My first foray into Central Asia

I recently went to deliver a training course in Dushanbe, the capital city of Tajikistan. It was my first visit to Central Asia, in fact the farthest east I have ever been.


My travel there was mostly uneventful. I flew via Istanbul, and had the pleasure of flying business class. This is not a usual thing for me, in fact it’s only my 3rd time ever. And what a difference from economy! This is a very civilized way of travelling and I hope I get to do so again. In the planes, we were fed higher quality food (and more of it), on trays with tablecloths, metal cutlery and actual glassware. In Istanbul, I had a few hours to wait for the next flight, and was very glad to visit the business lounge. What a great place! Comfy seats to sit or recline in, a variety of cold foods and hot dishes cooked on the spot, a “concert room” with plush seats and a large screen and high quality speakers showing a variety of classical music concerts, an Internet corner with brand-new Apple computers, etc. There was even a player piano, not just a simple upright but rather an 8-foot grand piano! I knew these existed, but had never seen one. It was wonderful, a very relaxing way to spend time in the airport.

I also wandered out to look at a few shops, including one store completely filled with Turkish Delight, apple tea, nuts and decorated ceramics… and so many people it was a real fight just to get through. I picked up some apple tea drink and a couple of stocking stuffers. OK, first I know apple tea is an instant drink mostly composed of sugar, but I really like it so I don’t care. Second (and before you exclaim), no it is not too early to start Christmas shopping; I actually started mine back in June.

The second flight, Istanbul-Dushanbe, was a bit different. Definitely a lesser quality airplane: between the motors sounding like I was sitting in a flying lawnmower and the strong odour of burning rubber, I was a bit worried for a while. But all went well, and I landed safely in Dushanbe. Walking off the plane, I saw a number of people holding signs with names of travellers they were picking up. But my greeter was not there. No worries, he might be in the terminal. So in I go, fill another form along the way, go through customs with form and visa, and then get into the baggage claim area. OK, that’s saying a lot: there was just a plexiglass wall separating customs from baggage areas, and the latter consisted of exactly one carousel. But my bag came out without trouble or damage (not the case for everyone), and then I looked around again: still no one to meet me. I should point out that at this point it was 3:30 AM local time, so it was rather important to get picked up as I had no idea how else to get to my hotel. OK, look around again, finally spot the little unidentified door leading outside, head that way. I open the door, and am met by a wall of men, all staring at me as though it is very odd that I be coming out this door. No one says a word, and no one moves. Very unsettling in the dark in the middle of the night, in a country where I have no inkling of the language. But as I am weaving through the crowd, I finally spot my greeter. Yay.

OK, off we go to the hotel. Arriving there, no one is around at first. When someone does come out, it takes a while to figure out who I am and that I in fact have a reservation, but it eventually gets sorted out. I get to my room and get settled a bit, and then collapse into bed to try to catch a two or three hours of sleep before having to get up and go deliver lectures. But as I lie on the bed I discover there is actually no mattress, just a box spring. The bed was seriously harder than the floor! I found a few thick blankets in the cupboard and used those to create a mattress on top of the box spring and was finally able to sleep a bit. The next morning, we asked about the bed, and were told that’s how it is, nothing can be done. However, I have since discovered that this is not entirely true: the hotel actually consists of 3 buildings, and one of the lecturers and I seem to be in the worst one. The other two lecturers were put in the main building, which I then got to see. What a difference! The rooms are twice the size, have refrigerators and decent sized bathrooms, the breakfast service is better, and most importantly they have actual mattresses! But I only found this out on my last day there, so it was too late to ask to change rooms.

Anyways, on Monday morning and working on 3 hours sleep, I went to the National Academy of Sciences to kick off the training course. Everything ran well for the course throughout the week. Our hosts were very well organized and extremely helpful for all logistics. A few problems nonetheless: some people did lose their luggage, and only one of them did end up getting it. The others would either pick their baggage up on the way home or it would be sent to them (if found). Note to self: learn to pack lighter and only take carry-on, just in case! Also, about 1/3 of the participants had digestive issues during the week, ranging from very mild to one person who needed medical attention for a fairly high fever. In my case, the first two days were not a problem, but after that I did have some difficulties. And two important words about the facilities at the Academy; turkish toilets! A big thank you to my American friends who had recently brought me some “Pepto-Bismol” pills from the US, which helped to keep me able to function. Overall, though, the course went well and everyone was satisfied.

