Category Archives: Travel

Astana, Kazakhstan

Backpacking, Kazakhstan, Travel, , , , ,

2/17 – It is minus 10 degrees F when we get off the train.  Oh my it is cold!  We stay in the station to buy the tickets for the next leg of our journey.  It’s about 8am by the time we exit the train station, and still pitch dark.  We know that the Hotel Aka is not far from the station, and decide to walk it.  It is snowing, and the streets are covered with snow and ice. Taking baby steps to avoid slipping on the ice, I go down anyway like a ton of bricks with my backpack on.  Left knee, right shoulder.  The air is knocked out of me, and my arm really hurts – I think maybe something is broken.  Jim hauls me up, shoulders my pack as well as his own, and we keep walking, while I make little whimpering sounds.  We stop to ask directions several times, but no one can point out our hotel.  We finally go into the lobby of another hotel and ask.  The lady says we passed it.  I sit down and can walk no further.  Jim asks the lady to call us a taxi, which then takes us back up the street to our hotel, which we had passed in the dark (the entrance was not on the main road, and the hotel name was not displayed, so we walked right by).  I can’t wait until we get back to a country where we can use the GPS on the phone!  Don’t know how people ever navigated without it.

We get up to our room, and Jim pulls up Google Translate to figure out how to say ‘my wife needs a doctor’ in Russian.  I tell him I’m not going anywhere (after two full days on the train) until I’ve had a hot shower.  The shower enables me to assess the damage – knee scraped and swollen, and shoulder painful, but I can move everything.  I don’t think anything is broken, and ask for some ibuprofen and a day of rest.  It continues to snow all day – a good day to stay inside.

2/18 – This morning it is minus 20 degrees!  Jim thinks I must be reading Celsius instead of Fahrenheit.  Nope  – in Celsius it’s minus 29!!  I am feeling better today after a good sleep and ibuprofen every four hours.  My upper arm is one big bruise, and I don’t have range of motion, but it feels like a soft tissue injury, and I just need to give it some time to heal.  Today the sun is out, and it is the day we had earmarked for walking around the city to see all the monuments, but no way am I walking on any more ice!

We have breakfast at the hotel, and lunch at a cafeteria next door where we can point to food instead of trying to interpret a Russian menu.  It is definitely not high cuisine. After lunch we put on our long underwear, bundle up, and Jim asks for a taxi.  We travel to the other side of town, where there are lots of skyscrapers, and a long mall like in Washington D.C., with monuments on both sides. Astana became a capital city in 1997. The word Astana means capital. Most of these buildings have been erected within the last 10 years!

Our first stop is the Palace of Peace and Accord, a conference center built in 2010 to foster communication and peace among religions.  It is shaped like a pyramid, and is supposed to have a stunning room at the top.  image

The taxi drops us off in front, but it has a big promenade drive, and by the time we walk up to the door my mouth is frozen and tears are sprouting in my eyes.  So cold!  And windy!  image

I reach the door first and pull on the handle – locked!  I can see people inside, and bang on the door.  A security guard opens the lock and begrudgingly lets us in.  He motions us over to two young women behind the counter, who tell us in very precise English that the elevators in the building are not working, for an indefinite period, so no tours are being given.  Perhaps we can return next month?  Jim and I give each other the “you’ve got to be kidding” look. We ask if there are stairs we can walk up, but are told no. We ask if we can at least look around the ground floor, and we’re told we could.

The conference center:
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The first floor lobby:image

There is a big staircase, and we start to walk up, when an older, supervisory looking woman stops us and says we can’t proceed without a guide. We say we were told we could walk around. She leaves, and suddenly the two young women from the front desk are marching up the steps – they are now our guides!

They show us the library on the second floor.image

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On the third floor are Egyptian artifact replicas.

Also, a display of native costumes, representing the 106 ethnicities of Kazakhstan:

That’s as far as we got. Here is a window with doves on the staircase:image

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The top of the pyramid is supposed to be breathtaking with these doves on the glass, but we won’t get to see it today.

We thank the young women and ask them to call us a taxi so we can visit the Bayterek. One of the girls tells us it is not too far – we can walk. I say today is much too cold for walking, but they laugh – this is normal weather here – they don’t think it’s cold until it gets to 50 below!

The Bayterek Tower was built in 1997, and represents the folktale in which the bird of happiness lays a golden egg in the branches of a poplar tree.image

We entered on the ground floor and purchased tickets to ride the elevator up to the observation deck. Here we had a 360 view of the city through tinted glass.image

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Beyond the office buildings known as the Golden Beer Cans, you can see the Pyramid we visited earlier.
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There were lots of visitors here, lining up to place their palm in the president’s golden handprint, and snap pix of the views. image

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We hailed another taxi to take us back to the hotel – enough excitement and cold for one day! These are some other notable buildings seen through the cab windows. The very large Hazrat Sultan mosque:image

The Palace of Creativity (looks like a dog bowl):image

Khan Shatyr, the world’s largest shopping mall built inside an inflatable tent:image

Quite the day!

