Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan: A Capital Made of Statues & Stories (Go On & Tell Me What They Mean) (Part 4)by Randi / October 22, 2017From Kyrgyzstan to Kazakhstan: In Which I Get in an Unmarked White Van And Live to Tell the Tale
After our 10 or so wonderful (well, like six were) days in Kyrgyzstan, we were due to find our way to Kazakhstan. If you’ve been following along this adventure for the past three months, I know what you’re thinking: ‘Oh they’re gonna take another train! Hah I hope this one is clean!’ Bitch I WISH there was a train! I wish we could cross the next few borders on our agenda by train instead of figuring it out ourselves when we don’t speak the language and the locals are insane! But no no no, Kyrgyzstan DOESN’T HAVE TRAINS. Didn’t you find it odd that I haven’t written about trains in a while? I know I miss it too. Well there aren’t any so deal. Our options for getting from Bishkek to Almaty were: private car (too expensive), private car shared with other tourists (still a bit expensive; hard to find other tourists willing to do this; hard to negotiate with the driver when we don’t speak the language well; we hate strangers), or marshrutka (the unmarked white vans perfect for kidnappings but instead used in this region for public transit mm okay). Well gird your loins because we chose the latter option.
Marshrutkas, little white vans used for public transport, are how everyone gets around in these parts. It’s all the rage! No it’s really the only option. We’d used them before in Mongolia and I want to say some places in Russia but those were to get to tourist sights outside the city centers, not to cross into other countries on fully day-long trips! I would have to pee SO much. But alas, it was the best option: tried and trusted according to other crustier travelers we met, cheap, reliable. Reliable as far as getting you there, I mean. Not reliable like having any sort of respect for departure times, oh no, perish that thought.
Our hotel in Bishkek, the Futuro Hotel, offered free transfers from Bishkek to the Kyrgyz side of the border, about 45 minutes away, so we were happy to at least have that leg taken care of, even though it’s the easiest bit. Of course, a different staff member informed us, like, the day we were leaving that that freebie is not for guests staying there through their tour companies (NoviNomad had booked our stay). So that’s a big old pile of bullshit; someone remind me to drag them on TripAdvisor. So instead of our plan of freeing it to the Kyrgyz border point (called Kordai, which is super close to how you pronounce Kodaly, the name of Gavin Creel’s character in ‘She Loves Me’), we could pay for a taxi there and then get a Kazakh-only marshrutka or taxi the rest of the way to Almaty, or we could taxi to the Bishkek bus station and get a marshrutka from Bishkek all the way to Almaty. We didn’t like the thought of getting across the border at Kordai and then not having our transport figured out for the Kazakh leg – the cars and vans waiting on the other side could charge extortionate prices since we had no other choice. Thus! Marshrutka the entire way it is! This is where I would use that emoji of the face with the eyes bugging out all scared and what not.
After I cursed out the staff at Futuro for being stupid (just kidding I’m so polite irl), a taxi took us to the bus station in the center of Bishkek, along with another guest from the hotel. This other passenger was a Russian man probably mid-20s or 30s. We figured it’s a short ride and we might as well split the fare. How bad could it be? Guys it was so awkward. He asked where we were going and where we were coming from and we sort of said the long and short of being long(ish)-term travelers, and you know what his response was? “Are you rich?” I almost cracked up but come on who says something like that? I wanted to be like, “What are you, American? Only Americans think you have to be rich to travel” (because they don’t get any vacation time) (also hey soon Russians might all be given American citizenship for funsies so I guess I was right) but we just kind of said um no…? like…we’re normies but also that’s an inappropriate question? He was kind of scary though (are all white youngish Russian men??) so we didn’t say that last part. No etiquette lessons given today!
Once we got to the bus depot (it was for sure a depot and not a station, just like a mess of a parking lot with vans and cars jutting out in all directions and PEOPLE EVERYWHERE), we found a ticket window and bought two tickets to Almaty. I think it was the 10am marshrutka we bought tickets for. We were pointed to one of the white vans, which had about 6 little rows of seats (2 on one side of the aisle, 1 on the other) plus 4 seats across the very back. So this is a SMALL little van and there are seats for more than TWENTY passengers. Also the windows didn’t open and it was hot. Erma. We boarded (luckily this minibus situation had a little compartment in the back for luggage, not like our Lake Baikal shitshow) when there were about 10 people already onboard, and most of the seats up front were taken. I almost choked on the fear that we’d have to sit in that dreaded back row (girl I will THROW UP on you) (by ‘girl’ I mean ‘whoever is sitting in front of me in a slightly better seat’) but then I noticed two seats about three rows back that I thought were taken but had just a water bottle on it. I said omg let’s sit there and if anyone comes be like what water bottle I didn’t see anything (I know I’m a monster). Luckily no one claimed it.
