Kiev - photos

Chernobyl - photos

Kiev / Cherobyl - boy

After some forgettable food on the planes and an eight hour wait in the dump that is Moscow airport we headed straight for the typical Ukrainian style cafeteria restaurant where we had our first mostly non-fried meal in a long time: wonderful mayonnaise-laden salads, Borsch (soup) and cherry Varenyky (filled dumplings). We also sampled excellent food in one of the many typical Ukrainian style themed restaurants. This place, decorated in 1900s style Kiev complete with fish-holding cherubs, wax people staring through wooden windows, rustic scenes and saddle-like bar seats, was actually one of the more toned down themed restaurants in Kiev.

At the Lavra (Ukrainian Orthodox catacombs) and the Ukrainian Orthodox churches we were treated to a show of religious devotion that transcended reason every bit as much as the Buddhists in the Jokhang or the Hindus in Varanasi. In these churches, such is the wanton ache for those portrayed in paintings and such is the effect of other assorted religious objects that the glass covering such holy matter and holy paintings is plastered with kisses. In the Lavra we saw queues of devotees constantly slobbering over glass coffins containing mummified bodies while the empty rooms still showed evidence in the form of puckered up shapes of sweat residue clearly visible against the light. Here I imagine communicable diseases thrive. Maybe that’s why these pilgrims supplement their lip-work duties with some furious crossing of themselves at every corner; to ward of the evil microbes.

The compound where the Lavra was situated wasn’t all uninspiring mindless practice however. One room showed an amazing exhibition of micro-miniature sculptures of truly head-scratching proportions. A golden chess set on a pin head; portraits notched into half a poppy seed; camels, pyramids and palm trees all excellently carved and resting comfortably within the eye of a needle; a rose placed within a hollowed-out strand of hair. To dissect and arrange with this kind of precision seemed like such an unbelievable feat that at one point I wondered if the microscopes were fake; set up to give the illusion that we were looking at tiny objects.

Our day trip to Chernobyl got off to a uncertain start when we had to hand over a couple of hundred dollars to some dodgy guy standing outside a hotel. I revised my first impressions when I found out he was our guide but reverted back by the end of his day’s lacklustre, indifferent and sometimes dubious dialogue; apparently there were never any mutated plants in the area - better tell that to the Chernobyl museum so they can take their fraudulent specimens away. There were moments when a hint of a spark of enthusiasm were present; like I’m sure years ago when he began these tours, but it didn’t hang around.

We did however see some cool stuff. We watched our Geiger counters rise from 14 μR/h (micro-roentgen per hour) to well over 500 μR/h as we approached reactor number four and its decaying concrete shell, just a stone’s throw away. Complex plans are afoot apparently to build a large concrete arch on rollers that will slide over the toxic edifice; no foundations can be dug since highly radioactive earth sometimes lies beneath like super contaminated underground land-mines that wound in slow motion (our guy did give us some interesting facts). Until that happens, ionizing radiation will continue to jet out of the many cracks. And surprisingly three thousand people still work next door in the other reactors, keeping the now useless and unwanted uranium rods cool enough so they don’t blow. Russia’s legacy Ukraine’s inheritance.

The ghost town of Pripyat was less exciting than anticipated. After 24 years a forest has grown in its place; it barely resembles a town any more but a place where separate vandalised decrepit buildings live. There was some interesting looking soviet textbooks in the old school, some still on their shelves though the shelves themselves were toppled long ago. And of course it was fun scanning for gamma and beta hot spots around the town. You had to be there I guess.

The tour was nicely (I thought) rounded off with a remarkably genuinely dire soviet style meal. Soviet meals are new to me and although I wouldn’t wish them on my worst enemy I nevertheless enjoyed the experience of eating such authentically bad food for the first and last time.

