transit therapy #5

going peripheral

I want you to do something for me: go grab a map of the world and find Kazakhstan. It's the big country underneath the central part of Russia, shaped a bit like a fish with its head nuzzling the northern tip of the Himalayas and its tail splashing in the Caspian Sea.

Now, trace a few routes away from KZ to other parts of the world, and tell me what you notice. Yes, exactly: it's right in the frikkin' middle! Starting from inside the fish, you can strike out into China, eastern Asia, Russia, the Indian sub-continent, eastern Europe, the Middle East and northern Africa, and in each case your path radiates away from a central point on the map.

Being at the centre is interesting; you sense occasional echoes of the times when the Silk Road ran through here, bringing exotic influences from all corners. However, if you've ever been in an earthquake, on a large passenger aircraft or in a protracted family dispute, you know that sometimes the centre is exactly where you don't want to be. Sometimes what you really need is to be as close as possible to the Absolute Periphery – out of sight, out of everyone else's way and, if possible, near an exit.

That was the feeling that gripped me five or six weeks ago, when I found myself evacuating Budapest to explore the forests, lakes, caves, alpine villages etc. etc. of Slovenia. However, before going entirely peripheral, I wanted to acquaint myself with its modest little capital, the 'Beloved City' of Ljubljana.

 
1: CAPITAL "L"

At first glance, there isn't an awful lot about Ljubljana that couldn't be found in dozens of other small cities around Europe. Which, to be honest, suits me fine. I love the small Euro-city vibe; you get the cute architecture, the café culture, the cobble stones, relaxed ambience and so forth, but without the "We are the boiler room of civilisation – come to us on your buses, tiny tourists, and witness our inestimable historical importance" attitude that infects the bigger cities on da Continent.

Ljubljana doesn't advertise itself too much; it just gets on with its usual low-key thing – attractive, green, studenty and (therefore) quite Bohemian. The Boho aspect of the city was a real breath of fresh air for me, since I haven't found anything in Almaty that resembles an 'alternative scene' yet. You do spot a few piercings and the occasional metalhead, but that's about it.

By contrast, Ljubljana is awash with purple and green hair dye, baggy pirate shirts, Doc Martins, dreadlocks, body art, long-haired men, short-haired women, those funny hats that look like tea cosies, teens in goth/metal make-up and a variety of off-beat fashions.

It was so nice to be back among the freaks!

The Boho folk even have their own street: a zig-zagging lane near the Ljubljanitsa River called Trubarjeva Cesta, where you can visit head shops, jazz shops, funky little cafés and even ... wait for it ... a falafel restaurant! I was lucky enough to stumble onto Trubarjeva on my first night in Ljubljana, and believe me, my taste buds have rarely been more grateful. You can't get falafel anywhere in my adopted home town :-(

(Brief aside: a few months ago I was in the food court of Almaty's Mega shopping mall – or 'The Glittering Turd', as I like to call it – and I noticed a shop actually called 'Falafel'. Eyes lighting up, I went up to the counter and ordered their namesake dish, but was met with blank stares all 'round. The staff didn't seem to understand that what I was asking for was in fact a real food that exists on Earth. And yet there they all were, standing directly berneath a gleaming sign that said "Falafel" in cyrillic letters, suitably stylised to look Arabic. Appalling.)

Anyway, I hung out for a couple of days in The Beloved City, doing a bit of the tourist thing and just absorbing the general vibe. The centre of town, which follows the curve of the river, is virtually deserted at night but comes to life during the day, as outdoor café tables and market stalls sprout

everywhere beside the calm green waters of the Ljubjanitsa. It's definitely one of those "Mmmm, Europey ..." type places. And the whole thing proceeds under the quiet auspices of the Julian Alps, which sprawl across the far horizon inviting you to join them when you're done exploring the capital.

Of course, what you often don't get in these smaller cities is anything resembling decent nightlife. Ljubljana's limitations in this regard are compensated for by a surprisingly healthy 'underground'. On my second night in the capital there was a triple-billed Black Metal gig in town, with international bands. On the same night I was taken by some locals to a newly-opened warehouse club called Planet Rogue (definite goth/industrial hangout) and then on to the Metelkova artists' squat, which is notorious enough that I'd already read about it before coming to Slovenia.

Local authorities have been trying to close down this freaks' haunt for years, but somehow it keeps rolling on. The night (and morning) when I was there was seemingly typical; in the main rooms, DJs played hardcore electronica for a crowd of hippies, goths, ravers and assorted folk, while darkened outer hallways hosted small gatherings of Ljubljana's alternative crowd – talking, canoodling and, I suspect, imbibing things they could be arrested for. Surrounded by a vacant lot where people stepped over trenches and sat on uprooted cement blocks to chat and smoke, the whole place felt a little structurally unsound ... which seemed somehow appropriate.  

I spent several hours at Metelkova observing the intriguingly diverse crowd. At the bar I was served Red Bull by a Jamaican-looking woman with an enormous profusion of curls, who later came and chatted with the New Romantic girlie standing next to me in a long grey riding coat and white high-collared shirt, looking like she'd fallen out of an Ultravox film clip. Then their friends turned up in tie-dyed smocks and ripped cardies, and they transferred themselves onto the dancefloor.

Meanwhile, my new best friend – a guy whose house I'd been taken to earlier to chill out between venues and listen to him talk about the imminent collapse of the global monetary system – bounced joyfully up and down while telling me why the world is going to end on December 21st, 2012.

