every country or bust!
the bahai gardens in haifa is one of the most photogenic places in israel. you can go on a free tour, led by a young bahai person from somewhere in the world other than israel, and learn about the tenets of the bahai faith. the garden is immaculate and you can see northward almost to lebanon on a clear day.
the cheapest way i could find from china back to israel was rather circuitous, just the way i like it! a seven hour flight from beijing to kuala lumpur, malaysia only cost a little over $100! kuala lumpur is famous for being a luxury shopping and eating destination. the malls were copious, spacious and extravagant, and there was lots of cheap and delicious food! and one can stay in inexpensive parts of town which is nice. though malaysia is almost entirely muslim, the food courts were pretty crowded even though it was ramadan! i went up the “kl” tower for an amazing view, and saw the famous petronas twin towers, which way back in the day used to be the world’s tallest. malls and food!
the next day i took a bus to singapore to see more malls! singapore is such a nice place. extremely high standard of living and prices to match. for the most part, they’ve made their cash off naval trade and science. a fascinating cultural (and culinary!) milieu of chinese, malays, tamils and countless others. and the lingua franca is… english! my friend apurva is going to medical school in singapore, and he was kind enough to let me stay at his place. we ate some more amazing food and i spent a few days riding on one of the world’s most efficient public transportation systems and endlessly walking around some of the best malls the world has to offer, such as my personal favorite, a futuristically shaped one called the “ion.” one day i took a one hour ferry to a nearby indonesian island called batam and back. indonesia is a whole other world, and i’d love to go back sometime. i also hit up singapore’s resort island of sentosa for some sneaking into luxury hotel’s beachfronts and to see one of singapore’s two casinos – which singaporians have to pay $100 to get into, but is free for everyone else. an arguably overbearing government is about the only drawback of living in singapore – even the sale of chewing gum is strictly regulated.
the next dirt cheap flight brought me to sri lanka for a 30 hour stop! quickly regained my appreciation for the subcontinental sideways head nod! i found my way to the idyllic beachfront town of negombo, and spent the night in what ended up being a room in a family’s house. the next day did some body surfing in the indian ocean and then went to colombo, the capital. being white, i was (rather awkwardly) very much the center of attention in an underground restroom “facility.” also in a cafeteria style restaurant where every single one of the dozens of clientele literally stopped everything and stared with rapt attention for the entire ten minutes that it took the white person to eat a plate of food with his hand. no, don’t worry – i was using the right hand. overall though a really enjoyable time – there is something about the blunt rawness of life in india and its similar neighbors that helps positively reorient a person’s perspective on life if one lets it – even in just 30 hours.
i then traveled back to israel through sharjah, in the united arab emirates, and amman, jordan. that made eight countries in a week, which is sort of crazy! getting from amman to israel turned out to be more of an adventure than i had planned, as it was the eve of eid al fitr (the end of the muslim month of ramadan), which complicated the logistics in a number of ways. but i made it, and second year, starting with anatomy of the thorax, has been really great so far!
the next leg of the trip was a train through the gobi desert from ulaanbaatar to the chinese border. we prepped ourselves because we had heard horror stories about mongolian trains – people being robbed as they slept and how the sheets would reek of mutton. but it was quite nice – probably the nicest train ride all summer in fact! we arrived in the chinese border city of erlian and spent the day wandering the streets until late afternoon when the sleeper buses starting their trips to beijing. these chinese sleeper buses were one of a kind – i’d recommend trying one if you ever get the chance! very early the next morning we arrived in beijing!… at an unknown location. we allied ourselves with a group of austrian bros and sweatily set out down a dark beijing street. a number of hours later, we made it to our destination – tiananmen square! just in time for the morning flag raising! there were tens of thousands of people there at 6 am, and most of them wanted a picture with us, the pasty whites! i knew i was going to love china!
beijing is an amazing city! a few highlights:
-ate scorpions which were six inches long!
-bubble tea!
-great wall of china! (my sister got groped on the bus, had a very uncharacteristic yet retrospectively funny hypoglycemic breakdown because we didn’t get a chance to eat for 13 hours, and i had some very serious and very unfunny issues of my own that resulted from chugging three liters of water immediately before a long bus ride, but overall still a pretty good day!)
