Around the Globe and Back Again

A Katz Tale: 58, 492 kilometers, 310 days, 23 countries, 4 continents, 3 packs, 1 family, and all the comical disasters in between

[aroundtheglobeandbackagain]

•• Icy Dips in Canyon Pools at Isalo National Park ••

September 7-8, 2017

The lush green jungle and rice paddies slowly dried up as we headed South-West to Isalo National Park with the temperature climbing as the landscape turned dry and craggy. Today’s seven-hour drive was supplemented with a stop at a local silk and paper factory as well as a lunch time visit to the Anja Ring-tailed Lemur Park. Stopping there around lunch time, we wandered into the small park on a rocky hillside where there were veritable swarms of Ring-tailed lemurs just like in the movie. We even saw a mama with a tiny baby perched on her back and front. We ate sandwiches for lunch at a dusty hot picnic table so close we could still here the sounds of the lemurs as we ate. It had been getting steadily hotter until we were becoming quite a sweaty mess in the blazing heat and Papa K was moved to splurge for a very expensive bottle of cold coke at lunch.

By that evening when we arrived at the park the terrain had completely transformed to resemble canyons of the Midwest, with our hut for the night on a desert hill overlooking a dry plain. I only had plane rice for dinner, but Mama S and Papa K were treated to a pasta dish including the local specialty of brêdes mafana which has the distinct feature of making your tongue and mouth go numb.

The subsequent morning, we set off for a full day hiking through the park. The only lemurs we actually saw were at the beginning and end of the hike when we passed through a rest camp that seemed to attract a variety of lemurs. We were in close quarters with several and overall saw: Ring Tailed Lemurs, Verreaux’s Sifaka, and Red-Brown Fronted Lemurs.

Despite the lack of wildlife on the body of the walk, the landscape and climb were enjoyable enough in their own right with sweeping views and rocky canyons. We followed along a river bed until we reached several rock pools and waterfalls tucked away into the rocky outcroppings. Though they were freezing, and I hadn’t brought my bathing suit with my on the hike, the blistering heat was more than enough to convince me strip down and take a dip in the gorgeous icy water. Maybe not the best idea seeing as I had just recovered from my woeful Malagasy fever, but all in all a thoroughly enjoyable day.

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•• Malagasy Fever in Ranomafana ••

September 4-6, 2017

The next day we said good bye to our riverside lemur hide, easily one of our favourite stays in Madagascar, and headed South. Our next highlight was Ranomafana National Park, however, to get there we had to drive all the way past Antananarivo again and spend the night in Antsirabe on our way.  

Along the two-day drive, it was curious how it appeared that many of the towns we passed had chosen some craft or souvenir to specialize in. For instance, we would pass the metal smith town, where every hut had metal wares out for display and every second building was a metal working shop. Then we would drive a couple more hours and come to the weaving town, where everything for sale was woven from flax. We spent the night in a bit of a dive with the bathroom down the hall that proved to be directly above not the world’s quietest bar, but we all slept enough and had wood fired pizza of all things from a restaurant in town, who would have guessed that Madagascar would be the secret home of a small but booming woodfired pizza industry?

….

“Actually maybe I would like a T-shirt…”

*20 different venders from across the road swerve through traffic and vault over road blocks clutching bags of arrayed t-shirts to swarm over and engulf our car*

An event that would forever go down in family law as the Great Swarming.

We also did each manage to buy a t-shirt.

Unfortunately, other than this iconic highpoint I wasn’t doing too well today as I was coming down with what I would later ardently insist was Malagasy fever. One of the books we had been reading about Madagascar was the “Eighth Continent” and in it he mentioned an old rumored disease that you used to plague early settlers termed Malagasy fever. I was convinced my symptoms perfectly matched and thus that I must be suffering from this feared disease.

Whether it was really Malagasy fever or a much less exotic affliction I will never know, but either way I was out for the count and skipped all my meals that day, spending most of my time laying down and groaning loudly as we drove to Ranomafana National Park.

The next day in the park I rallied as I wasn’t going to be defeated by sickness and ventured out on the several hour hike through the jungled river valley of the national park. Clambering through the vines along mud paths we spotted a fair cornucopia of new lemur species: the Golden Bamboo Lemur, the Greater Bamboo Lemur, the Milne-Edwards’ Sifaka, Red Front Brown Lemur.

We were even lucky enough to see a whole troupe of… with babies playing on the ground in the low hanging branches only a few feet away from us. We also lucked out with our guide, who turned out to be the original guide for Dr. Patricia Chapple Wright over 20 years ago when she had visited here and discovered the Golden Bamboo lemur that was previously thought to be extinct. She wrote a book about her experience titled For The Love of Lemurs, which some us had read or were reading, and worked tirelessly to get this very national park created.  

