Juice Merchant: Main Line Philly's Awesome New Vegan Restaurantby Randi / November 24, 2017
After our terrifying border crossing experience from Kazakhstan, we arrived in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. It was blindingly sunny and dry. Like…really dry. Like Kashgar levels of dryness. I’m literally in a desert on a horse with no name or something I guess not literally but I was all a mess because my eyes are so dry! It may have been the climate (I mean it definitely was) but it also could have been due to the extensive construction projects happening all over town. Seriously was it just the season of construction works in this region? Everywhere we went we were stymied by drilling and jackhammering and dust flying errrwhere. So much dust and rubble! Despite all the dust and rubble, we had a decent time exploring Tashkent’s mosques, museums, markets, and other m words. But my strongest memory will always be of something that starts not with ‘m’ but with an upside down ‘m’, a ‘w’! (For watermelon.)
After our idiot driver from the border dropped us at the Sunshine Caravan Stay guest house, we waited a few more hours till our room was ready (I’m really soo over lodgings that make you wait until 2pm to check in, like, be ready in the morning or don’t be in this business okay) and planned our next few days of sightseeing on the wifi. The guest house had a communal dining/kitchen/breakfast area (I think it might have also been a restaurant) that we sat in while we waited for some much needed showers.
Our guesthouse’s communal dining area
The communal dining room had a water cooler, so +1 to them, but it was off a courtyard patio area that was always full of random Uzbeks smoking, so -1. The room, when we finally saw it, was pretty nice! As was the bathroom. The only real problem with this place, besides the smokiness and the random men everywhere (I’m not sure if they were workers or locals or what, they definitely weren’t fellow guests) was that the heat and the wifi both failed at night. My two favorite things, guys. And yeah, we needed the heat at night! It was getting to be fall!
the courtyard area I couldn’t enjoy because sigarettos exist
i love bed
The shared bathroom at the Caravan Stay featured the OG Uzbek Schuyler Sisters, if I had to guess?
and peggy
Aside from the Uzbek power trio (Elizaaaa), the vibe around the city was kind of hard for me to get a handle on. There was a sense of general nothingness, plus a bank here, a convenience store there, a milk cart on the corner that for some reason (I’m so tired) I thought might have vegan ice cream seriously I was losing my mind. But once we got out of the ‘center’ to see the sights, it felt more like the Uzbekistan I was ready for: full of mosques and dust aaaand space.
Pictured above is what I call Mosque Central, a square with like 8 mosques and madrassahs and more mosques and a few imams, which I thought were people but I guess can also be buildings. Like transformers can be people and cars? Anyway the pretty blue building is the Teleshayakh Mosque, which is home to the Osman Koran, or one of the versions of it. It’s hard to find believable information (#allreligion) but it seems like the Osman Cometh, a 7th century Muslim relic, was the first written Quran! There was no need for a written Quran before because first when Mohammed was around he just had it in his noggin, and anyone who had a question just like gave Mohammed a call. And then I guess he lived for a lot of hundos of years and then he had sons or baby prophets or whatever and they would be the ones you shouted out to if you had questions about the rules. But then baby prophets started to disagree with each other and you know how humans are, no one tells the truth or believes the truth so they were like, we gotta write this shit down! So they did, I guess they got a guy called Harry Osman (Donny?) to write it and thus we have the Osman Quran. Or Qurans, really, because we went to several places in Uzbekistan, heck even in Tashkent alone, that claimed to have the og OQ. I think there were several copies made by the caliphs and whose-nots in 650 a.d. since it was such an important creation. Smort. Noice.
We also saw one – I think the ‘realest’ one – at the Amir Temur Museum, a surprisingly great museum off the main garden-y square area called Amir Temur Khioboni, so pretty and green. It’s where the giant Soviet Hotel Uzbekistan stands. Pretty nice square.
this fucking hat’s back
Wait so Amir Temur – also known as Tamerlane, which you might be more familiar with (nerds) – let’s talk about him because HOO BOY, he’s big here and he’s gonna come up a lot in this country (we have like 5 more stops). Amir Temur was a Mongol warlord/conqueror guy in the 1300s who founded the Timurid empire in Persia and Central Asia and was the first ruler of said empire which like come on he better be, how much would it suck to found something and then NOT get to be the leader. According to wikipedia, “Timur’s background was Iranized and not steppe nomadic” and according to me, if you can explain to me wtf that means (comments below) then I will send you cookies. The Amir Temur museum was quiet (like everything here!) but full of fun information about Temur and Uzbekistan and stuff. The central hall was beautiful but no pictures were allowed because the Osman Quran (#201A?) was on display. So cool!
