An unexpected highlight of my travels in Egypt was my visit to a Nubian village.
We took a felucca down the Nile from Aswan to the village. A felucca is a very pleasant and peaceful way to travel. Unlike the gondaliers in Venice, the two "feluccaliers" (for want of a better word) were not texting their friends while they steered us. Of course, even in the middle of the Nile you can't avoid people trying to scam money off you. Kids in rowboats make it their business to chase feluccas and, if they can get close enough to hook their boat to yours, they will sing songs to you appropriate to your country (for which they expect to get paid).
When we landed in the Nubian Village, we were taken to a schoolroom where the headmaster gave us a lesson on basic Arabic and Nubian. For those who don't read Asterix books, or don't know much about Africa, Nubians are the indigenous black Africans in Egypt.
A Nubian family made us a truly wonderful traditional dinner - I wish I could get my hands on a Nubian cookbook! However I now regret my henna tatoo of the Key Of Life, painted on my shoulder rather amateurishly by one of the daughters (and it still hasn't come off!). Wayne (from my group) had a henna tatoo of the Arabic words for "Ozzie Ozzie Ozzie" on one arm, and "Oi oi oi" on the other. Can you get any more bogan?
Another excursion took us to Saqqara at the edge of the Sahara Desert. The start of the desert is a very clear line. It is not as though the greenery gradually peters out to nothing. The lush palm trees (there are 80 million of them) that surround the Nile, stop abruptly a few miles from the river, and beyond that there is only sand. At the beginning of the desert is the Saqqara pyramid, oldest in the world, built in 3000BC. It's a step pyramid, different from the famous ones at Gisa, but nonetheless fascinating.
Now for Egypt's downside. One frustrating thing about this country is how hard it is to procure alcohol. The closest thing to alcohol that you're allowed to ingest in public is shisha - apple flavoured tobacco - which you smoke through a hookah pipe (or giant water bong), and it was effective at least at giving me headspins. Even Muhammed, our muslim guide, smoked shisha.
Oddly, with such strict prohibitions in Egypt on drugs, it was hard to walk around a town without being approached by someone offering marijuana. Within 10 minutes of leaving my hotel room in Aswan, I was approached on two occasions by guys offering to sell me marijuana ("I don't do dope," I said. "My friend, I sell you grass, not dope," my hassler replied.)
As for alcohol, I wandered around a souq asking the various hasslers whether they had alcohol, and on most occasions they looked shocked, as though I had just slapped them in the face.
So I had to resign myself to drinking alcohol in the oasis of my hotel, with all the other depraved Westerners. Not that you get served alcohol with a smile in your hotel. The bar staff, with names like Ahmed and Abdullah and Muhammed, were quite hopeless at opening wine bottles and had to be performance-managed (by me) on making simple cocktails. As they poured my glass they were probably thinking that I'm going to hell for drinking this, and Allah is going to be so pissed off.
To avoid annoying Allah further, there are no gay bars in Egypt since the infamous arrest and imprisonment of everybody on a gay cruise ship on the Nile a few years ago, and now the gay scene in Egypt consists of three scared looking men in a park in Cairo. Muhammed (my guide) also told me that Contiki (a rival tour company to Top Deck) recently got in trouble with Egypt's Tourist Police for allowing gay people on their Egypt tours. So, in terms of emancipating itself from the religion of the tribal bronze-age Space Daddy, it seems Egypt has a long way to go.
Anyway, overall Egypt was an absolute highlight of the trip. I was not expecting this to be so, but it was nice to stay still instead of tearing through country after country as I did in Eastern Europe (also with Top Deck).
A brief summary of my trip:
Dallas: to quote Adam Wozniak "Greg, seriously - how does one NOT get beaten up driving around in a segway whilst coated in plastic and wearing a helmet?"
Atlanta: if you're a mugger in Atlanta, make sure you get up early, because all the wallets will be stolen by 8am.
New York: one of the only places I can visit again and again and again.
Athens: a 2 bit shit-hole.
Mykonos: 3 days of Mediterranean bliss.
Meteora: surreal monasteries on the edge of cliffs. I'm surprised this hasn't been a James Bond location yet.
Tirana: a strange city where Albanians paint their grey Communist-era apartments bright colours or, if their apartment is half-built, they stick a straw doll on the roof to distract you.
Montenegro: Albania without the "backward".
Dubrovnik: beautiful, but avoid the Fuego bar.
Mostar: medieval muslim city heroically rebuilding itself after the Yugoslav wars.
Sarajevo: beautiful city full of bullet holes. See how many Sarajevo roses you can find in an afternoon stroll.
Belgrade: ugly, but exciting. And don't mention the war!
Budapest: like Prague, but with fewer tourists, and the largest nightclub in Europe!
Vienna: das Essen schmeckt ausgezeichnet!
Prague: like Budapest but with many more tourists. And it has a bigger castle.
Cairo: like Athens (2 bit shithole) and add 20 million people.
Luxor: amazing, beautiful, fun.
Abu Simbel: it was worth getting up at 3am to go there!
Aswan: Awesome souqs, but don't be fooled - there is no such thing as a Nubian pound.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Travel blog: Luxor, Abu Simbel
If you think Melbourne's Connex is bad, try an Egyptian train. The train to Luxor was revolting, stinking of camel poo and the air-conditioning was so cold we were actually wearing jumpers on a 45 degree day. And the stubbled attendants with unbuttoned unkempt uniforms look like thugs: when they approached me, I wondered whether they were going to mug me ... or offer me Egyptian tea. And this was first class.