We were told we had about 10 minutes so I went to the bathroom, stretched my legs, and tried to be okay with how dehydrated I was in preparation for at least five hours in a crammed minivan without fresh air. I was doing an okay job at calming myself but then I noticed that we were not leaving. We didn’t even have a driver visible in the vicinity. More and more people kept boarding – it got full. Twenty minutes past go time and still no driver. This one girl got on and off, on and off, talking to someone who maybe worked there but maybe was just a drifter? She was wearing a Mickey Mouse ear visor and we of course started imitating the Russian model on “New Girl” who said “why don’t you get in your spaceship like Mick Mouse” and that helped for a minute but then MORE TIME KEPT PASSING and we KEPT NOT LEAVING. Then two more people arrived and they were apparently this girl’s parents. I’m saying girl but she was like our age it’s not like this was an abandoned child (despite the visor). I was like well they’re not getting on our van anyway, it’s full. But no there was a thingy up by the driver’s seat that could be clamped down to make one solid row so the three of them crammed in next to the driver, who finally showed up. I was livid that we had apparently been waiting for 45 minutes (THAT’S RIGHT) for random people who could have just gotten on a different marshutka (there were like 1000!) instead of delaying ours that long but okay breathe. The driver backed out of his parking spot and pulled around to the main section of the lot, where you are supposed to drive. But instead. Instead he got out.
And he smoked.
I could cut a bitch.
Finally he got on and we left, about an hour late. It is very, very difficult for me/anyone who cares about anything to deal with this sort of chaos in things that could clearly be better organized. Z tried to calm me down by reminding me that our last train of this long trip would be going to Berlin. GERMAN TRAINS. That shit’ll be so on time it’ll blow your mind! Helped a little.
The ride to Kordai wasn’t too bad. The van dropped us off at the start of a long pathway towards the customs building. At one point on our walk, there was a counter with little forms to fill out – our customs declaration, I guess. I say I guess because it was in several languages but not English, so who knows what I signed off on. Fortunately a kind Greek person who does this route a lot (I don’t know) helped us fill out our forms. We had to do Kyrgyz exit customs first, which was very simple and straightforward. We got in the ‘Not locals’ line. Then we got into the main hall, where I witnessed two incredibly disturbing things. One was the giant welcome sign in the hall that read: “WELCOME TO KAZAKHSTAN. GOOD LUCK.” what the EVERLASTING TUCK?? good luck? why do we need luck? what’s going to happen to us!! So, so disconcerting. The other was the state of the hall itself, which was the site of one of my probably top 5 most distressing attempts at queueing. There were tons of windows with agents, but people didn’t know how to spread out so that you could join all the various lines. There were just mobs of people up at the front of the hall, and then there was so much line cutting and it was hard to see where to go omg it was a messsss. We got in a particularly bad jumble masquerading as a line but it was near the Greek person in case we had an issue so we stayed. It was easy though; we made our little ‘we’re just poor hungry tourists’ faces and got stamped through. On the other side was Kazakhstan! But more importantly – a toilet!
I really was only about 50, 55% sure that the mashrutka – with our bags – would be there when we got out but there he was! About 15 minutes after we got out of the building, all our fellow passengers were out and we were ready to drive for hours through Kazakhstan to Almaty, the best city that used to be the capital but it got too crowded so they moved the capital thinking that people would want to go to there but of course no one did because Almaty has STUFF and good stuff at that and Astana like doesn’t. Literally Astana was an empty pasture when they made it the capital in the ’90s. I’m sure now they have like buildings and roads but Almaty is still better. So I’ve heard.
Oh man I was thirsty! I am so eager for regular life when I can drink all the water I want and then have access to toilets. We had a stop about halfway through, somewhere between 90 minutes and 2 hours. It was this big Kazakh version of a rest stop, with a restaurant, shop, and public (paid) toilets. One Kyrgyz girl from our van paid for my toilet! I didn’t even know and then the lady motioned to say it’s taken care of. How nice is that?! Sometimes people are nice! There is no better gift you can give me than the gift of a bathroom break!
Almost everyone went into the shop and bought ice cream bars – it was hilarious, like we were on a school trip. Mick Mouse saw we were clearly not Kyrgyz or Kazakh and ORDERED us to try this one kind of ice cream, her favorite. I was like oh I don’t eat dairy Mick Mouse. Mick Mouse started talking to us and not just ordering us to buy things and it turned out she lived in Berlin! We love Berlin! We told her as much. She said some other things but I was distracted with how badly I wanted ice cream and how fitting it was that I probably wouldn’t be able to find vegan ice cream until we indeed get to Berlin.
