A Return Trip to My Fair Lady at Lincoln Center Before It Leaves Us for No Good Reasonby Randi / June 27, 2019Hello mes babies! Have you read the Dubai food post? I wasted my funny (to Philadelphians) title and my intro about Dubai in that one, so hopefully you read it, because now we have to jump into the actual travel information about Dubai, a place that is, and I mean this in the nicest way, perfect for a layover. (Our layover was en route to Oman, which will be the next travel post.) Dubai has a fair amount to see, but it’s very easy to do the tourist highlights in just a few days. We don’t usually like settling for just tourist highlights, but for Dubai I’ll allow it.
As I said in the food post, Dubai is often thought of as a plasticky playground for the rich, where they build ski resorts in the desert and eat gold or whatever. But, like everywhere in the world except Florida, there’s a decent amount of history and culture, of course. Humans have lived in Dubai, the largest of the Emirates, for at least 100,000 years. Sure they called it something else. These early humans were likely isolated from the rest of the world at that time, but soon started trading baseball cards with Iran, Mesopotamia, and the Indus Valley. Through various dominant cultures and three Iron Ages, the region in ancient times was mainly nomadic but with some fortified settlements and some fun occupations. And then, hoo boy, then Islam was introduced and shit went bananas. It spread to this area of the Arabian peninsula, it is thought, by a letter written by Muhammad, and everyone in the region was all “in the 7th century AD we write letters, we write letters/we put down in writing what is happening in religious movements elsewhere in the world”. (You should know that reference by now.) But then Muhammad died and new leaders couldn’t keep control of everyone as much as they wanted because leaders loooove them some total control so there was war, obvs, called the Ridda Wars (as in we’re gonna get Ridda you rebels) and a ‘successful’ ‘unification’ of the peninsula (/lots of death). Because the people were living in the g-d desert, they remained mainly nomadic for like ever. Then the Ottomans ruled the world, yada yada yada, and then Portuguese came in, yada yada yada, the British were harassed by pirates as they should be, but then they found oil and shit REALLY went bananas and everyone was like wheeeee money but then the Brits were like ‘eh we’re gonna pull out (SO THEY DON’T GET PREEEEGNANT) of our protection agreements because we are like tired and need more tea’ and the Emirates were like ‘um please don’t just leave so abruptly, we will be seriously vulnerable and it’ll be bad’ and the Brits were like ‘nah mate need my tea tho’ and then Iran invaded OBVS and the British navy just kind of watched and was like ‘yeah that’s what they do though, peace out’ and while shit was going down and deals were being made Saudi Arabia snuck in and was like ‘I’m just gonna take this piece of Abu Dhabi shhh’ and then a bunch more stuff happened that you should definitely read about from a respectable historic source if you are interested but the Arab Emirates became United in 1971 which is baby-sized but really exciting for them. I kept this all as one paragraph so it would be easier for most readers to skip.
LOTSA MONEYYYY
OIL MONEYYY
So what did we do during our time here, besides butcher historical information? Well, first, we did the thing you kind of have to do: we toured the enormous ridiculous mega-malls. IMPORTANT NOTE: These malls, this whole central tourist area where the Burj Khalifa is and all the various malls and the faux-lake with its nice bridge, it is not made for pedestrians (well except the pedestrian bridge and lake area, okay I meant like getting to and fro the malls). This whole area was built for tricked out SUVs that no one driving them actually needs. They were built for stretch limos (but not those disgustingly ugly Hummer versions; they can go fork themselves). They were built for driving to, is what I’m saying. We like to walk, especially on vacation, and so we tried to get to and fro the malls with our feets. This is not a good idea. You need to get a taxi. We walked around the perimeter of the Mall Town for literally hours trying to find the way in. You will not find the way in unless you act like a car and go into dangerous lanes where only cars are supposed to go and then enter through parking garages and breathe in only exhaust and wonder why the FORK you couldn’t just walk in the front door like a human being. Do not even think about being a walking human being, okay? Just take a cab.
Once we got inside, I mean, it was a big ass giant mall. It was fun to see all the luxury brands and all the familiar restaurant chains and all the people probably spending millions of dollars, but the thing about these malls is to see the extravagance of the extras. There’s a lot of stuff going on, besides (checks notes) having a Tim Horton’s, a California Pizza Kitchen, a P.F. Chang’s, a Red Lobster, a Texas Roadhouse, and, I shit you not, an Eataly, as any mall in an Arabian desert should. But no, you’re going for the ice rink.