here’s that fucking hat in front of the Amir Temur museum
But I had to sneak photos of one part of the museum. I just had to break the law. Because the best part of the museum – hell, the best part of maybe all of Uzbekistan, MAYBE the best thing I’ve ever seen in a museum ever anywhere – was the section that listed important historical figures and gave a paragraph of information about their lives and then ended with a short description of how they died. I know what you’re thinking, that that doesn’t sound as amazing as I’m making it out to be. JUST YOU LOOK:
DIED OF ARROW!!!!!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
GUYS I CAN’T!!!! Do you see how Mirzo died? I almost got kicked out, I fell to the floor from laughing so hard. We were CRYING. So inappropriate. I’m so sorry to all the ghosts who were watching.
The museum was definitely a high point, restoring my ability to go to museums. Also it had a toilet, which was actually hard to find out and about in the city. I think it was one of the hardest places for me because there weren’t cafes or more museums I could pee in, it was all mosques that didn’t have bathrooms and madrassahs that I wasn’t allowed in. Darn. Luckily on one stretch of busy road from the Mosque Central Square back down to the regular center of the city, we chanced upon a sort of mall. It was DESERTED, but open and it had a bathroom. But like…it was deserted. We were the only people in there and every storefront was shuttered. Soooo weird.
The deserted mall-like building had weird freaky statues in small fountains, like the above. I was so sure we were in a movie. By far, the best part of it was the below sign I saw that made NO SENSE but of course put “All I Do Is Win” in my head for a good solid week.
“LIKE STRIPPERS’ BOOTIES GO”
(Possibly the best caption ever.)
Chorsu Bazaar
PUNKIN CHUNKIN
Our top experience in Tashkent, besides finding pretzels (they were a little stale but hey I found pretzels!), was our morning at the Chorsu Bazaar, the big central farmers market where all the locals and then some come to buy and sell their goods. I love all the local markets we visit when we travel, especially on this trip, but this bazaar experience was the most memorable yet. See, I really wanted watermelon. The beyond incredible watermelons of western China and Kyrgyzstan spoiled me for some serious quality watermelon and I was jonesing for it but good. I thought we’d definitely find some at the bazaar! As usual, we found an impressive array of spices that we couldn’t buy but wanted to, lots and lots of bread that we ate of course because fresh market bread is the best, and lots of gorgeous vegetables I wanted to bring to restaurants and say ‘cook these for me please!’ And of course there was a tonne of fruit, but no one was selling watermelon to eat immediately, like slices of it, like they sold in China markets, handing you a piece and watching you finish so they could collect the rind. We walked round and round the white buildings with the green domed roof and finally decided that our best bet was to just ask a regular watermelon seller if they could cut it up for us. Fun problem: the seller had no idea what we were asking. I kept making chopping motions with my hand, over and over like I was a nutcracker. The guy was just so confused. Finally his wife made a face like something clicked and she said the word for ‘now’, so we were like ‘da da yes for now! we want to eat it now can you make it so we can?” We didn’t know the word for cut, p.s. So the lady took a watermelon, one we had pointed to because it was the smallest one we could see, and took in onto a stump to cut. Note, the ‘smallest’ watermelon we could see was still the biggest one I’ve ever bought. It was a good 12 pounds, I’d say. So I’m all excited to finally eat some good fresh watermelon and the lady comes back with a bag…full of two giant halves. They looked so proud for doing what we ‘asked’ that we just couldn’t tell them that nooo, cutting it in half doesn’t reeeeally help that much, we wanted it cut into slices! So we smiled and thanked them and walked to a little grassy patch outside where we sat…with our two giant halves of watermelon, six pounds each. This would have been a good time to have one of our pocket knives on us, but of course the one time in our entire trip that we’d need them, they were back in the room. I tried diving headfirst into the cut side and trying to eat some like a wild f-ing animal. That didn’t work and my shirt got messy. So instead we both garnered all of our rage and anger in the world (#trump) and kind of just TORE THE WATERMELON APART with our bare hands, ripping the rind while screaming in order to make it work it doesn’t work if you don’t scream. We were A MESS. There was watermelon juice EVERYWHERE, all over the ground near us, the pavement, ourselves, Everyone was watching us, these two pasty white westerners trying to destroy and devour an entire uncut watermelon with pure brute strength. It was RIDICULOUS. We were clawing into the fruit like we were lions doing whatever it is lions do. Just a mess. We actually managed to finish an entire half. We felt simultaneously proud, strong, sticky, and kind of nauseous. There was no way we could finish another entire half, and this was morning, so we were stuck carrying the sticky other half in the sticky disgusting bag for the entire rest of the day.
