Madeira, Portugal: Lovely Little Island Paradise (for Oldies and Old-Adjacents)

July 20-21 
Dear little baby laptop diary,

Here we are on our 8th long train journey of the summer but the very first part of our China adventure! For the next 30 hours, I look to you for support, for guidance, for refuge from our very very loud Canadian male cabinmates (I thought Canadians were polite loudness beyond all decibel recognition is not polite). But most of all, I look to you for distraction from the fact that the bathrooms might be closed for 6 full hours tonight, for customs and bogie (wheel) changing. I am not stress-free, I’ll say that. 

Luckily, the train is a tiny bit nicer than what we’ve been on for the past 5 weeks. It’s another Chinese train, so it’s smoky as all hell, of course, but I guess that’s good practice for all the secondhand cigarette smoke and (god I hope not) lung problems I’ll be getting once we arrive in China. But other than that (and of course, the Chinese tradition of not supplying toilet paper, soap, or speaking English), the train is nicer. Our cabin seems ever so slightly wider than usual, meaning all four of us can sit on the bottom bunks and not have our legs touch. Most importantly, there are outlets in here! Two of them! Before, on the Russian trains, there was one 220V outlet in the entire carriage hallway that everyone fought over to charge their phones. But here, hell we’ve got the phones charged, the kindles charged, and you little baby are plugged in for the first time on a train! How does that feel!

Even better, there are two toilets at one end of the carriage instead of one at each end. So the attendants did not lock the one by them for their own use! Two toilets for me! Best of all, the other toiletless end of the carriage has an open area with the hot water station (no more samovars, of course, being out of Russia, but still endless hot water) and TWO SINKS! No more washing our cups in the toilet sink! No more waiting to pee while 4 people use the toilet just to brush their teeth! We’re flying high! And most importantly, the sinks can’t be locked, so with my newfound lack of inhibition cultivated in the Mongolian country tour, if need be, I will just pee in those open sinks. What are they gonna do about it? 

No, really, I’m incredibly nervous about the bogie change. Mongolian exit customs starts at 6:30pm and is about two hours, and then Chinese entry customs starts only half an hour later, at 9pm, so I think the bathrooms will be closed that entire time, with that half hour not long enough to warrant an official reopening. I’m nervous enough about that, but the Chinese customs part includes a bogie change to account for the difference in tracks or wheel requirements in China or somesuch nonsense that will force the bathrooms to be closed until freaking 1:30am. So best case, that’s a 4 1/2 hour closure, which I can’t do, and worst case, that’s a 6 hour closure, which I REALLY can’t do. The guide book says we are able to get off the train and wait at the station while they change the bogies, but then you are out in the cold until 1:30am!!! Is anyone else on this UTI machine worrying about this? How is it possible for anyone to think of anything else? Even you can’t go for 6 hours without needing to pee! Come on! Does everyone have a Stadium Pal in their packs? Adult diapers? WHAT’S THEIR SECRET? What do I do Murray?!

While I wait for my fate to reveal itself, I am listening to our two Canadians TALK REALLY LOUDLY ABOUT ALL KINDS OF THINGS IN THEIR REALLY LOUD VOICES. They are nice enough but like shut the crap up already I’m trying to do literally anything but listen to your talk about Burning Man and how it’s the best thing in the world and ughhh you wish you were theeeere because it’s just representative of everrrything gooood the worrrrld can beeee. SHUT UP I HATE YOU AND BURNING MAN IT SOUNDS TERRIBLE. 
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​The scenery is hilarious. We are literally going through the desert right now, so there is nothing for miles and miles and miles. Just sand. Nothingness. It’s so dry out there. Damn I would hate to be stuck in the desert. 

Omg this one guy’s voice is like the loudest you can ever imagine. How is this person human? I didn’t know regular human talking could occur at this decibel. If I were in my apartment I’d be calling the police about a noise violation like I used to do all the time in Philly about that stupid burrito place across the street like listen it’s 3pm and you are NOT a club you are a burrito shop so stop thumping the bass like yo’re a gangster no one wants to eat your food if they can feel the thumping in their chest too just chill the f.