To illustrate his sincerity (and because I was the only Australian-born resident of Kazakhstan he'd ever met, and hence a bit of a novelty), he gave me a little keepsake. It was a tiny brass boot of the kind you often see on charm bracelets. He told me I mustn't ever lose it, or the consequences would be dire for both of us. So far I haven't.

2: SWEET DREAMS, MR. FOX ...

The first semester of uni began a few weeks back, so among other things I've resumed my German studies. A few days ago I was looking at some German idioms online, and found this one: "Dort, wo sich die Füchse gute Nacht sagen" ("Out there, where the foxes say good night to each other"). In English we'd simply say "in the middle of nowhere", which I think is a pretty cool phrase – but the German one is far more poetic, don't you think?

The first time I ventured outside Ljubljana, to say that I went to where the foxes say good night would be a slight exaggeration – but only slight. My first destination was Lake Bled, which is actually quite famous in its way. Anyone who's familiar with Slovenia knows about Bled, and it's even been called "the most beautiful spot in Europe" by one or two enthusiastic travel writers and bloggers. Still, as I got off the coach and dragged my Big Red Bag up the hill to the hostel, it definitely felt like I'd taken another sizeable step away from the hustle and bustle and towards the Absolute Periphery of things.

It helped that the road to the hostel was lined with sleepy-looking cottages, their yards strewn with stuff you could probably use on a farm, each one containing a tied-up watchdog assiduously guarding its owner's chickens. (Live fowl always seem to add that sense of "Ooh, we're really in the sticks now!", don't they?)

It was actually a postcard image of Lake Bled, on the edge of the Julian Alps in far north-western Slovenia, that first piqued my interest in this country. I remember looking at it, thinking "Whoa, where the Hell is that?", reading the caption on the back and immediately deciding that I would, at all costs, go there. Then I researched a bit and realised that Bled was just the tip of the glacier. Before long, my LP guide to Central Europe was dog-eared on almost every page of the Slovenia section. And yet, whenever I think of Slovenia, Lake Bled is the first image that pops into my brain.

So now that I was finally here, I had to get to the lake as soon as possible. I checked in to my top-floor room in the Alpine lodge that served as a hostel, spent a couple of minutes admiring the exposed beams and the mountain view from my window, and then set off.

The lake isn't huge by any means, and I was told that a walking circuit would take about an hour if I didn't stop. But this turned to be an entirely useless piece of information, because when you walk around Lake Bled, you do stop. It's one of those places where you're compelled to find a seat or a grassy spot and take it all in for a bit, then walk some more, sit some more and so on.

In the centre of the lake is a tiny island with several elegant old church buildings on it, and on one shore a bare cliff-face towers for several hundred metres, topped by a medieval fortress. Behind that ... alps a-plenty. At every point around the lake, these three features change their orientation to one another, and at dusk the whole scene is reflected in what I'm tempted to call the mirror-black waters. It's utterly breathtaking. I found it necessary to mentally pinch myself a few times as I strolled along in quiet awe, a little less than certain that I was actually here after all this time.

The only drawback of Lake Bled is that it's undeniably a place custom-designed for short holidays of the 'romantic getaway' kind. As I ambled around its shorelines (both in the cooling twilight and again the following morning, to see it in the daytime) most of the other humans I came across were hand-fast couples, gazing dreamily at each other and/or the scenery, and looking thoroughly invincible in their happiness. And I have to admit that, being the bitter old loner that I am, I did send a few uncharitable thoughts their way.

(Bastards!)

Meanwhile, although the village itself is quite a pretty place, it isn't what you'd call action-packed. So after fulfilling my little 'see the lake that makes other lakes envious' ambition, I headed further into the Alpine hinterland – another step closer to where I might get lucky and hear some of the local vulpine* population exchanging their night-time pleasantries.

Working out how to get onesself around rural Slovenia turned out to be quite a challenge (though less problematic than trying to do the same in former Soviet countries), and I ended up spending a good deal less time taking in mountaintop panoramas than I'd hoped for. That was ok, though, because the route from Bled to the Julian peaks took me through some wonderfully wild terrain.

Out here in the Slovenian never-never, I knew I was entirely 'lost to the world'. A brief stop in a village called Bohinjska Bela really brought it all home. As I stood there admiring the modest cottages and outhouses, nestled at the bottom of rugged cliffs with Alps towering in the distance, I just knew that I was standing in a spot where no-one I know had ever stood before, and where it would take a mammoth effort to find me if I decided not to be found.

This was what I'd fled Almaty for: at last I'd managed to disappear, completely off the the radar and a world away from what I usually (albeit loosely) refer to as "my life". It was, at last, Transit Therapy in its pure, undiluted form. About time!


3: ROCK AIN'T DEAD

After the Julian Alps, the next imaginary bullet point on my itinerary was the township of Postojna. Near the town, I'd been told, were two quite unique attractions. The first was a limestone cave you could enter by train. (Slovenia's karst caves – the largest and most lavishly decorated in Europe – were among the things that had drawn me to this country.) The second was Predjamski Grad, a castle built into a sheer cliff-face, and apparently quite a sight to see.

Here's the thing, though, about the preposition "near": it really isn't the most precise word ever coined. Example: I live "near" a supermarket (meaning that it's five minutes' walk from my house). At the same time, about a week ago I met a guy from Urumqi in far-western China, which (as you'll see if you refer back to your world map) could reasonably be described as being "near" Almaty. But no way would I want to actually walk there.

Such was the case in Postojna. The caves were more or less walking distance, but the castle (located just beyond the village of Predjama) definitely wasn't. And the local tourist office's advice? "If you have a few hours you could hike there; otherwise, maybe you can hitch."