Luckily that wasn’t the only food I could eat in Tashkent. It was a decent city with a few options on HappyCow. We of course went to a Georgian restaurant, always a favorite and always great for vegans, although this place didn’t have the best service. My next HappyCow choice was the restaurant Jumanji, because the movie terrifies me and I had this theory that if I had a decent meal at the restaurant of the same name, I would conquer the movie’s terror. Or something.
Just in case you had gotten to Tashkent without noticing the vibrant copyright infringement trade in all of Asia, they made it very clear here that they were talking bout the Robin Williams’ movie by using the exact font from the film. (See the very end of this post for my favorite Tashkent copyright infringement.) Things are so weird. Luckily, the food was good and guess what, they had tofu. I missed tofu so much after always being able to get it in China! And vegetables ! And juice with vegetables in it!
TOFUUUUUS
BIG OLE PLATE OF BROCCOLI
BIG OLE PLATE OF CUCUMBER
It might look pretty basic but it was a great big satisfying meal. I even enjoyed the huge cucumber plate (that crap all over it was RG). Jumanji kind of represented what Tashkent was like in general – kind of boring but pretty satisfying, and while I’m not itching to go there again, I had a decent experience. I felt that Tashkent was such a mixed bag. It had areas that were really built up and somewhat modern, and then parts that were bare and dust and so old-fashioned it was like stepping back in time. Little did I know that it would be the most modern part of Uzbekistan, and our next stop would teach me what stepping back in time really looked like.
These looked like flowers we had at our wedding! I don’t know what they’re called but they were all over the country
yup this is a Hogwarts themed children’s center or daycare prob. I mean. ILLEGAL.
Related Posts
St. Petersburg, Russia: So Much Better Than What “Anastasia” Taught Me
Greetings from Cankt Peterbourg! I wish I could access the Russian keyboard on this little netbook but I can’t/don’t feel like it. We’re having a great time in St. Petersburg, which in English adds the ‘s’ after Peter but in the Russian there’s no ‘s’! Fun! With! Languages! Before this trip, my only exposure to this quite charming city was the song from “Anastasia” that starts: “St. Petersburg is gloomy! St. Petersburg is bleak! My underwear got frozen standing here all week!” But it’s better than that. Well that is a very low bar but St. Petersburg is very nice. Though it has been raining hard a lot which is gloomy, and yes it is cold but like, for the summer, not for the earth, and definitely not cold enough to freeze undies. The city is a very interesting mix of old and new school while still seeming totally European. We are surely easing in slowly to the onslaught of Soviet towns we will be seeing later, because right now it still feels like we’re in Europe.
Well, except for the Cyrillic everywhere! It is so strange and so cool to finally see what we have been preparing for with our Russian classes. We’re doing great, if not at communicating with people (omg SLOW DOWN (oh and maybe could you write it down I’m better at reading kthx)) then at least at reading signs (and menus! Most are in English too! We’re great at that!). They say for all languages you really learn when you are immersed, and I can see how true that would be for Russian, now that we actually are surrounded by it and its alphabet. We’re definitely getting stronger with reading Cyrillic quickly and I have high hopes that that will lead to comprehension. Maybe by the time we get to Siberia we will actually be able to handle the fact that no one will speak English! I dream big.
When we got off the train on Saturday at Finylandskiy Vauxhall (named after the country we had just left? That’s confusing!), we walked around the station to find the giant Lenin statue, commemorating the big speech he gave when he arrived in St. Petey’s in 1917 during the Revolution. We start our sightseeing immediately, even when we have 90-pound backpacks on (and I’m frontpacking too ughhh I have too much stuff but I don’t know what I can get rid of! I really did just bring the bare minimum but we’re going to every season!). We walked the half hour or so to our hostel, The Travellers’ Palace, and it was hot so that was pretty rough because like I said, 90 pounds. I will either break or be super strong by the end of this. The receptionist at the hostel is very friendly and helpful, and even though we can hear every footstep people take at all hours of the night and they sound like gorillas stomping around and even though someone stole my bananas and apples from the fridge (they were labelled!) (and I KNOW bananas in the fridge is weird but I was keeping everything together in the labelled bag (so f-ing ironic!)), we like the hostel fine. The shower is legit the strongest I can remember taking in my entire life, like it was intended for an elephant and I wish I could take it with me. The rooms here are named after famous Russian literary characters, like Onegin and Catherine. It was quite the good omen when we were put in Karenina, considering Anna K is my favorite book (once you pretend that that final section about Levin finding Jesus by talking to peasants (“Life is often so unpleasant / You would know this, as a peasant!”) doesn’t exist)! There’s a little light-up train on my bedside table and everything, haha so morbid. And across the hall is the room called Bolkonsky, like the prince’s family in War & Peace! So it’s like the universe wants me to keep singing “The Great Comet” at every moment of this trip!
|
|
|
|
Nevsky Prospekt
Horse Wash!
