On the map that shows where The Travel Photographer blog readership comes from, every continent is dotted with thousands of dots of where the daily hits originate...the least (after sub Saharan Africa) dotted area is Russia. So perhaps this post will redress the situation.
"Six thousand miles. Seven time zones. And endless cups of hot tea."
National Public Radio's David Greene along with producer Laura Krantz and photographer David Gilkey boarded the Trans-Siberian Railway in Moscow and took two weeks to make their way to the Pacific Ocean port city of Vladivostok, and produced this impressive Russia By Rail series.
The NPR series tells us that it's one of the world's longest train trips, and passes through one of the world's largest forests and runs along the shoreline of the world's largest freshwater lake, Lake Baikal, which holds nearly 20 percent of the world's fresh water.
Interestingly, Gilkey says that their gear included all sorts of recorders, microphones, high-end digital cameras and an iPhone 4. It appears the iPhone was essential because it could be used more easily than regular cameras that are viewed with some suspicion by some Russians. Many of the images in the galleries were made with the iPhone.
Equally interestingly, Gilkey also used new instant film material for the classic Polaroid cameras; results of which can be viewed in the Freeze Frame section of the series. Very atmospheric old timey images.
I think featuring Evgenia Arbugaeva's photo essay Following The Reindeer is timely in view of the season where the children in us perhaps long to see them in the sky being led by a jolly man dressed in red with a white beard...but these reindeers are real, and live in the Republic of Yakutia...not in the North Pole.
Yakutia is located in eastern Siberia and stretches to the Henrietta Islands in the far north and is framed by the Laptev and Eastern Siberian Seas of the Arctic Ocean. It's a region with considerable raw materials. It large reserves of oil, gas, coal, diamonds, gold, and silver. The majority of all Russian diamonds are mined there, accounting for almost a quarter of the world's diamond production.
Evgenia Arbugaeva is of Yakutia, and works as a freelance photographer between Russia and New York. She documented the reindeer herders/breeders of the region, who are the Even, the Evenk, the Yukagir, the Chukchi and the Dolgan.
Ian Frazier spent about 17 years researching and writing 'Travels in Siberia,' about the same time Axl Rose took for 'Chinese Democracy' -- but with better results. Frazier's fascination for the forlorn and mythic, plus his humor, has always appealed to me. When I started as a Lonely Planet author, I picked put two destinations atop my author wish-list: the US Great Plains and Siberia. Two areas he's now written full books on.
I got the chance to meet and speak with him recently, about why he spent so much time in a place people usually avoid, and what exactly his phrase 'Russia-love' means. As he puts it, everyone has 'one country' -- a place they are instinctively drawn to and can't help it. For him, it's Russia.
SIBERIAN INTERVIEW, 2005 During my first crossing of Siberia, in 2005, I was smitten by the kindness of Russians on trains, the beauty of Lake Baikal and Kamchatka and -- even more so -- the flood of 'Dio' posters plastered on street signs in places like Vladivostok and Petropavlovsk. It left me to wonder, maybe heavy metal didn't die when Kurt Cobain donned his flannel -- maybe it just moved to Eastern Europe?
Turns out, Ronnie James Dio -- who died Sunday from cancer -- was beginning his 2005 tour in, of all places, Khabarovsk's Theater of Musical Comedy (above), a five-plus day train ride east of Moscow. I was blogging about my trip for Lonely Planet and just had to ask about this, and talk with the man who invented the heavy-metal 'devil horns' salute about travel in general.
After relentless efforts, he agreed.
In tribute to Dio, here's his take on travel, grunge and that famous salute, from my interview in 2005.
RR: How do Russians 'rock' in comparison with fans in other countries -- say Belgium or Canada?
DIO: Russian rock fans are like good rock fans everywhere. They're loyal, knowledgeable, and they live for the music. We found them to be great in every way.
RR: Do you travel much?