"So there's no public transport?"

"No."

"To one of your country's most well-known landmarks?"

"No."
"Ok then, I'll try to flag down a car".

At this point I'd like to pause and thank the people of Almaty for helping me lose my ridiculous fear of hitch-hiking, deeply ingrained in my psyche while I was growing up in Paranoid Delusional Land (a.k.a. Australia). Since I took up residence in The Big K, I've travelled in more cars owned by other people than I had during the rest of my life up to that point. And yet, not once has my driver strangled me, tied me inside a garbage bag sealed with packing tape, thrown me into the boot and dumped my body in a National Park. Not even a little bit.

I mean, of course you have to be careful and selective, and I am – not to mention ideologically picky. (I never accept a ride from anyone in an SUV; the fuckers aren't getting a single Tenge from me to help run their planet-choking deathtraps!) But if anyone tries to tell you that hitching is unsafe, my advice is to inform them that there are plenty of countries where it's a standard means of transport, and the murder rates in those countries are unaffected by this fact.

You could then suggest the following: maybe the problem is that the people in their country are either a bunch of serial-killing psychos, or (far more likely) just socially conditioned to fill their minds with imaginary sources of fear and suspicion.

Or maybe not. Depends how adversarial you're feeling that day :-)

  

Anyway, I hitched about 3/4 of the way to the castle and walked the rest, which was a fair step through the obscure Slovenian back-blocks. Once again I had that great 'disappearing' feeling, but this time it was accompanied by slight nerves for some reason. I think it was a combination of the unsettled weather, the barking dogs, and the nearby eagles who were screeching "Don't you even think about coming any closer to our nest, Sonny Boy!". Not sure.

Predjama village was set in wild, steeply undulating territory, and so eerily quiet as to seem almost deserted. The vibe faintly resembled ten-year-old news reports about Bosnia or Kosovo, but you could also feel echoes of far longer time-spans. Some of the cottages looked truly ancient. I felt quite privileged to be here, in a way, but at the same time I really wanted to hurry on.

And then, rounding a corner, I got my first glimpse of one of the most striking castles I've ever seen.

Cut-and-pasted into a cave mouth half-way up a vertical wall of rock, with an icy natural stream

gushing out from directly beneath it,

the Predjamski Grad almost looked as though it might have grown from an errant spore.

I imagined the tiny seed drifting away from its mother castle, floating blindly towards the cliff, being snagged on the rock face, taking root like an epiphyte* and slowly growing into an adult-sized fortress. It

seemed to me quite a convincing theory as to how such an impressive structure could've found its way to such an unlikely spot.

Inside the castle, I was asked for some money and handed a little guide booklet, the whole transaction proceeding in a very detached, post-Soviet manner. At first glance it didn't look like much: a couple of sandstone rooms with workmen milling about, doing restoration work of one sort or another. But as I ventured further into the innards of the building, I was increasingly blown away.

The folk who built this place had been remarkably clever: rooms were simple, but ingenious in the way they used existing rock formations as part of their architectural framework. At times you couldn't easily tell where Nature gave way to construction, or even at what point 'inside' became 'outside'. 

After marvelling at this for a while and ingesting every word of the booklet I'd been given, I realised that I'd have to take off soon if I wanted to make it back to the caves in time for the one-and-only afternoon tour. So again, I trekked through Predjama village, hoping to hitch a ride somewhere along the way. Then, without warning ... a bus!

Evidently the tourist office actually had no clue at all about the real transport situation, 'cause there it was, undeniably heading back in the direction I wanted to go, and averting my rather urgent need to find a lift on a deserted back-road with almost no cars on it.

(I took this up with Tourist Info when I got back to town, and they just said "Yes, but that's a school bus". Okay, whatever.)

At this point I'd already seen one remarkable sight that day, and I wouldn't have been overly concerned if the Postojnska Jama (caves of Postojna) had been on the average side of average. An hour later, though, I was taking a five-minute subterranean train journey through chamber after chamber filled with some of the most intricately decorated limestone I'd ever seen, thinking "Wait a second, stop the train! Surely you're going past all the good bits!"

I was wrong. We were going to the good bits.

The Postojnska Jama were huge and ornate and just beyond belief. As the train ground to a halt, I found myself in a cavern that resembled the Grand Hall of a large railway station - except that it was completely natural (apart from the tracks of course). The roof was absolutely teeming with stalactites, the walls decorated with translucent shawls. This in turn led to an even larger chamber – not quite as decorative but still extremely impressive – where you could see signs pointing you to a tour guide who spoke your language.

Most of you know how much I love limestone caves, so I think you'll believe me when I say that, as I wandered toward the "English" sign, my mouth was hanging open, my legs were shaking slightly and I was swearing under my breath. This place was un-frikkin'-believable, and I was completely in awe. It was larger, grander and more beautiful than any cave I'd previously visited, or even imagined visiting.

So we toured the Postojnska Jama, I took loads of photos (knowing that only a small % would turn out), went "Wow!" a lot, and got into quite an interesting discussion with the tour guide about earthquakes.

(I seem to have developed a talent for choosing earthquake-prone locations lately – as partly evidenced by the fact that I live in one.)

Then finally, after passing my seventeen-millionth stalactite for the day, we saw the other thing I'd trekked here for: the Proteus Anguinus or 'human fish'.