-some gritty punk rock live in some underground venue in some suburb that took me four hours to get to, but it was worth it!
-temple of heaven
-finally tracking down the elusive peking duck!
-oriental plaza shopping mall: kind of – i know i overuse this word especially regarding malls but its because i mean it – amazing!!!
-food, food, and food!
-hanging out with some of my sister’s friends who are in china to teach english – it was a lot of fun!
-forbidden city!
basically beijing was super enjoyable and compared to the locales we had spent the rest of the summer in, quite luxurious and very easy to get around! i mean, subway stops labeled in english? beijing 1, moscow 0! it was wonderful and 30 days would have been better than four, but life must go on!
continued from russia: start here.
the next leg on our trans-siberian journey was an extremely warm and slow bus ride to mongolia! the bus was much cheaper than the train. i sat beside a girl who spoke perfect english who was from yakutsk, a republic in the far north of eastern siberia – she told me all about her homeland! traveling up there would be an epic trip – the road is called the “road of bones” because so many people die en route. anyway, a few of mongolia’s superlatives: coldest capital city in the world (but it gets pretty darn hot in the summer); lowest population density of any country in the world; fastest growing economy in the world last year (mining, mining, mining). a fascinating place! the real mongolia is out in the steppes, where nomads herd yaks and drink their fermented milk in their yurts. but because we didn’t really plan things out as well as we could have and didn’t have tons of time, we spent most of our time in the capital city, ulaanbaatar.
the night we arrived, there was a huge party in the street around a massive television screen because a mongolian was about to win a very rare olympic gold in judo!! but then he lost to a russian. the crowd dissipated rather fast. mongolians don’t really like the russians, partly because they used to have an ancient tibetan-like vertically written script of their language, but the soviets forced them to start using cyrillic. unlike russia, where we went for two weeks without meeting another western tourist, ulaanbaatar was hosting a very large quantity of tourists, mostly of the dreadlocked, spiritual pilgrimage type. indeed, literally most of them were israeli. we spent an enjoyable entire day looking for a place to do laundry (the sink in our hostel wasn’t an option as there was one sink for the 80 people staying there = craziness). we also went to a mongolian “cultural” show, which was actually one of the most entertaining things imaginable! they did a bunch of dancing, some contortionism, and what everyone comes to mongolia to hear – throat singing! we found a huge buddhist temple with lots of pigeons and prayer wheels and a three-story high buddha. we also went to the movie theater for some mindless indulgence that i craved all year as i was studying microbiology – it was the new batman and everyone cheered whenever batman saved the day and it was amazing! ate lots of meat soup and thick noodles.
we ended up staying an extra day in mongolia because the trains to china were sold out, so we decided to make our way to a national park outside the city called terelj. we were too cheap to go any way other than public bus, but were getting all kinds of conflicting information in mongolian about which bus was the right one, so we chose one at random and hoped it would get us close. it kinda got us sorta in the right direction! because we didn’t have any idea we’d be going there we had no idea what to expect, but it was very beautiful, with jagged rocks jutting up out of the steppe! we eventually found a huge rock that resembles a turtle and hiked for a few hours to a buddhist monastery on top of a mountain, and i had a terrible fever and barely made it, but thanks to maria we survived! we found the correct bus for the two hour ride back to ulaanbaatar, and it ended up being quite a memorable time. all seats were taken so we had to stand – no problem. but every minute or two the bus would stop to pick up another four passengers, or 12. it became unbelievably crowded, with three or four people in each seat and literally about 100 people squeezed into the isle. i was standing at the front, right between the driver and the gear shifter that he had to grab every 15 seconds. memorable!
next stop: china!
continued from part 1: click here.
