Modern Mary & Ancient Merv

The train arrives in Mary at around 2:00 in the morning, and we I pile off the train with a bunch of locals. It's quite cold, and at first I'm a little worried because no one exits through the station building, but from the ends of the platform. On the western edge of the station building is a small, semi-enclosed area full of vendors selling hot snacks, and I stop there to grab a fried pastry.

Thankfully, the station building was open, and there were lots of people milling about inside, presumably waiting for the next train. I find an empty bench and sit down and lean back to get some sleep, but a security guard approaches me. I figure he's going to tell me I can't sleep here (none of the locals seem to be asleep), but in reality he's just telling me to watch my stuff to make sure no one takes it. I'm a little surprised by his concern, but thankful.

It turns out that I could have taken an early-morning train to Bayram Ali, which is the town just south of the monuments at Merv, but since my plan was to exit to Iran via Serakhs the next day, I was planning on staying in Mary for the night, as it supposedly had a cheap hotel. A few hours later, when the sun was up, I set out to find the Hotel Caravanserai, which was described in the Lonely Planet. unfortunately, the map of Mary in the LP was almost as bad as not having a map at all, as it included streets that didn't exist, and pointed to the Hotel Caravanserai as being in the wrong location. I ended up wandering around some random streets until I ultimately got within a couple of blocks of where the hotel was supposed to be. When I though I was on the right street I asked some local shopkeepers where it was, but they hadn't even heard of it. Thankfully, a passerby heard my inquiries and told me they would take me there. It turned out to be on a small side street, less than 200 meters from the shops where I had been asking, but it had no sign on the outside and appeared to be just another house. Inside the compound, it was really arranged almost like a modern caravanserai, with rooms around around the perimeter of a courtyard (admittedly this is a pretty common layout in many places in the world).

I thanked the good Samaritan, and as I entered the hotel to try and find the receptionist or proprietor I was greeted by a couple of guys staying in one of the rooms by the entrance. They invited me to stay with them in their room, and they told me that I could stay with them for free. I later understood that this meant hiding me from the owner, and pretending that I wasn't there, which meant I had to sneak to the bathroom which was located further into the main courtyard. Well, that was fine with me. After dropping my stuff off and having a quick shower, I left to take a look around Mary and go to Merv.

How to get to the Hotel Caravanserai from the train station. There are reports that the hotel may be closed, but that may also just be local misinformation.

The local workers (welders) who invited me to stay in their room in Mary.

I didn't see too much of the town, but I found out from the bus station (just across from the train station) that there was a bus going to Bayram Ali at 11:45.

Bus schedule from Mary. The 6:00 bus to Bayram Ali is convenient for those not staying in Mary (the local train at about the same time is probably even more convenient). Gonur is north of Bayram Ali, so those buses probably come close to Merv and may even pass near the entrance gate (but it's also possible they turn north before reaching Bayram Ali/Merv).

Fare sheet, showing the distance in kilometers followed by the fare in manat. 400km to Ashgabat is 8 manat (same as the sleeper train), or about $2.80.

I hopped on the slow 11:45 bus and we dawdled our way east to Bayram Ali. As we got closer and closer, I was increasingly alert for any signs of old walls or any indication where I should get out. I eventually made the right call and got out just before the bus was about to make a turn into Bayram Ali, not far from the Abdullah Khan Kala (infuratingly, the LP map shows the edge of the Abdullah Khan Kala but doesn't show the adjacent roads which would illustrate just how close Bayram Ali is to the sites).

Once again the Bradt map trumps the LP version (though it still doesn't show canals that may impede or prevent progress). The bus from Mary turns right at the corner by the bazaar, on the road headed to Turkmenabat, and that's where you should get off. Taxis back to Mary leave from about where the arrow to Mary is.

Merv

Merv owes its existence to the Murghab River (a different Murghab River than the one we say near Murghab, Tajikistan), which brings water from the Afghan mountains and unceremoniously dumps it into the arid Karakum desert near Merv. Because the Karakum is flat, the Murghab River spreads itself into a wide delta here, and this fertile delta is what is responsible not only for Merv but for the even older Bronze-Age site of Gonur Tepe to the north (possibly the birthplace of Zoroastrianism, the first monotheistic religion), as well as the modern cities of Bayram Ali and Mary.