Kiev / Cherobyl - girl

After a painless flight to Moscow, an extremely long and uncomfortable wait in the disgusting Moscow airport and a short flight, we finally arrived in Kiev a full day after we left Beijing. Our welcome to the country was both amusing and annoying: we had booked a cab to meet us at the airport but when we got through customs there was no one holding a sign with our name on it. After peering at everyone holding a sign at least three times we rang the hotel to find out what had happened. It transpired that the cab driver had come to the airport, not found us, and left. I was gobsmacked. It's an airport. Surely it's obvious that you check the arrivals board, see that the plane is delayed and wait????? No. Apparently not. And then our hostel appeared to be more like someone's house than a hostel. It was weird. I'm pretty sure that two dodgy Ukrainians just opened their house to foreigners because they didn't feel like working. But whatever, it was clean and they were fairly friendly.

 

I love Ukraine. I have liked it a lot for a long time and have always enjoyed my visits with WJR. However, Kiev is not representative of Ukraine in any way. It's much richer and happier and definitely a more fun place to be than Dnepropetrovsk or Zaparozhye. It probably rivals Odessa for fun factor. We didn't do much while we were waiting for our Chernobyl tour. We ate well (running theme, really), wondered around the city, took a very long walk to a park in the boiling sun, to look at a communist museum (who needs English translations on signs?) and some remaining communist statues. We both much preferred the Ukrainian statues to North Korean. Despite being more 'rough and ready' they actually looked like they were more skilfully designed. It was interesting to watch people climbing over statues that had presumably been created to instil fear and awe in them just twenty years ago.

 

We also visited the caves we didn't get a chance to see last time we were in Kiev. They're under the Lavra, which is a huge monastery complex, and are visited by millions of pilgrims who want to see dudes under flags in glass boxes. Interesting. Even better than the caves was the miniature museum. Some guy had devoted his life to carving teeny weeny sculptures. They're so small they're all behind extremely powerful microscopes. Some examples of his work are: 'long live peace' engraved on a human hair; a golden chess set sitting on a pin head and a portrait etched into half a poppy seed. Wow. Incredible.

 

And then Chernobyl day came. It was ok. I'm not sure it was much more than that for me. We saw the reactor, we wandered around a village that was evacuated after the explosion and we ate a truly disgusting meal. We couldn't really hear the commentary as the guide wouldn't/couldn't turn up his microphone so I didn't learn as much as I might have liked to.

 

 That's it. We're done. We're home now. The eagles have landed. Five months of travelling over. Time to rejoin the real world. 

Photos - Beijing

Beijing - boy

This clean and grand city was our jump off point for North Korea and our homeward flight so the place feels very familiar now. We were lucky enough to find an extremely friendly hostel in an attractive hutong (quarter with old style buildings) so it feels like home from home. And like home, each time we arrived, we launched into Starbucks (for me) and sushi (for both of us). We've also had out fair share of extremely tasty Beijing duck restaurants where I actually acquired a liking of crispy duck skin dipped in sugar, not one of my most healthy acquisitions.

 

The sights such as the Forbidden City and the Heavenly Park, grand though the names and histories are, were unfortunately a mild distraction from the day to day affair of finding food and curios and the legendary Shaolin Kung Fu show turned out to be some mediocre martial arts jumping around mixed with average love dances to fill the gaps.

 

The Great Wall did impress and we had a good couple of hours rambling on an unfrequented and crumbling section of wall. The mausoleum in Tian'namen square was an interesting sight containing Mao's soviet-flag-covered body looking especially orange and plastic that day and sporting a fantastic array of kitschy paraphernalia while stocks last - it's what he would have wanted and no less than he deserves.

Beijing - girl

We were in Beijing on three separate occasions: pre and post North Korea and post Xianjing. It began to feel like home in a weird way. We stayed in an extremely friendly hostel not far from Tiananmen Square.

 

Coming back to Beijing from North Korea was extremely interesting. The sheer number of people, the eight lane highways full of cars, good food and freedom (pretty much). At this point I was certain that the most important things to do in Beijing were: eat sushi and eat McDonald's. We managed both. Hurrah for capitalism, globalism and freedom.

