Amsterdam --- the last stop

Back to the west --- everything works, people speak English and smile at you and everything is comfortably familiar.

Amsterdam is different from previous cities: hundreds of canals (60 Km of canals), bridges of all kinds, charming narrow streets with lots of bicycles, quaint little stores, pubs, cafes, restaurants. We took a boat tour through the canals and then walked and walked and walked… We must have covered every street and canal in the center at least twice.

The city is old, beautiful, and well maintained. There is good infrastructure. The 17^th and 18^th century houses are built on wooden piles (not apparent) since the ground is soft. If you look closely one can see some buildings leaning.

We have a basement flat along a small canal in the center of town. Very convenient to everything. The owners, a young couple with 3 children live above. They work for KLM and travel a lot themselves. Maybe that’s why they equipped this studio with everything a traveler might need (unlike the apartments we had in Yerevan and Kiev, which were very sparsely furnished and lacked the essentials).

The food here is great. Everything we have had from restaurant to deli take out was excellent. There are tons of bakeries with a huge variety of delicious pastries. We’ve been eating way too much.

There are several streets dedicated to shopping. They were densely packed with people on Saturday. Shopping must be a national pastime here too. With the dollar up, prices here are not bad at all.

Warsaw -- Friends & Family

We spent most of the last two days in Warsaw visiting friends and family. Tuesday was a glorious fall day – sun, blue sky and multicolored leaves everywhere. We walked a lot. Warsaw changed even since last year when we were here. One of the main streets, Krakowskie Przedmiescie, was being renovated then and now it’s all done. One of the nicest things they did was to install descriptions of all historical monuments. The descriptions (in Polish and English) are on glass cubes, and each also includes the 18^th century version of the same building taken from paintings of an Italian painter Canaletto who lived and painted in Warsaw in the 18^th century.

In the evening, we visited my (Bo) friend Malgosia and her English partner, Terry. We had a great time talking about travels – theirs and ours, and eating Malgosia’s delicious food. She is an amazing cook.

On Wednesday, we walked through other parts of the city, mostly the area where Warsaw Ghetto once was. We saw monuments of the Ghetto uprising, the Umschlagplatz and the monument of the Warsaw uprising. The weather was cool and misty. Then we spent the afternoon at my father’s. Luckily, he and my stepmother are doing well and have not changed at all since we last saw them a year ago. We spent our last evening in Warsaw with Marek, Ania, Jasio and Ania’s mother in an Italian restaurant in their neighborhood.

Poland

After 100 plus degrees of heat in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Dubai Poland’s 44 degrees was quite a change.

When we landed in Warsaw, Bo’s godson Marek together with his totally cute 5-year old son Jasio picked us up at the airport and took us to their new apartment in the suburb of Warsaw. His wife, Ania was visiting her brother who works for the EU in Brussels. It’s a new development of attractively designed residential buildings with a 4-storey limitation. It’s near a forest and a lot of green areas. In Poland, new apartments are completely bare (no floors, no interior doors, no kitchen or bathroom fixtures). They have done a magnificent job decorating the apartment. It’s spacious, uncluttered and very modern. We had a dinner of home-made pierogis made by Ania’s mother. Yummy.

Change of plans. The plan was to go to Wroclaw to meet two friends. The friends had change of plans so we took a train to Gdansk (formally, Danzig formally Gdansk ….) Between WWI and WWII it was an independent city state. The old town is very picturesque. October is low season for the Polish coast so there weren’t many tourists there. Especially, in the evening it was a stark contrast with Kiev and especially with Yerevan.

The next day, we took a commuter train to Sopot, which is part of what is called a tri-city (Gdansk-Sopot-Gdynia). It’s only a 20 minute ride from Gdansk, but it has a completely different character. It’s a small very pretty beach community on the Baltic. It boasts the longest wooden pier. In the summer, it’s probably the most crowded city in Poland. People even call it the summer capital of Poland. We were told that the number of German tourists in this area is overwhelming. We got very lucky with the weather. It was an absolutely perfect fall day – sunny, relatively warm, with gorgeous fall colors all along the coast.

Rainy Kiev

Kiev is a great city. Beautiful buildings, nice parks and wide sidewalks. The sidewalks are so wide that cars park on them – one set on the inside next to stores and another set on the outside next to street. When they want to leave and the sidewalks are full of people it is very interesting.

