As I choose each step carefully to make sure I don’t step in a hole or an open gutter, I suddenly notice a steady noise in the darkness across the street.  It is the sound of a shovel and as my eyes adjust to the lack of light, I notice this person is working on the road. I scan the darkness and notice 2 or 3 more figures carrying tools and doing some kind of work on the road that looks like it might be paved in the next 24 hours.  These men work late at night in the dark…. I’m impressed they can see what they are doing.

Kabul is, for obvious reasons, not known for its night life and evening strolls.  But if you do dare take one you can watch the pomegranate stand guy close up his stand for the night. You can watch the bread store sweep up and take the last bread out of the window. You can experience the groups of Afghan police  attempting to communicate with you or talk about you in semi-English as you pass their roadblocks. And just when I thought no one else was out on the street, a gang of 5 children on rickety bicycles rolls by, just barely noticing me while negotiating the gigantic potholes in the road.

An Afghan friend, knowing that I’m new in town, takes us on a long drive around town… among the landmarks we see, the drab yet fascinating neighborhood built in the Soviet era, the incredibly fortified American military base that looks like something dreamed up in hollywood, and the most spectacular site of the night -the wedding centers- which look like Las Vegas casinos with extra christmas lights wrapped around them. Shining commercial temples against the backdrop of a town that goes quite dark and bleak at night.  No matter which direction the car turns, way up ahead in any direction are the mountains. Even at this hour, still towering over us with pockets of small white lights.

Kabul during the day is infamous for its chaos, a chaos that is often frustrating, but when you least expect it, a chaos that can somehow make you laugh or learn to let go and just let the city do what it needs to do.

Food Venders prepare for the end of the fast.

My arrival in Dubai was in the dark which is perhaps a good thing for someone who thought he understood what hot weather was.  Even late at night, everyone is kind, helpful, and I can’t help but notice way too many doormen, desk people, greeter, general I-don’t-know-what-person.  All these people work here?

Fast-forward, 8h30am and I’ve arrived at the Afghanistan consulate early, since getting the Visa today is pretty much the key to this entire journey.  Naturally its around back that people sit around a plastic table and chairs next to an air-conditioner using every bit of its mechanical strength to provide a touch of less than steamy air. I walk in, scan the room, nod my head towards everyone, and take a seat.

As I steal glances at the faces around me, 2 things strike me:

1- The are all wearing (except for one gentleman who is likely reading this text) the comfy looking white pajama like clothing which I think is typical in desert nations.

2- With my beard now at a good level of thickness, and a lightly tanned face, some of these guys look like me! Or is it that I hope to look like them, in order to one day fit in once I get there?

I'm on a Dhow.

An hour later the men in pajamas are almost all gone, replaced by western looking contractor types. Irish, Canadian, American, South African, Japanese…many are polite and friendly, both to me and when they speak with staff.  Others seem in a rush or wanting to have things their way in a situation where I seriously doubt you can dictate terms.  I listen to an older grey haired woman chat in Afrikaans with a white bearded gentlemen who just arrived.  Only one day since leaving the Netherlands but I get a little thrill to hear a variation on Dutch.  They discuss how many times they’ve now been through this process.

I stop listening. Too much to soak in if I’m going to start listening to every conversation.  Eventually after a long wait, a strange window opens and people look towards myself and another gentleman who arrived first. He lives in Afghanistan for some years now.  I start to find some strange comfort from meeting a few polite and upbeat westerners who are eager to get back to Kabul and relaxed about the Visa process.  Not that being un-relaxed would help any.

Hours later my visa is ready. My plane ticket to Kabul is booked. I have a few hours and one short night in Dubai. The temperature is something cruel far above 100F /40C. It is Ramadan so it feels impossible to find an open restaurant (i think its illegal?). I want to give up and sleep in the comfy bed til it is time to fly, but then I hear the voices and I see the messages on facebook… go explore.. go see what this Dubai has to show you in the limited time you have. Come morning, being a tourist is no longer a safe idea, and there is work to be done.

Outside Lisbon, 2008

It isn’t hard to find things that don’t work correctly in Portugal.  It also isn’t hard to find people who will go on and on about how the prime minister is a bum and a crook. Indeed Portugal has plenty of problems as a nation with high unemployment, a disappearing rural population, and unsustainable metropolitan centers.

