Common Sense and Whiskey

Antique Trains - More Wednesday HDRs from Havana

It's not just old cars that Havana's famous for. Check out these trains. Click 'em to make 'em much bigger, and see all the Cuba photos at Earthphotos.com.

"had no idea what they stole"

Having traveled this route, I'd have to say this is mildly alarming.

Romanian train platform.

A High End Hotel. Really Really High: Lhasa Luxury.

Denver may be the mile-high city, but this luxury resort is located 12,000 feet up in the Himalayas, in Lhasa, Tibet.

The St. Regis Lhasa Resort opened this week. Boy, have times changed. Time was, you needed a Tibet Travel Permit (Apparently you still do) and there really wasn't a choice of hotels. 

In 1999 it took us four days to travel overland from Kathmandu to Lhasa. Now it's 47 hours 28 minutes by express train from Beijing. And when you arrive, the St. Regis Lhasa Resort offers you "three diverse restaurants, wine bar, and tea room" and "Iridium, the Spa...." "With awe-inspiring views of the Lhasa, our beautifully adorned 162 guest rooms and villas feature plasma TV, High Speed Internet Access, and spacious marble bathrooms."

Checking a random date next summer, we've found the Shigatse Suite, with Potala Palace View and 24 Hr Butler Service, listed at a mere $944.26 per night (6,267.50 CNY).

Here, on the other hand, is the state of the art at our hotel back in 1999:

Yup. Times have changed.

(Photos from EarthPhotos.com. Top: The Potala Palace, bottom: A less-than-luxury Lhasa hotel. See more photos from Tibet in the China Gallery at EarthPhotos.com. And here's the story of our 1999 drive in from Kathmandu.)

Trains Get the Treatment: Wednesday HDR

These four train photos came back from an August trip, and we put 'em through the Photomatix mill. First two are tourisy/kiddie trains, the top on the waterfront in Helsinki, where the "party boats" leave nightly for Stockholm (note the Silja Line ship in the back), and the next one (with a sleeping driver) is an irritating little train that will keep getting in your way as you walk through the old town in Tallinn, Estonia.

*****

Both ways, coming and going from the lovely little Alpine town of Mürren (pictures in the Switzerland Gallery) we had to change in Speiz, a town on the Thunersee that I know nothing about beyond its train platform. With ten minutes of dead time, why not haul out the Nikon and see what you can come up with?

The work flow is pretty much the same for all of them. First fixing obvious problems in Photoshop Bridge, then tonemapping in Photomatix, then the bottom three all involve extracting one or more objects in Photoshop CS5, desaturating the rest of the image, and then recombining. The bottom uses a Duplex filter from Nik Software, too.

These are in their respective countries' galleries (Finland, Estonia, Switzerland) at EarthPhotos.com, and in the HDR Gallery, currently home to 279 HDR photos. Click 'em to make 'em bigger.

Train Wreck

 

Maybe or maybe not in line with our recent note about the European heat wave:

The Japan Times: "Local media in Switzerland pointed to the possibility that the rails might have been distorted by a sudden temperature change, saying the weather cooled down abruptly during the past several days following a hot spell. The Tribune de Geneve said in its online edition that a number of passengers rushed to one side of the train trying to take landscape pictures just prior to the derailment."

Whatever it was, that's awful. And we're watching because we'll be on that train in a few weeks.

Running Out of Time (Zones)

"Journey with us across eleven time zones," the Great Rail Journeys web site offers.

"Connecting Europe and Asia, stretching over 9,200 kilometres through eleven time zones and countless cites on-route, travelling the «Trans-sib» is not just a way of getting there," Real Russia's rail planner says.

*****

Uh oh. All 12,500 sites that Google returns in a search for "trans-siberian" and "eleven time zones" will have to be revised. Last Sunday, Russia eliminated two of its time zones. Now there are nine.

(See photos from our Trans-Siberian rail trip, and several other visits to Russia, in the Russia Gallery at EarthPhotos.com. And read the story of part of our trip - from the Urals to Irkutsk.)

Trans-Siberian Railroad: The Urals to Irkutsk

No need to leave home. Google Russia has posted (in English) the entire six day, 5752-mile Trans-Siberian railway journey. As the Guardian writes, "You can choose different sounds to accompany it: the rumble of wheels, sugary Russian pop tunes, or the evocative playing of a balalaika. Alternatively, you can listen to readings of Russian classics (in Russian) of Leo Tolstoy's 1,400-page War and Peace or Nikolai Gogol's Dead Souls.

"Along the way are Russia's most picturesque vistas: Siberian rivers, the elegantly curving Lake Baikal, and the hazy Barguzin mountains. There is also a lot of steppe."

Which presents a great opportunity for us to share the story of part of our trip in 2001. Hope you enjoy it.

