Dima has been doing me a great service by showing me around the awesome town of Kiev; however, this morning it was time for me to head off and try to speak Russian on my own. I was able to order a coffee AND ask for 'another one' - mostly because the expression sounds like 'Puff da weed'. However, I went to get a sandwich and a latte at a coffee shop and hit my first snag. Apparently, instead of asking for a мoлOKом (Latte?) I ordered a мoрковко (carrot juice). My first clue should have been the 3 large carrots going into the blender. Apparently, I have to work on my pronunciation...
Monday, April 27, 2009
Jeff's First Russian Language Fail!!!
Dreams of fluency in Russian fade quickly upon making one's first amateur linguistic mistake. Having only really attempted Romance and Latin languages before, I wasn't prepared for the difficulties that Anglos would face trying to memorize words with seemingly exotic stems and the facial contortions required to produce some of the more complex consonant and vowel noises. With my trusty 'Learn Russian: A Complete Course' and flash cards, I embarked on a crash course in Russian speaking with my friend Dima. I quickly grasped the need to cleanly articulate your words - note the similarities between простите (Excuse me) and проститутка (prostitute).
Dima has been doing me a great service by showing me around the awesome town of Kiev; however, this morning it was time for me to head off and try to speak Russian on my own. I was able to order a coffee AND ask for 'another one' - mostly because the expression sounds like 'Puff da weed'. However, I went to get a sandwich and a latte at a coffee shop and hit my first snag. Apparently, instead of asking for a мoлOKом (Latte?) I ordered a мoрковко (carrot juice). My first clue should have been the 3 large carrots going into the blender. Apparently, I have to work on my pronunciation...
Dima has been doing me a great service by showing me around the awesome town of Kiev; however, this morning it was time for me to head off and try to speak Russian on my own. I was able to order a coffee AND ask for 'another one' - mostly because the expression sounds like 'Puff da weed'. However, I went to get a sandwich and a latte at a coffee shop and hit my first snag. Apparently, instead of asking for a мoлOKом (Latte?) I ordered a мoрковко (carrot juice). My first clue should have been the 3 large carrots going into the blender. Apparently, I have to work on my pronunciation...
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Iceland!!!!
Icelandair was my carrier of choice over to Europe, as they offer a fairly cheap, 4.5 hour, overnight flight from Toronto to London via Keflavik Airport. One of the (dis?)advantages is that you get a seven hour layover, and $30 will buy you a return bus ride into Reykjavik, where 40 minutes later, you can be walking around the middle of a quaintastic little northern 
town. With only 300 000 people, the city core is pretty small - but full of shops, restaurants, and plenty of bars, pubs and clubs for those long northern nights.One thing I didn't expect was for April 23rd to be Iceland's 'First Day of Summer'. Apparently, the tradition is that an overnight frost indicates a warm and long summer. (The North American groundhog is, reportedly, a more fickle prognosticator ...) Icelanders celebrate this by heading to the bars on the Eve to get right shittered by drinking away the last winter's night. Most responsible folks then stay in bed until 10ish to cure the hangover, meaning, sadly, that nothing is open and I couldn't even
Fortunately, R. has enough sights to fill in a morning's tour. My favorite sight (that I didn't get to go into) was R. museum commemorating the 871 p/m 2 townsite settlement - mostly because I have never seen a museum name involving error bars. Other highlights included the town hall, parliament, and the historical pictures on the waterfront area. Of course, the geology across the fjord was pr
etty spectacular too ...I finished off my layover with a visit to the thermal pools. Although it was 6C outside, the pools were a balmy 25C and some of the hot tubs reached up to 44C. Plenty of Icelanders chilling out in the drizzle. I wonder how the bathing is mid-winter when it's -15C and if frozen beards are a problem? Sadly, I didn't get out to the Blue Lagoon spa - perhaps some time when cycling around the Island ...
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Fun with visas
One of the more entertaining things to do planning for a trip is dealing with foreign consulates. Each country I planned to visit (Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and China) has their own special visa issues, including fixed dates of entry/exit and, depending on the visa, a required 'Letter of Invitation' or LOI. Most folks (being more organized than your author) likely would have started the procedure more than three months ahead of time. I decided - roughly four months before my departure - to put my passport through the washing machine. I wouldn't recommend trying this out even once. (Sadly, I didn't follow this advice myself, as this was my second time laundering my passport ... sigh.) Fortunately Passport Canada has sped up the passport procedure and I possessed a new one in less than a month.
Now only two months before departure (and needing my passport both on a border crossing and at an Aussie government chest X-ray examination), I knew that obtaining the visas would take a little bit of finessing on my part (where by finessing read spending extra money).
