No panda crossed our road in China.

However we did see one – my sister’s pet panda was busting vibes at the Great Wall of China.

Say hello, Sydney.

S: 🐼👋

Our first stop in China was Urumqi (handy tip on how to pronounce it: “a room key”).

We had entered through the Kazakhstan-China border, and of course, we ran into a situation.

The ride to the border was actually pleasant – a Kazakh friend offered to drop us off by car. Once at the border, a man took us to passport control. We passed the check and therefore started walking to the Chinese border before a loud voice on a megaphone called us back. Confused, we returned to the news that we couldn’t walk to the border (note: it was a five minute stroll away) and the only way we could cross was to wait an undefined amount of time for a bus coming from a distant village, so we could hitchhike it, if it wasn’t full. Even more so, we would have to pay the driver for those 2 minutes’ drive.

But it doesn’t stop there. Once back in the waiting area, we were pestered by security guards asking us questions individually (to me – “What is your mum’s name?”, to my mum – “Can you confirm your husband is from Ukraine?”)
When the guards were satisfied with our answers, they finally left and we were on our own in the waiting area for the next three hours.

Major problem? They hadn’t bothered to put on the heating.

Mind you, this is still Kazakhstan we’re talking about. Where it was snowing!

So the extreme cold left me shivering for the whole wait – the freezing seats didn’t help.
On the other hand, I did get to read on my kindle, my trustworthy library of books. I knew it was a good idea to bring it on the trip.

From time to time, a few individuals would pass through the waiting area and eventually my dad striked up a conversation with one of them. They talked for a bit and the guy offered to negotiate a free ride for us. That was a relief for all of us, as now we didn’t need to worry about the bus being too full or not having enough money to pay for it.

Eventually the bus arrived, the passengers got off to pass through passport control, and, soon enough, the waiting area was filled up. Only then they switched the heater on, which, actually, didn’t matter, as, five minutes later, we all went outside to get on the bus to no man’s land.

Unfortunately, the Chinese border picked that exact time to close down for lunch break. Thus we ended up waiting on the bus for half an hour. Needless to say, I felt uncomfortable: we were clearly the odd ones out – among others we were hitchhiking a bus while other passengers actually had to pay.
Finally, the border opened and we set out to cross into China. At last.

Urumqi was interesting, the tension was thick – it was clear something was going on. This feeling was proven correct: police was stationed on almost every street and we witnessed constant drilling (of the police force and, even, of the shopkeepers). Not only police checks were clearly present in the streets, their red lights flashing 24/7, but also security guards and metal detectors were positioned at the entrance of most shops – even the budget hotel I stayed in! I later found out that the Xinjiang region is a predominantly Muslim area which is considered a troublemaker by the Chinese government.

Being so close to Almaty, Urumqi still had traces of snow in the streets, which quickly evaporated in a couple of days or so, which also meant no snow fight😔.

The next stop was Dunhuang, which I really really enjoyed. Mostly, it was because we spent half a day climbing the sand dunes in the Gobi Desert before rolling/running down.

(I created this poster out of it, because why not)

We also visited the Mogao Caves , where we were led on an English tour, accompanied by a German biker and two Swiss. The main part of the tour was the cave of the large Buddha but I preferred the cave that talks of karma. In it a special deer saves a man from drowning and to return the favour, asks him not to reveal its location. However, when the king suddenly requests the capture of this special deer, the man helps to find and capture the deer for a reward. But after the animal tells the story to the king, it is let go and the traitor is punished. To my parents bewilderment, the story of a prince purposely jumping off a cliff to feed two tiger cubs starving to death, also really captured my imagination.

Talking of Buddha, Zhangye, the next city on our schedule, is home to the largest reclining Buddha in China, which we did, of course, visit. My impressions? It was, well, long! But that wasn’t all. Stunning beauty? Nature at its finest? That’s the Rainbow Mountains. Indeed we came to Zhangye mostly to see those colourful hills stretching across a distance of 322 square km. I was in awe of the mountains. On our way there though we first stumbled into the Binggou Mountains. The rock formations there were just incredible, varying from tall towers to rocks that resembled turtles, snakes and even a frog!

Xi’an was next. The hotel we stayed at was amazing. It was a contemporary art gallery/hotel, so of course it was heaven for my mum. I genuinely enjoyed the creative mood of the hotel and was sad to leave. It was one of the best I had been in.

The actual city itself was ok. The old city was surrounded by a wall where you could walk on. It was interesting, because it gave us a high view (*cough* high ground, Star Wars fans *cough*) over the city: we could see women playing poker on the streets, scooters zooming by and even a school playing at full blast Fhur Eliza on the speakers of its basketball court.

Of course, we also visited the Terracotta warriors, the legendary army of clay soldiers buried with the emperor to protect him on his way to the afterlife. I found amusing that it was all discovered by a bunch of farmers digging for a well. Who knew that would lead to a discovery of such importance?
Other interesting things: there wasn’t just soldiers, but also calvary, chariots, pottery, servants and entourage; each piece was individually created i.e. arm, leg, before they were assembled. Impressive, huh?

And now…Beijing!!!
The capitol!!! *cough* Hunger Games *cough*

We spent a day strolling through the Forbidden City, a city reserved only to the emperor, his family and his entourage. How ironic, since now it is open to everyone, bursting with tourists. No matter how grand and spacious it is, it mustn’t have been very exciting living in a whole city all alone, closed from the outside world. I find it astonishing that an emperor would spend his whole life doing that – when he is meant to rule China (which is one of the biggest countries in the world, in terms of population and land mass).

That night, we went to see the Olympic stadium lit up, white and blue colours illuminating the nightly air.

All the neon lights and loud music made the famous Olympic stadium even more stunning than I imagined.

Mostly though, I still can’t believe I’ve been to one of the greatest landmarks in the world – the Great Wall of China. Even more so, I get to brag that Sydney, the panda went there too. 🐼😎

The specific section we took was mostly uphill and it gave us an amazing view at the top. Being on the wall, overlooking miles and miles of landscape I could imagine what it would have been like to be a guard patrolling the wall – I could see through his eyes.