Last night, we walked down the main Kiev drag – Khreshchatik. It was very lively, full of young people who were gathering in some places to watch street performances. Then, we started looking for a grocery store. It was harder than we thought to find one, but we finally did.

Our apartment is close to the center, five minutes from the main market Bessarabskiy Rinok, and close to a very popular Ukrainian restaurant Puzata Chata where we had dinner last night. The place was unbelievably mobbed.

Today was a rainy day. We did a tour of the main sights – Golden Gate, Sophia Monastery, Mihailovski and Andreevski monasteries, down Andreevski Spusk towards the Dniepr river. Much has changed since I (Bo) was here last in 2005, many new buildings, new Hyatt near Mihailovski, new Intercontinental on the other side of the street, many new shopping malls, including one in “our” street.

Yerevan summary

The city is very pretty. There are many nice parks throughout the city, each with lots of outdoor cafes. There is also a lot of new construction in the center. Old buildings are being torn down and replaced with new, enormous and attractively designed apartment buildings. We were told that government officials buy apartments in these new centrally located buildings at very low prices and then sell or rent them at huge profits. People whose buildings are being torn down get little compensation for their apartments and can’t afford to live in the center any more. They are being forced out into distant suburbs.

There appears to be no or very little city maintenance. Garbage collection seems to be sporadic. Walking in the evenings in dimly lit streets can be hazardous to your health because there are holes in the sidewalks and quite a few missing manhole covers.

Yerevan is definitely an evening town. At 8 am there is no one outside. From 2 till 11 and later it is jumping.

We have eaten in several non tourist Armenian eateries. No English, no Russian. We had to order by pointing. We went to a place were everyone eats lahmajune (“Armenian pizza”). We ordered 2, but an order is 2 so we got 4 (for $1). A lady behind us ate 4 of them, and they are not small (the size of a 9 inch pizza, but the crust is much thinner. It is covered with a very thin layer of meaty substance with spices. It is served folded in half)

We also ate at an outdoor café. We had 2 bottles of beer, coffee, and 4 dishes for less than $10.

On one of our city walks, we walked into the American University of Armenia. After a few phone calls they arranged a tour for us and Diana, a PR person took us around. Turns out it is only a graduate university with no undergraduate programs. Diana introduced us via phone to her sister who works at Yerevan State University. The sister in turn introduced us to her boss, head of the linguistics department. As a result, we spent a very interesting hour in her office.

Traffic is horrible and so are the drivers. Lane markers mean nothing and traffic signals are ignored. Crossing with the green walk signal is dangerous.

Even more Yerevan..

We went to Garni and Geghard (about 30-40 km from Yerevan) by minibus. The first is an old pagan temple built in 7th century BC. It was the only pagan temple not destroyed. The second is a unique church built in the 7th century AD. It consists of five little churches, three of which are carved out in the rocks and two larger ones were added to them in the 12th century. Geghard is the lance that was used to pierce Christ on the cross. This lance was kept in the church until a few years ago when it was moved to the museum in Echmiadzin. The weather was totally gorgeous – sunny, warm --- a perfect fall day.Last night, while walking around, we came across a brand new café (small one store front) selling lahmajune (which is also called Armenian pizza). They told us they were opening tomorrow and we told them we’d come back to try their pizza. After coming back from Garni, we went there for lunch but they said the oven broke down and they did not know when it would be fixed. So instead we had lunch in one of the dozens outdoor cafes near the opera. In the evening we were walking home and passed the pizza place again. The owner invited us in to join the table of ten people sitting and eating and drinking.. At first we refused but they insisted. After several vodkas we understood what was going on. Armenia still practices animal sacrifice. Any time there is a tragedy, they kill a lamb or a chicken and invite all friends to share the boiled meat (it has to be boiled, can’t be grilled or baked or fried) and accouterments. The tragedy was a fire that broke the pizza oven. We spent 2.5 hours there drinking and eating. Bo was able to talk to them in Russian comparing Polish and Armenian history and complaining about corruption in American and Armenian politics. They accused me of selectively pretending not to understand Armenian. Fortunately there were some youngsters who had English in school who could help me. A really nice evening.

