Round the World

Neither one of us have been on as many long distance bus rides as we have on this trip, and the ones in Croatian and Montenegro were not the most comfortable. Therefore, when we found out there are no trains linking Tallinn to Riga we were not looking forward to yet another bus ride (little did we know how many more we had ahead us). The Eurolines bus turned out to be quite clean and comfortable (for a bus). The coolest part about the bus ride, though, was the free wi-fi, allowing us to check emails as we drove through the Estonian and Latvian countryside! It also gave me a chance to get caught up on my blogs. As advanced as we think we are in the US, we are pretty behind when it comes to technology.

There was a slight confusion in the name of our hotel when we first arrived (Grand Palace, Garden Palace – an easy mistake). After lugging our bags through cobblestoned streets for half an hour (have I mentioned that they may look nice, but they are not good for wheeled bags nor my feet), we arrived at the Grand Palace, a 4-star hotel. The lobby reminded me of the nice hotels I got to stay at during my Dannon days. Of course the Grand Palace turned out to be the wrong hotel, and the right one, the Garden Palace, is on the other side of old town. The guy at the front desk was super nice and drove us there – apparently this mix-up happens quite often. While it was not 4-stars, our hotel room was still nice so it wasn't that much of a let down.

Whereas Tallinn had a chill vibe, Riga's old town was more like a party town. It has the winding roads and the pretty town squares (here's one of them):

but Riga also has the reputation of being a big party town. It's popular with stag and hen parties (bachelor and bachelorette parties for us Americans) and you can stay out till the wee hours if you so choose. I'm sure some of it is because we were there over a weekend, and the Riga Festival was happening at the same time, but overall parts of it remind me a little of Key West or Bourbon Street in New Orleans.

One of the highlights of the Riga Festival was the “Formula 2 On Water World Cup Latvia Grand Prix”. I never even knew there's a Formula 2 but it was pretty cool to watch.

Here's a picture of the boats jostling for position right after the race started:

Two boats overturned during the race which added to the excitement.

We also tried to see this “Hot Air Balloon Shining” event, thinking it would be cool to see all these hot air balloons floating over the city at night, but after waiting for an hour it turned out they never had any intention of flying the balloons. They just fired up the balloons on the ground and since the balloons were spread out throughout the city you only see 1 or 2 at a time, so it wasn't all that spectacular. Here's what it looked like so you can decide for yourself (think seeing this go on and off for 50 minutes and nothing else):

For a change of scenery from old town, we checked out a “newer” section of Riga known for its Art Nouveau buildings (Riga has the world's largest collection of Art Nouveau buildings). It's a style of architecture in the early 1900's known for the eclectic and decorative facades.

Here's a close up of the detail from another building:

Anyone who goes to Riga should definitely make time for the Museum of Occupation. It offers a more complete picture of what the Baltic countries went through since WWI (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania all suffered similar fates). Whereas the other museums we went to focused more on the cruelty of the Germans and the Soviets, this exhibit provided a better overview of the events happening during that time. It's eye opening for someone who is not a history buff like me. We saw the secret pact between Germany and Russia on how they would split up the area from Poland all the way up to the Baltics. Lucky Poland got divided into 2 parts. Can you imagine? The fate of your country being decided by foreigners without you knowing or having any say in it?! It also showed how the Soviets bullied their way to fake an election in order to install a puppet government who then turned around and “asked” for Latvia to be admitted to the USSR. We think that this is all behind us, but given the situation between Georgia and Russia you do sometimes wonder.

Two days were short and sweet and perfect for Riga, and on Sunday we got on yet another bus headed for Vilnius, Lithuania.

Leaving the Adriatic behind, we flew up north to explore another region of Eastern Europe – the Baltic countries. Instead of the clear deep blue sea, the Baltic is a lot darker and moodier, even on a sunny day.

(the old town of Tallinn is in the background)

Our plan is to start from the north, in Tallinn, Estonia, and work our way south towards Prague. When you look at the map, Tallinn is pretty far north – only 3.5 hours by ferry to Helsinki, Finland, and 4 hours by bus to St. Petersberg.... I think I even saw a sign for tours to the North Pole.

The city lived up to its e-Stonia reputation (i.e., being very wired in – after all, Skype and Kazaa, a Napster like music sharing software, were started by Estonians): there was a kiosk for free internet right at the airport which was a good thing as we had no idea how to get to our hotel; our hotel room was equipped with wifi and a computer; and free wi-fi spots were easy to find all over old town. Right away, we liked this city.