While triumphant in overcoming my Malagasy fever to visit the park, I crashed that afternoon and evening, so we very fittingly watched the cartoon Madagascar movie in our hotel room as I continued to groan.

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•• Wailing in the Jungle Isn’t Always a Bad Thing: Indri in Andasibe ••

September 2nd -3rd, 2017

Waking up bright and early we set off on our first lemur-spotting venture into the park. Andasibe Park, or more specifically the Reserve Speciale d’Analamazaotra, is famous for being home to the rare Indri. The largest species of lemurs in Madagascar, and hence the world, the lemurs are also renowned for their distinctive wailing call that you can hear reverberating through the misty forest. This park is one of the few places you can spot these striking white and black lemurs as they careen through the tree tops, and we were lucky enough to do just that. We also spent an inordinate amount of time ooing and awing over every distant sign of any type of lemur we managed to spot. Our final score for species of lemur spotted was: the Diademed Sifaka, the Common Brown Lemur, the Red-Bellied Lemur, and of course the Indri.  

In the afternoon we went on a second guided walk not in the strict bounds of the park, but an adjacent reserve established by the villagers themselves that received no funding or support from the government. We visited a tree surrounded and colorful ties or ribbon and cloth that was sacred to the local people as it could supposedly change its species. Near the end of our time we spotted our best viewing of indri the whole time: a family of hanging out right above us in the trees. Complete with a baby who was doing circuits leaping from one branch down to his mom’s leg and then over to another branch; we stood for ages just watching exist in their natural habitat unconcerned with us trespassing onlookers.

Buoyed by our successful lemur encounters, Papa K made the mistake of being adventurous at dinner and trying out the local Madagascar river fish.

“Does it have many bones?”

“No sir, not many bones, not at all, very little bones”

Thirty minutes later he was still trying to pick out minuscule shreds of flesh from between the pile of innumerable bones that was termed a fish.

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Papa K Face to Face with a Chameleon

•• First Day on the Road: Chama Chama Chameleon ••

September 2nd 2017

The next morning we set off to truly begin the foray into the wilds of Madagascar, leaving the haze of they city behind for the sweeping terraced rice paddies of thy country side. While you wouldn’t necessarily expect rice paddies in Africa, it turns out that the indigenous Malagasy people probably originally came from Asia not Africa. Laying off the coast of Africa you might expect that it would be people from that continent that would first set foot ashore this jungle island, but it turns out that it was actually people from Asia, mostly likely Indonesia, that made the much longer journey across the ocean to first establish themselves in Madagascar.

As we headed North from the capital, the cultivated hills slowly turned wild as the jungle encroached closer and closer to the winding road. We were going to Andasibe National Park, the farthest North on the island we would venture, and where we hoped to get the chance to see our first of the famed Lemurs. However, first we stopped at the Reserve Peyrieras Reptile Farm where we got to see another rare wildlife specimen: chameleons.

Madagascar is home to nearly half of the world’s 150 different species of chameleons, of which we saw about 20. Walking through the trees in the enclosure we spotted everything from your standard and bright green specimen camouflaged among the leaves to more ostentatious fellows in redy browns and sporting a little horn. We even got to hold a couple. Contrary to popular belief, chameleons don’t actually change color to blend in with their surroundings but for a myriad of other purposes mainly focused around communication, either to defend territory or mating.

We also saw some snakes, a millipede that was a bit to large for my liking, bats, some reptiles exquisite at camouflaging themselves as leaves or sticks and a chameleons that was so tiny tiny it could cling to the tip of my finger.

Superbly satisfied with our first encounter with Madagascar wildlife and a acute desire to adopt a baby chameleon, we continued on to Andasibe National Park.

While the wifi was limited to say the least and the food was chiefly pasta with red sauce that looked and tasted suspiciously like ketchup, our lodgings were overall splendid. We occupied one of the wooden bungalows that extended out from the main building perched on the bank of a river with a balcony overlooking the national park itself, meaning that night we were treated with our first sighting a lemur swinging through the trees across from our room and the noise of Indri calling at night.

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•• The Lost Chapters: Madagascar ••

August 30th - September 1st, 2017

“Where in the f**k am I?”

Was how Mama S greeted the world our first morning on the road. A reasonable question, seeing as we were a bit off the beaten track: Antananarivo Madagascar.

The capital of Madagascar, Antananarivo – universally referred to as Tana- has been the seat of Malagasy power for three centuries and a natural starting and ending point for our looping trip around Madagascar. We had made the long plane journey here the night before, stepping into the warm haze on the runway tarmac well after dark. Pushing through the throng of people at the boarder station to purchase our Madagascar visas, we finally gained entry to country number one of our epic expedition. This morning we were headed off to visit Ambohimanga, that is after Mama S gained a better grasp of her whereabouts.

