Welcome to Transylvania!

Sorry about the lack of photos... The last couple places we've found email have old computers, so I haven't been able to upload any. I'll try to get this done soon. Perhaps tomorrow? Perhaps not....

We're in Brasov, Romania now. What a beautiful city! We've been enjoying walking the streets and the nice, forested paths around town. We're going to a free orchestra concert tonight. So cultured!

The train ride from Istanbul was great -- having our own space made all the difference. It was a small space, but it had two full-size beds, a table/washbasin, and a mirror. We bought groceries in Istanbul, so we were set for the ride (including having a bottle of Turkish wine!). The biggest irritation of that ride was the 4 hours it took to do immigration and passport stuff between Turkey and Bulgaria. They woke us up for this at 3am, and we didn't get moving (or sleeping) on the train again until it was getting light. The Bulgarian officials harrassed other passengers a bit (at least they did with the Romanians in the room next to us), but they left us alone for the most part. In contrast, the crossing from Bulgaria to Romania took 5 minutes, and we didn't even have to get off the train! The scenery was stunning in southern Bulgaria, with wooded hills in full fall color. Northern Bulgaria flattened out into vast fields, and we could have been in South Dakota! We crossed over the Danube River at the border of Romania and stayed in the flats until Bucharest, the capitol city.

We arrived there late (around 8pm), so we decided to stay the night and then continue on to Brasov in the morning (so as not to repeat our 3am wandering in Pushkar). Little did we know that we as we wandered the dark streets of Bucharest with our packs that all the hotels and hostels in the city were booked full (though we did find one for 280 Euro; about $400). A cold front was also in the works, so it was freezing cold and really windy. I don't even have a jacket! I pulled my rainjacket out (for warmth... it has certainly rained plenty since China, but the umbrella has been the rain tool of choice) for the first time since China. After 3 frustrating hours of trying to find a place to stay, we got some help from a girl who worked at a hostel, and she ended up calling a place in Brasov to make a reservation. So three hours after we left the Bucharest train station we ended up at it again to catch the last train that night at midnight. Long story short, we got back to the train station to find that there wasn't a last train of the night.... So we sat around in McDonald's until it closed at midnight, then moved to the train station waiting room (where at least it was warm). Sarah actually slept some (and looked pretty cute bundled up and sleeping on the bench), but I stayed awake and guarded the bags until 4:30am, when they kicked everyone out for some bizzare reason. Luckily, McDonald's opened back up at that time, so we moved back over there and waited until our 6:30am train. What a night...

The train ride to Brasov was beautiful. The forested mountains were cloaked in thick fog and drizzily rain and full of small, cute towns. Exactly what I thought Transylvania would look like! We arrived in Brasov without any problems and eventually found the cheapest accomodation in town (about $30). We have a great little room overlooking a side street in the old town, with the church clock tower visible from the window. We've spent the last day and a half wandering the streets and finding the best espresso and pastries in town. What else are you supposed to do in Europe? =) Tomorrow we're going to take the tram to the top of the hill above town and maybe take a bus out to a fortress nearby. There's also a castle here that for a brief time housed Vlad Tepes (Count Dracula), but it's aparrently touristy and not really worth seeing.

The vegetation here is interesting in that it is very reminisent of Juneau (and northern North America in general). There's maple, alder, pine, Sycamore, and cottonwood amongst the trees, and the shrub layer includes blackberry, blueberry, twisted stalk, high bush cranberry, red osher dogwood, and various saxifrages. It feels very familiar; a feeling we haven't had much of in the last few months. The birding has been surprisingly good for the little I'm doing of it. Around Brasov I've seen European Roller, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Syrian Woodpecker, Eurasian Nuthatch, Coal Tit, Willow Tit, Chaffinch, Common Buzzard, European Robin, Eurasian Jay, Red-breasted Flycatcher, and Song Thrush. The train ride up here produced a couple surprise species: two Black Storks and (most surprisingly) a Great Bustard in a vast area of plains or fallow fields north of the Danube River. The train had stopped to let another pass, and I was able to see this large, rhea-like bird quite well. They are considered a species in danger, so I certainly didn't expect to see one, let alone from the train!

