Around the World in 65 Days

Here are some impressions, reminiscences, info and judgments (good and bad), about my recently-completed 65-day trip around the world:

Itinerary.

Leave Bangkok May 10, 2006.

Shanghai (May 10-16; six days).

Arizona (May 16-June 17; 32 days).

Montpelier, Ohio (June 17-22; five days).

Passaic, NJ/NYC (June 22-30; eight days).

Budapest, Hungary (July 1-July 6; five days).

St. Petersburg, Russia (July 6-10; four days).

Moscow (July 10-13; three days).

Return to Bangkok July 14, 2006

Airlines Flown. Thai Air, United Air, Lufthansa, and Austrian Air (all members of Star Alliance).

Best Airline. Thai Air.

Worst Airline. United Airlines. No other carrier came close to being this bad. Click here to read my post about my trans-Pacific United flight.

Best Day. I had so many good days on this trip, that there wasn't any really "best" one, but a day that stands out for me was my first full day in Budapest, July 2. I rested up well from the long flight from Newark, got up a little late, had an elaborate breakfast at The InterContinental, joined a 4 1/2 hour walking tour of Budapest, and ended the day with an all-Beethoven concert at the Bartok National Concert Hall, performed by a marvelous orchestra and a fine pianist. In my universe, you can't have a better day than that. Oh, and the weather was perfect.

Worst Day. Traveling from Arizona to Ohio on United Airlines, with a change of planes in Chicago O'Hare. As they now say about air travel, the "misery factor" was at its greatest. Unfortunately, no air travel anywhere is as miserable as it is in the U.S. Add both United and O'Hare to the mix, and you create a compound of maximum misery.

Friendliest People. I still think that Americans are the friendliest and most polite people in the world, but my view may be influenced by the fact that I speak the language. In second place on this trip, were the Chinese. Although busy and driven, I found them eager to help, courteous, and at least they tried to smile.

Most unfriendly People. The Russians. Brusque, pushy and rude, on a good day.

Friendliest Single Person. The attendant at the Internet cafe I frequented in Budapest. A university student in her early 20's, studying to be a high school teacher, she was eager to talk with me and give me information about Budapest. We had several nice conversations about her plans in life and what I was doing in Bangkok.

Most unfriendly Person. The woman several places behind me in a line at McDonald's, who unashamedly barged in front of me and several Russians, as my turn came to be served. The other Russians didn't seem to mind this, but I did. About 45 minutes later, the same thing happened to me in line to buy entrance tickets for the Kremlin.

Three Unsolved Mysteries.

Figure this one out. A group of about 10 were sitting together in the lobby of my hotel in Budapest wearing tee-shirts which read "Polo Team." I never found out whether they were associated with the equestrian sport or with Ralph Lauren's fashion house.

Also in Budapest, I was in an underground food court at one of the subway stations where a vendor was selling lamb kebob pita bread sandwiches, the lamb being cut from a skewer. The sandwich was made with some type of red sauce, chilies, onions and several other fillings. I wanted the lamb and pita bread only, but she refused to sell me the sandwich that way. I had to have all the fillings, all or nothing, or she wasn't going to make it for me. I never found out why. Naturally, I walked away.

This is a really cute one. Attending the ballet at the Mariinsky in St. Petersburg, I sat next to a pretty Russian girl in her late 20's. We were in a box, which lends itself to easy communication. In her excellent English, she told me that she had always wanted to attend the Mariinsky ballet, but could never get tickets. A week or so ago, a ticket showed up in her mail, apparently from an admirer. She has no idea who it was from, but was delighted to attend the performance. During the intermission, we both left the box and when she returned there was a fresh rose on her seat. We reviewed the possibilities (I thought it was someone she knew from work), but she didn't have a clue. I left her with this thought: "It will be revealed."