These odd little guys were also on my extensive 'things that must be seen whilst in Slovenia' list. More salamanders than fish really, their folk name comes from the fact that they have a remarkable feature on the ends of their forelegs: tiny hands that look eerily human.

The weirdness doesn't end there, though. Because they live in complete darkness, Proteus are blind and their eyes are regressed, yet for some reason they've evolved photosensitivity – not just in their eyes but in their skin as well. Bring them out into the sun, and they tan. Not sure why, but the idea of a salamander getting a suntan just tickles me.

The Proteus' other senses, meanwhile, are amazingly well-developed. They have a Jacobson's Organ (the contraption in snakes' heads that allows them to 'taste' the air), and they get a really detailed world picture by detecting stuff we can't – chemical variations in organic compounds, vibrations beneath the Earth's surface and so on. Also, they're the only known animal whose gills never regress as they grow up, meaning that you can basically see their lungs hanging off their bodies like little fins. And lastly – as pointed out by my lovely Kazakh colleague Assel while I was showing her my holiday snaps – when Proteus nuzzle up together, they make a cute little heart shape :-)

Given their multi-faceted strangeness, it probably won't surprise you hugely to learn that Proteus have no cousins. They're in a genera all of their own. And they only live in the Mediterranean Karst caves – i.e. Slovenia, a little bit of Croatia and the area around Trieste in Italy (though you can see an artist's impression of them on a public fountain in Venice). In other words, they're freaks. But as I mentioned before, being in the company of freaks is something I tend to treasure, especially when I haven't seen any for a while.

The speleobiologists at Postojna catch a couple of these guys every month, throw them into a marble tank and let visitors wander past each day and gawk at them. Then, at the end of their month-long shift, the little Proteus are returned to the comforting darkness of their underground river and two more are caught. Were it not for this project, there'd be pretty much no chance of humans ever laying eyes on one. So meeting two of them was ... well, it was just very cool.


4: A MULTIPLICITY OF DENOUEMENTS

The last part of my Slovenia Plan entailed a brief visit to the city of Maribor, which is a reputedly elegant red-roofed marvel. Unfortunately, said plan was trampled on by the weirdness of train schedules. I thought I had an extra day-and-a-half up my sleeve, but when I returned to Ljubljana and looked at the timetables, I had the following unpleasant realisation: "Oh no, I have to leave tonight!". Not the most climactic end to my holiday, but I wasn't too bothered. The last week had been more or less a dream come true, and I certainly had no reason to complain.

And so it was back to Budapest briefly to meet up with Scott, then another flight through Moscow (and another surreal Sheremetyevo ordeal), before landing in KZ on a frosty February morning to resume my everyday existence.

Within ten minutes of returning we found ourselves caught up in the 'Almaty experience' once again.

It began when a taxi driver tried to scam us out of 6,000 Tenge (US$50) and we had to exit his cab on a highway, amid much heated discussion (mostly between the driver and Scott – I was feeling strangely philosophical about it all). Then another guy picked us up, shoved our bags into his 98% unroadworthy van and thoroughly charmed us on the way home with his amiable chatter, all for a bargain basement price. It was both sides of the KZ coin encapsulated in a one-hour journey, and a more fitting 'welcome back' could scarcely have been arranged.

So ... was it good to be 'home'? Actually I wasn't entirely sure, but there were certainly moments when it felt that way. Looking out the window of the friendly guy's van and seeing the snowy peaks of the Zailiysky Alatau towering over the city's outskirts provided a few tingles, and there were definitely people I was looking forward to seeing after my time away.

In any case, I did feel strongly that the therapy had worked. I had a perspective on things that I'd been lacking before, and it seemed to be helping.

And then four weeks passed. I got back into the routine of things, was re-acquainted with the office politics and the bad food, the school was raided by police (again), I got into my studies ... basically life resumed.

There have been times when looking back on the whole Transit Therapy adventure has appeared to offer some real insight, and other times when it's seemed like just another convoluted circuit to get me back to exactly where I was before. Either way, though, it did allow me to cross one more travel ambition off my ridiculously long list ... and that can't be a bad thing :-)

To conclude: as I said in the email, I hope you've enjoyed my little 'mini-series' of rants. It seems to have borne some strange fruit. For example, a close friend from Sydney has written a song about my moment of crazed exhiliration in the Lada. (Thanks Benji - very gratifying!)

Meanwhile, another good friend has tried out that particular form of therapy (i.e. the former Soviet republic urban death-ride) for himself in Uzbekistan, with reportedly good results. So ... if you haven't done so yet, be sure to put it on your list of things to do before you die. I promise I'll be there with you in spirit ;-)

Bye!


(*Sorry for the $10 words, btw. I'm not showing off, honest! I just love the word "vulpine", and it isn't one that you get to use every day. Same with "epiphyte" – which, btw, is the generic name for any plant that grows above ground, attaching itself to a host as a parasite would, but deriving its sustenance non-parasitically from moisture &/or nutrients in the surrounding atmosphere. There: aren't you glad you know that? Who needs 'Word of The Week' websites when you've got me, eh?)

transit therapy #4

Bored-a-pescht (a.k.a. Towards The Beloved)
   
Relative to my normal routine I've had quite a lot of 'thinking time' lately, so these last few entries have been more ruminatious (a word I just made up) than usual. I hope you're enjoying them, and sincerely apologise if you're not. Promise I'll get back to the usual "Hey, look at the cool stuff!" format soon, combined with the usual dysfunctional travel stories that bring so much Schadenfreude to so many.

(Well, to a few anyway.)

Meanwhile, bear with me while I continue ruminating just a little longer.