So the loud boys like to pass the time on the train – on a THIRTY HOUR TRAIN – by playing 20 Questions with each other. You know, when you think of something, anything, and the other person has 20 questions to ask before guessing what it is. Usually children who don’t know what to do with their lives play this. Usually people pick objects they can see or something. Do you wanna know what their first question to each other has invariably been? Are you even ready for this because I still am not. The very first question they ask each other every round is, “Is it a product of modernity?” jigga WHAT?????? IS IT A PRODUCT OF MODERNITY? Who DOES THAT! START WITH ‘IS IT AN OBJECT” FOR FUCKS SAKE.

I do not like them. And I do not like that apparently all Chinese attendants will be constantly smoking. I know that I am a broken record of complaint in these posts but I am confined to this theme by the narrowness of my experiences. 

Wanna hear the funniest thing? These two idiots are going to Beijing to catch a flight TO NORTH KOREA! Oh they are going to get eaten ALIVE by Kim and his friends. I mean honestly they need to tone it down, for real; it’s dangerous to go there and not know how to behave in civilized society (Kim and I am civilized society). Soooo many men in uniform are going to be like SHUT UPPPPP but in Korean. Godspeed to you two foolios, godspeed. 

Okay so we are in the middle of the customs time. I am very thirsty but I was able to pee right before the designated time for exit customs. The Mongolians pored over every single page of our passports just because we want to leave. I really don’t understand exit customs. You already let us in, just let me out please. It took a few hours and at 8:30pm I heard some commotion down by the bathrooms and guess what, someone else indeed had to pee! Other people are human too! A lady got the attendant to open a bathroom before Chinese customs officials boarded and the line grew down the whole carriage. Woohoo! 

Chinese customs officials do not smile, but they do bark. We got stamped through though, and then the train started moving back and forth between stations, like long 10 minute rides back and forth. Something was clearly not going right. Finally we went into a building we had passed 4 times – yes, straight into it- and saw that all the carriages of our train had been separated and were kind of stacked sideways to each other, so we could look from our window into another carriage’s cabins. Privacy violation! It was so weird behind on a train but being inside this random warehouse. And then, all of a sudden, we realized our car had been raised like 15 feet in the air, without us feeling it! Chinese machinery is sophisticated! (Made in Japan?)

But after a bit of time, things stopped being so smooth. The entire carriage started being jerked this way and that, preventing any kind of relaxation and invoking a mass confusion of whispered “what’s going on”s. A few minutes would pass, then we’d hear a BANG! CRASH! Like a comic strip except we were in a train car and no one could tell us what was going on. They need to work on this system. 

At about 10:30pm, a French lady nearby got the attendant to open the toilet. I don’t even care that this lady was also smoking, I love her now. I was going to be okay. Dehydrated and exhausted and concerned about what the crap was going on outside, but okay. 

But we thought by then that the bogie change was over. Why were we still in the warehouse? Where…wait where were all the other carriages? We could no longer see ANY of the rest of our train, like they had regrouped and departed to continue the journey and forgotten to add car #4 back in. Ermmmm guys? GUYS? CAN ANYONE TELL US WHAT’S GOING ON?

By this point, the screamers and Z had all gone to sleep, while I waited for a chance to do Final Pee (TM) before sleep. I thought it was coming – I was so tired! But the clang clang clang of the bogie machines still rocked our carriage back and forth – while these silly boys just SLEPT. I wanted to scream how can you people be sleeping through this I’m literally having to hold onto the railings! By 12:45am, we had left the warehouse but just as little as possible – we were parked outside it. I honestly think that we were waiting for the train to come back and collect us and add us back in. I have no evidence of this – I probably just couldn’t see the rest of the train from my window’s angle – but come on what else would be taking until 1 in the morning!

Finally I really had to pee and wanted to sleep so bad that I resorted to playing dirty with the attendant: I went to his cabin, opened the door, and put my hands together and said ‘toilet, please??’ He pointed to his watch and said “Must wait! Must wait!” I said “please emergency” and he again said “must wait!” So, I dug a tampon out of my pocket that I had dug out of my bag and held it up for him and said ‘NEED TO USE’. He SHUDDERED and instead of being forced to think about lady problems for any longer, he hurried to open the toilet for me. Guys! I successfully discovered a surefire way to always get the men to unlock the toilets! Make them super uncomfortable by showing them a tampon that you’re not going to even use (don’t use tampons at night, PSA)! New train motto is AHATIMP (always have a tampon in my pocket) and I will be stress-freeeee saaaailing awayyyyyy hoorayyy for fragile masculinity!