Every time the train arrived at a station, hordes of people scrambled onboard and most were not passengers, but family members of the passengers farewelling their loved ones. The train always started to leave a station with these family members still onboard, and they always scrambled to jump off the train just as it is leaving the platform, with varying degrees of success.
(Another important thing of note is security – not just at Cairo Station, but at all the hotels and tourist sites. At these places you always pass through metal detectors. Yet you are not required to remove belts, wallets, phones etc. You just walk through carrying all your luggage. And every time you pass through the metal detector, it beeps. Do the guards, looking so tough with their machine guns, care? No. Anybody could bring any weaponry they like to the temple/hotel/train. I wonder why they have these metal detectors at all. Is there anything at all that would alarm the guards?)
Anyway, we arrived at Luxor, and another amazing hotel awaited us. I love that everywhere I go in Egypt, I get respect. There were people to carry my luggage off the bus to my hotel room. People to wait on me and bring me drinks and food by the poolside. I would arrive back in my room and find all my clothes mysteriously folded and neatly arranged on my bed, something I never bother with. And everywhere you look, the views are amazing – feluccas on the Nile, palm trees, and minarets over the fence. Prayer calls occur five times a day, and it's common to see people suddenly collapse in the streets in prayer.
More amazing temples awaited us – like the Karnak and Luxor temples, and the Valley of the Kings. These are monuments built for the afterlife, made of granite and marble. The Egyptians built wooden buildings for their 'temporary' everyday life on Earth, and these perished long ago. It’s all about the afterlife for the ancient Egyptians.
One of the biggest irritants is the salespeople who hassle you everywhere you go. Random idiots call out to you from across the road: "My friend, my friend!" they say. And they always try to lure you into a shop. Once, when I was trying to extract money from an ATM in Luxor, this rude guy tried to "help" me by taking over the key panel and entering 5,000 Egyptian pounds as my withdrawl amount. I DON'T NEED YOUR HELP ASSHOLE, NOW PISS OFF!
Sometimes they shake your hand, and don't let go of it, and try to force you into their shop. Now that's attractive. I think I can detect a flaw in their marketing strategy. As a general rule, I don't buy from people who attempt to assault me.
Another time in the Valley of the Kings, I pretended I could only speak German to the guy who was trying to sell me a book about Egypt. I told him (in German) that I don't speak English. Then he started speaking German back to me and produced a German version of the Egypt book. These sales people sure are multi-lingual - perhaps they could be better employed as interpreters?
Another of their scams - when you agree on a price, say 100 (presumably Egyptian) pounds, the seller will then claim that the price is in Nubian pounds, and that one Egyptian pound equals ten Nubian pounds. Now there is no such thing as a Nubian pound.
At Abu Simbel, near the Sudanese border, swarms of Egyptian salesmen gathered around me, brandishing shirts, postcards, rugs, neckchains with Egyptian cartouches, and useless rubbish, shouting: "My friend, my friend ... special price for you ... where you from?"
I wasn't exactly in the mood for this, having gotten up at 3am in the morning to join the army escort from our hotel (the only way to Abu Simbel is by army escort, in a convoy of over 100 vehicles - it's quite a sight).
My American friend Justin and I had some fun with the scammers.
Random seller: My friend, my friend, where you from?
Me: Sudan
Justin: I'm from Somalia.
Seller: Come into my store. No hassle, no hassle.
Justin: And when we leave the store, are you gonna hassle us then?
Seller: Oh no, my friend. We make special price, only for you.
Me: We only have Nubian pounds, sorry.
At a souq in Cairo, I tried to sell a couple of the girls on our tour to a shopkeeper for 5 pounds, but the shopkeeper insisted on paying 100 camels.
In the same souq, a trendy-looking guy selling cheap-looking Egypt shirts was actually wearing a cool D&G shirt. I told him I wasn't interested in the shirts on sale, but I'd like to buy his shirt instead. And he actually started to take the shirt off and offer it to me. He had a good body too. The things they will do for a buck.
To be continued ...
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Travel blog: Cairo
Dear Egypt Air
Yours is an exceptionally poor airline.
I have never before experienced turbulence while an aeroplane is taxi-ing on the ground. How did you manage that?
And if a massively delayed 1:30am flight from Istanbul (with 4:00am arrival in Cairo) isn't ridiculous enough, then serving dinner with the lights on at 2:30am truly is. You don't suppose that some of your passengers who had been waiting in Istanbul since 8:00pm might have actually had the initiative to find their own dinner?? Most people know when they're hungry and they do something about it. But thanks for keeping the lights on and having your flight attendants constantly bug me.
Also thanks for serving coffee at 3:00am to ensure that absolutely nobody gets to sleep ever again.
Another thing - consider this situation. A tired Asian lady behind me is trying to sleep in the middle seat, surrounding by 2 obnoxious Egyptian men who keep turning her reading light on to piss her off. Now imagine if you are a flight attendent summoned to deal with the situation. Do you:
(a) tell the men off and maybe threaten them with fines, and offer to re-seat the distressed lady, or
(b) joke about it in Arabic with the 2 obnoxious Egyptians, then leave the scene laughing your head off?
Screw you Egyptian airlines. I hope you all go bankrupt or catch swine flu ASAP.
Love,
Greg
Meanwhile ... when I arrived in Cairo in the wee small hours, I was pleasantly surprised that a rep from Top Deck was actually there waiting for me. The poor guy. And he waited with me for the half hour it took Egypt Air to deliver my baggage onto the caroussel.