Let me start with something I've said before in The Manor, but which bears repeating here for context's sake: in September 2007, when I first arrived in Almaty, I really wasn't sure that I'd made a wise choice. There were quite a few moments when I honestly wondered whether I should just admit my mistake and get on a plane outta there, without further delay.

The thing is, though, I've gradually learned that when you move to a new place you're always going to have these doubts during the early days. Auckland was a case in point: if you'd asked me how I felt about it, say, a week after my arrival, the answer would've been something like "Let's hope it gets a whole lot better, 'cause right now I'm having a truly shit time." And as you probably know, I grew very fond of Auckland, to the point where leaving it was bitterly disappointing. And being the romantic optimist that I am – or at least, that I've recently been told I am – I still dream of returning one day.

The point, however, is this: when you arrive in a new place with the intention of settling there, you've got not only time but also money on your side. Ties with your previous employer have been cut, so your only immediate means of earning a living is to perservere in your newly-adopted home. And with the prospect of money coming in, you just try to ride out the stresses of the first few weeks, then see how you feel about the new environs once you've had a chance to meet a few people and discover a few cool things.

That's what happened to me both in Auckland and in Almaty, and I'm sure it'll happen again if I decide to move in July when my contract runs out.

When you're travelling, though, the situation is a bit different. If you're on a tight budget (which I always seem to be), you don't have time to invest in places that initially come across as ugly or bland or unfriendly, or where the 'vibe' isn't right for you. Therefore, if you find yourself in a place like that, sometimes you have to make a snap decision: do I stay and  hope that my first impressions were a bunch of big fat liars, or do I move on to somewhere else that stands a better chance of engaging me?

I realise that none of this is particularly shocking information. The surprising thing for me, though, is that I now have to add Budapest to the list of places that failed the test.

I really was expecting to be impressed by this city. Why? Well, apart from anything else, every person I've ever met who's been there has loved it. I know they loved it, because they've told me at some length about how total phantastisch it is, and assured me that I was certain to fall for its charms. And I believed them.

I'm a little shocked, therefore, to be sitting here now in a rickety train carriage about two-and-half hours outside the Hungarian capital, and heading away from it as rapidly as I can.

I should probably be feeling disappointed about this whole not-warming-to-the-Budally-Peschtian-vibe issue, but actually I'm not so bothered. There are several reasons for this.

For one thing, I think there's a certain poetry in my present situation. I mean, here I am on St. Valentine's Day, heading towards a city whose name translates roughly into English as 'Beloved'. That's pretty poetic, right? Okay, so the fact that I'm going there alone takes away from the romance a bit – but hey, I never said it was a perfect world (or if I did, I was probably pointing at a computer running Windows at the time, so you should've known I was being sarcastic).

The other reason for my lack of disappointment is that I've actually been planning to visit The Beloved City – known in its native language as 'Ljubljana' – for about six or seven years now. Ditto the country which surrounds it. Many of you have no doubt heard my rants on this subject: I'd say things like "It's my #1 must-see country!" or "I make plans to go there every frikkin' year, and somehow it never works out".

Well, here's the good news: give me another six hours or so, and you'll never have to endure those rants again.

With Budapest inspiring me about as much as a pork milkshake, and my #1 must-see country looming just over the border, whispering "Hey Anthony, here I am – you can come and get me if you want me!", it was all too much of a temptation. After a restless night in the hostel, tossing and turning and wondering if I should give it more time, I woke up this morning and said to Scott "Listen, I've made my decision. If there's a train to Ljubljana today, I'm on it."

I asked Scott if he wanted to join me, and he said "Maybe, I'll think about it". He thought, and he thought, and he thought ... and eventually the time rolled around when I had to get in the taxi and go. Consequently, he's still thinking and I'm now travelling solo – which to be truthful is how I usually like it.

So then ... here I am, alone on St. Val's, on a train and on a Mission. I'm tired, I'm stressed (because it's a nine-hour journey and there's no smoking carriage), and due to a problem exchanging Kazakh Tenge for, say, any other goddam currency on Earth, I'm really not sure my money will last.

The truth is, none of that matters when you've got the travel bug in your system. I could scarcely be more excited if I was going to the Moon.

I'll let you know how things pan out in my #1 must-see country (a.k.a. Slovenia) when this winding little tale is yet again

(to be) continued

transit therapy #3

time-trapped in the twilight lounge

So, when we left the narrative (if you could call it that), Mr Scott and I were looking for a way out of the post-New Year doldrums. Some decisions were made, which led me to my present situation.

Being in quite a different headspace now, it's a little difficult to reconstruct the exact motives and thought-processes involved ... but in any case, both of us realised (consciously or otherwise) that some Transit Therapy was needed. No doubt that's at least part of the reason why I'm not writing to you from my usual rickety desk in Almaty tonight. Instead, as I type this, I'm sitting in Sheremetyevo Terminal C, looking out over the tarmac in the last place I thought I'd be any time soon – namely, my old home town of Moscow.

Weird old thing, life ... don't you think?

With eleven hours to fill in here at the inescapably dire Sheremetyevo airport, I must say I could do with a good flashback. How about you?

*cups hand over ear*
*hears nothing*

Ok then, I guess it's up to me. In which case ... let's flash!

Despite the aforementioned haziness, I do remember a few weeks back thinking "I need to get out of Almaty for a while". And then, almost before I knew it, the two of us were sitting in the back of a taxi with a disturbingly cross-eyed Kazakh man, rocketing along the highway towards the airport (and using both sides of it – I mean, why waste a whole 50% of the road?).

