administration in Tehran is denying visas to Americans carte blanche until the new government has been in power for a while.

Sorry this entry isn't very interesting but I haven't done or seen much of interest in the last several days. The day before yesterday I spent in vain running around Yerevan trying to find the new location of the NK embassy as it had moved recently and the address listed in the LP was wrong. I had one of those stupid encounters so common in this part of the world where someone insists on helping you but ends up wasting your time. Outside the old office I met someone who also had NK-related business who offered to take me to the new embassy as he was going there himself (or so he thought). After he took me to three different offices, none of which was the embassy and each of which sent us to some other wrong place, I finally ditched him. Such encounters happen frequently in this part of the world - someone, out of an overzealous sense of hospitality insists on helping you, but they don't know what the f**k they're doing. Then they insist on dragging you around with them because they're too stubborn or proud to admit it, and you end up wasting half the day. Feh...

Feel free to leave suggestions of where I should go next (preferably within Eurasia) to finish out my trip. Or if you're feeling feisty go join the Caucasian chauvinism fracas below in the previous post's comments.

-AMP, wondering if he now has enough readers to start sponsoring ads... :-)

Yerevan: cafe society...

2005-08-20T11:34:00.000-05:00

I'm here in Yerevan which is by far the most "European" of the three Caucasian capitals. It's about 5-7 years ahead of Tbilisi and, well, the less said about Baku the better. Yerevan is flush with cash from the Armenian diaspora and it shows. The people are better dressed, there is more neon and the city seems less tense and more sedate than Tbilsi (which is not to say I like it better than Tbilisi...) Also, the city is chock full of cafes - hundreds of them apparently. Accordingly it's difficult to resist the temptation to sit around all day in cafes and drink cold drinks and eat ice cream and watch ~~attractive and well dressed Armenian women~~ the world go by. It's really hot here as well, but it's a dry heat. Sort of...There seem to be a lot of diaspora Armenians visiting here, and my notion is that like Irish-Americans started to do about 20 years ago, many Armenian-Americans are visiting the "old country". Oh, and Yerevan has a waterpark and a bowling alley (overpriced but fun nevertheless...)

When I haven't been busy sipping lemonade and staring off into space I have found time to visit Echmiadzin, the Saryan Museum, and the Genocide Museum, which details the Ottoman Turkish genocide carried out against the Armenian population of Turkey in the late 1800s and early 1900s. I've walked around most of Yerevan and am planning some day trips to monastaries outside the city this weekend, if I can get up the motivation. On Monday I will try to arrange a visa to NK, which is sorta kinda part of Armenia (de facto, although not de jure...), but not officially until they come to some kind of settlement.

I'm still waiting to hear about my visa to Iran, and if it doesn't come through I am going to have 5 weeks of unstructured time at the end of my trip so I am considering other options and am open to suggestions. My notion at the moment is to head back through Turkey to Istanbul, then to Greece and/or Italy by ferry (or alternatively from Greece up the Adriatic Coast to Italy) , then Malta and Tunisia before continuing on to France and Spain.

I'm out of here...

2005-08-13T08:38:00.000-05:00

Today's post is brought to you by Bayer Pharmaceuticals, makers of Ciprofloxacin®. "Cipro - it's not just for anthrax anymore...". The good news is that through the miracle of applied pharmacology, I appear to be cured of whatever microbiological pestilence was plaguing me. I walked around Baku a bit today and went to the art museum (some interesting stuff but badly lit and poorly curated...), had lunch (overcooked, overpriced), and went up to see Martyr's Lane, where victims from the Soviet massacre in 1990 and the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict are buried. (If even half of what Thomas Goltz described in Azerbaijan Diary is true, then it's obvious that the Armenians, abetted by the Russians, engaged in ethnic cleansing there, an act for which they have never been held accountable).

On my way down I got stopped by a guy dressed in military fatigues with a machine gun who, without really indentifying hinself, asked to see the contents of my pack. When he couldn't give me a good reason why, or explain what he was looking for, I refused and became uncooperative until it became apparent he wasn't going to let me proceed (he was prepared to physically detain me). He claimed he needed to check my documents to make sure everything was in order. I told him to call the regular police and the American embassy. He got on his cell phone and called for backup and more soliders appeared, including an officer - at that point I was more or less satisfied that they were legitimate and weren't trying to shake me down for money or the contents of my pack (when I finally gave him a quick glance into my pack the original solider seemed a bit too interested in my PDA, although he did eventually show me ID...).

I got handed up the chain of command and was escorted down the hill to the street by a second solider where we waited. While we waited I asked the second soldier why tourists got hassled like this in Azerbaijan. He gave me some bullshit answer about how all countries do this (I quickly disabused him of this notion, using Georgia as an example), then he gave another bullshit answer about that part of Baku being a military zone (it isn't, it's a public area and Azeris wander around freely). He then gave a final feeble excuse about previous "Armenian" terrorism and I simply mentioned that I don't think I look Armenian, and asked whether Azerbaijan really wanted tourists or not. (I'm unaware of any major incidients of terrorism in Azerbaijan within the last 10 years...)

After about 10 minutes of this the boss showed up, an older man in a suit, and his interpreter who spoke English. We sat down at a table in a public tea garden and they proceeded to interrogate me about why I was in Azerbaijan, when and where I entered (I showed them my passport) where I had been, where I was staying, and whether I was traveling alone. Other than looking at my visa stamps, they didn't try to verify any of the information I gave them and they didn't pester me about my bag. They were generally polite, vaguely apologetic, and not very threatening, and they seemed genuinely surprised that I was angry at having been accosted on the street by a machine gun-wielding "solider" of unknown provenance.

After about 15 minutes they dismissed me, saying that I should consider the experience part of my travel adventures. Fair enough - they can consider my publicizing these experiences as my small contribution to help promote tourism in Azerbaijan. I've decided that these pretty hassles just aren't worth it here in Azerbaijan - I would likely feel differently in a third-world country like Uzbekistan, where this level of harrassment might be tolerable in order to see the wonders of Samarkand, but here in Azerbaijan it isn't worth it. I also note that had this event occured in some remote province close to the Armenian border I would also likely have reacted differently, but there's no excuse for this in downtown Baku.

It's obvious to me that Azerbaijan, is still traumatized from the conflict with Armenia, and is operating in neo-Soviet mode: suspicious of outsiders, not sure how to cope with travelers, not encouraging/promoting tourism. The lack of a decent backpacker hostel in Baku is telling. The relative inexperience and insecurity of Aliyev, Jr., may also be a factor. My experiences in Azerbaijan stand in stark contrast to my travels throughout Southeast Turkey, where the Turkish government has been battling Kurdish rebels off and on for years (and where there has been a recent re-escalation of Kurdish violence). I passed through at least 8 military checkpoints in SE Turkey, several in regions which have since experienced acts of terrorism against the Turkish government, and I was never, as a foreigner, hauled off the bus for extended questioning or a search of my belongings. Half the time the security officials didn't even take my passport for verification when they realized I was a foreigner. The difference is that the Turkish government has the confidence and competence to discern who their real threats are, whereas the Azeri government appears to harbor a free floating anxiety about foreigners in general.

Epilogue: After a 12 hour travel day and being detained at the Azerbaijan - Georgia border because of a visa screw up (their fault, not mine, but I still suffered for it, will post on this when I get back home), I'm back in Tbilisi at Nasi's.

Ailing in Baku...

2005-08-12T09:28:00.000-05:00

So I've spent the last several days holed up in my little hotel room in Baku trying to shake a rather unpleasant gastrointestinal illness, probably food poisioning. I finally decided to get break out the Cipro so hopefully that will clear it up. As an added bonus I should also be anthrax-resistant for a while, which can only be a good thing in this country. So far the little white miracle pill seems to be working but it's too early to really tell. Once or twice a day I leave the fan-cooled sanctuary of my room to forage for food and drinks and to use the internet cafe across the traffic circle at the 20th of January metro stop. Outside the hotel I have to run a gauntlet of kiosk vendors selling: grilled food (the smell of which makes me nauseuous...), miscellanous snacks and drinks, music (bad, often Turkish, played at an ear-splitting volume on bad speakers) and various household items and toiletries (napkins/Kleenex being my holy grail at this point...) If this was India or Africa it would probably be more interesting and exotic but here it's just squalid and depressing, there isn't anything to compensate for the noise and filth. I had to transit through Didube Station in Tbilisi at least half a dozen times, which has a similar environment, but it didn't seem quite as bad - I'm not sure why.

So far I've spent most of my time reading and sleeping and watching bad TV (the Turkish stations are more entertaining than the Russian ones...) I just finished reading a really interesting book on the Caucasus called Bread and Ashes that I bought in Tbilisi. I'm down to my last book and things are going to get grim when I finish that so hopefully I'm better and out of here by then.

-AMP, wondering why the other patrons of this internet cafe can't speak in a normal volume. Just stfu already!

Azerbaijan

2005-08-09T08:47:00.000-05:00

When I get home I will post in detail about my alcohol-fueled misadventures in Svaneti and my erstwhile travel companion Julie, but since I'm now in Azerbaijan, and have little good to say about it, I'm going to bitch and moan for a while...

Disclaimer for parents, certain relatives, and other sensitive types: R-rated language follows...

[Theroux]

Azerbaijan is a shitty little country which combines the worst aspects of Russian/Soviet culture (petty police harassment, ghastly pollution and industrial detrius, failed legacy of planned economy) and Turkish culture (occasionally unpalatable cuisine, lack of respect for personal space, general boisterousness, and occasional tendency to pester travellers who would like to be left in peace...) without the culture, history, or charm that make Turkey worthwhile.

Maybe I've just been unlucky but I'm finding the people here to be more annoying than anywhere else I've visited:

The three teenagers with whom I was crammed into the back of the mashrutka on the way from Sheki to Baku who wouldn't sit still and kept fighting with each other when they weren't pestering me to try on my hat (after I had already said no several times...)

The people in Baku who claim not to speak Russian (in Russian, no less...) when I ask them a simple question...

The asshole who insisted I wanted a taxi (I think, he was jabbering at me in Azeri...) when I was just trying to find an ATM and then grabbed my arm when I said no thank you and started to walk away. And why did that elderly woman grab my coke bottle while I was holding it?