Biggest Surprise. Nothing prepared me for Shanghai. It was simply overwhelming. New York City could be a suburb. Yet, it was an extremely interesting place; I found much to do and see. Just wandering around the city was a real trip. The only way to truly appreciate the size of the city and the immense development that is taking place, is to visit the Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Hall, which contains an amazing floor-sized model of the city (picture left), which you can walk around and view from several heights and angles. They say they add about one new building a day to the model

Most Expensive Place. Moscow/St. Petersburg. If you don't believe me, go to the latest Mercer Worldwide Cost of Living Survey, which ranks Moscow as the most expensive city in the world, followed, in order, by Seoul, Tokyo, Hong Kong and London (St. Petersburg is in 12th place). Just to prove that money doesn't buy everything, #1 Moscow didn't even make the companion survey's list of 50 cities with the best quality of living (Zurich, Geneva, Vancouver, Vienna, Auckland).

Cheapest Place. Montpelier-Bryan, Ohio. It was a pleasure not to have to pay through the nose for everything.

Biggest Ripoff. Transportation in Russia is reputedly run by the "taxi Mafia." At any rate, there are no shared vans or metered taxis to and from the airport in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Consequently, unless you want to try to figure out the public bus system on arrival, you're forced to book a private car at a cost ranging from $48-$68. Just getting to and from the airports and train station cost me over $200.

Biggest Bargain Although I didn't find any real bargains in hyper-expensive Europe and not-so-cheap China, public transportation is really, really cheap and very efficient. I used it exclusively, except for arrivals and departures.

An Irony. Beef Stroganoff (tender beef with a mushroom, onion and sour cream sauce served over rice and noodles) was created in the Stroganov Palace (picture left) in St. Petersburg, by a chef working for Count Pavel Alexandrovich Stroganov, the famous Russian general. The Stroganov Palace still stands grandly on Nevsky Prospekt 17, St. Petersburg's main drag, but it now houses the Chocolate Museum, a boutique shop displaying and selling fancy chocolates. I prefer the chocolates. As far as I can tell, beef stroganoff is unavailable.

The Most Beautiful City. This is really a tough one to answer. St. Petersburg, sometimes called the Venice of the North, or something like that, is renowned for its beauty, and indeed parts of the city are truly beautiful by any standards. But those parts are pretty much limited to the area around the Hermitage, the former tsars' Winter Palace, and the nearby banks of the River Neva. Beyond that, the city is decayed, dirty, not very interesting and quite slum-like. Yet, the Imperial buildings, the canals, and the River Neva are so spectacularly beautiful, that I guess they make up for the deficiencies of the vast rest of the city. Budapest, while not having any one single sight as beautiful as the best of St. Petersburg, is a more beautiful city in general.

Hotels I Stayed In

Central Hotel, 555 Jiu Jiang Road, Shanghai, China. Click here to read my on-line review of this hotel at tripadvisor.com.

Holiday Inn Express, Bryan-Montpelier, Ohio, USA. Click here to read my on-line review.

InterContinental Hotel, Budapest, Hungary. Click here to read my on-line review.

Ambassador Hotel, 5-7,Rimsky-Korsakova Ave., St Petersburg, Russia. Click here to read my on-line review.

Le Royal Meridien National Hotel, 15/1 Mokhovaya Str., Moscow, Russia. Click here to read my on-line review.

Best Hotel. Le Royal Meridien National in Moscow. Also the most expensive. The old-world atmosphere was unique and the location was simply fantastic.

Best Value. The InterContinental Hotel in Budapest delivered the best value dollar-for-dollar. It was a wonderful hotel at a reasonable price for such a high quality hotel.

Honorable Mention. The Holiday Inn Express, Bryan-Montpelier, in rural northwestern Ohio, was a pleasant surprise. It was a delightful place to spend five days, and rivaled its 5 star brethren in some of its amenities, such as the quality towels and linen, the large size of the room, the excellent continental buffet breakfast served in a beautiful room with a view of the surrounding wheat fields, and its cheap price. Unbelievable value

Cultural Events I Attended.

1. Acrobatics Show at Shanghai Grand Theatre. May 14. A 90-minute, non-stop, 20-act, performance of the most amazing acrobatics I've ever seen.

2. Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. June 27. A mediocre, but somewhat entertaining, Broadway musical comedy centering on two con men living in the French Riviera. Luci Arnaz was beautiful.

3. The History Boys. June 28. An import from the West End, it won this year's Tony award for best play. It deserved it. Theatre at its best. Funny, but ultimately moving and touching.

4. MAV Symphony Orchestra (Budapest Concert Orchestra), Tamas Gal conducting. Budapest, July 2. All Beethoven concert--Egmont overture, Piano Concerto No. 5 (Ingrid Fuziko Hemming, piano), Symphony No. 5.



Bartok National Concert Hall, Budapest


5. Eugene Onegin. Opera by Tchaikovsky. Mariinsky Theatre, St. Petersburg. Valery Gergiev, conductor. July 8. A magnificent performance of this quintessential Russian masterpiece, under the direction of a world-renowned conductor.

Mariinsky Theatre, St. Petersburg
6. Jewels. Ballet in three acts by George Balanchine (premiered 1967). Mariinsky Theatre, St. Petersburg. July 9. The Mariinsky Ballet company, formerly known as the Kirov, is one of the two or three most famous in the world. It was a special privilege to see this company perform in its historic home. The evening was flawless.


Inside the Mariinsky

Best Performances. Shanghai Acrobatic show for sheer excitement. History Boys for dramatic power and emotion that lingered for days. Eugene Onegin for musical enjoyment and beautiful sound; what classical music is all about.

Tours I Took and Some Sites I Visited.

SHANGHAI
All-day City Tour of Shanghai. May 12. The only word for Shanghai is overwhelming. It makes believable what many are saying, that this generation's story is about China. New York City could be a suburb of Shanghai.


(Click here to enlarge) No photo can capture the enormity of Shanghai

Central Post Office. I have an American friend in Shanghai, who used to live in my apartment building in Bangkok, until he relocated his business to Shanghai about three years ago. We met on a Saturday afternoon and, among other sites, he took me to the old Central Post Office building, which is still in use, but its upper floors, house a museum which covers the history of the Shanghai post office system, going back at least 100 years. While ostensibly a postal history, this fine museum was a history of Shanghai, which I found fascinating. For some reason, this historical building, which has been preserved as it was, is not mentioned in any tourist guides I had, so I felt that it was a real find, thanks for my friend, who was making his first visit there also.


Central Post Office from an old photo, but it still looks like this.
Shanghai Museum. The Shanghai Museum, probably the best in China, costing $700 million, like many other things in China, is modern, the spotlighting gorgeous, and the technology state-on-the art. The exhibits, which cover China's history, art and culture, are comprehensive and very interesting. There are large galleries for ancient Chinese bronzes, sculptures, and ceramics, paintings, calligraphy, jade and coins, 10 monographic galleries in all, containing 120,000 pieces of art. This museum is one of the highlights of any visit to Shanghai. You could easily spend an entire day there.


Shanghai Museum

Oriental Pearl TV Tower. It used to be the symbol of Shanghai, and maybe it still is, but it's no longer the tallest structure in the city and it's only the third tallest tower in the world (Toronto's and Moscow's are taller). Still, it's very big and a trip to the top was impressive as was the panoramic view of Shanghai. The Shanghai History Museum is in the base of the tower, and I learned a lot about the early history of the city. Altogether a pleasant few hours.

Now, the tallest building in Shanghai is the 88-floor Jinmao Tower, which houses the Grand Hyatt on floors 54 to 87. It's the tallest building in China and the fourth tallest in the world. However, the building right next to it, which is nearing completion, will be taller still.
SUZHOU and ZHOUZHUANG One-day tour to Suzhou and Zhouzhuang. May 15. This was my only day outside of Shanghai. Suzhou is about 60 miles west of Shanghai. It is noted for its exquisite ancient gardens, humpbacked bridges and canals. But, it's also a modern city, with attendant industry, and it can hardly be called charming. Still, once inside the walled gardens, it is possible for one's imagination to block out the larger environment and transport one's self to an earlier era.

