Valletta, Malta: I Didn't See One Maltese Dog But It Was Still Niceby Randi / June 29, 2016
This is Caitlin! Caitlin says hi!
Hello everyone! Today we have a special post about the very helpful book “The Essential Vegan Travel Guide”, by Caitlin Galer-Unti of The Vegan Word. The book has been out for a little while but Caitlin and I are both very very important people so this is more of a reminder to buy the book rather than new news. Not only am I going to share my thoughts, which you love, but we have a super awesome interview with the super awesome author herself, CGU! Caitlin Galer University! I ask the tough, hard-hitting questions that we all wished Megyn Kelly had the balls to ask, so gird your loins. Just kidding I ask fun questions. Also buy it here!
A shot from CGU’s travels in Romania! Romania! She knows what she is doing. Photo cred: Caitlin Galer-Unti.
Before we get to the interview and find out about all the drama that went down during it (zero drama), let’s talk about this book. I haven’t been so happy reading a book that felt like it was written just for me since I read the backstage account of the “Wicked” run in San Francisco called Unnaturally Green. If you are vegan and if you ever traveled, you will connect with this book (the vegan travel one, not the Wicked one) in many ways. And if you are vegan and want to travel ever again, this book has some great tips to make it easier and better.
Right off the bat, the introduction will have fellow seasoned travelers quickly commiserating about the worst thing that happens when you’re traveling – finally getting to that restaurant you’ve been so excited to go to and finding it closed. Ew and oh no! Luckily, CGUniversity gives great advice for how to avoid such heartbreak. I appreciate how the book actually describes new-to-me research methods for finding vegan food in any location instead of just saying ‘use the internet, it’s all there.’ I know how important and how frustrating research can be for any purpose, so having new tips and tricks at my disposal is going to make such an important difference in this most important purpose of research, finding food.
Cake in Stockholm! I didn’t get any cake in Stockholm! What the hell! It’s because I didn’t have this book yet! Photo cred: Caitlin Galer-Unti
You’ll also be commiserating hard with her recap of a terrible American Airlines flight (is there any other kind) where not only did they forget her vegan meal, but they also LAUGHED at her. Guess what? American did the same thing to me! Well they didn’t laugh (CGU that is AWFUL) but they just didn’t believe me that cheese and eggs weren’t what vegan meant and tried to persuade me that I was the one mistaken. Moral, don’t fly American if you can help it. What a bunch of shittoboggans.
But most of the book is inspiring, and you will feel not only excited but ready to make your next trip a slam-dunk. Or you will be ready to slam-dunk it. How do basketball words work? I love loved how the book strongly suggests making friends with vegan and vegetarian locals. Honestly, I never do this and I really want to now. It’s clearly the best thing to do – these people will know where you can eat and where you can eat well, and they’ll know the best things to do in their town! Why haven’t I done this more? Why haven’t you? Another, very different, thing I never considered doing is making oatmeal in a coffee maker! Dude! That’s hilarious and also brill! I don’t even make coffee in a coffee maker (I don’t drink coffee) so I never really considered their usefulness to me. This is a game changer for places where your only other breakfast option is maybe a piece of bread with nothing on it, or, you know, if you love oatmeal, which everyone does.
CGU offers lots of tips like these and more, all while maintaining an optimistic tone. I cracked up several times at her blunt humor. For instance, when responding to the common refrain we all hear about how we will ‘insult the local culture’ if we don’t eat their traditional foods, Caitlin points out the very true, very persuasive fact that ‘even non-vegans might refuse to participate in [some local traditions] – like bullfighting, child marriage, or stoning gay people.’ Cracked. Up.
The only thing I wanted more of was how to deal with the non-food part of your travels, the activities in places where everything you can do seems non-vegan. I almost went on a trip like this, where the only things to do were like hunting and ice-fishing and bear-riding or something like that and decided not to go. But maybe I missed other things I could have done. But obviously that is not the intent of this book, which is a great help about the most important part of your travels – eating. Go buy it! Here’s a link! I get a kick-back!
But most of the book is inspiring, and you will feel not only excited but ready to make your next trip a slam-dunk. Or you will be ready to slam-dunk it. How do basketball words work? I love loved how the book strongly suggests making friends with vegan and vegetarian locals. Honestly, I never do this and I really want to now. It’s clearly the best thing to do – these people will know where you can eat and where you can eat well, and they’ll know the best things to do in their town! Why haven’t I done this more? Why haven’t you? Another, very different, thing I never considered doing is making oatmeal in a coffee maker! Dude! That’s hilarious and also brill! I don’t even make coffee in a coffee maker (I don’t drink coffee) so I never really considered their usefulness to me. This is a game changer for places where your only other breakfast option is maybe a piece of bread with nothing on it, or, you know, if you love oatmeal, which everyone does.
CGU offers lots of tips like these and more, all while maintaining an optimistic tone. I cracked up several times at her blunt humor. For instance, when responding to the common refrain we all hear about how we will ‘insult the local culture’ if we don’t eat their traditional foods, Caitlin points out the very true, very persuasive fact that ‘even non-vegans might refuse to participate in [some local traditions] – like bullfighting, child marriage, or stoning gay people.’ Cracked. Up.