So it may come as a surprise after all this, to learn that Portugal is a global leader in alternative energy. More specifically, as of this year the country gets 45% of its total energy from renewable resources like wind, solar, wave and hydro.  Besides being an impressive number it is even more eye opening when you learn that this is a 28% increase from 5 years ago.  And just when you thought you’d already been impressed, you will find that -in fact- Portugal has become one of the largest (if not THE largest) wind energy producers in the United States!

How did this happen? What conditions and factors somehow led to this fairly small and less wealthy European nation become so active in alternative energy?  Here are a few reasons:

Despite a very low approval rating now, when his party was elected with a parliamentary majority in 2005, Prime Minister José Socrates and his cabinet set their sites on major investments in renewable energy, even under huge warnings that it would cost too much money.  5 years, many landmark projects,  and 13.6 billion euros later, Portugal has developed energy production and a smart grid that most of the world only talks about having one day.  The nation is now in a position to decommission 2 coal power plants and even sold energy to Spain this year. In the next few years they will roll out the world’s first nation wide electric car and charging station network. They also expect their percentage of electricity produced by renewable sources to be 60% by 2020.

Sure there are questions and a whole lot of concerns about what has happened in Portugal.  The biggest being the high price of electricity in the country.  Or what will happen if private investors and private energy companies get into financial problems, will the windmills, solar panels, tidal machines, and hydro-electric power plants still be run and maintained?

In the short term people may look at their energy bills and feel like they have been wronged.  The government may be accused or in fact involved in some scandal eventually resulting in it being voted out of office.  The achievements of Portugal may always be overshadowed by large nations like the US and China being unwilling and unable to take bold steps towards an efficient and environmentally sustainable energy system.   Yet despite all the criticism that has come and may come one day, especially in the political and economic realm, Portugal has accomplished an amazing feat in the quest to reduce emissions and dependence on fossil fuels.

Tagus River, Lisbon- 2010

A few months ago I was invited as a guest on the lunchtime leaders podcast, a program produced by a group of enthusiastic middle school students in Connecticut. Moreso than most interviews I can remember, I had a great time answering their questions, and I really stand by my answers. So I figured to share the link with you, give it a listen and let them (or me) know what you think.

Alfama 2008

4,000 abandoned buildings in Lisbon, that is what a study found in 2008.

Walking around in 2010, it feels as though with every passing month more businesses are closing, more people are giving up on their deteriorating rental apartment, and that number must now be high above 4,000.

A recent piece written in El País talks about how Lisbon has lost 100,000 people per decade for the last 30 years.  The reasons they list include poor condition of public services like schools and hospitals, and the fact that property in Lisbon costs 3 times more than in surrounding municipalities. It is such factors that have landed both Lisboa and Portugal’s second city, Porto, in the EU’s top ten most quickly shrinking cities.

Speaking with neighbors and friends, you hear alot about these factors that led to the vast amounts of abandoned buildings.  You also hear the frustration that something more isn’t being done to renovate, restore, or above all – make use of these spaces somehow.  Through the eyes of someone who has seen the beauty of Amsterdam’s squat movement, or Copenhagen’s Christiania, there is a lack of creativity is this legendary capital city when it comes to reclaiming abandoned and forgotten spaces.

But what is being done on a small or large scale in Lisbon? And why can’t more be done? Why not get radical and yes, a little crazy, when it comes to policies regarding abandoned property and taking over such spaces from irresponsible and absentee owners?

These questions and more I intend to get answered. Stay tuned.

Viseu, Portugal

I’ve been running around the North of Portugal, cities full of history, pride, tradition, and granite!

Hours later, when the merciless sun has finally passed behind one of the city’s seven hills, I make my way to the cozy restaurant with wifi, where I always hold court when I am in town. I’m greeted by one of Lisbon’s busiest and kindest restaurant owner-entrepeneurs, my good friend David. He reminds me to make myself at home and I ask how is business, with my best “businesslike” tone. “Really really good actually”, he tells me with an air of satisfaction, “It has already been a great summer business wise.” David looks up motioning towards the upper floors of the building which he rents to tourists for several years now. He clears a few tables and chit-chats with various costumers in French, Spanish, Portuguese, and English, before he finally pulls up a chair to ask me about my journeys and get up to speed with my offline life.

Outside the night air is still hot and people move slowly through the beloved streets of the Bairro Alto. They love to talk about how bad the economy is here, they being my fellow Portuguese citizens. Yet when I look around, I see people everywhere, walking, eating, photographing, talking business on the phone, opening up another bizarre pseudo-clothing shop-bar-club.

