Very Brief Update

I have been off the boat from Norway for a few days, but really rushing around in an attempt to get East (and warm). Murmansk for an evening. 30 hour train to St. Petersburg. Rest evening then a day of running my ass off taking pictures (up soon) and seeing the sights. Wonderful town. Really recommend it. Then another overnight train to Moscow. Walked around a bit today, but it was raining and Moscow seems much less interesting than St. Pete (though pics of the Red Square and such will be up soon also).

Tonight a 72 hour train to Irkutsk. Funny thing about all Russian trains: the schedules are all printed on Moscow time. I'll actually be going over five time zones to the east, but my ticket said I arrived around 11:30 p.m. Whoops. That's actually 4:30 a.m. local time. Will be interesting to find a hostel at that time of the day, especially because Irkutsk is not a big tourist town with tons of options.

When there, I need to get my Mongolian visa. I hope that only takes a day or two. Then off to Mongolia for a few days. Quite excited. It is one of the countries I looked forward to. Then another long train to Bejing for a few days and then finally south. To warmth. Whew.

Obviously will be offline for a bit. If there is power on the train, I will be doing some writing and photo editing, so I can upload in Irkutsk. Sorry for my lack of posting lately.

Feel free to hit the share button down below all of my blog posts, if one suits your fancy to share with your Facebook or Twitter friends (or other places, I think). I'd certainly appreciate it.

Hmmmm -- that's a lot of miles

OK, I spent all of today (since I screwed up my train ticket and didn't buy it for the right night train -- rocket scientist I am), working out my general plan to get from here to Hanoi by my target date of October 24th. Upon further review, I really do want to make that date now, if for no other reason that to see if I can. The last five or six weeks has been too easy (and expensive -- I need to get to Southeast Asia fast).

I think I left Berlin on the 25th of September, on the day I got my passport back with my China and Russian visas. I took a train from there to Malmo, Sweden overnight. Spent the night with my first couchsurfer (www.couchsurfing.com -- really good travel resource I should have been using more). Took the bus the next day to Oslo. Then the train the next day to Trondheim, where I am right now.

I should have then taken the overnight train that left an hour later to Bodo, Norway, halfway up the length of this long country, but it turns out when I bought my train ticket out of the machine in Oslo, I punched the wrong date and actually had a ticket for the 29th, not the 28th, so they wouldn't let me on the train. So, I'm taking the "correct" train in a few hours.

From Bodo, I will hop on a boat for four days that cruises up the coast to Hammerfest, my destination, the northernmost city in the world. It then continues on over the top of Norway and I get dropped off on the Russian border, at Kirkenes. One of the bonuses of going this way (aside from the pictures I am assuming I will be snapping the whole way), is that it is a working ferry boat that stops at every little town along the way. There are some towns north of Hammerfest -- though they claim they are the northernmost 'city,' so whatever is the northernmost whatever. . . I'm hitting it.

http://www.hurtigruten.com/norway/Fleet/Hurtigrutens-fleet-/MS-Nordlys/

that is the link to the ship I will be on for three nights/four days.

From there I take a bus to Murmansk, Russia. Then a train to St. Petersburg. Short stop there to pay homage to Crime and Punishment, which diligent readers with recognize as one of the banes of my existence on this trip. Then train to Moscow. Then a long, long train to Ulaanbaatar, Monogolia, where I will get off for a look-see for a bit. Then another train to Bejing. Then probably a place or two in China, and finally Hanoi.

In less than a month. This might not seem as difficult to you, as you sit there, as it now does to me, that I have finally researched it. That procrastination thing just puts off the pain of doing or knowing something, it never really does make it go away, does it?

Pull out a map or globe or check out googlemaps online. This is a long way.

I was able to get a very rough idea of the mileage by pulling up a website that has distances between places as the crow/airplane flies. Obviously, my route is going to be a bit longer, seeing as I am more the tortoise than the crow, but it will give you a reasonable idea.

I calculate it at approximately 7,300 miles (or 13,000 kilometers). Some perspective. That is L.A. to New York City. Three times. For my European friends, it is London to Cape Town. . . then back up to Harare, Zimbabwe.

If I make it by October 24th, I am celebrating with a great dinner. Perhaps some good local food, with a very nice bottle of French wine, to celebrate one of the cultures that has permeated Vietnam. And 'cause I love wine.

I'm buying. Anyone up for some eats? There is time to book a ticket.