We're going to Sighisoara next, where the Count was born, so perhaps we'll see more of the Dracula hype at the next destination.

Later! M!

Istanbul (not Constantinople)

Pottery Sarah liked from Istanbul


Spices in the Egyptian Spice Bazaar, Istanbul


Nice chewy Turkish Coffee!


Mosque, Istanbul


Sarah on the ferry across the Bosphorus Strait to the Asian side


The Blue Mosque at night, plus Ramadan festivities


Baklava with pistacios - Yum!


Us in front of the Hagia Sophia


Blue Mosque at night


Hagia Sophia at night


Turka turka!

Hello all--
We arrived safe in Istanbul! We were pretty wiped out when we arrived, since our flight out of Delhi was at 4:45am and we had to be at the airport 3 hours early. Since we didn't have anywhere else to go, we spent most of the afternoon and evening in a coffeeshop, then went to the airport 6 hours early. No sleep at all. We did sleep some during the 6 hour flight here, but I spent a lot of the time watching the beautiful deserts and dunes of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and northern Iraq move by underneath us. There is some desolate, stunning country out here. Osama picked a good place to hide. =)

Istanbul is awesome. What a breath of fresh air for 2 tired travelers. It's Europe! Clean, cobblestoned streets, great cafes, old buildings, gorgeous waterfront -- what more could you ask for? Oh, and how about no hassling! woohoo! We can actually walk the streets without being constantly approached by people for one thing or another. It's Ramadan right now, so the city comes alive each evening with families picnicking in the parks. There is a big festival set up around the Blue Mosque and Aya Sophia with lots of great food, colorful people, etc. It has been fun to watch all the families preparing to break the day's fast at sunset with a big meal.

This city is loaded with amazing mosques (and churches converted into mosques, such as Aya Sophia). Interestingly, they all look very similar from the outside -- a large dome-shaped building with four turret towers around it. The Muslim call to prayer happens several times a day, so speakers through the city broadcast the chanting and locals fill the mosques. An interesting counterpoint to all of this is the mass numbers of tourists wandering the streets and sitting in coffeeshops and cafes. Several large cruise ships are in port each day, which jams the downtown area with tour buses and adds to the bustle.

We took a ferry across the Bosphorus Strait from the European side to the Asian side. It was a great way to see the city better. Istanbul looks a lot like Seattle, but with large religious structures sticking up on the hillsides. The topography is hilly, with building-covered slopes dropping down to the water's edge and large bridges connecting each piece of land to the next.

We have train tickets booked for Friday night to take us to Bucharest, Romania. We plan on 4 days in Brasov and Sighosoara in Transylvania before we head to Vienna to visit my friend Eva. We're really looking forward to the train ride through Bulgaria. We have a private cabin booked; this is the first time we've had this sort of luxury. We're going to stock up on groceries and wine and enjoy the ride!

It's a girl!

I'm officially an uncle! My sister gave birth to my first niece at 11:31am on September 7th! Her name is Isabella Rose, and she's pretty darn cute. Welcome her to the family!


newborn!


Isabella Rose at three weeks

Dehli

We made it to Delhi safe and sound, though the overnight bus ride was pretty crappy. We had a double bed on the bus, so we weren't uncomfortable, but the bus didn't have any shocks and we spent most of the time four-wheeling around on potholed roads (or at least it seemed that way). The worst part was that when we arrived here in Delhi at 6 this morning, we pulled our bags out of the "safe storage area" that you have to pay more for in the back of the bus (to keep them out of the weather on top of the bus), and they had been soaking in muddy water all night.... I was really pissed off, but there's nothing we could do and the bus guys absolutely didn't care. Amazingly, almost nothing was ruined besides a couple paperback novels I was carting around and a t-shirt of Sarah's. All of our other books, electronics, and Sarah's purchases survived. The hotel room in Dehli looked like our bags had exploded in it.... We had stuff drying everywhere. Sarah had to wash most of her clothes because the muddy water really got to them...