Then he drove me to my hotel, about half an hour away, a very nice hotel on the banks of the Nile. It's a pity I only had time for an hour's sleep.
I made it to the meeting with my tour guide at 7:00. It became immediately clear that this tour wouldn't be of the get-pissed-every-night type. My guide, Muhammed, is a qualified Egyptoligist. He took us to the Egyptian museum firstly, and we inspected the exhibits, including mummified kings/queens/animals, the gold death mask of King Tut, and many famous things I'd read about in books. Unfortunately, photography wasn't allowed!
And then the Pyramids at Giza. The Pyramids are surrounded by dodgy looking Egyptian men on camels, who keep bothering you and demanding that you ride on their camels. Muhammed warned us that they would charge 50 (supposedly Egyptian) pounds. Then, after the ride, they would claim that you also need to tip them. Then they would claim that the camel also required a tip. And then they would insist that they meant British pounds, not Egyptian. So you'd end up spending the equivalent of hundreds of dollars if you allowed yourself to be co-erced into riding their miserable camels.
There's also a lot of rivalry between the camel people (what a great profession!). I observed them throwing stones at each other, and one crafty Egyptian even managed to steal someone else's camel.
Anyway- I don't need to emphasise how amazing the pyramids are. They are as huge as you expect. You can even go inside them if you don't mind crawling down a dark 20m tunnel into the sweaty and crowded centre. The Sphinx (a lion with a human's head) is dwarfed by the pyramids and the famous absent nose disappeared, apparently, as the result of vandalism by Napoleon's men in the 1800s, leaving the poor Sphinx looking somewhat like Michael Jackson.
In short, Egypt is great so far. It's full of strangely dressed people, including lots of women dressed as beekeepers (wearing "burkas"). I remarkably haven't yet suffered the infamous food poisoning so many travellers to Egypt complain about. Muhammed tells us what we should and shouldn't eat and warned us that the food on the train to Luxor is "poison". So I'll do what he says and maybe get out alive...
Yours is an exceptionally poor airline.
I have never before experienced turbulence while an aeroplane is taxi-ing on the ground. How did you manage that?
And if a massively delayed 1:30am flight from Istanbul (with 4:00am arrival in Cairo) isn't ridiculous enough, then serving dinner with the lights on at 2:30am truly is. You don't suppose that some of your passengers who had been waiting in Istanbul since 8:00pm might have actually had the initiative to find their own dinner?? Most people know when they're hungry and they do something about it. But thanks for keeping the lights on and having your flight attendants constantly bug me.
Also thanks for serving coffee at 3:00am to ensure that absolutely nobody gets to sleep ever again.
Another thing - consider this situation. A tired Asian lady behind me is trying to sleep in the middle seat, surrounding by 2 obnoxious Egyptian men who keep turning her reading light on to piss her off. Now imagine if you are a flight attendent summoned to deal with the situation. Do you:
(a) tell the men off and maybe threaten them with fines, and offer to re-seat the distressed lady, or
(b) joke about it in Arabic with the 2 obnoxious Egyptians, then leave the scene laughing your head off?
Screw you Egyptian airlines. I hope you all go bankrupt or catch swine flu ASAP.
Love,
Greg
Meanwhile ... when I arrived in Cairo in the wee small hours, I was pleasantly surprised that a rep from Top Deck was actually there waiting for me. The poor guy. And he waited with me for the half hour it took Egypt Air to deliver my baggage onto the caroussel.
Then he drove me to my hotel, about half an hour away, a very nice hotel on the banks of the Nile. It's a pity I only had time for an hour's sleep.
I made it to the meeting with my tour guide at 7:00. It became immediately clear that this tour wouldn't be of the get-pissed-every-night type. My guide, Muhammed, is a qualified Egyptoligist. He took us to the Egyptian museum firstly, and we inspected the exhibits, including mummified kings/queens/animals, the gold death mask of King Tut, and many famous things I'd read about in books. Unfortunately, photography wasn't allowed!
And then the Pyramids at Giza. The Pyramids are surrounded by dodgy looking Egyptian men on camels, who keep bothering you and demanding that you ride on their camels. Muhammed warned us that they would charge 50 (supposedly Egyptian) pounds. Then, after the ride, they would claim that you also need to tip them. Then they would claim that the camel also required a tip. And then they would insist that they meant British pounds, not Egyptian. So you'd end up spending the equivalent of hundreds of dollars if you allowed yourself to be co-erced into riding their miserable camels.
There's also a lot of rivalry between the camel people (what a great profession!). I observed them throwing stones at each other, and one crafty Egyptian even managed to steal someone else's camel.
Anyway- I don't need to emphasise how amazing the pyramids are. They are as huge as you expect. You can even go inside them if you don't mind crawling down a dark 20m tunnel into the sweaty and crowded centre. The Sphinx (a lion with a human's head) is dwarfed by the pyramids and the famous absent nose disappeared, apparently, as the result of vandalism by Napoleon's men in the 1800s, leaving the poor Sphinx looking somewhat like Michael Jackson.
In short, Egypt is great so far. It's full of strangely dressed people, including lots of women dressed as beekeepers (wearing "burkas"). I remarkably haven't yet suffered the infamous food poisoning so many travellers to Egypt complain about. Muhammed tells us what we should and shouldn't eat and warned us that the food on the train to Luxor is "poison". So I'll do what he says and maybe get out alive...