However, because of the flatness of the desert, it's easy for delta channels to dry up and new channels be formed. These wandering channels led to wandering cities, as settlements would follow the water over time, with the result that instead of cities being rebuilt on top of each other, we have a succession of ancient cities being built next to each other. There are two such cities in Gonur Tepe, and five different cities in Merv.

One of these cities is the Abdulla Khan Kala, a Timurid city founded by one of Tamerlane's sons after the end of Mongol rule. Abdullah Khan Kala suffered from a lack of attention after the Timurid king decided on Samarkand as his capital. There's a moat surrounding the Abdullah Khan Kala, which is basically a huge square compound, of which nothing remains except the brick-faced rammed-earth walls: inside there is just a vast expanse of dirt and some hardy weeds, and maybe the odd goat or two. Even less remains of the the Bayram Ali Kala—the last of the five ancient cities of Merv and which was a western extension to the Abdullah Khan Kala—as apparently it was being used as a source of bricks when the Russians arrived in 1885.

The western walls of Abdullah Khan Kala, from near the Bayram Ali bazaar.

Maybe "moat" is the wrong word. It's more like a ditch.

Bukhara

The overnight train to Bukhara arrives at about 6:30 in the morning, and since it had left Samarkand at around 1:30, I hadn't been able to get too much sleep. But it's nice to be forced to get up that early in the morning, as it really lets you see the city before people and tourists are up and about.

The Bukhara train station really isn't in Bukhara but in the neighbouring town of Kogon, and is about 15km from the center of Bukhara. But they have regular marshrutkas/buses that run from the station, and if you just follow all the locals leaving the train you'll find them in a lot in front of the station pretty easily. The buses (or at least the one I was on) don't go into the center of historical Bukhara, but skirt the old town, eventually passing by the Ark on their way to the main market west of the Ark. Apparently there are some marshrutkas that go directly to the Lyabi Hauz area, however.

Before you leave the train station area, however, I suggest you take a couple of minutes to check out the nearby Kogon Palace, apparently built for Tsar Nicholas II, who never arrived to see it. It just in front of the train station, across from the parking lot where the buses and marshrutkas leave from, but it's tucked a bit behind a park so you might not see it immediately.

Sunrise from the adjacent to the walls of the Ark, shortly after getting off the bus. The Ark was closed for restoration while I was there, and most of the walls that you can see have been pretty heavily restored already.

The Kalon minaret behind the Kalon mosque, itself behind a row of shops.

View down the street that runs from the Kalon ensemble to the Ark. To me, Bukhara is immediately more likeable since the old city really feels old, worn, and lived in. Nothing feels glossy or new, and it has much less of a touristy vibe for some reason. I suspect the largely monochrome look of many of the monuments, and the way the blend in with residential buildings and shops, helps contribute to this.

The courtyard between the Kalon mosque complex and the (still functional, non-tourist) Mir-i-Arab madressa in the middle of the picture contains Bukhara's emblemaic Kalon minaret. Yet the shops around it are remarkably low key.

The eastern entrance to the Kalon mosque complex.

View from the iwan towards the Mir-i-Arab madressa, with a couple of early-rising locals up and about. Tourists aren't allowed to enter the working madressa.

View from inside the Mir-i-Arab madressa in 1890, courtesy French photographer Paul Nadar.

Samarkand: the epicenter of over-restored Timurid architecture

The night train to Samarkand departs Tashkent at around 9:00 and arrives in Samarkand shortly after 1:00 in the morning. This is far from ideal, and means I didn't get much sleep on my trip: the smarter thing by far would have been to take the night train all the way to Bukhara, then backtrack to Samarkand, as this would have allowed me to take the night train from Samarkand to Urgench (there's no train from Bukhara to Urgench, as Bukhara is on a different line). A ticket all the way to Bukhara is also only slightly more than simply going to Samarkand, as I paid 40,000 som for a first-class (4-berth kupe) ticket, and all the way to Bukhara would be only 46,000 som.

