Home again

Well, it was a great two weeks in China, but as they say, all good things must come to an end. It was an eye opening journey, and I'm already thinking about when I'll get a chance to go back to explore again. Hopefully soon.

A lesson in Taoism on Tai Shan

A chain barrier sags under the weight of hundreds of locks outside a Taoist temple on the trail to Tai Shan in Shandong province.

With our successful climbing of Tai Shan, our adventure in China has more or less come to a close -- albeit a highly fitting one. While I started the day feeling a bit sick to my stomach from some spicy chicken the night before, a few breakfast dumplings and the energy of several thousand of my fellow climbers made me feel a lot better.

It took about five or six hours of climbing interspersed by water and snack breaks -- 6600 steps to 1545 meters above sea level, a vertical climb of over a kilometer. I'm not sure whether climbing Tai Shan is like truly experiencing a microcosm of Chinese culture, as a passage in one of our guidebooks suggests, but it certainly is a phenomenal and fitting adventure for the last day of our trip; from this point forward all of our travel is focused on getting home again.

You're rarely on your own in China, and climbing mountains is certainly no exception. Accompanying us on our ascent were countless pilgrims, several groups of police providing security, hawkers and small businessmen selling all sorts of pilgrimage related items (sticks for walking, incense for burning, water for drinking) and sadly, a few disfigured beggars looking for charity.

The religious significances of the path itself were unfortunately lost on me to a good degree. The entire length of the path to the top there are inscriptions written on the stones and boulders, some of which certain pilgrims would choose to pose next to for photographs. (We also saw this on Huang Shan.) Also red ribbons are sold (two of which Thomas and I bought for 2 Yuan each), and many of these ribbons are tied, along with an offering of money, to a tree or another edifice near one of the various temples that one comes across during the ascent. There was also a custom of engraving a lock with one's name and affixing it to a chain outside one of the temples along the way. You could buy such locks all along the path to the top, the most expensive of which that I saw costing 60 Yuan (About eight dollars.) And then of course there were the massive amounts of incense being offered, some in very large packages costing up to 200 Yuan. Sometimes a pilgrim would light such a large package upon reaching the altar at a specific temple, only to have it removed seconds later to be burned more quickly out of sight.

Inside the temples themselves, the pilgrims would kneel in front of statues of their selected deity, offer more money or sometimes a food item, and then bow, usually several times. It took some time before I realized the seriousness with which some of the pilgrims were making these journeys. While certainly there were a number of climbers who were more interested in the hiking aspect of climbing Tai Shan, I would say a majority of the pilgrims were dedicated Taoists. As one who doesn't take religion all that seriously, it was really something interesting for me to see, and I was happy to have the opportunity to see this aspect of Chinese culture up close.

Holidays in Tai'an

Tai Shan mountain rises over the city of Tai'an in Shandong province.

It took us a little less than seven hours or so to get here to Tai'an from Xuzhou -- sometimes it seems like it takes seven hours to get anywhere in China, regardless of distance. The bus ride provided a unique insight into bus travel in China. While our coach was nearly full upon leaving the station, our driver pulled over seemingly every 15 minutes or so to let on an extra passenger or two, thereby sweetening the deal for himself and the attendant. We also picked up several pieces of large cargo, which I assume we shipped at less than the going postal rate.

As we left Xuzhou and headed into Shandong province, the surroundings slowly changed from swampy to more arid and mountainous. Early in the journey we crossed the Grand Canal, once a highly valuable transportation waterway but today a silted over historical footnote. As our driver specifically avoided the freeways in order to save on tolls, we also got a good look at rural traffic conditions; in other words, donkey-drawn carts, pedicabs, pedestrians, bicyclists, buses and cargo vans all sharing the same roads.

Fortunately, here in Tai'an we've found a quieter and smaller town with numerous views of the city's main attraction: the sacred mountain Tai Shan. Which is not to say that it is all that quiet or all that small. We wandered the streets today with what seemed to be many Chinese on holiday -- people were busy shopping, eating and making travel plans. Some of the larger shops had set up small stages for live performances or demonstrations, and the streets were packed with vendors and salespeople selling everything from city maps to jumper cables to fresh pineapple. I bought some kind of high-density cake that was being sold all over town, although I'm not sure if it's a speciality to this region or is something that gets brought out for the May holidays -- kind of like our Christmas fruitcake. It weighs much more than I thought it would (and regrettably was being sold per unit of weight, so I also shelled out a lot more than I expected) so we'll probably save it for the trip back to Beijing on Friday. I don't think it'll make for good backpacking food on the way up the mountain, which should take up about eight hours of our day tomorrow.

May Day in Xuzhou

Part of the less famous -- but still interesting -- Han dynasty terracotta army at Xuzhou.

My friend Thomas and I have been in Xuzhou since yesterday afternoon, and despite it being a major transit hub, home to a lake, a spacious mountain park, a terracotta army, and an amusement park, it's decidedly off the beaten tourist path.

Perhaps part of the problem is that the train transit connections are inconvenient. And then the lake is polluted and has a busy road built across it -- although I did see a couple of people happily swimming in it yesterday evening. The mountains, while pretty, offered only compromised views due to the massive amounts of smog. The terracotta army (while still a AAAA-rated cultural attraction according to the Chinese tourism bureau) was built at a fourth of the scale of its more famous counterpart in Xi'an, which makes it look kind of like a set of toys in comparison. And the amusement park looks like it hasn't been maintained since the 60s or 70s -- probably around when it was built.

It's a bit sad, because with such natural and cultural assets, I feel like this city should really be a beautiful place to visit and live. But still, it's China -- perhaps in a more pure form than the mountain resorts or the more famous cities -- and that has it's own charm. For example, the people here don't seem to be as accustomed to seeing foreigners. We've been greeted warmly almost everywhere we've been -- but here people are especially quick to say "hello," ask for our names (as a young girl did yesterday), or offer us rice wine and take pictures (as a large group did today). We also ate some incredible food last night -- a kind of meat, shellfish and dumpling stew -- that was served to us once we made it clear we had no idea what was good to eat here. While landscape and natural beauty are important, it's also those sorts of things -- hospitality and cuisine -- that can make a place memorable and enjoyable.