I slept. 

In the morning, at about 7 or 8, I heard the SUPER LOUD CANADIANS (seriously they can’t be Canadian I think they are lying) rustling and opened my eyes, which I shouldn’t have done because that triggered the extra loud one to immediately announce that the attendants wanted to collect all the sheets. “Fuck that”, I said, glaring at him, and turned over for more sleep. I am so in charge now. 

The landscape starting looking undeniably like the China I was so eager to see, with misty mountains and lots of buildings and smog (well I wasn’t excited about the smog) and just so much interesting scenery. The mountains were incredible! I’m so excited to see so much of this country. We will soon arrive for five days in Beijing. Stay tuned! And let me know if you hear anything in the news about two Canadian men being captured in NK. 

Chinqui! After the nonstop action of our previous few weeks in Kyrgyzstan, a few days in Almaty provided the easy, relaxing tourism we needed for recovery and rejuvenation. I know what you’re thinking because it’s what I thought too: “No way you’re talking about Kazakhstan being the easygoing part of this trip.” I know! Mah wife! Against our (unfounded) expectations, Almaty was nice and perfectly boring. For the first time in a long time, it felt just like your average cosmopolitan city, with nice cafes, restaurants, buildings, and even recognizable brands. It was clean and modern and was the first place to remind us of London since Shanghai. Yep, Kazakhstan is just like London. 

We breathed a sigh of relief (but not too deeply; the car exhaust/pollution problems in this region are big in this city) at getting a leisurely day to sightsee at our own pace. We decided to follow a walking tour around the city from the website Caravanistan, which was very helpful but took us literally six hours to get through. Granted we did stop a lot (at every single good looking grocery store; more on that later), but still, damn, what a town! We started at Republic Square, which was about 40 minutes from our hostel when you factor in how incorrect all my advance food-findings were (HappyCow is only as good as we make it, people!). At Republic Square we found the very very tall Independence Monument, which features a pretty f-ing badass man riding a flying snow leopard. HELL YEAH you fly that magical snow leopard into the SKY, Golden Man! 

Look at that stupid kid statue in front of you riding a regular old horse! HAHA LAME CHILD. 

The Independence Monument stands in a big official looking square, with government buildings and the former Presidential Palace. Also nearby is the monument to the 1986 December Uprising, which is said to have been mostly students protesting decisions of Gorbachev. But there’s so much misinformation, as with everything out of the Soviet Union, that no one can agree on whether it was a protest for independence or just against his latest decision, whether it was planned or spontaneous, whether 200 people participated in the uprising or 40,000 (get your shit together USSR), or whether only a handful of people died or whether the death toll exceeded 1,000. FFS the Soviet Union really didn’t like facts. The statue below, honoring the uprising, is called Dawn of Liberty, because a few years after the uprising, Kazakhstan won its independence from the Soviets – even though they didn’t seem to want it. Apparently in 1991, 94% of voters voted to stay in the Soviet system? but then just months later they were granted their independence? What the crap was going on over there! Kazakhstan was the last country to gain their independence from the Sovs whether they wanted it or not. 

We turned to walk down Dostyk avenue, which previously was called Lenin avenue. Still in the land of Lenin avenues and statues! Never leaving! There we saw the Arman Cinema with this amazing relief on the outside, facing the street. And yes, it’s connected to a Burger King. I know, it’s confusing to hate the sight of gross fast fooderies while also being excited to be in a place with names you know. 

In this area we found the statue of Tulebaev, a composer. Now that we’re outside of Republic Square and its municipal buildings and its concrete, you’ll notice how so much of Almaty is green and tree-lined. It feels like the whole city center is a park sometimes! There are bike paths and foot paths, so many fountains, and so many trees. A-nice! 

I really liked the below monument to Zhambyl Zhabayev, the Kazakh folksinger. He played the dombura, which is not a Japanese food, and only sang in the Kazakh language. He lived to be just a week shy of 100 years old, which is pretty amazing for anyone but especially for someone born next to a river by Mount Zhambyl (which he was named after) while his mother was fleeing an attack on her village. I don’t think anyone seeing a baby born at the most inconvenient time in the most inconvenient place in the middle of such horror and tragedy stopped and said hey I bet that baby lives to be 100, or past 4. The internet has no reports of fun nicknames but dammit if he was never called Zhambalaya I will be so mad. 