Blogging the bus

So I am currently on a bus from Malmo, Sweden (right across from Copenhagen -- you can see it from there) to Oslo, Norway. I am in the process of making a mad dash up to the northernmost city in the world, Hammerfest, Norway. That will make the southernmost and the northernmost on this same trip. I had to wait around for a damn long time in Germany, waiting on my visa company back in the U.S. to get my Russian and Chinese visas for me for the next stage in the journey.

The next four weeks are going to be travel crazy. From here, I need to get to Hammerfest (hopefully the buses are still running -- the internet says they run through September, which means I am cutting it close), then back down somehow to Helsinki. Down to St. Petersburg, to celebrate finally finishing Crime and Punishment. Then down to Moscow, where I will catch the Trans-Mongolian to Bejing, with a stop in Ulan Bator, on a good friend's recommendation. Then to Shanghi and, if I have time, quickly to Tokyo and back. Then from there down to Hanoi.

All in about a month. My target date for Hanoi is October 24th.

Not sure that is possible, but I do love being on the road. This stretch will be the true test of that, for sure. If I was any good with google maps or the various internet tools, I'd be able to pull up the rough mileage I am going for in this month. I know its going to be a high number -- perhaps I shouldn't try to find out.

And today brings another first for me. Internet on the bus. When I hopped on the bus, I was pleasantly surprised to see that there were power plugs, so that I could write some and watch some video on the nine hour ride. Turned my computer on at the bus station and habitually hit the icon to see about internet, thinking there may be free internet at the station while I waited to leave. Voila. Internet on the bus. While moving. How cool is that??

Speed and Travel

A large number of people that I meet traveling are aghast at the nature of my particular trip. The aspect that mystifies them is that I am traveling so fast. They all seem to like the idea of my trip, but think that I should have probably taken two years or more to do it. Or not tried to hit so much in so little time. Or not been such a stubborn ass and taken one or two of those plane thingies.

I have yet to meet anyone that thinks my particular trip is a good (workable) idea, as I am doing it. The fairly universal reaction is that I am not taking enough time to stop anywhere and really get to know a place.

The traveler whose opinion I perhaps value more than anyone else these days is Jodi (and plug for her blog –

Legal Nomads -- she’s a damn good writer). She has been on the road about eight months more than me and she has taken the time to settle down in spots for months at a time, get to know lots of locals and really learn about a location.

Excerpt from a recent email from her: “Are you sure that you aren’t emphasizing the journey to the exclusion of getting the whole experience?”

She turns a phrase a lot better than I do.

It is a pretty common question, though not often phrased from others nearly as well. Some of the other common variants. . . “You are going to fast – you won’t get to actually know anything about a place.” Note that is isn’t phrased nicely as a question (thank you again Jodi), but a statement. It is fact. My trip is wrong. They are right. I am an idiot.

Somewhat nicer is that “well, I personally wouldn’t do it that way – I like to find a place I like and stay there for enough time to get to know it.” In this variation, it’s just their opinion about what makes them happy. I’m not completely wrong, but then again, there is the undertone that I a bit looney.

The simple answer to all of these people, as I have tried to explain numerous times to little avail, is that they are undoubtedly right. 100% right.

There is no way that I will get to know a place as fast as I am moving. I have met some great locals, but yes, I will not be able to meet as many as I’d like. I won’t know the great little secret places to get a cheap beer in each city or where the best food is. I am missing out on a ton of the possible experiences of an around-the-world trip because of the way I have chosen to travel.

But that is my trip.

I’d love to settle down somewhere for a month or three. In fact, I’m very likely at the end of this trip to come home, sell most of my stuff, and do exactly that. I’d very much like to move to one place for six or so months, learn a foreign language, and actually live there.

Just not on this trip. This trip is about movement. As a matter of fact, this trip is almost entirely about movement.

I am trying to hit six continents, the southernmost and northernmost cities in the world, the longest train trip one can take in the world, the highest mountain in Africa, the iconic mountain of Japan, Mayan and Incan ruins, the Australian outback, camping in deserts in Africa, and a few other things. In roughly a year. Without taking single plane.

Of course I am going to be moving a lot. I’ve made the concession that I can’t manage to do all this in a year, so I’ve slowed down to a fourteen-month schedule. Regardless, it is really not possible for me to stay anywhere for more than a week or so. Just chewing up the miles that I have to do mandates that I make progress on the map fairly constantly. I have no idea, even roughly, what my total mileage will be at the end of this trip, but it is going to be a big number.

The analogy that I pops up in my head is being taken to a huge, huge building, filled with tables of food (and with tons of different wines, of course). I wander around, nibbling a bit of food here and there. There are thousands of different plates of food – from different cooks – with different ethnic styles of food. But I only have the time, and stomach space, to try bits and pieces here and there.

