Epilogue

There is a video on youtube that a friend showed me a while ago of a guy who takes a trip walking across China, from Beijing to Xinjiang, and takes a photo of himself everyday and he plays the photos back to back, chronologically, and you watch him slowly grow a wild beard and wild-man hair in front of an ever changing Chinese backdrop. The trip took him a year to complete and he walked over 4500 km. His name is Christopher Rehage and his video is called “The Longest Way”. Check it out, it’s pretty cool. The video hooks you in with cool music and an excellent set of photos. But what I don’t like about the video is that at the end, the music changes, gets a bit more serious, and he starts getting very preachy about how the trip changed his life and how he’s a better person and blah, blah, blah. So I guess the point I’m trying to make is that I’m going to save you from any of my life-changing preachiness and just wrap things up. I think though that a trip of this magnitude, and since I had documented nearly every minute of it, does indeed deserve some parting thoughts.

First, a minor recap. The goal of this trip was to cross the massive Eurasian supercontinent, from coast to coast, by rail. Only by rail--whenever possible. I took some buses and some boats but where there was a train, I took the train. I’m proud to say that I did meet that goal. From Tianjin to Lisbon, a continuous set of rolling train cars and my face glued to the window--I watched every minute of the countryside roll by. I can’t say enough about trains. Trains are great. They’re comfortable, slow enough to appreciate the trip, but fast enough to get you where you’re going timely (by that I mean faster than by bike or by walking), and you are able to watch the journey unfold, to watch the landscape change as you make your way along. Trains give you the opportunity to meet cool people and socialize in a community of fellow travelers over drinks. I met some pretty cool and some pretty wacky people on these trains. If I’m not selling trains to you, than pick up any book written by Paul Theroux and he’ll surely do a better job of it. In fact, his book, “The Great Railway Bazaar”, was, in a way, the inspiration behind some of this trip and behind my blogging it.

It would be too difficult to trace the path I took and add up the total miles that I had traversed to any precision, but lets put it this way. It is approximately 1,700 miles between Chengdu and Kashgar, 2,150 miles between Kashgar and Beijing, 4,500 miles between Beijing and Oslo, 500 miles between Oslo and Berlin, and 1,450 miles between Berlin and Lisbon, so I’m rounding it off, but when you add these numbers together you get 10,300 miles in total. And zero airplanes. In four months. I’m proud of that.

Alright, alright, a bit preachy here. I’m not heartless. I learned a lot from this trip. Mostly though that people are good, everywhere. I’ve sort of restored my faith in humanity (not that I lost my faith in humanity, but I suppose I increased the stock I already had in humanity...). Apart from a very few circumstances, chiefly my stolen iPhone dilemma, I encountered nothing but the very best of people wherever I went. From my home stays in Ekaterinburg, St. Petersburg, Berlin or Milan, to the home cooked meals I received in many other places, to the remarkable strangers I met on the train and in the hostels, to the everyday people I encountered on the streets, people were genuinely kind to me and were always happy I was there. They were always happy that I wanted to be there, even in the remotest of places. They were happy that I had taken an interest in them, in their culture, in their home, and they were always more than welcoming to me, and in many instances, spent money and time in order to accommodate me as a guest and make me feel welcome. I am overwhelmed with gratitude to these people, to all the people I encountered and I hope some day I can return the favor.

I’ll admit too that I was a little travel weary towards the end as I’m sure you could sense through my posts, but I am all the more excited about traveling in the future. I have, since the start of my trip in January, exponentially increased my love for traveling and have come to realize more and more how very big and diverse the world is. A lifetime is not enough to see it all, but I guess I’m going to do the best I can. I have no plans yet, as far as grand adventures go, in fact the downside to these trips is that they require funds which deplete (shockingly) when you have no immediate income. But I will have plans soon enough, and I’ll blog about it, probably.

That’s all for now I suppose. Travel and meet people and see how great the world is. That’s my parting advice.

Since I’ve been home, in Boston, I’ve already had the pleasure of meeting some people who have been following me on the blog. I love hearing from them and you. If you ever have a question about the trip or just want to leave a comment or if you want any travel tips or advice (to which I may or may not be of any use), please feel free to contact me either through this blog or by emailing me (stephenadutton@gmail.com) and I’d love to chat.

Until next time----

Zelda and the Casa da India

Okay, I couldn’t resist. I know I’m a little late on this one but I couldn’t really close out this blog without recapping the highlights of my last day in Lisbon and the weird predicament that took me on an awkward journey back across Europe before actually returning home. For the record, I’m in Boston, just so you know that I didn’t die in Lisbon.

I’m not going to drop the play by play, that would be too difficult so long from the time I’d completed the trip, but there are two things left in Lisbon that are indeed worth mentioning, the two subjects of my post title. The first is the surprisingly pleasant tourist spot of the Carmo Church and convent ruins. This church was just a short walk from the hostel, located discreetly between some old buildings right next to the tourist elevator that struts out from the hill that descends into the deep valley where the rest of the city is located. If you’ve ever played any of the Zelda video games, which are great by the way, there’s an area of the Zelda game, the first one put out for Wii, that takes Link, the protagonist, into an abandoned church, destroyed and in ancient ruin, in a forest which leads you to a temple in which Link has to fight monsters and stuff. But the church itself is very peaceful, open to the sun, grasses and mosses growing where once were pews. As is this church in Lisbon. You buy a ticket and walk through the front door which leads you around a corner and straight into the ruined church. The walls of the church are made of marble and stone and soar into the sky. Some pillars that once held the roof remain but most are toppled or half-crumbled. In fact, the whole roof was gone, exposing the church to the endless blue sky. The pews had been replaced by wild flowers and grasses and some of the old stained glass windows remained, sun bleached. It was a weirdly serene place. I half-expected some monster to pop out from behind a pillar and jump at me. Where the altar was is now a pile of stones and beyond there is a door to the somewhat preserved convent in which is located a very old library, with tall rows of old wooden shelves and some other curious items for display including two, large glass jars each holding the mummified remains of a small boy and girl. I don’t know what the significance was of that, but it was creepy and very Zelda-like. I walked back out into the church and continued to soak in the peace a little while longer. From somewhere beyond the walls a street performer was playing a very mysterious melody, very beautiful though, probably he was a poor student of music, from his accordion. It was a pretty cool experience. 