Aktau to Astana, Kazakhstan

Backpacking, Kazakhstan, Travel, , , ,

2/13 – We stayed only one night at the lovely but high-priced Hotel Harat. After purchasing our train tickets and finding that the train only runs on odd numbered days, we looked for another hotel that was more reasonably priced, so we can settle in for two more nights. We are very pleased with the Silk Way Hotel, which actually offers better amenities, and a wonderful breakfast.

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The currency here is the tenge, and one tenge is equivalent to five cents in US dollars. This has the unfortunate result of making everything sound really expensive while you are trying to work the math – our new hotel costs 14,000 tenge a night, which works out to be about $75.00. Still too expensive, but Kazakhstan is an expensive country, thanks to uranium, oil and gas wealth.

Unlike the wide avenues and glittering buildings of Baku, we don’t see the wealth here. Buildings are flaking and haphazardly painted, streets are rutted, sidewalks broken or just dirt paths. Even the 4 star Hotel Aktau, commanding $400.00 a night, looks on the outside like it has seen better days. We find this strange, as Aktau was only built 40 years ago. Maybe the harsh climate?imageimage

This is literally the city “where the streets have no name”. The buildings are numbered and the areas referred to as micro-districts. Google Maps was confused, and so were we…

That said, the people we met were very nice. A young man encountered us searching in vain for an ATM that would accept our debit card, and walked us to the main street where we found one. An older man tried to direct us to the travel agency without a word of English. Jim had written down several phrases in Kazakh, which turned out to be of no use, as folks here speak Russian. This is the first country where many of the people look Asian, probably a politically incorrect thing to say. 50% of the people here are Kazakh, and 30% are Russian.

The president wants to change the name of the country to Kazakh Eli, as he doesn’t want to be associated with the other, poorer “stans”. He also wants to reintroduce Kazakh as a national language. He moved the capital from Almaty, near Uzbekistan, to Astana, in the middle of the country, a few years ago, and built lots of monuments to attract tourists. He sounds like a guy who gets things done (and he was elected with 95% of the vote)!

2/15 – got up early Sunday morning for the taxi ride to the train station, which is about 12 miles north of town. We have second class tickets for the sleeper to Astana, which will take two full days to arrive. Here is our sunrise.

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The train sleeps four to a cabin, but we are the only ones in our cabin so far. We meet Timon, a full-contact fighter from Azerbaijan, who is on his way to Astana with his team mates for a wrestling match. He showed us the scar on his nose, and helped us practice our Russian phrases.image

These were the views we had today. Flat desert:image

Desert with camels:image

Desert with mountains:image

We stopped occasionally, and more folks got on. image

The scenery showed that it was getting colder as we rode northeast.image

We saw women selling food on the siding right outside the train – we weren’t sure what food options would be available, so we brought our own fruit, water and canned tuna. And cookies. Maybe tomorrow we’ll hop off and see what the women are selling. The train attendant came by once selling socks, and again selling whole smoked fish. Pee Eww!

At 7:30pm we were joined by two young men who had tickets to the top bunks. They had no English, and heaven knows we don’t have enough Russian for a conversation. I hope they don’t snore. I can’t help remembering back in Turkey, where they wouldn’t sell me an empty bunk because there was a man in the section. Now here I am with three men!image

2/16 – the view out the window is just as flat, but now it’s white… I wonder how cold it is out there? imageimage

It’s still 85 in here – slept all night without even a sheet, never mind the thick woolen blankets we were given. Turns out Jim was the only snorer, so I slept pretty well. More people coming down the aisle today, selling clothing and trinkets. The word has gotten out that we are Americans, and several have stopped in to acknowledge that fact. Americans? they say. Da, we say. That’s about it!

Today Jim jumped off the train at lunchtime, and came back with a plastic bag of hot stew – potatoes and what is probably horse meat – definitely not beef or lamb. They eat both horse and camel here…image

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At mid afternoon a Mongolian-looking man came into our cabin and introduced himself as Norman. He said it made his heart happy to see Americans here. He is from Uzbekistan, and worked for 10 years at a gold company. It’s the longest conversation we’ve had all week!

By supper time our cabin-mates were packing up. They will be getting off at the next stop, so we’ll have our little cabin to ourselves tonight.