Once we dropped our stuff, it was already late afternoon, so the best use of our time was to stroll the Nevsky Prospekt, the main boulevard running through the city that everyone spells with a K even in English so I’m rolling with it. It houses all the big stores, lots of restaurants, a good number of statues and monuments, and lots and lots of people. Walking along it is a great first thing to do in St. Petey’s because you can get a sense of the city’s layout and feel, while seeing both important historical markers and fun Russian chain stores (like the Russian version of Sephora whose Russian name is pronounced like Rive Gauche lol that and Sushi Wok, where the ‘sushi’ is in Cyrillic but the ‘wok’ is in our/Latin characters, crack me up every time. There are also horse statues along the various canals which we liked because it reminds us of our flat in London (those who have been over and have seen what we call the Horse Wash will know why!).
Singersss
On the Nevksy Prospekt is the famous Singers sewing machine factory, or the building that used to be that and now is a giant bookstore in the most beautiful building along the boulevard. Inside, they had a snack section that had vegan bars (similar to Lara Bars)! Marked and everything! Come on obviously I love books and bookstores but we can’t buy books on this trip (or anything) but we need snacks. We also saw this monument to Catherine the Great (with her laavaaahs).
you can call me kitty kat
So many canals all over the place, so they call StP the Venice of the North and it’s hard to get a handle on streets
The other hugely famous building along the Nevsky Prospekt is the giant department store Gostiny Dvor. Although we are so determined not to add anything to our packs right at the beginning of the summer, we have a necessity exception – and we needed umbrellas so we bought umbrellas there yesterday (after we got drenched in a downpour, naturally). Upstairs at the Gostiny Dvor, the long, curving walkways are nearly empty and provide great views of the Prospekt. What most people don’t find, however, is the INSANE CELEBRITY FIGURE AND ANIMAL SCULPTURE GARDEN around a far bend that no one goes to. OH MY GOD, look, it’s Hagrid and the Harry Potter kids STANDING BEHIND PUTIN! No big deal! Don’t mind the peasants with sickles! OR THE DINOSAUR! Why this isn’t the #1 thing to do in St. Petersburg I will never understand. As it is, it’s pretty much hidden and NO ONE was there or even nearby so I think I discovered some kind of magical walkway.
you’re a wizard vladdy
Ruby Sparks was a very good movie
As for serious things, the Kazan Cathedral is along the Prospekt, a Russian Orthodox church dedicated not to Elia or even Zoe but to Our Lady of Kazan, which I know is very helpful. It’s not a very nice looking Cathedral, kind of the most Soviet and drab-looking thing we’ve seen yet, but it could just be that it is severely outshone by the gorgeous cathedral across the way from it, The Church of Spilled Blood. I know, I know, it doesn’t exactly sound like the most beautiful spot in all St. Petersburg, but it is! It’s real name is the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood which yes doesn’t really help my case. So it’s built around the spot where Alexander II was mortally wounded and inside there’s a little stone area and canopy marking the exact spot where he was hit by grenades and suffered the injuries that killed him a little later (he actually died in the Hermitage) you know what why don’t I just show you:
no use crying over spilled oooohhhh nm
come at me laser jesus
See it really is soo beautiful even though it’s so dire. But all churches are built around and commemorating dire circumstances. This church, which we went in yesterday, is one of the most incredible churches I’ve ever seen, definitely in my top five. I know I said in a recent Spain post that ugh churches, who can tell them apart after St Peter’s, but this was a great one. I was blown away by how beautiful it was inside and outside. Usually they’re whatever on the inside, full of paintings of oldies and crucifixen, but this one is decorated in 100% MOSAIC. Every painting and image you see is made up of tiny tiles (that is what mosaic means!). See that lady getting lasered from the heavens by a laser-happy Jesus? ALL TILES. How incredible is this?