The only thing I wanted more of was how to deal with the non-food part of your travels, the activities in places where everything you can do seems non-vegan. I almost went on a trip like this, where the only things to do were like hunting and ice-fishing and bear-riding or something like that and decided not to go. But maybe I missed other things I could have done. But obviously that is not the intent of this book, which is a great help about the most important part of your travels – eating. Go buy it! Here’s a link! I get a kick-back!
On to the interview!
TEN QUESTIONS FOR CAITLIN GALER-UNTI OF THE VEGAN WORD
Italics are my words, non-italics are CGU’s. I mean also try to look at what’s in the form of a question.
Italics are my words, non-italics are CGU’s. I mean also try to look at what’s in the form of a question.
1. First of all, I’m going to ask something that only I really will care about. In the book, you mentioned a boat hostel in Stockholm. About ten years ago, I stayed in a tugboat hostel in Stockholm! The Red Boat something? Did you stay here? Because that was awesome and I haven’t thought about it in ten years!!
CGU: That’s the hostel! Unfortunately I didn’t stay there though. It looks so cool though!
(thus ends the questions I asked for personal reasons.)
2. Everyone knows you are a baller of a vegan traveler, but did you travel a lot (or at all) before going vegan? If so, how do the experiences compare?
CGU: I’ve done more travelling since going vegan but I did travel quite a bit in my pre-vegan days. I’m a lifelong vegetarian so all my pre-vegan travel experiences were of vegetarian travel. I went all over the U.S. with my family as a child, mainly on road trips. I don’t know exactly but I think we visited between 40 and 45 states! I also went to Canada and 7 countries in Europe as a vegetarian, some of which I later visited as a vegan.
So, I’ve visited a few places as both a vegetarian and a vegan and can directly compare. And honestly, the main difference is I eat SO much better as a vegan traveller!
It does involve a bit more upfront planning – now instead of reading a guidebook, I find myself looking up vegetarian and vegan restaurants in advance of my trip and reading reviews. It means I never end up at just any old tourist trap – not that I ever set out to eat at tourist traps, but I definitely didn’t take very much care in choosing restaurants prior to going vegan, and would often just eat at the first place I saw. And sometimes the result was some pretty dissatisfying meals!
For example, I remember eating at several bistros in Paris in my pre-vegan days and being told the only vegetarian option they had was chips and a side salad. We actually ate pretty awful food the whole time we were in Paris. I’ve been back many times since then as a vegan and I’ve eaten so well! Although Paris has historically had a bad reputation for vegan food, it’s improved a lot in recent years and I’ve had some great food there, from vegan fondue at Gentle Gourmet to a burger at East Side and even an all-vegetarian bistro experience that was miles beyond my experience eating vegetarian at a non-vegetarian bistro.
Taken in Barcelona, where CGU now lives! Lucky! Photo cred: Caitlin Galer-Unti
3. The advice in this book will definitely help in avoiding such situations, but how do you cope in those rare times when everything goes wrong, you can’t find food, it’s pouring rain, you’re lost, you’re homesick, you’re actual sick — aka, the amalgamation of travel nightmares?
CGU: I had pretty much that in Beijing and I just allowed myself to feel really sorry for myself. I had a really bad flu, and coupled with the pollution had developed a hacking cough. It was raining and I couldn’t find a vegetarian restaurant which wasn’t where it said it would be on Happycow (this is why I suggest in the book that you always double check the address and even call in advance!), and I was nearly an hour’s walk from the nearest metro. I was hungry and angry and I just sat down on pavement and cried. I got all the frustration out with my tears and once I was done I actually felt a lot better, and was able to pick myself up and go back to the only vegetarian restaurant I’d been to previously and was able to locate easily. I got myself some takeaway and went back to my hostel to have an early night. Then I found a vegan on Meetup.com who arranged the vegan meetup in Beijing, sent her a message and she suggested a traditional tea I could pick up for my flu – within a couple of days I was feeling better!
4. You’ve recently moved to Barcelona! How cool is that? I went to Barcelona for a week in 2006 but haven’t been back since; I really can’t wait to return! Where did you live before and how did your traveling prowess help with the move?
CGU: Barcelona’s such a great city and it’s really improved for vegans in recent years! The first time I visited was in 2011 and there weren’t many vegan options but the vegan scene’s really exploded in the last few years and now a new veggie place seems to open every month.
I moved from the US to London in 2008 and lived there until moving to Barcelona last summer. While I was in London I had the chance to travel around Europe a lot so I got pretty used to finding vegan food all over.
5. How does Barcelona’s veganness nowadays compare with your hometown’s? What would be the first piece of advice to you give someone traveling to Barcelona?
CGU: Hahaha – my hometown is in the middle of the cornfields and fields of cows (in the summer when the wind blows the whole town smells of manure) in the Midwestern US so Barcelona is about a hundred times more vegan! Actually, I hear there’s a vegan restaurant in my hometown these days so it’s made some progress (just goes to show you veganism’s growing everywhere!!).