2/17 – the loudspeaker woke us at 5am – the train is due in to Astana at 6:10, and I guess its going to be on time!image

Ferry from Baku, Azerbaijan to Aktau, Kazakhstan

Azerbaijan, Backpacking, Kazakhstan, Travel, , , , , ,

2/10 – Baku, Azerbaijan is on the western shore of the Caspian Sea. If we are going overland to China, our options are to go north through Russia (a visa we do not have), south through Iran (not an option at all for Americans without an invitation), or across the Caspian Sea by boat. Although there are no scheduled passenger ships, we read about other travelers who were successful in securing passage on one of the commercial ferries that carry goods from Baku to either Aktau in Kazakhstan, or Turkembashi in Turkmenistan. Since September 2014, Kazakhstan does not require Americans to apply for a visa, so Aktau is our goal. We are grateful for the knowledge we gained from other bloggers, so we set out our experience here for the possible benefit of future travelers. It is February 10, 2015.

Waiting for a ferry that takes passengers and is going where you want to go can take up to 10 days, depending on weather and commerce. Our Azerbaijan visa is only valid for 10 days, so we decided we would try to book ferry passage for 5 days, and if a ferry is not scheduled, we would book a flight to Kazakhstan instead. We downloaded an iPad app called Marine Traffic (iOS $3.99) that showed us which ships were in the area of Baku. We got a list of four ship names from another blog, and could see that two of them (Mercuri I and Professor Gul) were near Baku, although we did not know their destinations. We thought our chances were pretty good. We paid for one night at our hotel (the Guest House Inn Hotel, very nice, right near the train station) and asked if we could extend our booking day by day as needed. The hotel had rooms available, and was fine with this arrangement.

From another blog, we knew that the only person in the Baku ferry ticket office who speaks any English is Vika, and her mobile number is 99 455 266 5354. As soon as we arrived at our hotel, we asked Emil at reception to call Vika on his mobile. (Our phone plan does not extend to this country.) It was about 10am. Vika said she did not have a boat, but would make some inquiries, and told us to call back at 2pm. This was consistent with the experience of other bloggers.

We had lunch and did some sightseeing, and asked Emil to call again. This time Vika said she had a boat going to Aktau, but it did not have a load. She told us to call again at 4pm. At 4 she was still waiting for information, and told us to call at 6pm. This time she did not pick up, and we thought she might have gone home for the evening.

Jim used the communal kitchen at the hotel to fix us a lovely supper. We set out to get supplies for tomorrow’s breakfast, and found a big supermarket at the 28 shopping mall right down the street. When we returned, the young man at the reception desk told us that Vika had called at 7:30pm, and said we were to come immediately to the ticket office to purchase tickets for a ship that was leaving tomorrow morning. The tickets were $110.00 each.

Jim ran out to the ATM, but, unlike the machine we had used previously, this one did not offer an option for US dollars. We remembered from reading other travelers’ blogs that the payment had to be in dollars, so we ran back to the hotel and asked where the nearest money exchange was. A young man hanging around the lobby was instructed to take us there – it was only a block away.

We returned with our dollars, and asked for a taxi to the ticket office. The young man at the desk offered to drive us there for 15 manat ($20), and we gratefully accepted his offer, as we had read that the ticket office was difficult to find. He drove us a half hour east to a dark, industrial area, which was where the ticket office used to be. It was no longer there. He called on his mobile, drove some more, asked directions from cabbies and pedestrians, and by 9pm he delivered us to a tiny, unmarked office in a different dark industrial area. Sorry, fellow bloggers, I couldn’t give directions if my life depended on it.

Twenty minutes later, we had two handwritten tickets for the Balaken, which the ticket lady said was a new boat. There were others there who were NOT paying in US dollars, but the lady requested our payment in dollars. I asked what time we had to be at the ship for tomorrow’s departure. Through our young man as interpreter, she said the departure wasn’t tomorrow, it was midnight TONIGHT! We were to get our belongings and report right to the ship.

Our young man told us not to panic – there was plenty of time. He returned us to the hotel, where we packed up our stuff and refilled our canteens. We had read that some ships provided meals and others did not, and we had no idea if ours would. We looked at our small accumulation of fruit, peanuts and chocolate bars, and decided it would just have to do for the 18 hour ride. The man at reception called a taxi (for 40 manat – $55.00) to take us to the port and assured us that the driver knew just where we were going. Good news that, as we had no idea!

The taxi came at 11pm, and drove west, in the opposite direction from the ticket office. After 45 minutes of highway speed driving, the driver asked if we had tickets and were going to the Airport. No airport! Ship! Boat! Ferry! Port! He didn’t understand and called back to our hotel on his mobile. Ok, he said. Everything ok. He’d said airport, but he meant port. Really? Where the heck were we going? Baku was far behind us, and we just kept driving. In another 20 minutes, we arrived at a deserted parking lot, at the end of which was a Passport Control booth with a lone Customs agent in a fur hat. We could see no ships, but at least we couldn’t see any planes… If the boat was really leaving at midnight, we had missed it, but we read that passengers had to be on board hours before the ship left the dock, so we hoped we were still okay.

