Back from Rome

Inside the Basilica, one can see ghosts everywhere
Originally uploaded by soylentgreen23.

Well, I've returned. Actually, I got back a few days ago. Rome was excellent - a really rewarding trip that I'm glad to have taken. I feel fresh and recharged and almost ready to go back to work when the school holiday finishes.

The trip wasn't without incident, either; on the way out, there was some 'trouble' at the airport. We were delayed anyway because of some computer cock-up in the the terminal. Then, when we'd already sped down half of the runway, the pilot suddenly screeched on the brakes, bringing us to a crazy halt with little runway to go. Turns out, a dog was in our way. How provincial is this little airport for one of the most important cities in Poland?

Best trip ever!

The gang, overlooking Lake Titicaca
Originally uploaded by soylentgreen23.

I'm back - I have been for a while - and I have to say, here indeed is a contender for the best trip I have ever been on.

It really was so much better than I had anticipated. The stop-over in Miami was long enough to go and explore South Beach; La Paz was extraordinarily beautiful when viewed from El Alto; the ruins were fine and not too many that I suffered from ruin-fatigue; the hiking was marvellous and strangely refreshing; the food was delightful, and I had some of the best seafood ever in Lima; Cusco was picturesque and belonged to the locals far more than I had thought; and Machu Picchu... well, what can one say? It lives up to the hype and then some, and the climb up Wayna Picchu was simply outstanding.

So the question really is, where to next?

Packing

rises
Originally uploaded by soylentgreen23.

I've now started packing for the trip. I want to take as much camera equipment as I can manage, but since I know I'll have to carry it I also don't want to take anything more than two lenses and a tripod. I need the latter because I might be able to get to Machu Pichu early in the morning to do a long exposure, and also it is cheap and light and doesn't count for much. However, the question is which lenses to take? I should really take the standard lens because it has the widest field of view - again very useful for Machu Pichu. I should also take one of my telephoto lenses, probably the physically smaller Nikon one, because then I can do proper people shots with the blurred background. The real question then is this: do I take the macro lens and try and find space for it in my luggage? This is a very hard subject to settle, because my camera bag only has room for two lenses, not three, and I don't want to risk getting any of my lenses damaged. What to do, what to do...

Just over a week...

insidered
Originally uploaded by soylentgreen23.

In a little more than a week I'll be jetting off again, this time to South America. I'm travelling with Explore to see if they're any good, and I'll be visiting Bolivia and Peru. I got worried a few months back that the Peruvian government was going to make it harder for people to get to Machu Picchu so I thought I'd best get my boots on and skip town quickly before my chance was gone. No worries really, though.
This will be the first time that I'll have travelled south of the equator, though I'll be taking my time getting there - including a silly stop-over in Miami, it's a twenty-three hour trip.

Bratislava

Bratislava Castle
Originally uploaded by soylentgreen23.

I'm back from my latest travels, and now the list properly stretches to 23. As a kind of spur-of-the-moment act, I popped over to Bratislava in Slovakia for a day and a night, and have thus added that country to my list.

I've finally sorted out my paypal account, and with that done I've proceeded with upgrading my flickr subscription to the pro level, giving me 2Gb of bandwidth to use each month. I have a feeling it's going to be a busy few weeks ahead, uploading all my old sets and then putting little descriptions in with everything. I've spent most of today doing it and I'm about 4% done...

Budapest Parliament

Budapest Parlament
Originally uploaded by Citroën Guy.

It has been a long, long time since I last posted anything here, which is a real shame. My poor, long suffering audience - I can understand why you've chosen not to comment spam me in the intervening months.

This picture shows where I'm going next - Budapest, the Hungarian capital. This time next week, and I'll be there. I've also booked a further trip abroad for June - Peru and Bolivia courtesy of Explore.