what happens if the glue stops working rain of tiles |
This canopy covers the actual spot where Alexander II was hit by the grenade/s. They built the church around it. |
this is the most beautiful lavish door to jesus I’ve ever seen
THE HERMITAGE
erma gerd, the hermiterge
On Sunday, we woke up early (lol not) and went to The Hermitage, the endless museum inside the Winter Palace. We read about how crowded it is, especially in the summer, and how the lines for tickets can stretch to a kilometer long. Because of this, we were tempted to buy tickets online, but they cost $18 online and only 700 rubles in person so we decided to risk it. And it’s a good thing we did, because there was no line. We bought tickets at one of several kiosks in the courtyard and went right in. On a Sunday! In the summer! We were so pleased with ourselves and got a little too cocky about it because after about an hour and half the Chinese cruise ship groups arrived ahhhh! It was wall to wall and they really like to push so it got a little rough. But it was still great. The Hermitage has millions of pieces of art, so you really need a plan to make sure you see what you wanna see. The state rooms of the palace and the Russian art are the most important. The Italian and French art is great, of course, but we’ve seen that literally every weekend at museums in London. That sounds very ridiculous of me but when you live in a museumy city like London, it’s important to see stuff that’s different from what you see all the time and feel okay about skipping the same same stuff. So in the Hermitage, we focused on the palace parts, the preserved rooms and furniture and sculptures and stuff, over paintings that have nothing to do with Russian history. And the palace rooms, hoo boy are they amazing. We both love malachite and cobalt shiz and this palace was full of both. It was all so stunning. I especially loved this gazebo.
i wish luke and lorelai got married on this one
We were both obsessed with the library, which was so Belle. And I loved the Peacock Clock, which I didn’t know at first even was a clock. I mean the tiny mushroom thing at the bottom has a clock on it so it’s not like the whole amazing gold artwork is a clock, it’s literally just the smallest piece of it that is a clock, but still, pretty cool. I got in fights with Chinese men who were trying to push me aside when I was taking this picture.
The Hermitage is important to visit, I think, since it’s such a well-known tourist attraction, but it’s exhausting. It goes on forever, and the bathrooms are very poorly located. We had to backtrack through to the entrance to find one, when we were like in the middle of the top floor. So dumb. It shouldn’t be that hard! But I’m glad we went and saw the great pieces they had. It’s easy to spend hours and hours there, but don’t.
I expect grander thrones 
how beautiful is this fancy witch’s cauldron 
a clock that is also a giant piece of furntiure |
not sure what this was but i liked it it was like a big like thing 
this was called the boudoir but it was just a lot of velvety chairs so nice though |
Even though we were pretty beat after our day at the Hermiterge, we decided to walk to St. Isaac’s Cathedral next (in the pouring rain! no umbrellas yet!) and climb the 260 stairs to the top of the golden dome! For the view! So pretty! The golden dome you see in the picture is very striking in the skyline. The climb wasn’t that bad at all, and it was worth it for the stunning views. Note that the main Cathedral is one ticket and the entrance for the climb to the top of the dome is another separate ticket. It’s worth it though! Again I’m proved wrong because the insides of this church were beautiful too. Russia keeps proving me wrong about church insides! St. Isaac’s was full of malachite columns which were stunning.
the view from the top of Isaac’s
main altar at Isaac’s |
that’s Isaac! no i don’t know |
The cathedral tour of Russia is only just beginning! After we saw the Church of Spilled Blood, we went to the Peter and Paul Fortress, the original citadel of St. Petersburg built by Peter the Great in 1703. It’s a big complex full of various museums, but we skipped the many museums (so many museums!) and went straight to the Peter & Paul Cathedral, the gold spire in the city skyline. This Cathedral houses the tombs of Russian czars from Peter I to Alexander III, and there’s a little room off to the side with the Romanovs, including Anastasia, which I was excited to see and then realized how messed up that is. But speaking of, I still haven’t written about the new Broadway musical so maybe I will do that in honor of seeing her tomb! So morbid I’m sorry. It was a decent show, and a decent church. The fortress was best for its views of the Hermitage and other stately buildings from the other side of the river. Luckily today was the one sunny day in the middle of lots of rain so this view on our walk along the riverfront fortress was lovely.
the Romanovs tombs
After we saw all the things Monday, we took the subway (new subway!) down to the Grand Maket Rossiya, which is a private museum of a scale model of ALL OF RUSSIA. It is AWESOME. It shows everyday life in every part of Russia, from St. Petersburg (included the building we were in, weeeird) and all the monuments we’ve seen so far, to Moscow, to Siberia and the Urals and the Sochi Olympics and farmers everywhere and a movie studio with various funny backlots and people on the beach and lots of trains and lots of construction and just EVERYTHING you could imagine in life, they had it on the model. It was so cool, and so giant and detailed that it took an hour and a half just to walk around it once. One of the coolest parts was that the lights would go down every 13 minutes for 2 minutes, gradually to show the sun setting and then rising. Some of the ‘night’ sections there were thunderstorms which was kind of crazy. My favorite part, of course, was that Vinnie Poo (the Russian Winnie the Pooh who is NOTHING like the Winnie we know) was hidden in one of the forests. I also loved the “Bad Husband” section that showed a man in his underwear on the sidewalk as his wife threw all his clothes out the window. Like. What.
