Mandogs

I finally finished my undergraduate education, after 4 years of studying Computer Science. The next step? A month of doing nothing. I’m going to Italy in July (touch wood) but apart from that, no concrete plans exist, neither short nor long term. For one of the first occasions in my life, the choice of what to do next is mine, so I intend to take my time in reaching a decision.

In the meantime, I’m going to go back to playing guitar and piano (which have been sadly neglected over the last few years to be honest) and taking this rare opportunity to doing things that I want to do.

Who knows, I might even start updating this a bit more!

Who would have thought there were so many videos for North Korea on Youtube. View movies about Kim Jong Il the “Brilliant Commander”, where his famous quote

“One can live without candy, but one cannot live without bullets”

greets you as you learn about “the South Korean dictatorship”. Huh?
Allegedly, he is a great architect, sportsman, “Master of Creation”, Supreme Commander, diplomat and economist, to name but a few!

There’s more information on Youtube about Korea than I’ve seen on TV. Worth a look if you want an insight into such a secretive state.
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=kim+jong+il&search=Search

I was away in Portugal last week, staying with my friend Harish just outside Lisbon. All in all, I had a great time, seeing all the sights, sampling the culinary delights and generally taking it easy.

It was also the first time that I brought my 3 phone abroad. I recently changed from Vodafone after I had some problems while travelling through Mongolia and Russia. I had signed up for a free SkyTV service, which became non-free while I was away. I emailed customer support from Russia (something similar to care@vodafone.ie if I remember correctly, and the only email address that I could find on the site), politely requesting that they remove me from the service as I was abroad and couldn’t cancel it myself (seemingly, and stupidly, the only way to cancel the service was via the ‘Vodafone Live’ menu on the handset, which I couldn’t access in Russia or Mongolia)

I got no response, and even though the 4 weeks that I was away didn’t cost me that much, I received no apology from Vodafone, and when I rang up customer services to complain, I was informed that ‘care@vodafone.ie’ is not a customer care address.

Oh right, my mistake. You see, the whole CARE part of the address threw me off there. What do Vodafone use that email address for then, I asked the rep. Cancelling lines, I was told. Ah, that makes much more sense.

Idiot.

So I switched. But the grass isn’t always greener on the other side. At Dublin Airport, I didn’t see any signs indicating that I could top up my phone. Signs for all other networks were clearly displayed, but none for mine. So I flew with very little credit, thinking that I could top up over there.

It turns out that:

1) You can’t top up while abroad with 3. I tried to ring the top up line, which it says on 3’s site you can call. Not so in Portugal. Which also means you can’t check how much credit you have left.

2) You can’t top up online. There is a misleading link on the site which links to the shop, but there does not seem to be a way to buy the credit.

3)There doesn’t seem to be a way to top up from a non-3 phone.

3 have a lot of things going for them. Coverage has been excellent, the text deal I have is great, and while the calls can be expensive, that only serves to get me to text more. And giving news updates (including video) via the phone is a brilliant idea. But with a few additions, they could be super.

1) Fix the above problems. Every other network that I have been on (I haven’t tried Meteor yet) has allowed me to top up abroad, whether via the phone or online.

2)Have a balance check similar to that *174# thing that some other operators have. A small matter, bur I hate making a call every time I want to check that.

3)Webtexts. This is another big gripe I have with 3.

If they do these things, I’ll be staying with 3 for a long time to come. But as Benjamin Disraeli said:

‘What we anticipate seldom occurs, what we least expected generally happens.’

Now I’m not one to usually read Sky News, but an article about a man in a hospital waiting room told to dial 999 for an ambulance really caught my attention. Is that not the stupidest thing you’ve ever heard? Furthermore, the attempts by the hospital ‘trust’ (not a word I’d associate with that hospital anymore) to defend the decision was even more bizarre;

“They can’t just be taken back because it would play havoc with the bed system”.