I'm 27 full years old in the summer - by the time I get back from Lima no less - so how am I doing with the ol' fifty in fifty plan? Here's how (looking ahead to the completion of the trips I've paid for but haven't quite completed yet - in bold):

1. Austria


2. Belgium


3. Bolivia


4. Canada


5. Czech Republic


6. Denmark


7. Estonia


8. Finland


9. France


10. Germany


11. Hungary


12. India


13. Italy


14. Japan


15. Latvia


16. Lithuania


17. Portugal


18. Peru


19. Spain


20. Sweden


21. Switzerland


22. Ukraine


23. United Arab Emirates, The


24. United States of America, The

EUR05: This is the end, oh beautiful friend, the end.

Hamburger Rathaus
Originally uploaded by Christoph Hoerl.

Shit. Saigon. Wait, no, that's a different movie. Well, you get the idea. My original plan to travel down to Turkey from Scandinavia has been scrapped, and for these very good reasons:

• Money: I've spent too much and would rather spend no more.
• Weather: parts of Europe flooded, you say? The parts I want to see?
• Fatigue: in India it was fortress fatigue; the first time around Europe it was museum fatigue. This time, I just feel tired. This could well be the last time I attempt anything as big as this solo - Soylent Green needs people!

Which brings me to the end, Hamburg, Germany, out of which I fly on Tuesday. I'll write a follow-up sometime, get some pictures onto flickr once they're edited, and get on with my life. It has been fun though.

EUR05: Country 7, Denmark

Nyhavn
Originally uploaded by tomhe.

Okay, so I've decided to change my plans. I'm no longer heading towards Turkey, for the simple reason that I've reached my tolerance for new things. Instead, I've taken a flight from Vilnius to Copenhagen, where I am right now, and in the afternoon I'll be getting on a sumptuously upholstered train to Hamburg in Germany.

Yes, I've been to Germany already so it won't be as new as, say, Poland. But I think it's the right thing to do, so that I can one day come back and do justice to the countries I've missed out on this time.

EUR05: Country Four, Sweden

bridge to skeppsholmen, stockholm
Originally uploaded by craiggthomson.

The ferry trip was pretty fine, with not much to do but read. I managed to get through the whole of "The Three Musketeers" in three days between leaving Tallinn and leaving Helsinki. Now I'm reading "On The Road" which is a lot better than I thought it would be.

Stockholm is a beautiful city, make no mistake. I have spent the last four hours wandering its streets and every which way I turn I stumble across another something beautiful worth photographing. That being said, I still think deep down that Kiev has spoilt me quite majorly - everything elsewhere seems so tourist-laden and expensive and all I want to do is find someone selling cheap beer where I can sit and read for an hour and not feel like there are people queueing to take my seat.

EUR05: Country Three, Finland

Eteläesplanadi
Originally uploaded by amsterboy.

I got into Helsinki later yesterday than I had expected - my Linda Line ferry didn't run because, I'm told, it was too windy. Instead I travelled with Nordic Jet, who were more expensive and left an hour later, but I'm not sour because it was a smooth ride and I read the whole way over.

So, Helsinki. It's still busy even though the athletics has finished, and it is expensive, though not as expensive as I had feared. Also, everything is in walking distance so I figure that I save enough not using public transport to justify spending a little extra on food.

Tomorrow, I'm taking another ferry, overnight to Stockholm. It takes sixteen hours but I have a cabin; this will be an entirely new experience for me, having never slept on a ship before.

EUR05: Country Two, Estonia

Tallin Old Town Walls
Originally uploaded by expectdelays.

Well, what a day it's been. I woke up at five this morning and made my way to the airport in Ukraine, flew from there to Helsinki, got a bus into town, traipsed down to the harbour, got onto a ferry, and an hour and a half of bouncing around later I was in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia and the second country on my list for EUR05 (Finland you will understand doesn't count until I return on Monday).

Tallinn is all rather beautiful, and reminds me of Bruges in Belgium. I went to Bruges so that I could drink "Dr Evil style" but everything was so expensive there. In comparison, Tallinn practically gives its drink away. Which is nice.

What's not so nice is the rain. The storm affecting most of Eastern Europe is affecting here as well, and the sky is a patchy mess of blue and grey, and I fear that any photos I take now will be touched by the greyness and won't come out too well. So I'll explore this afternoon, and get my snaps done tomorrow. If it isn't as bad.

