Slava Ukraini!

I haven't been to Ukraine, but I have been to Russia. Well, Moscow, for just a couple of nights, on our multi-hop return from NZ to the UK in 1980. We flew there from Delhi, and couldn't work out why, when we landed, there was applause throughout the plane - because everyone was thankful to have survived the ramshackle Air India flight? Or just glad to be back in the motherland? It was less than a fortnight before the Olympics were to be held there, so it was surprising that the airport immigration procedures were so slow and inefficient. And it was very unnerving, given Russia's reputation, when the OH was whisked away out of sight after I'd been admitted, because his new beard didn't match his visa and passport photos.

They did let him through, after a fraught hour and a half, but our nerves were shot and we never felt comfortable after that. It didn't help everything feeling so foreign that Intourist at the airport gave us no choice of hotel - it had to be the Soyuz, way out in the suburbs, where we had to pay in advance. 

Next day we took a smelly taxi to Red Square where there was a long queue of what looked like Russians waiting to file through Lenin's tomb. We went instead to St Basil's which, with its fantastic and colourful domes and turrets, looked very out of place against the high, brick walls of the Kremlin. It's all small chapels inside, not like a cathedral at all, and very disorientating. And of course it's a museum now.

I needed the loo then, and it was a mission to find anywhere. We ended up trying to get into the Hotel Rossiya, blocked by one of the suspicious armed guards who were absolutely everywhere. I was finally allowed in, without my bag. So it was unexpected, after wandering across the Moskva River and back again, to find ourselves entering, unimpeded, the grounds of the Kremlin. The cathedrals/museums in there were pretty spectacular, but we were most fascinated by a soda-water vending machine that filled a glass you washed beforehand.

We did an Intourist bus tour then around the city. Our guide was a uniquely slim and pretty young woman - honestly, all the other women we saw, like the men, were very fat and very dowdy. Everything looked neat and tidy, though that might just have been because of the Olympics, and despite Stalin's architectural efforts, overall it seemed a pretty city. 

Later, after a very average dinner, we went out into the rainy evening to watch the changing of the guard at Lenin's tomb. Squashed in the crowd, I heard everyone suddenly fall silent, and then the hissing tramp of boots on wet cobbles - very creepy. Three guards goose-stepped into view, paused by the tomb while the Kremlin clock struck the hour, and then swapped with the old guard with such machine-like precision that they made the Buckingham Palace lot look positively sloppy.

Next day we walked past people queuing to buy manky cauliflowers to brave the Metro into the city, and were very impressed by its meticulous cleanliness, cheap fares, and the stateliness of the marble stations. 

Back in Red Square, we went into Gumm, which looked elegant from outside, but inside was dripping with rain through the roof windows. We'd expected a department store, but it was instead three floors of tiny shops, many of them with very bare shelves. There were still plenty of shoppers, though, who seemed to have no concept of personal space, and bumped into me a lot. We saw lots of queues - one, of 40-50 people, was for toothbrushes.

We wandered along Gorky Street where we found actual department stores but they didn't have much for sale, and most of that anyway was behind counters so you couldn't see it properly. The rain didn't help, of course, but honestly, wandering the city streets was a depressing experience. Then our taxi driver got into a rage when we asked to be taken to the airport, and threw us out of his car; and when we got there finally, there was more tension throughout the departure process. We had to open our suitcases, the OH's books attracting much suspicion; and then at passport control the officer inspected every single page of my passport, and the OH had to give a specimen signature to prove he was himself.

It was a huge relief to board the SAS plane to Sweden, and this time we felt like applauding as it took off, suddenly realising how tense we had been the whole time in Moscow. It was interesting to see the city, but no fun at all. We were astonished how uptight everything was, and couldn't understand how they were going to cope during the Olympics. Stately buildings apart, everything also seemed so poor and basic, and even if it hadn't rained, my impression would still have been of universal greyness.

Since then, of course, oligarchs have become a thing, though I'm sure their riches are/were the exception. Life probably did become freer and more colourful for the general population for a while there; and certainly St Petersburg became a go-to destination, especially for cruisers. Now, though, with all the sanctions being imposed internationally, Russia will be going backwards. Tough for the people. Shame Putin won't feel it.