Alas I love Lisbon and I was once an urban anthropologist in this town, my hours of study were between 11pm and 6am. But now I am an outsider, observing and enjoying still, but out of touch with what is what for the people of this proud city. Then again, I was probably always an outsider.

Photo in the Bica (Lisbon) from the Archive (2006)

Not the World Cup in Rwanda photo by flickr member kigaliwire

Amidst my recent rush to dig for information about what effect world cups and high profile soccer tournaments have on nations, I almost missed a very valuable voice on a recent edition of Radio Open Source.

Who is Vishwas Satgar, I’ll use Chris’s description over at ROS:

Vishwas Satgar is a labor lawyer and leftwing activist, an insurgent ex-Secretary of the South African Communist Party who’s way out of alliance with the ANC on the uplift politics of the World Cup.

In this interesting interview, Satgar talks about the democratic deficit of this World Cup for his country.  He gets into the struggles that have intensified in the time leading up to the tournament, by social movements demanding the state meet long promised needs.  Specifically he talks about marches for Quality of Education, HIV-AIDS, and anti-privatization – among others, all which have held demonstrations during this high profile event.

Apparently at this very moment there is a national newspaper in South Africa that has gone to court to demand the government be transparent about the total cost of the World Cup. The total might turn out, when the information is finally released, to be around 5 billion dollars.  Beyond that, many cities including Johannesburg went way over budget and have spent themselves into massive debt.

There is much more to talk about and be heard in this interview, I recommend you give it a listen of you’re at all concerned about this topic of what does this tournament DO to or for a country.

Aveiro Stadium, Photo by flickr member moacirpdsp

It is surely an unpopular topic when so much national pride seems to be placed on large international soccer tournaments, but while everyone is high-fiving each other or fuming about their team being eliminated, there is a tremendous cost for all this fanfare.  Who bares this cost? How much is it? Why is it so expensive?

Few are brave enough to ask these questions, to question such a loved and long-running tradition is surely a risky dinner conversation.  In an era where sustainability is so vital to the future of our existence on this planet, fans don’t seem to care if this applies in the context of the sports. But what if they knew the truth about their beautiful game?

In a future post I will get into South Africa and Germany, the current and most recent host of the World Cup. But since I have a personal connection to the Portuguese republic, I’d like to take you back their massive soccer tournament Euro2004.  In this case, not to go back to the highlights of what player did what unbelievable thing, but to go back to what was built, invested, loaned, and promised then as compared to how things are now.

Let’s do it by the numbers:

• 6 cities, 6 new stadiums
• Total cost of 6 projects – 445 million euros.
• Total cost of these stadiums to these cities annually 19.9 million euros.
• City of Leiria pays 5 million per year in interest alone
• Aveiro, a city with around 73,600 inhabitants, has a new stadium with a capacity of 30,000.
• Mayor of Aveiro once suggested blowing up their stadium, which costs 4 million per year in loans and maintenance.
• Algarve’s stadium, capacity 30,000+ costing over 3.1 million annually, does not have a team in the 1st division of Portugal’s national soccer league.
• Cities of Leiria, Aveiro, and Faro are all hoping to sell their stadiums.
• The city of Braga is now expanding their previously expanded stadium in hopes of qualifying for a Spain-Portugal World Cup Bid.  They pay 6 million euros in loans annually

Ok so that wasn’t just by the numbers.  Because beyond the numbers, both the lack of use of these massive structures, and the tremendous cost burden for municipalities who openly want to rid themselves of these problems, indicates that when all is said and done the beautiful game has a financially crippling effect.

Yet the big name sponsors and FIFA would like you to ignore the man behind the curtain. Ignore the elephant in the room. Relax and enjoy the game, everything is fine.

Next up: Germany 2006, perhaps a better case?

What particularly sparks my attention are the details that, even as a socially conscious and worldly journalist, I have missed over the years.  One that will not come as a surprise to most of you as it has been true for several years now, they renamed Pretoria – a fact I was not aware of.  Though the complete name change is still being discussed in some levels of government in South Africa, my new friend informed me that in her home town now known as Tshwane, most signs and official markers have all been changed already.

I didn’t have to ask her why they changed it. Thinking about it for a moment I realized the name Pretoria, even for me an outsider, makes me think of the apartheid era. Specifically I always loved the film Biko, about Stephen Biko’s life, and the depictions of police and Pretoria from that film are indeed prevalent in my head. Beyond that, when I think of former Portuguese colonies like Luanda in Angola (formerly Nova Lisboa) and Maputo in Mozambique (formerly Lourenço Marques), I understand the concept in the context of breaking with traditions and gruesome reminders from colonial times.  So although I hadn’t heard Pretoria was renamed, I immediately did the math in my head and understood what was happening.