Finally we got to Almaty, at about 4:30pm. Oh man I was so hungry. The station was under serious construction so we were dropped off kind of far from the actual entrance, which was not great because obviously I had to go to the bathroom as fast as possible. And just as fun, once I got to the station there was no sign for the toilet so I had to ask this random babushka in a cafe and she said it was around the back of the station and underground. Not a great start, Kazakhstan! Then we had to find a taxi to get to our hostel, Sky Hostel, our first in a while but one with strong ratings. Also every hotel in Almaty was weirdly expensive (it’s very surprisingly cosmopolitan!) so this hostel was our best doable option. With our packs and all our crap, we walked up and down the street asking cab drivers how much to go to the hostel neighborhood, and they all said WAYYY more than we were told it should be, because why wouldn’t they, we were ignorant tourists with all our luggage who needed a ride! Extort! We went up and down, back and forth in the heat and our state of exhaustion and each driver we found gave a higher price than the last. Finally we said f this, f it all, because guess what we found out?
Almaty has Uber.
I KNOW!
Yes Uber is problematic (worst board of any modern company?) and I would never use it in regular life if I had a choice, which I can’t imagine not being the case, but when we were stranded on the side of the road during our first hour in Kazakhstan and it was cheaper than the cabs were asking? Yes please! It was a super nice car that came, too.
The hostel was a little weird – Sky Hostel is located on the 11th floor of a regular building. Like you have to go in and take the ONE TINY BARELY WORKING elevator to reception on the 11th floor while regular workers and other citizens are using it too to get to whatever else was in that super shady building. So ridiculous. Luckily the hostel itself was fine. The girls (seriously children) working reception were completely inept but we were used to all that by now. Our room was on the 10th floor so we had to walk down the flight of stairs to get to it – the stairs that didn’t exist in the lobby and don’t actually take you to the lobby. The stairs are just from like floors 10-13 for the hostel use and blocked off below and above! So weird. Luckily the room was fine but the view from the 10th floor landing, hoo boy:
Such a lovely city! We were excited to go explore.
Okay, not really that night so much for exploring. We were exhaaaausted! But we were excited to finally eat that day. There was a promising Georgian restaurant with several locations, called Daredzhani. We went to the closest one to the hostel, about a half hour walk away (felt like hours). You know how we feel about Georgian food! It always saves us when we are in random locales and super hungry. As a vegan, I can count on finding interesting dishes at Georgian restaurants, including plenty of vegetables (always important when traveling) and amaaazing bread! Georgian fluffy breads are the bee’s knees. Well, Daredzhani kept up the tradition. SO good! The staff was incredibly friendly and the hostess spoke perfect English. We asked if by chance they had an English menu and she was like, um yes of course we do this is ALMATY. So things were definitely going to be a lot easier and more comfortable here than we expected when we planned to visit Kazakhstan! Almaty reminded us most of London than any other destination of the summer had.
But we will talk more about the city itself in the next post. The rest of this one is just going to be about our fantastic dinner!
I don’t normally like to drink anything that isn’t water, but Daredzhani had really fun lemonades on the menu. We tried the green and the red. Ha I don’t remember the flavors but they were good! But the food is where it’s at! As we are known to do, we ordered WAY too much and it was all great.
My favorite thing was the salad – they said it was spinach but it was stronger, like kale, which I loved, but I guess that’s just spinach in Kazakhstan maybe, with a tahini-like dressing I think made from walnuts, plus scattered pomegranate seeds. Such a perfect and simple dish! The vegetable soup was also simple and good, nourishing in a basic way rather than exciting, but we needed some of that! But the cauliflower dish in the background was the shizzz. I don’t know what that sauce was, but it was magic. I think it was nut based, as many Georgian sauces are, and it was like spicy but not hot and I don’t know it was sooo good. It was a chef’s special that night and I wasn’t going to order it because cauliflower is les boringles but Z wanted it and I was like fiiiine and then it was the best ever.
I adore how well they used nuts. This eggplant dish above had a walnut paste and pomegranates. It was great! Another staple we always get is lobio, a kidney bean dish served hot or cold. This one was hot (so the better option) and nice but needed some salt. I mixed it with some of the magic cauliflower sauce and it was phenomenal.
And of course the bread with its perfect rip-off handles. My fave.
So we didn’t really see any of Almaty on our first night but we had a wonderful dinner after an all-day ridiculous adventure crossing from one stan to another. After we get some much needed rest, we’d have two days to see all the sights in this promising city.
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St. Petersburg, Russia: So Much Better Than What “Anastasia” Taught Me
Greetings from Cankt Peterbourg! I wish I could access the Russian keyboard on this little netbook but I can’t/don’t feel like it. We’re having a great time in St. Petersburg, which in English adds the ‘s’ after Peter but in the Russian there’s no ‘s’! Fun! With! Languages! Before this trip, my only exposure to this quite charming city was the song from “Anastasia” that starts: “St. Petersburg is gloomy! St. Petersburg is bleak! My underwear got frozen standing here all week!” But it’s better than that. Well that is a very low bar but St. Petersburg is very nice. Though it has been raining hard a lot which is gloomy, and yes it is cold but like, for the summer, not for the earth, and definitely not cold enough to freeze undies. The city is a very interesting mix of old and new school while still seeming totally European. We are surely easing in slowly to the onslaught of Soviet towns we will be seeing later, because right now it still feels like we’re in Europe.