We had our pictures taken, and passports and Azerbaijan visas stamped, then were told to walk to our ferry. Where? That way. We walked into the night and, around the bend, we saw lights! Not one ship, but two! We sprinted toward the closest one (it was very cold), passing a family with a little girl, who were having trouble managing all their luggage. Aktau? we said, indicating that we would help them carry some parcels, but our offer was refused.

The ships were well lit, but there was no one in sight. We walked up to the first one, looking for a way on. A man came out, looked at our tickets, and waved us over to the second ship. This time a man showed us up a ladder (I forget what you are supposed to call a ladder on a ship) then indicated a door (hatch?) way down at the other end of the ship. We walked on the slippery, wet deck, skirting holes that you could easily fall into. Be careful! This ain’t Disneyland!

Another man met us at the door, and took our tickets and passports. He motioned us to a common room where there were couches, and a man watching the Transformer movie on TV, poorly dubbed in Russian. In a few minutes, he motioned us to follow him down the corridor (I’m sure that has a special name too…) and showed us our cabin, complete with two bunks, a private bath with a western toilet (yay!) a hose-shower, and a key. Other blogs told of shared dorms, no privacy and squatty toilets, so we were very happy. The bunks had a blanket and pillow, but no sheets, which we had also heard about. Others had used their sleeping bags, rather than lie on dirty bunks, but we sent our bags home months ago, so were contemplating sleeping in our clothes. Just then the door opened, and we met Lydia, who gave us each two sheets and a pillowcase. Heaven! We made up our bunks, and by 1am, we were asleep.image

(Bring your own towel and toilet paper – not provided)

We awoke throughout the night to the sounds of cranes, chains and loud clanking noises, as the ship was loaded. When we got up at 8am, the ship was not moving. We walked back up the corridor, and one of the crew motioned us into the mess (otherwise known as the dining room) where Lydia handed us a cup of tea, three slices of pink sausage, some white cheese and some margarine, and motioned toward a basket of bread. Well, that answered the meal question – we would be fed!image

The ship got under way at about 10am. We went up on deck and took some pix. Here are some of the cargo containers, and our lifeboats.

We couldn’t see the outside of our own ship, so here is the Mercuri I, next door.image

It was windy and chilly. We went back to our room to read and blog. There were outlets by each bed to charge our iPads. At 12:15, Lydia opened the door and pointed at her watch sternly. If we didn’t get a move on, we were going to miss lunch! At lunch we met our fellow passengers – the family with the luggage issues, and another young man.
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Lydia, making sure Jim eats all his soup!

The ship has 6 guest rooms with two bunks each, so it was only half booked. There was a sign posted that said there were 22 crew, but we only saw 3 or 4. Lunch consisted of a chicken drumstick, spaghetti noodles, pickled cabbage and bread. There was also bright green soda, flavored with tarragon and anise – a first for me!image

We read and napped the afternoon away. Supper wasn’t until 8:30pm – Lydia wanted to make sure we were hungry – and consisted of tepid soup, the other drumstick, sweet pickles and two fried eggs. More tarragon soda and bread. We had access to tea at every meal, but no water, so we were glad we had filled our canteens. We learned the names of some of our fellow travelers – the mom was Christina, the girl, Layla, the young man, Hussain. They had no English, and we had no Russian, so that was the extent of the conversation.
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At 8 the next morning we heard a great cranking, and assumed the anchor was being lowered. Jim went up on deck, and land was visible, although still far away. image

The captain indicated “3” – three hours? Three ships ahead of us? We don’t know, but time will tell. 22 hours since we started moving. Breakfast was bread and white cheese, and a cup of sour cream. Made me wish for potato chips!

12:30 saw a review of our previous meals as lunch – the pink sausage and spaghetti noodles are now in the soup, the eggs and potatoes scrambled, the drumstick, the bread, the tarragon soda. I wonder how much longer we’ll be here?image

By 5:30pm the ship started up again, and we moved into port. We set our watches two hours ahead to be in sync with local time. I guess there were three ships ahead of us. Customs officials came on board and we filled out Kazakhstan declaration forms. By 7:30pm we left the ship, 43 hours since we boarded, and were shuttled to the passport control building to have our pictures taken again. Then we stepped out into the Kazakhstan night.

There were a few cars in the parking lot, but no taxis. This is not a place for tourists. We’d read about a possible bus into town, but the Customs guy said ‘nyet’ to that. We walked back to the customs area to see if someone could call us a taxi (our phone plan doesn’t work in Kazakhstan either). A handsome security guard, looking like the All American Boy, was just leaving, and offered us a ride into town. Nice Person of Kazakhstan!

