1) You don't have to convert money, ever.  The entire economy is based on dollars, oh sure they have reils but at 4,200 reils per dollar, they are used more like pennies and dimes - when you have to return change for less than a dollar.   When you get money out of the ATM it automatically gives you dollars.  So you don’t have to do that constant calculation/translation of prices in your head which makes bargaining easy peasy. Now naturally this is only great for people from the USA but, after all, this is MY list of reasons I love Cambodia!




2) You don't need a towel, ever. Yes, we are here in the rainy season, and yes this means we get caught in the rain probably once a day.  Quite often the rain is so intense umbrellas and rain coats are essentially worthless and we get drenched.  But two minutes after the rain stops, we are completely dry.  Obviously the same is true for when we are at the beach. Two minutes after we step out of the Bay of Thailand we are dry as toast. No need to shlep along boring, oversized beach towels.




3) Your total shoe wardrobe consists of one pair of flip flops.  There is no need for sneakers since apparently the Khmer can do everything from trekking to cave climbing in nothing but plastic flip flops. And no restaurant or hotel, even in the capital Phnom Penh would ever be so fancy that you would feel out of place in $2 sandals. 




4) In fact, the most important item in your wardrobe is a sarong.  You need this as a beach cover up, towel, pillow, picnic blanket, rain cover, blanket, makeshift skirt or dress, etc, etc.  It’s uses are infinite and it is put into use once a day in this country.




5) Beer only costs a dollar here so I don't feel bad when I only finish half a bottle, since I generally don’t drink too much.  Personally I love Asian beer - Angor beer, Singha beer, Tiger beer - because they are very light.  If you are a fan of dark beer then maybe you won’t be so happy, but in any event you would only be out a dollar.




6) Cambodia coffee is the best in Southeast Asia.  Frankly all the coffee in Southeast Asia is better than western coffee.  Much smoother and richer than Italian, it has a full body that is perfect on its own.  But marry it with condensed milk and pour it over ice and you have something like dessert in a glass, it is so yummy. The bit that makes Khmer coffee better than Balinese or Vietnamese (also strong contenders) is that hint  of chocolate swirling through it.  I may have to leave behind everything in my suitcase and just fill it up with coffee beans on the way home. 




7) The food! This is asian fusion before there was such a name, The Cambodians’ classic dishes are based on recipes that spring from before chili peppers were brought to Asia so they are not as spicy as other countries in this area. They also conquered and were conquered by neighboring Thailand and Vietnam ad nauseum, seamlessly incorporating bits and pieces of those cuisines over the years. I would have to say fish amok and pepper crab are my very favorite dishes in the whole region. This trip I have picked up not one but three different Cambodian cookbooks. It is also the country I have finally discovered how to cook perfect sticky rice. 




8) Of course before you can have food you must pick the ingredients and Cambodian markets are some of the best in Asia - full of life (like live chickens), color and commotion.  Scooters edge past haggling customers in the cramped aisles; while wandering among the fruit, vegetable and meat or fish option one can also pick up a fresh squeezed juice drink or bowl of noodle soup, a new pair of flip flops or set of PJ’s, or uncut rubies. 




9) Then, of course, there are the delicious pastries and breads that beckon from the countless coffeeshops and bakeries on every corner.  You can blame the french all you want for colonizing this whole area and getting us (the US) into the bloody Vietnam war but they left behind damn good pastry chefs.  The croissants and baguettes here are consistently as light and flakey as any you find in Paris. And the desserts! Traditional asian desserts are normally on the gluey, sticky bland side so this is one area I am glad to find perfect approximations of western eclairs, madeleines and mousse.




10) Finally, (in terms of food), my favorite fruits in the world are available here - mangosteen, rambutan, dragon fruit, jackfruit, passionfruit, coconut, pomelo, longan, and tiny three inch long bananas. Just walking through a market and seeing mounds and mounds of glowingly beautiful fruit in all the colors of the rainbow makes me happy. Moreover they are available everywhere blended into delicious icy shakes. I think the passionfruit/watermelon shake alone is worth the price of an airplane ticket.  Personally I am not crazy about durian but I love that the Khmer are so in love with a fruit that smells like a dirty toilet. The sheer weirdness of durian flavored ice cream is simultaneously attractive and atrocious. 




11) Cambodia is the most amazing place for motorbikes. They are my favorite mode of transport when on my own and I love that you can hop on the back of one for a dollar to go across town.  It may not be the safest mode of family transport but one has to admit their ability to safely maneuver whilst encumbered with babies, groceries and bags of who knows what else is a testament to mom or dad’s skill. Now wondering if scooters serve as form of planned parenthood since, reasonably speaking, you can fit - at most - two parents and three small kids onto a single bike.




