Istanbul, Turkey

Sorry this took so long. Someone stole my ipad and it took me a week to replace it with something non-(rotten) apple.
Funny story about Istanbul - sitting on the bus traveling to ANZAC cove with Top Deck tours (worth every penny) and our local guide was rabbiting on about Constantinople. I had never actually put two and two together and realised they were the same city. 

Constantinople...or Istanbul. Dammit, I can never tell the two apart

It had just never come up in my history experience. I have either read books on ancient history, which is Constantinople cool and Constantinople is razed, etc, or learnt modern history (i.e. watched Bond movies), which is all nuclear submarines and oil pipelines. Now I think about it, that's not all that funny, but I guess I never really did understand 'humour'.

Is this humour? I was told its funny, but it seems awfully factual.

Arrival in Turkey was kind of reminiscent of Bali. As soon as I approached the baggage carousel am overly friendly local came over and kindly offered to assist me with my baggage. All the while he pretended only having limited English as I told him I was perfectly capable of pushing a trolley by myself. He remarkably remembered his English when I told him to go ahead, but under no circumstance would I tip him for his services. 

The Mosque. It is blue.

Upon exiting the airport another man came up to me as I was hailing an taxi. He proceeded to hail it for me also and carry my bags. I said no twice, but he just smiled and took my bags anyway. The look on his face was priceless when I refused to tip him as I explained I told him to leave me alone multiple times. At least the taxi had a meter. I arrived at the hotel early so I found the nearest pub grabbed some beers and learnt a few Turkish words from the (cute) barmaid. This was followed by check-in through my tour group, meeting my roomie, and a few more beers. That evening, I met the tour group.

Baiky, jumps in for first drink.

Suddenly he is the life of the party.

There were lots of cool people, all from New Zealand and Australia of course as we were all there for ANZAC day. Most of them lived in the UK. In fact, only my roommate and I had traveled from Australia. The evening finished with the group heading for dinner and many drinks, but it was kept pretty tame as we had an early start the next day for our trip to ANZAC cove. 

We met another mascot from the tour group. These two paired up in Hagia Sophia...and now Baiky has more friend's than me.

ANZAC eve and day were awesome! I will go into more detail in a later post, but if you get the opportunity I highly recommend it! In a nutshell you spend the night of the 24th crammed into the small space at ANZAC cove other aussies and kiwis alternating between trying to sleep and watching the provided entertainment. His included documentaries of Gallopoli, speeches by the many officials, and music from a military band (this year was the Australian Navy, but I assume this honour changes every year). As dawn breaks the service begins. There were talks from representatives from the Turkish, Aussie, and Kiwi governments, a few speeches from school students that won various essay competitions, and some random bloke causing trouble. After the dawn service the group hikes to either the Aussie or the New Zealand specific memorials for a few more speeches and laying of the wreaths. The Aussie MC was hilarious, and kudos for performing so well! After all this excitement we returned to Istanbul before smashing both dinner and drinks with wanton abandon. We woke early for the final day of the tour, a half day guided tour through some of the more famous sites of Istanbul. We visited the Blue Mosque, St Sophia's cathedral (Hagia Sophia), and the cisterns.

The cisterns were pretty cool, photos don't really show much.

The Mosque and cathedral were amazing and it was nigh on impossible to get a photo that does them justice and the cisterns were really quite beautiful as well. That afternoon I wandered around the city and some gardens before settling into a relaxing night of rest before catching my planets Malta. By that I mean traveling to the nightclub district, smashing beer and raki in equal amounts, getting into a physical altercation with a local, and getting back to my hotel minutes before my airport transfer arrived to pick me up!

In the gardens with Baiky, finally he is not causing a drunken scene.

Odessa, Ukraine

I caught another overnight train to Odessa and stayed in a hostel that is owned by a family friend of my uncle's (mother's side) wife. I liked Odessa more than Kiev, but I'm not sure why. I did have more fun going to restaurants here as it was the first time I was in a place without someone to translate for me.

Baiky lost an eye whilst watching the AFL with me, now his a one-eyed supporter. This photo encompasses a lot of what I liked about Odessa, it is from a restaurant overlooking one of their many gardens/squares that is a popular meeting place for locals. Most importantly, in the background you can see a fountain!

Most places had at least one employee who spoke rudimentary English, but on occasion I had to rely on my basic Russian to get by. I went on two tours of the city here like I did in Kiev. This time the focus was on the development of Odessa as a trading port by the Duc de Richelieu - governor of Odessa from 1803 until 1814 (I think) and the shenanigans of Tolstoy. This is opposed to in Kiev, which focussed on liberation from various countries and its amazing architecture/cathedrals.