He had a few words of English, and we asked him to take us to a cheap hotel. He understood the hotel part. He dropped us at a very nice place that charged $150 a night. When we expressed dismay, the reception clerk referred us to the Hotel Rahat, just down the street, and we walked there. Full service, very nice, $91 a night (still too high for our budget, but it was too late to go further).image

In the morning we found the travel agency right next to the Hotel Aktau (the huge hotel right on the waterfront – be careful, Google Maps took us to the wrong one), and purchased our train tickets to Astana. image

This train only runs on odd-numbered days, and departs at 8:25am local time, and I believe also in the afternoon. Be careful again, as the time printed on the tickets is Astana time, one hour ahead. It takes two days to get to Astana, and there are no sleeper cars or food service. Won’t this be fun?image

Tbilisi, Georgia to Baku, Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan, Backpacking, Georgia, Travel, , , ,

2/9 – What do you do when you have an hour to wait in the station before your train arrives? You get a haircut, of course! I’ve been needing a trim for quite some time, but never had luck finding a women’s hair cutter in Turkey (there are barbers for men on every corner). With zero vocabulary in Georgian, I managed to communicate what I wanted, and my sassy stylist took it from there. Nice Person of Georgia!

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Our sleeper train was sort of down-in-the-heels, yet was the most expensive ticket we’ve purchased.

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I sure hope an accident does not appear!

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We left at 5:30pm, rode for about an hour, then stopped for two hours to clear all the passengers through Customs – once on the Georgian side, then again over the border with Azerbaijan. That left us the rest of the night to make up our bunks and lie around in our little cabin. There was no dining car, and no snacks or anything for purchase. The cabin had no thermostat, and, true to our recent experience, the heat was set on 85F, so we had to keep opening the door to cool off. We drank most of our water, and wished we had more, but fell asleep eventually.

The train arrived in Baku right on time at 9:20 the next morning. Here is our sunrise through the train’s dirty window.

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Coming in, the land was flat, featureless and brown.

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However, once we arrived in the city, it was a different story. Lots of wealth here, courtesy of the oil industry.

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There were designer boutiques everywhere – Dior, Gucci, Armani, and plenty of others.. Cars were bigger, newer and fancier than those we’ve seen in a while. Here is the shopping mall.

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And here, believe it or not, is the KFC!

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We booked at the Guest House Inn Hotel, and walked up and down the street, but couldn’t find it. A nice young man stopped to help us, called the hotel, got directions (it was on a court behind the street) and walked us there. Nice Person of Azerbaijan!

We walked to the Old City, where we found the Maiden Tower, one of the few remaining medieval buildings in the city.

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There are several myths regarding the origins of the tower – it may have been built by sun worshipers (the sun shines directly through the portals on the Equinoxes), as a celestial observatory, a defensive fort, or a gift for a beautiful princess (hence the name). Here are the views from the top.

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We planned to spend five days here, trying to book passage on a commercial ferry to Kazakhstan. To our great surprise, we got a call on our very first afternoon, and we’re on the ship by midnight. We didn’t even get to sleep in our lovely room at the Guest House Inn Hotel!

See the next post for details.

A Day in Tbilisi

Georgia, Travel, ,

2/8 – How you know you are in a post-Soviet country:
1. Buy an apple
2. Wash off the apple in the hotel sink
3. Drop the slippery apple into the sink
4. Observe the result

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They just don’t make sinks like they used to!

Today we walked down Rustaveli Avenue, the main avenue in our part of town, to see what we could see. image

The streets are wide, and the drivers aggressive, like New Yorkers, leaning on their horns. Pedestrians aren’t permitted to cross the street, but use pedestrian underpasses filled with small shops and panhandlers. There are more old women begging than we’ve seen in a while. The souvenir market is set up daily on the wide steps of one of the ornate but deserted buildings, and includes artisans working on new paintings as they sell their wares.

We hear western music, in English, and see that there is an affinity for American things here.

The buses have seen better days.image

There are staid, old buildings, amid flashy new hotels and casinos. Casinos seem to be a big thing here. We looked into one, but they took my camera, (as well as inspecting my eyeglasses for hidden gadgets!), so no pix.

Some statues and wall art:

The golden statue is St. George and the Dragon. He is very popular with the Greek Orthodox.

We stop at a Greek Orthodox Church.

We walked by the museums of modern art, archeology and Georgian history, but don’t go in. I’m not sure I’m up for this exhibit.image

We have lunch at a cafe advertising authentic Georgian food. We figure we better have some, as we will only be here one more day! Beef stew, a warm corn pie (a big hush puppy), cold spinach balls, and cold eggplant, decorated with pomegranate seeds. Very tasty. image

Tomorrow we will return to the train station for an overnight sleeper to Baku, Azerbaijan. From there we will determine if it is possible to book passage on a commercial ferry to Kazakhstan. We’ve read many blogs about the complexities of this leg of the journey, and will remain flexible if it turns out that it can’t be arranged in the 10 days permitted on our Azerbaijan visa. The main focus is to get to China before the end of February. Stay tuned!