Then there's the metro police, whose sole function seems to be to harass tourists on the Baku metro. Every time I use the metro I get called over to have my pack searched and am asked inane questions about what I'm doing in Azerbaijan and where I'm staying (to which I ususally give false answers). Funny how I never seem to see Azeris getting the same treatment. On one occasion they hauled me into their office and proceeded to search not only my pack, but also rifled through my wallet. Afterwards when I was alone counting my manat I noticed that I was missing one of four 50,000 manat notes I had just withdrawn from the ATM. Instead of getting confrontational with the policemen I had the presence of mind to simply mention to them that I had lost one of my bills and asked whether they had seen it in their office. One officer delayed me for a few moments while the other ran back to the office, then the first officer led me to the office where lo and behold, my bill lay on the floor. I have no idea how it got so far under the table or how a brand new bill got such a sharp crease in it...(Marmot Power: 1, Baku Metro Police: 0) I'm getting more insolent with them though - today I ignored their first attempt to call me over and would have made it down the escalator (I ignored their first attempts to stop me and they didn't bother to chase me down) except that I was out of subway tokens and had to go back and buy some and one of the policemen actually grabbed my arm the second time. I'm curious to see how uncooperative I can actually be with them and get away with it - the next time I get hassled I may feign complete ignorance of English, Turkish, or Russian just to see what happens, or I may decide to find out whether the "OK" sign we innocuously use in the west means the same thing in Azerbaijan that it does in Turkey. Until this petty harrassment is eradicated (as it appears to have been in Georgia where I never experienced or heard of any problems with the police) the Azeris are not ready for prime time.

I would also note that here in Azerbaijan, the Azeris, like their Turkish bretheren, plaster up everywhere quotes from their dear departed leader - in this case Heydar Aliyev rather than Ataturk (I don't read enough Azeri to be able to ascertain whether Aliyev is any more motivational than Ataturk, though somehow I doubt it given their respective political and military accomplishments...) I don't know whether this tendency to convert the delphic pronouncements of their leaders into mindless propaganda is endemic to all Turkic peoples (the Turkmen certainly have to endure Niyazov's flakiness and he's still alive...), perhaps the Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Kirghiz, or Uyghyrs have managed to avoid it.

A few other things while I'm still in rant mode:
a) Azeri drivers - Your car horn is not an extention of your penis so calm down and shut the fuck up already. You can honk all you want but it's not going to make traffic move any faster.

b) Actually, "Calm down and shut the fuck up already" could apply to most Azeri conversations. These people yammer and jabber at each other at volumes that make my ears hurt. Without looking for non-verbal cues (facial expressions, body language) it's usually hard to tell whether two people are engaged in a raging argument or a polite conversation. Azeris, at least Azeri men, all seem to have too much nervous energy, like they're all hopped up on amphetamines or something...

c) Azeri government: Instead of building ridiculously ostentatious olympic training centers in stupid places like Quba or Sheki, how about spending some money on traffic control in Baku (see item a)). Alternatively, pretty much every place I've been in Azerbaijan could use major repairs to its sewer system...

d) (This actually applies to much of eastern Turkey and likely the entire Caucasus but since I got sick here in Azerbaijan and didn't get to go to Xinaliq because of it, I'm going to take it out on the Azeris...) Until soap and toilet paper become regular fixtures in bathrooms, public or otherwise, you don't get to consider yourselves "European", so don't flatter yourselves.

e) This is the type of thing that probably annoys nobody else except me, but Azeris are the most easily distracted walkers I've ever met - they can't walk from point A to point B without staring off in another direction and slowing the pace of foot traffic. This is particularly annoying in the underpasses that lead into metro stations where there are market booths full of shiny cheap Chinese crap set up on each side. Watch where you're going and just keep moving already!

[/Theroux]

To be fair, my first few days up in the mountains (Zaqatala, Sheki) were nice enough and I met some normal, hospitable people, but aside from some interesting architechture, Baku doesn't seem to have much to recommend it, and for the first time I actually understand the mentality that causes expats to seek refuge in Irish pubs and American steak houses.

I think part of the problem is that instead of the Lonely Planet Guide for the Caucasus (which is written, however poorly, for discerning, battle-hardened travellers), I'm carrying the Trailblazer Guide to Azerbaijan, which was commissioned by ExxonMobil for the benefit of relatively sheltered but stir-crazy oil industry expats (with access to private vehicles) desperate to escape Baku's oppressiveness. The book is excruciatingly comprehensive, with too-clever by half hand-rendered maps that make dreary, tedious places like Quba or Zaqatala look misleadingly interesting. So I think I expected more from Azerbaijan than there actually is - maybe compared to Georgia or Turkey there just aren't a lot of compelling things to see or experience (relative to the hassle entailed getting there...) Perhaps after a few more days spent poking around Baku and the Absheron Peninsula I will change my mind but right now I don't see how hauling myself out to Beshbarmaq or Qobustan will make much difference.

A few Georgia comments...

2005-07-20T10:03:00.000-05:00

I'm in Tbilisi. Amenities in most hotels and homestays in this country are...spartan. Hot running water is only sporadically available, if at all. Georgia is poor in a very different way than Southeast Turkey - that part of Turkey has always been largely pastoral/agrarian (and relatively poor) and is just now slouching towards modernity. By contrast, it seems to me that Georgia had poverty inflicted on it by the Soviets and the period of instability following the breakup of the Soviet Union. There are a lot of buildings that were obviously grand and elegant in the first half of the 20th century that have been allowed to fall into disrepair. I'm not a big fan of unsupervised laissez-faire capitalism but the Soviet planned economy and its subsequent disintegration has really left Georgia a poor mess of a country. There is plenty of food in the stores, and rural Georgians grow and sell a lot of produce, but the industrial infrastructure is in tatters and the country doesn't have a lot of natural resources to begin with. Everything seems barely held together with twine and electrical tape, nothing gets fixed or cleaned properly. The buildings, particularly rural houses, look gray and dreary, as if Georgians have a peculiar aversion to primary colors. I have been wondering how Georgia (which declared independence from Russia during the Russian revolution but was attacked by the Red Army and absorbed into the Soviet Union in 1921), would have developed had it remained independent. Would Georgia today look more like Greece, Portugal or western Turkey, or would it still be relatively impoverished and decrepit?

...After having spent several days in Tbilisi I can say that there is a marked contrast between central Tbilisi and other Georgian cities I've visited (Kutaisi, Batumi, and Gori). Much of downtown Tbilisi actually has been painted in pastel colors and the main thoroughfares (Rustaveli, etc.) seem vibrant enough - more shops, cafes, and restaurants than other cities. However if you wander into the back streets the residential areas have the same delapitated look as Kutaisi or Batumi. I'm not sure whether downtown Tbilisi was tarted up for Bush's recent visit (probably should have spent the money on increased security instead...) or as part of some post-Rose Revolution cleanup but the rest of the country is still languishing in relative disrepair.

Georgia on my mind...

2005-07-14T10:05:00.000-05:00

Hi folks - I'm headed up into Georgia tomorrow - I have no idea what internet access is like in that country so I don't know how much posting/updating I'll be able to do for a while. I'm taking copious notes everyday so I promise I will compile everything into a coherent narrative and post it all online, if not now than at least when I get back home. My Russian needs dusting off so it will be interesting to see how well I do with it in Georgia and Armenia (note to self - don't lapse into Turkish in Armenia...) I suspect that for my first few days in Georgia half of my Russian sentences will inadvertently contain Turkish words. ("Affedersiniz lütfen - gdye nakhoditsya iyi bir gostinitsa?")

At least once a day I say something incorrect or miscomprehend something important in Turkish, but last night in Kars I got involved with a protracted and meandering (albeit friendly) argument with the hotel manager (he started it...) that managed to cover the following topics: (my rejection of) textual religious dogma, Paganism, Islam, Christianity, Manichaeism/dualism, Sufism/mysticism, the headscarf issue, the Israel - Palestine conflict, tired anti-Semetic conspiracy theories, terrorism, 9/11, Al-Qaeda/Bin Laden, Saudi Arabia, the Kurdish issue, the current American government and, strangely, his appreciation of nuns (though probably not this one) - all in Turkish (except for some English expletives from me directed at several of the above entities...) Amazingly I was able to understand much of what he said and I think he understood most of what I said as I was manically flipping through my pocket dictionary and gesturing wildly. So just as I'm getting ready to leave Turkey for the time being, my Turkish has progressed to the state where I am able to hold a fractured and partially coherent conversation on controversial topics. Me talk pretty one day.

No such luck with Georgian - if I manage to learn the alphabet I'll be doing well...

Did They Jump Or Were They Pushed?

2005-07-10T13:01:00.000-05:00

(Apologies to Richard & Linda Thompson...)

I know I'm supposed to be posting about Istanbul but this unfortunate event was just too bizarre to let pass. By strange coincidence I was in Gevaş the day after it happened, where I wasted an hour of my life waiting for the dolmuş to Akdamar Island. If I had known about the sheep I would have gone up to see where it happened, which would have been much more interesting than Akdamar, which was a disappointment. I guess those shepherds are feeling pretty sheepish... (sorry...)

"Clean up this damn mess!"

2005-07-10T12:44:00.000-05:00

I have been in Turkey long enough to have earned the right to make the following complaint: Turks are incorrigible and unrepentant litterbugs. Despite the ready availability of rubbish bıns, Turks just toss their garbage everywhere. I've seen bus drivers toss plastic teacups out the window as they were driving and Turkish tourists throw their empty water bottles on the ground. Many of the nicer tourist sites are spoiled because of all the litter and you can't walk anywhere without encountering rubbish. I can't decide whether littering is an atavistic tendency left over from the nomadic origins of the Turkic peoples (who would have simply discarded unwanted objects and moved on), or whether modern Turks are simply lazy. It's a shame that Ataturk, whose many aphorisms have been internalized by modern Turks, didn't say something about not littering ("Ne mutlu atana çöpe!") - if he had, Turkey would be entirely litter free.

Istanbul, finally

2005-07-09T13:38:00.000-05:00

I'm about to start with Istanbul, finally. Except now I need to go write postcards so maybe tomorrow. Here's one picture...

Tünel - putting the fun back in funicular!

Food II

2005-07-09T11:51:00.000-05:00

Several concerned readers have inquired whether I am eating enough fruits and vegatables. All I have to say is that I would probably eat more vegetables here if they weren't served grilled to charcoal. In Hasankeyf I ate two consecutive meals where the vegetables had simply been tossed on the grill and left to carbonize - I would have taken a picture from my second meal but the cook/owner was hanging around and I didn't want to offend him. Honestly, sometimes I think the kebapçis in this country aren't even trying, which is inexplicable when you are competing with a dozen other identical restaurants all lined up in a row...I would also note that here in the southeast they tend to serve vegetables that are reasonably heat resistant such as tomatoes and a disturbing form of green pepper, both of which for me have a high yuck factor. Lettuce is unheard of -I suspect the reason is because it doesn't keep in the heat. I suppose I will have to increase my intake of cucumbers and whatever fruits look edible.