While in Beijing, we also indulged ourselves in eating a peking duck, a dish greatly appreciated by emperors and first introduced in Beijing during the North and South Dynasties. We ate it wrapped in a pancake, after dipping the fatty roasted skin in sugar and jam. It was absurdly delicious – I helped myself to a large portion of it. The name Peking was only introduced later on during the Ming Dynasty.

The next stop was Shanghai. We all enjoyed Shanghai, but I particularly did because of its futuristic atmosphere – all the tall skyscrapers looming throughout the day, and the city lit up with sound and colour at night.

There, we walked along the Bund – where more looming buildings were built on the other side and we visited the Propaganda Art Museum – where most art depicted China as extremely successful and Europe and America falling behind. Below are a couple of my favourites posters.

As much as I loved Shanghai it was nice to take a break from the lively and busy city though, and, once in Hangzhou, we decided to lodge in the the nearby forest, rather than in the centre of the city.

We did go to the city though, but ended up having to walk since not a single taxi would take us. Why? To this date we still don’t know. We could only imagine that we were victims of discrimination… and, man, it was painful (literally, as we ended having to walk more than 8km).

Beside this misfortune, we still managed to see the famously romantic West Lake, the calm water reflecting slivers of the setting sun.

Home to the renowned Yellow Mountains, Huangshan was our next reside(Huangshan literally means Yellow Mountains, which left me wondering if they couldn’t be any more creative). It is so called because the Yellow Emperor, the mythical ancestor of the Chinese, lived there. Eventually, it became well known for the odd pine trees, hot springs, clouds and peaks. Here, it was the weather that didn’t assist us – the day we chose to visit the mountains, it was raining and quite foggy. On the other hand, it did add a majestic and mysterious feel to it.

On the way up, we took a cable car, but we decided to go by foot on our way down, we walked 7km. And man, that was long.

Next up was Yangshuo. We spent the majority of the first day sitting on a raft while a man paddled us across the Li river. It was a satisfying experience, including mini-waterfalls, where we would ride down, screaming all the way. At the end we rented bikes and rode through the countryside back to the city. The next day, we visited the Silver cave which, while it was impressive, felt artificial, because of manned colourful lighting everywhere (more on this in my next post).
The last day we rented scooters. Feeling the wind as we rode through stunning nature was a first for me and felt very pleasant. I chose not to wear a hat (helmets aren’t compulsory here) and life came back to bite me in the face by giving me a sore throat the following day. Eh, it was worth it.

Bear with me, folks. We’re almost done.

Before our last stop, (Hong Kong, which has a special status and not considered mainland China, but let’s not dwell on the technicalities), we stayed in Shenzhen – China’s Silicon Valley – for a couple of days. I was in awe of the products being sold. My parents marveled for long time in front of a 3D holographic fan. The city is also home to, apparently, the largest bookstore in the world, which I was happy we visited.

Finally we arrived to what I expected to be one of the most glamorous and busting cities of the world – Hong Kong. In the back of my mind, throughout the whole journey, I just couldn’t wait for Hong Kong, one of the only three cosmopolitan financial centers in the world. Already as a young kid, I was intrigued by what I imagined to be a city of exhilarating sights and complex culture. It came as a disappointment to realize how similar it was to London!
Just as in London, Hong Kong sported humongous looming buildings, double-decker buses driving along the road, and huge crowds of people pushing past each other on the pavements. It just didn’t feel as Asia anymore…
On the train to our hotel; a young girl leaning on the pole (must have been around 6 or 7) was reading a particularly popular English book; later on, a man accidentally bumped into me and instinctively said “Sorry” in English. Even more so, English signs were everywhere and shop assistants in English high street franchises (Mark and Spencer, Debenham etc…) were speaking in accurate British accents.

I do wonder, if we had just taken a plane from London to Hong Kong, instead of slowly coming to the city through all those other countries, my impressions, and enthusiasm, would have been very different. There were, after all, tall skyscrapers penetrating the sky and the neon signs flashing on and on did give off an astonishing nightly view.

In Hong Kong we stayed the longest time to date on our journey (four nights). This had nothing to do with sightseeing but was due to the fact that my dad has a few friends here, and wanted to have time to catch up with most of them. I got to know his friend Devin and his family quite well as we had dinner with them every night, which was great as I immediately struck up a bond with his son, Nicholas (if you are reading this, hi!) with whom I had especially great time playing Fortnite and Clash Royale.

We were not confined only to Hong Kong City though. We took a boat to Lamma Island where we strolled around. However, even there, I was a little disappointed. This time, because of how carelessly the environment was treated – litter present everywhere, chunks of trees piled up on the grass and a gigantic power station situated right by the beach for everyone to see, which totally spoiled the view.

Well, that’s it gang. We made it. We travelled all over Central Asia by land, passing through Bulgaria, Turkey, Georgia, Armenia, Iran, Azerbaijan, the Caspian Sea, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and China. Our Silk Road journey is over. There’s been so many ups and downs. I’ve also managed to survive this far, so good news. If I don’t post the second part within a month, assume I’m dead. As for the moment, adios.

(by the way, just kidding. We are all good)

Don’t come to Kazakhstan in the winter if you don’t like the cold!

We got there late October and it was already snowing 😖. Still, visiting Kazakhstan during freezing weather gave us an excuse to relax in the famous Arasan Russian bath – which is an experience I really reccomend to do (unless you have something against bathing naked with sweating seniors!).

Indeed, I really enjoyed the Arasan spa in Almaty (highlights include an old man doing a somersault over the handrail into the swimming pool). I attempted the Turkish, Finnish and Russian saunas, the latter being the hottest. I would suggest going to the Turkish if you like sunbathing (if you also don’t mind the smell of burnt fish, that’s what I smelled). It is difficult to stay in the Russian sauna for more than a couple minutes, but it’s worth the try. Tip: after entering, pour the bucket of ice-cold water on top of you head, it does help.

Enough about the spa. Let’s go back outside.