Anyway, I arrived at Samarkand at about 1:30, woken up by the conductor maybe 15 minutes beforehand. Somewhat surprisingly, there was a large, illuminated billboard map of Samarkand outside the station, in English. We're clearly in a well-touristed place, now, which is a definite difference.

You know you're back on the tourist trail when you see signs like this.

The station itself was closed, so I wasn't able to kill some time in there. But given the map, it was fairly easy to figure out how to walk over to the central tourist district and the Registan. As I walked down the road leading to the station, I stopped by one of the little markets that I was surprised to find still open and grabbed a quick snack.

I took my time walking into town, and when I came close to the monuments at around 4:00 I was pleased to find that many of them are illuminated all night long.

The first monument on the wwy to the Registan area is the Gur-e-Amir mausoleum, built for Temur/Timur/Tamerlane, who founded the Timurid dynasty which is responsible for most of the monuments in Samarkand.

The entrance portal in front of the Gur-e-Amir.

The entrance portal in front of the mausoleum.

Across from the Gur-e-Amir is another smaller mausoleum, the Rukhobod Mausoleum, which is partially surrounded by this court. As is typical of Uzbekistan today, the stalls now serve as souvenir and craft stores.

The Registan is Samarkand's signature monument complex, and is comprised of three madressas built over a period of 250 years. The Ulugh Beg madressa, on the left, was built from 1417-1420, while the opposing Sher-Dor madressa was constructed in 1619-1636. The central Tilya-Kori madressa was constructed in 1646-1660.

5:00 in the morning isn't that bad a time to visit, as it's truly empty at that time.

One of the guards for the central building saw me walking around and offered to let me in by selling me a ticket (which was just a used ticket). You can get into most places after hours by bribing people, but I figured it would be better to see everything during the day.

The Sher-Dor madressa is famous for the mosaic tigers just above the iwan—portrayal of living beings is forbidden in Islamic art and architecture.

After looking around the exterior of the Registan, I headed across the street to a small cafe that was open and serving locals. I was pretty surprised that you could have a humble cafe on prime real estate across from what is probably the most famous building in Central Asia, but it really was a cheap, blue-collar sort of establishment.

Shortly after 7:00, having eaten breakfast, I returned to the park around the Registan to take some more pictures.

There's still no one up and about yet.

Astana: the weird, wacky, and wonderful architecture of Kazakhstan's showcase capital in the middle of nowhere

Astana isn't actually the last stop on the train from Almaty, but it's where almost everyone gets off. Because there really weren't any decent options available in Astana at the time (though the folks behind the Apple Hostel in Almaty, overwhelmed by the popularity of their hostel, have opened a branch in Astana), I decided to stay at the Station Hotel, which offered dorm accommodation for 2,500 tenge per night. The ladies working at the hotel were actually pretty friendly, which is always a bit of a surprise at an institutional hotel with Soviet roots.

Although the train station is some distance from the new city and its architectural attractions, it's still pretty convenient since buses run south along the main street to Khan Shatyr pretty frequently, and it's dead easy to get off the train and check in. Unfortunately, because most guests are taking the train, it means you have people checking in and checking out at all hours of the day or night—whenever a train arrives or leaves. And because of this constant churn, the staff changes the linens as soon as someone checks out, which means you will have noise at random times when you're trying to sleep. As with many other Soviet-style hotels, you need to pay extra to get a key to the shower: 3,000 tenge.

I took a quick nap after arriving and walked south towards the new city. Around the station the city is kind of a dreary Russian-looking city: a little bleak, not a lot of trees, large and characterless blocks of buildings (although the ground floors were typically occupied by modern shops and restaurants).

Although it was only mid-September, the change in climate was immediately noticeable, as Astana was much colder and windier than Almaty, and the vegetation nowhere near as lush or varied. In many ways, Astana felt like Calgary: dry, cool, and relatively inhospitable to most trees.

The further south you get, the more modern the buildings look, and when you cross the river and arrive on the left bank you truly arrive in the world of weird architecture in a planned city.