 I was also a fan of the statue to Taras Shevchenko, the Ukrainian artist and writer. I like that his name is in the plural. I write many Taras! I like that he was Ukrainian and I found nothing relating him to Kazakhstan anywhere on the internet. But most of all I like that his statue is so f-ing weird. Why did they just make his face come out of an amorphous blob? Is it because he isn’t Kazakh? They being prankers? 

Okay I’m mostly joking about the statues though. My real top sight in Almaty is, I think, the actual top sight in Almaty – the fountain based on the Chinese zodiac but bastardized by Soviet symbolism so it became just a wet circle of confusion. 

It’s a great fountain, but at first glance you might just think the animal statues are of your standard choices. Especially if you know it’s supposed to represent the zodiac, you might recognize that oh there’s the lion, there’s a ram, there’s the…snail? Instead of cool things like dragons, the use of Soviet symbolism means we get things like the snail. 

The symbols used are thus kind of funny, kind of cute, and it makes the fountain even more interesting to know why there are such random animals featured. 

An important artwork for us to find was this mural (above) on the wall of a hotel (or office building) that was under significant construction. I hope they don’t hurt the murals! We wanted to find this painting because it represents us on our Silk Road journey! Okay maybe they were thinking more ‘actual explorers and adventurers from thousands of years ago’ and not two little whiteys but hey we felt pretty cool seeing it. 

We next moved into the war portion of our monument viewing. Above is the monument to two female heroes of World War II, Manshuk Mametova and Aliya Moldagulova. Manshuk was a machine gunner and the first Soviet Asian woman to receive the Hero of Soviet Union medal for bravery. She had been studying at the Almaty Medical Institute when the war began, and schools in various cities are named after her. Aliya was also awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union medal, for her work during the war as a sniper. Apparently she trained at an all female sniping school, which sounds incredibly badass. Does the US have anything like that or do they still not like having girlies in the military? 

Below is requisite Eternal Flame, which we saw in every single place in the former Soviet Union. After that is the Glory Monument in Panfilov Park. It is dedicated to the 28 guardsmen of Panfilov. The 28 were a group of Red Army soldiers who fought in the defense of Moscow in 1941, and they all died in action. Most of them were recruits from the Kazakh and Kyrgyz regions. 

On one main boulevard was the lovely opera house, which was also under construction and it took several visits to get a picture without a truck on its front stoop. A poster on the facade informed us that the opening performance of the season was occurring the night we left. Cool guys. 

Thought we saw literally all the sights, we mostly enjoyed strolling amid all the greenery and taking pictures of buildings we liked even if we had no idea what they were. I’m guessing the below is a government building though. I know you’re impressed by my deductive skills. 

We spent more than a few hours in the A. Kasteyev State Museum of Arts, a really interesting and neverending mix of good art, bad art, weird art, blue art. I recall that it was a maze that I couldn’t get out of fast enough to find a bathroom (horrible set up!). I also recall that there was a scary weird robot sculpture out front, and a CREEPY AF painting of Baby Trump inside. 

Next up is this church, the Ascension Cathedral, I am pretty sure, and look! It’s also under construction! It’s made of wood (anyone else just hear Uncle Joey’s puppet?) and claims to be the second tallest wooden building in the world but it lies. It’s a wooden building of lies. Just kidding buildings can’t tell truths or lies. They don’t speak! But I bet this was the second tallest at one time but other things kept happening and this one stopped growing. 

The church was built in the 19th century when the region was called Turkestan which is the cutest lil word. It’s had other serious reconstruction works throughout past 50 years so I guess wood doesn’t hold up so good. 

You know what also doesn’t hold up to the test of time? Random things named after deceased royals. 

It’s weird, guys. As is this: 

Not really sure what’s going on with this building but the people behind it REALLY don’t know what ‘disco’ music is because it sure as hell ain’t Vanilla Ice or Shaggy. No idea what this building actually was because we didn’t dare return at night but man I’m still really curious. What designer got away with this? 

