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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Naadam in Mongolia: The National Festival of the Three Sports of Chingis Khan
Once we decided to do the Trans-Mongolian instead of the Trans-Siberian (Mongolia and China instead of just lots more Siberia? not a hard decision), we knew we had to line up our dates so that we landed in Mongolia in time for Naadam, the most important festival and event in the Mongolian calendar (I mean it’s the only festival and event in the Mongolian calendar that I know, so I could be wrong about that but I’m probably right). The three-day festival is like the country’s own Olympics, celebrating the Three Sports of Men, or the Three Sports of Chingis (Genghis) Khan, something like that. In our English language pamphlets handed out in the stadium it says “Three Manly Sports” which is hilarious so let’s say it’s that one. Those three exalted sports are wrestling, archery, and horse-racing. Seems straightforward enough, right? Ha!
Naadam is held from July 11 to July 13, although the closing ceremony occurs on the night of July 12 and stuff still continues the next day or so but don’t worry your pretty little head about that. Naadams are held all over the country like each little town’s and region’s own little special olympics (lowercase for both is really important). But the big deal is in Ulaan Baatar, and it is CROWDED. All the city’s 1.5 million residents seemed to be in that stadium meant for maybe 5,000, plus all the people coming in from the countryside to see it. The three sports of men are a huge deal, apparently.
we’re men manly men we’re men in tights! yessss
We got tickets to the opening ceremony, the closing ceremony, and wrestling. A whole lot of wrestling. We would learn that you don’t actually need tickets for the sporting events, so we rocked up to watch a good amount of archery and the Mongolian version of beer pong as well.
The opening ceremony was very exciting — outside, milling about the endless rows of food and drink stalls (mostly selling khuushuur, the meat-filled empanada looking traditional food that is apparently like the official food to eat at Naadam), were TONS of people, and mostly Mongolian people, so there was this strong air of patriotism and excitement and just overall camaraderie – that is, until we went to our seats. We had seats in the so-called ‘tourist section’ because it’s in the shade (bless whoever made that happen), but it was as unorganized and chaotic as you could ever imagine. People were sitting in the wrong seats, in the aisles and on the bases of pillars and on the barriers to the entrance/exit. And I don’t just mean people. Whatever number you are imagining in your head as composing this crowd, multiply it by 10 at least. We had to literally climb over dozens of people to get into the entrance (like a regular stadium gate-by-gate open entrance, but in a stadium from medieval times)and then do the same through the aisles to get to our seats, where tourists were sitting because they don’t know how to read tickets but who even cares when Mongolian and foreign people are just sitting wherever the hell they want with no regard for safety? And there were plenty of stadium staff, volunteers, and police everywhere, so the people you hoped would get things in order – or at least form a path for when people had to exit – didn’t bat an eyelash at the scene. It was a terrifying thought, but we realized during this ceremony/scene of absolute dire chaos how, you know whenever you hear about a terrible accident in a third world country where hundreds or thousands more people die than seems correct or possible for such a building or type of accident? We realized that if anyone at all went wrong in this stadium, there was no way we or anyone could get out. It was really scary, actually. I couldn’t even leave to pee! I mean I tried eventually and stepped on or over 57 people and the only bathroom was halfway around the entire stadium (cool designing, guys) but I waited for so long. I was not eager to return afterwards because what if there was a fire!
the crowd just trying to get in
Luckily, there wasn’t! Thank you Chingis! Aside from the constant fear and the terrible bladder pain, the opening ceremony was pretty entertaining! The organizers had conscripted literally every single Mongolian child, teenager, and really adult to be a part of it. Every time we thought the performer crowd had reached its limit, another group of 100 people in a different costume would run out onto the field. There aren’t that many Mongolians. I really mean it, every single citizen was either on that field or sitting in my aisle.