This avenue is in a large park that borders Black Sea. The park includes numerous statues, a sporting stadium, a war memorial complete with an eternal flame (pictured), and an amusement park.

Like most of the places I visited Odessa has a fascinating history. If I remember correctly, due to its location on the Black Sea Odessa has been occupied by many different cultures. There is a huge Greek influence, and this is reflected in some of the large structures throughout the city and also documented in an archaeological museum filled with Greek artefacts including sculptures, weapons, and armour. Also, there was a movie being shot while I was there. One night I even got to watch a comedy scene being shot again, and again...and again. I guess they weren't being very funny (I wasn't laughing).

Y'all seen pictures of buildings, so here is a movie set on the main promenade of Odessa. These are some actors - no doubt super famous. Bit disappointed Bruce Willis couldn't be found.

At one stage I passed the war memorial during a military service. Not sure what was happening (my Russian is not up to scratch), but they laid flowers down, had a parade, handed out medals, and fired their rifles. It was cool! Strangely enough, I later asked a few locals who were not at the service what is about and no one seemed to know.

The marching band. I nearly got caught in the middle of them as at one stage they were walking away, and then suddenly the did a 180 degree turn and came back up the street. One luckless westerner was not as observant as me and got stuck in the middle of them.

Odessa was the first place I saw working fountains. The fountains I had seen for the past month had all frozen over for the winter. Odessa's, however, must have thawed earlier due to the warmer climate. The warmer climate also meant that I got to see a beach, beach volleyball, and dolphins (in a dolphin show). Odessa was also the first place I lost Baiky.

He fell out of my bag during a tour. I quickly backtracked and found him on this ledge. A kind person moved him from the middle of the path to safety! Either that or Baiky is sentient - both outcomes are pretty cool.

Finally, part of Odessa's history includes it criminal underworld and a labyrinth of catacombs under the city. The catacombs are the result of limestone mining and the criminal underworld the predominately the result of a slave trade (I think), mostly because they needed limestone to build stuff and slaves to do the building (and sex, but I didn't learn too much about the criminal history so feel free do your own research). The catacombs apparently have over 1000 entrances, reach a depth of 60 metres, and estimated to be over 2500 kms in length.

An entrance to the catacombs - good thing I'm not claustrophobic.

Not surprisingly people sometimes get lost and die within the tunnels. It is also not considered safe to enter due to the occasional tunnel collapses. So naturally I took a tour with another Aussie from the hostel (extreme tourism, yeah!). During WWII the catacombs were used as a hiding place for soviet partisans (wikipedia). I also seem to remember my guides telling me it was used to hide Jews too.

 Inside the catacombs with one of the two guides. He is explaining the wall markings, which the catacomb guides use to find their way around. If I remember correctly his was the black arrow. The other markings are symbols used by different guides. The guides are fiercely protective of their routes. 

The same photo without the camera flash. It was pitch black inside so we were supplied with two torches each. A smarter me would have realised it might be a week dark inside and brought his head torch along.

There was heaps of cool stuff in Odessa and it is one of the places I would like to go back to. Pretty certain I could woo just about anyone I take to this city so I kinda see it as a cheaper version of Paris (also it does not suffer the reputation of being pretentious). It also has probably one of the funniest sites I have seen thus far (possibly with the exception of the predator hanging around Ulaanbaataar). There is a bridge in town called the "Mother-in Law" bridge, so named because if you jump in the middle of the bridge you can feel it wobble up and down, much like the incessant wagging tongue of one's mother-in-law.

 This is the famous one-walled building. It was built as a movie set for the Three Musketeers. I can't remember if they ran out of money so they didn't complete the building or if they just didn't need a full building for the set, but either way its pretty funny.

 This is the same building two steps to the left.

All to quickly the 23rd of April rolled around and it was time to head to Turkey. Here I could stop focusing on international history and soak up some Aussie patriotism at the 98th anniversary of the Australian and New Zealand troops landing at ANZAC cove in the ANZAC day ceremony of Gallipoli.

I thought I should include at least one building. This is Odessa's famous Opera House. It is a magnificent building (and it has a fountain!). Tickets to see the ballet or the opera cost about $5, but unfortunately the show times seemed to clash with other plans I had.

Kiev, Ukraine

I apologise for my last entry, which was a bit too long. I have split Ukraine into two entries (Kiev and Odessa). I arrived in Kiev, Ukraine still a bit under the weather. In Kiev I stayed with an old family friend of my mother's named Shane Smith. I spent five days alternating between partying too hard and catching up on rest. Twice I went on complete benders, both times with random Ukrainians I met while at pubs!