The gardens I visited were all built by rich Chinese. Their approach was fundamentally different from the grand designs of the contemporary English and French. In fact, their owners dwelled in the gardens, which have many small and not so small structures for eating, reading, and contemplating.


The Lion Forest Garden, 14th Century


The Humble Administrator's Garden and Me


Street in Suzhou. About as rural as I got in China on this trip. Notice no cars.

Zhouzhuang, about 30 miles west of Shanghai, was established 900 years ago, and is said to be China's first water town. I'm not exactly sure what a water town is, but I suppose it's a town with canals for streets. At any rate, there isn't much left of old Zhouzhuang, but it remains hugely popular with Chinese tourists, and what there is, is picturesque, historic and interesting. A boat ride on the main canal is a must for all visitors.

A canal in Zhouzhuang


Another Zhouzhuang canal


It's me again, this time in a boat on a Zhouzhuang canal


BUDAPEST
Half-Day Budapest City Walking Tour. On my first full day in Budapest, July 2, I joined a walking tour recommended by the Lonely Planet guidebook I was using for my visit, which was organized by Absolute Walking Tours. It was a delight. Although we didn't enter any buildings, we covered a large part of the city, taking 4 1/2 hours of steady walking, without a stop. I got an overview of the city, and was able to make a list of places I would return to later on my own, for a more detailed inspection.

Budapest used to be two cities on either side of the Danube River, Buda, which is on a hill, and Pest, which is flat. The two cities, now combined to form Budapest, are joined by several bridges, the most well-known being Chain Bridge.

The ever-present sight of Castle Hill, on the Buda Side, dominates the skyline


The Chain Bridge, which provides access between Buda and Pest, is closed to traffic on Sunday and turned into a walking street and street fair. It was fun.

Andrassy, Budapest's grand boulevard, has many embassies, expensive shops, fine restaurants, museums and cultural institutions. It leads to the large City Park at the end. I walked it several times.


Andrassy from the air, with the Museum of Fine Arts, Heroes' Square, and City Park at the end.

The Great Synagogue. Prior to the Nazi's, Budapest had a large Jewish population. The Great Synagogue, build in 1859, is now completely restored with funds from the Hungarian government and an international charitable appeal headed by Tony Curtis, whose parents emigrated from Hungary in the 1920's. It is the largest Jewish house of worship outside of New York City, and is stunningly beautiful. Attached to it is the Jewish museum, which conducts frequent guided tours, one of which I joined with many other international visitors, inasmuch as the synagogue has become one of the major tourist sites in Budapest.


The Great Synagogue, which holds 3,000 people.

Zoltan Kodaly's Apartment. The great Hungarian composer lived in this apartment from 1924 until his death in 1967. It is now called the Zoltan Kodaly Memorial Museum, and it consists of the four rooms he occupied, preserved as they were at his death. The chambers were large and comfortable, and I would imagine that Kodaly lived well. Because of my love of music and my familiarity with Kodaly's works, I enjoyed the visit immensely, but it can't be a very popular place. I got to the apartment building all right, but the entrance was locked and I assumed I was in the wrong place. One of the residents was leaving the apartment block and I asked him where the "museum" was. He held the door open for me and pointed to a ground floor door, which was also locked and dark, but when I knocked, an attendant appeared, let me in, turned on the lights, sold me a ticket, and pointed the way. I spent the entire visit alone and enjoyed it a lot. I recognized many of the composers and musicians in the pictures hanging on the walls.


Kodaly invited family, friends, and musicians arriving to practice, into this room, which was ruled by two pianos.
Gellert Thermal Baths. Budapest is built on a geologic fault and warm to scalding thermal water bubbles up each day, and, as a result, Budapest is a major spa center and "taking the waters" is a "real Budapest experience" according to my guide book and the usual tourist authorities. Of the many thermal spas, I choose the one at the Gellert Hotel on the Buda side, because I liked the pictures I saw of this art nouveau palace. Suffice it to say, the traveler can safely ignore the usual advice that a visit to one of Budapest's many baths or spa-swimming pools is a "must." It's a pass.