Besides the work, we had a chance to see a few things. Our hosts kindly arranged a number of activities for us. On the first evening, they took us for a walk around town to see some of the sights: Parliament, presidential residence, statue of Somoni (the founder of the Tajik government in the 10th century), and the tallest flagpole in the world, 165 meters high with a 60-metre flag. They then took us to the Rohat tea house for dinner, complete with music and an impromptu demonstration of Tajik dancing.

Parliament

Somoni park fountains

Presidential residence (think White House on steroids)

Banquet hall at Rohat Tea House

 

On Tuesday morning, while the course was ongoing but I was not needed, I was taken to a bazaar because I would not have a chance to go with the group on Friday. It was interesting, but not as colourful as I had hoped. It was all coveres and had too many stalls of Western products. The most interesting was to watch the goldsmiths working on the traditional intricate jewelry. I went back to the training course after lunch to deliver my last lectures. At the end of the day, our hosts took us to a souvenir shop. Thankful they did, as it would be unfindable by random tourists. They had fun modeling some traditional clothes for us. I did too.

After this, the whole group went to the National Museum of Antiquities, where we saw the largest reclining Buddha in the world. Quite impressive. Then I met the lecturers arriving to deliver the last 3 days of the training course. They are friends of mine and I was glad to be able to spend time with them. We had a nice dinner with a few of the course participants.

On Wednesday after the training course, we were taken out of town to the Hissar fortress, a historical site. It was interesting even though mostly destroyed, but I didn’t enjoy it too much as I was not feeling very well. We got nice views of a madrasa across the street and the mountains in the distance.

The drive back was particularly interesting: the car we were in, like most cars here, did not have (or did not use) seat belts, had a cracked windshield, smelled of gas fumes and burning rubber, and had a crazy driver. Road lanes are optional, speed limits don’t exist, and red lights are barely respected. In addition, pedestrians will randomly just walk into traffic fully expecting the cars to avoid them. But none of these things were the key. Instead, what happened is that our driver and the one from another car carrying participants decided to have a race once we got into town. Crazy weaving through traffic ensued. Scary and yet exhilarating (but I’d still have preferred to avoid it).

On Thursday at lunchtime, we went to the nearby Green Market for a look. And in the evening, we had an official reception. Then I returned to my room for a few hours, trying to rest if not sleep since I had to be at the airport at 2 AM Friday morning.

All right, time to go home. My itinerary was Dushanbe to St. Petersburg, 10 hours wait, then St. Petersburg to Vienna arriving completely exhausted. First issue: it seems you can’t get a visa to go into Russia for just a day, so I wasn’t able to leave the airport to visit St. Petersburg. Second issue: I needed a transit visa just to go from one terminal to the other. I wondered why, until I got there. Getting off the plane from Dushanbe, those of us with connecting flights were stuck in an entranceway for almost an hour, until someone finally got us going. First we had to slip by customs two by two (accompanied by an official) to fetch our suitcases. Then they piled us into a van to go to the other terminal. I mean that literally: we climbed in and then had to put our suitcases on top of us as there was no luggage room. Then we drove a solid 10 minutes through the countryside to get to the other terminal (which explains the need for a visa, since we travelled through Russia). Arriving there, we all went to the “connections desk”. However, it was unmanned, with a helpful sign stating that check-in can only be done 2 hours prior to departure. Should no one show up, please call the following number. OK, problems: first, what if you have no functioning cell phone? Also, I had to cart my suitcase around for hours. On top of this, no check-in meant no boarding pass, which meant no access to the business lounge.

The upside is that I met a number of nice people (we sort of stuck together and helped each other out). I went off with a Swiss guy to find lunch. Turns out this terminal is very basic: first there are no banking machine, no exchange desk, and the stores etc. take only roubles or credit. OK, fine, I have plastic. As for food, our options were a café stand or a single restaurant, a TGI Fridays. Really? An American chain restaurant as the only source of food in a Russian airport? At least we knew what we were eating, so it’s all good.