It was my seat companion that brought up the issue that inspired this post, when she expressed great frustration at the renaming.  Not because she had some deep seated love for the name Pretoria or for the Apartheid era, but because for this young South African of Afrikaner decent (if I may add with no disrespect intended), the time, energy, and resources dedicated to the process of renaming cities like Pretoria could have better improved the nation by helping to address poverty and the needs of the most vulnerable people of the nation.  Instead they spend huge sums of money and hold endless discussions, all to change a name of a city.

Looking back and forth between this very articulate person and the clouds outside, I was reminded of that great scene in Clint Eastwood’s Film Invictus (about Mandela’s intial time as the new president of South Africa and the end of apartheid).  In this specific scene there is a meeting of the new sports commission about changing the colors and name of the South African rugby team. Rugby having been the sport synonymous with those in power during apartheid. Without going into the extended version of what happened, nor to ruin a powerful scene in the film, just as the new commission is going to approve of a motion to change the name and change the colors of a team that was so important to many white South Africans, Mandela begged them not to.  He felt rugby could be changed from a symbol of division to a symbol of unity.

Mandela has been out of the presidency for a long time and I haven’t read his comments about the Pretoria name change. Maybe it isn’t fair to compare them and indeed the name should go away like Salisbury in Zimbabwe and Leopoldville in Congo. Or maybe the creative and unifying spirit that Mandela brought is gone now, and his fear of people playing politics with symbols and names has come true.

Problems? Sure they’ve got a fine list of economic, social, and political problems. Some that seem to get worse (like the national debt), some that are just made to sound worse by leaders who benefit from fear, anger, or some other form of rabid regional patriotism.

Even with these problems, the nation is still has a long list of successes and virtues, that would be the envy of pretty much any other continent on the planet.  Take any sector, from health to agriculture, to science and beyond, you’ll find plenty of achievements in Belgium.

Despite all this, we still sit ever closer to what seems like the break up of the nation. With every passing election, it feels like a loud majority have forgotten what a great place they live in, and all that they have in common with their neighbors.  Instead they believe the solution to all their problems will come with the end of Belgium. Putting an end to one of the most unique and beautiful nations the world has ever known.

The latest victim on the list of celebrated traditions that exist in few other places the way they exist in Amsterdam is the tradition of squatting.  At the height of squatting in the 1980′s, in Amsterdam alone there were at least 20,000 residents living in occupied buildings. Long after the city and private owners had left buildings abandoned and in disrepair, this community of hands-on, do-it yourself individuals took the initiative to not only take over these buildings, but to repair them and create a new community around them.  An empty hospital, a forgotten warehouse, an obsolete police station, a crumbling school house, no matter where you look in the beautiful city of Amsterdam, there is surely a squat that has been repaired and re-purposed by groups of artists, activists, and other creative types. And they don’t stop at housing, in the city of Amsterdam alone squats are home to organic vegetarian restaurants, affordable atelier space for artists, live performance spaces, film houses, saunas and more.

Yet despite the unique and incalculable contribution squatting brings to a city such as Amsterdam, in the halls of city and national government there has apparently not been enough voice to defend that tradition.  As June 1st, 2010 came and went, Dutch parliament passed a law making squatting illegal, in effect turning hundreds if not thousands of citizens  into instant criminals. This comes only days before a parliamentary election where the ruling parties are expected to lose badly, the very political elites who have led the charge against squatting.

A bizarre juxtaposition, as governments throughout the world sit around having meetings about how to attract the “creative class” to their cities. They spend millions on urban planning consultants and sociologists who subscribe to the Richard Florida school of finding ways to bring smart people to your town, thus creating vibrant and interesting cities for work, life, and visiting.  These same decision makers who dedicate so many resources to trying to make a city special, now stand by idly- or worse, lead the charge, to turn one the most innovative urban movements on the planet, into a collection of criminals forced to leave the hubs of creative energy and homes that have been part of the urban social fabric for more than 50 years.

Wandering the streets of Ikebukuro, Shinjuku, Akihabara and beyond, I’m observing a culture and a city that for my entire adult life people have been explaining or trying to describe to me.  Yet of course it is one thing to be told about Japan and this crazy capital, yet it is entirely something else to experience it first hand.