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Travel blog: Budapest, Vienna, Prague
Please get me a straight-jacket ASAP. I'm stuck at Istanbul Airport, in a food court surrounded by screaming kids, sampling the local Turkish Burger King cuisine, having missed my connection to Cairo. My Turkish Airways flight from Prague arrived late at Istanbul. And when we finally landed, the plane taxied in circles for ages, while we waited for some stairs to arrive. The pilot apologised because the stairs that he thought would arrive apparently have a "broken wheel". Meanwhile the clock was ticking away and my Cairo flight was about to leave.
When I finally got off the plane, I queued up at passport control (as I was told I had to, for my connecting flight). Then I was told by the officer that I require a visa for the 1 hour I hoped to stay in Turkey. So I queued for a visa. And paid 15 euro for the pleasure. Then I rejoined the Passport Control queue which miraculously had grown in size (always happens when you're in a hurry). And of course I was behind a family of suspicious looking people who didn't speak any language the passport control officer knew, so... to make a long story short... I missed my Cairo flight. I have to get on a midnight flight instead.
So here I am eating Burger King in Istanbul. I had to convert my money to Turkish lira to buy this wonderful burger.
In the last few weeks I've been using: euros, Albanian leks, Croatian kunas, Bosnian Convertible Marks, Serbian dinars, Hungarian forints, Czech kronas, Turkish lira, and later tonight I'll be using Egyptian pounds and US dollars (to pay my Egyptian guide).
Anyway ... to rewind a few days. I've been in lots of beautiful cities. Every city is more beautiful than the last (although I won't hold my breath for Cairo - I am expecting a 2 bit shit-hole, but I look forward to my opinion being changed).
Budapest - amazing. The shoes of the dead Jews that line the banks of the Danube were kind of poignant. I also discovered my love of H&M, a fashion store that is all over Europe, and my credit card and I did some serious damage (with the funds that the Hungarian washer-women-wenches didn't claim).
Vienna - The Habsburg palaces (one for Winter and one for Summer) were a little over-the-top, especially the Summer palace with its immense flowery garden and labyrinth ... and zoo! But it's great to drink wine and opinionate with my Top Deck companions in the middle of these beautiful surroundings.
Also the accommodation in Vienna (the Wombat Hostel) was awesome, which is something I thought I would never say about a hostel, having endured a hostel in Dubrovnik that smelt like dead people (please give me something like the amazing hotel I stayed in when I was in Albania, where each apartment was the size of a house!). I had a fun night in the hostel pub - the bar ladies announced a "guess the song" competition in their cute broken English - basically if you're the first to guess the name of the song they play on the PA, you win a shot of sambucca. If you scream out a wrong answer, they shoot you with a water cannon. A very popular night, although it kind of degenerated into a water-gun shoot-out once the patrons had got their hands on their own armaments (which was even more fun!).
Prague - Awesome again. I walked around the largest castle in the world, overlooking the gorgeous town. Also of immense importance was the Karlovy Lazne, Europe's largest nightclub, with 5 floors, including an 80s dancefloor consisting of oversized Rubik's cubes that you dance on!
Another interesting tale: in Prague there's a statue on the Charles Bridge of Jan Nenomucky, a revered saint. At the base of the statue his bronze dog is seated. The rest of the statue is black, but the dog is gleaming gold, because tourists touch the dog all day long (legend has it that by doing so, all your deep dark secrets will remain hidden forever). The story of Jan and his dog can be summarised thus:
- Jan was a medieval priest
- the king's wife was a bit of a skanky 'ho and had a secret lover
- she confessed her affair to Jan
- the king knew of the confession and demanded that Jan tell him the name of her secret lover
- Jan refused, saying it was confidential
- the king got really mad and threatened Jan with torture
- Jan made a deal: he wasn't going to tell the king, but he will tell another living soul instead.
- the king agreed to the deal, thinking he'd be able to locate the other "living soul" and get the truth out of this other person instead.
- However, Jan told the secret to his dog.
- This made the king even madder.
- The king killed Jan
- Jan was made a saint.
Cool story, huh? There's also a random unimportant peasant in the statue that is now golden because people also touch it all day long. Why? Because some mischievous university students started the trend a few years ago, and now people touch it because they see everyone else touch it: "Everyone else is doing it, so I better do it."
Anyway... I'll write more when I get to Cairo. I have the fabulous Istanbul Airport to explore!
cheers
When I finally got off the plane, I queued up at passport control (as I was told I had to, for my connecting flight). Then I was told by the officer that I require a visa for the 1 hour I hoped to stay in Turkey. So I queued for a visa. And paid 15 euro for the pleasure. Then I rejoined the Passport Control queue which miraculously had grown in size (always happens when you're in a hurry). And of course I was behind a family of suspicious looking people who didn't speak any language the passport control officer knew, so... to make a long story short... I missed my Cairo flight. I have to get on a midnight flight instead.
So here I am eating Burger King in Istanbul. I had to convert my money to Turkish lira to buy this wonderful burger.
In the last few weeks I've been using: euros, Albanian leks, Croatian kunas, Bosnian Convertible Marks, Serbian dinars, Hungarian forints, Czech kronas, Turkish lira, and later tonight I'll be using Egyptian pounds and US dollars (to pay my Egyptian guide).
Anyway ... to rewind a few days. I've been in lots of beautiful cities. Every city is more beautiful than the last (although I won't hold my breath for Cairo - I am expecting a 2 bit shit-hole, but I look forward to my opinion being changed).