I’m not really sure what story the ceremony told because the voice booming over the speaker system for two hours was of course speaking Mongolian but I’m going to try my best to relate what I saw. First, lots of men in costumes reminiscent of the dolls working for Lord Farquaad in Shrek came out on horseback for celebratory lap around the track. People lost their shit seeing horses gallop, I’m not kidding. I was sitting next to a midwestern American woman who was either on drugs or just simple because every little thing made her squee with glee. She also had the loudest clap I’ve ever heard and like it actually hurt my ears sitting next to her. That’s enough about her. So after the cavalry, 100 tweens dressed in white came out and did some weird modern dancing for a bit before they released doves, which made people lose their shit even more than the horses. I was the only person not screaming my aggressive approval, because that shit is super cruel. How long did you have those doves crammed in your pockets, you little shits? Some of the doves weren’t able to fly out of the stadium because their wings had been so damaged, so for the next two hours there were half a dozen doves just on the field. It was heartbreaking. I’m sharing all of this so the monsters among you reading this who are planning an event and want to release doves decide not to. For those of you reading who would never dream of doing such a bullshit thing and are as sad as I am now, I’m sorry and here is a picture of my doggie:
HI I’M THE CUTEST BEST DOG IN THE WHOLE WORLD YES I AM
that bird is a liar
So then lots more men in hilarious I mean very stately and regal period costumes came onto the field. We’re talking hundreds. As far as I could tell, they were telling the story of how Genghis/Chingis inspired his armies to fight against the Roman legions, and he brought about the fall of Rome. I’m not sure the dates line up for that to be historically accurate, and again I have no idea what was being said so the chances of this being what was actually on display are extremely low, but you try figuring this out.
After the Romans were sufficiently vanquished, Chingis and his manly men had to deal with the, um, wizards, and their dragons. Chingis whistled for a giant silver bird to lead his men to victory, and the giant Chingis float and the giant dragon floats moved about slowly and awkwardly but overall impressively until the Mongolians cheered their approval and another round of horse riders took a victory lap around the stadium. The only good part about the frequent horse laps is the group of men who come out behind them with brooms and poop-collecting pans.
WATER FIIIIIGHT
Then they had to vanquish the um gold alien men? So they called back upon the giant silver bird to help win that battle. Guys I really had to pee.
I LOVE GAAAAAAHHHHLD
But then it got even more exciting! Somehow they set up a huge stage in the middle of the field and DOZENS of people came out from underneath. How long were they cooped up in those holes!! Oh my god! Much worse than the guy in Ocean’s 11 and I’m sure much hotter. Dayum they just kept coming and coming more and more out from under the stage I feel bad for them but it was kind of hilarious in the pure clown-car aspect of it. BUT IT GETS BETTER. Because guess who Chingis had to fight next?
DINO-MITE
THAT’S RIGHT THE DINOSAURS! He didn’t even move from his giant float seat; Chingis was all ‘get out of my kingdom, dinosaurs! Go back to chilling in the Garden of Eden with Adam & Eve like they teach happened at the Creation Museum in Kentucky!’ And Chingis is so powerful and manly that they listened.
this one guy managing the tiny white bird is my fave
But the hell demons loved the dinosaurs and the dino banishment made them angry! Hellfireeee!
It’s okay! We will dance the demons back to hell!
But then that damn Roman army returned!
But then that damn Roman army returned!
And again, dancing will be the answer.
To celebrate, the bull and the elephant statues rocked around and then hundreds more people in various costumes danced (how did people remember all this choreography!) and balloons were released (don’t do that either!) and all these medieval-looking army people waved flags and then literally 200 tweens with rainbow umbrellas came out just to stand with their umbrellas around the track for everrrr. It was so hot and boring for them, just standing there. One little boy was not about to waste his time standing still when he was a part of Naadam. He twirled his umbrella, he danced, he did the funniest poses – peace signs, waves, even dap lol. He was my favorite part. He was everyone’s favorite; the whole section was laughing and loving him. It was so funny.
Next, I just still can’t believe. It was the presentation of all Mongolia’s animals. They literally walked oxen, camels, horses, sheep, goats, ibix (what is the plural of that…is that plural?), cows and bulls, freaking yaks, all around the track. Real ones. Those poop scoopers were busy. I thought we were being punked by this point. But it got even better! Just like at the Olympics, small groups of representatives from various organizations paraded around the track, each waving their banners and holding their signs. But instead of it being the athletes from each country, here it was just representatives of the companies sponsoring Naadam. At least I think it was sponsors. It might just have been all the Mongolian companies. Oh my god. Like all the airlines walked by with their flight attendants and pilots in their uniforms, various restaurants. Even Harley Davidson wheeled by, at which I overheard the most nauseating conversation from the old white American men sitting behind me: “You know, the Harley Davidson corporate office is now just a mile from where Julia lives!” “Oh that’s GREAT!” IS IT???
Just when you thought it was over, hundreds of young girls dressed in ice blue costumes came out and danced more.
Then everyone, all ten thousand participants, danced together and everyone was joyous and we figured that was it.
But then this guy came out.
I can’t make up a reason for this guy.