I can't remember his name, but we we drank a lot of cocktails this night. True to form Baiky tries to steal my drink.

In summer Kiev is supposed to be gorgeous due to its lovely parks and blooming flowers, although it was pretty nice in the snow too. I went on a few tours through the city and found it quite Russan-like, with a large portion of the tours focused on the Stalinesque architecture and churches.

This is an ex-KGB building. Its design is cool and the reasoning behind it was only released recently. It is impossible for a sniper to shoot through any window unless they are directly in front of the building due to the arch shape of the building and the columns rising up beside each window. This means that the guards automatically know which direction any sniping shots have come from.

However, there was also many statues that commemorated the Cossacks who fought for the liberation of Ukraine. It turns out that Cossacks are Ukranian and not Russian.

One Cossack. They stand out due to there topknot, crazy mustaches, tartar clothing, and  being really scary.

I got the impression that everything in Kiev is based around the main street, I name which I cannot pronounce, but is called Khreshchatyk. It is nearly 1.5 km long and includes Maidan Square (Independence Square).

Two tourists unknowingly pose for my photo. The St Michael Statue can be seen in the background with gold wings.

 This square has heaps of sculptures, some of which commemorate Ukrainian culture and history (such as the sculpture of wheat that is about 30 metres high and the sculpture of St Michael) as well as weird artistic sculptures like those found in Canberra.

This would not be out of place in Canberra. Although this was not in the square it was on Khreshchatyk. There was also a sculpture of lampposts entwined like lovers on a bench, and some animals, much like the pigs in Canberra.

 The street also boasts a flower garden in the shape of a clock that I couldn't see because the flowers were yet to bloom and a globe monument that provided straight line distances to each capital city in the world.

 The globe and the capital cities. I have circled Canberra in black and zoomed in below.

Here is a close up, try and find Australia's capital. It took me ages, not because it is written in Cyrillic but because I was hunting around in the S section. I nearly complained to the tour guide that they left off Sydney until I remembered the city I lived in for the past twelve years.

I really wanted to go to Chernobyl, but unfortunately you can only go with tour groups and you need to give at least five working days notice so I missed out.

Kiev in winter.

Quick update

Howdy all. I can't update at the moment as I need access to a desktop or laptop computer in order to add photos. Currently smashing around the Greek island if Corfu with Alex Grimes. Keep tuned for posts on Ukraine, Gallipoli, ANZAC day, Malta, and Greece!

European Russia

Goof and I spent three days (+ 5 hours due to the bloody time zone differences) on a train as we traveled from Siberia to western Russia. It was mostly passed in a daze of reading books, playing cards, and sipping vodka.

and sleeping, there was a lot of sleeping.

Our first stop was Kazan, the capital of the Republic of Tatarstan. We met our latest Honcho, Katie, at the station and she promptly dropped us off at our hotel with pretty strict instructions that we should shower. After thus we proceeded to take in the local sites. These included the World Heritage Site the Kazan Kremlin, which houses bizarrely shaped mosques, massive statues, and a fire station. We also visited a cathedral that houses the Our Lady of Kazan holy icon.

This was the first of many awesome mosques I have since visited - Kazan set a high standard for beautiful structures.

This icon was found by a young girl after receiving a vision of the Virgin Mary in the 1500s, and the cathedral was built where the icon was found. One of the many humourous things from our journey was our honcho's insistence of visiting their new zoo in Kazan. Turns out it was a petting zoo with all of the usual farm animals (chickens, rabbits, sheep, goats, pigs, etc. Oh, and emus - we cant forget the emus). At first she couldn't quite understand why we were not as excited as she was - until we explained that Goof grew up on a farm and I regularly visited my grandparents farm.

I didn't let Baiky feed the animals at the zoo (Katie, in all her delighfulness, provided some food for us to give to the animals). To atone for this I let him ride a cat we found at another mosque.

During our wanderings in Kazan we were joined by Katie's cousin, Olga, who also works as a tour guide. We went to the pub and that's pretty much all I remember. I think it gies domething like this - after many beers Goof and I ventured to a nightclub called Coyote Ugly. We were given strict instructions not the touch the girls and then we drank the night away. After many more beers I joined in a drinking round with some Russians, not too sure what I was drinking but I think it involved Jaegar. I was told by Goof that at one stage the 'Aussies' were called to the bar so they could give us some cocktails. Goof carried me home (we got lost) and I must have fallen over and bumped my head because I had a massive bump which made me physically ill to touch for the next week.