I'm really beginning to get excited about this trip now. Because of the constrictions I faced in Ukraine - advanced hotel reservations, the flights - it felt as though it was a completely separate entity from what I am now experiencing. I still need to make some arrangements in advance - all that's left is to book a ferry from x to y sometime for the week after next, and that'll be that. I'll tell you what x and y are when they're done. In case I change my mind.

EUR05: Lviv

Hotel George
Originally uploaded by soylentgreen23.

Four days in Lviv: for two of them it rained constantly, one suffered from a miserably overcast sky, and today has been a little more sunny but very windy.

Lviv though is very picturesque. It possesses buildings with the same silver/aluminium roofs made famous by Montmatre in Paris, and all in all it feels like a Russian-ish version of Brussels. I don't think the locals would appreciate the connection I'm implying with Russia; from what I've read they're quite a nationalist bunch, allegedly more so than in Kyiv. I haven't seen it myself though.

I have no idea who the guy is reflected in the photo I've used, but whoever he is he must have stayed in the Hotel George, just like myself. It's a beautiful pink wedding cake kind of building, a century old and with fixtures that certainly agree. I'm beginning to wonder if there's something quietly sinister about the Lvivians; wherever I go nobody has the lights on. Even here in this internet cafe slash bar, the lights are off and from the outside it looks very much closed. I would have walked right past it if I wasn't busy killing time before tonight's return trip to Kyiv.

India prepared me well for this bout of travelling. Especially for the long periods of nothingness I occasionally foist upon myself. I checked out of my hotel in Kyiv a bit before midday last Friday, even though my train didn't leave until gone eleven at night. I got a lot of reading done. Also, the train's interior, in the lower class sleeper compartment I found myself in, was incredibly similar to the one Mr Willis and I travelled from Agra to Varanasi and to Delhi in - the same plastic/leather bunks arranged in sets of two-by-two-by-two, only here I didn't have to share my bed with any creepy crawlies (at least, if I did, they were small enough for me not to notice).

Today's train runs from half seven, so I should be back in Kyiv early in the morning. I'm on the left bank, as it is called, across the Dnipro from where all the cultural attractions are, and probably far from a metro station. I'm not worried about that, though. I'm flying out on Friday, early so I need to set my alarm, and before you know it I'll be in Estonia. I don't want to spoil the surprise, but I've been looking at alternative travel plans around the Baltic Sea and I've decided to take a slight detour - I'll tell all when it's finally decided and I've made hostel arrangements et ceter arse.

A little about the River Dnipro. I like it, but every time I see its name I think of that Beck song, "E-Pro." I wonder if there's any connection.

EUR05: Kyiv (2)

st fluffys
Originally uploaded by mwc134.

Kyiv is really something special. I was thinking about all the different cities I've visited so far as I was climbing up the hill behind my hotel, and then I found myself looking first at St Michael's in one direction and then St Sophia's in the other. These two pieces are two of the most sumptuous I have ever seen.

And that was before I found St Andrew's (pictured), whose domes look like embroidered velvet.

I've had to make the first change to my plans today. I tried to understand how the rail network here works, and having failed I scarpered to the nearest tourist office. The earliest I can make it to Lviv will be Friday night (arriving Saturday) which means I lose a night there. However, the hotel is pretty cheap so I could stay an extra night; I'm not terribly disappointed whichever way things work out, because if I'm to spend a day longer in Kyiv there are a million street stalls calling my name with their sub-50p pints of beer. Ah, Kyiv.

EUR05: Kyiv, Ukraine

Indipendence Day
Originally uploaded by Kreša.

So, here I am in Ukraine, thanks mostly to the relaxed visa restrictions for EU nationals. I didn't know what to expect, and now that I'm here I still don't know. Kyiv is such a strange melange of different things that it's hard to summarise. If I had to try, I'd say that Kyiv is great and leave it at that.