Is that Putin riding a bear?? 
|
|
So yeah so far St Petersburg has been very nice! The weather is ploha, with super heavy rainstorms most days. Yay for anoraks! Drivers here are absolutely insane, like super speeding down the Nevksy and no cops ever stop it. Don’t rent a car here! Traffic is really bad too so we mostly walk everywhere. One thing I’ve noticed is how confusing but nice the pedestrian crossings are. Most have green walking man countdown clocks, and most give you a crossing time of well over 30 seconds, some even 90 seconds! BUT, the confusing part, the red man/don’t walk man gets a countdown too, and sometimes they switch red to green/ stop to go without finishing the clock. Like yesterday we were crossing and green man said we had 30 seconds left but then it changed to red man and cars started going. I don’t know about that! I am tired. We’ve done a lot and we still have some museums we haven’t discussed yet! Today we are thinking of going to Peterhof, like the Versailles of Russia, but again it is super storming and it’s really a good weather type thing. We will see! Last night we saw the World’s Longest Opera at the Mariinsky Theatre, which was, well, long. It wasn’t as long time-wise as the Mastersingers but it was longer soul-wise. It also might be as fun to write about as the Mastersingers was so stay tuned! A little more on St Pete’s to come (and food!), and then we’re off literally on a midnight train to Moscow. Byeeee!
Another Three Days of Train: From Uzbekistan to Volgograd, Russia
Dear little baby laptop diary,
The day has arrived! We are finally leaving Uzbekistan! Who would have thought we would be so happy to return to Russia? We feel a little bit like traitors to our country (obviously not as much as our government heyooo) but we really loved Russia and the thought of soon returning to a more modern place is exciting! But first we have to get through this train journey, crossing two borders. First we will go back through Kazakhstan, around the north part of the Caspian Sea (maybe we will see Ursula!), and then into Russia to Volgograd, formerly Stalingrad. They changed the name from honoring the scary man to honoring the river! I like! What I don’t like is that this will be our second longest train journey of the entire epic adventure, and I believe our third longest ever. Two nights and parts of three different days! Ahhh! Luckily we bought the entire 4-person cabin so we can relax without scary strangers.
The day has arrived! We are finally leaving Uzbekistan! Who would have thought we would be so happy to return to Russia? We feel a little bit like traitors to our country (obviously not as much as our government heyooo) but we really loved Russia and the thought of soon returning to a more modern place is exciting! But first we have to get through this train journey, crossing two borders. First we will go back through Kazakhstan, around the north part of the Caspian Sea (maybe we will see Ursula!), and then into Russia to Volgograd, formerly Stalingrad. They changed the name from honoring the scary man to honoring the river! I like! What I don’t like is that this will be our second longest train journey of the entire epic adventure, and I believe our third longest ever. Two nights and parts of three different days! Ahhh! Luckily we bought the entire 4-person cabin so we can relax without scary strangers.
Or so we thought.
We boarded the train and made our way to our cabin, holding our four tickets for beds #5, 6, 7 and 8. Remember in China how we often had to kick someone out when they were in the wrong place? Well, gird your loins, because not only did we have to kick someone out again, we had to kick FOUR someones out. People were laying on every single one of the beds in the cabin we booked out. Are you FLIPPING kidding me. We got the conductor and explained that they were in our beds. He appeared to be mute. He went into the next few cabins and started counting spare beds, looking for spots where we could go. Hell no! I yelled out to him in Russian explaining that we bought all four beds you fat dink! Ahhh such bullshit! Finally it clicked for him and the four people moved into the next cabins. Like FFS why would you not go to the places you had tickets for? Why are PEOPLE?! Did they not have tickets in the first place, maybe? Why is everything such bullshit?
So this was quite the start to the next three days. Man alive. The toilets were disgusting, as expected. I am so pumped to get to Europe, I really can’t wait. I am counting the minutes…which isn’t very efficient because there are too many minutes so I guess I am counting the days. We have three left. Sure the third day is just a baby sized bit of it but what if we experience delays?! I have to be ready for that. Oh my god please don’t let there be delays. Remember our 11-hour delay from Urumqi to Kashgar? No don’t think about that. Think happy thoughts! Everyone who voted for Brexit should be forced to ride Uzbek trains for weeks so they can experience the unmatched joy that the mere thought of being in Europe will bring. (But they should get stranded in Uzbekistan FOREVER. Europe was too good for you asshats? THEN YOU DON’T GET TO GO.)