Well, except for the Cyrillic everywhere! It is so strange and so cool to finally see what we have been preparing for with our Russian classes. We’re doing great, if not at communicating with people (omg SLOW DOWN (oh and maybe could you write it down I’m better at reading kthx)) then at least at reading signs (and menus! Most are in English too! We’re great at that!). They say for all languages you really learn when you are immersed, and I can see how true that would be for Russian, now that we actually are surrounded by it and its alphabet. We’re definitely getting stronger with reading Cyrillic quickly and I have high hopes that that will lead to comprehension. Maybe by the time we get to Siberia we will actually be able to handle the fact that no one will speak English! I dream big.
When we got off the train on Saturday at Finylandskiy Vauxhall (named after the country we had just left? That’s confusing!), we walked around the station to find the giant Lenin statue, commemorating the big speech he gave when he arrived in St. Petey’s in 1917 during the Revolution. We start our sightseeing immediately, even when we have 90-pound backpacks on (and I’m frontpacking too ughhh I have too much stuff but I don’t know what I can get rid of! I really did just bring the bare minimum but we’re going to every season!). We walked the half hour or so to our hostel, The Travellers’ Palace, and it was hot so that was pretty rough because like I said, 90 pounds. I will either break or be super strong by the end of this. The receptionist at the hostel is very friendly and helpful, and even though we can hear every footstep people take at all hours of the night and they sound like gorillas stomping around and even though someone stole my bananas and apples from the fridge (they were labelled!) (and I KNOW bananas in the fridge is weird but I was keeping everything together in the labelled bag (so f-ing ironic!)), we like the hostel fine. The shower is legit the strongest I can remember taking in my entire life, like it was intended for an elephant and I wish I could take it with me. The rooms here are named after famous Russian literary characters, like Onegin and Catherine. It was quite the good omen when we were put in Karenina, considering Anna K is my favorite book (once you pretend that that final section about Levin finding Jesus by talking to peasants (“Life is often so unpleasant / You would know this, as a peasant!”) doesn’t exist)! There’s a little light-up train on my bedside table and everything, haha so morbid. And across the hall is the room called Bolkonsky, like the prince’s family in War & Peace! So it’s like the universe wants me to keep singing “The Great Comet” at every moment of this trip!
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Nevsky Prospekt
Horse Wash!
Once we dropped our stuff, it was already late afternoon, so the best use of our time was to stroll the Nevsky Prospekt, the main boulevard running through the city that everyone spells with a K even in English so I’m rolling with it. It houses all the big stores, lots of restaurants, a good number of statues and monuments, and lots and lots of people. Walking along it is a great first thing to do in St. Petey’s because you can get a sense of the city’s layout and feel, while seeing both important historical markers and fun Russian chain stores (like the Russian version of Sephora whose Russian name is pronounced like Rive Gauche lol that and Sushi Wok, where the ‘sushi’ is in Cyrillic but the ‘wok’ is in our/Latin characters, crack me up every time. There are also horse statues along the various canals which we liked because it reminds us of our flat in London (those who have been over and have seen what we call the Horse Wash will know why!).
Singersss
On the Nevksy Prospekt is the famous Singers sewing machine factory, or the building that used to be that and now is a giant bookstore in the most beautiful building along the boulevard. Inside, they had a snack section that had vegan bars (similar to Lara Bars)! Marked and everything! Come on obviously I love books and bookstores but we can’t buy books on this trip (or anything) but we need snacks. We also saw this monument to Catherine the Great (with her laavaaahs).
you can call me kitty kat
So many canals all over the place, so they call StP the Venice of the North and it’s hard to get a handle on streets
The other hugely famous building along the Nevsky Prospekt is the giant department store Gostiny Dvor. Although we are so determined not to add anything to our packs right at the beginning of the summer, we have a necessity exception – and we needed umbrellas so we bought umbrellas there yesterday (after we got drenched in a downpour, naturally). Upstairs at the Gostiny Dvor, the long, curving walkways are nearly empty and provide great views of the Prospekt. What most people don’t find, however, is the INSANE CELEBRITY FIGURE AND ANIMAL SCULPTURE GARDEN around a far bend that no one goes to. OH MY GOD, look, it’s Hagrid and the Harry Potter kids STANDING BEHIND PUTIN! No big deal! Don’t mind the peasants with sickles! OR THE DINOSAUR! Why this isn’t the #1 thing to do in St. Petersburg I will never understand. As it is, it’s pretty much hidden and NO ONE was there or even nearby so I think I discovered some kind of magical walkway.