Budapest - amazing. The shoes of the dead Jews that line the banks of the Danube were kind of poignant. I also discovered my love of H&M, a fashion store that is all over Europe, and my credit card and I did some serious damage (with the funds that the Hungarian washer-women-wenches didn't claim).
Vienna - The Habsburg palaces (one for Winter and one for Summer) were a little over-the-top, especially the Summer palace with its immense flowery garden and labyrinth ... and zoo! But it's great to drink wine and opinionate with my Top Deck companions in the middle of these beautiful surroundings.
Also the accommodation in Vienna (the Wombat Hostel) was awesome, which is something I thought I would never say about a hostel, having endured a hostel in Dubrovnik that smelt like dead people (please give me something like the amazing hotel I stayed in when I was in Albania, where each apartment was the size of a house!). I had a fun night in the hostel pub - the bar ladies announced a "guess the song" competition in their cute broken English - basically if you're the first to guess the name of the song they play on the PA, you win a shot of sambucca. If you scream out a wrong answer, they shoot you with a water cannon. A very popular night, although it kind of degenerated into a water-gun shoot-out once the patrons had got their hands on their own armaments (which was even more fun!).
Prague - Awesome again. I walked around the largest castle in the world, overlooking the gorgeous town. Also of immense importance was the Karlovy Lazne, Europe's largest nightclub, with 5 floors, including an 80s dancefloor consisting of oversized Rubik's cubes that you dance on!
Another interesting tale: in Prague there's a statue on the Charles Bridge of Jan Nenomucky, a revered saint. At the base of the statue his bronze dog is seated. The rest of the statue is black, but the dog is gleaming gold, because tourists touch the dog all day long (legend has it that by doing so, all your deep dark secrets will remain hidden forever). The story of Jan and his dog can be summarised thus:
- Jan was a medieval priest
- the king's wife was a bit of a skanky 'ho and had a secret lover
- she confessed her affair to Jan
- the king knew of the confession and demanded that Jan tell him the name of her secret lover
- Jan refused, saying it was confidential
- the king got really mad and threatened Jan with torture
- Jan made a deal: he wasn't going to tell the king, but he will tell another living soul instead.
- the king agreed to the deal, thinking he'd be able to locate the other "living soul" and get the truth out of this other person instead.
- However, Jan told the secret to his dog.
- This made the king even madder.
- The king killed Jan
- Jan was made a saint.
Cool story, huh? There's also a random unimportant peasant in the statue that is now golden because people also touch it all day long. Why? Because some mischievous university students started the trend a few years ago, and now people touch it because they see everyone else touch it: "Everyone else is doing it, so I better do it."
Anyway... I'll write more when I get to Cairo. I have the fabulous Istanbul Airport to explore!
cheers
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Travel blog: Serbia, Hungary
We left Sarajevo and made our way to Srebrenica, site of the largest genocide in Europe after World War II, where 8,000 muslims were slaughtered. We took a guided tour of the Srebrenica memorial with a muslim man who was there in 1995 when the massacre occurred and he told his horrific story - the Serbs invaded the "safe haven" of Srebrenica, which was be supposedly guarded by Dutch troops who stayed in their barracks and turned a blind eye while the massacres occurred. The relationship between Serbia and Bosnia (in particularly the Bosniak muslims) remains frosty, with the Serbs generally denying the massacre, or claiming it was not done by Serbia per se but by Bosniak Serbs and that no reparations should be paid.
After Srebrenica everybody was pretty quiet as the bus took us to Serbia. We arrived in Belgrade late because of a huge queue at the border, and also because of the thoroughness of the unfriendly Bosniak border guards, who boarded the bus with guns and asked: "Do you have anything to declare?"
To which everybody replied, "No."
"We shall see," sneered one of the guards, and his team started searching the bus, even the toilet, and they made the driver open up the luggage area, and all the suitcases had to be unloaded and opened for further searching. After about an hour of this, they finally struck gold: someone had a small bottle of Bosniak beer that they didn't declare. Well done, Bosniak guards!
We finally got through the border and arrived in Belgrade well after dark, which was probably just as well because even Lonely Planet admits that it is not a pretty city. What it does have going for it is the huge Roman fortress overlooking the city which we explored - lots of young Serbs were sitting on the walls, smoking and drinking. Walking around Belgrade on a Monday night, you wonder if anyone at all works in this city - the streets are alive with people, clubs, pubs, bars and restaurants on a work night.
My time in Belgrade was very brief - I barely got any photos, except of the fortress at night, and we were on our way to Budapest.
I was looking forward to Budapest - it is, after all, an EU country, which to me seemed to be a guarantee of non-dodgyness. How I was misled.
Dan, our tour guide, who had amazingly remained sober for a few days, took us on a walking tour of the beautiful Budapest. A few minutes after the tour started, a middle aged bottle-blonde with a microphone appeared in the main square, with a group of middle aged tourists. She accosted Dan first in Hungarian and then in English.
Hungarian wench: "Do you have a Hungarian guide?"
Dan: "Yes."
Hungarian wench: "And where is this supposed guide, hmm?"
Dan: "On the bus."
Hungarian wench: "You lie! Go away and don't come back until you have Hungarian guide."
Our group started imitating her wench-voice and calling her rude names in English. She continued her tour, and Dan continued to lead our tour (describing the sites in a much quieter voice now). Unfortunately, everywhere our tour went, the Hungarian wench's group went too, although disappointingly it did not end in a massive brawl between the two groups.
