Midnight Train to Georgia

In Georgia (the country not the state), I have a dear friend named Kelly. Kelly and I worked at the Stevenson Center for Economic Development at Illinois State University together. Christmas was closing fast I wanted to be with friends and countrymen for the holiday. That meant I needed to cover a lot of miles in two days to get there in time. I hopped a flight across the Caspian Sea and made it to Baku, Azerbaijan.

Never heard of Azerbaijan, have you? It’s a small but very oil rich country and the prices resembled the amount of oil money there. The Azerbaijan Embassy said that I could have gotten a 5-day visa at the airport but, alas, they were very wrong. I had to pay $100 for a full 30-day visa... I only stayed in the country one night. My couchsurfing hosts took me out on the town to celebrate the Embassy’s error with live American music!

After an overnight train, a metro ride and a couple hours in a decomposing van, I had finally arrived in Gori, Georgia... the birthplace of Stalin. The guy is all over the city in the form of statues, museums and street names. The town itself is like that of all the other small towns I have been in for the last few weeks: Dilapidated soviet buildings, cars and roads. There was still Christmas decorations though, even a gigantic Christmas tree next to the equally gigantic statue of Stalin.

Kelly and I met up and spent a short time catching up while we cooked for a Peace Corps Christmas party. Christmas music, cookies and lots of good company made me feel like I was back in the States. I eventually passed out from train-lag and overindulgence of sweets. I woke up refreshed and ready to tackle the Christmas Day in Georgia that I had hurried for. I only got one gift this year and that was from Kelly. She took me to a Georgian supra.

Kelly explained to me what a supra was as we rode to the next village. A supra is a formal Georgian dinner party. The host prepares a ridiculously large meal and invites as many people that can fit at the table. There were many rules and formalities, mostly when it came to drinking. The wine, which is all home made, may only be drank after a long-winded toast from the toastmaster, called a “tomada.” People only drink from their glass after the tomoda does and the usual custom is to drink the entire glass.

The supra drinking was exactly how Kelly described it but she forgot to stress just how much food there was. Turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, sour plum sauce, mashed potatoes, gravey, glazed carrots, homemade pickles, two type of pepper dishes, olives, develed eggs, homemade breads, salad, homemade sausage and some sort of beef ground up with an array of spices and herbs that was my favorite dish. We had to stack plates of food on top of plates of food. The best advice I got that night was “it’s a marathon, not a sprint” but I paid no attention. I was not the guest of honor when I got there that night, but thanks to my enormous appetite I was by the time we hit the desserts. The host declared that “You eat like a Georgian and you drink like a Georgian. Tonight, you are our Georgian brother.” After a toast like that I had to drink the whole glass of super sweet wine. Late that night we were finally permitted to hit the hay and we retired to the guestrooms upstairs. The next morning as we made our way out the host presented me with a gift: A large ceramic horn that is used as a special drinking glass.

Georgia has been the most hospitable country so far and I’m sorry I am only staying a few days. Now how do I get to Turkey to celebrate the New Year?

Today Kazakhstan, Tomorrow the Middle East

Ive spent the better part of a week waiting to catch a flight that only runs on saturday across the Caspian Sea to Baku, Azerbaijan.  To kill time I have endulged in my host's cooking, video and liturature library.  Kazakhstan is boring in the winter.  Hopefully the Middle East will be more fun.

Crossing to the Far Side of the World: Part III

I was planning on walking from the border all the way to the next town, but I came across a parking lot filled with taxis, all ready to take paying customers to Almaty. These drivers are known to be scammers. They were my only option and I was not happy about it. They first wanted 12,000 tenge (about $100) but I told them they were crazy. I bid one of them down to 3,000. Boris, my driver, took me in and then set out to find more people. We eventually found two Kazakhs coming home from University in China. That was enough people to start our journey... or so I though.



Boris took us to the town and he said he needed to get a few things. He did not come back for about 45 minutes. He then came back and told us that there are problems with the papers for his car so he is going to find another one. 30 minutes later he came back saying he had to stay a bit longer to help sell another car. He eventually told us he was not going to take us to Almaty but we could talk to his friends. This was the scam. Take us away from the other taxis and get us tired and annoyed so he can up the price.