12) Of course we have to include the Khmer people themselves in any list of great things about Cambodia.  So kind, so generous and so patient, they never at any point failed to deliver service over and above what could be expected.  It is one of the reasons it is so easy to travel in this country.  As soon as you have a question -  how can we get a bus ticket? When does the boat to the island leave? Is there a cooking class we can take? - it is somehow instantly taken care of and you have the ticket in your hand or are being transported to your destination. Besides, there are the monks.  I do love the monks.




13) Despite this level of service Cambodia is still cheap as chips. Six dollar dinners, three dollar coconut shakes, ten dollar massages, kayaks renting for $4 an hour; it is a country you can indulge your taste for luxury without much pain. 




14) I love traveling by boat and Cambodia is a lovely country for boats.  The trip from Seam Reap to Battambang past the floating villages is one of the loveliest ways to get from point A to point B. But the best is taking a boat to cross the border into Vietnam or Laos. This is, needless to say, so much more preferable to flying, driving or even the train. Instead of cramped buses or security lines you are floating down a river with fresh air, comfy seats and flat, calm water. Paradise!




15) Last but not least - tuk tuks. I LOVE tuk tuks. These little scooter taxis just make me happy.  So comfy, so small. Just right for two or three passengers but if necessary the driver can cram in six people and all their luggage. I’ve seen entire gamelan orchestras transported via tuk tuk. They have took tuks in other asian countries but Cambodian ones are the best.  They are like fine victorian carriages, often with carved black wooden sides and plush red seats.  Some are fancy enough for a royal procession. But even the humblest are consistently cool with a breeze blowing your hair back as the side covers snugly protect you from rain. Tuk tuks are reason enough to live here.

Japan so far: every morsel I have tasted is delicious, every person is gorgeous and elegant, every child is adorable and well behaved.

Tokyo is the epitome of a modern urban capital with its streamlined trains seamlessly whisking however many millions of people around. Its sparkling clean streets offer everything you could possibly imagine from tiny restaurants specializing in eels or one type of ramen to mega department stores. Sheesh, Japan makes New York City seem positively antediluvian with its creaky and confusing subway system and it's grubby streets.  

Since I am primarily here to visit my daughter, I hadn’t really done much research before arriving. Hell, if she had decided to do a semester abroad in Madagascar that is where I would be today.  But I like the unplanned, unexpectedness of it all. I'm stunned by how fashionable Japanese men and women just walking down the street.  They blow the French out of the water. OK, maybe Japanese politeness is socially enforced and constraining but, speaking as a tourist, it is positively delightful to have every interaction be so smooth and charming.  Even when we are being asked to move aside it is as if we are ever so important and respected! I know I am not that fabulous, when was the last time EVERYBODY smiled at me all day long?  Its a nice little vacation from reality. 

Japan is a land of many adorable things - Hello Kitty, itsy bits tea cups, street signs displaying bunnies... But the most adorable dumplings in the land are the kidlets.  Embrace the KAWAI!

In order to see that sunrise, mind you, I did have to travel to Japan where I was flying to see my oldest child during her junior year abroad.  Little did I know that I would be flying on the one remaining airplane that has no back of the seat or personal video devices.  Seeing those tiny movie screens dangling from the ceiling was a blast back to the past. I immediately recalled what travel used to be like with small children before the days of individual screens or, worse, before the age of iPhones and iPads!  Does anyone remember when you had to bring with an entire bag full of activities to keep the small fry occupied?  Now you have everything you need in your jacket pocket.  Of course those were the days when they would let you bring on a diaper bag, a snack bag and an activity bag, all in addition to your regular suitcase.  How do parents travel these days when you are barely allowed to bring on one carryon item?

At least in those days of shared inflight entertainment, more often than not, you could game the system by booking an aisle and window seat leaving you a free middle seat to spread out on.  Those days are gone, mi amigo! We were crammed  shoulder to shoulder with nary an inch of legroom.  I remember when my daughter Ming was a toddler we had so much space between the seats that I would bunk her down in a little nest of blankets and pillows on the floor in front of our seats so she could sleep flat as a pancake.  Completely illegal I’m sure even then but the pursers never even knew she was down there (actually now I wonder what on earth they thought happened to the child in seat 28C?).

OK, looong, looong 15 hour flight from Philly to Toyko, even longer walk down memory lane, but we finally did arrive in Narita airport. I kept waiting for a big “You are in Japan” moment but instead it was just “Excellent! Subways!”.  You see, the airport itself is so easy to navigate and literally everyone I interacted with spoke such perfect english I felt just like I was arriving in NYC except with slightly more Asian faces.  A stop at baggage claim, whizz by an ATM to pull out yen, a brief stop at the well marked rail ticket counter to buy a metro pass & a ticket for the Narita express and, well within 15 minutes of disembarking from the plane, I was on a train rolling into the center of the city.  I wasn’t sure how I would proceed from that point, I had rather assumed I would slump into a taxi and be hand carried to Ming’s dorm (yes, she just miraculously grew from a toddler to a college student on a junior year abroad; well, that's how it seems to me).   But, when the train pulled into the station, I saw the metro connecting me to her station was just one escalator down so I figured, what the heck.