Barcelona’s really vegan-friendly today so my advice would be to start familiarising yourself with the vegan restaurants here! I’ve got a lost of the vegan dishes you absolutely must-eat in Barcelona and I’m actually working on a vegan guidebook to Barcelona right now (you can sign up for updates on the book plus get my list of Barcelona’s best-kept vegan secrets here). The vegetarian and vegan restaurants in Barcelona are pretty concentrated in the centre and the alternative neighbourhood of Gracia, so you’ll run into most of them just walking around, and if you’re seeing the main tourist sights you’ll never be too far from one! While there aren’t as many veggie places as in London I’d say they’re more concentrated here in Barcelona so you’re more likely to stumble across them. For example in my neighbourhood, Gracia, I live within 10 to 15 minutes’ walk of an all-vegan supermarket, vegan bakery, vegetarian bar, a vegan deli, plus a couple of vegetarian and vegan restaurants and countless small health food shops.
6. Part of being a good traveler is having respect for other lands and cultures, buuuuut, if you could change one aspect of a place you’ve been lately, what would it be?
CGU: Apart from making everyone vegan? 😉 I’d say I’d get rid of the ham here. Barcelona’s really good for vegetarian and vegan restaurants but I’d definitely get rid of all the jamon (Spanish ham) if I could. People eat way too much of it, they put it on absolutely everything, rendering otherwise vegan dishes non-vegan, and there are giant ham legs hanging from ceilings all over the city – so gross!
7. Do you prefer traveling alone, or does it depend on where you’re going?
CGU: It depends who I’m going with! Haha. I generally prefer travelling alone, because I feel like I see more. I get really distracted when I’m talking to someone and don’t really pay attention to my surroundings. Plus sometimes when you’re travelling with another person or a group, you end up in a little bubble and don’t interact with locals. However there are some places I haven’t been that I’ve heard are generally safer to visit with someone and I’ve saved those to travel to later….Now I just need to find someone I can travel with without wanting to kill them.
8. Do you collect souvenirs or something similarly tangible on your travels? When I was younger, I strongly eschewed souvenirs and claimed I was ‘collecting experiences’, but now I’ve started buying personal souvenirs to remember those experiences. My stance fully switched. Have you completely changed views on some aspect of your traveling?
CGU: I tend to spend most of my money on food so I never have any left over for souvenirs! However I do fairly frequently end up buying some item of clothing that I forgot at home, like a scarf or gloves, and I always enjoy looking at it later and remembering where I bought it.
I used to try to spend the absolute lowest amount of money on travel I could (like so many 20 year old backpackers!), which often meant taking a flight at some ridiculous hour of the morning. I always insisted that was absolutely fine and I’d never pay extra for a flight, but now I have completely changed my mind and I’d much rather pay extra to not have to get up in the middle of the night to catch a plane!
9. Name three people that you wish would buy your book, whether you know them or not. What do you hope they will gain from it?
CGU: Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero, because they are my vegan heroes and their book Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World made me go vegan. I’m sure that Isa and Terry are vegan travel pros though so they probably don’t need it!
And then this is cheating a bit because it’s not a specific person but I’d say anyone who is vegan but struggles with travelling. I’ve heard so many stories of people eating non-vegan stuff on their travels (like this) and it makes me super sad! I usually end up reaching out to them and offering them a free copy of my book – which is probably bad for my bottom line but I think it’s way more important to make sure that people are informed about finding vegan food on the road. (this is a cheater answer I really just wanted to know if you knew any celebrities just kidding really nice answer 😛 )
10. If an anonymous benefactor wanted to bankroll one month of travel for you, where would you go and what would you do? Is this a place you’ve already been?
CGU: Ooh! If an anonymous benefactor’s reading this (hi! 😉 ) I have this dream of doing a vegan Lenten tour of Eastern Orthodox countries. In the Eastern Orthodox church, devout followers eliminate meat, dairy and eggs (though sometimes not fish) for Lent and for other religious festivals during the year. I found out last year during a trip to Romania that these countries become incredibly vegan-friendly during this time. Most restaurants offer vegan Lent menus, even in really unexpected places like fast food restaurants. I’ve heard in Georgia Dunkin Donuts does vegan Lent doughnuts! So one of these days I’m going to plan a road trip through Eastern Orthodox countries during Lent so I can report back to everyone on vegan Lent delicacies. I’m just waiting on that anonymous benefactor… 🙂
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That’s all folks! Go buy “The Essential Vegan Travel Guide” and have better vegan travels!
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First Stop: Helsinki! A Stroll Around Town and A Lot of Sugar
I’m writing this from the train to St. Petersburg! Just like Anatole! Except he was probably writing love letters (written really by his sister ewwww) to married or betrothed women, his faaave. Okay that’s enough of The Great Comet (just kidding I already listened to the whole album once today and it’s like 11am). We just pulled out of Helsinki (so it won’t get preggggnannnnt) and there’s wifi on this business so here I am! We really didn’t have much time at all in Helsinki, Finland, but it was a charming place that had vegan milkshakes so I would happily return once we are in a position to think about future travel.
After not sleeping at all Thursday night (how could we with this super exciting adventure just hours away! also I was saving my Ativan for the trip), we “got up” in the 5 o’clock hour and left for Gatwick airport. At the Pret a Manger there, they had this new coconut milk-quinoa oat porridge that was very decent. Hooray for all these new vegan options at Pret. Now if they stop feeling the need to put red pepper in every single veg sandwich like the US dairy industry sticks whey powder in every commercial product we will be even better friends. We flew Norwegian, and despite its semblance of civilized behavior, I spent the 3 hour flight fighting a turf war with a giant man over the armrest. I will NOT BE MOVED. I will NEVER SURRENDER.