More Yerevan

We took a tour to Echmiadzin (about 20 km from Yerevan) to see 4 ancient churches. It was a mini bus tour with about dozen others – a couple of Australians, 2 Bulgarians, a German, an Armenian from Argentina, an Armenian from New Jersey and his local girlfriend + two very obnoxious Russians who were constantly talking loudly on their cell phones when our guide Annushka was giving explanations in English. She had to repeat everything in 3 languages – Armenian, English and Russian to accommodate the group. We saw the ruins of a historic church from 7th century (Zvartnots, place of angels) built for St. Gregory the Illuminator by Catholicos Nerses II the Builder. Reputedly it was one of the most beautiful churches in the world, but the earthquake in 930 caused it to collapse. Two other churches Gayane and Hripsime are from 7th century and still working churches.
Echmiadzin was the most significant. It is the Armenian Apostolic Church’s equivalent of the Vatican. We were lucky enough to get there during mass. At the end of mass the head of the Church, the Catholicos (Pope’s equivalent) entered the church. Bo missed getting a personal blessing by inches due to a pushier believer. The mass was impressive with traditional vestments including black hooded cloaks, and a choir of 40 virgins (Bo’s spin) dressed in blue gowns and white veils. When we got back to the minibus, the Russians redeemed themselves by producing a big bottle of Armenian cognac + a set of plastic cups and treating everybody in the group to a round of cognac and some chocolate. We drank to Armenia. After that, the bond was established and all the bad feelings towards the Russians were gone. They sure know what it takes to make friends.
In the afternoon we walked to the Cascade, a set of terraces leading up to the top of one of the hills overlooking the city. A very impressive monument. ** This is the first place I’ve been that whenever I am asked my name I am not subsequently asked to spell it.

Hello Yerevan

After a surprisingly pleasant flight on Armavia airlines, we arrived in our apartment in the very center of the city. It is strategically located near the opera, shopping districts and close to the Republic Square. Yerevan greeted us with a huge celebration, a concert, dancing fountains and fireworks in the main city square (Republic square). Today (October 10th) happens to be the 2790th birthday of the city of Yerevan. We were very impressed.
Yerevan is a lovely city, with hills all around and beautiful snowy mount Ararat in the background. It also has a soul. When you walk through the city, you see people sitting in hundreds of cafes enjoying themselves, socializing, laughing, singing…
Dinner at a local restaurant where a nearby table of 8 young adults started singing. One girl sang solo with the most beautiful voice. It was delightful.
The next day we went walking. The weather and temperature are very pleasant. Crisp fall in the morning warming up to nice walking weather. Yerevan is a walkable city. You can get anywhere on foot. This city has a ton of parks. There is a park every couple of blocks and the parks are full of people. Streets are full of beautiful trees (still green) so there is plenty of shade when the weather is hot.
We were recommended an outdoor craft market for souvenir shopping. It goes on forever. There is everything there – from old clothes and Russian medals to to carpets, paintings, jewelry. It seems that all the prices start at 1,500 drams ($5). No matter how junky the item is, the prices is never less than that. Bargaining is allowed, but it’s not like in Vietnam where you can get 50% off the asking price without much effort. Here, the best we could do is about 20% off. We also went to fruit and vegetable market. An unbelievable selection. We could not resist and bought a huge amount of fruit – fresh figs, grapes, apples, raspberries and also the Armenian specialty, dried fruit stuffed with nuts. The fruits here taste better than any we’ve ever had.

Good Bye Dubai

Since we only had one day to see all of Dubai, we decided to take a Big Bus hop off and on tour of the city. It’s actually two tours in one. One route (red) circles the city and the other (blue) goes along the coast to Jumeira Beach and beyond. We did both --- for 9 hours and were really glad we did. We probably saw almost everything that’s possible to see in one day. The most interesting parts were the Burj al Arab (sail) hotel, which we only saw from the outside, and driving to the end of the Jumeira palm and visiting the newest hotel Atlantis at the very tip of the palm. The hotel has recreated an underwater world and you can see it via huge aquarium windows along halls and gathering areas. All around and along the route we saw incredible opulence and glitz. Of course the tours bus stops at every shopping mall (and there are many of them). We only got off at the mall of the Emirates to see the Ski Dubai indoor skiing slopes. Amazing. People were actually skiing and sledding when there must have been at least 95 degrees outside.
In the city, we saw the old souk, the oldest part of the city with houses that had the first air conditioning – the wind towers and the Dubai museum, which turned out to be very visual and interesting. After the bus tour, we also took a one hour boat tour on the Dubai creek. It happened to be at sunset and as we got close to the mouth of the creek, a dozen muezzins started their calls for the evening prayer. It was an incredible experience.
Apart from all the interesting visual aspects of Dubai, we didn’t find it either friendly or particularly pleasant. The heat is one reason, but people are definitely a more important cause. They were rude, insensitive, dishonest. We were not sorry to leave. Al found an interesting statistic in the Dubai phone book – Dubai has one million male residents and only 300,000 female residents. That would explain why we saw so few women…