A couple of hours later I was in an airport shuttle, heading out from Gate One towards my plane and thinking more or less the following thoughts:

"So here I am, about to take my first trip with an airline that 98% of the people I've met during my life have never heard of, flying towards a city which I was glad to escape from with all my limbs, for a holiday I can't really afford in a country I know absolutely nothing about, and I can't actually remember deciding to do this."

And then, the follow-up thought:
"Sometimes it really is good to be me."*

Obviously the Transit Therapy was beginning to work.

Flashing even further back now: when Scott and I left our flat in Almaty we didn't actually have tickets to Budapest (our eventual destination this week). We'd bought them online and were supposed to pick them up at an Aeroflot office in the city of origin, but – surprise! – the Aeroflot office proved impossible to find. Later we discovered that, despite there being several addresses for said office on various websites, it doesn't in fact exist.

At Almaty airport, we therefore faced an unenviable situation: we were about to enter Russia with no visas and no proof of our intention to leave again. This is not the kind of thing that generally endears you to Russian authorities.

We pleaded for someone to call ahead and arrage to meet us at Sheremetyevo with our tickets, and after some time the check-in staff relented and helped us. So, as our Air Astana** flight landed in Moscow five hours later, there was an announcement on-board: "Will Mr. Cook and Mr. Benson please meet with our crew?" It was the first time I'd ever been named on a public address system inside an aircraft, and it was odd.

We were met on the tarmac by an extremely polite airline guy, given our tickets and then whisked in a private bus to our transit lounge. I'd imagined said lounge would be a gleaming, soulless shrine to the wonders of duty free shopping (with maybe an Irish pub thrown in), but instead we were taken to where we are now: a vastly improbable office-cum-lounge room type thingie with a tiled floor and a view of the tarmac.

If you can imagine the common room of a large youth hostel crossed with a slightly deco-flavoured pub bathroom – and if you can imagine sharing this space with uniformed airport officials (one of whom just bummed a cigarette from Scott) – then you're on the right track. Throw in a bit of hospital reception, and you're getting closer. Finally, add to this picture the delightful tendency of female airport officials in the Russian-speaking world to improvise on their uniforms, adding stiletto heels, split skirts, fishnets and other vampish touches to the ensemble. Ok; now you're nearly there.

So anyway, I'm lying on a soft and comfy sofa in this little corner of the Twilight Zone, looking across at the one and only shop. It's called 'Moscow Duty Free', and it's closed. Not just closed, in fact, but empty. The smoothly-curved shelves are completely unstocked, there's no cash register, no light fittings in the ceiling, and a bar across the door. Next to another of the comfy lounges sits an airline meal tray, looking profoundly out of place at zero feet above sea-level, with plastic wrap across the top and a few stray mouthfuls of cabbage salad remaining in one of its plastic containers.

Behind me there's an empty cardboard box which initially contained our 'supplies' for the next 11 hours. It was full of fruit juice, bottled water, vodka and fizzy drinks, all bequeathed to Scott and myself by a group of Lithuanian businessmen who departed the lounge soon after we arrived. Unfortunately one of the Russian guards decided he liked the look of these items, so he basically walked up and took everything we had, shooting us a cocky look that said "Let's see you try and stop me, visa-less foreigners!". Meanwhile, in front of me a wide-screen TV is showing a Naked Gun movie, badly dubbed into Russian.

Still, at least the lounges are plush. My body clock is on Almaty time (i.e. it feels like about 3am), so I'm sure to need a little shut-eye soon.

As I fall asleep tonight, I'm probably going to contemplate the strange feelings that stirred in me as our aircraft approached Moscow. Those of you who've been reading this blog for a while will remember that, after living there for almost a year, I definitely wasn't sorry to leave. I had some great experiences in Moscow and met some wonderful people who I miss quite a lot, but unfortunately it was just an inhospitable and difficult place to live as a foreigner. On the day when the taxi took me to the airport and I left the city, I remember looking out of the window and thinking "Wow ... I survived!" And I still don't know how some of the gentler souls I met there (Hi Astrid and Sasha!) manage to live in such a harsh environment.

And yet, as we flew in, I couldn't escape the feeling that, from the air, Moscow is probably the second most beautiful city I've ever seen. (The prettiest without a doubt is Bahrain, which looks like an enormous, glittering coral reef from above.) Then, once we'd landed, I spoke to several friendly folk at the airport and watched the chicardniye Muscovites going by as they made their way towards passport control. It was so strange! I suddenly found myself wanting to follow them out into their grand metropolis, just to lay eyes on it one more time. Weirdness.

Maybe as my experiences with Russian people start to add up (first in Moscow, then Sydney and now Almaty), I'm becoming a little bit Russified in my outlook. Or else I'm just beginning to appreciate a bit more of the 'whole picture'. Certainly a lot of things that used to annoy me about russkaya kul'tura have slowly come to make sense over the past few years, and I've even begun to like some of them.

This in turn leads me to think that maybe, if I went back to Moscow now, I'd have a different experience. I still don't believe it'd be the place for me (it's too big for one thing, and possibly even more dangerous for foreigners than it used to be, with ultra-nationalist organisations flourishing and literally getting away with murder nowadays), but I suspect I'd find more to appreciate than I did in 2005-6. Maybe I just wasn't ready the first time around.

And that's three maybes in one train of thought, which as we all know = one kto znayet?***. Certainly not me.