Seriously, it's not just because Tallinn's wired in. We were pleasantly surprised by the city overall. The buildings in old town have some Scandinavian influence so it has a different feel than the old towns we've been to. I also liked that old town is a part of the city, and locals as well as tourists go there so you feel like you're seeing what the city is like today. Outside of old town there are some interesting architecture as well. The people here are friendly.... and overall, it just has a very chill vibe. It may be a bit slow for some people, but we like the pace.

(pic of one of the squares in old town)

The rain cloud that was with us in Czech Republic and Hungary found us as soon as we left the coast, and it started to rain the night we got there all through the next day. Nonetheless we made the best of it and climbed the old town hall tower to see Tallinn in the rain:

We made good use of the rest of the day and the free wi-fi in town and booked our accommodations for the rest of the trip so we didn't have to stress about it anymore (and yes, beer was involved).

Here's a picture of Tallinn in good weather (we decided to extend our stay an extra day so we get at least one nice day):

This picture was taken from a church bell tower, which in medieval times was the tallest in Europe. The Soviets set up their KGB headquarter in the building next to it so they could use the tower to transmit signals.

Being so far north, the daylight lasts pretty late into the night. While it wasn't exactly “white nights” since it's already August, the sun didn't set until well after 10pm. Here's a picture I took of the main town square, Raekoja Plats, at almost 10pm:

It was very easy to get around with English, and we were only there for a few days so we didn't learn any Estonian phrases. We did notice a couple of signs that are pretty funny when you try to read it in English:

Read the second item on the menu list fast...

Try to read this sign out loud:

Finally, here are some random pictures from Tallinn:

Near the old fortress wall in old town Tallinn

This is a sculpture at a Soviet War Memorial which is slowly falling out of repair (hmm I wonder why)... I just thought the hands were cool:

Next stop: Riga, Latvia.

Sorry I'm so behind on my blogs. None of the places in Montenegro had internet connection, otherwise the hot days would have been the perfect time to upload. Ok, the reality is, sometimes nap time took precedence to picking out the pictures for the blog. Ashok found a way to reduce the size of my pictures so it takes a lot less time to load the pictures.

We've gone from the Balkans to the Baltics and are now traveling through Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. We are liking the cities so far... Internet availability is great here so I should be better with keeping this blog updated.

I've also updated our itinerary for the rest of the month (see the post titled "Our Itinerary & How to Get In Touch).

Here are the posts for our time in Croatia and Montenegro - 5 posts total. Happy reading!

The old town of Kotor sits at the bottom of a mountain, and its fortress walls stretch up the steep mountainside. The old town is much smaller than that of Dubrovnik but has lots of winding cobblestone streets and small squares to wander through. In comparison, it's not as "picture perfect" as there are still plenty of old buildings that have not been renovated.

As in Dubrovnik, the sun is mercilessly hot starting from around 9am to 6pm, and all the heat gets trapped inside the walls making it even worse. There's not too many people on the streets during this time. They either head to the nearby beach or sit in outdoor cafes drinking cold drinks to try to cool down. Both were still too hot for us so we ended up getting up super early to walk around and hike up the fortress walls while it's still cool.

Here's just a part of the hike:

Speaking of being laid back, the previous evening we had asked the woman at the fortress entrance whether we could pay the 2 Euro entrance fee up front since she's not there until 8am. She basically told us not to worry about it and to just go (there's not gate at the entrance to lock it up)... and then she offered to just let us go in at that point. She also told us that there's no need to hike all the way to the top (1 hour of uphill climb), and that you can get a beautiful panoramic view from the church which is only a 20 minute hike. We took her advice. I'm sure the view from the top is more spectacular but I'm not sure the difference is worth the extra effort.

We then headed back to the apartment to nap. We had found this English movie channel (it went in and out and switches channels every so often) so we got sucked into watching a couple. Did you know that Montenegro is mentioned in The Great Gatsby? How appropriate. You take what you can get when it comes to English TV. In Budapest the only thing in English was BBC so we were very up to date on world news that week. At another place it was really bad TV shows that I've never heard of, and here, only movies.... not that we watch that much TV but I do miss having the option (and my Food Network and The Amazing Race).

We went out in the evening to walk around again. There's not much more to do so 2 nights was the perfect amount of time to spend in Kotor. With all this heat we're really looking forward to a few days of R&R by the beach in Budva.