The mini-blizzard didn’t stop us from sightseeing. We went up the Kok-tobe mountain, a popular weekenders destination, with a cable car (it reminded me of the times when we would go skiing). It was even colder up there, but I enjoyed walking around, especially because it was a fun park (starting up again the chant – “It’s not fair! Take us to the fair!”). Unfortunately most attractions were closed due to the snow. At the end, considering how expensive the lift tickets were, we decided to walk down the mountain, which turned out to be a nice and pleasant walk despite the chilly air.

In fact, Kazakhstan was stunning under the blanket of snow, a condition the country is well used to. Nested in the mountains just a 15 minutes drive from Almaty, there is indeed a well known ski resort and Medeu, an enormous Olympic Stadium ice rink. We could not not go to visit that. It was unfortunately closed, but I was still in awe of the grand space of the entire rink clothed in glistening snow.

Talking of landmark sights, we also visited Panfilov Park, which is home to the Ascension Cathedral, a Russian Orthodox church. Impressively, it is the second tallest wooden church in the world, still standing: the towers looming in the pelting snow. It is now being refurbished, so unfortunately we couldn’t visit this one attraction either, but it was worth coming to the park and seeing the colorful church from the outside. Nearby, a large memorial dedicated to the Kazakh soldiers defending Moscow during WW2 is perched over an eternal fire crackling and raging through the weather.

My early impressions of Kazakhstan, however, weren’t great and only changed once in Almaty.

As I mentioned in my previous post, (https://beyondoverton.com/2018/10/26/uzbekistan-golden-teeth-and-neon-signs-2/) we first entered Kazakhstan through the Caspian Sea before driving into Uzbekistan. We had befriended a Kazakh on the ferry who offered us a ride to Beyneu on his bus. Later on, he asked my dad to lend him money for the petrol, promising he would return it (spoiler alert : he lied). In the end, he claimed the money was his fee for giving us a bus ride to Beyneu. I was frustrated – this person had lied and cheated us and we couldn’t do anything about it.

Another ‘school of life’ situation (as my mum likes to call them), happened while waiting for our train. We had set out for a restaurant close to the station and finally found one. All was well until half an hour later. A man had too much to drink and started stumbling around the restaurant, smashing windows and fighting with his friend. Well, that was interesting, to say the least.

Those experiences were not repeated the second time we entered Kazakhstan. Already at our arrival at Almaty’s train station, we were met by a friend of a friend, who owned a truck transportation business shipping things from China into Central Asia. He kindly offered to organise our Chinese border crossing – which we were extremely grateful for (otherwise, we would have had to take (again!) an overnight train).

In addition, later on, another friend of a friend showed us around Almaty’s surroundings (he brought us to the ice-skating rink) and introduced us to horse milk and camel milk. I found them both a bit too sour for my taste.

Overall, I really liked Almaty (full of amazing cafes and restaurants – with WiFi!). It’s third on my list of favourite cities, after Baku and Batumi.

Trees of a specific fruit are grown all around the city which is why Almaty means ‘father of…’ See if you can guess which fruit it is.

That’s right. Oranges.

Oh my bad. I meant apples.

We were unprepared. Here comes the apocalypse.

It was so cold, I had to wear a minimum of five layers of clothes each day.

In a way, the weather reminded me of London. It’s very strange, varying from rain and cold the first day and sunshine and warmth the next.

Unfortunately, I had lost the very comfortable and warm jacket ( https://beyondoverton.com/2018/09/28/armenia-home-of-the-crazy-drivers/), so I was left shivering in the chilly air. Eventually, we bought a warm jacket for me. Even though it isn’t fashionable it has the interesting feature of being double-sided.

And at least it keeps me warm! There were times when it was absolutely freezing outside and I was glad I was wearing something thick.

Anyway, from the Caspian Sea, we breezed through Kazakhstan into Uzbekistan in less than one day (we were going to re-enter Kazakhstan later on). We took what looked like a very antique train to cross the border. We waited at the train station of Beyneu until around 1am, when we finally boarded. Fortunately, the train had beds. As uncomfortable and stiff they were, I was glad there was at least something to lie on that wasn’t my mom’s lap.
It was an unusual train – it had no assigned seats, the beds were more like stiff benches, to climb up to the bunk bed, there was only a foothold (no ladder) and the seats/benches were in an open carriage thus everyone could see you sleeping.

Eventually, we were woken up at 5am to pass the border. We were asked the weirdest question to date : Are you bringing any history books into the country?
Another peculiarity was that, during the day, a huge number of sellers passed by the carriage every five minutes, selling clothes, electronics, toiletries and even kitchen utensils.

We visited four cities in Uzbekistan – Khiva, Bukhara, Samarkand and Tashkent(the capital).

Samarkand was my favourite.
It was very lively and the Registan (three madrases and a mosque) felt so grand and majestic.

One of the madrases was very unique, since it had paintings of animals on its frontal wall: a tiger in particular. For those who don’t know, Muslims are not allowed to use figurative art for religious purposes, so it was surprising to see this on the madras.

Registan was even more stunning when it was lit up at night. We only had one night to see it, so we stuck around the Registan for half an hour, waiting for the moment it lit up. It was worth it.

What really surprised me about Registan, though, was the sight of six weddings all at once. My mum said it was quite common in cities of historical beauty, but, living in London, I have rarely seen any.

But the Registan wasn’t the only highlight of Samarkand. We visited the tomb of Timur – who built Samarkand, Bibi mosque – a colossus which has never been finished, and the city necropolis. I particularly enjoyed the latter as it is composed of twisting corridors and colourful, tiled, rooms of tombs.

As usual, though, it is the presence of animals that grabbed most of my attention (to my parents’ frustration). I was thrilled with the encounter of two very cute kittens in Bukhara; while in Khiva, I witnessed a black cat having a rest on top of a thin wooden door. I also sighted a bunch of camels and a ram there. In fact, camels are very common all around Uzbekistan.

Indeed I also saw camels on the ride from Khiva to Bukhara.

