As
I’ve written here before, living in Australia compared to the US is a blessing
for travel. My job offers me six weeks
of vacation per year and I’ve tried my hardest to make the best use of that
time – balancing trips back to the US with trips around Australia. I’ve managed to sneak away on a trip that
wasn’t domestic or involving North America only once so far – when I went to
China in 2011. But this past October I
got to make up for that with a 34,000+ kilometre journey across five extremely
different nations. I spent 29 days
abroad and have now been back for a month and I feel that I have finally spent
enough time processing my experience and reflecting on the journey that I can
write truly insightful blogs about it.
Just
kidding! I’m not that deep. But seriously, if I had you going for a minute
then you’ve obviously never met me. I’ve
just been busy. Really busy. Going away for a whole month really sets you
back at work. Plus, everybody and their
mothers has been itching to catch up and get all the down and dirty details of
my travels. On top of all of that, I
took over 3,000 pictures and still haven’t gone through all of them. It’s so tough being me sometimes. Le sigh.
Enough
oh my bullshit.
By
plane, ferry, train, and automobile, my journey took me to rich countries, poor
countries, and countries in between. To
Europe, to Asia, and Eurasia. There was
lodging with fancy toilets full of buttons to make water shoot at your bum at
different angles, and there were holes in the ground (I preferred the former,
just in case you were wondering).
My
first destination was Estonia – a former Soviet republic that finally found the
strength to break away from its Russian occupiers just over two decades
ago. Estonia has been slowly struggling
to transform itself from a poor Eastern European country to one that is more
aligned with Western Europe, and the results are truly astounding. Estonia was not what I was expecting.
Then
there was a country that was exactly what I was expecting: Finland.
Despite is eastern location bordering Russia, Finland is a rich Western
European nation in every way. Modern and
progressive, clean and efficient, Finland aligns well with the other Nordic
countries and the rest of Western Europe, but it has an ever-so-slight eastern twist
to it – maybe from a history of Russian rule which finally ended around World
War I. I’ve always had a fascination with
the Nordic countries so my expectations were high, and Finland came to the table
and put a smile on my face the entire time I was there. It was pretty much flawless.
Then
off to Russia. Tickets for this journey
were booked and paid for months before Russia’s infamous anti-gay laws were
passed mid-year. With all the negative
press of late, I was hesitant about going, but I wasn’t willing to lose the
money. Russia wowed me – sometimes in a
good way, and sometimes in not such a good way – but it wowed me and that’s the
important thing. Despite the influx of western
influences since the fall of communism, Russia was a truly Eastern European
country. Signs of capitalism were all
around – and usually right in your face – but those signs were just
frosting. While the ingredients are all
there, the cake itself is a relic from the past and probably needs a lot more
baking to transform it into something modern and delicious.
From
the global cities of European Russia, I traveled on the Trans-Siberian
Railroad for four days to reach Irkutsk – one of Siberia’s principal cities but
by no means a big one – and the small town of Listvyanka on the shore of Lake
Baikal. Quiet and serene, Lake Baikal
was a complete 180 degree turn from St Petersburg and Moscow, and a refreshing
one at that.
After
Russia, I traveled southward to Mongolia.
Once isolated and poor, Mongolia has very recently come into a bit of
wealth thanks to a resources boom. Dirty
and dusty with drab architecture and abandoned buildings, the capital city
retains much evidence of Mongolia’s past, but is dotted more and more with
signs of its future: upscale hotels,
fancy retail stores like Louis Vuitton, and an increasing number of western
restaurants across the city.
Outside
of the principal city, I spent some time in a quiet national park away from the
dust and dirt and the dichotomy of Ulaanbaatar.
With no western food available, my little tour group ate like locals. Mutton galore and sheep brain soup later, our
faces were a little downtrodden, but a hike up to a tiny Buddhist monastery on
a mountainside made it all worthwhile.
My
final stop was South Korea. Both Koreas,
technically. I was completely
unprepared for Seoul. Two years ago I
was shocked to find that Hong Kong was so western for an Asian city, but Seoul
wasn’t. It was so western for any
city. Switch all the writing to English
characters and you’d hardly know you were in Asia (well, except maybe for all
the Asian people, but you get the point).
Modern, clean, efficient, and orderly, Korea was everything that
Mongolia wasn’t despite being only a three hour flight away. At the DMZ, the sight of North Korean soldiers
checking me out with binoculars was unnerving, but I can proudly proclaim that I
stepped foot into the forbidden, renegade North Korea for a good fifteen
seconds or so.
And
then it was back to reality – to work and socializing and post-trip
depression. I’ve since done some shopping
and booked another trip to look forward to, so I’m back to normal and it’s high
time I finally churn about some blogs about my adventure. Culture, sights, and food of the five countries
will follow in individual entries. Until
then, I’m going to get back to sorting through my massive amount of
pictures. I really need an assistant.