The headscarf thing

2005-07-03T12:26:00.000-05:00

This will likely seem stupid or obvious or both to readers of Turkish heritage but may be of some interest to my readers whose roots are North American.

I thought I had the headscarf thing all figured out - from previous research and about a month or so of empirical observation I had deduced the following about the wearing of headscarfs by Turkish women:

1) Some women wear headscarves, some don't.

2) The percentage of women who wear headscarves varies from city to city - in the secular west it is as low as 25-30% (my unscientific guesstimation) whereas in more conservative Central Anatolia (Konya) and the East it goes as high as 70-75% (again my guesstimation).

3) It is my understanding that university students and female employees holding state or goverment jobs are forbidden to wear headscarves to work. This is still an issue of some contention especially among university students and one that garners a lot of media attention and debate in Turkey.

4) Wearing of a headscarf by a woman does not preclude association with a non-headscarf wearing woman. I see plenty of groups of women of similar age associating where some women wearheadscarves and some don't.

5) The likelihood of wearing a headscarf tends to increase with age.

6) I have observed many pairs of women where one appears to be the mother and the other a daughter in her teens or older where the (assumed) mother is wearing a headscarf and the (assumed) daughter isn't.

7) Wearing a headscarf does not appear to preclude smoking in public, or, in rare cases, public expectoration.

8) In no town of significant size have I seen 100% of women wearing headscarves.

9) Women who don't wear headscarves appear to be more likely to engage a foreign male (namely me...) although I have certainly met and talked to girls and women who were wearing headscarves.

I had been under the impression that women who wore headscarves did so out of desire (or Quranic imperative) to appear modest and not attract the attention of unfamiliar or unrelated males, which is why I was somewhat surprised that three headscarf wearing women (probably in their early 20s, from Mersin, apparently unchaperoned...) giggled and flirted shamelessly with me (in a chaste, Moslem sort of way...) on Nemrut Dağ as we waited for sunset. They asked me if I was married to another woman, (let's call her E) who was on my tour, then asked why I wasn't married and what I thought of Turkish women. Finally, they strongly urged me to come to Mersin and taught me some apparently risque Turkish slang words with which I am supposed to refer to Turkish women. All well within earshot of more secular Turks (men and unheadscarved women...).

So I don't quite understand why they were wearing headscarves if they would so easily engage a strange male in such a manner if the whole purpose of the headscarf is to discourage male attention and preserve modesty. Weird...

-AMP, Malatya, bound for Diyarbakır

The Black Book

2005-07-03T12:03:00.000-05:00

I just finished reading The Black Book (in English - my Turkish is nowhere near that proficient) by Orhan Pamuk, who is argueably Turkey's greatest living writer and whose name gets bandied about as a future Nobel Prize winner. It's a dense and complicated novel set in İstanbul about identity and the nature of reality. I daresay that I am probably better informed about Turkish/Ottoman/Selcuk history and culture and Sufi philosophy/ literature/spiritual practices than the average reader and I still really struggled with it. It held my interest though, if only because I was so engaged in trying to figure out what the hell was going on - now that I have read through it once for the plot I think I am going to have to reread it again to appreciate the deeper levels. Anyway, having spent a week in Istanbul before reading it I could at least visualize all the different neighborhoods mentioned in the book.

Things I wish I had known how to say in Turkish, etc.

2005-06-30T10:36:00.000-05:00

Things I wish I had known how to say in Turkish at the time...

1) "My that bird makes a loud and unpleasant chirping noise. Will it go on like that all night and will I be able to hear it from my room?" - to pension owners, in Bodrum

2) "Do your courses at the tourist guide institute teach you to beseige tourists before they even get off the dolmuş?" - today in Harran

3) "Yes, I can see you are admiring my (overpriced) sunglasses but no, I don't want to trade them for yours - I spent half a day schlepping around Şişli/Mecidiyeköy in Istanbul to obtain them" - multiple occasions

4) "Lonely Planet is going to hear about this..." - to several dishonest restauranteurs, in particular in Bodrum and Antalya

5) "If you would just hose down the patio we wouldn't be plagued by so many ants..." - to pension owner, Antalya (he did, eventually...)

6) "Yes, I know I'm way overtipping you but just take the YTL10 as a token of my gratitude for showing me the secret tunnel exit out of the canyon so I didn't have to try to negotiate that sheer cliff face with the 40 foot drop. Buy some rakı for you and your friends..." - to the farmer? shepherd? in Göreme who showed me an alternative to a life-threatening (or at least ankle-threatening) descent...

7) "Just drive us to Saklikent Gorge...No, we're not interested in going to Tlos and especially not to that restaurant on the brochure, just take us straight to Saklikent...Look, is this or isn't this a dolmuş?...No, we're not paying the return fare in advance...I don't know what time we'll be back but we'll just catch a dolmuş - maybe we'll be back by 4PM, maybe we won't - don't wait for us, OK?" -in Fethiye, with much of this made clear by me in fractured but ultimately understood Turkish.

8) "That Arab headdress thingy looks stupid on me - why am I paying my guide to have his extended family try to sell me stuff...?" - today, Harran

9) "So...do you guys actually do any work around here or just drink tea and play cards all day?" - to the Gaziantep Metropolitan Administration Parks and Garden Department workers (more on this later...)"

10) "If you think I'm paying 40YTL to get to Ankara from Afyon you're out of your mind..." (at the Afyon otogar...I ended up paying 14YTL. To be fair, he was speaking English and may have meant 14 and said 40, but if he'd spoken Turkish there would have been no ambiguity - see previous post...)

Things I tried to say in servicable Turkish...

"Is it difficult to clean off the sheep (dung)?" ("Zor muydu koyunun boku temizlemek?" - I'm sure native speakers would have a much better way to say it but I'm rather proud of this one...) - to the people trying to sell me "ancient" coins at Selçuk/Ephesus, who were likely really selling modern coins passed through the intestinal tracts of sheep or cows to artificially age them - they understood me...

"Please don't smoke at my table!" ("Lütfen, masamda sigara içilmez") - to the boorish man and his friend on the waitstaff who, entirely uninvited, sat themselves down at my table at a restaurant in Ankara and started to smoke.

"What are those ostriches (devekuşu) doing in the Kızılırmak River and how did they get there?" - Avanos, and neither was ever made clear to me.

"I'm afraid I'll be staying in Ankara for another night or two - the Azeri embassy wasn't at all where it was supposed to be..." - to the hotel staff in Ankara

"What do you mean this place isn't even on my map of Ankara?" - to the Turkish security official who informed me that the Azeri embassy had moved to a new location in "Anakara".

Things I have learned to say in Turkish through sheer repetition

"I taught myself at home with the aid of books"
"I don't remember how much my sunglasses cost..." (lying shamelessly here...)
"I am from a small state in the Northeast, near Canada..."
"No, I'm not German/English/Australian..."
"How about giving me a plastic luggage tag?" (to bus stewards when they stow my luggage...)
"I'm sorry I simply don't have time to visit your carpet shop..."
"Where I am going is of no interest to you..."
"Dondurma, üç kepçi, lütfen...." - daily, usually in mid afternoon

Regarding language

2005-06-30T10:10:00.000-05:00

I'm in Şanliurfa sweltering away in this internet cafe and will post on Urfa and Harran at the appropriate time. It's really, really hot here, so I'm happy to be headed up to Kahta/Nemrut Dağ tomorrow, which will be cooler. I've just gotten over a mild chest cold so I've been feeling a bit run down for the last few days, but am mostly better now.

[rant] Since I'm already hot and somewhat cranky I will take this opportunity to address one of my pet peeves here, people who insist on speaking English with me when I speak Turkish to them first. When I address someone in servicable Turkish I don't want to hear "Do you speak English?" or have my request answered in English. Do me the courtesy of speaking clearly and slowly in Turkish - I will let you know if I don't understand you. I don't care if you want to practice your English, in most places in Turkey there are plenty of Anglophone tourists who don't know a word of Turkish and will be perfectly happy to speak only in English with you, whereas this is a rare opportunity for me to speak Turkish with native speakers. If you engage me for a while in Turkish I am usually happy to reciprocate in English later on if I know you are actively studying it.

American travellers and tourists get grief from every country on the globe for expecting people to speak their language when they go abroad, so when they actually take the time to learn a foreign language and try to communicate in it they shouldn't be patronized for their efforts. Non-Anglophone natives can't have it both ways...either work with me in the language I'm trying to speak (yours) or quit bitching that Americans abroad expect the natives to speak English. [/rant]

To be fair most people have been friendly and encouraging when I speak Turkish with them (although I also don't need to be flattered about how good my Turkish is when I know exactly how good it isn't...), its mostly just a few service industry workers which annoy me from time to time.

Food

2005-06-22T10:19:00.000-05:00

Some of you have asked about food so I will post a bit on that. I do have somewhat of a sweet tooth, but I'm not really a foodie and I'm not big on hunting down new and exotic things to eat. That having been said I have eaten some interesting things in Turkey so far. The Turkish equivalent of fast food is döner kebap where some kind of meat (I've eaten beef and chicken so far) is cooked on a vertically revolving skewer and is shaved off occasionally. Walking by döner restaurants is actually rather unpleasant as you are hit in the face with a blast of heat from the grill thingy if you get too close. Anyway, other kebaps are served on a skewer and there are different kinds of kebaps named after different places - Iskender kebap is shaved beef served on bread with yogurt and some kind of red sauce, Adana kebap is ground meat with red pepper.

In most hostels and hotels you get Turkish breakfast which is some bread with honey, jam, goat cheese, tomatoes (yuck), cucumbers (I will eat these grudgingly) and black olives (for which I have developed a taste).

For breakfast I often get a börek, which is this pastry thing with either cheese or meat that is flaky on one side and doughy on the other. The full size böreks are huge and usually more than I want to eat for breakfast. Yesterday I had something called a taş (stone) börek which had meat and spices in it and was really good. Lately, however, I have discovered poğaça which are really good flaky pastries with meat or cheese in them - the quality can vary, if they are fresh they are great, if they are bought from street vendors they are often disappointing.

Speaking of vendors, they sell on the streets this sesame-seed coated dough ring thing called a simit which, again, is good when fresh but I cannot recommend them after they have spent two days in your backpack.

In the afternoon I usually have ice cream which is quite good and sold everywhere.

For lunch/dinner I often have lahmacun which is flat dough topped with tomato sauce, onions, some other spices and sometimes meat, or pide which is Turkish pizza. I also sometimes eat köfte which are meatballs or meat patties - they also come in different varieties.