The leaning tower of Kazan - located in the Kremlin. I cannot remember the exact details, but poor planning led to one side of the building sinking slightly. This, it turns out, is not uncommon. There is a legend that the last queen of Kazan threw herself from the top of the tower instead of marrying Ivan the Terrible (I think). Not quite accurate but adds to the terribleness of Ivan.
The next day I was a mess, but the show must go on. We visited more mosques and had lunch at a famous monastery outside of the town, and cleaned our shoes.

Baiky also warranted to quick 'shoe buff'.

Our next destination was Suzdal, a small town of just over 10 000 people 26 kms from Moscow. I gathered it is much like Batemans Bay- lots of people from Moscow like to travel there on weekends in summer to escape the big smoke (and Moscow is the biggest of smoke). While it used to be of political importance it is now mostly a religious center (there are a shitload of churches). It was an incredibly beautiful place and our Honcho here had the best English of all and also joined us for a beer (the first Honcho to do so).

Beers in Suzdal. Goof is angry because he has to share me with a seal and a Honcho.

Here we visited some churches, including the Church of St Nicholas, a wooden church that is part of an outdoor museum of wooden architecture. There was also an old prison in a monastery that we visited, but all I remember is that it had an awesome story, not the story itself (I had a raging headache all day because I couldn't stop touching my bump).

Suzdal in all of its snowy goodness. Even two weeks later I was still fascinated by frozen bodies of water

After our one night stay in Suzdal we were bundled into a car and driven to Moscow. While the outskirts of Moscow was only a few kms away the drive to the city centre took hours. Moscow is a huge sprawling metropolis of approximately 2 500 square kms and 11 000 000 people.

St Basil's Cathedral. A shot of this is in every movie that uses Moscow as a location (I may have made that up, but it was in Die Hard 5). 

I mentioned previously that the Chinese and Mongolians to big very well. Moscow architecture dwarfs them. Stalinist architecture is based around two things; keep it square and make it massive! Moscow was pretty cool and the first place our Honcho, Tanya, took us to an the museum of soviet arcade machines (at our insistence). Most of the games revolved around fine tuning soldiering skills (submarine captain, airforce pilot, shooting games, etc).

Goof destroys some tanks in fine style at the Arcade museum. 30 seconds after he finished the game the Russians conscripted him into the armoured corps.

We visited the Red Square, which houses the Moscow Kremlin and St Basil's Cathedral. We got to see the changing of the (goose stepping) guards at the Eternal Flame at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. This is a war memorial dedicated to the Soviet soldiers killed during WWII. We chencked out an outdoor sculpture gallery, and visited the Moscow University. The architecture of the Museum epitomizes Stalinest Architecture, the maths and physics building is all types of huge. The uni was pretty much the end of our great Vodka train trip after 24 days of culture.

A huge statue of Peter the Great. Originally it was supposed to be a statue of Columbus, but instead it commemerates the navy. Fun facts I just found on wikipedia - its the eighth tallest statue in the world and it was voted the tenth ugliest building by Virtual Tourist. Pity, it can be seen from a long way away - but in all honesty I was impressed by it.

Oh, there was also a shuttle.

Pictured: one shuttle

Goof and I did have one more day left in Moscow, as we had both decided to rest before the next leg of our respective trips. We found our way to a historic street called Arbat street, smashed some burgers at a Hard Rock café and enjoyed a quiet beer at a famous English pub opposite the Kremlin..

Yup, a few quiet beers, followed by a 'Death of Hassan' (that's a drink). That nice Russian ringing the bell introduced us to it. I'm not too sure how many he had, but we had to put him in a taxi on our way out. Here's the story, the bartender mixes a bright drink full of interesting looking spirits, plonks a hardhat on your head and then hits you the helmet quite hard. Someone starts ringing the bell and doesn't stop until you have sculled the drink. As Goof said, 'any drink that requires you to wear a hard hat you should be wary of.'

Its okay, we got home. It just took a long. long time, but we found more cool stuff on the way. What we did learn though, is that turning up hungover to an airport is not recommended. I am pretty sure I never even said goodbye to Goof as we parted ways. I just grunted and stumbled through immigration.

The happiness wears off about few hours later as we crawl into a cab at 6 am.