As I think I mentioned yesterday, May Day is a major holiday in China; the schools are out of session and many Chinese having the entire week off for shopping, travel or other leisure activities. Tonight we'll be sniffing around a little bit for a parade, demonstration, or another celebration of sorts, but other than seeing more pedestrians and shoppers on the streets than yesterday, it's been more or less business as usual as far as we can tell.

Anyway, tomorrow morning it's on to Tai'an in Shandong province, home of Tai Shan, another of China's five sacred mountains. We're planning to ascend it on Thursday.

Waiting for Xuzhou

School children play in the streets of Hefei. Tomorrow is the first day of the May holidays in China.

I'm asked now and then -- by the Chinese people we encounter here and by my friends and family back home -- how we manage to get around China without a tour guide and without a real comprehension of the written or spoken language. Well, it's not always that easy; we spend a good bit of time just figuring out how to get from place to place. While I can imagine that a lot of people would find that aggrivating, I actually find it rather interesting and enjoyable. Still, from time to time there are considerable misunderstandings, which generally result in a lot of puzzled looks -- but on some occasions great heaves of laughter. For example:

We're in Hefei today, but tomorrow we want to take the bus to Xuzhou, where supposedly the second largest terracota army in China exists. I say supposedly because the city is not listed in my Lonely Planet guide at all, although it has fairly prominent mention in my friend Thomas' German-language book. Anyway, because it's always difficult to secure tickets, we try to get a friend or acquiantance to write on a slip of paper where we're going, which we hand to the booking office clerk.

So anyway, trying to get bus tickets to Xuzhou, I handed such a slip of paper to a couple of clerks at our hotel, who gave me some very strange looks and repeated "Xi'an." Only then did my friend Thomas suggest that perhaps what was written on our slip was actually a bit more specific than I'd thought. It seems our friend wrote "I'd like to see the terracota army in Xuzhou," which makes sense to us, but not to most people we've encountered, who assume that if we want to see the terracota army, we ought to be heading to Xi'an, which is 800 kilometers west of here. We might as well have asked to see the Forbidden City in Hong Kong.

Fortunately, it looks like we've managed it... the hotel staff is working on our request right now and told us to check back with them this afternoon. So hopefully tomorrow or the day after I'll be able to tell you about the second most famous terracotta army in China -- unless we end up on the wrong bus, in which case I might be able to tell you about the real thing.

The mountains of Anhui provence

A foggy mountainside at Huang Shan in Anhui provence.

My friend Thomas and I put dusty and dry Beijing behind us, flying two hours south to Tunxi. (I know I said in a previous entry that I didn't think Beijing was as polluted as I feared it would be, but after seeing the traffic getting to the airport during rush hour, I think I've changed my mind.) At any rate, somehow we didn't expect to see any rain when we landed, but indeed, it was coming down at a steady place, forcing us to dig our rain jackets from deep within our backpacks.

Fortunately the weather today was much better -- Not sunny, but cool and rather foggy -- which was a good thing because we had some climbing to do. You may, as I did, have a picture in your mind of cloud obscured mountains dotted with wind-blown pines sprouting out of crags in the rock. These sorts of motifs are commonly seen on scrolls hanging in Chinese restaurants. And this is exactly the sort of scenery that the mountains of Anhui province have on offer -- it really does exist, and it's absolutely beautiful and breathtaking.

It's also quite exhausting getting to the peaks. It took Thomas and I -- along with three friendly students from Hefei that invited us to join them -- about three hours to climb almost a kilometer vertically to an elevation of approximately 1800 meters. Concrete and stone staircases led us all the way to the top, and about when I started to think I was getting tired of all those stairs we would come across a guy carrying food or water or souvenirs to the shops and hotels located further up that mountain -- some backbreaking work. But when the wind blew off some of the fog, the views were magnificent, and made our efforts worthwhile without a doubt.

There's so much more to tell, but I can't let myself spend my last evening here in Tunxi sitting in front of a computer screen. More tomorrow or the day after from Hefei!

Visit to the Summer Palace

A the view north across Kunming Lake at the Summer Palace.

Today we headed to the Summer Palace, the former seasonal stomping grounds of the last few Chinese emperors, as well as the favorite hangout of the former Empress Dowager, Cixi. It was another beautiful day here with almost perfectly clear skies, a light wind at times, and warm temperatures.

For people who might be thinking about heading to Beijing for next summer's Olympic Games, I highly recommend the Summer Palace. It seems to be the consensus number three destination for visitors to Beijing after the Great Wall and the Forbidden City, so there's perhaps a light drop off in tourists there. Furthermore, there's plenty of room to roam there, with a tower, a huge lake, and a small island containing that temple at which Cixi used to pray for rain and a lookout point at which the emperor Guangxi watched the Chinese navy practice maneuvers on an artificial lake.

Aside from the sights, I'm continuously shocked at the friendliness of the Beijing people here. While some people are clearly just asking about your visit to the city for the purpose of attracting you to their store or souvenir stand, I've run into a few genuinely friendly people on the street who just want to practice their English and get to know a foreigner. I've had to rehearse the details of my visit here several times, but I've had a couple of interesting conversations. You certainly don't get that too often back in the big cities of America.

A few people have asked me about the state of the pollution here. While I certainly wouldn't say that Beijing is the cleanest city I've ever visited, it's really not as bad as I'd feared it might be, especially at the big tourist areas, which are generally spacious. We rode around in buses for awhile today, and at times the air quality bothered me then. But on the whole I've found Beijing to be a fairly modern city; because they have such a high population density, the people here have found a way to deal with all the traffic and other problems. Sometimes it's not pretty, but somehow this city of millions manages to get by. It's fast-paced and fascinating.

Well, tomorrow it's back to the airport to fly south to Huang Shan, also known as the Yellow Mountains. Hopefully I'll be able to check in again, perhaps with a couple more photos.