I've had pretty good fish in several places, including a great meal at Amedros in Istanbul with Handan's friend Susan Baker. Perhaps in a later post I will describe how Ms. Baker tormented (read flirted shamelessly with...) the proprietor and waitstaff.

In Afyon I tried the kaymaklı kadayıf which was sort of like bread pudding with cream on it - it was very sweet, almost too sweet for me.

I've had several different types of locum (Turkish delight) which is good but a little goes a long way and it tends to get stale after a while.

Turkish apple tea contains neither apple nor tea. Discuss...

Soda is overpriced in Turkey, especially in tourist areas.

I will discuss later the various and nefarious ways that certain restaurants try to cheat foreigners and how to disabuse them of this habit.

Edirne

2005-06-22T09:36:00.000-05:00

Edirne, formerly Adrianople, is a small city of about 110,000 people near the border with Greece and Bulgaria. It was a good place to get my first experience of Turkey - it's reasonably small and relaxed and I found it to be friendly and almost entirely tout-free. Edirne has several very cool mosques, including the coolest mosque I've been in since I've been in Turkey, the Selimiye Camii.

This mosque has really interesting decorations inside, almost psychedelic looking - in fact some of the designs reminded me of the screensavers that come with Macintosh computers! Apparently the inside has recently been restored but our guide at Troy/Çanakkale told me that the reason the interior of the mosque looked so pristine was that it was done with plaster made from ostrich-egg shells which allegedly repell dirt and insects. The Selimiye was designed by master Ottoman architect Sinan, who was sort of the Frank Lloyd Wright of his day.

Regarding mosques: In Turkey it is entirely easy to visit pretty much any mosque as long as one obeys a few rules which are usually clearly posted in multiple languages at the door: Don't visit during prayer time, don't walk in front of or take photos of people praying (there are often stragglers or people praying at off-hours...), don't wander into areas that are cordoned off, don't climb up on the minbar, and most importantly take your shoes off. Most mosques have little shoe shelves (ayakkabıllık) on which visitors place their shoes. I have to say that I much more enjoy visiting mosques, which are better lit and have much ligher and more interesting interiors, than Eastern European Othodox churches, which are dark, gloomy, and often vaguely ominous. Those Ottomans were pretty good interior decorators...

Another place I went in Edirne was the Beyazit II Museum complex which comprised a mosque and hospital. In Ottoman times it served as a hospital, kitchen, and mental health facility and there are interesting exhibits which describe the treatment given to patients, which included aromatherapy and arts and crafts. The facility even had their own house band to provide soothing music for the patients! When I was visiting the museum there were hundreds of boisterous Turkish schoolchildren, all dressed in similar blue tunics or dresses, also visiting and they were probably more interested in me than the museum exhibits.

Edirne also had a nice tea garden with fountains, strutting peacocks, and a rabbit hutch! For anyone visiting Istanbul for a week or so it would make a good day trip as it's only ~2.5 hours away by bus.

Turkey - Generica and Miscellana II

2005-06-20T08:22:00.000-05:00

I am currently in Ankara where I am conducting some business (read tracking down visas, burning CDs and mailing postcards...) Flickr is not cooperating today so I am having a hard time uploading my latest photos - I will try again tomorrow, after I haul myself out to the outskirts of Ankara to (hopefully) get an Azeri visa. I can reliably inform readers that the Azeri embassy in Ankara has recently moved and is not where it is listed on the Government of Azerbaijan website. If nothing else I am getting plenty of practical experience coping in Turkish in a strange city.

Some more Turkish miscellaneous observations and generica:

1) Many residences in Turkey, especially along the Aegean and Mediterranean coasts (but also in Anatolia) have solar water heaters on their roofs comprising one or more solar panels and one or more metal water storage tanks. Aesthetically unattractive but environmentally friendly.

2) Almost every single mountain or hill in Turkey with any sort of vegetation on it has a bulldozed dirt road running straight up it (rather than winding back and forth across the face) - at first I thought this was simply a shorter, if rather steep road to the top but then someone suggested that these aren't actually roads but rather firebreaks, which I think is correct. There seems to be a massive reforestation effort underway in Turkey and outside every city you can see where new trees have been planted on the hills. The forests have names like "Selçuk University Students' Forest" or "Burdur Police Memorial Forest" and there are always signs posted espousing forest fire prevention. Most every city of any appreciable size has its own forest ministry. In Antalya one day I was walking down Cumhuriyet Caddesi and the local firemen came roaring down the street in a convoy of firetrucks (spraying the crowd with water), police cars, road graders, bulldozers, and a flatbed truck with a large fire prevention plackard. All the vehicles were festooned with pine boughs and were honking their horns raucously. Meanwhile forest service helicopters and airplanes flew overhead and dropped water on us (which didn't really help with the heat...) So they seem to be taking reforestation and fire prevention rather seriously here.

3) Anatolia is really strange, and I mean that in a good way. The vegetation on the hills changes very dramatically, in fact on one side of the road a hill can be covered with pine trees or shrubs while the hill on the other side of the road is completely bare. I saw this a lot on the Mediterranean coast as well - I don't know whether it's because some areas are more frequently used for livestock grazing or simply the result of microclimates caused by the topology. A lot of Anatolia is treeless, and some of it reminded me of eastern Oregon or eastern Montana. In the places I've been so far the terrain can change fairly dramatically over the course of a few kilometers, from rolling plains to forested hills to windswept mesas and buttes that look like the Dakota or Wyoming badlands.

4) I don't understand some things about how industry is conducted in Turkey. Just outside of Afyon on the road to Ankara there are hundreds (and I'm not exaggerating here) of small marble processing operations, each comprising a warehouse, a gantry crane for moving the large blocks of marble around, an office, and piles of marble in various states of processing. All have different names (Lion Marble, Sword Marble, Afyon Marble, Falcon Marble, etc.) and all appear to be independently owned, and I'm having a hard time understanding how they all stay in business, or how one chooses which one to patronize when one needs marble in Central Anatoliya. The same thing occurs to a lesser extent with the small brickworks between Konya and Afyon.

5) In general I'm liking the smaller and/or less touristy cities (Edirne, Bursa, Afyon) more than the some of the major tourist sites. Less hassles and fewer touts, and the people are friendlier and more genuinely curious about you rather than wanting something (namely money, be it in the form of a handouts to a horde of children offering a service you don't need (Yes, I can see myself that the Kale is right up that hill, and in any event I don't have enough change for all 10 of you, and you didn't want the candy I offered you so stop whining and tugging at my sleeve...) or a purchase from the carpet shop (Yes, yes, they're all very nice but I don't believe for a second that you can actually introduce me to the Sheik of the Naqshbandi Order so I'm disinclined to believe anything else that comes out of your mouth...)

In some touristy sites I didn't get hassled much (Fethiye, Antalya) so I liked those places too. My Turkish is good enough to shut down the obvious touts pretty quicky but in some cities (i.e. Konya) people materialized in front of me as I was walking down the street or riding the tram, wanting to talk to me, with an agenda which usually (but not always) revealed itself, most often a carpet shop. Some people I find to be overly inquisitive or solicitous and if they start asking too many personal questions or proffer help I don't need (I can carry my own bags thank you, and as you can see, I don't have time to join you for tea as I'm headed for the otogar. No, I don't need help buying a bus ticket...) I try to make them go away ASAP. As an introvert I get tired of it all after a while, and I sometimes resent obvious touts asking me personal questions. My least favorite, oft heard in Istanbul: "Mister, where are you going?" to which I have learned the response "Seni ilgilendirmez". Another unfavorite is being told I have dropped something as a ploy to get me to stop and turn around - on the way to and from the Basilica of St. John in Selçuk I got this one coming and going from the same tout, so I guess I was particularly clumsy that day.

6) It's a bit strange how every Turkish child says "Hello" in English with the same voice inflection - it's almost as if they are programmed to say it instinctively. I've heard it from older people too - I was standing on a corner in Izmir when a parcel truck went by and the driver said hello with exactly the same tone and inflection, as if it was an automatic response learned in childhood. Today I heard it directed at me from a (not unattractive) young woman (same tone and inflection) as I was walking around Ulus in Ankara. Weird...

Ok, I will try to start posting narrative and pictures from the cities as soon as I can get all the pictures uploaded to Flickr.

Overland to Edirne

2005-06-16T09:38:00.000-05:00

I took the train from Sofia to Svilengrad, changing at Plovdiv. On the Sofia to Plovdiv leg I met a nice elderly Bulgarian couple who could actually speak Russian so using a combination of English, Russian, and Bulgarian I actually managed to have a somewhat coherent conversation with them. The husband told me the names of trees and animals in Russian/Bulgarian and explained that the little white flowers that grew ubiquitously by the side of the tracks, called laika, make good tea. From Sofia to Plovdiv the scenery comprises rolling fields and farmland set within forested mountains. In some places the hills are treeless. There are a few rice paddies midway between Sofia and Plovdiv - I had no idea they grew rice in Bulgaria.

In Plodiv I had a ~1 hour layover - I let the elderly couple assist me in finding the right platform even though I didn't need the help. Between Plovdiv and Svilengrad the train passed through rural Bulgarian farming villages set in rolling fields. Random memories include an old man picking up his wife at the train station in a horse-drawn cart, a large stork nest on an electric pole at one of the village stations (more on storks later...), brown mules, a cement(?) factory which carried buckets of sand over the railroad tracks in little buckets hanging from overhead cables like a chairlift, and many scenes of crops being planted by hand in the fields. A horizontal line of workers (one or two per row) would follow behind canopied trucks from which they took seedlings to plant.

Towards Svilengrad the train follows the scenic Maritsa River valley, although southeast Bulgaria looks somewhat more decrepit than the central part. At Svilengrad I caught a taxi to the border at Kapitan-Andreevo, about 12 km away (13 Bulgarian Lev + 1US$. I shared the taxi with a woman who was going to the Greek border just across the Maritsa so we first went to that border crossing and I can say I have at least seen into a small corner of Greece. The border between Bulgaria and Turkey was a bit strange. I got dropped off on the Bulgarian side and had to walk a looong way down the highway, occasionally dodging cars and trucks. The Kapitan-Andreevo/Kapıkule crossing is on the main highway from Europe into Istanbul so it is quite busy, and not really set up for pedestrian traffic. On each side there were 3 or 4 tollbooth-like structures where I waited in line (just like a vehicle) at one of the windows. Some of the booths on each side weren't very interested in me, but the Bulgarian guard who gave me my exit stamp was chatty (probably he was bored...) so we talked politics (US, Bulgarian) in Russian. After more trudging down the highway past duty-free shops and exchange bureax I came to the first of the Turkish booths. As on the Bulgarian side, several Turkish officials just waved me through wheras at the important booth I was first sent off to the side of the highway to buy my visa (US$ 20, from a non-descript building with a red and white Vize Servisi sign set among the other shops). After returning to get my passport stamped, I kept walking, past customs warehouses and a bus station, until I came to the taxis. The Turkish border officials were friendly and seemed to appreciate my clumsy attempts to communicate in Turkish. I took at taxi into Edirne (US$ 30 - I could have waited for a dolmuş for 1/15th of the price but I was hot and tired and just wanted to get to my motel so I splurged...)