We were kind of dreading having to deal with Delhi, but it has been surprisingly pleasant -- we're staying in a Tibetan refugee area, so it feels more like China or Nepal than India, and we took the new Metro into the city today and went to a coffee shop. It was so nice to have air con and good coffee (my first coffee in almost a month!) and a yummy desert. Big cities are good for this. We have all day tomorrow, and then have to get to the airport around midnight for a 4am flight to Turkey. We plan on more coffee shop time tomorrow, and if we get bored, we'll also catch a Bollywood movie!

Hiding away

A friendly (sort of) long-tailed langur.

Hello again--
The rules at our hotel here in Pushkar state that "No drugs, alcohol, or non-vegetarian foods" may be brought onto the premises. Yes, this is the first city I have ever been to that not only outlaws alcohol within city limits, but also enforces a strictly vegetarian diet. None of the restaurants here serve meat or even egg dishes! Luckily, the food has been great for the most part, so meat has hardly even been missed. I can only think of twice I've had meat at all since we flew into Nepal over a month ago: buffalo dumplings in Kathmandu and a little bacon in a pasta sauce in Pokhara. Ironically, drugs are extremely easy to get for those so inclined: you can't even walk down the street without someone whispering "opium, hash, marijuana....." at your side. But meat or alcohol, no way!

We've adhered to the rules of the city for the time we've been in Pushkar, but it really would be nice to have had a bottle of wine or two at our hotel. Oh well. It's still been a great place to hide away from India for the last few days anyway. Really, I mean that. We've both entered "burn out" mode on our trip -- this is the point in these long term trips were a traveller usually goes somewhere easy like Australia and stays put for 6 months. Instead, we entered India, one of the most hassle-prone countries I've ever been to (and that's saying a lot, since this is my 31st country). In order to stave off burn-out, we've been taking it much slower here, and simply resting and enjoying the places we actually get to. We know there's Jodhpur (the "blue city") and Jaipur (the "pink city") and Jaisalmer (the camel safari city) and other places to see, but really we just want to do a little travel burn-out mitigation and rest before we fly on to our next destination: Istanbul. So without much regret we have chosen to see fewer places here in India for the sake of the enjoyment of the rest of our adventure. And honestly, the parts of India we've seen have been enough: we aren't enamoured of India like some travelers here. I can see the lure of the vibrant colors, fascinating people, varied topography, etc., but frankly, other countries have been far more enjoyable to travel in for me (and I know Sarah feels the same).

Basically, we've enjoyed our time here, but partly because we slowed down and saw less, taking it in small batches and resting along the way. This way we're ready for the next stage of this journey!

Personal space issues

Yesterday we decided to hike up to the top of a small peak overlooking the town of Pushkar. It was a pretty straightforward climb up steps that have been built to accommodate all the pilgrims that head for the temple at the top of the peak. It took us a while to get to the top because we kept getting stopped by groups of Indians who wanted to take photos of us. Well, they mainly wanted photos of Sarah, but they let me be in a few too. It's interesting that they find us exotic enough to want photos.... I guess it goes both ways, since Indians are so colorfully dressed and look pretty exotic to us, too. They are just better at asking without embarrassment for a photo.