Kids and Seattle are a winning combination. Seattle has a serious vein of the bizarre and offbeat appealing to toddlers and non conformist teens alike. Of course the fact that pot is now legal in Washington means you might have to pay closer attention to the teenagers....

One word of warning, although the museums in Seattle are extraordinary, they are ridiculously expensive. Most adult tickets hover above $20 and the Space Needle alone is $28.  I was relieved to find prices were half that for kids 12 and under. As if I didn't already have enough to worry about the girls turning 13…. It is probably worth getting the city pass but only after looking at the list of included attractions and deciding how many you are definitely going to visit. Mind you, if you get tickets online you usually get a discount so something to consider.

To be honest, the Space needle, though obligatory, is not really that special.  There is a nice exhibit at the top showing how retro the "future" envisioned by the 1962 world's fair now looks.  And you can't beat the view. Of the giant spiders on the roof below that is. They were quite the unexpected attraction! In the end though the kids decided the best thing about the excursion was the roasted corn on the cob we all devoured from a vendor near the exit before they joined other young Seattleites in using the giant pipe sculpture as a jungle gym.

Alternatively, instead of the Space Needle, you might consider going on The Great Wheel down by the wharf. This  is Seattle’s version of the London Eye, a gigantic roller coaster that spins you up for helicopter worthy views. Not cheap either, it at least spins you around three full turns before spitting you out.  The kids liked this more than the Space needle. mayhaps because it has more of a roller coster air, with just that tiny frisson of “what happens if you get stuck at the top?”

You will want a good two hours at least and probably more for the EMP museum located in Seattle Center.  This is a gift to Seattle from Paul Allen, the co founder of Microsoft.  Originally he just wanted a place to showcase his apparently unbelievably large collection of Jimi Hendrix memorabilia  (Jimi is from Seattle, who knew?  Apparently anyone who has ever passed through this town).  It was his sister Judy who convinced him to think bigger, so instead of just being Paul’s storage closet it became  the “Experience Music Project”.  They hired Frank Gehry to fashion a homage to the chaos of creativity (think of a building made of pretzel shaped construction beams and smashed up Stratocasters). Circle around the literal tornado of constantly plucking guitars and make your way to the music labs where you and your kids can jam away on instruments in tiny recording studios. Even you will sound good since you are rocking out to pre-recorded tracks. 

Once you have practiced, you are ready to preform on stage where, thanks to the genius of CGI, you can record a DVD of you and your band preforming in front of thousands of adoring fans. Quite fun and the kids loved it.  Paul Allen is obviously the world’s wealthiest geek and after a while he needed more space to stash his science fiction memorabilia so now the museum also incorporates separate galleries for science fiction, fantasy & horror films and video games.  This is THE place to go to see an actual Dalek from Dr. Who or to genuflect in front of Captain Kirk's original  command chair from the Star Trek that spawned the franchise.  I was not thrilled to discover that the costume worn by Bert Lahr in the Wizard of Oz was made from real lion pelts. Ugh, that is carrying authenticity just a tad too far. And the Horror films section was definitely too scary for me let alone the kids. But whatever, I just love the fact that when Paul runs out of closet space he opens up another gallery in this museum….

The other museum worth its staggering admission fee is the Science Center. We had originally been enticed there by a temporary exhibit focusing on cold war spying promising lots of high tech gadgetry and skull dugery. It delivered only one fun section where kids try to elude laser beams a la Catherine Zeta-Jones and the rest was lots and lots of reading.  Fortunately though, the regular museum just brims with installations that define interactive.  Start with the touch tank and stroke the sea urchins, move onto Professor Wellbody’s Academy of Health and Wellness and feel how far a sneeze can travel or set nutritional goals, pull levers, spin wheels and ride bikes in the the science playground.  Then when you are ready to leave pass by the animatronic dinosaurs and head outside to spin a giant water wheel and squirt water cannons at targets.  Lastly, once you have left the museum, take a stroll through the “Sonic Blooms”.  Your movements through theses gigantic stalks triggers tinkling music

Fortunately the number one place for a kid to visit in Seattle does not have an admission fee. That place is the Pike Place Market.  There are still the original signs proclaiming it to be a “Sanitary” market which makes you wonder what exactly the alternative was but today it is a mishmash of fresh fish and fruit stalls, wind up toys, Mexican wrestling masks and Tarot card readers. Kids will be hooked the moment they dive in and are nearly beaned by a flying fish. Technically you don’t have to spend any money browsing the many levels of bricabrac vendors but I defy you not to be seduced by the free samples of local cherries or bewitched by the flowers arranged by displaced Hmong tribal women. I know no parent is going to make it past the Donut company and their hot fresh donuts without succumbing to temptation. My kids swore off Dunkins Doughnuts forever once they tasted these cinnamon sugar doughnuts scant seconds after they had been fried.  