How so? Well, to begin with, the architecture. I don't know how best to describe the sheer beauty of so many of the buildings here - I'm no architect or art critic - but there is a huge variety, from the iconic communist monstrosities to the centuries old golden monasteries of Pechersk Lavra. Buildings are wonderfully painted in pink, blue, green, yellow, though never all at once. On one occasion I was swept back to the beautiful pink excesses of Jaipur, India.

Speaking of excesses, two things come to mind. Firstly, having found a taxi and some people to share it with at the airport, we entered town to the rousing reception of a level-10 storm. Lightning flashed more often than I could blink and within minutes the streets were flooded. The other excess was just as powerful to behold - the Second World War memorial overlooking the River Dnipro. This is the subject of the picture you can see on the right - a 102m tall metal woman, nicknamed "Tin Tits." On the shield, the hammer and sickle of the Soviets.

One area in which I most definitely struggle concerns language, as I had predicted. I neglected to bring with me a phrase book, and the only two people I have met so far to speak even the most basic English have worked for fast-food joints in one of the many cavernous underground shopping centres. I managed to teach myself quite a few Cyrillic letters on the way over, by comparing names in English and Ukrainian in a bilingual in-flight magazine. It's been a lot of fun, actually; I always enjoy myself most when I feel that I'm learning. It would help though if I learnt a little bit faster.

So, I have a couple more days until I head West to Lviv, which I'm told is the polyglot sister to Russian Kyiv. Should be good, but I like it here too and my only worry is that the cities that appear later on my itinerary compare poorly with this exciting capital.

PS. On an unrelated note, it would appear that I am finally to become a published writer, of sorts. The New Statesman has accepted a letter of mine to publish - not exactly a first novel deal but a great start, and something to treasure.

On The List

dub017
Originally uploaded by soylentgreen23.

I had an interesting conversation last night with my brother Richard, who has just returned from a geology field trip.

I told him about my planned tour of Europe (EUR05 I've named it), and we began to talk about the number of countries we'd visited.

My list currently stands at 14, though there are a couple of countries I could add to that if I so desired: I have been to Holland but was too young to remember; I have been to Greece, but Corfu is so unlike Greece (or so I hope) that I refuse to count it, and also I was too young to have much choice about the matter of going; one summer we spent six weeks exploring the West Coast of America, and hopped across the border to Mexico where we had a look around Nogales.

Holland and Greece I certainly will not include in my list. I'm only including the places I visited when I was old enough to appreciate them. But Mexico? I decided a while back to only include places where I had spent at least one night, so having only seen a few hours' worth of Mexico it doesn't get onto the list.

But really, where does that leave me? What if I want to add Vatican City or Monaco to my list? Will I be able to?

A partial rethink might be required - one that makes excuses for the smaller countries I might see in the future.

But unlike Richard, I'm not going to count places where I sat for five minutes in a traffic jam, even if Lichtenstein affords huge bragging rights.

Oh, and that list in full, as it stands today:

1. Austria


2. Belgium


3. Canada


4. Czech Republic


5. France


6. Germany


7. India


8. Italy


9. Japan


10. Portugal


11. Spain


12. Switzerland


13. United Arab Emirates, The


14. United States of America, The

On The Road Again

Soviet Gates
Originally uploaded by Little Lushie.

It has been a while since the last posting. I left my job, I went pretty much cold-turkey regarding the internet (one hour per day, courtesy of Guildford library), and now I'm ready to move out.

But I have a plan.

Okay, so on the first of August I fly out to Kiev, Ukraine, where I'll be spending about ten days at the start of EUR05, my latest excursion around Europe. I've secured a place to stay for the duration - four hotels in all, three in Kiev and one in Lviv.

I'll be blogging as much as possible but whilst I'm gone I'll be reliant on other people's photographs, blogged from flickr and replaced by my own, with any luck, at a later date. Or not.