Gellert Baths.
Franz Liszt Memorial Museum. Here again, I would expect this four-room museum to interest only those who are steeped in classical music, especially the piano repertoire. I'm embarrassed to note that I forgot that Liszt was an Hungarian, even though he's of the Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody fame. Perhaps that's because I associate him so closely with Paris, where he spent most of his life as a contemporary of Chopin's. Liszt founded the Budapest Academy of Music and was it's first director. After the Academy's new grand building was completed, Liszt moved into an apartment provided for him on the first floor, which he occupied from 1881 until his death in 1886. The reconstructed apartment is now the Liszt Museum, and it contains his original instruments, furniture, his books, scores and some personal objects and memorabilia. Peacefully wandering through the rooms (only one other visitor was there) where Liszt lived and played the piano, a Bosendoerfer, was a spiritual experience for me.

ST. PETERSBURG

The travel site Trip Advisor recently listed St. Petersburg among the 10 best places to visit, but didn't say why. Although this city is a quite wonderful travel destination, it wouldn't quite make my 10 best list, yet it would place quite high because of the Hermitage Museum, the beauty along the embankment of the River Neva, and the culture.

I made two really good decisions in St. Petersburg: the first was to hire a guide for three hours to show me around the city the first day I was there, and the second was to buy a not so cheap guidebook to the Hermitage.

I had had e-mail contact with a travel agent before I arrived, who arranged for a car to pick me up at Pulkovo Airport. I had been warned in advance that there was no easy way to get a cab or a shared van at the airport, as it is controlled by the so-called "taxi Mafia," so, like most other tourists, I booked one in advance over the Internet. It turned out that the travel agent was, I think, a nice lady sitting alone at a desk with a PC and a phone. I asked her if she had a friend who could speak English and who would walk around with me for two-three hours, but not act as guide in the formal sense, and that I would map out what I wanted to do and where I wanted to go. She found a university student for me at a modest cost, who met me at my hotel an hour later.

Tanya, very nice but without much personality, was perfect for my intended purposes. I told her that I had three objectives in mind: 1. I wanted to buy tickets for two performances at the Maiinsky Theatre, an opera and a ballet, and I wanted her to show me the easiest way to talk to the theatre from my hotel and back, about a 20 minute walk each way; 2. I wanted her to show me how to get from my hotel to the Hermitage, and, 3. Most importantly, I wanted her to teach me how to buy tickets on the subway and how to use the subway, and I wanted a few practice runs with her. Keep in mind that no signs in St. Petersburg are in English and that the Cyrillic script is indecipherable, as well as the fact that few Russians speak English, certainly not those employed by the subway authority.

Tanya took me to the Mariinsky and bought tickets for me for the two performances I wanted to attend. In the process, I learned that my tickets cost two to three times the price that Russians were charged. This is known as dual pricing and it is a sometimes occurrence in Thailand, to my great disgust. I also learned from Tanya, that a Swedish client of her's had Tanya purchase the client's ticket, and that the Swedish woman was refused entry at the performance because she did not have a foreigner's ticket. Tanya assured me that it was safe to walk the route to and from my hotel at night and she showed me a real easy way to go, involving only one turn, provided that I could remember to turn right when I left the hotel, an instruction I wrote down just in case.


We then walked to the subway station nearest my hotel, about a 10-12 minute walk, and Tanya purchased a multiple-trip ticket for me, good for 10 trips, so that I wouldn't have to wait on line each time and explain what I wanted. She showed me how to enter the subway and exit using the electronic stored-value ticket. And we then practiced entering and exiting the station, a little complicated because two lines shared the station. At any rate, after that, I felt secure enough to proceed on my own, and, in fact, I made no errors during the days I was in St. Petersburg, except that one time, I got confused about the direction I should take and I asked a well-dressed Russian woman to assist me. She didn't speak English, but I had asked Tanya to write down in Russian where I wanted to go in order to return to the station near my hotel, and when I showed this to the woman, she pointed me in the direction I was going and her body language told me that I was proceeding correctly.