At customs, we met and became best friends with literally the nicest customs agents in the entire world. They were curious about our trip but not in a customs-agent way, they were just like aw have fun. What a great start. I dare Russia to top that with their agents. Ha. We took various trains and trams into the city center, which took about an hour and change. It’s kind of daunting to figure out what the right train is because the language is super confusing, but as usual in European countries, everyone speaks great English. We headed over to the Eurohostel on the little peninsula hanging off to the east of the city, where we dropped our bags in our literal college dorm room. Seriously, I think the producers at this here Truman Show just borrowed the set from the Penn State dorms and used my concrete wall-tile floor-two tiny twin beds- room with the separate men’s and women’s group bathrooms down the hall for this set as well.
Hey the border control guy just came around to check our passports and our visas! They worked, yayyy! I’m obsessed with how my name is spelled in cyrillic on the visa. Well not Randi because it just looks like pahdi, but Jill is hilariously complicated. Fun with languages!
So after we dropped our stuff in college, we walked around the city, which like I said is super charming. Like Sweden, it’s on little lakes and marinas and it was really nice to see water, especially because this trip is going to be super landlocked (look at that map!).
At customs, we met and became best friends with literally the nicest customs agents in the entire world. They were curious about our trip but not in a customs-agent way, they were just like aw have fun. What a great start. I dare Russia to top that with their agents. Ha. We took various trains and trams into the city center, which took about an hour and change. It’s kind of daunting to figure out what the right train is because the language is super confusing, but as usual in European countries, everyone speaks great English. We headed over to the Eurohostel on the little peninsula hanging off to the east of the city, where we dropped our bags in our literal college dorm room. Seriously, I think the producers at this here Truman Show just borrowed the set from the Penn State dorms and used my concrete wall-tile floor-two tiny twin beds- room with the separate men’s and women’s group bathrooms down the hall for this set as well.
Hey the border control guy just came around to check our passports and our visas! They worked, yayyy! I’m obsessed with how my name is spelled in cyrillic on the visa. Well not Randi because it just looks like pahdi, but Jill is hilariously complicated. Fun with languages!
So after we dropped our stuff in college, we walked around the city, which like I said is super charming. Like Sweden, it’s on little lakes and marinas and it was really nice to see water, especially because this trip is going to be super landlocked (look at that map!).
We strolled along the waterfront and the main bits of the city, passing the giant white Helsinki Cathedral on the way. But we were strolling with a mission – find food! At the top of my list was a little vegan-friendly cafe named Well, really close to the main train station which means we went all the way out and then all the way back but we really needed to drop our bags before dealing with food because we have reallllly heavy bags. I need my toiletries! Well, well, well, Well did not disappoint because despite the limited selection, they had vegan pastries, sandwiches, and – what I was after – a salad! It was full of literally all my favorite foods – lettuce, red cabbage, radicchio, CHICKPEAS, QUINOA, broccoli, AND tofu! It was like I kept uncovering layers of greatness. It was really huge too and I couldn’t finish it. Yay for all my fave healthy foods in one. Except kale but I’ve come to terms with the fact that my smoothie on Thursday was the last kale I will probably have until October. It’s okay!
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After healthy food came literally the only thing I had on my to-do list for Helsinki – vegan milkshakes! Kitty’s Milkshake Bar was a little hard to find because it’s actually inside a food hall, but thank goodness they were still open despite a lot of the market being shuttered already. So Kitty’s is a pure American-themed milkshake bar (I guess because milkshakes are American! USA! Your best export!), with actual license plates from all 50 states decorating the walls. It’s so fun. When we said we were from the States, the guy working got nervous because we would be the most knowledgeable critics. It was funny. He was super friendly and fun and made us laugh a lot, though I was already full of nervous laughter because I was SO EXCITED FOR A MILKSHAKE! In London, ‘milkshake’ means flavored milk, like as thin as regular milk, and it is the saddest thing probably ever. Even at the places now advertising American-style milkshakes in London, they are still thin as water. SHAME! SHAME! But the shakes at KItty’s, holy cow! They were properly thick and required the spoon end of the straw for a while! And yes, this place was so legit that they even had the 711 slurpie style straws with the spoon at one end. They only have three flavors – peanut butter, caramel & popcorn, and apple cinnamon. I was tempted to get all three but that’s ludicrous and Husband had just had ice cream beforehand, because his entire food list was just finding salamiaki ice cream, which is that gross Finnish salty black licorice (blech!) made into ice cream. He liked it but dayum. He also likes durian. So obviously we got the PB, my favorite thing ever, and I was tempted by the caramel but the guy recommended the apple cinnamon. I’m glad we listened because it was delicious! Not as spectacular as the peanut butter but that’s only because the peanut butter one had peanut butter in it. The guy gave me a punch card which is the saddest thing I’ve ever had to leave behind. Amazing food stop even though they were big and I of course felt super sick all night because it was like eating a gallon of ice cream. WORTH IT.