After the Russian students negotiated for an hour, we scored a ride for an extra 1,000 tenge each. We finally set off for Almaty and arrived at midnight. I called the only person I knew in town, a couch surfer named Alexey, who answered my plead for a place to stay. He welcomed me with a beer and a warm floor with blankets to sleep on. I explained to him the whole fiasco and the next day he took me to the bazaar to get supplies.



So after 3 days of buses, a trip to the bazaar and getting kicked around by Kazakhstan this is what I have:



2 pairs of socks

2 t-shirts

2 pairs of underwear

pair of jeans with a mended hole

jacket

sweater

beanie

pair of gloves

chocolate bar

my journal and notebook

my camera

my world phone and charger

my watch

toilet paper

basic toiletries

a chocolate bar

AND a lock in case anybody wants to steal any of it





* I am just fine and quite humorous about this whole adventure. I do not need donations to cover my missing items. Merry Christmas from Kazakhstan!

Crossing to the Far Side of the World: Part II

Where is my bag? I got in the bus driver's face and after a long arguement with poor translation and body language he asked if I took it across customs. I had asked him at the border if I needed to bring my bag and he said no. When I brought this up he just walked away.


After the bus unloaded we drove to the bus station and I slept in the same bunk I had spent the last 33 hours in. A few hours later it was 7:00am and time for the bus to make the next run to China. Since I couldn't buy a ticket just to the border I had to pay the driver under the table to take me there. Another seven long hours later we arrived.


I wandered the customs area until I found a Kazakh officer that spoke english. He showed me a few places to look and after we didn't find it he broke the news to me in a thick Russian accent, "Sombody pick up a goo." My bag was long gone. All I had now was my shoulder with a few important things in it. I couldn't help but laugh.



I tried to find a bus to take me back to Almaty, KZ, but nobody had room. I found myself back in the sea of white with no ride out, so I just started walking. The nearest town was about two miles away. The road was covered with packed snow, the sky was white and so was everything else. Purgatory. Nothing to distract me, no big backpack with clean clothes and plenty of toiletries and no guidebook. Nothing to do but walk and think about the hole in my jeans that is letting in an ice cold breeze.

Crossing to the Far Side of the World

I woke up to bright light beaming through the window of my sleeper bus. My watch read 8:30 am. I stretched as far as I could in my upper bunk. I pulled back the curtain to be greeted by white. Everything was white. A fresh snow during the night had covered the entire landscape, or lack of, with a blanket of white. The sky was even white and I couldnt tell where it ended and the ground started. In all this nothingness my bus hurdled across a lonely highway to the only thing that stood in such a place: the Chinese-Kazakstan border.



My trip had already started out rough. The bus was delayed by the passengers packing every square inch of the cargo hold. We were supposed to leave at 7:00 but we actually left around 10pm. I didn't get a chance to eat because my taxi driver got lost and stuck in traffic. I also ripped a hole in the seat of my jeans trying to climb into my top bunk. Hungry, grumpy and with a breezy backside is not a good way to start out a 24 hour bus trip.



My bus came to a sqeeky stop. Everybody bundled up and walked outside so I followed. I asked my bus driver if I needed to bring my bag but he said no and off I went, another ant in the line. A cold breeze blew into my jeans and the snow crunched under my boots. The sight before me sparked a realization of what the rest of my day would be like. Hundreds of people, crowded around in a semi-circle against a steel fence, huddled around their declarations. People were carrying everthing they found cheaper in China. Crates of oranges, blankets, cookware and even tires. The mob was at a standstill. I had wondered why we spent so much time at a rest stop for lunch. The boarder was closed, the Chinese weren't letting anybody out.



I just joined the crowd and cluelessly waited liek everbody else until a girl motioned to get my attention. She was trying to get me to follow her. Ha, sure. This is the part where I follow and then some guy jumps out and hits me in the face with a crowbar so he can have my wallet. Eh, its a wallet with nothing in it so I followed. Turns out they were on my bus too and the had decided to adopt me.