The Best of Beijing

I've been in Beijing now since Sunday, and while it wasn't so difficult to find a computer with Internet access... there's one in my hotel and seemingly on just about every street corner... I've been completely absorbed by this place, and just didn't have much desire to sit down and write about it. From the moment we left the airport, there have been a steady stream of impressions and experiences.

My first moment of sheer wonder came when the bus taking us downtown drove by the Gate of Heavenly Peace, where Mao's tasteful and somehow very handsome portrait stared down on me and the thousands of other tourists jocking for the best photographic position. The words I uttered were not particularly profound, but I was far more impressed than I could at that moment articulate. My friend Thomas and I were pretty exhausted from our trip, which included a grueling 8-hour layover in Moscow, so after a good walk around Tienanmen Square, we chowed on some dumplings, drank some beer and called it an evening.

Yesterday it was the Forbidden City, home to several hundred years worth of Chinese emperors. Perhaps I had taken the "City" part of that name a little too lightly, because the place is really enormous-- quite city like. People often say that in China you won't find any of your own space -- especially not in the tourist areas. But we found the Forbidden City spacious enough once we wondered around it's side passages (some of which housed former imperial concubines) to be find our own bit of space and tranquility. The city is built entirely according to the principles of Feng Shui, meaning that it's more or less perfectly symmetrical. As it's so expansive, you can quickly lose your sense of direction -- which is actually kind of nice because you can find your own little place, as I mentioned above. Later that afternoon as we visited some of the parks surrounding the Forbidden City, Thomas and I put our basic Chinese skills to use, warding off souvenir hawkers and rickshaw drivers, a few of whom were extremely persistent.

Today we joined a tour group made up of people from Argentina, Spain, New Zealand and China to take in the Great Wall and the Ming Tombs, two major tourist attractions north of town. On the way there we got to see some of the most intensive areas of construction for the 2008 Summer Olympics. It seems as though the entire town is being renovated to one degree or another, but the area near the Olympic Stadium and what will be the Olympic Village is probably the world's biggest construction site right now. In addition to work on the stadium and a swimming arena, I saw what must have been 40 huge skyscrapers being either renovated or built from the ground-up in the surrounding neighborhood. We enjoyed the rest of the tour as well of course -- I think the Great Wall is as much of a physical experience as it is an aesthetic. Working up and down the steps of the wall definitely requires some physical exertion, but it was easily the best and most unique workout I've had in months.

There's plenty more to write about, but those are of course the most exciting things I experienced in the last couple of days. More later...

A day at the museum

It was an uneventful flight from Bornholm into Copenhagen this morning, and since I had eight hours or so to kill before my bus left for Berlin (the cheap connections are not always the fastest), I thought I'd give myself a little walking tour of the city.

So once I'd made my way from the airport to the city center, I started out heading down Strøget, the long pedestrian shopping area that stems off of the central town square. By the time I got to the castle island downtown, I couldn't really feel my toes anymore, so I figured I'd better keep moving. I made it for one pass up Nyhavn, the picturesque harbor front street featured in many postcards from Copenhagen, and at this point my camera was freezing up, not to mention my fingers. I don't think it was too much below freezing outside, but with the wind blowing off of the water, well, it was uncomfortable.

Still, I saw plenty of people whizzing by on bicycles; the looks on their faces made me feel even colder. While I'd wanted to stop and look at the famous statue of The Little Mermaid (of Hans Christian Andersen fame, not Disney), I decided to leave that for another visit to Copenhagen, one with less wind, if not higher temperatures.

After a quick lunch I still had a couple of hours to kill, so I spent the rest of my spare time at the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, an art museum devoted mostly to sculptures donated by the beer baron of the same name. Part of the exhibit dedicated to French Impressionism was unfortunately closed for renovation, but there was plenty there to see, including a huge exhibit of ancient Mediterranean art. And as I mentioned many, many sculptures, the vast majority of them being from the late Greek/early Roman era (i.e., lots of male nudes), or from late 19th century France (such as the works of August Rodin and disciples, i.e., lots of female nudes.) It's the kind of place that you can spend hours and hours visiting, but alas, there is never enough time to see it all.

Well, I need to run along to catch my bus back to Germany. So for now, I suppose that's it from Denmark!

Churches and the woods

The church at Aakirkeby, an inland city in the south-central part of the Danish island Bornholm.

Today it was back onto my bicycle. I made my goal the south-central town of Aakirkeby, 15 kilometers or so from Rønne, and I figured I'd stop along the way at Nylers to see the "rundkirke" there, one of the four round shaped church-fortresses on the island. Historians think (although there is a little bit of debate about it) that Bornholmers of the 12th century built these unique structures to protect themselves and their valuables from raiding parties that would sail up from the European mainland. The bottom floor of these buildings seem to be designed to be working churches (the one at Nylers is still in use), and the top floors were defensive, with peepholes, lookouts, and the like.

A lot has already been written about these buildings in other travel and historical literature; I'd read various arguments about the purpose of the buildings, one suggestion being that the situation of the four round churches were making up part of some kind of calendar system. The defensive theory seems more likely to me; supposedly you can see to the sea from the top of each of these churches. I wanted to confirm that myself. Unfortunately, this wasn't possible. I was the only one visiting the church at Nylers today, which was eerie in itself. But secondly, the leaflet I picked up about the church said that the top levels of the church were off limits to the public, and I couldn't even find the narrow staircase that supposedly led upward. Maybe the Bornholmers are still not interested in showing the world all their secrets...

Anyway, after that I completed the last ten kilometers or so of the way to Aakirkeby, which is home to the largest church on Bornholm. (But it is not round.) After a peek inside, I bought a sausage at a small grill nearby, which I washed down with some coffee to warm me up. It had been a hard ride there, fairly flat but directly into the wind which seemed to be blowing from the northeast. At times I had some protection from the gusts thanks to a few patches of birch and evergreen trees, but for a good part of the ride I was exposed.

It wasn't yet too late (not even noon) so I thought I'd ride up to Almindingen, the thickly wooded area in the center of the island. I had to ride uphill for about four or five kilometers to get there, but it paid off. While the paths weren't as well maintained as the bike paths from Rønne, the trees blocked the wind, and along the south edge of the woods I could see the island's southern coast and beyond. From there it was another 15 kilometers or so back to Rønne, mostly alongside small, scenic dairy farms, where the cows and horses gave me puzzled looks.