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Then, we met up with Cousin Adam and chatted for a while as it got colder out, but not darker, because this is the north and the sun never really sets! Seriously, even in the middle of the night, there was still a bit of sun you could see! So weird. Definitely bring an eye mask. Anyway, we walked around the town more, and saw that there’s nothing really to do in Helsinki for young people except smoke and drink. SO MUCH CIGARETTE SMOKE. We also noticed that there’s zero vaping, so coming from London where vaping is (thankfully) catching on, the widespread use of just cigarettes was extra revolting. But there’s no clubbing or anything really, no nightlife, with things closing around 7pm a lot of the time, so yoots just hang in the parks and smoke and drink and wear black and be yoots.
There was one place open late, Iggy’s Bar and Food Joint, which was on HappyCow. They have thin crust pizzas and a few, according to HappyCow, are vegan. On the chalk menu at the joint, a few did indeed have green V’s next to them so we ordered a few to share. But it came out with cow cheese and the lady was not very sorry about it. She said they are vegan if you ask for it to be, which of course I should have done but when the info I read in advance just said ‘they *are* vegan, not they *can* be, I got complacent. Oh well I really didn’t have room for pizza in there with all the soy ice cream anyway so it worked out fine, just mad that I let my vigilance slip for a minute. NEVER AGAIN. NEVER SURRENDER.
There was one place open late, Iggy’s Bar and Food Joint, which was on HappyCow. They have thin crust pizzas and a few, according to HappyCow, are vegan. On the chalk menu at the joint, a few did indeed have green V’s next to them so we ordered a few to share. But it came out with cow cheese and the lady was not very sorry about it. She said they are vegan if you ask for it to be, which of course I should have done but when the info I read in advance just said ‘they *are* vegan, not they *can* be, I got complacent. Oh well I really didn’t have room for pizza in there with all the soy ice cream anyway so it worked out fine, just mad that I let my vigilance slip for a minute. NEVER AGAIN. NEVER SURRENDER.
By the waterfront, there were tons of farmers market type stalls, so we bought some fresh fruit for the train journey. Nota bene: do not buy strawberries when you don’t have a fridge and are not going to eat them until the next day. They do not taste good once they are squished in a bag and virtually cooked. But we got cherries too, which are hardier. OH that reminds me! At the milkshake bar, we were sitting at a little table drinking of cups of pure joy, when we heard the guy tell a woman at the counter that the raspberries were finished. Oh, she said, so I guess I will pick a different flavor. No no! the guy said, not finished, FINNISH! Ha I love language. But he wasn’t just saying hey these are local berries – there’s a much greater significance. Apparently, if berries are imported from outside of Nordic countries, they have to be COOKED to be served! So random! So because these were Finnish berries, he could mix in fresh ones. Fun facts! We’re already learning so much!
So, that’s all there really was to our half day in Helsinki! We got up this morning, tried to rezip our backpacks that somehow feel heavier and harder to zip despite not adding anything to them, and headed for the train station. We stopped again at Well Cafe so I could get another of their amaaaazing salads for the train journey, PLUS a vegan croissant and a vegan pastry! Considering how expensive Finland is, this place seems a little more reasonable. Like those milkshakes were 9 euros each! But this gigantic salad was 10, I think. So a lot (even for London) but not for Helsinki. Oh your Nordic countries and your super high prices! This Allegro train is pretty nice so far. I hope the longer train journeys we have planned are as nice! We will see! Now we await our arrival….. TO PETERSBURGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Bukhara, Uzbekistan: Ancient City Hasn’t Upgraded in Millennia
The ancient city of Bukhara, thought to be founded in the 6th century B.C., is like a small outdoor museum of its history. Important as a stop on the Silk Road and as a trading and cultural center before that biz ever started (so old), Bukhara’s city center is listed as a UNESCO world heritage site. The whole city center. I think you can guess by that fact that Bukhara is not exactly the most modern place to visit. So in the previous post, about Tashkent, I mentioned how our next stop of Bukhara was like stepping back in time like whoa, and I realized afterward that I was thinking about Khiva, one of our subsequent and much more impressive stops, when I said that. Still, Bukhara is hella ancient too, and I don’t think the center has changed in a long time, except for the tiny shops getting new kinds of soda and stuff. Full of mosques and madrassahs, dust and ashes, Bukhara seems to have preserved history. remarkably well. But with that comes, well, a bit of a hard time for tourists. Despite recognizing how important this place and its history were, we were kind of over it really fast.