We finally got to the top and walked past the temples a little further up the ridge to where we could enjoy the views without people trying to sell us stuff, beg money from us, or simply staring. We walked past trees full of langurs (long-tailed monkeys) and up the ridge. Of course, there were a bunch of men lounging around behind the temple and when they saw us, we became the most interesting thing to happen that day. Lots of staring ensued. So we walked further along the ridge and out of their sight to enjoy the day. Sure enough, three of them followed us up the ridge. We weren't particularly worried about being robbed or anything, since they seemed pretty benign, but it's hard to relax or have some personal time when you are constantly being watched. The men came up to us and wanted to try my binoculars. I already knew they were interested in them, so I let them look through them. Pretty soon, the rest of the men from below had followed along and we had 15 men all watching us, trying the binoculars, and asking us questions in Hindi. Though I'm sure they were perfectly harmless pilgrims, but I don't think they realized that they were making two foreigners very nervous with their closeness and interest.

It's a very different cultural norm here, the issue of space. There are a lot of Indians, and they live very closely packed in cities. The idea of personal space is completely different, especially to our American standards. Once they started asking us about money (I think they just wanted to see some US dollars), we got really nervous and made an excuse to leave or at least get back by the temple. Even then, they didn't realize the anxiety they were causing us. They followed us back to the temple, and then a long way down the stairs....

There was never any sort of aggression or deception on their part -- they were just interested in us. But it certainly made us uncomfortable! Well, I guess that's why we travel, eh? To expand our cultural horizons. =)

Pushkar, Rajasthan, India

Pushkar, India

Our arrival in Pushkar left a lot to be desired... Since the train from Barhatpur to Ajmer was late, we didn't arrive at the station in Ajmer until around 2am. We then had to go out of the train station and barter with the auto-rickshaw drivers to make a late night drive to Pushkar, about 11km away. This was quite a hassle, since it was late and it is ingrained in these drivers to rip foreigners off. The car drove through the night, over the mountain that separates the two towns, and down into the small town of Pushkar. Since no vehicles are allowed inside the town proper, we were dropped off in deserted streets and left to our own devices to try and find the hotel we had reserved. A little twist in this search was that the hotel we booked with was full, so they'd transferred our reservation to another hotel... We wandered around the completely deserted, locked up town for a good 45 minutes trying to find this new hotel. We finally approached the only people we saw, a group of men sitting around drinking chai and watching TV, and they pointed us in the right direction. It was around 2:45am by this point. We went to the hotel, pushed our way past all the cows blocking the entrance, banged on the door, rang the bell, and yelled (I was losing my cool by this point), but were met with only silence. Locked tight! Both of us were really tired from lack of sleep the previous night and such a late night this time that all we wanted was a place to sleep. Randomly, a man came riding along on his bike and kindly helped us find a hotel; he was much less timid than us and banged and yelled until someone opened the door. The second place we tried with him turned out to be nice, so we threw down our bags and crashed for the night. Quite coincidentally, we ended up at one of the places we were going to check the next morning as a better place to stay for the duration of the time in Pushkar.

Pushkar is a pilgrimage town for Hindus. The town itself is made up of whitewashed buildings surrounding a circular lake. Legend has it that Brahma (the creator of the universe) dropped a lotus petal here, creating the holy lake. An interesting twist to the tale is that Brahma took a milkmaid as a second wife when his consort, Saraswati (goddess of education) was late for a ceremony that required her presence. She was (understandably) angry at Brahma for this little mishap, and cursed him to never have temples built to worship him -- with the exception of one temple in Pushkar. And still, to this day, Pushkar has one of the only temples dedicated to Brahma in the entire world. Pilgrims flock here to worship at this temple, bathe in the lake, and go to the other 400 temples in the vicinity. With all of this worshipping going on, you can imagine that the streets are full of people, bells ring from the temples, chanting goes on over loudspeakers, cows wander everywhere... it's a pretty atmospheric place.

Our hotel! We "splurged" and stayed at a nicer hotel ($12/night) -- complete with a pool, green courtyard, views, a TV, and hot water in the room!

colors! pigments for paints.

watching the sunset over the lake and town.

The street view from our window. India is awash with color.

More colorful pilgrims

A local girl took this of her friend with Sarah's camera. Is it art?

The other view from our window

Sarah at the pool!