Ambohimanga translates to “Blue Hill” or “Beautiful Hill” and was the site of the royal power and residence for centuries. It was originally closed to foreigners as it is a sacred site for many Malagasy people, who still bring offerings. Atop the hill is Rova, the fortress complex of past palaces.  The walls protecting the royal residence are made from handmade or natural cement: a mixture of sand, shells, and egg whites. Supposedly over 16 million eggs were needed to create the outside wall. Within there is the Traditional Palace (1788) of Merina King Andrianampoinimerina (The Malagasy never met a syllable they didn’t like and feel like adding to a name) and the Summer Palace (1870) of Queen Rnavalona I, which is more European in style as it was built by French Engineer Jean Laborde, who was rumored to be her lover.

It turns out that well the Malagasy loved long names, and words in generally, they themselves were not very great in height. The royal line especially was diminutive in size, averaging a bit more than four feet tall. Their beds were incredibly short as well to accommodate for their shorter length and the fact that they apparently slept curled up, so correspondingly the beds were designed only a few feet long. At one point the Queen of England sent the Malagasy queen a British style ornate dress as an honor gift- but to wear it she had to stand on a stool or the extra fabric pooled at her feet.

We made the hour or so journey out of town to visit this site in the Landcruiser that would be our transportation for whole trip through Madagascar; driven by who trusty Barry. Our driver and somewhat guide during our travels here, we got by with his limited English and Papa K’s limited to French to have a fairly glorious Madagascar adventure.

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•• Windy Helsinki ••

A swanky modern day train took us the few hours across the Russian border and to Helsinki in Finland, where the Trans-Siberian finally came to an official close. We wheeled our luggage across town from the train station to our accommodation, taking in the fact that all the adventurous parts of our travels were over as we appreciated this classic European city.

We explored in the afternoon, walking to the bustling harbor where we caught a ferry to Suomenlinna island. Which serves, and has done for decades, as a defensive island not only for Finland but for Sweden and Russia as well when they occupied it. We explored the Suomenlinna fortress, bunkers and scenic paths in the park. The highlight was the old bunkers dug into the hills that looked exactly like hobbit holes. I swear this must be where Tolkien got his inspiration. We returned to the mainland, after a brisk jog to avoid missing our intended ferry, and ate a delicious dinner of pan cooked salmon and potatoes from one of the numerous stands cooking it fresh in front of you. We defended our dinner from seagulls as we sat looking out over the ocean and the market as it winded down for the evening.

Walking back to our hotel, we stopped by a bar that was showing the soccer game on a big outdoor screen and joined the gathering crowd to watch Brazil battle with Mexico in the World Cup match. We all cheered when Brazil bested Mexico as there were some pretty loud and enthusiastic Brazil fans in attendance.

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•• From Russia with Love in Saint Petersburg ••

The last overnight train, and one of the shorter ones, ended up being the nicest of the trip. The train car had a shower. A SHOWER. Need I say more? They also provided us little boxed dinners and slippers to wear on the train. Shame all we did was get on and go to sleep, though I did shower- I just had to take advantage.

We arrived to a cold and rainy Saint Petersburg the next morning sincerely wondering why we were wearing shorts. Overall our time in Saint Petersburg proved to be pretty cold and grey, I nearly froze to death on the walking tour in the morning. Coming from sunny Moscow with temperatures in the 80’s the 50 degree overcast weather of St. Petersburg felt subartic. We still enjoyed seeing the sights of the city:

State Hermitage Museum I was blown away by the sheer size and presence of the Hermitage when I passed into the vast square at its center. A massive building complex, it covers 233,345 sq. meters and houses a world class art collection. The collection includes over 3 million pieces with only a small percentage on regular display. The art was phenomenal and Papa K and I especially enjoyed looking at their modern collection featuring works from Kandinsky, Monet, Van Gogh, Picasso, and Degas. The rooms themselves were art too. Built in the early 1700’s by Elizabeth, the daughter of Peter the Great, it served as the imperial residence for the tsars of Russia from 1732-1919. The opulent rooms with an abundance of gold, marble, and velvet were stunning.

Church of the Spilled Blood Iconic for St. Petersburg with its five domes we circumnavigated the building and dodged the numerous costumed people trying to get you to pay to take a photo with them.

We walked to see the photo worthy Kazan Cathedral and St. Isaac Cathedral.

We were also lucky enough to be in town when Russia beat Spain in the World Cup, which was cool to experience in the host country. We were amongst the crowds on the streets as the game was being played and could hear the cheering and car horns going off in the city long after they won.

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•• Moscow-ow Part #2 ••

For our last day in Moscow we visited the actual sites of this world cup fever city.

