The ferry from Picton across the Cook Strait takes about three hours. That's ample time, on a day as fine as the one we had, to stroll the multiple open decks, do some reading or snoozing, and in general contemplate what it must've been like back in the day (as they say) when ships were made of wood, food was rations instead of a la carte buffet bars, and the distance to the next island/continent, if there was one, was completely unknown. Staring at the shadow of land in the distance, with nothing but ocean in the other direction will put these kinds of thoughts in your head.
Read MoreHurray For Hanoi!
For the most part, this adventure has been pretty well served by the idea of flexibility. Only a couple times have we been misled and, without necessarily regretting anything, wished to have a couple more days here or a couple less days there. Cat Ba Island, with its laid back quiet beauty, had us wondering if going for any more than a couple days to the melee we'd heard Hanoi to be would end up just more overwhelming, hectic and challenging than our kayak relaxed brains could handle. Wrong!
Well...sort of wrong. Hanoi IS a melee. It is a heaving mass of people and goods, motos and cars, foreigners, locals and everything in between all moving in every and any direction at once. But inside all of this beautiful madness, we arrived on Dec. 28th to find a city that nestles itself right in the crack between some of the other wonderful places we've been lucky enough to explore in Southeast Asia. It's the grit (metaphorically and literally) and anything goes opportunity of Kathmandu but with a little more of the development - smooth roads, good ice cream, etc. - of, say, Bangkok or Chiang Mai. By the end of day one we were aleady re-evaluating our thoughts of leaving before New Year's Eve.
(Before I get going too much, I have to preface with the fact that everything we did in this city was surrounded on either side by food. Amazing, exciting, exhilarating food adventures [with nary a large insect in sight!]. I'm not even going to start about it here, though, as anything less than a full post dedicated exclusively would miss the mark entirely. Stay tuned.)
After being whisked off to a hotel on the back of a motorbike, we spent the remaining days of the year wandering the supremely walkable Old Quarter. From as far north as Westlake to as far south as the French Quarter, several markets, endless back streets and side alleys and more museums than we've been to since Europe (three) filled in the times between sleeping and eating. Two of the museums - something that, I think many people would agree, is a little easy to burn out on - ended up being surprisingly worthwhile.
First stop was the Vietnam Fine Arts Museum - a collection of pieces that other art museums around the world will no longer borrow from due to the fact that the pieces within aren't verifiably original. Strange. Reason being is that years of corruption in the state run museum meant originals were sold off without much in the way of record-keeping, copies (though quite good ones) taking their place. It's strangely fitting to wander slack jawed in awe at some of the beautiful woodcut prints and silk paintings while questioning the authenticity and, getting a little meta, questioning what that even means in the context of art. For the admission price of just under one US dollar each, it was easily the best art museum to cost ratio I've ever experienced, save for the free nights at the MFA in Boston.
Next up was the Vietnamese Women's Museum; a truly beautiful collection displayed with the elegance and modern touches of something you might expect in Manhattan. Covering everything from women's domestic roles to wartime roles to some of the insanely intricate and fantastic fabrics of the minority tribes, it was another bargain at about USD $1.50.
As the first couple days whizzed by we realized we were subconsciously extending our stay further and further. By the 30th we knew we wouldn't be on a bus towards the Laos border until, unfortunately, Casey's birthday (January 4) so we decided to utilize the evening to celebrate a little early - avoiding the NYE crowds and prices in the process. Living on a pretty tight budget these past months has made the few meal splurges we've taken seem even more exciting and special and this one proved no different, despite the best efforts of a waitress who refused us the happy hour benefits and a group of six at the table over from us who thought watching youtube videos featuring lots of explosions and gunfire would be a fun way to spend the evening. We'll pretend they were fireworks in celebration of Casey's birthday and instead focus on the fact that, while it was fairly low-key, the food was delicious and the birthday sentiment was there. Even the cold weather checked in, catching us a bit off-guard as we had left our warmest layers in Bangkok, not really taking into consideration how much further north Hanoi is.
A few days later we went out for a birthday coffee at Cong Cafe - one of our better finds in the city - complete with gift unwrapping to make it seem like a real birthday before heading back to the hotel for our departure from this magnificent city. Two motos took us on the 20 minute drive through the most ridiculous and up close traffic I've ever been a part of to catch our overnight sleeper bus to Dien Bien Phu - the last stop town ten or so hours west of Hanoi on the way to the border. It's pretty hard to know which given place might strike one's fancy. I don't need to harp on the expectations idea again, but I can speak for us both when I say I couldn't be happier that we had the flexibility, this time, to stretch our time in Hanoi a little further. Pushing our schedule back a bit was all worth it for the smiles we received, the sights and smells we took in, and the food...oh, the food...