It seems Hungarians have perfected the art of joylessness. After days of not being able to find a laundry, I finally found one in Budapest. The "women" (i use the term loosely - "hags" would be more appropriate) who worked there were stereotypical eastern European babooshkas. If you have seen the old Hungarian lady who casts the lamia curse in the movie Drag Me to Hell, you will have a good image of what I'm talking about.
So I entered the laundramat and my polite "Hello" was completely ignored by the ladies.
Me: "Can I wash my clothes here?"
Laundry wench: "Yes."
Me: "Where do I put my clothes?"
Silence. The laundry wenches continued to work, ignoring me. I looked at the washing machines and I tried to open one.
Laundy wench: [unintelligible abuse in Hungarian]
Ok, so I'm not allowed to open the washing machines. Now what?
A Scotsman then entered the laundramat.
Scotsman: "How much does it cost to wash my clothes?"
Laundry wench: "Yes."
Oh great, she says "yes" to anything!
She then gave the Scotsman a sheet of paper written in English, explaining how the laundry works. There's only one washing machine we are allowed to use and it costs 1,5oo forints to use, plus 500 forints per 15 minutes for drying. Why couldn't she have told me that? Wench.
So I negotiated with the Scotsman, and we combined our laundry in the one machine.
I attempted to open a drink bottle while I was waiting, and received more Hungarian abuse from one of the wenches, who otherwise ignored their customers except for occasional spits of disgust and death-stares. As they apparently did not speak any English, the Scotsman and I joked about the appalling service and the incredible unattractiveness of these mangy toerags.
When we took our clothes out of the washing machine, one of the wenches grabbed our clothes and piled them into the drying machine.
After what seemed like hours of waiting, it became apparent that our clothes would remain in the drying machine (at 500 forints per 15 minutes) until we said "stop", preferably in Hungarian.
So we finally retrieved our clothes, paying their exhorbitant bill, which they presented with a sneer.
After paying them, and knowing they probably wouldn't understand me, I said, "You know what, we think you're a rude bunch of assholes."
"Yes," agreed the wench.
More later ...
After Srebrenica everybody was pretty quiet as the bus took us to Serbia. We arrived in Belgrade late because of a huge queue at the border, and also because of the thoroughness of the unfriendly Bosniak border guards, who boarded the bus with guns and asked: "Do you have anything to declare?"
To which everybody replied, "No."
"We shall see," sneered one of the guards, and his team started searching the bus, even the toilet, and they made the driver open up the luggage area, and all the suitcases had to be unloaded and opened for further searching. After about an hour of this, they finally struck gold: someone had a small bottle of Bosniak beer that they didn't declare. Well done, Bosniak guards!
We finally got through the border and arrived in Belgrade well after dark, which was probably just as well because even Lonely Planet admits that it is not a pretty city. What it does have going for it is the huge Roman fortress overlooking the city which we explored - lots of young Serbs were sitting on the walls, smoking and drinking. Walking around Belgrade on a Monday night, you wonder if anyone at all works in this city - the streets are alive with people, clubs, pubs, bars and restaurants on a work night.
My time in Belgrade was very brief - I barely got any photos, except of the fortress at night, and we were on our way to Budapest.
I was looking forward to Budapest - it is, after all, an EU country, which to me seemed to be a guarantee of non-dodgyness. How I was misled.
Dan, our tour guide, who had amazingly remained sober for a few days, took us on a walking tour of the beautiful Budapest. A few minutes after the tour started, a middle aged bottle-blonde with a microphone appeared in the main square, with a group of middle aged tourists. She accosted Dan first in Hungarian and then in English.
Hungarian wench: "Do you have a Hungarian guide?"
Dan: "Yes."
Hungarian wench: "And where is this supposed guide, hmm?"
Dan: "On the bus."
Hungarian wench: "You lie! Go away and don't come back until you have Hungarian guide."
Our group started imitating her wench-voice and calling her rude names in English. She continued her tour, and Dan continued to lead our tour (describing the sites in a much quieter voice now). Unfortunately, everywhere our tour went, the Hungarian wench's group went too, although disappointingly it did not end in a massive brawl between the two groups.
It seems Hungarians have perfected the art of joylessness. After days of not being able to find a laundry, I finally found one in Budapest. The "women" (i use the term loosely - "hags" would be more appropriate) who worked there were stereotypical eastern European babooshkas. If you have seen the old Hungarian lady who casts the lamia curse in the movie Drag Me to Hell, you will have a good image of what I'm talking about.
So I entered the laundramat and my polite "Hello" was completely ignored by the ladies.
Me: "Can I wash my clothes here?"
Laundry wench: "Yes."
Me: "Where do I put my clothes?"
Silence. The laundry wenches continued to work, ignoring me. I looked at the washing machines and I tried to open one.
Laundy wench: [unintelligible abuse in Hungarian]
Ok, so I'm not allowed to open the washing machines. Now what?
A Scotsman then entered the laundramat.
Scotsman: "How much does it cost to wash my clothes?"
Laundry wench: "Yes."
Oh great, she says "yes" to anything!
She then gave the Scotsman a sheet of paper written in English, explaining how the laundry works. There's only one washing machine we are allowed to use and it costs 1,5oo forints to use, plus 500 forints per 15 minutes for drying. Why couldn't she have told me that? Wench.
So I negotiated with the Scotsman, and we combined our laundry in the one machine.