But first we have to get there. Our train from Tashkent, our first Uzbek train, seemed promising – another overnight train where we had a cabin to ourselves, no strangers sleeping and snoring above us – except for its super early arrival time of about 6am. As long as we got some sleep we’d be fine, and without strangers in the cabin we’d surely get some sleep, right. Wrong, so so wrong. The couple in the cabin next to us were the loudest, rudest people of all time OF ALL TIME. The Uzbek trains were a little Miss Havisham looking in their old-fashioned decor, but they went all in on one piece of modernity – televisions in every cabin! Cool! We didn’t watch anything since we wanted to sleep, but the people next to us REALLY did. They put theirs on and found the most annoying Uzbek MTV sounding channel, and turned the volume up all the way, as high as it went. I knocked after a bit and asked if they could turn it down. They said okay. LIARRRRRRRS! They kept it as loud as possible, but they added to it their RAUCOUS loud insanely obnoxious laughter, which the thin walls did nothing to keep out. It was enough to (almost) put me off TV entirely, and you know how much I love TV. I mean there’s no way in hell that anything on Uzbek television was remotely as funny as they found it so like they were surely overacting to make us mad. They are helldaemons that I hope are back there. I tried to find a conductor or any kind of attendant to complain to but none were to be found. I knocked again at like 3am to ask if they could finally for the love of god just shut up but they didn’t open their door and instead just laughed harder and harder. It was incredibly rude. We started screaming through the walls out of pure despair, which they thought was hilarious. Those fuckers I hope karma gets them.
hard to see in the dark but this is where we spent 7 hours screaming at neighbors
When we finally landed, I put a pox on the houses of the neighbors and we went to find, egads, another taxi to take us to the guest house. By this point in our travels, we’d had maybe one good experience with a taxi. Not even good, but neutral. The rest were enough to provoke such rage that I probably could have picked up and thrown a taxi. This ride would be no different, and in fact with top the charts of forking shirtballs. The driver said he knew our guest house well, the Hotel Jeyran, and he kept saying “Jeyran Jeyran da Jeyran” so we were like okay at least he knows where he’s going. OF COURSE HE DIDN’T KNOW WHERE HE WAS GOING. We had to direct him like we did the others. FFS he didn’t even know when we would name huge landmarks to head towards. When we finally got to Jeyran, he had the nerve to ask for more money than we agreed to, despite his not being able to find the place on his own and lying about it. We told him to go fork himself.
Despite being called a hotel, the guest house we were staying in was more like someone’s house, with an extra room or two upstairs. It was fine, the couple running things/living there was nice, but alas, we arrived at 7am and check in wasn’t until noon. We sat in the front room for a while, while the guy watched his stories on his TV, as we just tried to decompress from the horrible night and horrible cab ride. Luckily, a tiny little baby cat lived there, and despite being allergic, I played with him because omg, tiny little baby cat. He was sooo cute and he just wanted to sleep on us.
After about an hour of just sitting, we decided to go explore and try to find a cafe with wifi. The man in charge pointed us in one direction, and when we found what he meant, it was an enormous restaurant, and it wasn’t opened yet. We continued walking around the newer town, where we were staying, and found nothing, literally nothing, not even a shop, so we went into the old town, the tourist area with all the mosques and dust and stuff. What we found was not cafes or wifi (what were we THINKING, expecting that here) but, naturally, more construction! And the kind of sweeping, all-encompassing works that put the construction we encountered previously in the ‘stans to shame. SHAAAME. We had to walk around rubble, delicately choosing our routes so as not to fall from like 10 feet into more rubble. It was not so good. All the places that looked even a tad like they might not be mosques or madrassahs were closed. Forget wifi, we’d given up on wifi; we just wanted somewhere to sit maybe that had something to drink or eat. We weren’t picky. Just something that wasn’t a pile of dust and rock. On one particularly construction-y section of the old town, we saw a tea house located up a set of stone stairs, and a little girl out on the path in front. We yelled up to her asking if they were open, and she ran inside. Cool, we thought. Luckily she had gone to get an adult (smart kid!) who came out and told us to come in come in please come in! We asked, are you open? And she said yes yes come in. They were not even a little bit open, we realized when we went in, but she was willing to make us tea (it was a tea house) and give us the little sweets that come with it, so it was really nice. Literally the nicest person we would meet in all of Uzbekistan. I had ginger tea to try to settle my stomach, which always hurts if I don’t sleep, and they brought us little dishes of nuts, halva-like treats, nutty other treats, and a pile of pure sugar rock candy. What a breakfast. It was really nice inside this place, and is probably wonderful after a day of sightseeing.
After our tea stint, we got a feel for the town as we meandered back towards the guesthouse. It was weird. Everywhere we turned, it kind of looked like Mars, or x other unknown, dusty dry sunny planet. As the place started to wake up, there were hordes of old ladies working like a prison chain gang all over town. It was really disturbing and I really hope they weren’t actually prisoners but it really looked like it. These old lady gangs were everywhere, hoeing little patches of garden and what not. I wanted to ask them if they were okay but a) I didn’t know how and b) they looked like they would happily cut a bitch.
The weirdest thing we’d noticed throughout the stans was continued in strong form in Bukhara – the constant ground watering. Every day for the past month, we’d see people watering the ground – not soil, just the street and cement and brick paths – with hoses or watering cans. Not something you see in England every day. I assume it’s to prevent too much dust buildup or it has to do with the heat, both good reasons, but it’s still quite odd to see someone watering asphalt when you were taught that shit only grows when you water soft ground. Anyway.