Okay, on to the Three Manly Sports! First of all, let’s forget about the horse-racing. It takes place 30km or so outside the city, so we weren’t going to see it anyway, but more importantly horse-racing is a cruel and inhumane torture method masquerading as a ‘sport’. Second of all, the three sports of men are really, apparently, four sports, because there’s a pavilion for ankle-bone shooting. What the hell is ankle-bone shooting, you ask? How can you not know? It’s when non-athletic men lounge around and flick sheep’s literal ankle-bones at targets. It is a drinking game from a USA state university gone official.
As for the two remaining and more legitimate sports. I was super excited. Not that I like wrestling, but it would be interesting to see it in a country that adores it so much. And archery! I liked doing archery at camp. And I like Robin Hood: Men in Tights. It would be just like that, right? Lol no. The rules for the Mongolian versions of these sports are unlike anything you’d have guessed. We’ll start with wrestling.
We were sitting in our seats in the tourist section of the main stadium (the second day was like a whole different place; no aisle sitting or anything! so much better!), waiting for some matches to start, before we realized…it had started. What looked like men in diapers and boas just wandering around and warming up was actually Mongolian wrestling. See, there is no time limit to their faceoffs, and no boundary limit, and they had multiple pairings going at once! So like 30 Mongolian men were on the field all walking around the entire length and width of it, biding their time before making a quick move that would knock their opponent down. They can go on forever! And it was hard to know who was actually going because there were so many at once. So awkward!
Every once in a while the crowd would roar and we’d catch the tail end of a brief but exciting bit of actual activity. It was interesting and so unlike any wrestling you’ve seen. Unless you’ve seen Mongolian wrestling. So the English language pamphlet we received says this: “Many foreigners are confused by Mongolian wrestling and may find it boring or too long. On the contrary, wrestling is actually the most interesting and entertaining Naadam sport.” OKAY I GUESS THAT’S THAT THEN.
I can’t even tell if the pics I’m posting are different
All the wrestlers are wearing speedo underwear and a frilly shrug around their shoulders. The goal is to have the biggest bare skin-to-clothing ratio, apparently. The wrestlers also wear important hats – red, with yellow stripes. The yellow stripes signify how high their ranking is. They take the hats off when they are about to actually wrestle, which helps you realize that they actually started the match and aren’t just still standing around. But they still are. Little bursts of action happen every now and then, but despite how long the matches can take and usually do take, the match (is it called a match? squirmish?) ends as soon as someone’s elbow or knee touches the ground. So it’s not like the man-on-man-on-mat type wrestling you may be imagining – it’s mostly just like pushing with hands while standing, and as soon as someone goes down at all, it’s over. And they are allowed to touch anywhere they want – except the head.
As for archery, we had even less of an idea what was going on. This was mostly due to the hour and a half of interpretive dance (soo weird) that began the archery trials on Day 1. We hurried over in hopes of seeing an arrow or two hit a target, and it was like two hours before they started actually shooting arrows and even longer before we realized that they don’t shoot at targets like we know archery to do. They shoot their arrows in high soft arcs that land in a pit of little red and brown leather jars! And they try to knock them over. It’s like bowling but with archery! It was so ridiculous!
the interpretive dance at archery
The archers have 40 shots, which seems like a lot! They have to get their high soft arc to land on the cylinders – any of them, there are no extra points for hitting the red ones in the center, which seems wrong – and push the cylinders away! They don’t get any points unless the arrow pushes cylinders at least eight centimeters away from its starting position! It is SO bowling!
archery bowling
The best part of both of these sports is that there are teams of judges dressed in traditional costume that surround each of the wrestlers, like their little entourage in their corner of the ring. But instead of smacking them and toweling off sweat, they are singing traditional phrases and songs about their performances. And in archery, the Greek chorus of judges stands by the targets and sings and does certain hand signs depending on whether and how many clay jars the arrow hit. HILARIOUS.
We heard that the champion of wrestling was given a Land Rover, another car, and an APARTMENT. No idea what the archer got.
Okay, so about that Mongolian version of beer pong, or when boys fold up paper into little paper footballs and shoot them at people during high school. Ankle-bone shooting is a team game, like bowling, so says the pamphlet, though I wanna be like, your archery is the bowling. Anyway, teams are crowded into tiny spaces and everyone is super friendly and sportsmanlike, to the point that no one is allowed to curse or get angry or say anything rude, and instead of disappointment when someone messes up, everyone – you guessed it – SINGS!!!