Almaty's building boom started when Astana was named the capital, in 1997. Although Almaty is a gorgeous city and one of the gems of Central Asia, it's also on the southern edge of Kazakhstan, next to Kyrgyzstan and quite close to China. The move to Astana, some 1,200 km closer to Moscow,  emphasizes the importance and primacy of Kazakhstan's relationship with Russia, while also creating an indisputable Kazakh presence in the ethnically-Russian north and providing the platform for the creation of a showcase city to announce Kazakhstan's bold ambition and new-found prosperity.

Most of the interesting new buildings are south of the Ishim river, which has been artificially widened as it runs through Astana. This southern area is romantically called the left bank, but it's no Paris. Almost all of the buildings are arranged along an axis known as Nurzhol Boulevard, which runs from the Khan Shatyr shopping center in the west to the Presidential Palace along the Ishim river in the east, and then continuing along the same axis on the other side of the river with a number of additional monuments. From one end of the other it's about 5 km in length, and long-term plans call for this axis of monuments to be extended considerably.

The exterior of Sir Norman Foster's Khan Shatyr shopping center. Security is pretty tight, and you have to go through metal detectors and security scrutiny as you enter. The building apparently cost $400,000,000 to build.

Traditional design in flowers.

The main entrance.

KHAN SHATYR!!!! For someone used to more differentiation between upper and lower case, Cyrillic can look monotonous and shouty.

A model of the central building with the networked apartment buildings that will surround it. You can see the pools and beaches on the top floors of the model.

Speaking of models, they had models as live mannequins at this Wrangler store. They would take a pose for 30 seconds or so, then move around and take up new poses. This picture kind of sucks because I tried to take it surreptitiously, since it seemed weird to take pictures of them, even if they were models.

The Lady From Shanghai

Shanghai just sounds so exotic. But just as The Lady From Shanghai is a conventional noir film that relies on the title to add mystery and exoticism, Shanghai as a city is not terribly remarkable and relies on historical perceptions for much of its allure. Much of the foreign influence that led to Shanghai's reputation in the West has been reduced and minimized. Compared to anywhere in French Indochina, the French Concession is utterly unremarkable, and the British influence on the Bund is essentially limited to a short stretch of riverfront that isn't especially compelling when you're coming from Hong Kong. Perhaps the real story of Shanghai is the Pudong business district which has grown from nothing to an expanding thicket of skyscraper on a few short decades, but the story of rapid development and mega-cities is one repeated throughout China (and in many respects is even more impressive when applied to cities that were utterly anonymous, if not nonexistent, twenty years ago).

Because of Shanghai's modernity and cosmopolitan nature, however, it does make for a gentle introduction to China.

Hostels, service, and cleanliness in China

I had booked a hostel online before arriving in Shanghai. But because hostelbookers.com likes to assume you want to book a week in advance, and not for the next day or so, I had inadvertently booked for the week ahead, and not when I arrived. Add in the difficulty I had in actually locating the hostel, and I was a sweaty mess when I arrived, and none too happy when I was curtly told they were full and my reservation was wrong. Of course, since I didn't have a reservation for that day, they wouldn't let me use the wi-fi so I could book another hostel, and told me I would have to go find a Starbucks, to which they gave me very general directions. Thanks, Phoenix Hostel!

Once I found the Starbucks, I discovered that, besides coffee costing more than it does in the USA, in order to connect to their wi-fi you need to provide a Chinese phone number. At the time I thought this was a ridiculous requirement imposed for marketing reasons by Starbucks China, but in retrospect I suspect it is to comply with Chinese internet-monitoring regulations. I eventually found free wi-fi and was able to make a booking at a hostel in Pudong, the Hidden Garden.

That hostel was actually pretty bad, in some ways that were uniquely Chinese. The rooms would be OK if they actually had windows or ventilation. But they didn't, which meant they were dark and very damp, even though it was the middle of summer. It must be terrible in the winter. There was new hardwood laminate in the hallways, but it had been laid without padding underneath, which meant it was creeky and you could hear it anytime someone walked outside. Especially when the hostel's little dogs walked outside, with their nails clicking on the floor.