So tonight will be my last night on Bornholm. Early tomorrow morning I'll fly back to Copenhagen, which I'll explore (by foot) for a few hours before starting back to Berlin.

An excursion to Christiansø; the castle ruins

Above: Former officers quarters on the tiny and sparsely inhabited island of Christiansø.

It's hardly been more than 24 hours since I last posted, but it's been a pretty busy day for me. I'll start with my most recent excursion and then catch you up with what I did yesterday afternoon...

Crossing the sea (again)

As I think I eluded to yesterday, the plan for this morning was to make it to Gudhjem, on Bornholm's northern coast, and from there catch a ferry to the tiny island of Christiansø. There was about an inch of snow on the ground when I woke up, and then considering the nearly two hours it would take me to make it to get there by bicycle (about 25 kilometers), I decided to play it safe and take the bus. So after a quick breakfast with my host and a trot into the center of Rønne, I caught the bus, got off at the Gudhjem harbor and was onboard the Peter before I knew it.

We set off for Christiansø, the largest of three tiny outcroppings that make up the Ertholmenes, about 12 miles north of Bornholm, at about 10:00. As if on queue, the sun came out and warmed my face and hands as I sat on deck. The only entertainment I needed was watching the water and our progress out to the islands.

Christiansø today is populated by about 100 permanent residents, but is visited by approximately 80,000 visitors each summer. The reason it is populated at all is because about 400 years ago, the Danish king decided to make the tiny islands a forward base for monitoring Swedish shipping lines. Today it is militarily useless, but the fortifications have been beautifully preserved, and there are numerous eider ducks, puffins, smews, and of course gulls that live there alongside the human population. There are no cats or dogs, and apparently the largest non-human mammals living there are hedgehogs. (Rats and mice have been eradicated, thankfully.)

As it's not a popular winter tourist destination, I'm pretty sure that I was the only visitor there today. But that of course didn't bother me at all. I had the grounds to myself for strolling and taking pictures, and I also got the chance to talk to a very nice couple, who were excited to tell me about the eider ducks and their nesting habits.

Yesterday at Hammershus Sløt

After catching you up on my arrival yesterday, I took off north by bicycle to Hammershus Sløt, the ruins of an old castle on the northeast coast of the island here. Eager to try out my rented bike, I hit the bike paths that run from Rønne, on the southwestern tip of the island, to the northwestern tip, a ride of about 20 kilometers. The weather remained kind for most of the trip, snowing lightly at times, but also providing a lot of sun. While some of the bike paths were flat and paved or at least hard-packed, part of the stretch was muddy, and at one point, I encountered some steep inclines (the steepest at a grade of 23%) that required pushing the bike.

The pot of gold at the end of that trek is Hammershus Slot, the ruins of an ancient castle. It took me about two hours to make it up there, stopping regularly for breaks and to take pictures. From there, even on a not-so-perfectly clear day like yesterday, you can make out the southern tip of Sweden across the sea, which I’m sure is exactly why the Danes of centuries past selected this location on the island for a defensive fortress above others.

For the ride home I took that “highway,” which is really just a two lane road with an extra-wide shoulder. It wasn’t nearly as pretty as the ride up, but I was getting tired at that point and wanted to keep to the relatively flat, paved automobile road. In the end it it took me only an hour to get back, which is good because it was starting to get dark. By the time I made it back to Rønne I’d logged 40 kilometers on my bike – admittedly at a leisurely pace, but I felt good about that anyway.

Tomorrow is my last full day here on the island... I'm going to play it by ear, but I'm thinking about taking my bike up to some of the "round churches" they have here, some of which are over 800 years old. I'll have to see how the weather is first...

Below: part of the ruins at Hammershus Sløt, near the northwestern tip of Bornholm in Denmark.

Morning in Rønne

Swans explore Rønne harbor.

It's always a bit odd when you arrive in a new place after the sun has gone down. You have no idea where you are, how to get where you're going, or what you might come across. Last night was no different for me; once I landed at the Bornholm airport, the cluelessness set in until just before I was admitted into the room I'm renting in Rønne, the largest town here on Bornholm.

However, the situation always looks better in the morning. And true to form, I woke up with a view of the harbor, where I could make out large numbers of ducks, swans and smews afloat in the harbor. My host, Mr. Norby, had arranged an enormous breakfast for me with coffee, tea, meats and cheeses, and a variety of breads. His English is somewhat limited (although not nearly as limited as my Danish) but he made a good effort as we talked a bit about Denmark and Bornholm. He's originally from Copenhagen, but had the opportunity to move here a couple of years ago for retirement, making some extra money by letting out rooms of this home as a bed and breakfast.

After I ate my fill, I made my way into the town center to pay for my room and to rent a bicycle, which I'm intended to make my main mode of transit for my stay. That said, the lady at the visitor's center gave me a strange look when I suggested I'd be trying to make it up to the island's north side tomorrow. It is indeed cold and somewhat windy here, but I am stubborn.

Anyway, the bike I rented, while a little goofy looking perhaps, seems to be perfectly adequate, and in my opinion is a bargain at roughly $25 for three days. Later this morning and this afternoon I'm intending to ride up the island's west coast, where I've read there are ruins of an ancient castle called Hammershus Slot. It'll be a good test for separating what's possible here with the bicycle and what simply isn't advised by the visitors center.


Below: My preferred mode of transit for the next three days.

En route to Bornholm

A view of the Baltic Sea while crossing from Rostock to Gedser.

Kind of like Steve Martin and John Candy, I've found it necessary to use a stunning array of transportation choices to get where I'm going. I started on my way to Bornholm this morning at 7:30 when I boarded a bus in Berlin. We changed onto a ferry at Rostock, which brought us to Gedser. Two more hours on the bus and I'd reached Copenhagen, where I'm planning to hop a train to the airport. After a 30 minute flight east, I'll land 5 kilometers from Rønne, the largest town on Bornholm, which I plan to reach either by walking, thumbing, or taxi, which ever means seems most prudent at that time.


