Atlantic Blackout

Firstly, an update: I've uploaded an album of photos from England. Click here or, as always, find the link on the right-hand sidebar.

Carry on then.

I'm sure I'll be breaking some sort of unspoken rule of etiquette when I drag my ratty backpack and guitar onto "the most magnificent ocean liner ever built", as Cunard modestly describes her. I'll also be wearing my jeans and boots so I have enough room to stash the wine I'm bringing aboard.

Well assuming they let me on in my vagabond state, I certainly won't be posting any blog updates for the next week. I'd like to take this opportunity to apologize personally to my audience. I sincerely hope all four of you can somehow get through the next seven days.

My cabin mate, whom I met for lunch last week in Hampstead, has informed me that though Internet connections are available, it's expensive and slow. I won't bother. This will be her second voyage on the Queen Mary 2.

I plan to use my time somewhat more productively. A daily gym regimen in the mornings, swimming and reading in the afternoons, napping, watching movies, gluttonizing myself at all opportunities, hobnobbing with the retirees, and of course dressing up in my suit.

Quick aside about that suit and more bastards at customs: I had to pay 30 pounds for my own goddamned suit in taxes and handling fees for the parcel company the customs are in cahoots with. Dirty bastards. At least it was easier to deal with and less exploitative than than the crooks in Turkey.

I've also heardtell that the stars are not to be missed at night. The Sonoran or Australian deserts are great places to get away from light pollution, but the middle of the Atlantic surely has even those places beat providing the ship isn't obscenely lit up. Hell, the boat even has it's own planetarium.

I've got quite a library of books to get through, in addition to what's available in the ship's library. I'm currently reading Half of a Yellow Sun, then after that will surely be Within Whicker's World, seeing as I have been described as the American Alan Whicker. Then The Satanic Verses, and if I have time, The Guv'nor by Lenny McLean. McLean fought gypsys in bare-knuckle boxing matches, and his autobiography's tagline is: "I look what I am - a hard bastard!"

If you thought I was erudite before, just wait until I get through this reading list.

Hustlers of Istanbul: Part 2

The biggest hustler in Istanbul: the government. I might as well put this out there now, while it's still possible in Turkey. Apparently the Man is about to throw some Chinese-style censorship on Internet access in a couple weeks. People have been protesting this in Taksim like it'll change something; walking up Istiklal Street today I saw "Internet should be free!" in sloppy graffiti scrawled on the side of the French Institute.

But let me regale you with tales of byzantine bureaucracy.

I wanted to get a SIM card for my archaic Lao-bought cell phone to help me organize an apartment to stay in while I was taking classes for five weeks. Plus you gotta have a phone if you want to manage all your dates with hot babes.

I found out about all sorts of fun regulations put on mobile phones, presumably ordered by the government. I don't think the telecom companies would make it harder for people to give them money, so I'm just going with the assumption that the Man is behind all this.

You can only use a SIM for two weeks in an unregistered phone before it shuts down. To register a foreign phone you have to wait up to ten days after signing a contract. Neither option was appealing. When I finally found an apartment after running up a moderate Skype bill, my roommate hooked me up with a Turkish phone. Another ten day wait according to TurkCell. Two weeks later, nothing. They still kept my money despite their inability to make a phone work.

In every "undeveloped" country I've been in, making a phone work goes like this: buy a SIM card, put it in, and viola, your phone works. The rationale I've heard here is that this Kafkaesque process is supposed to prevent illegally imported phone use, or some shit like that. No wonder I never got those dates with hot babes.

On a sidenote, most other foreigners I met didn't have phone problems; maybe I just suck.

Here's the real fun story, also related to sadistic import regulations.

My parents shipped me my laptop from the States, which I needed to do my coursework. It was supposed to arrive at my school. Instead, a notice from the shipping company informing me that the laptop was being held ransom by customs was delivered. Measures to combat illegal importation, once again.

The manager and secretary at my school filled me wonderful reports as to how I had to go about getting it back. In a nutshell, they told me I'd have to jump through several very expensive hoops.

I went with Latife, the school's secretary to the shipping company. It was pouring rain all day, and my socks were wet even before the torment began. In a steamy room crowded with other victims, I had to pay $100 just to get some paperwork to bring to the customs office at the airport. After trying to find an easy way out by talking to some office workers and a manager, I paid the fee and off we went to the airport, where I was set to pay more: a few hundred bucks in customs fees because the listed value of the package was over $100. But before I could do that I was supposed to comb the city in search of the tax office to register for a temporary tax number, which would cost another $100 or so, which would then enable me to pay my customs taxes, so I could get some papers to bring to the shipping company and pick up my package after paying another fee for storage.