Clearly, that’s more important than the life of this patient. You’ve really allayed my concerns about you putting people first. Thank God for that…

The man’s daughter had to drive him to the A&E (luckily she had a car). What if he had a heart attack? Would they have made him call 999 for that too? Or maybe he would have needed a referral from his GP for that instead…

What’s that? Well, it’s a bit of an experience to hear it, especially in person. Here’s a performance I recorded when in a place called Terelj, a national park just outside the capital Ulan Bator. The Wikipedia article on it explains a bit more about how it works.

An interesting thing about it is that I was told only men can perform Mongolian Throat Singing. Furthermore, it’s allegedly quite painful, especially when starting to learn it, which begins at a very young age. Judge for yourself!

Ok, having been home for a few weeks, and started back in college, I’ve had a bit of time to digest and examine the holiday, remembering the things I loved and the things I didn’t like, and so on. I also find that a lot of the hits I get are from people searching for places, people and things that I have already visited, met and seen.
So what I intend to do is put up a list of the places I went on my trip through Russia and Mongolia, and give my own opinions and rating on them. I found the guidebooks that we bought average in terms of help; very hit and miss when it came to sights and restaurants. And neither of the guidebooks we brought to Mongolia could even get the map of Ulan Bator right! We were also informed of one particular guidebook we had, the author of which gave a negative review of a shop because he was friends the owner of a rival store; he even explained how nice and cheap his friend’s store was despite it not even being open yet! A lot of people put faith in these guidebooks, taking their word without question. I most certainly did when I first started travelling, and quickly found out that I couldn’t rely on them.
So I’ll put it up hopefully within the next week or so. The places I will cover will most likely include:

Riga, St. Petersburg, Moscow, Yekaterinburg, Irkutsk, Lake Baikal, Ulaan Ude, and Mongolia.
Till then…

I haven’t done this for a while, after I got back from the Gobi Desert (which was great by the way) I had a few mad days running around trying to buy gifts in the famous ‘Black Market’ in Ulaanbaatar, where I bought some traditional Mongolian clothes (called ‘Dels’) and lots of other small things.

I had a flight via a 21 hour stop-over in Berlin to Dublin, and arrived home Friday morning. Unbeknownst to me, the taxi charges have been increased altered, so a journey from the airport to south county dublin cost me 75 euro! Luckily there were 3 of us so it didn’t turn out as bad, but seriously, no transport should cost that much, for such a short journey.

Anyways following a 6 day bout of sickness/jetlag, I finally got back on my feet only for college to start again. However I’ve finally had time to put up the photos at my web gallery

Enjoy!

I’ve finally reached the last major destination in my trip, Ulan Bator, the capital of Mongolia. But I need to catch up on a few things first.

Lake Baikal was amazing. It’s a 5 hour or 7 hour journey (minbus or bus) to Olkhon Island, which is 80km long (a dot in the lake by all standards), whereupon you stay in a fantastic guesthouse called Nikiatas. For about 12 euro a night, we got all our food and a log cabin to ourselves. We went cycling, Dominic and Ronan did a mammoth 70km round trip where I decided that 15km would be more than enough! But Ronan got very sick on the last night, so the following few days he was out of action, basically sleeping all the time. Poor guy

We then got the bus back to Ulaan Ude, where we went to the most important Buddhist  monastery in Russia. They have plans to display a 700 year old corpse of some Lama, who allegedly still has all his skin! The temple was only being built so I haven’t seen the man himself yet, but I’m sure he’s a worthwhile visit.

But after only one day we had to leave Russia to go to Mongolia. After 11 hours at customs waiting for engines and trains, we finally got to the capital at 6 in the morning. Since then, we’ve been just exploring the city. It’s ugly, but the people are great.

Tonight, we head to Terelj, a national park where some of Dominics contacts have a lodge. Looking forward to it, and then after we’ll have a 6 day journey around the country.

I just finished a 50 hour train journey from Yekaterinburg to Irkutsk, on the Mongolian Train to Ulaanbaatar. That was an interesting trip to say the least. We’re now +8hrs from G.M.T.