After we finally checked in and showered, I want to say we napped, but I don’t remember (probably because I was sleeping whaaat) and it doesn’t really matter what we did on which day (we were there for several, and too many) so let’s just get to the sights. We started (or not! who cares!) with the Ark of Bukhara, or the Bukhara Fortress, mostly because it’s the most important site to actually go into, but also because it was closest to the guest house by being situated kind of halfway to the old town center and not in it like everything else was. Side note, probably best to stay in the actual old town so you don’t have to walk the creepy streets at night. And so you’re near stuff. We were not near stuff.
ninj ninj who dat ninj, who dat who dat who dat ninj
The Ark dates back to the 5th century AD. How this city survived for so long without one I’ll never understand! It was a military structure at times, and a whole town with royal courts inside at others. According to a legend, the ark’s creator was the hero Siyavusha, who fell in love with a girl and the girl’s father was like, “I’ll let you marry her if you build a palace on this piece of land that is bounded by bullskin.” He meant that as a way to stymie the boy since it sounds impossible but the boy was like, how bout I just cut the bullskin (and we cut the bullshit HEYOOO) into thin strips and connect them instead of doing what I hope you’re not implying, which is to build a palace inside a regular-shaped skin of bull. I don’t know it all sounds ridonk. Needless to say, the Ark as it stands is hella big and I don’t doubt that every aspect of a functioning medieval town could fit inside the walls for a bit. Honestly I can see everything in modern day Bukhara fitting inside this fortress were it not full of museums right now.
improvement works going on even inside our places of interest
Inside the Ark, we ran into our first tourists in a long time – lots of French oldies 98s. French people were all over Uzbekistan, we’d find later. These guys were kind of annoying. I don’t remember why, but I’m looking at my phone notes, and I wrote “annoying French people”, so, let’s leave it at that. On site, there was a toilet, as you would hope to find in museums and the like, but this total random man charged 1000 som to use it! He didn’t seem to legitimately work there at all, and when I left the toilet, he was nowhere to be found, so like I think it was a scam. But that is I think like a few cents so it wasn’t a big deal it was the principle of the thing. Everywhere in Bukhara, we quickly learned, there would be random people outside the big sites asking for an entrance fee that wasn’t posted anywhere. It never seemed any more legit than it did at the Ark toilet. As soon as we approached a door of a mosque or something, someone would run up to us from nowhere and demand 6000 som or something and we’d be like, hey who are you.
Can you tell how blindingly sunny it was here? I was so burnt I hated it
rubble literally everywhere we turned even on the Ark
The square around the Ark is called the Registan. It’s where the public floggings would occur! The big story around Bukhara is that of two British officers named Stoddart and Connelly who were beheaded in the Registan in the 1850s. Colonel Stoddart was sent to Bukhara in 1939 to make nice with the legendarily cruel emir, Nasrullah. Instead of becoming friends with him, Nasrullah imprisoned the Englishman instead. Didn’t see that coming! No everyone did. Stoddart was in solitary confinement for three years, until another Englishman joined him! Fun! Not fun. Captain Connolly was sent to get Stoddart released. Great plan guys! Instead the emir tossed Connolly into the ‘bug pit’ with Stoddart and then publicly executed them to publicly shame England. What a guy and what a place.
After we saw everything in the Ark, we made our way fully into the old town, to see all the mosques and stuff because Mohammed knows we haven’t seen enough mosques lately. The most important, I want to say so I’m saying it, is the Kalan Mosque, from 1500s. It can hold 12,000 PEOPLE. That is a lot. Not even a drop in the bucket compared to the Penn State football stadium, but still, a lot for a mosque built so long ago. Unfortunately, we were not two of those 12,000 because when we went to enter, a rando sauntered up and said the entrance fee was 6 (SIX) times what it said in our guidebook and on the internet, clearly a scammy sammy, so we skipped it. Fortunately, this was one where the outside was impressive so we weren’t upset. We went in so many mosques lately and the rest of our time in Uzbekistan would be mainly seeing more mosques so no tears. The mosque sits across the main square from the Mir-i Arab Madrassah, so it makes for a really impressive, historically important square, though hard to remember which witch is which. At the risk of being even more disrespectful to the Uzbek people, I’m going to admit that I’m not hundo p about these pictures actually being what I’m saying they are, but I’ma do my best.
I want to say this is the madrassah
The whole mosque complex in the town center was like one enormous building, all seemingly connected and hard to distinguish. There are sooo many important buildings to see that after a while it’s like okay, didn’t I already see you, enormous sandy white building with some pretty blue tiles?
One I was excited about was the Kalyan Minaret, or the Grand Minaret, or the Tower of Death. No I didn’t know that last name when I was excited about visiting it; I just wanted to climb a tower. We like climbing things. The Tower of Death apparently got its name because criminals would be executed by being thrown from the top. So economical? Minarets’ usual function is for the muezzin to climb up in order to call err’one to prayer, so it had to big a bit taller than the mosque everyone’s going to. But the Kalyan Minaret passed the mosque and then was like you know what, I’m gonna keep on trucking, and it kept going up and up so now it’s the second tallest in all of Central Asia. We read quite a few things about how the architects of this or that monument were killed (never be an architect) because the rulers who commissioned the buildings didn’t want the architect to ever make anything more impressive. People cray. Anyway I have a vague memory of the minaret’s architect being thrown off because the wife of something important got him in trouble.
I want to say this is the mosque
The Kaylan is so impressive that it’s said that during all his conquering, Genghis Khan (my ole pal Chingis!) left it standing instead of destroying it!