you’re a wizard vladdy
Ruby Sparks was a very good movie
As for serious things, the Kazan Cathedral is along the Prospekt, a Russian Orthodox church dedicated not to Elia or even Zoe but to Our Lady of Kazan, which I know is very helpful. It’s not a very nice looking Cathedral, kind of the most Soviet and drab-looking thing we’ve seen yet, but it could just be that it is severely outshone by the gorgeous cathedral across the way from it, The Church of Spilled Blood. I know, I know, it doesn’t exactly sound like the most beautiful spot in all St. Petersburg, but it is! It’s real name is the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood which yes doesn’t really help my case. So it’s built around the spot where Alexander II was mortally wounded and inside there’s a little stone area and canopy marking the exact spot where he was hit by grenades and suffered the injuries that killed him a little later (he actually died in the Hermitage) you know what why don’t I just show you:
no use crying over spilled oooohhhh nm
come at me laser jesus
See it really is soo beautiful even though it’s so dire. But all churches are built around and commemorating dire circumstances. This church, which we went in yesterday, is one of the most incredible churches I’ve ever seen, definitely in my top five. I know I said in a recent Spain post that ugh churches, who can tell them apart after St Peter’s, but this was a great one. I was blown away by how beautiful it was inside and outside. Usually they’re whatever on the inside, full of paintings of oldies and crucifixen, but this one is decorated in 100% MOSAIC. Every painting and image you see is made up of tiny tiles (that is what mosaic means!). See that lady getting lasered from the heavens by a laser-happy Jesus? ALL TILES. How incredible is this?
what happens if the glue stops working rain of tiles |
This canopy covers the actual spot where Alexander II was hit by the grenade/s. They built the church around it. |
this is the most beautiful lavish door to jesus I’ve ever seen
THE HERMITAGE
erma gerd, the hermiterge
On Sunday, we woke up early (lol not) and went to The Hermitage, the endless museum inside the Winter Palace. We read about how crowded it is, especially in the summer, and how the lines for tickets can stretch to a kilometer long. Because of this, we were tempted to buy tickets online, but they cost $18 online and only 700 rubles in person so we decided to risk it. And it’s a good thing we did, because there was no line. We bought tickets at one of several kiosks in the courtyard and went right in. On a Sunday! In the summer! We were so pleased with ourselves and got a little too cocky about it because after about an hour and half the Chinese cruise ship groups arrived ahhhh! It was wall to wall and they really like to push so it got a little rough. But it was still great. The Hermitage has millions of pieces of art, so you really need a plan to make sure you see what you wanna see. The state rooms of the palace and the Russian art are the most important. The Italian and French art is great, of course, but we’ve seen that literally every weekend at museums in London. That sounds very ridiculous of me but when you live in a museumy city like London, it’s important to see stuff that’s different from what you see all the time and feel okay about skipping the same same stuff. So in the Hermitage, we focused on the palace parts, the preserved rooms and furniture and sculptures and stuff, over paintings that have nothing to do with Russian history. And the palace rooms, hoo boy are they amazing. We both love malachite and cobalt shiz and this palace was full of both. It was all so stunning. I especially loved this gazebo.
i wish luke and lorelai got married on this one
We were both obsessed with the library, which was so Belle. And I loved the Peacock Clock, which I didn’t know at first even was a clock. I mean the tiny mushroom thing at the bottom has a clock on it so it’s not like the whole amazing gold artwork is a clock, it’s literally just the smallest piece of it that is a clock, but still, pretty cool. I got in fights with Chinese men who were trying to push me aside when I was taking this picture.
The Hermitage is important to visit, I think, since it’s such a well-known tourist attraction, but it’s exhausting. It goes on forever, and the bathrooms are very poorly located. We had to backtrack through to the entrance to find one, when we were like in the middle of the top floor. So dumb. It shouldn’t be that hard! But I’m glad we went and saw the great pieces they had. It’s easy to spend hours and hours there, but don’t.
I expect grander thrones 
how beautiful is this fancy witch’s cauldron 
a clock that is also a giant piece of furntiure |
not sure what this was but i liked it it was like a big like thing 
this was called the boudoir but it was just a lot of velvety chairs so nice though |
Even though we were pretty beat after our day at the Hermiterge, we decided to walk to St. Isaac’s Cathedral next (in the pouring rain! no umbrellas yet!) and climb the 260 stairs to the top of the golden dome! For the view! So pretty! The golden dome you see in the picture is very striking in the skyline. The climb wasn’t that bad at all, and it was worth it for the stunning views. Note that the main Cathedral is one ticket and the entrance for the climb to the top of the dome is another separate ticket. It’s worth it though! Again I’m proved wrong because the insides of this church were beautiful too. Russia keeps proving me wrong about church insides! St. Isaac’s was full of malachite columns which were stunning.