Sofia

2005-06-16T08:42:00.000-05:00

Ok, I have a few hours to kill in Antalya so Im going to try to update Sofia and Edirne. The computer I'm using is being difficult so

My first day in Sofia I did the three recommended walking tours of the city listed in the English language guide to Sofia that I "borrowed" from the hostel, basically covering all the major buildings downtown. In the morning I saw St. Nedelya's Cathedral, the St. George Rotunda, and the Presidency, which was guarded by soldiers in traditional attire (unfortunately no marching band or Tom Jones songs as in Stockholm...)

I also killed some time in TsUM, the large department store which was fairly modern with some western outlets (Timberland, Nautica, etc.) Across from TsUM is a large market building called the Halite which is sort of the equivalent to Vancouvers Granville Island with many market stalls offering all kinds of fresh food, but there were also some western chain outlets in the food court - Dunkin' Donuts is the one that I'm remembering at the moment but there were others.

In the afternoon I strolled down Pirotska which is a pedestrian street and into the Zhenski (Womens') Market where they sell (among other things) fresh fruits and vegetables on the street. Other highlights included the Archeological Museum, Parliament, St. Sofia Church and the Alexander Nevsky Church.

I found Sofia to be rather more westernized and relaxed than Belgrade and somewhat cleaner and less crumbly than either Belgrade or Budapest. There were lots of stray dogs lying around but they seemed docile and reasonably well fed. One thing that Sofia lacks that would make it a nicer city is a major river running through it - it does have several drainage ditches though.

My second day in Sofia I took it a bit slower and randomly walked around without a fixed agenda. For breakfast I had cold macaroni with sugar on it from a cafeteria - it wasn't very good and I'm not exactly sure why I ordered it. I spent most of the day strolling around Borissova Garden near the stadium, and I also visited the main post office to use their internet access - if there were a lot of internet cafes in Sofia I must have missed them. In the afternoon I went up to the train station and, after some poking around, managed to buy my ticket for Svilengrad.

Both days I was in Sofia groups of adolescents were driving around in vehicles festooned with streamers and balloons, honking the horn and hanging out the windows screaming. At first I thought it was a particularly large and obnoxious wedding party until someone explained to me that it was high school graduation celebrations. I finally came across what must have been the beginning of a graduation party with a group of well-dressed students partying outside a restaurant, singing, spraying each other with champagne and being serenaded by musicians as their family and friends looked on. In some parts of the city (including within earshot of my hostel...) the honking and screaming carried on well into the evening.

In Bulgaria I found that my Russian was essentially useless about 90% of the time, and that most people couldn't (or wouldn't) speak Russian. I liked what I saw of Sofia although for me two days was plenty. I don't think I need to revisit it anytime soon although I'd definitely like to see more of the rest of Bulgaria. A few other random observations: 1) Bulgarians seem quite pleased with their impending entrance into the EU as many buildings were flying the EU flag along with the Bulgarian one. 2) Bulgarians have an incredible diversity of ethnic traits. Some Bulgarians are fair-skinned and look like Scandinavians while others look like they come from southern India (with every shade in-between seen both in the cities and in smaller villages). No doubt this is a reflection of Bulgaria's rather complicated history of ethnic migrations.

Turkey - Generica and Miscellana

2005-06-09T10:01:00.000-05:00

Ok, because I'm falling way behind on posting I will at least put up a few generic comments about Turkey. I promise I will update everything in more detail when I get the chance, including Sofia and crossing the Bulgaria-Turkey border overland.

I'm presently in Bodrum, which is an Aegean resort town - I don't much care for it but the castle kept me occupied for several hours this afternoon. In Turkey I have been to Edirne, Istanbul, Bursa, Çanakkale (Troy and Gallipoli), Izmir, and Selçuk (Ephesus). I'm trying not to dawdle on the Aegean or Western Mediterranean coasts so I have more time in Central/Eastern Turkey which is of more interest to me.

Some miscellana: Turkey has lots of unfinished buildings everywhere - either abandoned when the owners ran out of money, or simply being finished at a snail's pace. In many of them people reside in the first floor while the second floor is only a reinforced cement exoskeleton. As in Eastern European countries, in Turkey one sees piles of abandoned construction material lying around everywhere, and many brownfields - in my opinion a relative lack of brownfields/vacant/abandoned land (or at least organized and well funded attempts at their remediation) is one of the things that distinguish Western Europe and North America from the rest of the world (or at least the few parts of it Ive been to...)

In Turkey people don't seem to keep dogs and cats in their dwellings as pets, but rather these animals roam free in the streets and are in some cases fed there (in the residential neighborhood where I stayed in Istanbul there were telltale piles of cat kibble on the sidewalk in front of some apartment buildings...) As in Eastern Europe, it's not uncommon to see stray dogs lying around in the streets or hordes of cats scavenging through the trash from the markets.

Much of the Aegean coast is marred by ugly apartments/summer rentals/motels/other touristic stuff - although why I don't know because from what I could see of it the Aegean is rather pebbly rather than sandy so the beaches don't seem very compelling. Many of the undeveloped parts are actually quite scenic, with miles and miles of rocky hills containing olive groves (if I didn't before I sure do know now what olive trees look like...), pine forests, or other Mediterranean vegetation. I find it strange that the hill on the left side of the road can have entirely different vegetation than the other side - some of this may be due to animal grazing (and some of the land is overgrazed) or previous agriculture.

Agriculture in this part of Turkey is a mixture of mechanized and manual labor. I've seen plenty of people (mostly women) hoeing/weeding in the fields, but I've also seen plenty of hay being baled with tractor drawn hay balers (just like Uncle Roscoe used to have). In villages of any significant size there is modern agricultural equipment for sale, but there are also horse or donkey-drawn carts and odd vehicles that are basically just a wagon with a motor attached to the front. In smaller cities like Selçuk it was common to see tractors driving down the street.

Staring out the bus window at the fields long enough has led me to develop my own definition of first, second, and third world countries: In first world countries most people who garden* do it as a hobby, in second world nations most of those who garden do it to earn a living, and in third world nations most people who garden do it out of necessity to feed themselves. Obviously not a strict definition (plenty of cash crops are grown, often unwisely, in developing countries), but I think it's an interesting way of looking at things nonetheless (and for all I know I'm not the first to come up with it). * - defined as manual agricultural or horticultural cultural labor largely unaided by petroleum-powered machinery.

What else...my language skills are slowly improving and on the bus I usually have my dictionary out to look up new words that appear on street signs. At my pansiyon in Selçuk I got to hear a lot of Turkish spoken by the family who runs it. My Turkish is good enough that I can usually dispense with the touts reasonably quickly (more on this later...) The food has been pretty good, although I have been pinching pennies a bit here on the coast so other than in Istanbul I haven't splurged much on a really good meal. I have developed a taste for piliç döner and Adana kebabs, though, and so far haven't gotten sick from anything I've eaten.

Travel is almost exclusively by bus, which is usually comfortable, although it wouldn't kill them to clean the windows more often. The service is slightly better than the average American airline - on the bus the attendant (steward?) comes around and serves tea, water, and snacks every so often, and also dispenses from a bottle this lemon-scented alcohol-based liquid that you wash your hands and face with (let's hope it isn't carcinogenic...). Walking into the bus station travellers are inevitably assailed by touts who ask you where you're going and steer you to their company - I haven't bothered to shop around or compare prices much since I'm not finding bus fares particularly expensive yet. However I found it interesting that today in Selçuk two such touts immediately lost interest in me when it turned out I wasn't going anywhere there companies served - they didn't even bother to steer me to the company that served Bodrum, where I was going. Whatever...

Finally, I would like to conclude with a lament about the quality about the maps in the Lonely Planet (no link for you today!). Boy, do they suck! Yes, I know I'm not supposed to walk around with my nose stuck in the LP, and most of the time I don't, but when you're hauling around 30+ pounds of gear on your back in 80 degree (that's in Fahrenheit, Canadians...) weather and want to get to your hostel in a strange city, not having accurate or complete maps is really, really annoying. As someone who really likes maps (at home my world and North American atlases are used on a daily basis) and can easily read them, I really wish LP would find a way to make them higher quality/resolution.

Ok, maybe Bodrum has suddenly improved this evening. -AMP

Update - No, Bodrum did not suddenly improve (if anything it got worse - more on this later...) but I am now in Fethiye which I rather like and where I will relax for a few days before moving on.

A quick hello

2005-06-02T03:56:00.000-05:00

Hi people - just a quick post to say hi and thanks to everyone who leaves comments or emails me directly. It's always nice to hear from people and I am trying to respond to everyones' messages a few at a time (and people who contact me get first priority for postcards... :-) Typing on Turkish keyboards is somewhat difficult for me, so bear with me, but I am getting better at it, and hopefully I will get more efficient over time. I will try to catch up with the weblog in a day or so but I have been running all over Istanbul, and my host pays for internet access by the minute (rather than a flat fee) so I have to use internet cafes.

-AMP, in Istanbul, headed for Bursa

To Sofia...

2005-06-01T08:05:00.000-05:00

Mr. V and Oskar saw me off at the Belgrade train station. The train to Sofia passed through scenic rolling hills dotted with small villages. The air was filled with acacia pollen, sometimes to such an extent that it looked like it was snowing. Rural Serbia actually looks like the stereotypes of rural Eastern Europe portrayed in the media - shepherds with goats, farmers scything hay by hand, small crumbling houses, mud and trash everywhere, chickens running around freely. At Niş we had to get off the train and take a bus to the Bulgarian border, as the tracks were being repaired. The bus passed through a spectacular canyon (I will need to consult an atlas to figure out exactly which river and mountains...) and it was a very tight fit for our bus to get through the numerous tunnels with large trucks passing in the other direction.

We stopped at small Serbian cities such as Pirot and some others I have forgotten (again to the atlas...). The highway we were on must be a major route for trucks coming and going from Turkey, as in Serbia near the Bulgarian border there are many small repair shops and garages advertising repair services in Turkish. At Dimitrovgrad we got back on the train on the Serbian side, passed through Serbian customs (no problems for me, I had the Serbian police registration paper the Vs suggested I get...) then after the train advanced a few meters we did Bulgarian customs - for a country as excited about joining the EU as Bulgaria seems to be (many Bulgarian flags I saw were flown alongside the EU flag), the Bulgarian border guard was rather suspicious and surly, although he stamped my passport without incident.