After killing a couple of hours at the restaurant, I wandered back to the check-in area, for lack of anywhere else to go. There I came across a woman and two kids, all of them crying. I approached her, and found out she was in quite a jam: returning to London after a month stay in Tajikistan, it seems the Russian airport authorities decided she was under suspicion of child kidnapping or trafficking, though only for one of her daughters. They were quite aggressive to her, took away all her papers and left her stuck on those chairs with no information. For hours. By the time I met them, the little girl in question was completely traumatized, crying every time she saw any official and asking if her mom would leave without her. I helped the best I could, which was not very much: I got them some drinks (she had neither roubles or credit cards, I mean really, who would think there would be such limited payment options in an international airport?), I played movies on my computer to keep the kids calm, and I let the woman talk to me, which kept her calm too. By the time I left hours later, she was still in the exact same situation, even though she’d talked to 3 more officials and even the UK consulate on the phone – twice. I hope she made it home eventually.

Selfishly, I must say that this at least made my layover time go by relatively fast. I finally was able to check in, at which point some official just walked away with my suitcase. OK, probably not going to see that again anytime soon. But having anticipated luggage issues, I had packed anything I was not willing to lose in my carry-on, so it was fine. Then I boarded my flight to Vienna – aah, Austrian airline business class, decent food, comfortable seat, a plane that is not in danger of collapse. I got home easily – and so did my suitcase!

A quick weekend home, and I would be off on the next duty travel, this time to Paris. But that’s for another blog entry.

Here are your random parting shots:

Not sure if you can read this, but it says alcohol content 8-12%

Most of the horsie statues (and there were many) were smiling. I like.

Winnie the Pooh's house?

Work and fun in Rhodes, Greece

I recently went on duty travel to Rhodes, Greece to attend the 12th International Conference on Environmental Science and Technology. (I know, poor me.) This conference was held in a resort/conference centre, a strange combination. It meant us geeks were walking around with bags and notes while most others were in beachwear and flip flops. It was a strange conference for another reason: the high number of no-shows. Not only were many posters missing, a number of presenters were too, even a session chair once! I get that this is a vacation site, and it is tempting to ditch everything and go to the beach, but at least show up for the few hours you need to present something! Do like the rest of us: go to the beach during lunch break. :-)

Funny, the first person I met and talked to (and vice versa) at the conference was a Canadian from the Saskatoon, working at the CLS and U of S! On the last evening of the conference, we had a “gala dinner”. It was really nice: we were set up on fancy tables around one of the pools, there was a really good buffet and we even had a DJ. The slightly strange thing is that the evening turned into a dance club scene (never saw that at a conference before). It was loud enough and had good enough music that other resort guests (the all-inclusive ones) kept coming to the edges of our party to look; they wanted to join us but didn’t quite dare.

The resort itself was...ok. My concept of resorts is based on those in Dominican Republic, etc., which cater to the demanding North Americans. This place was all right, clean and not too run down, but not state of the art either. There was no wifi in rooms, only cable internet (for a price, and not in all rooms, through thankfully I did have it). The room style was a combination 1970s and your cheap spare bedroom. And the food! I was hoping to indulge in delicious Greek food for days, but was faced instead with an insipid and very limited buffet. The only other option in the resort was a pool-side restaurant, and that wasn't open in the evening.

But the pools were nice, and the beach was right there. It was perfect beach weather too, hot and sunny but with a nice strong wind to keep things tolerable. I tried to go for a bit every day. The only downside was that while the beach itself was nice sand, the edge of the water and quite a bit into the water was lined with big rounded stones. This made it quite difficult and ungainly to get in and out of the sea. Unfortunately, it was also really hard on my poor healing toe.

I spent an afternoon exploring the medieval city of Rhodes. It’s quite charming, and is of course full of stores and restaurants. Finally, good Greek food! Two highlights were the Palace of the grand master, and the harbour. Unfortunately, some of the streets were made of a kind of cobblestone, except it was rounded beach stones that were used. Again, my toe objected strongly. But I had to get back to the conference, so I didn’t feel bad cutting the visit short.

Sunday was my play day. While walking along the harbour a few days before, I had noticed a few signs advertising beach tours and tours to Lindos, a cute village, with its claim to fame being an acropolis on a hill. So I got to the harbour around 08:30 to decide which tour to do. I found the perfect one: a smaller and better quality boat than the others. It is usually booked solid days in advance, but there had been a taxi strike on Saturday, and many people didn’t know it was over so there were many no-shows. Good news: there was place for me. Bad news: there ended up being so many no-shows that they cancelled the trip. Poo. So I took a spot on one of the more generic boats instead.