●Kolomenskoye Not the most well known tourist site in Moscow, we took a subway to these scenic grounds that were mostly empty of tourists. Wandering through the pretty lawns that look over the Moskva River, this protected area is home to an old style Russian village, the photo worthy Ascension Church, and the main draw of the palace of Tsar Alexis I. A massive wooden structure, it’s curved walls and picturesque peaked roofs make it look like a doll’s dream mansion. The original apparently contained 250 rooms and foreign guests in the 1700’s would refer to it as the 8th wonder of the world.

●Kremlin Unfortunately our trip to Russia just happened to coincide with the World Cup being played in Russia, meaning that many of the tourist sites were a bit of a zoo. Getting into the Kremlin was by far the worst example of this; we spent nearly 3 hours waiting in two different lines, one to buy the tickets and then a second just to be granted admission inside. The throngs of World Cup fans were obvious from their patriotic getup and I swear I heard more Spanish than Russian in Moscow.

The Kremlin complex is the seat of power in Russia and has been for hundreds of years. Closed in by high walls stretching over two kilometers, security is tight getting inside. It also used to be the head of the Orthodox Church in Russia and many gold topped domes of cathedrals and churches fill the skyline, including; the Assumption Cathedral where the patriarchs were buried, the Archangel Cathedral, the Annunciation Cathedral and the Ivan the Great Bell Tower

●St. Basil’s Cathedral An iconic symbol of Russia, this fanciful church with it’s ludicrously colorful pompom towers looks better suited to the pages of a Doctor Suess book than austere and cold Russia. However, it is a key example of an architectural movement and style unique to Russia. It was built in 1555 and finished in 1561 to commemorate a victory by Ivan the Terrible in 1552. Now a days it is surrounded by throngs of cheerful tourists amature instagram models trying to get photos in front of it (of which I may have been one).

●Red Square Abuts one side the Kremlin and was home to the World Cup fan tent and base when we visited. It is more generally known for also being home to Lenin’s tomb where a flame is always burning. It was here that on a grassy fringe we spent a couple hours watching the people and trying to kill time as we had no hotel room or place to be until our train out that night.

We ate a typical Russian style dinner of blini and pelmeni on one of the main promenades listening to a (quite good) young band play their renditions of popular songs on an electric cello and violin. We walked home and passed a couple more hours loitering at our favorite air vent by the river as we waited to go upstairs and grab our luggage before heading to the train station for our late night overnight train to Saint Petersburg.

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•• Moscow-Ow Part #1••

“Alright this is it. This is the address of your hotel.” Declared the driver as he pulled up to a nondescript brick building. He had picked us up less than half an hour before at 4am when we finally stumbled off the oppressive four day long train to sweet fresh air and freedom.

We groggily inquired, “…Are you sure?” squinting at the uninviting building, “Where’s the… hotel?”

That turned out to be a very good question, one that wouldn’t be answered for almost an hour.

After circumnavigating the building by foot, which appeared to have no obvious entrance, we eventually found a small piece of paper tacked to a plain door that had the name of our supposed hotel printed on it. Ahah! Triumphant at last. However, upon further inspection of the Russian words beneath by our driver (who turned out to be a very good guy to help us with this) he sheepishly told us the paper stated that the check-in time was not untill 2pm, it being currently about 4:45 AM that wasn’t the best news. But oh wait it got better! It also stated that the hotel was no longer active on these premises as it had been closed down. The driver looked at us apologetically but shrugged, seeming to say ‘well that’s rotten luck, but there’s not much I can do about it”.

There wasn’t much we could do about it either. It would be impossible to find somewhere else to stay at this point, not only because it would be for that night for three people and expensive in a big city like Moscow but the World Cup was on right now. Everything had been booked up for months. Any hotel room you could find at this point would be astronomically expensive (later we looked up the cost for one night in the Radison which we could see taunting us from across the river and it was over $2,000 usd). We didn’t even have a Russian SIM card to make local calls to try to sort this mess out. Not to mention we were tired, hungry and probably smelled even worse than we looked having not showered in the past five days.

We begged the car driver to use his phone and after much angry yelling, numerous calls to people less than pleased to be woken up before 5am, plenty of broken English and broken Russian, and a fair bit of irritated stomping in circles a young groggy guy met us and walked us the block to the new location of the ‘hotel’.

After being led into another nondescript, decidely un-hotel like building and up to the sixth floor we were met by a very angry Russian lady. I thought Papa K could be scary when angry, this lady was terrifying. After being serverly reprimanded for talking too loudly and waking up other patrons and for arriving well before check-in time we got her on the phone with our travel agent (that had made this disastrous booking). They argued for a while, then we argued with the travel agent, then the travel agent argued with her some more, and so on until finally a resolution had been achieved with which no parties were very satisfied. We DID have a room for the next three nights (which had by no means been a sure thing throughout this process) but we could not have it, or anywhere to be, until 2pm. Which is how we ended up spending the next several hours chilling on a cement air vent eating convenience store breakfast wraps and drinking a liter of juice from the carton. The only silver lining to the morning was the chance it afforded us to watch the city from the bank of the river in the wee hours of the morning when it was still peaceful.