All in all, I was looking at around $600 or more for a 2 year-old computer whose only worth had nothing to do with the machine itself, but that it contained thousands of pictures, two years of work, and my audio and video libraries. Basically, the fuckers at the customs office were going to get whatever they wanted because if I didn't pay, the government would literally just take it. Sending it back would've been another $200 for the shipping costs, plus the $400ish in customs fees anyway. What a bunch of lowlifes. My choices were to give into extortion, or let my property be stolen in plain sight.

The only redeemable aspect of a corrupt and predatory (the worst of this debacle was due to the fact that I was a foreigner) system like this, is that you can fight fire with fire. Due to an inconceivable stroke of good fortune, Latife's finacee worked in the customs office at the airport.

As soon as we arrived and she explained the situation to him, he started going through my paperwork, tearing off anything stating the declared value of my package, and instructed me to hide the papers as he handed them to me.

After lots of waiting, watching him chat with coworkers in small circles and hushed voices, more forms filled out, a trip back to the shipping company so he could throw some weight around before heading back to the airport for more paperwork, and an altered value on official documents concerning my computer, I paid about 40 Lira in customs taxes.

I still had to pay storage fees at the shipping company, and only after Latife and her fiancee begged and cajoled the managers to let me take it without a tax number, imploring them, saying that I was just a helpless student who had to start classes the next day.

Having what was rightfully mine had never felt so good. Latife and her fiancee were like angels sent to battle for me. I don't know if I ever would have gotten the obsolete hunk of silicon I'm currently writing this on if it wasn't for those two.

The shoe-shine guy made me think I was getting off lucky by paying him for something I didn't ask for or want, and the government bent me over and made me think I was lucky to pay only two-hundred something dollars for my own property.

Don't get me wrong, I've had a great time here in Istanbul, I just wish I didn't have to re-learn some basic lessons: don't trust strangers, over-friendly pedestrians, or the government.

The Border By Bus

Old Korean buses go to Russia to become new Russian buses. City buses running through the cities I stopped in had partially scraped off Korean lettering, and I even saw a bus from Gyeong-sang Buk-do, the province I used to live in. It really warmed my heart.

Long distance buses in Korea are extremely comfortable. They usually have spacious reclining chairs, three to a row. Sadly, it wasn't one of those buses that Adam and I took across the border to Mongolia and Ulaanbaatar.

I got into Ulan-Ude at 6AM and took a taxi to the opera house to meet Adam and get on our bus. It was an old Korean bus, sure enough, but it was four seats to a row with about a foot of leg space between the edge of your seat and the back of the next.

I didn't really notice the problem until the guy ahead of me reclined all the way. Whatever else can be said about this bus we were on, the seat really reclined a lot. Bad news for my legs. I couldn't get comfortable enough to really get a good nap, which is a shame, because the roads were actually smooth enough to sleep on. Theoretically.

I sat next a Russian Buryat girl on her way to finish her final year at the university in Ulaanbaatar. She was a strange case. She had light eyes, bleach-blond hair, and what looked like bleached skin. I guess she wasn't a big fan of the appearance her race bestowed upon her.

Adam was three seats up since I wasn't sure if I was going to get the last couple days out of my Russian visa and wound up buying our tickets separately.

It was a twelve-hour trip. It doesn't seem bad compared to three days on a train, but twelve hours is still a long time. About two of those hours were eaten up by customs procedures. Twice, Russian officials got on our bus to check our passports and visas, then we went through the customs building, and were checked once again.

The Mongolian side was a lot quicker. We went through the customs building and then an official checked our documents once we were on the bus again. It was at least half as long. Communism - 0, democracy - 1.

We immediately saw horses roaming the plains and hills on the Mongolian side, and cruised through run-down shack towns occasionally before stopping at a heavily Westernized Mongolian restaurant for a long overdue lunch. It was the first thing we had eaten since we left about 9 hours previously. My eyes were almost bigger than my stomach, but I finished my beer, fried chicken-layered-on-beef-and-cheese, salad and rosemary potatoes.

By the time we got to Ulaanbaatar, we still had a long ride ahead of us. The traffic in the city is a complete fucking mess. It was like we were on an overcrowded and really slow conveyor belt, but we finally got in and were met by the woman who ran the guesthouse we booked for our first couple nights.