Good news is no news - also, probably tempting fate now

I've just written an editorial about how nobody's interested in hearing about your holiday unless it was a disaster. It's true, isn't it? How was your holiday? Lovely. And that's the end of the conversation. None of those supplementary questions I used to coach my kids to ask of their friends' parents when they were playing in their houses, in order to look intelligent/ingratiate themselves. The only people who have the slightest interest in your trip are those who have just been, or are about to go, to the same place, so it's all entirely selfish - especially the first group, who just want to be able to reassure themselves that they had the better time.

Disasters, though. I've had a few - too many, in fact, to fit into 300 words. It was quite fun to recall them. Stand by.

Dislocating my shoulder by jumping off a moving boat in the Norfolk Broads. Falling off a staircase on Waiheke, knocking myself out and breaking my wrist. Tripping and falling down a flight of stone steps at the Red Fort in Delhi, hitting my head (again - explains a lot). Falling into the Tongariro River thirty seconds after setting off on a white-water rafting expedition. Falling over twice on a glacier in Iceland and whacking the same knee each time. Missing the train in Alice Springs and, out of money, having to subsist on a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter for three days till the next one. Getting mugged in Santiago, by having my antique gold chain snatched from my neck from behind by invisible ratbags. Having a man expose himself to me on the street at night in Brisbane as I waited for a bus. Watching my camera cartwheel down a rocky hillside on the Isle of Skye. Dropping a speeding Segway wheel into a pothole in Queenstown and falling off. Being dumped by a wave on Waiheke on two separate occasions and losing my glasses in the surf. Having my husband whisked away by airport authorities and waiting alone for him for a fraught hour and a half in Moscow. Having to wade thigh-deep through freezing water along the flooded Milford Track. Being followed down a tunnel to an underground market in Delhi by a one-legged, long-haired beggar who was just a creepy silhouette against the light. Having the expedition ship I was on shudder to a halt as it ran aground on a rock. Breaking an arm off my glasses by sleeping on them on a plane and having to wear them like lorgnettes for half a holiday in France. Riding a horse in a bikini (me, not the horse) in South Australia through a shoulder-high thicket of spider webs. Flushing my hire car keys down a public loo in Brisbane, leaving me stranded at night with no money or phone.

There are doubtless more, that I've blotted out of my memory. Still, that's a good enough list to enable shameless name-dropping. Which is what it's all about, really, when you're back from travelling, isn't it? And probably why nobody else (see above) is interested. So what a good thing it is that I'm a travel writer, and get to describe all my trips in great detail, and even get paid [a pittance] for it. Funny, though, isn't it, how there's a call for travel stories in newspapers and magazines, but in person no-one's bothered? Or maybe it's just me...

I left my heart in Warsaw...

Chopin was Polish you know: Polish, Polish, Polish. Yolanta, our feisty guide today, was very keen that we should get that straight, and not let France or Spain attempt to poach him. So were Copernicus, John Paul II and Madame Curie, and they all came into today's tour, but Chopin predominated. At Wilanowa Palace, where we enjoyed the Baroque splendour almost as much as the warmth inside on yet another day of icy wind, we came across these schoolchildren, one party of dozens we saw in the city today, really getting into the spirit of the period - though when this little mock-Chopin sees the photos in later years, he may not be so proud, especially when teased by the boy behind.

The Poles are proud of Warsaw, of what they've made of the 80% destruction after the war, of how they fought back in the 1944 Uprising. They're not proud of Russia's gift of an ugly wedding-cake tower in the centre of the city: "gift", they call it, the inverted commas part of the name - they paid for it with 50 years of communism. But the Old Town that they rebuilt and recreated, using the walls left standing and recycled rubble, is pretty and authentic-looking and no doubt hugely important to their self-image. From a tourist's perspective, it works well, and we wandered happily around it, the Royal Way with its grand buildings and embassies, and then the less appealing modern maze around the Russian monstrosity, for hours today, as the sun finally came out.

This Insight tour is less leisurely than I was expecting: we've frequently had 6am or so wake-up calls, and there's been quite a lot of walking in between the days on the coach travelling between cities. Though I think differently when the phone rings each morning, I actually wouldn't want to change things: there's no point being here and not seeing as much as we can - so even on the free afternoons we've been busy, prowling around looking more closely or doing extra exploring; consequently, despite being so well fed, we're actually feeling pretty fit, and the scales that seem to be a feature of hotel rooms here aren't the party-poopers they might otherwise have been.