On the other hand, THIS is something you definitely do not want to take a sample from. This alleyway just outside the market is something you simply have to see to believe. You really cannot grasp the enormity of it if all you know is there is a wall next to a theater upon which patrons routinely leave their ABC gum. In reality it looks like the wall is slowly dissolving into a pointillist abstract with long strands dripping off the windowsills.   Anybody that has had to scrape gum off the underside of school chairs will have nightmares. Apparently the theater tried removing the gum two times and then just gave up.  It is a testament to something, not sure what. I think basically it proves that Seattle and kids share the same zany nature since much as they squealed in horror at the sticky gobs, they immediately begged for some gum of their own to add!

We are staying in the United States this summer, albeit, the furthermost outposts.  We are going to travel around Alaska for one month and then on to Hawaii for the last two weeks.  I was stunned to find out out that Alaska air has about six flights a day between Anchorage and Honolulu.  I guess since it is a straight shot south it is basically the equivalent of New Yorkers popping down to Florida for a long weekend. In any event, each place is as exotic as we could get while not needing a passport. Slowly, slowly we are circling around to exploring our own country.

To be perfectly honest I was a little less excited than normal while prepping for this trip than for others we have taken recently.  I mean, we are not going to need another language or currency or even a sim card to to get around. If we run out of shampoo we can find the same old brand in any store, unlike trying to sort out the deodorant from the hair spray in cyrillic. We are not even leaving America for cripes sake! But seeing the glaciers before they disappear is definitely on my Must-Do bucket list so that is the reason we are going.

On the upside, going to Alaska does give us the excuse to visit my sisters-in-law who live in Seattle, Washington and their adorable son Ronan.  This will be our jumping off place for the trip proper. We will take a quick bus from Seattle up to Bellingham where we will board the Alaska Marine Highway ferry to Ketichan, our first stop on Alaska’s inside passage.

Now I will admit it.  Except for a flying visit to Eureka, Oregon I have never been north of San Francisco. When I envisioned Seattle I thought, ok, big city with lots of coffee shops.  What I didn't realize is that there is just so much GREEN here in the Pacific northeast - you step two minutes away from the center of town and you are engulfed in trees.  It is quite disconcerting for a city girl. 

What I love about Seattle is it is the perfect smash up of anti-establishment youth culture and immense wealth. So you have all these skateboarders wandering around with head to toe tats (including quite elaborate face designs) but a ticket to the science museum costs an eye bleeding $29 a person. You can’t tell the multimillionaires from the nearly homeless.

My sister-in-law lives in Fremont so our first day she walked us around this area which has got to give Portland a run for the "quirkiest place on earth" label. Start with this statue of Lenin - the god father of communism striding across the corner of 36th St, and Evanston Ave outside a falafel joint and a gelato shop.  Unlike most depictions where he is a philosopher, here he is heroically leading the way through crashing waves of chaos.  Unfortunately like most Lenins in Russia, he came crashing down himself after the Berlin wall fell. Some Seattleite native happened upon him in a post communist scrap heap in Slovakia and for whatever reason decided to bring him to the home town of Microsoft, Google, UPS, Boeing and Starbucks among other capitalist entrepreneurs. According to a small plaque, the statue is actually for sale though he has become somewhat of a neighborhood mascot with special hats bestowed upon him for New Year, Halloween, Christmas and the 4th of July. 

The next stop on our tour was the notorious Fremont Troll. If you have ever been nervous at night do not sashay past the Aurora Bridge in the dark. That is a real Volkswagen bug he has trapped in his hand, by the way. The kids had a blast clambering all over him and pretending to be caught themselves. This troll was the winning design in an open public arts contest and it is now impossible to imagine anything else lurking under there.

Another one of Fremont’s beloved neighborhood attractions took major commitment and vision.These are two giant topiary Dinosaurs along the waterfront.  It has taken 12 years for the ivy to just reach the face of the mother Appatasaurous.  Behind them is the running track where you see Seattle in all its youthful athletic glory, a constant stream of ultra fit people not only biking and jogging but kayaking down the river. One thing we have learned - this is a town with a lot of hikers.

Just across the street from the dinosaurs is a) Theo’s homemade chocolate factory where even if you don’t take the available tour you can still gorge on baskets of free samples and b) this striking manhole cover. Its not quite the same thing as the notice saying Fremont is the "Center of the Universe" (located at N 35th, Fremont Place & Fremont Ave N) but it does show that you have to keep your eyes open for touches of whimsy throughout the area.

It is amazing how irreverent Seattleites are about their public street art.  While Lenin gets the ccasional Uncle Sam hat on the fourth of July this sculpture group at 34th St. at Fremont Ave. are completely bedecked in donated clothing.  Called Waiting for the InterUrban this group of ordinary people (and a dog with a man's face) waiting for the trolley has been completely dolled up in sweaters, hats & scarves.  For the final touch, somebody, for some unknown reason, then decided to turn it into a homage to Tayler Lautner from Twilight.   