Do I want to just sit down at one great chef’s table, eat his/her food for hours, drink the wines they have paired specially with the food, quiz them about their cooking techniques and influences, and meet all the other people sitting there?

Of course I do. But that’s not for this trip. Perhaps next time.

I love moving. Every time, every mode of transport, every pre-dawn wakeup, every crappy cup of coffee before boarding the bus/truck/train/car. Every single time. . . every single time I am about to move on this trip, I get butterflies in my stomach.

Most of my happiest days have been just moving. Moving somewhere. Making progress. Seeing the world outside the window. I find this truly hard to explain, and I better figure it out a bit better before writing the book, but just the feeling of movement itself is so satisfying to me. So peaceful.

Perhaps I am just still the little infant that just needs to be put in the car seat and driven around the neighborhood to stop my crying and put me to sleep.

I am in a full train compartment right now on a daytime trip from Budapest to Prague (and on to Germany to meet up with the Roberts family). It is a bit cramped in here. Little legroom. IPod is kicking me out some Oingo Bongo. Air conditioning is working just a bit. Seats don’t recline at all. There are no power plugs to recharge my computer. The sights aren’t that great so far. My coffee this morning, indeed, did suck. The guy next to me is snoring.

And you couldn’t jackhammer the smile off my face.

Updated Travel Stats

My very good friend, Doug Muzzy, requested a basic update on how I’ve managed to get from Egypt to Instanbul and I thought it would be a good time to update some of my travel statistics and recent basics of the trip. I don’t think I’ve done that since I left South America. Which gives me an excuse to post an old link to one of my old posts. . . and tell you if you haven't read any of my older stuff -- it is there and ready for you to read now :)

travel times update

As to the route, for Doug, I crossed Lake Nassar from Wadi Halfa, Sudan to Aswan, Egypt on the weekly ferry. It is the only overland method to get from Sudan to Egypt and vice versa. At Aswan, I took my leave of the Oasis Overland truck that I’d traveled on for the last three weeks.

They were on a five-month trip from Capetown to Cairo and were a heck of a lot of fun to travel with for a few weeks. That being said, I have no idea how they managed to travel together for that long a period of time – more power to them, but there is no way I would have made it (or more likely, no way they would have been able to put up with me for that long and would have voted me off the truck).

Another great friend of mine, Dave Roberts, flew from Germany (he and his wife’s home for the past four or so years) to meet me at Luxor. I took the train from Aswan to Luxor to meet him, we saw the sights there, and then we took the overnight train to Cairo and spent a few days there. Dave then flew back to Germany to finish packing for their move back to the States, which I think happened this week. I then took a bus over to Dahab, on the coast of the Red Sea and did some scuba diving there.

In Egypt, I decided to cheat on one of my travel goals. As most of you know, I decided before the trip started to get one tattoo on each of the continents I went to. On the original route, that was to be five tattoos. Since my route change, it’s now going to be six.

In Panama, I got the map of the world. In Uruguay, I got the modes of transport that I was going to use on the trip, for the most part. In Africa, I was going to get the summit of Kilimanjaro and the date that I summited (June 4, 2009). My unexpected problem is that there are very few tattoo parlors in Islamic countries – tattoos are frowned upon here. I did manage to finally find one online in Cairo, but the additional problem I had was that I was due to leave the next day to scuba dive for a few days. Fresh tattoos and swimming are not a good mix.

So I put off the Africa tattoo until leaving Africa. I will be getting it done in Berlin, since I will have a bit of a wait there for my Russian and Chinese visas. Considering how short a period of time I am going to be in Europe, I’m totally unsure of what tattoo is going to be appropriate for there also, but I have a destination neutral idea, so I will be doubling up my tattoo total in one location.

In any case, back to the route. From Dahab I took the ferry to Aqaba, Jordan. That ferry is the only option, if you are planning on going to Syria or any of the other countries in the Middle East (and Indonesia, I think) that will not let you enter if you have an Israeli stamp in your passport.

From what I’ve read, you can sometimes talk the Israelis to stamp a piece of paper upon entry, instead of your passport, but that isn’t guaranteed. The other problem is that even if you get the Israelis to agree to do that for you, the Syrians might still turn you down if you have an exit visa from Taba, Egypt, because if you exited from there. . . you had to be going to Israel.

Damn immigration agents.