More interestingly for my parents we also saw the land of Turkmenistan, as the road bordered it. At some point, we crossed the bridge where on the right side, the river was Turkmenistan, on the left side, it was Uzbekistan. The bridge had train tracks on as it is used by vehicles and train in alternate mode 😱.

Unfortunately, my mum had such a bad cold in Bukhara, that it was up to me, my sister and my dad to go sightseeing. I saw a
lot of madrases and mosques and I found it amusing that a part of the old city that was completely rundown had a wall built all around, so it wouldn’t leave a negative impact on the tourists’ view of the city.

Talking of walls, in Khiva, to my delight, there were extremely well preserved walls surrounding the old city. I quickly climbed one and, though I did get plenty of curious stares from the locals, I did not get questioned or arrested. Lucky me.
We also got to climb a minaret in Khiva. I found it fun climbing all the mismatched stairs with only my phone torch as a guide. Once we finally got to the top, we got a nice panoramic view of the city, including, no surprise, a wedding on the streets.

Another common denominator all around Uzbekistan, apart weddings and camels, was golden teeth. Pretty much everyone had at least one gold tooth (more often it was several, if not entire rows). It was very difficult for me to look at them while they spoke and it definitely made me more self-aware about my teeth, so I now brush them much more thoroughly and carefully every day.

Other curious things of the country were the number of neon signs on the streets, restaurants and shops and the constant presence of outdoor ovens. They are interestingly built like a cement igloo, the inside only exposed from the small hole at the top.

Now would be a good time to tell you of how and where I found Nemo stranded in Uzbekistan. Actually wait, let me talk about Tashkent, so you would be burning with curiosity. 😏

Tashkent was an interesting one.
We visited the observatory and I found out that, even though Timur himself wasn’t educated, he wanted others to be. I thought it was a kind and selfless act, especially since he did some savage slaughtering in his own time.
Tashkent was also the victim of a horrible and devastating earthquake in 1967. In honour of the tremendous efforts of the citizens to quickly reconstruct the city a memorial was built. It’s a powerful sculpture and I actually really enjoyed it. Moreover, when they restored the city, with the help of Russians, they didn’t just make it like it was before – they made it better. Specifically , each of the train stations was individually decorated with beautiful chandeliers and art all around. I’m sorry Britons, but compared to the Tashkent Tube, the London Underground is quite dull.

For some reason (I don’t see how) but my parents got nostalgic in Tashkent as they claimed it gave off an 80s feel. Ah, the youthful times! (for them)

While wandering around the streets we were particularly surprised to see row of women standing there with old style prams. We quickly realised that instead of babies, it was bread inside the prams, all wrapped up in blankets keeping the bread warm for the customers. Needless to say it was delicious.

I suppose I have held you on for too long. Yes, I did find Nemo, but unfortunately he was flattened on stone.

We stopped to ask for directions. I quickly got bored and started wandering around a statue – that is when I noticed the little orange clownfish, hidden in within the serious homage to the first, and only, Uzbek astronaut in space. Watch the video to see it in all its glory.

So, if you guys find Marlin, let him know. I found his son.

One the way to Baku, we took another overnight bus. While in the one we took to Iran we were greeted by a friendly family, we were introduced to a gang of traders on this one. We boarded the bus at 8 o’clock and were delayed for an hour because of an argument between the driver and some passengers. Finally we got on the bus and all was well until we got to the border. Aah, the border.
We got up at 5 am and had to wait another half hour before we could finally go to passport control. Once there, it took ten minutes before we finished but we had to wait for everyone else. Eventually, we were told to get on the bus where we waited for another ten minutes because a passenger ran into trouble in passport control.
Once that was sorted, the bus started moving but stopped literally after one metre. We got off again to go through security which was right next to passport control. This was where the fun began.
I and my family got through, no problem. Well, we were questioned a bit, but compared to what happened next, it was nothing.
A couple of other passengers got through too, but there still remained a big group of old ladies carrying massive amounts of luggage (a dozen bag each or so).
The thing was, because of the exchange rate, consumer goods especially were very cheap in Iran, so they all bought a lot of stuff and were planning to resell it for a higher price in Azerbaijan.
But there is a limit to how many items you can bring into the country, so each woman spent at least one hour arguing with the border patrol. As a result, we waited almost ten hours at the border.
When the issue seemed finally solved, and the bus passed security as well, we were told to get on. But, of course, we were held back, again, because some passengers had unresolved issues with their passports. At that point, I didn’t really care or mind too much, because I was comfortably sitting on the bus, reading my kindle, but eventually even I felt restless, because another hour had passed to no avail.
Eventually, the bus went and there was no issue… until half an hour later. The bus stopped on the side and a passenger went out only to come back ten minutes later. This went on several times all the way to Baku. The passengers were already selling their goods along the way!
What was meant to be a 16 hour bus ride, turned into a 24 hour ride, but at least we arrived that same day.
What a relief.

Forgetting the terrible bus ride, I really, really liked Baku. It was modern everywhere – even the underground tunnels were large and clean ( as opposed to the ones in London). The atmosphere was very warm and welcoming and the view was beautiful. Baku is home to three Flame Towers, which are lit up at night and are stunning at sunset.

The picture above was taken at the top of Maiden Tower. It was fun climbing all the stairs. There is no confirmed theory on why it was built, and plenty of legends on the reason behind the name, which I found particularly interesting, as they mostly consisted of a woman jumping off and committing suicide.

Anyway, the Flame Towers are now my favourite building.

Near the Flame Towers is the Caspian Waterfront Mall, which, at first sight, looks very much like the Sydney Opera House in… well, Sydney.

It is difficult to decide which I prefer: Baku or Batumi. In terms of view, either would do, but in terms of atmosphere and people, I would pick Baku. As I mentioned before, the atmosphere is very welcoming – it was very relaxing and comforting to walk along the coast at night. The food is amazing and the people are so friendly. For instance, we were trying to find our way to the hotel and around 6 strangers on the train came over to help guide us to our location.
One Azeri guy who spoke fluent French even went out of his way to get off the train with us and guide us to the hotel before going back. He also went out of his way to mention to my mum that he was already engaged after she made a point on how kind it was for him to help us.
Azeri guy, if you’re reading this, thank you again for helping us. By the way, my mum is still too attracted to my dad, so there is no way she would fall for another man.
Anyway.