I attempted to open a drink bottle while I was waiting, and received more Hungarian abuse from one of the wenches, who otherwise ignored their customers except for occasional spits of disgust and death-stares. As they apparently did not speak any English, the Scotsman and I joked about the appalling service and the incredible unattractiveness of these mangy toerags.
When we took our clothes out of the washing machine, one of the wenches grabbed our clothes and piled them into the drying machine.
After what seemed like hours of waiting, it became apparent that our clothes would remain in the drying machine (at 500 forints per 15 minutes) until we said "stop", preferably in Hungarian.
So we finally retrieved our clothes, paying their exhorbitant bill, which they presented with a sneer.
After paying them, and knowing they probably wouldn't understand me, I said, "You know what, we think you're a rude bunch of assholes."
"Yes," agreed the wench.
More later ...
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Travel blog: Montenegro, Dubrovnik, Sarajevo
Let me sum up Albania thus:
- according to the English language newspaper in Albania, a stadium in Tirana is being fined 150,000 euros because it hosted a European soccer game but had no running water in the showers.
- Littered in the country-side are the rusted remains of oil wells. The Communists did not know how to build proper oil wells, so what remains are disused rusty old things that leak oil into the rivers and countryside.
- the most popular car in Tirana is the Mercedes Benz ... generally they steal them from other countries and drive them home.
So it was with some relief that I entered the "normal" part of Europe. Briefly we were in Montenegro (literally "Black Mountain"), a country most people have only heard about from the Eurovision song contest. We had lunch in a quaint town call Bar. Amusingly, Montenegro used to belong to the country "Serbia and Montenegro" and the winning model at the beauty pageants wore a sash labelled "Miss S&M" because the full name of the country was too long to put on the sash.
Then, off to Croatia. No broken rusty oil wells, no rubbish littering the landscape - just an incredibly beautiful country, ready for the European Union.
Dubrovnik is amazing - a picturesque walled city on the Adriatic Sea. The people are nuts. The bartender at the hotel was a moustached, pot-bellied, stereotypically east European man - when you order a drink, he hands you a bottle of vodka/gin/rum and a mixer drink, and you make the drink yourself. His "float" at the bar consists of the random kunas/euros/pebbles he finds in his pockets. At any random moment he will rip his shirt open and shout something in Croatian and laugh his head off (perhaps he's saying "cheers"?).
The walled city of Dubrovnik is UNESCO listed, and was heavily bombed during the Yugoslav Wars of the 90s (a three-way conflict between Serbs, Croats and Muslims, with the Serbs fighting the Croats, and everyone fighting the Muslims). But it has now been restored to its former glory - my photos don't do it justice.
We avoided the Fuego club in Dubrovnik, where young women infamously get kidnapped and end up dead on beaches, and instead enjoyed the hidden bars down the quirky alleyways - lots of fun, especially red-bull/vodka combinations which come in large buckets with straws.
After a few days in Dubrovnik, it was time to see Bosnia - a real eye-opener. The first town we went to was Mostar - almost every building was covered in bullet holes or destroyed. There are lots of mosques and the locals are particularly proud of their medieval bridge that has recently been rebuilt after the Croatian army destroyed it in the 90s.
It's the same story in Sarajevo - bullet holes everywhere. On the footpaths are "Sarajevo roses" - bomb craters that have been filled in with red resin as a memorial to people who were killed. We took our bus around town, playing U2's haunting Miss Sarajevo (featuring Pavarotti), a song about a beauty pageant that occurred in Sarajevo during the 90s, as the city was being shelled, a poignant tale of how the Sarajevans attempted to go about business as usual, despite the 4 year siege of the city by the Serbs, during which thousands of people died. The Winter Olympics stadium has been replaced with the graves of the victims.
Yet the city is vibrant and exciting just 14 years after the war. We had dinner in what looked like an Islamic souk. There are street performers everywhere, and modern shops selling Dolce & Gabbana, Versace and Lacoste in bullet-riddled buildings. A strange and beautiful place.
- according to the English language newspaper in Albania, a stadium in Tirana is being fined 150,000 euros because it hosted a European soccer game but had no running water in the showers.
- Littered in the country-side are the rusted remains of oil wells. The Communists did not know how to build proper oil wells, so what remains are disused rusty old things that leak oil into the rivers and countryside.
- the most popular car in Tirana is the Mercedes Benz ... generally they steal them from other countries and drive them home.
So it was with some relief that I entered the "normal" part of Europe. Briefly we were in Montenegro (literally "Black Mountain"), a country most people have only heard about from the Eurovision song contest. We had lunch in a quaint town call Bar. Amusingly, Montenegro used to belong to the country "Serbia and Montenegro" and the winning model at the beauty pageants wore a sash labelled "Miss S&M" because the full name of the country was too long to put on the sash.
Then, off to Croatia. No broken rusty oil wells, no rubbish littering the landscape - just an incredibly beautiful country, ready for the European Union.
Dubrovnik is amazing - a picturesque walled city on the Adriatic Sea. The people are nuts. The bartender at the hotel was a moustached, pot-bellied, stereotypically east European man - when you order a drink, he hands you a bottle of vodka/gin/rum and a mixer drink, and you make the drink yourself. His "float" at the bar consists of the random kunas/euros/pebbles he finds in his pockets. At any random moment he will rip his shirt open and shout something in Croatian and laugh his head off (perhaps he's saying "cheers"?).