This type of writing isn’t unique because it is found on this blog; throughout the internet, intrepid and less-intrepid travelers have been musing about Japan for as long as there has been a WWW.  Before that they stuck to tv documentaries, films, novels, and I’m sure many a pamphlet.

Still, my Japanese experience is most unique in that it is shaped by all of you. You being the twitter people, the facebookers, the comment leavers, the online and offline friends. Through your recommendations, your photo-memories, and your in-person meetups, in what is a short visit to such a culture and adventure rich nation, I manage to learn and soak in more than I would have otherwise; on my own, with a guidebook.

Many would say, I’m curious to travel to Japan and far away places like that, but I would feel lost or intimidated by things I don’t understand.  But the online-offline communities I have the good fortune of being a part of – the hackers, the journalists, the podcasters videobloggers, the couch surfers, the frisbee players – they all ensure that no matter what, I’m never truly traveling on my own, unless I want to.

I hear the lamenters. Those who say – ah but traveling on your own is rewarding too. Discovering things for yourself is important. I hear them and I keep this in mind as I do indeed take the time or the effort to discover things for myself. However when I turn a corner that I would not have otherwise turned, because someone walking next to me or following me on twitter recommend I do so, and I find myself somewhere magical, those fears about how things are changing, don’t seem so important.

A recent edition of All in the Mind, ABC Radio National’s Mental Health radio program, looked at historical connections between protest and mental illness.  One of the main points of the program is to point out that historically, those active in protest movements of various kinds, have often been said to be or officially diagnosed as mentally ill. In this way their goals or grievances with social structures and practices are seen as not worthy of being taken seriously, as they are brought on by a sickness.

The main interviewee on the program was Associate Professor Jonathan Metzl, author of the book The Protest Psychosis: How Schizophrenia became a Black Disease, published by Beacon Books. Through his work Metzl explains a long list of cases where black people active in the civil rights struggle in the US were in incarcerated and while in prison diagnosed as schizophrenic or psychotic, then having their sentences extended and the array of treatments and medications expanded til the point that even if they had never been mentally ill before, they would become so.

From the era of slavery to the days of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr, the discussion is a very interesting one that still has a big impact today in how we look at people in mental institutions, prison, and protest movements.

Highly recommended listening, full transcript is also available.

In honor of his birthday (yesterday) I present a classic film from his toddler days, and here are two classic posts about my nephew for your reading pleasure.

I realize some new readers out there might find it strange to hear about the personal stuff, the family details, and my feelings… but to them I say – this here is and always has been a blog. And blogging is fundamentally, beyond everything else, personal.

I know that Susan has been waiting for me for at least 20 minutes in front of the Pink Opera house, and in order to make it there, I’ve still got to negotiate at least two of the the very bizarre intersections that this city has to offer. Since many cars don’t find stop lights compelling enough to obey, I take a certain degree of comfort when I see that not only does this intersection feature traffic police trying to look tough in their sunglasses, but young Mongolians with fluorescent safety vests and mini stop signs. After a long delay, they swing out their arms and start waving the stop signs, in a few cases scolding cars that seem to almost run them down.  I blow past the people walking at a normal speed, the tall westerner covered from head to toe in winter gear, using a scarf to cover most of his face and sunglasses to hide his eyes.  25 minutes- I zoom past the very small amount of people at Sukhbaatar Square, tourists perhaps, more people who like me, don’t mind showing up at the tail end of winter.

In front of the Pink Opera house, I find the blue SUV, and there inside is Susan, who to this point I have only spoken on the phone with once.  After launching into several apologies, Susan immediately puts me at ease: “No problem. Actually, its nice when people are late, gives me a chance to have a little down time.”  — Happy to have some downtime; I love Mongolia.

Susan is Project Manager for Flourishing Future*, a non governmental organization working in the Ger (The Mongolian tent many people call Yurts) District.  On her business card is the phrase “Helping the Poorest of the Poor” in plain black letter type. Greetings and hello’s being concluded, off we ride through the city center and out to the western side of the city. We drive and talk, my eyes soaking in the rapidly changing cityscape, my mind soaking in the details of what is clearly a very interesting and knowledgeable person.  As she explains her relationship to Mongolia, which is more than a decade old, my eyes scan each roadside shack selling bags and bags of coal, wood, car parts, and what I think was scrap metal.  Every now and again we pass a line of donkey-pulled carts, waiting to haul heavy loads of wood which I don’t think you’re allowed to carry onto the bus.  Susan seems to read the fact that I’m quite taken by what looks like such a different city to when we started, our conversation shifts to what is going on outside and the drunk man that has passed out just as he was crossing the street.  Cars drive around him.