Ok, enough of these musings – focus, Anthony! I just need to survive one night in Sheremetyevo's Twilight Lounge, and I'll be in Budapest by lunchtime tomorrow. You'll be sure to hear from me at some point while I'm there. Until then ... do svidaniya!

Anthony.

continue here


* Plagiarised from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but nonetheless heartfelt.

** See, I told you you'd never heard of it!

*** "Who knows?"

transit therapy #2

timely reminders (a.k.a. killer headwear)

Ok, so what was I saying? Oh yes: down and dejected in a foreign land blah-de-blah, but preparing to say something upbeat about the whole situation.

*rolls eyes*

Well, I guess I've locked myself in to this course now, so fine ... let's continue with it.

What I'm about to tell you fits loosely under the heading of "When badness happens, try to do something life-affirming". However, a lot of people seem to associate this word 'life-affirming' with things like going on meditation weekends, reading inspirational literature, having friends around for dinner, spoiling yourself with hot oils etc. etc. ... basically all the feelgood stuff.

Personally – at least for the purposes of this rather silly blog entry – I'm opting for a more literal interpretation of the term. I say that, when life has you by the wrinklies, the best thing to do is something which affirms

a) that you are, in fact, alive;
b) that being alive is a LOT different (and preferable) to the
    alternative; and
c) that the line between them is easy enough to cross, so you might 
    as well make the most of being on this side of it while you can.

That might not seem hugely innovative, but it's a new idea for me. Or at least it's one that's been percolating in my brain for years but has only just become coherent.

It all fell into place about three weeks ago, via an affirmation technique which I can't guarantee will work for anyone else, but which I encourage you all to try anyway for the sheer demented fun of it. It's quite simple, and a lot better for your heart-rate than chanting "I am a unique and special human being" until the logical bits of your brain are too numb to argue.

Here's what you do:

First, take yourself off to an outpost of the former Soviet Union, where the traffic conditions are as about as sane as a Japanese Advertising Executive sprinkling cocaine onto his soba noodles.

Second, after a quiet drink with some colleagues, step out onto the road and hail a taxi to take you home. (A brief memory-jog: this will mean a private car, since official taxis are few and far between here, and not to be trusted anyway.)

Third, to maximise your pleasure – or your terror, depending on whether or not you enjoy dicing with death as much as the next person – ensure that your taxi is an old Lada being driven by a tall, lanky and not overly sane-looking Russian guy in his mid-20s, with a huge shapka* towering about nine inches over his head. Agree a price with his surly front-seat passenger, climb in the back and hold on. You're about to get a timely reminder that your corporeal, non-dead status really does matter to you.

To give you some background on how I came to discover this wonderful form of therapy: in Almaty, getting from A to B is a much more significant part of daily life than it has been in the other cities I've lived in. I work in three different schools, and have to go to and fro by whatever means possible. It's a city perpetually on the move; roads are always full and a little chaotic, and The Great Commute offers memorable vignettes of life in KZ's former capital.

The Commute can make you angry – as when ticket machines were installed on trolleybuses last month, and conductors stood next to their new toys bellowing instructions at passengers as though they were disobedient prisoners in a forced labour camp. It can make you smile – like the taxi ride I had about six weeks ago, during which my middle-aged driver and his travel companion gently criticised the Australian government for refusing Almaty Zoo's request to have a kangaroo delivered to Kazakhstan. It can disturb you – as when, while sitting on another trolleybus one day, I was roused from my thoughts by the *thud* of another passenger falling from her seat and hitting the floor, head first and unconscious. And it can even open doors (the metaphorical kind) – as when you get a driver who's interested in learning English and he/she asks you for private lessons.

Or, it can be completely 'normal', dull and uneventful. You just never know.

Anyway, back to my Russian driver. This guy could've walked straight off the set of a gritty German or Scandinavian drug-culture flick. Impossibly thin, grungy leather jacket, wild look in his eyes, he balanced a cigarette skilfully on his bottom lip as we roared through the streets of Almaty, occasionally swerving to avoid potholes and other moving vehicles. I could see he was approaching this real-life situation the way teenaged boys approach a game of Grand Theft Auto – not so much with safety in mind as with the thrill of the ride.

Sharing the taxi with me was a French Canadian teacher (and fellow beret-wearing freak**) called Nico. Now, I have to tell you that this man is no shrinking violet; he's the only person I know who's brave enough to actually ride a frikkin' bicycle in Almaty, and he continues to do so even after having been hit by a car once already. Still, as the Orthodox religious icons dangling from Shapka Man's rear-view mirror swayed wildly to and fro, I could see that Nico was nervous. And rightly so – we were quite possibly going to die.

Meanwhile, and unexpectedly, yours truly found himself absolutely relishing this manic death-ride. Nought-to-lose, recently skewered in the emotional nethers, squished into a tiny uncomfortable metal box and blasted by hot air and terrible pop music, I was feeling the most exhilirated I'd felt in ages. It was, in a word, awesome.

At one point, the rightly-concerned Nico put an arm on our driver's shoulder and said (in English) "Hey man, slow down!". The driver responded with an uncomprehending "Shto?" ("What?") and I translated, trying not to burst out laughing at the whole situation. Suddenly I felt that my decision to reject the normal lifestyle of a western 30-something man – the one where he basically acquires his own domicile with matching mortgage, fills it with plush chairs and works hard on becoming pointlessly affluent, suburban and sedentary – had been the best decision I'd ever made. Because ... because ... well, because of a dozen reasons, but all of them summed up by the fact that I was right there in that car, right there at that moment, fumbling for the words to translate a request that was clearly going to be followed for no more than five polite seconds. So this was where my life had thus far led me; how random, and how fabulous!