At 9am we met with our tour guide who was supposed to give us a couple hour walking tour of the city. We had still not showered since our four day train or changed clothes, but we set out to get the lay of the land embracing our unavoidable grossness at this point. She showed us where the main sites were including the entrance to the Kremlin, the main promenades, the Bolshoi Ballet theater, and one phenomenal supermarket. Opened inside the old mansion of some past royalty or well-to-do in old upper class Russian society, this supermarket is like any other selling eggs and milk and frozen hotdogs except it’s located in an insanely opulent and lavish room: chandeliers, deep purple walls, huge gold stucco embellishing the walls and ceiling. After our guide left us we continued on to see the Novodevichy Convent which was unfortunately mostly under construction with the famous gold dome hidden under scaffolding. Mid afternoon we returned to our hotel where we could finally enter our ‘room’. Sharing a bathroom with several other rooms, it also felt like our room might have been converted to house guests a bit last minute as it was next to the staffs room and housed a couple of odd chairs and other stored items. But I finally got to take that blessed shower and wash off 5 days of grime.

The next day we journeyed to Sergiyev Posad by train, which turned out to be a bit of an adventure locating the correct train but all went well and 2 hours later we arrived in the town. We walked through town to what drew both tourist and pilgrims to this place:

●Trinity Monastery of St. Sergius

It was founded in 1340 by Russia’s patron saint, St. Sergius of Radonezh and is the holiest site in the country. An epicenter of Eastern Orthodox worship, pilgrims have been journeying here since the 14th century. Within the bright gold and blue complex, we admired the gold domed Trinity Cathedral, the 1585 Cathedral of Assumption, the tomb of Boris Godunov who is the only tsar not buried in the Kremlin or in the SS Peter and Paul Cathedral in St Peteresburg, and the bright vision of the teal five-tiered bell tower.

We wandered through the souvenir market on our way back through the town, stopping to pick up some ingredients to cook dinner and some bread stuffed with potato or cheese for lunch.

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•• The Crazy 88 ••

88 hours. Have you ever thought about how long 88 hours is? Three days and 16 hours. Four nights. 12 meals. Have you ever done one thing for 88 hours? Of course not, that would be insane. What about travel from point A to B without stopping for 88 hours? Of course not, that’s why they have planes. Apparently we didn’t ask ourselves any of these questions before hand, which is how we found ourselves on a four day train from Irkutsk to Moscow. 88 hours to be exact.

After our two nights by Lake Baikal we had been transported back to Irkutsk where we spent a night and part of a day exploring the city and had an absolutely delicious Italian meal, at least for me anyway. I would rave about how good my truffle ravioli was for months to come- actually I still do. The next day we took a few more photos in town with the better lighting and then loitered in the hotel cafe until it was time to catch our train that afternoon and the Crazy 88 began.

The first warning sign of the impending doom was the small snowflake sign with a oh so ominous line through it. Upon falling into the cabin baggage in hand, I saw that unassuming sign immediately and thought uh oh… does that mean what I think it means? Surely not. We are trapped in this 6 by 7 foot rectangular box for the next four days- there has to be air conditioning. But alas, the little crossed out snowflake spoke true and spelled our doom.

There was only one narrow window that could open; located at the very top of the compartment it could crack open just a few inches. That was our only source of fresh air or way to try and cool down the sweltering little cave of a compartment. During the day the sun would beat down and heat it up, with no chance of a breeze inside unless you climbed up onto the upper bunk on the right side where the thin current of air from the window blew. We’d take turns rotating who got to sit in the one bearable spot on the train during the day. At night the cold gusts of wind froze the toes of whoever was sleeping there (me) but it was a necessary sacrifice to try and cool down the cabin before it started heating up again the next day, and it was such a nice change from being unrelentingly hot I didn’t really mind anyway.

To begin with things were in even more dire straights as our one cabin mate in the four person compartment was a nice enough lady, but who was inexplicably opposed to fresh air or anything approaching a habitable temperature. Originally she had this one blessedly cooler right hand upper bunk- and would consistently close the window. Apparently she didn’t like the breeze blowing on her. That wonderful, cool, life giving breeze that was the only way to cool down the tin box at all. Luckily after the first night I asked if she’d like to switch bunks with me and she was more than happy to. She much preferred the warmer, stuffier side and if anything seemed to feel bad that I’d gotten the short end of the trade stuck on the blowy cool side. I don’t understand her but hey I’m not complaining, made my life better.