Yes there’s an ice rink.
Yes there’s a movie theatre.
Yes there’s an aquarium.
Yes, there’s inexplicable…art? of people…swan-diving to their deaths?
Yes there’s a dinosaur skeleton.
And plenty more (by Ottolenghi). ( And yes there’s an ACTUAL WAITROSE grocery store on the lower level where you can buy normal priced water.) Suffice it to say, spend an afternoon exploring, shop if you need to (we bought water shoes! we needed them), have fun, but know that there is much more to Dubai than the glitzy monuments to capitalism.
Like museums! We do love museums. First up, the coffee museum! I do not love coffee.
But this was a charming museum that teaches you all about the history of growing and making coffee, plus there’s a tiny cafe upstairs that will make you a decent cup, so I’m told. Coffee growing is serious, hard work, easily exploited, so you should always make sure you buy fair trade (with chocolate too, something I know I need to be much better about I KNOW JOJO).
We got to play with a whole range of bean types, which, despite not being the kinds of beans I love, was still interesting.
This chart is probably important for most of you (though I wouldn’t trust all the facts; maybe take it with a grain of salt (like my historical overview) since I’m prettayyy prettayyyy sure coffee doesn’t cure cancer).
So the Coffee Museum is a nice little way to break into the big museuming, so you can learn a little but like in a half hour, tops, which is my favorite kind of museum. But then you have to go to the Dubai Museum, which takes…longer than a half hour, but is worth all the fact-learning you get! Plus, it’s in a fort!
In the museum, we learned that Dubai lies on a creek, not a river as I assumed from looking at it, even though at 10 km long you can understand why you wouldn’t jump at the chance of calling it a creek. Creeks where I’m from are 4 inches across with maybe a frog nearby. Anyway, Dubai Creek is responsible for how the city developed, in two sides, Dubai and Deira. After undergoing a huge restructuring project in the ’50s to deepen the channel, the creek was able to boost Dubai’s economy by becoming the main trading artery of the Emirates. On both sides of the river creek, enormous cargo ships sit at all times, docking and undocking, loading and unloading all sorts of goods (or just letting them sit for days, as we saw).
We also saw lots of creepy ass mannequins. I will share pictures of the non-creepy ones because I’m nice. (“I’m nice now!”)
As you can see, the museum had exhibits on all aspects of old Dubai culture – dress, food, farming, energy, traditions, religion, family. Everything! There were also a lot of signs that began “Umm”, like “Umm Suqaim Mound”, an important archaeological discovery that I’d tell you more about but the accompanying info was faded on the sign, but the important part of me sharing this is that this was the height of my obsession with the original cast recording of The Band’s Visit so this whole day I was bothering Z singing “Umm Kulthum and Omarrrr Shariiiiiif” you get it. I guess that’s not the ‘important’ part.
So, you should definitely pay a visit to the Dubai Museum in order to get a handle on the culture and traditions of the region. That is the most important thing to learn about when you travel, is it not?
But my favorite site of the day came on the walk between the two museums. Winding around this part of the city, there are tons of clay buildings and you can easily get lost trying to find your way through the maze they form, from cute little square to cute little square, trying to get your bearing and remember which way the water is. In one such little square, I found this mirror. (You can see I had fun with Paint cropping Z out. He can’t have his identity blown.)
This is me busy taking a picture of myself in a mirror before investigating what this area housed which I think effectively answers the question posed by the mirror
Behind this stands my favorite place in all of Dubai, the Mawaheb From Beautiful People Studio. Meaning talent, Mawaheb is an art gallery and studio for adults with special needs, who they call ‘the determined ones’. Any determined ones over 16 can create here, learning life skills through art and proving, in their words, that anyone can create art in their own unique way.
We poked our heads in to see what it was, and we were quickly ushered all the way inside to meet everyone and watch a painting class. It was so lovely to be welcomed into their space and everyone was happy to show us their work.
So obviously you need to pay a visit when in Dubai. They’re located at Villa 11 in the Al Fayidi Historical Neighborhood, and you can also buy their products in the Dubai Airport, Terminal 3, Concourse C. The best place (this studio, not the Dubai airport, god no.)
After the Dubai Museum, we made our way along the water to find the boats. We got in line, got crammed onto wooden canoes, paid our few dirham, and enjoyed this fantastic way to cross the creek to the Deira side.