My couchette-mates for the trip into Sofia were an English guy (apparently a Liverpudlian) working in Poland and his Polish gf (both off to Istanbul for the European Cup Final), and an elderly Bulgarian woman. Trying to converse with her with my Russian, I realized exactly how useless my Russian is in the Balkans. As was the case in Serbia - I can understand just enough of a conversation to be frustrated that I can't understand more, and I can sometimes just barely make myself understood, but only rarely. Of all the Bulgarians I tried to converse with maybe 10% spoke actual Russian. At the train station in Sofia I took a cab to my hostel, which I probably could have walked to but I was tired.

My hostel in Sofia was dodgy. I suspect I may have been the only customer from west of Vienna - not that I saw any other customers except my two next door neighbors, both Bulgarian. One was surly, the other was eager to practice his English with me. I might have humored him, except he wanted me to discuss (and, I fear, perhaps indulge in with him) such pursuits as smoking, drinking, and drug use ("Ganja? You smoke ganja?"), among other things. I managed to avoid him for the rest of my stay in Sofia. The hostel itself was...interesting. Nobody onsite actually spoke either English or Russian(although when I had a question that couldn't be addressed in Bulgarian they put me through to a Russian speaker by phone.) The main caretaker was an elderly chain-smoking Bulgarian (?) man who was at least 80 years old. The lock on the door to my room was...frail, to be charitable. The sole decor of my room consisted of a nude pinup calender for the Kama Sutra Club, affixed to the back of the door with...band-aids. The only redeeming thing is that the old guy procured (or forged) for me the police registration document, although it turns out I didn't need it anyway.

Belgrade

2005-06-01T06:03:00.000-05:00

Sorry for not posting for so long - I haven't had unlimited internet access for a while - I'm posting all this from an internet cafe in the Üsküdar district of Istanbul.

As most of you know, I was particularly interested to visit Belgrade, Serbia, as my hometown of Belgrade, ME was named for it.

There were very few people on the train from Budapest to Belgrade, at least until a bunch of rowdy and boisterous studets got on at Novi Sad. I didn't have any problems wıth Serbian customs on the train. The area between Budapest and Belgrade is known as Vojvodina, and it is very, very, flat - Indiana flat. From the train I saw many ring-necked pheasants in the fields and even a few deer. Rural Serbia is noticably poorer looking than rural Hungary - Serbian farmers simply dump their trash at the edges of their fields, which I didn't notice in Hungary. Approaching Belgrade I saw many unfinished buildings and gypsy shantytowns at the edge of garbage pits.

I was met by Mr. V and his son Oskar (Aleks V's family) at the train station and they immediately took me to the local police station to register my passport - a bureaucratic holdover from the Communist era that is maintained by some Eastern European countries. But I got to see the inside of a Serbian police station, which is cool.

I really need to thank Mr. and Mrs. V and their son Oskar for their extremely generous hospitality in hosting me in Belgrade. They chauffered me around everywhere (which I suspect Oskar enjoyed doing as he really likes to drive the family car!!!), they stuffed me full of really good Hungarian cuisine (thanks Mrs. V!!) and Serbian food, and they took me to a many interesting places that I wouldn't have otherwise seen. They also provided me with a lot of useful facts and context about the city as well as great converation in general. Without their kindness I wouldn't have had nearly as rich an experience there.

I spent one full day walking around downtown Belgrade. Mr. V and Oskar helped me find a map of Belgrade and got me onto the tram heading downtown. I got off at Slavia and first walked down to see the buildings that were bombed by NATO during the Milosevic regime.

In Slavia I violated my long-standing rule about not eating in American fast-food restaurants in foreign countries when I patronized the Belgrade McDonald's. I can justify my visit there as an exercise in geopolitical irony, as it was the Belgrade McDonalds' (of which there are several) that made a fool out of Tom Friedman (this, sadly, happens to him with disheartening regularity...)

From Slavia I walked up Knyaz Mıkhail Street past interesting old architecture and modern stores all the way to the Kalemegdan, the fortress built on the hills of Belgrade that overlooks the confluence of the Danube and Sava rivers.

My memory is fuzzy on who first built the Kalemegdan but it was occupied for a long time by the Austrians, who then abandoned it as the Turks advanced towards Vienna, burning most of the buildings. The name Kalemegdan (Kale - castle, meydan - square/open space) is Turkish, and several other place names in Belgrade also maintain Turkish names. In the Kalemegdan, with Swiss (naturally...) assistance they are restoring an old clock tower, which I went up into. There is also a rather deep well (the "Roman Well", built not by the Romans but by the Austrians) and there I got chatting with the tour guide, Dragana, who offered to take me to Novi Sad the next day as she was going there herself to see her boyfriend.

My wanderings around Belgrade also took me past the Serbian Parliament, the National Library, Belgrade Cathedral, and the new Orthodox Church (whose name escapes me but I will edit it in later...)

The outside of the cathedral was beautiful but the inside was still under construction and was totally a mess, with cement mixers and scaffolding everywhere. That night I took a stroll along the bank of the Sava with Mr. V (the Vs live in Novi Beograd, across the Sava River...) and had a nice chat with him. On the banks of both the Sava and the Danube there are many floating restaurants of every conceivable style. Then Oskar took us on a driving tour of Belgrade at night (very cool!!!) and we got out and walked around the Skadalia area.

The next day I met up with Dragana at the train station and we caught an early train to Novi Sad, the second largest city in Serbia. On the way up we had a nice chat about art, travel and politics, then met her boyfriend Dejean (at university for sports management) at the station. After a quick trip to his apartment by taxi, we made our way up to the Petrovaradin Fortress, which overlooks the Danube - the cement pilings are what remains of one of the main bridges which NATO destroyed in 1999.

At Petrovaradin, we saw the museum, strolled around, and just generally hung out and tried to avoid the hundreds of school children that were visiting. We then walked back across the main bridge to the main city. I rather enjoyed Novi Sad - it has a more relaxed atmosphere than Belgrade - it's a college town and there are numerous pleasant cafes. After a brief visit to the Orthodox cathedral, Dragana was hungry so we stopped at this really amazing cake shop where we each had a gi-normous piece of cake - probably the best I have ever had in my life. As I had to get back to Belgrade to meet the Vs, I took the bus back and in the rush to catch the bus I thought I had manged to lose my bus ticket (The bus depot had this byzantine system where you got not only a ticket but a jeton - apparently you have to give the jeton to the depot warden before you can even get on the bus - what purpose this serves I have no idea...) The conductor on the bus was a bit cranky until I gave him a bit of American money, and then he was very, very happy...(I later found my ticket...doh!!!!)

I was met by Oskar and his gf at the train station and we drove around Belgrade and its suburbs and got some Serbian fast food whose name I have forgotten but it was some meat cooked with some other stuff (I think mine had cheese and onions) served on bread - yummy but very filling. We then met up with Alek's friend Duşitsya and drove up into the hills to look out over Belgrade, then back down to the Zemun neighorborhood where we stolled along the Danube.

Belgrade is dirty, decrepit, noisy, and in many ways stangely beautiful. I loved every minute of it. I took this last picture outside of the Kalemegdan as a good representation of the old part of the city.

I suspect that Belgrade is one of, if not the only major European city yet to be overrun by tourists. The sanctions clearly took a toll on the economy but I strongly suspect that it will be "rediscovered" within the next 5-10 years, first by the hipster backpackers and then by the rest of the world. I feel very fortunate to have seen Belgrade as it is now, before it becomes the next Prague or Budapest overrun with youth hostels and Irish pubs. Thanks again to the V family for their hospitality and for making my stay there a special experience.

Budapest

2005-05-18T12:37:00.000-05:00

Ok, this is my first attempt from posting photos on the road. Due to time and space constraints I can´t post a lot at any given time but at some point I will put eveything up online with more coherent commentary. The Hungarian keyboard isn´t making things any easier...

Budapest (just Pest, actually...)

After a 10 hour train ride from Frankfurt to Budapest, I´ve been wandering around Budapest for the last two days. Lots of old buildings, some of them in desperate need of cleaning. My hostel is on the Pest side, on Tuesday I walked across the Danube River

to Buda, up the cliffs to the Citadel, then over to old Buda. Poked my head in several dark and gloomy Gothic churches. Took a tour of the Parliament building (no not that Parliament... - are you tired of that joke yet?)

I rather like Budapest - parts of it remind me of Stockholm - Old Buda reminds me of Gamla Stan except with wider buildings and streets. Since I´ve been here I´ve manged to eat both Chinese and Turkish cuisine, but not Hungarian, although the Hungarian bread I bought for lunch in the market is delicious.

I´ve made a few feeble attempts with the language, although with its fourteen vowels and entirely counterintuitive phonemes (the "s" sound is written sz, the "sh" sound is written s), Hungarian is high on my list of Most Unreaonable Languages Using the Roman Alphabet.

Fun fact of the day: Hungary was apparently the first country to outlaw the burning of witches - way to go Hungary!

Today I walked around Pest in the pouring rain, climbed to the top of St. Stephenś Basilica, and then as soon as it stopped raining had a soak at the Szechenyi Baths, which was reinvigorating after much walking. All for now

I TOLD you that frisbee can be dangerous!!!

2005-05-13T21:58:00.000-05:00

This picture of Phil, my former graduate advisor, was sent to me by another member of the Hieter lab who will remain anonymous, at least until she arrives safely in Calgary. In Vancouver, many of us in the lab played ultimate frisbee at a reasonably advanced level and Phil (who did not avail himself to the rigors of league play) was always trying to get us to organize a "friendly" match between our lab and other labs in our institute, including novice players. Those of us who play competitive ultimate regularly know that it can often be dangerous for players of disparate levels to play together, with the likelihood of injury rather high. So despite Phil's repeated efforts I managed to put the kibosh on this idea, both for our safety and his.

I'm told that Phil sustained this most recent injury when his 8-year old daughter threw a disc at him and smacked him in the eye, so my judgement that Phil should probably not be playing disc sports of any kind has been vindicated...Next time try to duck!!!

Trans-Canadiana Commentary: North Bay to Central Maine

2005-05-13T21:17:00.000-05:00

4/29/05: North Bay to Malone, NY. I drove from North Bay to Ottawa with brief stops in Deep River (again indulging in Canadian fast food at Tim Horton's), Petawawa, Pembroke, Renfrew, and Arnprior. In Deep River (pop. ~4500), which seemed like a nice community, while driving through the “downtown” I managed to get lost and had to reverse direction in school yard when I ended up on a non-through street. Petawawa has a Canadian Forces base, but not much of a downtown, or if it does I missed it. I got off the highway and took a local side road between Petawawa and Pembroke (not entirely on purpose…). Pembroke had some interesting old buildings and has more of a downtown than Petawawa does. Renfrew and Arnprior are both smallish with little to distinguish them.