yekaterinburg to novosibirsk was supposed to take 30 hours, but it ended up taking closer to 45. for a reason unknown to anyone on the train, we turned around at some point and took a very circuitous detour… through kazakhstan! so i’m not complaining; another country! they even gave us an assortment of complimentary carbs for the trouble: bread, instant mashed potatoes, ramen noodles, and biscuits. and the train was full of little kids which made it more exciting! there was a little girl in our bunk area named dacha. we knew because mom kept yelling at her “dacha!”; “dacha!” upon our almost sunrise-arrival in the smoggy, uninspiring city of novosibirsk we sweatily lugged our backpacks and ten liters of water >one hour to a soviet era (lacking the kitsch) “hotel,” thinking “wasn’t this supposed to be a holiday?” but then we woke up, went on some runs in a theme-park themed park with camels and got some subway sandwiches for breakfast and guzzled some amazing rye bread-based liquid called kvass and thought “there’s no where else i’d rather be right now than in siberia!” then we rushed to the train station …
the next train to irkutsk was another 30 hours. by this time we were getting used to being on trains! irkutsk is a fascinating city: the de facto capital of siberia. we learned about the white army and their eastern resistance against the bolsheviks during the russian civil war, led by kolchak. a statue of him was recently erected in irkutsk: they had to make the sides of it super steep so that modern day communists wouldn’t deface it. also, much of the city’s rich cultural history can originally be attributed to the decembrists, political exiles to siberia in the early 1800s. we found a nice monastery and stuck around for a service. everyone stands the whole service in a russian orthodox church… also, you come and go as you wish as the service is happening.
our second day we got up early to attempt to travel to lake baikal but trying to find a certain very-hard-to-find hydrofoil station ended up being an epic fail that involved many hours of hiking and eventually severe dehydration and hypoglycemia. the problems for me reached a vivid climax when, after purchasing a bottle of fermented sour goat milk that had become a personal rehydration favorite, the entire bottle exploded into my eyes and all over my body because i didn’t know that this particular product happened to be carbonated. yes, carbonated fermented goat milk – only in russia. the next day we did manage to find our way to lake baikal – on a minibus. the night before i happened to be bitten by one million bugs in my sleep; thankfully maria did not desert me despite my unsightliness. lake baikal is the deepest lake in the world!! we love superlatives! a few facts: 2600 species endemic to the lake. including a species of tapeworm that eats entire fish from the outside! the only freshwater seals in the world, the nerpas (they’re really cute). 20% of the world’s freshwater finds itself in lake baikal at any given moment in time! we hiked along the shore to a tourist-oriented and garbage-strewn town called listvyanka, where we ate some freshly smoked omul, a fish that lives in the lake. absolutely unbelievably tasty! we then climbed around with a super friendly russian preteen in some mostly destroyed communist era warehouses where we found some nice views of the lake! we climbed a mountain… to discover that there were so many trees up there that there was no view, but it was still fun! to get back to irkutsk we took the hydrofoil. those things are exhilarating! we chilled on the roof with the wind while a chubby, gold-necklaced guy who apparently avidly hunts wolves and used to be a kgb agent shared a bottle of fine moldovan wine with us. it was nice! 🙂
our final russian train ride took us around the bottom of lake baikal, where a two minute stop was enough time to frantically fight back the restraints of the provodnitza (carriage attendent) to buy some last smoked omul through the train door, and on to ulan ude, the capital of buryatia. made some friends on the train, including a pro boxer and a guy named sergei who shared exactly zero common language with me, but we still managed to have a two hour conversation! something i didn’t really know about russia before: there are 160 indigenous ethnicities or “nationalities” in the russian federation! indeed, that’s why they call it a federation, because many of its parts are relatively autonomous republics. the friendly owner of the hostel we stayed at was ardently “not russian!”, rather buryat. the buryat people are related to the mongols and are big into shamanism and ancestor worship and the like, which made ulan ude about the most exotic place we had been to yet on this trip. we learned that the most revered site in shamanism are some random rocks on an isolated island in lake baikal – people make pilgrimages there from all over the world. the biggest thing to know about ulan ude: it is home to the largest lenin head in the world! the buryats also make a mad tasty version of dumplings that they call booze. overall a pretty good time in the republic or buryatia!
the journey continues in mongolia: click here
during one trip back to israel i had a 12 hour layover in brussels, belgium. i took an interesting brewery tour, walked around downtown, and saw the mannekin pis. good time!