The kiosk, alongside a tram stop, was just big enough to be a walk-in affair, not big enough for four, let alone our steamy tensome.  The boys in front argued over what beer and candy to order one each of. I motioned for six litre-sized bottles way up high on a shelf, consternation rippling through the mottled impatience behind me.

In a few hours Mirja and I would climb aboard the Trans-Siberian railroad to Ulan Bataar, Mongolia.  We’d be a week en route, so we needed stuff. In a snap, though, I calculated we could get everything else at the train station.  Six litres of water is heavy.

In the United States, today was Labor Day. On the edge of Siberia, autumn held full sway. E-kat's denizens plodded cold and damp in an insistent, heavy shower. A lot of the older folks wore long coats. The rain beset.

Passing the afternoon waiting to climb aboard the train, a cheerful Novosti TV story captioned “Dagestan” showed pictures of exploded railroad track.

Travel Around the Old Soviet Rim

Travel in former Soviet lands has a special place in my heart. When I first began to travel a little off the beaten path, in the late 80's and early 90's, the lands from the Arctic east of Finland to the Adriatic east of Italy, and all the way east to the Pacific Ocean, were in greater or lesser spasms of turmoil. Some of my fondest travel memories include wicked cold, gloomy trains and bad sausage - all part of the experience of travel in the dying Soviet Union.

With my own personal souvenir pieces of the Berlin Wall in my bags (that I had proudly chiseled from the wall myself), I spent the night on the floor of East Berlin's Lichtenberg Station in the first days of 1990, having missed the late train to Prague, where the revolution still surged ahead. From Tallin, Estonia, we watched Finnish TV with considerable alarm (and couldn't understand a thing they said) as they displayed maps of the nearby Sosnovy Bor nuclear plant's leak on 25 March, 1992. Once on a train bound for Moscow, I woke up with a bag of potatoes at my feet where my camera should have been. I found the camera several compartments down the aisle. I've forgotten what happened to the potatoes.

Here are a couple of new articles about trips around the former Soviet Union's still unkempt borders that you can take today:

- A few years ago we sailed across the Black Sea on a working ferry (not a luxury cruise liner), the M/V "Yuzhnaya Palmyra," from UKR Ferry shipping company, Istanbul to Odessa, Ukraine. This same company puts on what is probably a little more adventurous travel experience elsewhere across the Black Sea, from the Georgian port of Poti to the Ukranian port of Ilychevsk.

Read about it in the article The Ukraine-Georgia Black Sea Ferry is no package tour from georgiandaily.com, which starts like this: "The ferry connecting Ukraine and Georgia across the Black Sea is, depending on one's point of view, either a tourist experience from Hell, or one of the world's last properly adventurous sea voyages."

I'm in.

- This morning comes the BBC article Belgrade-Sarajevo railway reopens after 17 years. The former Yugoslavia wasn't part of the old Soviet Union. But when Russia's dominion collapsed, the former Yugoslavia was thrown into much worse paroxysms than much of the former Soviet space.

As the article puts it, in the 1970's & 80's "Golden Era" of Yugoslavia, "People could start the day in an Ottoman-style cafe in the Bosnian capital before taking an easy six-hour ride in comfortable carriages to party in Belgrade."

Put me down for that one, too.

*****

The book to read is Murderers in Mausoleums, Jeffrey Tayler's Moscow to Beijing adventure around the old Soviet rim.

(Top photo, of the UKR Ferry Shipping Company's M/V Yuzhnaya Palmyra at dock in Istanbul, from the Turkey Gallery at EarthPhotos.com. See also the related Ukraine Gallery and Georgia Gallery. Bottom photo, of a pedestrian street in the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo, from the Former Yugoslavia Gallery at EarthPhotos.com.)

Why, That Deadly Conflict Is MILES From Here.

The Prime Minister of Malaysia, Najib Razak and his counterpart Abhisit Vejjajiva from Thailand did one of those things politicians do, along with presiding over commissions, launching initiatives and kissing babies - they held a ceremony, this time to "name a bridge" that spans their border.

But this wasn't just a bridge. The newly christened Friendship Bridge connects predominantly Muslim Malaysia with a predominantly Muslim area of otherwise Buddhist Thailand that has seen a continuing low-grade separatist violence for years. (Here's some background.)

Nothing like a traveling pack of officials to turn up the heat. Ten have died since Monday, with more than a dozen wounded including three soldiers who inadvertently set off a bomb in Yala province, according to Australia Network News. Elsewhere a patrol protecting teachers was attacked and political banners were booby-trapped with bombs. In all, the Australian story reports five bombs wounded fourteen during the Prime Ministers' visit.

Or, says the Malaysia Star, four bombs exploded in Yala on Wednesday killing a policeman and wounding three officials. Or, if you prefer Malaysia's Bernama, two were killed by nine bombs during the visit.