These problems could exist in any hostel in the world. The Chinese aspect was the complete lack of cleanliness in the bathrooms. They had clear signs of being somewhat new, as some of the hardware still had the protective plastic wrap stuck to it (as if they thought you're not supposed to remove it after installation). But it also looked like no one had actually cleaned the bathroom at all since it was installed. The toilet bowl was covered in brown stains. The glass shower doors had protective plastic but was also stained and moldy. It's just really strange, but is really quite characteristic of the Chinese
approach to bathroom cleanliness.

Pudong

The Pudong area of Shanghai, east of the Huangpu river and opposite the historic Bund, is where most of Shanghai's skyscrapers are located, including the iconic, futuristic, Oriental Pearl Tower, which was the first tower built in the area, in 1991. That's right, in 1990 the entire Pudong area was flat farmland.

The Bund, in contrast, is British and international in origin, and consists of a number of old Western-style stone buildings that once housed major financial concerns and consulates.

The bottle-opener World Financial Center on the left, and the Jin Mao Tower on the right, as seen fro Lujiazui Park.

Minor skyscrapers.

The aperture was originally intended to be circular, but the shape was changed after people objected to it resembling the Japanese flag.

Hong Kong: In the Mood For Love

I love Hong Kong. It's one of my favourite cities; it's vibrant and alive in a way that few cities are, with a presence on the streets that is palpable. It's like a more exotic, orderly, politer, and cheaper version of NYC, with better food, better weather, and better scenery. I'm sure a large part of Hong Kong's energy comes from the huge population density, and I suspect this density would make actually living there somewhat difficult. But as a tourist you get to experience a city where it seems like there is something happening on every street, at all hours of the day.

Wong Kar Wai's Chungking Express does a good job of expressing the energy and atmosphere of Hong Kong, without putting too much of a gloss on life there, but it's his masterpiece, In the Mood for Love (probably my absolute favourite movie), that really captures the way I feel about Hong Kong: full of nostalgic charm, exotic and alive, gritty and alluring, even if sometimes squalid, yet somehow reserved and formal.

Tensions with Mainland Chinese

On the ride into town from the airport, after an uneventful flight. Best seat in the house: top floor, front row, just behind the full-glass windshield that spans the upper deck.

I remember the first time I flew into the Hong Kong region, on a 2006 Air Asia flight from Bangkok to Macau. This was my first experience with mainland Chinese tourists, who distinguished themselves from other passengers through their behaviour, if not their appearance. Upon landing in Macau, but before arriving at the terminal, there was a mad rush of Chinese standing up, grabbing their luggage, and ignoring requests to remain seated. Once the doors opened, there was jostling to get out, and then more jostling to get into the buses that would take us to the terminal. None of it made any sense (how does being first on the bus, or first off the plane, help get you out of the airport any faster?), but it was serious, ruthless business.

Hong Kongers like mainland Chinese less than ever, and this anti-mainland sentiment seems likely to grow as more and more mainlanders visit and Hong Kong youth become more and more politically assertive. Part of it is because they see more of these 'locusts' than ever, and part of it is economic (they are particularly resentful of mainland mothers coming to HK to have anchor babies, as well as things like milk formula and other foods that may be contaminated in China). Much of it is cultural, however, as Hong Kongers resent the way mainlanders don't stand aside on escalators, push into subway cars instead of queuing or letting people off first, the tendency to urinate in public and encourage their kids to do so (including of parents letting their kids pee in subway cars and wondering why people get upset), and generally ill-mannered behaviour.

Scenes from Hong Kong

This dog enjoys his rightful place as the center of attention in front of the HK World Trade Center shopping complex. While Japanese city dogs pretend you don't exist—or pretend they don't exist— this dog acknowledged everyone but accepted their attention as his due.