The last thing on this tour is the Seattle rocket.  Apparently a group of legitimate Fremont business owners heard of a cold war rocket being dismantled and thought it would be the perfect landmark for their town.  After some comedy of errors the rocket was eventually retooled and achieved lift off at the corner of Evanston and 36th.  The rocket is now adorned with the Fremont crest and motto, "De Libertas Quirkas," which means "Freedom to be Peculiar."

Well, maybe not quite the end.  On the way back to the house we passed by this patrol car, owned by the Fremont Brewing company, clearly advertising their willingness "to Ferment and Serve". We love Fremont in all its "Quirkas" and are excited to see all the other parts of Seattle in our time here.

We just went to a wedding of a friend whom we originally met in New York who is from Mexico, marrying an Australian and moving to Brazil. Their entire courtship is based on traveling around between different countries and time zones.  They commute between Argentina, Brazil, Russia, Australia, the USA and Mexico like stops on the Septa train here on the main line. Which made me wonder - how does one become such global a citizen?

Clearly language is a requirement. Being deftly bilingual offers entry into any number of jobs and opportunities. Spanish and english alone unlock whole continents.  Chinese is spoken pretty often as well so that would be another good one.  Any language beyond one automatically bridges gaps and makes connections.

But how do you get to the point where you think not only of moving from New York to Connecticut but maybe London or Dubai as equally viable? That mental shift, that comfort level with immersing yourself completely into another culture is fairly unusual among Americans.  There is a sub culture of American expats working for American companies around the world like my brother who has worked for Chevron in Africa, China and now Kuwait.  But this primarily entails living in little American enclaves, having your kids go to American style International schools and shopping at American style supermarkets. You keep to your bubble, socializing with other workers in your assignment. Going out on your own is a whole ‘nother level.

My sister certainly went in that direction - she moved to London for graduate school and never left, in fact is still there 35 years later with a career, husband and children - all with proper British accents. That is immersion!

But I still don’t think that shows the flexiblity of these amazing newlyweds.  She left one country and put down deep roots in another; they float between countries like ballet dancers, amassing friends, mentors, projects, job opportunities.  They know completely different neighborhoods via living in them, having a favorite restaurant or coffee shop they can go back to in any number of countries.  Have special and separate traditions or rituals for when they are in Sidney, Los Angeles or Mexico City. This fluidity is remarkable and I am just a touch amazed by it.

For all my love of travel my husband is the one who is closer to this spirit than I.  He after all is the one who left Ireland at 21 and moved to France to live for the next 16 years.  Then for some reason he married me and left all that behind and moved to the US.  Just now he was trying to convince me to pick up and move to the charming Mexican town the wedding was held in! I think I suffer more from the isolationism that inflects almost all Americans, more or less.  Our country is so big, moving from NY to California, or Florida to Texas is enough of a shock and enough of a pain for family get togethers and lifestyle re-arrangements. Why throw a totally different culture and language into the mix? Scary.

I am being seduced by the neighbors around me who live just down the road from their parents and siblings. Grandparents help out with babysitting, cousins pitch in for pot lucks, everyone gets together for shares at the beach house. This is very tempting. Would I like for my family to stay within walking distance of each other for as long as I am alive?  I definitely, definitely would. 

But there is that whole wide world out there and I so want my kids to know it, to swim in it, down to knowing minutia like how to hail a taxi in Quito (arm up, palm down) versus NYC (hand straight up in the air) versus Paris (go to a taxi stand). I want them to feel equally comfortable traveling by Tuk Tuks as trains, have no compunction about eating street food ever and never be a snob about where they sleep. So we travel. And maybe, maybe they will edge me into being as global, as cosmopolitan and as comfortable in the world as Lourdes and Jules. 

I think one of the first things that halts people in their tracks when envisioning a long trip is the idea of booking hotels for the entire time they are away.  You have to have someplace to sleep, right?  And, especially with kids, you can’t just leave it to chance.  

It took us months into our RTW trip to let go of this attitude and ease into a more relaxed mindset.  Today, with google and the whole internet you are never, ever without a place to stay.  If you happen to be somewhere so remote you cannot look up a website that means you just need to stroll down the street and see what is available. In an entire year there was only one time where it was slightly questionable if we were going to find a place to sleep and that was because all the planes in Borneo had been benched for “safety inspections” at the same time thus throwing us in with every connecting flight who had never intended to spend three whole days in a town with two tiny hotels.  However, even then, we managed to find a place. 

Although we did sleep overnight on trains and boats and buses in Asia and South America, we never strayed that much off the tried and true shelter options.  Sometimes we slept a bit rough while on a long trek but in the main it was guest houses and hotels. This time however, we were a whole month into our journey from Estonia to Mongolia before we spent one night in a hotel and that was only because of an emergency.  