Siberia

So, first things first, spring in Siberia is cold - there is snow and cars drive on lakes! Secondly, despite what we had been told, Russian people are awesome (if somewhat confused at why we would leave Australia to visit Siberia). We visited three cities in Siberia; Ulan Ude, Irkutsk, and Listvyanka. All them were in the vicinity of Lake Baikal, a bloody massive lake that happens to be the largest repository of fresh water in the world and, most importantly, the only place where one can find fresh water seals.

Pictured: Cold (but, you know, not too cold).

We only spent one day in Ulan Ude (the first night was outlined in the Entry into Siberia post) but it was a great introduction into Russia. We had two Honchos and they took us on a  tour  that exhibited the rich history of the city. We started with an outdoor museum that had been reconstructed to resemble the  structures of early western settlers. Attached to this was a small zoo which had foxes, bears, wolves, and reindeer.

Rudolph - home at last.

Afterwards we wandered through town and the honchos showed us sculptures that commemorated things such as women's suffrage, various religions, and unity between their aboriginals and the western settlers.

One of the many sculptures in Ulan Ude. I am pretty sure this one was for Buddhism with the fish representing knowledge.

The native people of the area, who are of a distinct asian heritage, and the 'white russians' seemed to be completely integrated within their society. However, I guess they have had a few more hundred years than Australians to achieve unity. During this time Goof grilled the poor girls on local politics. Oh, and as mentioned earlier, the biggest head of Lenin resides in this town.

Leading a revolution is bound to give one a big head.

At 5pm the honchos left us with strict instructions be back at the hotel at 11pm so we could catch our train. We found a pub with some friendly Russians, who after offering us vodka, politely warned us of the folly of mixing beer and vodka. Lets just say that Goof and I barely made the train. Alas Rudolph was not so lucky and somewhere between the pub and the train he jumped ship. In all honesty he had achieved his goal, which was to leave the hot climate of Australia for his natural habitat. I like to believe he found his way back to the reindeer we had spotted earlier. Either that or he is with the Russian girls - and I cannot begrudge him that decision.

Yeah, we had about 15 mintues until we had to leave at this point.

The next morning I awoke in Irkutsk (one of the largest cities in Siberia) with very little recollection of our mad rush to the train and still somewhat tipsy. This was a good thing, as Goof was not in a talking mood and in my still inebriated state I filled in the void as Julia, our lovely new honcho, showed us around the historic town. As with all Russian towns there were monuments to founders, Lenin, and famous actors/writers/poets. It was a sensational tour, but at the time I beleived I had lost my camera the night before so Goof took all the photos. Alas he is yet to email them to me so  do not have any photos of Irkutsk right now (but watch this space, I will add some as soon as get them).

Without any pictures of Irkutsk I had to make do with this scenic view from our accomodation in Listvyanka. This is looking towards the lake.

Just as my hangover started to kick in we jumped in a car and drove to Listvyanka, a quant tourist spot on the shores of Lake Baikal and here the fun began (not in the car, we slept pretty much the whole way). Listvyanka was awesome, mostly because even walking seems like tourist activity when it is snowing, covered in ice, or you are actually walking on solid water.

Standing on Lake Baikal under a huge chunk of ice. at this point in time Goof and I were very nervous. 

To list some of the awesomeness we went dog sledding, rode on a hovercraft, climbed to the top of local hills, visited an aquarium, walked on the lake, drove on ice, and went ice fishing in the lake. Julia accompanied us on all our adventures, including our long walk on the icey lake. This must have bee frustrating for her is while it was a novelty for us, I am sure she has done it before. It is a pretty difficult endeavour as every second step our feet would slide in all directions. We had a running bet to see who would fall over first - I won one thousand tobruk (mongolian currency; appromately 80c (we made a lot of one thousand toburk bets).

Ice fishing - there was always a small concern we would fall in. You can also see a seal next to the fishing hole. He made many comments alluding to the fact that he was better at fishing than we were.

She also had to translate everything for us including menus, museum displays, and everything the ice fisherman said - and he said a lot. He really liked his job and Lake Baikal. The most fascinating thing he said was "usually you cant drive on the ice at this time of year because it is too thin. However its been a long winter so it should be okay" This was all said while looking at us and not where he was going. Granted, it was on a lake and there is very little to run into but we have all seen the crashed paddock basher that managed to hit the only tree in the paddock...

Eating our catch.

To cap off an amazing adventure that was Siberia (mostly Lake Baikal) I also found a fresh water seal who has indescribable urge to visit the Mediterranean. He returned our duo into a mighty trio and off we traipsed  to see what  European Russia had to offer (hint: it started with a  three day train ride. This is not recommended).

Baiky the Seal saying goodbye to his home as he searches for the warmer climates of the Mediterranean.