I cannot wait to eat lunch at Fresh in Moscow again! Big fancy salads! My favorite!
The mute conductor keeps making funny faces at us, which I don’t really understand, maybe he is trying to apologize for the trouble with the four lunatics who don’t know how to use trains? No that can’t be it. Maybe he is making fun of us. Cool game bro.
The mute conductor keeps making funny faces at us, which I don’t really understand, maybe he is trying to apologize for the trouble with the four lunatics who don’t know how to use trains? No that can’t be it. Maybe he is making fun of us. Cool game bro.
That first night, we went through Uzbek exit customs at 1:20am, which lasted until 3:30am. I REALLY don’t understand the need to have such long exit customs. It’s so unnecessary. Just make sure none of the people are criminals you don’t want to lose track of and then let us gooooo. I had to pee so badly! Remember, they lock the toilets during stops. Hoo boy. We got to the Kazakhstan entry point at 5am, which was an hour early, which you think sounds great but that just means we stay stopped at customs longer. Longer without a toilet! The guards loved asking us questions about our lives, which is so fun to do when you haven’t slept or peed in so long. We left the border at about 7am, back in our old friend Kazakhstan, and after we moved a few feet Z said to me: “Guess what – we are out of Uzbekistan!” and we embraced and cried tears of joy like the diplomats at the fucking end of “Argo”.
At this point, we hadn’t really slept more than an hour so we slept till about 11am. Then we made ramen for lunch with our little emergency stash that we could finally burn through (back to civilization means back to guaranteed food for me!), adding braised canned tofu from the Marigold brand, which was actually really good! This was my favorite meal in days!
At this point, we hadn’t really slept more than an hour so we slept till about 11am. Then we made ramen for lunch with our little emergency stash that we could finally burn through (back to civilization means back to guaranteed food for me!), adding braised canned tofu from the Marigold brand, which was actually really good! This was my favorite meal in days!
name one person who takes better food pictures
There is this little girl next door who keeps coming in and staring at us. She isn’t responding to our Russian shouts of ‘go away’ and ‘leave us alone’ and ‘why are you the worst’ and it’s really annoying. I bet you think that sounds adorable but she is a monster who literally keeps opening our door and coming into the room! No! Devil child! Devil child! And a man on the other side of us sits right up against the doorway so his legs are in the narrow hallway. It’s like he saw the news about how manspreading is a problem in the west and he was like, I can do that and then some! He stares too.
Oh man I have such a headache and I’m so nauseous why! I hope it’s not from my bulk pretzels from Nukus. Pretzels would never betray me right? Even ones that are out in uncovered bulk bins?
Oh man I have such a headache and I’m so nauseous why! I hope it’s not from my bulk pretzels from Nukus. Pretzels would never betray me right? Even ones that are out in uncovered bulk bins?
Speaking of bulk bins! In our cabin, up top where you are supposed to be able to store your luggage, there were plastic…I don’t know, bed pans??? And lots of them! What the heck was this nonsense! I’ll admit, part of me liked having these buckets of unknown origin – they might come in handy during our super long border crossing stops.
Okay so the conductor omg we saw him talking to someone! He is not mute! He just refuses to talk to us! What the hell man! Now we don’t know if he’s just being rude to us or if he is just frugal with his words. This is so f-ing weird.
The next car over is the restaurant car, so I went to explore. It was dire. There’s no menu; I asked the cook what they had and she said plov. That’s it, just plov. The cast of characters sitting among the booths looks the same as in our sleeping car, down to the old man at the far end wearing a smelly white tank top and not much else.
After an afternoon of reading, we crossed the Ural River – meaning we were officially (maybe? how does it work?) back in Europe! For the first time in almost three months, since we left Yekaterinburg! Omg! We did a little dance.
When we stopped at Atyrau, Kazakstan, it was 35 degrees out! That’s in Celsius, which I still don’t know well enough, so that’s 95 in Fahrenheit. We were baking in the sun through the window, and no wind was coming through (more like a wind-no am I right). I like saying Atyrau.
To celebrate our imminent return to Russia, we made kasha with the boiling water from the samovar, to mix with the jar of tomato sauce with mushrooms and beans, the jar we had been carrying since, well, since Yekaterinburg actually! So we had this emergency food jar keeping us company/adding pounds to the bags for literally all of Asia! That’s ridiculous. It was really good too!