It's a good thing we got our rest in Budapest because we had 2 long days of travel afterwards. Ashok found a cheap flight to Split from Bratislava so despite our previous bad experience we got on the train and headed back there. Something to be said about second chances (or really low expectations) because we actually had a good time. As soon as we got to the old town, we saw a group of Slovakian women dressed in traditional costumes sitting around. It turned out to be quite a scene when Ashok asked to take their picture as a crowd gathered to see the “Photographer from New York” take pictures.

They were so nice and started to take out pictures of their family and gave us their backgrounds. Their ancestors settled in northern Serbia 250 years ago (the queen at the time was giving incentives for people to go there), but they haven't forgotten their roots and still consider themselves Slovaks and were in Bratislava to visit their homeland.

Most of Bratislava is very new and there are lots of construction around. The old part of Bratislava is fairly small and sits on the other side of the Danube. Think pretty old buildings with cobblestoned alleys, but the town is basically a tourist spot as all the store fronts are either cafes, souvenir, or various clothing and craft shops. We hiked up to the palace (most of it is being reconstructed) and were rewarded with a view of the old and the new part of Bratislava. Ideally we would have spent a full day in Bratislava but 3 hours were enough to give us a sense for the place.

After the usual tasks upon arrival in a new country (get money, buy SIM card for our cell phone, figure out how to get to the hotel, etc.), we finally arrived in the town of Split at 10pm. We soon realized why the airfare deal was only good for today - it's the 250 year anniversary celebration of the Diocletian Palace (world heritage site and main tourist attraction of Split). We missed most of the celebration but were still able to catch some of the festive atmosphere, and even saw an outdoor club in front of a really old facade where people were dancing to Latin music. This is when salsa and all those ballroom dances looks so much cooler than regular people dancing. We found out the next day that the old facade is THE Diocletian palace which made it that much cooler.

Here's a view of the waterfront in Split the next morning:

The next day was another long travel day. We woke up really early to have some time to walk around Split before lunch, then on to the bus for a 6 hour ride to Dubrovnik for our cruise. At least it was a very scenic ride since the road hugged the coast. The coast is separated from inland by these scraggly rocky mountains which provide a dramatic backdrop to the blue waters.

AND we accidentally went to Bosnia! How does one “accidentally” go to another country? Well, smack in the middle of the Croatian coast is a small town called Neum that belongs to Bosnia so to get to the southern part of Croatia you have to go through Bosnia. Luckily no additional Visa required for Ashok... we were worried for a minute. Neum is the only access Bosnia has to the coast and it has managed to hold on to this spot throughout time... they REALLY wanted to have their own beach. We were told by Stejpan (our travel agent who decided to go on the same cruise as us... wonder how much he's making off of our trip!) that Croatia is building a bridge so they can bypass the border control. They are also building a highway inland so in the future the trip from Split to Dubrovnik would take less than 2 hours (but no view).

It was nice to finally get to the boat but we couldn't rest just yet. They tried to pull a bait and switch on us and was trying to give us a cabin below deck when we clearly specified a cabin above deck (even confirmed it that morning). We stood our ground, and it was good that Stejpan was there to work it out with the Captain. One thing we have learned is not to be too nice when it comes to travel arrangements otherwise it's easy to get taken advantage of.... I mean we were nice about it, just firm about what we want. I'm sure it helped that we had only paid 30% of the fee. In the end it all worked out and the captain even bought us a beer. Glad the 2 days of travel are finally over!

Sorry it's taken a while to update my blog, but in Trebic the wi-fi didn't work, and although the staff let us use their computer we've had to use that time to research places to stay for the next leg of our trip (takes a lot more time when you're on a budget and it's high season here, and the US$ is weak). What I'm doing now is write my blog offline and post them when I get time.

We are now in Budapest, Hungary, a couple of days earlier than anticipated. Originally we were going to stop in Bratislava, Slovakia, for a couple of days, but our experience upon arrival both with the rude manager at the hotel (more like a hostel) and the rude waiter at the train station cafe were so bad that we decided to just get on the next train to Budapest.... and it was one of the best decisions we made. Instead of not sleeping in some nasty room, we're now in a room on a boat on the Danube (THE Danube that I've heard about since I was a kid) with a view of Castle Hill in the distance. Today we walked around Castle Hill where you can get a great view of the Danube an the Pest side of Budapest (one of the first things you learn about Budapest is that it's made up of 2 areas across the river from each other, Buda and Pest. Kind of like the first time visitors to New York learn that the NY they know about is only one of 5 boroughs).