Ok, I now know why we were on a bus for 24 hours and at the border control for more than 10… it was all training for this: the boat from Baku to Aktau. Upon calling the port every morning, we were told there would be a ship at 22.00 on our third day in Baku. My dad was worried we might not find tickets (it is a cargo ship which takes passengers for a price; you can’t book or get tickets anywhere else but here at the sea port), so we checked out from the hotel at Baku at 14.00 and we waited at the seaport (it is 70 km from the hotel, in the middle of nowhere). The place was absolutely deserted if it weren’t for many, many trucks, a makeshift toilet, shower, store, tea place, custom offices. All of those were self contained in middle size ship containers (and of course we were asked to pay tourist price for anything we touched). Once there we were duly informed that the boat might arrive at 22.00, we might be able to board at 2.00 am and we might depart at 5.00 am; If no storm hits us we might be on the boat for as little as 20 hours. I couldn’t even fathom how long it would be before we will be able to disembark once at the Kazakhstan border!

Well, good news. The boat never docked at 22.00. We spent the night sleeping on the table, drunken style.

P. S. In the name of full disclosure: my mum had sent a WhatsApp to close friends and family with some details of our sea trip ahead which might sound familiar to what written above… I felt it was good enough to include it here (plagiarism??? 🤔🤐)

Turns out we actually spent a whole 24 hours at the empty seaport, waiting for the ship.
In addition, I noticed this:

…which left me not very reassured about the journey ahead. I was wary throughout the whole ride until we arrived in Aktau, Kazakhstan.

On the other hand, the container we stayed the night in, played Skyscraper at some point (in Russian!), so I was settled. 👍

Furthermore, we had interesting company. We met our first traveller on our trip : an American, who goes by the name Wongie. 👋Hello, Michael.

So, there you have it folks, an American in Azerbaijan. Stay tuned.

Iran is hot.
And when I say hot, I mean trapped in a sealed box with a piece of the sun, in the Sahara Desert during summer.
But I mustn’t complain, for my mum and my sister have had it worse as they were both fully covered and had to wear hijabs throughout the days.

The heat is exacerbated by the shortage of water all over Iran. We sat eating on a bridge in Esfahan where the river was completely dry. Most fountains had no water either, but were covered in dirt and leaves instead.

Locals are so curious about tourists in Iran. If I had a dollar every time someone looked at me as if I’m an alien, I would be as rich as Mark Zuckerberg. Many times during our stay in Iran, locals would come up to us and have a five minute conversation and pose for pictures. There was even this lady who filmed her son talking to us as if we were some sort of celebrities. Every time we crossed the road, people would even shout hello from their transport vehicle while asking where we were from.

Indeed it is so true what we had heard about Iranians – they are very friendly. Already on the bus from Yerevan to Tehran, a big Iranian family came over and striked up a conversation with us. They offered us food and invited us to visit them in their home. Later on during the journey, we witnessed a backgammon match between two men on the streets. They noticed my dad’s interest and offered him a chance to play. It was a tough match, but unfortunately the opponent won.
At some point I also got a chance to join two local boys who were kicking the ball on the streets. They were Iranian and I was Italian, but we had one common language – football.

Whilst in Iran, we visited 5 cities – Tehran, Kashan, Esfahan, Shiraz and Yazd, in that order.

In the big cities, what struck me, was the predominance of transport vehicles (i.e. traffic!). On entering Tehran, I saw a man pushing his car, attempting to start it, before jumping inside and steering it. In Esfahan, several boxes collapsed out of an overfilled truck, onto the road. In Shiraz, an out-of-control car was speeding on the highway, chased by a man on foot. We can only assume the driver was unconscious. What happened next? I’ll leave you to guess🤐😜 * cue suspense music *

Of course, apart the traffic there were other interesting things to see in Iran.

In Tehran, we visited Golestan Palace, which is impressively decorated with glistening diamonds and mirrors in most rooms. The city is also home to the 5th tallest communications tower in the world – Milad Tower. It was pretty high. Near the Milad Tower was a big air bag. To be able to do the big jump was, of course, the highlight of my day.

In Kashan, I particularly enjoyed running around the historical houses. Actually, all of us really liked Kashan as a whole. We also visited the ancient baths. It is pretty clever the way it had been designed – they built twisting corridors, so it would take longer for the heat of the hot tub to escape.

Kashan was also where, for the first time, we sat at Iranian tables – if you could call it that. It was a sort of a hard big bed, with no table and carpet instead of mattress – for respect and tradition, you take off your shoes (which could be embarrassing if you have smelly feet!). I enjoyed eating on those “beds.” I think it should be internationally welcomed.

On our way to Esfahan, we stopped by Abyaneh. On the way, we observed a castle perched high on a hill. Funny enough it looked like the sandcastles I would build on the beach at Villa Gea. Once on Abyaneh I understood why: constructions there are made of mud and straw.
It was impressive, the whole village of Abyaneh is red mud and straw. Built more than 2000 years ago, they have all managed to stay firm and still.

While in Esfahan, Iran went in a state of mourning for Hussein, the third Iman, who died gruesomly in a battle. Therefore, all the shops and mosques closed, which was unfortunate, because we couldn’t see much. On the other hand, this gave us plenty of time to relax and for me to do lots of studying. So not much happened in Esfahan. This didn’t mean we couldn’t participate in the ceremonies though. Locals invited us to events and (*cough* without our consent *cough*) took pictures of us wearing religious trinkets which were given to us. In addition, we were constantly offered free tea and dates on every corner of the streets, which was paradise for my mum.

The morning we were meant to leave the city though, we managed to quickly tour the beautiful square with its several mosques and Palace. We also managed to make a stop to the Armenian church. For us it was strange to learn that in Esfahan there were Christian Armenian quarters, considering how seriously Iran enforces Islam within its border. The Armenian Church was fully decorated with painting, including a massive depiction of Hell.