We were crossing in order to explore the souks and all their various marketplaces and all their various goods. If you’ve been the souks of Istanbul, for example, you know what souks can be like. If you’ve been to the souks of Istanbul, you can skip it in Dubai. These souks were a nightmare. It was nonstop touts shouting at you and some kind of shady back alleys and just nothing worth buying if you aren’t a local. Save your time (although it wasn’t so much time; we went through the entire area in 20 minutes, power-walking through to get out).
Luckily, we still had the Big F-ing Thing to get to that day: The Burj Khalifa. The BK is the tallest building (and freestanding structure, important to distinguish when you’re talking things like radio masts) in the world, and we were going to the top. (Well, effectively.) Built from 2004-2009, the Burj Khalifa is 2,722 feet high (counting the antenna, which seems a little cheaty anagonye but I’ll allow it); the second tallest building is the Shanghai Tower at 2,073, which we also went to the top of!
Hot tip: Book your tickets to the observation deck in advance, if you can. We didn’t book until we arrived in Dubai, and the only time still available that worked for us was late at night. But you know what, this was lucky for us because going at night is AWESOME. You see the lights of the whole city and it’s very cool, even though it’s harder for pictures to come out well (not that that ever stopped me from sharing pictures).
The observation deck is called At The Top, and you have free reign (using the spiral staircase with the glass walls to the outside world which are kind of terrifying) to go between two floors, 124 and 125. This is the basic ticket that most people get, about $40-50 depending on when you book and everything. But there’s also At the Top SKY, which is the elite ticket, giving you access to Floor 148 and a separate observation deck (the actual highest in the world, whereas the one on 125 is actually lower than the observation deck at the Shanghai Tower, we learned after!) and a private guided tour. There’s also a private lounge super high up for fancy pants people that’s even more expensive. But the SKY ticket starts at $100, and there were two of us, so paying the regular ticket price seemed to be more than enough. Warning, when you book on the website, they make it VERY hard to find the regular ticket, always showing you more info and buttons for buying SKY tickets. RUDE.
On 124, there is an outdoor terrace – there’s a glass barrier of course but you are open to the elements above head level. I could have easily thrown something (I DIDN’T). It is SCARY but kind of cool. It was also kind of hilarious because right when we got out on that terrace, it starting POURING. We were in the desert, remember, so this was a surprise. And I mean like, it was a monsoon. Everything outside flooded, all the streets and paths, it was unbelievable. And here we were thousands of feet in the air, standing out in the torrential downpour on the highest terrace ever.
It’s a little cheesy to go to the top of the Burj, I guess, but it’s the big f-ing thing and you gotta see the big f-ing thing!
So that’s what we did with our few days in Dubai, besides eat and swim which you read about in the previous post. But we still have one more thing to talk about.
THE WORLD’S QUICKEST TOUR THROUGH ALL THE ARAB EMIRATES
For our last day in the UAE, we hired a driver to drive us around the entire country to see the six other Emirates: Sharjah, Ajman, Ras al Khaimah, Fujairah, Umm al-Quwain, and Abu Dhabi. Why did we rush through seeing all of these places that most tourists never see (besides, of course, the last one)? Because it’s important to see as much of a country as possible! To learn about the people and culture more! To pay respect! No it’s because each emirate counts separately for the Traveller’s Century Club.
The driver we hired has never actually done all 7 in a day, and tried to tell us that it was impossible. But nothing is impossible if you put your mind to it! And pay him more! Unfortunately for our abilities to prove him wrong, the enormous storm the night before flooded a ton of main roads leading out of Dubai and into Abu Dhabi, so instead of starting with that most important one (and making sure we had plenty of time in the Grand Mosque), we would have to save that one for last and make a mad rush back to Dubai for our flight that night. I know! Stress!
So we started with Sharjah. The drive into Sharjah is usually 40 minutes? I think? It took three hours. All the roads were flooded, and to top it off it was rush hour on a Monday. It was A MESS. Driving through the main square of Sharjah city center, we were stuck on the same 4 block expanse for 90 minutes, before we were able to exit onto the highway and onto the next city. Luckily, that standstill meant I could run into this bazaar, see an actual thing in Sharjah, and USE THE BATHROOM. It was the best bazaar I ever ran into across multiple lanes of traffic.
Sharjah is a mainly small business and residential city, and it’s very conservative. Most people who live here work in Dubai but it’s cheaper to live out here so they commute. That’s what I learned about Sharjah!