For food we relied mostly on the stores we had brought with us as the dinning car wasn’t that cheap and the only thing they ‘cooked’ that we could eat was a small plate of plain pasta noodles with a few shavings of cheese (uncooked) laying on top. Or as they called it, “MacnCheese”. This meant we were subsisting almost exclusively on crackers, peanut butter, cheese, and the occasional treat of a can of tuna fish. Yum. You better believe I was definitely dreaming of my cheese ravioli swimming in creamy truffle sauce now.

We would stop at stations a few times a day for anywhere from a few minutes to a half an hour. We would take turns jumping off the train and exploring the station and enjoying the sweet sweet fresh air. There was nothing very exciting at any of the stations unfortunately, except the occasional cold drink.

But it really wasn’t all that unbearable, it was hot and stuffy during the days and one did get sick of peanut butter (I know I was surprised too I didn’t know it was possible) but there were power outlets in the hallway so our various devices didn’t die on the four day journey and we got to enjoy the scenery. We spent a lot of time relaxing perusing our own things. I decided it would be very on theme on the Russian train to read some Tolstoy so I embarked on Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace, of which I plowed through about half of over the four days on the train. Numerous pod casts were listened to, Papa K read a couple books about dirt (by choice, ask him not me), I edited photos, and we all even crowded around his laptop a couple nights to watch Doctor Zhivago, also fitting for chugging across the vast expanse of Siberia.

As the days trudged onwards, the monotony of the same clothes (there were no showers on the train), the same food, the same 50 square feet of cramped living space, the same stuffy air, the same stuffy thoughts began to take over your mind. There was no before the train. There was no after. There was only the train.

The train journey to end all train journeys, the real gritty guts of the Trans-Siberian, the most questionable travel decision of the trip, finally came to a close. At 4am Wednesday morning we stumbled off the train for the last time, arriving in Moscow and barely believing we were finally free. Only to discover the day was too young to be rejoicing and there was plenty of time for things to go horribly awry, as they most definitely proceeded to do.

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•• Russian to Russia- Even Their Beaches are Cold ••

Another overnight train (this one sadly lacking any colorful satin ruffles) brought us to the next country: Russia. After disembarking from the train we were shuttled off immediately via van to Listvyanka, on the shores of Lake Baikal.

Lake Baikal is the oldest, deepest, largest and feels like the coldest lake in the world. It is between 25-30 millions years old, meaning it was around back when the earth was home to mammoths and saber tooth tigers long before humans came along. A rift lake in Siberia, at its deepest it reaches 1,642 meters down. While is is only the seventh largest lake by surface area, it is the largest in the world by volume-owing to its great depth. It holds 22-23% of the worlds fresh water.

We spent two nights on its misty shores, in cozy wooden rooms looking out into the dark hills. The first day we made the 20 minute walk down the coast into the town to see what there was- a few restaurants and nobody that spoke any English. For dinner we ate the local specialty of Omul, a fish endemic to the waters of lake Baikal. That night when I was loitering in the hallway in my pjamas to steal that extra bar of wifi I found myself cornered by the Russian family staying next door. After a 40 minute conversation with the father and his daughter, who he brought out to translate not that she spoke very much English either, I now have it on good authority that Putin did not meddle in our elections at all and that Trump is a good, strong president who will do big, good things for our country. I also follow the daughter on instagram now.

The next morning we walked 30 minutes in the other direction (you can really only go in two directions as the town- or even roads it seems- don’t extend very inland from the shores of the lake) to the museum. A somewhat bizarre institution with minimal English explanations but no shortage of specimens floating in jars.

In the afternoon I did it: I took the plunge. Supposedly taking a dip in Lake Biakal’s frigid waters will add 20 years to your life- but I’m not quite sure how that works if you freeze to death in the process. The water was mighty cold and I was under for less than a second, but I did go fully under so I expect an extra 20 years guaranteed now.

We had a tasty dinner of potato pancakes smothered in local sour cream on the deck of a restaurant overlooking the lake and main dock. From there we got the added bonus of a show with our dinner. Several Russian tourists decided to go for a swim in the icy lake to the applause of their friends and then make a quick run for a towel to the jeers and laughter of those same friends. Overall I liked this sleepy cold town of Listvyanka- it felt authentically Russian and unconcerned about tourists, and the lake was stunning too.

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•• The Trans-Siberian Begins: Mongolia ••

Waiting for our first of many trains with our bags ready to go and enough peanut butter and snacks shoved in them to feed a football team, we were geared up to begin the next adventure: the trans-siberian. If you need to get from Beijing to Saint Petersburg why not go by train? Not like they’ve developed any faster or more comfortable form of transport. And plus it’s only 8,712 kilometers anyway.