It wouldn’t be a real road trip if something didn’t go awry with the car and accordingly, the always ominous "Check Engine" light came on right as I drove into downtown Ottawa and went on and off intermittently for rest of day. It was probably the stupid O2 sensor or some valve – the car drove more or less normally for the duration of the trip. I will deal with it after returning from Eurasia. Coming into Ottawa I drove along the parkway by the Ottawa River and parked the car in a parking garage downtown and walked around Parliament area of Ottawa taking pictures for about 90 minutes. I saw Parliament (no, not that Parliament - I've already seen them in concert...), the Supreme Court, Hull, Quebec across the Ottawa River, and that guy who takes care of the feral cats that infest Parliament Hill. Ottawa looks a bit European and Ottawans dress like Europeans: lots of dark colors and black leather, not a lot of spandex or lycra as in Vancouver. Due to my needing to keep moving and get across the border, I didn’t drop in to see Kitty Bites, who likely has her hands full anyway, what with the new job, house, and offspring.

I cruised down 416 to the border - got rid of most of my remaining $CDN at store in Prescott on sandwich and cookie for supper. After managing to miss the on ramp the first time and having to backtrack and reverse direction, I finally crossed the scary bridge over the St. Lawrence River: no pavement, just steel mesh. The car felt like a bobsled sliding from side to side, tires howling all the way across. The customs agent at Ogdesnburg actually quite helpful and I got all the forms stamped with no hassle, and he actually gave me extra declaration and EPA forms just in case I need them when I register my car in the States. I was half expecting to get the complete car search but I sailed on through. I took NY37 through along St. Lawrence River through Massena to Malone, NY. This route goes through the Mohawk Indian Reserve, and prominent signs indicated that the Mohicans were angry with “George Custer Pataki” about something, but I couldn’t figure out exactly what. At any rate, the Mohawk nation seems to be building a lot of large, ugly casinos and Kwik-E Marts. I overnighted at the Super 8, I think.

4/30/05: Malone, NY to (My hometown), Maine!: Because I hadn’t previously ever seen much of Vermont, and because I wanted to traverse through two counties in New Hampshire (Belknap and Stafford) that I had never been through, I took a long and somewhat circuitous path back to Maine. I took US11 from Malone, NY to Rouse Point, NY then across Lake Champlain and down into St. Albans, VT, on VT78. From St. Albans I dropped down to Jeffersonville on VT104 then over to Hardwick on VT15. Then down VT14 into Barre, where, in flagrant violation of my self-imposed rule against patronizing chain fast food restaurants, I ate at Burger King for lunch. From Barre I continued down VT14 through the White River Valley all the way to White River Junction/Lebanon, NH. All through Vermont it rained fairly hard and the roads were potholed and twisty, so I didn’t get much out of the scenery, although it probably looks very different in the autumn sunshine. Most all the little towns were typical New England villages.

After crossing the Connecticut River into Lebanon, NH, took US4 to Danbury and then zig-zagged through central New Hampshire: NH104 to W. Andover, NH11 to Tilton, then NH140 to Alton and down into Rochester, NH on NH11. I took a brief spin through Rochester, found US202, crossed the Piscataqua and was finally in Maine! Took US202/ME11 to Sanford and then finally ME111 to the Maine Turnpike. I think it would have been quicker and a lot less painful if I’d taken US2 through New Hampshire and Rumford, ME instead.

Having now driven across North America thrice, I feel that I am qualified to comment that driving west to east is in some ways much easier, because on sunny days you aren’t squinting into the setting sun when your eyes are already getting tired. However, for me and I suspect most people who grew up in the east, it’s definitely anticlimactic to start in the west and drive through all the interesting scenery on the first few days of the trip. So if I had a choice I’d much rather start in the east and drive west where the terrain changes from the tedium of forests and fields to rolling prairie, badlands, and eventually spectacular mountains. There’s a lot of North America I’d still like to see, but for now I’m happy to sit back and let someone else do the driving…

Trans-Canadiana Commentary: Winnipeg to North Bay

2005-05-13T00:04:00.000-05:00

4/26/05: Winnipeg to Thunder Bay: Still windy and REALLY cold. Winnipeg was bigger than I thought it would be and has some interesting older architecture (which I declined to photograph due to the wind chill…) In Winnipeg my travel project was to find and photograph the plaque located at the corner of Portage Avenue and Valour Road that honors three soldiers who fought in World War I and were all awarded the Victoria Cross, which was issued by Britain and Commonwealth countries (including Canada) for bravery in combat. Only ninety-four Canadians have been issued the VC, and by coincidence, three happened to live on the same street (Pine Street, later renamed Valour Road in their honor) in Winnipeg. The only one of the three who survived the war happened to be the grandfather of my friend Janet S., so I hopped out of the car and braved the elements in Winterpeg for a few minutes to take some pictures before hypothermia set in.

I continued east on Highway 1 through Sandilands Provincial Forest which has pretty trees – lots of aspens, birch (?) and jackpines, then into the Kenora, ON area, which is also very scenic with small lakes surrounded by evergreen trees and granite rock – I think this is about where the Canadian Shield begins. The city of Kenora itself is right on the lake and is probably a rather pleasant place to live, at least between the months of June and September. Saw a deer and numerous Canadian geese on this stretch of road. On the approach to Kenora is also where you first start to observe the ubiquitous inukshuks, of which there are thousands placed on rocky outcroppings all the way to North Bay. At first I wasn’t sure whether they were all placed by First Nationals and had some symbolic meaning, but Kirk from the Hieter lab, whose opinion I trust on such matters, has informed me that they are merely a form of ecologically sound and aesthetically pleasing graffiti created in most cases with no deeper significance or meaning. In Kenora I ate lunch (in my car) at a desolate and windswept park that looked out on the very northern edge of the Lake of the Woods. After I left Kenora it started to snow, but happily it didn’t stick. The stretch of Highway 17 between Kenora and Vermillion Bay is also quite scenic, again with small lakes surrounded by evergreens, but east of Vermillion Bay there are simply kilometers and kilometers of trees and not much else. Dryden has a large paper mill and a dam across whatever river runs through it – it looked to me like a typical Maine mill town but I drove through pretty quickly and it was snowing heavily so perhaps this view is uncharitable. After Dryden there are miles and miles and miles of nothing but trees. Would it kill the Province of Ontario to build a few rest stops so that motorists don’t have to pull into one of the snowplow turnouts and run into the woods in three inches of snow (in late April!) to answer nature’s call?

In Ignace traffic was stopped for about 45 minutes while they cleared a fatal accident further east on Highway 17. A tractor-trailer truck had collided with a small economy car – the truck was on its side and badly damaged, the car was a crumpled piece of charred metal – that car’s driver was obviously killed but the truck driver may well have survived. I stopped to rest in Upsala, which appeared to be no more than a series of several gas stations and Kwik-E Marts, entirely unlike the Uppsala in Sweden for which I suspect it was named. One of the Kwik-E Marts had a grill attached and I bought a cheeseburger for dinner, which I ate in the car for dinner, managing to slop mustard and ketchup all over myself while I drove. It seemed to take forever to get into Thunder Bay, and I was exhausted by the time I got to the Super 8.

4/27/05: Thunder Bay to Sault Ste. Marie. Thunder Bay was formed when the cities of Fort William and Port Arthur merged in 1970. The city has two separate "downtowns" connected by long commercial strip - neither downtown has sufficient gravity to act as city center and the city lacks a central core and seems to sprawl. I stopped at Terry Fox rest stop on way out of Thunder Bay and took pictures of Lake Superior. Thunder Bay is where Terry Fox ended his trans-Canadian run, and now having driven across Canada I have a much better sense of how impressive it was for him to get from Newfoundland as far as Thunder Bay. Traffic was delayed by roadwork delay east of Thunder Bay and it was a long drive to Marathon where I had lunch at park overlooking Lake Superior. The road to Marathon was occasionally scenic with panoramic views of the lake, but sometimes it was disheartening to look at the shoreline curving around the lake as far as the eye could see and realizing that you had to drive all that distance on curvy, hilly roads.

Neil Young was recklessly and, in my opinion, irresponsibly exaggerating when he suggested in that song that there were indeed towns in north Ontario. Someday a hapless motorist is going to break down or run out of gas, say, on the desolate stretch between Marathon and Wawa, and the next thing you know the RCMP will be recovering his corpse from a ditch along the highway after he tried to walk to the nearest settlement for help and died of starvation along the way.

The desk clerk at the Super 8 laughed at me (in a polite and understated, Canadian sort of way) when I asked her if there wasn’t some kind of fast ferry I could take across Lake Superior from Thunder Bay to Sault Ste. Marie instead of driving around it. There isn’t, apparently, but if the fast ferries from British Columbia are still available I emphatically suggest that they be put into service on Lake Superior. I’d much rather risk going down like the Edmund Fitzgerald than to have to drive around it ever again.

The people of Wawa seem to have a goose fetish as large wooden statues of Canadian geese are found throughout the town, which overlooks a lake and is otherwise probably nice enough in the summer, providing the Wawans don’t hold some kind of Goose Festival. After Wawa there is another long slog to Sault Ste. Marie in which the arboreal tedium is occasionally broken by scenic vistas of the lake. After staggering into Sault Ste. Marie I overnighted at the Satelite Motel, which was satisfactory. However, for reasons that I never quite elucidated, a work crew was cleaning the parking lot of the Arby’s next door (and I mean cleaning the parking lot – they were vacuuming the pavement!) at midnight, which I feel is an entirely unreasonable hour to be engaging in such a noisy and senseless activity.