Textures: İstanbul
Olomouc. Olla-moats.
Olomouc. Population 102,004. There is a tourism attempt in this town, but it's on the sleepy second tier of importance behind university life, which made it the perfect place, in retrospect, for us to spend a few days decompressing from City Visiting before heading on to our next Workaway. To be honest, it was kind of luck that led us to this place from Krakow, throwing our digital dart at the digital map. Originally, we had been planning on going from Krakow to Prague but decided to scale back, instead taking the southern route to Černovice through Brno. Then we scaled back once more in the search for something resembling more of a regular life town. Enter: Olomouc.
It's easy to get swept up from major city to major city, attraction to attraction, but it's also easy to get burnt out on this after a bit; our minds overloaded with input but without enough downtime to digest it all. Our excellent hostel in Olomouc, Poet's Corner, also played a big part in helping to slow things down during the three days we spent there. Armed with the information from their many homemade reference binders, as well as the most friendly staff around, we covered most of the town: the main square featuring the UNESCO listed Holy Trinity Column and the Czech Republic's second largest astronomical clock*, the several baroque cathedrals, the Czech specialty dessert of warm raspberries with ice cream (a real challenge for me...*cough*), and the contemporary art museum. The latter of which was particularly interesting in the way it connected where we'd come from - a show by Polish sculptor Magdalena Abakanowicz that was in part based on events from WWII - to where we had just started to explore, complete with Czech artists like my personal favorite: Vojtěc Preissig.
In between all this, we managed to complete the Poet's Corner treasure hunt for nine random sights and teeny details around town and discovered the beauty of South Moravian white wines and the best hefeweizen I've ever had at the St. Wenceclas microbrewery.
It's also worth noting how much small yet impressive street art can be found around Olomouc. Maybe it's the university influence? Regardless, it reinforces the notion that it doesn't have to be big (or in a big city) to hold rank with the best:
Olomouc was, in short, a perfect introduction to our time in the Czech Republic. One of those places that came out of the blue at the right time to set us up on the right foot for our three train, four kilometer walk to Nový Mlýn, 70 miles south of Prague. Workaway number three.
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* The astronomical clock has one entirely lackluster and peculiar presentation every day at noon. In general, a pretty large crowd gathers to hear the three traditional Czech songs played out on bells, witness the slow rotation of content proletariat men and women, and leave the premises wondering what it was exactly they just saw. You can hear it HERE. That said, it did have some impressive tile work thanks to Karel Svolinský.
Location:Vodičkova, Prague 1, Czech Republic
Germany: Part I
Oh boy. Where to begin. We've been in Germany since June 28th and have gotten behind in our posting due to a few factors: lack of internet, uncertainty deciding which stories to post, and most of all actually, you know...doing stuff. So. A round up. We took three trains to our funky purple and yellow room in a pensioners hotel (cheaper, it is worth noting, than a dorm room in a hostel) in the St. Georg neighborhood of Hamburg. We had only planned it as a one night stopover but in retrospect could have spent awhile longer. The street we were on was chockablock with bakeries, cool little shops, sidewalk cafes and, of course, a great little grocery store. After a much needed dinner, we discovered one of the better ice cream flavors either of us has had in awhile, though unfortunately we've had a hard time figuring out what it actually is: Waldmeister. Green, dry, floral, a little tangy...completely refreshing.
Speaking of new friends, there was a large collection of volunteers staying here; some since before us and some that rolled in as we were gearing up to head out. Sadly, we didn't get to practice our German much here, but we were able to brush up on our Australian and British accents. Naturally, one of the volunteers, Kerk, was a native of Beverly, MA (a Boston suburb). He brought himself, his banjo and a lute from Morocco and provided nightly entertainment that you can hear here.
Potsdam. History! History! History! It's a quiet city of just over 150,000 that was built up, destroyed, overtaken, regained, and rebuilt seemingly endlessly over the years and through various wars. In the 1700's, Frederick the Great (also the second) left seemingly the most lasting marks here, covering the town with some beautiful, well kept, and large parks that are interspersed with magnificent sculptures and castles, the largest of which being Park Sansoucci (that's French for "without worries" - somewhat ironically given the opulence, size and location). It was his summer home, but it might be ancient Greece (what with all of the sculptures). Unclear.
Location:Raiffeisenstraße,Magdeburg,Germany