To celebrate our imminent return to Russia, we made kasha with the boiling water from the samovar, to mix with the jar of tomato sauce with mushrooms and beans, the jar we had been carrying since, well, since Yekaterinburg actually! So we had this emergency food jar keeping us company/adding pounds to the bags for literally all of Asia! That’s ridiculous. It was really good too!
of course we had tomato ‘salad’ too, of course
I’m so nervous for the 4 ½ hour exit customs stop from Kazakhstan. Four and a half. WHY. Someone explain to me why that is necessary.
Oh I know why! It’s because every single guard on duty wanted to come into our cabin and ask us about America!! Every single one, I’m not joking, came in, sat down, and asked us what state we were from. They didn’t believe me that I was from Pennsylvania, because they didn’t believe that Pennsylvania was a real word. One kept saying ‘No…Washington D.C. or New York??” and I was like listen Joe, there are more places in the USA than D.C. and NYC. And Joe (not his name) would look confused and then repeat “Washington D.C. or New York!” and I would say Pennsylvania! And he would be like ughhhh that’s not what I mean! I mean what state are you from! I eventually pointed to where it says Pennsylvania in my passport and he actually got angry.
We were done with the border business in less than an hour, so this is just incredibly stupid to be waiting here for three extra hours. The train men are sleeping in their cabin. After almost two hours of that 4 ½ hour stop, I couldn’t take it anymore and I asked mute/nonmute conductor to open the toilet. He laughed and said ‘not for four hours’ and I was like, listen this is not funny, you lied to us about not being able to speak, so unless you want to talk about how I’m going to pee on the floor, you will open this.” He opened it and said ‘bistro bistro!’ which means fast, and I realized that no one else had used the bathroom in almost 2 ½ hours! What are people!!
I listened to music for the next two hours, not able to concentrate on reading when my brain is so anxious, and then I couldn’t wait again and went to the toilet and praise jebus, it was still open from the last time! The guards are outside having conversations over the loudspeakers. At first we thought it was kind of funny and we were imitating what we thought they were saying in a most hilarious skit, but now it’s annoying because this is an insane waste of time.
We finally left, we finally entered Russia, and we finally got to sleep. The next morning, we landed in Volgograd. We said goodbye to the possibly funny, possibly really mean and rude non-mute conductor. We were super smelly, exhausted, hot, thirsty, and so excited to be reunited with the motherland. We have a lot of trains left but none would be quite like the central Asian horrors of the past few months, so this might be the last entry I need to write in the baby laptop diary. I hope you enjoyed our time together.
Oh I know why! It’s because every single guard on duty wanted to come into our cabin and ask us about America!! Every single one, I’m not joking, came in, sat down, and asked us what state we were from. They didn’t believe me that I was from Pennsylvania, because they didn’t believe that Pennsylvania was a real word. One kept saying ‘No…Washington D.C. or New York??” and I was like listen Joe, there are more places in the USA than D.C. and NYC. And Joe (not his name) would look confused and then repeat “Washington D.C. or New York!” and I would say Pennsylvania! And he would be like ughhhh that’s not what I mean! I mean what state are you from! I eventually pointed to where it says Pennsylvania in my passport and he actually got angry.
We were done with the border business in less than an hour, so this is just incredibly stupid to be waiting here for three extra hours. The train men are sleeping in their cabin. After almost two hours of that 4 ½ hour stop, I couldn’t take it anymore and I asked mute/nonmute conductor to open the toilet. He laughed and said ‘not for four hours’ and I was like, listen this is not funny, you lied to us about not being able to speak, so unless you want to talk about how I’m going to pee on the floor, you will open this.” He opened it and said ‘bistro bistro!’ which means fast, and I realized that no one else had used the bathroom in almost 2 ½ hours! What are people!!
I listened to music for the next two hours, not able to concentrate on reading when my brain is so anxious, and then I couldn’t wait again and went to the toilet and praise jebus, it was still open from the last time! The guards are outside having conversations over the loudspeakers. At first we thought it was kind of funny and we were imitating what we thought they were saying in a most hilarious skit, but now it’s annoying because this is an insane waste of time.
We finally left, we finally entered Russia, and we finally got to sleep. The next morning, we landed in Volgograd. We said goodbye to the possibly funny, possibly really mean and rude non-mute conductor. We were super smelly, exhausted, hot, thirsty, and so excited to be reunited with the motherland. We have a lot of trains left but none would be quite like the central Asian horrors of the past few months, so this might be the last entry I need to write in the baby laptop diary. I hope you enjoyed our time together.