DIO: I travel enough while touring so I don't need anymore. Home is a very welcome sight.
RR: If you got a couple tickets and a week or two to go anywhere you haven't been, where would you go?
DIO: I'd go where ever they don't have phones, so I guess it would be some where in the wilderness, if there's any left.
[Note: The Far East of Russia is a very good place to look for it.]
RR: Some might say that 1991 was a bad year for communism and heavy metal. The USSR collapsed, and Nirvana brought on a decade of grunge and flannel shirts. Is the 1990s something the heavy-metal world would like to forget?
DIO: I think if you forget about the bad things in your past you can never correct them, because music and life travel in cycles and it just wasn't our time any more. A new generation of fans wanted their music, and not their brother's or sister's songs or bands, so they embraced Grunge because they could make what they heard and liked their own. Luckily metal never went away and now enjoys somewhat of a renaissance.
RR: And how is the state of heavy metal in 2005?
DIO: Metal in 2005 is thriving, as judged by the huge turnouts at festivals, and can actually be heard on the radio again. It looks good.
RR: The new tour starts at the Theatre of Musical Comedy in Khabarovsk in the Russian Far East. The Theatre of Musical-Comedy? Is there something we don't know about this tour?
DIO: I guess it means our drummer Simon, is going to rehearse his stand up comedy act in Khabarovsk, but the band will still play the show!
RR: I listened to some of your first and last solo albums recently and am impressed at how much you've stayed with the same type of music (ie no duets with Phil Collins) -- dark, hard, fast, titles like 'Dream Evil,' 'Evilution' and 'God Hates Heavy Metal.' Why so dark all the time?
DIO: Dark themes are generally about things we can never see, so you must use your imagination. After all, who has ever seen a dragon. They are also a great match to the heavy, almost always minor keys that we write around, and who wants to talk about love and relationships when you have these dark vehicles to use.
RR: What's the most surprising CD in your collection?
DIO: Sergio Mendes' 'Equinox' and 'Brazil 66.'
RR: One of your more recent albums is 'Killing the Dragon.' Is the dragon anyone we know?
DIO: The dragon represents bad government, brutal rulers, and technology. Bad governments and harsh rulers speak for themselves, and if we let technology get out of control, we may end up controlled by it.
RR: Many of your photos shows you giving 'the sign' -- pinky and forefringer raised, middle fingers curled under your thumb. Is that really a 'devil sign' or what?
DIO: The "sign" is a superstitious symbol used by many older cultures. It's meant to intercept the evil-eye and other curses, and what better place to use it than at a metal show?
--> If you haven't heard Ronnie, 'Rainbow in the Dark' from Holy Diver (1983) is a famed solo single. 'Man on the Silver Mountain' from Rainbow's first album (1975) is another enduring song.
Episode #023 F E A T U R I N G * 3 2 * B O N U S * S E C O N D S
Some of the reasons why virtual travel, while a nice aid, will never replace the non-virtual version. Recorded during my Siberian trips of 2005 and 2008 while updating Lonely Planet's Trans-Siberian Railway guide.
Did you hear you can 'ride' the Trans-Siberian Railway on Google? Last year a team spent 30 days on the six-day ride from Moscow to Vladivostok to roll a camera, during daylight, at a (sometimes maddening 25-degree angle) out the north-side window. Seven time zones worth.
But I'm not immune to the cubicle-locked past-times that sometimes lead to web browsable travels. A few months ago, I followed Google's street-view around Columbus, Ohio, and caught the Google photographer getting a Big Mac.
Ah, the "following the footsteps of" article. I'm guilty. Last year, while updating Lonely Planet's Trans-Siberian Railway, I retraced parts of the most punk-rock trips of all time (and wrote about it for World Hum): Anton Chekhov's trip across Russia in 1890 to spend a summer living in a penal colony.
