A guest appearance from Hannah...
Having seen a countdown to the Olympics opening ceremony it dawned on us that we have about 200 days left of our world tour adventure. I am hiding from the intense midday heat here having noticed that even the relentless drivers can no longer be arsed to shout 'tuk-tuuuk' at every passer-by. Sitting in the hammock of our beach hut which we have been enjoying calling home whilst we recharge, I wanted to reflect on some of the environments, people and cultures we have experienced over the last seven months on the road.
Some of our more wonderfully weird encounters, endurances and journeys…
...embarking on our trip sleeping under the stars on blow up lilos on a
ferry to the Balkans set the tone from day one. It was unnerving when we visited Bosnia and walked beside the bullet
hole covered buildings in the streets of Mostar, I watched Tom’s fascination as
we stood in an abandoned MiG hanger being told the story of the demise of Yugoslavia.
…everything about Albania! Laughing together at the extensively advertised, pathetic plastic
statue filled ‘Dinoworld’ in tacky Budva; witnessing Albanians happily throw
all their rubbish outside the windows of all moving vehicles into beautiful
green vineyards as I tried to remind myself I was still in Europe not India. I
delighted however at seeing my first happy donkey trotting along a road freely in
Albania (everyone who grew up reading Winnie the Pooh knows that donkeys are
all depressed by nature.) I feel uncomfortably hot here as I think of being
saved by the silent man in his Mercedes as a torrential rain storm flooded the
ancient mountainside town in Berat leaving us stranded surrounded by SHITET signs everywhere! hahaha!
... surely the most bizarre city in Europe - Skopje!
Neither of us have ever seen so many fountains and newly built statues in one
place! In contrast to this we reached the science fiction novel scene of Sofia
with its skyline full of more crumbling high rise concrete than we have ever
encountered.
...our welcome to Bulgaria consisted of being royally fleeced by a taxi
driver and ‘saved’ by skinhead Angel and his mates on the Bulgarian police
force. Deciding we were better off with our own transport, we road tripped for
a while (to the theme tune of the Wombles courtesy of Toms singing as an ode to
’Uncle Bulgaria’) breaking into an abandoned decomposing communist UFO
conference centre.
…our apartment in Tallinn that was like a Lawrence job on changing
rooms – leopard skin printed suede walls and bubble gum pink flower covered bedroom from
which we visited old KGB offices hidden in a hotel was as bizarre an experience
as any. The strange Vilnius art community of Užupis complete with their own mad
constitution, flag, army backpacker Jesus statue will always stick in my mind.
…the huge distances we covered as we raced through Siberia
chatting with young Russian businessmen and women, the butch frowning carriage
hostesses, a carpenter building his own wooden house, a brave oil rig engineer, an
11 year old ballroom dancing girl interpreting for her mother, a randy French
Judo enthusiast and ‘speed dating’ in the restaurant cart with 12 vodka train
tour backpackers. Reaching Mongolia to experience -20 degrees as we climbed out
onto the giant steel Genghis Kahn statue in a blizzard.
...pushing Albania closely for the weirdest country award China proved to be a culture shock! Beijing was strange enough but having to wear batman’s Bain style masks with its smog
cloud as we toured the city sights was a new experience. The relentless hocking,
spitting and conductors sales pitches on filthy trains through Chinas landscapes
- or should I say building sites. Reaching Chengdu to see the sheer stupidity
and subsequent hilarity of Pandas of all ages as they rolled around on top of
each other like drunk middle aged sumo champs still makes me smile. Our Guilin
Chinese tourist experience consisting of trying to spot limestone karsts in the
fog, feeding an oxen in the car park, watching cormorants catch a dead fish a
few times finished off with the free gift of a nail clipper clad with pictures
of the pinnacles we should have seen first-hand…
…and finally our looks of sheer bewilderment as we stumbled upon a
full gay pride fancy dress parade as the ‘Mr. Rainbow winner’ winked at Tom on
a fancy float in Chiang Rai amongst a huge tropical flower show!
As I
consider which beach café to visit for lunch, some of our weird and wonderful food encounters come to mind…
Eating real Bolognese in Bologna (who knew it
doesn't have beef in it?!) whilst wishing I could afford bottles of balsamic
costing well over a hundred euros (my weird love of vinegar grows year on year!);
wafting flies off our yoghurt covered meat and rice breakfast with our hostel
owner and driver Mikel in Albania; selecting samples of Turkish delight from
the many varieties exploding with colour encrusted with petals or fruits whilst
telling Tom he had probably eaten enough baklava as his eyes began to twirl
opposite me; twisting my face at the bitter as hell Macedonian Kiwano fruit I
dared to try sat around the 'grape smuggler' wearing bearded men around Ochrid
lake; eating surprisingly delicious buckwheat combos and grey beans with bacon
in the Baltics after brisk walks along sand dunes in the wind, creating painted
marzipan models from the city of Tallinn which claims to be its inventor; scraping raw, salted and smoked fish off the
bones on a frozen platform in Siberia, meat dumplings in hot stock with
slightly curdled yoghurt and herbs floating around in it and then coming to
terms with the fact that it was actually really quite nice; trying to recall
what vegetables were after 5 meat filled days in Ulaan Bator during year of the
monkey (which translates as extra cold weather resulting in mass farm animal
slaughter and so super cheap meats!) …being taught how to eat Peking duck
properly by a group of elderly Chinese men and not being able to bring
ourselves to actually eat all the animals (baby sharks, scorpions and silkworms
to name but a few!) found on sticks in the food markets in any china town we
have come across.
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| Kotor Bay & Perast, Butrint ruins and Lake Ochrid. |
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| Istanbul, Romanian castles & the Curronian Spit. |
Some of our favourites!
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| The Nutcracker at the Meriinsky, the Gobi Desert and Lake Baikal. |
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| The great wall of China, Myanmar Burma and the islands of Cambodia. |
As my
hammock daydreams are replaced by the call to the beach I feel so happy we took
this big ‘time out’…time to read good books…time to think about what we want from our next thirty years on this mad planet!
I feel grateful and lucky to
have made this trip with Tom – complete with his relentless organisational
skills we have enjoyed what we have come to call ‘Agass tours’ on most of our
explorations. His vile of liquid luck (which everyone who knows Tom will agree
must always reside in his back pocket) has kept us safe and well throughout the
trip. He has committed to keeping this 'blogged account' of our experiences which
we will treasure always.
I feel lucky to be engaged to my brilliant travelling
partner and best friend.
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