A look into the Carmo Church

Grass, although now encouraged, grows along the floor under an exposed roof

The walls are made of marble and stone

Curiosities in the convent

That was the first memorable thing I did there on my last day. The other was my insistence on going back and having a meal at the Casa da India, the little local restaurant that the very friendly receptionist from the hostel recommended to me on my first evening in the city. If you remember, I had gone there very late on a Saturday night and had been dissuaded on staying due to its “localness” and busy crowd. But I was too interested in trying some good local food that I decided this day to go back for lunch. It was kind of early for lunch, just before noon, and the place wasn’t too busy. This restaurant is small and unimposing, located on a small side street stemming off from the main square of my hostel. Looking at the restaurant from the front, you see a small window on the right looking into the tables, a small door in the middle, and a window on the left where passers by can look into the charcoal grill from which many chickens and fishes were cooking and rotating, an appetizing view. I walked in and took a seat at the bar, a bar that ran the length of the restaurant on the left side. On the right were some low level tables, neatly covered in communal red checkered table cloths. Each set of seats, including mine at the bar, was adorned with a small basket of bread rolls and a small dish of olives. But I took the first seat on the left at the bar. To my left, when seated, was the grill man and his grill by the window, a man that looked like the Portuguese Mario from Super Mario Bros. (sorry for all the Nintendo references), who didn’t speak any english, and took orders from locals who came in, knowing what they wanted, and ordered straight from the bar, to go. But business was relatively slow, Mario asked me what I wanted, and I handed him the tourist map that I received from the hostel on which was written in Portuguese my recommended meal. I asked him if he had it and he said “Si!”, pointing to the grilled chicken splayed across the grill. I said, “Great! Obrigado,” and I waited, munching on bread and olives. Next to me, sitting on the bar top to my left was a wriggling mesh bag of snails, another local specialty. As I waited, the restaurant slowly started to fill with locals who would walk up to the counter and embrace the employees, lifers, I think, and other business men and women on break for lunch, taking seats at the counter and slowly filling the tables behind me. Apparently, the grilled chicken was the special in this place, and I watched Mario prepare mine and many others for the to-goers to my left. Chickens were flayed in two parts down the length of the spine and spread across the grill, skewered on a spit. They sat on the grill as fire seeped from beneath and occasionally Mario would spill some salty broth across the grill that would agitate the fire below. When a chicken was ready, he removed it from the spit, took it in hand, and with huge, industrial grade scissors, cut the whole chicken into pieces, into either containers to go or onto a plate, like mine. He put my half chicken onto a plate, poured some more of that salty broth over it, and tossed it onto the counter behind the bar where another barman took it to the back by the kitchen. My plate came back to me a few moments later filled with additional yellow rice and beans and some fried potatoes strips (okay, french fries). The idea was that I would remove the chicken from the bones and mix it into the rice and fries and eat them together. Holy bazooka this meal was tasty. I’ve never had better chicken in my life. Admittedly, it was pretty salty, but that broth over the perfectly grilled chicken was heavenly and they knew how good it was mixed into the perfectly prepared rice and fries. I just sat there trying to remove every ounce of meat from every small bone I could find to savor the meal, a very filling meal, and I sat there for at least an hour. Half of the fun though was observing the workers and barmen interact with the locals. Occasionally, I would observe a tourist type pass by the window from the street and do a double take at the chicken roasting on the grill, many of them came in. If you ever go to Lisbon you MUST go to the Casa da India and order the grilled chicken.

My meal of grilled chicken, rice and french fries

The Casa da India

I wandered around the city some more, took a nap by the sea in the sun on some public bench, and retired back at the hostel. It was a good day. I don’t remember the rest of the details to be honest but these were the noteworthy highlights. I liked Lisbon a lot and would go back.

And now to explain what happened after Lisbon. Here is the weird situation I was in. I had my Eurail pass which surprisingly to me, and I should have been keeping track of this all along, was going to expire in seven days from this day and I still had four travel days left. So I took the overnight train from Lisbon to Madrid, spent a day and a half in Madrid and met up with Dan, the American traveler I met in Morocco, for some evening tapas with some local friends, then a day train to Paris, where I got really sick for some reason but spent the day there seeing the highlights, to another day train to Munich in Germany, where I spent one day wandering around the main square and through the Viktualienmarkt, watching locals shop for white spargel (exotic, German, seasonal  white asparagus) and then another day train to Berlin where I went back to hang out with Lissy and Alex and Flo and company for another week and a half before flying home, via Lisbon of all places, for an overnight layover where I went back to the Casa do India for another meal of grilled chicken. It was a turbulent end to a long trip.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, was the end of my trip. Stay tuned for the epilogue....