In Shiraz, of course, we visited Persepolis and Necropolis. I was surprised of Persepolis, because I expected it to be a bit bigger as it was the old capital of Persia, founded by Darius the Great. Two stone griffins stood guard at the entrance to Persepolis, the Gate of all Nations, still imposing after all those years (553 BC) and despite the great number of graffiti spoiling their base.
While walking around Persepolis, I also couldn’t help but notice how the carvings were so extremely detailed, the carved soldiers even had different clothes.

Talking of detail, I was mostly impressed with the delicately and beautifully carved trees by a professional carver in a park back in the city. No words can describe the beauty and detail of the elegantly shaped trees.

Shoutout to the amazing carver.

Necropolis consisted of just four tombs, which were really high up, right in the middle of the mountains.

Shiraz is also home to many interesting mosques e.g. one had tiles all of mixed colours and another was lit up at night.

There is also the so called Pink Mosque, which at sunrise, fills up with the reflected colours from the stained windows, like a giant caledoiscope!

So Shiraz was very interesting. But one word of warning: watch out in its Bazaar – there are always motorcycles and people with boxes coming from the opposite direction.

Eventually our time in Shiraz was over, and we made our way to Yazd, also stopping by Pasargard on the way. Pasargard was quite a dissapointment – it was very antique but, compared to Persepolis, there wasn’t much left to feel impressed by.
After Pasargard, we visited the oldest living creature in the world (according to the Iranians, but upon some research it turns out it is only the second), Sarv-e Abarqu, a cedar tree, still living, even after 4000 years.

I liked Yazd as much as Kashan. I was particularly amused by a red fountain, near the marvelous Amir Chakhmagh (I’m sure is actually blood…😦I unveiled your secrets, government🕵️‍♂️🤯🤐oh well🤷‍♂️).

Yazd is the home of wind catchers – they are everywhere.
It even has the tallest wind catcher in the world (which, while not looking much in terms of height was producing really powerful wind).
Another impressing fact – Yazd is still an important center of zoroastrianism (ancient religion of Persia strongly linked to nature) and in their temple still burns an eternal fire.

Finally we returned to Tehran to take a bus to Baku. But first, we stopped by Maybod, which was in any case on our way. We visited a castle (posed for pictures) and the Ice House, a massive dome with a massive hollow hole underneath, which was used to store ice in the ancient times. Even the tiniest whisper would echo around the walls. Creepy. * shudders *
Oh yeah, we also rescued a pigeon stuck inside.

After Maybod, we went straight to Tehran. It was there that our two-week stay in Iran finished. While I must admit it was fun in general, it was difficult to roam around in the scorching heat that envelopes Iran from sunrise to sunset.

P. S. Melon juice is a must–have drink in Iran. The same goes for syrup juices with flowers. So, if you ever have the quenching desire to have a nice, fresh melon juice or a syrup, come to Iran. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

P. P. S The night we returned to Tehran, for dinner, I overate lamb and sure enough, the next morning, I wasn’t feeling so well.
In which case, I felt like:

Sorry Marvel fans.

I feel your pain.

🙃

Sheese balls.

How Armenians try to translate to English is amusing.

Someone should tell them that it’s cheese balls. Let’s see how long it is before they realise the correct spelling.

I can easily summarise Yerevan in four words – the city of construction. You cannot miss the imposing cranes situated besides the crumbling houses or the buildings still in construction. There isn’t even an old city of Yerevan any more – builders have destroyed a part of it and the rest looks like barracks.

Apart from all the construction, the warm and welcoming atmosphere made Yerevan beautiful. There even was an extraordinary city fountain water display, with light and sound. However, I couldn’t enjoy the experience, because I had just broken my phone while walking there which left me very miserable for most of the day (and to make matters worse, later on I realised that I had left my jacket somewhere behind – given to me especially for the trip by a friend for my birthday) 😫😭.

Armenia is home to many precious and beautiful gems such as the piece I found below:

Yerevan has delicious food – including enormous Armenian pizza, my favourite so far. It was far different from Italian pizza. The dough was hard and crusty while it only consisted of one topping – groundbeef. I loved it so much, I had two of them. Also, I had no idea that ayran (diluted yoghurt) was popular in Central Asia, so it’s good news for me (I can now have ayran every day😏😄).

Our Armenian driver who took us from Tbilisi to Yerevan was even worse than the Georgian driver. It’s a relief that we all managed to arrive in one piece. His attitude didn’t help either. We were having chakapuri and some crumbs had fallen on the floor of the bus and when the driver saw, he went completely mental on us. The driver never told us we couldn’t eat in the bus. We even asked him if we could have breakfast and he agreed.

Anyway.

As part of my English studying, my mum asked me to write a sort of descriptive piece about Armenia… well, Yerevan. I had to include alliteration, onomatopoeia, personification, metaphor, simile, anolgy, satire and hyperbole. See if you can find them. So, here goes.

Armenian Aryan

While at times the sky turned grey and clouds rumbled , at others the sky was full of the scorching sun sending burning rays of light. In which case, the latter seemed the most appropriate opportunity to take a sip of Armenian aryan.

During the day, Yerevan was a transforming city – cranes creaked , metal clanked on metal and builders shouted out orders.

But during the evening, the whole city took a break and enjoyed their best works, including the miraculous fountain. The dancing water was an elegant ballerina, performing their best piece yet. The jet sprays were like fireworks – emitting a whole colourful display of noise and sight . The city was bursting with surprises and entertainment each day.

In contrast, the old city of Yerevan was empty. It was equivalent to your average abandoned park.

But Armenia, they really do have the best drivers. I mean, it’s rather safe for them to be going as fast as they possibly can and swerve around the corners at the last second, even if it is on the edges of a mountain. It makes sense why they should rock their buses or cars when attempting to go over the speed limit. I mean, they’re not breaking the law, right?

Talking of driving, the bus from Tblisi to Yerevan took forever to arrive. Let’s just hope we don’t need to say the same for the bus from Yerevan to Teheran.