The crowd suddenly got ancy. An arial view would have looked like the mob was quivering. Everybody shouldered their bags, dollies were tilted into their mobile position and my new family looked at me and said "Shvanya!" I think it meant "come on!" because I just saw why everybody was moving. A gate, about one meter wide, had just been opened.



The sea of white gave way to an island of brutality. "Shvinya!" Everybody was pressed up against me from all directions, shoving hard, reating an equilibrium standstill. More shoving and shifting, crates and dollies were being used as plows. At first, everybody chuckled, the mob of people chuckled, smiling, thinking "of course the Chinese government would do this to us!" The chuckling melted to annoyance and then crumbled into violence.



Women were screaming, mens' faces turned furious and people were being thrown aside so they others could move in, only to be thrown themselves. A Chinese guard stood there with a look of boredom on his face, as if he was once ammused by this long ago. A bundle of tires flew through the air and hit somebody in the head. A crate of oranged was digging into my back. A dolly was starting to run me over. My family was now two people lengths ahead of me, a long distance in this game. I was trying to be polite, slipping into gaps as they were created and not joining hte savegry. I didnt last long. I stiff armed the dolly of oranges, putting it on one weel and showed the rest of the Chinese American football. I made my own gaps and tossed a few people. I made it through the gate pretty quickly.



Everybody that made it through the gate proceeded into the building ahead. Inside I found a similar scene. Everybody was pressed up against eachother, waiting for a small gate to open and when it did the tires flew and everybody got violent, except this time there was soft Christmas jazz playing overhead.

Stuck in Urumqi

I planned on coming to the city of Urumqi for a couple of days to get my visa for Kazakhstan. Of course, nothing went to plan. I got here on a Saturday and by the time I got settled in the embassy was closed. The next day was Sunday Embassy wasn't open. On Monday I went to the embassy and fought through the small mob of Chinese, endlessly waiting for visas to get to Kazakhstan, their nearby land of opportunity. Standing in the mob I waited for the security guard to catch a glimpse of my shiny blue passport with the bad ass eagle on the cover. He eventually saw it and motioned for the crowd to make way for the "may-gwa," thats Chinese for American. I got through the second stage of chaos inside the embassy and was told that I had showed up too late in the day to apply for a visa. It was one in the afternoon.

I returned the next day, fought through the mob and chaos and received an application for a tourist visa. After handing it back, the woman asked for a visa photo. Damn! I knew I was going to forget something. I went back to my hotel across town and came back with a photo. Application submitted. Now I just had to wait two days.

Finally, Thursday rolled around and I had my visa in hand. I got a bus ticket to Almaty, only a 24 hour ride and I was to leave Friday evening. That would put me in Almaty on Saturday night, just in time to get to the embassy for Azerbaijan on... Sunday! Damn! Might as well stay here so that I get to Almaty, Kazakhstan on Monday, as to streamline my visa process so I can get the heck out of there.

What else have I done while stuck here? I sampled the local food, mostly Muslim, hung out with local couch surfers. I even went to a local dance club where I observed how the people of this region got down. They dance more with their hands and shoulders rather than their legs and booty. Most of my time has been spent recovering from a nasty cold.

Since so many of you have asked about how much China costs, I have kept very close tabs on how much money I have spent in a month. In 30 days in china I have spent $456. That is not trying to live cheap either. I eat large, fantastic meals, stay at nice hostels, ride nice trains and do activities like horse trekking and hiking. That is not including the $250 on visas.

Say What?

Here is a compelation of some of the memorable things friends and family have said to me while on this trip.


"How are you still alive?" - Jay when I pulled up on my motorcycle in Durango, CO


"Don't get SARS!" - Ryan after I got to China


"Get a Haircut." - My step-dad


"Your room is pink now." - My brother... He wasnt kidding


"Where is Laos?" - Everybody after I told them I was going to, or was in Laos


"Four months Gavin, Its time to come home." -My sister in a very stern voice

"This is Tibetan whiskey." - My horse treking guide

"You call a person that knows three languages trilingual, a person that knows two bilingual and a person that knows one... an American. HAHAHA, I made a funny!" - a Chinese English student