As regards Ukraine (I'm told the "The" is superfluous), I'm so glad they hosted the Eurovision song contest recently! No, really, I am, because as a result the good folk over in the newly elected government decided to drop visa regulations for EU member states until the start of September. I hate dealing with excessively restrictive visas. I can understand why one was necessary for India - they love their bureaucracy and it keeps people employed - and I understand that many countries need you to get a visa on arrival. What I dislike is having to have everything so perfectly arranged before departure - on a trip like this, I want my flexibility. That's why I'm not going to Belarus, because I don't know enough about getting into and around the country and where it would fit into my plans, which is a shame because I've heard good things about Minsk.

So, about ten days in Ukraine, at the end of which I fly on to Helsinki. But I'm not staying there, oh no, because I can't. Unless I want to spend £100 per night on a single room, which I don't, I can't stay there immediately because there's some big Commonwealth athletics meet or something. Instead, I'll hop off the plane and onto a ferry and spend a couple of days in Tallinn, Estonia, and then return to Helsinki when the fuss is over.

And why am I so keen on staying in Helsinki? Couldn't I day-trip and stay in Tallinn? Why yes, certainly I could, but I have decided that "the list" can only include places where I have stayed overnight as an adult.

What is this list? It is the list everyone keeps, or everyone that travels keeps, detailing the countries one has visited. For me the number has just reached I think 14 - not too bad, but I'm well behind on my ambition to see 50 countries by the time I'm 50. However, this trip should get my up to speed rather neatly: I plan on visiting about a dozen countries in the next few months, which will get me up to maybe 26 or 27, and having recently turned 26 myself that would be rather smart.

On India04: Varanasi

Varanasi
Originally uploaded by soylentgreen23.

Varanasi; formerly Benares and still called that by some of the locals. Aside from an enlightening boat ride down the septic Ganges, and a brief tour of some of the cultural highlights of the city, Richard and I did nothing with our time here: we were too exhausted.

The Ganges was really quite something, lined with ghats - stairways down from the street to the water's edge - and crowded with people even as we headed there at sunrise. The Ganges is a holy river, and dramatically important in the Hindu religion; so much so that it is a place of pilgrimmage much like Sarnath is for Buddhists. It is so sad to know that the river is dead. It is so polluted that nothing can live in it anymore, yet still people come down to the river to wash themselves and their clothes and their pots and pans. It horrified me to imagine what I might be eating out of at our next meal.

The Ganges is also where people come to die, and to be cremated. In our boat, Richard, myself and a Japanese salaryman on a week's vacation, we sat in awe as we watched a blazing funeral pyre, the fire burning bright red and orange against the blue tones of the pre-sunrise dawn. "No photographs," our guide whispered, waving his hand as I raised my camera. I nodded and looked on in awed silence, as a burning mound was pushed into the river and I realised that it wasn't simply a mound, it was a person who used to be.

Time passed slowly for us in our hotel in Varanasi, on the long train ride to Delhi, and for the last couple of days we spent there before returning home via Dubai, yet at no stage were we bored. We played games, word games and geography quizes: how many countries can you name for each letter? The letter "R" is a tricky one - you can spend ages trying to think of countries, as it's such an important letter, but there are only three: Rwanda, Romania and Russia.

With just three days to go before England, I finally made the effort to call home. Previously I had relied on email, and even then I had sent only a few: there were better things to do than sit in an intensely stuffy little room typing and dehydrating. The call home made the wait to return infinitely more difficult, as I was informed of my father's death. I wished that I could have been with the rest of my family, to help, and felt as though I had abandoned them, even though I immediately knew that wasn't true.

I passed the last two days in Delhi, and one in Dubai, in something of a haze, as though I had died become a ghost left to wander the world, unable to touch or taste or feel. I was not sad to leave India, nor was I happy to return to England; I had simultaneously nothing and everything to return to.

On India04: Sarnath

sarnath
Originally uploaded by soylentgreen23.

At Agra, we left Bhupinder, who had been our constant companion since day two of our India experience. We parted with a handshake and a smile, and I hope that the tip Richard and I left for him, in an envelope with his client testimonials book in the glove compartment of his beaten-up car, was sufficient. I'm not good at tipping, but with Richard there to help I'm sure Bhupinder did okay by us.