Shall we move on to food? That’s always my favorite part! The agenda item I was most eager for was the Green Market (or Zelenyi Bazar), the big produce market where locals buy their goods and where tourists like me can find Kazakhstan’s famous apples. Yep, I didn’t know before this trip, but Kazakhstan is famous for apples! We bought lots of their most precious varieties and had apples for daaays. Spoiler: They don’t hold a candle to my fave, the Fuji apple, which I can’t find ANYWHERE anymore. Kazakh varieties (varietals? when do you use varietals without sounding like a dick) are a little grainier than I’m used to, and a little sour, making my eyes go phrmmmph. 

We bought apples and pears and plums and oranges and more apples. So fun. Pro tip: Oranges outside the UK are super expensive. I remember in China I bought an orange once (a mandarin one!) and it was like 4x as much as the rest of the grocery haul. Ridic! 

LIke all the amazing markets we discovered on our travels, the Green Market had so many wonderful looking goods that we just couldn’t buy and carry for weeks longer in our packs, like these spices. The vendors are always like ‘hey girl over here buy my goods!’ and I try to say ‘I’m so sorry I would love to they look amazing but I’m backpacking rn and I don’t have the room or the ability to keep them from exploding everywhere and also customs??’ but just with an apologetic look.

Across from the Green Market was the Rakhat chocolate factory, which I was suuuper excited about, but which was a big letdown. It was mainly a little shop overflowing with people pointing to bins of candy in bulk and saying how many grams they wanted. And there was no list of ingredients visible for any of the candies, all hidden behind glass. I asked a clerk about one and she said there was no milk but like how could I believe you if you aren’t checking the ingredients yourself, clerk?! And I’d have to ask about each one? Blergh. I would happily read endless lists of Russian ingredients but I don’t want to make a clerk in an overflowingly busy little shop do that for me. I found my goodies elsewhere. ALSO, all the guides I read beforehand said that this factory made the whole neighborhood smell like chocolate so I was beyond pumped for that but it didn’t even smell like chocolate in the shoppe! J’ACCUSE!

Okay so the ‘I have no room’ excuse might not be entirely accurate regarding the spices…they can be simply little packets, after all. And I definitely made room for less practical goodies I found at my favorite posh grocery store in Almaty, called Interfood. Oh MAN did we score some amazing accidentally vegan totally unnecessary treats. 

The Ritter Sport Marzipan is RG, and you can find it all over the world. I don’t think I like marzipan in other forms (probably because of Gilmore Girls) but it’s great in this. But the real exciting part of this crop of goodies is that box of Speculoos Creme cookies! oh MAN I picked up that box as yet another futile exercise in self-punishment, expecting it to be laden with milk products, but it was accidentally vegan! I wish I bought more of those but I could barely fit one box crushed in my pack. The Rakhat chocolate bar was decent and satisfied my chocolate craving. The other one (the gold) is a gift for someone, haven’t decided yet! Who wants it?

Manner are my favorite treats in the world so I was excited to find some milk-free wafer cookies of similar ilk. These weren’t very good (kind of tangy) but still, wafer cookies on any day are better than non wafers or something like that. 

But the best find in Interfood was this bag o’ Cat Tongues! Omg little cinnamon discs of pure magic. I would LOVE to find these again! 

We found some great food in Almaty, although nothing matched our amazing Georgian dinner on our first night. My favorite was the little falafel joint a few minutes from our hostel, called Falafel Forever. It was GREAT! And so cheap! I love falafel platters. It’s my perfect set up – hummus, pita, falafel, and tons of fun roasted veggies and salads. 

Across the opera house ( I think) was a Brooklyn-style burger place that Husband needed to go in, and luckily they had a really good cabbage slaw that I enjoyed. Of course I also had some of the great potato wedges and a fresh grapefruit soda. 

For dinner one night, we decided to tourist it up and have our first Italian food in months instead of having more Soviet-era potato and cabbage dishes. We went into a trattoria called Del Papa right on the main square of a main boulevard (I wanna say near the opera house again) and got the best familiar dishes, including vegetable soup, a great panzanella salad, and a roasted veggie dish in amazing sauce. 

Yum! So many good meals, so many apples, so many statues and stories! And SO much junk food in my bags! Shall we cap off our nice stay in Almaty with a shot of the sign hanging in the shared bathroom at Sky Hostel? Ok! 

This is why I’m done with hostels. 

​Okay bye Almaty! Great success!