the view from the top of Isaac’s
main altar at Isaac’s |
that’s Isaac! no i don’t know |
The cathedral tour of Russia is only just beginning! After we saw the Church of Spilled Blood, we went to the Peter and Paul Fortress, the original citadel of St. Petersburg built by Peter the Great in 1703. It’s a big complex full of various museums, but we skipped the many museums (so many museums!) and went straight to the Peter & Paul Cathedral, the gold spire in the city skyline. This Cathedral houses the tombs of Russian czars from Peter I to Alexander III, and there’s a little room off to the side with the Romanovs, including Anastasia, which I was excited to see and then realized how messed up that is. But speaking of, I still haven’t written about the new Broadway musical so maybe I will do that in honor of seeing her tomb! So morbid I’m sorry. It was a decent show, and a decent church. The fortress was best for its views of the Hermitage and other stately buildings from the other side of the river. Luckily today was the one sunny day in the middle of lots of rain so this view on our walk along the riverfront fortress was lovely.
the Romanovs tombs
After we saw all the things Monday, we took the subway (new subway!) down to the Grand Maket Rossiya, which is a private museum of a scale model of ALL OF RUSSIA. It is AWESOME. It shows everyday life in every part of Russia, from St. Petersburg (included the building we were in, weeeird) and all the monuments we’ve seen so far, to Moscow, to Siberia and the Urals and the Sochi Olympics and farmers everywhere and a movie studio with various funny backlots and people on the beach and lots of trains and lots of construction and just EVERYTHING you could imagine in life, they had it on the model. It was so cool, and so giant and detailed that it took an hour and a half just to walk around it once. One of the coolest parts was that the lights would go down every 13 minutes for 2 minutes, gradually to show the sun setting and then rising. Some of the ‘night’ sections there were thunderstorms which was kind of crazy. My favorite part, of course, was that Vinnie Poo (the Russian Winnie the Pooh who is NOTHING like the Winnie we know) was hidden in one of the forests. I also loved the “Bad Husband” section that showed a man in his underwear on the sidewalk as his wife threw all his clothes out the window. Like. What.
Is that Putin riding a bear?? 
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So yeah so far St Petersburg has been very nice! The weather is ploha, with super heavy rainstorms most days. Yay for anoraks! Drivers here are absolutely insane, like super speeding down the Nevksy and no cops ever stop it. Don’t rent a car here! Traffic is really bad too so we mostly walk everywhere. One thing I’ve noticed is how confusing but nice the pedestrian crossings are. Most have green walking man countdown clocks, and most give you a crossing time of well over 30 seconds, some even 90 seconds! BUT, the confusing part, the red man/don’t walk man gets a countdown too, and sometimes they switch red to green/ stop to go without finishing the clock. Like yesterday we were crossing and green man said we had 30 seconds left but then it changed to red man and cars started going. I don’t know about that! I am tired. We’ve done a lot and we still have some museums we haven’t discussed yet! Today we are thinking of going to Peterhof, like the Versailles of Russia, but again it is super storming and it’s really a good weather type thing. We will see! Last night we saw the World’s Longest Opera at the Mariinsky Theatre, which was, well, long. It wasn’t as long time-wise as the Mastersingers but it was longer soul-wise. It also might be as fun to write about as the Mastersingers was so stay tuned! A little more on St Pete’s to come (and food!), and then we’re off literally on a midnight train to Moscow. Byeeee!
Nanxun, China: Little Known Water Town is an Absolute Must
After our time in Shanghai, we decided to make a stop at a nearby water town before heading to another big city, Hangzhou. Water towns are these tiny traditional villages on canals and what nots that are supposed to provide a charming break from big cities. Nanxun, though little known, is supposed to be the most beautiful water town. It’s touristed by Chinese domestic travelers, but not very visited by Westerners. In fact, it’s not even in our 1000-page guidebook. But the few things we saw online about it tempted us to give it a shot. And thank goodness we did, because Nanxun is the most beautiful village maybe in all of China. Now I haven’t seen all of China yet, but Nanxun is special enough that I would bet on it. If you can get there, you must. I really loved everything about it.
You’re gonna have to take my word for it, though. Not that I don’t have pictures – oh I took more pictures of this beautiful place than anywhere else – to prove it, but just that you can’t verify it with other non-Chinese travelers you know, because I actually don’t think more than five have gone. After our time in the big cities of Beijing and Shanghai, going straight to Nanxun was a rude awakening in terms of anyone knowing English. First of all, we didn’t see a white person from the time we left the Astor House Hotel lobby in Shanghai until we got to Hangzhou, the next destination. And I don’t think anyone in Nanxun had seen a white person in a very long time. In fact, our hotel in Nanxun only had one online review in English, and it was from people who went there in April and said the staff told them they were their very first Western guests. I imagine that means we were the second. How cool is that!