Bhupinder left us at the train station a couple of miles out of Agra, where we waited for hours for a train to take us to Varanasi, half a day's journey away. Railway stations are a perplexing place in India. The platforms are not clearly signposted, and when the trains arrive, neither are they. The woman in the passenger's lounge demands baksheesh to enter your name in the station's logbook, and the porter, who for us was a scrawny little man who nonetheless carried all our bags without a struggle, demanded twice what we'd agreed beforehand because the train was so late. With a harsh word and an even harsher expression, I sent him packing with a small, though hardly paltry, tip. Should I feel bad about my attitude? As I have said, I am a very lucky guy. I earn enough in a week to cover the costs of someone living out here for many months, and yet when I feel that I am being taken advantage of I react accordingly. Bhupinder worked hard for Richard and I, though he was paid commission by all of the businesses he took us to; still, we gave him a good tip because, on balance, he was worth it. I don't mind giving money to deserving souls, but I will not give money to those that demand it of me.

My aggressive demeanour carried us into Varanasi, where we soon discovered that our tour operator in Delhi had done us a disservice. We had expected the same freedom of movement as we had enjoyed in Rajasthan, but here we were expected to pay extra for everything, even the trip we'd planned out to Sarnath. I was angry - how were we to know that the arrangements were so different? - and I pressed home my point time and again until our Varanasi representative crumbled (partly) and gave us what we wanted (partly). And so it was that we saw Sarnath, one of the holiest of holy sites in the Buddhist religion - I believe it was where the Buddha gave his first teachings. Richard was enthralled; I was emotionally drained by what had gone before and so perhaps wasn't as appreciative. All I could think of was how immensely phallic the Buddhist stupahs seemed.

On India04: Agra

Taj Mahal 001
Originally uploaded by soylentgreen23.

I consider myself to be an extremely lucky guy. Why? Because I'm so damned attractive I have to hire someone to escort me everywhere and keep the girls at bay? Because I'm so gifted at everything I do I have to advertise that I don't want a job? No. Because I've seen the Taj Mahal at its most glorious, and without a horde of other eager tourists getting in the way of my shot.

I have two photographs of the Taj, the world's greatest legacy to love; my favourite is probably this one here, but for its combination of impact and familiarity I have chosen the one above to post. As for Agra, there's very little I want to say; if you plan on visiting it, certainly go to the Taj and perhaps also the mini Taj (if they've gotten rid of the scaffolding) for comparison, and the fort is great if you're not already suffering from fort-fatigue, but otherwise get out of Agra as soon as you can. It's awful.

On India04: Jaipur Part Two

jaipur003
Originally uploaded by soylentgreen23.

By the time Richard and I returned to Jaipur, we felt like we were different people, exploring a different country to the one we had so recently arrived in. Yet nothing had really changed; there was still the same sense of decay and nondescript danger as there had been in Delhi, and we still suffered from the same anxieties. In the evening, after dining alone in the hotel's restaurant, we looked through Richard's Lonely Planet guide, contemplating our future. "It says here," I said, "that it isn't recommended that you head into Bihar without an armed escort. Richard, we were planning on going to Bodhgaya by train, and that's in Bihar!" The statements we read about where we'd been and where we were going, or would have gone had our plans not changed, were so extreme that by the second paragraph we were laughing so hard as to almost cry.

Jaipur, capital of Rajasthan, is popularly known as the "Pink City," for the decorative use of pink stucco in its architecture. It was founded by the warrior-scholar Jai Singh II, who was admired equally for his leadership on the battlefield as for his learned background. The picture above is from Jantar Mantar, the Maharaja's observatory. Jai Singh II sent his scholars around the world to investigate astronomy and bring back new techniques and ideas; after years of experimentation with brass instruments and glass optics, Jai decided that his environment was not hospitable to European methods, and he set about constructing a stone and marble observatory. The results are spectacular, and for both Richard and I, one of the true highlights of our tour, since neither of us had seen anything like it anywhere before.