Once it got to be an actually human hour of the day, the city center got a little crowded! Other people here, who would have thought. Oh we learned another story about the minaret! A young woman was to be executed after she married a local businessman. Unclear if the reason for her execution was related to the marriage. Anyway her last request was that she be allowed to wear the dress her husband bought her for her wedding day. So the official went to her house to get the dress but he a man he didn’t know what dress so he brought all forty dresses she owned. The woman put all forty dresses on instead of choosing the one, and they cushioned her fall and she lived! What an amazing place to get to keep living in. Because of that, now it’s a Bukharan tradition that all men give their brides 40 new dresses as a wedding present. And that’s why I have so many dresses!
We made our way to the base of the minaret to climb it but alas, the door was padlocked shut. On to the next!
other people! eureka!
Next we visited the Chor Minor, which is to the east of the city center so not one of the most visited sites. Built in 1807, the small lil guy was the entrance to a madrassah. A proverb says that if someone can climb up the stairs of the Chor and then back down without getting bitten by snakes, he is considered sinless. Really there aren’t snakes around (I mean I didn’t see any…) so I guess we’re all sinless? The Chor Minor has four blue turret domes that are pretty cool.
My favorite part of Bukhara by far is Labi Hauz, which is roughly pronounced ‘lobby house’ which is what we called it. And we called all the males around it lobby boys. Back in the day, Bukhara was covered with little pools and ponds used for laundry and washing horses and drinking water and all kinds of stuff so obviously they were full of disease like whoa and the Bolsheviks finally were like ‘shut this all down SHUT IT DOWN’ and drained the pools because hella disease except for the Lobby House, because so pretty, and it’s been maintained ever since, the only one still full of water and no disease.
GET YOUR HANDS OFF MY LOBBY BOY
You can see why it was my favorite. It was like an oasis in the middle of all the dust. I love water and this pool looked so gorgeous surrounded by the old buildings and camel statues. Of course there was construction happening at one end though. There was a cafe or two along one side that would have been perfect for sitting and relaxing if you needed it. I would have loved more like that around the pool instead of most of it being tout shops.
My second favorite place in Bukhara was the old synagogue! It’s a tiny little place, not only smaller than all the synagogues I’ve seen in my life but smaller than all my past studio apartments too. But apparently one of the Torahs it holds is 1000 years old! Mostly it’s nice just to know that there are still jews trying to maintain a presence here and because there are so few they are sooo happy to have guests. Naturally being old religious men, the guys there were more excited for my husband’s arrival than mine because men > women in 99% of the world, even though he’s not jewish, but alas, it was still very nice. It’s free to visit but they ask for donations and you should donate. The best part was the picture they had framed on the wall of their most important visitor before us – Hillary Clinton. Oh man I actually started to cry right there, thinking about a) how I was standing in spot where Hillary and like NOBODY else in the world had stood, this tiny little hole in the wall synagogue in a tiny old town in Uzbekistan I mean come on we’re basically bff Hillz, and b) I was just so sad that she wasn’t president.
After we simintoved and mazel toved it up, we explored the city center more. Just a few meters from the main mosque, where we were just hours before, a wifi cafe had sprung up out of absolutely nowhere. We spent sooo long looking for you all our first morning, damn cafe! And now you’re just advertising your wifiness all over town! It just appeared out of nowhere like Brigadoon! Also appearing out of nowhere in that main area was a Kapitalbank ATM that spits out US dollars!! Amazing!! And, next to the ATM was a gorgeous little courtyard with 1000 som toilets in the back that actually were worth it, not squats but big and clean! It was a lovely little surprise block of happiness.
to be fair, this makes it sound like there’s NO wifi. free from wifi.
my favorite sign!
We haven’t even scratched the surface of historical sights in Bukhara but I’m getting tired. Here are some more beautiful buildings that are important to go look at.
madrassah?
M. C. Escher mausoleum?
Doesn’t it look like Tatooine??!! It really did!
So many cool things right? Just for some reason it didn’t really add up so that the sum of the parts were greater than the whole, know what I’m saying? Lots of interesting buildings to look at, but like, that’s it. There was a lack of life to the place to it fun to be there and not just interesting to look at.
There was a lack of gas too! Like, the entire town, old and ‘new’ parts, had a gas outage while we were there so the restaurants could only grill food for us! And there was little hot water because of it. Such a weird sad thing to add on top of all the other weirdness. Luckily some of the places could make me salads, which I always liked. And Bukhara seemed to have beans on hand, which is nice. I can recommend finding salads at Minzifa – which was playing the X-FILES THEME SONG when we were there, and Saroy, both right along the Lobby House. Most of the other central restaurants will happily offer you grilled eggplant and red peppers, which you KNOW I LOVE. eye roll. I also got a heap of white rice with a happy face, see below.
vegables!
BEANS
So Bukhara had some great sights and I was super happy to have beans and salads but mostly it was kind of boring. The people we met in the restaurants and sites were kind of mean and put us off the place. The people are really what make places special when you travel so to be surrounded by mean people as the majority for the first time really ever was disconcerting enough to tarnish our Uzbek travels somewhat. Still, I’m glad we got to go to this historically important place and I’m glad I don’t have to go back.