As you can see, Naadam was really interesting, overwhelming, and mostly fun. I’m really glad we got to see so much of it. Now I don’t need to go back to Mongolia. Despite how much fun it was to fear for our lives in a poorly constructed and managed stadium and how interesting it was to learn about new sports, my favorite part about Naadam was that one of the stalls had bubble tea. I had a strawberry tea one one day and a mango tea the next. I love bubble tea. I also had this super fun potato tornado!!
NO OMG my favorite part was this amazing Mongolian baby! He was so cute! I made Z pretend he was taking a picture of me so we could sneak a pic of the baby. Enjoy!
Almaty, Kazakhstan: Surprisingly Cosmopolitan City in the Middle of Whoknowswhere
Chinqui! After the nonstop action of our previous few weeks in Kyrgyzstan, a few days in Almaty provided the easy, relaxing tourism we needed for recovery and rejuvenation. I know what you’re thinking because it’s what I thought too: “No way you’re talking about Kazakhstan being the easygoing part of this trip.” I know! Mah wife! Against our (unfounded) expectations, Almaty was nice and perfectly boring. For the first time in a long time, it felt just like your average cosmopolitan city, with nice cafes, restaurants, buildings, and even recognizable brands. It was clean and modern and was the first place to remind us of London since Shanghai. Yep, Kazakhstan is just like London.
We breathed a sigh of relief (but not too deeply; the car exhaust/pollution problems in this region are big in this city) at getting a leisurely day to sightsee at our own pace. We decided to follow a walking tour around the city from the website Caravanistan, which was very helpful but took us literally six hours to get through. Granted we did stop a lot (at every single good looking grocery store; more on that later), but still, damn, what a town! We started at Republic Square, which was about 40 minutes from our hostel when you factor in how incorrect all my advance food-findings were (HappyCow is only as good as we make it, people!). At Republic Square we found the very very tall Independence Monument, which features a pretty f-ing badass man riding a flying snow leopard. HELL YEAH you fly that magical snow leopard into the SKY, Golden Man!
Great success!
Look at that stupid kid statue in front of you riding a regular old horse! HAHA LAME CHILD.
The Independence Monument stands in a big official looking square, with government buildings and the former Presidential Palace. Also nearby is the monument to the 1986 December Uprising, which is said to have been mostly students protesting decisions of Gorbachev. But there’s so much misinformation, as with everything out of the Soviet Union, that no one can agree on whether it was a protest for independence or just against his latest decision, whether it was planned or spontaneous, whether 200 people participated in the uprising or 40,000 (get your shit together USSR), or whether only a handful of people died or whether the death toll exceeded 1,000. FFS the Soviet Union really didn’t like facts. The statue below, honoring the uprising, is called Dawn of Liberty, because a few years after the uprising, Kazakhstan won its independence from the Soviets – even though they didn’t seem to want it. Apparently in 1991, 94% of voters voted to stay in the Soviet system? but then just months later they were granted their independence? What the crap was going on over there! Kazakhstan was the last country to gain their independence from the Sovs whether they wanted it or not.
Gypsy! Give me your tears!
We turned to walk down Dostyk avenue, which previously was called Lenin avenue. Still in the land of Lenin avenues and statues! Never leaving! There we saw the Arman Cinema with this amazing relief on the outside, facing the street. And yes, it’s connected to a Burger King. I know, it’s confusing to hate the sight of gross fast fooderies while also being excited to be in a place with names you know.
this suit is NOT black
In this area we found the statue of Tulebaev, a composer. Now that we’re outside of Republic Square and its municipal buildings and its concrete, you’ll notice how so much of Almaty is green and tree-lined. It feels like the whole city center is a park sometimes! There are bike paths and foot paths, so many fountains, and so many trees. A-nice!
Wave good bye to your clock radio, asshole!
I really liked the below monument to Zhambyl Zhabayev, the Kazakh folksinger. He played the dombura, which is not a Japanese food, and only sang in the Kazakh language. He lived to be just a week shy of 100 years old, which is pretty amazing for anyone but especially for someone born next to a river by Mount Zhambyl (which he was named after) while his mother was fleeing an attack on her village. I don’t think anyone seeing a baby born at the most inconvenient time in the most inconvenient place in the middle of such horror and tragedy stopped and said hey I bet that baby lives to be 100, or past 4. The internet has no reports of fun nicknames but dammit if he was never called Zhambalaya I will be so mad.
I had not come to Hollywood to fight with a man dressed as Hitler.