Finally we made our way to Ajman, which is the nice coastal beach area, with more/any Westerners, we spotted. There are some cute beach hotels we passed here. Then we made our way through Ras al Khaimah and Umm al-Quwain, which are both sparse yet have INSANELY large luxury hotels on their beaches, like WHO are all the people going out here for these immense hotels that won’t let me in to pee?!
We drove for a while through the, well, not much, to make our way to Fujairah, where we stopped to eat. I was super nervous because this is where we stopped, and English out here is much harder to come by. But luckily, the guys working made me a big bowl of pretty good veggie stew and brought lots of bread and it was great!
Finally we were on our way to Abu Dhabi, a drive of a few hours from this point, and we made it to the Grand Mosque with enough time to properly visit it. You have to be dressed in longs and longs with your head covered for the mosque, and there are many guards policing the many tourists from removing head coverings or trying to get into roped off sections. You also have to leave your shoes in cubbies before entering so make sure you know which one your shoes are in – this place is ENORMOUS.
It’s also gorgeous.
I could honestly share hundreds of photos but I won’t. It was so beautiful.
Because of our delayed and reconfigured day, we only had time to quickly drive through Abu Dhabi. Next time! If the extravagance of the mosque didn’t have me shaking my head at all the money pointed in not-ideal directions, Abu Dhabi’s obvious wealth did. Our driver told us that people with luxury cars often want to distinguish themselves and their status even more, so they’ll spend up to $50 million (I assume that’s in dirham, but damn) to get two digit license plates, instead of the normal four digit ones. That is such a disgusting waste of money, I mean, wow. And Abu Dhabi in general, even on a drive through, made me upset with its disgusting wastes of money on display. It took most of the drive just to pass the enormous palaces. There are 42 for the one royal family. They have hundreds of cars. And the country spent billions, billions of dollars, to get the rights to use the name “Louvre” on their new art museum, paid to the French government. I wonder what France is doing with that money? I bet it’s not helping refugees!
Our driver pointed out the towers shown in the 7th Fast and the Furious movie as well as the crazy hotel from “Sex and the City 2”, the latter of which used to be a palace and is now this incredible, exclusive, outrageously expensive hotel. There’s a big entrance that only the royal family and VIP guests are allowed to use (it goes on FOREVER behind the gates (but not as long as the royal palace section of the city!)).
So, I left Abu Dhabi and the Emirates in general with a bad feeling and a renewed appreciation for socialism. It sucks that there is so much money used for such b.s. while so many people are starving. It makes me made that most/every country in the world doesn’t really care about anyone.
Anyway. That’s a rant for another day, because this is already too long.
We made our way to the Dubai airport, and here’s a hot tip for Terminal 1: The Yo Sushi/Camden Food Shop on the first level sells water for 24 dirham (about $6-7), which is LUDICROUS considering I needed 4 (they were small bottles). Luckily, upstairs there’s like a regular bodega selling water and snacks at normal prices!!! What kind of amazing airport gem is this? There’s also a McDonald’s upstairs (I know) but they have a plain garden salad, luckily, which is the only vegan option I could find in the airport. It was fine. I’m fine.
We spent most of our waiting time talking to an Emirati man who complained about his Iranian wife for a while and then gave us life advice and it was all pretty amazing. He said you could have a palace or a tent, but if you’re unhappy in a palace and the man in the tent is happy, then that’s all that matters. He may be the only man in this country to get it. (Then he told us he’s the man who designed the roads in Abu Dhabi so, wow.)
All in all, it was a successful, interesting, thought-provoking trip to Dubai. I leave you with the most thought-provoking picture I took, and I ask, I beg of you to answer, WHO is disposing of their large suitcases at the departure gates????