I would like to say that Georgia was named after my mum because it is a beautiful land. 😘 Shout out to my mum.

I particularly felt the landscape of Batumi was gorgeous. It was relaxing to ride along the Black Sea on a scooter by myself and seeing the futuristic-like buildings. This may be one of the places I will consider living in for some time. I already have an idea to own a nice house by the side of the Black Sea and to take out the scooter every morning.

I really liked Batumi. But soon enough, we were on a train to Tbilisi.

Both the apartments we rented in Batumi and Tbilisi while in a central area which looked so rundown that walking around didn’t make me feel safe. Thankfully, once inside, they were modern and nicely decorated. It made me wonder if they left the area to decay to turn away the robbers.I

Saying that, on arriving in Tbilisi I almost felt I was in New York again. It has tall buildings, wide lanes, lots of lights and car noise.

The next day, a friend of a friend kindly gave us a tour around, all the way from the old capital of Georgia to the best balconies with a view, and to old Tbilisi.

We also went to the Bath of the City which, although it reeked of rotten eggs (sulphur–which has healing properties), was also very elegant. At the end of it, there was a waterfall. This was very special, because what other city has a waterfall in its centre?

Flashback to our arrival, a few evenings ago. It was pouring. Literally. When we were in no-man’s land, past theTurkish border walking towards the Georgian border, the rain was so strong it made puddles on the ground. Security had to put planks of wood for people to walk on. And that was only indoors. Imagine outdoors.

Once we officially arrived in Georgia, we took a minibus to the apartment. The vehicle was packed, so we had to stand for half an hour. To make matters even worse, the driver was absolutely crazy. Italians are the worst drivers? Pfffff. Come to Georgia, people.

That’s the worst you can get, right? Nope.
We were drenched and we were wearing these waterproof covers, and they were drenched. We were all standing and I had to hold on for the sake of my life, to avoid being thrown across the minibus. One passenger, on her phone, sitting down, wanted me to move, because the waterproof cover kept going in her way. She didn’t ask me. She pushed me, although gently. I’m sorry, but I’m trying to hold on. I didn’t realise that your priority was scrolling through Facebook on your phone. Hmm. Selfish!

Dude.

Animals need to stop crossing the road.

Seriously.

I witnessed a number of geese and cows (separately) crossing the road on our way to Georgia.

So, Bulgaria – two chicks and a rooster.

Turkey – several geese and cows.

What next? Pandas in China?

Talking of chickens, they keep showing up. It was devastating to see one squawking in the hands of a man taking it to the market😭.

Poor chicken 🐔.

But that was in Kars. Instanbul was beautiful. No doubt about that.

The picture above was taken at the fountain in front of Hagia Sophia, a former church which was destroyed twice, rebuilt and converted as a mosque after the fall of Constantinopolis. Now, Hagia Sophia is a museum.

Its neighbour, the Blue Mosque (named after the predominant presence of the blue and turquoise tiles) was the first mosque I have been in.

Once in Kars, we also visited an orthodox Russian-built church converted into a mosque – which makes it the only one with such architecture in Turkey – or so I’ve been told.

So by now I’ve reached the conclusion that I prefer mosques to churches. The latter are so serious and so quiet while the former are loud, playful and as a bonus, have comfortable carpets.

We also went to see the Basilica Cistern (an underground water cistern from the Roman times). It was quite creepy, walking through the passage surrounded by the dark. The music didn’t help either. To be honest, I didn’t really care about the building, but I was curious to see the two carved Medusa heads, of which the story still remains a mystery.

It was interesting to see the culture of Turkey through my own eyes.

For example, while I’m not a religious person, listening to the call of prayer from the mosques was satisfying to my ears.

Even more fascinating was watching two restaurants in a battle of convincing passers-by to stop and eat. I couldn’t help but feel pity for the vendors in the Spice Bazaar and the Grand Bazaar when my parents refused their offers, but both my mom and dad found that perfectly normal. They grew up in a Mediterranean environment, so they must have been used to it.

The same goes for the sight of all the homeless dogs and cats stranded in the streets. This was not a common sight in London and it was soon enough that I was informed of the ugly truth – a lot of animals found on the streets of London were slaughtered.

Probably though, the first amusing encounter to the foreign culture was already on the bus from Haskovo to Instanbul.

Approaching the border of Bulgaria, you could see a lane going for kilometres full of trucks waiting to get into Turkey, as shown below (my parents were commenting on how this will become a common sight on the UK/France border once Brexit happens).

The locals have thus found ways to trade making do without the red tape of customs. As you are allowed to bring one bottle of alcohol per person into Turkey, the bus hostess was then going around asking the passengers if they wouldn’t mind carrying a bottle each for her. The bus then duly stopped before the border at a big discount store to buy the extra alcohol 😂.

Other (very) relevant things about Istanbul were:

– Even as we approached with the bus we couldn’t help but notice the amount of mosques all around.

– I finally had my hair cut in Besiktas! We walked into a minuscule shop (2*0.5mt max) where the barber – sitting in a chair, scrolling through his phone, seemed relaxed . He did his job well.

– One day, we tried to take a ferry back to the hotel area. While no-one at the station understood English they gestured us into one when my father showed them our destination on Google Maps. It turns out the ferry was going in the opposite direction. We had no choice but to wait on the ferry till it came back to its departure point. By then there wasn’t a ferry that could take us back to Sultanahmet. On the other hand, this gave us a chance to see the Bosphorus up close at sunset. And it was really beautiful.

That was all our time in Instanbul. But we weren’t finished with Turkey yet.

We took a train from Instanbul to Ankara. The train was very modern with a secure WiFi connection, so we were equipped for the three hours ride ahead 😎.

This wasn’t the case for our next train, Ankara-Kars, which not only was clearly past its prime but also had no WiFi connection. This was a tragedy, considering we were going to be on the train for 25 hours. So we were going ‘old school’ .

But more of this later. First, a bit more about Ankara. We had only two hours before taking the overnight train. Still, we managed to explore the nearby park and fill our parents ears with the chant “It’s not fair! Take us to the fair!” (Gençlik Park has a big permanent amusement park).