4/28/05: Sault Ste. Marie to North Bay. I took a brief driving tour of Sault Ste. Marie before continuing East. It seemed nice enough although not particularly compelling, but I didn't get
a good look at the locks so maybe that would have been more interesting. I seem to remember a large casino there. Route 17 between Sault Ste. Marie and Sudbury looks a lot like Central Maine - fields and trees and a few small towns. I had lunch at Tim Hortons (surprisingly good! - the sandwich I mean, yes, I know their doughnuts are good!) in Blind River, which was pretty. After driving through many small First Nations communities, I came into Sudbury. I drove around downtown Sudbury and out to the nickel smelter with its huge piles of black mine tailings. The land east of Sudbury is very curious - mostly small wispy birches(?) on exposed granite with a few evergreens - I think this was quintessential Canadian Shield landscape (or maybe the trees were just stunted by pollution from the smelters...) Sudbury itself had quite a few larger apartment buildings which somewhat reminded me of Soviet-era planned housing. The area around Sturgeon Falls appears to be Metis/Francophone as most local signs were bi-lingual, unlike most of Ontario. In Sturgeon Falls people were buying chips from one of several chip trucks of the kind featured in Roddy Doyle’s novel “The Van”. I may have caught a glimpse of a black bear and cub outside of Sudbury, but I was tired so I didn’t bother to stop and go back to investigate further. The road into North Bay has some nice views of Lake Nipissing, as does North Bay itself, just on the other side of its rather long Main Street. I overnighted at Super 8, and treated myself to a satisfying, if nutritionally suspect dinner of Hawaiian pizza and cheesecake at Peachy's Restaurant next door.

Trans-Canadiana Commentay: Calgary to Winnipeg

2005-05-12T20:46:00.000-05:00

4/24/05: Calgary to Regina. I took a brief spin through downtown Calgary before continuing East – I thought it looked like it would be a nice (or at least tolerable) city in which to live. Hopefully Potsie will enjoy living there. East of Calgary there is lots of rolling prairie with long, scenic vistas. I stopped briefly in Brooks, AB to stretch my legs, it was dusty and otherwise unremarkable. I ate lunch in a quiet park in downtown Medicine Hat, AB, then continued on to Swift Current, SK where I strolled up and down Main Street for a few minutes a few blocks to restore circulation to get some exercise. I made a brief detour through Moose Jaw, which had interesting architecture and may warrant a closer look someday – the buildings in downtown Moose Jaw are supposedly connected by tunnels which remain from the days when Al Capone hid out there – it was late in the afternoon and I didn’t get to see them, unfortunately. Then on to Regina (pronounced reg-EYE-na, not reg-EEE-na, for you Americans reading this...) where I overnighted at the Super 8.

Throughout the day I saw lots of cows, horses, a few sullen llamas, and one buffalo farm. Between Calgary and Medicine Hat I saw a few prairie dogs by side of road, as well as group of unidentified ungulates that may have been young and/or female elk. In this part of Canada the prairie is dotted with many small lakes and wetlands which were aquamarine in the sunshine. There is a rather interesting mine at Chaplin, SK where they recover sodium sulfate from the mineral deposits in Chaplin Lake. There is also an enormous potash mining operation at Belle Plain. In general the terrain was not as rough as I thought it would be - some rolling hills but very few badlands, buttes, or arroyos. Land got rather flatter around Moose Jaw. Roads in Sask. not as nice as those in Alberta - bumpy!!!. Oh wow…in doing some research online I have just discovered this website which obsessively documents Saskatchewan highways in meticulous detail. Well, if you've ever wondered what Saskatchewan looks like by car, there's your opportunity to find out...The approach to Regina from west is interesting - you can see the very top of the skyline from about 40 km away. It looks like a cluster of grain elevators until you realize that there are far too many structures for it to be a small agricultural settlement.

4/25/05: Regina to Winnipeg: flat! I took a spin through Regina before heading out - saw Legislative Building and the rest of downtown. It seemed pleasant enough and appeared to be reasonably well kept up. Today was very cold and there was a strong crosswind coming from the North. East through Moosomin (a small agricultural town immortalized in The Guess Who's classic song "Running Back to Saskatoon") where I stopped briefly to walk around and buy lunch, which I ate in the car - it was cold and windy. Highway 1 goes down to one lane between Whitewood, SK and Virden, MB, making for slow going (anything that is only one lane shouldn’t be called a highway!) Through Virden, Brandon, and Portage la Prairie: Virden was small and dusty, Brandon looked nice enough, and Portage la Prairi e looked somewhat decrepit. I got a bit turned around trying to get out of Brandon, but eventually got straightened out. Highway 1 turns into the urban sprawl of Portage Avenue as it approaches Winnipeg. Overnight at Super 8. Not much interesting on today’s drive - more trees starting to appear in the fields, beginning around Moosawmin - small copses at first, then larger and larger groves.

Trans-Canadiana Commentary: Vancouver to Calgary

2005-05-12T00:02:00.000-05:00

I'm editing and posting this bit by bit from the original notes I took down on my PDA - I'll try to get it all up before I leave.

4/22/05: On Thursday evening I bought CDN$ ~100 worth of food at Safeway to reduce restaurant expenses, so I'm going to eat cheese and crackers, tuna snack packs, raisins, apples, bagels, peanut butter, and trail mix until I run out or get sick of it.

I didn't get out of Vancouver until ~11:30AM. Mr. S (name redacted until my security deposit check arrives), the rental company agent, insisted I move all my stuff to the hall so he could lock up my apartment. I bit my tongue since he claims I will get the entire security deposit back. I should have had him come at 10:30 and not 9:00AM, as it took me longer to finish cleaning than I thought it would. I said goodbye to Ruby who was sorry to see me go. She mentioned the possibility of moving to an assisted living facility but said she was too introverted and didn't want to have to socialize with obnoxious people, a concern with which I can certainly sympathize.

Since I’d never actually been up the Fraser Valley on the north side, I took Granville to Broadway, all the way through Burnaby to Loughheed Highway all the way to Hope – so it took me a while to get out of Vancouver. Lots of dreary sub/urban sprawl until I cleared Maple Ridge, then the rest of the Fraser Valley to Hope was very scenic. Highway 1 North from Hope to Cache Creek through Fraser/Thompson canyon - very scenic with spectacular geology. There was something causing a delay blocking eastbound traffic at Spence's Bridge (I never quite figured out what it was…) so I had to zigzag across Thompson River to avoid it. Into the high plains country with sagebrush everywhere - the Kamloops area looks like a lot like southern Idaho. Stopped at scenic rest stop overlooking Kamloops Lake. Overnight at Grandview Motel in Kamloops.

4/23/05: Brief spin through downtown Kamloops, then Highway 1 East from Kamloops to Calgary. It was amazing to see how quickly sagebrush changed to evergreen forest between Kamloops and Salmon Arm. Drove along Shuswap Lake (no, I did not encounter the Bushman...) through Sicamous and Revelstoke - Mt. Revelstoke was very scenic, as were the Rocky Mountains near Golden, BC. There was a lot of snow still on the ground at Rogers Pass in Glacier N.P. The highway out of Golden is an impressive, if at times nerve-wracking, marvel of engineering. I saw two mountain sheep almost hidden by side of road. Some of the avalanche warning signs around Golden have stick figure renderings of people being swept off a cliff along with the boulders, which I found amusing. Spectacular scenery all the way to Canmore, AB - description and pictures won't really do it justice – those of you who have driven it will appreciate what I’m talking about, those of you who haven’t should start planning your road trips to the Canadian Rockies! In ~200 miles you travel through four National Parks: Mount Revelstoke, Glacier, Yoho, and Banff. Hopefully Western Canada hasn't spoiled mountains for me and I won't be too jaded to appreciate the mountains of Eastern Turkey and the Caucasus.

I crossed into Alberta and over the Continental Divide between Field and Lake Louise - much snow still on the ground at higher elevations, but temperature was warm. I briefly visited Lake Louise which looked to me like the corporate version of Lake Lovely Water – a scenic glacial lake surrounded by mountains, except Lake Louise comes with an enormous resort hotel (and hordes of tourists) rather than the cozy little A-frame alpine cabin at Lake Lovely Water. The lake itself was still frozen except for very close to the hotel shore. The hotel area itself smelled of horse manure, probably from horse-drawn carriages or horseback riding, but I didn't actually see either. Among the tourists at Lake Louise was a woman who looked exactly like Jen Moody (didn’t she have a sister?), but I decided it probably wasn’t her.

At a pullout between Lake Louise and Banff, I (along with an entire busload of Japanese tourists) saw several elk (or moose or other species of large ungulate indigenous to Alberta…) wading in a marsh. I took a brief spin through Banff which is a typical resort town with lots of lodges, restaurants and expsensive shopping. Beyond Canmore, the Rockies give way to rolling prairie - mostly grazing land, some scattered forests. After driving through hundreds of miles of forest in the Canadian Rockies, it is somewhat strange to see "Caution Logging Trucks" signs in the virtually areas near Calgary. I saw a red-tailed hawk between Canmore and Calgary, which reminds me to note that I am pleased to mention that I did not kill any birds on this trip, unlike my previous trans-continental treks where my car windshield was responsible for removing several slow or otherwise genetically inferior birds from the gene pool.

As one approaches Calgary it is really surreal to come over a small rise and suddenly see thousands of monster houses and condominium clusters scattered across the prairie. Overnight at the Budgetlodge.

Trans-Canadiana Photos

2005-05-10T23:17:00.000-05:00

Here are some of the better pictures of my epic 7 1/2 day trans-Canadian trek. Commentary to follow...

Near Lytton, BC

Thompson River Canyon near Cache Creek, BC

Near Rogers Pass in Glacier N.P., BC - snowy!

Between Glacier N.P. and Golden, BC

Outside Golden, BC

Lake Louise, frozen...

Alberta prairie

Legislative Building, Regina, SK

Terry Fox Memorial,
Thunder Bay, ON

Lake Superior from Thunder Bay, ON

Lake Superior from Marathon, ON

Lake Nipissing, ON

Canadian Parliament, Ottawa, ON - a bit slanty...

The...er...other Canadian Parliament building.
I think...Canadians help me out here...

Canada Supreme Court Building, Ottawa, ON

Confederation Building, Ottawa, ON

Maybe a few more later...

"Wherever you are is the entry point"

2005-05-10T23:00:00.000-05:00

Ok, so I'm at home in Maine trying to learn both Blogger and Flickr before I head out on Sunday. I stupidly managed to upload 75% of Flickr's free 20 MB monthly upload limit (on gi-normous pictures I took of my last Hieter lab lab meeting), so I think I'm going to have to shell out the $24.95 for the unlimited service. I'm in the process of re-sizing the photos from my trip back across Canada so I'll try to get those posted before I leave along with my trip notes.

I've done most of the organizing and procuring of gear for my trip, but I have a few more miscellaneous things to take care of. I've booked my accomodations in Eastern Europe and Istanbul via Hostel World, which I found quite helpful. Single rooms in Budapest are pricey so I've booked a bed in a mixed hostel dorm room - I figure I can deal with it for three nights. In Belgrade Aleks V.'s parents are putting me up (putting up with me?), and in Sofia and Istanbul I have single rooms booked. In Istanbul I found a single room in a homestay for US$ 20 a night including breakfast and dinner, which I think is an absolute steal.