Just as we boarded our longest train journey into deepest Siberia, a minor jaunt between Yekaterinburg and Irkurst, I noticed an email on my iphone from the apartment we had booked for our arrival.  Alarmingly, it started with four capitalized “WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!” notices and then went on to state that due to city construction all water in the building, both hot and cold, had been turned off and accordingly our reservation was now canceled.  Or more accurately, “To avoid not comfortable stay we cancel your reservation, and ask you select a possible hotel, as a solution to this problem does not depend on us!”.  As I processed this, our train rolled out of the station and all internet and cell phone capability went dead. There is no wifi on these trains and Siberian cell phone towers outside of towns are few and far between.  Accordingly, when we finally arrived three days later at the train station in Irkurst, I booked the first hotel that answered my now active phone. 

But other than this one night stay, we completely avoided hotels in Russia, mostly by finding rental apartments in the big cities and couch surfing in the small ones.  Of course, several nights were spent sleeping (very comfortably) on the trans Siberian trains themsleves. This post will just cover the apartments, the next one will deal with couch surfing.

We found a wide variety in both comfort and support among the apartments we stayed in.  In retrospect, the best stay on this trip was our very first stop in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia.  Here we found a two bedroom apartment right in the heart of the UNESCO Old Town, an adorably quaint maze of cobblestone streets and centuries old churches.  Ironically, given that we had come to visit an Estonian friend, this was the place with most amount of support.  There was both an on site receptionist who gave us maps and information about directions and a hot breakfast provided everyday. Contrast this with the apartment in Moscow, a notoriously user unfriendly town which had nobody to greet us, let alone fix a broken light in the bedroom or the defunct washing machine. Most of the places fell in between. They are usually happy to arrange a taxi to and from the train station or airport but it is up to you to sort out the neighborhood.

In Russia, we gave up fancy lobbies and bell hops for dingy stairwells and a complete absence of elevators. I have read soviet era novels but this was literally stepping inside one. On the other side of the door however, times had changed and instead of a shared cold water flat we had two bedrooms, a living room and a fully equipped kitchen all to ourselves. Vive la capitalism!  One of the nicest things about an apartment versus a hotel is that it forces you to be independent.  You figure out how to work the three types of door keys and randomly press buttons on the washing machine until it turns on and suddenly you learn more about what it truly feels like to live in Russia then a dozen visits to the Hermitage.

The need to find milk and cereal for breakfast or a sim card for your phone forces you to live like a local and you find yourself wandering, lost, down tiny little streets you never would have chanced upon if you were not in need of laundry detergent (yes, I have 4 kids, laundry figures prominently in our travels). 

Personally, I love wandering into local grocery stores and markets and seeing what is on offer.  We have found everything from instant mashed potato dispensed like slushies in Singapore to taffy pullers stretching soft candy in the aisles in China. The first thing I look for is the local flavor of potato chips - in Russia they seem especially fond of bacon flavor chips, though crab is popular as well.  Our apartment in St. Petersburg was just a couple of blocks away from a really nice market with local produce and it soon became a habit to drop in daily to pick up a cabbage salad or pickled chicken for lunch.  We bought honey for our tea from a lady who got it from bees in “the mountains” where ever that was. Who could resist the babushkas selling their handpicked mushrooms or berries from the forest.  This is where we tasted fresh cloud berries for the first time. 

One of the most elegant grocery stores we stepped into was the "Eliseevsky" on Tverskaya St.  in Moscow.  Opened only 16 years before the revolution, it retains its Tsarist gold sconces, crystal chandeliers and hand carved wooden counters. Yet, the prices were no more than any other store.  This could not be said for its sister pastry shop in St. Petersburg whose ornately decorated eclairs and light as air cupcakes commanded appropriately exorbitant prices but really, how often so you find chandeliers hanging from a larger than life palm tree in the middle of a bakery? 

Being tucked into a “normal” residential area rather than tourist central gave us access to quirky bits and pieces of daily life. Not being able to speak the language or read the signs is a little bit like being deaf - you move in a self contained bubble.  As a tourist, it is all too easy to move seamlessly from hotel to taxi to museum or restaurant and back again. Being in an apartment flat, you see kids fly up the stair after school while their parents trudge up heavy laden with groceries.  You may or may not be struck by the elaborate braids wound around the little girls heads or the sky high heels worn by their mothers as I was but there will be some other little insight into the culture that you may remember long after the waxen face of Lenin has faded into the dim mist.

The websites to check for short term apartment rentals are - flipkey.com, 
tripadvisor.com/VacationRentals
vrbo.com (vacation rental by owner)
airbnb.com
homeaway.com 

Thanks to Mongolia, we might become a camping family.  Keep in mind, this is coming from someone born and bred in the most urban of environments - New York City. Never have I ever been remotely tempted to “rough it” in the wild.  No amount of roasted marshmallows or even smores was worth a night out in the woods. During our travels we have slept on trains, planes and boats, in everything from a storage hut to a shaman's home, several times on floors but never in a tent. 