Oh, and by the way, the two leaders arrived by helicopter. Too dangerous to use the bridge.

*****

The tourist trade seems to purr right along in a universe parallel from the violence. I'm not aware of any related violence reaching the Malaysian resort of Langkawi (the Four Seasons there looks fabulous, but that's more of a topic for When Money Doesn't Matter) or an array of Thai resorts, at Phuket, Koh Phi Phi, Krabi and elsewhere. All these vacation spots are within, say, a little over a hundred miles of the conflict.

And, of course, the heavily used rail route between Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok crosses the area of conflict. The Man in Seat 61 has extensive descriptions of passenger train service between those points. The schedule for the luxury Eastern and Oriental Express train shows 35 departures in 2010 between BKK & SIN.

We traveled - without incident - on that E&O train a few years back. We were interested whether there would be any acknowledgment of potential danger from the E&O crew. Not a peep. "Studied avoidance" by the crew. "Complete lack of local knowledge" by most of our fellow passengers.

(Top photo from Koh Phi Phi, Thailand, about 200 kilometers - 124 miles - from the border. Bottom, the Eastern and Oriental Express. Both from EarthPhotos.com. For more photography see the Thailand Gallery and the Malaysia Gallery at EarthPhotos.com.)

Not Exactly Your Luxury Train....

Next month Common Sense and Whiskey will review a trans-continental rail journey. We've booked ourselves on the Ghan, a two-day-plus trip from Darwin, at the top of Australia, through the "Red Center" all the way down to Adelaide in the south.

We're hoping for an altogether nicer experience than it looks like the Kursk train station in Moscow is these days (photo). Not exactly wheelchair friendly, is it?

Don't know if this is temporary construction or just the state of the Kursk station. To be fair, our experience on the Trans-Siberian was altogether nicer than this looks.

More photos of Kursk station like this one are posted on English Russia.

See photography from Russia in the Russia Gallery at EarthPhotos.com.)

(Photo from English Russia.)

Where to Go in Australia

Speaking of East Timor and points south (previous post), our itinerary to Australia is now set. We'll do essentially the circle grand tour, starting with Sydney and Melbourne, make a brief stop in Perth. We'll head up to the Kimberley coastal town of Broome and on to Darwin, from where we'll make the brief hop up to Dili, East Timor on Air North. On our return to Darwin, for the big finish, we'll board the Ghan, rail service through the Red Center all the way down to Adelaide.

It's still chilly in the south in August, with average lows of 41 (5C) in Melbourne. That makes for uncrowded flights and hotels that aren't full of Americans. Broome and Darwin beckon, with highs in the upper 80's (around 30 or 31).

Watch here for photos and pithy commentary throughout.

This will be our third visit, once in 1995 and another just a transit through Brisbane, really, to Papua New Guinea. See photos in the Australia Gallery and the Papua New Guinea Gallery at EarthPhotos.com.

Please email your favorite Aussie photography tips and suggestions.

Okay, so Maybe not THAT Much Happens in the Urals.

The monument in the photo on the left is good, because it gives the monument in the photo on the right a little competition as the most notable tourist draw in Yekaterinburg, Russia. Russia!, which is known to be just a wee bit um... sarcastic from time to time, runs a story called Paul McCartney, come to Yekaterinburg already!, about the monument at left, and how it "took six years to produce and coordinate with the local government."

Compare with the monument at right, commemorating an event arguably of a wee bit more historical import, the murder of the Romanov clan, the event for which Yekaterinburg is primarily known.

Read a story about our short visit to Yekaterinburg after the jump.

(Left photo via Russia! blog, right photo from the Russia Gallery at EarthPhotos.com.)

You Just Know This Ain't Gonna Work

Zimbabwe is a lovely country with formerly happy, smiling people and spectacular resources, as we have written.

We'll return as soon as  tourism can resume without the taint of supporting the Mugabe regime. In fact, we're anxious to take the opulent Rovos Rail train from Pretoria up to Mosi-oa-Tunya.

But for now, "Its official, Morgan Richard Tsvangirai is sleeping with the devil."

- That quote from Living Zimbabwe, which also talks about the police kidnapping of Roy Bennett, the Treasurer of Tsvangirai's political party after assurances by Tsvangirai that he'd be okay if he returned to the country. As it turns out, he's now in jail accused of "attempt to commit terrorism, banditry and sabotage."

His wife, Heather Bennett, via Living Zimbabwe:

“If Morgan Tsvangirai has no power to protect his top leadership, the rest of the country is in big trouble because nothing is going to change.”

“If they get away with this Morgan Tsvangirai may as well not even be there because they will walk all over him. And unless he shows the leadership now it is going to be a waste of time having an inclusive government anyway.”

(Photo via Living Zimbabwe.)