It was pretty courageous. Going a year before the train construction began, and already quite sickly, Chekhov left his Moscow fame (and charming Muscovite devushki) behind for something he never really explained. Some say he wanted to do something "serious" (amidst all his critics who called his works "lightweight"), or from guilt over having never finishing his medical degree, or just to get away from Moscow.
What surprised me most about places he wrote about like Blagoveshchensk or Nikolaevsk in Russia's Far East is how locals really didn't care about their unexpected brush with one of Russia's great literary figures. No "Chekhov slept (or whored) here" signs to be found anywhere. Modern Siberia has its own worries to consider instead.
Here are some photos of the town he stayed at the longest, Aleksandrovsk-Sakhalinsk.
Many Trans-Siberian Railway travelers cross Russia from Moscow, passing Lake Baikal, then cut south through Mongolia to Beijing. The fools. Not continuing on, to its very Russian end at Vladivostok (about 100 miles from North Korea) is like reading War & Peace's 1400 pages and skipping Tolstoy's didactic, unbearable 40-page essay on war at the end. Wait. Bad example. I skipped that too.
But, really, Vladivostok's interesting, gorgeous and weird. It has beaches, good pizza, trams, lots of used cars from Japan, almost as many new construction projects, baroque discos with $100 covers and disco bands on clear stages, real-live North Koreans, billions of dollars pouring in as it readies itself to host the 2012 Asian-Pacific Economic Summit, and a feisty rep for being a bit wild.
I recently spoke about it on Portland, Oregon's KPAM (link below) and it reminded me of the 22 biggest reasons why it's my favorite city that starts with "Vl-" of all time.
1. There's a funicular. And any town with a funicular -- from Santiago to Dubuque -- deserves a valentine from "Travel World" every February 14. Vladivostok's climbs just 100m every few minutes, on the dot, for five rubles. From the top you can walk to the nearby Far Eastern State Technical University lookout -- just follow the empty beer bottles -- and get a huge view of the city.
2. Friendly Oleg. Vladivostok being Russia, it's very hard booking your ticket from the train station -- not impossible, but not easy -- but Oleg behind you in line will offer to help, then give his cellphone number in case you get in trouble, then a couple days later as you walk down Aleutskaya St, will lean out of a passing bus window, hold up his phone and yell "Roe-brt, Roe-brt - you call me." And so you do.
3. Forting. When's the last time you were in a town with 130 forts? There are 130 surrounding Vladivostok, dating from the Tsar days, all built protect a city named "to rule the east" from its less obedient neighbors. Travel agents can arrange tours. No 7 is the most popular -- hard to find on your own -- where they make you wear a helmet, hold a bazooka and give the peace sign (and you will comply), and introduce you to a cat in the subterranean tunnels, there "to keep rats out."
4. It's the Russian San Francisco, or Istanbul, or, whatever. Who knew Vladivostok was so beautiful? During Soviet times, this home of the Russian Navy was closed to all outsiders, even Russians. Now that it's open, the scene of roly poly hills, a crooked bay dotted with ships resembling Istanbul's Golden Horn (thus called Golden Horn too) and mountainous offshore island are open for view. It's a Russian San Francisco, but with far worse burritos.
5. "Moscow is far." That's the local mantra, of a city that feels a little disdain for its long-time bosses seven time zones east. When Yeltsin suggested banning imports of used vehicles from Japan, locals threatened to secede.
6. Wild East. After the Soviet Union collapsed, early business deals were punctuated with shoot outs on the streets (like the popular Hotel Vladivostok parking lot) and a couple recent mayors have been imprisoned for corruption. It's safe for visitors, just don't run for office. 7. Yul & His Barber. Yul was born here into his Swiss family in 1920. I don't know when Yul Brynner first shaved his head, but he could have done so at the lone shop below his family's mansion home at 15 Aleutskaya St, a block north of the train station. It's a barber shop. By the way, the plaque outside his home shows Yul smoking -- not the best decision considering it's what killed him.