The train was mostly composed of Mongolian Traders, who, if they weren’t trying to pick our pockets (they tried to pick Dominics as we were boarding the train), they were opening our cabin door to see if we were there so they could steal our stuff while we were out. Conveniently, the outside lock to our cabin didn’t work and even if it did, most of the traders had a key to open it (one key for all cabins on the train!). So we had to always leave one person in there at a time.

We did meet some nice Mongolians though, Daqwa and Schke (that’s how I pronounced theire names anyway), who showed us a possible tour around Mongolia for our time there. They even kept an eye on our things when we went to have a drink with all the foreigners.

But even weirder still, there were two assaults and a mugging on the train. And the muggers stayed on the trains after this! All they had to do was give the stuff they stole back, nothing else. The police were absolutely useless. Luckily, nothing happened to any of us. We did meet a lot of foreigners, including a couple from Galway, a group of Dutch (the Dutch are always a laugh) and some English, Canadians and Australians. It was great fun.

But now I’m sitting in downtown Irkutsk, the formerly named ‘Paris of Siberia’. Eh, don’t think so.

You’re lucky if there is a pavement at all, and if so, you spend your time avoiding drunks and potential pickpocketers. And by the looks of things, it isn’t the safest place in the place in the world either. The hostel brochure we got says it all; “Do not go out after 23.00. It is not safe.”

Yet this is one of the most popular tourist points in Russia, because of Lake Baikal, 60km away. The water there is so pure you can drink it straight from the lake! On Tuesday we head on a 7hr journey to Olkhon Island, which is right in the centre of the lake, where we will stay in log cabins right by the water. Though apparently it’s -10 degrees up there at the moment. 2 days ago I was in shors and now I need a winter coat!

Right, it’s 830 in the evening here so I think I’ll head back for an early night at the hostel. For some reason, everything is closed on Mondays here, so tomorrow will be a bit of a lie in..then to the lake!

After a 30 hour train journey from Moscow’s Yaroslavl station, we arrived in Yekaterinburg in the Ural Mountains. In Soviet times it was known as Sverdlovsk, named after Yakob Sverdlov, the man who ordered the execution of Nicholas II (last Tsar of Russia) and his family in the city. It was also the scene of the Cold War U2 spy plane issue, where the Soviets shot down an American blackbird here. The wreckage is in a local museum. Until 1990 the city was restricted, meaning that no foreigners could enter here. It’s about the same size as Dublin population wise, but at least the weathers better; it’s about 30 degrees, which is not what I expected this close to Siberia!

I’m staying at the Hotel Sverdlovsk directly across from the station. It’s so obviously Soviet era, with huge corridors that all look the same and rooms that are more than a bit delapidated. But it’s cheap and you get your own room and bathroom, so I can’t complain.

Ronan lost his migration card, which is this little piece of paper that customs give you upon entering the country, and is where you record the places you’ve been (normally a hotel stamp). Initially we thought it was a big problem, as all the guidebooks say is “Don’t lose it!” But we went down to the British consulate, and they sorted it all out. Way easier than I expected for such a bureaucratic country.

Today we went to the Church on Blood, which is built over the site where the Romanovs were executed. The Romanovs are actually Saints in the Russian Orthodox Church now, and the Church is huge, with lots of icons and pictures of the family.

I then wandered around the city, trying to see what there is to do here. We went looking for the U2 spy plane exhibit, but we couldn’t find it. Generally things are cheaper (a 1 litre coke is less than 1 euro) but internet usage is really expensive here. You are charged by bandwidth, so even if you payed for an hour and went onto some graphic filled site, you could be off in a minute or two! The first time I was off after 10 minutes!

Tomorrow Kate goes back to Moscow, and we continue onto the biggest part of the train journey, a 50 hour ride to Irkutsk. We’ll go up to Lake Baikal, and stay in log cabins on the Island in the middle of it. I can’t wait! But now to food. There is a really cool place called ‘Sundays’, where you get a little credit card on your way in, buy food from any of the zones (Italian, Russian, French) which is out onto your card, stay as long as you want and only pay it all at the end. It’s really cheap too, so maybe we’ll go there again!