Ukraine
Thanks to the glorious Orange Revolution, and the newish President Yushenko, most Westerners no longer need a tourist visa to enter the Ukraine! (Last time I went into the Ukraine on a bicycle the border guards laughed at me while waving me through ...)
Kyrgyzstan
Obtaining the Kyrgyz visa was straightforward, and didn't need a LOI for less than 30 days. I Fedexed my passport off to the Kyrgyz embassy in Washington and paid $US 80 for an expedited 30-day, single-entry visa with 3-business-day processing. No real problems with that form - just whether I was currently employed and wouldn't be a burden on their health care system (let's hope not!). Fortunately, my passport arrived at Amie Lucier's place (thanks Amie!) in Houston a few days before I arrived for a visit.
Kazakhstan
A 30-day Kazakh visa was also easy to obtain without a LOI. I Fedexed my passport - along with $US 40 for a 30-day, single-entry tourist in 5 business days. No real issues on the visa application, just a few questions about my current employment (haha!), health insurance, and intended route. After about seven days, my passport arrived at Brandon Winfrey's Maryland pad (thanks Brandon!). The embassy was kind enough to throw in a 'Kazakhstan Tourism' brochure written in what I can only describe as Kazakhglish. Amazingly, there was a page on in-country cycle-tourism! However, I can't really picture throngs of elderly German tourist pedaling across the Kara-Kum desert...
Russia
This one was much harder to get, and I managed to secure it only 48 hours prior to my departure. The Russian visa options for cyclists are not as clear cut, because the OVIR (the Russian Office on Visa and Registration) requires that anyone on a tourist visa have a fixed schedule, including payments to the prebooked hotels. Not being able to predict my route, I had to look a little big farther afield.
With good fortune, I found two other cycling blogs whose authors relayed that the Russian Cycle Touring Club (RCTC) could provide the LOI "business visa support" for a 3-month, single-entry visa - for the mere cost of 135 euros. (As with most things in Russia, it is unclear how much of the fee went to the Ministry, and how much went to the RCTC!) However, seeing few other options, I paid up and began the waiting game. About five weeks later, the LOI arrived at my parents' house in Kingston, ON (thanks Parents!), and I began a frantic assembly of all the required documents - including the $CDN135 money order (the cheaper 10-day processing would have arrived after I was to depart). My passport came back on Monday, two days before my flight, with a shiny new commerce business Russian visa. (Apparently, I a business guest of the Moscow-based Jurservice agency ... hmm...)
Total Costs
The bottom line is that visas are damn expensive! If you are thinking about doing something similar, my advice is to leave yourself more days in advance to secure them, and don't prewash your documents.
Kyrgyz visa - $US 80
Kazakh Visa - $US 40
Russian LOI - 135 Euros
Russian visa- $CDN 135
Courier fees- $US 60 and $CDN 36
Now only two months before departure (and needing my passport both on a border crossing and at an Aussie government chest X-ray examination), I knew that obtaining the visas would take a little bit of finessing on my part (where by finessing read spending extra money).
Ukraine
Thanks to the glorious Orange Revolution, and the newish President Yushenko, most Westerners no longer need a tourist visa to enter the Ukraine! (Last time I went into the Ukraine on a bicycle the border guards laughed at me while waving me through ...)
Kyrgyzstan
Obtaining the Kyrgyz visa was straightforward, and didn't need a LOI for less than 30 days. I Fedexed my passport off to the Kyrgyz embassy in Washington and paid $US 80 for an expedited 30-day, single-entry visa with 3-business-day processing. No real problems with that form - just whether I was currently employed and wouldn't be a burden on their health care system (let's hope not!). Fortunately, my passport arrived at Amie Lucier's place (thanks Amie!) in Houston a few days before I arrived for a visit.
Kazakhstan
A 30-day Kazakh visa was also easy to obtain without a LOI. I Fedexed my passport - along with $US 40 for a 30-day, single-entry tourist in 5 business days. No real issues on the visa application, just a few questions about my current employment (haha!), health insurance, and intended route. After about seven days, my passport arrived at Brandon Winfrey's Maryland pad (thanks Brandon!). The embassy was kind enough to throw in a 'Kazakhstan Tourism' brochure written in what I can only describe as Kazakhglish. Amazingly, there was a page on in-country cycle-tourism! However, I can't really picture throngs of elderly German tourist pedaling across the Kara-Kum desert...
Russia
This one was much harder to get, and I managed to secure it only 48 hours prior to my departure. The Russian visa options for cyclists are not as clear cut, because the OVIR (the Russian Office on Visa and Registration) requires that anyone on a tourist visa have a fixed schedule, including payments to the prebooked hotels. Not being able to predict my route, I had to look a little big farther afield.