8. "Arbat" dacha. The wee ped lane of Fokhina St in the center is a scrappy "Arbat" (Moscow's famous pedestrian shopping street). Not long ago, the city put flowers in its concrete flower beds and some locals pulled them out and planted their own vegetables. Whenever I get a little down, I think of this.
9. Deviant Pyschologists. I met two -- a husband and wife team -- who invited me to coffee, who matter-of-factly noted, "we study deviant behavior and torture." I paid the bill.
10. The Russian "Staten Island Ferry." Booking a bay cruise with travel agents is ridiculous -- you need to have a group to organize one, or pay something like 3500 rubles to sit in an empty boat for a few hours. There's another option: the ferry to Russki Island. The 30-minute ride there is 50 rubles roundtrip -- with open decks and a good look at the harbor.
11. North Korean food. Pyongyang (at ul Verkhneportovaya 68B -- south of the train station on bus 60) segregates its diners into two rooms: one for North Koreans, one for everyone else. (I managed a shot of the NK one, and the tops of the heads of out-of-sight North Korean diners; above.) My waitress had come from North Korea only a month before, spoke some shy Russian and was hesitant to answer any questions (eg "what's good to eat here?"). Very good food, very interesting experience.
12. Disenchanted teen hangout. The enigmatic Hotel Amursky Zaliv is the rare hotel where you enter from its gravel rooftop -- the falling-apart Soviet relic hotel is out of view below, leading to a dated amusement park and pebbly beach. Every day after 3pm or so it fills with teens in black jeans, smoking cigarettes, flirting and looking over the sea.
13. Death metal tips. The flop-haired clerk at the tiny CD store at the west end of ul Svetlanskaya in the center will not like it when you ask about local bands to check out, but he will dutifully pull out a few CDs he likes, including "Masters of Defecation." My biggest regret of all time is not buying it.
14. Gray-haired ladies guarding the Arsenev Regional Museum. You see them all across Russia -- the retiree-aged ladies snoozing in a squeaky-floored art museum hall, making sure precious rip-off paintings or yellowed dicta from the Stalin days aren't seized by foreign vandals. No where are they as nice as here, where you get chatted up, handed photo books that include something you casually mentioned are retrieved, and you're led to cushioned seats to breeze through their photos of dreamy Jules-Verne versions of Vlad's past (see bottom of post). When I paused a sec at my favorite taxidermic exhibit -- of a Siberian tiger and bear interlocked in a violent dance -- one noted my interest and said, "Go ahead" -- glancing behind mischievously -- "take photo." And I did.
15. Secret Lookout with Chatty Azerbaijanis. If you take bus 60 south of the train station four stops (to its penultimate stop) there's a bluff-top park with lovely bay views. There you'll meet two Azerbaijani couples who will be quite interested in your existence. One will ask to photograph them with you, another will shyly wonder, "In America, do they speak French or English?"
16. Antique Automobile Museum. You have to take two cute trams way east of the center to where the smokestack factories spew their blackened glory into the sunny sky to reach this bizarre collection of Soviet vehicles and beat-Detroit propaganda. I liked the M&M-green 1948 GAZ-20 "Pobeda" (Victory) the second-most -- top honors goes to the poster of an acrobat standing atop a moving (Soviet) motorcycle holding a Stalin flag.
17. Naughty Museum Etiquette. Russians frequently do not obey barriers in museums. They step onto exhibits to take photos, which aren't allowed in the museum unless you pay a little photo fee.
18. Russki Island Doctors. A doctor family said "enough" to bureacracy a few years ago and moved out of Vladivostok to an abandoned Tsar-era ammunition store room in a patch of tick-infested woods on this island that was off limits to foreigners even five years ago. I happened by, toured their gardens and incredibly damp quarters (the stove was made from an old safe on its side), ate apple cake. Ever miss the city, I asked? "Are you kidding?" Outside a dog on a leash wanted to eat my throat. The guy who took me brought along a canned gin-and-tonic.