I opted for the Lindos tour, which turned out to be a good thing: the beaches were OK, but nothing to write home about. A nice 2.5 hour cruise along the shore, and we arrived in Lindos. I walked up to the village, wandered around for a while and had a rooftop lunch.

Then I started back down to meet the boat. Problem: my toe objected to so much downhill. Solution: Lindos taxis, i.e. donkeys!! I did the touristy thing and had a donkey ride down to the beach-harbour. Kind of fun, actually.

Overall, Lindos was lovely, but HOT! I noticed a huge difference between the west and east coasts of the island. The west coast, where my hotel was, had strong winds, making the water quite wavy at the beach but also keeping things relatively cool (as in, you could actually stand to lie in the sun in this Grecian heat wave). The east coast, however, had no wind whatsoever. Perfect weather to bake humans in! Even walking in the shade in Lindos, I kept going into stores just to get a bit of air conditioning and not overheat.

On the way back to Rhodes, I napped for a while, and then we all enjoyed the antics of a 14-month old boy wanting to touch EVERYTHING. We also stopped mid-way for a deep-water swim. When I got back in town, I took a cab back to the hotel, packed my bags and fell into bed by 9 PM. Not exactly party girl, but you know that’s not my style (plus I was exhausted from the heat).

Monday morning, I was to go to the airport early, which was a good thing because once again, taxi strike. Thankfully, the buses were running but were clogged with people heading to the airport.

Comic relief:

A dress made out of cut up and woven pop cans!

Who buys this stuff?



Quick visit to Copenhagen

I have always wanted to go to Copenhagen. I have no idea why, I just have. So when I saw a seat sale months ago, I booked a flight for myself for a quick weekend there - in on Saturday AM, out on Sunday evening. As I was only staying overnight, I packed only a shoulder bag and planned on carting it around all day. I arrived mid-morning, and went straight to the Nyhavn harbour. The colours! Even more lovely than in pictures! Plus, this old little harbour has been transformed into a kind of museum, and is lined with old sailboats. I love sailboats!

I wanted to do a boat tour right away. It was a lovely sunny day, but the wind had a bite to it. I was barely warm enough on the street, and knew I'd freeze on on open-top boat. So I first backtracked to a pedestrian shopping street and bought a cotton pashmina. Then, I went back and got on the boat. Well, it was the highlight of the weekend! Beautiful sights, great weather, an interesting tour guide. And to top it off, a cute 3- or 4-year old girl, sitting behind me with her parents, was full of hilarious comments.

I got off the boat and started walking. I walked up and down the harbour area, then had lunch inside the Magasin du Nord. Then, I walked down that pedestrian street to City Hall. Once there, I discovered 2 things: 1- Gay Pride day was that day, and the plaza was taken over by festival goers. 2- My microwave-injured foot was far from healed. I had ditched my last crutch only a few days earlier, but by mid-afternoon my toe was screaming. So I ended up going to my hotel right then, and having a 3-hour rest. I went back out around 5PM to go to the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek art museum. Nice collection and fringe benefit: a view of city hall from the rooftop. Then, I walked through the Tivoli, an old amusement park. In fact, it is said that visiting this place was Walt Disney's inspiration for his own theme parks. But my toe was objecting strongly, so I retreated to my hotel and spent a nice evening reading a book and snacking.

On Sunday morning, I wisely got on one of those hop-on, hop-off buses. I toured about half the city, getting off only occasionally, for example to see Rosenborg castle and the Little Mermaid statue. I had a fantastic lunch at the Havfruen (Mermaids) restaurant in Nyhavn, with fresh mussels (the best I have ever had), a beautiful setting, good buskers, and nice people to chat with at the next table. Then I wandered a bit, but stopped very soon to sit and listen to another set of buskers, an excellent jazz duo. They were very popular and I stayed for about 15 minutes.

But my toe was annoyed again and I was very tired from limping so much, so I went to the airport very very early. But this also turned out fine: I found a kind of quiet area, with nice padded lounge chairs, a view of the tarmac, and best of all, door to keep out children, food and noise. I happily spent a few hours there, again snacking and reading my book before catching my flight home.