The reason that the ferry isn’t the preferred choice, if you had a choice, is that it’s a bit unreliable on its departure times. For me, it was only about three hours late in leaving, so not a big deal. I’ve heard of ten-hour delays.

From the port of Aqaba, there was a group of about eight of us that met on the ferry that were all going to Petra. We negotiated a fairly reasonable group rate from two taxi drivers to take us there. From Petra, I took a minibus to Amman, switched to a taxi cab to the Syrian border, waited around there for about five hours for my visa (they aren’t big fans of Americans, hence the delay) and then took another cab to Damascus.

One of the things I didn’t expect in the Middle East was how compact everything is – the distances are so, so much shorter there than what I’d been experiencing everywhere else on the trip. Taking a taxi from city to city would not have been a realistic option in many other places on the trip. There, it is common.

I wanted to take the train from Damascus to Hamah, but the cab driver must not have understood which station I was trying to get to and he took me to the bus station instead. So, bus to Hamah and another bus from there to Aleppo, in northern Syria. From there to Goreme, you should have already read my blog about taxis and idiot bus companies. If not, scroll on down and read it.

In Goreme, I met Aileen and we then took an overnight bus to Olympus, then she went off somewhere for a couple days and I went directly on to Istanbul on another overnight bus.

That very boring update provides me the opportunity to update my time/method of travel information. I don’t think I’ve done this since I got to Africa, so here goes. From Capetown to Istanbul:

Bus 265 hours
Train 65 hours
Truck/lorry 109 hours
Ferry 5 hours
Taxi 8 ½ hours

Total 452 ½ hours = 18.85 days

I arrived in Capetown, South Africa on April 10th and left Istanbul on August 28th. That is roughly four and a half months. For some reason, I have been telling people that I spent five months in Africa (and another half month getting to Istanbul). Apparently reading a calendar isn’t one of my talents. I’d expected originally to get out of Istanbul about three weeks before I did, but now that I look at the timeline, I think I did fairly well, all things considered.

Books read on this leg of the trip:

Notes from a Small Country and Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson (I aspire to be one-third as good/funny/interesting as he is)
Quiet American by Graham Green (best English language writer to not win the Nobel Prize in the 20th century)
Loving Frank by
Too Close to the Sun: The Finton Hatch Story by Sarah Wheeler (Robert Redford in ‘Out of Africa,’ quite interesting)
Around Ireland with a Fridge by Tony Hawks (maybe my silly travel ideas really will inspire some publisher sometime)
The Voyage of the Jerle Shannara by Terry Brooks (mindless fantasy stuff)
Treaty Planet by Anne McCaffrey and Jody Lynn Nye (mindless poor sci-fi)
The Road by Cormac McCarthy (depressing doesn’t come close to describing it)
Lolita by Nabakov (master wordsmith. . . in his 3rd language)
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
Memories of my Melancholy Whores by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (incredibly good. One of the best I’ve read.)
Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami (very good Japanese author I had never heard of)

Three continents so far an only two countries that I didn’t like: Costa Rica and Ethiopia. And even for those two countries, I can honestly say there are incredible things to see there. Both countries have gotten excellent reviews from many other travelers that I know or that I have read. My dislike of each isn’t me just be contrary, which I am certainly capable of, but rather just that I just had bad experiences in both of them.

In Ethiopia’s case, perhaps I built it up too much in my mind. It was one of the 6-7 countries that I was most excited about visiting on the entire trip. The danger with heightened anticipation is that the expectations are that much harder to meet. On the other hand, some of the countries that I had low or no expectations of (Columbia, Syria, Egypt, Uruguay, Uganda) were some of my favorites.

Probably a lesson in there somewhere. One of the phrases I’ve used for a long time about setting goals in your life might apply: set the bar low; you will look that much better going over it.

travel times update

to continue with my random facts about the trip, I've tried to compile some of the transportation facts on the trip. I'm keeping a lot better log of this now, but some of the Central America numbers may be slightly off -- I didn't think about keeping track back there. I tried to reconstruct them with my guidebook last night. Here goes, so far.

Time spent in various modes of transportation so far (not including stuff like walking around town and such -- this is getting from point A to point B):

bus = 329 hours
boat = 48 hours
hiking = 7 hours
donkey = 2 1/2 hours
train = 15 hours

And I think its likely that my South American tattoo is going to be a little one of each of those under my world map. I think.

Total transport hours = 401 1/2 hours = 16.73 days.

bus rides of ten or more hours = 12

chicken bus rides = only 1, but it was a good one.

cool people met on buses that are now Facebook friends = tons. I wish I'd kept track. I'm going to guess 20 or so.