19. Winner Towel Selections. Some travelers complain about old Soviet-era hotels. Nonsense. They're a time-travel trip, for a night (some more comfy than others), into an era of clashing colors, drastic floral designs and very large telephones. Then there's the towels.
20. Central "Tiger Hill." Now coated in condo projects, this central neighborhood once had real tigers, who -- on occasion -- ate people.
21. Speedos without Fear. Vladivostok has a lot of beaches -- the ones in town are dirty, ones near nearby Nakhodka are far nicer, or even the ones on Russki Island just offshore. Sometimes you see this-->
22. Nakhodka sidetrip & grape lessons. Vlad actually isn't as far as you can go by train from Moscow. Press on, if you're a completist, four hours to this port town, which used to be the tail end of the Trans-Siberian during the days that Vladivostok was closed. It's actually a gorgeous setting, with a super information center with English-speaking staff (!) and Filipino sailors dropping by with Russian prostitutes for some karaoke (not quite as slimy as it sounds, perhaps the warm grandmotherly hosts make you feel at ease there).
Elsewhere in town a very drunk guy showed me how to eat grapes.
Twenty years ago, I was a quarter way through my first Eurail check-the-country-off-the-list trip across Europe -- London to Rome in 20 days. I don't regret it, but sometimes I think twice about how I spent that July 14 -- the 200th anniversary of Paris' Bastille Day. I was time-killing a day a few hours north in Bruges, leisurely walking by canals, sitting in quaint parks, getting ice cream in waffle cones from heart-melting blondes with long eyelashes and no apparent knee-jerk distaste for Americans, then boarding a train for Amsterdam, shrugging off Paris for future trips.
A regret? Or just plain dumb?*
Here are a few more that just might qualify for my list of things I might have done differently given a second chance:
1. Not accepting the invitation from the Hungarian film crew to camp at a gulag eight hours north of Magadan, Russia. 2. Living a year-and-a-half in London and taking all my trips (on budget airlines) to Germany and Italy, never seeing things like my namesake's birthplace, Scotland. 3. In 1989, skipping Berlin. 'Two cities in one? Big deal.' A few months later the wall came tumbling down like a John Cougar Mellencamp song.** 4. After James Brown died, there was a huge celebration of JB's life outside the Apollo Theater in Harlem, a 30-minute subway ride away. I watched it on TV. 5. Worn out in Bulgaria, I spent the airline's $200 change fee to fly back one day early. Really? 6. I trusted the 'where you from?' from a grisly guy with a huge fake smile in a Guadalajara bus station. While I answered cheerfully, his pal took a backpack from under my feet behind me. They didn't get much: just my camera, $200 and my passport. 7. Putting my passport in a backpack in Guadalajara. 8. Five years of living in San Francisco = not once going onto the bay. Not Alcatraz, not a ferry to Sausalito, where Chevy Chase lived in the immortal film Foul Play.***
9. On a study trip to Russia in 1992, yelling at the lady tour guide on a night St Petersburg bus tour to 'put the Stones tape in' after my unsuccessful debut with vodka. (I was successful getting the Stones tape in though.) Sorry Natasha! 10. Speaking of St Petersburg, I spent six weeks there. Time spent in the Hermitage? About 45 minutes. 11. In other museum underachievements, after 11 years or so living in New York City, total time in the Met? About 80 minutes. 12. Never going to Laos. 13. Or Cuba. 14. After driving purposely way out of my way to see Manitoba, spending only four wakeful hours in Winnipeg. (Though managing to see Louis Riel's grave -- and eat some bad Italian food.) 15. Not getting a photo with the Detroit Red Wings staying in the same hotel in Pittsburgh (while competing for the Stanley Cup) in June 2009. 16. Not spending longer than 10 minutes at a sprawling gypsy horse fair outside Odorheiu Secuiesc, Romania. 17. Spending a week in Punjab, India, and visited the Sikh's Golden Palace in Armitsar -- a short bus ride from Lahore, but never even considering going crossing into Pakistan. May not have that chance again. 18. Not going up the CN Tower in Toronto because it IS too expensive (from C$22). (See it apparently get hit by a rebuking lightning a couple times, following.)