This first train proved to be my favorite of the trip, while not as fancy as European trains it made up for this in character: green velvet upholstered benches with pink and white striped satin cushions and green satin bed ruffles to top it off. It also helped that this train was mostly empty so we had our four person compartment to ourselves for the overnight journey through the Gobi Desert from Beijing to Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia.

I absolutely loved Mongolia, both the windswept expanses of the grass plains and the spunky culture of Ulaanbaatar. An interesting mix of modern and a strong rooted culture, Ulaanbaatar featured both shiny glass and steel highrises and homely Gers- a traditional nomadic home like Yurts in other parts of the world.

In the capital we visited a museum to get a flavor for some of the history and watched a music and dance performance to get a flavor of the culture. Unfortunately photography was not allowed, but the show was great with traditional Mongolian throat singing, joyful dances, a contortionist, and lively stories told through dance and the huge ornate masks worn by the cast.

The next morning we went on a several hour sightseeing trip of the surrounding area ending up at our own private Ger for the night.

●The Gandantegchinlen Monastery First up was the local monastery complex. We entered two of the prayer halls where we got to witness and listen to the monks performing their daily prayer rituals, singing and fingering their prayer beads. We also entered one unassuming building that was concealing an enormous Buddha statue within that filled the entire space (no photos allowed).

●Genghis Khan Statue A giant 40 meter tall statue of the legendary leader on horse back. You can climb up to the top of the statue from the inside until you stand on the horse’s head with views of the famous Mongolian grasslands stretching out before you and the stoic face courageous conqueror looking down on you.

●Meditation Temple Located up a hill, it’s a bit harder to feel calm and at peace when you are too busy huffing and puffing by the time you make it to the top. There are endless colorful signs along the path each featuring a quote from Buddha to help motivate you and turn your mind to reflection. It is open to people of all faiths who seek enlightenment and peace through meditation. Once making it to the top it was a stunning view of the sun dappled valley stretching out below.

Afterwards we were deposited in a ger camp nestled amongst the grassy plains where we spent the evening looking at the scenery from our cozy ger and hiking up one of the neighbouring hills. To combat the growing cold we lit the little stove in the center of the ger but then had to combat the outpouring of choking black smoke that seemed to go everywhere but out the chimney designed explicitly for it. We also watched a Mongolian movie about Genghis Khan's beginnings that was visually stunning and perfect ambiance for our night in the ger.

[aroundtheglobeandbackagain]

•• Beijing Take #2 ••

The plan was to fly back to China early Saturday morning, arriving in Xian that night where we would meet Shuiyao and go sightseeing there before catching a fast train back to Beijing a couple days later. But it didn’t quite… work out that way.

Having just traveled around the world for 10 months and each boasting a long list of over 100 countries we’d been to, you could say we considered ourselves experienced travelers. That knew what we were doing. And wouldn’t miss an international flight. Right? Yeah.. that’s what we thought too.

Turns out even at five in the morning you should still really arrive more than two hours ahead of time for an international flight, even if it’s just to Canada. Guess they think they are their own country now or something. And it turns out Mama S needs a visa to transit through Canada now? Who knew. Definitely not us.

After crazed phone calls to airlines and complete panic stopping Papa K from boarding his flight and showing up to Beijing without us (he was on a different flight than us) we managed to book new flights for a couple days later and save his checked bag from being transported to Beijing without him. We quietly hid at home for the next two days with not much to do and hoping no one would notice we hadn’t actually managed to leave yet.

Take #2 leaving for China was a lot more successful, though we missed out on seeing Xian.

We spent three more days in Beijing this time around, which gave us the chance to visit the Great Wall. We opted to see it at Mutianyu instead of the more well known (and hence touristed) Badaling. The university was nice enough to arrange a car for us, making it an easy no stress outing, well until we had to walk all the way up to the wall- it being on top of a mountain ridge and all. This spot proved to be a good choice as it was mostly devoid of people and we could appreciate the majesty of the great wall as it cut its way through the lush green trees, snaking off into the distant mist.

While in Beijing we also stocked up on food supplies for our upcoming Trans-Siberian train journey as we didn’t know what food options might be awaiting our poor vegetarian selves. We got to pig out on some delicious Chinese vegetarian food before we left as well thanks to the astrophysics department head who took us all out to dinner.

[aroundtheglobeandbackagain]

•• Beijing Ringing in the End ••

Our longest train journey of the trip so far- unfortunately there were much longer to come- was this 17 hour overnight train to Beijing and the end of our travels in China.

After some confusion and dragging our bags around campus, we eventually were successfully registered and installed in an old student apartment on campus where Mama S and I would spend the next three nights before flying home to our brief home-cation in the middle of our travels.

Papa S was doing some work with the university, but for our first stint in Beijing we did manage to hit some important sites:

●Temple of Heaven A carefully crafted typical Chinese park drawing on Confucius ideals of harmony where Emperors used to perform ceremonial prayers for a good harvest and atonement.