Batumi to Tbilisi, Georgia

Backpacking, Georgia, Travel, ,

Well, the Ukraine girls really knock me out
They leave the west behind
The Moscow girls make me sing and shout
And Georgia’s always on my my my my my my my my my mind

2/7 – another train ride day. We left our lovely room at My Warm Guest House in Batumi, and took a taxi back to the train station. At 7:30 it was still pitch dark, and the waterfront was lit up prettily. Lots of casinos.

The 8:05 train to Tbilisi was modern and spacious. We sat in first class, as the tickets were only $2.00 more than coach. I was struck to see that the conductor checking tickets was a female – the whole time we were in Türkiye, it was very unusual to see women in any role other than mother or grandmother, shopping or minding children.image

Here’s our sunrise from the train window.image

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At one station, we could look right in a barbershop window. I like how the barbers wear white coats like doctors.image

The scenery rolled by.image

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The only remarkable feature of the ride was the number of liquor bottles in open use so early in the morning. Here’s a sign that captures the sentiment.image

We arrived in Tbilisi by 2pm. This is a big, spread-out city, and our hotel is several miles from the train station. We asked at the Information desk,and was told that the taxi ride shouldn’t cost more than 5 lari ($2.50). We got into a cab, and the driver said it would be 20 lari. We got back out, and he agreed to 10, but wouldn’t agree to 5. The next cab had no problem with 5. We were at our hotel in 15 minutes. Here is an interesting statue on the corner of our street.image

Tomorrow, we will explore.

Erzurum to Hopa, Türkiye to Batumi, Georgia

Backpacking, Georgia, Travel, Turkey, , ,

2/6 – Got up early this morning to catch a bus – it is 3 degrees F! That’s mighty cold for a southern belle like me… We bought tickets on the 7:30am bus to Hopa, Türkiye, the last town before the Georgian border.

Based on our experience with Turkish buses, we did not wear our long johns despite the cold, as buses usually have the heat cranked up to 80. Just our luck, this bus had no heater! We sat and shivered for the first hour, until the sun started to warm things up. Of greater concern was the driver, who, without a defroster, kept splashing lemon cologne on the windshield and rubbing a little circle to see out of!

Once the windows cleared, we were treated to some great mountain scenery, reminiscent of Nevada or Arizona.

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We also got to see some of the strange sandstone formations for which Cappadocia is famous.

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We rode for a while along the river.

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We arrived in Hopa by 12:30, and took a cab to the border, where Türkiye bade us farewell.

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And Georgia welcomed us in!

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As we waited to get through passport control, I noticed that these folks don’t adhere to the western concept of orderly queuing – there was a knot of people in front of each border inspector, and they jostled for position, trying to cut in front of others without making eye contact. You know this New Yorker wasn’t having any of that! Today was good practice as we move into Asia.

I was struck with the things people were carrying over the border – big bottles of laundry detergent and all sorts of household goods in plastic bags. Is Türkiye that much more prosperous than Georgia?

A half hour minibus ride got us to Batumi, where the weather is 65 and sunny. Hallelujah! We can put away the long johns for a while! A former Soviet city, Batumi looks like it is gearing up to be a Black Sea beach destination. Lots of new construction on the waterfront.

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When we checked our iPads, we discovered we’d lost two hours of time instead of the one we expected when we crossed the border. We are now 9 hours ahead of home. Solution? Go out for supper, instead of lunch!

We had supper in a Ukranian restaurant right across from My Warm Guest House (yes, that’s the name of our hotel!), where the menu was printed in Russian, Georgian and English. Thank goodness, as I don’t expect to get the hang of reading Georgian anytime soon. It all looks like Ms and 3s to me!image

A Day in Erzurum

Backpacking, Travel, Turkey, , ,

2/5 – Jim decided we needed a day off before crossing the border, so we had today to explore Erzurum. Our first order of business was to find a barber (berber), as Jim has been looking for a haircut for a while. This would not normally be a blog worthy event, but the barber did something we hadn’t seen before. After cutting Jim’s hair, he lit a torch and burned the little hairs out of Jim’s ears! It was thrilling to watch, and Jim didn’t scream, so I guess it’s a viable way to get hair out of your ears…

Erzurum had a substantial snow before we arrived, and the streets were in various states of packed ice, slush or mud, which made walking hazardous. The temperature was in the 20s. We only had a mile to the city center, but it was treacherous going all the way.

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Here we are sliding down a street full of wedding shops and jewelry stores.

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Erzurum is known for wedding shops.

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Our goal was the Citadel, a twelfth century fort with a tower that afforded an overview of the city. The fort was mainly walls covered with snow.

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The views from the tower – beautiful mountains all around!

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There is also a mosque here, famous for its unusual minarets. They must be refurbishing them this winter.

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We stopped for lunch at a tavuk doner (chicken wrap) shop with only two tables. Our last doners in Turkey!

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The wraps were delicious, but the little shop had no sink. When we were done, I watched the proprietor wipe off our table with a rag, take our plates outside, wipe them with the same rag, then put them back on the stack of clean plates! There are some things we are better off not seeing…

Tomorrow, Georgia!