19. Eating one too many street barbecue beef skewers on a stick in Yangon, and spending two days vomiting. 20. Turning down the offer to stay a night on a floating house outside Chau Doc, Vietnam. 21. Driving into a thunderstorm during a tornado warning because I really didn't want to wait another day for my first glimpse of Nebraska. Had plenty of time to mull that one over, parked under a dentist's car park down-wind, while watching half the town pouring into a Wal Mart to huddle in sales sections away from windows. 22. Letting the film development shop in Tulsa throw away my photos from a trip to Rome after I complained (rightfully) that they didn't do a good job. 23. Turning down an invitation to hang with Civil War re-enactors camping by a basketball court at a forgotten battle event in southeastern Iowa. (See photo at top of post of completely different re-enactment.) 24. Skipping Mesa Verde during a five-day trip to Durango, Colorado. 25. Going whale-watching on an August trip to touristy Bar Harbor, Maine. Didn't see a minnow. 26. Going to Bar Harbor, Maine -- at least in August. 27. Obeying my parents who wouldn't let me, at age 16, to drive on a school night nine hours to Memphis with a free backstage pass for a REM show. (On the Fablestour!) 28. Not traveling more in Eastern Europe from 1989 to 1992, especially. 29. Only driving through Albuquerque. (At least AC/DC's 'TNT' was on the radio.) 30. Summer 1991: Too much time in Vienna, not enough time in Czechoslovakia. 31. Having laundry done in places like Khabarovsk, Russia, where dry-cleaning-prices-plus cost more than buying new clothes. 32. Driving across Western Kansas and skipping Mt Sunflower. Children, don't do what I've done!
33. Russia 1991 study trip: throwing vegetables at trams from our hotel window, tossing penny soccer games out of skyscrapers. Mostly it was Pete the minor league baseball player's fault. 34. Not keeping much of a journal while living 18 months in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, in the mid '90s. 35. Not spending the night, or more time, much much more time, in Kavarna, Bulgaria - the heavy metal capital of the world. 36. Another Bulgaria burp (there are many): Not climbing through the smashed ground-level windows of this building to see the towering commie mosaics inside: Admittedly the place, with its front steps smeared in a LOT of cow dung, freaked me out.
37. Not going to Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia, when I had a chance in 1991, a few months before the war broke out. 38. Never going to Spain or Ireland, particularly when they were cheap. 39. After my trip, only once calling the lovely Grewals, the Sikh family who hosted a week-long stay in Chandigargh, India in 1997. Then losing their contact info. 40. Leaving my passport in my $8 room in Valladolid, Mexico, having to get off the bus on the highway, hitch-hike back to retrieve it. 41. Losing my photograph with Chris Jagger -- brother of Mick -- who wore a Tibetan hat after a regrettably bad cajun gig. (Watching live cajun/zydeco music by unfamous British brothers of famous British rock stars is another huge regret of mine. I can't seem to help myself.) 42. Losing my photographs of a great great day riding on the back of a local's bike and getting an airbrushed sign made in Batambang, Cambodia. 43. Staying with a Mexico City family in 1990, I bought some fake feces at Chapultepec and played a trick on kids way too young for the humor (maybe two years old?). Lesson: Save the fake feces for pranks back home. 44. A few hours to spare in touristy Deadwood, South Dakota with my dad, talked about dressing up as 19th-century gold prospectors for a hokey photo, but not doing it. This is easily outweighed by having my only just-dad-and-me trip and hearing his unguarded 'oh!' at first glimpse of Mt Rushmore, less than a year before he died. But I do have a photo with him at the taco truck outside Lonely Planet's Oakland offices: 45. On a two-date 'Indiana tour' (both in Greencastle) while playing guitar for the 'parted hair hardcore' band Tall Tales in college, we couldn't convince Mitch to call in sick and stop in at Six Flags Mid America in St Louis. Big-time regret, here. 46. Wetting my pants at my debut visit of Tulsa's legendary Woodland Hills Mall. Not sure if it was excitement or just plain nerves. Either way, my baseball uniform? Soaked from the waist down. 47. Not sending more post cards.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - * Actually I think skipping a huge event like that isn't always a bad idea. Missing a walled-up Berlin is another matter. ** Please make the time to rewatch the John Cougar Mellencamp video to help me answer two key questions: At 2:32 mark is that really him sliding down tall ladder? And, at 2:48 mark, is that Mellencamper doing the moonwalk? *** Anyone remember when Chevy Chase was funny? Vacation is to blame for the decline. It's good, but didn't play to his strengths. In Vacation, Chevy was clumsy and dumb. He's at his best, particularly in Fletch, when he's clumsy and smart. Probably his agent's fault.