Our amazing hotel, Nanxun Xunyi Jingdian Hostel
When we got out of the car after the 2 1/2 hours or so drive from Shanghai (we just hired a car, it was easier than figuring out various buses can you imagine? outside cities?), we were surprised to see that the ‘hostel’ we booked on the main road, Nanxun Xunyi Jingdian Hostel, right outside the entry to the Old Town section, was a beautiful boutique hotel. They just don’t know what the word hostel means, I think, because this was a hotel if there ever was one. In fact, it was one of the most beautiful hotels I’ve seen. Everything was gorgeous, and the room was sublime. Spacious, airy, and comfortable while still looking like a traditional Chinese place, with a beautiful bathroom, giant clean lovely bed, strong air conditioning, two of the fluffiest robes you’ve ever seen in the closet, two water bottles, and room-specific wifi – can you believe it? So it was the strongest yet. And cheap enough that we assumed it was indeed a hostel, before we saw it. God I loved this place!
This shower was so beautiful! That tile and the sun oh man
yes I’m sharing a picture of robes I don’t care
So, the staff was wonderful – and they didn’t speak a word of English. We communicated back and forth solely via Google Translate, which, if you’ve ever used it, you know is never reliable and in Chinese is often hysterically mistaken. The owner’s phone kept saying ‘daughter-in-law’ to us. “The daughter-in-law is good and the right sort of money. You will find a good daughter-in-law there it’s close to the daughter-in-law and there will be a daughter-in-law.” We just nodded. Oh and the very first thing he had his phone say to us while checking in was, “Are you traveling here?” Um……sure???? Right? Isn’t that…obvious… It was so funny but everything was sorted and great. The fact that dealing with their friendly staff solely via phone apps went 100x more smoothly than dealing with English-speaking staff at the Astor House shows what a better place this was – and for a lot less money. God I loved this place.
Also, the info booklet in the room was amazing, and it did have English – though not very decipherable English. Yes I do want to continue to live! Tell me what to do! Also no wonder our credit card didn’t work – it was not any of those flowers or magical animals, but a regular credit card indeed. Shucks.
After we basked in the delight of a perfect hotel room, we meandered down the block to the Old Town entrance. So Nanxun is a regular small town with a main street and other streets, and the actual old traditional water town part is set back, preserved, and requires an entrance ticket. I was a little surprised and taken aback that the ‘town’ we came to see was ticketed, but it was only 100 yuan (like $15 maybe?) and doing this, I realized, helps preserve the beautiful area and keep it from being built up or modernized or ruined in some way. So, good idea, town.
The sights inside the water town part – like various houses, museums, gardens – close at 5pm, and it was already after 4pm when we arrived, so we weren’t able to do that then. But a kindly guide person told us that at 5pm, when the inside sights close, the grounds are still open and free! So we spent the evening walking around and taking most of our grounds pictures of all the canals and bridges and buildings and boats and it was so flipping beautiful. It’s so lovely
We also got a chance to scope out the things we really wanted to prioritize when we returned for the ticketed parts the next morning. Like the Lotus Garden, which had the biggest lotuses I’ve ever seen.
It was so cool! We also went to a few of the small museums the next day, most of which were fine if not as interesting as the scenery (and not in English). In one, a family asked Z for his picture and then to take pictures with him, the whole family. They didn’t even look at me. After they did their photoshoot, I heard the woman say about Z “Beautiful”. It was weird. But, anyway, they didn’t want my picture so f them.
Taking a boat ride seemed like the thing to do along the canals, Venezia-style, but it was so hot and sunny that sitting still with no shade and not going fast enough for wind seemed like a bad idea. I’m glad we decided to just walk around in the splendor and peace.
Well, the free evening time was peaceful. The next day was PACKED with busloads of Chinese tourists. I forgot that this country was so gigantic that more than a billion Chinese people would still be tourists here. Not all of them were there that day, probably just a million. No it wasn’t that bad, really. Nothing could ruin this little visit for us. It was so perfect.
Inside the old town, there are plenty of shops, selling all kinds of things like fruit teas, weird juices, nut brittles, and lots and lots of Chinese food (tip: it’s just called food here). There was an adorable cat themed cafe that had a real cat inside and an English menu of drinks. I had this delicious watermelon tea drink. We went there both days I think. We needed a lot of cold drinks in that heat.
We were lucky to get to see the old town all quiet and full of locals in the evening, and then boisterous and full of tourists the next. Also, we got to take tons of pictures in different light. Damn we took a lot. Can you blame us?
The best part of Nanxun, well, of course was how beautiful and charming it was. But the second best part was the signage. There are ample signs around the whole old town, and the English translations were INCREDIBLE. I would expect nothing less.
HEAR, HEAR
so….basil?
don’t spare any trash from what? FROM WHAT? also definitely civilzed behavior significantly!
just…everywhere?
WAIT FOR IT!!!!!!!!!!!
…i’ll try harder
I AM NOW THE LOCATION!
Well, that’s just like…your opinion, man…
I don’t even care about the ‘remarks’ spelling — ARE THESE BABIES THE VOLUNTEERS?????