Istanbul to Ankara to Erzurum, Türkiye

Backpacking, Travel, Turkey, ,

2/3 – Today we bid farewell to Istanbul. We plan to take the high speed train from Pendik (about 20 miles east of the city) to Ankara, then a sleeper train from Ankara to Erzurum. We will travel east across northern Turkey until we reach the border with Georgia. It’s been a grand three months, but our visas are due to expire, and it’s time to move on.

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Unfortunately, Jim was not able to book our train tickets online, so we got up early, walked to the train station and hoped for the best. The news was not encouraging. Both of today’s trains to Ankara were sold out. When we expressed dismay, the man, with very little English, managed to convey to us that a few business class seats are held until thirty minutes before the train departs. We sat patiently waiting for an opening on the 10:30 train. No luck. He told us to come back at noon and try again for the 12:45.

We went and had a doner sandwich, and the lovely salty yogurt drink Ayran. At 11:45 we returned. Where was our guy? We saw him outside talking on his mobile. What if he’d forgotten us? What if he was on his lunch break? At exactly 12 noon, he opened a side door and motioned for us to follow. He led us upstairs to an office with a computer, where he printed out our tickets to Ankara without our having to stand in line. Nice person of Turkey! He asked our ages, then gave us the business class seats at half price with a senior discount. Then he looked at the second leg of the journey. All the private sleeper cabins on the overnight train were booked, and there was only one couchette (4 bunks per cabin) left, in the men’s section. Jim took the couchette, and I got a seat in coach, where I will spend the night trying to sleep sitting up. Well, at least the seats are more comfortable than I would have on a plane…

The high speed train got us halfway across the country in four hours.

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The scenery did not disappoint, and we business class travelers were served soft drinks, coffee or tea, and were given a box lunch and a Snicker bar. Life is good!

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Here’s the sunset as we approached Ankara.

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We had a half hour layover before boarding the Dogu Expressi at 6pm.

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Making stops in every town, we’ll get across the other half of the country by 2pm tomorrow. I settled into my crowded coach car, listening to a hundred phone conversations trying to outshout the crying babies. Sheesh! I bet Jim was having a fine, quiet time back in the sleeper car!

We met for supper in the dining car at 7, and had a pretty good and reasonably priced meal of chicken shish kabob and rice. We asked for tea, and were told that tea would not be available until 8pm. Now that is very strange – Turkish people live and breathe tea, and it is always offered at any time of day or night! Oh well, we waited until 8, asked again, and were given our tea.

Sleeping wasn’t too bad – just like the olden days of air travel, I found two empty seats side by side and stretched out across them, with my feet in the aisle. At the next stop, however, a person had a ticket for my claimed seat, so I had to move. Then I saw another passenger turn the seat across from him around so he could put his feet up. That looked like a great idea, so at the next stop when the car emptied a bit, I did that too. I was awoken every hour as the conductor called out the next stop, but it really wasn’t bad.

2/4 – I met Jim back in the dining car for breakfast.

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It turned out that there was only one other man in Jim’s cabin, and he got off in the middle of the night, so Jim now had a cabin to himself. I wasted no time moving my stuff back and settling in.

We had passed through some regions of deep snow during the night, but this morning’s views looked wintry but nice.

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As the morning progressed, the views looked colder.

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At 2pm we got off the train and trudged a half mile through yesterday’s snow and today’s slush to find our hotel. Next stop, Georgia!

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Istanbul Fed Ex Customs Office – a Cautionary Tale

Backpacking, Travel, Turkey, , , , ,

2/2 – This is a story that started about a month ago. Jim had been trying to buy new boots and a warmer down jacket, but having no luck here in Turkey, as he is taller than average with extra large feet. After striking out in Istanbul, Kas and Antalya (stores only stock shoes up to size 45, and Jim needs 48wide, and extra large jacket with a 37 inch sleeve), he gave up and ordered what he needed from Amazon in the US. He had everything delivered to son Peter’s house, and Peter graciously agreed to ship the stuff to us.

After researching, the cheapest way to ship to Turkey was Fed Ex, at about $300.00 for a single box, with four day delivery. The cost to ship was twice the cost of what was in the box! After swallowing hard, Jim told Peter to go ahead and ship, because he really needed the new boots. These would be the most expensive boots ever! During this discussion, I asked Peter to put a new mobile phone in the box also, as mine has been acting erratically, and I didn’t want to be without a phone, which we use to navigate our way around using Google Maps.

So, Peter shipped the box to the hotel we planned to stay at in Konya, and we called ahead to make sure they would hold it for us until we arrived. On the fourth day, Fed Ex called Peter and said there were customs forms that needed to be filled out and duties and taxes to be paid now that the box was in Turkey. More money?? Peter gave them our info and asked them to email the forms to us. When we didn’t receive anything, we called Fed Ex International in Atlanta, and they gave us a number to call in Istanbul.