The scenery on the way here was subtle and appealing, although it is certainly not the kind of landscape that reaches out and grabs you. (Signs pointing to a "Trakktormuseum" north of Gedser are an indicator of that.) Much of Denmark is fertile farmland, and the fields of Falster south of the capital seemingly changed colors with the sort of crop each farmer had elected; there were shades of bright green blending into yellows as well as muddy browns and beige. The two-hour Baltic Sea crossing was memorable as well, the wake of our boat combining with gusting winds to kick up the surrounding waves. The sun made the water behind us glow, a bright, hot yellow-white that contrasted significantly with the red faces of the wind-blown passengers on the observation platforms.


Anyway, it's a slow haul getting to Bornholm this time of year, but I hope to be well-rewarded with an intimate visit to what I expect to be more or less empty resort island. But from what I understand, Bornholm is well-worn with tourists from Denmark proper, Germany, and elsewhere in Scandinavia during the summer, but this time of year it is normally very quiet. And personally, I'm not one to get worked-up over a few extra hours on the way there, although I felt pretty bad for the English tourist I saw on the ferry who was throwing up before we'd even left the harbor. That's been me before.


Once I finally arrive, I'm planning to get around the small island by bicycle. The wisdom of this seemed questionable when considering the weather forecasts for the last couple of days -- chance of rain and snow and near freezing temperatures. But today in Copenhagen the weather is mostly sunny and mild for this time of year, so I'm optimistic. Furthermore, I've already seen a massive number of Danes riding their bicycles around Copenhagen; I figure it's mostly a question of willpower.


Anyway, I'll check in again in early tomorrow morning, hopefully with some of the photos I've taken along the way.


Below: Dozens of bicycles line the exterior of Copenhagen's main train station.

Upcoming journeys

This past month I spent a good bit of time making travel plans -- in February, I've got travels to Denmark and Italy lined up, and then in late April I'll be heading to China for the first time. It's always a little frustrating -- but then of course also extremely exciting -- being forced to sit at a computer, dreaming about traveling but not getting anywhere. Finally, the departure day for the first of several planned trips is almost here...

I'll be visiting the island of Bornholm from Monday to Friday next week, with cozy stopovers in Copenhagen planned for the way there and back. Unlike most of the other Danish islands, which are congregated in a large group somewhat to the north and east of Hamburg, Bornholm is further east, almost directly north of the Germany-Poland border. It's an island that's too small to drive around but too big for walking, so I'm hoping the weather will cooperate so that I can get around by mountain bike.

I've got some preparations to make this weekend before I leave, so more later when I have much more to share.

Summing up Poland

Photo: Just one of many fascinating moments from the bus ride home.

We arrived back in Berlin yesterday after a ten-hour bus journey from Krakow a little tired but otherwise in good condition. (Fortunately no vomiting this time.) It was a little tricky figuring out which bus was ours at the station; there were lots of signs suggesting which bus was going where, but in the end the only way to find out was to ask the driver. So, that was the end of the trip; I could write a few detailed impressions of the Polish-dubbed, French language comedy Le Raid that was played for our entertainment on the way back (in one word: shitty), but here are a few general thoughts about Poland instead:

Food: It took us a little while to figure out what the most interesting items were, but I think my two favorite food items were zapiekanki and zurek. (Not that I knew what they were first before consulting the guidebook.) Zapiekanki is essentially Frenchbread pizza; it’s a half-baguette with melted cheese, mushrooms and onions, topped with some sort of spicy ketchup. We got ours at a street-side kiosk in Krakow for 4 zloty (about one Euro). Zurek is a rye soup with sour cream, filled with hard boiled eggs and sausage. I got a bowl of it at a small restaurant in Warsaw for 10 zloty, and we ended up going back there the next day for more.

Beer: I can’t say I was crazy about any of the beer varieties I had here; the last two bottles I sampled here in Krakow were Zywiec and Warka. Of those the first was better; Warka was a little more bitter although apparently made by the same brewery. Throughout Poland I could not seem to find a Polish beer that came in a variety other than lager, which to be was somewhat disappointing. I suppose it might have been fun to try some Polish vodka, but I think that’ll have to wait for a time when I’m not travelling with a pregnant wife.

Language: I came here without any previous language preparation, and indeed, I didn’t understand much of anything that wasn’t completely obvious or translated into English or German for me. (At one point, plundering my memory for the Polish „thank you,“ I inexplicably and most puzzlingly produced the Russian word for „four,“ which certainly says something about my improvisational language skills.) That said, it didn’t appear as though the written language would be all that difficult to understand once the basics were mastered; it seems to have many of the same consonant clusters as Russian, but without the challenging Cyrillic alphabet. Listening, on the other hand, struck me as more difficult; even though I thought I knew the words for „thank you,“ it seemed as though I was never pronouncing them properly and as though no two Poles pronounced them the same way. And there’s also the Polish letter „L with a line through it,“ which if I understand correctly, is supposedly sounds like the English „W,“ although when listening closely to Poles speaking, I could never hear it. (Perhaps I was actually hearing Russians speak what I thought was Polish.)

Considering Auschwitz; Visiting Wawel

Photo: Part of the Wawel Castle complex.

I went to sleep last night pondering some of the issues I wrote about yesterday, namely the local treatment of the Holocaust, and how it pertains to tourism in this region. I worried that this would give me bad or strange dreams, and indeed this anxiety kept me from falling asleep promptly. In my head I debated an irksome problem: whether or not I ought to break away from my wife for the day in order to visit the site of the Auschwitz concentration camp.