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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!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Olkhon Island & Lake Baikal, Siberia: I Don’t Think You’re Ready For This Jelly (me)
After three weeks of exhausting, nonstop activity in our big summer travels, we planned for four days of just pure relaxation in a presumed idyllic spot, Olkhon Island on the famed Lake Baikal, a tiny fishing village that is hard to reach and so we simultaneously assumed two incongruous thoughts: 1) that we would be two of very very few visitors (pretty true) but 2) that even so the island and village would be equipped to deal with visitors (hahah no). Can’t have it both ways. Really, parts of the island, like the lake itself and the cliffs and rocky terrain along the northern parts of the island, are beautiful, but getting there and for the most part being there is too stressful to allow for any relaxation, or, honestly, to allow me to recommend a trip here.
it’s like a little baby Azure Window! Oh Azure Window, RIP! (read the Malta posts on the main Travel page)
Through the Hostel Baikaler in Irkutsk, we booked a trip to Olkhon Island up on Lake Baikal. Most people in Irkutsk are indeed stopping there in order to venture out to the lake, which is the biggest freshwater lake in the world. The guidebook says that if all the other freshwater in the world disappeared, Baikal would be able to fill our needs for forty years. That’s a big ass lake. So the Baikaler people booked us a minibus ride to Olkhon and a 3 night stay at Olga’s Guesthouse in Khuzir, the tiny ‘town’ on Olkhon. When I say to you to never, ever use Baikaler or Olga’s people to book anything, I really, really mean it.
The best thing I saw all that day of the 8 hour minibus – our only big toilet stop
My view for an entire day – this was the best road we took. SO BUMPY
The minibus seemed nice enough, one of the nicer vehicles we’ve seen, and since we were picked up at our hostel early we got the first row which I figured would help with my carsickness (the van fit about 16 people). I was so funny thinking anything could stop the nausea on this ride, even if you aren’t prone to it. After we left, at about 9:05, we picked up a few more travelers at another hostel, before we set off and…nope, we just parked in a busy market square one block from our hostel at 9:15, the driver got off, and I watched as he joined apparent friends to smoke in the middle of the market. At 10:30 (that’s right), he got back on the bus, and we thought jesus christ are we finally leaving, an hour and a half late? Nopeeee, he drove around while on his phone yelling at people until we found 4 other people to pick up outside a stadium. I mean. WTF. I thought okay NOW we’re leaving and it’ll be fine. Little did I know.
The roads on Olkhon
After just under two hours, we stopped for a bathroom break, which is the best kind of break you can ever offer me. Five minutes later, we drove down the road to stop for lunch. It sucked that our two stops in a 7 hour bus journey were back to back; I was so nervous about having to pee, I was having palpitations. When we left the cafe in the middle of nowhere on the side of a dirt road, the real ridiculousness of our journey started. The road to Olkhon Island is not equipped for people to drive on. There aren’t roads, really, it’s just land. And we were not in a jeep or a landrover, we were in a minibus and pretty much off-roading. We felt every jarring bump and throw from the rocky paths that turned into sand dunes that you had to carefully maneuver and then back into rocky again. It was INSANE. We were all looking at each other like ‘oh my god this cannot be the way’, holding on for dear life to the handles above us or on the seats in front of us. It was like being on a roller coaster that also shook your seat violently and spun you around. I’m nauseous just remembering it. Of course that part of the trip was about 2 hours. It was the worst travel experience ever, until the return journey three days later, which was actually worse.
The town of Khuzir (after a terrible rainstorm, hence the road is a pond)
One of the two main grocery stores in Khuzir/Olkhon
When we finally got to Olga’s Guesthouse in Khuzir, it was not the fresh sigh of relief we were counting on. It was a few lackluster wooden shacks, and our room was a small, dank, windowless affair with two college dorm beds with ugly, not very clean looking bedding on them. Windowless was the worst part. We told the staffer that her colleagues who had arranged this for us months ago promised that we would be in a building with a bathroom inside it (I pee at least every 90 minutes and I cannot be walking to another building in the middle of the night that often). The staffer was like, um no none of the buildings have bathrooms, here is our bathroom — two outhouse stalls about a full minute’s walk up the road of the grounds. (One was a western toilet; the other was a beginning-of-Slumdog-style-elevated wooden floor with a hole in it. When I talk about outhouses from here on out (and I’m sure I will), I mean this latter kind.) The sinks were halfway back down the little road. I mean. No. Your colleagues told us you had a bathroom in our building, and that was literally the only reason we booked with you instead of elsewhere, and we told them that at booking, that it was dependent on that! She was just like well nope we don’t have a bathroom so that’s it. We got our stuff from our jail cell of a windowless room and hightailed it out of that shithole. Luckily, we hadn’t paid yet, and luckily the staffer I guess heard from the colleague who made all the false promises (lies, they are called lies) and gave us our deposit back. We walked about 30 minutes in the sand dunes (omg it was so hard I’ve never been that sweaty before it’s like I had some sort of fever) up the road to Hotel Baikal View. It looked like a little string of colorful motel rooms, little log cabins in three rows, but they were so much better than motel rooms and the hotel itself was that sigh of relief we needed. The bed was the most comfortable in the entire country so far, and they had a bar, and a restaurant, and lots of staffers who spoke English and there was a POOL and a SAUNA and omg it was just great. And still much cheaper than the equivalent would be in the west.