Dubai

We took a midnight flight from KL to Dubai. A pre-arranged taxi driver picked us up at the hotel at 9 pm. It’s a long way from the center to the airport – over 60 km. We were driving and driving and at some point the signs showed airport to the left and we kept driving straight. We started thinking that maybe we were being hijacked. Luckily, it was only a "longcut" to avoid paying the toll.
Anyway, we got to Dubai at 3 am after a 7 hour flight. There was no point in going to the hotel so early so we killed time at Costa café drinking coffee and emailing. Finally, at 5:30 we got in a cab and went to our hotel called Comfort Inn. When we got there, it was still dark and there were no rooms available yet. However, we noticed that all the signs in the hotel were in 3 languages: Arabic, English and …. Russian. Later, we found out that 90% of the clientele is Russian.
When the sun finally rose, we left the luggage in the hotel and started our first walk in Dubai and a loooooong walk it was. We walked to Dubai Creek and then along the creek to the center of Deira, the old part of Dubai. We walked through the Gold Souk, which was still closed and the spice souk. Then, we decided to take an underpass to the other side of the creek to Bur Dubai. We ended up in the oldest, historic part of the city –the heritage and diving villages, Sheikh Saeed’s house, Al Fahidi Fort. We walked and walked and it grew hotter and hotter. We were exhausted. We were still on the other side of the creek and no bridges in sight. Finally we spotted a bunch of little boats which seemed to transport people from one bank of the creek to the other side. After some enquiries, we ended up on one of the boats (water taxis) and for one dirham each we had a nice ride across. I (Bo) was the only woman on the boat. Generally, we saw very few women walking around. Most are dressed in the long, black tunics covering their bodies from head to toe. Some have their faces covered as well. Many men wear the loose white tunics and the traditional reddish head covering.
We got to the hotel completely exhausted and overheated, checked into our room and rested until the afternoon. After a huge Iranian lunch, we decided to take the hotel minibus to the center/market. The bus was totally full of Russians. We were the only non-Russian speaking people on it. When we got off, a number of people approached us (in Russian) about fur coats.
We decided that this city sucks. There is so much wealth here and people not only cheat, but also try to nickel and dime you everywhere. Even at Starbucks you have to pay for internet access. In other countries, even the poorest ones, internet access at Starbucks has been free --- not here. And the price is outrageous, at least 5 times the amount charged by internet cafes.

KL day 2 and 3

It rains every day (pours). Fortunately it is short and we are always in the hotel. But the rain doesn’t seem to cool it off. We got up early this morning (7:30) and Al ran to the Petronas towers to get tickets for a Skybridge visit. In the meantime, I had breakfast and then went there to relieve him in the line. We were lucky at got 2 tickets for a 3:15 pm visit. They are very well organized. First, they ushered all of us into a waiting area with lots of info about the towers construction, and then in two groups (Blue and green) they took us to the skybridge. We had about 5 minutes there to admire the view and take pictures. What a view. Since our flight to Dubai was not until midnight, we killed time by going to several more malls. There are so many malls here that we barely scratched the surface. There are so many upscale malls with high end merchandise and higher prices that it is astonishing. The food here is very international. There is Calif. Pizza Kitchen, KFC, McDonalds, Burger King, Lebanese, Greek, Irish, Italian, French, lots of Arabic, etc. but we had a very difficult time finding a Malaysian restaurant.
We are writing this in a Starbucks in an upscale Pavilions mall across from our hotel (our equally upscale hotel does not have free wifi). We’ll have to add the pictures later since all the cables are already packed for the flight.

Kuala Lumpur (KL) WOW!!!