A slow left turn and we’re on a dirt road, or at least it seems to be a dirt road, with plenty of craters in it. Susan steers the car towards the side of the road as if we’re pulling over, she explains that we’re not pulling over, but in fact driving on the side of the road or off the road is sometimes smoother than staying on it.  As we do this the occasional person walks by us in the opposite direction, unhindered by the potholes.  This pseudo road is lined with fences that lead further and further up the mountain, and behind these fences I can see a few very small brick houses and a whole lot of the traditional Gers (or Yurts).  It’s the first time I’m this close to this internationally known symbol of nomadic life in Mongolia, and just then it dawns on me-we’ve arrived in the Ger District.

*Link to Rinky Dink Travel, which is associated with Flourishing Future and also took the time to take me around the district.

“I can offer you a job, you should stay longer; for many foreigners Mongolia is very interesting right now.”

I tried hard to keep chewing my food, but in my head I was already calculating what life in UlaanBaatar would be like working for some government official.  I quickly regained my focus, “Thank you, but I’m not seeking a job, I’ll return home tomorrow” I tell him, thanking him a few more times and trying to get back to the interview.

Bekhbat, grandson of P. Genden, the former Mongolian Prime Minister famous for having been the only man to slap Stalin, has a lot to tell me about Mongolia as we sit down for lunch at the Grand Khaan Irish pub. An extremely well spoken and modest gentleman, on his suit jacket lapel he wears a tiny pin that is familiar to me, rotary club. Among his many civil activities, he is an active member of the rotary club working hard to raise money for segments of the Mongolian population that fall through the cracks; the poor, the deaf, etc. It becomes clear that like his grandfather, Bekhbat is a man people know and trust. Even during the course of one lunch, there was rarely a 10 minute gap where someone (Mongolian or foreign) didn’t come up to him to shake his hand with a big smile.

“Mongolia will become a country the benefits from its extensive mineral wealth, like Venezuela or Russia, there will be a great influx of money and things here will improve.”

He goes on to talk about Copper, not only with Mongolia as a great source for Copper, but also that the nation would become a place where that Copper is processed as well. Uranium, with a great need in many nations for nuclear energy production, they will turn to Mongolia which has a great amount of it.

“My interest is public-private partnerships, to find the best way to improve Mongolia’s infrastructure.”

Indeed infrastructure is crying out for help in a nation where tap water is undrinkable and more than half the capital city, never mind the country, does not have running water or indoor plumbing. Where once you get outside the city limits of UlaanBaatar, you find roads almost non existent or un-drivable without the help of a very special 4 wheel drive vehicle. Say nothing of the nation’s primary energy source, coal, the exhaust from which creates a thick layer of pea-soup-like air that in the early winter morning if you open your mouth you almost choke on it.

~

Yes it was hard not to love Mongolia, where everyday I was there, with every passing hour, more adventures arose out of nowhere.  Had I stayed another few days, there is no telling where I would ended up or who I would have found myself sitting with.  Ready to come home? No, I was not.

Stay tuned for the podcasts…

In searching for videos I know well and have never seen before I came across this recounting of that day, which includes photos and audio testimony. Its in Portuguese, but even if you can’t understand I think you can decipher the passion in the voices and the power of the images.

The trans-siberian train is much less the tourist vehicle than I imagined, with April being the off-season, I found myself the lone non-Russian for several rail cars.  As a result it seemed the notoriously cold train conductors memorized my name and would come over to explain little things about the train to me, where things are located and how to work knobs and buttons.  My cabin mates seemed fascinated that I came to Russia and actually wanted to go such a long distance on THIS train.  They also seemed fascinated by how skinny I am.

While this famous train might be a dream for alot of travellers from around the world, in Russia the train is still very much a way of life. Love it or hate it, they know exactly how to approach it, what to bring, what to wear, and ways to both take care of themselves and pass the time. Watching grandmothers and grandchildren, it became clear that this is a time-honored tradition being passed on generation to generation regardless of what kind of government is in place or how the world economy is doing.

Me, I’m on my way to Ulan Batar, but first I’d like to see this lake Baikal. So a brief pause with limited internet to test the waters, and then its on to the vast nation known as Mongolia!