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Our multi-colored string of hotel rooms! So cute
I loved that bed. It had clean white sheets and a big fluffy white comforter. The best. And every single room had its own bathroom. I was so happy that I didn’t have to put shoes and a headlamp on in the middle of the night to pee, I didn’t even care that the cabins were full of bugs (log cabins on a lake, man!), I didn’t even care that it was too cold to swim in the pool (we did jump in after our daily sauna use though, which was bracing but amazing hot damn I love saunas), I didn’t even care that housekeeping threw out my retainer/night guard and I’ve been grinding my teeth like crazy every since. (Okay, that’s not true, I cared a lot and cried but once a one-inch piece of clear plastic is gone, it’s gone. Fuckers.) I did love that sauna, hoo boy. And our first night, all night, was the hardest rainstorm I’ve maybe ever heard. I couldn’t sleep for a few hours because I thought our cabin was going to blow away, or at least flood quickly and completely. It was unbelievable. Can you imagine if we had stayed at Olga’s and I had to go out in that to trek to the outhouse in my boots and raingear and headlamp in the pitch black five times in the night??? Thank god we left. I’m so grateful to Z money for that one. I mean he didn’t want to stay at Olga’s either, he’s not a filthy monster, but yay for finding a nice place.
We ate a few times in the restaurant at Baikal View, because it was about a mile on the sand dunes to the ‘town’ of Khuzir and we were usually so tired from our day of exploring that we didn’t feel like trekking there and back (there’s like one taxi and you have to either be very lucky and find him randomly or get someone to call him, and it usually takes like 20 minutes for him to come anyway so no). The restaurant was fine, full of all the Baikal specialties husband was supposed to get. It was harder for me, but they had a really good pickle plate and good potato dishes (I say that like I’m not just talking about French fries and potato wedges). We also tried this weird kind of pickled mushroom that was interesting. I know the deathly gray color is unappetizing but they were decent.
oh I’ll have my usual thanks I guess |
like the most colorless plate of food ever |
Then, one night, the waitress was the first one (they all only spoke Russian) who understood really what kinds of things I was looking for and tried to help me get something that wasn’t just pickles and potatoes. She said what about this soup, otroshka? I had read about that soup before, and knew that it was cucumber, potato, egg, meat, sour cream, and kvass, that beer-like soda-ish dark bready drink that I for some reason like. She said this version was vegetarian, and they could do it without the egg and sour cream. I was skeptical but excited to have a soup. Lol again.
my kvass soup I can’t believe I ate this for dinner lolol
It was literally chopped up cucumber, potato, and a shittonne of spicy radish in a bowl of cold kvass. I mean. What. We were CRACKING up. It was…not bad, but it was incredibly strange and like WHAT. Imagine cold chopped veggies served in a bowl of undiluted, unadulterated soda, that’s what it was. I mean I ate it. It was still raw veggies. I still can’t get over it. I think the waitresses were laughing at me, having dared each other to see who could get the weird Americans to eat the craziest thing. I said to Husband that it’s usually with sour cream and egg and maybe that makes it less like a soda bath of cucumber and he said actually that sounds like it would be even stranger, and truly revolting. I guess the idea of soda and sour cream and egg mixed into a broth really is disgusting oh man alive Russia.
literally main street Khuzir
We did eat several meals in Khuzir, too. There were a lot of fish shacks, and a lot of small cafes, and a few decent ramshackle places with some things I could pick out. We went twice to this hopping cafe on the main drag (the name of it was just its address, and there’s like one street, so just like…it’s there) that had salads in a glass case (not refrigerated…I am living dangerously) and so I picked out a cabbage-y cucumber-y looking salad and another carrot-yuba salad! I had that yuba salad twice at this place, I was so happy to find it again, my favorite dish of Siberia. I really hope this yuba looking stuff I keep finding in Siberia (also had some in Yekaterinburg) really is tofu skin and not just some weird part of a fish (or worse) that I’ve just never seen before. That would be bad, and embarrassing. Let’s say it’s yuba before my stomach starts to hurt.