I've gone a few miles over the years. And here are 44 little thingsabout travel I picked up on the way.
1. Wash your hands before you sleep, unless you don't mind it if cute rats lick your fingers clean. 2. When kindness comes from strangers, accept it. If you don't know if they expect a tip, you can offer one -- but don't insist when/if they refuse.
3. Animals will probably attack you if you try to give a Snickers to them. 4. It's wise to remember your passport. And don't pack it in a checked-in suitcase like Louisianan Trey Williams did going to that study-abroad program to St Petersburg during that 'first summer of Russia' (1992). 5. Try to accept all invitations -- you really should have time for that cup of tea the silver-haired couple offer you from the balcony in their summer home in Zakopane, or go camping with that Hungarian film crew at a Russian gulag. 6. Car passengers see less than bikers, bikers see less than walkers, walkers see less than stoppers -- ie those who stop and watch. 7. It's OK to have a Coke without ice. 8. It's OK to have beer with ice. 9. It's OK to use your hands to eat. 10. You don't HAVE to eat the larvae or crickets though. 11. Don't use middle finger to beckon locals, or indicate they're tops. 12. Ownership of stuff varies where you go. So when the Indian guy on the overnight bus from Udaipur to Delhi borrows your iPod without really asking, don't get mad, because when you're shivering later on he'll instinctively lend you half his blanket. 13. People without much education abroad often seem to be better educated than a lot of people back home. 14. Always shop for locally made stationary, and buy it when you see it -- it's rarer to find these days. 15. Pack quick-drying, if ugly, clothes but at least one sorda nice shirt so you can see the Budapest opera like I didn't. 16. It's OK to just want a damn hamburger or watch Pretty Woman on channel 31. 17. It's OK to get frustrated or mad sometimes, just try to keep it to yourself as much as you can. 18. No, you don't have to take a group tour, or have advance reservations. But it doesn't automatically make you a bad traveler if you do. 19. Too much hassle where you are? Look around. If you are in the majority -- as foreign traveler -- walk two blocks to another part of town, and get out of that tourist ghetto you're probably in. 20. It's OK to have an opinion of a place, but don't think you 'know' a place after spending two/15/306 days there. 21. Try a couple days without the camera or email. 22. Museums can be great, but are overrated as day-filler attractions. 23. Seeing movies and sports in foreign countries are underrated day-filler attractions. Like the time topless Guatemalan guys hugged me at a Mother's Day b-league soccer game in Xela as they tossed fireworks through the chain fence to police decked up like Storm Troopers. 24. It's OK to be uncomfortable, just be honest if something isn't right for you. 25. Italy is the Citizen Kane of the travel world. It gets all the accolades, and deserves them. 26. You can get as much out of a trip to Western Kansas as Laos. If you try. 27. Always go to visitors centers. Sometimes they give free cookies or popcorn, and the flirty staff sometimes invite you to go out and get drunk (nothing more), as they do in Bogotá. 28. Socks-with-sandals is underrated. 29. Buy a hat. Always buy a locally made hat. 30. Don't put all your expenses in one place -- hotel, hotel restaurant, hotel tours, hotel souvenirs etc -- try to spread out your money for maximum positive effect. 31. Agree on a price before you close the door with any taxi -- that is, if they have a door. 32. Russians look mean, but down deep they're softies that will shame you with their warmth, feed your with their home-grown tomatoes, then intoxicate you with their suddenly produced frosted bottle of vodka. 33. Language-learning vacations -- with homestays and eating beans for supper, particularly in secondary towns off the tourist radar -- is one of the best things you can do abroad.