Here's a picture of our Botel (that's what they call them... I didn't make it up):

Here's the view of the Danube from the botel:

And here's a picture of us enjoying the sun from the deck (you can't see the beer but they're there):

This city kind of reminds me of Paris, not because they look alike, but similar in that there are lots of beautiful buildings spread out around the city making it a great place to wonder around. The food is supposed to be very good, and I'm also excited about the thermal baths. We'll be in Hungary for over a week so I will have more on this place. For now, it's time to go to bed.

We left Prague on Friday, 7/11, which was when the adventure really started. Being a fairly international city, Prague was actully pretty easy to get around. Not so once you leave Prague and go into the smaller towns of Czech. Our first stop outside of Prague is Marianske Lazne (aka Marienbad), on the western side of Czech close to the German border. Ashok had read about it somewhere, but it was not listed in my Eastern European Lonely Planet guide so we had no additional information or map of the town (minor detail)... not good when the bus station is not in town but in an area that looked pretty abandoned. Ashok called the hotel to get directions but the woman only spoke German and Russian... Great! Luckily we had a phrase book (a last minute purchase that has come in very handy) so somehow Ashok was able to find out from a local which tram to take. The tram driver was also very helpful and told us when we got to our stop and even pointed out our hotel. People here are more helpful.... even if they are a bit gruff and you're not sure at first if they're telling you off but then you realize they're actually helping you out.

Marianske Lazne was developed as a spa town for the rich in the late 1800's to take advantage of the surrounding cold mineral springs which, apparently, can cure almost everything. The main part of town still looks as grand as it did back then:

including the nicely landscaped park complete with a singing fountain (it's choreographed to classical music):

and an old-style colonnade

I feel like we've been transported back in time, and should be dressed like Jane Austen characters and stroll around with a parasol and my hand on Ashok's arm except, of course, we would be speaking German, not English.

Unfortunately for us, the weather decided not to cooperate and rained for the next 2 days. We made the best of it and went to the 130 years royal bath house (where supposedly many famous people, incuding King Edward VII went). The place was really cool and we did feel like royalty there.

The second day we took a day trip to nearby Plzen to visit the Pilsner Urquell brewery (home of the original Pilsner beer). Finding the brewery was like an Amazing Race moment (I'll spare you the details) but it all ended well and we got there in time to make the last English tour. Of the brewery tours that I've been on (quite a few by now for some reason.. hmmm), this is one of the better ones because you actually see the real brewery not just a visitor center where the process has been recreated like a theme park. The most interesting part was the underground tunnel where they used to store beer, and still use to let the beer ferment. The fresh, unfiltered beer tasted really good too (sorry ran out of battery on my camera by then but trust me it was good).

Many of you have asked so here's our itinerary so far. It's not very planned out, partly because we've not had time, and partly because we are tired of being on a schedule, and want to have the flexibility to change our schedules on a whim. I will be updating it as we go. In the meantime, if you know of any good places in any of these regions please let us know.

Oh, and of course if you can meet up with us along the way let us know as well!

To avoid mass emails, I won't be sending out an email each time I update this blog. If you want to be notified each time I post a new entry, I think allyou click on the "subscribe" link on the page and enter your email address.

Part I:

7/8 – 7/11 Prague
7/12-7/14 Marianske Lazne with day trip to Plzen
7/15-7/16 Trebic (day trip to Telc)

(dates are approximate)
7/17-7/26 Budapest & day trip somewhere
7/26-8/5 Croatia (Split, Hvar Island, Dubrovnik)
8/5-8/9 Montenegro (Kotor, Budva)
8/10-8/14 Tallin, Estonia (and maybe sidetrips)
8/14-8/17 Riga, Latvia
8/17-8/20 Villnius, Lithuania
8/21-8/29 Poland (Warsaw, Krakow, Auschwitz)
8/30-9/2 Extra days.. will either add days to places or go somewhere new
9/3 Back to Prague
9/4 Fly out Prague back to NY for 3 wks

Part II of the trip
9/23: NYC to S. Korea with 1 overnight stay (just enough to see DMZ)
9/25: Mongolia for about a week

October: China

Nov/mid-Dec: Southeast Asia
- Thailand
- Vietnam
- Laos
- Philippines
- Indonesia

Dec/mid-Feb: India

2/13: Egypt, Jordan, Turkey (Istanbul)
3/8: Morrocco, Tunisa
3/22: South America (Brazil, Argentina, Chile)
4/23: Curacao, Netherlands Antilles
5/2: back to NYC and the end of the world tour