I love that this carrot-yuba salad was everywhere in Siberia!
We also went to Kafe Olkhon on you guessed it the main drag, which I really liked the look of. It was a proper old dark wooden pub-sort of place, full of Russian people and travelers. They had a menu with pictures and some English translations, and I got a giant plate of plain kasha (love it, I’m sorry) and a carrot-cabbage salad. It was a great meal for me if totally boring and plain to everyone else. I love that kind of meal.
There were a few sad grocery stores in the town, one less sad that had a few fun chocolate treats we found. That less sad store also had a fellow customer wearing the best shirt I’ve ever seen. I tried to get a picture of her without being too obvious but I failed. Anyway, the shirt was red and in white block letters it said “Puberty Silent’. WHAT. IS. WHAT. We’ve seen the most incredible tee shirts with things in English written on them. I guess this is how Chinese people feel when they see the nonsense character-tattoos of westerners.
ate the entire bag of chocolate-strawberry things on the walk home. should have gotten two of them. yummm
Wandering through the dirt roads once with new French friends we met, we passed a house that had a ‘homemade bread’ sign out front. So we rang the doorbell , it started to pour, and the lady came out to the gate, in that order. We said ‘you have bread?” and she said yes how many? and we said um, I guess two? and she came out with two enormous loaves of bread. like, enormous. 50 rubles each, so pretty cheap. We were cracking up. She didn’t even let us in, we just bought bread from a random lady at her house on the side of the road. It was hilarious. Almost as funny as trying to break into that bread itself, which took not joking all of my strength to break apart. Inside, it was really nice and fluffy, delicious really, but that outer shell was f-ing armor.
“homemade bread” |
the bread lady’s house. she didn’t let us in |
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Okay, that’s enough about the food!
Olkhon itself is interesting. The town of Khuzir (and, consequently, the entirety of the surroundings for miles and miles considering Khuzir is the most built up touristed part, despite it being literally two dirt roads) is not really ready for tourists, at least not a lot of them. It doesn’t not have the infrastructure to support tourism. Does it even have infrastructure? That bus ride, I’m not exaggerating, it was horrendous. We really can’t recommend going to Olkhon because this ride was so hellish and it takes up two entire days. It’s just not worth it. Once there, the guesthouses all seem to be like Olga’s and the very famous Nikita’s, complexes of small wooden shacks with shared outhouses (oh p.s., the entire island except for our hotel was outhouses. The restaurants too – you were lucky if the restaurant you chose even had a key to the nearest outhouse shack down the block. It’s fine when traveling (used to it by now) but like not in the place you’re staying for days). (Nikita’s charges hourly for wifi, so glad we didn’t book there.) It’s cool to be at a place that is so remote and raw, but it really cannot handle the tourist trade in its current state. It’s a shame because parts of the island are beautiful, but I just don’t know how people can really go to see them. There is a hydrofoil boat that might go once or twice a week, saving most of the minibus ride, but then even getting around the island for the tours (which is the most important and best thing to do on the island; you’re not there to stay in the ‘town’) requires driving in minibuses on the same and even worse roads! The entire day! It’s just a mess there.
the roads we drove on for like a whole week
Let’s talk about those tours. We booked a tour of the north cape of the island, called Cape Khoboy, with our hotel. Every hostel or hotel books the same tour, with the same sort of driver and Soviet military-looking 9-person van, the same fish soup cooked for lunch by the driver (smelled great but I wasn’t going to eat even if it was vegan when we were driving all day on those obstacle sources of rocks, dunes, and tree roots), and the same collection of sights before and after Khoboy along the way. It cost 1100 rubles per person (100 of that was a random charge that we weren’t told about in advance and I kind of think was the driver and his friends tricking us but what could be do), which is like 15 pounds, so not bad for an entire day of sightseeing. And the landscape really is beautiful.
Okay, so this is a little terrible, but the name of the cape is pronounced like ‘ho boy’, a little phlegmier, but still close, so the entire week not joking (and still) Z and I were repeating to each other our favorite bit of SNL weekend update:
it’s when your whole body goes
hoo boyyyyy
Khoboy itself requires a decent amount of time for a hike down and up through all the twists of the mountain. We ran into our French friends there, which was hilarious. It was a beautiful place, which makes me sadder about how weird it is to be a tourist there. Seriously if they just paved the road and excavated the outhouses once in a while (it had been a too-long while for most of them) it would be oodles better.
