Many of my friends and travel guides had warned me about the stiff prices in Moscow, but somehow I failed to prepare for it because I could not associate any Russian city to the same level of priciness of Scandinavia. Right before my trip to Russia, I spent 3 weeks in the Caucasus Georgia and Armenia where prices were very low. In my budget plan, I put down about 8 euro per day for food in Moscow and less elsewhere. A Russian friend of mine took one look of my budget and dismissed with “What do plan to eat there? Bread?”; I increased my food budget to 10 euro per day and off I flew away..to the most expensive city in Europe.
Navigating and understanding a large city of more than 10 million was like chewing a piece of leather. Moscow has more people than the entire Czech Republic where I even got lost in my own back yard. My first day in Moscow was a complete nightmare. With an 18-kg backpack not adjusted very well, I felt the entire load on my neck and shoulder. A wind blow could tip me over. In this condition, I had to find my way in the maze of Moscow’ underground while deciphering Cyrillic.
No-one else can describe train traveling more beautiful than Paul Theroux. His book ‘The Great Railway Bazaar‘, which traced the author’s train journey from London to India, uncovered a desire long buried ever since I first saw a passing train when living in Ho Chi Minh City. Like many Vietnamese, I never rode the train. It was not a common type of transport unless we needed to travel over very long distance. But Vietnamese did not travel much if not at all. If we did, we preferred motorbikes, buses, mini-vans and airplanes. Trains and rail tracks were often associated with negativity. Whenever I read about it on the news, I found only train crashes and people getting killed trying to cross over unguarded tracks.
I got really nervous just by the thoughts of handling all these administrative stuff just so that I would be able to drink vodka every day and maybe shake hand with Mister DO-IT-ALL Putin.
My super-easy, spontaneous traveling days in non-restricting Europe is over. I can’t leave on a last-minute impulse, showing up at the bus station to get on the next available bus ride to wherever I want. I can’t take advantage of promotions and book flights leaving a few weeks later. I have to plan a lot, and this distressed me.
My name is Cindy, also rhymes with travel junkie. A friend said I was probably a gipsy in my previous life. One of my many secret missions in life is to convert you to run off every once in awhile.