Something in particular caused me to debate this question in my head: specifically, either the authors or those who compiled our guide book (many sections of which I read quite attentively either before or during our visit here) described a visit to Auschwitz as a sight that „should be compulsory viewing.“ (Lonely Planet Poland, 5th edition, p. 261) I can’t say I agree with this statement, although I certainly understand where such sentiments come from. However, as I attempted to write in my entry yesterday, it seems as though there are two distinct ways to handle the deep and painful emotions brought about by the Holocaust. First, there is the thinking that by publicizing the attrocities, by learning as much about them as possible and by visiting the sights at which they occured and by encouraging others to do so, the memories of those murdered will never be forgotten and the horrors will not be repeated. Secondly though – and I think this is the way that most people choose to deal with the Holocaust – one can also consider the atrocities of the Holocaust as too horrible to mention, as too disturbing to fully consider. Having already visited the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. and having previously viewed documentary footage taken from concentration camps, such as that in Night and Fog,, while it may be naive or presumptuous to assume so, I feel as though I have a fairly clear grasp of what happened during the Holocaust. The minutia of how exactly this gruesome process was carried out strikes me as an experience I cannot expect to understand, or to appreciate in whatever way those who would consider Auschwitz compulsory viewing.

From what I already know of this topic, for myself at least, at this moment, I deem Auschwitz an experience too awful to fully consider. That is not to say that I would never visit Auschwitz or another concentration camp, but for this particular journey, I did not feel the moment to be appropriate. Without a personal connection to the history of that place, I felt as though my visiting the camp – while it would have certainly produced sadness within me – it would have been a empty sadness, one that could not expect to be resolved by a visit there. And therefore, what purpose would it have served? And with this question lingering in my head, I tabled a visit to Auschwitz for another time before getting ready for sleep. It’s not a personal issue I consider resolved, but an ethical one that I’m sure a lot of people deal with.

At anyrate, by the time we’d finished breakfast this morning, we’d made a plan for our last full day in Poland. First we headed to Wawel Castle, the huge complex of royal quarters and fortifications at the southern tip of Krakow’s Old Town. This place was more or less inundated by tourists, but understandably so; the site was home to the Polish monarchs for centuries (before they moved to Warsaw) and accordingly, the palace (which survived World War II in good condition) houses a huge collection of antique paintings, furniture, carvings, weaponry, armor, and a number of other treasures we opted not to see on this trip due to time and financial restraints. (The royal tapestry collection, with which King Zygmunt August was apparently obsessed, will have to be saved for another visit, although we did see a fair share of his fancy rugs as part of the basic royal tour.) While the royal apartments that we saw were interesting and highly ornate, I must say the armoury was more impressive; I cannot remember having seen such a massive collection of decorative weapons or armour; particularly interesting was the szczerbiec, the sword used „in all Polish coronations from 1320 onwards“ (LP Poland, 135), which was a long sword with the Polish crest encrusted upon it.

Speaking of the length of swords and the like, it was rather astonishing – even amusing at times -- to see the enormity of some of the weapons and personal armor that some of the royalty received as gifts or kept for ceremonial purposes or for display. In an age where the average size of a man was considerably smaller than today, these men still owned swords that I can hardly imagine lifting – I’m talking about five foot long swords, 50 pound suits of armor, and ceremonial wear that would have been tagged XXXXL had it been made in India instead of given as a gift from the Pope. I’m not sure whether or not such items would have been left on display in the castle (much in the way they are today) in order to intimidate court visitors who would have little, if any actual contact with the royals. But what I indeed can imagine would be the potential embarassment and Monty Python-esqe snickers that the the royal must have had to endure on any occasion where he might have actually had to lift such a monstrous weapon. Also within the Wawel complex lies another of Poland’s most important cathedrals, which houses a number of relics sacred to Catholics as well as the remains of the Polish royalty and other famous Poles, such as writer Adam Mickiewicz and national heroes Jozef Pilsudski and Tadeusz Kosciuszko.

Of course this place is also stuffed to the gills with fantastic artistry. The sides of the cathedral are made up of seperate chapels, each of which has distinct and remarkable alterpieces and other adornments. From the outside one can see several of the chapels, and how they were probably added to the main building in different stages. The result is a somewhat eclectic but entirely unique and impressive facade. Another interesting aspect of the cathedral was the Sigismund Bell, which I managed to climb my way up to after overcoming a brief but intimidating spell of claustro- and acro-phobia. The passageway up to the bell – a simply huge instrument, as oversized as any of the king’s fancy outfits or swords at 11 metric tons – was fortunately not too high. While I honestly wasn’t that impressed by the bell itself, it was an interesting oddity. But the construction of the wooden staircase and the bell’s support structure was more memorable to me due to its creepy interior that one sees in movies or television at times. I always assumed that such places, with creaking, thick wooden floors and shadowy corners, no longer existed; that they were only recreations of stories or drawings. But indeed they’re still here in Europe and in fact I’ve encountered a number of them here, in Amsterdam, in Hamburg, in Prague, and now here in Krakow as well. Really, that was about the end of the day. We cut it a bit shorter than some of our previous days on the trip, mostly because our legs were pretty worn out from all the walking we’ve done the past six days.

First Impressions of Krakow

Photo: Gravestones at a Jewish cemetery in Kazimierz.

Today we said goodbye to Poland’s capital after three short days and nights, riding a non-stop train from Warsawa Centralna to Krakowa Glowny, a journey of just over two and a half hours. Although we left several parts of Warsaw unexplored, including the suburbs across the Vistula and the park areas to the south and distant west of the city. We’ll have to get to them on another occasion, I suppose.