All over Siberia, we have seen trees and bushes covered in scarves and pieces of colorful cloth. It’s like a shaman thing, I think. Shamanism is big in this part of the country. The trees are really fun to see.
Khoboy had an outhouse (worst condition of whole island), so that was lucky, since this was another of the three days (out of four) where I was a ball of nerves all day about having to pee. I’m so dehydrated.
The driver also took us to other outlets along the north side of the island, beautiful rocks jutting out over the lake that we climbed up and hiked down (some of the pics above are those other parts of the cape; I can’t tell which was which part). It was exhausting but really worth it, so beautiful.
But again, the roads. My god. I bet you think I’m being dramatic just for the sake of drama, exaggerating. Here is another picture I took on the route when I WASN’T hanging on for dear life.
These are not roads, and our little bus, my god, it’s a miracle that it made it through. All the tours are in identical buses and I just do not understand how they operate after driving through this. We spent almost 45 minutes driving through WOODS. Like, without a road, just making our way in the woods. In a bus. Here’s a picture of us going through the woods behind another car. The one in front of us really gives you the perspective I need you to have in order to agree with me on how insane this all is.
pretty scary right?
Another day, we went on a hike along the lake with the French people. It was a cold and rainy day, but we said hey let’s be outdoorsy. But then it started to really rain, like buckets, like pouring freaking rain, and the ground/sand was incredibly muddy and I started to have trouble making my way up without slipping backwards, which is a really scary feeling, and the ground just kept giving way instead of letting me progress and it was miserable. Beautiful, but miserable. Luckily, the foggy weather really reflected that state.
that’s a boat!
It totally looks like Japan, or a scene out of Avatar, right? That fog was insane. The farther we went, the harder it got to see where we had come from, and with the rain getting harder and harder and the ground getting wetter and wetter, we all decided to stop and head back before too long (too long for me though). Our shoes were so disgusting. Not to mention our pants. We’re just always dirty this trip, it seems.
I know right now you are like…dude…all of these nature scenes look gorgeous! Why are you complaining so much! But see it’s just because it’s been a minute since I wrote about the driving conditions. After all this beauty, we still had to get back to Irkutsk/civilization. And when I tell you that the return minibus journey was BY FAR the worst bus trip yet, I really mean it. The van was not nice this time. Instead, it was over-crowded, and the door was broken. There was no trunk area for luggage, so 20 people all with giant backpacks and suitcases had to sit WITH their luggage either on their lap or in the aisle next to them, making this the most unsafe bus ever, not to mention impossible to get on and off of. The driver was awful and refused to stop for lunch. The whole thing was so bad that, when we got to the ferry crossing (where we got out of the car) (after about 1 1/2 hours), Z and I actually knocked on the windows of every car on the ferry and asked if they could take us the rest of the way for whatever money they wanted. Unfortunately, the only ones who had room for us were not going to Irkutsk. Seriously, that’s how bad it was. Thank god we made it back in one piece. When the driver started letting people off in Irkutsk, we got off at the first opportunity even though we were like 20 minutes walk from our hostel. We didn’t care we just needed to get off that death machine.
minibus from hell
Luckily, we got off in Irkutsk right near our favorite place, Engineer Coffee (or something like that), with the best, nicest staff and the best coffee (according to the coffee drinker of the two of us). They also had clean bathrooms, free water, and good wifi. It was a godsend.
After we dropped our bags back at the Hostel Baikaler for the few hours we had until our sleeper train to Ulan-Ude, we went in search of food. We decided on the great-named Sushied, with the ‘sushi’ part in cyrillic and then the ‘ed’ added after that. So fun, and the food was decent. I needed all the vegetables and ordered a green salad, a seaweed salad, a veggie sushi roll, and a veggie noodle stir-fry (to share and granted I gave Z most of the stir-fry but still, lots of food!).
my favorite kind of salad is two salads |
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So, all in all, I guess I’m glad we went to Olkhon? Lake Baikal is beautiful, and it’s cool to be somewhere few people go. But man. The discrepancy between the scenery on the coast and the lake versus the journey there and the roads and the town, it’s drastic. If you had a private helicopter you should take that and try it out for 2 days maybe. It really is so beautiful. But what a mess it all was. Except that bed. My god I loved that bed.
the main intersection of Khuzir, Olkhon Island
that lake tho
honestly I think my fave thing about Olkhon is that they recycle. first place we saw in Russia doing it.
