Day 154: Adrenaline pumping at Almaty Airport!! - Almaty, Kazakhstan

(Him: Charlie)

As much as we want to cross the border by land, the “sacred” National Day holiday in China just would let us. Who closes their land border for 7 days on a holiday? Oh well, so we had to fly if we want to make it to Cheng Du by Oct 7. Ka-ching!!!

Normally, I wouldn’t write about the mundane border crossing, especially the boring custom passing at airport, but this one is different. It’s a crazy one – it’s one that almost got our hearts stopped and it’s one that got our hair raised… it’s one that got me even more broke! Fuck!!

Apparently, according to the Kazakh law, a tourist has to register at the local immigration police if he/she intends to stay within the country for more than 5 days! (Yea, who does that on top of a stupid visa??) So the ignorant Charlie and Joanna, who haven’t seen anything like that before, didn’t realize the seriousness of this requirement, and continued on with the visits in the country.

On day 7, when we came face to face with the passport control at Almaty Airport, disaster landed upon us!!! At first, the officer said we couldn’t board our flight because we had to go to the city the next day to register. This almost gave me a heart attack – the images of us running around switching flights and re-organizing everything came to mind. At this point, we would be happy to just pay the fine and leave the country. And then, the officer told us the bank is close now (9pm), and we would still have to pay the day after. Shit! The same images of “chicken-running-around-with-heads-cut-off” came to mind again… “shit, shit, shit” we thought, but “please, please, please!” we begged!

AND THEN, after some panicking on our end and a couple of phone calls on the other end, the officer offered a solution – a officer’s “friend” could pay the fine for us tomorrow for a “fee” of 4000 Tenge (about $30US). With the fine at a hefty $120US, it means we have to cough up $300US to get out of the country.

At this point, what choice do we have? Being able to catch our flight is definitely more important than the $300US! So we agreed, and we couldn’t care less if the process is even legitimate – we were told that we had to “pay” the fine discreetly by passing over the money folded in our passport! So we moved on with the security, and handed over our money filled passport as instructed, and halleluiah, safely boarded our flight. Voila and Ka-Ching!

We can’t be sure whether the officers took the fine as pocket money or, maybe he was really doing us a favour and the money really went to the government as a fine. Either way, there goes our $300US, and there goes our expensive lesson learned from this bureaucratic country! What a night!!

(Renown Turkistan Mausoleum, Turkistan, Kazakhstan)

Day 154: China, here we come!

(Her: Joanna)

Time flies.  We have been on the road for 5 months and finally heading to China, which sounds really far away 5 months ago.  The last 5 years of my life, I have been wanting to visit Tibet.  And I'm closer to closer to it.  

The last 3 weeks of travel had been rough but adventurous and exciting at the same time.  I am happy that I have the opportunity to visit this part of the world which is so mysterious.  

I also feel very privileged as a Chinese Canadian as being a Canadian (and sometimes Chinese) can make your life a whole lot easier traveling to some of the countries we have been.  Whether you get to visit and travel to a certain place besides "I want to" have a lot to do with luck.  Being a Chinese/Hong Kong Canadian definitely grant me a lot of privileges.  

Tonight we will be in China.  Temporary good-bye to everyone as we cannot access our blog and Facebook in China.  We will update as soon as we arrive HK in 3 weeks or so.  

Wish we luck that everything will be smooth sailing in China.

Hasta Luego, Amigos!

Day 137: Four months on the road and counting - Almaty Airport, Kazakhstan

(Him: Charlie)

This entry has been on my list to do since we hit the two-month mark. So here’s my chance, as I slowly kill off the 12-hour transit time before we move on to our destination of Bishkek.

So four months on the road and counting… We feel good to say the least. We have fully accustomed to moving everyday, every other day, or a maximum of a few days - packing and unpacking has been part of our daily life. For these few months, we are full-time backpackers, and that involves experiencing our time on the road and learning from everything we see.

Planning

Being backpackers, we have come to realize that the number one requirement is being flexible. Since we make decisions on the go, we have to be flexible to live with all the unexpected, whether it’s good or bad. By now, we are convinced that we cannot make long term planning (only with a general route), because all plans are bound to change. We could be restricted by transportation conditions, or we could also simply change our mind about the itinerary – either way, the only thing that doesn’t change is change itself. A good example of this would be the itinerary in the Balkans. At the beginning, we drew a temporary route for the Balkan countries on our guide book, but at the end, not even a bit of the route was followed. We changed our mind so frequently because we are constantly taking advice from fellow backpackers, and depending on how we feel about places, we may extend, cut short, or even cancel our stay of a destination.

Food

Food is one of the best parts about traveling. During our time on the road, we tried new specialties in every country, but we also cook as much as we can to save on cost.

 Lucky for me, Joanna is an excellent cook, who always magically produces fantastic meals using local ingredients. Sometimes our food smelled so good in the hostel that I felt guilty for having such good meals.

Picture showing Joanna replenishing her spice supply in Wroclaw, Pland.

We love markets for its bustling character and we visit markets whenever there is one. I sometimes consider the markets as museums that reflect the current life of a place.

Market in Pula, Crotia

A lot of times, we picked hostels with kitchen facilities, but when it’s not available, besides eating out, we also came up with creative ways to overcome the problems.

 

Dinner prepared using only a microwave (Dansk, Polan) vs. dinner prepared using proper gears (Tirana, Albania)

Accommodations

Since we have a budget of around $60/p/d, we stay in hostels most of the time. Depending on the countries, a dorm bed would cost us about $10-$15/person. Besides the economical reason, there are other advantages for staying at a hostel. For example, hostels are usually very resourceful and are happy to provide up-to-date information that helps our planning. Also, at hostels, we can meet a lot of like-minded backpackers, who we can hang out with and chat. We even became good friends with some of them.

Sometimes, especially when we travelled to less touristy places, hostels may not be an option. In that case, we would have to stay with pensions, or even hotels. Although more expensive, an occasional upgrade can feel wonderful and pampered, especially after many nights in crowded dorms or tiring overnight buses.

Luxury (a pension in Stary Smokovec, High Tetras, Slavakia) vs. Budget (Poprad, Slavakia)

Transportation

Transportation could add up to a big chunk of our budget, so we cheap out as much as we can by walking in cities. Sometimes we really feel like a full-time traveler, especially after walking for 8-9 long hours. Normally, we would pick hostels that are close to city centres, so that we can simply explore the cities on foot.

For inter-city travel, we usually take buses or trains, depending on the country. In a few occasions, we had to fly, but it would be the last resort. For example, we had to fly from Istanbul to Amman because we couldn’t go through Syria, and we had to fly from Tbilisi to Bishkek because we didn’t want to deal with the visa issues associated with some of the central Asia countries, and we didn’t have time to visit anyway.

Overall experience

This Europe-Asia trip is my second major backpacking trip, so naturally we sometimes compare the two trips. In the first couple of months, Jo and I both agreed that our previous trip, to South America, was more fun because there were more drastic sceneries and traveling was less expensive. However, after traveling through the two distinct regions, Eastern Europe and Middle East, I came to realize that this trip actually offers an almost completely different experience – an immense cultural and historical experience. Even just from these two regions alone, I’ve learned a tremendous amount of history. Just to name of a few, I went through the recent history of the Eastern Bloc countries, and I finally gained the understanding of conflicts in Bosnia, in Kosovo, and also the ongoing problems in the Middle East. Next up, I am going to uncover the mysterious Central Asia with my own eyes. Honestly, I am a little nervous, but also very excited!

 Batumi, Georgia