●Tiananmen Square The largest square in the world at 440,000 square meters, with a looming flag pole guarded by perfectly still and ramrod straight soldiers. When we visited it was also dotted with colorful umbrellas as patrons scuttled about avoiding the rain that sprung up out of nowhere.

●Forbidden City The largest palace complex in the world, this city within a city has the best preserved collection of ancient buildings in China. It gets its name from its previous closed off secrecy when it served as the home for TWO royal dynasties and was wrapped in a protective layer of imperial ritual. A progression of gated layers of gardens and ornate swooping buildings, we slowly moved deeper into the forbidden city. We walked almost a kilometer entering successively more sacred areas as crossed its vast length.

In the end Papa K actually ended up flying home a few days after us to be there while we were on account of some technical difficulties he experienced (he managed to break his laptop) and other issues.

[aroundtheglobeandbackagain]

•• Enticing Gumdrop Mountains ••

A train and then a minivan brought us from Dali to Yangshuo- or the sweltering sauna that passed for Yangshua at the moment. The heat was like an oppressive presence- you could feel the air weighing on you as the humid air clung to your now sweat logged clothing. Other than that minor inconvenience, Yangshuo is one cool and funky place. Famous for the iconic Gumdrop mountains, they are- you guessed it- decidedly gumdrop shaped rocks that jut out of the otherwise flat country side or tumble one over another in gumdrop gatherings surrounded by fields of rice. One thing I didn’t expect was how far spread and randomly placed these land features are, driving through the bustling city streets every now and again a road will bend around unnaturally to circumnavigate one inopportunely located rock gumdrop. The town itself is nestled in the valley between some of the larger, more in the mountain direction, gumdrops. The next morning we arranged to go on a river raft coasting down the Li River that flows amongst the mountains and took in the striking sight of these iconic mountains. An hour or so was also spent exploring the local town and purchasing candied mango for me and rice wine for the folks before catching the bus back to our hotel.

That afternoon Mama S, Shuiyao and I decided to continue the exploration and hike up one of the near gumdrop rocks to get a view of the city. We borrowed bikes from the hotel and rode into town until we locked them up below our target gumdrop. Unfortunately, the guide book (LP lies @eric) we were using as reference grossly under estimated both the climbing time and severity and we soon found ourselves caught in a rainstorm part way up the trail. If we kept going up we would get drenched and the slippery rocks of the path were becoming dangerously slippery, but if we turned back now not only was the last half an hour climb wasted but we would still get drenched walking out. Mama S threw in the towel at this point (unbeknownst to us) and headed back down but Shuiyao and I plowed on ducking under the foliage to hide from the rain, occasionally. What felt like eons later soaking wet (from sweat as well as rain) we made it to the top- to discover a gate barring our way. The top was ‘closed’. After a few minutes of begging with the security guard he relented and let our bedraggled selves in where we were rewarded with a view of the setting sun over the glittering town trapped between the pillars of lush green mountains shooting upwards.

After a somewhat treacherous walk down we arrived to find a very aggravated Mama S who had been waiting in the rain for us to return for over an hour. We quickly biked back to the room and dried off.

[aroundtheglobeandbackagain]

••Doldrums at Dali Lake •• A day train brought us to Dali and also afforded us our only real view of the famed Dali lake as we sped past. Two nights in Dali proved a bit of an overestimate as we saw the old town- much like any other disneyfied old town of China- in a few hours and opted out of the expensive boat ride on the lake. However, the Australian run hostel did proved a nice respite after the trekking with western food, a vast on demand movie service, good wifi (with it’s own vpn that bypassed the firewall!), and time for calculus and logistical work to get done.

[aroundtheglobeandbackagain]

•• Tiger Leaping Gorge Day #2 ••

With 24 switchbacks ahead of us we set out on our long day of trekking early. The first steep ascent out of the village and over the pass proved to hold not 24 bends as described in the book, but a cruel 32. Feeling cheated after finding the top still far out of reach after monotonously counting the first 24 bends we were not a fan of the unwanted ‘bonus’ 8 switchbacks. I did my best impression of a giant as I jogged down the other side half leaping-half falling from from rock to protruding tree root. As I ricocheted down the other side I felt slightly perturbed at how quickly the hard earned meters in elevation gain were being shed. A quick stop on a roof top for a snack to celebrate making it over the pass and we continued on our long walk. Tracing the scraggly outline of the sloping canyon walls, we made our way through small waterfalls and heards of goats I tried- somewhat successfully- to befriend and finally washed up dusty and spent at the aptly (if cruelly) named halfway restaurant for lunch.

Even though it was technically only half way, the remaining part of the walk was significantly easier and the hard part was behind us. That being said we were still sufficiently haggard when we made it to our guest house that night just before the rain began.