Tanya then walked me to the Hermitage, a place where I was planning to spend two days, and reviewed with me how I was to get there from my hotel and how I was to return. Finally, Tanya located the office where I was to exchange my ticket voucher, purchased over the Internet from the Hermitage web site, for my actual entrance tickets, and we said good-bye. The lines to buy tickets are legendary, and before I left Arizona, a friend recounted to me how he and his wife were on a cruise that stopped for a day in St. Petersburg, and that the ticket line was simply too long for them to wait on, so they missed the main reason why anyone would want to visit St. Petersburg. I found out that by ordering tickets over the Internet, you are guaranteed not to have to wait on the line, that you can proceed immediately to the front of the line, and that's exactly how it worked out for me.

The Hermitage. The reason for visiting St. Petersburg is to spend as much time as possible in the Hermitage, one of the world's great museums. The Lonely Planet guidebook aptly says---

"There are art galleries, there are museums, there are the great museums of the world and then there is the Hermitage. An unrivaled collection of art treasures housed in the magnificent palace from which the Romanov tsars ruled the Russian Empire, the State Hermitage will inevitably be the focus of any first visit to St. Petersburg, and rightly so."

The size the Hermitage, the tsars' winter palace, is unimaginable for a single-family detached home.




My first view of the Hermitage was from Palace Square, one the the largest public squares in the world. The General Staff Building shown here, faces the square and the Winter Palace, and its two halves are linked by a triumphal arch crowned by the Chariot of Glory

Viewed from Palace Square, the entrance to the Hermitage gives meaning to the word "grand."

The size of the Hermitage is intimidating, and even though I had allotted two days to view the collection of over 2,700,000 items, I realized that even if I speeded through the place on roller skates, I couldn't see it all. Since I love palaces and stately homes, I decided to concentrate on those areas of the museum which were housed in the state rooms and apartments, and I would view whatever art there was to be seen in those places. It proved to be a wise choice, because they form the heart of the Hermitage and my detailed guide book was very thorough, so I learned a lot aboutboth the rooms and the art. But, the price I paid was that I never entered large areas of the museum because there just wasn't enough time.


The main staircase, known as the Jordan Staircase, leads to the state rooms.

The Large Throne Room, a/k/a St. George' Hall, (picture left), is the main state room in the Winter Palace, so it must, of course, have a throne. At the top of seven velvet covered steps, is the throne dais, and behind the throne is the coat-of-arms of the Russian Empire. The throne itself was created in England in 1737, and is made of wood mounted with gilded silver and upholstered in red velvet embroidered with a double-headed eagle. It's all very royal, with the exception of the current visitor.

Peter the Great founded St. Petersburg in 1703, and it, not Moscow, was Russia's capital until 1918 when Lenin took over and moved the government to the Kremlin. So, almost all of the little Russian history I know, took place in St. Petersburg, which is still viewed as Russia's cultural and historic center.

The General Staff Building. I had just finished my two-day visit to the Hermitage and was quite tired, when I noted in my trusty Hermitage guide book, that there is a new branch of the Hermitage located in the General Staff Building (picture left), directly across Palace Square, and in line with my walk to the metro station. It looked interesting enough to warrant one last stop. Although the entrance should have been easy to find, I ended my in a hotel lobby and was directed by a waiter to the museum's entrance not many feet away. My all-purpose Hermitage entrance ticket included this 1990 addition to the Hermitage Museum and I enjoyed it immensely. It doesn't seem to have reached the radar of the tourist hoards and I was one of only a few visitors to its large collection of Empire-style art, most enjoyably for me, porcelain and gilded table settings, which seem to be known generically as "applied art." The museum is located in the left wing of the building, in the former residence of the Minister or Foreign Affairs, the first occupant being Count Nesselrode, of the Congress of Vienna fame, if I remember my history correctly. The visit was well worth the detour.
Peter and Paul Fortress. Directly opposite the Hermitage, on an island, on the other side of the River Neva, is the Peter and Paul Fortress, which was the first major building in the city (1704) and is still in tact today. From my hotel, I took the subway to Gorkovskaya, walked through Alexandrovsky Park, and crossed the bridge at the St. John Gate. The most interesting site for me was the number of Russians sun bathing on the banks of the river on this very hot day. For some reason, the Russians prefer to take their sun standing up, like penguins, all facing the same direction.