The Istanbul office had a lady who spoke English, thank goodness. She asked us to itemize what was in the box. We told her clothing and a phone. That brought the conversation to a screeching halt, as it is not permitted under any circumstances to ship a phone to Turkey.

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Who knew? We asked for our options, and were told we could either abandon the box, or pay another $300.00 to have the box shipped back to the US. It could not be delivered. No! Jim needed those boots! We asked if they could remove the phone and ship the rest. No. We had to disposition the whole box. We went around several times, and then she told us that we could come to the Fed Ex Customs office in Istanbul and have the box opened and the phone removed. We had to be there in person. Okay!

So, on the day we returned to Istanbul for our flight to Israel, we spent three hours on buses, metro and taxi to get to the customs office.

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We arrived triumphant at 3pm, only to be told it was too late in the afternoon to inspect the box (their hours were 9am to 5:30pm) , and to return in the morning. We threw ourselves on their mercy, describing our three hour ride. We were leaving for Israel early the next morning, and would not be able to return for two weeks. Fine, we were told, the box would be held until we returned.

So, sadly, we reversed the trip back to the Asian side of Istanbul, which took 5 hours due to evening traffic, so we would be on time for our morning flight. We were exhausted, and Jim was going hiking with bad boots. We figured the day’s transportation had cost us another $50.00. We were demoralized and disgusted. Jim decided to just abandon the box, and we agreed to never speak about the whole incident again.

Then we went hiking in Israel, and every day was a misery for Jim’s feet. He changed his mind. When we get back to Istanbul, he said, let’s try again to get that box.

Our plane landed on the Asian side of Istanbul on Friday, and we took the three hour ride back to the European side, this time getting a room right near the European airport. We cooled our heels over the weekend, then got up early Monday morning so we would be there when the Customs office opened, and took a taxi there.

The girl in the office remembered us, looked up our package and arranged to have it inspected. We walked back to the warehouse and waited while they located the box. The inspector opened it, examined the boots, jacket and phone, and put everything back in the box. He asked to see Jim’s passport and looked at the date of our stamp for entering Turkey. He explained to the men surrounding him (everything is done here by committee) that we had a ninety day visa, and were citizens for that period of time. He wrote out a form and stamped it, and told us to take it to the airport (6 miles away), show it to Customs there, and come back with another document, at which time we could retrieve the package.

We got an address from the office lady, and the name of a person to ask for at the airport cargo terminal. We asked for another taxi, but as we were waiting, a Fed Ex 18 wheeler was leaving the facility, and the security guy asked him to give us a ride. Nice Person of Turkey!
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Unfortunately, the truck was not going to the cargo terminal, so the driver dropped us off on the highway in the rain, telling us with hand signs and no English that it wasn’t too far to walk.

It turns out there are LOTS of cargo terminals at the airport, and we trudged from building to building in the rain, showing our piece of paper and asking for help. image

We finally got to the right building and found Meryam, who added more documents and more stamps to the papers we carried. She sent us to yet another building to have three photocopies made of all the forms and Jim’s passport with the all-important date stamp. Then she did some magic stapling and stamping, and told us we were ready to go back to the Customs office.

We walked back out of the airport and onto the main road where we could hail a taxi. Back we went the 6 miles to the Fed Ex office. This taxi driver tried to rip us off for twice what the ride should cost, but we were sufficiently bedraggled, pissed off and surly that we argued and refused to pay his price, giving him a fair amount and walking off with him yelling and waving his fist. We went back in the office and…. It was noon. Everyone had gone to lunch and the warehouse was locked until 1pm. Luckily, anticipating a grueling ordeal, Jim had packed us some sandwiches, so we sat on a bench, ate and waited.

At 1pm, the warehouse reopened, our forms were inspected and approved, and we were sent upstairs for yet another stamp. Then we were walked to a building we hadn’t been to yet. There we waited outside a locked door until the next man-with-a-stamp returned from lunch. Then we were ushered into a queue, where we thought we were waiting for our box. When we got to the front of the line, we were presented an invoice for $103.00 in storage charges for the box! Jim really lost it at this point, but, having come this far, what else were we to do? He reluctantly forked over the cash, muttering about bureaucracies in third world countries, and at 2pm, we were finally handed our box.

What should have felt like a triumph, felt instead like a particularly painful screwing. We decided not to add up all the costs again, but to enjoy the boots, the jacket and the phone and consider this a lesson learned. Why they let us have the phone after all the hoopty-do about it not being permitted, we will never know.

We took yet another taxi to the nearest metro station, and rode three hours back to the Asian side, so we’d be in position to get to the train station in the morning. Now I’ve told the story, and we agreed to never talk about the incident again!image Jim’s new boots, size 13W.