Ugly and beautiful

When the tour guide uses the words "wars of independence" you know you're in a country with a complicated and tragic history. Hungary is in the fertile Carpathian Basin that's been coveted for over a thousand years and successively claimed by Celts, Magyars, Romans, Mongols, Turks, French, Italians, Germans and Russians, some of them several times each, and if I think too hard about all the history I heard today the whole lot evaporates out of my head. Back at Heroes' Square, the four big statues on top of the colonnades represent Labour ("we know all about that"), War ("we've had so many wars"), Peace ("we've had hardly any of that in our history") and Progress ("still waiting") - that's according to Agnes, and she knew what she was talking about.

Later we went to the Terror Museum, in the Budapest equivalent of the Champs Elysees with Gucci and Louis Vuitton just down the road, and tiptoed through the building used first by the Hungarian Nazis (who knew?) and then by the military police, who were the same people in a different uniform. It was stern stuff, well presented and thorough, and though there could have been a bit more English labelling, there was no doubt about what went on there - and on, and on. The voice testimonies were pretty riveting, godawful stories from ordinary-looking people; and then there were the torture instruments, including an actual battered bright light on a stand by a chair in the 'Treatment Room' that made a joke I've often made seem very sick. And there was a gallows (used). It was horrible, and sad, and confusing: just a couple of days ago, in Zagan, we were feeling sorry for the Russians in the concentration camp of Stalag VIII C, and now here they were doing unspeakable things to the Hungarians. Bad people are bad people wherever they were born, I guess.

But there were beautiful things today too: the interior of the fabulous Parliament buildings, the lovely church up on the hill in Buda, and a spectacular dinner cruise along the Danube with all the bridges and best buildings perfectly lit up and colouring the black water.

Breakfasting like royalty - sometimes

There was no milk for breakfast this morning. I'm happy to say that this doesn't often happen in our house - but that does then mean that it's even more ruinous to the morning routine. The First-Born kindly went to the dairy when it opened and brought some back, but by then the pattern was shattered and the day already dislocated.

Breakfast to me is tea and cereal, currently porridge, both with lots of milk. To do without it was to re-live some of the worst breakfasts I've eaten, most notably in Peru.

In our three-star experience there, breakfast was invariable: a saucer with one dry-scrambled egg on it, some slices of tomato, a sliver or two of avocado if we were lucky, and a stale bread roll with jam washed down with a cup of coca tea (or feeble coffee). Every morning, the same. It's just as well the country itself is so colourful and fascinating, because those breakfasts were nothing to get out of bed for.

Joana, our local guide, was inured to it, but Chuck from St Louis found it a tough row to hoe. I think his experience with saucers was previously non-existent, particularly when used as a main course plate. It was a (heartlessly) comical sight to see his disappointment at this restaurant where we had brunch after an early start, when he ordered eggs and bacon and got the usual saucer of hackingly dry scramble with some diced ham sprinkled sparingly over the top. It drove him to drink, hence his frothy pisco sour at 11 o'clock in the morning. He didn't like that either. Bless him, he tried to stay cheerful, but he went home half the man he was when he arrived. (He did look the better for it though.)

I've had other horrible breakfasts - the hard-boiled eggs and Fanta in a Moscow hotel are still memorable after 30 years - but there have been excellent ones too, even just this year. Duck hash at Hapuku Lodge in Kaikoura was inspired and delicious; and having the waiter on the Silversea ship Silver Whisper trail behind me back to the table carrying my choice from the buffet was a novelty - but best of all was at Indigo Pearl Resort on Phuket, Thailand.

The resort's decor is industrial chic - iron, concrete and bolts combined with super-fine sheets, silk throws and richly polished wood - which was a nice change from the usual bamboo. The restaurant kept the theme going with cutlery like spanners and so on, but it was the food that blew us away, especially the breakfast buffet. Every sort of tropical fruit, juice, cereal, pastry and bread, a toaster (yay!) and friendly staff standing behind little stalls just waiting to whip up our choice of eggs, or waffles, or crepes, or noodles, fried rice or congee... And tables outside under palm trees with manicured gardens full of bright waxy scented flowers, peaceful fountains and immaculate lawns. Now that's the way to start a day.