The island fortress houses the SS Peter and Paul Cathedral, the spire of which is the tallest structure in St. Petersburg and is visible from much of the city. The church was too crowded the day I visited for me to really view it except superficially, but the main point of interest for me is that all of Russia's pre-revolutionary rules from Peter the Great onwards are buried here. It was poignant for me to view the new crypts of the last tsar and tsarina, Nicholas II and Alexandra, and three of their five children, who were murdered by the Communists in 1918, by a firing squad of 11, and buried here only eight years ago in 1998. They were unearthed in Siberia in 1991 and DNA tests established the identity of their remains.


SS Peter and Paul Cathedral, the burial place of Peter the Great and the last tsar. The walls of the fortress are in front.

Nokolsky Cathedral. This Russian orthodox church was located between my hotel and the Mariinsky Theatre, and I passed it several times a day walking to and from the opera and ballet. It's ice-blue color makes it very picturesque, but the inside is drab, dull and small. I left quickly and spent 30 minutes sitting on one of the benches in the park in front of the cathedral, observing the life of Russians of all ages enjoying a beautiful summer day, many with their children and grandchildren.



MOSCOW

I had to go to Moscow because my Thai Air return flight to Bangkok left from there, otherwise it probably would not have been on my itinerary. My interest in Moscow diminished when I learned that Moscow had not been Russia's capital from 1713 until the 1918 revolution. Still, I did want to see Red Square and visit the Kremlin, but that was about it. I allotted only two full days for my visit, and that turned out to be the right amount of time.

Red Square, which was very near my hotel and in front of the Kremlin, is immediately recognizable from the countless pictures I've seen of it over my lifetime. What surprised me more than anything, was the size of the walls of the Kremlin and the numerous, truly impressive towers. Lenin's tomb, the main focal point of Red Square, has survived the fall of the Communist state, but there are no longer long lines to gain entrance. Since I saw Ho Chi Ming embalmed in a similar tomb in Hanoi, I didn't visit Lenin's mummy; I figured one dead Communist was enough for me to see in my lifetime.

Lenin's Tomb in Red Square, with Kremlin walls and buildings in background

And the obligatory picture of me, just to prove I was there (July 12)---


The Kremlin, which is synonymous in my mind with 20th century Communist tyranny, actually has a long history, and most of the buildings there today date from the 15th and 16th centuries. Stalin and his top henchmen lived within the Kremlin's walls, which was closed to visitors until 1995. Putin has his office there, but lives off-premises. He was born in, and was the mayor of, St. Petersburg, and it is rumored that he would like to re-establish St. Petersburg as Russia's capital, a la Peter the Great, but it is considered unlikely that he will do so.
Putin's office is in this building within the Kremlin's walls

There are 20 distinctive towers in the Kremlin's walls. They are mightily impressive. I entered through the Kutafya Tower.


The Kutafya Tower entrance to the Kremlin


The Kremlin's towers, palaces and churches are visible from the Moscow River

I'm probably too much a child of the cold war era to have felt really comfortable in Moscow, although I could not detect any anti-American sentiment at all. Aside from the major tourist sites, which are quite wonderful, the city struck me as uninteresting. Certainly, it's not a pretty, nor particularly clean, place. Two expensive days there were enough for me. I was relieved to board my non-stop Thai Air flight back to Bangkok, and to say to the cabin staff "Sawadee krup." ("Hello").

Worst Decision Of This Trip. Not to spend at least three more days in St. Petersburg.

Best Decision. To Take this wonderful trip.