With good fortune, I found two other cycling blogs whose authors relayed that the Russian Cycle Touring Club (RCTC) could provide the LOI "business visa support" for a 3-month, single-entry visa - for the mere cost of 135 euros. (As with most things in Russia, it is unclear how much of the fee went to the Ministry, and how much went to the RCTC!) However, seeing few other options, I paid up and began the waiting game. About five weeks later, the LOI arrived at my parents' house in Kingston, ON (thanks Parents!), and I began a frantic assembly of all the required documents - including the $CDN135 money order (the cheaper 10-day processing would have arrived after I was to depart). My passport came back on Monday, two days before my flight, with a shiny new commerce business Russian visa. (Apparently, I a business guest of the Moscow-based Jurservice agency ... hmm...)
Total Costs
The bottom line is that visas are damn expensive! If you are thinking about doing something similar, my advice is to leave yourself more days in advance to secure them, and don't prewash your documents.
Kyrgyz visa - $US 80
Kazakh Visa - $US 40
Russian LOI - 135 Euros
Russian visa- $CDN 135
Courier fees- $US 60 and $CDN 36
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
What to bring on a 5-month bike trip?
A good question! The key thoughts are that I'll be traveling early spring in Ukraine and Russia - could go down to near freezing in the evenings! I'll be going across the Kazakh steppes nearly in summer, with temperatures up to 30C+. Kyrgyz mountains, with the possibility of frigid rain, require a little bit of warmer weather. Xinjiang in China is desert in places with super hot and dry weather. Overall, a bit of a planning challenge! To make it worse, spares and repairs are likely to be hard to come by, so I have to carry as much as I can!
A brief inventory
- 27 speed touring bicycle with front/back racks and 3 water bottle racks
- 2 touring tire spares
- bike shoes with extra clips
- bike lock with extension cable
- shiny new helmet
- 4 spare tubes and 2 patch kits
- Extra 9-speed cog set
- Chain cleaning set
- 2 spare chains
- 4 extra spokes
- chain whip and cog tool
- 1 package of bungies
- extra brake and shifting cable
- t
ire pump - 2 bicycle multi-tools
- 4 wheel levers
- chain degreaser and lube
- 2x2 sets of extra disk brake pads
- water purifier and reserve tablets
- first aid kit
- mosquito helmet
- camping stove
- sunscreen
- flashlight
- headlamp
- tent, mattress and sleepingbag
- hiking boots
- riding gloves
- 5 pairs underwear
- riding shorts and longs
- jacket and windbreaker pants
- 10 T-shirts
- 2 pairs pants
- 2 pair shorts
- 2 pair athletic shorts
- 5 pair athletic socks
- 2 riding jerseys
- 2 small panniers
- 2 large panniers
- fleece and hoodie
- hunting knife and swiss army knife
- pedal wrench
- money belt
- Guide books - Ukraine, Central Asia
- Language books - Russian, Ukranian, Central Asian
- Waterproof Maps - Kazakhstan, Central Asia, Tibet, West Russia, North China, NW China
Monday, April 20, 2009
Bicycle Trip 2009
A blog about a laden bicycle, thousands of kms of ripped up asphalt and mud, a few 4000m+ mountain ranges, enviromental damage of the Aral Sea, and lots and lots and lots of steppe ...
About 3 years ago, I read a fantastic travelogue / webpage about a Swiss guy that rode from Switzerland to the Taj Mahal in India. It seemed like a pretty bad-ass idea. After finishing up the Ph.D. at Stanford, I knew that I would be looking for a bicycle challenge. So, I managed to secure 5 months of vacation time before starting in Perth, Australia. Just enough time to put some major distance in Central Asia under my wheels...
I'm flying this Wednesday to Kiev, and have planned a journey that takes me overland across Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and China. So far I've managed to secure 3 or the 4 visas that I need ... and have to get the Chinese one somewhere in Central Asia.
I'm superbusy these days running many errands, and I'm looking forward to the splendid isolation of the open road ... 48 hours before jumping IcelandAir!
About 3 years ago, I read a fantastic travelogue / webpage about a Swiss guy that rode from Switzerland to the Taj Mahal in India. It seemed like a pretty bad-ass idea. After finishing up the Ph.D. at Stanford, I knew that I would be looking for a bicycle challenge. So, I managed to secure 5 months of vacation time before starting in Perth, Australia. Just enough time to put some major distance in Central Asia under my wheels...
I'm flying this Wednesday to Kiev, and have planned a journey that takes me overland across Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and China. So far I've managed to secure 3 or the 4 visas that I need ... and have to get the Chinese one somewhere in Central Asia.I'm superbusy these days running many errands, and I'm looking forward to the splendid isolation of the open road ... 48 hours before jumping IcelandAir!
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