After the less than ideal circumstances surrounding our previous train voyages – those that brought us from Gdansk to Malbork and then to Warsaw – I wasn’t exactly relishing the trip to Krakow. But these worries proved to be completely unfounded; the second class car was up to modern international standards, with only six seat compartment instead of the eight we’d seen elsewhere in Poland. The cars were also equipped with electric outlets for laptop use or whathaveyou, although I didn’t partake, prefering to nap between stints of viewing the countryside rather than trying to write. We had two traveling companions in our compartment (although of course we never talked to one another), one seemingly a German in his early twenties; the other a young professional that I assumed to be Polish. The German toted perhaps the most enormous suitcase I have ever seen used for train travelling; just over half of it fit atop the luggage rack above our heads, and it sat there so precariously I was half expecting it to slip off and smash us. (It didn’t.) The Pole kept himself entertained for the better part of the voyage reading what looked to be the Polish version of „Playboy,“ which of course illicited a few disapproving glances from my wife. Outside we sped through depot after small-town depot, past rows of pine trees, and between hills and over valleys. The ride, in my opinion, was actually somewhat less scenic than the trip to Warsaw, although after six days of travel it could also be that I’m simply becoming accustomed to the scenery and to travel again. Upon arrival in Krakow, we made our way from the train station to our lodging, a youth hostel on the city’s north side called the „Dizzy Daisy.“ I suppose it’s a sign that we’re starting to get older, but my wife and I don’t fit as well into such places as we once did, although perhaps we never fit all that well into them in the first place. The receptionists were two friendly if somewhat less than attentive Polish girls of perhaps 22 to 25 years old that seem to work here pretty consistantly, and perhaps live here as well, probably quite affordably. The double room we were given for just under 122 Zloty per night (about $40) is not exactly well decorated or highly equipped, but is clean and adequate. The room is situated on the fourth floor, comes with two basic single beds, nothing that could be called electronic, and shares a bathroom with the room adjecent to ours, which is apparently occupied although we haven’t seen our suitemates. (We never met them but on the final night we stayed there, one of them performed an extremely loud, drunken, and mostly incomprehensable rendition of "Paid in Full" by the 1980s rap duo Eric B. and Rakim. Further proof that this wasn't quite our crowd.)

The room is painted in a strange combination of green and yellow pastels, tones that would seemingly fit better in coastal Florida than in southern Poland. By Western standards it’s pretty drab, and compared to the place we stayed at in Warsaw, incredibly simple. But still, I like these sort of places; even if they aren’t that great of a bargain considering the very basic services available, one still gets the sensation of thrift and can focus on the experiences offered by the city itself, which is usually the reason one travels to begin with.

And many parts of the city were appealing at first glance; as soon as we stepped off the train, it was pretty obvious from the number of hostelling offers and tourist information booths that more visitors come here than Warsaw, for example. In the center of town we immediately headed to the market square, upon which St. Mary’s cathedral lays across like a square of color on some modernist painting. The effect is very unique, and the church itself was incredibly ornate; gold coloring completely covered the main alterpiece, which depicted the various trials and tribulations of the building’s namesake. The altar was set in front of an enormous stained-glass window, each section of which illustrating an aspect of the Bible. Other sections of the church featured huge crucifixes such as those we saw at the national museum in Warsaw yesterday.

Seeing this church was a pretty amazing experience because finally after seeing so many pieces in Poland that had been transplanted or reconstructed, here was an authentic Gothic church, intact, displaying its various treasures in the original form. After pausing to hear the hourly bugle call from the church’s towers, we stopped to buy what appeared to be a bagel for 1 zloty (others were selling for .90 zloty or 1.10 zloty, but isn’t 1 the perfect price? Certainly some street vendors are misreading the market) we battled through some dense pedestrian and tram traffic in a southerly direction toward Kazimierz, an adjoining district that served as home to a decent-sized Jewish community before World War II.

Here we visited a number of Synagogues that somehow survived the war, although the status of most of these buildings was unimpressive, particularly when compared to the Catholic buildings in the center of town. It seems pretty clear that many of these places have been more or less abandoned – and when one considers the sick truth, which is that they’re abandoned because the communities these places served were either viciously exterminated or scattered in order to escape this terror – it makes depressing sense. The Jewish cemetary adjoining the Remuh Synagogue – a burial place that was wrecked by the Nazis during their occupation of the city – has apparently been restored to some degree, but clearly this work was carried out years ago and my feeling was that the city does not do much, if anything, to keep such sites in good condition. In my mind this lends to some sense of conflict between the Polish need for developing a strong national character – a national character in which Catholicism clearly plays an important role – and the plight of the Jewish community that once lived in these cities as a sizable minority. My gut feeling is that it seems that the needs of the former Jewish community are rather overlooked in Poland – although again, this is a nation that through no real fault of its own no longer houses a sizable Jewish minority. Still, the needs of this former community are palpable, as was displayed by a photo exhibit at the Higher Synagogue that featured hundreds of photos – from both before the war and recently -- of the people and their descendants that once made up the Jewish community there.

There is this experience, then contrasted with the aspects of the Holocaust as popular culture and/or tourist attraction. Leaflets in our youth hostel (and in other places around town) advertise tours of Auschwitz using exclamation points and as if it were some kind of amusement park. In the Higher Synagogue itself, a bookshop sold books and other media specifically related to the Holocaust; while I found this uncomfortable if not somehow inappropriate, it is understandable, assuming the proceeds of such sales go to the improvement of the facilities there. But I do not quite understand the marketing of the sites of the former concentration camps or the need to provide bus tours there. There is clearly a need to deal with those issues with both sensativity and with practicality; obviously those are not a easy messages to convey, and furthermore, the topic itself is so emotional and difficult to grasp, it is perhaps no wonder that I find myself somewhat torn when trying to make sense of it.

Warsaw: Day II

Photo: Artwork for sale at the Old Town Square.

After a night of sleep where I dreamt of GRE math problems (I think I can safely attribute this to having fallen asleep while calculating Zloty-Euro conversions in my head), I awoke to find my legs and knees somewhat sore from the previous day’s walks. Nonetheless, I felt compelled to further explore this city by foot, although we planned to stay closer to the center of town and eventually made use of public transit to some degree.

The first stop for my wife and I was the Saxon Gardens, a nice tree-filled area just to the north of our hotel. While the gardens were ostensibilly devoid of greenery due to the winter weather, we still enjoyed examining the numerous sculptures, fooling around in the playground (my wife’s spin on the merry-go-round was a somewhat late-in-life first-time experience) and admiring the sizeable population of ducks in the pond there. (Ducks happen to be one of my favorite waterfowl.) After an hour or so of these amusements we stopped at the Polish version of the tomb of the unknown soldier, a seemingly understated monument, that was located at the north end of the gardens. The surroundings, however, were fairly stirring. The monument faced a large, almost entirely empty plaza, paved over flat with squares of concrete. However, on two sides of the monument, excavations had revealed what appeared to be the cellars of pre-war housing; the shells of these underground sites extended in each direction on both the east and west sides of the plaza probably around 100 meters, and then of course there were the undisturbed sections of the plaza which surely conceal similar ruins beneath the concrete surface. (Note: after further review, I've found that the ruins may actually have been associated with the Saxon Palace that occupied these grounds before the war but was never rebuilt.)