That all changed in Mongolia, which might beat Bolivia's claim to the country with the least developed infrastructure for tourists. Hotels as Westerners would recognize them are thin on the ground outside of the capital city. Even if you find a concrete structure with multiple rooms advertised as such, the pillows are filled with pebbles and the shower is a thin drizzle of cold water. The few Ger camps set up for tourists that we stayed at are admirably authentic in retaining the hard as rocks, thin mattresses and pit toilets of the nomad herders. One camp had a very picturesque location right by a creek and, even better, a supremely friendly little girl who despite a complete language barrier immediately initiated a game of tag with the girls. Unfortunately as the evening wore on all the various guides and drivers drifted together into the Ger next to us for an all night, vodka fueled sing along. After that I decided we were better off camping.

Fortunately, Mongolia is the ideal place to camp.  The entire population is nomadic, so there is never any question of being able to set up tents whenever and wherever you like. The water is so pure you can refill your water bottles from the streams and creeks as you cross them and you can take your pick of parking spots - lakeside, cliffside, next to sacred ovoos, sometimes just being a single speck in the vast open steppes. The only time we were in a less than scenic spot was when we stopped on the edge of a mining town. Tuya insisted that instead of camping on the soft grass, we hunker down in the construction zone between a family’s Ger and the house they were in the process of building. This was because the workers in the mine get so drunk they are known to drive manically in circles chasing after each other, so camping anywhere in the open was dangerous.  Fortunately that night must not have been payday and we heard nothing.

I admit it, I have succumbed to camping’s charm.  Our pop open tents are a snap to set up and with mats and blankets we are cosy and warm.  My favorite moment of the day was been waking up and zipping open the front flap. Usually it is just to see the glorious vista but you never know what will be out there.  We have woken up surrounded by cows, camels and horses, their guardian having nonchalantly wandered over to investigate, bringing his entire herd with him. They look at us, we look at them. Once we emerged in the midst of a herd of tiny goats all but climbing on top of the tents in their search for something to nibble on. Another time two giant hairy Yaks were having a difference of opinion just steps from our door.

The night we camped up on a hill I woke up to find Miriam and Leontine tumbled into a heap, barely contained by the bottom edge of the tent but still sleeping peacefully. When we were in the desert I could poke my head out the opening and look at a sky filled with the brightest, closest stars I had ever seen. The most dramatic setting was definitely the edge of the flaming Cliffs. There I insisted everybody pee before bed and zip up tightly to prevent sleep walking! 

These are the cliffs where the very first Dinosaur eggs were found. No one even knew dinosaurs laid eggs till the American archeologist Roy Chapman Andrews got lost on the Mongolian Steppes and stumbled across an entire fossilized nest.  Chapman’s swashbuckling persona, by the way, was the inspiration for Indiana Jones. He eventually made his way back to make stunning discoveries of complete dinosaur skeletons some of whom were named after him. The surprising thing you find when you actually walk these cliffs is they are not hard stone, more like gigantic sand castles barely held together by their own weight. A good monsoon would wash them all away. I had a huge desire to grab a spoon and just start digging.

Occasionally we did stay in Gers with nomad families which had its own charms, mostly centered around animals. No matter how thin the mattresses, inevitably there are baby goats or lambs or maybe an adorably frisky puppy.  The best however were the chubby cheeked human babies. The Chinese call Gers “Mongolian dumplings” because they are small and round. Eminently practical and movable they have changed little since the days of Chinggis Khan, though these days they are likely to be transported from the winter pastures to the summer ones folded up in the back of a truck rather then by horseback. Tho plain, they are cosy with rugs hanging on the wall. Small painted chests are the only furniture besides the beds which serve as sofas during the day.  One side is designated male which is where the horse saddles and paraphernalia are stashed and the other side is female, holding the stove and kitchen equipment.

 Each and every time you enter a Ger you are welcomed with a bowl of salted milky tea and a plate of hard cheese.  It almost makes sense that there would be no hotels outside of the biggest towns since if you need a bed for the night you can just hunker down with any family you run into.  Unfailingly polite, they are remarkably unconcerned with us as visitors.  After the initial “where are you from?” they ask where we drove from and where we are going but more in a “how are the roads” kind of way rather than any real curiosity about where we are originally from.  After ten minutes everyone drifts back to daily life, the mom to preparing cheese or yogurt, the dad to branding goats and sheep, the kids to whatever they were doing before we stopped by.  These are hardworking people who are completely unfazed by complete strangers stopping by for a meal or a night’s rest. Wandering strangers are par for the course.

We generally do not take them up on their hospitality, preferring just to visit and then go off to our tents. We do occasionally take advantage of their out house - not the most glamorous of WCs but at least there is a door versus the open vista of the steppes. Grotty enough during the day it is slightly terrifying at night, first to find it in the pitch blackness, then to balance on the two wobbly boards above the drop. Maybe they move  so often because the latrine gets too stinky rather than because the goats have eaten all the grass?