 

I remember quite liking Beijing as a city but not being enthralled by its tourist attractions. This view held firm. A trip to the Forbidden City was precisely as I remembered it: dull. The Bell Tower afforded no great views, the Heavenly peace place was dull but with far more tourists than I remember. They've chucked a couple of massive tv screens in the middle of Tiananmen, which I think ruins the effect as the square no longer feels so mind-bogglingly enormous. Surely the point of communism is to make people feel small and insignificant, not let them watch big tv?

 

A trip to the Great Wall was fine. We took a tour that promised a 10km hike along a secret section of wall. Well, there was no one else there and it was long and hot but the number of old or fat people in our group who thought they would hike 10km up and down a steep section of wall in very hot weather was quite surprising. Of a group of 20 of us, four walked at normal speed (two others, C and me), around eight more were a little slow and the rest I thought were fairly selfish for insisting on walking the entire length when there were plenty of opportunities for them to turn back. We took two and a half hours to complete the walk. The slowest took five hours so we had to sit in the sun and wait for them. Of course I'm pleased they achieved something but I don't think it's fair to make complete strangers wait around, especially when we'd been promised we'd be back in Beijing  by 6pm at the very latest. We weren't, at all.

 

Last time I paid a visit to Mr. Mao's plasticised body I had the hangover from hell and had to restrain myself from vomiting in the corner. This time I was a little more restrained. The overpowering smell of formaldehyde has gone but Mao still looks as plastic. The Chinese still weirdly lay flowers to the man who orchestrated the murder of their millions, the foreign tourists still look on in a mixture of horror and amusement and the queue still moves at rapid pace. The only change is that now, after visiting the body of the man who personifies Chinese communism more than any other, one is ushered into a shop selling all sorts of tourist tat with his face on it. Brilliant. I think the zebras have done a perfect job here. There is no better way to destroy Mao's ravings than this, except that people don't seem to notice the irony as they snap up key-rings and lamps with Mao's face charmingly engraved upon them.

 

C has been on a quest to find the perfect kung-fu performance since we arrived in Asia. We did not find it in Beijing. What we did find was an over-priced tourist demonstration of some fairly weak kung-fu where people didn't even manage to jump around in time. Extremely disappointing.

 

We did manage to sate C's need for duck in small pancakes whilst in Beijing and he even discovered a new found love for duck fat covered in sugar. It's fine, I don't need a husband with teeth. And, to keep our tradition going, I took C. to a seafood buffet in Raffles. Pretty good but not excellent. We enjoyed trying new seafood wonders such as sea snail and giant clams before chowing down on Boston lobster.

 

We also used our time to see a few movies (Prince of Persia [officially the worst movie ever], Toy Story 3 and Robin Hood), visit a tailor and eat a lot of sushi.

 

I've definitely enjoyed China more than I did last time: I think that's partly down to China and partly to me. I'm much happier than I was eight years ago and haven't been dealing with the shock of a teaching placement going horribly wrong this time. I was happy to meet a girl whose recent placement ended in much the same way as ours did in 2002 - the head teacher going crazy and accusing the western staff of all sorts of nonsense. It reaffirmed my hope that we really weren't to blame. I swore I'd never return to China, was persuaded into doing so by C and truly, I don't regret it. I'm glad China and I have been reconciled. It'll never be my favourite place, nor will it top my list of countries to which I'd like to return but we're more at peace. The constant spitting, pushing, shoving and shouting are hard to deal with for me, possibly harder than for others but I can just about cope with them now. Our effort at learning some basic Mandarin before leaving in February did come in handy although not as much as we'd have hoped. We certainly didn't get to a level where we could do any more than basic exchanges with taxi drivers and waiters so we remain excluded from the 'real China'. Perhaps one day...