What an amazing contrast to our previous month in third world countries. A gorgeous 5 star hotel with all the amenities. Over 50 different choices for breakfast buffet. . From our room we can see the Petronas Towers, one of the world’s tallest buildings. We tried to get a ticket to go to the top, but when we arrived at 10 am all the tickets for the day were gone. They are free, but the number is limited so people start lining up at 6:30 am and when the ticket office opens at 8:30 am, all the tickets are gone within 30 minutes. This city is beautiful and really modern. Lots of shopping malls, each one bigger than any at home. We have ridden on the subway and the monorail, went to the central market and walked up and down Bukit Bintang, KL’s main entertainment area. KL is shopping heaven. It’s not cheap, but the choices! Lots of stores we don’t have in the US and consequently different (read – more interesting) designs.

Hanoi Summary

This place is a mad house. Crowds everywhere – both on feet and on motorbikes. Shops, shops, and more shops. Merchandising is unlike anything I’ve seen before. The food is good and prices are reasonable. Shopkeepers are honest. Cheaper than Laos. We went to a market that was acres (and two floors) of dry goods only (no food). Thousands of yards of material, million shoes, and every kind of knick knack and utensil imaginable. Walking is dangerous since the sidewalks are blocked with motorbikes or people sitting and when you step off the curb into the gutter there is a real risk of being hit by a motorbike. There are a few traffic lights but they are generally ignored. What a contrast this is to the laid back Luang Prabang.
People are eating at all hours on sidewalks – from early morning to very late at night. They never stop. Pho is the staple. They (and we) have had it for breakfast, lunch and dinner. We were surprised to find that the majority of the things on the menu are fried. Even spring rolls come fried unless you make a special effort to order “fresh” spring rolls, which are also double in price. The most popular western foods are pizza and pasta. Even Vietnamese restaurants usually carry one or the other. No chocolate! The only chocolate we found was imported and the prices were exorbitant. Evidently, the Vietnamese don’t share our taste for this item. It’s only for tourists. Ice cream, on the other hand, is plentiful, inexpensive and very good.
Typical fruits you can find in the markets at this time of year are several kinds of bananas, papayas, custard apples, water melon, pineapples, oranges, pommelos, plums, Asian pears, grapes, persimmons, passion fruit and many other fruits we can’t identify. Ripe oranges are green and the same goes for one kind of bananas. We developed a passion for passion fruit. We eat massive amounts of them because they are so refreshing and tasty. Al is going to try to grow them in his garden so we can continue having them at home.

Hanoi Haircut

After a month of traveling, I desperately needed to take care of my hair. I was dreaming of a good color and cut so I got very excited when I saw a Tony&Guy brochure in the main tourist information office in Hanoi. The address was there and it turned out to be not far from our hotel so we embarked on a quest to find them. When we got to the address named in the brochure, it turned out to be a store with teen clothing. What a disappointment. However, a nice lady in the store told us that they had moved 10 days before to a new place and gave us their new address. So off we went again through the impossibly crowded streets of the old quarter. After a 20-minute walk we finally got there. The place was no longer named Tony&Guy, and it was in the process of being set up, but the manager said they’d take me. I felt a little unsure about the result, but I decided to go for it. The young girl who did the color told me she was trained in Singapore and it was immediately evident that she knew what she was doing. After the color was done, I got the most orgastic hair wash in the world --- about 20 minutes of head massage. Heaven. Then came the cut. The guy didn’t speak any English but with the help of the manager, I explained to him what I wanted. After two and a half hours and all of $36, my hair looked like new. Actually, it looked better than it does after my usual California treatment. They have my vote.

Laos summary

A Third world country. The city we are in, Luang Prabang, was a historical capital of the area. It is a pretty town. Low key. A very nice change from Hanoi or Saigon. Not overwhelmed with tourists and no hard sell street vendors. It is at the confluence of two rivers. The Mekong is wide here. We have had a lot of delicious Laotian food and of course pizza. They manufacture very little in this country (farm products, cement, electricity, Lao Beer (owned by Carlsbad), and hand made craft items. Everything else must be imported. There is a night market in the street every night which covers about 2 acres where they peddle every kind of local craft (some made in China).
The city is full of temples. There are 31 temples here within about a square mile. So you see orange everywhere - cloth draped on Buddha statues, monks walking around, monk clothing hanging out to dry… Everywhere you go, you hear cheerful “sabaidee” (good day). Before entering someone’s home or shop, you have to remove your shoes and leave them outside.
Of all the places we’ve visited so far this is probably our favorite. Too bad it’s so far away from California!