Afterwards, we headed back to the Old Town again for a final look at that plaza and the surrounding streets. The area was much more lively today, probably due in part to the fact that all the shops and restaurants were open for business, but also because the weather was fairly clear, although crisp. The additional tourist traffic brought a tangible „open for business“ atmosphere with it; horse-drawn carriages toted visitors around the square, and entrepeneurs offered a range of wares such as wood carvings, paintings, stamp collections and souvenier trinkets – some working the crowd with discretion, others with tremendous panache. The guy who politely approached my wife and I with his stamp collection but who refused to leave until we said „no“ a third time sticks in my head. Nonetheless, I preferred the atmosphere today over yesterday, when a drunk guy (albeit a tri-lingual drunk guy) approached us and asked for a zloty so that he could buy a beer. I appreciated the honesty, but it’s not easy to give out money – even such a triffling amount -- for such reasons when you’re on a limited budget yourself, and in the end, it’s just an uncomfortable situation. Still, I wish that guy the best of luck, and will have to think of him tonight when I crack open my own bottle of suds. But I digress.

After snapping off a few more photos in the low but pleasent winter sun, we walked toward the New Town for a lunch of borscht and pierogis filled with seasoned meat. We shared the rather smokey restaurant with a couple groups of Austrian and British tourists – the Poles apparently preferred to sit at the bar rather than in the larger lounge area. From there we hiked over to the subway, where unlike in several European cities, you must buy tickets in advance and feed them through a kind of an admission machine, similar to the turnstiles in the Washington DC or New York City metros. We only took the subway two stops (an incredibily clean system, but also a rather small one) to the „Centrum“ station, where we got off and headed to the national museum, stopping on the way to buy an apple danish and the most enormous rum and raisin ball I have ever attempted to eat.

While from the outside, the national museum didn’t look all that impressive, I was actually quite pleased with the interior. Seeing as how Poland rivals Italy for Europe’s most devout Catholic nation, perhaps it shouldn’t have surprised me much that the musuem’s collections are made up primarily of artwork pertaining to this branch of Christianity. From the numerous gruesome crucefixes (some of them disturbingly realistic), wooden alterpieces (carved and assembled with obvious mastery) and religious statues on display there, many of them dating to the 15th century, one quickly gets a fuller understanding of the significance that religion has for the national character. And I must say that while originally I had hoped to do more exploring of the city on foot – at first I considered spending time in a museum to be a waste of the precious few daylight hours Poland gets this time of year – in the end I felt quite pleased and enlightened to a degree to have visited; once I made the realization that a good number of the works on display had been saved or salvaged from World War II destruction, I appreciated them more as legitimate pieces of Polish national treasure. One huge and intricate wooden alterpiece, for example, came from one of the Gdansk churches that we had visited a couple of days before – a church that was still undergoing reconstruction.

Anyway, we stayed at the museum from about 2:00 until closing time at 4:00 (apparently many Poles arrive to and leave work earlier in order to maximize sunlight hours), and after that we bought some groceries and made our way back to our hotel by foot along Nowy Swiat, one of the trendier commercial streets in Warsaw, which is lined with shops and restaurants before it turns into Krakowskie Przedmiescie, the street that heads to the castle and Old Town.

Hangover, Moldovan Style; Seeing the Ghetto

Photo: A fellow visitor takes in the memorial to the Ghetto Uprising in Warsaw.

2007 threatened to start poorly for my wife and I, as she awoke with a stuffy nose (perhaps too much windy, chilly winter weather) and I awoke with a bit of a hangover (perhaps too much Moldovan champagne.) Fortunately, the staff at our (overpriced) hotel did not seem to have awoken with either, and managed to procure for us a respectable breakfast buffet of comparable quality to what we’d had in Gdansk. (Various mayonnaise-based salads, sausages, breads, and the normals array of meats, cheeses, and vegetables). I think my first good laugh of the day came when I saw one of my fellow hotel patrons – clearly more hungover than myself – pouring himself glass after puny glass of watery juice into the comically undersized cups provided by our dear hotel staff.

Aside from that, however, there were few laughs today, as we spent the better part of our free time on a walking tour that took us primarily to monuments related to the various World War Two atrocities that occurred in Warsaw. Among them: A monument dedicated to the Poles who perished in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, a monument to those who were killed or took their own lives in the 1943 Ghetto Uprising, a memorial to the leader of the Ghetto Uprising and the Umschlagplatz, or the place where Jews were rounded up and forced into wagons headed to Treblinka. All but the first of these memorials were situated within the grounds of the former Ghetto, traces of which have completely vanished to the eyes of the unfamiliar. In place of the Ghetto are dozens of "modern," post-war, Soviet-style block houses, separated by wide boulevards and often excessive greenspace. This in itself is eerie, because it’s obvious that these buildings would not be here had Warsaw – its inhabitants and the physical place itself – not been savagely demolished between the years 1939 and 1945. I found myself at a loss – to say anything when visiting these places seems to almost mimic the grave and tragic events that occurred there, but to say nothing feels insensitive and, of course, massively depressing. As a tourist it’s hard to imagine what it must be like for those who actually work and live in and around these places. The degree to which these important – but highly disturbing – memorials and monuments dominate the cityscape and the aesthetic is considerable, although one assumes that after repeated contact with such landmarks, the effect diminishes. However, that can’t really be what the creators intended. How can the effect of such ethical and humanitarian mistakes ever really be diminished?

At any rate, we broke up our visits to these places with long stretches of walking – not on purpose, but out of convenience really – which had the effect both of enhancing the experience (giving us a feel for the dimensions of the Ghetto as well as a period of time to reflect while walking between the sites) and of wearing us out (we walked about 15 km in five hours or so.) At night we came back to the hotel for a simple meal of bread, cheese and yogurt (as well as a Zubr or „Bison“ beer for me) and for some much-needed rest.