I fell in love with Copenhagen. It is a charming little city, with a cheerful atmosphere and happy, helpful people. Other than the 9 months of winter, I would happily move there. :-)

 Peculiar things I found along the way:

Have seen variations of this in several cities around the world: large statues of an animal scattered around town, each painted differently. Here are my 2 favourites:

The face!

It just looks so happy!

 

Tried for 5 minutes to get a shot of just the statue of Hans Christian Andersen without tourists.

This was the best I got.

Had a little toy army, did you? I bet it wasn't jewel-encrusted solid gold like this one!

They had a thing for viking / trolls. This one was about 4 feet tall. Lifesize?



Tuscan Sun holiday

My friend Margaret flew over from Winnipeg to Vienna for a visit early August. We toured Vienna a bit, and then went on to Tuscany for a few days.

Our flight down was uneventful, but then came the train ride from Rome to Cortona. First, it took us a few minutes to figure out the main train station, as the place the train from the airport arrived was not well indicated at all. When we finally figured things out, we realised that we had to walk to the complete opposite end of the station to catch our train. No worries, plenty of time. We stopped on the way to pick up some salads and drinks for the trip, which turned out to be a good thing. So we got there, and saw that many many people were standing around waiting (in the full sun at 30 degrees, of course). Our train was supposed to come in 10 minutes, so we settled in to wait. And wait. And wait. Every so often, there would be an announcement on the loudspeakers, but the sound was so garbled that we could barely make out if it was English or Italian. Almost an hour later, there was a mass exodus of people from the area, and we followed, figuring they knew something we did not. We finally found someone who helpfully told a group of us what was going on: "The train didn't come. (Gallic shrug) Take the next one." Gee, no kidding! We now had about another hour to kill, so we had a chance to eat our salads in a fairly nice travellers' waiting room. (Note: this room had an information desk, where the lady behind the desk had no information to give, except the location of the bathrooms - which we already knew.) So the time came, and the train did too. We got on, but so did TWO trainfuls of passengers. All seats were occupied, and all hallways were full. We sat on our luggage or on the ground for half of the ride, until a bunch of people got off at a connecting station. Italian efficency!

We finally arrived in Cortona, and easily found a taxi and our hotel. We were there to enjoy the Tuscan Sun Festival, started a few years earlier by Frances Mayes, the woman whose book was turned into the movie "Under the Tuscan Sun" starring Diane Lane.

We had a lovely relaxing few days in Cortona, including lazy afternoon naps and leisurely strolls.

In the evening, we saw 2 concerts. These were fantastic! The only bad thing was that we were on the third floor, in a concert hall without air conditioning or seemingly any air flow. Sauna!

The best concert was a combination concert and theatre: love letters written between Frederic Chopin and George Sand were read in theatrical style, and were interspersed with music by Chopin and the occasional ballet dancers. The actors were supposed to be Jeremy Irons and Sharon Stone, but Ms. Stone pulled out 2 weeks before the show. So they called in a pinch-hitter, Jeremy Irons' wife Sinead ?. Turns out she is an excellent stage actress, and far outshone her husband. Before the show, I was ambivalent, but afterwards I can truly say she did a fabulous job!

 

The last 2 days in Italy, we played tourist. On Friday, we spent the day in Florence. It was just as lovely as I remembered. Margaret climbed all the way up the tower of the Duomo and got a great view of Florence, but I was unable to accompany her as I was still limping from my foot vs. microwave accident in June. Poo.

On our last day in Italy, we left Cortona early, intending to spend the day in Rome before catching our evening flight. When we got there, it was about a million degrees, and we instantly started to melt. But we wisely decided to join a tour group - one of many hawking their services at the Coliseum. We got to jump the queue into the Coliseum, get a tour inside and then a tour of the Palatine hills. Both lovely, but the heat was oppressive, and we were glad to go to the airport early. This turned out to be a good decision, as it took us about twice as long as expected to make it out there.

Back in Vienna, we had one last day together before Margaret flew back home.

A nice vacation, all in all.



And now, as usual, here are a few random pictures:

Almost very not badly done!!

A statue of Salvador Dali. But why is he holding a dolphin and a...?

So many bad English signs everywhere!