34. Write a post card. Or am I the only one who feels sorry for post card lobbyists in these digital days? [See the best post card of all time, above.] 35. At small, out-of-the-way museums, ask if the curator will show you around. Sometimes they are and are thrilled to show off the dinosaur bones they personally dug up. 36. Seek out the passionate. Those who love what they do -- making belts, writing poems, pumping gas -- can make you appreciate things you didn't think you were interested in. 37. Take public transit -- a tram (I LOVE trams), subway, ox cart -- at least once, even if you don't need to get where it's going. So few Americans EVER take one, it's sad. 38. Try to take pictures of things that might change: street signs, people's shoes, homemade sandwich ads, key-maker tools, overly bright fashion, heavy metal haircuts, grandmothers selling a single toothbrush outside a Moscow subway station after the USSR fell. Old churches and statues rarely change much, some of that other stuff maybe gone tomorrow. 39. Tip appropriate to local custom. 40. Returns trips to a place are OK, but try not to limit yourself to your next three trips to Las Vegas 12, 13 and 14. 41. Squat toilets are better than sit-down toilets. But it really is still best keeping toilets and showers segregated. 42. Always give one day to a trip to an 'up for grabs' experience -- a rented car to get from A to B, with random stops at unplanned places. You will likely remember it longer than the Met. 43. The tacos might be better back home but please don't say it for all to hear in Cancún. 44. Travelling alone is something everyone should do at least once.
Yakutsk is the coldest city in the world. In winter, temperatures can fall to 70-below Farenheit. Locals (split evenly between Sakha and Russians) must keep cars running all day -- or in heated garages -- or their motors freeze up till May. It stands on stilts, to protect itself from the thaws and freezes of the cruel permafrost below. Yet when I returned last June to update the Lonely Planet Russia guidebook, I got heat exhaustion in temperatures nearing 100 degrees.
A place that cold and that hot? That's just not fair.
It's an unusual place. About 30 hours by rough road from the nearest train deep in Russia's Far East, most fly to the city of 200,000 as I did. Here you see Lenin statues -- he named himself for the Lena River flowing northward here -- beside Soviet-era housing and colorful buildings designed to look like nearby rock formations. Unlike much of the region, it's booming -- largely to the diamonds and gold found in the enormous 'Sakha Republic.' There's mammoth bones to see, cossack-style forts to mingle with sled dogs, Christmas ornaments made of real reindeer, and a permafrost institute that regulary gets phone calls from global warming journalists.
I came in June, as I did in 2005, to the see the amazing all-night Ysyakh festival, a stunning display of traditional costumes and dance. Last time, the Yakut Communist Party ushered me into their teepee-like structure to eat horse meat and 'admire' their embroidered Stalin pillow. Earlier I watched a re-creation of a WWII battle with children being saved by men in traditional costumes on horseback. A local told me, 'Those guys in black are Germans.' After the battle I joined hands in a coiled dance of the couple thousand and tried to follow along with the dancing and chanting. I've not seen its equal anywhere.
I recorded the footage above last year, including the soundtrack of a Jews harp concert replicating a horse.