Sometimes in life, reality teeters into unreality. Most of the Gobi desert is just vague, unfertile scrub land but we finally arrive at vast heaps of sand. They look like a long line of whipped cream separating green grass from blue sky. The beige waves cresting over the Mongolian steppes looks almost totally fake.  In this age of green screens and photo shop it was difficult to believe we were really, actually present in front of such an iconic scene. On camels, no less.

Once we get climbing however, reality bites back. David Evan, a typical teenage boy, tests his mettle by taking the hard way, scrambling and scrabbling straight up the mountain of windswept sand. The rest of us try to find a gentler route but zig zagging is really the only alternative and not a whole lot better. About half way up I decide I’ve climbed enough sand dunes in my life time and sit down to enjoy the view. Vincent and the girls keep heading up after David Evan who has completely disappeared. 

After a bit, envisioning sandvalances, we yell and call to him but the dips and valleys of the soft peaks smother our voices and we hear no response. Swearing profusely, Vincent struggles upward till finally we hear a yell and see a tiny green speck racing down the hill towards us.  He made it to the top and is on his way back. Thank god, now we can all leave. The girls and I whoop and holler as we run down the sand, first because it’s fun, then faster, because our feet are burning up. We had left our sandals, at the bottom, so far away, too far to make it in one go. By the end I am carrying one girl ten feet, dropping her in a huddle and returning for the other, repeat ad infinitum.  Vincent, also barefoot, is too far behind to help but we finally make it to the shoes. And the camels.

  Why the camels, those “ships of the desert”, couldn’t have carried us over the dunes is an unexplained mystery.  I have no idea what the Mongolian herders think of western tourists flirting with heart attacks and sun stroke stumbling around on their mammoth sand dunes but they have clearly decided that is not worth risking their animals.  So the deal is, the camels bring you to the hills and take you back but right when the going gets tough, you are on your own. 

This of course is the famous Bactrian, two humped camel, the one that looks like a Dr. Seus concoction rather than the sleeker and much more common, one humped Dromedary camel. If you had a pillow to put behind your back (which we did not) they would be as comfortable as an armchair. These softer, smaller beasts were far less intimidating than their taller, crankier Indian cousins. They were definitely much fuzzier and furrier than any camel we rode in India and seemed positively sweet as opposed to always vaguely annoyed. They are so comfy in fact, I could envision months and months of travel transporting my valuable spices along the ancient silk road. On the other hand, a 4 wheel drive is pretty comfy too so it’s a transportation toss up (not). 

One of the many astonishing things about this corner of the world is the sheer scale of the countryside. On no day did we drive less than 6 hours to get from place to place with very little in between. This was, remember, taking it easy, purposely stretching out what would normally be a one day trip into two. Mongolians think nothing of driving 18 hours at a clip. And what are they driving on?  Outside of the three or four big cities there are no roads in Mongolia, just tire tracks scratched across the steppes.

Our driver does not like following another car and on the rare occasions we meet up with another car he inevitably speeds up to pass, at one time barely avoiding a massive ditch hidden by the bus he was trying to overtake.  Generally speaking, however, there are so few cars this is, fortunately, not really an issue.

GPS is the bane of Tuya’s existence since tourists keep google mapping where they want to go and can’t understand that the drivers know there are no Straight Lines in Mongolia.  Often they have to drive miles out of the way to go around hills or avoid ravines. The ground itself is both rocky and muddy so the slightest rainfall slows even 4WD jeeps to a crawl. 

Whenever two vehicles meet, both drivers immediately confer over road conditions. This was particularly important for us since the rains had just begun and they could wreck havoc.”How is back where you came from?”  “very deep mud, stay to the east, it is less washed out” or “pretty good but don’t try and ford the river, it is already too high”, etc. Of course, new tracks detouring around obstacles would criss cross with the old tracks and even seasoned drivers were constantly faced with figuring out new routes.  You could think you were taking a detour around a herd of camels and end up driving up to someone's winter Ger

So a lot of the discussions were frankly asking where we were and how to get to where we were going. On both driver’s sides.  A couple of days into our trek, Tuya pulled out a very detailed geographic map with lots little squiggly lines.  When I asked what they were she said, "those are roads".  Roads? Permanent roads?  No, she explained, they were just suggestions of where roads used to be or were likely to be, more like clues to a road map than an actual functioning road map. Lest you think I am exaggerating - this photo is not an example of off roading, this was an actual road.  A road so well used and so ordinary it was one of the larger lines on the map!

In Mongolia it is considered it very bad luck to ask “how long till we get there?” You get there when you get there. This did not matter so much to us. We had plenty of time and carrying our own food and tents we were not that much different from the nomads and herders bedding down where ever they found themselves at night. But I can’t imagine the tourist industry getting much more developed if tour agents cannot guarantee their clients that they will be delivered to some sort of rest spot and/or meal at the end of each day.