We stopped, however, at a park cafe for gyuzleme, ayran, and ice cream. I finally tried Turkish ice-cream! It feels like bubblegum. Very elastic.

While eating, few children startled me by coming over to our table, pleading for food. I had never experienced that. I was surprised and sad. But it turns out this is quite a common practice in Turkey and does not necessarily mean that they are starving.

Indeed, later on, at one train stop, a huge crowd of children came running towards the train, literally on the tracks, asking for food, drinks, toys, anything. Passengers on the train actually started throwing snacks and drinks out of the windows (I saw one kid happily holding a massive bag of Doritos).

This reminded my father of his past. Since he spent his summers in the village of Dobrich (which is really close to the border with Turkey) some of his friends would go with their bikes to the gas station where Turkish trucks stopped. The drivers would gift them with all sort of items but particularly prized was a special type of chewing gum which would contain stickers of fancy cars. They were called ‘BeepBeep’ and the kids would collect them and trade them as a particularly prestigious possession.

But enough digressing, back to the overnight train. I was ecstatic at the sight of our room – a folding couch, a bed, a fridge full of complementary food and drinks and free slippers. The lack of WiFi meant me and my family looked around and reflected on our trip.

So, I, Eliano Tonev, am proud to say I survived a whole 25 hours without WiFi.

In Kars we arrived late and left early. We still clocked in few interesting sights (among others the Kars castle, which I recommend to be called the ‘Karstle’) before heading into a taxi and driving all the way to Georgia.

By the way, the longest word in Turkish literature is composed of 70 letters. We all tried to pronounce it in one go, but we couldn’t. Can you?

Whew. That is one loooooooooooong post.

Q: Why did the chicken cross the road?

A: To get to the other side.

I know, because I’ve seen it.

We were on our way back from Perpirikon, a temple erected to honor Dionysus (Greek form) / Bacchus (Roman form), God of Wine. A rooster🐓 and two chicks🐤🐥 were making their way across the road. They seemed to not like paparazzi, because they were going too fast for me to take a picture 😑. Hopefully, they will decide to pop out again during our road trip.

Flashback two hours before.

We stopped first by the Stone Mushrooms (and posed for pictures!) and later made our way up to the Perpirikon temple.

It was the Thracians who first built it around 3000 BC. When around the 7th century, a tribe called Bulgars came to the land of the Thracians (from the steppes of what is currently Kazakhstan – our road trip will go through there!) with never – seen before tamed wild horses, the Thracians were forced to sign a peace treaty with them. The temple remained and Perpirikon even holds traces of Roman construction.

While the sun was scorching and the ascent was steep, it was a beautiful view and it was fun climbing over the mismatched rocks.

Being in Bulgaria for a full four days also allowed my grandparents to teach me the Cyrillic alphabet, which not only was fun, but made the Bulgarian language a lot easier to read – considering this is the official alphabet of the country (try to read this: Елияно).

Baba and Diado have their very own orchard. When I first arrived in the village of Dobrich, I noticed a bunch of grapes my grandparents had grown, hanging from the trees. While walking around, I noticed all the growing apples, pears, peaches, plums, strawberries etc. That seemed a bit unusual to me. I realised how accustomed I was to city culture. I was so used to going to the shop and picking out fruit from there.

One evening, we made our way to Dimitrovgrad to visit the fair celebrating the 71st anniversary of the foundation of the town. My father grew up there before he left for university in America. Here’s a little interesting history.

Dimitrovgrad is the youngest city in Bulgaria, founded in 1947, named after Georgi Dimitrov, a communist leader. This was just after WWII ended. In the years that followed, a lot of places changed their names to honor famous Bulgarian communist leaders or events. When the Berlin Wall came down in 1989 and with that, the end of communism, all those cities converted to their previous names, except for Dimitrovgrad, as it had no previous name. The new government still wanted to remove any memories of communism, so they took down the statue erected in the centre of the town in honour of Georgi Dimitrov.

London. Check.

Italy. Check.

Bulgaria. Check.

Next stop : Turkey.

By the way, did you guess it was my name written in Cyrillic?

Oh yeah, I also saw a chicken cross the road. Did I mention that?

Over all my fourteen years, London was fun. I’ve had many exciting experiences that I know I will never forget.

It was a struggle to say goodbye to our flat back in London. It had been my home since the day I was born (literally – I was delivered in the main bedroom). Flat 3 has always been with me, through thick and thin.

For my secondary school, it was a different matter. Pretty much the only thing I will miss from there are my friends.

But I don’t think I will ever struggle to say goodbye to anything more than VillaGea. This house was a pure luxury, something I couldn’t wait to visit every summer.

Not only VillaGea has everything you could ever wish for – a massive trampoline, a footsball table, a Ping-Pong table, a wide variety of balls (ranging from footballs, basketballs and volleyballs to beach balls, squeeze balls and exercise balls), a huge collection of toys and a form of entertainment available at all times, but it also holds many memories – including sleepovers with friends, barbecues with families and late-night karaoke.

However, above all, the house has its very own front-row seat for the beach. That is something extremely extraordinary. How else can you get the beautiful experience of waking up to the soft crashes of waves against the shore? How else can you get the opportunity to sit on a deck chair in the veranda, watching the sunset? How else can you get the chance to have a midnight swim on a whim? The sea was basically my own massive swimming pool. So yeah, it was a struggle saying goodbye to the house of many glorious memories.

Still, as the summer eventually ended, the trip of a lifetime started.

The first stop is the village of Dobrich, Bulgaria. We took a flight from Rome to Sofia, before jumping into the car to drive all the way there.

The time in the car allowed me to relish the sight of Bulgaria’s landscape that I had not seen in many years. When I was younger, I used to come to Bulgaria a lot to visit Diado & Baba. While in the car, it occurred to me, that throughout all the years I hadn’t visited, I still had vivid memories.

I had missed Bulgaria. That was as much as I could realise. So here I am, back in one of my childhood homes.