I was also a fan of the statue to Taras Shevchenko, the Ukrainian artist and writer. I like that his name is in the plural. I write many Taras! I like that he was Ukrainian and I found nothing relating him to Kazakhstan anywhere on the internet. But most of all I like that his statue is so f-ing weird. Why did they just make his face come out of an amorphous blob? Is it because he isn’t Kazakh? They being prankers?
I like!
Okay I’m mostly joking about the statues though. My real top sight in Almaty is, I think, the actual top sight in Almaty – the fountain based on the Chinese zodiac but bastardized by Soviet symbolism so it became just a wet circle of confusion.
King in the Castle, King in the Castle
It’s a great fountain, but at first glance you might just think the animal statues are of your standard choices. Especially if you know it’s supposed to represent the zodiac, you might recognize that oh there’s the lion, there’s a ram, there’s the…snail? Instead of cool things like dragons, the use of Soviet symbolism means we get things like the snail.
mah wife
The symbols used are thus kind of funny, kind of cute, and it makes the fountain even more interesting to know why there are such random animals featured.
Very nice, very nice! How much?
An important artwork for us to find was this mural (above) on the wall of a hotel (or office building) that was under significant construction. I hope they don’t hurt the murals! We wanted to find this painting because it represents us on our Silk Road journey! Okay maybe they were thinking more ‘actual explorers and adventurers from thousands of years ago’ and not two little whiteys but hey we felt pretty cool seeing it.
Everybody know it for girls!
We next moved into the war portion of our monument viewing. Above is the monument to two female heroes of World War II, Manshuk Mametova and Aliya Moldagulova. Manshuk was a machine gunner and the first Soviet Asian woman to receive the Hero of Soviet Union medal for bravery. She had been studying at the Almaty Medical Institute when the war began, and schools in various cities are named after her. Aliya was also awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union medal, for her work during the war as a sniper. Apparently she trained at an all female sniping school, which sounds incredibly badass. Does the US have anything like that or do they still not like having girlies in the military?
Below is requisite Eternal Flame, which we saw in every single place in the former Soviet Union. After that is the Glory Monument in Panfilov Park. It is dedicated to the 28 guardsmen of Panfilov. The 28 were a group of Red Army soldiers who fought in the defense of Moscow in 1941, and they all died in action. Most of them were recruits from the Kazakh and Kyrgyz regions.
sleeve of wizard
Kazakhstan number one exporter of potassium
On one main boulevard was the lovely opera house, which was also under construction and it took several visits to get a picture without a truck on its front stoop. A poster on the facade informed us that the opening performance of the season was occurring the night we left. Cool guys.
all other countries have inferior potassium
Thought we saw literally all the sights, we mostly enjoyed strolling amid all the greenery and taking pictures of buildings we liked even if we had no idea what they were. I’m guessing the below is a government building though. I know you’re impressed by my deductive skills.
Although Kazakhstan a glorious country, it have a problem, too: economic, social, and Jew.
We spent more than a few hours in the A. Kasteyev State Museum of Arts, a really interesting and neverending mix of good art, bad art, weird art, blue art. I recall that it was a maze that I couldn’t get out of fast enough to find a bathroom (horrible set up!). I also recall that there was a scary weird robot sculpture out front, and a CREEPY AF painting of Baby Trump inside.
this is the future nobody wants
IMPEACH! IMPEACH THIS BABY!
Next up is this church, the Ascension Cathedral, I am pretty sure, and look! It’s also under construction! It’s made of wood (anyone else just hear Uncle Joey’s puppet?) and claims to be the second tallest wooden building in the world but it lies. It’s a wooden building of lies. Just kidding buildings can’t tell truths or lies. They don’t speak! But I bet this was the second tallest at one time but other things kept happening and this one stopped growing.
The church was built in the 19th century when the region was called Turkestan which is the cutest lil word. It’s had other serious reconstruction works throughout past 50 years so I guess wood doesn’t hold up so good.
You know what also doesn’t hold up to the test of time? Random things named after deceased royals.
It’s weird, guys. As is this:
Not really sure what’s going on with this building but the people behind it REALLY don’t know what ‘disco’ music is because it sure as hell ain’t Vanilla Ice or Shaggy. No idea what this building actually was because we didn’t dare return at night but man I’m still really curious. What designer got away with this?