On my first night in HK I went to the World Trade Center to look for a duffel bag. My old Samsonite duffel was on it's last legs after 20 years of service and multiple repair jobs to sew up blown seams, and instead of buying a cheap bag in Hong Kong or China like I had originally intended to, I decided to get a decent bag from a reputable company. (The fact that I had bought a knockoff camera bag that looked like it was good quality but had started to fall apart after 24 hours convinced me that it's better to spend extra on another bag that might hopefully last 20 years, too.)

The WTC Hong Kong has both Patagonia and North face shops, and I had narrowed my choice to either the North Face Base Camp or the Patagonia Black Hole, both of which are duffels with backpack straps. The only problem is that the Patagonia medium is 60 liters while the North Face medium is 72 liters (the other sizes are identical, however), and although I liked the Patagonia more I wasn't sure if it would be big enough. In Hong Kong most stores don't allow you to return things for a refund, however, so I couldn't buy the Patagonia and return it if my stuff didn't fit. As I didn't feel like bringing my bag in and unpacking it in the store to see if it fit, I eventually went with the North Face. Luckily, I found a place in Mong Kok that had them on sale—and in nice colours, too—so I ended up paying about the US price for the bag. (Like everything else, these bags were cheaper in the US than in Hong Kong, despite HK's proximity to the factories and its low tax regime.)

The International Finance Center dominates the are near the Star Ferry pier.

Sir Norman Foster's iconic HSBC Tower. The building is essentially on stilts so pedestrians can walk under the building, in a gesture towards good Feng Shui.

The Bank of China Tower, by I.M. Pei, is also iconic but supposedly has bad Feng Shui and was aggressively oriented towards the HSBC tower. There's got to be some irony in the British-designed building having good Feng Shui and the Chinese designed building having bad Feng Shui.

BoC Tower at upper right and three other towers.

This was the first time I had stayed on the Hong Kong side, at an eminently forgettable hostel in Causeway Bay, just around the corner from Ikea. The next morning I saw some more of the island, walking over to the Mid-Levels and taking the escalators while checking out Hollywood Road and the like. I also did some window shopping looking for CF cards for my camera and battery chargers. Hey, DX.com is based in Hong Kong and CF cards are made in Shenzhen, so how hard could it be, right? Very hard, it turns out. The CF cards in the electronics and photo malls in the area were charging about double the price that Amazon.com does.

I eventually figured out where you can get electronics for cheap in Hong Kong—the electronics markets just east of Sham Po Shui MTR station, like Golden Arcade—but it took me a fair amount of trouble, and even the no-haggle prices at the shops there were no better than you get at Amazon. Even these shops were unable to provide the one product I was looking for from DX.com: a USB-powered AA charger. This is why you should save yourself time, money, and hassle and buy before you leave.

The Lippo Towers, by American architect Paul Rudolph. I'm not a big fan, but learning that some people call them "The Koala Tree" makes them feel more humanistic and whimsical than I've ever thought of them before.

The space under the HSBC Tower has been commandeered by the Occupy Wall Street movement.

On Sundays the Occupiers in their tents are joined by Filippina domestic workers, who have historically picnicked all around Central Hong Kong on their day off: if there's an open space, they'll put down their blankets and chew the fat.

Typical apartment buildings in the Mid Levels. The Mid-Levels escalator is an escalator-strewn pathway facilitating commuter traffic up and down the neighbourhood. In the morning the escalators run downhill, and after the morning rush they switch to uphill.

Walking down from the top of the escalators.

Well east of the Mid Levels. These buildings are built on slopes so steep that the southern entrance of a building might be on the tenth floor, and the northern side the ground floor.

On my second day I dropped off my visa application in the morning, did my electronics shopping, and visited some familiar areas of Kowloon: the ladies' market, the goldfish street, and the bird garden (which is next to an attractive alley of florists).

I'm a Slurpee addict. Is it sad that I had the locations of a few of the 7-Elevens that sold Slurpees memorized from 2009 and 2006? Unfortunately, not shown on the map above.

Ladies' Market.

Window shopping on goldfish street.

Temple Street Market.

Marching band practice in Kowloon Park, just off Nathan Road.

Hong Kong Island from Kowloon.

The entire Hong Kong bayfront.

Star Ferry pulling in to Kowloon.