I would love if a Chinese speaker could translate for us and tell us what they were going for. Can you imagine if these were actually accurate and the sign makers are simply hippies or high, maybe? We were smiling all day.
So, if you have time, a visit to Nanxun is essential. It’s important to see a traditional water town to have a well-rounded view of China. But also, it’s so freaking gorgeous, and, coming from Shanghai especially, seems very calm and relaxed. It was like we had chanced upon a secret they had kindly shared with us.
Out in the main part of town, things were more like a normal Chinese city, just small. Everyone stared at us, because we were the only non-Chinese people in town like I said, and probably the first in a while. No one spoke English. NO ONE. I’m not complaining, it’s just crazy to find a place where people don’t even know yes and no and good and stuff. It’s a good reminder not to get too complacent, considering how amazing it is that the common language between all travelers is English. (We would witness Japanese tourists speaking with Spanish tourists in Russia and you know what they speak? English. Sub in literally any other country in either of those three spots and the answer was always English. We are so lucky.) But we can’t rest on our imperialist laurels here! Well, everyone knows ‘hello’ at least. In fact, they shout ‘hello hello’ at us every second of the day, but that is standard practice in China. According to a book Z is reading, sometimes Chinese people refer to two white people as ‘two hellos’. It’s not a friendly hello when they shout it at us from the street. But aside from the shouting, people were friendly despite the language barrier. We had two hilarious interactions as we tried to get food and drink. First, we went into a small tea shop for our next required cold drink. They didn’t have English anywhere, and they didn’t know any. Well, the daughter of the owners knew a few words – literally like yes and no – so they kept hoping she would help, but she couldn’t. We used the app to try to read the menu and figured out it was fruit teas. But even with that, it was still so hard to order, but funny. Everyone was laughing, on both sides, as we tried to understand each other enough to proceed. We ordered a peach tea, which sounded good. Z pointed to one his phone said was peach and I held up one finger to signify we wanted one (to share, see if it’s good first!). Finally it seemed like they got it, and they went in the back to make them. Then they came out with two drinks – one with a half a giant peach in side, pushing out the sides of the plastic, and one yellow one. Apparently, when I held up the one finger, they assumed I was asking for ‘the first one’ in the list, which is a sort of lemonade tea. Oops! Well, better to have two to try! The lemon was way too sweet, but after we drank a little and filled the cup back up with water, it was great. But the peach one was amazing! So if you are in Nanxun go to this little shop and get the peach tea. We ate the peach too, of course.
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Even funnier was our attempt at finding dinner. Well, it wasn’t ha ha funny at first. We were hungry, and it was impossible to figure out what had vegetarian options when no one spoke English and there weren’t English menus. We didn’t expect those things, but we at least needed a picture menu so we could point to things we wanted. (I have so much newfound appreciation for places with picture menus. No more looking down on them.) But this was a small town and most of the restaurants had menus just scribbled on a board or printed up but without pictures. Finally we found one that had pictures on the wall, but not on a menu. So we gestured towards the wall and asked if we could point to what we wanted. They got it! It was okay! I said the words for ‘vegetarian food’ and pointed at a tofu dish and a few vegetables and he nodded when I asked to make sure ‘vegetarian’. There was no picture of rice but that one is easy enough to get across. We got food! It was good – except the eggplant dish was the Chinese version of vegetarian, meaning it had pork in it. Ughhhhh. More food just for Z. Luckily the greens and the tofu were good and uncontaminated.
our required menu format from now on
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But the best part of this meal was the conversation, again solely via Google Translate and the guy’s phone app for translating. Early, he very frustratedly tried to say something that we just DID NOT understand. A word apparently in English, but we didn’t get it. He went away, and came back 10 minutes later with a translated statement up on his phone screen “The USA has a place called Las Vegas.” Guy, you’re right and that was totally worth the trouble.
This happened a lot during the meal, with everyone looking at us and the owner-man coming up every few minutes with his phone queued up with some ridiculous statement. It was amazing. We tried so hard not to laugh every time. But the kicker, oh man, the kicker. At the end, I guess he felt comfortable enough finally in our conversationship to ask us about politics. And not just any politics. but the best political question ever framed. He came up to us, held out his phone, and it read, “Do you support the merchant, president tranp?” We still have bruises from how hard we were kicking each other, trying not to laugh but FAILING MISERABLY. Can you even? The misspelling! The comma! THE MERCHANT! We bring that up every day and still lose our shit laughing. Oh my god. I think we said no but the guy was probably super confused by how hard we were laughing while trying not to.
OH man, Nanxun. I love everything about you.
We were in Nanxun for only 24 hours, but it was one of our fullest visits. The sights were glorious, the hotel was perfection, and the interactions with people were beyond hilarious and adorable. And the signs. My god, the signs. I definitely wholeheartedly recommend a short jaunt here if you are planning to visit Shanghai (2.5 hour drive) or Hangzhou (2 hour drive) – where we headed next.
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