The walled city of Dubrovnik is UNESCO listed, and was heavily bombed during the Yugoslav Wars of the 90s (a three-way conflict between Serbs, Croats and Muslims, with the Serbs fighting the Croats, and everyone fighting the Muslims). But it has now been restored to its former glory - my photos don't do it justice.
We avoided the Fuego club in Dubrovnik, where young women infamously get kidnapped and end up dead on beaches, and instead enjoyed the hidden bars down the quirky alleyways - lots of fun, especially red-bull/vodka combinations which come in large buckets with straws.
After a few days in Dubrovnik, it was time to see Bosnia - a real eye-opener. The first town we went to was Mostar - almost every building was covered in bullet holes or destroyed. There are lots of mosques and the locals are particularly proud of their medieval bridge that has recently been rebuilt after the Croatian army destroyed it in the 90s.
It's the same story in Sarajevo - bullet holes everywhere. On the footpaths are "Sarajevo roses" - bomb craters that have been filled in with red resin as a memorial to people who were killed. We took our bus around town, playing U2's haunting Miss Sarajevo (featuring Pavarotti), a song about a beauty pageant that occurred in Sarajevo during the 90s, as the city was being shelled, a poignant tale of how the Sarajevans attempted to go about business as usual, despite the 4 year siege of the city by the Serbs, during which thousands of people died. The Winter Olympics stadium has been replaced with the graves of the victims.
Yet the city is vibrant and exciting just 14 years after the war. We had dinner in what looked like an Islamic souk. There are street performers everywhere, and modern shops selling Dolce & Gabbana, Versace and Lacoste in bullet-riddled buildings. A strange and beautiful place.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Travel blog: Meteora, Tirana
The Albanian border guards are not very friendly and are looking for excuses to throw you in jail because, as my tour guide Dan explained, they failed their police exams and have to do border duty as punishment.
However, we made it across the border in one piece after a blissful few days in Meteora and Mykonos (unfortunately our ABC party - Anything But Clothes party - on Mykonos ended prematurely because hotel staff became alarmed at the number of guests who were wandering around dressed in bedsheets, towels, curtains and other items they found in their hotel rooms).
The first thing you notice about Albania is the rotten egg smell. Then you notice people in gas masks wandering around the country side. Then you notice concrete bunkers for the first 15km - some 700,000 concrete bunkers were built near the border because the former Communist leaders believed that Albania was such a jewel that people would be mad if they didn't want to invade.
The road to Tirana starts off well paved and then degenerates into a track for goats to walk down. It took about 5 hours from the border to arrive in Tirana by bus, as the roads are so rough.
By the roadside, you see half-constructed buildings. Apparently people start building apartment blocks and then run out of money and can't complete them. On the roofs of many of these buildings are large dolls made of straw designed to distract attention from the fact that the buildings are incomplete (according to our Albanian guide).
Albania has big ambitions to be a member of the European Union, but as I can see it has a very long way to go. It is the second poorest country in Europe (Moldova being the poorest).
As soon as we got off the bus in Tirana we were attacked by small children brandishing pens for sale - pens which all sported the Albanian emblem of the two-headed eagle. The town square was impressive but looked very-Communist era. The mayor of Tirana was apparently desperate to make the capital city look more interesting and has mandated that all the dull apartment blocks be painted various bright colours: these colourful apartment blocks are in fact the main attraction of this strange little city.
Anyway - the good thing about a poor country is everything is cheap. Our hotel accommodation costs the same as a hostel, but our rooms are spacious and cover more space than some houses back in Melbourne - we have fully equipped kitchen, laundry, lounge, and four bedrooms in the one apartment. So that much is good.
Anyway... I am tired. I must go to bed. More later.
However, we made it across the border in one piece after a blissful few days in Meteora and Mykonos (unfortunately our ABC party - Anything But Clothes party - on Mykonos ended prematurely because hotel staff became alarmed at the number of guests who were wandering around dressed in bedsheets, towels, curtains and other items they found in their hotel rooms).
The first thing you notice about Albania is the rotten egg smell. Then you notice people in gas masks wandering around the country side. Then you notice concrete bunkers for the first 15km - some 700,000 concrete bunkers were built near the border because the former Communist leaders believed that Albania was such a jewel that people would be mad if they didn't want to invade.
The road to Tirana starts off well paved and then degenerates into a track for goats to walk down. It took about 5 hours from the border to arrive in Tirana by bus, as the roads are so rough.
By the roadside, you see half-constructed buildings. Apparently people start building apartment blocks and then run out of money and can't complete them. On the roofs of many of these buildings are large dolls made of straw designed to distract attention from the fact that the buildings are incomplete (according to our Albanian guide).
Albania has big ambitions to be a member of the European Union, but as I can see it has a very long way to go. It is the second poorest country in Europe (Moldova being the poorest).
As soon as we got off the bus in Tirana we were attacked by small children brandishing pens for sale - pens which all sported the Albanian emblem of the two-headed eagle. The town square was impressive but looked very-Communist era. The mayor of Tirana was apparently desperate to make the capital city look more interesting and has mandated that all the dull apartment blocks be painted various bright colours: these colourful apartment blocks are in fact the main attraction of this strange little city.
Anyway - the good thing about a poor country is everything is cheap. Our hotel accommodation costs the same as a hostel, but our rooms are spacious and cover more space than some houses back in Melbourne - we have fully equipped kitchen, laundry, lounge, and four bedrooms in the one apartment. So that much is good.
Anyway... I am tired. I must go to bed. More later.
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