upon arrival in copenhagen after my longer than expected stay in prague, i randomly hopped on a train across the oresund bridge (one of the longest in the world) and then up to gothenburg, sweden (pronounced – get this: yo-tee-boor-ee)! i learned that it is the home of volvo and unequivocally the friendliest city in sweden! i then continued to a nice little city in central sweden called orebro, where my friend barrett lives. barrett is amazing; he was the program assistant when i studied abroad in egypt (before which he had taught himself fluent arabic), after which he got married to a nice swedish lady and has since learned perfect, accent-free swedish.
we went to a house on a secluded lake for the weekend with a bunch of their friends who had names like hilda and johan and mats – it was rather enjoyable! there was an easter egg hunt, some really tasty food, and a late night bros only sauna session which of course had to involve dips in the one degree lake! they taught me a phrase in swedish which i used repeatedly; i was able to teach them one english word (they already knew all the rest). we also got to go to barrett’s church on easter morning which surprising was very similar to a typical church in small town north america, except that in sweden they do gourmet espresso in delicate china instead of folgers in styrofoam cups. we also got to go to some really friendly (physician) inlaw’s architecturally avant-garde home for lunch! all in all it was an immensely enjoyable and enlightening couple of days; thanks barrett!
i then took a train to stockholm for a few hours, where i browsed through about two dozen h&m stores (that’s where it started!) and sauntered along some picturesque waterfront walkways. then took another train south back to copenhagen. initially the plan was to also visit my friend karin who lived in the south of sweden, but she decided to move back to america at the last minute. karin, you’ll be pleased to know that i still had a good time! my new friends from northern sweden made sure that i understood that people from southern sweden are unintelligible to them, and that the southerner’s habit of flying a flag that is a hybrid of the swedish and danish flags is kinda insulting to them. its strangely relieving to know that even scandinavians have divisions.
i got to spend a day in the bicycling capital of the world, copenhagen! after a lot of wandering, i chanced upon a famously overrated mermaid statue which was gifted to the city by the founder of the heineken company. just north is a more modern version with substantially larger breasts. just north of that is a “genetically modified” mermaid. it’ll be interesting to see what they’ll build just north of that!
i also went to a very unique community in copenhagen called christiania . the danes are known for being very straight-laced and obsessed with rules, so the “free town” of christiania developed as something of a cultural antidote to that. it is a car-free community of continually high, dread-locked hippies who live in slum-like dwellings on an island in the middle of copenhagen. some highlights: a place where you can leave your rancid tie-die t-shirt and take another one that someone else left, a horse farm run by children, their own flag, their own currency, barrels of burning stuff that you can huddle around for warmth, and replicas of buddhist temples. main street is known as the “green light district,” and there are just three rules: one – “have fun”; two- “no running – it causes panic”; and three – “no photos – selling hash is still illegal.” quite the place.
pesach (passover, ie. spring break – in april) provided a good opportunity to get out of israel and forget about being a medical student for a couple days. my initial well-planned plan was to make my way to afghanistan (for serious). i have a friend who lives in kabul, had a place to stay, and was two clicks away from some cheap airline tickets. unfortunately however, they decided to reject my visa application. maybe it was for the best though, as the taliban decided to mount a sustained attack on kabul right around the time i would have showed up.
instead, i chose to head for another exotic destination: scandinavia! on the way up i had what was initially to be a 24 hour layover in prague, czech republic. what an amazing city! some tasty bratwursts and beer, unbelievable views from tops of towers, a colorful wall named after john lennon, an amazing castle, some fascinating jewish history, etc.! indeed, it was so epic that i unfortunately missed my connecting flight (also because my alarm clock didn’t work). after a few panicked hours under the impression that my tardiness was going to be the worst financial mistake of my life, an empathetic airline manager was able to hack into the computer system and salvage the situation and i was able to continue to copenhagen, denmark.
on the way from scandinavia back to israel i had another day in prague. my last few few hours in europe were spent enjoying cheap food and bottomless coffee at ikea with what must have been a substantial proportion of prague’s homeless population. then it was back to reality and the semester’s final exams!