I know this may sound a little condescending, but as we continued our Petit Prix I just had to think to myself "You know, I feel SO sorry for anyone who's never been catapulted through the slums of an outlying former-Soviet city by a chain-smoking, shapka-wearing Russian stick figure in a creaky old Lada!"

In other words, I was having the life-affirming moment. I realised that, if I died in this car, it would be better than having stayed at home with my plush chairs. And if I didn't, that meant I could take the less-travelled road a little further. Or something like that, anyway.

Of course, there are limits to what one 15-minute ride in a taxi can do for you, and before long I was back in the doldrums ... though not quite as far down as I had been before. Luckily I had my flatmate Scott to commiserate with. He'd been enduring a pretty awful time himself throughout January, and both of us had found the week-long New Year holiday (when the school had closed) a strangely depressing time. As a result, both of us were heading into 2008 feeling deflated and uninspired.

As we talked about how to claw ourselves out of this ditch, the idea of 'transit therapy' began to surface (though we didn't name it at the time – I did that later). Scott started talking about taking a break from KZ, meeting up with friends in other places and taking some 'real' time off. I don't remember the exact moment when it happened, but before long we'd pretty much decided to take our next cue from King Arthur's Knights of The Round Table (or at least from The Monty Python versions of same). We'd decided, in short to "Run away! Run away!"

Lucky we did, really, or I'd have no topic for Part Three of this ridiculous ramble.


to be continued even more ... 



LATER POSTSCRIPT 

Ooh, isn't this exciting? Don't think I've never had a later postscript before!

Just wanted to say how thrilled I am to know that my little rants have prompted some true creativity. My good friend Mr Benji, of the electronic band Freefall, recently sent me their new composition 'Shapka Deathride', inspired by the entry you've just read. It's great! Thank you, Benji ... I feel flattered ))) 


* Shapka: those furry hats you've seen either
   a) in documentary footage about Russia/The USSR; or
   b) in James Bond films; or
   c) in Russia or the former USSR itself, if you've been there.

**Now that I think of it, there was some great headwear in the Lada that night! We must've looked pretty damn stylish to passers-by - at least from the neck up.

transit therapy #1

tedious exposition scenes

So ... you went to the other side of the Earth to discover a land of vast steppes and mountains, closed to the world for 150 years and even now somewhat shrouded in mystery. Unpacked your big red bag, found your way to the local supermarket, met your new colleagues, and began the inevitable months of settling in, adjusting and acclimatising.

As winter closed its grip on your new home, you perservered through the -20C nights, walking home from work along icy, sometimes unlit streets and wrapping up to compensate for the dodgy heating in your less-than-functional Soviet-era flat. You survived uni exams, power cuts, a confrontation with angry street dogs, and numerous deathrides in rattle-trap cars with half-crazed boy racers at the wheel, as well as spending Christmas Day as an illegal immigrant. Not even trying on clothes in an outdoor market in -15C killed you.

Finally, you reached the point where people in the street began mistaking you for a local – not all the time, but often enough to be noticeable. You crossed a threshold, on the far side of which you spend more time giving directions than asking for them. And just quietly, you're really pleased with yourself.

Not to a deluded extent, mind you – I mean, there's never any doubt that you're still an Absolute Outsider and that, if you want this feeling to go away, you've got years of work ahead of you yet (and even then it might not). But still, you've seen other ex-pats get on a plane and run back to the apron strings of the Motherland when things get tough, and so far you've avoided doing so. Instead, you've dug in and shown your sternest stuff. Now you're seeing the first (albeit very minor) signs that it's beginning to pay off.

So imagine how disappointed you'll be when subsequent events prove that, in actual fact, you're still the same pathetic schmo* you've always been. I mean, logically you know it's going to happen, right? Things can't possibly be going this smoothly ... or if they are, it must be a sign that Fate is about to intervene and rip out your heart through your ribcage, stretch it across a chopping block and flatten it like a tender steak under the nasty, pointy veal mallet of life. And yes, score one for the pessimist – it is that time, and Fate does step in. Result: you get cruelled.

Thanks, Fate.

I'm not going to tell you who or what brought my "Everything's more or less on track" feeling to an end last week. It was a combination of things, really. What I am going to tell you is this: when the Big Smackdown happens in a far-flung foreign land, it's even more difficult than usual to know how you should handle it. The usual dark, reverberating well of self-pity is deepened by the fact that no-one here really 'gets' you yet, so whatever your problem, empathetic shoulders are in short supply. Plus there's the whole "I've just met these people – I don't want them to know how pathetic I am!" issue, which tends to make you a little nervous about exposing your vulnerabilities.

(And yet, here I am writing about this on my blog. Silly man!)

Anyway, at a certain point you realise that the saddest thing isn't so much that bad stuff has happened, but rather that you've been affected so much by it. All the progress you made seems to have evaporated, and you start wondering if you could possibly be any less resilient, resourceful, self-reliant etc. (all the qualities you were congratulating yourself on not so long ago). Suddenly you're thinking the most suitable lifestyle choice might be to move to a new, uninhabited city, set yourself up as Mayor there, and name it "Schmotown".

So what – other than the Mayoral option – can you do? Well, if you can forgive me for using one of the most overwrought literary devices in the galaxy, I'll tell you in just a little while, because this entry is

... to be continued     
                                                             
(hehe)



(* For those who haven't seen it before, "schmo" is New York Jewish English. It means sth like "loser".)