arctangent
I finally got my wish - I got laid off from my long held job and got 6 months of severance, so I am going to fulfill my dream of long term travel. I will travel for 6+ months starting April 12 in Thailand and ending somewhere in Eastern Europe sometime in October.arctangent
Travel Blog Posts
September 24th 2010
Took a bus to Lviv. Lviv is in the Western Ukraine. The city changed hands many times throughout history, from Rich Pospolita, to Austro-Hungary, to Poland, to USSR and finally to Ukraine. Thanks to this history, the city is simply magnificent. The old town is well organized and nicely restored. Lviv is the epicenter of Ukrainian culture and art. Everyone speaks Ukrainian, as opposed to Kiev where most people speak Russian. The old town is closed to traffic and is lined with bars, restaurants and cafes. In the evenings, the the town folks walk about town. There are a number of tourists here, mostly Polish, due to its proximity to Poland. The town is even cheaper than Kiev. The beer here is fantastic. A couple of bars around the town square even sell hot beer - ... read more
September 24th 2010
I took an overnight train to Kamenets-Podilsky. The town is known for it's medieval old town and castle, and another castle 20 km from the town. The train was great - probably the best train I've ever been too, better than trains in Czech Republic and Hungary. It looked brand new and was spotless. The town itself is small and pretty run down. The old town and castle were fantastic though. The town is build on a hill surrounded by the tallest canyon in Europe. We are talking rock cliffs of 40 meters or more! The castle was never conquered throughout history.There were no tourists - probably because its off-season and it was drizzling. So we had the town to ourselves. You can climb the tower and even walk through the castle wall. The castle at ... read more
September 21st 2010
After spending 5 months in Asia, I decided to visit Ukraine, the place of my birth, before meeting my family in Istanbul and traveling a bit with them. I didn't really know what to expect. I left Odessa, Ukraine 18 years ago. I've been back twice since then, but only to Odessa visiting relatives. Last time was about 5 years ago. So this trip is much more about discovering Ukraine then rediscovering. Kiev. What a majestic city. I am pleasantly surprised. It's clean, efficient and has amazing architecture. The women are spectacular. Everyone is in great shape and dresses to impress. Such a difference with US. I spent 2 full days site seeing - I managed to see most of the major sites. Kiev is one of the oldest cities in Europe, 1500 years old or ... read more
September 15th 2010
Finally, I got back to Thailand. I missed the food so much. Even though the food in Cambodia is similar to Thai food, it's not spicy at all, and I've grown to love spicy food. I stayed for 10 days on the biggest and most developed beach - White Sand beach. The place must be quiet happening during the high season, but during the low season it was quiet and sleepy. Which I didn't mind at all. My only beef was that the waves are huge and I hate swimming with big waves - having grown up on the calm Black Sea. I stayed in a nice room right on the water. Decided to pumper myself after all these rustic bungalows - the place had TV, AC, fridge and WiFi. It's called RockSand, at the northern ... read more
September 15th 2010
Sihanoukville is the beach resort in Cambodia. It's a really weird place as well. The beaches are nowhere near as nice as even average beach in Thailand. They are also quite dirty and the waters are polluted. Due to the lack of planning or no planning, the most popular beach, Serendipity is lined with restaurants and bars right on the sand, limiting available sand. Touts are overwhelming. You can't lie 1 minute before someone approaching trying to sell you something. I stayed at the quiet beach, Otres, which is nicer. It's about 3 km from Serendipity, not very developed. In fact, it's quite bizarre as well. There are illegal bungalow places right on the beach, all surrounded by spooky undeveloped land with stone walls around them, ala Kep. Someone snapped up all the beach front real ... read more
August 25th 2010
I took a bus to Kep and stayed the night, before heading to the island. Kep is a bizarre place. It used to be a South Beach of Cambodia, where the rich and famous had grand villas by the sea. Then during Khmer Rouge, the city was vacated, like most of Cambodia's city and it never came back. Today, the town is full of ruined blackened remains of once grand palaces. Yet, they all have brand new walls around it. It has something to do with Cambodian property laws - I guess you need fences around to maintain ownership. So the whole town is largely plots of either empty land or ruins of grand villas with new or newish stone walls around. It has a very spooky feeling to it. The beach near the town is ... read more
August 25th 2010
I spent a couple of days in the capital, before heading to the beaches. It's quite a pleasant city. Very modern city, with nice bars and restaurants. Quite different from everything I've seen in Cambodia so far. I went to the former school - S21 prison, where the Khmer Rouge held political prisoners before killing them. Went to the Killing Fields - where the prisoners from S21 were dispatched. Quite shocking - both places, but well worth the visit. There is a monument built at the Killing Fields - a stupa that holds the skulls and bones of 8000 people. Overall over 20,000 people were killing there. I've read a lot about the Khmer Rouge before hand, yet it is still quite shocking to see it in person. Considering Khmer Rouge were only in power for ... read more
August 10th 2010
On the bus to Kratie, I ran into Danny and Duck, guys I previously traveled with in Laos. Kratie is a nice little town on the river. We rented bikes one day and took a ferry across the river to an island. Bike around there. It was really nice, with little kids screaming 'hello' every time we passed them. Next day, we rented motor bikes and went south to Chlon, the took a ferry to the other side. The other bank is not very touristy and really rural, which was nice as the scenery was amazing. We were ridding north, where we planned to cross back to our side of the river. Unfortunately, about 3 quarters of the way, Danny and I stopped for bubble tea, with Duck no where in site. Then a couple of ... read more
August 10th 2010
I crossed into Cambodia and went to frontier town - Banlung. It's quite remote and surrounded by mountains. The town itself is not particularly interesting, but there are lakes and waterfalls around. I met a Russian girl, Alina, on the bus and we stuck together while there. We rented a mountain bikes and went to see a crater lake. It was raining and I wanted to rent a motor bike, but we couldn't find a place that rented them, so we ended up renting mountain bikes. The bikes had no fenders, so our backs were covered in mud by the time we got there. It was fun though. The lake is really nice and the water is very green. We swam there for a couple of hours. There was a very cool monkey living near one ... read more
August 9th 2010
Took a minivan and boat to Si Phun Don - 4 thousand island. It's an area in the deep south of Lao with these small island on the Mekong. I chose to stay on Don Khon. It's connected to Don Det by a bridge built by the French before World War 2. It connected 2 piers by a rail road on the two islands. The railroad hasn't functioned since WW2. There are a couple of waterfalls on Don Khon - more correctly they look like rapids to me, but no matter. The vast majority of backpackers choose to stay on Don Det, but since accommodation are a bit nicer I decided to go to Don Khon instead. There is not much to do on these islands apart from laying in the hummock overlooking the river. There ... read more
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