Shall we move on to food? That’s always my favorite part! The agenda item I was most eager for was the Green Market (or Zelenyi Bazar), the big produce market where locals buy their goods and where tourists like me can find Kazakhstan’s famous apples. Yep, I didn’t know before this trip, but Kazakhstan is famous for apples! We bought lots of their most precious varieties and had apples for daaays. Spoiler: They don’t hold a candle to my fave, the Fuji apple, which I can’t find ANYWHERE anymore. Kazakh varieties (varietals? when do you use varietals without sounding like a dick) are a little grainier than I’m used to, and a little sour, making my eyes go phrmmmph.
I will look upon your treasures, gypsy!
We bought apples and pears and plums and oranges and more apples. So fun. Pro tip: Oranges outside the UK are super expensive. I remember in China I bought an orange once (a mandarin one!) and it was like 4x as much as the rest of the grocery haul. Ridic!
LIke all the amazing markets we discovered on our travels, the Green Market had so many wonderful looking goods that we just couldn’t buy and carry for weeks longer in our packs, like these spices. The vendors are always like ‘hey girl over here buy my goods!’ and I try to say ‘I’m so sorry I would love to they look amazing but I’m backpacking rn and I don’t have the room or the ability to keep them from exploding everywhere and also customs??’ but just with an apologetic look.
Across from the Green Market was the Rakhat chocolate factory, which I was suuuper excited about, but which was a big letdown. It was mainly a little shop overflowing with people pointing to bins of candy in bulk and saying how many grams they wanted. And there was no list of ingredients visible for any of the candies, all hidden behind glass. I asked a clerk about one and she said there was no milk but like how could I believe you if you aren’t checking the ingredients yourself, clerk?! And I’d have to ask about each one? Blergh. I would happily read endless lists of Russian ingredients but I don’t want to make a clerk in an overflowingly busy little shop do that for me. I found my goodies elsewhere. ALSO, all the guides I read beforehand said that this factory made the whole neighborhood smell like chocolate so I was beyond pumped for that but it didn’t even smell like chocolate in the shoppe! J’ACCUSE!
Okay so the ‘I have no room’ excuse might not be entirely accurate regarding the spices…they can be simply little packets, after all. And I definitely made room for less practical goodies I found at my favorite posh grocery store in Almaty, called Interfood. Oh MAN did we score some amazing accidentally vegan totally unnecessary treats.
DA RISO ITALIANOOO! Ok i think i’m out of Borat quotes
The Ritter Sport Marzipan is RG, and you can find it all over the world. I don’t think I like marzipan in other forms (probably because of Gilmore Girls) but it’s great in this. But the real exciting part of this crop of goodies is that box of Speculoos Creme cookies! oh MAN I picked up that box as yet another futile exercise in self-punishment, expecting it to be laden with milk products, but it was accidentally vegan! I wish I bought more of those but I could barely fit one box crushed in my pack. The Rakhat chocolate bar was decent and satisfied my chocolate craving. The other one (the gold) is a gift for someone, haven’t decided yet! Who wants it?
Manner are my favorite treats in the world so I was excited to find some milk-free wafer cookies of similar ilk. These weren’t very good (kind of tangy) but still, wafer cookies on any day are better than non wafers or something like that.
hehe they’re called Sultan waffles
But the best find in Interfood was this bag o’ Cat Tongues! Omg little cinnamon discs of pure magic. I would LOVE to find these again!
We found some great food in Almaty, although nothing matched our amazing Georgian dinner on our first night. My favorite was the little falafel joint a few minutes from our hostel, called Falafel Forever. It was GREAT! And so cheap! I love falafel platters. It’s my perfect set up – hummus, pita, falafel, and tons of fun roasted veggies and salads.
Across the opera house ( I think) was a Brooklyn-style burger place that Husband needed to go in, and luckily they had a really good cabbage slaw that I enjoyed. Of course I also had some of the great potato wedges and a fresh grapefruit soda.
For dinner one night, we decided to tourist it up and have our first Italian food in months instead of having more Soviet-era potato and cabbage dishes. We went into a trattoria called Del Papa right on the main square of a main boulevard (I wanna say near the opera house again) and got the best familiar dishes, including vegetable soup, a great panzanella salad, and a roasted veggie dish in amazing sauce.
Yum! So many good meals, so many apples, so many statues and stories! And SO much junk food in my bags! Shall we cap off our nice stay in Almaty with a shot of the sign hanging in the shared bathroom at Sky Hostel? Ok!
This is why I’m done with hostels.
Okay bye Almaty! Great success!
This is my country of Kazakhstan. It locate between Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan, and assholes Uzbekistan.
